“Do you really think so, Tin? Tell me all about him, oh, do! I want to know everything, tell me everything he said. There is so much to piece together, so much to understand!” She reached into her pocket and clasped the golden spectacles tight, wishing that they could help her understand how all these threads connected. And her mother – she needed to tell her mother! Maxine, who had hoped for so long, against all hope.
“Sounds like a good conversation to have while we travel,” interrupted Mallow, thumping his hind legs with impatience. “The sun grows high in the sky.”
“There really isn’t any time to lose,” said Myrtle.
“I’m afraid the leverets are right,” said Oro, rising to his feet, his face shiny with drying tears. “The Elk first, Alder village next, and we will keep our eyes and ears peeled for any word or wind of the Fiddleback or the Coyote-folk. Myrtle, Mallow, keep your ears to the bees. They will tell you what news we have to share.”
Miss Limon, the master chef at The Holy Fool’s Inn – a formidable-looking woman with only one thick leg like an alder trunk and very strong hands from all that exuberant dough-kneading – had prepared two delicious bundles of food for them. Sturdy oatcakes and smoked strips of salmon, hardy rolls and wedges of cheese, small apples, boiled eggs and little flatbreads made of seeds and honey. Amber packed their rucksacks full to the brim with the food bundles, and hitched on a flask full of piping hot tea for each of them, to be doubled as a water bottle. She tucked in extra flint, changes of socks, the clothing the children had arrived in – Comfrey’s blue cape and green woollen dress, Tin’s baggy trousers from Thornton, utterly mud-stained, now clean and pressed.
A parade of Fools followed Comfrey, Tin, Myrtle and Mallow down the wide old road that wound north from The Holy Fool’s Inn for half a mile, singing and throwing calendula flowers into the air. They banged skin drums and played back-and-forth juggling games with lemons as they went. Gradually, the Fools peeled off back to their inn, kissing the children once on each cheek as they left, saying things like, Be well and good luck, young Fools! Bless you, bless you. Pieta turned scarlet when it was her turn to kiss Tin’s cheek, and Comfrey hid a smile.
Amber and Oro came last, embracing the children and saying only, “Return, young Fools. Return to us.”
The children stood up a little straighter, that they might be able to shoulder such a load, and strode on alone, the two leverets leaping and pausing to sniff and nibble at new shoots of grass along the way. None of them looked behind at the vanishing silhouettes of the trumpeting Fool’s parade, for fear that they might, in looking back, lose their courage. For fear that they might not be able to continue forward, ever deeper into the land of the Wild Folk, towards the Elk of Milk and Gold.
They walked far that day, wending through the winter-orange branches of a willow valley before turning up a crooked footpath along the eastern flank of the Vision Mountains. It was a steep path through firs and sword ferns, little hazel shrubs and madrone saplings. Comfrey’s pack felt very heavy. The feather and the thought of her mother weighed on her, but she had too many questions to ask Tin about her father to pay much attention to her aching shoulders or the dread that sat coiled in her belly. Once, as they climbed higher, she turned to look back. Far below, the willow valley looked like orange smoke, and she could see the faint ribbon of the road they’d followed from The Holy Fool’s Inn. The willow valley became an estuary to the north, and then the thin needle of silver-blue water that was the Tamal Bay. Beyond it to the east were the steep golden hills, now tinged with the green of new grass that marked the edge of the Country.
Mallow and Myrtle took the opportunity, as the children stared wide-eyed at the view of the bay and the knuckled hills beyond it, to graze on the new soft leaves of the blackberry vines. They found the beauty in those tender, velveteen leaves infinitely superior to a view of blue bay and green hill, as lovely as it might be. After all, it couldn’t be tasted, or touched, or munched between strong and leaf-biting teeth.
Comfrey sighed, pushing away the longing and concern that filled her at the sight of those Country hills, and continued to climb the footpath through the firs. The Elk will know what to do. The Elk will help us all. The best thing I can do for my mother and for all of the Country is to carry this feather to the Elk, she told herself. But it felt so heavy in her bag, and a voice in her head told her she would never make it, not a little Country girl; never could such a one survive an encounter with the Elk herself.
Tin lingered a moment longer, gazing out at the water. Seeing the undulating hills and valleys of Farallone from this vantage reminded him of gazing into the mirror in the Fool’s Cabinet of Wonders and seeing himself there. It gave him new perspective, a fleeting sense of wholeness. He felt the cool weight of the penknife there in his pocket and wished that somehow he could use it to hold onto this beauty, so he could return to it again and again to understand it better. A wind came from the east across the bay, rushing up through the firs. Its scent was salty and resinous, cooling the sweat on his brow. Breathing in, Tin felt suddenly exuberant and fully, wildly, alive. He turned and ran after Comfrey, and the leverets bounded after him.
That night they made camp in a clearing at the top of the ridge. It was Tin’s first night sleeping out under the stars, and so he hardly slept at all. He woke several times an hour to stare up from his bed of fir humus and wool blanket at that dizzy, speckled wheel of sky. The moon was close to full, and bright. There were so many stars they looked like the sun refracted on water. The lights along the City Wall had always dimmed the stars to a few. Tin had never seen even close to this many.
There was one constellation he found he liked especially, and kept looking for – the tiniest one of all, like a little leaf or a miniature soup-pan, made up of seven stars. He was bone weary, but those moving stars filled him up with a delight he had hardly ever known. He’d only ever watched stars from a window, not lain under them and felt as though they were a great tent, holding him, sweeping up all of his worries into their glinting hands. What was it like to be a tiny cluster of stars moving through the sky? Did they have any say in the matter, or was their spangled story wholly swept up in a greater one? And how was it that he had something of their matter in his own blood? How had the Elk made Farallone out of stargold? What star was it that had died, so long ago, and covered this land with its gold?
Eventually, towards first light, Tin fell into a deep sleep. He didn’t wake until the sun was fully up, and only then because Mallow leaped onto his chest, sniffing the boy’s nose and thumping at his ribs.
“Get up, you lazy rabbit!” exclaimed the leveret, making an old hare-joke about their softer, slower cousins. “Comfrey’s already made a breakfast fire, and the tea’s hot, and we’d better be on the hare-paths again before the dew is dry.”
Mallow bounded off Tin’s chest as the boy groaned and sat upright, rubbing his eyes and grimacing at the chill morning air and night-dew, which had made his wool blanket completely damp. He looked around at the small meadow where they’d slept: the twin nests Myrtle and Mallow had burrowed into the tall grass between the children’s bedrolls; the way the fir trees, hung with lichen, moved their arms gently in the breeze. A blue jay landed in the top of one and began her raspy, scolding calls.
Tin heard the crackle of fire, and smelled it too, as the wind carried it towards him. He turned and for a moment saw Comfrey before she looked up from the small metal pot she was stirring, perched on stones in the fire. She had re-braided her hair, which had become full of fir bits and moss, pulled out of its confines in every direction from yesterday’s climb. Her cheeks were flushed over the fire, her eyes bright. She crouched nimbly, feet wide and hips hanging between like a frog. She looked perfectly natural at a fireside, prodding embers, blowing at them, checking the pot. Tin felt envy at her competence and ease, an envy which masked his admiration.
“Nettle tea and acorn porridge!” she called, clanking a wooden spoon to the pot with a grin.
“How disgusting!” said Myrtle loudly from a patch of tender grass. “Mushy hot food. What could be worse? I’ll never understand this concept.”
Tin laughed, stretched, and joined Comfrey. He didn’t say anything about the fire – how had she made it so quickly, and all alone? He didn’t want her to think him an ignorant City boy, so he acted nonchalant, thanking her solemnly for the tea and porridge and apologizing that he had been asleep instead of helping her.
Comfrey had made the fire by friction alone, rising with excitement at first light to gather the sticks to do it with. She’d been hoping to show Tin something of her Country knowing, now that they were out here under the big sky and big firs, on their own. She could have just struck her flint, but she’d been trying to make herself feel competent that morning, strong enough and smart enough to make a journey such as this one, and was hoping to show Tin she could do clever things too, like him. Instead, he’d slept heavily, and of course she hadn’t wanted him to figure out that she was showing off, so she made the tea and acorn porridge and pretended her own kind of nonchalance. In the tall grasses where they foraged, Myrtle and Mallow exchanged hare-laughter over the strange antics of humans, until they discovered a delicious patch of plantain, and lost interest once more.
When they broke camp and set out for the day, Myrtle and Mallow sniffed out what they deemed a “good path” with their swift-moving noses – a narrow, zigzagging deer-path that wove between robust green sword ferns and sudden stands of slim hazel trees just budding with tiny magenta flowers. Tin could hardly breathe for the wonder he felt at the size of these fir trees. They were wider than he was tall! Mushrooms grew everywhere through the duff at their feet. Comfrey gathered creamy white ones from a dead oak log for their dinner, showing Tin carefully how to identify them.
Small brown wrens sang sweet, elaborate songs in volumes that belied their size. Silver squirrels darted and scolded from the high fir branches, sometimes leaping to a nearby bay tree and making its limbs arch under their weight. Tin marvelled that they never fell.
“Do fir trees have Wild Folk?” Tin asked the leverets softly when they all paused by a small trickling creek to fill up their cups or, in the hares’ case, dip their noses and tongues in for a sip.
“Course they do, like everything else,” said Comfrey, matter of fact, sipping at her cup and taking a bite of one of the hard little apples Amber had packed for them. In truth, she didn’t know a thing about the Wild Folk of fir trees, but she wanted Tin to think otherwise. She looked down at a puddle made by the creek, where a raft of ants was struggling, all clinging to tiny particles of hazel pollen to stay afloat. Something in Comfrey’s chest hitched with tenderness, and she grabbed a flat leaf and scooped the ants out onto dry land. Tiny though they were, they seemed to shake themselves off like dogs, and pause to look up at her, antennae moving in a solemn thank-you bow. Comfrey gasped in wonder.
“Oh yes, they do indeed,” Myrtle was saying to Tin as she groomed her face with two paws. Comfrey’s exclamation interrupted her, and she looked up.
Tin had been watching Comfrey out of the corner of his eye. “If you go about saving every ant in a puddle along the way, we’ll really never get there!”
Comfrey scowled at him. “If you were an ant, I wouldn’t save you,” she said.
“Ants are an honourable lot, you know,” said Mallow. “Never a bad idea to do one a favour.” He sniffed at the bark of a fir trunk, then tasted it thoughtfully as he turned back to Tin. “The creatures of the firwood are many, and shy. But they are all looked after by one Wild Folk called the Baba Ithá, the old lady of the firwood. There are others, her sisters, who look after the pinewoods, and the oakwoods too.”
“She’s not just a Wild Folk of the firs, you see,” Myrtle elaborated, “but also the hazels, and the bays and maples, the squirrels and wrens and ants too. She tends to all of those who live in the fir forest. She is very secretive and very, very powerful. The Greentwins only ever met her once, and us, never!” She chewed experimentally at a fresh fir tip, then made a face.
“Good thing, too,” said Mallow, going stiff and wide-eyed at the thought. “She has quite an appetite!”
“Fearsome, she is,” added Myrtle. “Takes and gives life, just like the forest. Best not to cross her path, if one can help it. Come along now. All this talk is making me hungry, and the forage is rather bland in this endless shade!” She leaped onwards, but Comfrey could tell a shiver of fear had moved down the leveret’s spine, and her bounding was an attempt to hide it.
A dead stick fell from the fir canopy far above, clattering down through the branches and landing nearby on the ground as a raven chortled and took off overhead. Tin started at the sound.
“How do you know it’s all right we’re in the fir forest, then?” he stammered. “I mean, what if this old lady of the firs doesn’t like that we’re passing through here? After all, Wild Folk hate humans!” The fir forest was darker than it had seemed a moment before, the birds quieter, the shapes of the trees more looming and more alive too, like they might pick up their roots and walk on giant feet.
“No, no,” tutted Myrtle in a motherly voice. “This forest is so big, and we are only passing through a small part. We came this way dozens of times with the Greentwins, and never saw a trace of her. And Mallow and I, we would smell her way before we saw her, given she lives in a house of bones.”
“Yes, and we’d hear her too, since the house walks on the giant legs of a spotted owl, and the Greentwins told us she’s always humming a little song,” added Mallow. “No, we’re quite safe. Come on then, slowpokes!” And he was off, taking great leaps, as if to prove there was nothing to fear.
Comfrey and Tin exchanged a wide-eyed glance. Comfrey smiled, crooked, and shrugged, as if to say, Well, what can we do here? Tin gave her a Yes, best carry on smile, embarrassed to have appeared afraid, and they followed the leverets further and further down the trail through the firwood.
None of them knew that when the Baba Ithá’s house walked, it walked with the utter silence of owls. Or that when she sang, she sang in the sounds of the forest – creaking tree limbs, winter wrens, woodpeckers.
Nor did they reckon that the Baba Ithá might come looking especially for them.
So as they sat eating their lunch in a damp clearing where bracken grew, they didn’t hear a creaking hut made all of owl and vole bones come walking up behind them on feathered owl legs, the talons each as wide as the bases of fir trees. The hut came so quietly that not even the leverets could distinguish its approach from the sounds of the fir forest. It was Comfrey who first turned, her ears pricking, her neck hairs raising slightly, not with the animal knowing of hares, but with a kind of sixth sense, a human intuition.
“Ah, I see the girl has a furrier heart than the two of you leverets put together!” said the Baba Ithá as Comfrey’s green eyes met her own black ones, small and long as a grey fox’s.
Comfrey nearly choked on the bite of grainy bread and cheese in her mouth, and the leverets simultaneously leaped into the children’s arms, trembling. Comfrey and Tin struggled to their feet. Tin pulled his Oddness out of his back pocket and clutched it in his fist.
The Baba Ithá let out a big laugh that was equal parts fir-branch creaking and the screeching of owls. The sound made the whole bone house shake. Standing in the doorway, she herself was a very short woman, but wide as a fir trunk and as gnarled. Her hands holding her belly as she laughed were as ruckled and stumpy as burls of bark. Her hair was one long grey braid down her back, woven and strung with the vertebrae of salamanders. She was barefoot, and her feet were furred and long. Her ears were furred too, squirrel-small and silver. When she laughed she revealed a mouthful of teeth as sharp and numerous as a mole’s. Her house of bones was round and flat-roofed, with a hollow leg-bone chimney that smoked and two windows like bright eyes. It cast a soft light of its own. A single spotted owl perched on the lip of the flat roof, eyes half-closed.
“Forgive
us, Mother Ithá,” gasped Myrtle in a tiny voice, trying to gather herself up regally in Comfrey’s arms, but failing. She could hardly lift her long ears off her shoulders for terror. “We did not think—”
“No, indeed you did not,” interrupted the Baba Ithá sharply. She hooted a low note and the owl legs of her hut lowered so that she could hop, toad-like, to the ground. “I always know when a new visitor sets foot into the woods that are mine to guard. The mycelia tell me, naturally.”
Like Thornton, Tin thought, lowering his penknife and wrapping his arm around the quivering Mallow, whose claws were digging into his chest.
“It’s very rude to brandish a weapon at a stranger, boy,” snapped the Baba Ithá, taking a step closer. “Especially one of the Wild Folk. For that alone, I should feed you all to my hearth.” Four sets of eyes widened in fear. “Well, how do you think my house walks, you foolish creatures, if he is not fed?” She pursed her wrinkled lips, narrowed her eyes. “You should be muttering prayers for a swift death, you two humans smelling of Country and of City, you who have trespassed your poisoned feet into my firwood, and left no Offering first.”
“Baba Ithá,” Comfrey said in the strongest voice she could muster, thinking fast. “It is not disrespect that kept us from leaving the Offering-bundle for you. I have left the Offering-bundle at the Alder village for my mother, and I know about the giving of gifts.”
Watching her, Tin saw a flash of Thornton. It was the way her voice rang out with its own authority, how she stuck out her jaw as she spoke, how a little gleam of confidence danced in her eyes, behind the fear. Not for the first time he felt, mixed with his admiration, a pang of jealousy that she should have such a father.
Comfrey took a deep breath and continued. “It’s only, we are ignorant human-people, and we did not know you were here. Nor are hares in the habit of leaving Offerings. So you see,” she finished, swallowing mid-word at the dry, frightened taste in her mouth, “it was an honest mistake.”
The Wild Folk Page 18
