by Lari Don
“Now some of the wild ones have decided to reintroduce themselves.
“Those of us who never left are good at staying hidden, avoiding the attention of humans. But those who’re coming back are not used to the modern world. They will return to the old ways that the rest of us live without. They will bring the wrath of humans down on us all.
“Even worse, they are planning to live on our land! Land we have hunted and guarded for centuries. This forest of Dorry Shee is where the young wolves hunt, the territory where we build our skills and hierarchy. They will hunt our deer with horns and hounds. They will scare away our prey and draw humans here. The wolf people will have to skulk in hedgerows and stony glens. We’ll have to eat hedgehogs and squirrels, with men hunting us … and nowhere to hide.
“We must not let them come back!”
“Who mustn’t come back?” Helen asked, puzzled.
“The faeries.”
“But the fairies are already here. I saw loads of them last winter. Lavender and her aunts aren’t a threat to anyone. If they hunted with horns and hounds no one would notice …”
“Not the twinkly little flower fairies!” Sylvie said in exasperation. “The faeries!”
Helen looked confused.
“She can’t see the different spelling when you just shout it,” Yann pointed out.
Sylvie spoke quietly and slowly. “The Faery Queen and her band. The faeries of the forest, with no wings and no wands, but magic enough to be mischievous and malicious. The faeries that steal away children and leave sickly changelings in their cribs. The faeries that love human music; that enchant and beglamour fiddlers, pipers and harpists into their parties and never let them go.
“Those are the faeries that threaten my pack’s land. The faeries that you, human girl, must fear.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Helen said. “I don’t sleep in a crib and I won’t be enticed into any parties by a glamorous faery.”
“No, of course not! You know all about fabled beasts and magical people. You are far too clever to be enticed and enchanted.”
Sylvie looked casually at her long curved nails. “When are you performing?”
“Midsummer night.”
“Really? Where are you performing?”
“An atmospheric venue, the Professor said … but she didn’t say exactly where.”
“Really? And to whom are you performing?”
Helen shifted uncomfortably on the couch. “A specially invited audience.”
“Really? Do you know who they are?”
“No, I don’t. Professor Greenhill said they’re great patrons of music.”
Sylvie laughed. “So, on the most magical night of the year, when the barriers between this world and others are thinnest, you will play your fiddle to a mystery audience, at a mystery location? You stupid child! I would leave you to suffer your fate, if it didn’t affect my land and my pack.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Helen snapped. “This summer school and concert have been arranged by a well-known professor of music. We’re here with our schools’ permission. There were loads of official forms to fill in, to get a week off at the end of term. Our parents know exactly where we are. The best musicians in Europe will teach us over the next few days. This isn’t some magical midnight conspiracy. It’s a proper music school.”
“Of course it is. Why would the Faery Queen be happy with anything less than the best? But we won’t let her have it.”
“Why not?” Helen asked.
“Because she’s planning a home-coming party. Midsummer revels. She wants to persuade her people to settle on her old Scottish lands and for that she needs music. If it’s a wonderful party, her people will stay. If her home-coming is a flop, the faeries will drift back to their own worlds. So with you and your fellow students playing the best music in Scotland, she will have the power to build a base here.”
Helen shook her head. “We’re only playing for one night, for no more than an hour. Surely you can put up with them on your land for that long?”
Sylvie stared straight into Helen’s eyes. “Don’t you read the old tales? Who has ever played at a faery ceilidh and returned the same night? Who has ever gone into a faery mound and come home while their family were still young … or still alive? If you play for them, you will never come back. None of you. Once she gets skilled human musicians, why would she let you go?”
“Yann?” Helen looked up. He nodded.
Helen closed her eyes. She heard the music she’d been practising growing quiet in her mind. And fading with it, her chance to learn with the greatest violinists, as well as her chance to tell everyone she’d been the youngest student at Professor Greenhill’s summer school.
She opened her eyes. Yann was looking at her anxiously.
Helen whispered, “I need proof.”
“What?”
“This is my music, my future, my life, Yann. I’m not leaving without proof. If you prove to me that the Faery Queen is planning to kidnap me and force me to play for her until my wee sister is a granny, then I will go home. I promise. But first, I need proof.”
“Don’t you trust us?”
“I trust you, Yann, but I don’t trust her.”
Sylvie growled. “I knew it. All your stories show that humans hate wolves and love faeries. Of course you would side with them.”
Helen shook her head. “I’m not siding with anyone. Not yet. Anyway, why are you helping her, Yann? Why are you here?”
He scuffed his front left hoof on the floor. “I got into trouble at home. I was spotted by a group of scouts on a night hike. There were stories in your newspapers about a four-legged boy, so Father sent me north to get me out of the way, to punish me.
“I’m missing my own family’s summer solstice celebrations, so I thought I’d visit my friend Sylvie and help her fight the threatened invasion she’s been worrying about for months. I didn’t know the faeries’ plan involved human musicians until I got here … and I certainly didn’t know you would be here!”
“But do you have proof of Sylvie’s story?” Helen insisted.
“I have no proof, except that her brothers are nervier than I have ever seen them, chasing their tails every night. I have no reason to disbelieve Sylvie and we all know how unpredictable and malicious the faeries can be. So it would be much safer for us all if you left this school.”
“What about the rest of the students? Even if I do believe you and go home, I can’t leave them to be stolen by the Faery Queen when she hijacks the concert.”
“That’s why we came tonight,” said Yann. “We won’t let anyone be taken by the faery folk.”
Then they heard a scream.
Chapter 3
The scream wasn’t as loud as the crash which had got Helen out of bed, but it lasted longer; a sustained note of panic.
The three of them rushed into the corridor. Through the window above the side door leading into the car park, they could see torchlight wavering. There were already people out there.
Helen led them to the other end of the hallway, to the door leading from Murray Wing into the old lodge. As she pushed it open, she heard worried voices echoing round the big dining room. It wasn’t safe to leave that way either.
They crept back to the side door. Yann leaned into the rehearsal room and clicked the light off, looking unreasonably pleased at his understanding of human technology. “If there isn’t any light behind us, perhaps no one will see us leave.”
Sylvie eased the door open. Yann whispered to Helen, “We’ll wait at the edge of the forest. Come to the pine tree shattered by lightning, to tell us what that scream means.”
As the fabled beasts stepped warily into the dark, Yann asked, “Do you want to ride or run, Sylvie?”
“Ride,” Helen ordered. “If you change too soon, the bandage will come off and the wound will bleed again.”
Sylvie pulled herself up onto Yann’s back and he walked into the darkness on soft hooves.
He
len stood in the doorway. The screaming had stopped, but now she could hear running footsteps.
She didn’t move. She hadn’t come to Dorry Shee to save the world. She wasn’t here to fight a battle over land or queens or magic.
She was here to play music.
She shouldn’t get involved. She should go back to bed, then get up nice and early to tackle that tricky double-stopping in the first movement of Professor Greenhill’s masterpiece.
Then she noticed the weight hanging from her left shoulder. If she had come here just for the music, just for herself, why had she brought her first aid kit? She had packed bandages, swabs, splints and sutures, just as carefully as her bow and rosin. Had she hoped that she might meet her fabled friends again; that they might need her first aid kit and lead her into more adventures? If Yann’s fanged friend was right, she wouldn’t just be helping them, she’d be saving herself too.
So, reluctantly, she left Murray Wing, and walked past the barn, where she would soon be rehearsing, towards the gamekeeper’s cottage at the far end of the car park.
Threads of torchlight were tangling around the cottage. People were yelling, “James? James!”
Helen stepped closer. Someone caught her bare toes in a beam of light and shouted, “Here!”
Suddenly Helen was blinded by brightness, just like being on stage.
“That’s not James! He’s only five!”
“Go back to bed, lass, we don’t need more lost children!”
“Here! Here he is!”
Mrs McGregor, the lodge owner, ran round the side of the cottage, clutching a small boy. “He’s cold and sleepy, but he’s fine!”
Helen stood back, while the adults with torches congratulated themselves on dealing with the crisis and walked back to the lodge for a warming drink, then she watched Mrs McGregor carry the boy into the cottage.
Helen peered through the open door, straight into the cosy living room. Mrs McGregor was sitting on a couch, hugging the little person in her arms.
“Do you need anything? Blankets to warm him up?” Helen asked gently.
“No, thanks. He must have wandered off when I went across to the lodge to chat to the caterer. He’ll be fine. I’ll just cuddle him warm.”
Then Helen saw the other child, at the other end of the couch. A younger girl, not much older than her own little sister. The girl’s eyes were wide open, terrified.
“That’s not James,” the little girl said clearly.
“Of course this is James!” her mum answered.
“That’s not James. They took James. That’s just a doll.”
“Shush, Emma. This is James. He’ll play with you again when he wakes up at breakfast time.”
“That’s not James. They took James.”
Her mum was about to shush her again, but Helen took a step nearer and asked, “Who took him?”
“Shiny fast people,” said Emma. “They were trying to push a doll of James in the bed when they heard Mummy coming back. They jumped out the window with James and dropped the doll on the ground. That’s not James, that’s the doll.”
“This is James,” said Mrs McGregor firmly, “and he’ll be fine when he’s warmed up.”
She smiled at Helen, who tried very hard to smile back.
Helen ran back to Murray Wing, where she could hear the murmur and laughter of half-awake teenagers in the kitchen, and rushed up to her room before anyone realized she was out of bed too.
Helen changed into her jeans and fleece — even though it was nearly midsummer, it was cold in the Highlands in the middle of the night — pulled on her boots and grabbed the rucksack again.
On her way out, she glanced at the clipboard on the small table in the corridor. The students had to write where they were beside their name, so the teachers could find them if necessary. It was very informal, but the Professor had talked about musicians in orchestras trusting each other and how she could rely on everyone to be honest and sensible.
So Helen did wonder about writing: 1:30am. Gone to forest to see fabled beasts, by her name, but thought that would be more honest than sensible. Instead she just left the words she’d written earlier: 11pm. Gone to bed, as she was sure no one would bother checking at this time of night.
Helen walked briskly round the west side of the lodge, past the dark windows of Sinclair Wing, and onto the narrow track behind the lodge.
Under the clear black sky she was comforted by the stars she knew from home: the Pole Star and the Plough twinkling ahead of her as she walked north towards Dorry Shee Forest and the Summer Triangle hanging in the sky behind her.
When she reached the edge of the forest she couldn’t make out any individual trees, nor could she find a tree blackened by lightning: they were all blackened by night. What a daft suggestion of Yann’s!
The track turned west along the treeline; only a narrow footpath led east. So Helen followed the track, humming the tune she had played for Yann’s people last winter solstice, hoping he would hear her. After ten minutes with no sign of a lightning tree or her friend, she spun round and walked east again. She passed the point where the track turned to the lodge, and continued eastwards along the forest edge, stumbling occasionally on the rougher, narrower path.
She kept humming, though now she was adding fancy, slightly sarcastic, twiddles to the end of each verse.
Suddenly she saw Yann’s tree. Not blackened by lightning as she had assumed, but ripped open to reveal its white flesh, clear and bright against the night forest. Not such a bad idea after all. Helen strode to the scarred tree.
Yann stepped out, grasped her shoulder and pulled her into the trees. He guided her twenty paces into the forest, to a clearing dominated by a huge smooth-trunked beech tree. Sylvie was crouched beside a small fire, her silver hair glowing and her golden eyes sparkling. She smiled at Helen, showing only the tips of her teeth.
“I thought wolves were afraid of fire,” Helen said.
“They are, but I’m not. One advantage of being a wolf girl, rather than a true wolf!” Sylvie laughed, more relaxed in the forest than in the lodge.
Helen glanced at Sylvie’s arm. The bandage was still secure.
“Tell us about the scream,” ordered Yann impatiently.
Helen thought about the best way to describe the facts. “The lodge owner screamed because her five-year-old son was missing. Then she found a small boy asleep outside. The boy’s wee sister said some shiny fast people had taken her brother and left the sleeping boy, which she called a doll. His mother thinks the boy is just cold and needs a cuddle.”
“What do you think?” asked Yann.
Helen sighed. “I think there’s a chance the faeries took James and left a changeling in his place.”
“It’s not a changeling,” said Sylvie. “It’s not one of their own to replace the boy; just an image of him, to buy them time to carry the boy off. The cold, sleepy boy will sicken over the next few days … and be dead a day or two after midsummer.”
“Dead!” Helen shivered and moved nearer the fire.
“Don’t worry. What you call a doll is really a stock; a boy shape, carved from an ancient tree trunk. It’s not alive. But the real boy is alive and with the faeries. I wonder why they want him?”
“I don’t care why they want him,” snapped Helen, shocked at Sylvie’s lack of concern. “I just need to know how to get him back. He has a wee sister who wants to play with him and a mum who wants to cuddle him.”
She turned to her friend. “Yann, how do we get him back?”
“Children stolen by the faeries can’t come back, Helen. I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense. Tam Linn came back.”
“Hundreds of years later.”
“Thomas the Rhymer came back.”
“He was a grown man when they took him and he returned to the faeries in the end.”
“There must be others who came back!”
“No point getting him back,” murmured Sylvie. “He’ll just crumble to dust.”
“What?” Helen backed away from this girl who could tell her nothing but bad news.
“If he eats faery food, then the first time he puts human food in his mouth, he’ll crumble to dust. Whether you get him out in five minutes or fifty years, if he has eaten faery food, you can never save him.” She smiled up at Helen. “But you believe me about the faeries now, don’t you?”
“Yes. No! This isn’t proof. This is just guesswork from a wee girl’s nightmare. But if they have the boy and if he hasn’t eaten faery food and if we can find him in time … HOW DO WE GET HIM BACK?”
A new voice answered her. “You feed him human food, so he doesn’t hunger for faery food. Then you give the Faery Queen exactly what she wants in return for his freedom.”
Helen whirled round. A boy stepped into the clearing.
He was tall and slim and shining. His pale face was smooth, with high cheeks and a straight nose. His hair was thick gold, his eyes clear blue and his teeth shone whiter than Sylvie’s. When he smiled he lit the clearing more brightly than the fire.
He was dressed in green. Dark green silk, fitted and flowing, embroidered with animals and leaves which moved in the firelight even once he stood still. He wore a long sword on his left hip.
Helen couldn’t stop staring at him. She needed to see him clearly. She needed to get closer.
“HELEN!” shouted Yann. “It’s not real! How he looks is not real. It’s glamour. He plays with light and colour and shape to enchant your eyes, the way you work with pitch and volume and rhythm to enchant my ears.”
Helen took a step back and looked harder at the boy.
Sylvie stood up. She spoke, bitingly polite. “Good evening, Faery. I hope you enjoy your short stay in my forest and have happy memories of these trees when you return home. Your own home, far from here.”
The beautiful boy in green bowed, replying in a light cheerful voice, “Thank you, Wolf. I hope you have enjoyed your holiday in our homeland. You will take our fondest wishes with you as your pack moves to new hunting grounds.”
