by Lari Don
Sylvie smiled with all her teeth. Helen could see her measuring the distance to the boy’s throat.
Yann said calmly, “Don’t provoke her, Faery, or we’ll all regret it. You’re not welcome in this forest. Just leave now.”
“I would certainly regret being somewhere I wasn’t wanted. I’ll go away then, shall I? I’ll go away and leave you to ponder your ignorance about faery diplomacy. I’ll go away and leave you to wonder how to return that defenceless child to his mother’s arms. Farewell. Good luck with the impossible.” He turned and walked out of the firelight.
“No!” yelled Helen desperately. “Please come back! Please stay!” Then she remembered why she wanted him to come back. “Please tell us how to save the boy.”
The faery turned and smiled at her. Helen felt herself drawn towards the glow of his skin, the shine of his clothes and the perfection of his smile. She twisted music from wood, metal and air. What was he twisting light and beauty from? She half-closed her eyes, looked carefully past the shimmer and, just for a moment, glimpsed a painful red spot by his left nostril.
She grinned. “I’m Helen Strang and I’ll be very grateful for any information you can give us.”
He laughed. “I’m Lee Vale and I’ll do my best to help you.”
Yann and Sylvie spoke together. “Why would you help us?” “Don’t trust him!”
Then Yann said loudly, “I don’t believe you are called Lee. That’s not a faery name. I certainly won’t trust you if you won’t give us your true name.”
The boy blushed under his shine. “Lee is my name.”
“It can’t be. Faeries must be named for a plant that has its roots in the earth. What is your true name?”
“It’s kind of my name.” He kicked the toes of his long red boots in the leaf litter.
“It can’t be,” Yann insisted.
“It’s short for my name.”
“What’s your full name then?”
“If I tell you, will you still call me Lee?”
Yann snorted but Helen said, “Yes, I’ll call you what you like.”
“My name is …” his voice dropped so low Helen almost couldn’t hear it over the crackling flames. “Oh, I shouldn’t have to do this …”
Yann pointed at the faery. “Let me guess! Lee is short for … Lily! Lileee! Your name is Lily! Isn’t it?”
The boy lifted his chin and glared at the centaur laughing above him. “Yes! The lily is a plant to be proud of; not just a beautiful flower, but a powerful poison too.”
“But it’s like being called Daisy or Rosie or Poppy! Don’t most male faeries get tree names, like Oak or Rowan or Larch? But you got Lily! What kind of lily are you, anyway? A wet water lily?”
“A tiger lily?” growled Sylvie.
“A tiny little lily of the valley?” Yann suggested. Lee scowled. Helen remembered his last name was Vale.
“There’s nothing wrong with the name Lily!” she broke in. “I have a cousin called Lily.” She needed the faery boy, whatever he was called, to stay and help them, not be driven off by Yann’s taunts.
But Yann wouldn’t leave it alone. “Is your cousin a boy, or is your cousin a girl?”
She shrugged. “A girl.”
“A girl. It’s a girl’s name. Hi, Lily. Love the green blouse.”
“It may be a girl’s name for humans,” Helen turned to the faery, “but I’m sure it’s a perfectly good boy’s name among the faeries.”
He smiled gratefully. “I was named after my grandfather, but he was named after his great-aunt, so I prefer Lee.”
“Well, Lee, can you tell us how to rescue the boy?”
“I don’t care what you’re called,” snarled Sylvie. “I’ll only be grateful when you get out of my forest.”
“Put your teeth away, Sylvie,” spluttered Yann, making an effort to stop laughing. “We must try to get the boy back, or when that faery stock is found in his bed, hundreds of folklore hunters will start searching your forest. Let Helen talk to this Lily.”
Sylvie glowered at the faery. Yann stepped back to give Helen and the boy space. Helen said, “So, Lee, can you help us?”
“If you will give me your trust, I will give you my help.” Lee smiled so brightly that Helen was nearly knocked over by the force of it. He’s got a spot, she chanted to herself, he’s got a spot.
She nodded. “I will trust you, if you will help us.”
Yann groaned. Helen had made her first bargain with the faery folk.
Chapter 4
“Your wolf is right, Helen,” Lee said as they all sat round the fire. “You must not let the boy eat faery food, because once he has, he can’t live in your world. Guests who have tired of our hospitality have gone home, to discover their families grown old or died … and when a kind neighbour has comforted them with soup or stew, they have crumbled to dust. So if you want the boy back, you must stop him eating faery food.”
“How?” Helen asked eagerly.
“Feed him human food, of course.”
“If we can get food to him, can’t we just grab him and get him out?”
“It’s not that simple. It’s easier to enter the faery world than to escape from it. I can find a window through which you can give him food, but for a doorway through which he can walk out, you’ll have to bargain with the Faery Queen.”
“What can we bargain with?” Helen asked, prodding the ground with a bent stick.
Lee smiled. “What do you have, Helen?”
Helen stared into the fire. “Music,” she whispered. “I have music.”
“No!” boomed Yann. “I won’t let you give yourself away for a child you don’t even know. There must be another way.”
“I doubt it,” said Sylvie. “That’s probably why they stole the boy … to force the musicians to play. He’s a hostage. Your music is the ransom.”
Helen shook her head. “Nobody needs a hostage to hear our music, we’re here because we want to play. If the students don’t know the Faery Queen is planning to hijack our concert, they’ll play at midsummer without needing to be forced or persuaded.”
Sylvie shrugged. “She may have taken him in case someone sharper than you works it out before midsummer.”
“Or perhaps she knows you played selkie music at our winter gathering,” Yann said. “Perhaps she’s worried you’ll recognise the ways of magical beings and be a danger to her plans.”
“She stole the boy so she could bargain with me?” Helen took a deep breath. She had to think about the boy, not herself. “If she’s holding James for ransom, then we have until the end of the week to find something else to bargain with, because presumably she’ll want us to play at our best, and we won’t have rehearsed together often enough to play perfectly until midsummer night.”
“If the boy is to have any value as a hostage,” added Yann, “he must be able to return home safely, so perhaps she won’t make it too difficult to feed him human food. Do you have food in your bag, healer’s child?”
“No.” Helen almost laughed. “It’s not a picnic basket, it’s a first aid kit.”
“I could hunt a snack for him,” offered Sylvie.
“I don’t think a five-year-old boy will eat raw meat,” said Yann.
“There’s no rush to feed him.” Lee was leaning back on his hands watching them talk. “Particularly not if you’re going to work everything out so fast. You hardly need me!”
“But we have to get human food to him before he eats faery food and he’s already been with them more than an hour. We have to get food to him right now!” Helen insisted.
Lee shook his head. “My people cast a spell to keep children quiet as they carry them off. He won’t wake until tomorrow evening, so he won’t need food until then.”
“Once we’ve fed him, how do we bargain for his release?” Helen twisted the branch between her fingers. “Do we need to see the Queen?”
Lee stared at her. She wondered if he could see past her questions and her concern for th
e child. She hoped he couldn’t see the flicker of excitement she felt at the idea of performing for such a legendary music-loving audience.
“You must exchange messages with her,” Lee said, “but I hope you won’t have to speak to the Queen herself. It’s not wise for humans to see the Faery Queen. You might forget what you really want.” Lee stood up. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow, three hours before sunset, and I’ll show you a way to feed the boy. Bring food, Helen Strang, but don’t bring your grumpy friends. We’ll manage better with four quiet feet, rather than a whole farmyard of hooves and paws.”
“I’ll meet you here, but so will Yann and Sylvie, if they want. We work together.”
“Your trust is touching. Just don’t turn your back on the wolf … she looks hungry.” Lee bowed to them all in turn. “The prospect of seeing you tomorrow is all that will brighten the bleak day I must spend without you!”
He spoiled the effect of the flowery speech with a cheery wave, stepped into the trees and was gone.
Helen threw the broken stick on the fire and watched the bark blaze.
“We can’t trust him,” muttered Sylvie. “He lies about what he looks like. He lies about his name. He’s bound to be lying about everything else. Faeries always do.”
“He probably is working for the Faery Queen,” agreed Yann. “The faeries probably sent him to tell you that the boy is forfeit unless you play at their revels. So he isn’t on our side, he’s on hers. We can’t trust him.”
Helen shook her head. “I’m not sure. If he’s just a messenger, why did he ask for our trust? We should judge him on the help he gives us, not what kind of being he is. Anyway, whatever side he’s on, he’s offered to help us feed James and negotiate his return, so he’s our best chance to free James. We have to work with him.”
“No, we don’t!” snapped Sylvie. “This is all upside down! Yann, we came out tonight to drive these humans away. Instead we’re now helping this human bargain with the Faery Queen! They should abandon the lost child, go away and let her party fizzle out.”
“We can’t leave the child with the faeries, not if there’s a way to get him back,” Yann said gently. “It’s not wise, because it would draw attention to all the forest folk. It’s not right, either. You don’t abandon children, even if they aren’t your own kind. We can save the boy and still have time to stop the revels.”
“I hope we do have time, clatter-foot. Otherwise, I will let my brothers loose. We’ll see if the musicians at the lodge want to play their party tunes with a pack of wolves at their backs.”
Helen was about to tell Sylvie that she would never let a threat stop her playing music, when she heard a noise break the silence of the forest.
A howl.
Then a confusion of whines and barks.
“Dogs?” wondered Helen.
“Hounds!” cried Sylvie, leaping to her feet and starting to flicker.
“Don’t change!” yelled Helen. “Remember the bandage!”
Sylvie solidified as a girl, but a worried-looking one.
“Hounds?” Yann looked round. “In the middle of the night?”
“I think I know whose hounds they are,” Sylvie gasped.
The wolf girl sprang onto Yann’s back, then leapt to the lowest branch of the beech tree. Helen followed, ignoring Yann’s complaints. “Thanks, girls. Just use me as a stepping stone. Just leave me down here.”
“We’re not staying up here,” Sylvie called down. “I just need to see if I’m right about those hounds.”
Helen clambered up the tree after Sylvie, finding and testing branches by feel once she was above the glow of the firelight. When they reached the top of the massive beech tree, they looked over the forest, its dark waves tipped with starlight.
Sylvie pointed west, to a dark lump in the middle of a treeless space. “That’s the bright green mound, the ceremonial entrance to the faeries’ world.”
Suddenly, Helen saw the mound clearly, as the starlight was brightened by torches, held by shadowy figures, flames sputtering orange above a pack of pale hounds, tiny in the distance.
“What are they doing?” whispered Helen.
Sylvie looked up into the star-speckled sky, glancing north then south. “There’s Ursus, the bear constellation … and there’s Altair, the flying eagle, at the base of the triangle. Both predators visible tonight; both looking hungry in the sky. It’s a night for hunters.
“So this must be the faeries’ wild ride. Their Wild Hunt. They’re celebrating their brave capture of a sleeping child, or marking the start of their midsummer revels. We must warn Yann.”
“Don’t worry about him. Yann can run faster than a hound.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of!” Sylvie clambered down, much more quickly than was safe, leaping past the last few branches to land at Yann’s hooves.
Helen tumbled after Sylvie to hear her saying breathlessly “… the Wild Hunt, to mark the start of their revels!”
Yann shrugged. “No problem. Even with two of you on my back, I can outpace a pack of hounds.”
“Don’t try to race them!” cried Sylvie. “Haven’t you heard of the Wild Hunt?”
“No,” the centaur laughed, “but I go on some wild gallops myself!”
“Listen to me, Yann! It’s not the speed that counts, it’s the pursuit.” Sylvie tried desperately to explain. “This magical hunt never stops. These hounds pursue you forever. Once you start to run, you become their prey and they hunt you forever. If you outpace them, they may never catch you, but they won’t stop chasing you … not for the rest of your life. We can’t let them start to chase us. We must hide.”
They looked round. There were plenty of places for slim girls to hide, but where could a horse hide in a forest?
Yann took a deep breath. “I can’t climb trees. I’ll have to run for it.”
“No!” Helen added her voice to Sylvie’s pleas. “You can’t gallop all over the countryside this week, Yann, I need you to help me escape the Faery Queen. And I know you love to stretch your legs, but running for the rest of your life sounds no fun.”
Helen turned to Sylvie. “What happens if you just refuse to run? Do they tear you apart? Or do they find something else to chase?”
“I don’t know.”
They heard a ringing horn, answered by a whole pack of baying hounds.
Helen announced, “I’m not leaving Yann to find out on his own! Sylvie, please bank down the fire, then climb back up your tree. Yann, put on my fleece.” She unzipped her fleece, shivering as the night air hit her t-shirt underneath. “Here, Yann. Now lie down.”
He pulled the fleece on. “Lie down?”
“Yes, we’ll just be a couple of sleeping children camping in the forest. And we aren’t going to run! No matter what they do.”
“But…” Yann struggled with the zip of the fleece, “but, Helen … if the faeries see a centaur, even a sleepy one, they’ll know fabled beasts are in the forest with humans, and they might realize we’re working together to frustrate their plans.”
The wild music of the horns and hounds was getting louder. “Don’t argue,” she ordered. “Lie down!”
She was searching the rucksack for two small packets she’d kept after a charity race: foil blankets designed to keep body temperature up after a sweaty race, but also useful for preventing shock after injuries. She ripped the pouches open and covered Yann’s horse body with the silver blankets, leaving only his fleece-covered torso and head showing. Then she lay down against his back.
Sylvie was still putting handfuls of earth on the fire.
“Hurry, Sylvie!” said Helen. “Hide up the tree!”
Sylvie looked at her with bright yellow eyes. “No, human girl. I will not be driven off my land by faery hounds. And I won’t abandon Yann. Or you.”
She lay down on the other side of Yann.
In the dark, with the fire almost dead, with no tail or hooves showing, they looked like a heap of human children huddled together for war
mth.
So they lay there, as the hounds’ wild cries got louder. Helen’s legs twitched with the desire to leap up and run back to the lodge, to the safety of her duvet. She dug her fingers into the earth to hold herself there.
“Pretend to be asleep,” she whispered. “And whatever they do, don’t run.” Helen closed her eyes.
She was “woken” by a cold nose at her throat.
She mumbled, “Wha’ timezit?” and sat up, looking in dreamy surprise at the dozens of dogs around her. White dogs with russet ears and glowing green eyes. They growled at her.
“Hello dogs,” she murmured, patting the nearest one on the nose.
“Do not try to make friends with them, they are working dogs,” said a voice from the darkness behind the torches. A woman’s voice, light, musical and somehow familiar. But very, very cold.
“What are you doing in this forest, children?”
Helen heard Sylvie yawn convincingly behind her and allowed herself to yawn too. She did feel exhausted. “We’ve been having a midnight feast. Sorry …” she yawned again, “… are we on your land?”
“Not yet. What did you eat for your midnight feast?”
Helen looked round. There was, of course, no sign of food.
“What did you eat?” the voice demanded again.
“Everything!” Helen giggled. “We ate everything. Not a crumb left to offer you. Sorry.”
“Shouldn’t you run off home now?”
Helen peered at her watch. 3:00 am. Still an hour or so to sunrise.
“No,” she smiled groggily. “I’m still sleepy.”
The dogs were growling and sniffing round them. One thin female gripped a corner of silver blanket between her teeth and tugged. Sylvie rolled over in her pretend sleep and pinned the blanket down with her sore arm. Helen winced.
Dark voices behind the pack muttered “just bite them where they lie” and “that’ll make them run.”
The largest dog thumped his front paws on Helen’s thigh. She fondled his ears. He grasped her wrist in his teeth, his breath chilly on her skin, then waited for an order. Helen yawned, as if dogs bit her every morning when she woke up.
