Wolf Notes and Other Musical Mishaps

by Lari Don

  As she bandaged the fairy, Helen asked Lee, “Did you say those brownies were faeries?”

  “Yes, our hairy domestic cousins. They prefer housework to parties. If they’re given a little milk and bread, they’ll work at night on the croft and in the house, doing the work the family don’t have time to do. Sad creatures really.”

  “There were so many of them. Were they all from the castle?”

  “No. They must have been from MacLeod households all over Skye.”

  “How did they know we were going to be there? We’d only just arrived. How could they have got to Dunvegan so fast, from all over the island?”

  Lee didn’t answer. He started to tidy up scattered first aid equipment.

  She asked again, “How did they know we were coming to steal the flag, Lee?”

  This time, when he didn’t answer, Sylvie growled. Lee shrugged. “Perhaps the Queen warned them.” He turned away, looking uncomfortable.

  “Why would she do that?” Helen asked.

  “Why not? If you succeed, she gets the flag. If not, she gets her music. Maybe she was trying to make the quest more interesting. More risky. A better tale for the bards.”

  Helen shook her head. “She set me a task to get a precious object for her, then warned those brownies I was coming so I was less likely to get it? That’s a bit daft.”

  Lee handed her the wipes and bandages. “She’s the Faery Queen. She isn’t very predictable.”

  Yann sneered over their bent heads. “Tricksy folk, faeries. Not to be trusted at all.” He was looking at Lee. “What were you doing, faery boy, while Lavender was being ripped limb from wing?”

  “Fighting iron sickness, horse boy. What could I have done, anyway? Your fairy magic, centaur strength, human knowledge and wolf teeth didn’t succeed. What could I have done? The whole point of your quest was that my people couldn’t get the flag. But neither, it turns out, could your people.”

  Feeling the weight of her failure, Helen turned on Lee too. “You could have used your feathery hat to duel with the brownies’ dusters. Or if you were too queasy to fight, you could at least have warned us your Queen was likely to undermine her own quest.”

  “She’s not my Queen and I did warn you that the defences might not stop at the window.”

  “We were looking for human defences, not magical ones.”

  Yann said, “You bring nothing to this quest except a coward’s fear of rust and the worry you’re betraying us. Perhaps we should leave you here to make your own way home.”

  Lee stood up. “You didn’t go into the castle with the girls either, hoofed one. So don’t accuse me of cowardice.” The two boys stared at each other. Lee put his hand on his sword. Yann scraped his hooves in the gritty white sand.

  Sapphire rumbled. Yann nodded. “You’re right. We may not trust him, but we’re falling into a faery trap if we waste our time arguing with him.”

  He looked at Helen. “We must decide what we do next.”

  Helen laid the silent fairy carefully in the top of the rucksack. “We fly back to the forest … and I admit my failure to the Queen.”

  Chapter 13

  It was a quiet flight back over the sea from Skye.

  Lavender was unconscious, wrapped in Helen’s fleece in the top of the rucksack. Sylvie was silent, as Helen’s tired arms held them both on the dragon’s back. Yann was far behind them, galloping home. And Sapphire didn’t often chat when she was flying.

  Lee was the only one who wanted to talk. Whenever he tried to start a conversation, Helen ignored him, pretending the wind in her ears and the roar of Sapphire’s wings prevented her from hearing him. Though as he was sitting right behind her and speaking in her ear, she could hear every word.

  She didn’t want his explanations, comfort or charm. She didn’t want anything except a good night’s sleep, then to get up tomorrow and play music. She wasn’t a heroine after all. She was just a fiddler. She was a failure at adventures and quests.

  Why hadn’t she told Lavender to fly up above the brownies? She’d held the flag out of their reach, so why had she put Lavender on her shoulder, near their nasty hairy hands?

  Why hadn’t she thrown the box to Yann, rather than expecting him to reach for it?

  Why had she held Lavender tighter than she had held the box? How could she have gripped her fragile friend so roughly?

  Why hadn’t she gone back in for the flag? Why had she let Yann hold her back? Her sudden shock at the police siren had been cowardly and irrational. The car had still been on the road, not at the door. She could have got into the castle and back out again with the flag before they arrived.

  She was a failure. She had failed James, who was still in the hands of the faeries. She had failed the summer school students, who didn’t even know they were in danger. She had failed the Faery Queen, who would probably not be polite about it.

  She was a failure … and her pinky was still numb from the anaesthetic cream. She hoped she would be able to hold down the violin strings with it tomorrow. The idea of losing the soloist’s spot because she’d anaesthetised her own hand made her snort with laughter. She used the sleeve of her fleece to wipe unexpected tears from her eyes.

  Lee patted her on the shoulder. “The best adventures start with failure. You can still be a heroine, as well as a healer and a bard.”

  She yelled back, “I don’t want to be a heroine. Or a healer. I’m far too young to make career choices.”

  “But you want to be a fiddler, don’t you?”

  “That’s not a choice,” she murmured. “That’s just who I am.”

  They fell silent again, as Sapphire flew lower over the trees, landing in the total darkness of a cloudy Highland night near their clearing.

  There was no point waiting for Yann. He would take hours to gallop back. But no one seemed in a hurry to set off for the Faery Queen’s root cave. Lee started sharpening his sword. Sapphire lit a fire, as Helen carefully laid the snoring Lavender down, curled up on her right side, in a warm dry patch of leaves.

  Sylvie barked at Helen.

  Helen frowned at the wolf. Yann wasn’t here. Lavender was still unconscious. How could she and Sylvie talk to each other?

  Lee said, “Your wolf doesn’t think you should humiliate yourself by admitting your failure to the Queen.”

  “You understand her wolf talk?”

  “Of course.” He laughed. “Just because we don’t like each other, doesn’t mean we don’t understand each other. Sylvie thinks you should stay here by the fire, rather than admit to the Queen you didn’t get the flag. What do you think, Helen?”

  “I have to go. If I don’t, I can’t feed James, then he’ll eat faery food and we’ll never get him back.”

  Sylvie snorted.

  Helen understood that comment without any help. “I know you don’t think we’ll ever get him back, but we have to leave the option open. We mustn’t give up.”

  Helen rummaged in the rucksack, looking for a small bandage to use as a blanket for Lavender, so she could wear her fleece as protection against branches and thorns on the way to the Queen. Though a fleece was no protection against faery spears.

  She laid a triangular bandage over the fairy, then bent down to take Lavender’s tiny shoes off, so she didn’t wake with sore feet as well as a sore shoulder.

  She eased off the little indigo shoes, with their tiny white stiletto heels. Helen grimaced. Fairy fashion wasn’t really her taste. Then she realized only the right shoe had a white heel; the left heel was dark purple. She looked closer at the right shoe. It wasn’t the heel that was white: it was a corner of fabric, caught on the point of the stiletto. Pale cream fabric. Thin as a cobweb.

  Lavender had been standing on the edge of the Fairy Flag when Helen jerked it out of the frame. Could this be …?

  Helen looked at the three beings gazing sadly into the fire. She trusted Sapphire, but she didn’t know Lee or Sylvie well enough to know whether they would let her take this to the Queen,
or want it for themselves. So she put the scrap of silk in the tiny pocket hidden below the waistband of her jeans, then stood up.

  “Jam sandwich delivery team to the ready.”

  Lee leapt up and put his sword back in his scabbard. Sylvie rose to her paws and shook her fur out.

  Helen said, “Sylvie, could you please stay with Lavender? She mustn’t get cold and stiffen up. Your paws will be better than Sapphire’s claws at putting the bandage back if she throws it off. I’ll go with Lee. He’ll bring me back safe, won’t you?”

  Sylvie growled at him and Sapphire blew sparks on the fire until it blazed higher than the faery’s head.

  Lee laughed. “I’ll promise to bring Helen back safely, if she promises not to accept another impossible quest!” Helen frowned, gesturing for him to lead on.

  At first she wondered how they would find their way through the forest this late at night without moonlight, or starlight, or Lavender’s light balls. She pulled the torch out of her pocket.

  Then she realized she was having no problem seeing the forest floor between her and Lee, because his cloak was glowing in the darkness. She laughed and he said over his shoulder, “Glamour can be useful sometimes, even if you don’t want me to charm you.”

  Helen walked behind him, wondering about his glamour and the spot she had seen just once, and whether it was wise to trust someone who didn’t show you their true face.

  “No one else trusts you, Lee. Can I really trust you?”

  He didn’t turn round. “We aren’t a united band of adventurers like in the stories, Helen. We don’t all want the same thing. Sylvie wants to drive my people out of the forest. Yann and Lavender have heard stories of our treachery all their lives. So perhaps they are right not to trust me.

  “But you and I want the same thing. I’m charged by my King to prevent tension between humans on the forest edge and faeries at the centre. It’s my duty to free the boy and to stop the Queen kidnapping your school of bards. So you can trust me, because we want the same thing.”

  “What if we don’t want the same thing, some other day, Lee?”

  He turned round. “Then some other day, you’ll need to make that choice for yourself.”

  “So I should trust you, because I know what you want; but I shouldn’t trust the Queen, because I don’t know what she wants. Did she want the flag or not?”

  Lee sighed in exasperation. “What does that woman want? Power, beauty, glory, treasure, parties, music, tricks, everyone at her feet? She doesn’t know herself.” He strode off through the trees.

  “Let’s find out if she really did want the flag or not.” Helen patted her pocket and smiled.

  As her fingers brushed the thin crease of fabric in her pocket, she thought about the Faery Queen’s claim that the flag had power in every thread. She remembered old stories about magical spring water, strange ointment and fairy dust giving human eyes the power to see through glamour.

  Was it worth a try?

  She glanced at Lee, his red cloak shining like a warning light ahead of her. He was a charming friend. What would he be like as an enemy? Would he be offended if she tried to see through his glamour? But what use is a charming friend if you can’t trust him?

  It was worth a try.

  She waited until they were crossing an open patch of ground, then called out, “Lee!” He whirled round.

  Helen stuck her index finger in her pocket, scraped her nail across the fabric and poked her finger suddenly into her right eye.

  Her eyelids slammed down in shock, but she blinked them open again, as her eye started to water.

  Now she couldn’t see Lee.

  Of course not. His cloak was no longer glimmering. She switched her torch on.

  There was a boy standing in front of her.

  His blond hair was longer and messier, his skin was tanned and his cheekbones and jaw line were a little less Hollywood-perfect, but he still had a face that would make the older summer-school girls gossip and giggle. However, Lee’s most charming feature, his smile, had vanished. He was frowning, looking stern and anxious.

  Helen looked down.

  She gulped back a burst of surprised laughter. This Lee, the true Lee, was wearing a grey t-shirt, a blue hooded sweatshirt, a pair of faded jeans and grubby white trainers. And his long shining sword.

  She looked at his face again.

  He was smiling now. A cheerful open grin, showing white teeth overlapping slightly at the front. But he had no spots at all. He raised his eyebrows. “Seen enough?”

  Helen felt suddenly embarrassed at staring so hard. She blinked. She must have blinked the last of the flag’s power out of her eye, because when she looked again, Lee was dressed in a cloak, with pale skin and perfect teeth.

  She looked away. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I just needed to know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Who you are.”

  “You know better now, do you? Does what I wear, or what I look like when I haven’t brushed my hair, tell you any more about who I am?”

  She shook her head, ashamed.

  “Do you trust me more or less now?”

  “I think I trusted you anyway. I was just curious. That was unfair. I’m sorry.”

  She stepped round him and kept walking towards the root caves. They didn’t speak for five minutes.

  When Helen reached a clump of trees she didn’t recognise, she waited for Lee to lead the way again. She said quietly as he brushed past, “I know it was rude to try to see what you’re really like, like peeking at someone in the changing rooms to see their underwear or something. But I have to ask. Jeans? And trainers?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “It’s not exactly traditional, is it?”

  “You’re hardly wearing fair maiden clothes yourself. I don’t have to dress in clothes from hundreds of years ago any more than you do. These clothes are comfy, practical and very useful for quests.”

  Helen grinned. “Were you wearing jeans last week, Lee, or did you only get them once you met me? Are you copying me?”

  Now Lee looked embarrassed. “I wasn’t on a quest last week, Helen.”

  “If you’re wearing jeans and a t-shirt, why are you glamouring a cloak and boots and feathery hat. Why not just show the real you?”

  “They’re both the real me. I like the cloak. It’s good for swirling and for impressing people. And it makes me look exactly like a faery is expected to look, so hulking macho idiots like your centaur underestimate me. He thinks he knows exactly who I am: a fop and a fool. He doesn’t take me seriously because he only sees the silk and the velvet.”

  “Do you enjoy being treated like that?”

  “Not really, but it can be useful. So can the light from my cloak, can’t it?”

  “You don’t have any spots, do you?” Helen asked, as they crossed the grove of tall straight pines.

  “No. Never.”

  “Then why do you glamour a spot beside your nose?”

  “What did you think when you saw the spot? When we first met?”

  “I thought your glamour wasn’t working on me. I thought I could see through you, to your flaws.”

  “Did it make you trust me more?”

  “It made me less afraid of you. More confident I could deal with you.”

  Lee nodded. “Good. Worth a little blemish then.”

  Helen laughed. “It’s all about appearances for you! You wouldn’t have to make people underestimate you or be less afraid of you if you were just yourself!”

  Lee looked at her seriously. “Don’t assume that just because you’ve seen me in a pair of jeans you know who I am, or what I can do.” He straightened his sword on his hip and marched off.

  Helen paused for a moment, then followed him to the edge of the clearing. She was about to move past him, when he held out his arm in front of her chest. “I have just one question for you, human girl. How did you do that? How did you see through me so easily?”

  She smiled. “Watch
and you’ll find out.” She ducked under his arm, stabbing her torch beam into the dark clearing.

  His voice called softly after her, “Please don’t try any tricks with the Queen, Helen. She won’t be as tolerant as I am.”

  The torch light only showed Helen tiny patches of the clearing, so it was hard to get her bearings, and she blundered about looking for the right root cave.

  She felt the empty space on her shoulder, where Lavender usually stood, chattering and advising. Even though she hadn’t listened to the fairy’s advice last night, she missed her. She felt very alone.

  But she wasn’t alone. Suddenly, she could see the boy in a pit at her feet.

  “James!” Helen pushed through the thick air.

  He looked up, with pale cheeks and dark eyes.

  “James! I’ve brought you a picnic!”

  She swung the rucksack round, pulling out the sandwiches.

  “Catch!” She threw the packet straight at him. “Jam with no crusts and no butter. They’re your favourites, aren’t they?”

  She couldn’t get him to smile. He just looked up dully, then glanced away again.

  She threw the bottle of water through the space between them. “Don’t eat anything else until I come back, James. I’m going to take you home…”

  He was already fading. He clutched the water and the sandwiches to his chest, before vanishing into the back wall of the cave.

  Helen didn’t look behind her. She didn’t want to know if she was surrounded by spears. So she watched as the Queen walked in smooth elegant steps towards her. Helen could see she was on the back wall all the time, getting bigger and brighter with every step, but no closer. Maybe she was walking on a path somewhere else entirely.