The Hagstone

by Helena Rookwood

  They all dragged their chairs around the table, and dug in. Madeleine ate, and ate, and found that the hot food offered her a lot of comfort. Fraser gave her hand a squeeze when he brushed against her, and Madeleine felt her eyes prickling. She had been happy here.

  There was little noise for a while apart from the smacking of lips, the slurp of seeds out of a tomato, and the occasional yelp when Tabitha, too impatient to wait for the potatoes to cool, burnt her lips and tongue. When they had all eaten their fill they sank back into their chairs, feeling their bellies deliciously distorted and their minds loosen as they became sleepy from eating.

  In spite of her anxiety about being outside, Madeleine felt strangely peaceful. Things were just as they always had been. Habitually, she reached her hand up to the hagstone necklace; but Fraser spotted the movement, and she saw his face harden.

  “Tabitha, why don't you run on down to the river and see how much seaglass you can find on the shoreline?” he said, and something in his voice made Madeleine nervous. Ondine didn't comment on this, so neither did Madeleine, but she felt herself go rigid.

  Tabitha was already out of the door, not needing to be told twice to go down to the river. Madeleine supposed she must have been feeling cooped up recently, as they had been outside together so little over the past few weeks. She tried to make herself relax again. But she felt as though a spotlight had been trained on her.

  “Maude,” Fraser started hesitantly, not looking at Madeleine but instead glancing over at Ondine. “Please forgive me for this.”

  “Fraser?” Madeleine's hands tightened on the arms of her chair.

  “Ma,” he said, turning to Ondine. “I need your help with this.”

  Ondine said nothing, but looked slowly between the two of them.

  “Maude has been behaving very...oddly.”

  “Fraser!”

  “I don't know how to help her.” It came out all in a rush. “She took herself to the island the other week. On a whim, she says – but I don't understand why. And she found this necklace, that looks as if it's made of stone, except I've never seen anything like it before, and I'm sure it must belong to someone. And since then she's just been so odd, Ma – she won't leave the house, she won't go out and fish. She's even being bloody awful to Tab – you saw how she was just then. She won't take her to the river, or even over to the library. She won't go anywhere, actually. I think she'd like it if I just let her sit in the house and rot. But I won't let her. So I need you to tell me – what do I do, Ma?”

  Ondine remained quiet, but looked pityingly at Madeleine.

  “Ma? Will you talk to her, seeing as I can't?”

  Madeleine couldn't look at Fraser. She tried to stay calm – to remind herself that Fraser had led a simple, happy life, always, and that he must be finding it impossible to even begin to know how to cope with Madeleine's behaviour. But she couldn't quash the outrage that he should share his worries about her with someone else – that he would ambush her like this. None of what he had said had been addressed to her. He had cut her out of the discussion.

  Ondine still said nothing.

  “Fraser,” Madeleine said in as still a voice as she could manage. “What makes you think you have the right to say all this to your mother – with me sitting here, red with humiliation?”

  “What choice do I have?” he said, angry now. “You won't talk to me about it. I don't know what to do, Maude.”

  “You don't have to do anything,” she snapped. “Just leave me be.”

  “If it wasn't for Tabitha, I think you might have left already.”

  If Fraser had intended this to sound accusing, it came out as terrified. As he voiced the source of what it was that he had been worrying about most, Madeleine knew that he had put it out there for her to deny it. But she couldn't deny it, she was furious that he had made her confront this frightening possibility herself, and she was still outraged that they were having this conversation in front of Fraser's mother. Instead of replying, Madeleine let out a bellow of frustration and stormed into Ondine's cottage.

  Seething with white-hot rage, Madeleine retreated into the depths of the warren that was Ondine's home. She needed to cool off – to calm down. Tab might come back at any moment. But Madeleine was furious – so furious – and so unable to do anything about it. This was all so outside of her control.

  She paced up and down the room, a caged animal – even though she had caged herself by retreating into the house. So Madeleine just paced, and panted, and raged. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to say. She had no outlet at all for the rage she felt.

  In a fit of fury, Madeleine tore the hagstone from her neck and threw it at the floor. And then she was blinded, frightened by a great flash of light…

  …It was golden here, Madeleine thought as she lay flat on her back. The light was so golden. She knew she wasn't in the village anymore. Nothing in the village had ever been so bright, so beautiful. Even just gazing up at the tall trees above her as she lay on the ground, she thought that she had never seen anything so beautiful. And the smell – everything was so sweet and fresh, like the first sunny day of the year. Or like jasmine and honeysuckle on a summer's evening. There was no trace of the saltspray-fishskin smell that permeated her life in the village.

  Madeleine got shakily to her feet. To her surprise, she found that she wasn't frightened. Not at all. Just curious about where she was. And so she looked around her with interest.

  She was in a woodland, in a glade of silver birch, except that their silvery-white trunks seemed to shine like gold here. The strange light seemed to hang like a cloud over everything, even Madeleine herself, so that when she looked down at her hands she saw that they were gold too. Strange, Madeleine thought.

  As Madeleine looked at her new golden hands she became dimly aware that music was coming from one direction, and for want of any better plan she began walking towards it. Some dim part of her which still remembered that she had once been a thief told her that she ought to proceed more carefully, that she could be walking straight into a trap. But the music was so pleasant, so joyful, that Madeleine could hardly imagine that anything cruel or wicked could be playing it. And so she simply walked straight towards it, dreamlike.

  She smiled as the birch gave way to fruit and nut trees, everything perfectly ripe and just longing to be picked. Flags and flowers and bells began to appear coiled around the tree trunks and strung up in colourful flapping lines between their branches. Madeleine laughed aloud as a string of bells rang prettily when she walked beneath them. She wondered whether she had gone mad, but still the sense that everything was quite well didn't desert her, and so she continued to walk onwards. The music grew louder, and Madeleine began to hear the beat of a drum that made her adjust her pace to walk in rhythm with it. She felt her fingers itching to tap against her thighs, her head nodding in time as she walked. Tiny winged people – faeries, she supposed – flittered around her, pointing and whispering and giggling. One was even so bold as to fly right up to her and began tying knots in her hair.

  “Hello,” Madeleine said dreamily. How could she ever have thought that the fae were something to be feared?

  The faeries giggled again and fluttered off, leaving Madeleine to comb her fingers through her hair to try and remove the tangles. She had the vaguest memory of doing this for someone else before, for a child perhaps, but she couldn't quite remember.

  As the music grew louder, more and more of the fair folk appeared, and to Madeleine's surprise they looked stranger than she had ever imagined them to be. The faeries who had played with her hair had resembled the old paintings she had poured over in the Iron Court – pretty, delicate little things with shimmering wings and pearlescent skin. But there were also faeries who looked like butterflies and ladybirds and beetles, and earthier creatures with wrinkled faces and strange little caps. There was a child with a stag's antlers, a fox who walked on its hind legs and lifted up its fox-head to reveal a young boy's face. Th
ere were faeries who had tree bark instead of skin, faeries with strange eyes like fish, with goat legs or rabbit ears, and faery children who had the faces of old men.

  Again, it occurred to Madeleine that she ought to be frightened, and yet she was not. The creatures danced with such wild joy on their faces that she was sure they could not be dangerous. Some were the musicians, she noticed, although how such a scattered ensemble could play together to produce such harmonious music was a mystery to her. Whenever they spotted her, they stared. But when Madeleine waved to them, they just giggled before bounding off out of sight, or returning to their playing.

  Madeleine continued to walk through the menagerie, and in amongst the trees there began to appear long tables with white tablecloths, each one laden with platters of food: bowls of a strange clear liquid, piles of fruit, and beautifully sculpted sugary desserts. In between the tables, standards had been planted, wrapped in ribbons which finished in rippling flags. Madeleine's stomach grumbled when she saw all of the food that was laid out, but something caught in her mind – some old stories about not eating faery food. Hadn't she just eaten? In spite of her temptation, Madeleine continued to follow the music.

  She drifted amongst the revellers, until up ahead she saw that the trees were opening out into a clearing, which seemed to be the source of the strange music, and which glowed more brightly than the surrounding woodland. In the clearing were faeries who more closely resembled humans – if it was fair to describe them that way, for the fae were more beautiful than any human Madeleine had ever seen. Their skin glowed, and both the males and females had long hair that flowed down their backs. All were dressed in robes of white and cream and lilac.

  Some on the outskirts noticed Madeleine as she drew closer, and they went rigid as they did. Madeleine felt ashamed of her humble fisherwoman's clothes as she saw the finery of the fae who regarded her now. She wished they could have seen her in the fine clothes she had worn at the Iron Court. But it was pointless to wish for that now, and so she simply walked through the path they cleared before her with her head held high.

  The clearing was huge, and Madeleine could see stone arches and pillars rising above the heads of the revellers, reaching higher still towards the other side of the clearing. The fae were directing her towards that end of the clearing, gradually parting so that a path was left open for her to follow. The clearing changed from grass to stone beneath Madeleine's feet, but it had been rubbed soft so that it was as pleasant to walk on as the forest floor. Some of the little folk still ran among the skirts of these beautiful fae, and the little faery who had tied up Madeleine's hair reappeared at her side, sitting on her shoulder and waving at the stunned court fae as though they were all looking at her and not Madeleine.

  Where the crumbling stone architecture grew most extravagant, at the centre of the court, the most beautiful and the most finely dressed fae were gathered around a dais on which stood two shining golden thrones. One of the thrones was empty, but on the other sat a fae male whose beauty cast all the others around him into shadows.

  Madeleine didn't have to think about it. She dropped to one knee, dipping her head in as low a bow as she could manage.

  “Rise.” The fae's voice was like fruit and birds and summer song.

  Madeleine rose, trembling, to her feet, and returned her gaze to the faery king. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. His face was perfect; he had a long thin nose, wide violet eyes, and golden hair that fell in a sheet down his back. His crown was shaped like golden leaves, and he wore robes of white and gold and green. Madeleine could have stared at him forever.

  “How did you get here, Ironchild?” the king asked her, and there was something in the lazy purr of his voice that made Madeleine's body tingle, her back arch as if she longed for his hands to stroke her in the same, slow way that he spoke.

  “I don't know,” Madeleine said. How had she got here? She could barely remember a time before these golden woodlands – before she had seen the faery king.

  But he was frowning at her, as though her answer had displeased him.

  “You are human, are you not?” he said. “Humans have not been seen here for a very long time.”

  “I am human,” Madeleine said, still unable to tear her eyes from him. “It is only that now that I have seen you, I struggle to remember any life before then.”

  A titter ran through the crowd, who were keenly watching this exchange. It had clearly pleased the king, however, who stepped off his throne, came down from the dais, and examined Madeleine more closely. He sniffed the air, and frowned again.

  “Iron,” he murmured. “And salt.”

  But he moved closer, and took Madeleine's chin in one hand, tilting her face up so that he could examine her. Her face was brown as a nut from the time she spent outside, she knew, and again she wished that he could have seen her when she was at her finest. Cloistered in her quarters at the Iron Court, her skin had always been perfectly pale.

  “Old,” he said in a matter-of-fact way, “but still beautiful. Unusually dark eyes.”

  Madeleine tried not to sigh in pleasure as he ran his thumb over her cheek, testing her skin. He stopped at the corner of her mouth, and she could have begged him to continue.

  “Why don't you come and sit beside me?” the king said, and Madeleine hesitated. But then he took her arm, and as he did she felt the nerves sing out in every place that his fingers touched her bare skin. She could hardly stop herself from shivering with pleasure, and although she became aware of the other fae around them still tittering and laughing, she found that she didn't care. All she cared about was that this beautiful, golden fae kept his hands on her.

  “What's your name?” he asked her.

  “Maude,” she said habitually, and then changed her mind. “No – Madeleine.”

  “I prefer Madeleine,” the king said. Then he looked at her curiously. “What kind of human has two names?”

  “One who has had two lives.” Madeleine couldn't keep the misery from her voice, although she couldn't remember what had caused it.

  The king stopped and turned to stare interrogatively at her, and Madeleine knew that he saw all of the sadness and the conflicting wants in her, all of the complexity of her life as it had been in the human world, and he looked satisfied.

  “It is so long since I took a human lover,” he breathed softly in her ear. “I forgot how deliciously rich you are.”

  His lips grazed her neck, and Madeleine shivered again.

  The king led her up onto the dais, and manoeuvred her delicately onto the throne next to his. A strange fae covered in feathers jumbled up to them, offering a silver tray of fruit to the king, but keeping his eyes fixed curiously on Madeleine. The king selected the ripest peach, pulled a silver knife from within his robes, and cut a thin sliver.

  “Eat,” he said, and held it before Madeleine.

  She ate it straight from his hands, allowed her lips to brush his fingertips. The crowd laughed again. But Madeleine ate the rest of the peach in this way, taking slices from the king's hands as he fed her, and when she had finished the king hissed at his people to be quiet. They stopped laughing then, and the little folk bounded forwards, stripping Madeleine of her tattered clothes and binding her up in colourful silks, twisting pearls and flowers and ribbons into her hair, offering her more fruits and sugared petals and goblets of sweet-smelling wine.

  She should have minded, that they stripped her bare before the court. She should have taken pleasure in the feel of the silks against her skin, the taste of the food they offered her, the rake of tiny faery hands against her scalp as they fashioned her hair into a fae style.

  But throughout, Madeleine just stared enraptured at the king...

  Ondine assured Fraser that it was better that she go and speak to Maude. And when he protested, she grew sharp with him.

  “You asked me for help, didn't you?” she said firmly. “Asked me right in front of her, didn't you? So now I'm going to help.”
<
br />   Fraser wasn't given any option. He was left to sit alone in his wooden chair while Ondine walked grimly after Maude into the house. She looked about, listened for the thump of angry footsteps or the sobs of a woman in distress. But she found none.

  Curious, thought Ondine.

  She walked slowly through her shack, which sprawled out like a labyrinth inside. Every connecting room was littered with found objects from the river, and Ondine had come to share her home with more than a few birds and rats and toads, who had found their way to her house and, finding that they liked it, resolved to stay. They were all muttering nervously to her now, strange animal words that she didn't understand. But she understood their fear, some primitive animal anxiety at whatever had just happened. It made Ondine nervous.

  “Warn me,” she murmured to them. “Warn me if I need to get out.”

  The hum of animal chatter quietened, but Ondine nonetheless selected a heavy rolling pin as she went through the kitchen and held it tightly in one hand. She listened again – but still nothing. She walked slowly into the depths of the house, until she rounded one corner and gave a sharp intake of breath – for there, sprawled out in the corner of the room, was Maude. Her eyes were open but she was lying quite still, as though she might have just woken up from a deep sleep, and she was bound all in colourful cloths. And there was a faint golden glow about her that Ondine was quite sure she shouldn't have had…

  “This isn't good,” she said grimly to a newt that was basking in a puddle in the far corner. The newt nodded its head in agreement.

  Ondine looked around the room – and inhaled again. Lying on the floor, a little way away from Maude, was a clear stone that seemed to speak to her – that spoke to her of the river, and of the witches who had held it for a long time, and who seemed to recognise her as one of them…

  “No, I'm sorry,” she said firmly. “I'm not keeping you.”

  Ondine deposited the rolling pin on a pile of knitting, and walked swiftly over to Maude. She was just about conscious, and Ondine encouraged her to sit up.