“There, dear… that's it, sit up now.”
Maude's eyes widened in shock and confusion and recognition.
“Ondine?” she whispered. A question.
“Yes, dear,” Ondine said. “I've just come in to see that you were okay, dear.”
Maude's eyes closed, as if in pain. “How long have I been gone?” She breathed out, without opening her eyes.
“Just a few minutes,” Ondine said. She hesitated, and then added, “Although it looks like quite a lot might have happened to you in that time.”
Maude didn't reply, just gave a shudder. So, leaving her son's partner to gather herself for a moment, Ondine shuffled across the floor to pick up the stone. She marvelled at how cold the stone felt as she turned it over in her hands. She wondered how on earth Maude had come to find it; whether she knew what it was that she carried.
“Curious,” Ondine said softly, and then gave a heavy sigh. She didn't see any other option.
Handling the stone very carefully, as though it was a great treasure, Ondine looped the necklace it was attached to back around Maude's neck, who was still too weak to protest.
“You found it,” Ondine told her gravely, “so you'd better keep it, after all this.”
Maude was still barely responding, so Ondine left the room to find some clothes that might arouse less suspicion, and then returned to undress her. The robes she was dressed in were very fine, of a material Ondine had never seen before, and delicately embroidered with threads that gleamed silver and gold. After a moment's thought, Ondine carefully folded them up into a bundle and disappeared to hide them in some secret corner of her cottage. She would decide what to do with these later. For now, she returned to dress Maude in the clothes of the village.
“Now, Maude,” Ondine said, and although she laid a gentle hand on Maude's shoulder, her voice was authoritative. “Our Tabitha is crying. She's cut her foot on a rock.”
“Tabitha,” Maude said, as though coming out of a very deep sleep. Her movements were sluggish as she stirred from the position Ondine had propped her up in, but some more clarity came into her eyes.
Good, Ondine thought, relieved. So she still knew Tabitha. And was still dazed enough not to question how Ondine had somehow known that her granddaughter had hurt herself.
“Go and see to Tab now, won't you dear? You'll be able to help her stop crying.”
Again, Ondine summoned as much authority to her voice as she could muster, and Maude obeyed her without question. She stumbled to her feet, still in a daze, and nodded vaguely to Ondine as she stumbled out of the room to go and comfort her daughter.
When she had gone, Ondine sank into a chair and rubbed at her brow. This had got very, very complicated.
10
CHAPTER TEN
Madeleine's memory was muddled.
She had, unhappily, returned to normal life as efficiently as possible. She had stopped arguing with Fraser, mildly changing the subject whenever he mentioned the stone she still wore around her neck until eventually he stopped mentioning it at all. She had agreed to start fishing out on the river again, and even spent whole afternoons out on the water. She had resumed taking Tabitha for long walks over the marshes, and down to the beach to play, and across the saltmarsh to the library. Madeleine had made an effort. But still... Something wasn't quite right.
They were on their way to the library now. And if her daughter was still a little anxious around her, still gave her sidelong looks which told Madeleine that Tabitha knew she was never entirely present with her, Madeleine thought that she was doing the best she could at pretending that her world wasn't falling apart.
“Why don't you run on ahead, Tab?” she said to her daughter, as she felt her heart give another terrible splinter. “See how quickly you can reach the old railway lines?”
Tabitha nodded seriously at the assignment, and belted off into the distance as fast as her little legs would carry her. As Madeleine watched her daughter dart off ahead, she felt total anguish.
How could she return to life here after her time in a kingdom so golden that everything she saw now seemed dull and grey? After meeting a king more beautiful than any man she had ever met? How could she not tell her daughter of the beauty that lay in a land so close to their own – or confess to her that she had all but entirely forgotten her, not to mention her father, in just the few minutes that Tabitha had been down by the river that day? How to get her to believe that it must have been weeks or months – or had it been years? – for Madeleine. It was so hard to remember…
Madeleine knew that she had been seduced by a faery king who had sat her upon a golden throne. She knew that she had been admired and praised and utterly beloved by everyone, and that she had been delirious with love and happiness, until the queen had returned to court… But she could not remember leaving the court, and absolutely could not imagine herself ever choosing to leave the king.
Another memory of the faery king came into Madeleine's mind then, making her blush. She glanced quickly around her, as though if Fraser were there he would somehow know what she had been thinking. She didn't know how to even begin explaining things to him. How to tell him that while no time at all had passed for him, she had grown to love another. She felt guilty that she had allowed herself to fall prey to whatever enchantment she had fallen under in the faery court, that she had heated and shivered and moaned under the hands of someone other than her partner, and yet she knew that if only she knew how to get there, she would race back to the faery court in a heartbeat. But try as she might, Madeleine could not figure out how the hagstone worked. She had no idea what she had done that had allowed her to use it as a door. She had tried getting angry, tried flinging the stone to the ground, tried doing both of these things at once, but nothing that she did seemed to work.
How had she come back here?
Madeleine sighed heavily. For the first time in her life, she truly didn't know what to do. She knew now that she wouldn't be content until she found the king again – not with the life she had built here. Not anymore. Not even with her daughter. And she wasn't sure that she could remain in the village any longer now that she knew that to be the case – or even whether it was safe for her to stay. Madeleine had recovered from her panic that the Iron Court might have been watching her, for she reasoned that they would have come for her already if they knew where she was and that she now possessed the hagstone. But she also knew that they might still eventually find her, and that if they did discover her hiding the hagstone from them, then they would destroy Madeleine and her family. They would have no hesitation in making Tabitha suffer for her mother's defection.
And although Madeleine still had no idea how to use the hagstone, perhaps the Iron Court, with their combined minds and resources, would be able to solve the puzzle. Part of Madeleine longed to take the hagstone to them, to see if they could figure out how to open the door, for then she could return to her faery lover and forget all about the guilt and the pain she now felt regarding Fraser and Tabitha. Better to be happy under some enchantment than in this wretched state. But a greater part of her feared that if the Iron Court possessed the hagstone, then they would simply pursue their plan – her plan – to use it to seal the fae out of the human world forever.
Madeleine let out a soft moan. Now that she knew who lived in that other world, she was terrified of that plan being put into action.
“Mama!” Tab's voice rose high and excited from ahead. “I'm at the railway lines!”
Madeleine took a brief moment to compose herself and then strode quickly ahead to catch up with her daughter.
“You're getting so quick!” she praised her. “I'll race you to the library – come on, let's go!”
This was a game they played often, and Tabitha had already sprung away and started running full-pelt for the university before her mother had got the sentence out of her mouth. Madeleine gave her a head start, pretending to cry out in amazement that Tabitha had already gone, and then she raced
after her.
In the brief moments of the chase it was like nothing had changed. The wind caressed Madeleine's face in a familiar gesture. She bounded along the towpath, avoiding spots which she knew would be too wet, allowing herself to grow breathless with the effort of keeping up with her daughter, who – it was true – was getting very quick. They arrived at the foot of the library tower giggling and red-faced.
“I beat you!” Tabitha said delightedly, flinging her arms around her mother's waist.
The two of them picked their way carefully over the rubble to where the entrance to the university library was concealed, and then breathlessly climbed the flights of stairs up to the very top floor. Tabitha hardly seemed to notice the effort, although she must already have been tired from their race to the foot of the library tower, and as Madeleine trailed behind her she bounded excitedly up the stairs, chattering all the way.
“I think we might finish my book today Mama,” she was saying, “and I don't know how to decide what we're going to read next.”
She delicately hopped over the broken doorway into the room in which they usually came to sit and read, which looked back in the direction of the river. In the summer the trees obscured their home from view, but it was exciting knowing in which direction the village lay, and in the winter, when the way was clear, they could spot the cluster of wooden buildings on the riverside. Sometimes Tabitha swore she could even see her grandmother waving to them, although Madeleine insisted that wasn't possible.
At the thought of Ondine, Madeleine frowned. Ondine had not yet mentioned to her what had happened when she'd found Madeleine. As far as Fraser was concerned, Ondine had had some strict words with her about her behaviour, and afterwards all was well. But there were some rather significant unanswered questions that Madeleine had for Ondine regarding what exactly she knew about Madeleine's disappearance – about why she hadn't been more startled when she had found her on the floor, dressed in faery clothes. About why she had helped her.
But Madeleine wasn't brave enough to bring up these questions, knowing that she could expect some difficult questions from Ondine in return if she were to broach the subject.
“Mama?” Tabitha was tugging at her sleeve impatiently. “I said, what do you think?”
“About what, darling?”
Tabitha sighed, her little face the picture of disapproval. “You're not listening.”
“I am, I am,” Madeleine insisted, and then lied, “I'm just much older than you Tabitha, so climbing those stairs tired me out a bit.”
Tabitha's face immediately changed to one riddled with concern.
“I'm sorry!” she cried. “I'll go slowly next time. Sit down – here, Mama.”
Madeleine sat.
“I was asking you what you thought we should read next,” Tab said earnestly when she was sure that her mother was comfortable. “I've only got one more story to go in this book. I'd like to read some more fairytales, really, but do you think I'm getting a bit old for those, Mama?”
Madeleine pretended to consider this.
“Well, you are getting very grown up,” she said seriously, “but I should think grown-ups can still read fairytales. I like them, don't I?”
Tabitha paused to consider this.
“Papa doesn't like them,” she said.
“Nonsense,” Madeleine said quickly. “He just finds it hard, Tab, because he never learned to read. So he never got to read stories in books, and he doesn't understand what it is we like about them.”
“Then how is it you can read?” Tabitha said, as though this had never occurred to her before.
“Because my Mama taught me,” Madeleine said. “Like I'm teaching you now.”
Tabitha still looked thoughtful.
“Anyway, doesn't your Nana like it when you read to her?”
Tabitha seemed to relax at this. “Yes, she does,” she said slowly. “She does like it. Maybe I'll pick a book that she will like, that I can read to her.”
“You've got to finish this one first,” Madeleine said, pointing to where their current read was lying waiting for them on the floor.
Tab nodded, and settled herself down to read.
“You read to me in a loud voice now,” Madeleine instructed her. “I'm going to take a look and see if I can find a book that Nana will like.”
It seemed so long ago now, that they had been in just the same place, daughter reading to mother in a ruined room high above the marshes. And Madeleine went again to the section on folklore she had been browsing while Tabitha had read to her, to where she had found the compendium that had begun everything in the first place. The situation was eerily similar – except that this time Madeleine was desperate to find any reference to the hagstones, or any reference at all which might tell her how she could return to the faery realm. Perhaps this time she could even take Tabitha with her.
As her daughter read aloud, Madeleine flicked through volume after volume, checking contents and indexes and even flicking through several of the more promising-looking books. But to no avail. She could find no reference whatsoever to the hagstones.
Madeleine began hurrying Tabitha back to the library more often, where she would always repeat the same pattern, getting her daughter to read aloud while she searched for the word she was looking for. Tabitha was surprised and delighted that her mother was now so keen to take her to the library every day if she could. But Madeleine began to feel more and more depressed, for each time she found nothing to aid her in her quest. And eventually, she could no longer ignore the answer that should really have been clear to her from the start: there was no further information on the hagstones here.
On Madeleine's last trip to the library, she took the Compendium of Faerie back with her. She left it alongside the other books, but tore out the page about hagstones.
11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She was going to leave the village. Soon. Soon, Madeleine would return to the Iron Court, and convince them that she failed in her quest. She would tell them that she had been in hiding because she was so ashamed at her failure to deliver what she had promised. She was sure that she had no other choice; she couldn't risk what might happen to Tabitha if she remained here with the hagstone. And, selfishly, she couldn't help but think that if she could persuade the Iron Court to let her return to her research on the hagstones, then their resources might offer her the best chance of working out how to use the stone.
But Madeleine delayed leaving for two reasons.
First, she could not decide what she ought to do with the hagstone when she left. She couldn't take it with her in case the Iron Court used it to seal the doorway shut forever. And she couldn't bear that – not when she felt she such utter desperation to return to the faery king. She daren't hide it in case one of the other villagers found it and kept it for themselves. And she couldn't bring herself to just cast it into the river, where she might never find it again if she needed to return for it – if she could ever find out how to use the stone to open the door to the faery world once more.
Second, Madeleine delayed out of the misery she felt at the thought of leaving her daughter. She was unwilling to see any day as her last with Tabitha, and as she continued to convince herself that she needed just a few more days before she left – just a few more – more and more time slipped past. Madeleine decided that she would stay just long enough to fulfil her promise to teach her daughter how to mend a fishing line. And then just long enough to finish that book with her. She would just wait until the blackberries were ripe and ready for picking together, as they did every year. It was too easy to convince herself that just a few more days wouldn't matter.
The longer she delayed, the more Madeleine began to worry about who would look after Tabitha when she wasn't here. Now that someone had visited the faery world once, she thought, it must surely be possible for someone to do so again. Or, worse – that they might come here. She was certain that the faery queen would not be kind to the daughter of the wo
man who had been sat upon her throne. And so she worried over who would warn Tabitha about the dangers that might come for her in future, and she delayed for longer still.
At this stage, Madeleine knew that it was impossible to think that she might have a frank conversation with Fraser about this. Although he had expressed pleasure at Madeleine's return to normalcy, they both knew that something remained amiss between the two of them. Poor Fraser had no idea what the cause of this gulf between them was, and so he continued to hold that the stone Madeleine wore around the neck was somehow responsible for it. And if Fraser had any inkling of the power that it actually possessed, of what dangers might come for his daughter, Madeleine dreaded to think of what he might do to the stone.
Reluctantly, Madeleine was coming round to the conclusion that the only person in the village who she could actually entrust her daughter's safety to was Ondine. Of course, there remained the risk that Ondine would question her about what had happened when she'd found her on the floor that day, and Madeleine couldn't think how she would explain herself if these questions did come up. But in the end Madeleine resigned herself to talking to Ondine without any kind of explanation prepared, and just hoped that her instinct would kick in when the time came. She had to have this conversation. For Tabitha's sake.
Fraser had taken Tabitha out fishing with him, who had recently proved to have the same uncanny knack for returning with a good haul as her mother. Fraser was delighted that Tabitha was beginning to take an interest in the family trade, but Madeleine had declined the offer to turn the trip into a family occasion.
“I thought I might pop over to see Ondine that afternoon,” she said casually. “The two of us haven't had much time together for a little while.”
So Fraser and Tabitha had gone out together, and Madeleine was now fluttering around the house trying to calm her nerves. She had prepared a basket to take with her, stuffed with sour pears from the garden and salted fish and sweet tarts that she had made with Tabitha. She arranged and rearranged the contents, so that they sat prettily in the basket, and then, thinking that it looked like too much, removed everything again before repacking it all in a more utilitarian manner. Tucking a piece of cloth carefully over the top, Madeleine squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.
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