“Wait … what? I’m not the Guardian yet. I don’t know what to do.”
“My dear, you’re the one who said it, who willed it, before all, on the top of the Green Hill. You relieved me of my burden, my dear child. You took away both my fears of what comes when my life is over … and the duties left to me in this life. Not that I won’t have any duties, with you and the others to teach. But the real work now falls to you.”
“Me?” she asked stupidly. She felt like she was a few steps behind Phyllida, like there was a very important point that somehow escaped her.
“You, girl, you! You are the Guardian of the Green Hill.”
“The next Guardian,” Meg tried to say. No, no, no! I can’t! I won’t! I want to go home! Those panicked desires returned, and her confidence vanished.
“Didn’t you know? Didn’t you realize? You took it away from me—for which I am heartily thankful, might I add—and took it all on yourself. I admit I was surprised, but so grateful. You don’t know what it is to serve for a lifetime, though you will. I don’t mean to make it sound miserable, it is anything but. It is like having a child who never grows up, a joy, but a weighty responsibility you can never, never take your eyes off of. Now it is yours, to love and care for.”
Phyllida beamed, but Meg wanted to run.
“Do you mean … when I said ‘I am the Guardian of the Green Hill,’ I actually took over for you? You mean you’re not the Guardian anymore? I am?”
It was just a slip of the tongue—wasn’t it? Because she hadn’t rehearsed an acceptance speech, as it were, because she was weary and harried and terrified after her ordeal, and she’d said the first thing that popped into her head, she was now the Guardian, for life? It had been a serious undertaking and frightening duty, certainly, but bearable when she thought she wouldn’t have to assume her role for years. Anything that can be put off indefinitely isn’t real. But this—this was far too real for her.
Then she looked at Phyllida, serene for the first time in weeks. Why, even the lines on her brow, which Meg had assumed were from age, had smoothed, all overnight. It occurred to her that it might have worked out the same either way. If Phyllida had kept the burdens of being the Guardian, they might have killed her. Then Meg would have been Guardian almost as soon, but alone, without her help. This way at least she still had Phyllida’s guidance, her wisdom, while taking the work on her own young shoulders.
Meg felt ashamed of herself. Phyllida had just lost her husband. Worse than that, she’d seen him killed before her eyes. She’d been held prisoner, hurt by a madman who wanted to ruin everything she had worked for. She’s been serving faithfully all of her life, Meg thought, and now she has a chance to rest. Can I begrudge her that?
She could, but she’d never let Phyllida know it.
She hugged her great-great-aunt and said, “I’ll try to do my best.”
“I know you will, child. Now come. They are here for the wake. We must forget the sorrow of his passing and recall only the vitality and joy that was his life.”
Phyllida flung open the door and invited the others in. They wept, though lightly, but soon they were joking about Lysander’s fondness for sardine sandwiches and the way he always mangled songs and his manner of looking sternest when he was feeling most kindly. Silly remembered jokes he’d told, Dickie mentioned the time Lysander translated a naughty bit of Catullus for him, not realizing till the end how inappropriate it was for young ears. James took one look at Lysander’s body and said, “Don’t worry. He’ll talk to us soon,” which everyone thought was an endearing bit of childish prattle.
Rowan stood guard solemnly over Lysander. “If I hadn’t been such a fool, I might have saved him,” he said. Then, more softly, “I would have been a good heir, Lysander. I didn’t mean anything wrong by it, honestly I didn’t. I just wanted to take care of things. I didn’t mean harm.”
Phyllida came up behind him and put an arm over his shoulder. “He knows it, lad, and so do I. Don’t worry, Rowan. You have a place here, just as Meg does.”
And where was Finn in all this? Whatever Meg said about him being as much a part of it as the rest of them, he knew he wasn’t. They didn’t want him, really. He was an outsider, an interloper, and though they might accept him, some more grudgingly than others, he had no real business being there any longer.
“I didn’t from the start,” he said to himself as he went to his room upstairs. “They didn’t want me. My father made them take me. I hate them, and they hate me. Now I’m going home, fever or no fever.” The occasional letter and news clipping from the States told them the illness, their original reason for fleeing to England, was still rampaging. Finn packed his bags but found they were too heavy to manage by himself, and he had no intention of telling anyone he was going. He rearranged things until his most important possessions were in one small satchel. With the ten-pound note inside (and the skeleton key, of course), he could just manage it. He snuck out of the house through the garden kitchen.
“Where ye off to, lad?” Bran was sitting by himself on a hickory chair just outside the door.
“None of your business,” he snapped automatically. He felt like the old disagreeable Finn, and though it was in many ways more comfortable, he already hated himself for it.
“No, perhaps ’tisn’t. ’Tis Meggie’s business, though. She may need you.”
“No one needs me. I’m going home.”
“Suit yerself,” he said. “But that Meg, she has a hard road ahead of her. She could use a friend. ’Specially one like you.”
“What do you mean?” Against his will, Finn set his bag down.
“Yer a regular rotter, you are,” Bran said. “Now don’t get yerself in a huff. I didn’t mean it as a slight, not exactly. But yer no better than you ought to be, times, and there’s something to be said for that, if your heart’s in the right place, that is. Where’s yer heart, boy, eh?”
Finn didn’t answer.
“Yer young yet, but no answer’s answer enough for the time being. Stay awhile, lad, and see what happens. Is there so much at home that’s calling you back?”
Finn thought of his pale, distant mother, his overbearing, distant father, the maids and cook who might actually miss him a bit, but not, he imagined, very much. Again, no answer was answer enough. “Oh, all right,” he said as though he was doing everyone a big favor. “I’ll stay for a little while.” And he trudged back upstairs with his satchel.
“Sometimes it’s good to have a rotter about,” Bran said to no one in particular. “You can count on them to do the things others won’t. Meg’ll shy from dirty dealings, but that Finn won’t. And necessary deeds can get powerful dirty, times.”
Back in the dining hall, Meg wished she could shy away from her duties now. “I need to wash, Phyllida. I need to change.” She was barefoot and filthy—a grubby, scruffy, unprepossessing specimen of Guardian. “They’ll laugh at me. They’ll think I can’t do the job.” And they’ll be right, Meg thought miserably.
“No, Meg, stay as you are. All the Good Folk are talking about what happened last night, and by now most of the villagers will know too. For a place with hardly any telephones, news has a way of spreading. They’ll be pleased to see you fresh from the fight, as it were. You’ll do fine.”
But I don’t feel fine, Meg wanted to say. She wanted to curl up in a little ball and think about everything that had happened—or better yet, not think at all. Fortunately she soon learned her only duty was to stand by the door and, like a hostess at a ball, greet each visitor with a nod or handshake or word of thanks for condolences offered.
And such visitors! Hobs and bogarts, bwcas and pwcas, pixies and nixies, Cait Sith and Cu Sith, all in a trailing line come to pay their respects to the departed, and incidentally to the new little Guardian. Meg had had no idea her new kingdom was so diverse, and so numerous. They filed in seemingly without end as she wavered on her feet and tried to keep all their names straight.
Even the Host came, th
e Black Prince making a fleeting visit to bow curtly, sneer at her appearance, and depart, followed by his train of nobles. Bloody redcaps, a shapeless brollachan, and even the Nuckelavee eyed her up and down before passing on to bow over Lysander’s body. Though he wasn’t the Guardian, he had meant a great deal to man and fairy alike.
Humans came too. Not all of them, for even in fairy-steeped Gladysmere, there were plenty who either didn’t believe (or tried not to) or were so mistrustful they wouldn’t have any truck with them. But those who by profession had the closest ties to fairies—the bakers and the weavers, the cobblers and the midwives, among others—were there. The mayor, who went to everything with a ceremonial sash over his shoulder, made a brief speech and gave Meg the key to the city. The chief constable was there, as were most of the farmers and the girl in the dress shop with her own ne’er-do-well lad.
Tansy, looking a bit red and tired but otherwise cheerful, gave Meg a shy kiss on the forehead, introduced his vastly pregnant wife, and went outside to join the festivities—for what is a wake without drinking, singing, and dancing?
“Oh … hi, Fenoderee,” Meg said, waking up a bit when her hand was vigorously pumped. He had something flung over his shoulder.
“I found a wee manikin out in yer garden,” he said brightly. “I hailed him, and he toppled over. Is he yours?” Fenoderee produced a very limp, unconscious Dr. Homunculus.
Meg couldn’t help smiling. “Not mine, exactly—”
“Tell you what he needs,” Silly said, sidling up to them. “A spot of dancing to wake him up. Why don’t you take him off to the fairy circle and show him a good time?”
Fenoderee, happy to oblige, dragged the doctor off under his arm to the impromptu mushroom ring the fairies had created on the lawn.
“Well,” Meg said uncertainly, already thinking she wasn’t making good decisions as the new Guardian, “just remember to get him out. We don’t want him stuck there for a century. He probably doesn’t even believe in fairies. I didn’t believe in them myself a few weeks ago.”
“And now look at you!” Silly said blithely.
Meg did look at herself, and saw a dirty, scared girl putting on the best face she could. She envied Dr. Homunculus. He would be lost to time and trouble in the fairy circle for a while at least. She’d give anything for a bath and a bed.
There was a lull in mourners and well-wishers, so she drifted closer to the door and looked outside. The grounds had turned into a carnival. Villagers drank ale from a barrel in the back of a dray, and fairies drank tiny cups of something squeezed directly from the udders of a small red cow, and each was very careful to not drink the disgusting beverage of the other. But though their drinks didn’t mingle, they did, dancing and reminiscing about eighty years and more of a life well-lived. The two tribes of folk got together to honor a man both had loved and respected in the best way of all, through merriment, not tears. But the tears would come again through the years, in the quiet moments of loneliness when the guidance of a wise friend is needed, when a strong arm is missed and, for Phyllida, every night and every morning when the bed beside her was empty. There was no weeping in her dreams, though. In her dreams, he would sleep by her side.
Wooster approached respectfully. “There is a … ahem … small gentleman who would like a word with you, miss. On the lawn by the tennis courts.” This was on the far side of the house, away from the human and fairy merrymaking.
Phyllida suppressed a look of mischief and said, “Yes, let us go and see what he wants.” Meg, along with Rowan, Silly, James, and Dickie, followed Wooster away from the revelers to the relative quiet of the courts. Finn, watching everything from his room, ran to a window on the other side of the house to follow them.
“Oh, Phyllida, look!” Meg said when they came into sight. “Is it safe?”
“I shouldn’t imagine it is,” Phyllida said cheerfully.
There, stomping and stamping, howling and growling on the tennis lawn, was every creature she could imagine, every creature she had read about from her earliest days with Bulfinch and the D’Aulaires’ books of myths, and some that were beyond both study and imagination. They huddled in a chaotic bundle, too cautious to venture far from their fellow outlandish creatures, but they didn’t seem to trust one another much either.
Things that looked suspiciously like centaurs stomped their hooves at tiny, hissing basilisks. A one-horned, elegant deerlike fellow with silver-tipped blue-green scales along his body—a Chinese Ki-Lin—tried to make peace between a minotaur and a lamia, and got butted by each for his troubles. Overhead a thunderbird was torn between maintaining his lofty dignity and dropping down to eat a fat indigo bull. She saw unicorns and sky-blue Mongolian wolves.
There were griffins in all their variety—the standard winged, lion-rumped, eagle-headed; the wingless keythong; the opinicus, with a lion’s forelegs; and the hippogriff, with its horse parts thrown in for good measure. They all looked more or less the same to Meg, and she was surprised to see each kind grouped in its own offish little clique, the keythongs eyeing the hippogriffs with dark suspicion, who in turn raised their hackles at the traditional griffins.
Among them all were almost-human women—exquisite peris; tall, buxom, apple-cheeked women with long blond braids hanging over their metal breastplates; the four heavenly dancers of India whose job is to distract annoying do-gooders from being so good they rival the benevolence of the gods. And men: astoundingly beautiful warriors with blue-black hair; compact brown men with curved bows small enough to be a child’s toy and legs bent like their bows from a lifetime on horseback; golden godlike men crowned in laurel.
One separated himself from the horde, evidently the small gentleman Wooster had mentioned. He was a head shorter than Meg, with the torso of a diminutive, perfectly proportioned human male and legs coated in woolly curling hair with flowers woven into it. His feet were pointed goat’s hooves. Horn buds peeked from the brown curls of his head. He crept up to Meg and the others, looking frequently over his shoulder at a pack of commingled satyrs and centaurs who urged him on with encouraging gestures.
“Um … ahem … I … that is to say we…”
With great difficulty, Meg suppressed a smile. It was a relief to encounter someone more nervous than she was.
“Go on,” she said gently.
“You spoke to me!” He looked over his shoulder. “She spoke to me!” There was a smattering of applause and a few hoots.
“Of course I did. May I help you?”
The faun—for indeed that’s what he was—closed his eyes, turned his head heavenward for a moment, and exploded into what was evidently a rehearsed speech.
“Oh, most gracious and benevolent benefactress, we hail you and honor you and thank you for doing the great deed that freed us from our assorted prisons. You have awakened the sleeping, unchained the bound, welcomed the banished. You have brought us back into this world! Ever after, you will be honored among us. We come to offer you our fealty and obedience. At least”—and this part was evidently not rehearsed, and was said in an undertone too low for the crowd to hear—“I will be obedient, though there’s more than one in this motley assembly would be better left in irons. Don’t turn your back on them’s my advice.” His voice rose once again. “Before we scatter to the four corners of our earth, though I am told now that the earth is round, or rather spherical, which it wasn’t in our day, we would make our obeisance and genuflections before you and tell you this: from today forward, we consider you our Guardian and guide in this strange new world that has gone on so long without us. Already we see things to astound and dismay us, and we will need your help to find our place.” To Meg’s own astonishment and dismay, he lowered himself to groveling prostration at her feet, and behind him all the others bowed or curtseyed or kowtowed or salaamed or made some other form of courteous submission.
They held their awkward positions, waiting.
“Say something,” Phyllida prompted.
Meg took a step f
orward, almost treading on the faun’s outstretched hands. She looked over the assembly. What had she done? Centaurs loose upon the world? Minotaurs? Valkyries? They certainly didn’t look safe. Even the unicorns weren’t quite what she’d imagined. They looked like they would rather gore a knight than lay their heads quietly in a maiden’s lap.
Who must do the hard things? Well, I guess that would be me, she thought with resignation.
She saw the faun rolling his eyes up at her from the ground at her feet. “Psst … the Nemean lion is hungry, and the minotaurs have short attention spans.”
She took a deep breath, let it out, tried again, and said as loudly as she could, “Thank you.”
Luckily she didn’t have anything else to say, because the tennis courts erupted in cheers and yowls and roars and bellows and hisses and a clanging of swords on shields. The spell of reticence was broken, and they swarmed around Meg and the others. There were so many beasts and half beasts and quarter beasts that Dickie started to sneeze. Meg scooped up James lest he be trampled. They crowded and pressed and nuzzled the family and pumped their hands and rubbed against their legs and gave them gifts. Meg accumulated a great store of innocuous-looking pebbles that were said to do wonders, but by the time the day was over, she’d forgotten what most of them did. They wound up in a cigar box.
Near evening most of the creatures were gone. The fairies too had packed up their kits and trooped back to the Green Hill. The lawn had been torn to pieces by the revelers, and there was a fine mess of centaur dung for the gardeners to clean up the following day (though they found it made excellent fertilizer).
Lysander was lowered into the earth at sunset, calmly and without further ceremony, with only villagers and servants in attendance, and Phyllida retired to her room to be alone with her memories. Rowan took up Lysander’s ax and set to work chopping down his ash tree.
At long last, Meg could drag herself upstairs to the blessed solitude of her room. As soon as the door was shut, she peeled off her clothes, tossing them into a careless pile. They were too dirty to salvage. She wanted to bathe but was too sleepy, and after a moment’s hesitation, flung her grimy self into bed, telling herself she’d personally wash the sheets tomorrow to save the maids any trouble.
Guardian of the Green Hill Page 24
