The Hidden People

by Allison Littlewood

  They sat and drank a little longer, sinking deeper into the nests they had made on the ground. I did not know what to think or how to act. On a night such as this it was almost possible to believe in anything at all; I could picture with perfect clarity the sylvan host of which they had told, clad in shining gossamer, riding forth from the hill, exulting in the summer and in their night-revels. Lizzie would be among them, her golden hair glimmering in the moonlight, almost fairy-like herself. And how she would sing! Surely that was why the fairies had wanted her, for her sweet voice . . .

  I rubbed my eyes. I had not slept and I had eaten little. I wished suddenly for my own bed in the noisy, dirty City, where everything about me was known and understood.

  “I’m goin’ ter do it,” Yedder said, and he stood, his stick-thin figure outlined against the grass. The trees shivered in some breeze I could not feel.

  “Tha won’t.”

  “Watch me. I’ll close it, an’ then they’ll not come. I dun’t want ’em to come, Tommy, not now . . .”

  He rushed across the little clearing, his shadow pooling at his feet, pausing only to skirt around the fairy ring. The moon’s face had turned yellow. I did not know the hour and I doubted they did either, but he had had his fill of watching. He was a “yedder” indeed, bending away, shirking his task for fear of the night.

  As if hearing my thoughts and agreeing with them, Thomas leaped to his feet and hurried after his friend. He did not go around the circle but passed straight through it, leaving a line of flattened ink-dark footprints in the grass.

  “I can see it.” Yedder’s voice was soft, but it carried quite clearly to me. I straightened, since they faced away from me, and made out his now squat, troll-like shape as he bent over a little patch of ground. He had found the iron knife set there by Jem Higgs’ hand, the one object that was supposed to connect my cousin with this world. This was nothing to do with what I believed; the man had his errand, to save Lizzie, and it angered me that he did not respect her or care enough for her fate to carry it out.

  In any event, Tommy had reached him and in the next instant he had knocked his friend to the ground. They wrestled there together, their rough words turning to brutish grunts and gasps of exertion.

  I wrapped my hands about my mouth to muffle my voice and called out, “Stop!”

  The effect of my cry was immediate: Yedder let out a shriek, while the other staggered to his feet, whirling about with his fists, stumbling in his haste to find the source of the sound. He spun again and ended facing the cleft in the hillside.

  I do not know how long he stood there, though it felt an eternity, but then he whirled again and ran straight towards me, on the way grabbing his companion, who was also stupefied. As he did so, I flung myself down among the thorns.

  I did not see them pass—my face was pressed into the ground—but I heard them crashing by, their gasping breaths and their cries of fear, until my own heightened emotions turned of a sudden to mirth. I shook with it; I pressed my knuckles hard against my lip to stay my voice, and I remained in that attitude until I heard nothing more, and then a little longer, only then raising my head to the clearing. It was as it had been before, as if all the clumsiness and clamour in the human world could not stir its peace. All was quiet; all was still.

  I pushed myself up, brushing grass from my clothing, grimacing as I caught my hands on the clinging thorns. I must look an object of ridicule; I considered myself fortunate that my wife had taken to her bed and that all my acquaintances were a great distance away.

  I was not certain of the reason for my crying out as I had. I should have challenged them, demanded to know why they had helped my cousin’s husband and not his innocent wife; why they had assisted him in administering his “cure.” And yet something within me told me that I had seen what I required to see, that I should have no further satisfaction of such clownish men. I wished only to be alone.

  I stood squarely in the little gap forming a gateway between the thorns. The fairy ring was delineated before me, as was the flattened place where the companions had sat. I paused, looking down at it, and then I stepped towards the ring, stopping at its edge. The world was made of silver, the very air suspended. For a moment, I did not even breathe. The silence was the sweetest music of all.

  I peered into the trees and saw the thin gleam where the blade kept still its vigil. Behind it, through the pale trunks, was a patch of darkness: a chasm in the world. I took another step, my very movements bearing the imprint of unreality. In a moment I would reach the door; if I wished, I could step through it . . .

  And then, at my back and all around me, I felt something. The nape of my neck prickled; my spine turned to ice. There were eyes, peering from the dark, watching me. I had no way of knowing it and yet I did know it, as certainly as I knew my own name. I turned about, slowly, until I had described a circle. I opened my mouth to hail the watcher, but no sound emerged. I glanced down and saw that my foot was over the edge; I was almost standing in the fairy ring.

  I stepped across its border and the spell was broken. The sense of watching eyes was gone in a trice, but at that very moment, a figure appeared beneath the trees.

  It was a young lady, wearing white floating muslin beneath a green cape. Golden hair spilled across her shoulders and her tread was so soft and light I had not heard her make her way, along some path unseen, betwixt the thorns. I stood frozen, my heart beating painfully against my ribs. I listened for the music that must follow her, but heard only a single sigh, like a breeze in the oaks. I reached out a hand towards her, though she was not within reach; I was seized with the wonderment of awe; with yearning. I willed myself to approach, to grasp hold of her, to draw her back to the world, but my legs were shaking and I stumbled.

  When I straightened she was already running, not towards the hillside but away from it, away from the glade and everything it held. I cried out and forced myself after her, gasping her name. The brake of furze was before me and I began to rend and tear at the tangle, but I succeeded only in rending and tearing my own flesh. I must have missed the way. The growth was dark, unleavened by the moonlight; I was caught in the wilderness of thorns. At least she had fled away from the door into the hillside, I told myself, not towards it; she could not be altogether lost.

  I cried out again, this time in frustration, and staggered into an open space, only to realise I was back where I had begun. I ran instead along the clear path and around, already short of breath with exertion and fear, but I was too late. The maiden had vanished into the air and far beyond my grasp. Perhaps I had never even seen her; perhaps she had been conjured, not by magic and moonlight but by my own overheated imagination. What had I expected? I had gone in search of dreams and fancies, and those I had found, in too great an abundance to be borne. And yet all I could think of as I stood there were the words Lizzie had written in her diary. I could see the flash of her nut-brown eyes, the mischief in them; the delight, and yes, the admiration, when she turned them upon me.

  And waiting for me at home was nothing but the contempt I knew I would see when I looked into my wife’s eyes.

  Still, I hurried towards that home, or at least, towards the cottage which had for a time taken its place. The odd sense of being watched did not return, though as I went I thought of foxes and hares and tiny birds hiding in the undergrowth, cataloguing every creature it might possibly have been, save one.

  But of course, there were no eyes. The vast, indifferent sky stretched over the land, its sparkling beauty impossibly distant, and I felt a mere speck within the world, one little life among so many. My shadow spilled before me, covering each footfall with darkness, making my descent a treacherous affair, and it was a relief when at last I saw the cottage, even though it was benighted; I had left no candle in the window or lamp burning within to light my way. The garden, despite the myriad colours I knew existed within it, was black and uninviting, the whole aspect one of lonely abandonment.

  And then I saw that the
door was standing open.

  My breath froze in my throat. I roused myself into motion, redoubling my pace. Surely nobody could have come at this ungodly hour? I could see no one within. I slipped a hand into my pocket and found there the cold dull metal of the key.

  I began to run.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Upon reaching the cottage, for all my concern, I was overcome by a strange reluctance to enter. I peered around the door to see the black emptiness of the passage. I breathed my wife’s name. The sense of abandonment hung more strongly about the place than ever. I forced myself to reach out and push the door wider, stepping quietly inside. I could dimly see that the back door was shut; I rattled the handle and found it remained locked. I raised a corner of the mat—pushing from my mind the time when I had lifted aside another oilcloth and seen what lay beneath—and I saw the key.

  I was unsurprised to find the parlour devoid of any presence and the hearth cold. No one was sitting there in the dark: no one living, and no ghost. In order to be thorough before going upstairs, I quickly looked into the pantry and the storeroom, finding all as it had been. I even opened the door to the workshop and stood on the threshold a moment before turning back to the stairs. I had only been delaying the moment when I must go up them. I set my foot upon the first riser then crept, as silently as I could, up the treads. I placed a hand on Helena’s door. I could not bring myself to knock, but instead called her name, very softly, disliking the tremulous note that had stolen into my voice.

  No reply came; I had expected none. I pushed open the door and, hearing no further sound, entered the room. The window was thrown open and the half-curtains festooning the bed were shifting in the night-breeze. I did not pause to close the casement, but bent and peered under the bed, for all that I could not account for why I did it; did I really imagine my wife would be hiding there, her eyes gleaming in the dark? Then I went to the door across the landing. My own room was as empty as Helena’s.

  I leaned against the doorjamb and closed my eyes. Helena might as well have vanished into the air; I had not the first idea where she might have gone.

  And yet I must find her. I chastised myself for my inaction and hurried down the stair once more and out of the door. I checked the keyhole, to see if she had perhaps found some other key and left it there, but it was empty; perhaps she had taken it with her, then, although I could not imagine why she had not troubled to close the door.

  I set out towards the village, the moon shining down on all. I presumed that Helena could not have passed me on such a night; I wished to feel certain she could not have tended her steps up onto Pudding Pye Hill, but I knew in this I was merely consoling myself. In truth, she might have gone anywhere. I could easily have missed her in the dark, or while I stood watching the oafs from the village—or the other form I had seen. I was quite sure that the female figure had not been Helena: her hair had been golden, not my wife’s dark tresses.

  I lengthened my stride. I never should have left her. If she had awakened in the night and realised she was alone, what must have been her thoughts? I must find her quickly—if she were to be seen there might be a scandal.

  At least it was easy to see my way. The road shone whitely, like some mythical path, and soon I heard the babbling of the little brook, its chatter so bright and cheerful; its voice came to me as mockery through the gloaming. It almost did not belong to this night—but no, it was I who was out of place. Everything else was as it should be: the village a picture of sylvan peace, bewitching and charming. The first houses were dark and quiet and yet unlike the cottage on the hill, they appeared sleeping rather than abandoned.

  I trotted across the little bridge, glancing at the darkness beneath as I stepped onto the road and at once turned my ankle in a rut and pitched headlong into the dust.

  I pushed myself up, rubbing at my grazed palms and brushing dirt from my clothing, and picked my way less precipitously down the middle of the road, towards the centre of the village, accompanied by the distant fluting call of an owl. The dark expanse of the green opened ahead of me and at its centre, the blasted oak, the dead part of the tree’s trunk pale against the living wood. The inn’s face was a blank. The stained-glass windows of the church glittered. I hurried by, watching for any sign that another person was abroad, but there was no trace of any soul. Thomas Aikin and Yedder Dottrell must already have closed their doors behind them. I wished I had been able to do the same. I peered over my shoulder, no longer able to see the bridge but thinking of the stream that ran beneath it. Some years before, I had seen an exhibition at the Royal Academy, where a depiction of Ophelia, by John Everett Millais, had commanded my attention utterly. Ophelia had been lying in a stream very much like the one that flowed through Halfoak, garlanded by water-weeds and little flowers. She was supine, her white face blank and staring upward, and I had seen at a glance that all sense had departed her; I could almost hear her sad, mad singing in the final moments before she drowned. I had thought of it long after, and I thought of it now, but this time it was not some stranger’s face I saw in the stream but Helena’s. The line from Hamlet returned to me: Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up.

  I had actually started back towards the stream before I banished the notion as impossible. Then came the distant tapping of wooden pails and the soft snort of a horse from the direction of the inn’s stables. I started away towards the crossroads, thinking of gibbets and hangings, when I spied a pale shape floating in the dark ahead of me.

  I looked first for golden hair, thinking it a spectre conjured from my dreams, then I saw that it was not; her hair was dark—it was Helena, my own dear wife, wandering as if she were lost. I hurried towards her, seeing more each moment: her slight figure, wearing only her nightgown, her hair falling in a tumble about her shoulders. All the windows around us were dark and I heard nothing. Even the beer house was silent.

  “Helena!” I whispered.

  She whirled and her face, as pale and ghostly as her nightgown, broadened into a smile. “Why, it is you, Albie!”

  “Of course it is I. Pray, lower your voice.”

  “Why, my love? Does it matter to whom I speak?” Her expression at once became solemn and her hand shot to her mouth in mock alarm. “Oh—but I have already danced!”

  “Danced? Helena, do you not know the hour? And you are out here quite alone—”

  She gave a knowing smile, one that I did not like to see. “Oh, no, Albie. Never alone.”

  “Has anybody seen you?” I caught hold of her arm to lead her back along the road, but she was stiff and unyielding and pulled away from me.

  “Why, I told you—I have danced! Two fine young men came along the road and they said that they would dance with me—and so they did! Fine, fine . . .”

  “Helena, please!”

  She gave a trilling laugh. “They thought me a fairy, Albie. Is that not delicious?”

  I thought rapidly. Yedder and Thomas, for I was certain it must be they, had been in their cups and disporting in their foolishness—indeed, probably they had a reputation for it; even Mrs. Gomersal had said Yedder could never be steadfast. And they had gone out at midnight to watch for fairies and their stolen changeling by the full of the moon. Now their lunacy could save us from scandal: they might truly believe they had encountered one of the folk, not on the fairy hill, but here in the village. They had never met my wife and they need never do so. And none knew she was out here, alone and unprotected, and in so fey a condition she barely seemed herself. We would return home; she would sleep and feel better. All would be well.

  “We must hurry, my love,” I said. “Do you know where you are?”

  “Of course, Albie. We are beneath the sky.”

  “Besides that.” I could not keep the irritation from my voice. “What is it you thought you were doing, wandering as you are without even pausing to dress yourself?”

  She turned her head slowly towards me. Her cheek gleamed like wax in the silver lig
ht; only her eyes and her lips were dark. “Why, I was looking for you, of course, Albie. Isn’t that what any wife would do?” Her lip curled, as much in challenge as a smile.

  I caught her hand, meaning to pull her along with me, and she winced. She cradled her hand and I took it once more, gently this time, and teased open her fingers. There upon her palm was a strange red mark, double curving lines with roughly square blemishes at intervals between them. Those squares put me in mind of nail-heads and I caught my breath and forced her hand higher, closer to my eyes. Though of course it would not be, it looked as if she had pressed her hand against a heated horseshoe which had burned its impression into her skin.

  “What is this?” The words burst from me and there was no sympathy in them, but it was too late for that. I could think only of the ancient iron horseshoes set above the door to the inn, ready to ward away any witch or fairy who should attempt to enter.

  “Why, in my searching for you I fell, my dear,” Helena replied. “I caught my hand against the gate. Is it bruised?”

  “It is not bruised—it is burned.”

  “That is impossible, my dear. I have not burned it.”

  “Let me look again.”

  “Oh, but we must away, my dear. Must we not? It would be dreadful if someone should see us, quite dreadful.”

  She was correct, of course, so I offered her my arm and we began to walk hurriedly along the road, returning to our little fairy hill. It came as a relief when we crossed the bridge and put Halfoak behind us; this time I did not pause, since there was no need now to stare into the dark below and wonder. We followed the white road—the Reeling Road—upward. We were almost home, away from prying eyes. Soon all would be well and reality would assert itself once more, over my mind and over my wife’s. More relief came as we gained the gate and passed through. The door ahead of us was still ajar—I too had neglected to close it. Helena examined it as we neared the threshold, her lovely features marred with scorn.