The view from the boulder was tremendous and Jen just sat staring out at the green and lush landscape. She could see a tractor working on of the fields in the distance, yet heard nothing, the wind taking the sound in the opposite direction. Above her, black cockatoos flew, looping and diving, catching the wind gusts. Off to one side a bunch of crows circled and called. Perhaps some stock had died. Remembering the lost child, Jen decided she would investigate before she returned home.
“You pick the wild and lonely places to do your contemplation,” a familiar voice said suddenly.
Jen jumped in surprise and turned around to encounter the leaf-green eyes of the one who had called himself Fionn. On the other hand, was it Fionn? She narrowed her eyes, this time he seemed much older, an elegant, mature man in his late forties with a face attractively lined. He was dressed differently this time, the jeans were gone, and instead he wore a black jacket and collared shirt, and black dress trousers. His long pale ash hair still hung about his shoulders. A pale clay pipe poked out of his jacket’s top pocket.
“You!” she said.
He nodded smiling.
“I’ve been warned about you,” she accused.
“I’d not harm you, Jen,” he said, lithely springing up to sit next to her on the rock. Idly, his hand covered hers, which made her heart jump.
“So what do they say about me?” he asked, smiling at her. She felt her bones melt under his warm gaze.
“No...not...ab...about you,” she stammered, blushing deeply.
“About what I am?” he asked her directly, his fingers lightly brushing hers.
She nodded silently, her face suffused with a scarlet blush.
“Then, what am I, in that I cannot be trusted?”
“Fairy,” she finally breathed.
He looked suddenly vexed, as if he objected to the name. “So I am caught out. Who enlightened you?”
Jen stared at her boots, her emotions transfixed upon the play of his fingers upon her hand.
“A friend,” she murmured quietly.
He studied her face, “Do I disturb you Jen...Jenny of the sweet heathery hills of home.” He leant and breathed in her ear, “Your kind calls to us as bees to pollen laden flowers.”
“My kind?” she gasped, her head spinning.
“You, who see us and hear us, your voice is a siren song to me, sweet Jenny.”
His hand reached up and turned her face to his. Gently, he kissed her, and her lips surrendered to his. He tasted of honey, cinnamon and smoky duskiness.
“I would have you sweet Jenny. I would have you here now, upon these rocks. I would fill your empty heart with overflowing love.” He kissed her again, this time his fingers moved from her hands to roam across her body.
“No,” she breathed, half-heartedly attempting to break away from him. “You are not to be trusted.”
He smiled at her protestations and slid his hand beneath her shirt. She gasped and felt an unfamiliar hot and rushing heat flood her body.
“You want me too,” he whispered against her mouth. “Why deny what your body demands?”
“No!” she half slid off the rock to face him. Her face was flushed and her clothes in disarray. “You are not human, how can I trust one who...”
He smiled gently at her, “How many times, my Jenny, do I have to tell you that I wish you no ill.”
Jen closed her eyes to his leaf-green gaze and tried to ignore the overpowering sexual pull of the man half lying upon the rocks.
She shook her head and turned away, ignoring the cry of her own body, a body so long denied pleasure and love. “I cannot trust one as you.” Even to her own ears, her pleas sounded hollow.
She heard him slide off the rock, and she felt, not heard him come behind her enfolding her again in his arms.
“I will have you, Jenny of the old lands,” he whispered against her hair. “If not now, then another time, it is fated you see. We will come together, you and I. Your body sings to me and I am in its thrall.”
She pulled away again, shaking her head. “Please leave me be.”
“I cannot,” he admitted. “However, I will honour your wishes.” He turned her to face him and his face was strangely serious, “Although, you deny yourself pleasure, my Jenny, my express purpose was to give you warning this day.”
She stepped back out of his arms, giving herself space to breathe and collect her shattered senses.
“I need no warning now, your presence is warning enough,” she muttered darkly.
“No, you misunderstand...I am a herald, a messenger, for the great powers who come after me.”
She stared at him, her knees trembling again at the perfection of his face. She saw that he was in a state of arousal and her face grew scarlet. She looked away, anywhere but at the fairy-man with his imploring, beautiful face and pleading hands.
“My message to you comes from the powers that are the two great Courts of the Fae. Their message is that you must stop what is being done here,” he said to her, his words oddly formal, his face a study of seriousness and lust.
Jen stared at him. “Courts? What courts? Stop what is being done?” She shook her head in confusion, “I don’t understand.” She took another step back, “No! Why should I do what you want? You have given me no reason to trust you, or your word.”
His eyes flashed green, “I may be of the Sidhe, but I am still a man of my word.”
“You are no man,” Jen breathed.
He grinned suddenly at that, then he too stepped back, “Very well, I shall leave you in peace, Jenny. My message has been given and you will see no more of me.”
“No more,” she whispered, her heart breaking. Against her will, she desperately longed for his touch, to taste him again on her lips.
He smiled suddenly and his hands lifted as if to reach for her again. “See, your body cannot be deceived, yet my word stands. I will not come until you call me by my true name, and when I come, I will not be denied again. It is your choice, my Jenny.”
Turning away Jen firmed her resolve. “I will not need your true name!” Jen declared, against the wishes of her own longings.
“Yet I will still give it to you,” and on the breeze a word was given, whispering. Against her will, she remembered it. She heard him sigh, and knew instantly that it was a binding thing, this giving of true names. Desperately, she tried to forget it, yet insistently it clung to her memory. She turned to protest, but he was gone, and the morning dulled in the absence of his presence.
Jen sank to the grassy ground, tears falling. She desperately wanted the fairy-man, wanted him as she had never wanted anything or any man before in her life. She sobbed out her longing, yet she innately knew that succumbing to him would mean bitterness and a grief beyond imagining. She vowed never to utter his true name, vowed to deny herself the love and pleasure she most craved. Jen understood sacrifice, she knew that this sacrifice had to be endured in order to avert a greater sin. She would not surrender. Eventually, she picked herself up and brushed the dew-wet grass from her jeans. The morning had lost its lustre and Jen felt drained of the joy that she had experienced earlier. Dragging reluctant feet, she ploughed on through the paddock to investigate the still-circling crows.
The cow had endured an ugly death. Jen stood back a bit from the carcass, whilst covering her nose and mouth, and stared at it in horror. The expression in the now blank eyes spoke to her of infinite pain and fear. Going by the slashing wounds upon the hide, the cow had not died well or quickly. Jen thought that only feral dogs might do such injury, dragging a large prey animal down until it died. This might be the work of dogs, or wolves. However, Australia possessed no wolves in the wild. It would have to be a large feral dog pack. Yet Jen instinctively knew that something else had caused the death of the cow, something that was not of the natural world. She turned away, sickened by the sight. If there had been a brand upon the cow to indicate ownership, then it no longer was visible. Looking around, she again saw the tractor, working this ti
me in a neighbouring field. She called out and waved, finally alerting the farmer. She waited, whilst he drove to the fence line, then stopping the tractor, he got out and walked over to where she stood. She looked at him and his face was unfamiliar to her.
“G’day lady, what’s wrong?”
She pointed to the cow, “Is she one of yours?”
He stared at the mutilated animal and shook his head, “Nope, however I do know who does. Bob Jenkins owns this field. Did you find her?”
She nodded. “I was out walking and followed the crows. Was thinking about that missing young child and thought I’d best investigate.”
“Yup, bad business that,” he said his mouth tight. “Still not found and worse still, another went missing yesterday.”
“Another!” Jen’s hand flew to her mouth.
He shook his head, “Little girl this time, scarcely old enough to crawl, let alone walk. She vanished from her bedroom in broad daylight. I heard it on the two-way radio this morning. The police seem to think that a predator is working the area.”
“Good God!” breathed Jen in shock.
“Don’t think God has much to do with these vanishings,” the farmer said abruptly. “Although church-folk might find comfort in praying. These lowlifes seem to operate outside of God’s laws.”
“But not his retribution,” Jen replied firmly, although what he said caused the hairs to rise on the back of her neck.
“If you believe it, perhaps it may be so,” he said quietly. “However, I know that I wouldn’t mind having such a lowlife in my gun-sights...” his voice sank to a low whisper. He looked at her in some embarrassment and cleared his throat, “Thanks for letting me know, Miss. I’ll let Bob know about his cow when I’m done here.”
She stared at the carcass, “Was it dogs?”
He shook his head, “Nope, I’ve seen dog attacks, it’s different. It’s like whatever killed it set out to be deliberately cruel.”
Jen watched him trudge back to his tractor and decided that her morning walk had taken her far enough. Summoning her willpower, she dismissed the unsettling events of the morning from her mind, pushing even the memory of the fairy-man to the back of her memory. It was high time that she was home and away from this place.
*
Chapter 9
Jen had just finished her lunch when she heard a car drive up her gravel driveway and park next to the house. Curious as to whom her visitor might be, she opened the door to see the heavy-set police Senior Constable from her accident three weeks earlier.
“Miss McDonald,” he quaffed his hat and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
Jen nodded.
“Nice to see you recovered,” he said. “I’m Senior Constable Sanderson from Emerald Hills Police Station,” he flashed his badge at her.
“I remember you, officer, come inside,” she offered.
“Obliged,” he said, “It’s a mongrel hot day today.”
“Let me get you a glass of cold water,” Jen offered, getting up and heading to the fridge.
“Ta,” he said. “This is just a follow up visit to let you know that Dave O’Donnell has admitted that he was tailgating you and that the accident is his responsibility. His insurer will come to the party.” He looked out the window, “That rental car would be setting you back.”
“The insurer told me they will reimburse the hire costs when my claim goes through.”
“Good and the head injury? No long-term damage?” he asked.
“None, a little stiffness from time to time, but even that is fading.”
He nodded, “I have one other bit of business.” He took the offered glass of water with a smile and downed it in one swallow. “You’ve heard about that little boy going missing?”
“Yes, still no word then?”
He shook his head mournfully. “No leads, nothing at all, it’s a complete mystery.” His brawny hand clutched the glass so hard that Jen feared it would crack in his hand. Gently, she took it from him and placed it on the coffee table. He looked up at her, “I’m a family man, Miss McDonald. I have three of my own.” He took his wallet from his back pocket and flicked it open showing her a small photo of three small children running heedlessly around under a sprinkler in the garden.” He stared at the photo, “I’m tempted to move them off the Hinterlands for a while and let them stay with their grandparents in Gympie.”
“I heard this morning that there was another child missing” Jen said gently.
He nodded imperceptibly, “It’s not general knowledge yet, but it will get out soon enough and we’ll have the media up here in packs.” He glanced at her, “I’m just a country copper, this...” and his face grimaced, “sort of thing sickens me. I thought we’d be immune from it here away from the city.” He closed his wallet and pushed it back in his pocket, “Anyway, we’re asking residents to not speak with the media. We’re hoping we can put them off, whilst we continue our investigations unhindered.”
“I’ll not speak of it” Jen assured him. “I mean, I only know what others have been telling me, which to tell the truth isn’t much,” she admitted.
“Believe me, Miss McDonald, there are some nasty types out there. It makes my blood boil to think that there might be a pervert in the area abducting children.” He shook his head in disbelief, “We just can’t work out how he’s doing it. No tracks, no fingerprints, no DNA, no one is coming up on our database. The boy and girl simply seem to have vanished into thin air.”
Jen’s mouth went dry at that and the shuddering unease she felt earlier that morning returned in full force.
The Senior Constable shook his head, “We’ve got officers up from Brisbane, and federal officers on the way too. We’ll catch the bastard who is doing this, don’t you worry about that.”
Jen could only stare at him, remembering what he said about the children vanishing.
“Anyway, I’d best be on my way...” he stood and put his hat back on. “Thanks again for the water, Miss McDonald, and I’m glad you are recovered from your accident.”
“My pleasure, officer,” she replied, quickly collecting herself. “I hope you find those children.”
“We all do,” he said, and then with a brief wave of his hand he was outside and within a few moments was driving away and onto the main road.
Jen turned away from the window, her thoughts jumbled. Everyone seemed to believe that a criminal was responsible, yet a thought nagged at her. The only way she could dispel the nagging worry was to go onto the internet and do some research of her own. She walked into the office and turned the computer on.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing words into search engines, reading some sites, dismissing others. As the day wore on it seemed to be that evidence for fairy abduction was wholly due to legends passed on through story telling. However, oral evidence did persist and Jen had a growing suspicion that the recent events might be linked to what she had experienced herself. She immediately dismissed Fionn from the equation. His desires seemed to be focused entirely upon her, which made her wonder just who or what was removing children from their families. Further searches on the internet brought up a veritable zoo of beasts and creatures that could be responsible and Jen’s blood chilled when she read some of the descriptions. Jen had always been a practical, prosaic sort of woman, so she felt both embarrassed at herself, and unnerved by the fact that she was actually considering all this in a rational way.
She turned off the computer and slowly lowered the lid on the laptop. What a quandary! She had to do something about the situation, but no one, save Tom and his family, would believe her. To be ridiculed and mocked would be the height of embarrassment, but Jen knew that would happen if she presented herself to the local police with an absurd story of fairies stealing children. She resolved to call Tom to ask his advice, although she suspected that even he could achieve little. Fionn rose in her memory again and she blushed furiously as to how she had acted around him. She reprimanded herself, but she suspected t
hat if he presented himself again she would submit to his desires. It was so damned unfair, why did the first man to grab her heart since Robert all those years ago, have to be neither man nor trustworthy. Tom had been wise in his words to ignore the fairy race. However, it was far easier said than done. Jen suspected that her dealings with the fairy people were a long way from being over.
*
Chapter 10
A week had passed since the last child disappearance and although the media had descended en masse upon the town, there were little new leads to sustain their interest. Within a few days, the journalists had returned to whence they came, keeping only one of two ‘cub’ reporters in the area to keep an eye on things and to investigate new developments. The only people who regretted their departure were shop owners and the local motel and bed and breakfast operators. The rest of the town had been thankful. Most of the residents had chosen Emerald Hills for the serenity and isolation from the big cities, the last thing they needed was big city problems plaguing their little slice of heaven.
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