Grim Hill: The Secret Deepens

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  “Magic is misdirection,” Sookie said quietly as she held my white feather and stared down at the piece of wood in her hamster cage. “You think one thing is happening, but something else is going on instead. I thought I was doing magic tricks, but it was Father Winter tricking me. He stole Buddy. That’s despicable.”

  “Sookie, someone is stealing all the children, not just Buddy. It happens when you make them disappear. Do you understand the words to your magic incantations?”

  “No. And I only can say them when I wear the turban. You might not like it, but we’re going to need it.” Sookie got off her bed. I followed her downstairs where Mom was rattling around in the kitchen.

  “Cat?” said Mom in surprise. “Why aren’t you on the school bus heading for the intramurals?”

  Slamming to a halt as if I’d just banged into a wall, the cold realization hit me. I’d completely forgotten! I was winded. But no matter how much I wanted to go to the intramurals, I couldn’t leave anyway. Not with the wicked events surrounding me – events I was only beginning to understand. I had to save my friend and find all the real children – not the pieces of wood taking their places.

  “Cat … why didn’t you go?” Mom asked me again, her voice tinged with worry.

  “Jasper,” was all I could say.

  “Mrs. Chung called me. She said she was worried you might be getting sick too.”

  Right away Mom was feeling my forehead. “You do look pale.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “Sorry you missed the game,” Mom said quietly, before she went back to cooking dinner. “Just to be on the safe side, I think you should go to bed early tonight and get some rest. I don’t want you to come down with whatever it is that’s going around.”

  Sookie and I went to the den to escape Mom’s worried glances. I kept a very close eye on Sookie as she slipped on the turban, which now had the black feather attached to it.

  “Now do you remember the words you say with your magic?” I asked.

  Sookie nodded, but before she said them out loud, I signaled for her to stay silent. Handing her a sheet of paper, I said, “It’s probably safer if you write them down.”

  Grabbing a purple crayon, Sookie hesitated. “They’re kind of hard to spell.” She closed her eyes and said, “Oh. If I pretend Teacher is writing them on the board …” and then she began to scribble.

  The words weren’t English, and they did look hard to spell. But I’d seen those types of words before – ones that were written so differently from the way they sounded. Samhain came to mind – a word that was actually pronounced Sow-en. That was a word the ancient Celts used.

  The Celts!

  I pulled out Lucinda Greystone’s gargoyle postcard, which had “Turn to the old ways of knowing” written on it. A dim lightbulb lit up inside my head. Maybe … just maybe I knew where we might find a little help.

  ***

  There was something peculiar about the Greystone sisters’ yard. While the outermost edges of the grass had as much snow as every other home on the street, by the time I reached the end of the sidewalk, there was only a dusting of frost on their steps. When I looked up, out of all the white roofs that stretched out for blocks, the Greystones’ roof remained black without one bit of snow on it. Winter was being kept at a distance. Crazy.

  I could tell by the light behind the window shade that Forenza was home. But after I’d slammed the door knocker five times, there was still no answer. So I took off my gloves and pounded on the door.

  Finally it opened a crack, and I could see inside. Forenza was wearing gardening gloves, and she had garden sheers in one hand. Pine needles were caught in her hair, and sprigs of mistletoe were tied around her neck in a huge green and white necklace.

  “Hello again,” she smiled in a nervous way. “Sorry, I was absorbed in a podcast on ancient languages, and I didn’t hear you knock.”

  Forenza opened the door wider and invited me inside. Wow. She was really into the season. Since we’d talked this morning, she’d decorated the house. Boughs of evergreen jammed so tightly in vases almost toppled from the mantel, coffee table, and end tables. Lit candles were set on every available surface casting shadows that flickered eerily around the house. About a dozen holly wreaths hung from the walls, and streamers of ivy dangled from the ceiling.

  Sookie and I had been so caught up in soccer matches and the talent contest, we hadn’t even talked about hauling out our boxes of decorations from the attic.

  There wasn’t much time, so I had to get down to business. I’d sneaked out of the house as I knew Mom would freak out if I was wandering around all pale in the cold. Even though I felt okay, I was worried big time, but Sookie said she’d cover for me until dinner.

  “I was wondering if you maybe recognize these words,” I asked, defrosting in the warm glow of the Greystones’ parlor. Logs burned in the fireplace, filling the room with the scent of wood smoke. I usually loved the smells of Christmas, but tonight I didn’t feel excited at all. Instead my hand trembled and my stomach turned as I handed Forenza the sheet of Sookie’s purple crayoning.

  “Bear leat, means to take away,” said Forenza. But when she pronounced those words it was “bow-la.” And here I was thinking Sookie had been mispronouncing “voila.”

  Fuadaigh an leanbh,” Forenza said. “Tabhair dom an mhaide.” Only when she pronounced them, the words came out, “foothee-on-lanive”, and “Thoe-rum-on wa-ju,” just like Sookie’s magical incantation.

  “Those are all Celtic words,” said Forenza. Her eyes widened. “‘Take the child, bring the wood.’ That sounds like a changeling story,” she said with a visible shudder.

  “What’s a changeling,” I asked, thinking that this didn’t sound good … not good at all.

  “Only one of the darkest legends in fairy lore,” Forenza said and she handed me back the paper as if she couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

  The color drained from her face.

  CHAPTER 21 The Darkest Day

  “DO YOU BELIEVE in coincidences, Cat?” Forenza asked in a voice that I swear sounded petrified.

  “Not always.” There, I’d said it out loud to an adult. Too many things were connected in this town. And I was beginning to wonder if Forenza sensed that.

  “Well, it is sort of odd,” Forenza tried to laugh but didn’t quite succeed. “Here you show up on my porch asking a question about dark fairy lore, when right now it is December twentieth. Today is the winter solstice, the day with the least amount of sunlight, so we’re heading into the longest night of the year.

  “Do you remember I’d mentioned the Celts believed the winter solstice was a time of danger?” she asked. “How they worried if winter would ever leave?” Forenza pointed out the vases of greenery. “During this night, trays of bread were left on tables, and boughs of evergreen and branches of holly were brought in to offer people protection from the malevolence of fairy folk. They were worried about whether the Holly King would allow spring to return to their village.”

  The Celts understood the haunts of fairies. I’d turned to their legends and myths before, during Halloween. At that time the fairies had been up to no good and had tried casting spells on us humans to keep the doorway between our worlds open and to allow them through. The Celts had certain practices to keep fairies away, and they knew when it was a dangerous time – when the door between our worlds opened and put us in peril.

  I gulped, not wanting to think about that again because I thought we were supposed to have been safe. But now I needed to hear about what the Celts believed. “What has the winter solstice to do with – what did you call them? – changelings?” I asked in the flickering candle light.

  “Those words you showed me are incantations that would invite a fairy to do a swap,” said Forenza. “The fairies would steal away a child.”

  “Why would they do that?” I asked in kind of a strangled way.

  “Fairies desire human children, especially this time of year,” said
Forenza in a hushed voice. And then she did something strange – well, even stranger. Forenza walked to the mantel and picked up a small silver bell. She gave it a ring. “More fairy protection.” She smiled apologetically. “Not that I’m superstitious – this is more of a … a … Christmas tradition. As I was explaining, some legends say fairies use children for slaves, or sometimes keep children as pets. But other legends hint to a darker purpose …” Forenza rang the bell again and its jingle chimed as she walked over to a glass lamp and lit a flame. “I think we should have a little more light for such a spooky tale, don’t you?”

  I nodded even though it was as bright as day inside that house. Forenza had every single lamp on. “You mentioned fairies had a darker purpose … for stealing young children?” I asked.

  “For mortal blood,” Forenza said in a strained voice. “Children’s blood is powerful, so fairies might use it during the solstice, in order to keep the door between our worlds open. By using fairy changelings and exchanging the children for fairy wood enchanted to look like the person it replaces, no one knows the children are missing, and no one suspects what the fairies are up to, so no one tries to stop them.”

  “What would the fairies do with the doorway open?”

  “Appease the Holly King and keep winter going forever in the village,” she explained. “But that’s just a story made up by an ancient superstitious people.”

  I didn’t think Forenza believed that it was just a story – her eyes darted around the room as if she was expecting to see a ghost … or an evil fairy. There was something about the Holly King that kept turning over in my mind.

  “When you talked earlier about the battle between the two fairies – the Oak King and the Holly King – did the Celts ever call these fairies by other names – were there any other legends tied to them?”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Forenza, and she finally put down the bell and picked up a book on the table. She flipped through its pages. “The Holly King has several names: the green man, the green fairy …” she said as she began ushering me out the door.

  “You should hurry home, Cat. This is a good night for battening down the hatches. Really, you must hurry,” she urged. Grabbing several sprigs of holly from a vase, she tucked them into my jacket pocket. Then she looked at me for a moment and asked me to wait.

  “Take this.” Forenza handed me a small branch with round red berries. “Rowan is excellent fairy protection, not that fairies are …” but she didn’t bother saying fairies weren’t “real.”

  As I made my way down the stairs, Forenza called to me one last time.

  “I just remembered. Another name for the Holly King is Father Winter.”

  Oh Sookie, I thought as a chill wrapped around my heart. What have you done?

  As soon as I left Forenza’s snow-free yard and headed out for my own house, I noticed there was something horribly wrong.

  CHAPTER 22 The Longest Night

  I MADE MY way home from Forenza’s while a blizzard now raged and snow and sleet flew in my face. The wind screeched, and the sun began to sink in the sky. I spotted Mr. Keating standing outside his store, knee-deep in the snow. He wasn’t wearing a hat or a coat, and his apron flapped in the wind. Snow kept falling on him, covering him until he began to look like a snowman.

  “Mr. Keating, aren’t you cold?” I asked, surprised that he wasn’t trying to haul in his barrels of apples or potatoes before they froze.

  He turned to me in an unsteady, half-frozen way, but he smiled when he said, “Oh, hi there, Cat.”

  “Shouldn’t you be getting inside?” I asked again. “It’s freezing out here.”

  When Mr. Keating didn’t move, I tugged his apron and led him inside his shop. “I think maybe you better stay here,” I said. When I closed the shop door and the bell jingled, Mr. Keating finally mumbled “Thanks,” and I left the shop. As I looked back, the snow piled up on the barrels outside the store and began covering the Emporium’s windows. Then the shop’s awning buckled and heaps of snow blocked the door. At least Mr. Keating was now safe inside. I began plowing my way through the snow again.

  The streets were deserted and I had no idea why. Why weren’t people rushing to get home and out of the bad weather? When I turned down Mia’s street, a few blocks away from my house, a car was stuck in the middle of the road. The windshield was covered in snow, except for one little spot. When I looked inside, I saw Mia’s mother sitting there. I knocked on the car door.

  For a while Mia’s mother didn’t notice me, but I kept knocking louder and louder. Finally, she rolled down the window and didn’t even react to the pile of snow that landed in her lap.

  “Aren’t you going inside?” I asked. “Isn’t it cold in the car?” Like Mr. Keating, Mia’s mom wasn’t wearing a coat – she only had on a sweater buttoned up over her nurse’s uniform. First, she blinked at me as if she didn’t hear me, then she slowly shook her head.

  “Cat? What are you doing here?” She sounded groggy – as if she’d just woken up from a dream. “I … just dropped … Mia off … to catch the bus for the soccer game. Why … why aren’t you on the bus?”

  I wanted to say, “Because soccer is the last thing on my mind, and I completely forgot about the game today.” But I didn’t say that. I was worried about Mia’s mother. The bus left a couple of hours ago, so she must have been sitting here in her car for a while. “You’d better let me help you,” I told her.

  Just like with Mr. Keating, I had to lead her to her house, take the keys from her hand, unlock the door, and help her inside. An urgent voice in my head said, “Get home, Cat, something is very wrong here, and you’d better check on your own family.” After closing the door to Mia’s house, I took off.

  My feet skidded on some ice and I fell. Something was happening here that was so wicked. How did I ever think for a moment that it could have been due to climate change? Sure, lots of places got blizzards in December, but not in this town; the locals said we got snow only in January. Before we moved here, we’d lived a lot farther north and hadn’t seen weather like this in that town. Besides, it wasn’t simply the snow – it was the weird way the temperature fluctuated from day to day. The weather had become unpredictable right after that first ice storm on Sookie’s birthday … except that one weekend before the soccer match. Wait a minute – that was also the weekend Buddy first got sick and Sookie was too devastated to practice her magic. Of course! Whenever Sookie practiced her magic show, cold blasted through our town. How did I miss that connection – that when Sookie made things disappear, the temperature plunged? I sat up rubbing my arm. Lately, Sookie had been practicing a lot of magic, I thought as I looked around.

  Snow piled high on everyone’s roofs and dripped down. It was as if a baker had gone crazy icing gingerbread houses. Treacherous icicles hung from all the telephone wires, and in a few place I could see the lines were down. The sidewalks weren’t shoveled, nor were the streets cleared of snow. Frigid blue clouds hovered, shaking down endless snow at us. Our town looked like a tiny village trapped inside a snow globe.

  It was even more than that, though. Today was the winter solstice and there was a different kind of chill in the air, as if something evil was creeping into the streets. I reached into my pocket and clasped my white feather. Pulling myself up from the sidewalk, I stumbled in the direction of my house. As I walked, flashing Christmas lights seemed to wink at me in a cruel way, letting me know that they were in on a terrible secret. Trouble is coming, wink-wink, right, Cat? Even the Christmas wreaths that dangled from doors suddenly looked to me like hangmen’s nooses, waiting to choke any unsuspecting victim who came too close. When I turned the corner and headed down my block, I swear the black coal eyes of a snowman followed me. What was happening?

  Then, as I looked up toward Grim Hill looming above my street, I could see a turquoise fog of enchantment spilling down and rolling over our town. I stared in horror as the blue-green fog reached out from the hill and stretched like arms until it su
rrounded us and disappeared into the darkening horizon.

  Could others see this? It occurred to me that if this was the case, then I wouldn’t have to fight the fairies alone; I could get help. I broke into a run. Sure, I wasn’t running at lightning speed in the snow and ice, but I moved a lot faster. Once up my steps, I burst through the door.

  “Mom! Mom!” I shouted. “We’ve got to get help. We’ve got some kids to rescue. We also need to call the fire department or the police. Something bad is happening to our friends and neighbors, and we’ve got to figure out a way to get people out of this town – fast.” I collapsed on the overstuffed chair, gasping for breath, and only then did I begin to notice that it wasn’t much warmer inside our house than out in the snow. I wasn’t even breaking a mild sweat even though I had on a wool hat, thick gloves, a scarf, and a heavy coat. The snow on my boots hadn’t even begun to melt.

  “Mom?” I called as anxiousness crept into my voice. I went into the kitchen, ready to call her again, but the word caught in my throat. Any hope I had of getting help slid away. Tears would have stung my eyes, but it was too cold for tears.

  My mother sat stiffly in her kitchen chair. The back door was open and snow drifted in, settling in heaps on the floor and dusting the oak table. A thin sheet of ice coated the coffee in my mother’s yellow mug, and her fingers locked around its handle. First I shoved the door shut, cutting off the wind and snow. Then I ran to the couch and grabbed the afghan and covered my mother with it.