From Fairies and Creatures of the Night, Guard Me

by Emily de Courcy

  *

  At Arbour House, the opinion of Lord Fitzroy was divided. Mama admired the cut of his coat and his fine countenance, Papa had not met him, Francis and Tom were much diverted by Rowland’s dislike, and Rowland behaved as if his lordship were Lord Byron himself, come to wreck ruin upon the delicate Miss Helen Eversley.

  He was not completely incorrect, Helen admitted to herself, remembering the strange world of the wood, but she was not delicate and if Lord Fitzroy was in any way profligate, he certainly did a fine job of hiding it.

  He had never stated his intention of courtship either, yet a strange courtship it was, for he took her driving in the park and spoke politely with her in the parlour, and then he showed her the lush green of his world around the hills, and across streams and little rivers. He presented her with books of spellcraft and listened to her explain the intricacies of the magic of needles and thread.

  “No good will come of this! The man is a rakehell – must be!” Rowland declared while he and Helen were seated by a window overlooking the garden, caught up in a game of chess. Helen had always been very good at chess, but Rowland insisted on challenging her none the less.

  “Nonsense! Don’t think I don’t know that much worse could be said of your Cambridge chums, brother. And I am not some bit of muslin.”

  Rowland flushed at that. “I did not –”

  “You did, indeed. But it won’t answer trying to frighten me – you know that I have never been missish.”

  “Perhaps. But you know what this house is, where it is. If I didn’t know better, I’d think your Lord Fitzroy was…”

  He did not need to finish the sentence. There was some knowledge, an inexplicable, uncanny flash of instinct, that came of living their whole lives so close to a fairy hill. Helen shivered a little, thinking of that sharper world she’d seen. Her hand unconsciously touched her grandmother’s string of enchanted pearls, which were smooth and reassuringly familiar.

  But magic had always been a wild thing, and to turn away from it in favour of getting to enjoy a Season in Town, and perhaps making a good match, was absurd. Helen could no more turn away from it than she could change the nature of Arbour House and its long history.

  When she walked in the park alone, the pearl necklace hidden under a lace fichu and a fringed Turkey-dyed shawl, she began to see others there. People belonged in the beam of light, the grain of bark and tint of shadow as she never would – and so she became almost a trespasser on her own father’s land.

  Some ignored her, while others greeted her with ebony eyes and mad rhymes about dark towers and crowns of bone. Whether they were spouting prophesy or threat she could not be certain, though she accepted their words and gave ritual thanks using phrases she had never heard before.

  They called Helen ‘the witch of Arbour House’, which was of course extremely silly: she was no witch, but the gently-bred daughter of the local country squire. All she had ever done was imagine tales, play in old costumes in dusty rooms and meddle a little in the needle magic which even her mother and aunt, who were not of Arbour House by birth, could command with ease.

  *

  The next time she met Lord Fitzroy on one of her walks, Helen did not realise that she’d been looking for him until she’d already found him. He did not bother with the charade of arriving through the front gate: he merely appeared across a stream from her and she was obliged to take his gloved hand in hers to cross it. This sudden contact caused her to feel a shiver of something just out of reach – magic, surely. Real magic.

  Through the trees, they could easily catch sight of the house, a mixture of three hundred years of architecture and a bit of Norman wall in the kitchens.

  “It is a very fine old house, Miss Eversley,” His Lordship observed by way of greeting.

  Helen nodded and explained about the Norman wall.

  His dark eyes lingered on the darker windows, which did not seem to let in the magic light of his land.

  “There was always something there, even before your Norman wall was constructed by a conquering baron who did not live to see it finished.”

  “The church is Pre-Norman,” she murmured. The church and parsonage, squat grey buildings of a strange stone not commonly found in the area, were situated fifteen minutes from the house, along a winding muddy lane. They sat immutably next to a wide field where Helen and her brothers would sometimes play battledore or cricket.

  “So it is, though it is still not as old as the house and the hills beyond. And the blood that runs through those who are master of it. The blood is the oldest thing of all.”

  Helen looked up and saw the strange urgency about him. She took in his impeccable coat, his neat cravat, and wondered what it was that made him so unlike anything else she had ever known.

  “The witch of Arbour House?”

  A nod. “They used arbours to select priests in the old days, did you know? Of course that had been done by blood and hunt and sword. But these are enlightened times, and just the blood of your line would suffice.”

  Rowland’s warnings came back to her with a shiver. Not the foolish warnings about Lord Fitzroy and his dastardly intentions, but the ones meant to keep her from becoming fast and infamous. Certainly, the witch of Arbour House would not be welcomed among the select society of London or Bath, if she were ever to finally venture beyond the boundaries of Hillbury. It would not be proper.

  There was something utterly compelling about Lord Fitzroy: the way he spoke, perhaps, or the way he looked at her, or the way he handed her over muddy streams and mossy logs, so that she would not sully her lavender muslin or ruin her soft leather half-boots.

  “I do not think being a witch is an option at all in these enlightened times,” Helen pointed out. “It would be exactly the thing to bring a lady to ruin. Witches do not hold fashionable salons in Town or dance at Almack’s Assembly rooms.”

  “Don’t they? Perhaps you ought to look again. But this is not a question of Assembly rooms. It is a question of boundaries: yours and mine, Arbour House and the Arbour beyond.”

  Helen thought about this. “There are none that I can see.”

  “They have grown porous in this place, but boundaries must be kept and repaired. It has long been the way of neighbours to do joint repair work.”

  They crossed a clearing then, and Lord Fitzroy warned her away from a tentative ring of mushrooms. Helen wondered if perhaps it had been she who had helped him over the streams as much as he did her.

  “There is a reason then, why my family has always kept these lands. Through all the conquests, upheavals and massacres that have coloured English history.”

  “It was laid upon you, long ago, to guard the hills and watch them. To keep people from straying too far, and the borders from fraying like old muslin.”

  “Which people is it that I am meant to keep from straying?”

  “Ah.” He smiled at her then, and she watched the light ebb and flow from his eyes.

  She had read many books that offered wards and warnings to keep out the fair folk with their bright gazes and beautiful voices. Books that detailed the horrors that lay on the other side, their cunning and cruelty, and the many terrible things that followed closely on their heels. Helen’s father kept such books strictly for the sake of anthropology – for that was a science he respected. She had never been expected to believe these tomes and she saw no reason to change that now.

  There was cruelty in Lord Fitzroy of course, she had seen hints of it sometimes in the twist of a smile, but she had also seen good humour, regret and melancholy. She thought about his eyes, found she could not quite remember them and had to look again for reference.

  The next time they met was in the green parlour of Arbour House and they were quite alone but for the open door. A valet had served coffee and a plate of biscuits, and departed. Helen saw His Lordship’s eyes stray to the piano and music flood across his face. She asked his name before she could forget to and his opaque eyes fell on her, narrowing th
oughtfully. It was a rude thing to ask – but surely the whole situation was so far beyond the pale that if he should take offence at a name he was very much the fool.

  Lord Fitzroy appeared extremely high in the instep a moment, drawing darkness around him like a cloak, and she felt the thrill of danger in the air. His kind did not take well to being asked their names. His dark hair almost seemed to stand on end, like kelp under water.

  Helen looked steadily back and waited, ignoring the sudden urge to run, the metallic scent of danger. The air felt suddenly thick and heavy, like it did just before a thunderstorm.

  In that moment it became clear that he knew that she had understood at last. There would be a price exacted for this new understanding.

  “My name?” he echoed. “But Mrs Greene had told it you, Miss Eversley, at her ball.”

  “A name, certainly. And a clever name, ‘Fitzroy,’ for you are not quite king in this land, though you are king in yours. And I happen to know that ‘Alveric’ means ‘ruler of the elves’, which is hardly an answer. But it is your other name that I should like, if I am to listen to you talk of blood and bonds.”

  Helen still felt that tingle of foreboding, that slight shiver of fear that she might be getting into things quite above her touch. But she didn’t have time for forebodings.

  “Mine, as you know, is Helen. Miss Helen Eversley of Arbour House, as my calling cards will tell you, and ‘Ellen’ to Rowland, and sometimes to Francis and Tom also, though they know how much I dislike being called that.”

  She wondered absently when it was that she had occasioned to fall in love with so strange a creature, and why. It had been a brazen, unladylike thing to do, giving him her name like that. Rowland would have been appalled. It was fortunate that he was out of the house and could not barge into the parlour to glare and be unpleasant.

  “You know…” the King of Elfland said at last, no longer quite Lord Fitzroy.

  “Quite. There is little to do at Arbour House when the weather is dreary, and I have been indulging in some reading.”

  He nodded: a swift, sharp gesture in acknowledgement of their understanding, and said a name, just once, that made the room suddenly still, as though it hung suspended on the edge of time.

  “I have had many names – but that is the first, and most significant.”

  Then he moved to the piano, his every step flowing like water, and Helen wondered how he meant to address her father about this new breathless understanding between them.

  *

  “But he is from across the border! I know he is, whatever mortal titles he may give himself,” said Rowland for the tenth time that night. “Father, surely you cannot.”

  They were in the library – Sir Frederic Eversley’s bastion of reason and learning. Francis was writing to Miss Greene, Tom was out driving and Lady Eversley was seated calmly on the settee in her carriage dress, prepared to set out for Town, while Sir Frederic informed his daughter of Lord Fitzroy’s formal request to address her.

  Sir Frederic levelled a warning glance at his youngest son. “Well now, my boy, I will thank you not to indulge in any more Cheltenham tragedies. I have no taste for theatre – or magic.”

  Rowland flushed and quieted. Helen felt a little guilty because, of course, she now knew that magic was a very real thing, and she loved her brother even when he was being utterly dreadful.

  “I told the gentleman that I shall consider the matter and speak to my daughter, who after all is not chattel. I am not in dun territory to auction you to the highest bidder, my dear, and would not even then.”

  Helen was surprised by His Lordship’s show of going about things the right way, and assured her parent that she would indeed be pleased to be formally addressed.

  “Ah, good, good!” said the squire, pleased that things had gone smoothly. “Seems a sensible fellow.”

  “A special licence is certainly nothing to frown upon,” added Lady Eversley practically. “And Helen does seem to have taken to the boy better than she ever did to poor Mr Tunwich.”

  “Or Gransby,” said Rowland irritably. “And he is a peer of fine human lineage!”

  “And a most odious character,” Helen retaliated. “I have tolerated your former school fellows, Rowland, because you seem to like them for strange reasons of your own, but I beg that you do try to foist one on me in matrimony.”

  Rowland scowled at his sister while Sir Frederic and Lady Eversley departed.

  Left alone, Helen and Rowland may just have come to quarrel yet again had Francis not distracted them by proposing that, once Tom had returned, they venture out to the green by the church, and settle their differences in a game of battledore.

  The sky hung grey and low above when they finally got to the green, and put up a net for the game. It was so much like the many games they had played before that Rowland seemed to forget that he was being unpleasant.

  They teased Tom about his nuptials and Francis about his letters to Miss Greene. There was no one else about and thankfully the vicar did not come out to speak to them. Their laughter carried far across the lawns.

  It was Rowland, who had always been good at games, who hit the shuttle so that it flew high over Helen’s head and over the church, like a frantic bird. They waited a moment, staring after it, as though expecting it to come flying back.

  “Clumsy oaf!” laughed Tom, “what were you thinking?”

  “I’d rather know how he did that!” exclaimed Francis admiringly, moving to fetch the shuttle. “It’s gone right over.”

  Closest to the church, Helen waved him away and turned to do it herself, while Rowland basked in the adulation of his older brothers.

  Her mind must have been elsewhere, however, as she hurried after the shuttle, circling the church around the left, where she would not have to clamber over the rickety graveyard. She had just time enough to hear her brothers call her name, sounding panicked. Turning, she saw Rowland move towards her, and the next moment she had stepped out of the world and into another, where in place of the church stood a dark tower in a grand courtyard. She heard bells and hooves, and saw familiar eyes filled with apology and regret.

  Too late she remembered the warnings about circling a church widdershins, but with so many rules to follow how could one possibly hope to remember everything? Helen thought, annoyed.

  The eyes that held hers in thrall so effortlessly were surprised. “Miss Eversely? Helen?”

  “Oh dear,” she said, with wry amusement. “It is fortunate that you have thought to offer for me, because I think I have been compromised – visiting a gentleman at home is never the thing for ladies of the quality. Even if that home is in another world. Besides, it is a shame I won’t be able to finish the game, for I was certain we would win.”

  “Game?”

  “We were about some battledore on the green.”

  She scooped up the white shuttle off the ground and Fitzroy looked at it curiously.

  “You did not mean to come here?”

  “I circled the wrong way around a church. And now I expect Rowland will follow, barging in and being heroic. It would be just in his style to find a white hart you know, and an enchanted shawn or trumpet to charm his way into fairyland. He will certainly feel compelled to come and rescue me – a magical disappearance into your clutches is even worse than a flight to Gretna Green. But before he arrives to make a fuss, perhaps I had better tell you that you did fine work with all your talk of dukedoms, special licenses and pin money, and Papa is quite won over.”

  “You are strangely undisturbed,” he replied, gesturing around him. “You know what circling widdershins means.”

  “That you are magic-bound to collect. Yes, but as I had meant to accept you all the same, I don’t see how it signifies. Won’t you offer me a walk while we wait?”

  She made him tell her of the way Rowland would likely have take to find them, and she knew that her brother would arrive in a state.

  Forests and rivers he would have to cross, cl
imb mountains cruel and jagged and wade through several miles of steel thistles, which were nothing if not traditional.

  “Seven, at least,” the king said with a sideways glance at her.

  “Oh dear. I suppose that is what he gets for interfering. But he really does mean well, you know. He’ll be quite insufferable when he does get here. Have you ever played battledore?”

  *

  Rowland arrived shortly after, looking righteously outraged and tired, bearing their grandfather’s sword and an enchanted tambour. Elf tests are never easy, Helen thought, taking in his weary appearance.

  “Hello! I thought you might be along soon,” she said stepping away from the king and holding out the shuttle.

  Rowland’s eyes went to the innocuous thing, so strange in a realm of dusk and wild magic. Then his eyes went to the man he knew as Lord Fitzroy.

  “This, sir, is an outrage. You have abducted my sister and now you must answer by facing me at dawn,” he declared.

  “It is already dawn,” Helen said, suddenly angry. She feelt the Arbour House witch within her, sparking to life with her sudden fury. “It is always dawn here, and I won’t have any duels in my name. You have some nerve, Rowland, when I know all about your London adventures. Well, I choose to have adventures of my own now. And Lord Fitzroy, don’t you dare accept or I shall break with you, magic and boundaries be damned. Whichever of you should win any such absurd engagement, I assure you, you will both lose. I won’t be a prize for the claiming.”

  “Ellen –” Rowland looked hurt and offended. His fair hair, which had fallen into his eyes, made him look extremely young and earnest.

  “No. I will thank you to enact your heroics elsewhere, Rowland. You may even write of them, if you please. You meant well in your quest, but I tire of being hounded, and I shall make my own choices now and tell my own tales. I shall live here, I think, with Lord Fitzroy, and it will be the easiest thing in the world – what could be easier than travelling by ether and ectoplasm? It is but a step out of this world and into ours – barely a thought, really. So I shall live here one day, in this dark tower, and be happy. But not right now. It is very good of you to have come to fetch me – we have a game to finish, after all.”