Page 10

Into Faerie

I rushed to the gate, calling my sister’s name.

“ My lady !” shouted Sir Oswain. “ My horse !”

His handsome white steed had taken fright, cantering away into the mist with a thuddin g of hooves like a muffled drumbeat .

“ Ablican!” Sir Oswain called, running a few strides after the lost horse.

A new voice called out from the mist—“Miss Lily! Are you there?”

Jack emerged from the green haze, his lanky frame swaying like a young aspen.

“Found ’em!” he called back over his shoulder.

A rope was tied around his waist, trailing behind him. Moments later, his brother followed, his hand grasping the line of rope to navigate his way.

“Have you seen Rose?” I demanded, relieved to see the brothers but unsure how much help they could be.

“The lady Rose?” said Jack.

“She’s been taken!”

“By who?” said Jory .

“A woman in a hood and cloak!”

“I will find her!” declared Sir Oswain, returning horseless. “Have you a mount?”

The brothers started at his voice.

“You!” said Jory in dismay.

“You!” Sir Oswain retorted. “Have you any part in this malevolence? If you do, I swear I—”

“He had no part in it!” I interrupted, moving between them. “He has been a friend to us.”

Sir Oswain gave a snort of disbelief. “That man is friend to none but his own interests! He is a thief and a sneak and a traitor !”

“Unfair!” protested Jory.

“Jory’s no traitor,” cried Jack.

“Any man attempting to break into the royal treasury is a traitor!”

“I did not break into the royal treasury.”

“Because you did not succeed! But you were seen—and you are a wanted man!” Sir Oswain’s hand moved to the short sword at his side.

“It must be someone who has my likeness,” argued Jory. “I am innocent.”

“Innocent? Have you not skulked about my camp these past days?”

“Not skulked, sir. Only surveying the terrain.”

“Have you not pilfered from my supplies, you thief?”

“I do not pilfer, sir. I merely relieved you of more food than you needed. It was but a morsel.”

“It was a half-barrel of wayfarer bread!”

“Nay, sir,” remonstrated Jory. “Not so much as that.”

“Never mind bread,” I snapped. “Rose has been carried away!” I rounded on Sir Oswain. “You should not have tempted her beyond the protection of the gate! ”

He looked ashamed, as well he ought. Bowing stiffly, he said, “I will recover her. Fear not.” His gaze swept over the mist. “Only… I do not know how I will find my way without a horse.”

“We’ll find her!” promised Jack.

Jory frowned. “She was taken by a woman, you say? A mortal?”

“A woman, yes,” I said. “But what mortal could find their way in this?”

Jack’s eyes widened. “A sorceress, or some such?”

“Perhaps.”

“Where would she take her?”

“Into Faerie,” said Jory. “Where else?”

“Then we must follow,” said Jack.

“You are not fit to loose the lady’s shoe,” said Sir Oswain, still glaring at Jory, “let alone go after her.”

“Perhaps you wish to go alone, sir,” I suggested, feeling exasperated at all this needless delay. “Though I would advise against it. But you shall not keep me from searching for my sister, and the sons of Jago shall aid me”

Sir Oswain was silent a moment. But he released his sword hilt, as though realising the truth of my words; it would be folly to go into Faerie alone.

“I am ready,” said Jack.

“As am I,” said Sir Oswain. “With or without a mount. Though I wish very much I had one.”

“We’ll need more than a horse to find the way in this pease-pudding fog,” said Jory.

I glanced at Jack’s waist. “What is your rope secured to?”

“Our tree,” said Jack. “Jory’s idea. He has good ideas.”

“Can anything be seen from the tree?”

Jack shook his head .

“The entrance to Faerie is due north,” I said.

“And how will we know which way is north,” asked Jory, “when we have no sunlight?”

“I have a box compass,” said Sir Oswain.

This was good news.

Sir Oswain groaned. “It is in my horse’s saddlebag.”

“A pity,” I murmured, thinking hard. “There is another way. Lead us to the tree, Jack, and hurry! Every passing moment carries Rose farther away.”

“ Hurry , hurry !” cried the jackdaw from somewhere in the mist.

I turned toward its voice, though I could not see it. “Find Mother!” I begged. “Tell her Rose is gone!”

“ Hurry , hurry ! Gone , gone !”

The roses behind me trembled, their thorns sharp with agitation. But Rose and I were beyond their reach.

I still held Rose’s wreath, and jammed it tightly on my head to mingle with my own roses. A determined gust of wind sent a shower of red and white petals cascading down over me; I put out a hand and caught some, thrusting them into the pocket of my gown.

As I walked away I caught the sound of a faint bray from Jenny, and a chorus of bleats from our goats. Their voices were eerie and distant. I hoped with all my heart we would return to them quickly.

Jack led the way, his rope our guide. We made an odd caravan, each holding onto the next person so none was lost to the blinding mist. We reached the tree, and Jack untied the knot at his waist. Sir Oswain eyed it, saying, “That rope looks suspiciously like the coil that vanished from my camp supplies.”

“One rope looks much the same as another,” said Jory airily. “I will… er… also fetch the sack of supplies I have pack ed. It will not do to get caught short of food. Dangerous thing, fae food.”

“A sack of wayfarer bread, perhaps?” said Sir Oswain, but Jory was already climbing the tree. He returned with his pack slung over one shoulder, and a second pack for Jack.

“What do we do now, Miss Lily?” said Jack, as he adjusted the straps of his pack.

I pulled off my shoes. “Take off your boots. All of you.”

“My boots?” said Sir Oswain. “Walk barefoot like a peasant?”

“There is a spring that flows out of Faerie just a few steps away. We shall follow it.”

“Why can’t we follow in our boots?” said Jack.

“Because it runs underground. The ground above it is damp. We’ll feel the path under our feet.”

“You may walk barefoot,” said Sir Oswain, “but I shall follow. In my boots.”

“As will I,” said Jory.

Jack was already unlacing his patched-up boots. I thanked him for his fellowship in damp feet and tied his laces together so he could sling his boots across his shoulder. We set forth, I leading the way, feeling the cool, dampness between my toes.

“Is this it?” Jack sounded disappointed.

I perched on a rock, retying my shoes onto my damp feet. “What did you expect?”

Jack shrugged. “Something… magical.”

We knew the moment we crossed the border, for the veil of green mist ended abruptly as we stepped out of our kingdom and into the other realm.

“Looks the same as it does on the other side,” Jack said. “But without the fog.”

At first glance, the woodland glade did look the same, although the carpet of starry yellow flowers was far brighter and more prolific than anything on our side.

“Look again,” I said.

Jack turned slowly, drawn to a tree with an unusual patterned trunk. He reached out—then yelped as a cloud of winged creatures, something like moths but with the temper of disturbed wasps, burst out at him.

I couldn’t help laughing as the tree sprites scolded and pinched him. But my laughter turned to a yelp of my own as the stone I sat on shifted beneath me, rising up and tipping me onto the woodland floor.

I scrambled away as the stone faerie straightened, glaring at me for my impudence.

“I beg your pardon, sir!” I said, recalling from our books on Faerie lore how quickly a stone faerie could crush one if offended. I hurried to rise, pulling from my wreath a white rose, holding it out like an offering. “Please accept a gift from the queen’s own rose garden.”

This checked the advance of the faerie. Its stony joints grated as it lowered its fist of pebbles, and it tilted its head to study my wreaths of roses. Then it bowed stiffly, speaking in a deep and gravelly rumble.

“It would be an honour to have a Daughter of the Rose Crown rest any part of herself upon me.”

I curtsied, trying to emulate Rose’s grace, and tucked the rose into a crack in the faerie’s stone chest, all the while wondering at its strange address.

The tree sprites ceased from harassing Jack, and flitted over at the sight of the roses. I offered them the petals from my pocket, and they accepted, declaring in their thin, high voices that they would not have bitten the mortal had they known whose servant he was.

“Servant?” Jack muttered, rubbing his cheek where small, angry teeth marks were welling up.

Jory laughed at his brother, but Sir Oswain was more interested in the effect of my roses.

“Daughter of the Rose Crown,” he said, looking at me closely for the first time. “Who are you that you should bear such a title?” He examined my white hair and my fae roses. “Are you of fae bloodline?”

I hesitated, for in trying to answer the question I felt that familiar sensation of a veil over my memory.

“Perhaps,” I said, though I doubted it. I had great affinity with the influences of Faerie, but only because I had grown up on the border. I certainly had no magic.

“And your sister?” he said slowly, revealing the cause of his troubled expression.

“Perhaps,” I repeated, evasively.

I knew what troubled him. He could not marry a fae bride. Marriage between mortals and fae was forbidden. The fae sometimes abducted mortals into marriages, but that was a fate worse than death.

“They’ve no more fae blood in them than your horse, sire,” said Jory.

I rounded on him. “What do you know?”

Jory shrugged. “I know mortal girls when I meet them. But that dame you call Mother… I’m not so sure about her.”

Sir Oswain stiffened. “If the mother is fae, then it follows the daughters are. ”

Jory snorted. “She’s no more their birth mother than she is yours, sire.”

Sir Oswain and I glared at him, saying in unison—“ How dare you ?”

Jory lifted his hands in surrender. “ Is she your birth mother?” he challenged. “She’s not a whit like you.”

Everyone now looked at me. I could not answer.