Page 12 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire

On we walk, nameless and silent, but at least not alone.

I don’t know who the soldier is—or even what—but he keeps the creatures at bay, so he has at least one use.

It’s cold comfort. I was an hour behind my sister when we started and now she must be hours ahead.

A whole day, maybe. She could have reached the king and entered herself as a champion by now—could already be racing ahead to her own death in Y Lle Tywyll.

This is wasting time I could use to catch up with her; but without the soldier, or Neirin, I’m completely vulnerable.

The best I can do is stick by the soldier for now, though fear for Ceridwen churns in my stomach.

I wonder where Neirin is and why he hasn’t come after me.

We make camp in a grove of pear trees. Lights gather in clusters on the horizon as a nearby village sleepwalks into the end of day.

From afar it doesn’t look too different from my Wales.

The roofs are slate, the walls are gray, chimneys billow.

Distant outlines of figures move between homes and businesses.

Perhaps among them there’s a girl like me, but with pointed ears and cat’s eyes, selling bat wings and toad tongues in their general store.

I wonder if she’s happy there—I wonder where she dreams of going if she’s not.

The soldier plucks a pear from a tree, tosses it to me, then takes one for himself.

“Eat,” he orders.

I shake my head despite my growing hunger pangs. “My dad always said we shouldn’t eat their food.”

He bites a pear. “This is a forest. No one owns the forest.”

“You’re sure?”

“You’re not making it to the king on an empty stomach.”

I shrug in reluctant agreement. “Why camp so close to the village if they don’t like you?”

“The creatures that live in the towns are ordinary. Just like back home, the further you get from civilization, the stranger the things you find in the dark become. You must have realized by now that we can’t see half of what’s going on here.”

I swallow but my mouth remains dry. “We only see them if they want us to.”

“Some of the less… clever ones can’t quite hide themselves. Still, they’re smart enough not to go near the towns, so it’s safer to sleep close by,” he says, then pauses. “And… I like the lights.”

I eat two pears and gather kindling without straying far.

I return to our makeshift camp, build a fire.

He murmurs his thanks and we huddle on opposite sides of it.

The soldier sits too close to the flames but never stops shivering.

Shadows dance across his face. One half looks impossibly young, the other old and battle-weary.

He lies down after a while, arms pillowing his head. His long coat pulls up, revealing the mottled mess of his torso and the knife holstered at his side.

“You have a knife?” I ask, trying not to sound too curious.

He grunts in response. “It’s not pure iron, if that’s where this is going.”

It was. I shrug and make fast work of another pear.

“Can I hold it?” I say around a mouthful.

The soldier ignores me for a moment, then pushes himself up on tired arms and passes the knife to me. It’s a crude weapon, fast-made and ready to kill.

“It’s heavy.”

He pulls up his knees, braces his arms across them. “It should be.”

“Why?” My eyes track to his, but he only gives me his profile.

“You know why.”

Truthfully, I don’t. I probably will later but here, now, I’ve only ever thrown punches and bitten arms to defend myself or my sister.

“How do you use it?” I slice the blade purposefully through the air.

“It’s a bayonet; it can be attached to a rifle,” the soldier explains stiffly. “If the gun fails, you run ’em through.”

“Sharp bit goes in enemy.”

He gives a bitter laugh. The dried crust of red on the blade catches the firelight. This doesn’t feel like a curiosity any more. I set it aside on the grass and neither of us reaches for the hilt.

“I never wanted to fight in the first place,” he says. “When they started losing the war, they sent anyone who could stand.”

“Who’s they?” I ask.

“Kitchener.” He shrugs. “The recruiter. Their king, our king. Every able lad from Llanadwen signed up or got called.”

He’s from Llanadwen. My heart sinks at the realization. He could be related to someone I know, but I can’t bring myself to ask.

“King?” I question.

He meets my eyes, exhaustion evident in his gaze. He doesn’t want to talk about this, but he answers anyway.

“I left 1918 behind,” he says.

My head feels full to the brim, close to bursting. If there are humans from every era running around, no wonder the teg I’ve met so far all seem a little bit mad.

“And there will be a war?”

The soldier nods rigidly. “With more to come, or so I’ve been told.

” He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.

“Lord Branshaw encouraged every lad in the valley to sign up. That’s how I ended up in France.

I went over the top many times. Last time, I didn’t make it back.

I was lying in the mud and then I smelled something like home.

You know how Wales smells. That clean, sharp air, and the earth and coal underneath.

I lifted my head and there’s a forest. Green as the valley; green as home.

And, somehow, I got up. I walked into the tree line and now I can’t get out again.

I never stop bleeding, but I can’t die. I’m stuck. ”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? You get to live.”

“Is this living?” He stares at his hands. “I need to get back.”

“You’ll die, surely.”

The soldier finally meets my eyes and there’s a certainty there that shouldn’t belong to one so young. “People aren’t meant to be stuck.”

I think of Ceridwen sick in her room, Gran living every day of her life in the same house, always waiting for her sister to come home.

Dad never leaving the mine—not really, not even when the bell rings, because a part of him is trapped down there.

My mind even wanders to the Branshaws, and their generations of eldest sons all with the same name, attending the same schools, living and dying in the same big house.

And I think of me, just down the road, behind the counter at the local shop.

Same customers every day. Same things to sell.

Knowing there is so much world out there and it can never be mine.

“What did you want to be?” I ask.

“A musician,” he says without hesitation. “I play the violin. What about you?”

“I don’t know—no one’s asked me that before.”

“Why not?”

“There’s expectations.” I shrug, looking toward the village lights.

“I wouldn’t know what to be anyway. Clever girls become teachers, don’t they?

I don’t have the patience and I’m starting to think I’m maybe not that clever.

” A small laugh escapes me. “I always wanted to leave home. First time I did was to watch a bunch of toffs in wigs condemn my dad. Can’t see much worth in dreams if they all go wrong anyway. ”

“There’s more to life than that.”

“Not for me.”

Mother, teacher, maid. I’ve never dreamed for a minute of being a musician. I’ve never even touched a piano.

“Get some sleep,” says the soldier. He rolls onto his side, away from me.

I lie on my back, head turned to watch him as his breathing slows. Every time I shut my eyes I see the hag, my sister, Neirin. I see the forest, and the dark encroaching on every side.