Page 36 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)
His dark hair is replaced by a familiar shade, his shoulders different, no more cool rings where his fingers are too tight around the back of my neck.
“ Maybe you should show me the way into Faerie,” Blain tells me, and my scarred hand connects with his face in a sharp streak of pain.
A soft wolf wail has my eyes opening. My shoulder hurts from staying huddled on one side of Una’s little bed, a piece of straw poking me through the cloth of the mattress. My hand is tucked under my leg, fallen asleep under the weight of my body and aching. I ease it out and wiggle my fingers.
If I would just return home and sleep in my own bed, there’d be much more room. Silly woman.
I’m glad I didn’t.
Rolling onto my other side, I rest my cheek against Una’s back, her warmth comforting.
I haven’t dreamt of such things in a long time.
Feeling particularly miserable and wishing the remnants would leave my mind, I wiggle out from under the covers.
Spring has fully turned to the beginnings of summer, and in nothing but a nightgown and bare feet, I’m not cold.
In fact, I was too hot beneath the covers.
Creeping into the kitchen, I dig out yesterday’s milk and warm some over the remnants of the stove.
Another wolf howls, low and lonely. They are quite a different noise from the sounds of the hunt hounds, and I find them wonderfully comforting in comparison.
Leaning over the sink, I glance out the window, at the moon well on its way to becoming full, listening to the crickets.
I wonder if Aidyn is a restless sleeper or if, like Una, he lies dead as a log through the whole night without so much as a rolling over.
Do fae sleep the same as humans? All bundled up under blankets, curled into a ball when they’re cold or stretched out when they’re too warm.
He certainly has enough blankets, and even more now that I’ve taken to bringing him supplies.
It is a silly thing to picture. I imagine I shall never know, for Faerie is not a safe place at night—less safe than usual, at least. Still, I can daydream.
Another wolf howls, slightly closer this time. We have all our livestock up for the night, and the guard dogs are curled on their porches, so I’m not worried about our cow or chickens. It’s been ages since a wolf or fox managed to do any damage here—
A scream rends the air, a low otherworldly wail of a sound.
Jumping, I knock the steaming milk from the stove, sending the pot and its contents scattering across the floorboards.
Cold crawls across my bones and under my skin, and I stay ducked behind the counter, unable to move myself into standing.
It lasts too long for any living creature, then warbles into silence before starting again. Closer. Much closer. I force myself to look out the window, over the edge of the counter, to grab the shutters and turn them closed before I can glimpse whatever cursed thing I may see.
“ Niamh!” cries Olivia, flinging herself toward me, grasping my shoulders, trembling beneath her nightgown. I grab her hands where they dig into my muscles. “ What is it?”
“ I don’t know—”
Another scream, and she’s hugging me closer before fleeing to her children in their beds. Dogs bark outside, and Una’s father, Andrew, joins me at the counter, rubbing sleep from his face. “ Did you see anything?”
“ No, I was too frightened to look.”
His hand goes to my shoulder as everything falls quiet.
Outside, a few panicked voices are yelling in confusion, then fall quiet as well, the whole village listening.
Una scurries in beside us, her mother and sister just behind, the five of us huddling in the kitchen, not knowing what to do.
Andrew’s hand drifts carefully to the massive hunting bow always sitting by the door, but he doesn’t pick it up.
I glance at Una, and her eyes meet mine.
Fae , she mouths. We’ve both been thinking it, and I wonder exactly what could’ve caused such a noise.
It is not the hunt hounds—I’d know the sharp pierce of their bark anywhere.
Perhaps it is the wildcat, another of its kind, but Aidyn spoke of how he’d only ever seen one other grown, they are so rare.
What else could it be?
“ I’ve never heard anything of the like, Andrew,” Olivia whispers.
“ I know,” he murmurs in return.
Una ’s hand slips into mine.
For a long few minutes, there is no other sound. Even the dogs have gone quiet.
The next wail is so close I imagine it beside the border of the village.
Swearing, Andrew runs to bolt the other windows—no, he’s throwing them open to look outside.
Una does the same with the one over the counter, and I cannot help but join her, crawling atop it to press my face to the glass over her head.
I don’t dare open the window itself, just gaze past the misted warped glass.
Shadows flicker through the trees along the border of the woods.
Squinting, I imagine seeing the top of the library over the hill and through the forest.
The Keepers?
I find my feet back on the cool planks of wood, flying to Una’s room and the steps to the attic along the wall.
Pressing up into the cold loft, hearing Una calling after me, I push through the slats of thatched roof and into the night air, crawling up the rough grass to crouch beside the warm bricks of the chimney.
More shadows flicker along the edges of the trees, not the shapes of the hounds... not yet.
The dogs have taken up their barking, voices growing in panic.
A fourth piercing wail begins, like a warble of an otherworldly bird, a trill fleeing across the landscape—three rapid barks that barely have time to send fear piercing my heart before they are cut sharp and dead.
My breath hitches. Still, I do not see much more than shadows.
A few houses down, someone else has gotten the same idea and crawled onto the roof, drawn by the sounds, unable to resist. Even more are opening their windows, throwing salt onto the sills and before their doors, wards against monsters.
I search for Niall in the few people who’ve stepped outside and cannot find him, relieved he is inside and safer.
My fingers grow chill against the hot stones, my breath fogging before my lips. It is not so cold, not in the dead of summer.
A hound stands in the grass between the trees and the edge of the village.
It is not looking at me, it cannot be, but I am frozen, unmoving.
Aidyn was right.
They did not leave—they have been haunting these trees all this time.
What if . . .
He didn’t realize there are more... What if he stepped outside the library at night?
He could be gone, and I wouldn’t realize.
A sudden urge to flee through the trees to find him claws up my chest, and I wrap my arms about the heat of the chimney, clutching myself in place. Tears burn my eyes. The hunt hound stands rigid among the grasses.
Something shimmers, as if the air is a rippling heat wave in the hottest of midday sun.
A figure is there beside it at once, a billow of long dark hair and thin limbs, graceful in the hips and shoulders.
In the slivers of moonlight suddenly flooded by clouds, a female face is visible, long and large eyed and nothing resembling human.
Her hand is raised, the other cradling a long blade.
Her mouth is open. The word is the long hollow wail of sound.
The beast’s vivid barks clash against it, its feet spread, the two glaring each other down.
The air ripples. It pounces. A rough cry jumps from my throat, my hand clapping over my mouth a moment later.
Its feet come to a skidding stop mere inches from the woman, a posturing dog against a much wilder wolf.
Its shadow mingles with hers in closeness.
She does not step back, her hand unmoving, lips spread wide in sound. Another figure behind the hound, and it is ribbons of black shadow among the grass.
More hounds and more figures in the trees.
The male joins the woman, his hand passing against her shoulder. Her wail does not cease. Her face turns toward the village and slightly up. From here, I see her pale lips open in their strange song, her bright eyes directly on mine. Hand slipping from my mouth, I am unable to blink.
She cocks her head at me, and the ear-shattering song ceases.
A few rustles in the edges of the trees, and they are gone.
I rest my cheek against the hot bricks, smearing the tears on my cheeks, breath coming in gasps.
Gone.