Faerie Tale (10 page)

‘Of course you aren’t.’

‘I mean, that’s just what she
wants
, isn’t it?’

‘All right, all right, you’ve made your point.’

Tamar smiled, softly serious.  ‘Thank you Denny.

‘Anyway,’ she continued briskly. ‘In the meantime, we have more than enough to do here.’

They looked around them at the still maniacally dancing Faeries.  Tamar hefted her sword.

‘Let’s start with this lot then,’

* * *

‘Jacky said that this Finvarra wanted to see me, that I would be safe there.  He didn’t explain it very well, but he must have meant from – you know…
her
!’

‘Queen Onagh,’ muttered Stiles.  Then he turned sternly to Cindy.  ‘That …
creature
isn’t Jacky you know.’

Cindy dropped her eyes.  I know,’ she said quietly.  ‘But I don’t know what else to call him.’

‘It,’ corrected Stiles. 

Cindy shuddered.  ‘Don’t!’ she begged.  ‘I mean, I fed him, bathed him, sang him to sleep.  I can’t think about … not now.’

Stiles relented.  ‘Not now then,’ he agreed. 

‘Perhaps we should find this Finvarra,’ suggested Cindy after a short silence.

‘That’ll be awkward,’ said Stiles.  ‘He’s dead.’

* * *

Hecaté had slowly pieced together, from the changeling’s ramblings, the following facts. (Always assuming it was telling the truth, and Hecaté was not taking anything on faith)

One: that the changeling was not a part of the Faerie Queen’s court, and he had been born in
this
world.

Two: he had been placed with Cindy by King Finvarra (whoever
he
was) to watch over her when the King had discovered that the Faerie Queen had returned.  He did not know how the king knew that the Queen would go after Cindy, but somehow he did. Cindy’s real baby was safe with King Finvarra; only the king knew where he was.

Three: having been brought up by Cindy for  the last two years, he thought of her as his real mother and was desperately unhappy that the Queen had got her. 

Four:  the Queen was going to kill Cindy.

Five: King Finvarra was going to be furious when he found out.

Six: Denny was also in unspecified danger from the Queen.  That was why he had bitten his leg, to keep him from going back into the forest.  But it had not worked. And now everyone had gone, and it was all Tamar’s fault – he did not like Tamar, she was hard like iron.  (Hecaté thought this was a little unfair although she could see what he meant)

Having got all this sorted out, Hecaté decided that she had no choice but to go herself with the changeling (who, if he was telling the truth, she decided, she and the others had seriously misunderstood) into the forest. 

Hecaté was not afraid of Faeries, having indeed, a store of supernatural powers of her own, not, in fact, dissimilar in origin to that which the Faeries themselves wielded.  Of course, she was not as powerful as Tamar, but she felt that, should she need to, she could hold her own. 

She found that she was actually looking forward to it.  It had been too long since she had been in a good fight.  Besides, Cindy was her subject.  It was her responsibility to protect and guide witches.  Cindy was also her friend.  Whichever way you looked at it, there was no getting out of it. 

She concentrated, reaching out with her mind until she located Cindy’s aura (it was pink and fluffy with just a hint of mauve from the worry). Then it was just a case of moving herself into it.  It’s a god thing.

So, narrative flow being what it is – she just so happened to arrive in Cindy’s wake at that same moment that Stiles was telling her that Finvarra was dead. 

Quick as thought, Hecaté grabbed the changeling before he could fly at Stiles in fury.

It wailed in horrible, gut wrenching sorrow. 

Cindy and Stiles whipped round stunned at the terrible sound and Cindy had to grab Stiles before he could fly at the changeling.

Then suddenly all hostilities were interrupted.  The air turned cold and a strong wind bore down through the forest, sweeping the trees over like a windswept cornfield and sucking the breath from them like a vacuum.  Then there was a loud boom and silence. 

‘Uh oh,’ said the changeling.

‘What?’ asked Hecaté, who felt she now had some sort of rapport with the changeling.  ‘What is it?’

‘It’s comin’ back,’ announced the changeling.  ‘Duck!’

* * *

‘What the hell was that?’ said Denny picking himself up.

Tamar was shaking whether with fury or fear was yet to be determined, but probably the former knowing Tamar. 

‘That?’ she said. ‘That wasn’t anything.  That was just to get our attention.’

‘Well,’ said Denny. ‘It got mine all right.  It felt like the world just turned inside out.’ 

‘Sod it,’ said Tamar suddenly.  ‘I’m going home.’

‘What, why?’

‘Because
they
want me to stay here.’

* * *

‘It came from the stones,’ said Stiles.  ‘That direction,’ he pointed. 

Witches always see things the way they are.  This is because natural intuition in witches is honed so sharply, as part of their training, that it almost seems like a second sight.

 Cindy had a premonition.  ‘If we go to the stones,’ she said, reading Stiles’s thoughts, ‘it will be bad.’

Hecaté looked sharply at her. She really was a more accomplished witch than she let on at times. 

Stiles looked questioningly at Hecaté, more out of custom than anything else.  She nodded.  ‘My sister is correct,’ she said.  Cindy glowed.

Stiles shrugged.  ‘Okay then,’ he said.  ‘God knows, it’s all right with me.’

‘But where are Tamar and Denny?’ asked Hecaté.

‘We don’t know,’ said Stiles.  ‘They went to the stones but …’

‘Don’ like T’mar,’ put in the changeling.

Cindy took him from Hecaté and held him up to her face.  ‘If it wasn’t for Tamar,’ she told him.  ‘I would be dead right now.  She saved my life.’

The changeling pouted but said no more. 

‘Tamar and Denny are at home,’ said Hecaté suddenly. 

It’s a god thing.

~ Chapter Twelve ~

I
t was not so much an argument as a very loud seven sided discussion – with added misunderstandings.  Seven sided instead of five because several people, most notably Hecaté and Cindy, were changing sides at the drop of a pointy hat; and all this was accompanied by the incessant wailing of the changeling.

It was Denny who had thought to ask him what his real name was.  This was two hours into the discussion, and it really had not helped matters when the changeling had given him a bemused look and said ‘Jacky Pittencherry.’ This had set Tamar off again and begun another three cornered argument between her, Cindy and Hecaté, who were respectively against, for and neutral on the subject. 

It was never clear what began the argument in the first place – they were all on the same side surely?  But none of them ever forgot what ended it. 

In a rare lull in the shouting, Tamar thought she heard a knocking at the door.  Denny thought it was more like a desperate hammering.

They both flew to the door; Tamar won naturally and flung it open triumphantly only to be trampled down by a crowd of frantic people from the local village. 

They had come to escape the Faeries.

This was the only place they could think of that might be safe.  There had been rumours about “the house” ever since it had turned up (while of course having always been there). People said that it was a good place to come if you were in trouble.  And they were
all
in trouble now.

  Some people had gone away to the city, but they wouldn’t be any safer there, the people said darkly.  Tamar was inclined to agree.  There were lots of people still in the village, they said, locked in their homes too afraid even to come out.

Tamar decided to go and have a look.  Denny said he would go with her.  In the end, they all decided to go.

* * *

The village was dark. Every window was unlit every door fastened shut.  There was a heavy silence, not even a dog barked. 

On almost every locked door was a horseshoe.  Many front steps sported a saucer of milk. 

‘Legends,’ said Hecaté. ‘People remember through the ages, even long after the true facts are forgotten.  Nail some iron to the door or plant a rowan tree to keep out the Faeries, a saucer of milk, ha!  As if that can appease them.  As if they were cats. Even cats are not that cruel.’

‘But it’s rather like that, isn’t it?’ said Denny.  ‘Cats play with their victims – like Faeries.  Don’t you think a mouse would put out a saucer of milk for a cat if it could?’

‘And it wouldn’t do any more good than it’s doing here,’ Hecaté told him.  Faeries take the milk and then they still want their fun!’

‘Like cats.’

To Tamar, all these things told a different story.  ‘This has been going on for a while,’ she said. ‘This kind of terror doesn’t happen overnight.’

She slammed her fist into her palm. ‘We were being distracted!’ she said angrily.  ‘All that business in the forest.  It was to keep us away from
this
!  I don’t know why they bothered.’

She turned on the changeling.  ‘And what did
you
know about all this?’ she snarled.

‘Nothin’,’ he asserted.  ‘I’s for the king,’

‘He’s telling the truth,’ said Cindy defensively.

Tamar glared at the changeling for a minute; then she relaxed.  ‘He is isn’t he?’ she said.  It was the first time she had said “he” and not “it”

Suddenly, it had seemed as if the changeling had come into focus before her eyes. She saw nothing but a lost, frightened child among hostile strangers.  No wonder he had been so bad tempered and suspicious.  So what if he was a Faerie?  It’s not what you are, but how you live that is important, and Jacky had been raised by Cindy who, though she could be vain and a little dim and was often inappropriately flirtatious, yet had a stern set of values, particularly pertaining to the misuse of magical powers. Not many children have such an example.  Most parents do not have magical powers to misuse.

‘It’s worse than we thought,’ said Stiles appearing round a corner.  He sighed.  It was, it seemed, his lot in life to be the one who found the corpses.

There were not many – two or three.  One hanging from a tree, it was difficult to know whether he had been murdered or driven to suicide. 

‘It all comes to the same thing,’ said Tamar.

‘So, where are the Faeries?’ said Cindy, for once putting her finger on the nub of the matter.

‘In the woods,’ said Denny. ‘But they’ll be back.’

‘Soon, I think,’ said Stiles looking around at the deserted streets. ‘I reckon it’s only like this when they’re expected.’ 

‘Oh they’re expected all right,’ said Tamar the light of battle in her eyes.

She concentrated, and four suits of armour and three swords clattered on to the ground in front of them.

‘Suit up everyone,’ she said.

‘Where did these come from?’ asked Cindy.

‘Best if you don’t ask,’ said Stiles.  ‘What you don’t know you can’t tell the police.’

‘Oh.’

Denny was amused to observe that his suit had a label on the inside that read “property of the –– Metropolitan Museum”.

A distant chattering sound and the sound of muffled laugher heralded the arrival of the Faeries. 

Well they would not be laughing long, Tamar thought, scraping her sword along the ground like the hooves of an impatient bull. 

~ Chapter Thirteen ~

T
amar was gazing despondently out of the bedroom
window. The battle in the village had been but the first of many such skirmishes and the problem was now spreading like wildfire up and down the country. They went out every night, the house was now full of refugees, they had taught people about the iron and how to fight back, and it was not even making a dent. 

The situation was far worse than they had imagined.  There were Faeries
everywhere
!

As if a signal had been given, thousands of changelings had apparently shed their incognito, and many of them were fully adult. How long had this been going on right under their noses?

It had clearly been the return of the Queen that had set recent events in motion.  Like a catalyst, her mere presence had drawn them out.  Not until she had come back and set up her court, had the changelings begun showing the true evil of their natures.  Until then, no one had suspected a thing.

And then there were the Faeries who had come through the portal with the Queen. What they had seen in the castle had apparently been only the minutest fraction of the whole.  Clearly, Queen Onagh meant business; she appeared to have emptied the entire Faerie realm.

And where was
she
now? 

‘I should never have let her escape’ thought Tamar.  ‘If I’d known what she was up to, I wouldn’t have.’

Tamar was out of her depth, and she knew it.  She was not used to an arch villain with a long-term plan and the patience to put it into action.  Ambitions yes!  They all had those.  Crazy plans for world domination, usually based on some insane premise, that was certain to fail in the face of a bit of determined opposition. 

Now she really
did
miss Askphrit.  At least with him, it had been
personal
. He had hated her, and it had clouded his judgement.  World domination had always been a secondary consideration with him.  And he had been reassuringly selfish.  You could always rely on him to make some predictable move if he thought his own skin might be in jeopardy.

The Faerie Queen did not even have a decent maniacal laugh.

Denny came into the room and sat down silently.  He knew something of how she was feeling.  He waited.

‘I’m losing,’ she said.  She would not look at him.   ‘There’s just too
many
of them.  I’ve never seen anything like this before.  I mean what do they all
want
?’ 

Still Denny said nothing.

‘We tried to teach people to fight back but it’s not
working
!  The Faeries just tell them not to and they don’t.  How do you fight magic like that? – I don’t know what to do, there’s nothing I
can
do.’  She bit her knuckles in frustration.