Guardian of the Green Hill (19 page)

“I will not stay, for I hunger, and it would be rude to eat any of your friends or, apparently, your enemies.” He lowered his head and glared at Smythe. “I see that many things have changed since I dreamed. But first, I bring you a gift, a token of our esteem.”

The bunyip's body heaved and from one of its three stomachs (one for flesh, one for bone, and an extra one, like we all have, for dessert) it brought up a stone. It was small and brown, a pebble really, and covered in intestinal slime. Meg felt a little heave in her own stomach, but she didn't want to be rude, so she bent down and picked it up, mucus and all.

“What is it?” she asked. Her other two gifts had gone unexplained, and though she really wanted the bunyip to leave, she had to know what the stone was for.

“It is a heart's desire. Not
your
heart's desire, mind you. Wouldn't that be nice? They're very hard to come by. Someone else's heart's desire. Give it to 'em, and they get it, you see? Well, ta and hoo-roo, Miss Meg. Come down and see us when you've a mind.”

He hauled that crocodile body around and lumbered down the lane, and there was dead silence until he turned the corner and was out of sight. As soon as he was far enough away, Silly, Dickie, and Finn crept up to stand beside Meg.

Nearly two hundred pairs of eyes stared at Meg, flabbergasted. Silly whispered a brief synopsis in her ear, and Meg came out of her daze. There were problems for her to fix.

I may not be the Guardian, she thought. I
won't
be the Guardian. I'll never be like Phyllida, commanding their respect. But after the bunyip, I think, for just a little while, they will do whatever I tell them. No one would dare gainsay the girl to whom a monster bowed.

Her posture, which, left to its own devices, was not good, straightened, and she threw her shoulders back and lifted her chin. She was normally terrified of public speaking, but these were desperate times.

“You!” she called clearly, pointing at Carl, who still held his wrench. “You kept a fairy captive, which is forbidden. I should give you to the Green Hill and let them do what they wish with you.” She felt like she was acting in a play. Here was a new role for her—a powerful, confident person. Someone others would obey. It was heady stuff.

“You will trouble my sister no more, and if you try to catch another fairy, I will know about it.”

The man groveled and wrung his hands. “Please, missy, I didn't mean him no harm. Someone gave him to me, and I looked after the little feller as best I could.”

Silly whispered something else in her ear.

“And take better care of your employees, or I know who you'll see about it.” Of course everyone thought she meant the bunyip. Carl ran off when she dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

She heard murmurs in the crowd.
The Lady? The little Lady? Herself's heir, must be. The next Guardian.

Sotto voce, she asked Finn if he was okay. He saw Pazhan and Gwidion in the distance, the one nonchalantly chewing a discarded nosegay, the other swaying uncertainly on his feet. “For now, but I have some things to tell you later.”

Good enough. She whirled to face Smythe, hands on her hips. “As for you!” She stared him down until he looked away. “You are a liar and a cheat. You tricked poor Fenoderee so he'd do all your mowing for you.” She turned to see how Fenoderee would take the news, but he was still diligently mowing. Had he even noticed the bunyip?

“It's a lie!” Smythe cried. “Who are you anyway to question me, girlie? Everyone here knows me for an honest man. If there's any trickery, it's not my doing.” He looked frantically around for Jonas, but whether to elicit his support or to blame him, Meg didn't know. The canny man was nowhere to be seen. “You, Tansy, tell her. It's an honest, friendly game, and my man won fair and square.”

“No,” Tansy said, “it's not fair, and it's not square, not a bit of it.” He turned to Fenoderee, who was still mowing. “Fairy man, hear me! You've been cheated, and I'm that sorry. Will you take my help to finish your task?”

Fenoderee looked up at last. “You … you want to help me? No one's ever helped me afore, 'cept him over there, my best friend in the world.” He pointed at Finn with his scythe. “He fixed my wagon, you know.” Tansy took a position far enough away to avoid Fenoderee's blade and tried to cut a swath. He did, barely, with great effort, but his blade chipped and was too dull for a second cut. He sharpened it and swung again, and man and fairy worked side by side.

“I like this place,” Fenoderee said companionably to Tansy. “I think I'll stay awhile.” If anyone groaned, they did it quietly.

So much for a ferocious Fenoderee lopping off heads.

“If that will be all, miss,” Smythe said, trying to slip backward into the crowd.

“That will
not
be all,” Meg said. “You owe Fenoderee some compensation.”

“He doesn't want anything. Look how happy he is.” Then Smythe pushed his luck. “Besides, he lost, and whatever the reason, rules is rules and he has to mow my field.”

Meg took a step toward him, and he backed down. She looked like a girl who could fight a Midsummer War, strong and sure. “Very well, he will mow your field,” she said. “Who am I to break with custom? But he will keep all the hay he mows.”

There was scattered applause from people who either sympathized with Fenoderee or disliked Smythe.

“D'you want to beggar me, girl? I've put all my profits into the hay. I've borrowed against this year's gains.”

Meg thought a moment, almost weakened, then steeled herself. If she was to be Guardian—no, not she, not Guardian. Where had that thought come from? She was leaving, forever, as soon as Phyllida got James back. But she just couldn't let Smythe get away with it. And in any case, he looked prosperous enough to survive a bad year.

“Very well,” she said. “You may keep one half of your crop. The rest goes to Fenoderee after he has mowed it.” She kept her voice sweet and reasonable. “That's only fair.”

Smythe looked as if he'd like to grumble, but he held out his hand. “Deal,” he said.

She didn't take it right away. “But we decide now which half Fenoderee's to have. Deal?”

The odds were decent, Smythe thought. They didn't know which fields he'd planted, so they might pick the drier ones, or the ones interspersed with too much milkweed. He took her hand. “Deal.”

Meg gave him her most charming smile. “Fenoderee will take the top half.”

That year, Fenoderee carried thirteen wagonloads of hay to market.

Smythe had a bountiful harvest of roots and stubble.

Who Must Do the Hard Things?

I
T'S LIKE OLD TIMES,
Meg thought as they ambled home. Old times of a scant few weeks ago when they were all safe in Arcadia, traipsing through its quads, dodging college students intent on Frisbee playing or love affairs or anything but their studies, trudging up the steep hills only for the joy of running breakneck down them again. With the excitement behind them (how little Meg knew!), she felt the preternatural calm that follows unexpected action and unexpected success.

Only a pebble in her pocket remained of her adventure. Was that me, she wondered? Was it Meg Morgan to whom a monster paid homage before all those amazed eyes? She, who hated to be before a crowd, had suddenly known the power of leadership. No, she told herself, I will not be the next Guardian. But the power was intoxicating, not so much for itself but for the things she could do with it. That one distinction separates the tyrants from the good kings.

Why, she had saved her sister, and apparently a baby fairy (which she still had to get to the bottom of) and Dickie. That man turned tail when he saw her with the bunyip, and she knew it was not just the monster but her own ease with the monster that made him run. It was true: she hadn't been frightened of it, really. And Fenoderee, poor simple Fenoderee, had been saved from base trickery, his tormenter justly punished. She had done all this in a few minutes. What could she do to heal the world, or Gladysmere at least, as the Guardian? There were people and fairies who needed her help and protection.

“Where's Rowan?” Meg asked. “I hope he's not in trouble too. How is it that every single one of us had an adult who wanted to hurt us? Why was Gwidion chasing you, Finn?”

He glanced up at Silly and Dickie. Silly, as usual, was too restless to walk slowly and skipped and capered ahead. Dickie, who wanted to talk to her about the little green fairy, struggled to keep up.

“Well, after Gwidion hit me I—”

“He hit you?” Meg asked, aghast. “When? Why?”

He looked at her oddly. “Don't you remember? Didn't you see? When we were having our first art lesson?”

“There was … something. You got mad and left. He hit you? Really?”

Finn described the incident.

“And I was there? I swear I don't remember any of it. Gwidion kind of gives me the creeps, though, and I don't think he likes me, but I don't know why. I guess it's because I don't have any talent. Rowan does, though. They took to each other right off.”

“Figures,” Finn began, and was going to say some unpleasant things about Rowan until he remembered that Meg might have some soft feelings for her brother. “Anyway, after you left me in the wagon, Gwidion and his goat showed up and…” He told her what he'd seen, “And that's no ordinary goat. I think I heard him talk. There's something wrong about them both.”

“And those pictures he drew … tell me about them again.” Meg was getting a faint inkling.

Meg was silent and thoughtful as she listened. It seemed like a silly idea, but not any sillier than weatherstones and bunyips. “Do you think his pictures make things happen? That what he draws comes true?”

Finn chewed his lip as he thought about it. “I suppose … though it sounds a little far-fetched to me.” Then he remembered his ten-pound note and skeleton key.

“Do you know, I remember something … I think I remember it anyway. Right when you ran away cry—I mean when you ran off yesterday, Gwidion drew a picture for us. I can't remember what it was of, but I believe I was angry with him before and I wasn't angry with him after I saw the picture. Do you suppose he did something to me, to us? Did he make us forget?”

“That would be a neat trick,” Finn said. “I just wish I could draw. I'd do a doozy of Gwidion and his dirty goat at the bottom of a pit trap.”

“Finn!”

“Well, I would. Don't look at me like that. I know you're all soft and kind and that nonsense, but I'm still going to get even with him.”

“How?”

“I don't know yet.” But he had an idea.

“Don't get in trouble,” she said anxiously, and he snorted. “And don't hurt anyone. Please?”

“I'm not making any promises,” Finn said grimly. “He hit me, and he's up to something.”

“What?”

“I don't know. But why was he so upset when he found out I wasn't related to you guys? And why is he so chummy with Rowan?”

“And why,” Meg added, “did Phyllida let a stranger move in? Onto the grounds anyway. You're right, it is peculiar. Ugh, let's hurry. I need to find out if Phyllida's close to getting James back. Then I swear I'm going home, even if I have to walk … and swim.” She quickened her pace.

It was a hot and heavy midafternoon, and the air was sharp with the carrying scent of fresh-cut hay. As they approached the Rookery, they saw a quaint figure before them dressed in an odd assortment of riding breeches, gaiters, and tweeds. It carried a short walking stick and twirled it on every third step.

“Rowan?” Silly asked. She skipped up to him, lost to hilarity. “You—what in the world? You look like a…” He looked like an Edwardian squire, but she filled in the blank with
weirdo
instead, which was almost as accurate.

Rowan, garbed in the mismatched togs he'd found in assorted closets, scanned them over coolly. “Just surveying the estate,” he said, grinding the tip of his cane into the gravel and swinging the brass knob in an arc with his palm. He looked older, more careworn, with an anxiety in his eyes that was still part greed but more a concern about business matters that wouldn't be of interest to such children. There were some drains at Gladys Gap that needed tending to. The Bungys' roof was in need of repairs. They'd been good tenants for generations and should be looked after. There were rumors that Ajax, who kept chickens, was harassing a vixen. And that foal by Fetlock out of Silversides … should he keep him or sell him?

Gwidion's spell had had an unexpected effect on Rowan. While the artist hoped to make him a nuisance and a thorn in his relatives' sides, someone else to harry poor Phyllida, he had instead created a conscientious lordling who took a keen and highly personal interest in the affairs of his estate. At first Rowan coveted each step of the many staircases, each worn and moldering rug, each portrait of distant ancestors on the walls. But as the hours passed, the spell evolved, keeping the core of its original intent but shaping itself to Rowan's nature. He wasn't a bad sort—quite the contrary. He had all the makings of a hero. It was just his bad luck the world kept interfering. Gwidion meant mischief, but he had accidentally created a young man who took his duties as heir very seriously.

Meg could tell from Wooster's dolorous face as he met her at the door that there wasn't any good news, but she passed him by hopefully and went to the source. She found Phyllida in her sitting room.

“Where's James?” she asked breathlessly. If she phrased it like that, as if he was just in another room, it might all be okay. If she had faith that he was safe, he would be.

“We haven't found a way to get him back yet,” Phyllida said, carefully avoiding the fact that they hadn't been trying.