Miss Ellerby and the Ferryman (3 page)

Her
thoughts flew to Sophy. Her dearest friend in the world, Miss Sophy
Landon, had — by a series of strange events — come to marry one of
the Ayliri, and had settled in Aylfenhame. Had she somehow
contrived to send these musicians?

But
Isabel could not conceive of how Sophy could have known of the
assembly at all, nor why she might have chosen to interfere in such
a way. Besides, Isabel felt sure that until a few minutes ago, both
the music and its players had been human indeed.

The
dancers were in shambles and the steps forgotten as the music grew
stranger, and the ball guests more uneasy. Mr. Thompson was at
Isabel’s elbow, a picture of gentlemanly concern as he tried to
steer her away from the confusion. ‘I do not know what can be amiss
with the musicians,’ he was saying in a placid way, ‘but I trust it
will soon be put right. In the meantime, please come and sit out of
the way, and I will procure you some refreshment.’

Isabel stared at
him in confusion. His smile was tranquil enough, and he betrayed no
sign that he was other than mildly puzzled. Had he not observed how
badly amiss the musicians were?

Rising over the strains of the music came a dull, hollow
boom, and then another: the main doors had been thrown open.
Whirling to observe this new disturbance, Isabel saw streaming into
the assembly room the strangest procession of people she had ever
beheld.

At
their head strode a tall, thin man, taller than anyone else in the
room. He wore knee-breeches, waistcoat and cutaway coat in the
fashion of the English gentry, but his were cut from strange,
shimmering fabrics dyed in the colours of spring flowers. His hair
was indigo in hue and fell in a tangled mess around his face, and
at his lips he held a strangely curling pipe. The music he played
upon this enchanting instrument rippled like water, and melded
perfectly with the lively melody the orchestra played.

Behind him danced a lady only slightly shorter than he, her
figure as wispy and fragile as a blade of grass. Her golden hair
was swept up upon her head and bound with long pins, at the ends of
which rested living butterflies — Isabel’s startled gaze discerned
the slow movement of wings. Her dress mimicked the style of
Isabel’s own, but hers was as light and silky as flower petals. Its
colour was some hue between purple, blue and pink that Isabel had
never seen before, and shockingly vibrant. She wore clusters of
glass bells upon her wrists; these she shook in time with the
piper’s song, setting them ringing with an eerie music.

Behind these two came six more couples, all dressed in the
same manner of familiar, yet strange fashions. Their hair was long
and flowing, straight and heavy or curling like wisps of smoke.
Some wore their sumptuous locks loose, while others had bound their
hair up with jewels and combs. Their eyes flashed with merriment
and anticipation and something else — mischief, perhaps.

Isabel’s mind flew back to the visits she had paid to Sophy
in the fae town of Grenlowe. Being a skilled seamstress, Sophy had
set up a shop there. She now sold fashions for both men and women,
wondrous garments which mixed English styles with the strange and
beautiful materials available in Aylfenhame and a glimmer of fae
magic. These Ayliri were wearing Sophy’s clothes!

Did
that mean that Sophy had sent them? But why would she do such a
thing? Isabel watched in a daze as the Ayliri dancers streamed
through to the centre of the room, the assembly’s displaced guests
falling back as one to make way for them. Even the Thompsons’
finery paled to nothing against the riot of colour and light and
magic the fae brought with them, and the Alford assembly guests
were silent in awe.

The
Ayliri formed themselves into a set and began a whirling, laughing
dance that was as alien as their music. They dominated the space
with their flamboyant movements, and the people of Alford and Tilby
were forced back against the walls.

Isabel couldn’t see who first began, but in the blink of an
eye she realised that the eight Ayliri were no longer alone in
their dance. A young Englishman and his fair partner were whirling
along with them. Rapidly, the lines of silent people ringing the
walls melted into the set, and it grew bigger and more
encompassing.

Isabel watched, mesmerised, and aware of a growing longing to
join them — a longing which swiftly deepened into a kind of
compulsion. Soon her desire to whirl into the merry dance
outweighed her hesitance and her inhibitions and in the next
instant she was caught up in the flow, Mr. Thompson swept in
alongside her.

No
dance in Isabel’s life could have prepared her for the sensations
she now felt. She was caught up in a fever of energy, activity and
colour so intense she could barely comprehend what she did. The
steps were wholly strange to her, yet she knew their patterns
instinctively and kept pace with the intricacy of the dance without
any effort. Her skirts twirled and swayed around her legs with the
vigour of her movements and her cheeks flushed as she was swept
along. And the music grew ever stranger.

Moreover, she felt a sense of wild, almost violent joy which
had never been hers to experience before; and a sensation of
perfect belonging, as though she had always been intended for such
a dance as this. Had she but had leisure enough to observe her
companions, she would have seen that the same sensations affected
all around her. But she had attention for nothing but her own place
in the circle, and the lithe, strange, bright figures of the Ayliri
who led the dance.

Only one moment
amongst this blur of activity particularly impressed itself upon
her memory. There came the briefest of pauses in the dance, when,
for an instant, the breathless whirl ceased and the dancers waited,
suspended, as in the grip of some strange enchantment. And as she
waited, among the others, for the dance to continue, Isabel found
herself observed.

It
was the tall piper’s gaze which rested upon her. His tangled indigo
hair was swept back from his face, revealing violet eyes. These
eyes were fixed upon Isabel, intent and questioning, though she had
no way of knowing what questions he asked of her in the silence of
his own mind.

This
scrutiny lasted but a moment. Then he lifted his curious pipe to
his lips once more, and blew three rippling notes. The fiddlers
took up the tune, and the dance resumed. Isabel lost sight of the
piper.

The
evening passed by in a blur of colour and sound, and the assembly
did not break up until the small hours of the morning. Isabel came
to herself at last, deposited upon the step of her own home without
the smallest recollection of how she came to be there.

Chapter Three

Ye may
be thinkin’ these are mighty strange goin’s-on fer a quiet place
like Tilby. Ye’d be right enough. Oh, there’s brownies an’ sprites
and the like in these parts — as well as my good self, o’ course! —
but in the common way o’ things the county o’ Lincolnshire’s a
proper human place, wi’ less o’ the fae-begotten antics.

Tis
not normal, indeed, fer the likes o’ Tiltager to appear out o’
nowhere an’ offer service to a human woman. An’ fer the Ayliri to
descend in force upon a mere country assembly, well! Thas far out
o’ the ordinary.

An’
there was stranger t’ come. Fer instance, when I woke on th’
morning a few days after tha’ strangest of assemblies, the most
unexpected sight met my eyes. Have ye ever seen a creature
resemblin’ some kind o’ feline crossed wi’ a bear and wi’ more than
a little o’ the bat about its features? I’ll reckon ye ‘ave not. No
more had I. An’ what’s more, it was o’ the strangest colours. All
striped wi’ brown an’ gold, an’ some kind o’ scarlet tassel on the
tip of its tail.

An’ it
— she, I should say, as it was a lady — was grumblin’ and whinin’
fit to burst as she crossed over my bridge. Crankiest beast I ‘ave
encountered in many a long year! An’ when I stopped her t’ ask fer
my toll, ‘twas Miss Isabel’s name she were bandyin’ about. Walked
all the way from the wilds o’ Aylfenhame to find Miss Ellerby! It
were a while before I learned the truth o’ the reason
why.

On the morning of
the seventh of July, Isabel breakfasted very early with her mother.
Her trunk had already gone outside and she was soon to follow, for
a visit to her aunt in York was to occupy her for the next few
weeks.

Mrs.
Ellerby’s reasons for proposing the visit had been twofold. In the
first instance, she wished for Isabel to be nearer to the
Thompsons, and Mrs. Grey had promised to shepherd Isabel around all
of the public functions which might be supposed to include the son
of the house.

In
the second instance, all of Tilby had been shocked by the intrusion
of the Ayliri into the Alford Assembly, and even more shocked by
their own behaviour under it. Though unusual events typically
spurred a flurry of gossip and chatter which might last weeks or
even months, the town had entered into a grim, unspoken pact never
to mention it at all. Though her mother never said it in so many
words, Isabel knew that her motive in sending her daughter to York
was partly to remove her from the environs of Lincolnshire which
had, so suddenly and unexpectedly, descended into a state bordering
on degeneracy — at least in the minds of some.

To
send her daughter away from disturbing fae magics and towards the
delights promised by her marriage into the Thompson family seemed
the best combination of motives to Mrs. Ellerby. It mattered not
that the Ayliri had faded out of Lincolnshire the moment the
assembly had ended, and that nothing more had been seen or heard of
them since. Once such a thing had occurred, no dependence
whatsoever could be placed upon its never occurring
again.

Isabel was
hustled outside by her mother the moment she could fairly be
supposed to have finished her breakfast. Neither was expecting to
find that a most curious-looking creature had taken possession of
the doorstep.

‘What
manner of being is this?’ cried Mrs. Ellerby, upon finding a furred
and striped animal curled up around itself just a little to the
left of her front door.

Isabel stared at it in wonder. It was a cat, or something
like, though its ears more nearly resembled those of a bear and its
face was curiously reminiscent of a bat. It was handsomely striped
in shades of brown with glittering flickers of gold, and its tail
bore a lively tuft of crimson.

‘It
is some kind of stray cat, perhaps,’ said Isabel in some doubt.
‘Perhaps it is hungry? I shall ask Cook to find some scraps for it
to eat.’

‘You
will do no such thing, for you are to depart at once,’ said Mrs.
Ellerby firmly. ‘And if it is fed, you know it will only linger and
we will never be rid of the odd thing.’

‘It
will take only a moment, Mama!’ said Isabel. ‘If it is a stray it
is surely hungry, and it would be cruelty to turn it away.’ She
turned and went back inside the house as she spoke, before her
mother could detain her further. Cook was obliging, and soon Isabel
was able to bear a saucer with assorted morsels out to the curious
creature at the doorstep. It had occurred to her halfway down to
the kitchens that she had no notion what such an animal might be
inclined to eat, so she had arranged a variety of treats upon the
plate: meat scraps, a handful of summer berries from the garden,
and a pool of honey.

The
cat — or whatever it may be — uncurled itself as Isabel approached,
its sensitive nose twitching as it scented the delights she
carried. She placed the saucer down upon the floor before it, and
watched as it ate, with apparent relish, everything but the
meat.

‘Very
well, my love, and now it is time to go,’ said Mrs. Ellerby with
ill-concealed impatience. Isabel allowed herself to be shepherded
into the carriage, casting only a single look back at the strange
cat. She was not concerned about its immediate future, for she had
left word with Cook to watch for it, and ensure that it was fed
again should it require further sustenance. But she was left with
the strange impression that the creature had spoken to her as she
had put down the food. She had heard, she thought, an irritable
“thank you” as she had stooped down. But that could not be, for her
Mama must surely have heard it as well, and apparently she had
not.