Under the Green Hill (25 page)

“Go get the others,” Rowan said.

“No…you go.” Already Meg was climbing up the ladder. As Rowan dashed off for the Ashes, and Finn looked up with cynical interest, she reached Bran's side and pushed the matted hair from his face.

He looked around in confusion—and wouldn't you, if for some reason you woke up in a tree?—and finally his bleary, befuddled eyes rested on Meg. She said nothing, only stroked his poor ravaged face. He had taken neither food nor drink in all that time, and what little she could see of him was angular and wasted. But the ash tree had nourished him somehow, keeping him in close symbiosis all those days, sharing its life with him. His body was still hidden within the trunk, but it seemed that there was now a little extra room around him, that perhaps, with a little judicious wriggling, he could be pulled free. He shifted his torso in his wooden tomb (which had turned into a cradle), and viscous waves of sap lapped at his neck.

“You…you…,” he began, his voice as hoarse as a raven's and as weak as a newborn kitten's mew.

“Don't try to speak, Bran dear.”

But he paid her no heed. “You shouldn't have done this. You should have let me die.”

Now, this isn't exactly the sort of thing a girl wants to hear when she has gone to all the trouble of killing you and bringing you back to life, not to mention suffering through the agony of waiting to see if you'd survive after all. It makes her feel unappreciated.

“You did die,” she said, in rather too sharp a tone for a sickbed. “And that seems to have satisfied all the Midsummer War requirements—since the world hasn't ended yet. Now you're going to live.” Whether you like it or not, she added to herself. She smiled a bit ruefully. She'd expected thanks, but neither healers nor soldiers ever get the thanks they deserve.

Though Bran tried to focus his eyes on her face, they had been closed for days, and the morning sun was intense. All he could see of Meg was a pale moon surrounded by dark clouds against a piercing blue sky. “I wanted to die,” he said weakly. “I can't go back under the Green Hill. I should have died.”

Meg was angry now. After all she'd done…after all everyone had done! “Hang the Green Hill!” she said, and he winced as if at blasphemy. “Why do you think your life began and ended there, Bran? You said yourself it's all illusion and lies. Pretty lies, seductive illusion, and it holds you—I know how it holds you. But you're here now, alive, whole. Can't you see what's in the rest of the world, our world? Look at it all!” She swung her arm wide and teetered perilously on the ladder.

Around her, the land was green and fresh and fertile. Nut trees blossomed, fruit trees set out tiny, hard green nubbins that would one day be peaches and apples. The world was in flower, and in the fields around Gladysmere the wheat and barley were growing tall. Glossy black rooks danced in the sky, flying with overlapping wings and turning cartwheels against the azure infinity. “Look at it!” she cried again. And he looked. But all he could see was a firmament so bright the blue was almost white, and against it all, Meg's radiant face.

She did not know if she had convinced him. But she determined that she would never stop trying until she made him see what a beautiful place the world is, how much better sunshine and birdsong are than all the allures of the Green Hill.

Phyllida and Lysander came, with Silly skipping after them. Dickie came, too, trailing a bit behind, always remembering that he wasn't a part of the family. But Silly, so happy to hear that Bran was awake, caught Dickie's hands and danced him around in a circle. Dickie Rhys he might be, but as far as she was concerned, he was an honorary Morgan. (James was in the kitchen, helping the cook make pastries—and by “helping” I mean “eating.”)

Meg slid down the ladder and Phyllida took her place, climbing on bones that had grown oh so weary in the last weeks. Disturbing thoughts came more often to her now: What will be when I am gone? But when she saw Bran awake, the new weight of her years fell away. She felt his pulse and propped open his lids to peer into his eyes, and determined that he was strong enough to be moved—if the tree allowed him.

A few minutes later, Bran was on the grass, with all the family crowded around him. Naked and frail he lay, covered in red and amber sap. The raw lips of the gash made by the Hunter's Bow had sealed themselves, though a cicatrix would always mark the spot where his heart had been pierced. He was changed—how can a man not be who is killed, and then reborn from an ash tree? His family could not yet see it, and in their hearts was the fear that it had all been for nothing, that he would never know peace in this world.

But trees—rooted, stolid, steadfast trees—know the art of contentment. They rely on the chance of wind or squirrels to spread their seeds, and from the earliest days of sprouthood are at the world's mercy. Should rain fall in its appointed measure, should the winds not blow too hard or the hungry young rabbits not nibble away his greenery, the tree will live, and he will love his life. Men rarely see the moment they live in, for the past haunts them, the future lures them on with promises, so that now does not exist. Trees have no such blindness. All that comes is welcome, and they stand, well rooted, as the world goes on around them.

Bran had been nine days in the womb of his ash tree, and, like the tree, he had begun in his convalescence to have neither regrets nor anticipation. Now that he was torn from the tree, alone as the air dried his sap to hardness, he felt the old sadness creeping upon him. But the tree-ness was there, too, and though the loss never quite left him, it never again filled him with despair. The grass under him was soft and cool—could he mourn the loss of a bed of silken sheets with a fairy lady beside him when such a bed of grass lay under the sun's benevolent warmth?

His family only saw that he was recovered—not wholly, for it would be days before he could walk again, weeks before some strength conquered his newborn feebleness—though enough so that the real danger was past. Meg looked up to the ash tree and saw that branches that had drooped, leaves that had withered were once more fresh and green, reaching heavenward. Fresh sap bled down the bark, but the roots reached deep, the trunk stood firm.

From the woods came a tinkle of bells, and Gul Ghillie skipped into their presence. Though Meg was disposed to resent all fairies just then, Gul in his childish guise looked as innocuous as a village lad, and his irrepressible merriment made her forget—almost—that he was prince of the Seelie Court, and one of those who had brought this trouble upon them. As a rather decent playwright said, and many have said since, all's well that ends well, and she had already learned the valuable lesson that it seldom pays to hold a grudge.

Since Midsummer Day, she'd been convinced that fairies were vile, villainous, heartless, unnatural creatures, and that whatever charms they might possess were vastly outweighed by their vices. Now time had cooled her passion, and Bran's recovery erased fully half of the unpleasant memories. With him alive, what had happened had left the realm of tragedy and was now an adventure—and who can resist an adventure, particularly when it is already successfully completed?

She had begun, though, to see why there needed to be a Guardian, and people who understood the nature of fairies. They were dangerous, and their allure was such that many will walk headlong into that danger. Once, she had hoped for nothing more than to leave all this behind, never to see so much as a fairy whisker again. Now that things were seeming to work out well, she was glad to see Gul Ghillie, her first fairy friend.

Gul was singing a song about magpies as he skipped toward them. In his hand was what looked like an old-fashioned toy—a little hoop that he twirled around a short, sharp stick. He tossed the hoop in the air and then caught it, still whirling, on the stick.

“So,” he said, drawing near to Bran, “the big brute lives, despite our best efforts!” But Meg could see relief in his eye, and she knew that, whatever the stories might say, whatever she herself had once thought, there are times when the fairies care for humans. Bran had ridden with the Seelie Court for years (though a heartbeat in fairies' endless time) and had been well loved. Whatever rules might have bound them to seek Bran's death, these were not enough to kill all feeling for him. The fairies had grieved when Bran was taken from them, and would have grieved more deeply at his death. Still, they would not have sought to prevent it, and that is one of the things that is hardest for us to understand about the difference between humans and fairies.

“You've done a great deed, Meg Morgan,” Gul said, turning to her. “You've laid a spell on this land far greater than death can bring, and it will not be forgotten. In the years to come…” But he spied Finn smirking at him. Finn, you will remember, did not know that Gul Ghillie was anything other than a mortal boy, and found it amusing that a mere village lad should take such a grandiose tone.

Gul laughed, but beneath that merry sound was something that made Meg shiver even in the late morning sun. “And you, Finn Fachan. You've been up to a thing or two yourself, haven't you? Gadding about the forest while the rest of the household is occupied. Seen a few things, haven't you?”

“Oh, well, nothing much,” Finn stammered. The boy's unblinking eyes made him uncomfortable. Did Gul know his secrets? Finn preferred to reveal things in his own good time. What was this boy about?

“You've watched the Asrai bathing in the willow's shadows,” Gul said, his voice low and intense, not at all a little boy's voice.

“You've seen the Glastig in her wild dance, heard the hammers of the Knockers as they mine for ore in the valleys. Things that are meant to be hidden are known to you, Finn Fachan.” He leaned close, conspiratorially. “You've been to the Green Hill—I know you have!” Finn couldn't quite suppress a grin. He was proud of his accomplishments. “And you've seen the Seelie queen and all her court. Tell me…” He bent to whisper in Finn's ear. “Tell me, in which eye did you put the ointment? With which eye did you witness the forbidden things?”

Finn did not see the danger. “My right eye,” he said, and was about to pull Gul to the side to talk about it further. Here was a confidant at last. Gul might know the way to the Green Hill. Maybe he would lead him back.

Gul laughed, a wild sound that made Finn tremble. Though he was still a boy in appearance, it suddenly seemed as if there was something unnatural about Gul Ghillie. He tossed the ring he played with high in the air, and all eyes followed it. Then, shifting the sharpened hazel twig in his hand, he lunged forward. Swifter than an adder's strike, keener than an adder's tooth, the hazel point struck home in Finn's right eye. He fell back, clutching his face and screaming as if he were dying.

“That eye shall never see again,” Gul Ghillie said. “Count yourself fortunate I didn't take both.” With that he disappeared.

Everyone's thoughts were still with Bran, and I'm afraid Finn didn't get all the sympathy he deserved (however much that was). But, obedient to triage, they turned from the stable Bran to the screaming Finn and comforted him as best they could. Phyllida brewed him a draught from a dark-leafed shrub that grew in one shadowy corner of the herb garden, and though he choked at its bitterness, it seemed to quiet him and dull the pain of his blinding. They put him to bed, then refocused their attention on Bran, bringing him into the Rookery and helping him take a few swallows of rich beef broth.

Meg was the only one who stayed at Finn's bedside. Part of her felt he had gotten what was coming to him—for which she was immediately ashamed of herself. No spying, no trickery should bring such a punishment. What harm had he done to the fairies? She herself had brought him to the Green Hill. Why wasn't she punished? Her sense of fairness rebelled, and her humanity recoiled from the fairy way of justice.

But whereas her ancestress Chlorinda had run in fear from all this, it filled Meg with a sense of purpose. Here was poor Finn (for whom, as you know, she'd always harbored a soft spot) lying injured only because he was seduced by the fairy glamour and didn't know enough to keep himself safe. For all his cleverness, he didn't really understand the fairies. Well, Meg thought she understood them by now. She could have kept Finn from harm. She had come to appreciate Phyllida's role, the good she must do in mediating between the foolishness and ambition of humans and the mercurial nature of the fairies. It seemed a worthy profession, a noble calling.

Then such thoughts vanished in the general ickiness of eye injuries, and she sank to a back corner as the doctor, fetched at last from the next village beyond Gladysmere, tended Finn's eye. Very lucky, the doctor said, that the stick hadn't pierced through to his brain. Gul Ghillie's vengeance had been precise—Finn's right eye was blind, but no more damage was done.

The next morning when he awoke, full of the strange dreams Phyllida's potion had brought him along with oblivion, Finn examined himself in the mirror. He couldn't quite bear to look at the actual injury, but he rather fancied himself in the dashing black silk eyepatch Phyllida had sewn for him overnight.

It is odd, though, how ineffective most punishments are. They are meant, I suppose, to instill a sense of remorse in the heart of the wrongdoer…but do they ever? Does the incarcerated felon ever truly regret his actions, or does he only regret being caught? The loss of his eye taught Finn nothing, save perhaps to be more cautious, more crafty. He was not sorry that he had seen the Green Hill, only that he'd been found out. As his left eye stared at his new face, his sightless right eye still beheld the Seelie queen and her court, and the ambiguous wonders that lay hidden in the fairy home under the Green Hill.

Dear Mommy,

That part was easy. Meg, alone in her bedroom, chewed on her pen and gazed out the window, looking for words. There were Rowan and Silly, hacking gleefully at each other with sticks, now that their Seelie weapons were gone.

Mommy, I fought in a war.
She crossed the line out.

Bran watched the warlike antics from a lawn chair. Phyllida tempted him with tea and biscuits, but he was itching to be up and at work again, and sometimes had to be physically restrained.

Mommy, I killed a man. But it's okay, he's alive again
. With a rueful little laugh, she drew a heavy mark through that sentence, too.

Finn sat by himself, scowling at everyone.

Finn had his eye put out by a fairy. Yes, Mommy, a fairy.
She'll think I'm mad, Meg mused, and crossed that out as well. There had never been anything she couldn't tell her mother, and she ached to relieve her own burden by sharing it. Somehow, the words would not come.

Her eyes traveled away from her family, out to the deep forest, where she could just see the emerald crest of the Green Hill. Suddenly she bent and scribbled on a fresh page.

Oh, Mommy, I wish you were here. No, I don't. If you were here you would have stopped me…but it doesn't matter. It's done now. If you could only see for yourself how wonderful it all is. Wonderful and terrible. I never knew…. I wish I was home, but I wish I never had to leave the Rookery. Oh, Mommy, I miss you!

She knew it was vague and troubling, but she could write nothing better. She sealed it quickly and ran downstairs to drop it on the silver tray of outgoing letters.

“Come on, Meg,” Dickie called. “Lysander's gonna teach us cricket.”

She played, and for a time forgot her worries, while from the shrubbery fairy eyes watched her and spoke in hushed tones of the changes one little girl had wrought.

“The world,” Gul Ghillie said, “will never be the same.”

“Never
was
the same,” the brownie said cryptically, and spat on the ground.

 

Three weeks later, Meg's letter made it across the Atlantic, and Glynnis Morgan, reading it, murmured, “Oh dear…I wonder if I should bring them home.”

But by then, it was already too late.