Wolf Notes and Other Musical Mishaps (6 page)

Huge dark shapes towered over Helen’s head as she stood at the edge of the clearing.

At first Helen saw a dozen open trapdoors; all facing her, all inviting her in.

Then her focus shifted and she realized that the shapes weren’t doors, but massive clumps of soil and stone, bound together by roots.

She stepped to her right, to see the clearing from a different angle. The lumps of earth were the bases of a dozen dead trees, which she could now see lying stretched across the clearing.

These tall trees had been torn from the earth, by a strong wind or a giant game of skittles.

The trees hadn’t died easily. Each tree had ripped up all the earth its roots could grasp,
leaving
a deep hole in the ground, sheltered by a wall of soil and roots above.

The ground beneath such big trees would have been almost bare last summer, but now it was ablaze with fast-growing ferns and brambles.

But where was James? Was one of these holes his prison? Were these root caves doors to the faery world, to other worlds as well?

Helen glanced at Lee and at Sylvie, and
whispered
, “Is James here?”

Lee shrugged, his mud-brown cloak flying open to show his snot-green shirt. He
is
nervous, thought Helen.

Lee spoke quietly. “If you want to find him, you should try walking round sunwise.”

“Sunwise?” Helen frowned.

“Clockwise,” explained Lavender in her ear. “The way the sun moves across the sky. Faeries are
so
old-fashioned.”

Helen hesitated. Sylvie said, “I will go with you if you want, fiddler girl.”

“No! You keep Lee company here, keep an eye on … each other. I’ll walk round the edge.”

She looked back at Lee. “Sunwise?”

He nodded. “Be very polite and don’t say
anything
you don’t mean.”

“Be polite to James?”

“No. To those who guard him.”

Helen’s fingers tightened on the rucksack strap.

Lee frowned. “You didn’t think he would be alone?”

Helen didn’t answer. Of course she had thought he would be alone!

One wee boy and a packet of sandwiches. That hadn’t been too worrying.

But one wee boy guarded by human-sized
faeries
, while she had nothing to defend herself with but jammy pieces …

Perhaps she should have brought Yann or Sapphire rather than Lavender.

However, she had to feed James, so she imagined a clock face arranged round the clearing. If she was
standing at six o’clock, to go clockwise to seven o’clock, she had to turn … left. Lavender, perching on her shoulder, murmured, “Well done.”

Helen walked round the clearing sunwise. At first it was easy. The new growth was higher than her waist, but it was also springy, easy to push aside. Even the brambles were armed with soft new thorns, rather than bone-hard old weapons. As she walked, she looked into the holes. They were deep and dark, denied evening sun by the high walls of roots and stones above, but even in the shadows, Helen could see they were empty.

The circuit became more difficult when she reached the side of the clearing where the trees had crashed down. Intact branches stuck up from the slain trunks like tall fences, while broken branches and smaller trees crushed under the trunks created an unstable decking of viciously sharp wood.

Approaching the first fallen tree, Helen told Lavender to get inside her fleece so she wouldn’t get scratched or stabbed. She clambered over the debris, then forced her way over the trunk.

She had to balance across splintered wood from trunk to trunk, until she had struggled over half a dozen trees. Finally, safely back in the new green growth again, she realized she’d forgotten to look for James. She stared behind her at the dead trees in their creaking graveyard. If he was there, she would send Sylvie to sniff him out.

Helen walked further round the clearing,
glancing
into more black entrances. No one. Nothing. No one. Nothing.

She sighed. There was only one root cave left on her sunwise circle. He probably wouldn’t be there. She glanced briefly into the last hole.

James yawned at her.

He was sitting against the root wall, dim,
shadowy
and very far away. He had the same brown hair and freckles as the boy in the cottage, but a sleepy smile and worried eyes.

“Hello,” Helen said gently. “Are you James?”

He nodded.

“I’m Helen. I know your mum and Emma, and I know you like jam sandwiches with no butter. Would you like some?”

He nodded again.

She slipped the rucksack off one shoulder,
unzipping
the side pocket as it swung round. She held the bag of jam sandwiches out to him.

He didn’t move towards her, so she walked towards him. But her feet were terribly heavy and once she’d set them down, she couldn’t lift them again.

James said something she couldn’t hear.

She said to Lavender, as if the words were too big to get her mouth round, “How do I get this to him?” She felt a tickle by her ear, but she couldn’t hear anything. Not Lavender. Not the sounds of the forest. Not her own breathing.

Nor could she move her feet. Actually she could. She could move them backwards, away from the boy. She took a short step back and heard the whisper of leaves behind her. Another step
backwards
and she heard Lavender say, “Don’t go any nearer!”

But she had to. She had to get closer to James. Dreading the heaviness and silence, Helen went forward again, hearing Lavender’s voice fade, sliding her feet as close as she could to James before bumping up against a piece of clearing that just wouldn’t give. Was this window to the faery world see-through but unbreakable?

The boy’s mouth was still moving, but she couldn’t hear him. Was he there at all? She couldn’t reach him. How was she supposed to feed him?

She wanted to trust Lee and he had said this was a window through which she could feed James. So she lifted the packet of sandwiches through the thick air. It weighed as much as the rucksack but she threw it into the root cave.

The picnic didn’t travel in a smooth arc, but jerked through the air as if it were bumping through a series of invisible barriers before it reached James. But finally he caught it.

Then she threw the brick-heavy bottle of water. James didn’t let go of the sandwiches in time to catch it, so the water landed in the dark earth in front of him. He smiled and Helen saw his lips say “thank you.”

She croaked, “Enjoy your picnic. Don’t eat
anything
else until I come back tomorrow.”

She turned to leave. It should have been easier to walk in the other direction. The air wasn’t so thick. Her feet were lighter.

But walking away was made more difficult by the spears. The half circle of a dozen spear points aimed at her chest.

Noise crashed in around her. Lavender’s
hiccupping panic. The creaking of branches round the clearing. Her own breathing, fast and hard.

And laughter behind her. Not a child’s laughter.

Helen didn’t look round to see who was laughing; she recognised the voice that had controlled the hounds last night.

She looked at the troop of faeries behind the spearheads. Male and female, in flowing clothes like Lee’s, though not as richly decorated, with faces as hard and threatening as the spears.

Helen glanced to where Lee and Sylvie had been standing. They were gone; vanished into the safety of the trees.

She fought her own panic. Yann would never have left her. Why had she trusted these new friends? Lavender was still here, but she was the same size as the spear points. What could she do to help?

Helen whispered, “Lavender, please do that flower fairy magic the faeries are afraid of.”

“Em … I’m starting advanced magic next term. I’ve been studying weather this year. I could rain on them. Or try to blow the spears aside with a strong wind. I’ve been learning plant lore too. I could grow really nasty herbs under their feet.”

“How long would that take?”

“A season or two. That’s not fast enough, is it?”

“No.” Helen looked round the half circle of
faeries
. There didn’t seem to be one more elaborately dressed, or more violently inclined, than the rest; there was no obvious leader.

The laughter behind her was still tinkling and ringing.

Helen met the eyes of the tallest faery warrior. “I’m turning round,” she said clearly. The warrior nodded.

Helen turned. James was gone. So were the sandwiches. But the water bottle was still stuck in the earth.

In his place was a laughing woman.

No. Not exactly in his place. She seemed brighter than James had been, more clearly lit, but further away, as if the hole in the ground was deeper now.

Helen was beginning to doubt whether anything she saw in this earthy root cave was there at all.

Wherever the woman was, she was laughing at Helen.

So Helen stared at her. Rucksack on her shoulder, arms folded, she just stared. She wasn’t being very polite, she knew that. But laughing at someone surrounded by spears wasn’t polite either.

The woman’s beautiful face and elegant hands stayed pale and constant in front of Helen, while the patterns and colours on her dress kept
changing
, sliding and slipping into each other, like an oily rainbow film on a puddle stirred by a passing car.

Though Helen knew the woman was laughing at her, she was drawn to her glowing face and hypnotic clothes. She shook her head, saying to herself, I bet she has more wrinkles than Lee has spots.

She could still hear Lavender, from the depths of her collar, running through an optimistic list of scary plants and dangerous weather. She lifted her right foot, taking a tiny step towards the toppled tree. Whatever magic had stopped her reaching the boy, it wasn’t stopping her reaching the woman.
The window had become a door. Helen could just jump right into the hollow.

She knew that would be a very bad idea. So she just kept staring.

Now Lavender was whispering insistently, “It’s the Faery Queen.”

“I’d guessed that,” Helen murmured back.

“Bow to her or something.”

“Why?”

“You have to show respect.”

“Why? She’s not showing me any.”

The woman’s laughter was fading.

“Jam sandwiches?” she chuckled. “Do you think a packet of sticky sandwiches will tempt him more than our faery feasts?”

Helen suspected she knew more about what James ate than this woman did, but she didn’t say so. Even if she wasn’t going to be polite, the best way to follow the rest of Lee’s advice, to say only what she meant, was to say very little.

“So, human child, do you want the boy back?” asked the Faery Queen.

Helen nodded.

“What can you offer me in exchange that is worth more than a precious child?”

Helen wondered how to answer that. “Tell me what you value and I’ll see if I can offer it.”

“I want
you
.”

Helen had expected that and kept her voice steady. “Just me?”

“You … and all your friends at the music school. I want you to play your wonderful music at my midsummer revels.”

The Queen smiled and spoke in a softer voice. “I know you’re a great fiddler, Helen Strang. I can’t wait to dance to the magical music you make.”

Helen grinned. The Queen had heard of her! The Queen knew she was a great fiddler! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to watch a dress like that move in time to her music? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear a voice like that compliment her playing?

Helen hummed the first movement of Professor Greenhill’s music. Lavender said something, but Helen just hummed louder. The Queen’s feet tapped, the hem of her dress swayed.

Then Helen saw the bottle of water, near and not near the toes of the Queen’s perfectly polished silver pumps.

She felt the weight of the rucksack on her back and remembered why she was here. She stopped humming and licked a bit of jam off her thumb.

She heard Lavender say, “Watch out for her glamour! It’s in her voice, as well as her face!”

Helen thought about wrinkles. Wrinkles and spots. Then she answered the Queen. “I can’t offer to bring all the summer school students.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m the youngest student there. Professor Greenhill is in charge. She decides where we play and what we play.”

The Queen smiled sympathetically. “You could tell them a child’s freedom depends on doing what you say.”

“Do you want everyone to know that you have taken a boy? People would cut down these forests to find a missing child. They might not get him
back, but they would ruin your revels and your hunting ground.”

The Queen frowned and, for just a moment, Helen saw tiny wrinkles on her forehead.

“So ask me for something I
can
bring you,”
suggested
Helen, “and give me the boy in return, then no one else will know you’re here.”

“I want you to play for me.”

Lavender cried, “No!” She was almost spinning on Helen’s shoulder, her tiny stilettos digging into Helen’s collar bone.

Helen shook her head. “I can’t promise that.”

“I don’t want anything else. I only want music. Music and dancing are the most valuable currency in our world.”

“There must be something else you want.”

The Queen considered for a moment. “There is one object I desire. If you can bring it to me
tomorrow
night, I will give you the boy. If you cannot bring it to me, you must promise to play at my midsummer revels.”

“Tell me what the object is.”

“No. You must promise first to give me music if you fail, before I tell you what precious object I will accept instead.

“If you do not promise me now, you will never see the boy again. I will make him jam
sandwiches
with my own fair hands, so if his family ever see him again he will be a boy-shaped pile of dust.”

She smiled again, but her face didn’t glow, it
glittered
like ice; she laughed again, but her laughter didn’t tinkle, it cracked and boomed.