Authors: Barbara Davies
She unzipped her shoulder bag and pulled out Teddy. “I was wondering . . .”
He accepted the bear from her and peered at it through horn-rimmed spectacles. “Hm.” His tone was one of disapproval. “He’s in very poor condition.”
“I’m afraid so.” She gave a nervous laugh. “But I expect you get far worse, don’t you?” Somewhere, a door creaked open and a bell tinkled.
“Not often.”
“I’ve had him since I was a child,” she said, and fell silent.
Why am I making excuses?
“Can you fix him?”
He was about to reply, when he froze, his face a mask of horror.
“Are you all right?”
He was looking over her shoulder. Cassie turned and saw that Tarian and the two dogs were standing just inside the door leading from the vestibule. Tarian’s eyes were as wide as Cassie had ever seen them.
“Tar—” she began.
An arm clamped itself around Cassie’s throat, yanking her backwards. Waistcoat buttons dug into her back as the red-haired man held her against him. She tried to protest, but couldn’t. Tried to breathe, and couldn’t. Panic surfaced, and she dropped her shoulder bag and reached for the imprisoning arm. His grip tightened even more, until white specks flecked her vision and blackness began to crowd the edges. Wordlessly she begged Tarian for help.
“Get out or I’ll kill her.” His voice, shrill with fear, vibrated through Cassie.
“Let her go.” Tarian’s voice was as icy as her expression. “Now.” She raised her right hand and pointed at him.
“No!”
She traced an intricate design, and her lips moved.
“You can’t—” The words became a high-pitched shriek, and the arm around Cassie’s throat was suddenly easy to pry loose.
Elbowing her captor in guts that were surprisingly hard, she broke free. With an odd, muffled clatter he slumped to the floor, but she paid him little attention. She was too busy rubbing her bruised elbow and sucking in great gulps of air.
“Are you all right?” Tarian’s arms enclosed her.
Cassie leaned into her embrace, “I think so,” she croaked. She raised a hand to her throat, but Tarian’s long fingers got there first. The burning ache eased. “Thanks,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around Tarian and holding on for dear life.
After a while the terror ebbed enough that she could take in her surroundings once more. At their feet lay a man-sized doll, sprawling like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Coarse red wool sprouted from its crudely carved head, horn-rimmed spectacles perched on its wedge of a nose, and a corduroy suit with an embroidered waistcoat clothed the solid wooden torso and jointed limbs.
Anwar seized one of the doll’s sleeves between his teeth, flopping the hand inside it to and fro. Drysi did the same with a trouser leg. The effect was part comical, part grotesque. Satisfied the doll posed no further threat, they wandered off to sniff the rest of the room.
A sense of unreality stole over Cassie. “A
doll
?”
“A changeling,” said Tarian. “He was using a glamour to appear human. But I knew the moment I saw him.”
“I thought they only existed in fairy stories.”
“No.” Tarian pinched the bridge of her nose.
Cassie registered the tightness around her eyes and the paler than usual pallor. “Are you okay?”
“This place is crawling with ill luck attractors.”
“Oh! Sorry, love. Don’t worry about me. Do what you have to do.”
Tarian crossed to one of the biscuit barrels Cassie had yet to examine. Removing the lid revealed dozens of kidney beans. Her lips moved, and she gestured. With a popping sound, the artefacts disappeared.
“Is that the lot?” asked Cassie.
“Unfortunately not.” Tarian pointed to the table of finished dolls and bears. “There are more in those.”
“They must be awaiting collection.” A thought struck Cassie. “Oh crap! How many more are out there? He must have repaired dozens of the things.”
“Let’s find out.”
Tarian strode through the half-open door into the office beyond. Cassie followed and found her bending over an untidy desk, sorting through sheaves of papers and stacks of account books—the changeling’s method of bookkeeping had been as antiquated as his attire.
With a satisfied grunt Tarian straightened and waved a shabby book at Cassie. “Receipt book.” She opened it at random. “Names and addresses. Look.”
Cassie’s heart sank. “We won’t have to track them all down in person, will we?”
Tarian shook her head. “I’ll use this book to feed a spell that will track down and dissolve all the attractors for us.”
“Thank God for that.”
“God has nothing to do with it.” Tarian gave her a smile. “Now hush and let me work.” She thought for a moment, then traced a symbol and murmured the gibberish that Cassie had learned was arcane Fae.
When the spell’s backwash had passed, and Tarian’s colour was looking a lot better, Cassie asked, “Has that done the trick?”
“My headache’s gone,” said Tarian.
“That’s good. But I was talking about the dolls.”
“So was I. There are no more attractors in the vicinity. Getting rid of those further afield will take a few more days.”
“Wonderful.” Cassie gave her an enthusiastic hug.
They went back through to the other room and halted by common consent.
“Why on earth did he do it?” Cassie regarded the sprawl of clothing and wooden limbs on the floor. “Why inflict bad luck on complete strangers? What had they ever done to him?”
“Who knows why changelings do things?”
Tarian’s comment reminded Cassie of something. “They’re left in exchange for human babies, aren’t they?”
“Used to be. Mab outlawed the practice years ago.”
“But a Fae could have broken the law. Somewhere in Faerie could be the real James Farley, the human child taken from its parents at birth?”
“No Fae crosses the Queen if they can avoid it, Cassie. It’s too dangerous.”
But if the motive were strong enough . . . “Why would a Fae want a human baby anyway?”
Tarian shrugged. “Why do humans want pets at Christmas?”
Cassie gave her a stricken glance. If the Fae treated snatched babies the way some people treated pets after the novelty had worn off . . .
“He wouldn’t be a baby now, anyway,” continued Tarian, sounding indifferent. “Judging by the changeling’s appearance, the child should be in his early twenties. He might even be dead by now.”
“What if he’s still alive?”
Tarian’s expression became evasive. “Some Fae doted on the babies they stole.”
“What about the rest?” Cassie folded her arms. “If he’s not dead, and not doted on, Tarian, what then?”
Tarian sighed. “There have been cases where Fae used a mortal child as a servant,” she admitted with obvious reluctance. “But such cases are rare.”
Cassie stared at her in dismay. “Then we have to find out what happened to the real James Farley.” Tarian opened her mouth but Cassie pressed on, driven by a strong sense of injustice. “Don’t you see? If we don’t find out whether he’s all right we’ll be as bad as those who abducted him in the first place.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Tarian, her expression resigned.
Cassie stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss against her cheek. “Thank you.” She retrieved her shoulder bag, from which Teddy appeared to be trying to escape, and shoved him back inside.
“What about him?” asked Tarian, glancing at the cuddly toy. “Who’s going to repair him for you now?”
Why didn’t I think of this before?
“Couldn’t you just put a spell on him? Make him as good as new?”
Tarian grinned. “If you ask me nicely,” she said.
Chapter 7
“There’s one.” Tarian pointed to the empty space. In fact they were spoiled for choice. It was ten minutes to Sutton Park’s closing time and the car park closest to Holly Hurst was empty.
Cassie parked the car, undid her seat belt, and stretched. “What if a park ranger spots the car while we’re gone?”
Tarian opened the passenger door and got out. “I’ll cloak it.” She inhaled, enjoying the invigoration the clean air brought with it, then opened the rear door. The dogs bounded out, shook themselves, and set about investigating interesting smells.
“I don’t know about this.” Cassie gazed towards the wood. “I’ve never been camping without proper gear and supplies. As for spending the night, suppose it rains?”
Tarian considered the cloud formations. “It won’t.”
“And suppose it gets cold.”
“I’ll keep you warm.”
Cassie threw her a glance. “Promise?”
Tarian laughed and draped an arm round her shoulders. “We can do that too,” she whispered. “We’ll have plenty of time while we’re waiting.”
Cassie’s eyes brightened. “Good.” She checked her watch. “Almost closing time. We’d better hide the car and get under cover.”
“All right.” It was the work of a moment for Tarian to invoke the cloaking spell—Cassie couldn’t help letting let out a yelp of dismay when her car disappeared—then they set off walking. She hadn’t put the dogs on leads this time so they careered around enjoying themselves.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” asked Cassie as they approached the wood.
“As long as it takes. There’s no guarantee the dogs will find anything,” warned Tarian. “The scent could have gone cold after all these years.”
“Have you got the doll?”
Tarian patted her jacket pocket, feeling for the lump inside that was the changeling, and nodded.
“It was weird seeing you shrink it like that.”
“Much easier to carry.”
“I know but . . . Hey. Can you make things taller too?” Cassie scratched her nose. “I get tired of being called a titch.”
Tarian arched an eyebrow. “Where would be the fun in that?” Their relative heights made it easy for Cassie to nestle her head against Tarian’s breasts.
Cassie snickered and said, “Never mind.”
They reached the fence. The dogs slunk under it, Tarian vaulted over it, and Cassie squeezed through the space between the two cross bars. The scent of foliage and leaf mould was strong and slightly bitter. Tarian separated and identified its constituent parts.
Oak, holly, ash, rowan
. . .
Cassie sneezed and blew her nose on a hanky. “Which way?”
Tarian pointed and set off, pushing her way between the tree trunks. “Keep up or you’ll get scratched,” she told Cassie, invoking a spell to make the branches twist out of their way. In response Cassie pressed close to Tarian’s heels. The dogs brought up the rear, snuffling at leaves and toadstools, and darting off to investigate rustlings in the undergrowth.
In Faerie, Tarian would have kept a weather eye out for stag and boar, but the wildlife in Holly Hurst would be smaller and less dangerous—birds, squirrels, stoats, badgers, hedgehogs . . . Her thoughts flashed ahead to supper. Roast hedgehog made good eating but it took some time to cook. And would Cassie be prepared to eat the result?
“How much farther?” puffed Cassie, after they had been walking for ten minutes and had negotiated a dense coppice of silver birch.
“Not far. Can’t you feel it?” The boundary’s nearness was making the hair on Tarian’s arms stand up. The dogs too were excited, forging ahead.
Cassie’s gaze turned inwards. “No.”
A few more paces brought Tarian to the edge of an unexpected glade. It had once been light and airy, but over time trees and shrubs had encroached. In a few more years there would be no glade left. At its heart stood two alders, their fissured and twisted black trunks covered with moss and lichen. There must have been a spring here once, or a stream, for alders always grew near water, but there was no sign of it now. Perhaps its disappearance had added to the trees’ distress—one of them was dying.
The narrow gap between the alders shimmered like a heat haze.
The crossing
. “We’re here.”
Tarian called the dogs to heel. Twigs cracked and bluebell bulbs crunched beneath her boots as she stepped into the open.
“I think I can feel it now,” said Cassie, coming to join her. “It’s weaker than the one in Bourn Forest, isn’t it?”
Tarian nodded and pointed to the dying tree. “It’s failing along with that alder. In a few years Faerie will be inaccessible from here.”
She squatted and pulled the dogs close. “Anwar, Drysi.” She pulled the crude wooden doll from her pocket. “Smell this and remember its scent.” She sent mental images to match her words, and the dogs snuffled its clothing and limbs for several seconds, then let out a soft bark.
“Good dogs.” She fondled their ears. “Once you’re on the other side, seek out the same scent. Understand?” They barked again, to show that they did. “If you can’t find it, return at once. But if you can, follow it to its source and report back here to me.” Eyes bright with intelligence, they wagged their tails. “And don’t get caught.”
After giving them one last pat, Tarian stood up and shoved the doll back in her pocket. “Go.” She pointed to the gap between the alders. With an excited yelp the dogs sprang through it and disappeared.
She turned to Cassie. “Now we wait.”
LOUD BIRDSONG WOKE Tarian from her doze. The sky between the branches of the gnarled oak that had sheltered them was lightening perceptibly.
Almost dawn. Glad it didn’t rain
.
Careful not to wake the sleeping Cassie, she disentangled herself and stood up. Leaves and stalks of dry grass from their makeshift bedding clung to her jeans, and she brushed them off then stretched and yawned.
No sign of the dogs yet. They must have found something. I wish they hadn’t
.
That last thought made her cast a guilty glance at Cassie, who, as she watched, rolled onto her back and lay sprawled in a state of utter relaxation, mouth open. Blue and white petals decorated Cassie’s hair—Tarian had amused herself by threading woodland flowers through it while she slept. She wondered what Cassie would say when she discovered them.
The embers in the stone-ringed fire pit were still emitting a faint warmth, but the makeshift spit and the piece of bark that had served as a platter were empty. During the night, a fox must have finished off what remained of the rabbit. Cassie had gaped as Tarian charmed a fat buck into the glade then killed, gutted, and skinned it, before stuffing it with a few leaves of Jack-by-the-hedge—she liked the tang of garlic. She grinned, remembering what had come next. While supper cooked, they had made love by firelight. The rabbit had been slightly charred by the time they were ready to eat, but it tasted none the worse for that.