Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde #3)

8th February—Very Late

8th February—very late

Ah, I am weary. Ordinarily my field studies give me plenty of cause to go wandering in various forms of wilderness, but I have not had much reason for exercise since our stay in Austria. Only a short entry this time, and then sleep.

I departed the cottage with Shadow as soon as there was light enough to see my way. With me I brought nothing but the necessities: my journal, pen and pencil, Wendell’s letters, a little water and food, and snowshoes. These last I borrowed from Lilja and Margret, along with a pack. They wished to accompany me at least part of the way, but I said no.

“I will travel no faster with company, and possibly more slowly,” I said. “And as I have said, this could be a pointless endeavour. I may just have to come back.”

Eventually, they relented, and Margret allowed me to hug her goodbye. At first I thought Lilja would not forgive me, for she left the room without another word, wiping tears from her face. But Margret went after her, and after a few moments they returned together.

“I wish you would reconsider,” Lilja said, her voice still teary as she hugged me tightly.

“I’m sorry” was the only answer I could give her. I did not see any way to heal the rift between us, so I turned away before my own tears could fall.

“Take plenty of notes,” Niamh said by way of goodbye. And with that, Shadow and I left them.

I had not wanted to bring my faithful beast with me. Rather, I had wanted him with me, but I had not wanted to burden him with such a dangerous and wearying quest. But I do not think Shadow would have countenanced being left behind again, not after Austria. Indeed, he seemed to sense what I was about, and was stretched out in front of the door this morning, watching me with a look he might have borrowed from Orga, it was so judgmental. I knelt to rub his face and assure him that I would not be leaving him, and once he understood I was earnest, he rose to cover my face in slobber.

I had hoped to reach the mountain before nightfall, but the short winter days and Shadow’s deteriorated fitness—as well as my own—proved significant hindrances. The English translation for its name is, ominously, The Bones , and it is the highest mountain in County Leane, in addition to being the only peak high enough to receive a winter snowfall of any significance. The route there is deceptively straightforward from Lilja and Margret’s cottage, merely a pathless expanse of hilly moor, but when one actually attempts it, one finds oneself constantly at war with heather and other bristling shrubs, as well as patches of boggy wet where the sunlight has struggled through the vegetation, and treacherous ice where it has not.

I made camp last night around suppertime, having only reached the base of The Bones, because it had grown too dark to see my way. The mountains at my back were sharp as broken teeth against the starry winter sky, and my breath rose about me in clouds.

I removed my cloak and gave it a shake, as I’d watched Wendell do, and when I released it, the thing transformed into a tent, complete with blankets and an altogether silly number of pillows. Once I was settled, I lit a candle and read the first of Wendell’s letters.

To: Dr. Emily Wilde

Sruth Cottage, Old Road

Corbann

From: Wendell Bambleby

Faerie via Dunmare

Dearest Emily,

It has been more than a day since you left. You see I have refrained from writing immediately, just as I have refrained from following you. Please tell me that you have forgiven me! Yes, you are using your research as an excuse to go away, but I know that you are, in fact, angry that I have not freed my stepmother. Em, when I promised to grant your every wish, should it be within my power, perhaps I should have specified that wishes of a suicidal nature are to be excepted. I know my stepmother; she shall never leave off seeking power, and it is you she will now see as her greatest enemy, not me. You cannot make a pet of her, as you have other faerie monsters, for she is wily beyond measure, and will find a way to escape any cage. She is probably dead by now anyway—the Veil is a terrible place.

I cannot help thinking—for that is all I have done since you have left, mull over every word and glance that passed between us when we were last together—that there is another reason you asked me to spare my stepmother. You wish to interview her for your book, don’t you? Em, there are villains enough in every corner of my realm for you to interrogate. Come home, and allow me to round up a few. The hag-headed deer have a queen, you know. Terrible Folk, the Deer. And not one scholar has ever laid eyes upon them.

Yours eternally,

Wendell

“That is unfair!” I exclaimed to the letter. Now, if I had gone away from him in a fit of pique, this indeed may have lured me back, as he clearly knew. I had mentioned to him more than once in passing that these hag-headed deer, mysterious as their ways are even to the rest of the Folk, were a subject of particular interest to me. And they had their own court within Wendell’s realm, did they? I had never heard of such a thing.

Shaking my head, I turned to the next letter.

To: Dr. Emily Wilde

Sruth Cottage, Old Road

Corbann

From: Wendell Bambleby

Faerie via Dunmare

Dearest Emily,

I had the most intriguing conversation today with the boggart. He has witnessed the reigns of several of my ancestors, you know, and has all sorts of opinions about them. One can trace the building of this castle, the construction of the paths and barrows, the alliances and power struggles between this lord or that lady, through his reminiscences, if he is in the mood for talk. Indeed I have never met an individual in possession of so many stories about our realm, excepting perhaps my churlish uncle. Who knows how long we may have access to his wisdom, for boggarts spend so much of their time asleep, and are near impossible to wake even if you are a king of Faerie; he may decide to take a nap tomorrow, for all I know, which will last the next decade or more.

Please come home soon, or send me a letter, at least.

Love always,

Wendell

“I see what you are doing,” I muttered. “You needn’t be so obvious about it.”

To: Dr. Emily Wilde

Sruth Cottage, Old Road

Corbann

From: Wendell Bambleby

Faerie via Dunmare

Dearest Emily,

It has been three days since you went away! This morning I decided I’d had enough and made ready to set off after you, if only to plead my case. But then I was struck by a dreadful vision of each time you had glared at me for poking my head into your office at Cambridge, interrupting your fiendish clacking at your typewriter, and I felt my heart fail me. A hundred Emilys, all glowering away, and still this, I think, would be a warmer welcome than the one I would receive for interrupting your research inCorbann after you expressly told me not to.

And yet I believe I shall have to brave it. Oh, it is wonderful to be home again—I would never deny that; I find my realm even more lovely, more perfectly suited to happiness and comfort, than even I remembered it. Truly, I pity Folk who live elsewhere, for there can be nothing that rivals the beauty of these forests and hills. And so, Em, when I say that I am wretchedly ill at ease without your company, that I feel as if I am missing a limb, that I cannot be content even amidst the wonder of my realm, you will understand the depth of my feelings. Surely you must miss me a little as well? I know your heart by now, Em; it is not all stone and pencil shavings, as you are wont to pretend.

Perhaps I will come to Corbann tomorrow. If you will not at least write, I don’t think you can roast me for interrupting your labours. Or can you?

All my love,

Wendell

The rest of the letters continued in this vein, alternating between complaints, entreaties, and various attempts to bribe me into returning, generally by dangling some scientific discovery before me. I put them beneath my pillow, cursing him for his histrionics, and also for the effect they had upon me. That I should feel guilty for leaving him, when I had done so only to attempt, yet again, to save his ridiculous neck! I punched the pillow several times, then attempted to sleep, then dragged the letters out to read them again.

I worried I might have some trouble with bogles in the night, for I had noted several faint trails and holes in the ground that reminded me of the terrain below the boggart’s tower, as well as one of their discarded cookpots. But Shadow and I were left alone, and enjoyed a surprisingly restful sleep.

Lilja and Margret had told me there was a rambler’s path up The Bones from the eastward side, and I was relieved to come upon it without much trouble. The going was much easier after that, despite the steepness of the ascent, and we reached the snowpack by late afternoon.

I allowed myself a rest at that point, for I was sweating despite the cold gusts that swept across the height, and my legs protested the haste with which I had made the climb. Shadow had matched my pace throughout the day, hobbling along determinedly at my heels, and now he lay at my side with his paws on my leg, panting but still alert, as if determined to prove me right in bringing him along. I drank from my flask and ate a little bread, and slowly the pounding in my head subsided. I would have liked to admire the view, for I was half encircled by mountains, the land in the other direction tumbling down to green heathland and the village of Corbann, shrunk to tiny squares of white. However, there was something particularly precarious about the place, the mountain flank steep and slippery with scree that made me quake imagining the return journey. I had the sense that few ramblers ever came this way, and I wondered if this was owing to the pitiless wind, which nearly knocked me over when I tried to stand, or some faerie beast that haunted the place. Either way, I had little desire to linger.

My fingers trembled lightly as I withdrew the pendant I always wore from beneath my collar. It was a small coil of bone as far from key-shaped as possible, and yet that was precisely what it was.

I had no idea if my plan would work. I had to be in the winterlands to use Poe’s door—did this place count? It certainly had more winter in it than anyplace else in the vicinity of Wendell’s realm, and was far less hospitable, a characteristic shared by all places called winterland I’d yet encountered.

I held the key before me, pressed between my thumb and forefinger, and made my way up the snowy slope, feeling alternately hopeful and extremely foolish, particularly whenever my foot slipped and I was nearly sent tumbling back down the mountain. I wondered dolefully if anybody in the village would see me, a tiny speck, if I was to fall to my death, or if I would simply become another mysterious disappearance to add to the dryadology annals. What an inconvenient time to meet my end, given all that I was in the middle of! But then, what person who meets an untimely end is not in the middle of their own to-do list, all of which simply turns to dust after, whether the items consist of mundane errands or the preservation of a faerie kingdom.

I was wrapped up in morose thoughts of this nature when my foot slipped—not on ice; it felt as if the mountain slope itself shifted by a fraction of a degree. I stumbled forward, catching myself just in time, and when I looked up, I was no longer in Ireland.

There was the familiar spring, bubbling away, plumes of sulphurous mist dancing over the surface. There was the grove of trees at the edge of the forest, stunted by their northerly latitude, there the view of the winter-dark sea choked with ice.

I allowed my lightheadedness to overtake me, and sank to my knees upon the snow. Shadow, who had been close at my heels, sat beside me with a huff. For some reason, perhaps because I had been hunched forward for the last several hours, fighting the pull of gravity at my back, I still felt I could at any moment go tumbling down from a height.

I began to laugh. I was as lighthearted, in that moment, as if my quest were over, when in fact it had only begun. I looked about for Poe. His aspen was as fine as ever, its bark as pure a white as if someone had polished away any imperfections, and it was in leaf despite the season. A thin wisp of smoke drifted from one of the knotholes, and the winter glade smelled of baking bread. One of the villagers—Finn, I guessed—had cleared a little path in the snow from Poe’s tree to the spring.

Something made my gaze drift upwards, and I realized there was a face directly above me, peering down, belonging to a creature who sat perfectly still upon a bare bough. It was perhaps two foot in height, the grey face of a skeleton with an overlarge mouth and glistening needle-teeth, which were bared in my direction. In spite of its face, its body was quite fat, and was wrapped in something that resembled several stitched-together owl carcasses, poorly cleaned. Its fingers dangled from either side of the branch like thin black rapiers, ending in deadly points, twice as long as the faerie was tall.

I stared.

The thing stared back.

When it began to emit a horrifying hissing sound, like a rusted-out kettle boiling over, I screamed—most unlike me. Ordinarily I am better at controlling my nerves around the Folk, even such Folk as this, but the thing’s appearance was so hideous and so unexpected in this place where I had thought to find only an old friend.

I staggered back and nearly fell into the hot spring, my hands slamming painfully against the warm, wet stones that lined the perimeter. The creature swayed in the boughs as if gathering itself to pounce, and I drew in my breath to shout the Word—the one that granted a temporary invisibility, that is, not the one for lost buttons. I did not know if it would save me, but it would confuse the thing, and perhaps that would give me time to come up with something else. Shadow placed himself in front of me, growling—I’m not sure he could make out the beast in the tree, nearsighted as he is, but he readied himself nevertheless to challenge whatever had alarmed me.

Into this charged tableau came Poe, emerging from his tree-home with a teetering basket of iced cakes in his arms. He gave me a wide grin of welcome, looking pleased and not at all surprised by my arrival.

“I saw you from the window,” he said, taking no notice of the hissing monstrosity above us. “Fortunately, I just finished the day’s baking, so everything is still warm.”

“There,” I said, unable to be more articulate as I pointed with a shaking hand.

He glanced up. “Oh, yes!” he exclaimed happily. “Mother is visiting!”

“Good God” was all I could say in response.

Hsssssshaaaa, said the thing in the tree.

“That,” I said, when at last my heart had slowed somewhat, “is your mother?”

Poe handed me the basket of cakes and tugged at the hem of my cloak, his small face alight with happiness. “How wonderful! All my family is here together. Almost all. Where is the golden prince? He is not ill again?”

It was just like the little brownie to accept my sudden appearance as perfectly expected; it has been some months since we have seen each other, and yet to him it is ever as if a mere day has passed. The cakes smelled of apple and peppery spices, and I took one without eating it; my stomach was still unsettled from my fright.

“Wendell is quite well,” I said unsteadily. “But he is busy with his kingdom. He sends his regrets that he could not be here.”

Poe looked simultaneously relieved and astonished. “Really? Oh, but he does not need to visit—though of course I would be honoured,” he added hastily. “As would Mother! She could hardly believe it when I told her that we could count a lord of Faerie among our fjolskylda. ”

What Poe’s mother truly thought of her royal family member, I never knew, for the only reply from the tree was a tetchy sort of growl. I looked up, and found that she had vanished.

“She likes to stand guard over my home,” Poe said contentedly. “For she agrees that my tree is the finest in the forest, even finer than the lovely willow in whose bole I was born and raised, and she fears that some jealous enemy may vandalize it. I do not think this likely, do you? For even if I had enemies—and I hope I do not, for I always go away and hide when someone wants to argue with me—they would only fall in love with my tree straightaway, and be unable to put even one scratch on it.”

I suppressed an urge to look about to determine where exactly his mother had got to. “She has—very long fingers.”

“Oh, yes,” Poe said. He glanced down at his own needle-fingers, which were also lengthy, though nowhere near the size of his dam’s. “Mother is old. I hope one day that mine will be as bountiful as hers, but Mother says I should not wish for things that may never come to pass, but be content with what I have today. She can spear a seal with one thumb, which would be useful, wouldn’t it?”

I could not begin to formulate a reply to this, so instead I said, “I have come on an errand for Wendell. An urgent one. I would appreciate your assistance, as would he.”

Poe looked suddenly terrified. “Yes—yes. Oh, is he wondering about my tree? I watered it all summer, and I have collected any leaves that fell—I keep them in a very safe place!”

“Wendell is confident in your skills as the tree’s custodian,” I assured him. “I have come—” I could not get it out at first. “I have come to speak with the king.”

Poe’s eyes had gone perfectly round. “Oh, but—” He fell back a step, vanishing abruptly into the snow, then reappearing closer to his tree. “But you must not,” he said in a low, desperate voice. “He is worse, far worse than the golden prince. I mean—” Terror filled his face again. “I did not mean that! The prince is so very noble and kind, and his attentions to my tree have—”

“Shh, it’s all right,” I said soothingly. “It’s all right. You need not worry about Wendell. And as for the snow king, I will go alone to beg an audience; you need not accompany me. I only wish to learn his whereabouts.”

Poe was shivering. “I don’t know,” he said in an unhappy voice. “The high ones travel hither and thither in their carriages, and at night I have heard their voices singing from the deep places of the forest and upon the mountain peaks. But the king and his court come only rarely to the coast. They prefer the glaciers and snowfields.”

I felt a stab of disappointment, but tried to conceal it. I should not have expected Poe to know the whereabouts of the Hidden king. Perhaps the villagers of Hrafnsvik could help me—I owed a visit to Aud, in any case.

“They leave offerings at the king’s tree,” Poe said, after a moment’s silence. “The mortals do. They leave them, and someone takes them away.”

“The tree,” I said.