Chapter 41
Trewoofe
The following day, a thud had Trewoofe forcing himself awake.
He peered blearily at the shutters. Bright cuts of light slipped in through the joins of wood.
Avice slept heavily in his arms and a little drool had wetted his sleeve where she rested her head.
He chuckled at that and placed a feather-light kiss to her cheek, before settling down to sleep again.
Another thud.
Trewoofe scowled around the room, seeking the source of the disturbance. Bramble slept curled by the fire, and Ashling dozed in the coals. His jaw ticked, but he rested his head again, tracing his lips over the nape of Avice’s neck.
A third thud had him seething.
He eased himself from their pallet so he could find the noise and stop it. His little witch needed to rest, and he wanted to make sure she got it. As always, when he had laid next to Avice, he had awoken excited and had to adjust his clothing to hide his erection.
That is when he heard it, rustling and footfalls just outside.
He hunched and shuffled over to the door.
Like spoons, the copper key in the lock was both too big for his claw tips, and too small for his hand.
He scrabbled with it and finally managed to turn it with a clunk.
He hissed, and glanced over to his resting family, relieved to see they were still deep asleep.
Trewoofe slipped through the door and closed it behind him with a gentle click. He squinted, allowing his eyes to adjust to the blaring Spring light after the gloom of the last few days.
It was then he saw him.
A human male, a mere stride away.
He bared his fangs, letting a low growl slip from his throat.
The human recoiled and tightened his arms around the squirming bundle he carried.
Trewoofe kept growling as he studied the man, claws twitching to rip him apart.
He was dressed plainly, blood smeared down his brown tunic and hose, with a sturdy pair of boots on his feet.
How dare he come here to disturb Avice? How brazen to cross his ward into her garden?
That gave him pause. If the human had passed through his protection magic, it meant he had not come to cause her harm.
“Well King?” the man squeaked.
Trewoofe bristled. “You know me?”
He nodded. His sleeves were rolled up, and his muscles tensed to hold the swaddled bundle.
“Horns, fangs, red eyes, claws…” he noted. “Though I thought you would be a Dragon—”
“Knucker,” Trewoofe snarled. “I am a Knucker.”
The man lowered his eyes. “Apologies, Lord.”
“Why, exactly, are you here?” he asked, gaze drawn to the wriggling in his arms.
“I came to ask for help from Midwife Avice.”
The Well King’s expression sharpened. “Why?”
“My…” – he jiggled his arms – “my wife, Emma, she had our daughter this morning. It all happened so fast, too early. I did not have a chance to send for the midwife. I—”
Trewoofe held up his hand. “Show me your offspring.”
His throat bobbed. “Lord, are you sure? She is… wrong.”
“Show me.”
The man blanched from the bite in his voice, then pulled back the blankets wrapping the wriggling child. Trewoofe crouched, so he could more closely inspect her in the shorter man’s arms.
His blood ran cold at what he saw.
The baby was large for one apparently born early. Her pale skin was patched with mossy green fur. She had three fingers and a thumb on each hand, and four toes on each foot. His stomach dropped at the skull she had in place of a face, not even human in nature, but fox shaped.
Trewoofe tenderly ran a claw over her crown.
While the other babies he had saved had flutters on the top of their heads, she did not.
The skull was solid, and she appeared to have some sort of face beneath the bone, as her furry green eyelids were closed under the orbitals.
Tufty ears poked from the temporal bones on each side of her head.
His touch drifted down to her chest and pulled back the blanket.
There it was. The emerald leaf mark, and that smell of the deep woods and wilderness.
Trewoofe met the man’s desperate face. “I am sorry this has happened to your offspring.”
“Can you or the midwife help her? Emma told me about the other babies. Could you find it in your heart to aid my daughter?” he asked, bowing his head.
He ground his fangs. He could, but who would the child go to?
Knuckers could only make more Knuckers by having their own offspring.
The Wulver and Piskie changing magic was spent.
He tapped his claw to his chin. He bristled when he realised his precious time with his little witch would be cut short.
Once he had returned to the Underneath and settled the child somewhere, he had the Tall Ones to deal with.
While he was determined to make his Kingdom safe for Avice, that just meant it would be all the longer until he saw her again.
Trewoofe closed his eyes as his mind turned like a spinning wheel.
Shuffling through different images of his Faerie subjects that lived in the Underneath.
He opened them again when the realisation struck him.
The Bucca. They were the next suitable Good Neighbours to take on the care of the child, even if they were a little… eccentric.
“Before I take your offspring,” Trewoofe said, “you must understand that you may never see her again, and she will not be human anymore.”
The man’s jaw clenched. “She is not human now.”
“Agreed.” Trewoofe offered his arms, ready to take the baby. “Have you named your daughter?”
“My wife, she likes the name Mary,” the man explained as he slipped the squirming bundle from his arms to the King’s.
“Mary it is.” Trewoofe nodded, securing the wriggling infant in his grip. “You may leave. I will take your offspring.”
The man lingered, fidgeting with the hem of his bloodied tunic. “My Lord, the midwife.”
He bared his fangs. “What of her?”
He lowered his eyes. “My wife, she needs her care.”
“Has she not done enough?” Trewoofe hissed. “Look around you.”
It was then the King took in the results of their efforts from the night before, shifting the wriggling child into the crook of his arm.
He had been so enraged about the presence of a human male near his Avice – after all the harm they had done to them both – his focus had been on him, and he had not yet taken it all in.
It was beautiful, verdant, like new life had been birthed from the frost. Emerald had exploded across the garden and beyond. Flowers in a spectrum of shades and sizes had popped up, their honeyed aromas saturating his senses.
Then, life.
Rabbits munched on the herbs and vegetables. Birds trilled and darted from shrub to shrub, and a field mouse scurried over his foot, making him wriggle.
The man marvelled at the garden. “You mean… Midwife Avice, did all this?”
“Of course,” Trewoofe snapped, fangs clicking.
He dipped his head. “But all the same. My Emma needs her.”
“Return to your wife. I will leave the decision with Avice.”
“But Lord, I—”
“I said, leave,” he snarled.
With that, the man bowed again and set off at a quick march down the garden path. Trewoofe watched him leave, pass through his ward, and disappear into the woods beyond. A sharp pinch on his skin snapped his attention to the youngling in his arms, her claws had snagged through his sleeve.
Unlike the other two offspring, Mary did not seem to be knocking on death’s door.
To Trewoofe, she seemed vibrant, strong, and very much alive as she squirmed in his arms. Yet, her father still did not want her.
He seethed at that – what he would not give to have his daughters back – and this human male was so willing to discard his.
He understood why the other two families gave up their children, to give them some chance at life.
This, though, was inexcusable; it was abandonment.
Trewoofe blinked back his silver tears. “I am so sorry.”
He trailed his claws over her skull, and she nuzzled into his touch. It was then she opened her eyes and looked up at him. They were a startling deep green, matching the leaf mark on her chest.
“Would you like to meet my little witch?” he asked.
She grunted in response.
Trewoofe nodded and made his way back into the cottage.
Trewoofe knelt by the pallet and brushed snarls of hair from Avice’s face. He jiggled Mary into the crook of one elbow and cupped the midwife’s cheek.
“My soul-bou—” He stopped himself. Not yet, Trewoofe. It is too soon. He cleared his throat. “Avice.”
She mumbled something, rolled over, and pulled the blankets over her head. He chuckled and tugged back the covers. He tucked tangles behind her ear and pressed a kiss to her collar bone.
“Mmmm…” she murmured. “’tis it?”
“My little witch,” Trewoofe whispered. “Forgive me for waking you, but a human male brought his newborn offspring here.”
Avice bolted into a sitting position; all the drowsiness had evaporated from her features in a blink. “What?!”
“I have her here.” He jiggled his arm. “Her name is Mary.”
“Is she nearing death? We must act quickly! What of the mother?”
“Breathe,” he soothed. “The child is well…”
She narrowed her gaze. “But?”
“It is best if I show you,” Trewoofe replied, and tugged back the blanket.
Avice sucked in a breath, her eyes roving the baby he held. “Lord, this infant is not well.”
He frowned. “How so? She seems strong, moving a lot, looking up at me.” He smiled affectionately down at the baby.
“That is not normal for human infants. Newborns only cry and make noise when they are hungry for the breast or need to be cleaned. Mostly, they sleep until some months into their growth.” Avice explained, pressing her fingers to the baby’s chest. “She has that mark…” She paused, her hand rising and falling to the pattern of Mary’s chest. “She is labouring to breathe, and…” She lowered her ear to her skull covered head.
“…she cannot breathe properly through the bone. She is moving so much because she cannot get comfortable or rest.”