12th January—Late
I arrived in County Leane after sundown, my last train having been delayed.
With nothing to occupy meon the carriage ride to Corbann but my grandfather’s journal—or, rather, with plenty to occupy me, all of it worrying—I spent the time perusing its contents, reading the last entry first and then moving backwards to the beginning.
I am not entirely certain why I did so, only that the idea of reading it sequentially made me uneasy.
I suppose that when the ending is so unpleasant, one does not wish to leave it looming.
I need not have feared, however, for it is as Farris said: my grandfather’s last entry merely describes a night of dancing and feasting, one of many he experienced among the Folk.
He never recorded his abandonment, or anything that came after.
The last words he wrote: To-morrow I shall walk down to the sea .
Interestingly, there is no point at which he chooses to run off with the woman in Exmoor—one day he encounters her bathing in a stream; the next, he is taking tea with her.
After that comes a series of impossible banquets under the stars, complicated dances amongst the night mists whose patterns he can never remember afterwards, and nonsensical conversations with various Folk, all described in his ordinary, matter-of-fact tone, as if he were recounting a visit to the post office.
Occasionally he mentions a mysterious “she” whom he describes as “beauty incarnate,” “ethereal wanderer,” and other fawning terms. But then in the next sentence he is looking forward to telling his wife about the “wondrous cakes” served at dinner, or to writing to Farris to tell him of some strange species of common fae he encountered.
I think it likely that he was unconscious of the danger he was in.
I was not able to make sense of it all in the time I had, as the shorthand he employed is difficult.
Also—need it be said?—it is an unsettling thing to read.
I know Farris meant for me to be unsettled by it, which only increases my resentment.
I threw the journal down several times, only to pick it up again, helplessly drawn in by the unfolding tragedy, the unanswered questions, and the uncanny echoes of myself.
It was not just our handwriting or initials.
My grandfather was as obsessive about his research as I, and seemed as skilled at giving offence.
He was even quarrelling with a librarian!
Madame S— can write me all the letters she desires, he wrote at one point.
I am not returning it until I have finished my research.
Where is the need? Not one person borrowed it in over three years—Iconsulted the catalogue.
That she would threaten to send the county sheriff after me!
As if she does not have better things to do. Well, let her try to find me here. Ha!
I never did learn which book he was so determined to keep.
My first thought upon my arrival in Corbann was to return immediately to Wendell’s realm through the stepping-stone door; however, I could not pass by Lilja and Margret’s cottage without stopping to greet them.
They invited me in to supper, so curious about my visit to Trinity that their enthusiasm was like a current sweeping me along, and I wondered how I could excuse myself.
Fortunately, before I had time to worry about it, there came a knock at the door, and there was Wendell, looking eager and impatient.
I was so relieved to see him, alive and well and not somehow overcome by his stepmother’s curse in my absence, that when he stepped towards me, I beat him to it, flinging my arms around him and nearly knocking him over on the doorstep.
“Emily!” he exclaimed, laughing. “This is only the second time I can recall that you have greeted me with enthusiasm. Are you well?”
“Good grief,” I said, glowering to cover my embarrassment at my display. “Surely second is an exaggeration.”
“Now, that is a look I am more familiar with.” He placed a finger beneath my chin and tilted it up, then kissed me softly.
“Are you going to stand there letting in the cold, or are you staying for dinner?” Margret called from the kitchen, grinning at us and not looking at all embarrassed to be interrupting. Lilja wore a smile too, though hers was more guarded.
“Only if you will allow me to assist,” Wendell called back gallantly. He swept inside, as merry as I’d ever seen him—and, I thought, relieved, as if this were a welcome respite from something unpleasant.
That sent a shiver through me. What had he left out of his letters?
“Wendell?” I said, but he was already storming about, scooping up plates and cutlery. Shadow awoke with a snort and promptly leapt all over Wendell, and he paused to pet and coddle the dog into submission before helping Lilja set the table.
Supper was a noisy affair, for Margret likes to talk almost as much as Wendell when in familiar company, and Shadow was delighted by the presence of so many of those he loved, and snuffled up to each of us by turns, whining excitedly.
Wendell was off on one tangent after another, mostly amusing stories about Folk he had known in his youth who were, apparently, still getting themselves into a variety of adolescent troubles, including one individual who had made herself so drunk one night that, on a dare, she cast an enchantment upon herself that turned her into a patch of lichen whenever she sneezed.
I did not volunteer to explain my findings at Trinity, nor did Wendell mention his stepmother’s curse, and nobody asked; we had all made an unspoken agreement to speak only of lighter things.
I had little appetite, which Wendell must have noticed, for he did not tarry after the plates were empty, as he would ordinarily have done, but made our excuses and offered to clean the kitchen before we departed.
Margret chased after him with a dish rag, good-naturedly protesting this indulgence—which, I sensed from the despairing look Wendell had given the moderately disordered countertops, was less an indulgence than a necessity on his part.
Shadow trailed after, for this was also the route the plates with their scraps had taken, and Lilja and I were left alone.
“Would you care to see my carvings now?” Lilja said, and I agreed.
She took me to the little workspace she had created at the back of the cottage, a long table facing a window with a view of the waterfall, its glass damp from the mist. Upon the table was a pile of untouched wood as well as a series of carved figures in varying stages of completion.
A hobby from her youth, she had told us, which she had not had time to practice until now.
“But these are marvellous!” I said with perfect sincerity. My eye was drawn first to the raven, an intricate construction of proud beak, talons, and windswept feathers, before I noticed she seemed to be attempting to conceal something from me.
“Is that—?” I began, astonished. Laughing, she handed me the carving.
“It’s not finished,” she said. “I forgot to put it away. I was hoping to surprise you with it.”
I was holding a life-sized carving of Poe—or the top half of him, at any rate; the rest was unworked wood.
His face was rough but recognizable, skeletal with a great deal of teeth.
Somehow, in its roughness, Lilja had managed to suggest something of Poe’s ethereal quality, the sense that he is both here and not here.
She had made a start on his needle fingers, several deep scores in the wood as long as his arms.
“I will admit,” she said, “I am not as fond of the creature as you are. Much as I wish it were different, I cannot stop having nightmares about him! And I am always worried he will accidentally slice off one of my toes and not even notice.”
I laughed and set the carving down. How I miss Poe! He gave me a key so that I might visit him, but it is a magic that works only in lands where winter is more at home than it is in Ireland.
Lilja showed me the rest of the carvings, which were also very fine, though she claimed each needed various improvements.
Watching her, I realized it was not my imagination—she was distracted, but whether this pertained to myself or something else entirely, I couldn’t have said.
Ordinarily I attempt to suppress the impulse to be blunt, but Lilja does not take offence to me.
“I think you are upset,” I said. “I would like to know what has caused it.”
She gave a small laugh. “Oh dear! I’m sorry, Emily. I have been trying to find the words, but—I’m afraid I would be interfering where I shouldn’t.”
“You needn’t worry,” I said. “I am not the best judge of the bounds of friendship; therefore you are unlikely to overstep with me. You are concerned for my safety—is that it?”
She looked troubled. “That is putting it mildly. Dear Emily—you have taken one of their thrones. Can you truly not guess how worried I have been? Thora too, and Aud—she writes me weekly to ask for news of you.”
I felt relieved. Not to be having this conversation, but to know that I had not angered her somehow, or otherwise caused her to question our friendship.
“You know that I am one of the foremost living experts on the ways of the Folk,” I said.
I was not worried about bragging, for this was a simple statement of fact.
“That is the problem,” Lilja replied. “Yes, I know that you know the Folk, but there is a difference between knowing and feeling. Those of us who live among them would never trust the tall ones. For all you have read about and studied the Folk, you have never truly lived with them, dear. They are like—like nature. Can you understand the feeling of a winter night, or a spring wind, if you have only read about it?”