Chapter 8 #2
I blinked once, and then we were beneath the trees again, in a wide hollow snuggled against the base of the foothills.
With my eyes now fully open to its magyk, the Arden was even more enchanting—as if a shimmering mantle had been draped over every tree and flower and stone, every blade of grass and warbling bird.
Their colors were richer, their movement more graceful, their sounds sweeter.
Each tableau reminded me of the illustrations in Locksley’s library books.
The Devil watched, propping himself against a tree trunk as I turned on the spot, greedily drinking it all in.
“How can you live in such a place?” I laughed, flinging my arms out and spinning.
“How could a creature like me live anywhere else?” he replied with an indulgent smile. “I offend the sensibilities of any right-minded human I encounter.”
I snorted. “Before you say I am not in my right mind, Devil, know that my sensibilities still find you quite offensive.”
“As they should. But then you ought to know that all my favorite humans abandoned their right-minds long ago.”
“You know other humans?” I asked, turning to look at him.
“Have I made you terribly jealous, Mayhem?”
I wrinkled my nose at the nickname and said, “Not in the slightest. You did mention other captives, but if they are not in their right minds, then perhaps they actually enjoy your company.”
“Perhaps you should meet them before offering judgements,” he suggested, then cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “How doth the Arden greet her wayward children?”
The reply came in a ringing chorus that nearly made me jump from my skin. “With open arms and a merry smile!”
As I looked on, the Arden’s residents cautiously revealed themselves.
Dozens of faces: young, old, dark, pale, male, female, and everything in between, appeared.
They swung from tree limbs, popped up beneath patches of moss or out from behind rocks, ranging in size from no larger than an acorn, to taller than the tallest men I’d ever seen.
As they emerged into the spaces between the trees, eyes pinned on me, I held my breath.
But none seemed hostile—openly curious, or perhaps wary, but nothing like the malignant, unseelie creatures most people in Nottingham warned against. They were certainly as beautiful as the legends said, however, and just as strange as I’d always imagined.
Many kept the general form of humans, two legs and two arms, while also boasting the wings of birds or insects on their backs.
Some were also possessed of horns or antlers, tails, hooves, claws, feathers, and fangs of every variety.
Others seemed to be creatures of the Arden’s flora, with skin and eyes in every shade of every flower or leaf, hair made of stems, tangled roots, or fluffy cotton, wearing petals or seed pods as garments.
There were animals too. Deer, rabbits, squirrels, foxes, stoats, badgers, and moles with an uncanny look in their eyes, as if they could understand the speech of the folk around them.
But amongst the gathering crowd, I also spotted human faces—flawed and plain, spotted with age or scars, with no animal or plant features to speak of, identifiable by the rounded tips of their ears.
All of them, human and fay alike, emerged from their hiding places and approached me where I was rooted, immovable with awe.
The Devil came to stand beside me too, his great wings flaring out dramatically.
“I have brought an honored guest,” he announced, and whispers began to fly, “to be presented to My Lord and Lady at the revelry tomorrow. Marina, of Locksley Abbey! But you shall all know her as May.”
“She doesn’t look very special!” chirped a small child with a pair of floppy, gray rabbit ears sprouting from their head. “What can she do?”
“Well, she isn’t very good company,” said the Devil with a devious glint in his eyes.
“She wouldn’t know a joke if it bit her on the arse, and having heard her sing, I can confirm that she will not be the entertainment at our revelry.
” I clutched my throat, face burning, but he continued.
“She certainly isn’t here to dazzle us with her dancing skills either.
Why don’t you all have a look and tell me what you think? ”
He stepped to the side and dozens of the faerie creatures swarmed me.
But their touch was so gentle, I hardly felt it.
Some raked their claws through my hair, while others sniffed at my legs, or listened to my heartbeat with inhuman ears.
They poked and prodded, deftly avoiding my iron medallion, but overwhelming all my senses until one finally lifted my hand into the air.
“Aha!” cried the bent-backed little man no taller than my knee, who appeared to be made entirely from mossy tree bark. “The dirt beneath her nails tastes like an autumn harvest! She is a gardener!”
A loud cheer went up and they all began to scamper away, laughing and chattering amongst themselves.
Only one remained, sitting on my outstretched hand: a tiny woman, the size of my middle finger, with a curvaceous human body clothed in iridescent green hummingbird feathers.
As I brought her closer to my face, however, I realized that the feathers were not her clothing.
They grew from her skin, covering her arms, shoulders, breasts, hips, and legs, which ended not in feet, but in scaly, taloned claws.
A strip of pale human skin ran from her navel, up her chest and neck, then over the front of her face, with even more delicate feathers fanning back from her cheeks.
Her ‘hair’ was actually a cascade of shimmering fuschia feathers, which ran down her back between a pair of tiny, buzzing wings, and then fanned out into a beautiful tail.
“Look at you,” I breathed, holding her up to eye level. She smiled and blew a kiss off her miniscule human hand, then took to the air and planted a kiss on the tip of the Devil’s nose.
“Hello, Prim,” he said warmly. “Yes, I brought you a gardener at last.”
The faerie woman’s voice was so shrill and quick that I couldn’t make out her words, but her excited tone left the Devil grinning.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” I asked.
He just sighed, “Ah, you humans and your manners. May, this is Primrose. I know you’ll be saddened to hear it, considering how taken you are with me, but Prim is the love of my life. I would not trade her for anything.” The tiny woman spun herself in a circle with a squeal of glee.
“I shall try to contain my jealousy,” I said, fighting back a smile as Prim landed on my hand again and gave a deep curtsey, which I returned. “I am very honored to meet you.”
“Hmm,” said a much lower voice from behind me.
“I think this is the first one you’ve brought around that didn’t faint.
Are you getting better or are they just becoming hardier?
” I turned and found myself face-to-face with another human woman—or I presumed that’s what she was.
I had never seen anyone quite like her before, but she did not seem fay, at least not in the way the others were.
Tall and willowy, with an angular face, her skin was a nearly translucent shade of white, as was her long, pin-straight hair.
It was as though she had stood out in the rain too long and been washed free of all pigment.
Even her keen, blue eyes were faded and pale.
“This one welcomed a rescue from her drudgery,” the Devil said, putting an arm around my waist and pulling me into him.
I just huffed and stepped away, but out of habit, I shook the woman’s thickly-callused hand when she offered it.
Physically, she did not appear to be much older than myself, but something in her eyes belied her true age.
If she lived among the Fair Folk, I knew there had to be a reason.
“Aliena Dale,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“The Arden’s most talented musician and composer,” the Devil interjected. Examining Aliena more closely, I spotted a beautiful lute hanging from a strap across her back. “Thanks to a little bargain with our beloved Queen.”
“‘Little’,” Aliena laughed, stuffing her hands into her pockets. She was dressed more or less in a human fashion, but wore brown cloth trousers, rather than a skirt, a cream-colored shirt, and a green waistcoat stitched with intricate, colorful embroidery.
“Speaking of little,” said the Devil, scanning the trees and the small crowd still lingering around us, “you haven’t seen Jon, have you?”
“Oh, you know he avoids meeting new people like the plague,” Aliena laughed. “He’ll be off hunting for days, I imagine.”
“Such a spoilsport,” the Devil said, then gave me a mischievous smile. “You and he will get along famously, May.”
“If his patience is such that he can put up with you, Devil, I’m sure we shall be the best of friends,” I said in a falsely sweet voice.
The Devil opened his mouth to retort, but Aliena stepped between us.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Starving.”
“Excellent.” She looped her arm through mine and pulled me away. “Come on.”
The Devil looked like he was considering whether it was a good idea to let me out of his sight, but was quickly accosted by a group of small Fair Folk. Even as he crouched down to speak with them, however, I felt his strange eyes on my back.