Contents

Title Page

Introduction

A Pocketful of Crows

May Eve

One

May

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

June

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

July

One

Two

Three

Four

August

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

September

One

Two

Three

Four

October

One

Two

Three

November

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

December

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

January

One

Two

Three

February

One

Two

Three

Four

March

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

April

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

May Eve

One

Death and the Maiden

The Blue Salt Road

Part 1

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Part 2

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Part 3

One

Two

Three

Four

Part 4

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Part 5

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Part 6

One

Two

Three

Part 7

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

The Selkie

Orfeia

Step on a Crack

One

Two

Three

Four

London Beyond

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Hellride

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

The Night Train

One

Two

Three

Four

Norrowa

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

The Hallowe’en King

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

The Shadowless Man

One

Two

Three

Four

The Hallowe’en Queen

One

Death and the Crone

Acknowledgements

Also By Joanne M. Harris

Copyright

Introduction

Everyone knows Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Most people could name at least half a dozen of these traditional European folk tales, although they may not be as familiar with the original versions as they are with the Disney adaptations. Most people know some version of The Little Mermaid; Hansel and Gretel; The Red Shoes; The Snow Queen; Rapunzel; Snow White; Rumpelstiltskin. They form an important part of our literary heritage, and writers and artists have found themselves returning to them again and again. And yet, our own Child Ballads, arguably as rich and important a resource as Grimm or Perrault, remain largely unknown to the general public, except in the world of folk music, and in certain academic circles.

That’s one of the reasons I chose to draw inspiration for my three illustrated novellas – A Pocketful of Crows, The Blue Salt Road, and Orfeia – from Child’s Ballads, rather than choosing a more familiar tale. Child’s Ballads are very particular to the British Isles. They speak directly to the history and geography of these islands. They are our Grimm’s Fairy Tales, our Mother Goose, and we ought to know them better.

So, what are Child Ballads? They are a collection of 305 traditional ballads, collected and anthologized by Francis Child during the second half of the 19th century. The lyrics and Child’s studies of them were published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, and they exist now as a record of the folklore, language and dialects of the British Isles over more than five centuries. Some of the ballads deal with familiar themes. Some are versions of Biblical tales; some tell the stories of folk heroes like Robin Hood and King Arthur – although people who have been brought up with the Hollywood versions of either may be in for a surprise. Some of the ballads are historical, some fantasy; some are darkly humorous, and a number are murder ballads – the folk equivalent of true crime. Most date from the 17th century or later, but some date all the way back to the 14th century; and most exist in multiple variants, changed by region, dialect or simply over the passage of time.

Like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the Child Ballads are often very dark. Gruesome murder, monsters both human and inhuman, sexual assault, grief, guilt and betrayal feature heavily. Some are long and detailed; others exist only as fragments. But as a body of work, they have a distinctive character of their own, forming an important link to our shared past, our culture, our shared dreaming. These are not the histories of kings and politicians, but of the common folk, passed down through generations, not through writing, but through song. They are songs designed to be sung at work; in the home; in the alehouse. Their humour is rude; their view of the world is both bleak, and strangely hopeful.

What they are not is childish, or fanciful, or trivial. Even at their most surreal and strange, they serve as a means of expressing thoughts too subversive, or taboo, or painful to explore without the use of metaphor. They are the songs of revolt against oppression; of anger at the unfairness of life; of hope for a better future; of love and loss and laughter and grief. They are the soundtrack of our shared humanity, depicting the struggle of ordinary people; their dreams, and sometimes their nightmares. These nightmares are not so different from ours. Monsters of all kinds abound – murderers, rapists, seducers, abusers – and most of their victims are women and girls, crying out for justice.

In folk tales and ballads, as well as in life, women are often given roles that enable the hero’s journey, without having a journey of their own. The three stages of womanhood – maiden, mother and crone – are all viewed through the lens of what a woman can offer to men. The Maiden is either the hero’s reward, or the monster’s victim – both roles are dependent on her virtue and her desirability. The Mother (who can also take the role of the Wicked Stepmother) exists either to nurture her son, or send him into the wilderness; and the Crone (or her malignant double, the Witch), offers either wise advice, or a challenge to be met. In all three instances, the woman exists to serve the hero, to offer him what his story needs. Rarely do we hear the woman’s story, and even then, it’s a cautionary tale for women to guard their virtue, respect their husbands, obey their fathers, submit to men.

That’s why, in my three novellas, I’ve tried to give those women a story outside of their traditional roles. In A Pocketful of Crows, the maiden – seduced and abandoned – takes back her power and agency. In The Blue Salt Road, I’ve flipped the traditional narrative of the selkie woman enslaved by human beings, and made it a story of gender and race, motherhood and redemption. And in Orfeia, I’ve taken two stories: the Orpheus myth (retold in Child’s Ballads as King Orfeo) along with the sinister Elfin Knight, and made them the tale of a woman’s grief, an older woman’s journey. All three stages of womanhood are represented here; and in this compilation, each one is accompanied by a new tale from the Honeycomb world, in which I use the conventions of folklore to make a tradition of my own. And although I sometimes quote the original texts of the Ballads, I have deliberately chosen to subvert, rather than remain faithful to the original. Anyone who has read The Gospel of Loki will understand that I’m interested in retellings that challenge, rather than confirm, the world of the source material. Stories that cannot change are doomed to die and to be forgotten. The Child Ballads themselves, with their many variants, show how stories mutate and change to suit different times and surroundings. It is by adapting our stories that we keep them alive. In this way we learn from the tales of our past. In this way we try to correct the mistakes made by our ancestors. And no, these tales are not comfortable. Nor are they for children; except for the child within us all, always in search of the next stage of our personal story; a story that links us with the past as well as with the future.

May Eve

I am as brown as brown can be,

And my eyes as black as sloe;

I am as brisk as brisk can be,

And wild as forest doe.

The Child Ballads, no. 295

One

The year it turns, and turns, and turns. Winter to summer, darkness to light, turning the world like wood on a lathe, shaping the months and the seasons. Tonight is May Eve, and the moon is full for the second time this month. May Eve, and a blue milk moon. Time for a witch to go travelling.

Tonight I am a vixen. I could have been an owl, or a hare, or a lark, or a wolf, or an otter. The travelling folk can take any guise. But tonight – this special night, when wildfires burn and witches fly – tonight, I am a vixen.

I leave my clothes by the fireside. The feather skirt, the wolfskin cloak, the necklaces of polished stones. Naked, I turn in the firelight; moon-silver, fire-golden. And now I can hear the sounds of the night: the lapping at the water’s edge; the squeak of a mouse in the long grass; the calling of owls in the branches. I can hear the tick-tick-ticking of a death-watch beetle in a beam over half a mile away; I can catch the sleepy scent of lilacs on the common. I cast my gaze further. The vixen is near. Half-asleep in her warm earth, she senses my presence and pricks up her ears. The three fat cubs beside her are sleepy, filled with warm milk. But the vixen is restless, sensing me so close, so unfamiliar.

I send her the small, persistent desire for a run beneath the stars. She lifts her head and flexes her jaws, wary but still curious. I send her the feel of the cool night air, the mossy ground beneath my feet, the hunger in my belly. Shivering, I turn from the fire and walk into the forest. The ground is soft and damp and cold. It smells of rain, and bluebells. My skin is striped with moonlight, brown and silver under the trees. For a moment I see the vixen, red as embers under smoke, a single flash of white at her throat, trotting alongside me.

The scents of the forest intensify, a tapestry of shining threads that run in every direction. The vixen’s fur is warm and thick; I am no longer shivering. For a time I run alongside her, feeling her strength and the fierce joy of hunting under a blue milk moon, with the promise of blood in the air and summer no more than a heartbeat away. Then, in a moment, we are one.

Wild creatures feel hunger differently. My own is deep as wintertime; frugal as old age. The vixen’s is joyous; exuberant; sniffing for frogs under the turf; snapping at moths in the shining air. We reach the river – voles and rats – but I am hungry for something more. I follow the river until it leads to a place of open fields, and from there to the edge of a village, where the scent of prey is strong. I follow the trail of a speckled hen into a wooden henhouse, and there I am without mercy, leaving nothing but feathers.

The moon is ringed with silver – a sign. The air is sweet as summertime. Belly full and with blood on my jaws, I linger in the meadow mist, under the bank of hawthorn that marks the village boundary. Then after a time, smelling smoke, I leave the vixen to return to her cubs and, naked in my own skin, I lie down in the sedge-grass and listen to the sounds of the night, and hear the owls a-calling, and watch the long, slow dance of the stars.

Tonight marks the coming of summertime. Fourteen summers I have known. Wildfire, hearth fire, bonfires lit against the dark. Cherry blossom, love charms, village girls with warm hearts, dancing in the circle of stones that stands around the fairy tree. The village girls are white and soft. Their laughter sounds like tame birds. Geese, perhaps, their wings clipped, plump, well fed, obedient. Village girls are new-baked bread. Village girls have blossom skin. Village girls have braided hair that shines like evening sunlight.

I am not a village girl. I am brown, and brisk, and wild. I hunt with the owl, and dance with the hare, and swim with the trout and the otter. I never go into the village, except as a vixen or a rat. The village is dangerous to our kind. The Folk would kill us if they could. But tonight is different. The hunt has made my blood sing. And so I linger under the thorn, smelling the scent of the young grass and listening to the distant sound of voices from the clearing.

There comes the sound of footsteps on the path by the hawthorn. A village girl with primrose hair is standing by the fairy tree. The Folk call it that, even though they know nothing of the Faërie. But there are charms – the bone of a hare; a name, stitched on red flannel – that even a village girl can use. And on May Eve, by a blue moon, a love charm hung from a fairy tree may bring even a village girl the quickening of summertime.

The fairy tree is a hawthorn. Twisted and raddled, old as Old Age, half-eaten with mistletoe, she stands inside the circle of stones that some Folk call the fairy ring. Every year, I tell myself: maybe this is the year she will die. But every year the pale buds break from those cracked and knotted boughs. The fairy tree is hopeful. Her blossom barely lasts a week. But every year she quickens, and bears a handful of scarlet berries.

The girl has a charm. They always do. A love charm, or perhaps a spell to make herself more beautiful. I watch from the hedge as she ties it in place. The shadows of the fairy stones flicker in the moonlight.

Tonight she will dream of her young man, restless on her virgin’s bed. Perhaps she will watch the bright May moon slicing past her window. And tomorrow, or the next day, he will see her standing there – a girl he has seen many times before, but never noticed until now – and he will wonder how he could have been so blind as to miss her.

When she has gone, I take the charm. She will think the fairies have taken it. A scrap of red fabric, the colour of blood, torn, perhaps, from a petticoat, and pushed through a polished adder-stone. I had such a charm-stone once, but I lost it long ago. Where did the village girl find hers? How long did she take to embroider the charm, by the light of her candle? What name did she speak as she knotted the thread?

I look at the tiny stitches. Six little letters, embroidered in silk. I myself cannot read words. There was no-one to teach me. But I do know letters; those magical signs that speak from the page, or even the grave. There is power in them, a power that even the Folk do not understand. Letters have meaning. They can make words. And words can build almost anything – a law, a chronicle, a lie.

The name in the letters is W-I-L-L-A-M. This is the name his mother gave him. This is the name his lover will speak into his ear, in the dark. This is the name they will carve on his stone, when they put him into the ground.

I have no name. The travelling folk have neither name nor master. When I die, no stone will be laid. No flowers will be scattered. When I die, I will become a thousand creatures: beetles, worms. And so I shall travel on, for ever, till the End of the Worlds. This is the fate of the travelling folk. We would not have it otherwise.

I carry the charm to my place in the woods. A hut of split logs and willow and moss, all lined with skins and bracken. My firepit is just outside, and my iron cooking pot. Hungry, I fry some fiddleheads, and with them some bacon, a handful of herbs and the hindquarters of a rabbit that was hanging in the smoke. And then I tie the village girl’s charm over the entrance to my hut, with all my beautiful coloured things. A blue glass bead, some yellow wool, the whitened skull of a magpie. The coloured things that I collect and hide away in the forest.

Coloured things are forbidden to us, we the canny travelling folk. Colours mean danger to our kind; they reveal us to the enemy. Our folk hide from everyone – even from each other. Our folk know to keep aloof, to never show their colours.

Village girls wear coloured things. Ribbons on their bonnets. Scarlet flannel petticoats. Village girls are not afraid. Village girls like to be noticed. But brown is easy; brown is safe. In the forest, no-one sees a brown girl slip from tree to tree, to vanish in the bracken. In the forest I am a doe, a stoat, a fox, a nightingale. Berry-brown, I live in the trees. Brown, I cast no shadow.

This is how I go unseen, untroubled by the village folk. Only their dogs know where I am, and they have learnt to keep away. I have eaten dog before, and will again, I tell them. I sit on my wolfskin blanket, wrapped in my skirt of homespun cloth and my coat of sparrow feathers and I look into the smoke to see what the future will bring me.

Tomorrow is May Day. The flowery month: the month of hawthorn and of bees. Tomorrow, there will be merriment, and dancing on the village green. Tomorrow, the village girls will dress the springs and wells with flowers, and leave offerings for Jack-in-the-Green, and crown a maiden Queen of the May. But that’s no concern of mine. I have no need of garlands. I have the bluebells in the wood, and the hawthorn in the hedge. No young man will steal my heart with words of love and garlands. No young man will catch my eye. When the heat is on me, I will go into a doe, and take my pick of the young bucks, and never once look back.

The vixen sleeps in the warm earth, surrounded by small, furry bodies. The brown hare in the moonlight dances on the hillside. The barn owl hunts: the field mouse runs; the fire dies down to embers. And I will go into my hut and draw the deerskin curtain, and go to sleep on my narrow bed of brown wool and of bracken.

May

The Month of Bees

When the ragweed blooms in May,

Witches ride, and good Folk pray.

Cornish proverb

One

Today, I will be a skylark, flying sweetly into the blue. Or perhaps I shall go into a hare, and run across the hillside, and box the shadows of the sedge, and nibble at the cowslips. Today, I am restless, uncertain of what I want and where to go. Over my breakfast of broken bones, I feel the morning sun on my face and long for the freedom of the hills.

But food is not yet plentiful, and travelling must be paid for. Last night’s adventure has left me weak, in spite of the strength of the village girl’s charm, and so I take my collecting bag – the charm safe in my pocket – and set off for the riverside, the open fields and my willow traps, which might catch me a bird or two, or maybe even a rabbit.

Today I am lucky. I bag four thrush, some May buds and a pocketful of fiddleheads, those tight little ferns, which, like the Folk, are so tender while they’re young, but bitter poison when they grow. It is enough. I turn to go back, but suddenly I hear horses’ hooves on the path behind me. A riding-horse with iron shoes, trotting at a lively pace some quarter of a mile away. Quickly, I step off the path and hide behind a deadfall of broken trees. The horseman will be gone soon, and then I will be on my way.

A few minutes later, I see the horse, a chestnut with a black mane, and riding, a man in a May-green coat, wearing a garland of flowers. Quickly, my hand seeks the village girl’s charm. An adder-stone gives protection for those who do not want to be seen. The stone is smooth and cool in my hand. The scrap of scarlet petticoat shows bright between my fingers.

I would not normally look up. I do not want to be noticed. And yet I am curious to see more of the horse and its rider. Carefully, I peer out from between the spurs of the deadfall just as he passes beside me, the buttons on his green coat flashing in the sun.

A nobleman, then – I can tell by his boots, and by the way he looks around as if he owns the trees themselves. His hair is as smooth as his horse’s flank. Why do I even notice him? Is it the adder-stone in my hand, that wants me to see him more clearly? I raise the polished stone to my eye and look at the man through the narrow bore. Somehow I know that he will look back. I know that his name is W-I-L-L-A-M. And now, as he turns, as I knew he would, I see that he is handsome.

Just at that moment, the fine brown horse stumbles on the stony path. The young man, taken off balance, slips and falls out of his saddle. The horse rears up, its eyes wild, its hooves striking sparks against the stones. The young man will be trampled, and there is no-one to help him. And so I jump out from my hiding place and catch the horse’s bridle.

A soothing cantrip: the horse is soon calmed. Wild horses are different. Wild horses do not welcome our touch. But this one is a riding-horse; nervous, but trained to the bridle. I turn now to the master, who is lying on the path. He is a little dazed by the fall, but he is out of danger. I notice that he is very young, barely older than I am. I tether the horse to a nearby branch and prepare to vanish into the woods.

‘Wait.’ I turn, and see him watching. His eyes are blue as a jay’s wing. ‘Who are you?’

I do not answer. A named thing is a tamed thing, and my people are wild for ever. I ought to ignore him and walk away. His kind are so often dangerous. And yet, he looks harmless enough on the ground, mud on the sleeve of his fine green coat, his cheek scratched by a bramble. And he sees me – really sees me. I can see a tiny reflection of myself in his eyes. Perhaps that’s why I want to stay, to hear the sound of his voice again, to have him look at me that way and see myself in his blue eyes. No-one sees me, as a rule. Even when I show myself, no-one really sees me.

‘Who are you?’ he says again. His voice is as soft as deer velvet.

I shake my head.

‘Don’t be afraid. Who are you? Where are your people?’

My people are the wolves, the hare, the wild bees in the forest. My people are the birch trees, the roe deer, and the otter. My people are the travelling folk that travel on the campfire smoke, and go into the fox, the wolf, the badger and the weasel. And I am not afraid.

I lift my chin and say: ‘The woods.’

‘Then you must be the Queen of the May,’ he says, and stands, and picks up his May Day garland, which has fallen to the ground. It is a garland of strawberry leaves, woven together with wild rose.

He places it gently onto my hair. ‘Do you have a name?’ he says.

Of course not. Names are for tame folk. Names are for those who are afraid of our kind of freedom.

I think of the village girl’s adder-stone charm. I say: ‘I know yours. It’s W-I-L-L-A-M.’ He smiles. I wonder why he is not surprised that I know his name. Then I realise that he knows all the village girls know his name. All the village girls notice him. All the village girls dream of him, and whisper his name into their pillows. The surprise would be if I did not.

For a moment his arrogance leaves me mute. But even that has a kind of charm. He reminds me of a young stag showing off his first pair of antlers. He has the same kind of awkwardness, of playfulness, of confidence. Something unlike the rest of his kind. Something almost wild.

‘It’s Will-i-am.’ He writes it in the dust of the path. W-I-L-L-I-A-M. With that extra stroke. The village girl must have spelt it wrong.

‘Will-i-am.’ It sounds as sweet as water from the well. He smiles again. I rarely smile. I have no-one to smile for. And now I know why I took the charm from the fairy tree last night. Now I begin to understand my restlessness, my hunger. Something was missing from my life. Something I never suspected was wrong. And now, today, something has come to answer the quickening call of the May.

W-I-L-L-A-M.

W-I-L-L-I-A-M.

It is only one letter. A single stroke. But I can feel it, nevertheless. He too has a space inside, like the hole in the adder-stone. An emptiness waiting to be filled. Something that was missing. And although I can barely read his name scratched into the dusty path, I already know in my secret heart that the thing that was missing was I.

Two

Today, I am a hawthorn tree, all trembling and shaken. I slept with his garland at my side, and this morning it was still green, although the roses had faded. And so I went into a bird – a linnet, brown and busy – and sang, and flew, and flew, and sang, and yet could not leave the young man behind or forget him, as I could forget those tame young men from the village.

What sickness is this? Why do I not take pleasure in my freedom? The air is bright; the sky is blue; the wind is filled with promise. Why then do I feel so unlike myself, so restless and strange, so incomplete? Why then do I ache, and fret, and pine, and rage, and question?

I fled when, for the second time, the young man asked to know my name. He tried to follow, but was too slow and clumsy in the undergrowth. I fled through thicket and bramble and thorn, then crossed where the river ran shallowest, following the secret paths that only deer and foxes know. But W-I-L-L-I-A-M stayed with me somehow, and in the song of the linnet I heard his name, and in the sound of the wind, and all day from the sky I watched for his horse, and for the green of his coat, and listened for the sound of his voice. But I did not see or hear him again, and finally, I went back to my hut and tried to eat, but could not; and tried to sleep, but could not; and tried to forget him, and could not. Instead I remembered a song of the Folk; a song that maidens sometimes sing:

I took this fair maid by the lily-white hand,

On a green mossy bank we sat down;

I gave her a kiss on her sweet rosy lips,

A tree spread its branches around …

The very next morning I made her my bride,

Just after the breaking of day;

The bells they did ring, and the birds they did sing,

And I crowned her the Queen of the May.

What witchcraft is this? What malady? I try to purge myself of him with wormwood and valerian. I am no village maiden, to sigh over bells and songbirds. I am no girl of the Folk, to dream of weddings and garlands. I should not have taken the village girl’s charm from the branch of the hawthorn tree. The hawthorn is vengeful and cunning and old – to steal from her was a mistake. I pull the piece of scarlet silk from the heart of the adder-stone and throw it onto my cooking fire. The stone I drop into the stream, to tumble back towards the sea. The hawthorn will forget, in time, and things will be as they once were. And yet, for all that, William remains in me, like a splinter in my heart. And when I sleep at last, I dream of a night in midsummer; and in my dream he is warm and sweet, and tastes of blood and strawberries.

Three

Today I am a speckled frog in the rushes by a lake. The lake is deep and black as bog: its waters cold from the mountains. A dozen waterfalls and streams come to plunge their feet in the lake: otters live on the islands that rise above the surface. Today it is raining; soft fine rain like stitches of the finest silk. And yet there is no joy to be had, not in the lake or in the woods, not in the rain or in the open sky, for my love is far away and there is no pleasure without him.

His name is William MacCormac. I heard it from a white-headed crow, who heard it from a black sheep, who heard it from a tabby cat that lives in a dry-moated castle. The castle belongs to a rich old man called Sir John MacCormac. He is the laird of this piece of earth, and William is his only son.

The travelling folk have no castles, no wealth. We do not hold lands or territories. Instead we have the mountains, the sea, the lakes and the moors and the rivers. This is our inheritance. But William will one day inherit everything his father owns: the castle, the horses, the farms, the sheep, the gold, the grain, the granaries. All the tame things his father owns will pass into his service. By the reckoning of the Folk, William will be a rich man. And rich men are courted wherever they go, by noblewomen and village girls; by commoners and courtesans. One day he will fall in love, and that girl he will marry. And their names will be spoken aloud in the church, and wedded to one another. And she will wear a muslin veil, and he will wear a garland. And he will give her a golden ring, to bind her to him for ever. And he will never once be mine, or look at me with love in his eyes, for who could love a brown girl who never stays in her own skin?

I wish I had kept the adder-stone. Such a stone is a powerful charm, and looking through the hole in its heart by the light of a tallow candle, you can see as far as the ocean – even, perhaps, through castle walls. If I had kept the adder-stone I would watch him as he slept. I would watch wherever he went, until at last I tired of the game. But the charm is lost, though the spell stands strong, and all I can do is hope to forget the young man in the May-green coat, who crowned me with wild roses …

Four

Today I am a nightingale at your bedroom window. My song is sweeter than honey, and yet you do not hear me. Instead, you sit in your chamber and read from a book bound in red leather, and sometimes you sigh and look outside, but you cannot see me, nor do you know how eagerly I watch you from my stony perch.

There is a sprig of whitethorn lying by your bedside. Ill luck to the sleeper who lies by the may. Tonight I shall go into a mouse, or a rat, or a housecat, and steal into your bedroom. There I shall take the bad-luck bloom and leave a wild rose in its place – a wild rose, like the ones you placed in my hair. A wild pink rose, still fresh with the dew, and tender as the morning. And then, maybe, you will think of me, and know that I still think of you.

A cat yowls in the darkness. I would not choose to travel with her. Housecats are at best only half-wild; fawning and purring for favours. But no-one questions a housecat, or hinders her coming and going. Why do you sigh, sweet William? Why are you so restless? I scratch at your door: you let me in. I caper and purr at the touch of your hand.

‘Puss, puss,’ you say. It is almost a name. What a strange thing it must be, to be named. What a strange and terrible thing. No man will ever name me, not as a cat, and not as myself. And William is drawn to wild things, or he would never have looked at me.

‘Puss, puss.’ I take a giant leap onto the silken coverlet. Your bed is as big as my cabin, all drawn with curtains of heavy brocade. My claws are sheathed in gold and silk. There is a good fire in the hearth. My fur is alight with fireflies.

Are you lonely, William? Let me sleep beside you. I will be your companion tonight. I will guard your slumbers. No mouse or rat will dare to show its whiskers at your threshold. I shall sleep on your pillow, and purr, until you are mine for ever.

So this is what it must feel like. To be a named thing; a tamed thing; a pet. Of course it is foolish and absurd, and yet it feels good to be here at your side, your hand moving gently against my fur. Just for today, it feels good to be tame, and besides, who else but I need know? I sleep, and by your side I dream of things I never knew I wanted, and before dawn I slip away back into my own skin, for to travel too far can be dangerous, and we may never find ourselves again if we stay away too long. I slip into my own skin, and lying on my bracken bed, I think of William, and smile, and look up at the waning moon under the tapestry of the sky.

Five

Today, I am a wild brown goat upon the craggy mountainside. Down in the village, I can see the shepherd with his flock on the hill; the farmer with his plough horse. Down by the church, there’s a wedding, with bridey-cake and garlands. Marry in May, you’ll regret it for aye. And yet the bride seems happy enough in her veil like a beekeeper’s net. Both are keepers of the hive. Both shall have their honey.

Every night this week I have spent sleeping by William’s bedside. Instead of hunting with the owl or running with the vixen, I have been a tabby cat, purring, playful and content, watching William as he sleeps, sitting in his lap as he reads, accepting morsels from his hand. And now I know that this feeling is not a curse, or a spell, or a dream. It is as real as the starry sky, and the hot blood of the rat I caught last night in the castle kitchens. This feeling, at once so strong and so sweet; so real, and yet insubstantial. I have been warned against it, and yet it does not seem so dangerous. And besides, my William is not at all like the other young men of the Folk. William is kind, and good, and passionate, and caring. William does not belong behind stone walls and battlements. And William is lonely, and wild, and longs for someone to care for.

As I crop the heather a kestrel calls from the open sky: Stay away. Stay away! She means it as a warning. The travelling folk are quick to learn of any breach of the laws of our kind. Mine is not an offence – not yet – but it is a cause for concern. Stay away, shrieks the kestrel. Stay away from William MacCormac.

I have heard this warning many times over the past days. It comes to me from the sheep on the fells; from the hare in the long grass; even from the wild bees in the forest canopy. Bees, bees, your master is dead. Will ye work for the new one?

I shake my horns at the kestrel. I do not need its warning. I’ll go to the castle as I please, and no William shall snare me. I shall go into a cat, and sleep on his pillow all night long. Not because he is my love, but because I do as I please, and no-one tells me what to do. And maybe because of that warm hearth, and the coverlet all silk and gold, and the scent of him, and his hands on my fur, and his voice like antler-velvet—

High on the rocks, a mockery of crows takes up the warning. Beware! But I am already on my way, travelling first into a fox, and then into a warbler, and then into the purring cat, while out in the night, the owl screams – Fool! Love-tamed fool! – and the mice, growing fat and bold, dance in the dying firelight.

June

The Rose Month

Sumer is icumen in

Lhude sing cuccu

Groweþ sed

and bloweþ med

and springþ þe wde nu

Sing cuccu –

Cuckoo song: 13th century

One

Today I am a skylark, tumbling high among the clouds, flinging my song against the peaks, dancing with the rainbows. Who could have known love would be like this? Why did no-one tell me?

Last night I was a tabby cat, just like every night last week. I slept on William’s pillow and purred, and watched him as he slumbered. But I was no longer content. I wanted more than this. And why not? Why should I alone be denied something that any village girl can know? Our kind have so many powers. Why should love be forbidden? And so, at last, I came to my love, not as a fox, or a nightingale, but as myself, in my own skin, warm and brown and naked. He opened his eyes and looked at me. His eyes were summer in a glass.

‘How can you be here?’ he said. ‘Are you a fairy, or a dream?’

I shook my head.

‘I have dreamed of you,’ he said, ‘since the day I first saw you. You stepped out of the trees like a forest doe. And then you were gone just as suddenly, and I thought I would go mad with wanting you.’

‘I was never gone,’ I said. ‘I was here all the time.’

And then the heat was upon me, not as a doe, or a wolf, or a lynx, but – and for the first time – as a woman.

So, this is love, I told myself, as berry-brown and petal-pale we lay together flank to flank. And with his hands, and with his mouth, he made me sing like a nightingale, and soar like an eagle, and howl like a wolf, and scream and squall like a mountain cat.

‘Who are you?’ he said, when at last we were spent. ‘Tell me your name, at least, so that I can write it on my heart.’

I smiled, and did not answer.

‘But how will I find you again?’ he said. ‘For I must see you again, or die.’

‘I’ll be here,’ I told him, ‘for as long as there are fish in the sea, and stars in the sky, and birds in the air, and dreams in the hearts of the Folk.’

He said: ‘That isn’t long enough.’ And then he kissed me and I soared like a lark, and came down laughing and filled with love, and swore I would be his for ever.

Two

Today I must gather wood and supplies. For three days my hut has stood empty. For three days my firepit has been cold, and my willow traps have gone unchecked. I know all this because I travelled into a roe deer this morning, and saw the coloured things by my door shining in the sunlight, and the white-headed crow perched by the door, and heard its harsh-voiced warning. And this morning, a great black dog came to sit by my bedside, and when I looked into its eyes, it growled and said: Come home. Come home.

But William does not want me to leave. ‘What do I care for your hut?’ he says. ‘What do I care for your willow traps? My home is a castle. You are its queen. You will eat roast guinea fowl, and strawberries from my hothouse. You will drink the finest wines, and taste the most delicate pastries.’

I try to explain that my people have different – wilder – ways to the Folk. We make our bed under the gorse, and travel with the seasons. We have no home, no family, not even a name to bind us.

‘Then take my name,’ says William. ‘My house is proud and noble. I will share my name with you if only you will stay with me. My father is a wealthy man, gone to fight a foreign war. When he dies – which may be soon – I shall inherit his fortune. You shall have gold, and silks, and furs. You shall have horses and servants. You shall have everything you desire, if only you will stay with me.’

I have no need of silks and furs. I have no need of servants. I have the silk of the dragonfly’s wing, the snowy coat of the winter hare. I have the gold of the morning sun, the colours of the Northlights. And I can go into a horse, and run across the marshlands, or travel with the wild geese as they fly towards the sun—

But I can say none of this to my love, who looks at me so tenderly. And so I promise to stay, and he laughs, and pulls me into bed once more, and draws the curtains around us like the tent of a travelling chieftain, and tells me I am his bonny brown girl, and that he would rather die than be parted from me.

Three

‘You are my bonny brown girl,’ he says. It is the first time that I have known anyone call me beautiful. My people are not beautiful, not as the Folk understand it. We have no love for artifice. We do not try to change ourselves into what we should not be.

Not for us the scented oils, plucked eyebrows, ironed hair. Not for us the shaven leg, the corset, comb and mirror. Not for us, the curling pins, the powder and the rouge pot. For my William, I would try. I would pretend to be tame, if it meant I could stay by his side. But my hair is a blackberry tangle impossible to comb through. My eyes are black, my brows are thick, my body strong and sturdy. And William loves the fine black silk that lines my legs and armpits, and the roundness of my breasts, and the soft broad curve of my hip, and would not see me change a thing.

Except that here, in his castle, if I am to be seen by his folk without causing a scandal, I need to wear suitable clothing, and bathe, and learn to read my letters, and dress my hair in the manner of those village girls I so despise.

‘When my father returns from the wars,’ he says, ‘I want him to cherish you as I do.’

‘And would you cherish me more,’ I ask, ‘in velvet than in wolfskin?’

‘Velvet or wolfskin, homespun or silk, you will always be my love. But my people must respect you. I want them to call you My Lady. I want them to serve you as they serve me. And besides,’ he says, taking me in his arms, ‘just imagine how much more beautiful you will be in a gown of silk, with pearls at your throat, and satin slippers on your feet?’

And so I accepted, to please him. What harm can it do, after all, to pretend? When I travel as a hawk, I do so in borrowed plumage. How is this any different? And when I take off my borrowed clothes, and lie with him, I will always be his wild brown girl from the forest.

He found me a maid from the village. The maid is called Fiona. A rose-pink, cowslip, buttercup girl, without a hint of wildness. He brought her here to wait on me, to lay out my clothes and brush my hair, but I can see the look in her eyes, and I know that she despises me. And sometimes I catch her looking at him, and I know that she is thinking: What does he see in a nameless brown girl? How has she bewitched him?

But William does not see it. He says: ‘Fiona is a good girl. She will teach you all you need.’

This makes me angry. How can he believe that girl could possibly teach me anything? Does Fiona know how to catch a salmon with her bare hands? Does she know how to soar with the lark, or climb to the eagle’s eyrie? Does she know how to make a charm blacker than the darkest night, to steal the soul of her enemy?

He sees the look in my eyes and says: ‘Poor Fiona. Surely you are not jealous of her?’

I turn away and will not speak.

‘That mooncalf? That dough-faced ninny?’ he says. ‘That sighing, simpering little miss, not fit to kiss my lady’s feet?’

I laugh at the absurdity. The wild folk do not envy the tame. I feel ashamed that William thinks me capable of such thoughts, and I take him in my arms, and laugh, and tell him how much I love him. And so, Fiona is with me now every hour of every day. She wakes me in the morning with a cup of chocolate. She fetches water for my bath, and scents it with rose oil and lavender. She brings me books from the castle library, and helps me to make out the words. She brings me clothes and jewellery belonging to William’s dead mother. I wear a dress of crimson velvet, with petticoats of scarlet silk, and my hair is caught in a jewelled net, and my feet crammed into high-heeled shoes. There are rings on my fingers, and bracelets all along my arms. This way, William tells me, I can live in the castle without alerting suspicion. This way, I look like a lady, he says, and not a brown girl from the woods.

‘But I am a brown girl from the woods,’ I say, laughing, in spite of my unease.

But my William does not laugh. Instead he looks very serious. I must make an effort, he says. The servants are bound to his father. He is the laird of the castle, and they will relay any news to him. This is why I must dress like a lady, and have a maidservant with me, and learn to read, and to use a fork, and not to run, or shout, or laugh.

‘If you really loved me,’ he says, ‘you would do this for my sake. Instead, you treat it like a game. Understand that if my father does not approve of my lady-love, he will cut me off without a penny. Is that what you want?’

‘Of course not,’ I say. And yet my heart aches. Why does he care so much for these things? Castle walls, and servants, and gold are nothing compared to our freedom. We could have the moors, and the lakes, and the open skies, and the mountains. We could live in the forest, alone, and be everything to each other. But William, I know, would miss the comfort of his home, and hearth, and his bed with the silken coverlet. And it makes him so happy to have me here. I must not be ungrateful.

But, for all their obedience and calling me My Lady, I know that the servants despise me. I have seen them watching me, and once I went into a rat that lives in a hole by the pantry door, and heard one of the chefs discussing me with the Master of the Wines.

‘She’s no more than a hoor,’ said the chef, ‘for all her fine clothes and trinkets.’

‘I heard she was a witch,’ replied the Master of Wines with a leer. ‘How else could such as she get her claws into young Master William?’

‘Young Master William,’ said the chef, ‘is barely nineteen summers old. A boy should sow his wild oats, but not in his father’s castle.’

‘I’ve heard he means to make her his bride,’ said the Master of Wines.

The chef shook his head. ‘A boy’s fancy. The moment the master comes home, mark my words, the baggage will be on her way.’

That made me angry, and I fled from the rat into a wolf, and found a herd of penned sheep in the glen, and tore out their white throats one by one, but got no relief from it, even though my coat was drenched and crimson with their innocent blood, and when I returned to myself, I found the maid Fiona watching me with a curious look on her face, as if she knew more than she meant to tell.

And so after that I was careful not to travel, except at night. It was hard. I miss being free. But I can bear it, for William. I would give up everything for him, as I know he would for me, if I were to ask him. And as the rose month reaches its peak, and midsummer is upon us, I know that our joy will grow and grow, and fill the earth with roses.

Four

Today is Midsummer’s Day, the day when travelling folk come together to celebrate the green month: not as winged and dappled things, but as ourselves, all brown and wild, selling our goods at the Midsummer Fair.

On Midsummer’s Fair Day in the town square, there will be honey, and ribbons, and fruit. There will be baskets, and cages of birds. There will be potions, and magic spells, and charms to summon your true love. There will be dancing on the green, and even the Folk of the village will come, half-afraid, half-longing – to buy, to gaze, to envy, to scorn – to the gathering of the travelling folk.

I have never yet missed a fair. But this time, I am afraid to go. The messages from the owl, the crow, the kestrel and the black dog have given way to a silence more ominous than their warnings. I cannot make them understand how much my William means to me. But William wants to go to the Fair. He wants to show his brown girl the town, with its fine buildings and towers of stone. And the maid Fiona has told him of all the many things to be bought, and he has promised me a gift, a special gift from the market.

‘But I already have jewels and gowns, and shoes, and combs, and picture-books. What more do I need?’

He smiles at me. Those things belonged to his mother, he says. He has so little of his own. Until he comes of age, he has only a small allowance. And yet he wants to buy me a gift, a gift to show his love for me.

‘When I come of age,’ he says, ‘I shall be a wealthy man. I shall buy you a singing bird in a cage of ivory. I shall buy you a swarm of bees in a fortress of honeycomb. I shall buy you a golden ring to wear upon your finger.’

A golden ring, to show the world that he is mine and I am his. So much for the castle chef and the Master of Wines. A June bride is impetuous and open-handed, say the Folk. I shall be a June bride, and dance on the green in my wedding veil, and throw rose petals and bridey-cakes to the children in the crowd. And all the village girls will wonder why, of all the girls he might have picked, the wild girl was the one he chose.

And so I take my William’s hand, and smile, and say, ‘Of course, my love,’ because I want to please him, but also because I want them to see how happy we are together, I in my dress of red velvet, he in his coat of summer-sky blue, walking, gracious, hand in hand, like the King and Queen of Fiddler’s Green.

The black dog watches in silence. The kestrel soars without a word. And William calls for his coach and four, and his man (and the maid Fiona, of course), and together we ride to the market. And as we go, I sing to myself, a little song of the travelling folk:

Sing a song of starlight,

A pocketful of crows.

See the bonny brown girl

In her borrowed clothes.

See her in a vixen,

See her in a hare,

See her in her true love’s arms, at sweet Midsummer’s fair.

Five

The town is sixteen miles away: two hours at a fast trot. The day is warm, and I find myself sweating in my velvet. Oh, to be a doe today, in the cool glades of the forest. Or an otter by the lake, or a salmon in the stream. But I dare not travel here, not with William by my side, and the maid Fiona watching every move I make.

And so I watch the countryside, and pretend to listen as William tells me all about the town – a town I know as well as he does, for I have seen it many times as a bird, or a dog, or a horse, although I cannot tell him that, for fear of betraying my people. Maybe when we are married, I will. Married folk share everything.

At last, we reach the marketplace. A cobbled square, with a fountain, around which hundreds of stallholders compete with each other for custom. I know my people by sight, of course. There’s one selling crows: she lives most of her life among the birds, and even now she looks more like a black bird than a woman, except for the white blaze in her hair. There’s one selling tokens and charms – a cluster of bells to keep the fairies at bay; a bird’s head on a willow twig to cure a bishop of the pox; a vial of rainbow water to cure a miser of his misery. And there’s another – old as Old Age, with skin as hard and brown and cracked as an ancient hawthorn tree – selling strings of coloured beads: turquoise, beryl, amethyst; quartz and pearl and ruby.

William stops by the old woman’s stall. ‘How much for these?’

Her eyes are as bright as the lake, and as cold. ‘For this young lady, no charge,’ she says. ‘For what we give freely on Midsummer’s Day will return to us a hundredfold.’ And she reaches out her misshapen hand and brings back a necklace of tiger’s-eye beads, brown and gold in the sunlight.

‘Wear this, my beauty,’ she whispers, as she fastens the clasp around my neck. ‘The gold in your eyes is truer by far than the gold he promised you.’

I thank her, though she has troubled me. Is she suggesting he could be false? I know him better. My love is true. The old woman means to frighten me, but I shall not heed her. Instead, I laugh a little too loudly, pretend to look at some rolls of silk, and tug at the tiger’s-eye necklace, which feels as if it is choking me, then laugh again, take William’s hand, and try not to see the wild dark faces watching me from every stall, the wild dark eyes alight with scorn—

We drive back in silence. William rides. Fiona, too, has a necklace. Hers is made of crystal quartz, as white as a string of snowdrops. William bought it as a gift, he says, to thank her for coming so far with us. This does not disturb me. The necklace is a cheap thing, as colourless as Fiona herself. And yet I do not like the way she smiles to herself as she handles the beads, pressing her fingers against her breast as if at some remembered touch. I do not like the way she looks with downcast eyes at William. I do not like her primrose hair, which makes me remember the village girl who hung the charm on the fairy tree—

Could that have been Fiona? I never saw the other girl’s face. She could have stitched the silken charm, and passed it through the adder-stone, and hung it onto the fairy tree. Does she suspect that I stole the charm? Could that be why she hates me?

Well, if she does, what of it? My love has pledged himself to me. I know his heart, as he knows mine. I need no charm to capture him; no adder-stone to watch him by. William will be true to me. Whatever else happens – he will be true.

July

The Hay Month

A swarm of bees in May

Is worth a load of hay,

A swarm of bees in June

Is worth a silver spoon,

A swarm of bees in July

Is not worth a fly.

17th-century proverb

One

I shall bind my love with silk, as red as summer roses. I shall bind my love with runes as secret as the dreams of the Folk. I shall bind my love with whitethorn, and rue, and rosemary, and ivy leaf, and honeysuckle, and tie it up into a charm to keep my lover faithful.

Not that I doubt my William. Our love is like the mountains. Our love is like the stormy sea. Our love is like the midnight sky. But the old woman’s words still trouble me, and I miss my freedom. Last night I went into an owl, and hunted mice in the castle’s dry moat. I dare not travel too far from here, in case I am discovered. But I miss the peaks and the cold black lake, and the forest, and the islands. I miss the open sky, and the sun, and the song of the morning in my throat.

And William still does not understand why I cannot give him my name. ‘You must have a name,’ he says one day. ‘All God’s creatures have a name.’

But I am not one of his creatures. My people are older than your God. My people were here when these mountains were ice, and these valleys were nothing but streamlets running down from the glacier. I have been every bird, every beast, every insect you can name. And so I have no name of my own, and cannot be tamed or commanded. But I can say none of this to William, who looks at me so earnestly.

‘You call me your bonny brown girl. I need no other name,’ I say.

‘And will my father name you thus, when he comes home from the wars? And at our wedding, must the parson say: I join thee together in matrimony, William John Makepeace MacCormac and … a bonny brown girl?

The bride of July is handsome, but quick and sharp of temper. I do not want to be sharp of temper, and yet what can I say to him, when he teases and presses me so?

‘I do not have a name,’ I say. ‘My people have no need of them.’

But this time William will not stop. ‘Is your name Amanda?’ he says. ‘Amanda is Beloved. Or Ailsa, Noble Maiden? Or Morag, which means Princess?’

‘And Fiona?’ Slyly: ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means White Lady.’

I should have known. The bride of July is handsome, but quick and sharp of temper. I turn away so that he cannot see the glowering of my black brows.

He laughs and takes me in his arms. ‘Surely, you are not jealous of poor Fiona?’ he tells me. ‘Does the sun envy the dandelion? Does the star envy the firefly?’

I shake my head.

He laughs again. ‘But I cannot wed a nameless girl. I shall name you Malmuira – Dark Lady of the Mountains. Thus are you named, my brown girl. Thus do you belong to me.’ And with that, he kisses me, and laughs, little knowing that with one word he has bound me faster than any charm of the Faërie.

Two

I shall bind my love with salt, and lead, and pennyroyal. I shall bind him with spider silk, and pudding grass, and larkspur, and with the sound of a moon moth against a windowpane at night, and with the taste of a memory that has soured into smoke.

A named thing is a tamed thing. So says the lore of my people. A named thing keeps the hearth, the home. A named thing has a master. And now, for the first time, I have a name. Malmuira. Dark Lady. I wear it like a golden crown. I wear it like a collar.

Tonight I feel restless. I want to run. I want to fly, and hunt, and swim. I will go into a crane, and fly over the marshlands. I will go into a bear, and fish for salmon in the lake. I will go into a vixen—

But I cannot free my mind. The crane flies on without me. The bear hunts upriver, shaking his head. The vixen raids the chicken coop and crosses the meadows without me. My head is on fire. What sickness is this? The maid Fiona brings me a draught. But I want to be alone to shed this skin and be free of myself. Perhaps I am overreaching my skills. A housecat, then, or a mouse, or a bat. I shall nest under the eaves. I shall run through the stone halls. I shall feel the clean night air and look up at the naked stars—

Still, I cannot free myself. My dress, with its bodice, feels like a cage. The silver mesh around my hair feels like a fishing net lined with lead. The tiger’s-eye necklace around my throat has become a bridle of hot stones. I want to tear myself free of it all, but I cannot. I have a name. It binds me. I am no longer a child of the world, no longer one of the travelling folk, but a named thing. A girl called Malmuira.

For a time, I cannot think. I am a wild bird in a snare. I am a fox in a steel trap. I want to scream, to bite, to run. But all I can do is sit quietly, by the window, and stare at the sky. My William calls me for dinner. There will be a roasted fowl, and artichokes, and many wines. There will be a raised apple pie, and comfits, and cherries and peaches. I shall wear a yellow silk gown, with rings of gold on my fingers, and the servants will bow very low, and call me My Lady, with that sneer that they hide behind their hands, and think: Is that your name, My Lady? Can that really be your name?

I tell him I am not hungry. I will not go to dinner. He looks displeased but says nothing, and goes to dine without me. I wish I could tell him how I feel. But that would mean giving away secrets that are not mine to give. I cannot betray my heart, my blood. The travelling folk may have disowned me, but they are still my people.

Three

Last night it rained, and the sound of it was like a stream with a throatful of stones. And in my dream I remembered the adder-stone I had thrown away, and tried to find it in the stream, so I could see William. But the stream was filled with pieces of glass, which cut my hands and made them bleed, and soon the water was nothing but blood, dark and hot and crimson—

I awoke from my troubled sleep to the sound of voices. William was not at my side. I rose, and went to open the door. There was a light in the passageway. I saw a man in outdoor clothes carrying a lantern, and William with his back to me. The maid Fiona was at his side, wearing a dress of grey cambric, her unbound hair falling down her back, and I felt a small, sharp stab at the way she looked at him through her lashes.

‘What’s happening?’ I said.

William glanced back at me. It may have been the light, but for a moment I thought he looked annoyed. Not at me. Never at me. But something must have happened.

William did not speak to me, but gestured for me to go back inside. I was barefoot, in my nightgown. My hair was wild. I understood. I went back into our bedroom and I waited for William to come. But hours passed, and he did not, although I heard his voice from outside, and the sound of horses in the courtyard. Someone had arrived. I heard at least a dozen horses.

I would have gone into a bird, to see what the commotion was. But I could not. Nor could I travel into a rat, and listen from inside the walls. And so I waited until dawn, when Fiona came to dress me and to bring me my chocolate and the hot water for my toilette.

But this morning there was no hot water. Nor was there any chocolate, in its little bone-china cup with a honey-cake on the side, or a piece of shortbread. Instead the maid Fiona brought me a plain green cambric dress and a dish of porridge, and brushed my hair only long enough to secure it under a plain white cap, and all the time she was looking at me from under those long eyelashes, as if to say: I know your kind. You are not of our kind. The Master may not know it, but I do.

I did not ask about the dress, or the missing chocolate. I said nothing as I washed my face and hands in cold water. The maid Fiona sat and watched, and did not offer to help me. Then, as I reached for the bracelets and rings that I had taken off for the night, she said to me in her milkwater voice:

‘The Master desires me to take those back. They were My Lady’s, and should not have left her chambers.’

I was surprised, but said nothing. Instead I put on my tiger’s-eye beads, and wished I could be a tiger. If I were a tiger, I would tear out the throats of village girls; of cornsilk, buttermilk, cottontail girls. I would tear out their white throats, and dance in the rain all cloaked in their blood. Of course I cannot do those things. But I can still wear my tiger’s-eye beads, which my William gave to me, and smile although my heart is lead, and I do not feel like smiling. My William will come to me soon. My William will explain all this.

Fiona went out, with that look of hers, like a cat with its face in the cream-pot. I threw the cold porridge onto the floor, and tried to read the storybook that was lying on the table. It was about a handsome P-R-I-N-C-E, who falls in love with a P-R-I-N-C-E-S-S. But she has been cursed by a W-I-C-K-E-D W-I-T-C-H, and made to scrub floors in his father’s kitchens. The stupid prince does not recognise her when he goes in search of her. But a G-O-O-D F-A-I-R-Y, moved by her plight, gives the girl three wishes. The princess asks for a fine silk gown, and some dancing shoes, and a coach with four white horses, all so that the prince will notice her. And sure enough, now that she is beautiful, he marries her, and gives her a veil, and a gold ring to put on her finger to show that she belongs to him, and, with his father’s blessing, they live H-A-P-P-I-L-Y E-V-E-R A-F-T-E-R.

It is a ridiculous story. The prince should have recognized his love whatever she was wearing. Even dressed as a bird, or a rat, or snake, or a fox, or a weasel, his heart should have told him she was there. And why did the princess not speak out when the prince went looking for her? Why did she lurk in the kitchens, waiting to be saved? Why could she not save herself? And what does the prince’s father have to do with anything? And why would one of the Faërie have given her three wishes? And why would she waste them on a dress, some dancing shoes and a coach and four?

Perhaps the pictures in the book will shed some light on the story. But the princess in the pictures looks just like Fiona: a village girl with primrose hair and a pale, round, milkweed face. The prince is not much better. But the wicked witch is brown, all dressed in rags and feathers. The wicked witch has wild black hair, and eyes as black as cauldrons.

I wonder what the village girl did to offend the wicked witch. Did she simply look at her in that sly, contemptuous way, as if to say: I know your kind? Or was it something even worse?

I look at myself in the mirror. Even with my wild hair caught beneath the little cap, I still look like the wicked witch. I take off the cap and shake my hair free. The tiger’s-eye necklace is choking me, and I would like to take off, but it was William’s gift to me, and so I endure the discomfort.

But was it really William’s gift? What we give freely on Midsummer’s Day will return to us a hundredfold. And now I remember the old woman’s words as she clasped it around my neck: The gold in your eyes is truer by far than the gold he promised you—

It was noon before Fiona came back. She saw the broken dish on the floor and the picture-book beside it. She gave me a look – for the first time, eye to eye, like an equal. Her eyes are blue, like forget-me-nots, and bolder than I expected. I noticed that she was wearing the necklace William bought for her, and I wanted to tear it from her neck, scatter the beads across the floor, mark her face with my fingernails. Fiona saw the look in my eyes and gave a smile, as if to say: I know what you want to do. But you will not, because you are tamed.

And then she said in her milksop voice: ‘The Master sends his compliments, and bids me tell you he has important family business to attend to. Regrettably, this means that he can no longer extend his hospitality to guests. He hopes that you will understand, and wishes you a pleasant homeward journey.’

I stared at her for a moment. ‘William said this?’ I said, forgetting in my rage and astonishment to say Master William.

‘Not the young Master,’ she said. ‘’Twas the Master bade me tell you.’

‘The Master?’ I said, feeling foolish.

‘Yes,’ she said with a little smile. ‘John MacCormac has come home.’

Four

I walked home by the high road, avoiding the track to the village. At another time, I would have travelled as a magpie, or maybe as a mountain goat, or crossed the lake as a wild duck, before joining the deer in the forest. But this time I had to walk, and although I carried my high-heeled shoes, it took me most of the rest of the day to return to my hut in the forest.

It has been too long since I slept on my bed of bracken and wool. Too long since I used my cooking pot, or dried my meat in the campfire smoke. The roof of my hut has partly collapsed under the weight of a fallen branch. Some animal has been inside. My blanket is wet and spotted with mould. And my coloured things – my ribbons and beads – have been plundered from my door. Maybe a magpie, I tell myself. Or maybe just a white-headed crow.

As I work to make the hut habitable again, I tell myself that William will come. As soon as he can, he will come to me, and we will be together again. And is this not what I wanted? To be with my love in the forest, with the trees as our castle walls and the stars for our ceiling?

I try to keep merry. I sing to myself, but somehow the words sound hollow.

Sing a song of starlight,

A pocket full of crows.

See the bonny brown girl

In her borrowed clothes—

What am I doing here, William? Night is falling. Too late to hunt. Too late to gather fiddleheads. Besides, the season is over now: the ferns have grown tall in my absence. How long has it been? The bluebells are dry; the May buds have gone. Above the lake, the July sky is all aflame in pink and gold. I wonder if William sees the same sky from his rooms in the castle. How worried he must be, I think. How he must long to be with me. But his father is home now, and William is bound to obey. I must be patient. I must not let my anger run free. When his business is done, then perhaps John MacCormac will see me. He will see me, and understand how much my William means to me. Why else would I have stayed by his side, and worn fine gowns to please him? Why else would I have taken a name, and abandoned the ways of the travelling folk?

And if he does not understand—

If he does not, my love will come and live with me in the forest. It will be hard for him at first, but has he not told me a hundred times? I would rather live in a hut with you, than in a palace without you. I would rather die than be a single night away from you.

Well, we may be a night apart. But no-one can part us for ever. Tomorrow, I shall rebuild my hut, to prepare for your arrival. I shall build it from green oak, and thatch it with reeds from the lakeside. I shall line it with rabbit skins, and moss, and fern, and heather. I shall catch salmon, and smoke them, and pick green plums from the orchards, and apples from the churchyard, and wild oats from the edge-lands. I shall make you a blanket from the very softest lambswool, and dye it in the colours of love: crimson, blue and purple. And if your father will not relent, then we will live in the forest alone, and gather berries, and hunt the deer, and sleep throughout the winter snow in each other’s arms. And if I never have a veil, or a golden ring on my hand, I will still have you, my love, and that will be enough for me. Sleep well, love, and dream of me. And know that, if I were to live for a thousand years, there would still not be enough nights in which to dream of you.

August

The Harvest Month

My love he was so high and proud,

His fortune too so high,

He for another fair pretty maid

Me left and passed me by.

The Child Ballads, no. 295

One

It has been a week since I left, without a word from William. Of course, he does not know where I am, or how to find me in the woods. But I know he will, soon. How I wish I could see him. How I wish I could go to him, even as a housecat. But I cannot go into even the humblest creature. Not an ant, not a frog, not a beetle will grant me passage into their skin.

An August bride is sweet-tempered and active. I have tried my best to be so. My hut is all lined with fresh new moss, and strewn with summer roses. I lay down clean rushes every day. I hunt for thrush, and trout in the stream, and pick blackberries and wild strawberries, to prepare for the coming of my love.

But he does not come. Where can he be? No-one passes through the glen. There comes no sound of horses’ hooves on the road from the castle. Why has he left me waiting so long? Surely he must know where I am! Is he ill? Is he bewitched? Or could he have forgotten me?

No. That would be impossible. Our love is as strong as the mountains, as endless as the oceans. Maybe he is testing me. Maybe this is a test to see how much more I will endure for him.

I have never needed my gift as badly as I need it now. To go into a bird, a hare – even for an hour – would tell me all I need to know. And yet I cannot. How can that be? And how can I make things right again?

Last night, I went to the fairy tree, the oldest of our people. She rarely leaves her hawthorn skin, except once a year, for the market. But I know she watches, and I hoped she could help me.

I found her in the meadow mist, her feet already drenched with dew. Around her, the stones looked like islands rising out of the pale mist. Only one of her branches still lives, and the fruit that grows there is sparse and green. I wondered how old she really is: some of the travelling folk believe that she is more than nine hundred years old, and was born at a time when travelling folk covered all of the Nine Worlds. Now we are few, growing fewer, as the tame folk multiply.

The branches of the fairy tree were covered in rags and ribbons. The hawthorn loves her trinkets, and must always be paid for her charms. Love charms, mostly, of course, with a bird’s skull to ward off the plague, a silver spoon for childbirth. They clicked together as the wind took hold of them, as if the tree were a toothless old crone smacking her gums in the moonlight.

I whispered: ‘Can you hear me?’

The hawthorn ticked and fluttered. Over her head, the Barley Moon sharpened her silver sickle.

‘I need your help,’ I told her. ‘My power to travel has left me.’

There came a snickering, whispering sound, almost like distant laughter.

Left you? said the hawthorn tree in a sighing, creaking voice. You were the one who stopped listening. You gave us up, for a boy of the Folk. For a handful of pretty pebbles. For the promise of a ring.

‘That isn’t true,’ I protested.

A named thing is a tamed thing, said the voice from the hawthorn tree. You let the boy give you a name. How can you live among wild things again?

‘There must be a way,’ I told her.

Oh, there’s a way, said the hawthorn tree. But it won’t be easy.

‘Tell me,’ I said.

One thing at a time. Wisdom must always be paid for. Give me those fine shoes you wear, and I will give you my advice.

I kicked off my shoes and hung them on the hawthorn’s living branch. They were leather, and finely made, with silver buckles and scarlet heels, but I only wore them for William’s sake, and my feet felt better without them.

‘Take them with my blessing,’ I said. ‘Now tell me what I must do.’

The hawthorn made a contented sound. First give away all he has given you, she said. Give away every stitch, every word, every bead, every sigh, every promise. And when you are free of it all, then your name will melt away like the spring snow, and you will be free of him again, and able to travel as you please.

‘But I don’t want to be free of him,’ I said. ‘Is there no other way?’

She sighed. How can you fly with a stone around your neck? How can you run with a chain on your feet?

‘But I love him,’ I said.

That’s the stone. That’s the chain, said the hawthorn. And until you can give them back, you will never be free again.

I sighed. ‘So be it, Old Mother. Better to live in chains with my love than to travel freely without him.’

She laughed. We’ll see about that, she said. Go back to your cold bed. Think about what I told you. You may change your mind before too long. And thank you for the pretty shoes. Even an old woman like me likes her tricks and trinkets. The ribbons and charms on her branches clinked and fluttered coquettishly. Not for the first time, I wondered if she remembered the adder-stone charm; if this was her way of punishing me for taking what belonged to her. But I could not return it now, or even beg her pardon. The charm was burned, and the adder-stone given back to the water.

And so I went back home barefoot through the woods, to my empty hut, and my aching heart, and the bitter smoke from my campfire.

Two

At last, a letter from William. I found it this morning by my hut, underneath a hazel tree. There was a white-headed crow by the tree, pecking at the envelope. I tried to talk to the white-headed crow, but all she said was: Letter. And such was my joy at receiving it that I opened it straight away, and when I had read it, the crow was gone.

I read:

My dear M-A-L-M-U-I-R-A,

Forgive me for not having come to see you. My father is recently back from the wars, and there is much B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S to conduct.

His writing was difficult to make out. There were many flourishes and curlicues in the letters. But I could read it, given time, and besides, it was in his own dear hand, with words that he had chosen for me.

Do not think I have F-O-R-G-O-T-T –

Of course. I could never think that.

It is simply that we may have to be more P-A-T-I-E-N-T than I first hoped. My father is a difficult man. I must try to A-P-P-E-A-S-E him before you meet him in person. I am not yet come of age, or into my I-N-H-E-R-I-T-A-N-C-E. I must gain his A-P-P-R-O-V-A-L before I think of M-A-R-R-I-A-G-E.

I feel certain that, given time, I can make him U-N-D-E-R-S-T-A-N-D. You are my only love, and I cannot live without you.

But until then, I shall send F-I-O-N-A to carry my messages, and to bring you whatever you may need. She is a good girl, D-E-V-O-T-E-D to me, and you may trust her to be D-I-S-C-R-E-E-T.

Your ever-faithful,

W-I-L-L-I-A-M.

I supposed Fiona had left the note by the hut in my absence. When I returned, I also found a neatly wrapped parcel of bread and cheese, some honey and a basket of fruit, standing by the firepit. She must have left them here for me, while the white-headed crow watched from the trees.

Fiona. That pat-a-cake village girl. I hate the thought of her coming here, nosing about outside my door. How did she know where to find me? Do the villagers know where I am? And why did William send her, instead of coming here himself?

Of course, I know why. These things take time. He said we must be patient. And he thinks of me. That’s good.

And yet I still wish he had come here himself, with or without his father’s approval. It reminds me somehow of that storybook, and the prince who did not recognise his love when she worked in the kitchens.

Well, I am not a kitchen princess, to hide away and pine for love. If my William does not come, then I will go to him myself. And if anyone tries to keep us apart—

Beware the wrath of a brown girl.

Three

I shall bind my love with smoke, and moss, and eagle feathers. I shall bind him with runes so strong that even Death will shun him. I shall bind him by his name and mine – the name that has already cost me so much – both stitched into a piece of cloth and carried next to my heart, so that however many miles lie between us, we shall never be apart.

Fiona came again today, but this time I was waiting. She brought some bread, some honey-cakes, and some milk, some cheese, and a pitcher of wine. There was no note from William. But her cat-in-the-cream look was enough to make me suspicious. Could she have stolen his letter? Could she be trying to steal something more?

I have written a note of my own. It took me four days, using an eagle-feather quill and on paper made from dried flowers. I kept it to a single page, and sealed it with a candle-stub. It read:

Dear WILLIAM,

Thank You for your Note, and the Parcel, although it is Your own Self, and not Provisions, that I need. I miss You so much that my Heart Aches, and wish I could be with You. Do not send FIONA. I have never trusted her. Instead, I shall come to You tomorrow at Noon, and meet You in the Kitchens, where no-one will Trouble our Meeting. Till then,

Your Love,

Malmuira.

Malmuira. How strange to write that name. It does not feel like a part of me. And yet it was a gift from him, a gift that I could not refuse. Now I have made him a gift in return: a sachet, stitched with both our names and filled with purple lavender, a token of love for William when I see him tomorrow.

Fiona took the note with a smirk. But I know she cannot open it without breaking the waxen seal. If she does, my William will know. If she does not, no matter.

And now, all I must do is wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow I will see him again. Tomorrow, in the kitchens.

Four

I shall bind my love with the cry of a snowy owl in the darkness. I shall bind him with nightshade, and the collarbone of a moon hare. I shall bind him in a sheet made from stars and thistledown, and sleep with him for a thousand years, until the seas are nothing but sand, and the mountains are nothing but ocean.

I took the high road through the hills towards my William’s castle. I wore the dress he gave me, with my tiger’s-eye necklace around my neck, and my hair fastened back with a strand of silk, all tied with purple clover. The sun was already high in the sky, and the hills were garlanded with rainbows. I took it as a good sign:

Rainbow at morn,

Put your hook in the corn.

Rainbow at eve,

Put your head in the sheave.

I even sang to myself as I walked along the heathery path through the hills; not as a lark, but as myself, and my voice startled the grouse on the moor, so that they flew out a-clattering.

At noon I went to the kitchen door, and waited for William to come. But no-one came, and finally I had to ring the bell.

One of the potboys answered. His eyes went wide as he saw me. Then he ran to fetch the chef – the same one who had called me a hoor – who looked at me from a height and said: ‘There’s nothing here for you, miss.’

‘Master William knows I am here,’ I said. ‘I wrote to him only yesterday.’

The chef gave a shrug. ‘If he knows you’re here, then why is he not here to greet you? And why come here, to the kitchen door, like a servant or a thief?’

I shook my head. I was angry. Not with William – not yet – but with the situation. Had Fiona delivered my note? Did William even know I was here? Had he not seen me coming? Would he not have known me as I came across the moors?

‘Listen, miss.’ Now the look of contempt had changed to something like pity. ‘You should go home, where you belong. There’s no-one here.’

‘That isn’t true.’ My voice was small, and I hated myself for not being able to go into a bear, or a wolf, or a tiger, and roar—

‘There’s no-one here, miss. The young Master’s driven off into town.’

I felt myself starting to tremble. ‘Alone?’

‘No, miss.’ That look again: like pity mixed with sour milk.

‘Who?’ I said.

‘His manservant, miss. And, of course, Miss Fiona.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said, and now I could feel my eyes burning. I would not cry. I never cry. But the smoke from the kitchens was unbearable, and the heat from the fires was scorching, and the tears came tumbling down my cheeks before I could prevent them.

The chef said: ‘I’ll get you some water. And there’s bread, if you’re hungry.’

For a moment I was surprised at the kindness in his voice. But this was the man who had called me a hoor. I would not bear his pity. So I held my head high and walked away, my green dress trailing in the dust. Something purple fell to the ground. It was a piece of clover. Faded, it fell from the strand of silk that bound my wild hair to obedience.

And now came the anger – at him, at her, but most of all anger at myself. What a fool I have been! I thought. The hawthorn was right. He is faithless: treacherous like all of his kind, cowardly and wanton. I snatched away the piece of silk. I will have no need for it now. I am not one of your village girls, to be tamed and put aside. My power may be gone, but my rage is more than enough to sustain me. Hide behind your castle walls. Hide behind your servants. But the next time you see me, William, I shall be a tiger.

Five

Even for such as I, there are ways of finding out what needs to be known. I cannot travel, but maybe my folk can be persuaded to travel for me. The white-headed crow can be bribed with cakes; the magpie with pieces of coloured glass. And in exchange they bring me news, a whisper and a word at a time.

Fool! crows the magpie. Faithless! the crow. Fiona, whisper the reeds by the lake, and the sound is like fingernails on glass, like voices from an open grave. And today, as I sit by the firepit, I see them together, enlaced in the smoke, lily-white on petal-pale, and I know that what I see is true. My love loves another.

It rained last night, and the night before that. Wild, intemperate rain that crashes down the mountains. Oh, to go into the rain, and be lost: to go into the lightning, and strike. But I must stay in my hut alone, and watch the rain drip from the trees, and listen to the sound of the stream, and try not to dream of William.

What does he see in that cornsilk girl, that apple-blossom, goat’s-milk girl? How could he have forgotten me, after all his promises? She must have used some kind of witchcraft. Lavender, for forgetfulness, a poppet made from my petticoat, and hair gathered from my brush. She knew how to make the adder-stone charm; maybe she has other skills. Perhaps I was wrong to dismiss her as just another girl of the Folk. She must be a witch, to have thwarted me. She must be a witch, to have snared him. I did not hear the knock at my door: the sound of footsteps on the path. But when I looked up, I saw a face, peering in at my window.

The travelling folk rarely show themselves, even to their own kind. There is no safety in numbers. Instead, we hunt with borrowed skin, with tooth, and horn, and antler. But this time, she had chosen to make the journey as herself, clothed in nothing but ribbons and rags, and with the fine shoes I gave her looking very out of place on her brown and knotted feet; and slowly, very slowly: for she is old as Old Age, her bones as light as driftwood, her hair a silver-moss peach-fuzz against the tender curve of her skull.

‘I said you might change your mind,’ she said, with a sharp-eyed glance at my face. ‘I hear on the wind that your young man has found himself a fairer maid.’

I said nothing, but glared at her.

‘I know a charm,’ she told me, ‘to help you free yourself of him.’

‘I don’t want to be free of him,’ I said. ‘I want him to be free of her.’

The hawthorn shrugged. ‘That’s easy. But it won’t buy back your freedom, nor make him any less faithless.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t care.’

‘Very well,’ said the hawthorn. ‘I’ll sell you a charm. But when you change your mind, come back and find me. I can help you.’

‘I will not change my mind,’ I said. ‘Give me the charm. What’s your price?’

The hawthorn smiled, her brown face all spidery with wrinkles. ‘First, give me that pretty green dress you wear, to keep me warm through the winter.’

I took off the dress. It was in no way as fine as the gowns I had worn at the castle. But it was warm, and well made, and without it, I felt suddenly cold. I stood in my petticoats, shivering. The old woman put on the dress, and seemed content with the result.

‘For the charm,’ she said, ‘you will need three things. The first is the heartswood of an ash, drenched with nine drops of your own blood, and bound with a skein of lightning. Stitch them with the runes Naudr and Thuris, and sew them into a purse made from the shroud of an unshriven man. Leave it under her pillow, and she will have no more power over him.’

I shall bind my love with a charm made from the heartswood of an ash. I shall bind him with my blood, shed for him by moonlight. I shall bind him with the threads of lightning from the summer storms, and never let go, not for anything, not if Death himself commands it—

The hawthorn nodded and smiled. In my dress and high-heeled shoes she looked even less like one of the Folk than she had dressed in rags and feathers. Then she went on her way through the woods – slowly, very slowly – and all the forest creatures stood aside to let her pass, for the hawthorn is a cunning one, old as Old Age, and as merciless.

September

Month of White Straw

Me did he send a love-letter,

He sent it from the town,

Saying no more he loved me,

For that I was so brown.

The Child Ballads, no. 295

One

The most difficult part was finding a way to slip the charm under her pillow. She sleeps in my bedchamber now, in the bed with the silken coverlet. My messengers tell me she goes there at night, under cover of darkness, for Fiona is a virtuous maid with a good reputation.

But go there I must, I told myself, for the hawthorn’s charm required it. And so I set about planning a way to gain entry into the castle. First, I needed a disguise. Clothes, stolen from a washing line. An apron, and a clean white cap, to make me look like a laundry maid. I went inside with the rest of the girls, hiding my face beneath the cap, and hid until they had all gone by, before taking a pile of clean sheets into William’s chamber. It would have been easy to slip the charm into a fresh pillowcase. But I had not expected to see William there in the bedroom – William, my one true love, who had promised to love me for ever – and Fiona, in her dove-grey silk, sitting by the window.

His hair has grown since I saw him last. But he is as handsome as always. Handsome in the May Day coat he had on when first I saw him, his blue eyes filled with points of gold as he turned and looked right through me.

I felt a surge of dizziness so strong that I almost fell, but William did not notice. He looked at me, and saw me not, in spite of all I had meant to him. For what’s another laundry girl, her hair bound up in a starched white cap, another doe-brown laundry girl, with scowling face and downcast eyes?

I remembered the tale of the kitchen princess, and the prince who sought her. And if I’d had a knife with me, instead of an armful of linen sheets, I would have slaughtered them both on the spot, and left their bed awash with blood, her eyes on his pillow, his tongue at her feet, and her cut throat like the widest of smiles—

But I had no knife. Instead I felt a curious numbness. The hawthorn charm would work, I knew. But could it make him see me?

I left the chamber as soon as I could. My heart was caged and beating. I stood outside in the passageway, my back to the wall, and tried to breathe. The hawthorn charm was still in my hand. There would be no chance to use it now. But I did not care. My rage was gone. I wanted to die. I wanted nothing more than to curl up like a dead leaf and blow away.

But now, back in my hut of split logs, my courage has returned to me. I shall write him a letter, and send it by my own means. The white-headed crow will deliver it, and await his answer. Whatever the reason for his change of heart, I shall not accept it without hearing the truth in his own words.

The hawthorn was right: if William is faithless, I should not blame Fiona. Fiona is nothing. She has no power. If she had, she would have seen through my laundry maid’s disguise. And if I were to be rid of her, there would be another Fiona. No, I must speak with William, and find my way back to his heart, for I cannot yet believe that he could have forgotten me. And so I write my letter of love, and hope that I can find the words.

My dearest WILLIAM,

If You ever cared for me, Heed me now.

I Know Not why You have abandoned me. I was Your love. You are Mine still. My Heart is true. I cannot Believe that You would change. Please send me Your Answer by the White-Headed Crow. It Knows Me. It will Find Me. I implore You, write, and comfort Me, for My Heart aches, and I can Think of Nothing else but You.

My Love for Ever,

Malmuira

Two

I waited all day for his answer. The white-headed crow flew off at dawn, but it was almost dusk before I heard its harsh cry overhead. A few minutes later, it landed on a low branch by the firepit. It was carrying a folded piece of paper.

I paid the white-headed crow its fee of honey-cakes and slowly read:

Dear Malmuira,

I am most sincerely sorry if you feel that I have misled you. But my father has ordered me to make my P-O-S-I-T-I-O-N clear. Whatever my warmer feelings, I cannot allow my P-A-R-T-I-A-L-I-T-Y to blind me to my duty. My rank does not permit me to A-S-S-O-C-I-A-T-E with persons of your kind: so wild, so lacking in polish, so brown. Forgive my B-L-U-N-T-N-E-S-S, and be assured of my continued R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Your servant,

William MacCormac

It took me some time to make out the words. It was almost as if he had chosen them on purpose to confuse me. But the meaning is clear. He cannot love me. He and I are too different. I am brown, and rough, and wild. He is a fine nobleman. He cannot love a wild girl. And this is not his decision, but that of his rank, his duty and his father.

I turned the letter over. I had no other paper to use, and besides, the words of his letter were already cut into my heart. There was no danger that I would forget.

I took my quill and wrote these words:

Dear WILLIAM,

Forgive my plain speaking. My folk are blunt. But be easy, and know that I care not for Your Respect. I am not bound by such Duties as Yours. Brown as I am, I love as I please. I would have kept My Promises.

I wish you joy of your Village Girl, and hope to never see You again. And now that You are free of Me, so too shall I be free of You.

Farewell,

Malmuira

I will not cry. I never do. There is a saying among the Folk: Give as much pity to a woman weeping as to a goose going barefoot. I gave the note back to the white-headed crow. And then I lay down in the ferns and grass that grow around my hut, and watched the fragments of sky through the trees, and wondered how the sun still shone when my light had gone out for ever.

Three

September is the month in which we put away the summer. Nuts, apples, berries and corn, stored away for the winter. Eat all you can in September, for the lean nights are coming. And yet I cannot eat. I cannot gather hazelnuts and put them away for the winter, or pick mushrooms under the Harvest Moon, or blackberries from the forest path.

Instead, I pick over the stubble fields for the last small grains of the love we once had. The harvest is spoilt: the storehouse shut. I will not see its like again. I pick over every memory, every word he spoke to me. And my heart is a hollow shell, as empty as a beggar’s bowl.

I went to see Old Age again, this afternoon in the fairy ring. I counted only fourteen berries on her single living branch. But the hawthorn was in a playful mood, like an old cat, which, from its bed, deigns to play with a ball of wool.

I said: ‘I wrote to William. I said I cared nothing for him. And yet I am not free. Why?’

The hawthorn shook her branches. The rags and ribbons and silver spoons placed there by the village girls fluttered, though the day was still.

I told you to give away everything he gave you, said the hawthorn tree. And yet you wear those pretty beads he gave you at Midsummer’s Fair.

It was true. I’d kept them. The tiger’s-eye beads were around my neck. They were all I had left of William; each shining bead a memory. It hurt to take them off, as if I had taken a layer of skin with them, and yet I gave them up without a word, and hung them on the fairy tree.

A gift given freely on Midsummer’s Day returns a hundredfold, she said.

I did not understand what she meant and turned to go, feeling heartsick. But the hawthorn tree had not finished with me. Once more I heard her branches, rattling like a handful of bones on a wind that was not there.

They say he has promised her a ring, she said. A gold ring, for her white hand. And his name, to bind her for ever to his house and to his heart.

My own heart gave a rattle. ‘I care not for his heart,’ I said.

Oh, but you do, said the hawthorn tree. And until you give him up, you will never again be free.

‘But how do I give him up?’ I cried. ‘He gave me a name. He bound me with his promises. And now I am like a hazelnut that has been eaten away from the inside. I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. There is nothing left of me.’

The hawthorn said: There is a way. But I don’t think you’ll like the price.

‘What price?’ I said. ‘Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.’

The hawthorn was silent.

‘What can I do? How do I give back a name?’

Once more, the hawthorn was silent.

And finally I realized that she had nothing more to say, and went on my way through the stubble fields, barefoot, until my feet bled with the short, sharp stems of the yellow corn, so tender in the springtime but so like knives at harvest month, so that I left a trail of red behind me on the footpath.

Four

September is the busiest month: with nutting, and storing, and sheaving. This is when the geese grow fat, and the sheep eat their fill on the hillside, and the gnats dance on the silent lake, and the brown bears go a-berrying. But I remain idle. I cannot move. I cannot think of anything but William and Fiona, and the gold ring he promised her, and the hawthorn’s words at the Midsummer Fair: The gold in your eyes is truer by far than the gold he promised you.

Yes, I was true. What good did that bring me? I was faithful, I was true, and yet another girl will have William’s ring, and take his name, and be at his side, and one day bear his children. Fiona, whose name means White Lady, and who is good, and virtuous, and will never disgrace him or give him a moment’s anxiety.

A September bride is discreet and forthcoming, beloved of all. Fiona is William’s beloved now, and she has always been discreet. But my whispers on the wind bring me no news of a wedding. Instead, they bring me rumours of secret meetings in haylofts, weevils in potato crops, troubled skies and storms on the way, but no word of William and Fiona. Could it be that he has changed his mind? But that is a childish hope, I know; and I am not a child. Perhaps I was, five months ago. Now I am as old as Old Age, and colder than ice, and harder than stone.

September blowe soft

Till fruite be in loft.

Forgotten month past

Doe now at the last.

I should be hard at work. Soon it will be Michaelmas, when berries grow hard and bitter. Soon, my folk will start to fly south with the wild geese and the swallows. The travelling folk rarely spend the winter in their own skin. Some will fly south, and some will hide under the dry leaves as hedgehogs, or under the snow as foxes and hares. Some, like the hawthorn, will go into trees, and sleep throughout the winter. But I must prepare, if I want to survive. I have nothing put away.

The others know this. Several times I have found gifts left at my door: two rabbits; a pile of hazelnuts; some mushrooms; the haunch of a slaughtered goat. The travelling folk look after their own, even when they have been cast out.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to die. They will find me in the spring, a pile of rags in the undergrowth. Maybe William will hear of it, and weep for me in the green woods, and know that when I promised him to be faithful unto Death, I was true, though he was not. Maybe Fiona will be with him, his golden ring on her finger—

That decides it. I will not die. I will not give that cowslip girl the satisfaction of knowing me dead. Nor will I be the kitchen princess, with her paltry three wishes. I have no need of a fine dress, or shoes, or a fairy carriage. But vengeance, my sweet William. That I can still wish for. And I shall dance barefoot on your grave, and sing like a lark with the joy of it, and soar into the stormy sky, and fill my throat with lightning.

October

The Golden Month

One for anger,

Two for mirth,

Three for a wedding,

Four for a birth.

Five for rich,

Six for poor,

Seven for a witch:

I can tell you no more.

Magpies: 16th-century nursery rhyme

One

October brings the Hunter’s Moon, the crows, the brewing of barley. October is the thresher’s month, the month of grouse, and geese, and deer. October is the month of sloes, and chestnuts, and acorns, and hips, and haws. October is the golden month, where even the trees are a miser’s dream.

An October bride is fair of face, affectionate, but jealous. I wonder if Fiona has her golden ring yet. Word has it she does not: and yet this does not please me. Let her have her golden ring. Let her have her honey.

Last night I went to the fairy tree. There was no moon, and the ancient one was so fast asleep in her hawthorn skin that I almost despaired of rousing her. Around the fairy ring, the stones were nothing more than shadows: some short, some tall, some only hummocks under the turf. The Folk believe that the fairy stones cannot ever be counted. Try it, and the stones will dance, slyly changing positions, so that their number can never be known. The travelling folk, too, have their beliefs concerning the stones of the fairy ring. But this was no night for stories. Tonight, I wanted something more.

I sat by the tree, and waited until the hawthorn stirred from her sleep. Another few weeks, and she will be impossible to waken. I was beginning to wonder if she had already begun her winter’s sleep, when I heard a whispering from her boughs.

Why do you trouble me once more? What more can you want of me?

‘You know what I want,’ I told her. ‘I want to be able to travel again. I want to be free of him; of the name he tricked me into accepting.’

A sigh came from the hawthorn tree. There’s only one way to do that, she said. And I don’t think you have the courage for it.

‘I do have the courage,’ I told her. ‘I swear it will not fail me.’

The hawthorn gave a kind of shrug, deep inside her hawthorn skin. I don’t think you know what you’re asking, it said.

I promised the hawthorn that yes, I did.

Very well, said the hawthorn. But the price will be high, both for you, and for him.

‘Whatever it is, I’ll pay,’ I said.

The hawthorn said nothing, but in the dark, I was sure she was smiling.

Two

The first is the wool of a black lamb on a spindle of elder wood. The second is a lock of his hair, tied with a piece of red thread. The third is a cantrip of Hagall: I am the coldest, whitest of grain. Thus do ye reap, and thus do I sow. The fourth is the blood of a Hunter’s Moon; the fifth is the shroud of an April bride. The sixth is the root of a mandrake; the seventh, an adder-stone, carved with his name. Stitch them into a pocket-doll, and place it in the cleft of a hawthorn tree on All Hallows’ Eve. As the year turns, the charm will take root: As ye reap, so shall ye sow.

But that harvest is for a colder month. October is mellow and deceptive: the golden apples dripping with wasps. The wasps sense the coming of the cold. They are angry, and ready to sting. Now I too, am ready to sting. And I must gather what I need to make the charm before All Hallows’ Eve, or find myself unready.

The black lamb is easy. I gather its wool from the spindle of thistle and thorn. The elder tree, too, is compliant: and I make sure to thank the tree with all the correct incantations. The hair is more of a puzzle. I have no such keepsakes from William. But the white-headed crow has the answer once more: she flies up to his window ledge. His hairbrush and comb are by the bed: she plunders both, and returns to me carrying a knot of hair. I know that hair well. I loved it once. Now I braid it into the lambswool, where it gleams October-gold.

Now for the blood, and the mandrake, with pebbles pushed into my ears to dull the sound of its screaming. The adder-stone is taken from a pebble beach thirty miles away, brought to me by an eagle, that cries: Fool! as it soars away.

But these things all have a price. The knot of hair and the adder-stone have already cost me dearly. Every scrap, every trinket has gone to pay for the charm’s components. And now I must find the most powerful thing – a piece of the shroud of an April bride – which is why I stand here now, with a wooden spade in my hand and a splinter of ice in my heart.

The graveyard lies by the village church. Our people never come here. Nor would I choose to come here now, especially not in my own skin. But without the piece of shroud, my charm will fail. It must be tonight. I creep into the village under cover of darkness. By the light of a waning moon I read the inscriptions on the graves. There are many grave markers here, and the risk of discovery grows with every moment I stay. But, at last, I find what I seek, and my heart leaps in savage joy.

The grave belongs to a village girl, married in April, dead by the end of August. An April bride is inconstant, not over wise, not over fair. Married with the cuckoo’s call; dead with its passing. Poor April girl. Her name is here, carved onto the wooden marker. It says:

KATE MILLER,

Beloved Wife of SAM and Daughter of ELDER.

Dyed of a Wasting Malady, in the 17th Year of Her Age.

As you are now, so once was I:

As I am now, so you shall be.

But I shall never be as you are. When I have my freedom back, I shall travel into the air. I shall become a thousand seeds of dandelion and fireweed, of ragwort and of thistle, alder and yew. And I shall take root wherever I fall, in your gardens and on your graves. And if you cut me, I shall grow and multiply a thousandfold.

Now I must dig deep and true. I use my hands, and the wooden spade. The earth is stony under the turf. That’s good. The hole grows faster.

At last, I reach her coffin. Her coffin is narrow, the lid nailed shut. I prise off the nails, one by one. The shroud is mostly eaten away. But there is more than enough of it left to stitch into a pocket-doll.

I fill in the grave. I stamp down the turf. No-one will know that I was here. Poor April girl, unwise and plain. And yet she was beloved. She wore his ring on her finger. I know. I found the ring. I kept it. She had no use for it any more. And a wedding ring is a powerful charm, even more so than an adder-stone, and one that I know how to use.

And now all I need to do is wait for All Hallows’ Eve. The year turns: the fires burn, announcing the coming of winter. The ploughman tills the earth: the hay is stored away in the hayloft. And the travelling folk make merry, for it is our time: our covenant.

They call us the Devil’s children. But we have no allegiance to your Devil, or your God. We are the travelling folk. We live. And we will live for ever.

Three

Hey-ho, for Hallowe’en,

All the witches to be seen.

Some black, some green,

Hey-ho, for Hallowe’en.

And now it comes: All Hallows’ Eve, though the travelling folk call it by a different name. This is the night when spirits walk: when the Folk set out plates for their vanished ones and offerings for the Faërie. It is the night when fires are lit, and apples roasted in the hearth. It is a time of old gods; lost loves; of mulled ale and strong cider. On All Hallows’ Eve, the dead arise, and the travelling folk walk in their skins for the last time before winter.

This is our night. On Hallowe’en, no-one questions our presence. We can come and go as we please among your houses and villages. Even the Folk of the castle will not turn away the travelling folk; not on Hallowe’en, the night when anyone could be anyone: your great-great-grandsire; the Devil himself; the King and Queen of Elfland.

The Folk of the village have built a bonfire in the middle of the green. Straw men, bundles of firewood, and the cast-off clothes of the dead – for the clothes of the dead must be burned, they say, or face the wrath of the Good Folk. It is a belief that serves me well, for I will need clothes for the winter. I plunder the bonfire. A pair of boots, a coat, a fine wool skirt. Gloves and woollens and knitted socks, as soft as a new lamb’s belly. These things I take to my hut in the woods. But tonight I need something different. Tonight, I must be beautiful. Tonight I must have nothing less than the wedding gown of an April bride, taken from a pile of clothes placed there by a grieving widower, and if the husband sees me, he will think his beloved walks, and he will close his shutters tight, and cross himself, and shiver.

The dress is black. An unlucky shade for a bride, perhaps, and yet I know it becomes me. Barefoot I dance around the fire; barefoot around the fairy tree: and in its cleft I bind the charm that I have made from William’s hair, and my blood, and an adder-stone, and I fix it in place with a cantrip:

I am the coldest, the whitest of grain. Thus do ye reap, and thus do I sow.

There comes a voice from behind me, a voice both strange and familiar.

‘This time you did not falter,’ she says, and I turn to see the hawthorn, standing there in her own skin, all brown and crabbed and smiling. She is wearing my green dress and my scarlet high-heeled shoes, with the tiger’s-eye necklace around her throat, and maybe it is the rosy light from the bonfire on the green, but I think she looks younger, brighter, more alive than when I saw her last. The mossy hair is thicker now, streaked with glossy sloe-black bands. Her eyes are sharp and pinned with gold. Her lips, once ashy-pale, are now the colour of wild roses.

‘The season suits you, Old Mother,’ I say.

‘Apples and chestnuts,’ the hawthorn replies. ‘Cider feeds my withered roots, and brandy makes my blood flow. But you’ – she glances at my silken gown – ‘you are a winter queen tonight. And is that a ring on your finger?’

‘I dare say it may be,’ I tell her.

‘And will you dance under his window,’ she says, ‘and make him shiver and stare?’

I smile. ‘Perhaps I will,’ I say. ‘For if not tonight, then when?’

She gives a low chuckle. ‘I’ll walk with you, child. It has been too long since I saw the stars.’

The path to the castle is torchlit tonight, and busy with the travelling folk. The magpie woman; the crow; the stag; the wolf; the eagle. Here’s a salmon, with silver hair and a dress of fine-linked chain. Here’s an otter, sleek and brown; a beech tree, tall and handsome. All dressed in leather, and silk, and fur, with crowns of antler and of bone. All carrying fiddles, and bells, and flutes, and pipes, and drums, and tambourines.

I join them, and for the first time since I first lay with William, I feel as if I belong here, that I have been forgiven. A linnet in a feather coat raises her sweet voice in song. I join her, and am joined in turn by a wooden drum and a shiver of bells. I start to dance, and they urge me on with stamping feet and clapping hands. And as we approach the castle I see a light at William’s window, and a shadow by the curtain, and know that he sees me, and feels the hand of Death upon his shoulder.

Someone passes me a flask of something warm and fragrant. I drink, and dance, and sing some more, until the stars are spinning. And now I feel a surge of love for all the travelling people. The ragged blue tit, the sparrow, the fox, the corncrake and the field mouse. The brown men and women that sleep in your fields, and lurk around your campfires. We may look like beggars by day, but on this night, we are kings and queens, and the world is our kingdom, our playground the night, and the starry night our canopy.

November

The Black Month

Marry in blue, lover be true

Marry in pink, no time to think

Marry in grey, live far away

Marry in brown, soon in the ground

Marry in green, not long to be seen

Marry in yellow, ashamed of your fellow

Marry in black, can never go back

Marry in red, wish you were dead

Marry in gold, your bed will be cold

Marry in white, everything’s right.

Traditional rhyme

One

Now comes the time of the leafless trees, and the geese heading south for the winter. The last of the apples have been picked; the bare fields have been resown. Jack-in-the-Green has put aside his summer coat, and the Winter King rules over the countryside. And the travelling folk have once more moved on; the fires of All Hallows’ Eve burned down to nothing but embers.

The first of November marks the time when my people go to ground. The fox to his earth; the wolf to his den; the trees to their leafless dreaming. The hawthorn has shed the last of her fruit, and will no longer speak to me. Only the white-headed crow remains to bring me news from the castle.

The wedding is planned for the New Year. Until then, the bride-to-be remains a guest in the castle. The crow sees her occasionally, sitting at her needlework, or looking out of the window towards the distant valley. I see her too, through the golden eye of my stolen wedding ring. A wedding ring is a powerful charm, a window into other worlds. The wedding ring shows me a crow’s-eye view, soaring over the valley.

Not that there is much to see. Fog has come down from the hills, and only the tip of the tower stands above the unbroken whiteness. Underneath, it is damp, and still. The forest is nothing but spider’s webs. My firepit smokes, and my eyes are red. The boredom is worse than anything.

If I were myself again, I would go into a bear, and sleep until the springtime. Or an apple tree, to awaken with the blossom on my branches. Instead, I must sit in my hut and wait, and know that winter is coming.

I wonder what she is sewing, up in her room in the castle. Bridal linen, I expect, to keep her busy through the snows. I imagine pillowcases and sheets, each one embroidered with her name and his, or maybe a silken coverlet, all sewn with blue forget-me-nots.

I wonder who will make her dress, and of what colour it will be. Yellow, perhaps, to go with her hair, or rosebud-pink, or sky-blue. But no. White is her colour. She must wear white on her wedding day. Marry in white: everything’s right. If only the poor April girl had made a more fortunate choice.

I have a loom at the back of my hut. Last year, I made a fine brown rug of lambswool and of horsehair. This winter, I shall make a gown; a gown of every colour. My needle is sharp: my eye is keen. I have all winter to make it. And when it is done, and my All Hallows’ Eve charm has worked its way into his heart, then I shall dance upon his grave, and be free of him for ever.

Two

I shall start with the dress of the April bride, its modest, blameless panels. A fine dress, for a village girl, but I require something finer. With my knife, I will slash the skirt into shreds of cornsilk, and stitch it all over with rosebuds, and trailing fronds of ivy.

Once more I find myself thinking of the story of the kitchen princess, and her dancing shoes, and her fine silk gown, and her coach and four white horses. What a fool, to waste her gifts on such a paltry princeling. If I had three wishes, I would wish myself into the sky, and fall down in a shower of stars, and dance among the Northlights. If I had three wishes, I would make myself a Christmas pie, with chestnuts and with sugar-plums, and all kinds of sweet delights—

Waarrr! War!

The white-headed crow has taken to pecking at the roof of my hut whenever it wants attention. I draw back the deerskin curtain that keeps the wind from entering. The crow hops in. It is hungry. The honey-cakes are long gone. Soon, there will be nothing to eat but potatoes, and dried berries.

‘What news?’ I ask the white-headed crow. But I already know what news it brings. My wedding-ring charm showed me the signs of bad news from the castle. It seems the old laird has been taken ill. An inflammation of the lung, following a hunting trip. A southerly wind and a cloudy sky proclaim a hunting morning. But the old fool would go by an easterly wind, which always brings wet weather. And now he lies on his deathbed, while his son paces the hallways, and the bride-to-be counts the silver spoons in the kitchens and wonders – How long?

If the old man dies, she will be mistress of the honeycomb. And William will be master. At least, until my charm takes hold.

I am the coldest, whitest of grain. Thus do ye reap, and thus do I sow. The answer to the riddle is Hail, the bane of every harvest. My seeds have been sown, William. And now let us see what you shall reap …

Three

The old man took nine days to die. He held on till St Martin’s Day. But by St Catherine’s he was laid out, and buried in the churchyard.

Of course, this means the wedding must be postponed until the time of mourning is past. That means twelve months in black ribbons before poor Fiona can wear her white gown. If only the old man had eaten an apple on All Hallows’ Eve, as I did – a sovereign cure, they say, against all ailments of the chesty kind. Still, it is too late for him now. I watched through the eye of the wedding ring as the hearse came down the path, the horses’ plumes all wet with rain, and William, in his winter coat with the sealskin collar, walking behind, with Fiona by his side.

They laid him, not with the common folk, but in the MacCormac family vault. His name is freshly carved on the wall of the little chapel of rest. I waited until the folk had gone, and everything was quiet again, and then I went to pay my respects, and to leave a rune-stone by the door so that he would know me. And there, by the light of the new Blood Moon, I promised I would end his line, and see his family home in ruins, and watch his lands all pass to strangers, until they were broken up into strips and even his name was forgotten.

And then I went back to my hut in the woods, and the comfort of my fireside, and my needlework, and the white-headed crow. And when I awoke in the morning, I saw that the first frost had come, touching the grass and the spider’s webs and the ploughed fields and hedges with silver, and I knew that the winter had truly begun, and that my waiting was over.

Four

Clear moon: frost soon, so they say. And the moon has been clear these past five nights, bringing hard earth, a black frost and death to many small animals – voles, blue tits, lizards, frogs – living around the lakeside. The lake, too, is frozen: great flowers of ice blossom around the islands. The ducks slip and slide on the surface. The white-headed crow sleeps close to the hut, too wild as yet to stay inside.

The castle is in mourning. My wedding ring shows me draped mirrors, stopped clocks, and scenes of quiet hysteria. Fiona is not happy that the wedding date has been put back. Nor is she happy that William, still not of age, cannot inherit his father’s lands, but must wait until he is twenty-one. Until then, his uncle serves as trustee to his fortune and has to give his approval to the impending nuptials. Fiona’s silent displeasure is clear. She works on her wedding trousseau with thin lips: saying nothing, eyes downcast. She has had to hire a chaperone, chosen for her plainness.

Meanwhile, the Folk are restless. The death of the laird, so suddenly, has caused grief and anxiety. The old man was popular; his son was raised among the village folk. He swam with their children in the lake; took apples from their orchards. The village folk remember this. Now he is their master.

A death in November means hard times ahead. The winter is only beginning. Over the next three months, there may be more than a dozen casualties. Old folk, mostly, or babes-in-arms too weak to withstand the damp nights. But with the end of the year comes the sense of something darker approaching. Four sheep were taken by wolves last night, and the farmer swears he saw a handprint in the blood on the stone wall of the pen, and knew that this was no common wolf. There are other omens, too. A rune-stone, found in the churchyard. The grave of a young woman, tampered with. These are evil signs indeed, and the Folk are troubled.

Through the eye of my wedding ring, I can see how fear ferments. The Folk are like an anthill riven by a passing cart. The cart moves on, but the ants are at war against anything that comes their way. I must take care. This is not a good sign for such as me. The Folk are fearful and easily roused, and this too often turns to hate. And I cannot simply go into a hare or a goat until this danger is past.

On Sunday, a pedlar came by with a load of baskets. At another time, he might have been welcomed. This time, the Folk sent him on his way with evil glances and muttering. Some boys threw stones. I must take care. Alone in my hut in the forest, I now have more than wolves to fear. And as the nights grow longer, and the wind grows knife-edge cold, I may yet need to deal with the Folk, and to trade for my survival.

Five

More ice, and the lake is frozen hard. But ice in the black month is treacherous, the water still warm from the summer. A pair of village boys, lured by the hope of skating to the islands, fell into the water. One died, the other did not. The lake was not so warm, after all.

In less suspicious times, the Folk would have seen the thing for what it was – an accident. But now, with the slightest thing taken as an omen, the ants are ready to attack anything that stands in their way.

I watched the funeral from afar. The church bell rang its mournful toll. And the ants, in their black coats and winter bonnets, clustered in the churchyard, all encircled with wedding-ring gold. The death of an old man – even a laird – is natural enough, they say. But a healthy boy of nine, who would have grown strong and handsome …

That is more than a tragedy to a community such as this. The mother of the dead boy wails like a cat. His father is bearlike, and angry. The other children, awed into compliance by the presence of Death, stand wide-eyed around the grave. Death has taken one of them. Death could have taken any of them. The fairy tree is hung once more with ribbons and with offerings.

I see them. I take them. A silver spoon; an earthenware pot, a shard of steel, a lace handkerchief. These things can be sold, so long as I take my business further afield. The money will buy me bread, cheese, a flagon of wine for the winter nights. But I must tread carefully. I will travel to the town. There is a monthly market there. I can make it on foot in two days. Two more days to walk back. Two nights of sleeping rough – in a bothy, in a barn – then back to my hut, and safety. And I have other things to sell: charms against the fever, lavender sachets for linen. The townsfolk will buy them, I know that.

Tomorrow I shall set off at first light. No-one will see me as I go. No-one but the white-headed crow who serves as my protector. She tells me when strangers approach; when my fire throws up too much smoke; when the wind will bring rain, or the wolves prowl close. She will come with me to the town, to see what lies on the road ahead, to warn me of danger approaching. The white-headed crow is my guardian, most faithful of my people. Alone of them all, she has chosen to stay with me over the winter, to watch over me, to help me survive. And if she sometimes walks as a wolf, and slaughters the sheep in their paddock – what then? If only I had my powers again, would I not do the same?

December

The Month That Is Also Black

With good ale, good bread and peace at home –

If the snow comes, then let it come.

North Country proverb

One

I begged a ride on a dairyman’s cart for the last six miles of the trip, and so, reaching town by nightfall, I was able to spend the night in an inn, high under the eaves in a room that I shared with two other women – one a nun, the other a whore – which boded ill for my night’s sleep.

I slept long nevertheless, and awoke to the sound of activity. The white-headed crow was perched on the roof underneath my window and, looking out into the square, I saw the traders and journeymen setting out their carts and their stalls, while the tinkers and gypsies and folk such as I stood by, awaiting their chance of a place.

There were beer sellers, oystermen, butchers and bawds: pie-men selling Fat Boys, and onion pasties, and frumenty pie. There were sellers of wool and sellers of hay, and wine, and seaweed, and leather, and gloves. There were cheese-men, and ragpickers, and shrimpers and spooners, and skinners and all manner of merchants and traders, as well as pipers, fiddlers, cutpurses, thieves, storytellers, pickpockets and other such magpies of the trade.

I looked over my merchandise. Four silver spoons, two earthenware pots, a blanket woven from rabbit fur. Sixty-two sachets of lavender, made from a muslin petticoat stolen from a washing line. Charms against the fever, the plague; a broken heart, a barren womb. All things that I could sell here, starting with the silverware, down the road of the goldbeaters and bronze founders and silversmiths.

The spoons fetched less than they were worth. But the man asked no questions. Thence to the market, where I sold a dozen of the sachets and spells, and told some fortunes and read some palms, so that my purse was growing fat—

There was a woman in front of me, looking at one of the nearby stalls. She was standing half-turned towards me, wearing a bonnet of black silk. Her pale hair was tied in a long braid; I had a chance to observe her face as she looked at the display of fruit. Then she looked up, and saw me—

Fiona has grown fat since I saw her last. Her face is as round as the full moon. She was wearing a shapeless black coat that came down almost to the ground, but even so, I could see her rolling gait, and the way her waist had thickened. The woman beside her, I told myself, must be the chaperone. But now that I saw her more closely, I knew her. A spinster, with a cleft lip, who served as the village midwife—

Fiona recognized me at once. I saw her blue gaze sharpen. She turned her head. She spoke in a voice like a volley of quail breaking cover—

‘She’s here!’

And then there was William, and everything stopped. The sounds of the market dropped to a hum. Fiona’s voice was silent. Everything was silent – except for the circle around us both, a circle that was wedding-ring gold, spinning like a wheel of light.

He was wearing a coat of dull yellow wool, with a collar of shaggy, pale fur. His hair was clean and tied back. His eyes were everywhere but on mine.

He took a step forward. ‘Malmuira,’ he said.

‘That’s not my name,’ I told him.

Fiona, emboldened by his presence, waddled to his side. I said: ‘Does your uncle know she’s with child?’

He did not have to answer. His eyes told me everything I needed to know. Bad enough that the young laird should have promised marriage at nineteen to a village girl with nothing more than a pretty face as her dowry, but now that she was no longer virtuous, the uncle would never give his consent.

I smiled. ‘I wish you joy,’ I said. ‘But there will be no christening. This child you carry will be as nameless as any one of the travelling folk.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Fiona.

William’s eyes danced here and there, like fleas on a hot griddle.

I laughed. ‘I think you know what I mean.’

Fiona said: ‘How dare you!’

I laughed again, and told her: ‘Even if he married you, you’d be a widow by May Day.’

Her pale face grew paler. ‘What do you mean?’ she repeated.

I said: ‘I am the coldest, whitest of grain. Thus do ye reap, and thus do I sow.’

‘It is a curse,’ said Fiona, her blue eyes widening.

William stood there, not looking at me. He looked very young, and I wondered how I could ever have seen him as a man. I’d thought him so much older than I, so much more worldly. But now I saw that he was a boy, fresh-faced, almost beardless.

‘What do you say to her, William?’ said Fiona querulously. ‘The witch, the witch has cursed us! Call for the parson! Call for the nurse! I feel unwell. I may faint, I may die—’

‘Malmuira, please,’ he said. ‘No more. You are upsetting Fiona.’

No, I am upsetting you, I thought, and smiled once more to myself. His eyes were on me at last, and I knew that he was wondering how he could ever have thought he loved a girl so brown, a girl so wild, a girl so unlike him in every way. I looked at him through the rags of my hair, all braided through with feathers. I said:

‘Cast not a clout until May be out, for on that day, I shall dance on your grave, and soar like a lark above you. On that day, you shall know my name, which is known only to the dead. And on that day, I shall be free, and the sky will ring with my laughter.’

Fiona gave a little scream, and fell into the midwife’s arms.

William took a step backwards. ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ he said, in a voice that was trembling. ‘You may have bewitched me once, but now I see you for the common slut you are.’

That made me angry. ‘I was a maid. Fourteen years a maid,’ I said, ‘until I gave myself to you.’

He sneered, sensing my weakness. ‘A common slut and a liar, too,’ he said. ‘An ugly witch who deserves to hang.’

I laughed again, though my heart hurt. So this is what he thinks of me. This is what remains of his love, gone like the knots on the fairy tree, like the first call of the cuckoo. What a fool I was to think that a boy of the Folk could know my heart. The Folk are weak, and fickle, and tame, and they do not deserve our notice.

‘Look for me when blackthorn blooms,’ I said. ‘I shall be thinking of you.’

And then I turned and left them there before they could see the tears in my eyes, and with my pack and my white-headed crow, I left the marketplace and the town, and began my walk home by the high road, so that, when William drove past in his coach, he would not see me crying.

Two

I spent the night in a bothy, with the white-headed crow as my sentinel. War, War, comes her harsh cry, and now that dawn is here, I can see the first sprinkling of snow, high on the tops of the black hills.

It will be good to return to my hut, and the forest, and my firepit. It will be good to sleep all day under the softly settling snow. The sky is heavy and overcast. It is not snowing yet, but it will. The wind is from the north, but when it comes from the east it will bring snow. The wise among the Folk will then cover their strawberries in hay, and take in their swine, and chop their wood, and feed their bees with honey-water and rosemary.

Today is the eve of St Lucy. Lucy light, Lucy bright: the shortest day and longest night. In fact, we are still some days away from the shortest day of the winter: and yet this morning feels like dusk although it is still early. The sky is low, and rolls like a drum, and the clouds are like dirty water. I quicken my step, hoping to outpace the snowclouds as they roll, but it is dark by the time I reach the narrow path to the village.

And yet, there is a glow in the sky. Not sunset, nor yet dawn, but a glow like firelight. It comes from the woods, and with it, a scent of woodsmoke, and distant cries of excitement.

A bonfire, for St Lucy’s Eve? The forest seems like a strange place for that. Too easy, even on such a day as this, for the fire to spread, and burn the woods. And yet, that is what it looks like: and the fire is already spreading, while men of the Folk, in coats and hoods, move up and down the forest path.

I cannot go into a hare, and watch them from the bracken. But I can move quietly through the woods, and, leaving my pack safely hidden under a blackthorn bush by the lake, I set off to see what is afoot.

I know in my heart what is happening before I reach the path to my hut. The path is narrow, hedged by gorse, but even now I hear them. The Folk are often clumsy, often loud, and tonight, they are armed with torches and wooden staves, their voices raised in anger. I hear them cry – Witch! Hang the witch! – and I draw back into the shadows. No-one will see me under the gorse. No-one will hear my trapped heart.

And so I watch as my home burns, and listen to their drunken cries – for these are men of the village, made bold by numbers and by pints of ale – and I know who led them to this place. Only two people knew of it. And as the crow calls – War! War! – I feel the wind turn, and shift to the east: and with it, I think I can already feel the falling of the first flakes of snow.

Three

Soon it will be Christmas-tide, with mistletoe charms on the fairy tree, and church bells ringing, and carolling, and holly wreaths on the doorstep. Christmas, time of peace and goodwill, and of fat geese roasting on the fire, and chestnuts, crab apples, furmenty; puddings, cakes and sweet wine …

Not that I shall see any of this. The rich will give their penny in church, and pay for absolution. But money is like a great door that shuts inwards on the heart of a man. The poor will starve this Christmas, as the poor folk always do, and the rich will dine on venison, and sing their songs of redemption, and light their candles against the night, and try not to think of the darkness.

In the castle, Fiona will fret at her wedding embroidery. William will look out at the snow that lies now almost twelve inches deep, and think of me, and of himself, and wonder that I have not been found.

It snowed on the night of my return. Perhaps that is what saved me. They had dogs to hunt me down, but the falling snow had dampened the scent, and by the time they understood that I was gone from the forest, the snow had covered everything, with not even a footprint to show my trail.

They will take this as a sign of witchcraft, of course. Only a witch could disappear without even leaving a footprint. Only a witch could hide away, deceiving even the hunting dogs brought by Master William. But even a travelling girl alone can find a way, if needs must. And, with no other refuge in sight, I made my way across the lake to the largest of the islands.

These islands form a necklace across the dark throat of the lake. There are only two of any size to allow me shelter: the rest are nothing but broken teeth. Only one was still linked to the shore by the ice, and I crawled across on my hands and knees, testing the ice every inch of the way.

Thus I managed to reach the near shore, then climbed up the bank with my pack on my head. No footprints marked my passage. No scent would remain for the dogs to find.

The island was maybe three hundred feet long, a hundred across. A few dozen trees: some tumbled rocks, a shallow cave at the foot of them. I had some food in my market pack, and my woven blanket against the cold, but even so, without shelter, I knew that I could not survive. I found some bracken and broken trees, and managed to make a rough lean-to against the cave mouth, but it was too damp to light a fire, and besides, the smoke from a bonfire would certainly have betrayed me. I wrapped myself up in the blanket, and pulled the bracken over me, but I slept very little, and fitfully, and when I awoke, some time before dawn, I was aching with the cold.

Most people die an hour before dawn. It is the point of least resistance to the pull of the darkness. An hour before dawn, you can see the pale seam of the night sky starting to unravel: you can hear the birds as they awaken; there is hope. And that is the moment at which they fade, the old ones and the babes-in-arms, the ones that slip gently into the dark and those who struggle till the end. I have struggled for so long, I thought. And now my William wants me dead. And it would be so much easier to go in silence with the dawn, and the snow falling like petals—

And then I heard a low growl from outside the cave mouth. Forcing myself to move, I looked out to see a lean, grey shape facing me with bared teeth.

It was a wolf. A big grey wolf with eyes like jack-o’-lanterns. And behind it, another, as black as coal, with a single pale stripe across its head.

I felt a sudden blaze of fear, and with it, a sting of amusement. Clearly, I was not quite as ready to die as I had thought. I started to struggle to my feet, knowing that a wolf will sometimes pause in the face of a more imposing prey. But I was too weak; I fell to one knee, helpless in the bracken.

The grey wolf gave another growl, but did not attack. Instead, and to my surprise, it pushed its muzzle through the wall of bracken and came to lie down beside me. The black wolf did the same thing, its head resting on my shoulder. And as I felt their warmth begin to bring my frozen body back to life, I understood that these were no wolves of the ordinary kind, but the travelling folk, come to help me.

Who they were in their other life, I did not know. Our people rarely communicate outside, in the open. Some live as I do, in the woods; some herd sheep in the mountains. Some even live among the Folk, keeping their true nature secret: doing as the Folk do; hiding themselves in plain sight. The wolves did not speak, but only lay alongside me in my shelter. I felt their fur against my skin: smelt their not-quite-doglike scent. From time to time, I felt a rough tongue against the nape of my neck; a soft muzzle against my face. Little by little, I felt the cold, and with it that sense of hopelessness, recede. William wants me dead, I thought: that alone should be enough for me to survive. The grey wolf and the black wolf slept, twitching and snuffling in their dreams. And finally, I too went to sleep; and when I awoke, it was snowing.

Four

Snow cherishes the ground, they say, and anything that be sowed in it. And so, to survive, I must be like the seeds that sleep under the white-capped earth. By digging, I have expanded the cave, lined it with dry moss and bracken, and thus I have made my shelter as comfortable as such a place can be.

It could be worse, I tell myself. I have clothes, and food, and wine. I still have my knife, and my wedding-ring charm, and my box for striking tinder. Not that I dare light a fire as yet, but this damp weather will not last, and soon I will dig a firepit, and keep it banked and smokeless.

The two wolves come to me every night. Together, we sleep in safety. And under the snow that covers the land, we are hidden, we are warm, and we wait for the hunt to be over. Sometimes my friends bring me meat from their hunt. Rabbit, still warm; and its pelt will help to line and waterproof our den. Or a haunch of mutton, dragged from the hills, or a fish from the river. I cannot cook the meat, of course. But this does not disturb me. I have eaten raw meat before, as a wolf, as a bear, as a vixen. I eat with the wolves. I sleep with the wolves. And though I still cannot travel, I can sometimes forget who I am, and dream that I am one of them, and in dreaming grow stronger.

Five days have passed since they burned my hut. Does William still hunt me? The dogs have been silent since yesterday. In the snow, the scent has been lost. The ice, too, is melting, from white lace to black. Soon this will be an island once more. And the dogs will not go near the wolves. Their scent covers mine, and keeps away any who wish to harm me.

I try not to think of William. I do not think I believed until now how much he fears and hates me. I think a part of me still hoped that he might somehow change his mind. The white-headed crow said it first – War! – and now that she is a white-headed wolf, she says it even more clearly.

I must send her out again. My wedding-ring charm shows me nothing but snow. But I know in my heart that he thinks of me, and shivers, and I smile as I lie in the earth like a corpse, and know that he will lie there soon. This knowledge warms me more than his hearth; more than the taste of blood in my mouth; more than the pounding of my heart. You declared war on me, William: know that I mean to fight to the death. And when you are cold and in the ground, the birds will sing, and the sun will shine, and I shall dance barefoot on your grave with a crown of may blossom in my hair. But not before you have begged me on your knees for forgiveness, and seen everything you cared for vanish into smoke and ash—

War, says my protector. The sound is almost like a purr.

War.

Five

Christmas Day, and the daylight lengthens to the breadth of a gnat’s yawn. From my den, I can hear the bells, and I know that William hears them, too.

My friend in crow’s skin tells me that William’s uncle has come at last from the city, with much commotion, the result of which is that Fiona has been sent home. The scandal of her pregnancy ensures that there will be no wedding. William’s uncle made it clear: the family’s honour is at stake. William may bed as many village girls as he likes – he is, after all, the heir, and he has a right to his wild oats – but his bride must be a virgin. The uncle is immovable.

As for Fiona, she keeps to her bed. Her time cannot be far away. And besides, from there she cannot hear the gossips, or see the raised eyebrows, or hear the harsh words. But she will survive, I think. My war is not with her kind.

The snow persists, although the ice has melted into white lace. My firepit is ready now: three feet deep and two feet wide, and the fire burns low and hot in embers, and the pale smoke filters away through the trees. Even so, I find it hard. I do not leave the island. The wolves bring me food from their hunt, and sleep beside me, and give me strength, but I still miss my freedom. My refuge has become a prison, and I suffer as much from boredom as the fear of being hunted and trapped.

But I am not entirely cut off. Three days after I arrived here, I found a boat on the island. It was a little rowing boat of the kind the Folk sometimes use, and it had been moored in a wooded place where it could not be seen from the bank. In it, I found supplies: wine, food, blankets, firewood.

At first I thought I had discovered a fisherman’s cache. But when no-one came to claim the goods, I realised I must have a friend in the village. One of the travelling people, perhaps, living in secret among the Folk? I feel so alone on my spur of rock with only the wolves for company. The thought that someone might care for me is suddenly, achingly, poignant. To aid me – hunted and outcast – is to risk sharing my fate. Whoever it is has already done more for me than William did. I realise now how little he cared. But when one has had so little love, even table scraps may serve.

I dare not use the little boat to leave the island – not yet. Too many folk are searching for me – not least, William. And the white-headed crow is too recognisable. Already there is talk of her being my familiar. All I have is my wedding-ring charm to show me what is happening. And so I spend the short, dark days watching the Folk through its gleaming eye, and marking the passage of time against the silvery bark of a nearby tree, and waiting for my wolves to come home, and thinking of my vengeance.

When Christmas-tide comes in like a bride—

What shall it be. I wonder. A sickness, or an accident? Will he have time to understand that I was the cause of his downfall? Will he have time to beg, and pray, or will it be all in an instant? My wedding-ring charm shows me nothing, and I pace and snarl with impatience on my narrow little spur of land, while in the village, the church bells ring peace and goodwill to the righteous.

Six

Speak not ill of the year, they say, until the year be over. Someone must have forgotten that. To speak of one’s troubles during those days between Christmas and the New Year is to see them multiply like moths, eating up everything in the house.

My spies tell me that Fiona was taken into labour last night. The delivery was painful and strange, and when it came for the child to be born, there was no child, just water, blood and an empty bag of loose skin, as if something had eaten the child away as it lay there in the womb, just as certain predators will suck the meat from a chrysalis.

Of course, the Folk cried witchcraft. Only witchcraft could explain such a thing.

The midwife with the cleft lip blamed Fiona’s appetite for candied figs, for if figs be eaten out of season, then the Devil will claim his own. Fiona, in hysterics, denied that the Devil had anything to do with it, and blamed that day at the market, when I had shown her the evil eye.

William says nothing, but I sense his unease. His uncle’s continued presence means that he dares not see Fiona. In fact, it is almost amusing to see how quickly he has abandoned her. Her pregnancy was bad enough, but the disappearance of the unborn child is more than he can stomach. Now he keeps to his rooms, and will not come out until the year is done. The time between Christmas and the New Year is a dark, uncertain time: a time when dogs howl, witches fly, and the dead watch the living. Perhaps he feels me watching him, and thinks I am dead. I hope so.

Meanwhile, the Folk are uneasy. The omens have been terrible. Strange births, odd sounds, the unusual behaviour of livestock: everything points to witchcraft. I am, of course, the prime suspect. My unexplained disappearance; my sinister words to Fiona. And there have been sightings, too. An old man coming out of the inn after a hard night’s drinking swears he saw me in the sky, riding a broomstick. A second old man contests this, and claims that I was riding a beanpole. Either way, it was witchcraft, and there is a new sighting every day to confirm their suspicions.

From my hideout, I watch and wait. The ice has melted, and I need my boat to go to and from the island. I do not go far. But my friend in the village leaves firewood, bread, cheese and sometimes wine, under a bramble patch by the lake. Every few days, I check the place. So far I have seen no-one, not even footprints in the snow.

Who is my friend in the village, and why do they risk their life for my sake? To come to my aid is dangerous, and yet, whoever it is keeps coming. I think of Old Age, in her hawthorn tree. Could she be the one, perhaps? I sit under the trees, by my firepit, trying to read the rising smoke. It would be a comfort to catch even a glimpse of a friendly face. But all I see is the island, with its silver birches under the snow, and the darkness of the pine woods, and the ducks by the lakeside.

January

The Cold Month

Hats full, caps full,

Bushel, bushel, sacks full.

17th-century proverb

One

Now comes the woodcutting time, and I must keep to my place on the island. Every day, around the lake, I hear the Folk cutting firewood. January is the cold month, the month of frost and omens, and a week’s sunshine in January means the worst of weather in May. For myself, I welcome the sunshine. The snow has gone, and during the day I can enjoy the first pale rays of a new year. At night, it freezes but, thanks to my wolves, I will always sleep easy. Thanks to the wood provided by my unknown friend in the village, my firepit burns day and night, and I can cook my food again – a fish from the lake, a rabbit, a duck, a handful of late potatoes. The white-headed crow is back by day, along with a clatter of magpies.

One’s for sorrow, two for mirth;

Three, a wedding, four a birth.

Five for heaven, six for hell –

Of course, I do not believe in such things. Your hell and your Devil mean nothing to me. The Folk are so concerned with sin, and with all the ways to absolve it, that they do not see the way in which the Church has harnessed them. The Church controls their food, their drink; declares when to feast and when to fast; when to have children, when to abstain, chooses when and whom to love. And in exchange, the Church takes their wealth and builds more monuments to its glory. The Church is there at birth, at death, at every important time in between. Like a cuckoo in the nest, it consumes everything it can, and throws out what it cannot use.

The air is cold and clear today. I can hear the church bells. A pretty sound, those bells, and yet they mean nothing but trouble to me – to me and to the rest of my kind. Today, it means a funeral – and with it, another portion of blame for the monster I have become in their eyes. Nothing happens here now without someone invoking my name. Not the name he gave me, no – for that at least, I am grateful. I have become Mad Moira, the Winter Queen, the Black Witch of the Mountains, and in the dark days of the year, the tales about me have grown and grown, like potatoes in the cellar, until there’s nothing left of me but shoots, and eyes, and tentacles.

Mad Moira eats children. Now go to sleep, or the Witch of the Mountains will take you. Mad Moira sleeps in a virgin’s grave by day, and hunts as a wolf by night. Mad Moira flies on a beanpole, and lines her pockets with shooting stars. Mad Moira’s hair is black as coal; her lips are red as heartsblood. Young men, beware; she’ll steal your soul, and you’ll wander the earth for ever.

The magpies are talkative. They spread the word. Mad Moira. Mad Moira. They scatter the news across the sky, across the woods, across the lake, and I feel myself letting go of the past, becoming nameless once again.

Mad Moira flies in a carriage drawn by Devil’s Coach-Horse beetles. When the wind blows from the west, Mad Moira is hunting. Mad Moira has a black cat. Its name is Willumskillum …

Bad news for black cats in the village. From now on, they will be hunted, their pelts hung on the fairy tree. Rowan berries and red thread are suddenly village currency.

I wonder if William hears those tales. I wonder if he spreads them. Or is it Fiona, who longs to make sense of her little tragedy? Fiona has been churched and cleansed, her lapse of virtue forgiven. Any sin she committed was all the fault of Mad Moira.

Mad Moira, the Witch of the Mountains, devourer of all that is wholesome and good. Mad Moira, whose heart is cold as stone, and leads young men astray with her wiles, and never shows any mercy. Mad Moira, who is as old as the hills, and feeds on the souls of children.

Two

St Hilary: the coldest day, and the Folk will light fires in their orchards, and chop logs against the cold, and wassail their fruit trees, to ensure a good and fruitful harvest.

Wassail the trees, that they may bear

Many a plum, and many a pear.

But it has been such a long time since I saw one of either. What would I give now, for a plum, a pear, or even a crab apple? The crabs are all gone from the trees now: there is nothing more to find. The offerings of bread and cheese from my friend in the village provide only an occasional change to the monotony of my diet. And of course I am grateful to my wolves for what they bring me, but I long for something more than rabbit, fish or mutton.

For the first time since I arrived here, I went abroad in the woods today. I left my little boat hidden beneath a pile of brush and bracken, and went softly into the woods in search of the ashes of my life.

By the path, the snowdrops are out, clustering like conspirators. The snowdrops give me hope now, even in the darkest month: they speak of new life, and warm blood, and the distant promise of springtime.

Nothing remains of my cabin now. Only a pile of blackened logs, and the scorched earth around the firepit. My loom is gone, and my weaving, and the wedding dress of the April girl. But I did find my cooking pot, half-buried in the soft ground. I dug it out, and cleaned it. I wonder that it was not taken. But a witch’s cooking pot is cursed. Only a fool would have touched it. Who knows what Mad Moira brewed in there – eye of snake, heart of toad, blood of infant? Who knows what incantations she whispered into the rising smoke?

I waited until nightfall before I ventured into the fairy ring. In the village, doors were locked, windows barred against the cold. The moon was young and ringed with white – there would be frost in the morning. I could see the fairy stones standing in the moonlight – some white, some black, like the pieces in a game. The hawthorn tree stood out against the bright sky like a scarecrow. It looked dead, its branches bare, except for its wreath of mistletoe. Even the rags and ribbons hung still, with not a breath to stir them.

I stepped into the fairy ring. My pocket-doll was still in the cleft of the ancient hawthorn tree. Weathered by the frost and snow, it is no longer white but grey, the cloth grown brittle; the stitching torn. When there is nothing left of it, then I will be free again, and run with the deer, and swim with the fish, and blossom with the hawthorn. When there is nothing left of it, then even Mad Moira will be gone, and I will be free of myself, and of him, and of everything human—

I knew you’d be here before long.

The voice was no more than a whisper. Deep in the skin of the hawthorn tree, the old one dreams of springtime.

You thought I was dead. Admit it, she said, and I thought I sensed humour in the voice; a warmth under the frozen bark like the gleam in an old woman’s eye.

‘Admit it: you thought the same of me,’ I said, and the branches shivered with mirth.

Oh, you’re a strong one, said Old Age. I would have known if you were gone.

I believe her, as I believe that she is my friend from the village. Only she could have done these things. Only she could have known where I was. She brought me the firewood; the food; she brought me the rowing boat. She sent the wolves in midwinter; the white-headed crow to bring me news. She is my friend, even though I stole the offerings from her branches.

‘I owe you my life, Old Mother,’ I said, and she laughed.

What’s a life or two, between friends?

‘But what now? What of William? How long before the charm takes hold?’

A shrug, deep under the hawthorn skin. Patience, child. The seeds are sown.

If only I had patience. If only I could sleep till spring. If only I were the hawthorn tree, too old to love, too wise to hate.

Run back to your den, little wolf, she said. Howl at the moon, but silently. And when the Wolf Moon rises, then look to the roads, and listen for horses’ hooves on the highway …

‘Why, Old Mother?’ I said eagerly. ‘What’s coming? What do you know?’

But the old tree was asleep again, and would not say another word. And so I waited, and watched the moon, and listened for the sound of horses.

Three

Here comes St Paul’s, and the Folk will pray for snow, for if grass grows green on St Paul’s Day, the summer meadows with famine will pay.

For myself, I watch the hedgehogs, for the hedgehog knows where the wind will blow, and builds its burrow accordingly. Now, she announces winds from the west, which means a month’s troubled weather, but I am safe on my island still, with my wolves to keep me warm.

But this is soon to change, I fear. The farmer has lost too many sheep to wolves over the past few weeks, and now he swears he will hunt them down, and kill their cubs, and take their pelts. Once more, I see the villagers with torches in the forest. Once more I hear raised voices and the barking of dogs from the village. The dogs will not reach the island. But the scent of the wolves excites them. Soon it will bring men to our lair, armed with knives and crossbows.

My friends the wolves know this, of course. I fear for them as well as myself. They must take to the high ground: the snow; the rocky mountains. I have my cave; my firepit. I will survive without them.

In the village, the Folk are at odds. Some believe the power of prayer can free them of their troubles. Some take the opposite view, and claim that Mad Moira is angry with them, and must be placated with offerings. This suits me – or it would, if their gifts were more helpful. But a dish of red berries on a wall, or a scatter of salt on a doorstep is hardly the kind of help I need.

In any case, I am alone again. Only the white-headed crow stays. Every day, she brings me news. Every day, she speaks to me. And now, from the roads, she brings me the sound of horses’ hooves against the ground, and I know by the quickening of my heart that the Wolf Moon is rising.

February

The Whirling Month

When that six months were overpass’d,

Were gone and overpass’d,

O then my lover, once so bold,

With love was sick at last.

The Child Ballads, no. 295

One

Now comes the time of ploughing, and the sowing of beans and of oats: St Bridget, and her feast day, and the Wolf Moon rising fair. The wolves have gone over the mountains. I hear them howling from afar. But my friends are still nearby, watching my slow transformation.

The white-headed crow brought news today. William has been taken ill. A chill, perhaps, like his father, although he has not left home this year. His uncle remains to tend to his needs, and to run the castle. Servants left unsupervised are likely to run wild, to steal, to raid the cellars and neglect the livestock and the armoury. Maids grow slovenly, cooks grow fat, and cats sleep by the fireside.

In the village, gossip is rife. Master William’s malady is not the first piece of bad news. A mild winter brings a fat churchyard, and this year has not been propitious. The winter’s death toll is rising among the old ones of the Folk, and no amount of prayer will help. It is Mad Moira, say the Folk; angry at their disrespect. As spring approaches, the Winter Queen grows angry, bringing storms and snow. She rides at night on her black horse; spinning the dark and ragged clouds on her spindle of lightning.

And so now come the offerings: ribbons and rags tied onto the branches of trees; dishes of bread and salt by their doors. The parson preaches abstinence. The Folk pretend to obey him. But the children play in the fairy ring, and look for witch-stones by the lake, and hunt for goblins in the woods, and tell tales of Mad Moira.

Mad Moira (or Mad Mary, or Mary Mack, as some of the children now call me) lives in the trunk of a blackthorn tree. She feeds on the blood of the wicked. She wears a thorny crown, and a dress all stitched with black beetles. She watches the world of the Folk, and she can sometimes grant their wishes. To summon her, tie a red ribbon onto the branch of a blackthorn tree, and dance around it widdershins, singing:

Mary Mack, Mary Mack,

All in blood, and all in black

Bring me what my soul doth lack,

Merry mad, mad Mary.

It is a rhyme I have heard more than once as I walk in the forest. Bracken-brown, I walk unseen. Sloe-black, I hide in the shadows.

Mary Mack. Where did that come from? In any case, it is another step away from the name he gave to me. I may have been Malmuira, once. But now Mad Mary takes her place, and I am not Mad Mary. Now I am almost nameless again, and shall be wholly nameless soon; nameless, soulless and free—

Two

February is the whirling month, and this week has been one of turbulence. Harsh winds from the east; rain, sleet, and now the Winter Queen’s element, hail, that clatters onto the rooftops and scatters the ducks on the dancing lake.

Two funerals, a mystery illness, and now a growing sickness among the sheep that makes them first aggressive, then unsteady, and finally listless unto death. It must be some kind of witchcraft. Six thus far, and more to come. It could be a disaster.

The cattle, too, are suffering. A rot has afflicted the grain store, and spoilt much of the season’s hay. Food is scarce. The grass is cropped away to nothing. The horses feed on bran dust and the pasture is nothing but stones and mud.

William’s sickness continues. The doctor has visited twice; once alone, another time with a specialist from the town. Neither agrees on the cause of the illness. The town doctor speaks of an imbalance of the humours, and prescribes a course of leeches. The country doctor believes it to be an affliction of the heart. Perhaps it is. I hope so. I hope he feels some part of what I felt when he abandoned me. In the crook of the hawthorn’s branches, the pocket-doll made from the dead girl’s shroud is little more than a bunch of rags, stitched together with blackthorn spikes. Perhaps he dreams of me. I think it only fair, after all the hopeless nights I dreamed of him.

Fiona has twice tried to see him, but has been sent away. I think that she is afraid. Her disappointment – the scandal, the failed pregnancy – have made her old before her time. She wears black now, and hides her hair, and speaks of joining a convent.

I have no sympathy for her. She is alive. I owe her nothing more than that. But she has taken to walking the woods, as if in search of something. Yesterday, she tied a rag around the trunk of the blackthorn tree that stands alone by the side of the lake. She left no offerings, sang no rhyme, but all the same, I know what she wants. Today, I let her find me.

We were not far from my ruined hut. My boat was safely out of sight. I, too, could disappear in a moment if the need arose. Months of living with the wolves have made me even more silent. I move along the forest trail, sometimes on two feet, sometimes four. I hear the wind above my head, the many soft sounds of the leafless trees. It has rained during the night. The ground underfoot is soft and damp. I make no sound in the undergrowth as I travel through the forest.

Over the months of living outside, I have grown even more ragged. Dried mud mats my hair. There are twigs and leaves in my braids. I smell of wolf, and of worse. My clothes are a collection of found and stolen items: an overcoat too large for me: a brown skirt made from a flour sack. A collection of moth-eaten woollens, all stained with blood and dirt and sweat. I look like a wild thing. No, more than that. I look like the demon they believe me to be. I look like Mad Mary.

I met Fiona on the path. I let her come towards me. For a moment she did not see me; I was sitting very still, and I looked like a dead tree stump. Then I stood up, and she saw, and took a step back as if to flee. Then she seemed to change her mind, and looked at me with forget-me-not eyes, and said:

‘I knew you were still alive.’

Four months after her miscarriage, Fiona still looks pregnant. Her face is round: her belly, too. Only her eyes seem sunken, older and colder than before. I said:

‘He thought he could finish me. He was wrong.’

She gave me a look of hate. ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she said. ‘You’ve taken everything I had. What else can you do to me?’

‘I took nothing,’ I said to her. ‘William was faithless. If he had really loved you—’

‘I’m talking about my child,’ she said. Her voice was low and cold and harsh. Wisps of primrose hair had escaped from the scarf around her head, and blew in the wind like thistledown. ‘You took him,’ she said, still looking at me. ‘You took him with your witchcraft.’

I shook my head. ‘I took nothing,’ I said. ‘My only quarrel is with William.’

‘Liar!’ she spat. And from her coat she brought out a handful of something like rags. I recognized my pocket-doll.

‘You did this,’ said Fiona. ‘You stole the child from out of my womb. You stole him before I could see his face. You stole him before I could give him a name!’

‘I did nothing,’ I told her. ‘I swear it on my life.’

But I was becoming uneasy. I thought of Old Age. The price will be high. Whatever it is, I will pay, I had said. And now I wonder to myself: what bargain have I made with her? And what exactly have I paid?

Three

Another turn of the whirling month, and snow has come once more to the hills. For the present it spares the valley, but the sky remains dark and threatening.

Fiona no longer comes to the woods. She has said all she wanted to say. But sometimes I see her face in dreams, and hear her harsh, accusing voice. It makes me uneasy, even though I know I did not take her child. My business was never with her. It was always with William. And yet, the hawthorn’s words – and my own – often return to haunt me. I remember her smile as she came to my door. Her eyes, so bright and gleaming.

How old is she really? I ask myself. From what ancient, far-off earth did she spring? The travelling folk are not born; do not die. We travel; that is all we know. We have no parents, no children. We fly; we land like thistledown, taking root wherever we can. We grow, we flower, we move on. We are the travelling people.

I try to imagine Fiona’s child. If indeed, she had a child. A son in William’s image, with his bluebell eyes and shining hair. But my curse is on William’s line. I said I would see it ended. I swore my oath on his father’s grave, and left the rune-stone to seal it. I think of my words, like flung stones in the water of the lake, sending out ripples to the shore. Who else have my words reached? And how much does the hawthorn know?

Last night, I went to her again. February is the Wolf Moon, and last night, it was howling. Rags of cloud across the sky. A wind like a capful of terrors. And the hawthorn, in the midst of it all, black as a nest of spiders, cold as the grave, and sleeping like the armies of the living dead—

Around her, the stones of the fairy ring were grey and black in the dull light. In the village, nothing moved. Only a few windows were lit, the yellow glow of the firelight unbearably remote to my eyes. The hawthorn slept but under her skin I could feel the promise of springtime. Hidden under the bark, there is blood. It dreams. It sings. It hums to itself.

‘Old Mother,’ I said.

Deep in the bark, a whisper of something that might have been mirth.

‘Old Mother, please,’ I said. ‘Talk to me.’

Once more, that distant laughter. It sounds like a child, deep underground, playing under the fairy ring. I can hear music, voices:

Mary Mack, Mary Mack,

Kept a baby in a sack,

Never gave the baby back,

Merry mad, mad Mary.

Is the hawthorn mocking me? In any case, she does not speak. Only that distant, eerie strain of music comes from under the ground, where the hawthorn’s roots, a million deep, reach all the way to Fiddler’s Green, and beyond, into Death’s kingdom itself.

Four

And now as the whirling month turns again, more news from the castle. William’s health does not improve, in spite of an army of doctors. Another specialist has been summoned; an expert in matters of the uncanny, who proclaims that William has been bewitched, and demands all kinds of expensive ingredients for his medicines.

The man is a charlatan, of course. All his doctors are charlatans. Through the eye of my wedding-ring charm I have watched them come and go, with potions, and possets and medicine bags, and leeches and chanting, and cupping, and spells. But this man is a specialist. He arrived with two cartloads of books, and after a fortnight’s study, announced the cause of William’s sickness.

William is the victim, he says, of a witch’s blood curse. Cast by the light of a blue moon, fed by incantations, the curse can only be broken by rowan berries, red thread, a cantrip of the rune Raedo – and the heartsblood of the witch, spilt by the light of a Crow Moon …

But there is little chance of that. William has tried to find me, and failed. Now that my charm has taken root, I would be mad to show myself. And yet, I almost want to go. I almost want to see him. So many months have passed, and still I have not forgotten him. I see his face in dreams. I hear his voice. I feel his touch. However much I hate him now, a part of him is inside me. It feels like a splinter under my skin; something sharp, too small to remove. And yet I must be free of him, before I can be myself again.

In the village, there is little talk of anything but witchcraft. The Folk hang red rags over their doors, and go to church, and fast, and pray, and leave offerings under the fairy tree to pacify Mad Mary. It is widely understood that Mad Mary is responsible, both for William’s sickness and for the loss of Fiona’s child, as well as for many lesser ills: sick sheep; mouldy grain; rats in the henhouse; cows running dry. Small accidents, misfortunes are seen as signs of mischief. Mothers rock their babes to sleep, singing songs of the Winter Queen. Children make masks from flour sacks and run after each other, screaming. The white-headed crow reports that, in the town, two witches have already been hanged, on the advice of William’s man, and others are under suspicion. Beggars, no doubt, or old folk, too addled in their wits to run. But once they have tasted blood, the Folk are difficult to appease. I must take care not to be seen. The rumours fly like magpies. The Wolf Moon wanes, and soon it will be the Moon of the Crow. The magic moon, by which my blood will carry special significance …

March

The Mad Month

Next did he send from out the town,

O next did send for me;

He sent for me, the brown, brown girl

Who once his wife should be.

O ne’er a bit the doctor-man

His sufferings could relieve;

O never an one but the brown, brown girl

Who could his life reprieve.

The Child Ballads, no. 295

One

March: the wild, the madcap month; bringing with it the daffodil, the hyacinth, the celandine; the aconite, the violet, the primrose and the crocus. March comes, and the blackthorn breaks into wild white blossom. March comes, with the dancing hare; the skylark’s song of freedom. March comes in, and Winter turns, hand in hand with hopeful Spring, as once more the dance of the seasons begins, and the land awakens at their feet.

But the cold is not over yet. Last month was mild, and the villagers fear the snap of a blackthorn winter. The Winter Queen grows ever more cruel as her power fades. But in the fairy ring, Old Age hums with the promise of rebirth, and the sheep grow fat, and the wild ducks fly, and the salmon swim upriver.

My home on the island is once more alive with otters, frogs, and songbirds. In the woods, the birch trees are in sap. I harvest their dark honey. For the first time in months, I feel the warmth of the sun on the back of my neck, and smell the new grass growing. The blackthorn tree by the side of the lake is once more hung with offerings. Some are to the Winter Queen. Some are to Mad Mary. And some are to Maid Marion, or Maia, the Queen of the May, who comes in white blossom and birdsong.

The priest – a town man – is quick to denounce these hateful country customs. There is no Winter Queen, he says, nor yet a Queen of the May. Obediently, the Folk bow their heads, and prepare for their Lenten fasting. They sing their hymns, confess their sins, but in the fairy ring they dance, while the Crow Moon whets her blade and rises like a scythe in the sky.

From the town, the white-headed crow reports several more arrests. Vagrants, not of our people, but sooner or later the Folk may discover one of us by accident. The travelling folk have too often been the victims of their fearfulness; now, in the current climate of fear, we are all of us vulnerable. I of course am especially so. Without my powers, I am trapped in this body, in this place. I must be wary, I tell myself.

And yet the call of Spring is almost irresistible. I want to run, I want to dance. I want to swim in the ice-cold lake. Most of all, I want to shed this skin, to become one of my people again. But for that, my William must die. This is the price the hawthorn demands. This is the price that I must pay, or be for ever outcast …

Two

Today, the white-headed crow brought me news. A letter from the castle; addressed to me, and in William’s hand, as neat as a verse on a gravestone.

My Dear Malmuira,

I know I do not deserve for you to read this Note. I have W-R-O-N-G-E-D you. Forgive me for that, and for Writing to you now. But, for all my pains, my Love, I have not Forgotten you. I cannot Eat, I cannot Sleep, my Heart cannot find Rest, and all for Love of You.

I beg You come now to my Side. Release me from this M-A-L-A-D-Y. For the Love you once bore me, I pray, have Pity on my Suffering.

Your Ever Devoted,

William

I read the letter once again, following with my fingertip. Then I waited until dark and headed for the fairy ring.

The hawthorn was sleeping, as always. But I could feel her awakening, slowly, under her jacket of bark. And if I listened carefully, I could still hear laughter, deep beneath the half-frozen ground, and the echo of children’s voices.

‘Old Mother, can you hear me?’

No answer. Just the wind in the trees.

‘He wrote me a letter, Old Mother. He sent it with the white-headed crow. He writes that he still loves me. He says he can’t live without me.’

The hawthorn gave a kind of sigh, deep in the folds of her winter skin. And do you believe him?

‘No,’ I said.

And yet, you mean to go to him.

‘Is it so very obvious?’

Everything is very obvious when you’re as old as I am, she said.

‘Of course, he’s lying,’ I went on. ‘This is a trap.’

Of course it is. So, will you go?

‘It would be madness to go,’ I said. And yet we both knew I would. I knew it, just as the salmon knows to swim upriver; just as the hedgehog knows which way the winter winds are blowing. I will go when the moon is full. When the blackthorn is in bloom. That was the promise I made him, so long ago at the midwinter fair. It would be madness, and yet I must. For have I not a debt to repay? And am I not Mad Mary?

Three

I do not believe him. I am no longer the innocent girl of a year ago. And yet his words still trouble me more than I expected. I cannot Eat, I cannot Sleep … and all for Love of You. I know it is a lie, and yet my heart will not believe it so. Instead it dances like a star, and leaps like a salmon, and aches like a stone, and there is nothing I can do to still its wild and hopeful song.

This morning, the hawthorn came to me, quite unexpectedly, out on the lake. I almost did not know her: the spring has brought her back to life. Now her hair is as dark as my own; her face, though not young, is fresh and unlined. In my green dress and tiger’s-eye beads, she looks like a mother, no longer a crone.

‘The season suits you, Mother,’ I said.

She smiled. Her eyes were as dark as the lake.

‘You gave me something, once,’ she said. ‘Now I have a gift for you.’

And opening her pack, she brought out something that I recognized. It was my gown, my black silk gown, made from the April girl’s wedding dress. All embroidered with roses, and leaves, and tiny silk forget-me-nots.

‘I took it when they came looking for you. I thought you might need it again, some day.’

I reached out my hand to touch it: the careful, intricate needlework. It seems so very long ago that I made it. So long ago that I barely recall how it felt to have something so beautiful.

‘You’re still wearing that wedding ring,’ said the hawthorn.

‘Yes, I know.’

For a moment I was silent. Then:

‘I wanted him to see me,’ I said. ‘The way he saw Fiona.’

And in that moment, I knew it was true. I would have sacrificed everything I had to be Fiona. To shed my skin, my clothes, myself. To be one of his village girls. Primrose-pretty, cowslip-pale, purring like a pussycat.

But we do not go into the Folk. The Folk have names – the Folk have souls. These things are what make us different. These things exist to protect them against such predators as I.

‘Take it,’ said the hawthorn. ‘It’s yours. Wear it when you go to him.’

I took the dress, remembering the tale of the kitchen princess. But the hawthorn is no good fairy, helping me to win my prince. And yet she gave me back my dress. Does she want me to go to him?

‘There’s something I need to know,’ I said. ‘About Fiona’s baby.’

The hawthorn shrugged. ‘What baby?’ she said.

‘You took it,’ I insisted. ‘Why?’

The hawthorn smiled. In that moment, I thought she looked very beautiful. ‘You already know why,’ she said.

And I did. In my heart I have always known. Because we are the travelling folk. We are not born. We do not die. We are the cuckoo and the hare; the hawthorn and the mistletoe. We have no families, no home. We are the children of everywhere. Our cradle is the open heath. Our bloodline is the oldest of all. And we will not die, or sicken, or fade, but laugh, and dance, and hunt, and soar; and take what we can from the tame ones, the Folk, whose names and souls protect them. We take what we must, and never look back, and scatter our seeds to the four winds, and into the mountains, and over the sea, and all across the starry sky.

Four

March comes in sheep’s clothing, as do I. But it will go out with a lion’s roar. The white-headed crow keeps me abreast of all news from the castle, but it is not enough. I keep thinking of William’s letter, and of the hawthorn’s gleaming eyes, and of Fiona’s baby.

Fiona has not spoken to me since she sought me out in the woods. In fact, as far as I can see, Fiona has not left her house, not even to go to church. She stays inside, with the curtains drawn, and my wedding-ring charm shows me nothing. Not that I care for Fiona, and yet I think about her often.

I want to tell her the child still lives, safe in the arms of the travelling folk. Nameless, it will always be wild, and fly with the crow and the magpie. Soulless, it will never die, but go into the world again, until the world is ended. This ought to be a comfort to her, if she cares about her child. But the Folk are often strange. Who knows what she thinks? And why do I care?

Soon, the Crow Moon will be full. The hare will dance on the hillside. And maybe it is the March wind, or maybe some darker magic at work, but somehow today I am restless. Nothing can hold my attention: not the song of the blackbird, or the gnats over the lake, or the clouds in the cold blue sky. Today, something larger calls to me.

The road to the castle is safe enough – as long as I travel by night. No-one sees me. The fat Crow Moon is not yet risen. My heart beats fast, remembering the last time I travelled by this path, and my bare feet are sore with walking. By the time I arrive, the sky has grown pale. The brown hills are still capped with snow. The path is lined with daffodils. I sit on the ground and watch the dawn that comes up like a primrose, and tell myself that my one true love is watching from his window.

But my one love was not true. I know that in my heart, and yet my heart does not believe me. The hawthorn would tell me that this is why my skills have not returned; that only by his death will I be free. Over the winter, I believed; and yet, with the spring, my mad heart leaps, and once more, I risk everything.

Like the kitchen princess in the tale, I have tried to make myself beautiful. The lake is still as cold as ice, and yet I have washed my hands and face, and combed out the dirt and leaves from my hair. The wedding gown of the April girl is not as suitable for March as my overcoat and scarf, but it is good to feel the silk on my skin. I have no shoes; I have no coach; and yet I can almost imagine what it would be to have him here at my side again; to have him really see me—

Time! Time! Overhead, a magpie croaks. Its warning jolts me from my dream. The morning moon is pale in the sky. Soon, the sun will follow. My wedding-ring charm shows me William’s room, curtained still against the night.

This is my moment, I tell myself. I shall go to his bedside. I shall walk, and never run. And I shall look into his eyes, and see myself reflected there, and know that his weakness is my strength, his helplessness my power …

Five

I came in through the servants’ door, as I have done so many times as a housecat or a rat. But this time, I came as my own self, barefoot on the cold stone floor, and, skirting the busy kitchen, with its great ovens, and spits, and fireplace, I found my way upstairs and along the passageway to William’s door.

There was no-one there. No maid, no manservant, no doctor. It was still early, and I guessed the household was not yet fully awake. In any case, I walk like a ghost. No-one saw me enter. The curtains were drawn: the room was dark; but I could see the canopied bed that I had once shared with William, with its coverlet of silk and its curtains of dull gold brocade. I could see the pillows on which my head had lain so close to his; and I could smell the scent of him, so like the scent of the ocean.

‘William,’ I said.

He stirred. He turned his head towards me. Sleepy in the darkness, his face a blur. And yet there was something not quite right. Something in the way he moved, perhaps. Something in the scent of him, the scent, not of a sick man, nor even of a young one …

‘Is it really you?’ he said. And his voice was not like William’s voice, but deeper, and more powerful. And his hand on mine felt different; not at all like a sick man’s hand, but like the massive paw of a brown bear awakening from slumber.

The big hand tightened over my wrist. And now I knew that, whoever it was, this man was not William. I could feel his strangeness; smell the tobacco scent of him, and the night sweat, and the rage.

I tried to pull away, and he laughed. He was stronger by far than I. And suddenly I knew who he was – William’s doctor, the man of books, who had hanged so many of the Folk in his search for Mad Mary.

He must have changed quarters with William, in the hope that I would come. He must have read his letter to me – maybe even dictated it. And knowing my nature as he did, all he had to do after that was wait for me to take the bait, even though I knew that it was filled with hooks and needles. And he had a knife, of course; because all he needed to break the charm was my heartsblood, spilt under a full Crow Moon.

The man called out in a loud voice: ‘I have her, my Lord! Come quickly!’

There came the sound of a muffled reply from the curtained anteroom. Even through the curtain, I recognized my William’s voice. Soon, there would be servants, guards, bearing swords and pikestaffs. Soon the curtains would be drawn, revealing the ghost moon in the sky …

He pulled me towards him, pinning my arms. There came a sound of tearing silk. The clothes of the dead never last, they say, and the April girl’s dress had given way. A stretched seam tore across my breast, and suddenly I was afraid.

The doctor held me close, and laughed. ‘What did you think you were doing?’ he said. ‘Did you think to seduce my Lord in your stolen finery?’

Perhaps I did, I thought. Perhaps I needed to believe. My eyes had seen, my ears had heard; and yet still my heart could not bear the truth. Perhaps it never would, I thought, until it felt the blade go in.

Once more, he laughed. ‘You stupid slut. How could you ever believe that he could care for one of your kind?’

I said, though my voice was trembling: ‘Sir, my kind are everywhere. They are in the air you breathe, and in the dark under your bed, and when you die, and lie in the grave, my kind will be there to feed on you.’

He laughed and pulled me closer. ‘Bold words.’

And now I could smell the musk of him, the wild and hot excitement. There was no fear. No fear at all. Only exhilaration, and the promise of violence.

They think they know me, I told myself. They think I am one of their village girls. They think I will scream, and struggle, and cry, and let them take from me what they can …

Suddenly, I was no longer afraid. I was not even angry. Does the wolf feel anger when it turns against the hunter? Does the crow feel anger when it feeds upon the carrion? Instead, I felt something inside me swell and surge like an ocean; lash out like a striking snake; scatter like a flight of birds. I fought, and kicked, and clawed, and bit, and then, somehow I was out of myself, and hovering serenely over the two thrashing forms on the bed, and someone had torn down the curtain, and sunlight was streaming into the room, and there was blood – oh, so much blood – all over the golden coverlet …

Then, like a stone falling into the lake, I was back in my skin again. Something hurt: my dress was torn; there was a heavy weight on my chest. And there was William, by the bed, in his nightshirt, pale as the Crow Moon.

‘Oh, my God. What have you done?’

I tried to breathe. It hurt my chest. I struggled against the dead weight of the doctor, lying on top of me. My wedding dress was drenched with blood. My arms were slashed and bleeding. But the doctor was dead, and I pushed him aside, and found the blade was in my hand, grinning like an open throat.

Mary Mack, Mary Mack,

All in blood, and all in black …

I started to laugh. It was all too much. The dead man, the Crow Moon, and the way William was staring at me, as if I were Lord Death himself come to take his soul. It was all too terrible, all too absurd for anything but laughter. And the laughter was like a giant wave that swept me into the primrose sky, so that I was thistledown, and fireworks, and starlight.

William had dropped to his knees. I could see him from above. I could see myself, too, but I was unimportant. Poor little brown girl, in her torn dress. I could almost feel sorry for her. Let her go, I told myself. Let her crawl away to die, like a fox caught in a trap. I was free of her at last, and wild, and nameless once again.

‘Have pity,’ said William. ‘I was wrong. I made a mistake. Forgive me.’

Forgive you? I repeated. My voice came both from the brown girl, and from everywhere else, it seemed; from the sky, and from the sheep grazing on the open heath, and from the roots under the ground, and the blossoms all ready to break into life. You called me ugly, and a slut. You lied and you betrayed me. Worse than that, you named me. And when I was yours, you cast me aside like a faded garland. How can I forgive you?

‘Just let me live,’ said William. ‘Please, please; I want to be free.’

I blinked, and once more I was the girl, looking out from the girl’s eyes. It hurt, and I felt dizzy, and yet it felt good to see him on his knees in front of me, and to smile, and feel the blood on my arms, and know that I had won at last.

‘I’ll make you a promise, my love,’ I said. And I pulled the golden wedding ring from my bloody finger. ‘Take this as token of my goodwill and forgiveness.’

William took the ring, his face contorted with fear and disgust.

I came a little closer. Now I could see myself in his eyes, like a ghost of summertime.

‘My vow to you will be as true as any made in church,’ I said. ‘And any village maiden knows that gold is a binding promise. Wear this for me, until May Eve. Wear it, and think of me every night. Wear it, as your skin grows cold, and your heart beats ever more slowly. And when you are under the ground at last, I will dance for a year and a day, and sing with the voice of a nightingale.’

And with that I fled from the castle, barefoot in my ruined dress, until I reached the lakeside, and finally collapsed there underneath the blackthorn tree, with my warm blood soaking into its roots and my open eyes reflecting the sky.

April

The Hawthorn Month

‘Prithee,’ said he, ‘forget, forget,

Prithee forget, forgive;

O grant me yet a little space,

That I may be well and live.’

‘O never will I forget, forgive,

So long as I have breath;

I’ll dance above your green, green grave

Where you do lie beneath.’

The Child Ballads, no. 295

One

Today I am the bird of spring, singing cuckoo over the woods. The village Folk hear my song, and smile, and know that winter is over. The Winter Queen is fading, and the May Queen comes to take her place. The children play a skipping game. Only I hear the words they sing:

Cuckoo, cherry tree,

Good bird tell me,

How many years before I die?

One … Two … Three … Four …

The children know what their parents do not. They understand things better. They know there are witches in the woods, and serpents under the silent lake. They know that if they step on a crack, their mother’s life will be forfeit. And they know that the May Queen, for all her youth and beauty, still hungers for their young flesh, and must be appeased with offerings.

I do not know how long I lay underneath the blackthorn tree. When I came to my senses at last, it was night. The stars were out. Above me I could see Corvus, the Crow, and Venus, under her spread wing. I tried to sit up. I was aching with cold. I reeked of blood and sweat – my own, and that of the hateful doctor. My arms were laddered with deep cuts. My dress was nothing but bloody rags. But I was free again, and it felt good to be there under the stars, and to know that my waiting was over.

The white-headed crow was roosting on one of the upper branches. When I began to move, she hopped down, cocking her head attentively. In the starlight, she looked like a toy. She almost seemed to be smiling.

‘You again,’ I said.

Crawk.

‘I did as you said. I am free of him.’

Not quite, said the white-headed crow. There is one thing left to be done.

‘What now?’ I said.

May Eve, said the crow. Come to me when the Milk Moon wanes. When the fairy tree is in bloom. There we shall meet face to face, in our skin, and there we shall celebrate your rebirth.

Then it flew off, and I was left to return to my home on the island. I dressed my wounds with betony, and lamp oil, and a splash of wine. I wrapped myself in blankets and furs, and slept for forty-eight hours, and waking at last in the morning sun, went into an otter in the lake, and hunted, and swam, and played with my cubs, and fed, and sunned myself on the rock, and stayed in the otter’s skin for so long that I almost forgot I was a girl, dreaming of being an otter.

Two

Thus I spent the next two weeks; sleeping in my own skin, but travelling elsewhere by day. I was a wild horse on the heath, a skylark over the wild blue hills. I was a green fern, coiled like a snake; a king crow, pecking carrion. Every day I travelled; every evening, I returned. And thus I grew stronger every day; stronger and more certain.

Travelling as a magpie, I heard of the death of the doctor. Witchcraft, say the servants. Mad Mary, whisper the Folk. In any case, the body was buried in secret, in an unmarked grave, at the back of the village churchyard. In the skin of a tawny owl, I watched them put him in the ground, and when they were gone, I left a pebble inscribed with the rune Hagall, along with the head of a black rat, to show my respect for the deceased.

A week ago, I decided to move from the little island. William’s men have been here again, with hunting dogs and with crossbows. I still have my boat, and have taken it to the far side of the lake, to a cavern concealed behind a curtain of falling water. The spring rains have swollen the mountain stream, and made the entrance invisible. There is space inside the cave for my boat, my bedding and my possessions. And crossing the water keeps me safe from the dogs that might pick up my scent. Far across the lake, I can hear the sounds of their fruitless searching.

I find them almost ridiculous now. I almost pity their efforts. In the shape of a small brown goat, I taunt the hapless hunters. I steal a pack; I scatter the food; I run off with a pair of boots and set the dogs a-barking. And yet, the game soon tires me. I am too old for such childish things.

And today, I am the first cuckoo of spring, counting out the final days of William MacCormac.

Cuckoo, cherry tree,

Good bird tell me,

How many days before I die?

One … Two … Three …

Three

Meanwhile, news from the castle is that William grows weaker. No-one knows what ails him, and the doctors have given up hope. The men he sent to hunt me have all gone back to the castle. Now, his servants travel round to every household in the land, hoping to find someone who can lift the witch’s curse on him.

Today, I am a starling. I see them coming from afar. On the path to the village they come, asking to see all the village girls. Young Master William, they say, will marry the girl who can break the spell, and bestow all his fortune upon her; lands, gold and cattle.

The village girls are eager to please. Their parents, even more so. There is a fortune to be had for the lucky one who succeeds. Two or three of the bolder girls step forward, ready to volunteer. The servants escort them respectfully back to the castle, where they are kept safely under guard for William to identify.

Mad Mary can change her appearance, they say. She could be any of these girls. And William is running short of time. Pale, his body racked with pains, he searches for his Malmuira; but I have gone into a hare, into a rat, into a frog, into a weeping willow, and I am nowhere to be found.

I think of the tale of the kitchen princess, and of the prince who loved her. What a fool that princeling was, to seek her by her finery. If William had loved me, then he would have known me anywhere: in a fish, a fox, a goat, a bat, a branch of blackthorn. He would have known and loved me wherever I chose to travel, and he would have wanted to be with me, whatever the cost to his heart or soul. But I no longer care for that. Now I am in everything. Now I am the wind, the rain, the love-knots on the hawthorn tree. Now I am the beetles that will feed on his shroud, come May Day.

Four

The showery month brings light and life: and the hawthorn is ready to break into bloom. I see the buds as they thicken: the leaves closely followed by blossom. It smells of milk and honey. The old Folk pick the hawthorn buds. They call them Poor Man’s Bread and Cheese, and many a hungry traveller has taken strength from those pale-green shoots.

But no-one plunders the fairy tree. She is too old, too brittle. And yet this year she is full of life; laden with blossom; heavy with the nectar of her six-month sleep. Last year she was half-dead but now she is white from head to toe. Now she is bridal; now she is fine. The season has been good to her.

Meanwhile, the Milk Moon sharpens its horns. The white-headed crow now calls to me. Soon it will be time, she says, and everything will be back in its place.

I have returned to my island, now that the immediate danger is past. I like it better than the cave, which is cold and cheerless. My firepit is lit once more: to avoid being seen, I filter the smoke between a grid of branches. My shelter is intact; the men must not have come to the island. Everything in its place again: everything in order.

And yet something disturbs me. Perhaps it is the church bells that ring so loud on Sundays. Or perhaps it is the Milk Moon, so like that moon a year ago, that watched me as I lay in the grass, and saw Fiona place her charm, and whisper her spell to the May Queen. I did not see her face, and yet it must have been Fiona. It was she who led me to William, that bright and clear May morning; she who made the adder-stone charm that set all this into motion. I wonder what she is doing now. I have not seen her, even once. She stays in her house, the curtains drawn, and will not come out for anyone. I wonder what she does in there. Even as a bird or a cat, I cannot catch a glimpse of her.

But in the absence of certainties, the white-headed crow keeps me company. She does not speak, but stays by my side, or perches on my fishing pole. Sometimes she feeds on the crumbs I leave. Sometimes she brings me small gifts. A piece of shiny stone; a shell; a bead; a scarlet ribbon. Like the villagers, she leaves her offerings by the blackthorn tree on the shore, now all in leaf and summer green, and watches from the branches. And, of course, the children come there to play by the lake, and paddle, and catch sticklebacks. And sometimes maidens come to bathe, and gather knots from the hawthorn trees, and pray to Maid Marion for love, and sing songs of the May Queen.

The very next morning I made her my bride,

Just after the breaking of day;

The bells they did ring, and the birds they did sing,

And I crowned her the Queen of the May.

I want to warn them. Do not believe. The ballad is a beautiful lie. I believed it once, but I have learnt the hard way. Marry in May, and you’ll rue it for aye. The May Queen is not a hawthorn bride, but a vengeful spirit, bathed in blood. And she has many faces: Mad Moira in midwinter, Maid Marion in summertime. The Winter Queen; the Queen of the May. Mary Mack, all in black: and Maia, all in blossom-white. And when she is cruel, we call her mad; and when she is kind, we can almost forget the cruelty of winter. Thus she endures, from year to year, taking what is due to her – your life, your blood, your maidenhead – and beware those who scorn her, or try to tame her with their charms, for she will tear out your heart with her teeth, and hang it on the fairy tree …

Five

And now as the Milk Moon waxes and wanes, the white-headed crow grows restless. All day today she has fretted and crawked, and now tonight, as dusk falls, she takes to the treetops at last. Tonight, she knows, I must be alone. Tonight, our circle is almost complete, and soon it will be over.

It has been weeks since I left my lair to walk the woods in my own skin. I can see and hear and sense so much more when I am a traveller. But now I feel the pull of the night: the scent of the hawthorns by the lake, and I want to see it through my own eyes, once more, while I am still myself.

So much has changed since last year. I was a maiden, fourteen years old. Now I am old as the mountains. I was a wild rose, sweet and pale; now I am a Christmas rose, as dark as I am deadly. I have shed tears, and I have shed blood. I have been tame, and I have been wild. And I swear I will never again be tame, or try to be like one of the Folk, or turn away from the ancient ways of the travelling people.

The evening is cool, but clear, and the moon is less than an hour from rising. I bathe in the lake – still winter-cold, but the water is clean and inviting. I dress myself quite slowly, in my gown of rabbit skin and my cloak of feathers. Then, barefoot on the soft green ground, I walk along the forest path, where the first bluebells are starting to show their heads above the carpet of moss. From the village, I can hear the sound of a church bell tolling. It is the Eve of St Mark: a day on which the village girls pray for love.

On St Mark’s Eve at twelve o’ clock,

The fair maiden will wash her smock,

To find her husband in the dark,

By praying unto good Saint Mark.

Of course, St Mark has nothing to do with finding love. But the parson understands that girls need to pray to someone – and it may as well be one of his saints, rather than the mad May Queen, who troubles his thoughts and haunts his dreams and makes his old limbs tremble.

The bell has a melancholy sound. It reminds me of something. And then I see the full Milk Moon rising above the treetops, and my heart knows what the tolling means: William is dead at last.

For a moment, I feel sadness. Not for him, but for the love that I bore him once; for my hopes; for his promises; and for the loss of my innocence. I am no longer that bonny brown girl that came to him so wild and sweet. I am so much older now. And though I can value what I have learnt, I feel a pain that is almost regret. Must lessons always be so hard? Must battles be so bloody? And must it always be our kind that keep the wheels in motion? The year, it turns, and turns, and turns. Now it has come full circle. Winter and summer: life and death; the adder-stone and the wedding-ring; all echo that endless coming of age. Who can stop the world turning?

I go into an owl overhead, its wings – my wings – so snowy-soft, my voice a cry of defiance. I have won the battle, I know. The bell gives me the victory. And soon I will stand once more between the hawthorn hedge and the fairy ring, and see the stones like raised fists coming out of the mossy ground, and stand with my sisters, and dance, and rejoice, and once more join the circle.

May Eve

Now when we did rise from that sweet mossy grove,

In the meadows we wandered away;

And I sat my true love on a primrose bank,

And picked her a handful of May.

Folk song, 18th century

One

And now comes the last day of the month, when witches make their merriment. In the village, the Folk hang pockets of vervain and dill at their windows, and make charms of rowan berries to keep the witches from entering. But they cannot keep me out. If it is my will, I will come.

Tonight I am dressed all in berry-black, the better to walk in the woods unseen. My hair is tied back with a leather strip and braided with crow feathers. As I braid it, I notice that my hair is shot with silver. But the wind is high, the clouds are chalk, and the night is a night for Mad Mary to ride, and for good Folk to look to their prayer books.

I make my way to the fairy ring slowly, very slowly. No-one sees me as I go, except for a vixen in the brush. For a moment I see myself reflected in the vixen’s eyes; a tiny figure, dressed in black, no larger than a pinprick. The vixen raises her hackles as I pass, and I notice she is pregnant. I reach the edge of the forest at last. The waning moon is a silver ship, in a sea of broken cloud. The stones of the fairy ring are teeth, as white and sharp as the vixen’s.

The hawthorn is already waiting for me. Crowned with may blossom, and in the green gown that I wore when I first fled the castle, she looks so young that without these things I would barely have known her. Ancient as she is, tonight she might be a maiden of fourteen years old. Her hair is unbound, and as black as sloes, and her face is fresh and youthful. She looks at me with dark, dark eyes, and she smiles as I enter the fairy ring.

‘Well met, sister,’ she tells me.

‘Well met, sister. Blessed be.’

‘There is one more to come yet,’ she says, looking into the darkness. And then something stirs, and a figure walks into the clearing. It is Fiona, in bracken-brown, and carrying a baby.

But it is not Fiona. Fiona was a named thing: a cornsilk, milksop village girl. This is a woman of our kind; one of the many-faced travelling folk. Her hair is loose and August-gold, and crowned with scarlet berries. And the child in her arms is bright-haired, blue-eyed, and laughing like a cuckoo.

‘Who are you?’ I say.

‘I was the white-headed crow,’ she says. ‘I was the maid Fiona. But that was never who I was. Like you, I am part of something greater.’

I turn to the hawthorn. ‘How can this be?’

The hawthorn smiles again. She looks young; younger by far than I am now. ‘This is the way of our people,’ she says. ‘Spring reborn, from Winter’s womb. Life, snatched from the arms of Death. This is how we carry on, year after year, life after life. Nameless, unbaptized, we are born. We rule the earth, the seasons. We rule the sky, and the green woods, the oceans and the mountains. The Folk call us by many names. Mary, the mother. Moira, the crone. Marion, the Queen of the May. Some have called us witches, hags. Some call us the Triple Goddess. But we are so much more than that. We are the travelling people. We have travelled since Worlds began. And we will go on for ever, changing our faces throughout the year, taking what we need from the Folk, and giving back what they need from us. Good harvest, rain and warmth and love, and the hope of a new beginning.’

For a moment I let her words hang between us like raindrops. And suddenly I see it all, from the adder-stone charm to the fairy ring, from May to December, from falltime to spring, from innocence to knowledge.

‘You planned this from the start,’ I say. ‘William. His death. The child.’

The hawthorn nods. ‘This child of ours,’ she says, with a smile at the laughing infant. ‘This child will be the Summer King, that the Folk call Jack-in-the-Green. Born of three women, he will reign in fruitfulness and harmony until he becomes the Winter King, keeping the land under snow and ice until Spring returns to challenge him. And then he will fall, as his father did, and the rite will start anew, with Summer’s child reborn again, and all of us back in our places.’

The white-headed crow takes my withered hand. ‘From the moment I placed the charm,’ she says, ‘you were part of our circle. Life out of death. Love out of hate. Summer out of Winter. A circle of three, joined in sisterhood. For ever, until the end of the Worlds.’

For a long time, I am silent. But now I understand her words. Maiden, mother, three-in-one. This is how we continue. This is how our lives move on. Not alone, but always linked, as daughters, sisters, mothers. And when my turn comes around again, I will be a maid once more, my innocence reborn like the bloom of love-knots on the hawthorn. Till then I am the Old One, the keeper of wisdom and mysteries. Girls will come to seek my advice, and to hang their charms on my branches. Children will dance in the circle, and whisper that they saw me move, and look through the stones in the fairy ring, and tell tales of Mad Mary. And all through the summer I shall stay, until my boughs are stripped and bare. And then, through the winter, I shall sleep, cocooned inside my hawthorn skin. I shall sleep, and hope to dream; and dreaming, go into a lark, and sing a song of starlight.

The year it turns, and turns, and turns. Winter to summer, darkness to light, turning the world like wood on a lathe, shaping the months and the seasons. Tomorrow is the first of May. A day for love, and joy, and songs, and garlands for the May Queen. Tomorrow the woods will be dappled with green, and the fiddleheads play by the waterside. The hedges are white, and their scent is honeycomb and asphodel, and the birds, and the gnats, and the butterflies will dance upon the sunlit air. Tonight is May Eve, and the moon is low. My sisters are already waiting. May Eve, and a waning moon.

Time for a witch to go travelling.

Death and the Maiden

Death and the Maiden

There once was a girl of the islands, whose village was struck by a terrible plague. One by one the people died; all her beloved family; her friends, her neighbours – even their dog. One by one, the plague took them all, until at last it was over, and there was no-one left alive but herself and one old crone, so old that no-one (not even she) remembered the year of her birth.

The girl grieved for her family, and for the friends Death had taken. She built a giant funeral pyre, and burned their bodies. Then she took her hunting spear and her father’s fishing-boat and prepared to leave the island.

The old woman watched in silence. Then she said: ‘Where are you going?’

‘In search of my Lord Death,’ said the girl, ‘who stole my friends and family.’

‘But why seek him out?’ said the crone. ‘Death finds all of us in the end. No-one goes in search of him.’

‘I do,’ said the girl.

‘Why? Do you seek to have him return those whom he has taken from you?’

The girl shook her head.

‘Then what do you want?’

‘To kill him. Just as he killed my family.’

The crone nodded her ancient head. ‘Many have tried,’ she said to the girl. ‘But my Lord Death is devious. Remember that, if you meet him. Don’t believe anything he tells you. And, whatever you do, never let him take your hand.’

And so the girl set off in her boat, in search of the desert kingdom of Death. It lay, or so the stories said, just below the setting sun, close to the source of the River Dream, where anything is possible. For many weeks and months she sailed, eating fish and dried fruit, drinking rain out of coconut shells. Everywhere she stopped, she asked for word of Lord Death, and told them of her mission.

The people of the islands greeted her tale with pity and scorn. They said: ‘Lord Death is no ordinary man. Be grateful that he has spared you, girl, and give up this foolhardy quest.’

But the girl would not give up, and continued westward. She heard many tales of Lord Death; of how he had once been the Lacewing King, ruler of the Silken Folk; of how he had saved the Barefoot Princess from the wrath of the Hallowe’en King, and thus taken the crown of the Eighth World. She heard tales of his wickedness, his cruelty, his treachery. She heard tales of his adventures. She heard tales of his fatal charm, as quick as summer lightning. And still she continued westward, across oceans and archipelagos, until at last, she caught up with the sun, and found herself on the shores of Death, where its ruler was waiting.

Death is a land without borders. There, the dead in their multitudes drift ceaselessly on the desert wind, while their King, in his bone-white citadel, receives the new souls, one by one. One eye – the blue – sees the world of the dead: the brown watches the living. One hand is warm; the other cold – the touch of that hand is instant death. The girl knew all of this from the stories she had heard on her journey from the East. But she was not afraid of Death. Her spear was tipped with an agonizing poison taken from a species of frog; a poison that could kill within minutes. And Death, for all his power, was not invulnerable. As long as she struck his living side, he could be injured like any man. And so she left her boat on the shore, and, holding her spear, set out across the desert in search of the bone-white citadel.

Lord Death watched her from afar. His left eye, blue as a butterfly’s wing, saw every part of his kingdom. He saw the girl with the spear in her hand, and knew at once that she sought him. He could have ignored her and let her die alone in the endless desert. But it had been many years since he had spoken with a living soul, and he was curious. And so he allowed her to reach him, and opened the gates of his stronghold to allow the girl to enter.

For a time the girl was astonished at the beauty of Death’s citadel; the pillars of bone; the pavements of teeth, the throne of dead man’s ivory. And on that throne sat Lord Death, handsome in his moth’s-wing cloak, watching her from his living eye, an eye as dark as honeycomb.

So many had stood before him, pleading for his mercy. But this girl was the first with no fear in her eyes, no hesitation in her stride. Nor did she prostrate herself, or beg for the lives he had taken.

Instead, she looked at him, and said: ‘My Lord Death, prepare to die.’

And at that, she cast her spear at him, aiming for his right side. It was only a glancing blow, but it was enough for the poison to work. Lord Death fell to his knees, his body ablaze with sudden fire, and knew that he was dying.

‘What do you want?’ he asked the girl. ‘What must I give in return for my life?’

‘I want nothing,’ she said, ‘but to see you die in agony, as so many have died at your hand.’

Death knew he had only a little time before the poison claimed him. But he guessed the girl might have an antidote – and if she did, he could be saved. And so, even though he was burning up, he summoned all his charm, and said:

‘Child, Death is not cruel. Death is a mercy to the weak, a gift to those who are in distress. Death is kind, a blessed release from a world of sorrow. Do you think I enjoy bringing pain? Do you think, that given the chance, I would not bring life instead?’

The girl looked down at Lord Death, and saw that he was suffering. She was surprised that this gave her less joy than she had expected.

‘I am so lonely,’ Death went on, ‘here in this silent kingdom. That’s why I opened my gates to you, to hear the sound of a living voice, even though you hated me, just as everyone hates me.’

Once more the girl looked down at Death. She too had been lonely. She too had known prejudice at the hands of strangers. And she started to fear that she had made a dreadful mistake.

‘Maybe you are right,’ she said. ‘Maybe Death is not to blame for the cruelty of the Worlds.’ And, taking a bamboo vial from the pocket of her tunic, she handed it to him and said: ‘Here is the antidote. Drink it, and be well again.’

Lord Death took the antidote. At once, the pain began to subside. The fire in his veins diminished, and he was able to breathe again. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and held out his hand with a warm and winning smile. And so disarming was that smile, and so kind was the light in his living eye, that the girl forgot what the crone had said, and took his icy hand in hers.

In an instant, she was turned to dust on the floor before the throne, and was scattered by the icy winds that blew along the corridors.

Lord Death climbed to his feet, and dusted down his moth’s-wing cloak, and retook his bone-white throne, overlooking the Nine Worlds. ‘No, child, you were right,’ he said. ‘Death really is cruel.’

The ocean has many voices. It sings in the voice of the pilot whale; the voice of the dolphin; the waves on the beach. It sings in the voice of a thousand birds; it cries in the wind that howls through the rocks upon the distant skerries. But most of all, it sings in the voice of the selkie; those people of the ocean clans that hunt with the seal, and dance with the waves, and, nameless, go on for ever.

The voice of the selkie is soft and low. At first you may not hear it. At first you may mistake it for the cry of a bird, or the bark of a seal, or the sound of the tide on the pebbles. But listen, and you will realize that each of those sounds is a story. The crunch of pebbles underfoot; the splash of a leaping mackerel; the cry of a sea-eagle hunting above the white rocky shores of the islands. Stories, like the travelling folk, never die, but always move on. There are stories everywhere; in the air; the food you eat; in the embers of the fire. And when you go to bed at night, and listen to the wind in the eaves, there are stories under the bed and hiding in the shadows. Stories of the Kraken, who comes from the deepest oceans; stories of sirens whose song can lure unwary travellers to their death; stories of mermaids, lighthouses, ships – and stories of the selkie.

This is such a story. Taken from a song of the Folk, taught to me by a gunnerman; which makes it just as true – or false – as those sweet siren promises. The Folk have a complex relationship with the clan of the selkie: hunting them for their hides and flesh; fearing them for their savagery. And yet they have always dreamed of them from the safety of their homes; and, loving them for their wildness, have always sought to capture and tame the people of the ocean. Thus are they both sickened and drawn; bewitched and repelled; at war and in love. They weave their stories from the thinnest and most fragile of threads, thistledown by moonlight; like gleaming skeins of spider silk. This is such a story, as true or as false as the sound of the wind, or the flight of the herring-gull over the white-crested waves. This is my story; the story of the land-folk and the seal-folk, a story of love, and of treachery, and of the call of the ocean. Take from it what you most need, and pass it on to someone else, for this is how stories – and selkie – move on; changing, unchanging, like the tides, taking with them what they can and scattering tales to the four winds, like seeds upon the ocean.

Part 1

An earthly nourris sits and sings

And aye she sings, ‘Ba lilly wean,

Little ken I my bairn’s father,

Far less the land that he staps in’

The Child Ballads, no. 113

One

There was a young man of the Grey Seal clan, the most playful of the selkie. He lived by a circle of skerries to the west of the islands of the Folk, where the winds blow harsh and, every year, the ice creeps ever closer. His people were fierce and wild and razor-toothed; and he was the wildest of them all, diving from the tallest rocks, tumbling in the whitest surf, roaming further than any of his people dared venture.

His mother was the matriarch of the clan: proud and powerful and strong, sheathed in muscle and robed in fat to keep her through the winters, and her son was just as handsome; with powerful shoulders, dappled flanks and eyes as dark as the ocean.

But the young man was wilful. He loved to listen to tales of the Folk; those people so like, yet so unlike the selkie. He loved to swim close to their shores, and play in the surf of their beaches. He loved to follow their fishing-boats and watch them take in their catches of fish. And he loved to hear their voices, singing from the decks of their ships; voices that reached him on the wind in snippets and snatches of story.

His mother said: ‘Beware the Folk. Their race is bloodthirsty and cruel. They do not shed their skins, as we do, to walk upon the land, but hunt the grey seal and the walrus with spears and harpoons, and flay their skins, and wear them against the winter cold, for they are thin, pale, shivering things, helpless as newborn chicks in the snow.’

But the young man of the selkie did not heed her warnings. Nor did he heed the words of his friends, the carefree companions of his childhood. He knew of the wars between the clans of the selkie and that of the Folk. He had even watched from afar as the whaling-ships set off out from the coast, hunting the regal lords of the sea. He had seen bloody battles fought among the outermost skerries, and he knew of the courage of the Folk, and longed to know more of their customs. And so he swam out to the nearest of the neighbouring islands, and set out to learn everything he could about its mysterious inhabitants.

He would swim close to their homesteads, and watch the light from their windows, and bask in the shallows by their shores, and listen to their women singing lullabies to their children. He would sit out alone on a rock by the harbour mouth, and watch the tall ships. And as he grew, so grew his desire for the land and its people, until one summer’s night he swam right to the shore of an island, and, beaching himself on the cool dark sand, he shed his bulky sealskin, with its protective layer of fat, and stood naked on the shoreline; dark-skinned, sleek and glossy-haired, and handsome in the moonlight.

‘So this is how it feels,’ he thought, ‘to be a man of the Folk.’ He looked down at his new skin with curious eyes, noting the graceful length of his limbs; the shape of his ribs and torso; the markings on his dark skin, so like those of a Grey Seal, and yet remade into something new; and the collarbones that stood out sharply beneath the column of his neck. In the form of a Grey Seal, he was strong and powerful; but as a man he was reborn into something lithe and beautiful; and walking on the forbidden ground, with the gritty sand beneath his feet, he felt a surge of surprise and joy.

The ocean’s many voices now called to him in warning. ‘Beware!’ cried a herring gull, riding the wind.

‘Betrayal!’ said the voice of the wave as it crashed against a rock.

‘Come home!’ came the cry of the Grey Seal clan from the distant skerry; a cry that came from every man or woman of the selkie clan: his playmates, his brothers, his sisters.

But the selkie did not listen to them. ‘All I want to do is walk along the shore awhile,’ he told himself, folding his sealskin carefully and hiding it under a standing rock. ‘No-one will see me here, on the shore. The Folk are all asleep in their beds.’

And he was right: nobody saw. The Folk slept, and if any dreamed of a young man naked by the shore, with long hair like a horse’s mane and skin as dark as a stormy sea, they wisely did not speak of it, for such dreams are dangerous. But when the young man of the selkie put on his sealskin to return to the people of the sea, he was conscious of a sensation almost of disappointment.

It was true that his human form was in many ways inferior to his seal Aspect. As a man he could only swim in a slow and clumsy style. It was true that, as a man, he was cold without his sealskin. It was true that as a man, his hearing and vision were both reduced, and his reflexes were slower – although they were still far keener than those of a common man of the Folk. But the thrill of walking on enemy soil – the thrill of taking the enemy’s skin – was more than enough to compensate for any of these failings. He began to visit the Folk every night, spending longer and longer on land, and taking more risks as he became more secure in his new form, and in his new surroundings. He grew ever more daring, moving further away from the beach, and visiting the harbourside, or the settlements of the Folk, with their low-roofed houses; thick stone walls, windows facing out to sea.

He learnt that, at night, there was no-one about to question his presence or sound the alarm. His selkie senses were sharp enough to hear into the homes of the Folk. Through the walls of a fisherman’s hut, he could hear the sound of a man’s breathing shift from the low growl of deep sleep to the shallow murmur of wakefulness. Through the walls of a family home, he could hear the sound of an ivory comb moving through a girl’s long hair, and smell the tallow candle burning at her bedside. He moved with the speed of a hunting seal; with the silence of the turning tide. And little by little, the young man of the selkie grew bolder, and more reckless.

Back at the skerry ring, the clan of the Grey Seal watched their son’s movements with concern and disapproval. His mother spoke out with displeasure, saying:

‘This game of yours is dangerous. No good can possibly come of it. One day you will be chief of this clan, and lead our people in my place. But for that you need to learn caution, son, and to know the ways of the enemy.’

‘I learn far more from watching the Folk than you ever did by hiding,’ replied the selkie to his mother. ‘This game of mine, as you put it, has given me the chance to see them in their natural habitat. I have looked into their homes. I have watched them with their young. I have seen that they are not the monsters that you think them to be. I think, in time, our people could even maybe become friends—’

The matriarch gave an angry bark, showing her pointed teeth. ‘Young fool! Do you think you are the first of our people to have thought of this? Our history is full of young fools who thought they could befriend the Folk. And their story always ends the same way. Entrapment; enslavement; exile.’

She went on to tell him many tales of selkie, robbed of their skins and sold into slavery by the Folk; unable to return to their clan; or remember their true nature; their children given human names, and thereby forever denied the chance to hear the voice of the sea, or to be with their own people.

‘Even your own father,’ she said, ‘fell victim to the slavers. One of the kings of the blue salt road, lured from his people, stripped of his skin and his memories; tricked into murdering his own and damned beyond redemption. He broke my heart: and so will you, if you follow this perilous path.’

But the young man was too arrogant to listen to her warnings. He knew himself to be faster, stronger, more capable than any man of the Folk. There would be time for caution when he was old, like his mother. Meanwhile, he was enjoying himself; and as time passed, and his recklessness grew, his mother’s voice fell silent. His friends, too, learnt not to interfere, or risk arousing his anger. Except for one girl of the selkie, who had been his dearest friend, and who was outspoken and fearless.

‘Why waste your time with the Folk?’ she said. ‘They are poor things, paltry and pale. Their strength is only in their ships, and in their guns, and their steel harpoons. Why take their form, when in selkie skin you are strong, and lithe, and fleet, and so much more handsome than any of them?’

But the selkie said: ‘You are a child. When you are grown, you will understand.’

The girl of the selkie said nothing, but her dark eyes flashed as she swam away. She was only a twelvemonth younger than the young man of the selkie, and she was almost as fast and as strong. Angered by his arrogance, she fled to warmer waters, to play with the folk of the other clans; the Common Seals, and the Harp Seals, and the Hooded Seals, and the Bearded Seals.

The young man of the selkie watched her go with secret regret. ‘She will return,’ he told himself. ‘Girls are so stubborn and volatile. One day, perhaps, she will understand the ways and customs of the Folk. One day, perhaps, we will leave our skins and walk together on the shore.’ But he was too proud to call her back, or admit that he missed her: and so he too began to seek company elsewhere.

Two

On an island of the Folk, there lived a young woman called Flora McCraiceann. She was the only daughter of a gunnerman and his wife; respectable folk of the islands, whose only ambition was to see their daughter happily married. But, in spite of her beauty, Flora had never fallen in love; and as she was headstrong, demanding and proud, the young men of the island soon found their solace elsewhere.

Her mother said: ‘Beware your pride. Young men are not so plentiful that you can afford to turn them away. If you are not spoken for by your twenty-fifth birthday, beware; or an old maid you shall be, and then what shall become of us?’

But Flora was undeterred. She said: ‘The men of the islands are rough and uncouth. Their hands are rough; their faces sour. I shall catch myself a prince, and bear a pretty princeling, and all the girls of the island shall envy my good fortune.’

The mother said sharply: ‘What do you mean?’ But Flora only shook her hair, which was red as a winter sunset, and said: ‘I shall have my princeling within the year, you wait and see.’ And nothing more could her mother get from her, however much she tried.

Now Flora had a grandmother living on the mainland, whose knowledge of the ocean was greater than that of any of the Folk. A widow of many years, and wise, she knew all the old tales and legends, and had passed them on to her granddaughter almost as soon as the child could talk. Tales of the Kraken, the monster that comes up from the darkest deeps to die; tales of the travelling folk of the woods, who can walk in the skins of animals. But best of all Flora had loved the old tales of the selkie, who live as seals, and can shed their skins, and take the guise of humans of singular, regal beauty.

‘Once, we all lived in the sea,’ the grandmother had told her. ‘Its salt runs in our blood; our tears are memories of the ocean.’

‘Then why did we leave it?’ Flora had said.

‘Because we were fools,’ came the reply. ‘We wanted Worlds to conquer. And so we forgot the voice of the sea, and learned to walk on land, and to pretend we were more than animals.’

That had been many years ago, when Flora McCraiceann was just a child. In those days the old woman had lived with her daughter and son-in-law. But the grandmother was difficult; outspoken and demanding, and her daughter had finally asked her to leave for the sake of domestic harmony. She had retired to the mainland when Flora was still very young, but Flora had always remembered her tales, and even though her childhood was past, she believed in the potency of tears.

‘How can I see the selkie?’ she would ask her grandmother.

And her grandmother would reply: ‘If a lonely maid will shed five tears into the ocean, a man of the selkie will come to her, and give her what she most desires.’

And so some twenty years later, on the night of midsummer’s full moon – a moon that the Folk of the islands call the Hunter’s Moon – Flora went to the seashore. There she sat upon a rock, and earnestly attempted to weep. It was not an easy task. Flora was not given to weeping. But then she thought of all the young men who had failed to live up to her standards. She thought of her parents’ little house, and how much she longed to leave it. She thought of her twenty-fifth birthday, and how fast it was approaching. She thought of herself as an old maid, forced to stand humbly aside in church as the married women took their seats. And finally, the tears of rage and bitterness began to fall, and she hastened to the water’s edge to make sure they fell into the ocean.

Five tears is all the ocean needs, according to the ancient lore. And the old lore must have been true, because no sooner had Flora dried her eyes (with a lace-trimmed handkerchief brought for the occasion) than there came a sound from behind her and, turning, she saw a strange young man standing in the water. He was tall and finely-built, with long black hair and wine-dark skin, marked with many strange tattoos of a kind she did not recognize.

For a moment her heart leaped like a fish, and she almost cried out in alarm. Then she forced herself to be still and to smile, in spite of her racing heart.

The young man was naked. It was the first time Flora had ever seen a man without his clothes on. It was entirely scandalous; and yet, in spite of her outrage, she knew that this was the selkie; the longed-for, mysterious prince of her dreams. And if this was a dream, she thought, then surely such things as decorum were largely unimportant.

She took off her dress and her chemise and laid them on the moonlit sand. And then she turned and stood naked before the young man of the selkie; her body white in the moonlight; clothed in nothing but her hair.

The man of the selkie looked at her; the surf around his ankles. Flora took a step forward. The sea surged white around them both. The wind was cold; the water even colder; but in spite of that, Flora felt a mysterious heat; a wildness that seemed to sing from her blood. The young man smiled and looked at her with eyes that were soft and dark as a seal’s. And then, for the first time in her life, Flora McCraiceann threw decorum to the winds, and gave herself to the young man, and the moonlight, and the ocean.

Together they tumbled into the waves. Together they ran through the pounding surf. Together they lay skin to skin on the sand and, for the very first time, it seemed that Flora McCraiceann was not entirely dissatisfied.

Three

The young man of the selkie, of course, was the son of the Grey Seal clan on one of his trips to the islands. To the girl of the Folk who had offered herself to him on the shore, he responded eagerly; enjoying the taste of her salty skin, warm against his in the cold sea; enjoying the feel of her wet hair.

Far away, on the wind, came the voice of the herring-gull: ‘Beware!’

From afar, came the sound of the wave crashing on the rocks: ‘Betrayal!’

And from the distant skerry came the call of the clan of the Grey Seal: ‘Come home!’ But the young man of the selkie did not heed their warnings.

He had never been like this with any other girl of the Folk; although he had – oh, many times – with the young folk of his people. Selkie have no concept of marriage, or of faithfulness to a single partner. Selkie love freely and often, with no sense of obligation. Their children are raised by the wisest elders of the clan, while the young folk have adventures, and share in all the joys of youth.

Flora McCraiceann did not know this, of course. All she knew was that she had summoned a man, a fine, handsome man of the selkie, and that she had no intention of letting him escape. All she knew was the scent of his skin; the feel of his arms around her. She was uncertain if this was love, or simply the heat of passion; but she knew that she wanted him, and once the heat was gone from them both, her practical side reasserted itself, and she began to ask questions.

‘What is your name, your clan?’ she said. ‘I must have you meet my parents, if we are one day to be wed.’

The young man of the selkie blinked in surprise. ‘Our people have no names,’ he said. ‘We are the selkie, that swim with the whale and the sea otter and the dolphin. My clan is the clan of the Grey Seal that lives on the ring of skerries; and your parents are no concern of mine, for our folk are sworn enemies, and they would kill me if they could.’

Flora was disappointed, but in no way deterred by the selkie’s words. He might be a selkie, she told herself, but underneath he was still a man, with all a man’s weaknesses and conceit. And because she wanted him (but most of all because Flora McCraiceann had always had her way in all she set out to do) she hid her displeasure and smiled at him, saying: ‘Meet me again tomorrow night, and see if I can’t change your mind.’

And so, the next night, and the following, the selkie met with Flora McCraiceann. In fact, for the next three weeks, they met every night on the little beach; and swam together in the surf, and lay together on the sand, and whispered foolish promises under the bright, uncaring stars.

Flora told the selkie of her warm house with its peat fire; of her soft bed with its linen sheets and coverlet of eiderdown. And the selkie told Flora of his life; of the bark of the seals on the rock; of the salty crunch of fish caught between his powerful jaws; of the scent of the storm, and the snap of the ice, and the many voices of the sea. And every night, Flora spoke to him of how delightful it would be for both of them to be married one day, and live in a house by the harbour, and raise beautiful, dark-eyed children.

But the selkie always laughed and said: ‘That is not the way of my folk,’ and vanished behind a nearby rock, before plunging once more into the sea. But still, Flora was undeterred. She understood the call of the sea; its freedom and its dark romance. But there was something else in her; a curious sense of quickening; and when she realized what it was, the urgency of her mission became even more pressing than before.

‘My child will not be fatherless,’ said Flora McCraiceann to herself. ‘I shall not bear a nameless son, or have other women look at me with pity and contempt. Nor shall I do as others have done, and give my child up to the selkie; for they would claim him if they could, and take him to live in the ocean. No: my man is restless, and playful, and wild, but he must accept his duty. And if he will not give up the sea, then I will find another way to bind him to me, and his child, and curb his restlessness for good.’

All this Flora said to herself as she went about her daily tasks; keeping house for her parents; going to market; going to church; working at her needlepoint – for Flora’s skill with a needle was known across the islands – and waiting for the night to come, and her meeting with the selkie. And in the long sweet summer nights, while she and the selkie played in the sea, and tumbled naked on the shore, and watched the crescent moon grow fat, she dreamed of a plan to bind him to her – and to the land – for ever.

Four

Summer in the northern isles lasts barely the span of a dragonfly’s wing. A couple of weeks and already her face begins to turn towards winter. This year was no exception. Soon, the ice would start to creep south; the autumn gales would start to blow, and within a month the cold would be fierce and bitter.

Flora knew this all too well. Already the season was starting to turn; and her lover was less and less eager to stay with her after the lovemaking was done. Of course, without his sealskin, he was as tender as any man. Without his sealskin, the wind was cold; the sharp waves bit, and the stones were painful underfoot. If she did not act soon, she knew, the summer would be over and the sea would claim him once again. And the sea must not claim him, because he was hers, and because she wanted him. But most of all, because Flora McCraiceann had sworn to catch a prince, and bear him a pretty princeling: and that was what she meant to do; come sea, or storm, or sealskin.

Flora had never seen the sealskin, of course; the selkie always came to her in the guise of a young man. But she knew of it from stories; her grandmother had taught her well, and she knew the power of such a skin, and the knowledge that came with it. It was knowledge that had served the women of the islands well: a secret that had kept them safe, and given them healthy children. But none of the women spoke of it, not even to their loved ones, except for Flora’s old grandmother, whose stories had caused her daughter to banish her to the mainland, for fear that young Flora might hear too much and be seduced by the call of the sea. It was to her grandmother’s stories that Flora now returned to ensure that her man stayed loyal to her, and to their unborn child.

‘To catch a selkie,’ her grandmother said: ‘find out where he keeps his sealskin. Take it, hide it away in a chest of cedarwood, bound with silver, and he will lose all memory of his clan, and the voice of the ocean, and be the slave of whomsoever has it in their keeping. But be sure to keep it safe, for if he as much as touches the skin, he will remember everything, and be lost to you for ever.’

Now Flora had a cedarwood chest, passed on to her by her mother on the day of her coming-of-age. It had belonged to her grandmother, over eighty years ago, and was a fine piece of craftsmanship, darkened with age, but still fragrant. So far the chest was empty, except for a few family treasures: her mother’s satin wedding-dress, and her grandmother’s lace one, brittle as Bible pages. Out of sentiment, perhaps, Flora’s mother had always insisted that the chest be kept safely locked. But now the girl began to see another use for that cedar chest, with its silver key, just small enough to fit on a chain around her neck …

And so, as summer started to wane, Flora looked out for the sealskin. It was no easy task; it was her lover’s most precious possession. Every night as he swam to the shore, he would hide it beneath the standing rock. Every night as he bade her farewell, he would step behind the rock, quickly unfold the sealskin and slip into the water, where he became a grey seal once more, and swam away, unnoticed.

Try as she might, Flora could never quite catch the moment at which he changed. The selkie moved too quickly, using the light on the water, or the passage of clouds over the moon as a distraction. But little by little, Flora came to realize that he never went far from the standing rock by the shore, and that, even when they were making love, his eye was always on it. And so, one moonless night, instead of meeting him in their usual spot, she hid: and when he went in search of her, she slipped behind his back, and found the sealskin under the rock, folded carefully out of sight.

The selkie was further down the beach, and did not hear her quiet approach. She took the skin from its hiding-place, and while her lover searched and called, she hid in the bushes of yellow furze that grew along the cliffside path, and listened as the selkie’s cries, first coaxing, turned to anger, then became increasingly plaintive.

‘Why do you flee from me, my love?’ she heard him calling from the beach. ‘What have I done to displease you?’

Flora lay quiet in the furze, the stolen skin around her. She knew that in his selkie form, her lover would have caught her scent; heard her breathing as she lay shivering beside the path. But in his human form, he was easy to evade, and she listened to his voice as he moved to and fro on the little beach, calling to her with increasing anguish and confusion.

‘What have I done?’ he repeated. ‘Were we not happy together?’ It hurt her to hear him in distress, but Flora McCraiceann told herself that this was a necessary ill. Without it, he would be gone by the first autumn gales, and she and her child would be left alone to face the scorn and contempt of her folk. Hers was a small betrayal, she thought, compared with the fate that awaited her: to give up her child to the selkie, or to live with the shame of bearing him alone. And so she hardened her heart, and when the selkie returned to his rock to find his sealskin gone, and began to search in the frantic hope that perhaps the tide had taken it, she crept silently up the cliffside path with the sealskin around her shoulders, and heard his heartbroken cry from afar as he finally realized what she had done.

‘It will be over soon,’ she thought, as she ran towards her parents’ house. ‘His pain will end when I lock the skin inside my mother’s cedar chest – and then it will all be forgotten, and we can start our new life together.’

And so, once more she hardened her heart, and put her hands over her ears to keep out the sound of her lover’s voice, and locked the skin in the cedar chest under her mother’s wedding-dress. And then she waited till morning – for it would not do to bring him home in the middle of the night – and when she returned to the water’s edge, she found the selkie lying there naked on the stone-grey sand, blue with cold, with no memory of who he was, or how he had come to be there.

‘Come with me,’ said Flora, handing him her fur-trimmed cloak.

And the selkie, wretched and shivering, and knowing only that she looked kind, accepted the cloak and followed her into the camp of the enemy.

Five

Barely half an hour had passed between Flora’s theft of the sealskin and the loss of the selkie’s memory. But in that half-hour, his rage and despair were heard by all of the clans of the north: the barrel jellyfish; the shark; the walrus and the dolphin: the albatross and the kittiwake; the grey seal and the pilot whale. But no-one knew where his sealskin had gone, and the selkie’s cries rang out in vain until his memory fled from him, and he was left alone on the shore with the salt of his tears, so like that of the sea, drying on his expressionless face.

The matriarch of the Grey Seal clan heard his cry, and bowed her head, knowing that her son was lost. The herring gulls heard it, and carried it far across the sea toward the lighthouse of Sule Skerry, where the lighthouse-man heard it, and slept no more. The Harp Seals heard it, and carried it to the selkie who had been his oldest friend. And even though she was too far away to reach him before he became someone else, she started to swim as fast as she could to the islands of the Folk – but by the time she arrived, he was gone; wrapped in Flora’s fur-trimmed cloak; tame and helpless as a cub that does not see the hunter’s maul.

The girl of the selkie swam up to the beach and lay there on the hard grey sand that still bore the traces of his feet and those of the woman who stole him away. She did not weep, for the shedding of tears is a habit unique to the Folk, but her heart was filled with anger and grief.

She said: ‘If his memory is gone, then I must remember him twice as well, and if he cannot speak for himself, then I must speak for both of us.’ And with that she turned and swam back out to sea, while on his island, the selkie prepared to begin his new life as a man of the Folk.

Six

The selkie walked barefoot through the streets, the fur-trimmed cloak around him. There was something about the feel of that cloak that troubled him, but it was warm, and he wrapped it tightly about him as he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

Nothing was familiar. Not the little harbour, with its docks and fishing-boats; nor the narrow, cobbled streets, lined with shops and taverns. The streets were still mostly empty (the Folk being at church) but none of the landmarks spoke to him, and the few passers-by were strangers with fish-pale skin and narrow eyes. Only the red-haired woman who had given him the cloak seemed to stir some distant memory; but it remained elusive, like a voice from far underwater.

Everything hurt. His muscles were sore; his joints stiff; his feet were bruised and bleeding. And his head seemed full of shards of glass, reflecting scenes he could not see; and voices like a flock of birds, screaming empty warnings. But Flora took his hand in hers and led him to her parents’ house; a stone-built house on top of the cliff, with a peat fire and a low roof, and windows looking out to sea.

There, she gave him a suit of clothes, a pair of boots, and a coat with a wolfskin collar, and marvelled at how handsome he was. To be sure, he still looked lost, and not as happy as she had hoped, but she told herself that this was only to be expected. He would soon settle into his new surroundings – as long as nothing reminded him of his stolen sealskin – and the sooner he did, the sooner they could begin their new life together.

And so she put the kettle on, and started to prepare her man a traditional island breakfast, while she waited for her parents – the gunnerman and his wife – to come home from church. She had her story all ready for them; and if her mother suspected that her new young man was not all he seemed, Flora felt sure that the gunnerman’s wife would keep her suspicions to herself. As for her father, she told herself, he was no great thinker: as long as her man was respectful, worked hard and tried to fit in, the gunnerman would have nothing to say against his prospective son-in-law.

Meanwhile, the selkie looked around the house in growing confusion and unease. It was a neat little stone-built house, with a fire in the hearth, and a rug on the floor, and many harpoons and trophies on the walls. The selkie did not understand why these objects troubled him; and yet his mouth was dry with fear, and he shivered, in spite of the cheery fire. On every wall, there were sealskins. On every shelf, there were sharks’ teeth and narwhals’ horns and pieces of carved walrus ivory. The place stank of death and suffering; but the selkie, having nowhere else to go, was forced to endure it in silence.

The red-haired woman brought him food. It was greasy and strangely warm. The selkie concluded that he was unused to the food of this region. Maybe he was a stranger here. But what had become of his memory? What had become of his clothing? Had he been robbed? It seemed likely. Maybe he had been beaten – his body certainly ached enough. Maybe he had taken a blow to the head, and thereby lost his memory.

The selkie was conscious of a great surge of anger towards his unknown attackers. He found himself imagining what terrible vengeance he would take, once he recovered his memory. Was he a violent man? Perhaps. He sensed his potential for violence. What had he done, to find himself naked and alone in this place? Who were his friends, his enemies? Most of all, why did he still feel so cold?

The red-haired woman smiled at him, and slipped her soft white hand in his. ‘You are the son of a chieftain,’ she said, ‘from the islands of silk and spices. You came here on a merchant ship, carrying wares from your homeland. We met in secret, and we were betrothed without my parents’ knowledge. But now the time has come to reveal our plans, and to celebrate.’

‘Celebrate?’ said the selkie.

‘I am with child,’ said the woman. ‘Your child. Prepare to meet your new family.’

It was too much. The stench of death; the unfamiliar surroundings; the oily taste of the strange food; the aching cold that clung to him like a frozen garment; and now this revelation. The room began to spin. The selkie heard voices in his head; a thousand furious warnings in a language he no longer knew.

Flora smiled at him tenderly. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll take care of you.’

The selkie shivered, in spite of the fire. Something was wrong, he told himself; something was terribly wrong with all this. Every muscle in his body cried out to him to run away. And yet there was no sign or scent of any kind of danger.

‘Have some more broth,’ said Flora, spooning more of the greasy, warm food into the earthenware bowl by his side. Even the smell of it sickened him, but he was unable to say so in words.

He said: ‘What kind of broth is this?’

Flora smiled, and said; ‘Seal, of course. Grey seal, stewed in its own fat. You’ll soon get used to the taste of it. We islanders eat it all the time.’

Seven

When Flora’s parents came home from church, they found their daughter taking tea with a young man in the parlour. Flora repeated her tale, with embellishments that made much of the young man’s royal blood, and finally announced the exciting news of her pregnancy.

‘I told you that within the year I should catch myself a prince, and bear him a pretty princeling,’ she said. ‘Now I shall be the envy of all the maids on the island, and all the young men who missed their chance will curse their evil fortune.’

Her mother looked thoughtful. She knew the old tales as well as her daughter. And this young man with the seal-dark eyes seemed more than just a foreigner. She thought of the many times she had awoken in the night to hear her daughter going out; how many times Flora had missed going to church, or come down late to breakfast. She realized at once that the young man was a selkie; but at twenty-five, she told herself, a girl cannot expect to be overwhelmed with suitors.

Besides, thought the mother, a selkie would be obedient and considerate: he would never be untrue, or challenge her authority. A selkie – as long as he was tame – would be a good father, a fine hunter, and would do his best for his children. Best of all, she told herself, a selkie would always respect his mother-in-law, and work for her, and hunt for her, and care for her in her old age. And so she smiled at her daughter and said: ‘What a catch! I hope you know how to keep him.’

To Flora’s surprise, her father proved less easy to persuade. A surly man, rough-spoken, and weather worn from years spent at sea, he looked at the selkie suspiciously from eyes as dark as the ocean.

‘What is his name, his family?’ the gunnerman demanded. ‘What gold does he bring as a bridal gift? What kind of trade does he follow?’

‘He comes from far away,’ Flora said. ‘He is the son of a chieftain; his tribe, the dark-eyed, dark-skinned men of the south. And I will wed him, and bear him a son: a handsome, dark-eyed, dappled son, and take my place in church above the wives of simple seamen.’

At this, the father looked angry. ‘What’s wrong with being a seaman?’ he said. ‘No child of mine will grow up to despise the hands that put food on her table.’

The selkie, who had recognized no part of Flora’s tale, said: ‘What exactly is your profession, sir?’

The father gestured proudly at the walls of the cottage, decked with trophies and souvenirs from his many travels. ‘I am a gunnerman,’ he said, ‘on the good ship Kraken, recently home from a three-month tour of the western islands. In spring, we hunt the humpback whale; the walrus and the grey seal; and we bring back oil, and sealskins, and whalebone, and walrus ivory. And if you marry my daughter,’ he said, ‘then you, too, must find a trade, and make your living like an honest man, so that your wife and child are kept safe and well-provided for.’

The selkie felt a dreadful, sick horror at the thought of hunting seal, or whale, or dolphin, or porpoise, or walrus. But with no memory of who he was, he did not know why he felt this way, or why he felt such pain and disgust at the thought of the good ship Kraken. So he said nothing, and tried to smile, and looked at the red-haired woman, and desperately wished that he could remember ever having loved her.

But Flora said: ‘Of course he must: but only when we are married; for my son must be born in wedlock, with all the respect due his family.’

And so the banns were read, and the date fixed for a wedding between Flora McCraiceann and the selkie. Because he had no name of his own, she called him Coigreach, “the foreigner”, and McGill, the “stranger’s son”. Flora thought it a bonny name, and spent the cold autumn evenings embroidering Flora McGill in different kinds and colours of script over a series of linens and cloths.

The selkie tried to be grateful to the gunnerman and his wife. He tried to learn their alien ways; to eat seal and whale-meat, as they did, even though the thought of it horrified and disgusted him. He tried to sleep in a bed, like the Folk; although sometimes, when he was sleepless, he curled up on the floor and somehow seemed to sleep better that way, though his dreams were filled with horrors. He tried to hide his revulsion at the sealskins on the wall, and the other pelts that adorned their home and the collars of their clothing. Most of all, he tried to get used to the cold that plagued him day and night; but try as he might, it was always there, however many clothes he wore, however close he came to the fire; as if he were missing a layer of flesh that left him stripped and screaming.

‘I used to feel the cold, like you,’ said the gunnerman one day. ‘But life on the ocean cured me of that, as it did of so many things. Now I feel it no more than I feel the sting of the spray against my cheek; or the sickness that all sailors endure the first week on board their vessel.’ And he brought out a dusty bottle of rum, and poured them both a generous dram, and laughed when the selkie spluttered and choked, and said: ‘Here’s to you, Coigreach McGill. I swear we’ll make a man of you yet!’

But as the year waned, and his memory still showed no sign of returning, the selkie began to realize that his old life was gone for good; that he would never be at ease in his skin, nor would he ever cease to feel that dizzy rush of fear whenever the gunnerman spoke of the whaler. However much he tried, he could not get used to drinking rum, or wearing the skins of animals, or eating the flesh of the grey seal, or sleeping in a feather bed. But at least he learnt to pretend a tolerance he did not feel; and to smile when it was expected of him, and to laugh at the gunnerman’s jokes, and the gunnerman and his wife declared that he was a fine, upstanding young man, a credit to the family.

And so time passed, and the wedding drew close, and Flora embroidered her bridal trousseau, and day by day, the selkie began to feel a sense of creeping dread. Something was coming, he understood; something that would test him hard; and as the day of the wedding approached, he could not eat, nor could he sleep without the most terrible nightmares.

‘’Tis nothing but nerves,’ said the gunnerman, when Flora’s mother expressed her concern at the dark circles under the eyes of her prospective son-in-law. ‘Do you remember the day we were wed? I could scarce put two words together.’ And the gunnerman laughed, and clapped the selkie on the back, and said: ‘Be brave, Coigreach McGill. A wedding only lasts a day. Soon this nonsense will be done, and you and I will be free to go.’

‘Free?’ said the selkie.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘For I have spoken to the Captain of the good ship Kraken. He has agreed to take you on as an apprentice gunner – under my supervision, of course – to sail as soon as the weather permits. It is a proud and noble trade, and one that will earn you the respect of every man on the island, as it must, for Flora is my only child, and must have the best of everything.’

The selkie smiled, but his lips were numb and his belly filled with ice. ‘A gunner?’ he said. ‘What exactly does a gunner do?’

‘He works the harpoon,’ said the gunner, his eyes as dark as the ocean. ‘And I swear there is no finer work; no, not in the whole of the Nine Worlds. Just stay with me, and watch what I do, and you’ll be like me in no time at all.’ And once more he laughed, and poured rum for them both, and drank to the health of his new son-in-law, and the selkie smiled and drained the glass, but inside he was shivering.

Part 2

Then ane arose at her bed fit

And a grumly guest I’m sure was he,

Saying; ‘Here am I, thy bairn’s father,

Although I am not comely.’

The Child Ballads, no. 113

One

The matriarch of the Grey Seal clan had learnt of her son’s misadventure with grief and resignation. Now she accepted his unhappy fate. As far as she was concerned, he was lost; forever cut off from his people, his knowledge of their language gone; never to return to the sea.

Some of his friends tried to argue that there was still hope; that he could be saved if only his sealskin could be found. But the matriarch was proud, and would not listen to their pleas, and she bared her teeth and hardened her heart and forbade them to go near the islands.

‘He is one of the Folk now,’ she said. ‘To approach him would be dangerous. He would not recognize you now: he might even hunt you down.’

And so the selkie kept away; except for the girl of the Grey Seal clan, who could not bear to see him alone, abandoned by his people. Every day she would swim to the beach where she had seen his tracks, and although it was too cold for her to shed her sealskin and take human form, she watched from afar for a glimpse of him.

But all the Folk looked the same to her, in their bulky winter coats and fur-lined hats and sealskin boots. All the Folk looked the same to her, just as all seals looked the same to them, and even if she had seen him, she knew he would not have recognized her.

On the island, the winter had come; a great dark cloud that froze the land, and froze the sea, and froze the hearts of the islanders. The sun went down and did not come up; nor would it until springtime. Instead, there was almost perpetual night, except for a couple of hours before dawn – a dawn that never really broke, but promised, and promised, turning the sky crimson and gold, then slipping away into darkness. The selkie knew of this, of course; but in winter the grey seals followed the sun and the warmer currents to the south; and stayed there, feeding well on the shoals of herring and mackerel and cuttlefish until the sun returned. The Folk did not go south, of course, but simply endured the darkness, as snow fell over the mountaintops, and ice crept like a spider’s web all around the islands.

A midwinter wedding, said Flora McCraiceann, was just the thing to cheer them up. Her wedding trousseau was finished at last: a dozen sheets and pillowcases, with her initials embroidered over them in cherry silk. With that, six nightgowns, four chemises, sundry underthings and two dozen lawn handkerchiefs made up the trousseau, locked away in the cedar chest that she kept in her bedroom. It was the very same cedar chest in which she had hidden the sealskin, almost four months ago to the day, and Flora kept the silver key on a chain which she wore around her neck, for she had no intention of letting her man anywhere near that skin, ever again.

To be sure, the selkie was no longer the man with whom she had tumbled in the surf. The wildness had gone from him, and the joy. Instead he was humble, uncertain; respectful of Flora’s parents; trying hard to fit in with their ways. He went to church; he helped in the home; he tried to be like other men. But his love for her, and his passion, were gone as surely as his memory, leaving only gratitude, duty and affection.

A part of her grieved for the man she had loved. And yet it suited her to see him obedient, docile and eager to please. Passion is unpredictable. It does not behave or obey as it should. But while the sealskin was in her possession, she knew he would remain hardworking and respectful; and that she would bear his child, and be the envy of the other girls.

Girls were not much valued in the island communities. As maidens, they were courted and wooed, but as fishermen’s wives, they served their men, and cooked for them, and cleaned their homes, and worked, and raised their children. Flora had no intention of ever being such a fisherman’s wife: and the thought that the selkie would be her slave for ever was attractive. To be sure, she sometimes felt a little uneasy at what she had done. But then she told herself that he had forced her to make the decision: that he would have left her and her child alone if she had not acted first. Besides, could he really be suffering if he did not remember what he had lost?

‘I did him a favour,’ she told herself. ‘In a way, I rescued him. Among the selkie he was nothing but a savage; an animal, with no knowledge of God, no education, no decency. It’s only like breaking a horse,’ she thought, ‘or training a wolf cub to run with the dogs.’ And the more she told herself these things, the less her conscience troubled her, and the more she came to believe her actions had really been quite selfless.

Day by day the wedding approached; and the child in her belly grew and grew, and Flora McCraiceann felt increasingly pleased with herself, and with her plans for the future. Her mother knitted baby clothes and prepared for the day of the wedding; and her father, still blithely unaware that his prospective son-in-law was a selkie, counted the days and weeks until he could go to sea again; for the sea was his secret love; and the hunt his only real joy.

Two

At last, the day of the wedding arrived. Midwinter’s Eve; a day declared propitious by the village priest. Everyone on the island was there to watch Flora McCraiceann wed the selkie, and the celebrations would have lasted from sunrise to sunset, if the sun had risen at all.

Instead, it lasted from low tide to high, then back again to low tide, and began with a dinner of many delicate courses: sour herring; cuttlefish pie; roast seal in a sea-salt crust; fricassee of whalemeat; rock oysters; sea-urchins in their shells, and to finish with, a glorious cake, shaped like a whaling-ship in full sail, with the rigging picked out in white icing and the mast in green angelica. To make up for the absence of sunlight, there were a thousand candles lighting the church from altar to nave; and the bride wore a dress and matching cap made from the skins of baby seals; as soft and white as new-fallen snow.

The selkie spent his wedding day in a daze of anguish and confusion. The people; the candles; the clothing; the dancing; the food – everything seemed designed to cause him pain and discomfort. His own bridal outfit, made from the pelts of white wolves from the mainland, was already enough to sicken him; but that of his bride was far, far worse. Worse still was the fact that he did not know why he was thus affected: the others seemed to find the wearing of animal skins a perfectly natural thing to do. He ate almost nothing at the table, except for a couple of urchins and some oysters which, being raw, did not disgust him as did the cooked food; and though he did not touch the wine, he sat through the meal with aching limbs and a pounding headache.

The gunnerman saw his discomfort and said: ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon. These fancy parties aren’t to my taste either. Men like you and I would sooner be at sea than on dry land, hunting the seal and the walrus.’ He laughed at the selkie’s expression, saying: ‘I was very like you once. When I was young and foolish. But going to sea made a man of me. And it will make a man of you, too. I’ll see to that!’ And he poured himself more ale, and drank, while the selkie tried not to shudder.

The gunnerman’s wife was in high spirits, too. Kicking up her skirts, she laughed and danced as wild as a witch in May, and drank more ale than anyone, including the gunnerman himself. Silver gleamed at her throat as she danced, and her face grew increasingly flushed, and she sang:

‘Three cheers for the bride and the bridegroom!

Three cheers for the folk of the sea!

And three cheers for the cedar chest,

That was the maid’s only dowry!’

But no-one really heard what she sang – except for the grandmother of the clan, who had come over from the mainland. No-one had invited her, and no-one marked her presence among so many merrymakers.

But it was she who had taught the bride all about the selkie; and now, as she heard her daughter’s song, her eyes widened in understanding.

She looked at the groom; unsmiling in his wolfskins, his hair bound back. She looked at the bride in her sealskin robe, her hair like a coronet of red gold under the little sealskin cap. And now, under the wedding-dress, which was made from the white skins of baby seals, she saw the gleam of a silver chain – and on the silver chain, a key – that the old woman recognized.

Standing with some difficulty, for she was as old as the skerries themselves the grandmother went over to greet the happy couple. For a moment, the selkie looked into the eyes of the grandmother of the clan. They were dark, and very bright, and filled with ancient mischief, and it occurred to him that they reminded him of someone – though who it was, he did not know – and his heart swelled with longing for something, or maybe it was somewhere, that he had forgotten.

The grandmother said: ‘What a handsome pair. The King and Queen of Fiddler’s Green would not have made a finer.’

‘I made the bridal clothes myself,’ said Flora, with a brilliant smile (although inside, she was a little fearful of the old lady, and of what she might say to the bridegroom).

‘Aye,’ said the grandmother. ‘You always were quick with a needle. Be quick now with the wine-jug, and fetch an old lady a glass of wine to pay for her long journey.’

The bride reluctantly went off in search of wine, and the old woman was left with the selkie. For a moment their eyes met; his as dark as a stormy sea; hers as dark as the hearts of the Folk.

‘Tell, me, do I know you?’ said the selkie at last to the crone.

‘I doubt it,’ said the old lady, ‘although in part, I may be the cause of your current circumstance. If so, I am sorry for it; for to be lucky in love is not always to be equally lucky in marriage. Had I but known that, years ago, I might not have been so quick to pass on the fruits of my experience. Now those fruits are ripening, and I fear their taste will be sour.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said the selkie.

‘Of course not,’ said the grandmother. ‘But I once knew a man of your kind. A traveller on the blue salt road. Handsome he was, like you, and lost; and like you, soon to be wedded. In tears he was summoned, salt as the sea. In silver was his binding. In blood and betrayal, his calling he found. In cedar his salvation.’

The selkie looked at her eagerly, having understood nothing but the fact that the old woman knew a man of his kind. ‘Did he tell you from what land he came? Did he tell you the name of his clan?’

The old woman shook her head. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘And I am old and forgetful. But remember the old adage, young man. They don’t call it “wedlock” for nothing.’

The bride came back at that moment, bearing an earthenware pitcher of wine, and looked sharply at the grandmother. ‘My grandmother likes to tell stories,’ she said. ‘She has more tales in her head than wit. Do not heed her foolish words, but dance with me, for are we not the happiest folk of all the islands?’ And she swept the selkie away into the throng of revellers, and left the old lady to her thoughts, which were as deep as the open sea, and as cold as midwinter.

Three

Weeks passed, and winter clenched its white fist on the islands. Folk stayed in their houses as snow fell as high as the windows. There was no fishing to be had, except through the ice in the harbour; and the fishing-boats were in dry dock lest the ice crush their hulls to pieces.

The long winter night had already brought thirty days of darkness. The stars shone at noon, and the Northlights drew their green curtain over the sea. The seals had moved south to their feeding-grounds; the birds had flown to follow the sun. But the selkie remained; perpetually cold in spite of his layers of clothing; fingers numb; teeth clenched; sleepless and hungry and miserable. He hated the gunnerman’s house, although his hearth was warm and welcoming; and in spite of the cold, would often roam in the blue false dawn, outside in the fallen snow, or on the beach, where the wind screamed at the sea like an angry woman.

The selkie could stay there for hours, shivering, but strangely at ease, though he often found himself close to tears at the sight of an osprey in flight, or a barrel jellyfish cast up on the frozen beach. Once or twice by the seashore, he thought he saw the round head of a grey seal bobbing up between the waves; but the Grey Seals were gone to warmer climes, and besides, the animal was always gone before he could be sure of what he had seen.

As for Flora, she stayed indoors, making clothes for her unborn child, using the white skins of baby seals killed by her father on his last trip around the skerries. The passion that had driven her into the selkie’s arms had waned, to be replaced by a different sensation. Her thoughts were all for the child now growing in her belly: and even on her wedding-night, when the selkie had shyly attempted to interest her in lovemaking, she had turned away from him, saying: ‘Not with a baby on the way.’ A half-truth perhaps, but kinder than telling him that he had changed, and that his tentative approach did nothing to kindle her desire. The real truth was that Coigreach McGill, though passable husband material, had none of the wildness and energy of a nameless selkie. They lay together side-by-side, no longer as lovers, but as friends, and when the selkie moaned in his sleep, Flora would comfort him like a child, and whisper reassurances, and tell herself that it was because this new life was still strange to him, and that he would soon adjust to it.

Besides, for the first time in her life, Flora was truly happy. The child in her belly was nearly half-grown, and she had no doubt that it would be a son. Already she could feel his presence; his hunger; his eagerness. Already she knew that he would be dark, with his father’s seal-brown eyes. And already she felt a love for him that she had never known before; a love that eclipsed everything else. She, who had been hard and proud, now felt a new softness inside her; and she wondered at the change in herself.

‘I wonder,’ she thought, ‘what my son will become? A sailor? A soldier? A gunnerman?’ But none of these seemed appropriate for the child of Flora McGill. Her child was born for greater things. Her child would see the world, travel far, live long, have marvellous adventures. Why else would she feel this way? Why else would she have gone to the sea to catch herself a selkie?

Four

John McCraiceann, the gunnerman, had tried to warm to his son-in-law. But the selkie had found it hard to suppress his dislike of Flora’s father. Perhaps it was the smell of rum and death that seemed to cling to the gunnerman; or the eager way he spoke of his love of hunting.

‘As soon as this ice melts, we’ll sail again,’ he would say to the selkie. ‘You’ll soon learn, there’s nothing finer or nobler than life aboard a whaler. The sting of the spray, the roar of the sea, the humpback whale in his death throes, churning the sea into a cauldron of blood, and the warm red rain a-falling.’

‘Noble? Fine?’ said the selkie, trying vainly to hide his disgust.

The gunnerman laughed. ‘You’re squeamish,’ he said. ‘I understand. But there’s a beauty to the whaling life, once you get accustomed to it. There’s beauty, and danger, and freedom – freedom like you’ve never known. And the enemy is a worthy foe, leading us on a desperate dance between the cheerless skerries. There are grey seals as big as a man, with teeth like those of a timber wolf; and they are wild and mettlesome, and fierce in defence of their young.’

‘I daresay you would be, in their place,’ said the selkie.

The gunnerman laughed. ‘They’re animals. Wild animals. On Sule Skerry a twelvemonth ago, I saw a man fall to a bitch seal who tore him apart the way a child might tear a rag doll asunder. And there are worse things than seals out there—’ The gunnerman’s voice grew fierce and low. ‘For those skerries are home to the selkie; creatures that look like seals by day, but by night take the form of human beings and walk among our folk unseen. Some say they’re a legend, but I know they’re among us: seducing our women; corrupting our men; cursed, Godless and vicious.’

The selkie listened intently to this description of his people. Of course, he had no memory of his life with the Grey Seal clan; and yet he knew in his heart that the tale was true. The selkie were real. They existed. He felt a sudden sadness mixed with a strange excitement, imagining the seal folk; free and fierce and wild as the waves.

He said: ‘Then how can you know if a seal you killed was an ordinary seal, or one of these selkie you speak of?’

The gunnerman said: ‘You can’t know for sure. But sometimes there’s something in the eyes. And if you see it, strike first, and strike fast. Those animals would strip your hide just as fast as you’d take theirs; and how could I ever face Flora again, knowing I didn’t save you?’

The gunnerman laughed, but the selkie did not. And that night, as he lay in bed, he dreamed of swimming in the sea, and in his dream he did not feel the cold, but was strong, and powerful, and free. And at his side another swam; a Grey Seal, sleek and beautiful. And the Grey Seal sang to him in a voice that seemed to fill the emptiness inside him as nothing else had before: and in his dream he understood the words the Grey Seal sang:

We who once were kings and queens

A-begging now we go

Among the fields of ocean green

And in the burning snow.

In borrowed skin and borrowed clothes

We frolic and make merry,

Beggars on the blue salt road,

The salt road to Sule Skerry.

Five

Time passed; and the winter waned, and the sun returned to the islands. Slowly the snow began to melt, and the grip of the ice over the sea began to break, until finally the gunnerman announced that the Kraken was due to set sail for a three-month tour of the skerries.

‘For when the seals come north again,’ he said, ‘they are fat and ready to breed; and their pelts are glossy and winter-thick, and will fetch a high price at the market.’ He looked hard at the selkie and said: ‘And if you are to have a home of your own, and support your wife and family, you will need to work as I do, and bring home skins, and oil, whalebone and walrus ivory.’

The selkie knew the gunner was right. But though his father-in-law was impatient to see him join the Kraken’s crew, Flora was not as eager. One night, when she thought he was asleep, the selkie overheard her arguing with her parents.

‘Why must he go to sea so soon?’ she said. ‘Why not wait till the child is born?’

‘The boy must learn to be a man,’ said the voice of the gunnerman. ‘Besides, he needs to earn his keep. How else can he care for his family?’

Flora’s voice was plaintive. ‘Surely there are other jobs more suited to his character?’

Now came the sharp voice of the mother-in-law. ‘Your father went to sea,’ she said, ‘as did his father before him. Why should your man be different?’

‘Because he’s mine,’ said Flora.

The mother-in-law laughed at that. ‘Let him choose his way,’ she said. ‘You can’t keep him here for ever.’

This was true, the selkie thought. However much he might dislike the thought of being on a whaling-ship, the call of the open sea was strong, and he could not face another winter living with his parents-in-law. Flora’s belly was growing round. The child would be born by May-Day. Time enough for him to return with gold enough to pay his way. Time enough for you to escape, said a dry voice in his mind, and although the selkie did not know to whom the voice belonged, it held enough authority for him to believe it spoke the truth. But – escape? He was not a prisoner. He was with the woman he loved, who was carrying his child. Agreed, he had lost his memory, but what kind of life had he had before that? And what kind of man leaves his wife and child for the sake of a few dreams?

‘What are these dreams?’ said Flora, one night as the selkie lay sleepless, afraid to close his eyes and shivering in the darkness.

‘I dream of the sea,’ said the selkie. ‘But in my dream, I am not myself, nor am I alone.’ Flora seemed to stiffen at this. ‘Who else is with you, then?’ she said.

‘I do not know,’ said the selkie. ‘But she and I swim together, with no fear of the hunter’s lance. And in my dream I understand the language of the ocean, and it calls to me in a voice so sad that it almost breaks my heart.’

‘Your heart?’ said Flora. ‘Your heart belongs to me, and to our unborn child.’

‘I know,’ said the selkie. ‘But in my dreams—’

‘Enough of your dreams,’ said Flora. And turning away, she pretended to sleep, and the rest of the night passed in silence.

And so on the day of the Wolf Moon, the selkie prepared to board the Kraken, along with John McCraiceann and the rest of the whaler’s crew. A sixty-foot sloop, with two whaleboats and a crew of twenty-one, including the gunnerman himself. The Captain and his first mate had cabins over the main deck, and the selkie bunked with the rest of the men, deep in the belly of the ship.

To his surprise the selkie found the gunnerman was unexpectedly popular among the crew. All the men respected him, and wanted to meet his new son-in-law. The selkie suddenly found himself surrounded by curious faces. Everyone wanted to shake his hand; to buy him a drink; to be his friend. The gunnerman had already spoken of the comradeship of his fellow-crew members, but the selkie had not expected such a demonstration of warmth, and for the first time, he began to believe that maybe this trip would prove less of an ordeal than he had feared.

They set off from the harbour at dawn, one chilly morning in February. The selkie remained with the gunnerman, who had promised the Captain to train him, and they set sail northwards into the mists to the hunting-grounds of the islanders. The selkie came to realize that his was a privileged status: as an apprentice gunner (but most of all as John McCraiceann’s son-in-law), he was entitled to greater respect; improved rations; an extra blanket on his bunk. With these privileges came a sense of expectation: an understanding that he would be an asset to the crew. The selkie was uncertain – he still felt sick at the thought of killing a whale – but the gunnerman seemed confident that he would acquit himself like a man. And so the Kraken sailed north; and although the selkie missed the security of his life with Flora, he found he was happier than at any time over the past five months, although he was unable to say what it was that had changed in him.

The northernmost islands cover a span of around three hundred miles. There are seventeen larger islands in the archipelago, clustered into three main groups, the nearest of which lies thirty miles or thereabouts from the mainland. Beyond that, and spread out to the north, there are the skerries; bleak outcrops of rock, inhabited only by sea-birds and seals, and of course, the selkie.

All these skerries have names, although the selkie seldom use them. The Folk of the sea have no use for names, or for the ownership they imply. Selkie have no possessions, no understanding of property. But the Folk give names to everything: every road; every village and town; every rocky outcrop. Rivers have names; and lakes; and seas; and everything that lives therein. Thus the Folk manage to fool themselves into thinking that they are the masters of everything.

Of course, the selkie knew nothing but the name of their destination. Sule Skerry was only a mouthful of sounds to him, without any deeper meaning. But as the Kraken left the coast of the island and made for the open sea, the selkie was conscious of a growing sense of both familiarity and of nostalgia.

‘I have been here before,’ he thought, as he watched from his place on the deck. ‘This is a road I have travelled, in the days when I had my memory.’

It was a surprisingly powerful thought. His memory was there, he knew; submerged like the wreck of some great ship; half-buried in the ocean floor; its broken masts draped with great dark ragged swags of weed: rainbow wrack and sugar kelp and dead man’s bootlaces. If only he could see it through the fathoms of green water! But try as he might, the selkie could not; and the Kraken sailed on regardless.

Life aboard the ship was hard, and the work was heavy and exhausting. The selkie’s hands bled from the hempen ropes, but in spite of that and the cramped conditions, he slept better at sea than he ever had on land, and dreamed of swaying forests of weed, and shimmering curtains of herring. Other men suffered from seasickness, but the selkie felt far more secure on the rolling deck of the ship than he ever had on shore. And though the rest of the crew complained about the rations aboard the ship, the selkie preferred the dry salt fish and hard biscuit to the greasy stews of whalemeat and seal prepared so lovingly by his wife.

‘You’re a natural,’ said the gunnerman. ‘Steady on deck as you are on land. Stay close to me, and watch what I do, and you’ll soon be as skilled as I am.’

By then, they had been six days at sea, with little chance of hunting. But on the seventh day the lookout spotted a pod of pilot whales to starboard; the order was given; the whaleboats lowered, and at last, the hunt began.

Part 3

I am a man upon the land.

I am a silkie in the sea,

And when I’m far frae every strand,

My home it is in Sule Skerry.

The Child Ballads, no. 113

One

In spite of the matriarch’s warnings, the wilful girl of the Grey Seal clan had gone in pursuit of the Kraken. It was she who had sung to the selkie in his dreams; she whom he had glimpsed from the beach. From her refuge under the waves, she had watched him, and grieved for him still, and hoped that something would happen to help restore his memory. But nothing – not even an ocean voyage – would serve to recover his sense of self as long as the stolen sealskin was kept safe in the cedar chest.

Now she watched as two whaleboats were lowered from the Kraken’s side: each suspended by its belly-strap and hanging from its davits, each with its crew of six oarsmen. Each boat was thirty feet in length, and painted primrose-yellow. Each one carried lances, and fluke-spades, and two great tubs of hempen rope, with a piggin of water set by in case the line began to smoke as it unspooled in the wake of the stricken whale.

The selkie was in the second boat, but although she tried to catch his eye, he was too preoccupied with the hunt to pay her any attention. And so she observed the scene from afar, taking care to stay well away from the boats. Whale was their quarry today, she knew; but another day it might easily be seal, or shark, or dolphin. The Folk were vicious, she knew: and while the selkie was under their spell, he was capable of anything.

The pilot whale is not a true whale, but one of the dolphin family. They are playful creatures and often gather around ships, which makes them easy prey for the Folk, who value them for their meat and oil. These pilot whales were on their way to their feeding-grounds north of the islands; a group of some four or five families, with youngsters in tow and the great matriarch of the clan bringing up the rear.

The whaleboats were light and manoeuvrable, each with its mast and single sail, and the long oars speeding its progress. The gunner rode, lance poised, on the bow of his boat, while the oarsmen moved into position, manning the oars, and ready to manoeuvre the craft into just the right position for the gunner to strike. The second boat moved to head off the pod and to drive the creatures towards them.

The sun was in the selkie’s eyes as the boat moved forward. Bright spray shot up from the bows, filling the air with diamonds. The salt of his sweat and the salt of the sea were indistinguishable, and the song of the pilot whales reached him over the sound of the wind, so like something he might once have dreamed and, waking, half-forgotten. Of course the selkie no longer knew the language of the pilot whales, but to him they sounded both merry and sad; their voices like the voice of the sea. He longed to call to them – Dive! Dive! – but he said nothing, and watched, and was frozen.

Pilot whales are curious, and instead of moving away from the boats, circled around to investigate. The selkie was silent in horror, but the gunner seemed unmoved. Instead he turned to the selkie, and held out the lance to him and said: ‘Hold it, boy, and strike at my word.’

The selkie said nothing, and did not move. For a second the point of the gunnerman’s lance shone between them like ice in the sun.

‘What’s wrong, man?’

The selkie shook his head. ‘I cannot.’

The gunner watched him a moment more, then turned away, saying: ‘Watch what I do. Next time you will be better prepared.’

The pilot whales were closer now; their curious eyes on the men in the boat. One in particular was close; a young adult male that swam playfully under and around the boat.

Waiting his moment, the gunnerman aimed; he struck; and then the sea was white and red and thrashing with activity. The yellow whaleboat heaved and lurched and rocked as the stricken whale tried to escape; but the lance had gone into its spine, and the creature was dying. It gave a long, deep sigh from its blowhole, spouting blood rain into the air. The blood was warm, and fine as mist, and it covered the men in the whaleboat in a sheet of scarlet. For a moment the mournful brown eyes of the whale met the eyes of the selkie, and for an instant the selkie thought he saw a look of recognition—

And then there was no time to do anything but follow orders; to bring up the oars; to attach the float to the dead whale, and to pursue the rest of the pod as at last – too late, too late – they understood the danger.

The men took four whales that morning. A good catch, said the Captain: and between the flensing of the skin, and the rendering of the oil in the whaler’s copper try-pots, and the salting of the flesh for storing and sale in harbour, the men were all kept busy for the rest of the day. The selkie did what he was told in a kind of bubble: soundless, nerveless and numb. That evening, as the rest of the crew celebrated the day’s catch with singing and rum and merriment, he fled sickly to his straw bed, and tried to sleep, and could not; then tried not to awaken, and could not.

The gunnerman was patient, although his dark eyes showed anger. Once more he told the selkie: ‘I was like you, when I was still green. I thought the whales were calling me. I thought I heard their voices at night. But I soon learned, and you will too, that we are masters of the sea. Its creatures feed and serve us. It has always been this way. The king of the blue salt road does not concern himself with the beggars.’

The selkie looked at him with surprise. Something about that phrase had awakened a fleeting memory in him. Maybe something the old woman had said, on the night of his wedding – the old woman who had seemed to know something about his people. That night he had been too confused to pay attention to her words: and in the morning she had gone, taking her secrets with her.

His mind went back to what she had said. The selkie remembered it clearly now. It sounded almost like poetry:

In tears he was summoned, salt as the sea,

In silver was his binding.

In blood and betrayal, his calling he found.

In cedar, his salvation.

‘Is this ship made of cedarwood?’ the selkie asked the gunnerman.

The gunner looked puzzled. ‘Not that I know of. Our ships are made of mainland oak; weatherproof and sturdy. Why?’

The selkie shrugged. ‘No reason,’ he said. ‘Maybe it was something I dreamed.’

Two

They sold their kill the following day at the port of a neighbouring island. The Kraken was not a large enough ship to carry all their takings, and so they sold the meat while it was fresh, and moved north towards the outer skerries, where the ice was still melting. The bigger whales – the humpback, the bowhead – could sometimes be caught against the ice: and the walrus and seal would be easy prey, stranded; surrounded by hunters.

The selkie did not follow the rest of the crew on shore. He stayed on board the Kraken, silently watching from the bows as the Folk came and went. He felt no connection to these men, who talked and drank and laughed and swore; when only twenty-four hours ago they had murdered four gentle, intelligent creatures. Only John McCraiceann, the gunnerman, seemed aware of his trouble, but offered no comfort, simply repeating what he had said: that the selkie would soon get accustomed to it.

‘You need to make a kill, boy. It’s the only way you’ll get over it. You’ve seen me at work. Your balance is good. There’s no reason you shouldn’t soon be as skilled as I am with a lance. And once you’ve tasted the joy of the kill—’ at this the selkie closed his eyes ‘—then you’ll be a hunter – a man – and you’ll have no more of these womanish doubts.’

But as the journey north went on, the selkie’s doubts only increased. Three weeks out, and the Kraken had taken two more pilots and four basking sharks – three adults and a juvenile – and both times, the selkie had found himself unable to make the kill. Both times, the gunner had covered for him, leaving him the job of dealing with the carcasses, which the men stripped and boiled down for oil in the same copper try-pots they had used before. It was a sickening task: and yet the selkie preferred it to the company of the men. Alone, he did not need to disguise his loathing of their cargo. Alone, he could hide away and mourn, without attracting the attention of the other crewmen.

Whale oil is better than shark oil, he learned. But the oil of one of the larger whales was better than that of an orca or pilot whale. The finest grade of oil could only be taken from the humpback, the bowhead, the sperm, the baleen, which could only be found in the colder waters, close to the frill of ice that clung to the northernmost skerries. The selkie could only shiver at the thought of killing one of these creatures – creatures that lived for hundreds of years; that sang to him from the open sea – and even though he avoided them, the other crewmen sensed his disgust, and looked at him with unspoken contempt.

‘Next time, you must use the lance,’ the gunner told him urgently. ‘I will show you where to strike. And afterwards, you’ll be one of us, and the other men will respect you again. You started out so well,’ he went on. ‘You seemed to be taking well to the life of a seaman. But these airs and graces you give yourself – as if you thought you were better than they. Whalers are a clan, boy. This is no way to be part of it.’

The selkie had never felt more alone, or less inclined to belong to a clan. But the gunner insisted, saying to him: ‘The men don’t like, or trust you, boy. They think you are arrogant and aloof. You never laugh or drink with them, or share in their conversations. Worse yet, you’ve not made a kill. They’re starting to say you’re a clocker.’

‘A clocker?’ said the selkie.

‘Aye,’ said the gunner. ‘A hoodie-claw. A clocker, a slippie, a pickmaw. Bad luck is what it means, and when a man starts to be bad luck, the rest of the crew knows what to do. You’d better do as I say, boy, and try to fit in with the rest of the men; or you’ll soon find yourself in trouble.’

‘What trouble?’ said the selkie.

The gunner looked at him closely. ‘I once knew a man,’ he said at last. ‘A bad-luck man, a clocker who thought he was better than those around him. Too grand to drink with the other men: too fine to dirty his hands like the rest. One night, they dragged him from his bunk, and stripped him, and tied him hand and foot: and then they hauled him in chains around the keel, so that he was all ripped and blooded. The Captain turned a blind eye. He knew not to intervene. Men of the islands know what to do with a man who doesn’t want to fit in. Mark my words: you want to fit in. I say this to you for my daughter’s sake, and for the sake of her unborn son.’

The selkie considered the gunner’s words. Although he sensed no affection there, the man had always been kind to him. And he was right: his new bride was waiting for him at home, and he needed to learn a trade to help support his family. His memory might never return. And even if it did, he had a greater responsibility.

And so, that night, instead of going to sleep as soon as his duties allowed him, he stayed awake with the other men, and drank himself into a stupor, and laughed at jokes he did not understand, and applauded tales of slaughter, and finally awoke at dawn with a parched throat and a headache to the sound of the lookout calling:

‘Blows! Blooooows!’

Three

It was a pod of bowhead whales; two adults and a juvenile. The bowhead is a gentle creature, but can be fierce in defence of its young. The Kraken had entered cold waters by then: though not cold enough to ensure that the whales could be trapped against the creeping ice. The cry went out: and the selkie, still dazed from the after-effects of too much island whisky, found himself being slapped awake and dragged along by the gunnerman towards the Kraken’s whaling-boats, which were ready to drop into the sea as soon as the Captain gave the word.

The gunnerman looked at the selkie. ‘Now’s your chance, boy,’ he told him. ‘Ride behind me till I give the word, and I’ll show you where to strike.’

The gunnerman took his place in the bows, with the selkie sitting behind him. The whaleboat hit the waves with a great salt smack of water, showering the crewmen. The spray turned to salty sleet as it fell; it stung the selkie’s face like hail, and his heart was afraid as they started to row towards the pod of bowhead whales. The creatures, sensing danger, veered away into the path of the second whaleboat, and for a moment the selkie was sure that they, not he, would make the kill. But the juvenile was slow. Passing between the whaling-boats, it hesitated, breaching and breasting the wave and lashing its large flat tail in distress. Then it turned from the second boat and made straight for the one in which the selkie and the gunnerman were waiting.

Even a juvenile bowhead whale can put a whaleboat in danger. The creature heading for their boat was over ten times as heavy. The selkie saw its eye roll as it slipped into the wave: then it was under the surface, and he could see its smooth dark hide, all filigreed with barnacles, like a great rock in the shallows, but moving at tremendous speed.

The gunner cried out: ‘Put up the oars!’

The men at the oars stopped rowing and lifted the oars from the water. Below, the great grey hide of the whale, moving fast underneath them. It grazed the keel, and the selkie heard a sound from the men, a long, soft sigh of fear and anticipation.

The gunnerman turned to the selkie. ‘It means to come up under the keel: to use its tail to capsize us. When I give you the word, boy, strike exactly where I tell you.’

The selkie shook his head as the man held out the lance for him to take.

The gunnerman lowered his voice. ‘You must. The men are watching. You must make a kill today, or suffer the consequences.’

The selkie took the lance. It was attached to a spring mechanism, coiled tightly against the bow. The end of the lance was attached to a rope. The point was steel, and deadly.

‘Await my call,’ said the gunnerman. His voice was low and tender. The selkie thought he had never seen the man look so happy, or so intent. The joy of the hunt was on him now: his eyes were pinned with strange fire.

In silence they waited, all of them. The men at the oars said never a word. Their breathing was hushed; their faces pale.

Underneath the little boat, the whale seemed to go on for ever. Deeper and deeper it went, until it was barely visible any more, except as a shadow under the boat, deep and dark and threatening. Then it began to resurface fast. The gunner was right, the selkie thought. It meant to come up under them. If it did, it would lift the boat and smash it with its powerful tail. The crewmen – if they did not drown – would be at its mercy. And yet the selkie was not afraid. Instead, he felt a kind of hope; a kind of exhilaration.

Save yourself, he told the whale. Swim, and keep on swimming. Every muscle tensed and taut, he watched, the lance forgotten. From under the water, he could hear the voices of the bowhead whales calling to their lost child; it sounded like singing.

The gunner turned to the selkie as the whale neared the surface. ‘There’s a place behind its ear,’ he told the selkie quietly. ‘You’ll see it just for a moment, boy: and when you do, that’s where you’ll strike. Strike fast and strike hard, and then it will be over: and afterwards we’ll all be rich, and you will be a gunnerman.’

The selkie felt his heart beat even faster than before. His eyes were filled with sea spray; his arms ached from holding the lance. And then the whale surfaced; the gunnerman cried: ‘Now! Shoot!’ and the selkie made his shot: but he did not aim for the spot by the ear that the gunner had described. Instead he closed his eyes and let the lance fly just a shade too soon: it missed the bowhead’s neck and flew free, shooting out the coil of rope with a rattling like Lord Death’s carriage on its way to Netherworld.

There came a cry from the throats of the men like that of a many-voiced animal. ‘To the oars!’ cried the gunner, and suddenly everyone was working to move the yellow whaleboat out of range before the angry whale could strike.

The selkie watched with a mixture of fear and exhilaration. A single blow of the bowhead’s tail could smash the boat to driftwood, and yet he was glad he had missed his shot, whatever it meant for him, or the crew.

The second whaleboat was moving in, hoping to correct the mistake made by the first, but the oars became snarled in the rope from the lance, and in the confusion and dismay, the whale passed under the two boats, and with a final heave, brought the flat of its tail crashing down, not onto the selkie’s boat, but on the one that had come in to help, smashing the bows down into the wave and spilling the oarsmen like skák tafl pieces. Then it dived: more deeply this time, and the selkie heard its distant song, plaintive and eerie beneath the waves.

There was no time for the gunnerman to reprimand his son-in-law. The men in the water were seconds from death, and the crew of the surviving whaleboat were too preoccupied in saving lives and in salvaging equipment to comment on his failure. But the selkie knew from the sullen looks and hunched shoulders as they turned away from him that they had judged him wanting. A bowhead whale might have brought the men a hundred barrels of oil or more – a top-grade oil at six shillings a barrel; enough to earn them a tidy bonus, all of it lost along with the boat due to the selkie’s carelessness.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said to the gunnerman as they rowed back to the Kraken. ‘I must have been too hasty when I tried to take the shot.’

The gunnerman said nothing. His eyes, as dark as the ocean, shone, and they rowed back in silence.

Four

The Captain had watched the incident from his place on the deck of the ship. Through his spyglass, he had seen the selkie miss his target; he had noted the gunnerman’s rage and surprise, and the loss of the second whaleboat. None of this pleased him; and his face was dark as the men came back aboard.

Addressing the gunnerman, he said: ‘What went wrong?’

The gunnerman looked at the selkie, who waited for him to say that he had made a mistake born from inexperience; that he had overshot the mark in his eagerness to strike. But the gunnerman said nothing. Instead he looked out to sea, where the wreck of the second whaleboat was still afloat, in pieces on the spreading foam.

The Captain assumed a stern look. ‘I asked a question, McCraiceann.’

Now the gunnerman looked at him. His eyes were dark and unreadable.

‘I gave McGill the lance,’ he said. ‘I told him exactly where to strike. But instead of following orders, he aimed over the monster’s head, and put men’s lives at risk, as well as losing our chance at the whale, and a whaleboat, and all its equipment.’

The Captain addressed the rest of the crew. ‘Is this a true account?’ he said.

The men exchanged looks. ‘Aye, it is,’ said one.

‘’Twas insubordination, you say?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘And do you all say so?’

‘Aye, sir.’

The Captain shrugged. ‘Then you know what to do. Fifty lashes, a night in the brig, and all his pay as forfeit.’

And so they seized the selkie fast and stripped him to the waist, and lashed him to the Kraken’s mainmast, while the gunnerman fetched a knotted rope to carry out the punishment.

The selkie was puzzled and afraid. Why had the gunner not spoken for him? It would have been easy to say that, in the noise and confusion, there had simply been a mistake. But he had not done so. Why?

‘You fool,’ said the gunnerman. His voice was barely a whisper, just loud enough for the selkie to catch without the other men hearing. ‘Why didn’t you do as I said? Now you’re to be flogged, or risk a worse fate from the rest of the crew.’ And, using the knotted rope, and to roars of approval from the men, he dealt out a summary justice that left the selkie bruised and bleeding.

After that they cut him loose and locked him in the Kraken’s brig; a cage, suspended from the stern and open to the elements. There they left him; shivering and raw as a newborn in the spray.

It was the longest night of his life. Everything hurt; his head was sore; his body felt grazed all over. And the cold, the dreadful cold that made him ache and hurt from within, as if every nerve were sobbing with a grief that could never be mended. And now the selkie understood that he would never be part of the whalers’ clan; never again be respected, or welcomed into their community. There would be no more extra blankets, no more gunnerman’s rations for him. He had squandered his chance – worse yet, he had put his crewmates at risk – and yet he felt no regret or shame for saving the bowhead whale.

‘I would do it again,’ he said to himself, through chattering teeth. ‘I would do it ten times again. I would see every man on board drowned before I lifted a finger. Am I a monster? Surely, only a monster would betray his kind as I have done.’

The brig was too small for him to move, or to take any kind of shelter, and so every time a wave hit the side he was lashed and stung and soaked to the skin with icy spray, until at last in his weakness and pain, he wept: and his tears fell through the bars of the cage and into the sea below him.

Five tears into the ocean.

Part 4

‘It was na weel,’ the maiden cried,

‘It was na weel, indeed,’ quoth she,

‘For the Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie

To hae come and aught a bairn to me!’

The Child Ballads, no. 113

One

Meanwhile, the girl of the Grey Seal clan had followed the Kraken and watched its crew. She had seen the pilot whales; the basking sharks; the selkie’s refusal to make a kill. Now she watched as he lay in the brig, abandoned by the gunnerman and all the rest of his human friends. And as the selkie’s tears fell through the bars into the ocean, she responded to their call, as the selkie always do.

Leaving her sealskin to take human form, she looked up at the Kraken’s deck. The sea was very cold, and she shivered in her human skin, but her loyalty and concern for her friend gave her courage to go on. There was a watchman on the bows; but he looked slow and lazy. By keeping to the shadows, she thought she could avoid being seen.

She tied her sealskin to the stern of the ship, and, quickly and very quietly, climbed a trailing grapnel and made her way to the iron cage in which the selkie was imprisoned.

For a moment the selkie did not know whether he was awake or asleep. He saw a beautiful woman kneeling naked on the deck; the light from the moon through the clouds casting stripes of silver shadow on her skin. The woman’s features were broad and strong: her hair as thick and dark as his own; and on her arms and belly he saw marks like his own tattoos; mystic spirals, curling waves; patterns like those on a sea-turtle’s shell.

The woman put her hand to his lips to stop him from crying out in surprise. And then she put her mouth to his ear and sang to him in the voice of the sea, a voice that trembled a little with cold, and yet that he recognized at once:

We who once were kings and queens

A-begging now we go

Among the fields of ocean green

And in the burning snow.

In borrowed skin and borrowed clothes

We frolic and make merry

Beggars on the blue salt road,

The salt road to Sule Skerry.

It was a song he had heard before, the song of the Grey Seal in his dream. But this time, he was wide awake, and he knew that the woman and the seal were one and the same; one of the selkie the gunnerman had told him were his enemies. But the beautiful woman did not look or sound like an enemy. She looked like him, he realized, and with a heavy slowness, like the tumblers of a giant lock falling into place, the selkie started to understand a part of what had been done to him.

‘Do you know me?’ he whispered.

The girl of the Grey Seal nodded.

‘Are you from my other life, the one I have forgotten?’

She nodded again, and said to him: ‘But you did not forget it; rather, it was stolen from you.’ And whispering through chattering teeth she told him the tale of the sealskin, and how his wife had taken it, and with it all his memories of his clan and his life in the sea.

The selkie listened; first eagerly, with joy, and then in fierce and growing anger. He saw now how cruelly he had been tricked; how he had been made to eat of the flesh of the seal; and how close he had come to killing those who, in his true life, had been his friends. He saw how he had been made to be grateful to those who had enslaved him; how he had been taught to blame himself for his dislike of their customs; how he had been made to believe that his own people were monsters.

‘Where is the sealskin?’ he said at last.

‘Your skin is kept in a cedar chest,’ whispered the girl of the Grey Seal clan. ‘Your wife keeps the key on a chain around her neck.’

Then the selkie’s mind went back to the day of his wedding: to the grandmother’s warning, and to the song his mother-in-law had sung as she danced:

Three cheers for the bride and the bridegroom!

Three cheers for the folk of the sea!

And three cheers for the bridal chest,

That was the maid’s only dowry!

Now it made sense, the selkie thought; the loss of his memory, the cold that would never leave him; his lack of appetite; his sense of disconnection with the world. And through all of it, Flora, her mother and the grandmother, watching him and smiling—

‘They knew,’ the selkie said aloud. ‘Maiden, mother and crone, they knew!’

And with his anger there was shame, and sorrow, and a thirst for revenge. If he had been free, instead of locked inside the Kraken’s brig, in that moment he felt as if he could have slaughtered every man on board, and taken their skins, and drunk their blood until his thirst was satisfied. As it was, he pounded his fists against the bars of the brig, and barked and growled like a cornered seal, until the watchman on the bows called out angrily from his post: ‘Hold your tongue, or I’ll silence it!’

The girl of the Grey Seal clan waited until the selkie had exhausted his rage. She was numb with cold now, no longer shivering, but weak: and she knew there was no time to lose. She must regain her selkie skin, or die of the cold.

She whispered: ‘Please. Say nothing more. Let no-one suspect what you know. There is a lighthouse man on Sule Skerry. Every three months he arranges for a ship to deliver provisions. This time, the Kraken will be making the delivery. Arrange to be among the crew of the boat. Try to speak with him alone.’

‘Why?’ asked the selkie. ‘Is he one of us?’

The girl of the Grey Seal clan shook her head. ‘I cannot tell you more,’ she said. ‘His story is not mine to tell. But do as I say, and you may hear it. Till then, be humble, and bide your time, until your sealskin is back in your hands.’

And with that, the Grey Seal girl left the ship and slipped back gratefully into her skin, leaving the selkie wide awake, and in a way that he had never been, not since the day he had found himself stranded on the lonely beach, naked and with no memory.

And next morning, when he returned to the crew, he spoke not a word to anyone, but was humble and obedient, so that even the canny gunnerman believed that he had learnt his lesson, and would cause him no further shame.

Two

The days at sea passed slowly for the impatient selkie. Disgraced by his behaviour on the Kraken’s last whale-hunt he was spared from any further talk of becoming a gunner, but kept to his oar, like the other men, and was given no further attention.

This pleased the selkie, but the gunnerman made no secret of his bitter disappointment. A gunnerman’s role carries status as well as a fatter pay-packet, and he had hoped his son-in-law would prove a worthy successor. The selkie’s betrayal reflected upon the man who had vouched for him with the crew; and the gunner found that he, too, was shunned by those who had been his friends, and that his rations, his bedding and his privileges had also quietly been withdrawn. As a result he barely spoke to his son-in-law, and the contempt in his eyes was clear.

This did not trouble the selkie at all: in fact, he scarcely noticed. Now he knew who and what he was, his hatred for the men on board the Kraken was even stronger than before, and his hatred for John McCraiceann was almost too much for him to bear. The other crewmen sensed this, and gave the selkie a wide berth, but they muttered behind his back that McGill was bad luck; a Jonah; a clocker who shirked his duties and brought malchance upon them all.

Certainly, there had been no more whales since his shameful episode, not even in the waters where the whale population was highest. The Captain promised to double the wage of any man who spotted a bowhead, a sperm or even just a pilot whale, but no-one did, and the Kraken sailed on with only a third of its barrels filled, and half its try-pots empty.

After three days of searching in vain, the Captain gave the command to sail north to a great deal of muttering among the crew, who had expected the haul to be greater and who saw their pay-packet dwindling with every day they spent at sea. They blamed the selkie for this, too – and with cause, for the Grey Seal girl had sent word to all the different whale clans to stay clear of those dangerous waters.

‘Take heart,’ said the Captain. ‘There’s still time for us to earn out our trip. There will be whales in the northern waters, and even if our bad luck endures we can fill the hold with sealskins on our way back home – for there will be seals aplenty once the warmer weather comes.’

And so the Kraken journeyed north, and the girl of the Seal Clan followed it. She knew its destination: everyone knew Sule Skerry. There was a lighthouse built on the rock, run by a single man of the Folk; a man who had lived so long alongside the selkie that he scarcely knew to which race he belonged. This man had a reputation for being surly and anti-social, which made him an excellent lighthouse-man. It was said he had fled there many years ago, suffering from a broken heart, and had forsworn all company save for that of the sea-birds, the passing whales and, it was rumoured, the selkie. Whatever the reason, he never left the skerry, but had his provisions delivered to him, or traded with passing vessels for such luxuries as brandy and beer – as well as cheese and books, for which he had a voracious appetite.

The skerries were a well-known nesting-place for petrels, puffins and gannets, and there were colonies of seals and walruses that lived there mostly undisturbed. Whales and porpoises were plentiful, and the shoals of herring shone like a miser’s silver hoard. These things were all worth having, and the Captain meant to have as many as his crew could hunt.

But it was the whale that he coveted most – the bowhead and the sperm whale that lived beyond the skerries, and yielded the finest kind of oil, oil that was valued as highly as gold among the islands. The Kraken’s crew had intended to take as many of these whales as they could; to strip down the carcasses; take out the oil and store the barrels away below deck before returning home to sell them at the highest price they could. This had been the plan, at least until the selkie had lost them their second whaleboat, and now their chance of making a kill had been reduced by fifty per cent, and the Captain’s face was grim as they sailed through the usually fruitful waters.

The crew, too, muttered in protest. ‘’Twas bad luck to take McGill,’ they said. ‘A man with no family, no clan; a stranger to our island ways. We should have known not to trust him. We should have thrown him overboard!’

The selkie said nothing, but bided his time, and thought of the songs of the Grey Seals, and of the tribe that he had left.

‘When I have my sealskin,’ he thought to himself as he lay on his bed, ‘I will take back my son from the Folk, and teach him how to ride the wave, and swim with the dolphin and the whale, and hunt the bright shoals of herring. I shall teach my son to hate and mistrust the Folk that live on the land; and never to leave his selkie skin, except to do them mischief.’ He said this to himself every night, as the Kraken sailed further and further north, and his rage, which had been hot, grew cold and hard as mica. And day by day the Kraken sailed north, back into winter darkness; and the girl of the selkie followed it; and whatever followed after, followed silent and unseen.

Three

And now at last, the Kraken reached the outer skerries. Here it was colder than by the coast, and ice floated in the water. Further northwards, there was a mass of ice too thick for the Kraken’s hull to withstand, with walruses and sea-bears roaming the frozen wasteland. Here were islands alive with birds, where nothing grew but lichens and moss and great dark forests of floating weed. Here were kelps and furbelows and dabberlocks and purple claw; and buttonweeds and berry wart and pepper dulse and coxcombs. Here were marvellous caves of ice, where the voice of the winds sang strange harmonies. Here were colonies of seals, and porpoises, and puffins. And here were Northlights that shimmered and shone throughout the long, long winter, like the billowing sails of a great bright ship that sailed across the heavens.

The Kraken dropped anchor by the sheltered side of Sule Skerry, where the lighthouse-man awaited his three-monthly cargo of brandy, beer, cheese and books. These, the Captain said, would be ferried to the shore by a team of four men in the whaling-boat; and payment taken in ivories – whale and walrus and narwhal – which the lighthouse-man had in abundance. No-one knew how he came by them: rumour had it that the lighthouse-man traded with the selkie, but no-one knew for certain. In fact, it was rare for the sailors even to see him. Most of the time they left his goods on a nearby spur of rock, then returned the next morning to collect their payment; for the lighthouse-man was known to be a recluse, and not at all fond of visitors.

The selkie had no trouble ensuring his place aboard the whaleboat. None of the men were in any haste to leave the comfort of their bunks, and when the Captain called for four volunteers to make the drop, all of them said: ‘Let them take McGill. If he falls overboard, it will be no loss to the rest of us.’

The selkie pretended sullenness, but was well pleased to obey the command. Taking his place in the whaling-boat, he found himself flanked by the gunnerman, the Captain’s Mate, and the crewman in charge of the ship’s supplies. All of them were warmly-clad in thick coats, leather gloves, fur hats and boots lined with sealskin, but even so the selkie was colder than he had ever thought possible.

The rest of the crew had gladly remained, playing cards and keeping close to the warm try-pots of whale blubber from which the oil was extracted. But even without the promise of meeting with the lighthouse-man, the selkie was glad to leave the ship. Since he had spoken with the girl of the Grey Seal clan, the company of the other men had grown so oppressive that he longed to be ashore, even for a short time. And so he was glad of the task of helping with the delivery, and now he watched for the lighthouse-man with eager curiosity.

‘We may not see him at all,’ said the Mate, when the selkie asked. ‘The lighthouse-man of Sule Skerry is a strange and complicated man. Not for nothing is he named Sàmhach, the Quiet One. He speaks little, smiles less, and seems to hate all of humankind almost as much as they hate him.’

But when the crew of the whaleboat arrived by the little jetty between the rocks, they found the lighthouse-man already there: a tall and cheerless figure, clad in furs from head to foot, awaiting their arrival. There was a narrow sledge by his side, on which he meant to load his goods and drag them to the lighthouse.

The whaleboat pulled up to the jetty. The selkie leaped out to moor it. He allowed his wolfskin hood to fall away from his face as he did, giving the lighthouse-man a chance to observe his dark skin, his glossy black hair, his features, so very different from those of the other men on the whaler.

The lighthouse-man looked at him keenly. He seemed to be a man of late years, tall and strong and muscular, with long grey hair tied back beneath his hood of fur-lined oilskin. His face was hidden beneath a scarf, but his eyes were as dark as the sea, and as cold. For a moment his gaze fixed on the selkie, and then he spoke in a rusty voice, as if he were unused to everyday speech.

‘My delivery?’ he said.

‘All here,’ said the Mate, indicating the boxes. ‘And our payment?’

‘Here.’ The lighthouse-man gave a curt nod towards the walrus ivories strapped upon the wooden sledge. ‘Take them,’ he said, ‘But lend your man to drag the sledge back to the lighthouse. I’m not as young as I used to be, and the path is steep.’

‘Very well,’ said the Captain’s Mate, with a gesture towards the selkie, who hastened to obey the command.

The lighthouse-man said to the selkie: ‘Follow me, and don’t slip.’ Then he loaded the boxes onto the sledge, and the selkie prepared to drag them across the ice towards the lighthouse which stood on the rock, a finger raised against a sky oppressive as a bank of snow.

The warning was timely: the climb was steep and cobbled with patches of black ice. Underneath, there were lichens, and moss, and coral, and sea ivories that shone beneath the gleaming ice like the Moon Queen’s treasure hoard. The lighthouse-keeper led the way; the selkie pulled the laden sledge, and finally both of them reached the highest part of the skerry.

Here, the lighthouse-man seemed to pause. For a moment he looked at the selkie. Then, he gave a little nod that served both as thanks and dismissal, and prepared to go back inside.

‘Wait!’ said the selkie.

The lighthouse-man turned.

‘When we were by the jetty, it seemed to me that maybe you knew me. Do you know me, lighthouse man? Have you seen my kind before?’

Once more, the selkie showed his face; his seal-brown eyes, his jet-black hair. The lighthouse-man looked at him and shrugged.

‘Aye, perhaps,’ he said at last. ‘Or perhaps you remind me of someone. Your name?’

‘They call me McGill, the stranger’s son. But it is no more my true name than Sàmhach is yours.’

The lighthouse-man gave a thin smile. ‘No matter, son. Go back to your crewmates. You’re young. You’re strong. You have a wife, I’ll wager?’

The selkie nodded.

‘I did, once. A red-haired witch from the islands. Beautiful, and devious as only a girl of the Folk can be. But she betrayed me, and here I am, a traitor to my people.’

The selkie became very still. ‘Go on.’

But the lighthouse-man shook his head. ‘What does that old tale matter now? It was nearly a lifetime ago. What purpose does my knowledge serve, except to torment me? Go back to your woman, your life. Go back to your waking dream. I prefer my solitude, my rock, and the sound of the petrels.’

But the selkie’s heart had begun to beat very fast. ‘What knowledge?’ he said. ‘What do you know? Who was the girl with the red hair? Where is she now?’

The lighthouse-man shrugged. ‘Who knows? That was many years ago. I was young. I gave her a child: my child, whom I loved more than life itself. And my child was christened in the village church, in a robe of finest sealskin, and my woman gave it to me to hold, and I put my hands on the sealskin robe, and I remembered everything.’

The lighthouse-keeper took a breath. ‘They say that the touch of his sealskin may release a selkie from bondage. My wife had cut mine into pieces to make a christening robe for the child, and only my memory was restored, with none of my former powers. And yet, from that moment I knew what my wife and her people had done to me. How they had lured me from my clan, and stolen away my memory. How they had made me betray my people and bound me into servitude. And now my child was theirs to keep, and was named and bound for ever. And so I fled here, to my lonely rock, to live out my days in solitude among the seals and pilot whales, and herring gulls, and dolphins.’

The selkie listened to all this with a heart that was pounding wildly. ‘My wife is with child,’ he said at last.

‘Then pray you get home before the birth,’ replied the lighthouse-keeper. ‘Find your sealskin, wherever it is hid, and return to the selkie with the child. For the babe must be given back to the Sea before it is christened by the Folk; otherwise it will never be free to live with our clan in the ocean, but will belong to their kind, wholly and for ever.’

The selkie stared at the lighthouse-man. ‘How can this be?’

The lighthouse-man smiled; but there was nothing but misery and bitterness in it. ‘It is the way of their women,’ he said. ‘Many’s the time a girl of the Folk has caught herself a husband, and had herself a selkie child, to bring up alongside her kinsmen. But captive selkie are never the same as when they were wild. They yearn for the sea, they hear its voice even though they have forgotten the tongue. They crave the comradeship of a clan, even though theirs is lost to them, and they seek out the company of men hoping, perhaps without knowing it, to escape the tyranny of women. And so their women, unsatisfied, look to the comfort of motherhood, and claim their children for the Folk before the selkie can take them.’

‘Then I must get back before May Day,’ said the selkie, turning pale.

‘That you must,’ said the lighthouse-man. ‘For if your child is named by the Folk, he will never be one of the clan, or hear the voice of the ocean, but will grow up to be a gunnerman, and murder our people for their skins, and die a beggar, when once we were the kings and queens of the blue salt road.’

And at that, his tale told, the lighthouse-man went back into his tower, leaving the selkie to rejoin his crew, still thinking of the lighthouse-man’s tale, and the beautiful woman who led him astray: a woman who would now be old, and with a red-haired child of her own—

But when he reached the shore where the whaleboat and its crew had been, he found both crew and boat gone, and the ship no more than a speck on the bright and beckoning horizon, with the green of the Northlights behind them like sails of phosphorescent silk. The crew had finally tired of the clocker in their midst; and, in the half-hour’s interval between the loading of the lighthouse-man’s sledge and his return to the jetty, the Kraken, the crew and the gunnerman had sailed away without him.

Four

The selkie stood for a long, long time, watching the distant horizon. The Kraken’s sail grew smaller and smaller against the veil of the Northlights, and the sky shifted green, to pink, to gold, and finally to deepest blue.

The selkie watched until the sky became a field of powdery stars, with the silvery blade of the crescent Moon reaping the clouds below them. Then, because he had no choice, and because he was aching with cold, he started once more on the path up to the Sule Skerry lighthouse. Knocking on the oaken door, he waited for the lighthouse-man: but when no answer came, he went in, and looked inside the building.

The lighthouse of Sule Skerry was built from blocks of gleaming grey granite. A spiral staircase led like a spine through several levels of habitation: a storage space; a living space; and finally, the great lantern, surrounded by mirrors, so that the room seemed to burn with cold fire. Here the lighthouse-man sat on a stool, his face no longer obscured by his hood, but clad in a knitted pullover over his sailcloth trousers. He was reading a book, although the selkie, having never learnt to read, could not make out the title.

‘So, they left you behind,’ said the lighthouse-man, as he looked up and saw the selkie. His face in the lamplight was brown and strong-featured, with eyes that were inexpressibly sad, yet seemed to see so very far.

‘I should have guessed,’ he said quietly. ‘The crew must have suspected you. Still, I suppose it could have been worse. They could have thrown you overboard. But sailors are superstitious. Maybe they feared the wrath of the sea. Or maybe they feared that the lighthouse-man, who keeps them safe from the rocks, would know what they had done to one of his own, and let their vessel go aground.’

‘I cannot stay here,’ said the selkie. ‘I must return to claim my child. Surely you have a boat – a fishing-boat, at the very least—’

The lighthouse-man shrugged. ‘Too late,’ he said. ‘I have only a small fishing-boat, made to carry me to and from my fishing-grounds and my lobster-pots. But even if I had a schooner, the Kraken has too much of a start, and will sail into harbour before you. The gunnerman, your father-in-law, will tell his tale to your woman, and she will cut up your sealskin, as my red-haired wife did mine, and baptize your child in the village church, and claim him for her people. This I have seen, and will see again – oh, many times, in my long, long life. It is my curse, my burden to bear, and now it will be yours, too.’

The selkie shook his head fiercely. ‘There must be a way to follow,’ he said. ‘There must be a way off this skerry.’

The lighthouse-man put down his book. His voice was kind, but relentless. ‘There is no way,’ he said, ‘except by the boat that comes here every three months. By then, your child will be one of the Folk, never to swim with the selkie. Let him go; accept your fate; stay here on Sule Skerry. The life of a lighthouse-keeper is not without its consolations. I have a library of books, collected over my years on this rock. I can teach you how to read. I can teach you the language of the seals; the call of the puffin, the razorbill. I am old: one day the lighthouse will need the services of a younger man. You will take my place, in time. You can learn to be content.’

‘Never,’ said the selkie. ‘I will escape from this rock, or die.’ And, pulling on his wolfskin hood, he ran down the stairs, and out of the lighthouse to the shore, where the grey seals played, and stood by the half-frozen sea and called. But he had lost his memory, and along with it, the language of his folk, and the Grey Seals only heard the rage and harshness of his voice, and kept away, until at last, he fell silent, heartsick and despairing. Five tears in the ocean would have summoned them, but the selkie did not know this, and besides, his tears had been consumed in the blaze of his anger.

As for the girl of the selkie, she was unaware that her friend had been left behind on the skerry and she was miles out of earshot, still following the Kraken. The selkie called until his voice was as dry as driftwood, but no-one came; and when at last he turned away, he saw the lighthouse-man, watching him.

‘I told you it was useless,’ he said. ‘Accept your fate, as I have done, and live out your life in exile.’

Fiercely the selkie shook his head. ‘I may have lost my memory. But you have not. You can call them for me.’

The lighthouse-man gave a sour smile. ‘Oh, I can call. But they do not always come to me, for I have damned myself with my foolishness.’

‘Try,’ said the selkie. ‘I beg you, try, so that my child and I can be spared your fate.’

The lighthouse-man sighed. ‘Very well,’ he said. And, in the tongue of the Grey Seal clan, he began to call out for his people.

Five

It was a long and lonely call that rang against the frozen rocks like iron on an anvil. Over and over the lighthouse-man called, until the dawn began to break, cheerless over the cheerless sea. But when the first light skimmed the rock the girl of the selkie, who had heard the call and had understood what had happened, came to them in her Grey Seal guise, and looked at them with soft dark eyes. The selkie listened impatiently as the lighthouse-man spoke to her in the language of the seals, and then she was gone, with a flick of her tail, into the ice-grey water.

‘Well?’ said the selkie impatiently.

The lighthouse-man sighed. ‘She says there is a way,’ he said. ‘But I fear it will be dangerous. The blue salt road is a perilous one: frozen and filled with predators. Better to stay here, in safety, than risk your life for a forlorn hope.’

‘If there is hope, however forlorn,’ said the selkie, ‘I must try.’

Once again, the lighthouse-man sighed. ‘Very well. I will pack as many supplies as I can into my tiny rowing-boat. I shall give you my warmest clothes, and oilskin bags to pack them in. Meet me here in an hour, and you will see the path that you have chosen.’

The selkie did as he was bid, and an hour later, found his friend back where he had left him. Moored by the rocks was a small boat, laden with blankets and bottles and packages wrapped in pieces of oilskin. The boat’s oars were neatly tucked away, and a long coil of hempen rope had been looped over the bow.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ asked the lighthouse-man. ‘I gave you all I could spare, but the journey will be dangerous. And if the boat overturns, the cold will kill you even before you drown, dragged down by the weight of your clothes.’

But the selkie was not listening. Instead he looked at the angry sea, and the white-capped waves, and the floating ice, and beyond the ice, he saw the shape of a bowhead whale – a juvenile – that breached and breasted the soot-grey sea in a manner that he recognized.

‘It is the whale whose life you spared,’ said the lighthouse-man to the selkie. ‘Today, she will repay the debt, and drag your boat as far as she can. After that, you must find your own way. May the gods of the salt road keep you.’

And with that, the lighthouse-keeper turned and went back to his lighthouse; leaving the selkie alone with the whale and the rowing-boat, and the coil of rope. The selkie rowed out to the whale, looped a rope halter between her jaws, settled into the rowing-boat, and prepared himself for a sleigh-ride.

Part 5

It shall come to pass on a summer’s day,

When the sun shines hot on every stone,

That I shall take my little young son,

And teach him for to swim the foam.

The Child Ballads, no. 113

One

The Folk have a name for the moment at which a harpooned whale tries to escape, dragging the whaleboat behind it. They call it a sleigh-ride, and so it seemed to the selkie in his boat; a wild and erratic sleigh-ride down the frozen blue salt road, all strewn with floating pieces of ice, each one capable of smashing the hull of the little boat like kindling.

The selkie had no means of steering, except by shifting his own weight from one side of the boat to the other, and the whale moved fast between the blocks of ice, leaving little time for him to knock them aside with one of the oars. Salt spray lashed his face; the green waves flung up frozen plumes.

The little boat skated and bounced along in the wake of the bowhead whale, sometimes balanced on its keel and sometimes tilting on its side, with the selkie holding on for dear life, and the waves rolling in all around him. His clothes were soon soaked through with spray; his hands, in their wolfskin gloves, ached with the cold, and still the sleigh-ride went on and on with the little boat lifting and pitching behind. The selkie was forced to accommodate as best he could until at last he became used to the rhythms, and found himself more in tune with the whale, anticipating its movements. His nostrils stung with dried salt, his hair was stiff with frozen spray, his fingers screamed with cold, and yet he was strangely happy, in spite of his fear and discomfort.

He realized that his silent friend was not entirely silent: above the perpetual crash of the waves came the melancholy sound of the whale singing to itself. And now, below the little boat, came the sound of other voices; some high, some low, swooping and soaring like strange birds. The rest of the whale clan were watching their child from the quiet, resonant deeps, their voices joining hers in a song as sad as it was beautiful.

Hours passed, the whale’s progress slowed, and the selkie began to see a change in the ocean. The floating ice grew ever more scarce until it had vanished completely: instead, great barrel jellyfish moved through the clear dark water. These jellyfish were no obstacle: the slipstream of the boat moved them on, and they passed in his wake, majestic kings and queens of the Undersea, their soft and graceful bodies ripe and pale as summer peaches.

The selkie slept: and now that the ice was no danger, he dared to trust himself to the whale. Rolling himself in an oilskin under the sheltering stern of the boat, he let its movement take him, and in spite of the cold, he slept, and dreamed of the whales, and of the Undersea, and of the Grey Seals basking. And when he awoke, it was almost night: and the Northlights unfurled above him like a rainbow banner of dreams. The sea had calmed; the air was sweet and the stars came out in gleaming shoals. Below him, the selkie could still hear the singing of the bowhead whales, and as he moved, he seemed to sense the deeps of the ocean calling him in a voice he could almost recognize …

In a parcel in the bow of the boat, he found dried fish, black bread and cheese, and found himself suddenly hungry. He ate his fill, and drank some tea left for him in a flask by the lighthouse-man. Feeling warmer, he slept once more, and when he awoke it was morning.

Two

The following day was calm, and the whale had settled to a more leisurely pace. The little boat still rocked in its wake, but the sleigh-ride was over. The selkie sat under his oilskins, sheltering from the cold spray, ate more of the provisions left for him by the lighthouse-man, and found pleasure in the sounds of the sea: the rush of the wind; the splash of the waves, the distant song of the bowhead whales.

The sun came out from behind the clouds, and its light, though weak, was comforting. The year was beginning to turn at last; and with it, the long cold grip of the North had begun to loosen. A school of dolphins followed the boat, leaping and diving across the bows, scratching a trail of bubbles across the dark green of the ocean. There were great lion’s-mane jellyfish as big as shaggy bales of hay, and small ones, that passed by invisibly, and shining phosphorescent ones that glowed like lanterns in the dark. There were shoals of silver herring and flocks of circling herring-gulls. There were pods of pilot whales, and great gentle basking sharks that glided by in silence. And always, on the rocks and skerries that marked the passage of the boat, there were colonies of seals – grey seals and spotted seals and common seals and harp seals – that nested on the weed-covered rocks or called and swam lazily in their wake. But whether these were the selkie’s folk, or simply the everyday seals of the open sea, it was impossible to know, and the selkie felt a fierce and unexpected grief at the thought that he was so lost to himself that he did not even recognize his own people.

But there was one particular seal who seemed to follow as they moved south. A grey seal, a female with markings that seemed familiar. Was this the girl of the Grey Seal clan, who had come to him on the Kraken? There was no way to be certain, and yet the selkie believed it was, and was comforted by her presence. He began to look for her from his place in the boat, and called to her, though she never came close enough for him to see her properly.

On swam the whale, feeding on herring and mackerel as she moved through the warmer waters. As they travelled south the selkie began to feel a softening in the air; signs that spring was coming. The feeling brought him new hope; a certainty that he would be in time to save his newborn son, regain his true form and return to his clan. And so the days passed; and the little boat drew closer and closer to harbour.

And then, on the eighth day, when his supplies of food and drink were almost exhausted, the selkie saw a familiar shape on the blue horizon. A whaling sloop, with a fore-and-aft sail and a single topsail, it could have been any ship of the Folk; and yet the selkie knew what it was; knew and felt it in every nerve. It was the good ship Kraken, and as the selkie watched in dismay, he heard the familiar cry from the top of her single mast.

‘Blooooooows!’

Three

The lookout had sighted the bowhead whale some moments before the selkie had seen the Kraken’s sail on the skyline. A young whale, moving in a fashion that suggested it might be injured, or sick – for a whale does not travel continuously on the surface of the waves. The lookout had seen the plume of white from the whale’s twin blowholes, and now the selkie watched as the Kraken changed course, heading back in pursuit of them.

At once, he urged the whale onward. But he had forgotten the language of the creatures of the ocean, and his words meant nothing to her. She simply sang her mournful song as the Kraken came closer and closer, until at last, the selkie took his knife and cut the rope that connected the little boat to the whale, and cried: ‘Go! Save yourself, before the whalers come for you!’

The whale must have understood the sound, if not the meaning of his words. For a moment she paused on the surface as the rope halter slipped from between her great jaws. For a moment the selkie saw her eye roll, softly and reproachfully; then she slid beneath the wave, her dark, stocky flank sinking soundlessly in a silver trail of bubbles. The little boat rocked to a standstill, and then was once more at one with the sea; drifting aimlessly with the waves, all its forward momentum lost.

The Kraken came closer; the selkie could see the faces of the men awaiting in readiness; he could smell the bubbling try-pots and the stench of death that clung to the ship. A week at sea had robbed him of his tolerance for that stench, and now he felt the familiar nausea sliding over him. As the whaler approached, he saw that the Kraken had launched its surviving whaleboat, and he saw John McCraiceann, the gunner, watching him from over the bow. The gunnerman’s eyes were narrowed and dark beneath his woollen seaman’s hat, and his face was grim as midwinter as he recognized the selkie.

‘You should have stayed behind,’ he said. ‘You should have stayed with your own kind.’

The selkie looked at him and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, and the gunner recoiled from it. ‘My kind?’

The gunner exchanged glances with the rest of the crew. ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ he said. ‘I have to protect my daughter. I’ll tell her you died bravely, at sea. No-one here will speak of her shame.’

And at that he raised his whaling-lance and levelled it at the selkie.

‘And what of your own?’ the selkie replied. ‘What of your shame, gunnerman?’

During his time at sea, he had had time to consider the lighthouse-man’s words, and those of the grandmother of the clan, and of the girl of the Grey Seal. The scattered pages of a book, a tale in a language he did not know, had finally come together to make a believable story. If he was wrong, then he would die – but his instincts, sharpened by the sea, told him that his suspicions were true, and he smiled once more at the gunnerman, who glared at him over the point of his lance and said: ‘I have no cause for shame, boy. I am proud of who I am.’

‘And who are you?’ said the selkie. ‘Who was your father? What was his clan? And who named you John McCraiceann?’

‘McCraiceann is an old island name,’ said the gunnerman steadily.

‘And what does it mean, in the island tongue?’

John McCraiceann said nothing. But in his attempts to fit in with the Folk, the selkie had studied the many names of the clans, and John McCraiceann’s name meant: Son of the skin. The gunnerman glared. ‘So what?’ he said.

‘Your wife must have been very beautiful, once,’ said the selkie quietly. ‘Red-haired, like her mother, was she? Red-haired, like her daughter?’

The gunnerman’s face became very still.

‘I’m sure you must remember that,’ went on the selkie softly. ‘Her red hair, her pale skin, so very different from yours. Do you remember, gunner-man? But what do you remember before?’

The gunner’s face was still as stone, but the point of the whaling-lance trembled.

‘What of your people, gunnerman?’ the selkie went on relentlessly. ‘What of your mother and father? What of the McCraiceann clan? Surely you must remember them.’

Slowly, the gunner shook his head.

‘Tell me,’ said the selkie. ‘Did your wife ever have a cedar chest, with the key round her neck on a silver chain? Did you ever look inside, in all your years of marriage? And when your daughter came of age, did your wife give her the chest, as her mother did before her?’

Once more the gunner said nothing, although around him, his crew had grown restless. ‘Finish him,’ said one oarsman. ‘Don’t let him bewitch you.’

‘Aye,’ agreed another. ‘Let him go back to the deeps, with the demons that do his will.’

But the gunnerman did not move. His dark eyes held those of the selkie: beneath his anger, bewilderment.

‘And what about your father-in-law? Did you ever know his name? Was it Sàmhach, the Silent?’

Slowly, the gunnerman shook his head but the point of the lance began to drop. And now the selkie began to sing the song the girl of the Grey Seal had sung:

We who once were kings and queens

A-begging now we go—

To which the gunnerman gave a cry of terrible rage and anguish, and let fly the lance at the selkie, point-blank, with the bowline trailing—

Four

The selkie fell backwards, stunned by the blow. And yet the lance did not strike him, but instead went through the hull of his boat with a great, deafening, muffled report. The fishing-boat leaped on impact like a breaching whale, tossing what was left of his supplies and possessions overboard. The selkie fell into the water; and although these waters were warmer than those of the ice-bound skerries, he felt the shock immediately in the muscles of his chest; squeezing the air out of his lungs; dragging him under the surface.

He tried to struggle, but his clothes were already heavy with salt water. He shed his gloves and overcoat, attempted to kick off his boots, but already he was under the surface and sinking; hearing the sounds from the surface only as distant echoes. The voices of the men on the boat were like ghost voices in a dream; the clang of the lance as it dragged against the hull of the fishing-boat like the ringing of distant bells. The sea was green and still and clear: a long strand of threadweed floated past, trailing silver bubbles, and the selkie was transfixed by the shape of its fronds, by its movements. He was suddenly certain that he could breathe underwater; that if he believed, then his selkie powers could somehow still return to him.

He took a deep breath, and choking, rose once more to the surface. The sea was no friend to him now, it seemed. Not in this human guise, at least. The sea was hostile territory; dragging him to a choking death. Then he felt a hand in his hair, dragging him towards the light, the sound, the cold, his enemies—

He struggled against the world above. Better to die cleanly, he thought, in the element that had birthed him. But then he heard the gunnerman’s voice, whispering harsh and low in his ear: ‘Lie as still as a corpse,’ it said. ‘Unless you really want to die.’

The selkie felt a stirring of hope. Had the gunner believed his tale? Had he recognized the song, the mention of the cedar chest?

He kept his eyes closed, feeling rough hands grabbing hold of him. A rope was looped under his arms, and then a life-belt of strips of cork. From the men on the whaleboat, he heard the sound of laughter.

‘Let him drag behind the ship,’ said the voice of the gunnerman. ‘Let the sharks feed on his corpse. Let the demons of the sea be warned to stay well away from us.’

He gave a bark of laughter, so that only the selkie heard when he whispered once more in his low voice: ‘Trust me, and do as I say.’

The selkie did not struggle as the boat returned to the Kraken. He wanted to open his eyes, but dared not show any sign of life. The gunner’s words suggested that he might have some kind of plan, and all the selkie could do was obey, and hope that his message had somehow struck home. And so he allowed himself to be dragged slowly through the water, and then, by listening to the voices on the deck above him, knew that his rope had been fastened to the Kraken’s anchor, dragging him in the wake of the ship like a lure for monsters.

Five

It was night when the gunnerman came quietly to release him. By then the selkie had ceased to feel the cold, and instead had begun to feel a kind of strange detachment, as if uncoupled from his body. He should have already been dead, he knew – no human could survive for so long in that freezing water – and yet he clung to life, as if somehow his selkie skills had not been completely forgotten.

Even so, the selkie was weak by the time the gunnerman came for him, his skin raw with long immersion in the water, and without the cork belt to keep him afloat he would certainly have drowned. But the gunner showed neither pleasure nor relief at finding him alive, merely pulled him from the water and led him to the try-pots still bubbling and boiling on deck, and handed him a set of dry clothes – all in sombre silence.

‘I volunteered for lookout,’ he said at last. ‘No-one will disturb us.’

But when the selkie attempted to speak, the gunnerman silenced him angrily. ‘I saved you for my daughter’s sake,’ he said in his harsh voice, ‘and for the sake of what we may share – I say only may’ – he repeated, glaring at the selkie – ‘and because your tale raises questions for which I have no answers.’ He handed the selkie a piece of hard ship’s biscuit and a flask of ale, and watched as the selkie ate and drank, his dark eyes never leaving his face.

‘I have always loved the sea better than the land,’ he said, when the selkie had finished the food. ‘I have always loved the hunt, and the sound of the waves against the ship’s hull. I have always loved the sting of the sea spray on my face. And if I am brown, it is because I have spent a lifetime in the open air. And if my memory is dim, it is because I am no longer young, and not because of some conspiracy. And as for the cedar chest, why, every girl in the islands has a chest in which she keeps her things. Flora’s belonged to her mother, who had it from her own mother. So what?’ He tried to sound scornful, and yet to the selkie McCraiceann sounded both bewildered and afraid. ‘Don’t talk to me,’ he said. ‘Don’t say a word. Don’t even look at me, in case I decide to change my mind and throw you overboard instead.’

And at that, the gunner opened the ship’s hold, and pushed the selkie inside, and locked the hatch behind him. There would be food and water in there, as well as shelter against the sea; but the air was rank with the stench of death, and the barrels of whale-oil, and cured meat; and the selkie felt sick, and longed for the terrible journey to end. But there was nothing he could do to hasten the Kraken’s passage; and so he lay down and tried to sleep, and hoped to dream of the selkie. But all that night, and the following day, his dreams were dark and terrible: filled with the stench of fear and blood, and the sound of approaching thunder.

Part 6

Then he has taken a purse of gold,

And he has laid it on her knee,

Saying: ‘Give to me my little young son,

And take thee up thy nourris fee.’

The Child Ballads, no. 113

One

Days passed, and the selkie continued to lie hidden in the Kraken’s hold. Outside, the air sweetened, in spite of the stench from the try-pots: spring was coming in at last, like an invading army. For the selkie, locked away from the light, forced to hide whenever the hatch was opened, it was a kind of torture. He had food enough for his needs and the hold was warm and sheltered, and yet he missed his fishing-boat, and the open sea, and the shoals of stars, and he sometimes thought he might go mad with longing for his freedom.

For three days he lingered, listening to the sounds from inside the whaling-ship: the voices of his companions from the sleeping-quarters; the sounds of activity from the deck. He knew the sound of every man’s feet; he knew the creak of the braces that held the yards in place; the groan of the spars against the wind. And he knew the sounds of the hunt all too well; the cry of the lookout in the crow’s nest, the sounds of the whaleboat being lowered, and he dreaded hearing these most of all.

And then, on the third day, the selkie heard the familiar call of the lookout-man. Surely not a whale, he thought – the Kraken had left those waters behind – but maybe something else; a shark, a colony of seals—

And now he remembered the Captain’s words: If our bad luck endures, we can fill the hold with sealskins on our way back home – and he thought of the colonies of seals that lived around the islands, returning now with the warmer days to give birth to their fat cubs, and his heart turned cold at the memory, and at the idea of the slaughter to come.

Trembling, he went to the hatch that gave out onto the ship’s deck. Through the hinges the selkie saw the crew preparing the whaling-boats for a hunt. The scent of the sea was stronger here, even over the stench of the hold, and the selkie’s senses, enhanced no doubt by three days in the darkness, now seemed exquisitely attuned to every change and shift in the air, every movement of the waves. And now, through the crack in the door, the selkie thought that he could smell drying kelp, as well as the richer, darker scents of sea oak and buttonweed, and hear the barking of seals, and he knew that the Kraken was heading towards the ring of skerries that lay to the west of the islands.

Of course, the selkie could not know that this was the same ring of skerries that served as home to the Grey Seal Clan. But something in him sensed it nevertheless. Breathlessly, he listened to the familiar sounds of the preparation for the hunt: the winches that creaked as the whale-boat was lowered from its place on the deck: the voices of the crew; and above them, the voice of the Captain:

‘Easy, boys, and spare no effort. I want three hundred skins today, and there’ll be a keg of brandy for the man who takes the most!’

Three hundred skins. The selkie tried to imagine it. Three hundred slaughtered seals. Most of them cubs and females. Perhaps even the Grey Seal girl who had come to him on the deck. It could not be, he told himself. He had to stop them somehow. But how could he stop a whole crew? How could he fight off twenty men?

And then the selkie had an idea. Looking around him in the hold – the hold that should have been already filled with barrels of the finest oil, but was no more than a third full – he saw that his weapon had been here beside him all the time. The oil! The oil, which had been harvested from the flesh of pilot whales, and basking sharks, and porpoises – that oil would burn with a fierce flame, if only he could strike a light.

The selkie’s keen eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. Now he searched through the ship’s supplies and cargo for tinder and flint, or anything that would serve to light a fire.

At last he found it: a tinderbox, inside a case of lanterns. He worked to strike a flame – and then fed it with the tinder. When at last he had enough to set fire to some canvas, he made a torch, and, coughing from the smoke it made, set to lighting the barrels of oil, like beacons in the darkness.

Two

The oil caught quickly. A greasy smoke began to fill the burning hold. The selkie waited as long as he could for the fire to start to spread, and then he flung open the door of the hatch and hurled himself into the daylight.

For a time he was blinded by the sunlight on the sea. Everything in the world was white, as if the snows had come again. Shielding his eyes, he ran to the bow, and thought he saw the whaleboat, over-filled, some distance away, with the skerries in the distance. Almost all of the crew was on board. Every man was holding a lance, a harpoon, or a bludgeon. Of course, every man had hoped to be the one to win the brandy-keg. Only the Captain and his Mate remained on board the Kraken – with two of the men, who clearly had drawn the short straw and had remained behind to handle the ship.

For a moment the crewmen stared, frozen, at the selkie. Smoke poured from the burning hatch. Somewhere in the reaches of the hold, a barrel of oil exploded.

Then at last, the Captain cried: ‘Fire! Fire in the hold!’

The crewmen and the Captain’s Mate fled to bring water to the blaze. Fire is always a risk aboard a whaling-schooner, and there were hoses and buckets in place in case of such an accident. But it was too late: as soon as the water came into contact with the hot oil, the hatch exploded into flame, sending burning particles like rockets into the smoky air, spattering the burning deck, clawing the sails with yellow fire. It was as if the whales they had killed had been reborn into vengeful flame, spouting fire over the ship. The try-pots caught like paper lanterns. The sails were already burning. One man’s hair was aflame, the other turned and jumped overboard. The Captain turned to the selkie, his eyes dancing with reflected fire.

‘Demon,’ he said, and from his belt, he drew a long-barrelled pistol. ‘Demon,’ he said again, and pulled the trigger – but either the breech had grown too hot, or the powder ignited too soon in the superheated air, for the pistol exploded in his hand, taking with it the hand itself as well as much of the Captain’s face. What was left was unspeakable – and yet it kept screaming, a nightmare of blood and gleaming bone with the wall of fire at its back.

For a moment the selkie stared at the bloody, faceless thing, trying to summon the courage to put it out of its misery. Then, as the flames burned fiercer and the Captain fell forwards onto the deck, the selkie turned and jumped from the side and into the cold blue water below, and swam as fast as he could from the burning vessel. Meanwhile, the men in the whale-boat shouted and stared, and crossed themselves. All but the gunner, who stood in the bows in silent consternation.

The schooner was burning. The blackened sails shredded and turned into sheets of flame. The mast fell; staving in a deck that was already half-rotten with fire. The stench of burning whale-oil, of charred wood, of hair and flesh hung like a thundercloud overhead, bruising the air, tainting the sea, until at long last the vessel was nothing but a blackened hulk that sank slowly under the surface, leaving nothing behind but floating boards, charred wood, and pieces of wreckage.

And through it all, the selkie watched from the nearby skerry: shivering in his wet clothes, his face as hard and still as the rocks on which he had taken shelter.

Three

By the time the crew had watched the last of the Kraken disappear: by the time the turbulence of its descent had abated, the sun – still a fleeting visitor to those northern parts – had sunk, and the skyline was corpse-green, with dark clouds riding in overhead.

The selkie was still sitting there, motionless on the weed-covered rock. Around him, in twos and threes, lay the seals, looking placid and unafraid. The Kraken was gone; the air had cleared, and the seals seemed to sense that the men in their yellow whale-boat were unable to do them harm. Sleek and fat, they stayed in their groups, keeping their cubs close, their brown and soulful eyes reflecting the carnage around them.

Sullenly, the crewmen stared at the selkie on his rock. Some murmured imprecations, but their voices were trembling. Surely the man was a demon, they said. Who but a demon could have enlisted the help of a whale to follow the ship? Who but a demon could have survived the treatment to which they had subjected him? Abandoned on Sule Skerry, then tied to the stern to be eaten by sharks, and yet, the hated clocker had managed not only to survive, but also to bring down the Kraken, the Captain, his Mate and the two crewmen who had remained on board. That meant demon magic, and although the crew were armed with lances and clubs, they raised not a weapon against him, but watched in fearful silence.

‘This is because we threatened his folk,’ said one crewman to the rest.

‘This is because we left him behind on Sule Skerry,’ another said.

‘This is because we put him in the brig,’ said a third, and he held his weapon out over the bows, and dropped it silently into the sea.

One by one, the crewmen dropped their lances and cudgels overboard until only the gunner’s lance remained, and he held it tightly to his chest, watching the selkie’s face across the inky water. Then, in silence, he held out the lance and dropped it into the ocean. It made a splash, and the selkie thought he saw its fugitive gleam as it fell. He stood up from his place on the rock, and reached out his hand to the crewmen; and silently, without a word, the men on the yellow whale-boat lowered their oars and came to him, and made room for him to come aboard.

Then they raised the little sail and steered the boat east into the night, still without a single word to the selkie in their midst. They spoke to each other in lowered voices, and then only when necessary, with sideways looks at the selkie and not a word to the gunnerman. As far as the crew of the Kraken were concerned, John McCraiceann was a traitor, both to his kind and to the close-knit clan of his crew; and the contempt in their manner was clear, both to him and the selkie.

And so, throughout the night, they kept moving east, sometimes with the wind in the sail, sometimes working with the oars. Overhead, the stars came out; the sea was like a sheet of silk. They encountered no danger; no rocks; no storm; no fearsome monsters of the deeps. And when at last the dawn broke clear over the eastern horizon, they saw the land rising out of the sea, and knew that they were nearly home.

Part 7

And thou shalt marry a gunnerman proud,

And a very proud gunner I’m sure he’ll be,

And the very first shot that e’er he shoots,

He’ll kill both my young son and me.

The Child Ballads, no. 113

One

Spring in the islands is bittersweet: a brief and riotous flowering of harebell and heather, primrose and thorn. Sea pinks flower along the cliffs; cotton-grass in the marshlands. But the season is short; breaking out from the snows to die in the arms of summer.

Spring came in like a clap of thunder that year; wild and grey and simmering. The child in Flora’s belly grew, and quickened and kicked imperiously. As the day of the Kraken’s return approached, Flora hoped that her man would be home in time to see the birth of his son – although her mother secretly hoped that the child would be safely christened by then.

‘As soon as the child is born,’ she said, ‘make sure that he is named. A nameless infant summons the storm, and calls to the creatures of darkness.’

What she really meant, of course, was that a child of the selkie cannot be reclaimed by its people once it has been christened. Her own mother had taught her this, on the day of Flora’s birth; and with the baby almost due, the old woman had come over from the mainland to help with the delivery. Her granddaughter greeted her warmly enough, though secretly wondering how much she knew of the baby’s father. But the old woman said nothing about selkies, or her son-in-law, but helped around the house, and cooked, and cleaned, and kept her counsel.

Meanwhile, Flora considered names for her son, so that she would be ready as soon as the child was delivered. Would he be Arran, the High One? Or Fergus, Man of Vigour? Or Coinneach, the Handsome? Or Domhnall, Ruler of the Worlds? Flora felt that her son’s name should reflect his noble heritage; give the boy a sense of pride; do justice to her father’s clan and the name of McCraiceann. It never occurred to her that the child would be anything but a son; and so, when on the first of the May, she gave birth to a healthy daughter, she was first surprised that her princeling had been born a princess, and then by the overwhelming surge of love she felt for the newborn infant.

Flora McCraiceann had never known love on any other terms than her own. She had been fond of her parents, and yet had never felt close to them. Her lover, the selkie, had almost claimed a portion of her wild heart, but then she had tamed him to her will, and turned him into something else; a household pet, for whom she had learnt to feel affection, nothing more. But now came motherhood; and for the first time, Flora McCraiceann was in love. From the tip of her nose to her rust-red curls, the newborn infant was wilful and wild: one day refusing to suckle, the next, screaming for her mother’s breast.

‘A difficult child,’ said the mother. ‘She will be easier after the christening.’ But Flora loved her daughter wholly and unconditionally, and did not want to see her change, not even for her own comfort. Perhaps this was why she did not take the child to be christened: or perhaps she was waiting for the Kraken’s return; but, whatever the reason, her daughter was still nameless when the yellow whaling-boat sailed into the harbour.

The men aboard had been sailing for forty-eight hours. They were hungry, and thirsty, and cold, and afraid – all but the selkie, whose silent presence had kept them equally silent. Now, as they reached their journey’s end with their lives as their only bounty, they started to whisper once again, remembering the barrels of oil, the skins and ivories on board their ship, all lost to the selkie’s dark magic. John McCraiceann also looked bleak, and he perhaps had more reason: after all, he had saved the selkie from drowning, and brought him aboard the Kraken. The crew had taken little time in coming to this conclusion, and now that they were almost home, at last they were emboldened to speak against their former friend and his son-in-law.

‘McCraiceann brought the clocker on board,’ said one. ‘He brought misfortune onto the ship.’

‘He owes us all,’ said another. ‘Every crewman’s wages lost, for the sake of one man.’

‘If he’s a man at all,’ said a third, forking the sign against the evil eye slyly with his fingers. But the crewmen, in spite of their mutterings, dared not face the enemy, but turned away, their faces grim, and would not look at them at all. But the tale would spread, the gunnerman knew, and soon the whole island would know he had sided against his crewmates for the sake of an outsider.

‘This will be the end of me here,’ he said to the selkie as they walked home. ‘No-one will buy goods from my wife when she goes to market. My daughter will be shunned in church. What have I done to my family, to the life I worked so hard to build? Why did I listen to you and your tale to frighten children?’

‘You listened because you knew it was true,’ replied the selkie. ‘In your heart, you always knew that you were a child of the ocean.’

The gunnerman shook his head stubbornly. ‘I loved the whaler’s life,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t make me one of you.’

‘So, you admit you know what I am?’

‘A madman,’ said the gunnerman. ‘A madman and a murderer.’ But he would not meet the selkie’s eyes, and his voice was rough and low.

‘What of the cedar chest, and the key?’

‘What of it?’ said the gunnerman. ‘All women have a linen chest. Your story proves nothing. I trust my wife.’

‘Then show me I’m wrong,’ said the selkie. ‘Look inside the cedar chest. Find the sealskin hidden inside. Touch it once, and your memory will return. You will know how they cheated you: how they stole your life, your child – for Flora would have been one of us, if you had but claimed her. And now my child may meet the same fate—’

The gunnerman gave a low growl. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘I shall look into the chest. And what I find there will decide – if anything – what I will do.’ And with that he lapsed into a sullen silence, from which nothing the selkie said would rouse him. And so they took the long road home from the island harbour: and came to the house on top of the cliff to the sound of church bells ringing.

Two

For the selkie, it had been a long and strange adventure. His time aboard the Kraken had been hard, and his return ever harder. Now within reach of his home again, he found himself almost hoping he was wrong, that Flora was blameless, that none of his convictions were true.

The lighthouse-keeper had been half-mad with anger, grief and solitude. The tale that had made sense at sea, among the seals and skerries, now seemed outlandish, even to him, now that he was back on dry land. There were no selkies. The Grey Seal girl was a dream, born from desperation. He had been in no rational state the night she had come to him on the deck. Freezing cold and in distress, he could easily have imagined her.

The selkie had almost convinced himself when he reached the gunner’s house, surrounded now with spring flowers. Sea pinks, purple campion, iris, oxeye daisies, with yellow gorse and primrose and vetch growing along the cliffside path. The selkie had never seen so much colour all in one place; and when the door opened and Flora came out, all in white, just as she had been on their wedding-day, his time on the Kraken seemed little more than a nightmare.

Behind her, came his mother-in-law; and her mother behind her, both of them in their finest gowns, their hair dressed under caps of lace. The old woman was all in black; her daughter all in grey, and Flora in white, with a child in her arms, a newborn in a sealskin sling, wearing a long linen robe—

Flora had finally succumbed to her mother’s entreaties and agreed to have her daughter named. Without mentioning the selkie, or referring openly to his circumstances, she had still managed to sow the seeds of doubt in her daughter’s mind.

‘A nameless child can never be safe,’ she had said to Flora. ‘A nameless child is easy prey for the hungry Travelling Folk. They will claim her, and steal her away, and you will never see her again.’

Little by little, Flora had come to accept that a christening was the only way to keep her daughter safe from harm. And now that the selkie had returned, she realized she had delayed too long, and she held her child close, and promised herself that no-one – not the selkie, nor the Grey Seal clan, nor even Lord Death himself – would rob her of the little one she loved more than anything else in the world.

And so she smiled at the selkie, although her heart was pounding in fear, and said: ‘See! We have a daughter, my love. The image of her father. What do you think of Gormlaith, Princess? Or maybe Moire, Star of the Sea?’

For a moment the selkie’s blood froze. He looked at the child in Flora’s arms. That robe, all embroidered and hemmed with lace – could that be a christening robe? And the sound of bells from the village church—

‘Am I too late?’ the selkie cried. ‘Am I too late for the christening?’

Flora smiled at him again. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I knew you were coming back today. I heard it from a waggoner coming from the harbour. I was so glad you could be here to help name our lovely daughter.’

And in that moment Flora McGill almost believed her own words. The thought of being a family – which was all she had ever dreamed of – now overrode her suspicion and the fears that her mother had awakened in her. She looked at the selkie, her husband, and she thought she saw something in his eyes – a wildness, like that of the ocean – and felt an old fire rekindle in her, a fire she had thought forever extinguished.

The selkie thought that, in that moment, Flora had never looked more beautiful. Once more, he was tempted to say nothing of what he had learnt, but to slip back into his life with her like a drowning man into a wave, and surrender himself to ignorance. He had a home; a beautiful wife; a family ready to welcome him. He could be happy; he told himself – and if not happy, at least content.

But then he looked at his newborn child, warmly-wrapped in her sealskin sling – and the old, familiar nausea slid over him like a fever. To wrap up the child in a sealskin seemed to him monstrous, obscene; and suddenly he was convinced that it was his own skin swaddling the infant, and he reached out with trembling hands to touch the soft fur with his fingers—

But the sealskin of the baby’s sling was just an ordinary skin. There was no return of memory; no sudden revelation. The selkie was both relieved at this and oddly disappointed. If only he could be sure, he thought; if only this fear could be laid to rest. If only he could look in the chest, and find the sealskin hidden there—

But Flora was wearing the silver key around her neck like a talisman, and now the selkie realized that the mother and the grandmother wore identical silver keys, which gleamed from the lace around their throats – the grandmother’s on a piece of black lace, the mother’s on a fine grey cord. There was no way he could take a key without arousing suspicion. And yet the cedar chest contained the answers to all his questions. Without it, he could not risk trying to disrupt the christening. And what if he was wrong, he thought? What if the Grey Seal girl had lied? What if there was no sealskin there, and he had just imagined it all?

Finally he said to his wife: ‘We are weary and travel-stained. Give us time to change our clothes, and we will join you for the ceremony.’

Flora looked at him closely. ‘Very well, my dear,’ she said. ‘Meet us at the church, and we will celebrate together.’

Meanwhile, the gunner’s wife was showing signs of impatience. She was eager to christen the child, and safeguard her future among the Folk. But news travels fast on an island, and the tale of the Kraken’s crew had already reached her. It was not an entirely new tale, and the gunnerman’s wife had quickly understood that her husband and son-in-law were in danger of learning the truth. She knew that they meant to look in the chest as soon as she and Flora were gone; and she feared for the life she had built for herself, and for her new-born grandchild.

But then she thought of the grandmother. If the old lady stayed behind, then surely the chest would be safe, she thought. In any case, the grandmother could keep the men talking until the christening was done – which was, after all, the main concern. Men of the selkie were easy enough to come by, thought the gunnerman’s wife; but to lose her grandchild now would be a terrible loss to the family. And so she signalled the grandmother to stay behind and watch the men, and hurried with her daughter to the little church on the cliffside, where the Parson was waiting for the child, to claim her for ever on behalf of the Folk.

Three

The selkie and the gunnerman were left in the grandmother’s company. The old woman looked at them mockingly, as they exchanged helpless glances.

‘Aye,’ she said in her cracked voice. ‘So many difficult choices to make! A white shirt or a black one? A sealskin cap, or hatless? Men are vain, so very vain. Especially the men of the sea. Vain and easily led, I fear: and so turns the world, and always will.’

The selkie looked at her and smiled. ‘There’s only one choice, Old Mother,’ he said. ‘Give me the silver key you keep on the chain around your neck, and give me back my sealskin.’

The old woman laughed. ‘Too late,’ she said. ‘I tried to warn you. They don’t call it “wedlock” for nothing, I said. And yet you walked into the trap. I knew a man like you, once. Handsome, and stubborn, and reckless, and proud. He gave me a child – a daughter – but he did not stay to watch her grow. The men of the sea have always been faithless in the end. And that is why we take what we can, and keep our little secrets, for what else can a woman do in a man’s world, ruled by a man’s laws?’

The selkie said: ‘You stole his life.’

‘And what would he have left of mine?’ said the old woman fiercely. ‘A nourris – a wet-nurse – that’s all I was to him and to his people. He would have taken my daughter away, and given her to the Folk of the Sea. Maybe he would have paid me in gold, as the Sea Folk are wont to do. And I would not have recognized her skin among the many piled up on the traders’ stalls on festival and market-days.’ The old woman lifted her chin, and her eyes were ablaze with sudden rage. ‘You men,’ she said. ‘You’re all the same. Men of the land, or men of the sea. You take everything a woman can give – her maidenhead, her love, her child – and still you want your freedom—’

The selkie flinched at the sting of her words, and yet he held her furious gaze. ‘Give me the key, old woman,’ he said. ‘Before I decide to take it.’

‘Aye, that was always a man’s way,’ she said. ‘Take it, then. Much joy may it bring. But heed my words, Man of the Sea: some things are better left unremembered.’ And she reached for the lace around her neck and gave the selkie the silver key, though her eyes shone with rage as she followed him into the empty house, with the gunnerman following after them, and up the stairs to the cedar chest which held so many secrets.

Four

The chest was old and darkened with age, but still smelt faintly of cedarwood; and there were sachets of lavender stitched into the lining. Inside they found Flora’s wedding-gown, made from the white skins of baby seals, and beneath it her mother’s, of heavy satin trimmed with fur, and beneath that, a wedding-gown so old that the lace had grown brittle as autumn leaves, the silk like Bible pages.

The grandmother sat in a rocking-chair beside the chest, and watched them, and rocked. ‘That was my wedding-gown,’ she said. ‘It may seem like a hundred years ago that I was a bride, and yet a bride I once was, and happy enough, until my man betrayed me.’

‘He did not betray you,’ the selkie said. ‘The truth was too much for him to bear.’

The old woman shrugged. ‘He had a choice. As both of you now have a choice: keep your lives, or throw them away. Each of you has a wife here. Each of you has a daughter. Will you sacrifice them now for the sake of foolish pride?’

But the selkie would not listen to her. He emptied the cedar chest of every piece of linen therein: wedding-dresses, tablecloths; embroidered napkins; underthings. And there, at the very bottom, he found a parcel of tissue-paper: and inside the tissue-paper, a skin, a sealskin soft as a summer’s day; a skin as grey as mist on the sea. Eagerly he pulled it out; but once more there was nothing. No revelation, no memories. The lovely skin was not his own. But then, the gunnerman put out his hand and gently touched the soft grey fur—

The grandmother smiled. ‘I warned you,’ she said.

John McCraiceann clutched the skin and staggered backwards, breathing hard. He looked like a man in the throes of some unimaginable pain, or some undreamed-of ecstasy. He tried to speak, but could not: tried to turn, but could not; looked up at the old woman, then fell to his knees beside the chest and began to weep in great, thick, sobs. The selkie looked into the chest in search of a second sealskin; but there was nothing left inside, except for a few dried lavender-heads and a single handkerchief.

The grandmother smiled and rocked in her chair. ‘My daughter was sentimental,’ she said. ‘She used to wrap herself up in that skin when her husband went to sea. I told her many times that she should cut it up, as I did mine, to make sure her husband did not stray, but she was always a stubborn thing, and thought she knew better than I did.’

‘Old Mother. Where is my sealskin?’ said the selkie, trembling.

‘Who knows?’ replied the old woman. ‘My daughter is a poor seamstress. She never knew how to make the best of a selkie skin. My Flora, on the other hand—’

The selkie took a sharp breath. ‘Where is it?’ he cried. ‘What has she done with my sealskin?’

But there was no answer to his cry. The grandmother watched in silence and rocked, and the gunnerman was still beyond speech, as the memories came tumbling down upon him. For thirty years he had lived with the Folk. Thirty years of hunting his own; thirty years of eating their flesh. He wrapped himself in the sealskin and wept for all that he had done to his kind; for the joy he had taken in hunting them; for all his years of ignorance, and for the end of his thirty years of peaceful marriage, fond fatherhood, and joy in being the provider for his little family—

The grandmother watched him with pity and resignation. ‘I warned you from the first,’ she said. ‘I said no good would come of this.’ Then, to the selkie, she went on: ‘See what we have spared you? A selkie who betrays his kind cannot hope for forgiveness. And a man who betrays his family cannot hope to be taken back. What remains for such a man? Where will he go, when rejected by all? But there is still hope for you. For you, there is the chance of a life. Will you take it?’

But the selkie only repeated: ‘Old Mother, where is my sealskin?’

The grandmother shrugged. ‘You men,’ she said. ‘All of you so foolish and proud. What good can it do to know that now? Think of your child, man of the sea. Think of the life you want for her. Will you give her a loving family to care for her, or will you give her a broken home, an absent father, a mother alone?’

For the third time, the selkie replied: ‘Old Mother, where is my sealskin?’

The old woman sighed, and shook her head at his stubbornness. ‘In silver were you bound,’ she said. ‘In silver, lies the thing you seek.’

‘Silver?’ said the selkie. ‘If not the silver key to the chest, then what kind of silver do you mean?’ And when the old woman would not reply, he began to search the house; flinging open wardrobes and drawers, turning out kitchen cupboards for every piece of silverware in search for a clue to the riddle.

But the gunnerman’s house was poor. There was no silver to be found, except for a few little trinkets on Flora’s dressing-table.

‘What does it mean?’ said the selkie, turning at last to the grandmother. ‘Tell me, or I’ll wring your neck!’

The old woman watched him and rocked in her chair, her dark eyes shining maliciously. ‘’Tis not the wringing of my neck, but that of the church bells you should mind,’ she said, and suddenly the selkie saw how the old woman had lured them; how she had kept him talking while the others carried the baby to church. How much time had he wasted? Was he too late for the christening?

The old woman cackled and rocked in her chair. ‘Which one will ye choose?’ she said. ‘The sealskin or the christening? Your life, or that of your daughter?’

But the selkie had already started down the stairs towards the door. He took the cliffside path at a run, the grandmother’s laughter following him.

‘In silver it lies!’ she cackled again. ‘In silver, your salvation!’ But there was no-one to hear her now, except for the weeping gunnerman, as the selkie ran towards the church, where the bells were already ringing.

Five

The church was a small stone building with a single wooden spire. The windows were narrow; the coloured glass allowed little light to enter. Instead there were candles everywhere, filling the hall with a soft glow. It shone on the silver vessels that were lined on the altar, and on the faces of the Folk gathered in the pews (although there were not many guests: the news of the Kraken’s loss had already reached the small community).

Flora, in white, her mother, in grey, and the Parson, all in black, were standing by the marble font. The child was asleep in her mother’s arms, the christening-cap discarded, and in that moment the selkie was sure that he was too late; that the child had been named.

But then he saw his mother-in-law’s face, the sudden sharpness in her eyes, and hope bloomed again inside him. Summoning every shred of control, he smiled at the mother-in-law and said: ‘I hope I’m in time for the ceremony?’

Flora gave him a questioning look. ‘You haven’t changed your clothes,’ she said.

‘Forgive me: I was impatient to be here.’

‘My husband?’ said the mother-in-law.

‘He’s only a moment behind me.’

The mother-in-law glanced at Flora. Both women looked uneasy. But the Parson, who had heard nothing of the events on board the whaler, smiled and said:

‘Of course we must wait for McCraiceann. How could we let him miss his only granddaughter’s christening?’

The selkie kept an outward calm, although his heart was beating fast, and tried to feign interest in the words of the Parson, who, sensing none of the tension in the folk around him, babbled on benignly:

‘The McCraiceanns were always good friends of the church. I christened Flora myself, you know – it seems like only yesterday – and such a pretty child she was, with her mother’s red hair and her father’s dark eyes. A little wild, perhaps, at first, and yet she has grown so accomplished! Why, just the other day, she presented us with an altarpiece. The most marvellous work – her grandmother’s idea, I believe – and fine enough, I swear, to adorn the greatest cathedral in the land—’

At this, the selkie saw his wife flinch. His eyes went to the altar, gleaming with polished silverware. And underneath the silverware – the paten and the candlesticks, the chalice and the monstrance – he saw a finely-worked altarpiece that seemed to be made of animal skin—

In silver, lies the thing you seek.

He made a lunge for the altar.

‘No!’ cried Flora.

But it was too late; the silverware had fallen, crashing, to the floor, and the altarpiece, with all its fine work, with all its chasing in silver thread, with all its silken embroidery, was in his hands. As soon as he touched it, the selkie knew without a doubt that this was his skin; shaved and embroidered and painted and stamped and made into an ornament for churchgoing Folk to marvel at, and he gave such a cry of pain and despair that Flora and her mother grew pale, and the infant began to cry.

‘Flora, what have you done?’ he said.

‘Coigreach, please,’ said Flora.

‘That’s not my name!’ cried the selkie, and in his rage kicked over the font, which smashed on the pavement in front of them as all his stolen memories came rushing in again like the tide. How easily they had duped him, he saw. How compliant he had been! For three generations, and doubtless more, the red-haired women of the islands had enslaved the men of the selkie. The lighthouse-man, the gunnerman, and finally the selkie himself—

He flung the sealskin onto the ground, hoping to stop the memories. But there was nothing he could do: the sealskin was ruined, its power gone; and he was doomed to remain on land, and remember the sea, for ever.

Six

And now he remembered everything: the voice of the ocean; its languages; its rhythms and its changing moods. He remembered the songs of the Grey Seal clan; the sound of the waves on the skerry. He remembered the taste of redfish, caught between his snapping jaws; the sweetness of shrimp, and the richness of cod, and the salty crunch of green urchins. He remembered the song of the minke whale; the dance of the ghost crab on the shore, the cry of the curlew on the tide, and his heart ached with grief and happiness.

Now he remembered his old friends; the Grey Seal girl, his playmates; his mother, the matriarch of the clan who had warned him against the Folk, and all his lovers and siblings. He remembered his first steps as a man, and the joy he had felt in shedding his skin. He remembered the excitement of spying on the Folk of the land, and the way he had followed their fishing-boats, listening to their voices. But most of all he remembered the red-haired girl on the moonlit beach, and the waves, and the warm wind blowing, and he was filled with sorrow for the brief, sweet story they had shared.

And finally, the cruellest of all the demons in the box, came love: the taste of her salt skin, the feel of her hair, the touch of her hand, her laughter under the silent stars. The feelings that had disappeared when the selkie lost his memory now returned like the rising tide, tainted with bitterness and the knowledge of her betrayal.

He turned back to Flora. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why did you do it, Flora?’

Flora’s eyes were brimming with tears, and yet she looked hard as granite. ‘Because my grandmother taught me well. Because you men are all the same. I thought that perhaps you were different, that I could keep you faithful to me, but you had to return to the sea, didn’t you? The cruel sea, that sings so sweet, even through a lover’s embrace. Women are nothing but vessels to you, cheap and easily broken. I wanted something of my own, something no-one would take away.’

A murmur arose from the Folk in the pews.

‘You used me,’ said the selkie.

‘I saved you. You were a savage,’ she said. ‘Look how far you have already come!’

‘I have betrayed my people,’ he said. ‘Our people: yours and mine.’ And he told her the tale of the gunnerman, and then the tale of the lighthouse-man; and Flora’s eyes grew, first wide, then hard as fragments of mica.

‘There’s none of your blood in me,’ she said. ‘My mother and I are true islanders.’ But her mother looked away, and bit her lip, and would not look at her again, and the Parson, in consternation, tried to silence the folk in the pews as their voices grew loud and harsh.

‘Your father was from the Grey Seal clan,’ went on the selkie relentlessly. ‘Your mother trapped him, as did her mother before her. You are both daughters of the sea, robbed of your inheritance. But this child is of the Grey Seal clan, and now for my clan, I claim her.’

Flora shook her head and wept. ‘I will not let her go,’ she said. She turned to the Parson, pleading: ‘Name her, Parson, keep her safe!’

‘I cannot,’ said the Parson. ‘Not when her father has claimed her.’

Flora held the child and wept. ‘He cannot!’ she said. ‘He cannot return! Not without his sealskin! How can he claim her for the sea, when he cannot raise her there?’

It was true; the selkie thought. What use was his knowledge of the sea if he could never return to his folk? How could he teach his child their ways? How could he protect her?

Flora, sensing victory, raised her chin defiantly. ‘You see?’ she said. ‘She belongs with me. She belongs with those who love her. The Folk of the Sea do not need her, but I do. I do!’

And then, from the door, there came a voice: the quiet voice of the gunnerman. His face was raw with tears, but his eyes were clear and full of knowledge. Under his arm, he was carrying the sealskin from the cedar chest.

‘And what of the child? What of her needs?’ he said.

Flora clutched the infant fiercely in its sealskin sling. ‘She needs her mother, her family. She needs the love and security that only I can give her.’

The gunnerman smiled. His eyes were sad, but his voice was unexpectedly strong. ‘I understand, my daughter,’ he said. ‘For the first time in years, I understand. But would you have your child as she is, or make of her a tamed thing, as you tamed her father?’

‘I’ll not have her brought up by savages! I’ll not have her forget me, and leave me alone with nothing!’

Once more the selkie looked at his wife and wondered at the wildness in her. She might have been claimed by the Folk, he thought, but he now realized that he could see much of the Grey Seal clan in her, too. The passion that had called him to her from the depths of the ocean: the passion that had made this child burned in her like wildfire. And the selkie was still drawn to that fire, even though it had burned him once, but knew not how to reconcile the call of it with the call of the sea.

‘How can I choose?’ he said to himself. ‘How can I take our child away? But how can I leave her here on land, knowing everything I know?’

Finally the gunnerman spoke. ‘Let me take the child,’ he said. ‘Let me teach her the ways of the sea, as I should have taught my daughter. For one year, she will live in the sea, and for one year, she will live on the land; and then return to the sea again, and then return to the land; and so for all her life will be a child of both, bound by neither.’

For a long time Flora said nothing. Then she looked at the selkie. ‘And will you stay, and bring up your child? Or will you leave, as men always do?’

The selkie looked at the gunnerman. It was a solution, he told himself. Not the solution for which he had hoped; but at least, this way he would have the chance to see his daughter flourish and grow. But what of his wife? She had lied to him; and yet he remembered loving her once. Could he love her again? He did not know, though he thought she looked somehow different now. Something in the eyes, perhaps; a new kind of light; a softness.

Finally, he held out his hand. ‘One year with the Seal Folk,’ he said. ‘One year with us, on land. I shall stay, if only to be sure that the Land Folk keep their word, and do not try to steal her away, or feed her the flesh of her people. Will you give me your promise?’

For a moment Flora looked at him. Then she took his hand. ‘I will. Will you give me yours?’

‘I will.’

The last time the selkie had left that church was when he had married Flora. This time he left it a changed man, acting of his own free will, holding his child in her christening robe, with his wife beside him.

For a moment he paused by the oaken door. Then, turning to Flora, said: ‘Moire. Star of the Sea. A good name.’

‘Very well,’ Flora said. ‘Moire shall be our daughter’s name.’ Then, drying her eyes, with head held high, she followed the selkie out of the church and into the warm spring sunlight. The guests all left in silence, and the Parson picked up his silverware and put it back onto the altar. And, then together, the family went down the cliff to the sandy beach where long ago Flora and her man had lain in the moonlight and laughed, and loved. There, the gunnerman took the child and slipped into his sealskin, and then, as a Grey Seal, swam away, with the child as a white pup beside him.

The selkie and Flora stood in the surf and watched until the two Grey Seals had vanished into the distance. For a time they heard them still, barking over the sound of the wind. And then, when they were long gone, the selkie once more took Flora’s hand, and together they walked back up the path towards whatever the future might bring.

The Selkie

The Selkie

There once was a girl of the travelling folk, of the clan they call the selkie. Her people were the folk of the sea; the dolphin; the sea-lion; the seal and the whale. They were a warrior people, dwelling in the ocean caves and on the outermost skerries; fighting the Folk who lived on the land; hunted, and hunting, and happy, and free. But the travelling girl was not happy. She longed for the land, with its heathery hills, and open fields of swaying grass, so like the sea, and so different. And when her people hunted for the shoals of herring out to sea, and leaped as dolphins, and sang as whales, the selkie girl would watch the Folk, and dream of leaving her skin behind and walking barefoot on the grass.

Her people said: ‘Beware the Folk. They hunt and kill our children. They flay us, and they wear our skins, and none of them can be trusted.’ But the selkie girl still watched, and dreamed, and at night she would take off her sealskin and go barefoot onto the land, and feel the pebbles between her toes, and watch through the cracks in shutters and doors. There, she watched the Folk at play: their homes; their hearths; their families. And she dreamed all the more of a home of her own; and of a hearth and a cooking-pot, and shoes, and a cradle by the fire – and all the mysterious things that the Folk seemed to take for granted.

One night, a young man of the Folk was walking on the seashore. He was the son of a gunnerman upon a whaling-ship out to sea, and he dreamed of the chase, and the open waves, and the scent of blood on the salt spray. He saw the selkie girl, standing naked by the shore, and saw that she was beautiful.

But the travelling girl was afraid. She ran for her sealskin, and slipping it on, she disappeared under the waves. But she did not forget the young man, nor did he forget her. Every night, he watched for the selkie girl at low tide on the pebble beach. And little by little, the girl grew bold, and stayed to speak with the gunnerman’s son: a few words at first, a few whispered words; and then a kiss in the moonlight. And that night, when the selkie girl went back to the people of the sea, the boy lay restless in his bed, and dreamed of how to make her his.

His mother saw him pale and withdrawn, and asked him what his trouble was. The boy told her of the selkie girl, and of his desire to possess her.

His mother said: ‘Beware the selkie. They are vicious, and wicked, and false.’ But the boy would not listen to her. And so his mother told him: ‘Bring me the skin of the selkie girl, the skin that she leaves by the water’s edge when she walks among us. Without it, she will not remember the sea, or hope to return to her people.’

And so the young man waited until the girl had come ashore, but instead of showing himself he watched where she hid her sealskin. And while she looked for him, he stole the discarded skin and took it home to his mother, who locked it into the cedar chest where she had kept her wedding dress.

Then the young man went back to the pebble beach and found the selkie girl naked on the shore, with no memory of how she had come to be there.

‘Come with me,’ he told her. ‘My mother will look after you.’

The selkie girl, knowing nothing except that the young man was kind, followed him. And as the days passed, she grew to love both the young man and his mother. And yet, there was something about the house that troubled her. Maybe it was the great harpoon mounted on the wall, or the carved ivories, or the sealskins on the floor. But she could not remember why these things filled her with sorrow.

Time passed. The young man’s father returned from his time on the whaling ship, bringing with him sealskins to sell, and objects fashioned of whalebone. ‘My son, it’s time you learnt my trade,’ he said. ‘We sail in a fortnight.’

The selkie girl was afraid of this man, with this scent of blood and death. She tried to persuade her young man to stay, but he only laughed and said: ‘My father is a gunnerman, and lives well from his hunting. I must learn his trade, my love, or forever remain in my mother’s house.’

The girl understood that he was right. If they were to marry one day, and move away from the dreadful house, her young man needed to earn a living. But the thought of him sailing on the sea filled her with horror and dismay. In vain she tried to persuade him to take up some other profession, but he simply laughed and said: ‘I shall return to you safe and sound. I shall bring you gifts of skins, and oil, and whalebone, and walrus ivory. Meanwhile you must sell the wares my father has brought home with him, and when I return to you again, we shall be married.’

When the time came for the young man to leave, the selkie girl wept bitterly. Without her sealskin, she had no memory of her clan. And yet the sea made her uneasy; she thought she could hear it calling to her as she lay alone in her bed. And so it was, in a way: for her people had never forgotten her. On clear nights they came to bask in the moonlit shallows, and sang to her as dolphins and seals, and called to her forlornly with the long, low cry of the pilot whale.

But the travelling girl did not understand. Without her sealskin, she had lost the language of the selkie clan. Without her sealskin, she was afraid, without even knowing what she feared. Every week she would go to the market with the gunnerman’s wife, and sell cured sealskins and whalebone stays and ivory buttons on their stall. She hated touching these things, although she had no idea why she felt this way. She hated the market, with its perpetual scent of death and the ocean. And yet, she was drawn to that ocean, upon which her young man now sailed, and at night she would open her windows and listen to the sounds of the night, and wonder how he was faring.

One night, as she stood at her window, she saw a man by the water’s edge. He was a tall and handsome man, with long black hair, brown eyes like a seal’s, and dark skin, marked with many tattoos. For three nights he stood there by the shore, watching the house, until the girl’s curiosity finally overcame her, and she crept out to meet him. The man spoke to her insistently, but the girl had forgotten the language of the selkie, and his words sounded harsh and meaningless, like the barking cry of a seal.

And yet, she saw something in his eyes: something that spoke more deeply to her than anything she had ever known. And that night in her dreams, and the following night, she swam with him in an ocean dark as blood, and heard the songs of the dolphins. In her dreams he spoke to her, and she understood every word he spoke, although they were both underwater, and she felt his smooth skin warm against hers, and knew that they were one flesh; one beating heart; one soul. But the selkie girl forgot these dreams as soon as she opened her eyes; and as the year turned, and the sea grew cold, the dark man came less and less often, until at last he came no more, and winter lay over the green land.

Time passed. The snow lay deep. The sea-birds flew south for the winter. The seals went back to their skerries, and the ice crept down from the frozen north and ringed the islands in blue and white. The mother sold the last of her sealskins, and the markets closed for the winter, and the Folk took to their homes for the long night of the north.

As the darkness claimed the land, the travelling girl found herself with child. She assumed that the child was her young man’s, for she had forgotten the man of the selkie. The gunnerman’s wife said nothing, but narrowed her lips, and waited. But the whaling ship had followed the shoals of migrating whales from the edge of the ice to the warm seas, and thence to a busy port, where its crew had spent a pleasant three months. The young man wrote home, saying that he would return by the first day of spring. And so the mother continued to wait, and to watch the selkie girl closely, but could see no sign of faithlessness. With no memory of the ocean, or of those who dwelt therein, she could surely not have strayed. And she awaited the gunnerman’s son with the eagerness of a bride: watching every day for the sight of sails upon the horizon. But still the young man did not come, and her time grew nearer.

Spring came. The sun returned to the land. The snow began to melt; the grass to grow again in the pastures. The birds flew back from their southern haunts; the pilot whales returned to the seas. And the selkie’s babe was born at last; a child with eyes that were soft and brown, and the lips of the young man’s mother grew even thinner than before. But since the sealskin was still safe in the cedar chest, and with it, her memory of the sea, how could the girl have been untrue?

And yet the mother’s suspicions grew, until one day, she went to the cedar chest, and took out the sealskin hidden there. It was dry, and soft, and sleek. The mother was certain it had not been touched. But as she went to put it back, she found the girl standing beside her, the brown-eyed selkie babe in her arms.

‘What do you have there?’ said the girl.

‘My wedding-dress,’ said the mother in haste, tucking the sealskin under its folds. ‘My gift to you, as my daughter-to-be.’

The girl looked at the wedding dress. It was a beautiful dress; embroidered all over with tiny pearls. She put out her hand to touch the silk—

But as she did, her fingers brushed the sealskin hidden underneath. And as soon as she touched the soft dark fur, she remembered who she was. She remembered the language of her folk, the song of the dolphin, the bark of the seal, the sound of the waves on the skerry. And in that moment she realized how cruelly she had been deceived, and why the house of the gunnerman’s wife had always filled her with unease, with its sealskin rugs, and its mounted harpoons, and its knick-knacks carved from whalebone. She realized how cruelly she had been used, and how, at the market, she had been tricked into selling the skins of her people. And the selkie girl’s heart was filled with rage and sorrow for the travelling folk, and she longed to escape from her captors and return to the ocean.

That night, she went down to the beach and called out in the language of her folk. She called them with the voice of the seal, and with the voice of the dolphin, and with the voice of the pilot whale. For three nights she called to them urgently, and on the third night, the dark-eyed man with the many tattoos returned. But this time, she understood him as he spoke to her in her own tongue, and his words were harsh, and filled with anger and sorrow:

‘Give me my son,’ said the selkie. ‘Let me take him far away, back to our home on the skerries. Then, when you have married your gunnerman, he can hunt both of us down, and bring you our skins to sell to the Folk.’

The selkie girl wept. ‘I made a mistake. Let me return to my people, and I will never leave them again.’

The selkie looked at her. ‘For that, you will need your sealskin,’ he said. ‘Without it, you can never go back.’

The girl ran to the cedar chest, and searched once more for her sealskin. But the gunnerman’s wife, scenting mischief, had already taken and cut it up, to make a pair of mittens and a hunting cap for her son.

The girl cried out in horror as she understood what the woman had done. But the gunnerman’s wife looked from her needlework up and sneered. ‘Foolish, thankless girl,’ she said. ‘What did the selkies ever do for you, that you should weep for them? My son will care for you now, and raise his child to be a hunter. And when the hunting is scarce, you will call the walrus and the whale to the shore, and the hunter’s harpoon shall taste their blood, and we shall live well, and prosper.’

The selkie girl wept bitterly. Without her sealskin, she could never return to the people of the sea. She took her sleeping babe from his cot, and went down to the shore again, and gave him to the selkie. ‘Take your son,’ she said to him. ‘Teach him to love the ocean. Teach him to swim with the pilot whale, and to dive with the green sea-turtle. And never speak of me to him, but care for him, and keep him safe, and keep him far from this terrible place, and its terrible people.’

And then she went slowly back to the house, and stood in the doorway with her long hair in her eyes. The gunnerman’s wife looked up again, and gave her ugly, sneering laugh.

‘Did you not believe me?’ she said. ‘Without your sealskin, you cannot change. You will never escape this place.’

‘I cannot escape into the sea,’ said the girl. ‘And yet, I can still change.’

And then she killed the gunnerman’s wife, and took her skin, and put it on, and took her form, and sat in her chair and waited.

As the milk moon ripened and grew, the gunnerman’s son returned at last. He embraced his mother, then looked for the selkie girl. But there was no-one in the house, but for his mother in her chair, who rocked and smiled when he asked what had become of the selkie.

‘She left,’ said the mother. ‘And took her child with her.’

The young man was angry. ‘How did she escape?’ But the mother rocked and smiled, and offered him a cup of wine; and the next morning, the young man was gone, and his skin was drying by the fire, just as the gunnerman came in, weary from months on the ocean.

‘Where is my son?’ he asked.

The mother stood by the fire and smiled, hiding the skin from the gunnerman’s eyes. ‘Your son is with his bride-to-be,’ she said. ‘Here, take this cup of wine, to toast the happy couple.’

The gunnerman, too, drank the poisoned wine: and soon there were two skins drying by the fire, and the selkie went on rocking and smiling.

That night, she went to the pebble beach and called in the language of her clan; and when the folk of the selkie came, she gave them the skins, and they put them on, becoming the gunnerman and his son. They went to the market, and to the town, and even to the whaling-ship: and everywhere they went, they secretly collected the skins of the Folk, and gave them to the selkie clan, to let them walk the land unseen.

And there they walk unseen to this day; collecting the hides of their enemy. The Folk call them the Craiceann, or Kraken, and many tales are told of them, and the danger of rousing their anger.

They say the madcap Queen of May once fell in love with a man of the Folk, and followed him to his World, forsaking her life and her memory. All of Faërie grieved for her, and longed for the day when she might return, but the Queen had forgotten her kingdom, her glamours, her kindred and even her name, so that she could never look back, or recognize her people. Only sometimes, in her dreams, did she catch a glimpse of what she had lost, and heard the music of days gone by, and awoke with tears on her pillow. And yet she was happy with her man and the daughter they had together.

But the lives of the Folk are as brief and as bright as skeins of summer lightning, and soon the man grew old and died, and the Queen and her daughter were left alone. Even in her grief, the Queen’s daughter was all she needed. But with the death of her father, the child had grown fearful and melancholy. Once as bright as the sun on the sea, she grew ever more listless and forlorn. Her hair, which had been long and fair, grew as fine as spider silk. And in her dreams, she saw a man with eyes the shade of a moth’s wing: a man who never spoke or smiled, and walking, cast no shadow.

Almost every fairy tale begins with the death of the parents. But the death of a child changes everything. The death of a child means no journey; no coming-of-age; no adventures; no happy-ever-after. All that remains of the tale is grief. Grief, the wingless bird in its cage, singing and singing and singing.

But a song can climb higher, live longer, see more than any bird that ever flew. A song can pass from mouth to mouth, changing with the seasons. And a song can pass between the Worlds, even to the Kingdom of Death, where the Hallowe’en King on his bone-white throne watches the Worlds through his all-seeing Eye, and contemplates the honey-comb.

This is the story of such a song. A song born of a mother’s grief, given wings by a mother’s love. A song of memory, and loss, and of the magic of everyday things. A song of rebirth, and rejoicing, and a love that lasts for ever. The song of a journey to Death and beyond.

And it starts with the death of a daughter.

Step on a Crack

My plaid awa, my plaid awa,

And ore the hill and far awa,

And far awa to Norrowa,

My plaid shall not be blown awa.

The Child Ballads, no. 2: The Elphin Knight

One

When Daisy Orr was six, she began to avoid the cracks in the pavement. It started as an unusual attentiveness to paving slabs, a reluctance to walk over cobblestones, and evolved into a complex series of skips and jumps and diversions, designed to carry her safely across the many pavements of London.

Children are ritualistic. Their lives are filled with ancient lore. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back acquires a grim significance for a child who has just lost her father. But six is a resilient age. While her mother struggled with grief, Daisy was coming to terms with death in a way she could control. The pavement game was Daisy’s way of making sense of the irrational.

This, at least, was what her mother believed. Later, she came to reassess her reading of the pavement game. But by then it was too late and she herself had slipped through a crack, into a world without Daisy.

There should be a word, Fay Orr tells herself, for a woman who loses a child. A woman who loses a husband can at least put a name to her loss. She is a widow. Her grief has a name. That name gives her a narrative. But this is a different kind of grief. She is a woman who has lost a child. She was a mother. Now she is not. Now she does not know who she is. Now she is adrift, alone. Nameless, she casts no shadow.

Who am I? she asks herself. What am I doing in this world? It all seems very wrong, and there is no-one here to tell her what to do. She has tried counselling. It doesn’t work. Words and affirmations have no meaning any more.

How are you feeling this morning, Fay?

She wants to say something. Really she does. But the question is meaningless. What is there to feel? Daisy is gone. Her daughter is gone. In her place there is nothing.

Why don’t we look at your diary, Fay?

Ah yes, she thinks. The diary. It’s supposed to help her counsellor (whose name is Janine, and who thinks that Fay would benefit from sharing her thoughts) understand how she fills her days. Fay would like to explain to Janine that she has no thoughts. She is only a mechanism, going through the meaningless rituals over and over every day.

You’re keeping fit. That’s good, Fay.

Janine is a great believer in the healing properties of exercise. As if tighter calves or more defined abdominals might help her reach an epiphany. Fay knows better. The running has become a compulsion. King’s Cross to Trafalgar Square without stepping on a single crack. Euston Road to Regent’s Park without thinking of Daisy. The thing is, Daisy is everywhere. Daisy at three; Daisy at six; Daisy dead at twenty-one, stolen away by the Shadowless Man. Children look to their parents to tell them monsters don’t exist. But what if they do? Fay asks herself. What if the monsters were here all along, but only Daisy saw them?

This is excellent progress, Fay. Any more dreams?

She shakes her head. There are no dreams she wants to share. Dreams are how this all began. Besides, there’s only one dream that counts. She has it almost every night. She dreams she could have saved Daisy, somehow. That she could have known what was happening.

It’s not your fault, Janine repeats. There’s nothing else you could have done. Daisy was suffering from a neurological disorder. She was off her medication. There was no way you could have known.

But that isn’t true. There have always been ways. Secret ways to see the world, through dreams and charms and mysteries. Daisy believed in the power of dreams, though Fay dismissed her fantasies.

And now, every night, Fay dreams that she arrived in time to save her. That instead of those twenty-four hours she spent in ignorance – watching TV, going to the gym, sitting in the garden and listening to the sound of the birds – she had somehow instinctively known. That instead of reading an email, she had guessed by osmosis. And now there is no way to banish the thought: Daisy fell through the pavement cracks. I wasn’t there to save her.

And so she runs. She runs through the pain. When she can no longer run, she walks until she can run again. The pain is like a dark cloud that shows no sign of lifting. People are no more than shadows here. Only the cracks in the pavement are real. Sometimes Fay wonders whether it is she who has slipped through the worlds, somehow. She feels she has become as flat and blank as a piece of paper; trapped between the pages of a continuous narrative, in which Daisy’s death replays over and over, like a fragment of dialogue that no longer has any meaning.

Once, she might have turned to music to console herself. Music has been at the heart of Fay’s life; music, singing and the stage. It was her husband’s life as well – he was a concert pianist. But Allan Orr is as dead as an empty stage in the moonlight, and Daisy is a silent ghost that music cannot exorcize.

And so Fay runs – always at night – along the towpath from King’s Cross: or along Euston Road into the West End, Shaftesbury Avenue, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus. She likes to run in the small hours, when there is no-one else around but the homeless people. Barely visible by day, at night, when the theatres and pubs are closed, when the last Tube home has gone, they come out into the light of the bright shop windows. And there they sit drinking and smoking on the tiled floors by the department stores, wrapped in blankets and bedclothes like children up late on Christmas Eve. Fay feels no urge to speak to them, and yet she feels a kinship. They, too, have slipped through the cracks. They, too, cast no shadow.

She has no destination in mind. She has no sense of time passing. She feels no sense of achievement at having run so far, so fast. The best she can possibly hope for, she knows, is the oblivion of exhaustion. And so she runs with her backpack through the broad, bare London streets in her running shoes that do not match her leggings or her T-shirt: runs past the displays of jewellery, of toys and household objects; feet pounding the pavement slabs; running, as if from a predator.

And yet, there is something different tonight. Something in the air, perhaps. She remembers that it is Michaelmas, the end of the harvest season. Even the city knows it somehow, in its ancient, forest heart. The shadows will lengthen after this: the city will swing into darkness. The leaves are already falling fast; there is a change in the sound of the wind. And tonight, the sky is cold and clear, with the full moon standing sentinel.

There are no stars in London. The city is too bright for their pure, cold light to compete. But the moon is full for the second time this month, and larger than she remembers. They call that a blue moon, she tells herself. She does not recall how she knows this. The blue moon rises above Shaftesbury Avenue, luminous as a jellyfish. She moves to get a better view, and as she does, her foot catches on something. Only on looking down does she realize that the paving stone on which she is standing is cracked right down the middle. For a moment she is still, looking down at the paving stone. It must be a trick of the moonlight, but in that moment it looks as if the stone is illuminated from below; as if there is a crack in the world, through which a light is shining.

She does not know for how long she stands, pinned by that mysterious light. But it is in that time – seconds, or hours, she does not know – that Fay slips through the crack in the Worlds, into another story.

Two

She must have blanked out for a moment, she thought. Wasn’t the blue harvest moon supposed to have magical properties? Fay did not believe in such things. But there was something magical here. She felt it like an ache in her teeth; her mouth was filled with sweetness.

She looked down, but the light at her feet had been replaced by a shadow so dark that she could not see the ground. The lights from the theatres and billboards were gone, overlaid with darkness. And there was a scent, too; a distant scent of woodsmoke. Woodsmoke, on Shaftesbury Avenue? Looking towards Piccadilly, she saw that all the streetlights were out. On Regent Street; on Coventry Street; around the Shaftesbury fountain. The Coca-Cola sign was dead; and over Piccadilly Circus there was nothing but moonlight …

A power cut, she told herself. Or maybe a cost-cutting measure. At this time of night, who would even know? And yet it made her uneasy to see the familiar landmarks darkened. It made her imagine all kinds of things hiding in the shadows. She made her way slowly down the street towards Piccadilly Circus. The scent of woodsmoke was stronger now, mingled with something else; a scent of cedar and spices and sandalwood. Looking up, there was another surprise: she could finally see the stars.

Three

Her eyes took a minute or two to adjust, but the moonlight was surprisingly bright; bright enough to cast shadows, and the stars formed an astonishing bridge of light, spanning the city skyline. There was no light at all from the streets: no shops, no billboards; no street lamps. Even Centre Point was dark. The power cut must be city-wide. Except for a dim and flickering glow around the entrance to the Tube, a glow that looked like firelight.

Slowly, Fay moved closer. The scent of smoke was stronger still, making her think of Bonfire Night, and fallen leaves, and fireworks. As she reached the statue of Eros, she saw a group of people huddled around a burning container, which might have been a galvanized pail. They looked like homeless people; their faces bright with reflected fire. Fay counted five; a pale man with long hair; a teenage girl in a wheelchair; a woman in a long coat and two others of ambiguous gender, one slender and purple-haired, the other heavily tattooed, and wearing a patch over one eye. They turned towards her as she approached: even in that moment of calm, they looked ready for battle or flight. They could have been storybook travellers, she thought, sitting around a campfire; pirates, on the deck of a ship; adventurers in a hostile land.

She raised a hand in greeting. ‘What happened to the lights?’ she said.

The pale man, who was closest to her, gave her an appraising look. His eyes were dark and pinned with gold, like spinners in the firelight. Looking at the Tube entrance, Fay saw that the gate was open, and there was a haphazard pile of tents all the way down the stairs and beyond.

Daisy had a tent, she thought: midnight-blue, and embroidered with stars. She used to sleep there in summertime, on a bed of cushions, surrounded by stuffed animals – cats and bears and elephants; tigers and dogs and unicorns. The animals were supposed to stop the Shadowless Man from getting in. But the Shadowless Man always got in. However many mirrors they placed, or animal guardians, or strings of lights. The Shadowless Man would always come, with his sackful of dreams. Fay wondered if she was dreaming now. And she realized, with a little jolt, that for the past ten minutes or so, she had not thought of Daisy at all.

‘You’re limping,’ said the pale man. ‘Sit down.’ He indicated a fishing chair set up by the side of the fire pail. His voice was gently accented, but she could not tell the region. Now Fay could see him more clearly, she saw that his dark hair had been shaved along one side and left to grow long on the other. A sickle of diamond studs in one ear gave him a corona of fire.

‘What you run for, anyway?’ said the girl in the wheelchair. Her voice, too, was accented – more so than her companion’s – and her face was broad and brown, her eyes as bright as a bird’s. ‘You a fitness freak, or what?’

Fay shook her head.

‘So what do you do?’

‘I used to sing.’ It was true, though now it seemed like a story to her, a montage from another life. She remembered singing Daisy to sleep with songs from Assassins and Company: remembered how Daisy slept on the couch in the dressing room at the Palace, or watched her from the wings at the Queen’s, her eyes drowned in reflected lights.

‘You famous, then?’ said the girl. ‘Done anything I might’ve heard of?’

Fay shrugged. That’s what they always ask. They always imagine it’s glamorous. A few stage roles in the West End, back when Allan was alive. Some concert tours, with songs from the shows. There was even a CD or two. Then mostly ensembles, and character parts, then panto and adverts, and audiobooks. Then nothing. It had been years since she sang. She wondered if she still knew how; what would happen if she tried.

‘I quit. I lost my voice,’ she said.

‘Too bad,’ said the girl in the wheelchair. ‘Where did it go? Down the back of the sofa, I’ll bet, or over the sea to Norroway.’

Did she really say that? thought Fay. Or did I just imagine it? Since Daisy died she has been finding it hard to separate dream and reality. Dreams are supposed to be unreal, filled with fantastic details. But now it is reality that seems like make-believe to Fay; a world turned on its head, in which Daisy no longer has a part.

‘Quiet, Cobweb,’ said the man. ‘Mind your manners. We have a guest.’ Once more addressing Fay, he said: ‘Don’t mind her. She means no harm. Sit with us awhile, and rest. These are my friends. Cobweb, you met. Here’s Mabs, and over there are Moth and Peronelle.’ He indicated the other two; Moth with the tattoos and the eyepatch; Peronelle with the purple hair. He held out his hand. ‘I’m Alberon.’

Fay gave her name, and allowed the man to lead her to the fishing chair. His fingers were strong and slender, adorned with many silver rings. And there was a scent that clung to him; something like woodsmoke and spices, a woodland scent somehow, she thought – a world away from Piccadilly Circus. Fay sat down, feeling suddenly tired and dazed. Someone – the woman he called Mabs – handed her a plastic cup of some kind of spirit, hot and harsh, but comforting as it settled. The taste was strangely smoky, but sweet, and it went to Fay’s head almost at once. Mabs poured another shot.

‘Drink up. Winter’s in the wings.’

Fay sipped a little more. She wondered how Alberon and his friends would manage once the weather turned. She had heard of rough sleepers finding their way underneath the city, into the disused Tube stations and under ventilation grates. Was this what they had done? How had they managed to open the gates that led to the Tube station, anyway?

Mabs reached into the fire pail and lit a skinny cigarette. The scent was both familiar and strange, the smoke as strong as incense. She cupped her hands around it, sending tendrils of smoke around her head. In the light of the fire it was hard to tell her age or ethnicity. Her face was small and sharp-featured, and her long hair might have been white or blonde, arresting against her dark skin. She was wearing a long velvet coat that might have been blue, or purple, or brown; opulent in the firelight, though Fay could see it was ragged and worn. Behind her Moth and Cobweb shared one of those tiny cigarettes, its scent both unidentifiable and tantalizingly familiar.

‘Here. Try one,’ said Alberon, handing his cigarette to Fay.

She started to refuse – she had not smoked for twenty-two years – and yet the contact was welcome. She took a drag of the cigarette – it didn’t taste of tobacco at all, but of something like oak moss, and acorn wine, and honey, and fresh popcorn. And it gave her an immediate buzz – a warm and sleepy feeling that seemed to wrap around her like a coat lined with thistledown.

Alberon smiled. ‘Feel better?’

Fay nodded, and in that moment, she realized she actually did: that the iron-grey mist that had swallowed her life had somehow gently lifted. For how long, she could not say, but for now the sensation was new and wildly exhilarating. She glanced up at the moon, and it looked so large that it might have been a hot-air balloon landing over Eros.

‘That isn’t really Eros, you know,’ she said, through a mouthful of sweet-scented smoke. ‘That’s his twin brother, Anteros, the god of selfless love. They look just the same, except that Eros’s wings are like a bird’s, and Anteros’s like a butterfly.’

Alberon smiled again. ‘Is that so?’ Fay was surprised she had spoken aloud. The words danced around her like butterflies on tiny little golden wings. Butterfly is a golden word, she thought. It smells of honeycomb.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Alberon. ‘You’re not used to madcap. It won’t do you any harm, but it might make you see things differently.’

Fay looked at the cigarette in her hand. Madcap? she thought. What on earth’s that? A cloud of golden butterflies rose from the fire in the galvanized pail and crackled across the face of the moon like a spray of fireworks. A scent came with them; a rich, sweet scent like roses steeped in honey. A little cascade of tumbling notes unrolled and dispersed into the air. Fay looked around and realized that Peronelle was singing.

The elphin knight sits on yon hill,

Bay, bay, bay, lily, bay

He blows his horn both loud and shrill.

The wind hath blown my plaid away.

The song was unfamiliar, the words so heavily accented that she struggled to find their meaning, and yet something in Fay responded to them in a deep and instinctive way. The little notes blew like dandelion seeds, tumbling into the golden air, and to her surprise she found herself laughing aloud in simple joy.

‘Every sage grows merry in time,’ said Alberon, still smiling. ‘Madcap is as madcap does, my Lady, Queen Orfeia.’

‘What did you call me?’ Fay tried to say, but the madcap, or whatever it was, was really starting to take effect. She could feel the smoke in her mouth turning into musical notes; brittle little quavers and crystalline semiquavers taking flight like fireflies.

‘Sing with us,’ said Alberon. ‘Sing with us, and all will be well.’

It would have felt so good to sing again, even for such an audience – and yet she found she could not. Even under the madcap’s spell, something kept her silent: the notes that fluttered on her lips were as soundless as falling snow. Peronelle continued to sing: a tune Fay almost felt she knew:

Queen Orfeia crossed the bay,

Bay, bay, lily, bay

Cross’d the sea to Norroway

The wind hath blown my plaid away.

The others joined in: she could see their words; Alberon’s dark and heavy as ink; Mabs’ like a ladder of silver thread; the other three, little dabs of light against the coral darkness. But even now, when she could see the notes and feel the harmonies, Fay still could not find her voice. And so instead she danced; first alone and then, when Alberon reached out, within the circle of his arms.

‘I would so love to hear you sing,’ he said in his low and pleasant voice. ‘Music and madness are lovers, my Queen. And memory – who needs her?’

Fay smiled. ‘Memory is a mother,’ she said. ‘I could no more give up my memories than I could lose my shadow.’

The madcap had reached a kind of multisensory climax. Music blended with colour and light; scent and taste with movement. Mabs was dancing with the smoke, the skirts of her long coat carding the air. The moonlight was singing in shades of marshmallow and violet; the motes from the fire were like little bells. Alberon’s hand was at her waist, the other was cool at the nape of her neck. And they danced like lovers in the smoke, which smelt of rose and sandalwood, of cardamom and clove, until at last the music stopped, and the song came to an end.

Peronelle started to clap – not entirely approvingly, Fay thought. ‘Brava, Queen Orfeia!’

That name again. ‘I’m Fay,’ she said.

‘Of course you are,’ sang Peronelle. ‘Fay and fey as Fae can be.’

Madcap as the Queen of May;

Heartless as the harvest moon.

Thankless as the thistle-tree,

The wind has blown my plaid away.

‘What does that even mean?’ Fay tried to stand, and found her legs unreliable. She threw out her hand to steady herself, and just then she saw a light shine out from under a broken paving stone; a yellow strip of brightness like the light from under a door. No sooner had she noticed it, it went out. She imagined people behind the door, watching, hiding; breathing in the dark.

She pulled away from Alberon’s grasp and turned to Peronelle. ‘What was that?’

Peronelle laughed. ‘That’s madcap for you.’

‘There was light under the pavement. A light.’ As Fay’s anxiety mounted, she sensed the madcap responding. The feeling of delirium was gone; now her skin was all prickles and thorns. She felt as if she was on the verge of awakening from an ominous dream; as if all the colours in the world were draining into the ground, one by one. Peronelle went on singing, in a voice that was sweet and mocking:

Merry as the marigold

Careless as the columbine

Faithless as the foxglove fair

My lady, Queen Orfeia.

Alberon said: ‘That’s quite enough.’ He put his hand on Fay’s shoulder. ‘Don’t mind Peronelle, my Queen. It’s the madcap talking.’

He turned towards Peronelle and made a gesture of dismissal. ‘Leave us. Let’s have no more talk. Queen Orfeia and I have private business to discuss.’

Peronelle pulled a spiteful face. For a second Fay saw their outline shimmer, as if caught in a heat-haze. Then they dispersed into a cloud of tiny dancing butterflies that rose into the bonfire smoke and vanished in the moonlight. The butterflies were luminous, and all the same shade of purple as Peronelle’s hair. Alberon made the same gesture of dismissal to Cobweb and Moth, and both of them vanished in the same way, Cobweb into an emerald cloud, Moth into a silvery one. The butterflies rose out of sight, briefly covering the moon, then they were gone, and only he and Mabs remained beside the dying fire.

Fay looked down the street, and saw the bar of light had reappeared. The warm glow beneath the stones was back: cheery and enticing, like the light from around a secret door where a riotous party was going on. She stood up, feeling less disoriented. The last of the madcap had given her a reckless kind of determination, and though Alberon’s hand tightened on her arm, she pulled away from him, towards the glowing paving stone.

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Alberon gently. ‘You’re safe here, for the moment. But step off the path again and there’s no knowing where in the Worlds you’ll end up.’

But Fay was already crossing the road towards the bright crack in the pavement. The darkened shop windows reflected the moon in silent silver panels. She half-expected the light to go out again as she reached it, but this time it stayed, shining out between the slabs of heavy London stone.

Fay knelt to look more closely, putting her face to the crack in the ground. It was no more than half an inch wide, but the light was so brilliant that she had trouble focusing. And yet, as her eyes adjusted, a scene emerged, far away below her, but still as clear and bright as a child’s snow-globe. She saw a clearing in a wood, a clearing surrounded by hawthorn trees. Their blossom was as white as snow, and fluttered like confetti. Within the clearing itself, the ground was covered with bluebells – their sleepy scent reached her faintly through the crack in the pavement. And there, asleep in the bluebells, was a girl all dressed in white, under a blanket of wild rose—

For a moment there was no air in the air she was breathing. Her throat was tight; her mouth was numb; her heart was a burning ball of wire …

‘Daisy?’ she said.

The girl slept on. Far under the streets of London, she slept, cocooned in the scent of bluebells.

Fay tried to prise up the paving stone with the tips of her fingers, but the slab was unmoveable. She felt a fingernail tear to the quick; but the pain came to her from a distance, like something that happened to someone else, far away and long ago. From a distance, she could hear the sound of voices behind her: Alberon and Mabs were having an argument.

‘Let her be, for pity’s sake,’ said Mabs. ‘What good can you do her now?’

‘I will not lose her,’ said Alberon. ‘Not after all we’ve been through. Queen Orfeia …’ He raised his voice. ‘Your Daisy cannot hear you. She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King, and nothing you do here can wake her.’

But Fay was only aware of him as part of a background of white noise. Once more she called her daughter’s name, ringing it off the concrete and glass and stone of Piccadilly. The madcap must still have been working, because her call took shape in the air, rocketing into the sky and coming down in a shower of stars.

Through the crack in the pavement, the sleeping girl turned over and sighed.

Mabs said: ‘It’s pointless. You’ve lost her.’

Fay shouted, ‘Daisy! It’s me! I’m here!’ and hammered her fists against the stone, but only managed to bruise her hands.

Below her, the sleeping girl slept on.

Alberon sighed and said: ‘We’ll find her again in London Beyond. That is, if she gets that far.’

And at that he and Mabs disappeared silently into the smoke, he into a cloud of black butterflies, she into a cloud of silver ones, and if Fay had been watching them, she might have noticed that as they stood together in the moonlight, neither the man nor the woman had cast even the smallest shadow.

As it was, she barely saw them go. Instead she screamed and wept and clawed at the luminous crack in the ground that shone with such a fugitive gleam. But just as her fingers could not lift the stone, her voice seemed to bounce off the pavement, like fireworks hitting the ground. And then the light went out as suddenly as it had appeared, and Fay was left in darkness, alone, under an emptiness of stars.

Four

She must have slept, she told herself. How that could be, she did not know. Perhaps it was the madcap. In any case, when she awoke it was light, and the sky was blue, and she was wrapped in a blanket, with her backpack as a pillow, at the bottom of the steps under the statue of Anteros.

For a moment she was disoriented. Her muscles ached and her mouth was dry. She looked at her Fitbit. Seven-fifteen. She had spent the whole night here. It took her a moment to realize that there was no-one else around. This went beyond the unusual, she thought, into the realms of fantasy. A deserted Piccadilly at night was already strange enough, but by seven in the morning, the streets should have been filled with commuters, and retail workers, and street-sweepers, and taxicabs, and delivery vans, and garbage men, and junkies, and joggers, and tourists. All the same, the streets were bare, both of vehicles and pedestrians. There were no people leaving the Tube; no rough sleepers by the entrance.

Something must have gone wrong, she thought. Maybe there had been a crime. Perhaps the square had been cordoned off by the police, and somehow she had slept through it. She stood up, automatically rolling up the blanket. It was blue, with silver stars, and some part of her mind seemed to recognize it, although she had no memory of bringing it with her on her run. But it was small, and she managed to fit it into her backpack along with the few things she always carried on her night-time runs: a bottle of water; some cereal bars; a purse containing emergency cash; a hoodie in case the night turned cold; her phone; a small first-aid kit; her keys on a key ring shaped like a tiny notebook. She looked down Shaftesbury Avenue, then across the square towards Regent Street. There was no-one to be seen, not even where Alberon and his friends had had their fire at the mouth of the Tube. She walked to the spot where the fire-pail had been, but there was nothing left but a little pile of ash and a circle scorched against the stone.

The fire was real, said Fay to herself. That means it wasn’t all a dream. The idea that she might have invented Alberon and his friends – perhaps as part of some fugue state – had occurred to her. She looked around for more traces. But the Tube entrance was closed again; the ornamental gates bolted shut, and, looking down into the dark, Fay thought she could see some kind of creeper – bindweed, or bramble, or Russian vine – growing across the stairway. And there was something else too, deep in the tangle of creeper – Cobweb’s discarded wheelchair, at the foot of the stairwell.

This must be a dream, she told herself. I dreamed, and am still sleeping. And yet she could feel the strap of her backpack against her shoulder; the ache of her sore calves; the dryness at the back of her throat. She could still smell woodsmoke on her clothes, and the residual scent of madcap. What had it been? Some new strain of marijuana? Whatever it was, she felt sober now. She found her water bottle in the pocket of her backpack and drank. The water was cool against her throat, and she felt a little better.

It must have been a fugue state, she thought. That would explain the things she had seen, and her mind had merely attempted to fit them into her reality. But now she felt completely awake, completely sober, and yet this was still not the London she knew. She wanted to go home, but the Tube was closed on both sides of the square. So she started to walk along Piccadilly, conscious of the sound of her feet on the silent pavement, and as she did she remembered the scene she had glimpsed through the paving-crack; and how real it had seemed. How much more real than any dream.

She looked at her reflection in a nearby shop window, seeing herself in the darkened glass, her backpack over one shoulder. Her hair stood out in crazy spikes; her face was smudged with woodsmoke. She came a little closer and saw that, behind the glass, the window display was overrun with the same vegetation she had seen at the Tube entrance; brambles, and bindweed, and Russian vine, and something that might have been hawthorn. Some kind of a Hallowe’en display, thought Fay, seeing rose hips and blackberries growing against the dusty glass. Maybe some kind of conceptual art installation. Maybe it was Fashion Week, and this was some new way of selling clothes. She looked closer and saw that among the vines, there was indeed an array of evening wear, but the dresses looked old and neglected, and there were cobwebs in the lace; a layer of dust on the sequins.

She moved to the next shop window, which seemed to be a jeweller’s. But here, too, there were creepers and vines growing up against the glass; there was dust on the display cases and the velvet lining, and the necklaces, bracelets and rings were all but obscured by sprays of bramble and autumn leaves.

Fay moved past the jeweller’s shop, feeling her heartbeat quicken. Every shop she passed was the same; overgrown with creepers and vines, or branches bearing hips and haws, or thorny clusters of dust-grey sloes. She started to run. Her feeling of dread and her aching muscles drove her to it, and as she ran past the darkened shops – Waterstones, its display of books scattered like heaps of fallen leaves; Fortnum’s, its display of gilded biscuit tins and bottles and chocolates all tangled with briars and foxgloves and rose – she saw that all the shops were the same; their windows dark and overgrown, gleefully bursting with baleful life. Some had broken windows, with scattered fragments of glass on the ground, allowing the creepers and brambles and vines to cascade out into the street. Fay saw a cluster of blackberries growing from a crack in a wall, picked one, popped it in her mouth. The taste was sharp and wild and strong, nothing like the blackberries she bought in shops.

She remembered a snatch of folklore; that at Michaelmas, the Devil spits on autumn’s last crop of blackberries, making them bitter and poisonous. Even so, she took another handful of berries. They were not exactly good, and yet the taste of them was compelling. They tasted of smoke, and Bonfire Night, and cheap wine, and burned sugar. And they tasted real – more real than anything else on that silent street. Reaching Bond Street Station at last, Fay noticed that it too was closed off – and here too there were creepers and vines growing out of the entrance.

That decided it, she thought. Whatever had happened to the Tube, the road was still there, and she knew the way home. She turned back and started to run, slowly at first, then settling into a faster pace. At first her muscles were stiff from a night spent on the London streets, but she soon found her natural rhythm, and the pavement felt good against her feet. Back along Piccadilly she ran, then across the deserted square and up Shaftesbury Avenue. The autumn leaves that papered the ground made brittle, desperate sounds as she passed. Otherwise, it was eerily still. No sound of traffic, no sirens, no voices, no taxis, no passers-by – and now as she ran she realized that apart from the leaves, there was no litter on the road; not even a sweet wrapper. Running past the theatres she saw that the lights were still out on the billboards, and the posters and fliers were faded and torn, and that here and there were creepers and vines growing out of the doorways.

This time she did not stop to look, but quickened her pace and ran faster. The wind was strangely warm, and smelt of sage and samphire, and fallen leaves, and windfall apples, and blackberries. Even the air is different today, thought Fay. It smells of the woods in autumn. I am lost in the wild woods, except that the woods look like London.

By now she was approaching Euston Road. There, at least, would be people, she thought. But turning onto the carriageway, she saw no sign of life; no traffic; no litter but fallen leaves; not even a single pedestrian. And here, too, was that scent on the wind, that wind that seemed so strangely warm, a scent that reminded her of the woods, a distillation of spices and leaves left to moulder and crumble and rot, and beyond it, the salty tang of the sea. And rolling in the gutter, Fay saw something that looked like a child’s red ball, coming towards her, blown by the wind—

She stopped to retrieve it. It wasn’t a ball. It was a single, flawless, red rose, tumbled and travelling with the wind. No florist’s bloom, but an old-fashioned rose, packed with scented petals. Fay held it to her face. It smelt of summer and of endings. The wind must have blown it off a bush, in a churchyard, maybe, somewhere on the Euston Road. She tucked it carefully into her backpack, taking care not to crush the petals. Daisy always loved roses, she thought. The scented ones were her favourites. And Fay had always meant to plant a rose bush by her daughter’s grave, but the task of choosing just one had been too much for her. There were so many, their names as enticing as their colours: Albertine; Grand Siècle; Autumn Damask; Madame Alfred Carrière. They sounded like ladies-in-waiting from some old French fairy-tale. But some part of her knew that once she had chosen a rose bush and planted it over Daisy’s grave, she would have taken another step towards saying goodbye for ever. And Fay did not want to say goodbye. Not even with the pain of her loss like a tangle of thorns in her heart, remembering Daisy was all she had, and was better by far than forgetting her.

Once more she started to run down the road. Home was barely ten minutes away. And however alien London had become, home was still home, and meant safety. Home was where she and Allan had lived, in that little house near King’s Cross with the patchy central heating; home was where Daisy had been conceived; where her childhood room stayed untouched, her toys and dolls all put away, her bed remade and aired every week, with flowers at her bedside. Home was where you went when nothing else in the world made sense, and all you wanted to do was curl up under a blanket and sleep until the stars began to fall and all the world was ashes.

But when Fay finally got to King’s Cross, it was overgrown with weeds, and brambles grew across the road, and elders from the clock tower. And beyond that, there were no houses at all, except for some derelict buildings, roofless and empty and vaulted with trees and spreading Virginia creeper, and buddleia, and sycamore, and creeping scarlet roses.

London Beyond

‘For da king o Ferrie we his daert,

Has pierced your lady to da hert.’

The Child Ballads, no. 19: King Orfeo

One

For a long time, Fay stared at the forest that had been King’s Cross. Some of the trees looked very old – a hundred and fifty years or more – and there were birds among the branches; magpies and starlings and jackdaws and crows. The wall between what had been York Way and the railway station still stood, although it was pitted and almost obscured under a curtain of creeper, and there was a narrow path running alongside it, leading into the forest.

Fay had long since ceased to tell herself that she was dreaming. If Daisy could be dead, she thought, then anything was possible. She came closer to the path, which was more like a tunnel overhung with branches and vines and strong brown twists of briar. Some of the briars still bore a few ripening blackberries, although most of the fruit had dried on the branch, and Fay picked and ate them, less out of hunger than out of a strange compulsion. It was enchanted fruit, after all. Perhaps, like the madcap, it opened doors.

She remembered Alberon’s words to Mabs: We’ll find her again in London Beyond. London Beyond. Was this where he had meant? Whatever had happened, she told herself, Alberon was a part of it. Fay knew she had to find him again.

She looked into the tunnel of leaves. The path there was small and winding. And yet it looked clear. She was not the first to seek a way through the undergrowth. She looked over her shoulder towards the deserted station, where the clock tower was overgrown with bindweed and roses. On the side of the building, someone had sprayed the phrase: MY PLAID AWAY in a wild, exuberant script. And the clock had stopped at 4.03 – the time at which she had received the call that Daisy had taken her own life—

What was it Alberon had said? She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King. At the time, Fay had barely heard him; the sight of Daisy asleep in the woods had taken up all her attention. But now his words came back to her like the rose on the wind: She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King, and nothing you do here can wake her.

Nothing you do here can wake her. Why not just nothing can wake her?

Because things have changed, she told herself. Because the world is different now. Because I stepped on a crack and fell into a realm of magic.

And at that thought, she stepped onto the path through the wilderness, into London Beyond.

Two

A few steps onto the overgrown path, and it was already darker. Thick vegetation surrounded her in every shade of autumn. Light filtered through like stained glass in a narrow chapel of rest, and the wind was like plainsong through the leaves, whispering and calling. There were roses growing up into the canopy over her head: most of them had gone to seed, sending out sprays of rose hips, but there were still some dark-red blooms adding their scent to that of the leaves carpeting the forest floor.

The roses were barbed with wicked thorns, clutching at Fay’s clothes and hair. And yet the path stayed clear enough, though walled in thickly from both sides, as it led her into the heart of the woods that now grew over Battlebridge. From time to time she could hear birds, or see insects – jewelled beetles and moths – crawling in the undergrowth. Fay remembered how Peronelle and Cobweb and Moth had turned into clouds of butterflies. Where were Alberon and his friends now? Were they the only other people left in this world? And how could she ever find them again in this overgrown version of London?

And then she heard a sound from afar, like that of a musical instrument. A horn, thought Fay, its mellow tone both sweet and wild. It seemed to be coming from somewhere ahead; beyond the urban forest. She heard it only once, and yet felt strangely drawn to the music. Someone was near. She was not alone. She followed the path towards the sound, quickening her pace as much as the undergrowth allowed and, after a time, emerged into a kind of clearing.

On one side of the clearing was the wall that ran alongside York Way. She saw a row of arches choked with vegetation, and beyond that the railway; the overhead lines now garlanded with bindweed. Trumpet-shaped flowers and heart-shaped leaves cascaded over signals and points, and there were railway carriages, now covered with moss and hanging vines. On the other side was forest, a little less dense than the patch through which she had crossed, with ruined buildings and ancient trees rising up out of the undergrowth.

The clearing itself was concrete, broken in many places, with dandelions and buddleia growing out of the cracks. A number of tags and slogans had been spray-painted on the ground, but the colours were old and faded. One read: THE KIDS FROM FAE, and beyond it, on the far side of the clearing, lay an enormous tiger.

For a moment, Fay was pinned to the spot. A wave of adrenalin washed over her, and it was almost more than she could do to stop herself from running. But how could she outrun a tiger? Don’t behave like prey, she thought. Move slowly, with confidence. She wondered whether to turn back into the thicket, but told herself that she would stand more of a chance if she stayed in the open. Besides, she thought, I heard a horn.

She started to move, very slowly, edging away from the tiger. The tiger watched her, motionless, except for the very tip of its tail, which twitched to and fro like the second hand of a watch with a dying battery. It was a very large tiger, radiant with health and life. It looked well-fed. Fay almost laughed. A tiger, here in London?

But this is London Beyond, she thought. Anything is possible.

The tiger shifted position. The arc of the tail grew wider. It stretched out a lazy forepaw, extending claws like grappling hooks. Fay was struck by how closely the creature resembled a domestic cat. Daisy always wanted a cat, she thought. Why didn’t we get one? A low vibration reached her ears: the animal was purring.

Fay quickened her pace a little, heading towards the railway.

The tiger slowly rose to its feet. Each paw was the size of a footstool, upholstered in autumnal fur. The purr was less of a sound than a tremor that moved through the concrete, that made the leaves shiver, that froze the sun. And now the tiger began to move, very slowly, towards her. It looked like an illustration in a Victorian children’s book; every whisker perfectly rendered. And yet there was something unreal about it; something she could not identify. Maybe it was the mere fact of its presence, here in the concrete clearing, but Fay could not rid herself of the thought that she’d missed something obvious.

Fay was sure it could hear the quickening of her heart. Three seconds and the urge to run would be impossible to resist; three seconds and she would be prey, running helplessly from Death—

And then she saw a little girl standing by the tiger’s side; standing so close that a swipe of a paw might erase her from the world. She looked about seven years old, and was wearing an adult’s overcoat so large that it trailed behind her, the sleeves rolled up so far that her thin brown arms stuck out like twigs. She did not seem at all afraid, and in spite of her own fear, Fay found herself instinctively moving to protect her.

‘Turn around slowly,’ she said. ‘Don’t run. Running makes you look like prey.’

The little girl looked at Fay, and laughed. ‘He won’t hurt you,’ she said. She had the same accent as Alberon and his friends; an accent that might have been regional, but which Fay still could not quite place. She put her hand on the tiger’s flank and the tiger licked it. ‘Look,’ said the child. ‘He won’t hurt us. Come and see.’

Fay stared at the child and her tiger. The animal’s pads were large enough to cover the whole of the little girl’s head. But the child seemed so certain of herself, one hand in the tiger’s fur, the other extended to welcome Fay. The heavy purring intensified. The whole of the tiger’s flank vibrated softly, like an engine.

She looks like Daisy, Fay thought. Daisy had been blonde as a child, and this girl was very dark, but her expression was the same mixture of curiosity and sweetness. And yet there was something odd about her; something faintly troubling in the way she spoke and moved.

‘What’s your name?’ said Fay at last.

The child shook her head. ‘Don’t have one,’ she said.

‘Is the tiger … yours?’ asked Fay.

‘Of course not,’ said the little girl with reproach. ‘Tigers don’t belong to people. But he is my friend.’

‘Oh. What’s his name?’

‘Tigers don’t have names,’ she said. ‘They don’t need them. None of us do.’

‘Us?’ said Fay.

‘The travelling folk.’

That makes a sort of sense, thought Fay. Alberon and his friends had been travellers, at least of a kind. Perhaps she too was a traveller, caught between the London she knew and this overgrown, empty world. ‘Where are they now, these travelling folk?’

‘Everywhere.’ The child made a gesture that took in the sky, the undergrowth, the trees, the broken buildings.

‘Surely you don’t live here all alone. Where are your parents?’ said Fay.

Once more the child made a gesture, part shrug and part dismissal, as if the very idea of having parents was ludicrous. ‘Don’t have ’em. Don’t need ’em.’ She stroked the tiger’s glossy flank. ‘We don’t live like tame folk. We don’t have names, or families. We have fur and wings and teeth. We have roots and branches.’

‘So where do you travel to?’ said Fay. ‘And do you know a man called Alberon?’

The little girl looked incredulous. ‘You don’t know much, do you?’ she said. ‘No, he isn’t one of ours. He has more names than the Old Man himself. And he’s nothing but trouble.’

The tiger gave a low growl, as if in agreement – or warning.

‘It’s OK,’ said the little girl. Then, addressing Fay, she said: ‘We like to keep ourselves to ourselves. We don’t get involved with the Silken Folk. You shouldn’t either. They’ll mess with your mind.’ She put her small brown hand on Fay’s arm. ‘You don’t belong here, my Lady,’ she said. ‘Go back before something happens.’

The tiger’s purring resumed. Its eyes were a deep and luminous gold, flecked with dancing motes of light, and Fay had the strangest impression that it knew what she was thinking. And then, as she looked at the sunlight against the broken concrete, she realized what had troubled her about the little nameless girl. Neither she nor the tiger cast the slightest shadow.

Three

When Daisy’s father died, she began to dream of a being called the Shadowless Man. For nearly a year she had dreamed of him; a tall man, pale and all in black, wearing a coat that was lined with eyes that blinked and glittered in the dark. Fay could only speculate on what had summoned the Shadowless Man, but the dreams had stopped when the pavement game had taken over Daisy’s life; only returning nine years later, when the shadow of her depression had begun to creep over everything.

Of course, there was no such person as the Shadowless Man, Fay had told her. He was a symbol of something else, with his stern pale face and his coat of eyes. And yet, the dreams kept coming, growing ever more potent, ever more real, until the day she ended her life, only to exist in dreams.

But now dreams and reality seemed to have changed places. London had become the dream, and London Beyond the reality. And here was a child with no shadow, who might cast some light on the mystery.

‘I can’t go back. Not yet,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. I know it sounds crazy. I thought she was gone. But I saw her last night, in the bluebell wood, through the cracks in the pavement.’

And she told the child all she remembered: of Alberon and his group of friends; the madcap; the light through the pavement cracks. She even showed her the red rose that had come to her on the wind, and mentioned the sound of the hunting horn that had led her through the forest.

The child listened attentively, but showed no surprise at the story. Then she looked at the tiger. ‘Well?’

The tiger seemed to consider her words. Then it spoke, addressing Fay in a voice which held the hint of a purr: ‘Madcap. That would do it, O Queen. Madcap is what brought you here.’

She said: ‘Why do people keep calling me that?’

‘You’re Queen Orfeia,’ the tiger said. ‘Everyone knows that, Your Majesty.’

‘But I’m not a Queen,’ said Fay. ‘And I’ve never been here before in my life. My name is Fay Orr. I’m from London.’

The tiger made a gesture that was oddly like a shrug. ‘Whoever you were in London, Your Majesty, you’re Queen Orfeia in London Beyond. Your singing is known throughout the Worlds; as clear as the call of the cuckoo.’

Fay said: ‘I don’t sing any more.’

‘That’s very wise,’ said the tiger. ‘And yet you might do well to remember some of the songs of the Nine Worlds. There’s wisdom in an old wives’ tale, and magic in a story.’

And in a beautiful baritone voice, the tiger began to sing. The words were a little different, but the tune was familiar: it was the same as the song Peronelle had sung to her the previous night; a night that now seemed as far away as Daisy, asleep in the bluebells.

The elphin knight sits on yon hill,

Bay, bay, lily bay.

He blows his horn both loud and shrill,

My plaid shall not be blown away.

My plaid away, my plaid away,

And o’er the hill and far away,

And far away to Norroway,

My plaid shall not be blown away.

Fay wanted to ask all kinds of things: about the song, what a plaid was, and about madcap, and Mabs and Alberon, and why the girl and her tiger seemed so sure she was Queen Orfeia. But all that really mattered, she thought, was Daisy, glimpsed through the pavement crack, and Alberon saying: She sleeps in the hall of the Hallowe’en King, and nothing you do here can wake her.

‘Have you heard of the Hallowe’en King?’ she said.

The little girl nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘He lives far away, on the shore of the river Dream. Some call him Lord Death, the Harlequin, the Erl-King, or the Elphin Knight. Sometimes they call him the Shadowless Man.’

Fay felt her heart clench like a fist. ‘I need to find him,’ she said. ‘I think he may have taken my daughter.’

The girl gave her a look combining surprise and pity. ‘People don’t find the Hallowe’en King,’ she said. ‘He finds them. Eventually.’

‘Not me,’ said Fay. ‘I’m going to find him. Where is he? Do you know?’

The tiger yawned, showing a full set of sharp teeth. ‘To reach the Hallowe’en King, Your Majesty, you must go into Nethermost London. But there is no madcap in London Beyond to help you on your journey. It only grows by the shore of Dream, under the cliffs of Damnation. And to travel as far as the court of the King, you’ll have to take the Night Train.’

‘The Night Train?’

‘You heard its horn.’

Fay thought back to the sound she had heard; its low and musical command. It made a certain sense, she thought, for there still to be trains in London Beyond. ‘So where do I find the Night Train?’

The travelling girl extended a hand across the stretch of concrete. Beyond it, through the arches, Fay could see down into a kind of decline of junction boxes, and signals, and points, and above it all a network of lines and cables like a spider’s web, with carriages tumbled like children’s toys, all tangled with bindweed and clematis and briar rose and Russian vine. Surely no trains could be running now. And yet she had heard the Night Train’s horn. It must be down there, somewhere.

‘The Train leaves from Nethermost London,’ said the tiger in its purring voice. ‘The path there is dark, and the price is high. Obstacles and dangers abound. Beware false friends, and false promises. Most of all, beware the Silken Folk, and their hospitality. For if you take as much as a mouthful of the food of World Below, you will never leave again, or hope to find your daughter.’

Fay moved towards the arches that marked the descent into the station. ‘Which platform does the train leave from?’ she said. ‘And do I need a ticket?’

But when she turned back, the travelling girl and her tiger had already vanished.

Four

There was a flight of red-brick steps leading down into the station. Like everything else they were broken and overgrown and tangled with weeds, and there was more graffiti on the wall running alongside the banister. Among the many faded tags and graffiti, one in particular caught her eye. It was a faint, almost fey sky-blue, and read: SHE SLEEPS IN TIR NA NOG. Another, in the same faded blue, simply read YOUR DAISY.

Fay paused to touch the inscription: the paint was old, beginning to flake, and there were small white crystals growing out of the damp stone. She proceeded down the steps, taking care to avoid the tumbling coils of creeper, and finally reached the heart of the overgrown station.

Looking up, she could see the sky through a roof of broken glass; a sky unmarred by vapour trails or blurred by air pollution. The platforms and rail tracks were overrun with weeds; yellow ragwort and buddleia and great umbrels of giant hogweed that loomed over the leaf canopy. Fay noticed that the leaves were still green and the buddleia still in flower down here, as if she had left the autumn behind and was moving back towards summer, but all the trains left on the tracks were clearly long-abandoned. Some of the carriages had been knocked onto their sides, and some were filled with briars and vines, but nowhere could she see a sign of a working locomotive. On the concrete at her feet, someone had sprayed the familiar words: MY PLAID SHALL NOT BE BLOWN AWAY, in faded, silver spray. On one of the tumbled carriages, someone had scrawled the word: XANADU.

But Fay was not alone here. A sound from the buddleia bushes that grew around the platform suggested the presence of animals. Something large, by the sound of it – Fay thought of the tiger, and shivered.

‘Who’s there?’ she said.

The sound – a furtive rustling – came once more from the undergrowth. Fay approached, and saw a face peering out of the bushes. It was one of Alberon’s folk; the one with the eyepatch and the tattoos, Moth.

Another face appeared alongside: it was the girl, Cobweb.

‘Were you following me?’ said Fay.

The two figures parted the undergrowth and moved into the open. Fay saw that Moth was wearing a strapless dress and a pair of Dr Martens boots; Cobweb, without her wheelchair now, was wearing pink legwarmers and a hooded sweatshirt, bearing the slogan: 4 EVA FAE.

She smiled. ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’

Moth bowed. ‘Well met, Queen Orfeia. King Alberon sends his compliments, and begs the delight of your company.’

Last night they had looked like homeless folk, but here by day in London Beyond, the pair seemed altogether different. It was not simply the change of clothes, or the absence of Cobweb’s wheelchair; it was something more than that. A luminous quality to their skin, which was smooth and acorn-brown; a fleeting shimmer around them, like midges in the sunlight. Like the girl and her tiger, Fay saw, the pair of them cast no shadow.

‘King Alberon?’ Fay repeated, remembering the madcap smoke, and how they had danced together. That seemed so far away to her now, and so very long ago. And yet – that he should be a king here was no more surprising than anything else. After all, she told herself, this world was like a pack of cards; it seemed to be filled with kings and queens. But the tiger had warned her: beware false friends. And hadn’t the travelling girl told her Alberon was nothing but trouble?

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t have time. I have to take the Night Train.’

Moth and Cobweb exchanged glances. ‘That train is not for the living,’ said Moth. ‘The price of a ticket is death, and those who take it only travel one way.’

‘I have to,’ said Fay. ‘The Hallowe’en King has my daughter.’

‘Then come to the court of King Alberon,’ urged Cobweb. ‘He knows the way to the Night Train. And there will be banqueting, and song, and company befitting the occasion. And His Majesty would have you bedecked in raiment fit for your station.’ And at these words, the unlikely pair gestured towards the undergrowth, and a luminous cloud of insects emerged, descending onto Fay’s shoulders and arms. Some of them looked like bright green bees, others like tiny lacewings; and as they settled on her like a veil, Fay felt her clothing fall away, to be replaced almost instantly by something that felt like gossamer.

‘Tailor bees, Your Majesty,’ said Moth.

‘Lacemakers,’ said Cobweb. ‘Don’t be afraid, Your Majesty. Just let your servants do their work.’

Fay, who had never been fearful of any kind of insect, watched the creatures with interest. The tailor bees and the lacemakers seemed to be weaving at incredible speed; creating a delicate webwork of silk, draped like the finest crêpe de Chine. Moth made another gesture, and now a third kind of insect swarmed to join the lacemakers and the tailor bees. They looked like shiny beetles, gleaming in the sunlight, and as Fay watched, she saw that they were fixing particles of something that looked like tiny flecks of mica between the strands of woven silk.

‘Sequin bugs,’ said Cobweb. ‘To make a gown befitting a queen.’

Fay tried to protest as the tailor bees severed the straps of her backpack; cut away her running clothes, her leggings and her laces. She had no time for adornments. She had to find the Night Train. Anything else, she told herself, was a dangerous distraction. But as the silken gown took shape, she was unable to stop herself from watching in fascination. Woven to fit her perfectly; artfully draped in its many layers; in spite of its gossamer lightness, the fabric was deceptively strong. It shone like iridescent moiré, and now she saw that in the silk there were patterns of flowers and leaves, frosted into the warp and weft of the fabric like flowers on winter glass.

It took only minutes to create, the tailor bees humming imperiously, and the sequin bugs trundling busily around the neckline and the sleeves. Fay could feel them in her hair, moving and adjusting the strands, weaving them into an intricate coronet of jewelled braids. Then, when their work was complete, the creatures all took wing and dispersed, illuminating the air with their wings so that everything was rainbow.

Cobweb and Moth had averted their eyes. Now they watched again as Fay moved towards one of the abandoned railway carriages and tried to look at herself in the glass. Even in dusty reflection, she thought, the result was astonishing.

‘And now, your carriage awaits,’ said Moth.

Fay tore herself away from the sight of her transformation.

‘My carriage?’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. I told you, I’m taking the Night Train.’

Moth smiled. ‘Of course, Your Majesty. But King Alberon knows the Night Train. He himself has taken it, all the way to Tír na nÓg and over the sea to Norrowa. Few living men can say the same. He can help, Your Majesty.’

Fay thought for a moment. She needed a friend. This world was too full of mysteries and dangerous transformations. And besides, it had been Alberon who had led her here in the first place. He owed her an explanation.

She looked down once more at her silken gown, so artfully draped and richly adorned; looked into the dusty window-glass at her crown of braided hair. A banquet, she thought; with music, and company fit for the occasion. It sounded both lovely and dangerous, and yet, perhaps, if she went along, she might learn the secret to Daisy’s return …

She looked at Cobweb and Moth. ‘Very well,’ she said, and smiled. ‘Take me to King Alberon.’

Five

The carriage Moth had promised her was precisely that: an abandoned rail car, windows smashed, and draped with bindweed and spider’s webs. Someone, decades ago, had scrawled HE PLAYED DA GABBER REEL in rose-coloured spray paint over one dull and dusty flank.

Moth smiled at Fay and beckoned her in. ‘Your carriage, Your Majesty.’

Fay picked up her pack and cautiously looked inside the carriage. It smelt of age, and dust, and weeds, and cracked and ancient leather. How could it travel anywhere? There wasn’t even an engine, she thought. And yet things were not as they seemed in this place, where tigers talked, and bees wove silken fabrics more intricate than the most exquisite brocade. Holding the skirts of her gown away from the clutching briars, she chose the seat that seemed least damaged, and sat there, with her pack on her knees. Moth and Cobweb joined her, taking their places by the door. Cobweb pulled out a silver cigarette case and lit a small, brown cigarette, using an old-fashioned lighter almost as large as the case itself. The smoke coiled into the air like vines. Fay caught the scent of madcap.

She opened her mouth to comment, but already something was happening. As the madcap filled the space, the inside of the carriage seemed to shift and shimmer. At first Fay thought that maybe the smoke was affecting her eyes, but it seemed as if the carriage had been transformed, to become a lavish interior. The cracked and faded leather seats had changed to elegant armchairs with cushions of midnight-blue velvet. The ceiling was painted in the same rich colour, and gilded with thousands of silver stars. The dangling briars had become chandeliers filled with lighted candles, and there was a scent of patchouli and rose and sandalwood and spices.

‘Glamours, Your Majesty,’ said Cobweb, whose pink sweatshirt and legwarmers had now become a brightly coloured tunic of something that looked like feathers. ‘Even here, in London Beyond, our people like to go unseen.’

‘Too many enemies,’ said Moth. ‘Too many spies and predators.’

Moth, too, had changed, Fay noticed. Gone were the eyepatch and the tattoos. Gone too, was the illusion of something more or less human. Now a row of gleaming eyes shone out from a mask of feathers, and the intricate designs that Fay had taken for tattoos now seemed to be natural markings, grey and brown and russet against the downy, luminous skin.

The carriage was moving, she realized; almost soundlessly, on the rails. How this could be, with no engine, she had no idea, and yet through the windows she could see the sooty arches of King’s Cross. The carriage entered a tunnel; for a moment Fay saw light reflected against the seeping stone. Through an arch she saw a glimpse of torches burning, then darkness fell like a velvet curtain over the scene. The carriage was moving so silently that Fay had no idea of its speed, and so when it emerged into sunlight she was startled to see the scenery passing in a blur of fitful colours. They had somehow left the rails, and were moving through a stretch of unfamiliar countryside. Trees flashed past, their trailing branches slapping against the glass, and Fay could see that their leaves were young and green, as if in springtime.

She barely had time to take in the view when they entered another tunnel. This time, when they emerged, it was into a scene of unfamiliar streets, with a sky like faded roses reflected in towers of grasshopper glass. Then another tunnel, and they emerged into a soft grey mist, in which great, delicate structures, like cranes, seemed to stride on endless legs.

Leaning forward, she tried to see what kind of engine was pulling the carriage. But when she put her face to the glass, she saw, not a locomotive, but something that made her pull back with a gasp. The carriage was being pulled by a quartet of creatures that looked to be something between a flying horse and a giant hummingbird moth. All were a curious silver-grey, with great wings blurring furiously, and powerful flanks, and narrow heads, topped with plume-like antennae. A complicated harness kept the strange creatures under control, and as Fay watched she saw that there was someone holding the reins, perching high above the team in a tiny, precarious seat. Purple hair flew angrily. Lightning cracked from their fingers. It was Peronelle.

‘Have no fear, Your Majesty,’ said Cobweb. ‘The hellride is nearly over.’

Hellride, thought Fay. An apt term, having seen their driver. The carriage was entering another of those tunnels. Darkness, now stitched with tiny lights, surrounded the railway carriage. There was no sensation of movement; no sense of how much time had passed. Only the glow from the candles illuminated the carriage. And then the door opened, and she saw someone in the doorway; a tall, pale man with long hair, richly dressed in dark velvet and wearing a crown of white gems that shone like the light of the full moon on ice.

For a moment Fay was unsure of the tall, pale man’s identity. He looked somewhat familiar, and yet she did not know him until he smiled; a warm and familiar smile that seemed born of a lifetime’s acquaintance.

‘Queen Orfeia. Well met,’ he said. ‘Welcome to London Beneath.’

It was Alberon.

Six

Alighting from the carriage, Fay found herself in a passageway lined with tiny, stuttering lights. They looked like strings of fairy lights, but closer observation showed them to be clusters of glowing insects.

‘Torchflies, Your Majesty,’ said Moth, who was already busy unharnessing the moth-horse creatures that had drawn the carriage. Peronelle was hard at work, brushing down their dusty flanks, sending great clouds of luminescence into the air. The creatures were restless, their fluttering wings making a dry and thunderous sound, their plume-like feelers turning to Fay in eager curiosity. Now that she saw them more closely, Fay could see the death’s-head pattern behind their heads, etched in soot on the dappled pelt that was neither fur nor feathers, but some hybrid of both.

Alberon took her hand and guided her down the passageway. ‘I hope your journey was comfortable.’

Fay nodded. ‘As hellrides go.’

He laughed, and she was struck by his charm, which was both warm and effortless. In London, his charm had already been clear; but here in London Beneath, it shone from him like a searchlight.

‘You must be exhausted. Let me carry your purse.’ He reached out to take her backpack. But Fay did not want to abandon her pack, which was all that remained of her previous life. Clinging to the broken strap, she shook her head. ‘I’ll keep it, thanks.’

The King’s smile broadened. ‘Of course, my Queen. If anyone can carry off a nylon backpack with an evening gown, you can. But at least let me offer you a drink.’ He made a summoning gesture, and a crystal goblet appeared in his hand, containing a sparkling liquid that looked a little like champagne, but which glowed with a slight luminescence.

‘Wine,’ he said, ‘from the nectar of a cactus flower that blooms only once, grown in the mountains of the Moon, filtered through crystal, and served on ice from beyond the land of the Northlights.’

Fay began to reach for the glass. But then she remembered the tiger’s words, and its warning not to eat or drink of anything in London Beneath. And so she shook her head – with regret, for the wine smelt of sparklers and Bonfire Night, and shone like a jar of fireflies.

‘Thanks. But I prefer to keep a clear head.’

Alberon dismissed the goblet with a casual wave of the hand. ‘No matter,’ he said, and, with a gesture into the dark, opened up the passageway into a magnificent hall, lit by a thousand chandeliers of filigree and grasshopper glass, from which a million torchflies glowed and gleamed and flickered.

The ceiling was unimaginably high, disappearing into the dark, and the walls were illuminated with veins of some kind of shining mineral, which sparkled as it caught the light, casting reflections over a floor of butterflies’ wings in amber. Silver incense burners were scattered at intervals around the hall, releasing a scent of musk-rose, and green patchouli, and ambergris. All around there were delicate chairs of sandalwood and ebony and teak and coromandel, with cushions of silken brocade, moth’s wing, and gleaming dragonfly leather.

And in the centre of the hall there was a table, broad and long, covered with damask and silverware and goblets of fine crystal, and set with innumerable dishes of the most exquisite kind.

There were great towers of gleaming fruit, and frosted grapes, and persimmons, and silver platters of venison, and roast fowl stuffed with chestnuts, and fishes with their tails in their mouths, and sea urchins on beds of dill weed. There were dishes of roast asparagus and artichokes and truffles, and bowls of delicate summer greens mixed with edible flowers. There were bowls of nuts and seeds, and marchpane, candied roses, and cakes of all kinds, laden with fruit or gilded, or iced, and delicate as honeycomb. Then there were strange, exotic things: honeyed earwigs and grasshopper legs, and roasted silkworms served on a bed of caterpillar marshmallow. And all around there were noble guests, and servants, bearing silver trays of canapés and drinks of all kinds in glasses adorned with butterflies’ wings and multicoloured flowers.

The King beckoned a servant – a feathered creature with many eyes and a long proboscis, a little like Moth – who was bearing a silver tray of tiny canapés.

‘My Queen, you must be hungry,’ he said. ‘I have collected together the best the Nine Worlds have to offer: fruits from the southernmost islands; abalones from the One Sea; nectar from the shores of Dream; spices from the Outlands. Or perhaps you would prefer to try the heart of a lovebird, a nightingale’s tongue, or the flesh of the very last dodo?’

Fay shook her head. ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said. ‘I came because I need your help.’

He smiled. ‘You want the Night Train.’

Fay looked at him. ‘You knew?’

‘Of course. This is London Beneath, my Queen. I know everything that happens here. I know you seek the Hallowe’en King, to beg for the return of your Daisy.’ He stopped to take a canapé of butterflies’ tongues in a hazelnut shell. ‘But I beg you, lay aside your quest until the morning. Tonight there will be music, and dancing, and song from all the tribes of World Below. And if you have no appetite for food or drink or merriment, then at least give me your company, so that no-one will say King Alberon failed in his duty as a host.’

Fay looked around at the many richly clad guests in their masks of coloured feathers. Some of them had butterfly wings, or armour of dragonfly leather, cloaks of embroidered spider-silk, or coats of sequin beetles. Overlooking the hall, cut into the rock high above, Fay saw a minstrels’ gallery, lit by a magnificent chandelier of torchflies. There were stag beetle horns, and spider’s-web harps, and bumblebee drones, and grasshopper strings. A damselfly with a dulcimer sang in a high soprano voice in a language Fay could not identify, and yet could understand perfectly. And as she listened, more instruments joined in the chorus, more voices joined the soloist and the music cascaded like broken crystal into the crowded banqueting-hall—

Alberon held out his hand. ‘One dance.’

Fay thought of the words of the travelling girl, and of the tiger’s warning. But a dance would surely do no harm, and the music was irresistible. And so she held out her hands to the King, and allowed him to draw her into his arms.

For a time, that was enough. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be guided gently onto the floor. The music was strange and beautiful; the sounds both joyous and yearning. Alberon’s hand rested on her waist; the other on her shoulder. Through the fabric of her dress she could feel the warmth of his fingers. They danced, Fay still clutching her pack, and the whole of the banqueting hall danced with them, chandeliers and musicians and guests, and tables and servants and dishes and lights, revolving like a kaleidoscope. From the silver incense-burners came the scent of roses. It was exhilarating, and yet something continued to trouble her. How had King Alberon known to expect her arrival? And why were he and the rest of his folk so certain she was somebody else?

Alberon whispered into her ear: ‘Perhaps it is you who should ask yourself why you are so certain you’re not.’

Fay was alarmed. Had she spoken aloud? It seemed to her that she had not, and yet somehow he’d heard her thoughts. The scent of roses intensified, and Fay began to feel the same strange sense of dislocation that she had felt in Piccadilly Circus. Colours blurred into musical notes; faces took on strange aspects. The dance, so slow at first, was beginning to feel like another hellride.

‘I’ve never been here before,’ she said.

‘Oh but you have,’ said Alberon. ‘You may not remember your dreams, my Queen, but your dreams remember you.’

‘Am I dreaming now?’ said Fay.

Alberon smiled. ‘No, my Queen. Now, at last, you are awake.’

Hellride

‘Noo come ye in inta wir ha,

An come ye in among wis a’.’

Now he’s gaen in inta der ha,

An he’s gaen in among dem a’.

The Child Ballads, no. 19: King Orfeo

One

‘There once was a King of the Silken Folk, long ago, and far away. He was a powerful ruler, but he was also a selfish husband. His wife, Queen Orfeia, longed for a child, but the King was oblivious to her need, impatient with her sadness. And so she turned to Dream to provide the comfort that her man would not, and in its secret depths she sought the answer to her loneliness.’

Alberon smiled, and the gold in his eyes spun and sparkled like fireworks.

‘Dream is a river,’ he went on, ‘that runs through every one of the Worlds. It shows us reflections of our lives. It carries them downstream. And sometimes those dreams become islands; and sometimes they become whole Worlds, bright and insubstantial as a bubble in sunlight.’

Fay tried to close her eyes; to escape Alberon’s irresistible charm. But the dance, and the lights, and the feel of his hand on her waist and the nape of her neck kept her in his power, and the story kept unfolding.

‘The Queen had powers of her own, and glamours to rival those of the King, and her dreams were equally powerful, building a wall between her and the life she shared with him. And in time, she came to believe that the dream-world she had built for herself was the truth, and her real life nothing but fantasy. She sought out ever stronger draughts to help her reach that joyful place. And she spent her days and nights in Dream, sleeping ever more and more, until at last she vanished from the real world altogether, and was lost – for ever, they thought – in that world of her own creation.

‘But the King had finally understood his part in his wife’s disappearance. He was cruel, and selfish, and bad, but he loved her, and was deeply ashamed. And so he went in search of her, combing the islands and skerries of Dream, hoping to find his lost Queen among all the flotsam of the Worlds. But when at last he found her – after many years of searching – she did not recognize him at all, and simply retreated into her dream, so that the King was left alone, grieving; inconsolable.’

Alberon reached to touch Fay’s hair, and continued: ‘And yet he waited, hoping that one day she would return to him. Meanwhile, in her dream, the Queen fell in love with a man of the Folk, and had a daughter whom she loved more than anything she had ever loved in the waking world.’

‘It wasn’t a dream,’ Fay managed to say. ‘Daisy was real. So was Allan.’

‘Of course they were,’ said Alberon. ‘Anything that can be dreamed is true. And yet they belonged to the river, and the river took them back in the end. And so the Queen was left dreaming, alone, without her glamours or memory, while over the water, the King looked on, powerless to reach her. Until one day, in his despair, he went in search of the Oracle. The Oracle was old, and filled with ancient malice and hatred. It dwelt in the heart of World Below in a roaring cradle of fire, but it was cunning, learned, and wise, and it was bound to tell the truth to anyone who petitioned it.

‘The road to the Oracle was long and filled with untold dangers. And yet the King endured them, and fought his way to the Oracle, to ask how the Queen could be released, for her dream had become a nightmare.

‘The Oracle smiled from its cradle of fire. Its face was all age and all malice. Its lips were sewn shut, and yet it spoke to him in a baleful whisper:

‘‘To free your lady,’ the Oracle said, ‘you must find the madcap mushroom, which grows in the caves on the shores of Dream, under the cliffs of Damnation. Correctly used, it opens up the doors between the Worlds, and will allow your Queen to pass between the realms of Dream and Waking. To reach the place where madcap grows, you will have to take the Night Train to the Kingdom of Death, where the Hallowe’en King, on his bone-white throne, watches the Worlds through his one living eye. But those who enter the Kingdom of Death are seldom allowed to leave it. The Hallowe’en King demands a price – be sure you are willing to pay it.’

‘‘More than willing,’ said the King. ‘I thank you for your wisdom.’

‘The Oracle gave its twisted smile, and sank back into its cradle of fire. ‘I speak as I must,’ it told him. ‘And I cannot be silent.’’

Two

Fay listened to Alberon’s story as the room circled faster and faster. Her head was filled with colours and lights; her stomach with barbed wire and butterflies. The scent of roses was maddening; it filled the air like a choking rain. And still they danced on, the King leading her around the room with a strong hand in the small of her back, his dark eyes never leaving hers.

She wanted to tell him to stop, but the words somehow refused to take shape. Around her, the musicians, the guests, the tables laden with glassware and sweets had taken on a nightmarish cast. She felt both numb and excruciatingly sensitive to everything; even the fabric of her gown seemed to be filled with briars and thorns.

She clutched at Alberon’s coat. ‘Please.’

He smiled, and the dancing lights in his eyes reflected the gleam of his jewelled crown. ‘Are you unwell, my Lady?’ he said, guiding her towards one of the chairs of gilded coromandel. ‘Drink this. It will restore you.’ And he handed her a goblet of wine that sparkled like a cup of stars.

Fay was just about to drink when she realized the trickery. She put down the wine untasted, and, still distressed and disoriented, said the first words that came into her mind, the strange words of the tiger’s song: ‘My plaid shall not be blown away.’

Alberon flinched. ‘Who taught you that?’

‘I forget who taught me,’ said Fay. ‘But there’s wisdom in an old wives’ tale, and magic in a story.’

Alberon smiled. ‘You are indeed wise,’ he said. His discomfort had lasted no more than a moment, but his eyes were still cautious. Fay took a breath and felt her dizziness begin to abate. The words of the song made no sense to her and yet, somehow, they had power.

Alberon said: ‘I hope my tale has not caused you any kind of distress. Believe me, it was not my intention to make you uncomfortable in any way.’

Fay returned his smile. The interruption, brief as it was, had given her time to recover. She touched the strap of her backpack, which she had been clutching throughout the dance. It’s real, she told herself. I brought it here from London.

So this was why King Alberon had tried to take her pack away. It was a reminder of who she was. It was her only link to her world. Once more she thought of the words of the song – My plaid shall not be blown away – and thought that maybe she knew their meaning, after all.

Summoning all her composure, she said: ‘Not at all, Your Majesty. It would take far more than a tale to make me doubt my sanity. But please continue with your enchanting tale of the Night Train, and the Hallowe’en King.’

Once more Alberon smiled, and his eyes gleamed in appreciation. ‘As my Queen desires,’ he said. ‘I live to serve at her pleasure.’ And, taking his seat beside her, he continued his story, while around them the torchflies flickered and burned, and the dancers spun ever more merrily.

Three

‘The easiest way for a living man to board the Night Train is to die,’ said Alberon with a slow smile. ‘But the King was not ready to give up his life, and so he sought another way. The way to all the Worlds is Dream, and Dream is the mother of Story, and it was through stories and dreams that the King found a way to fulfil his desire.’

Alberon sipped his wine, and went on: ‘The King knew many old stories and songs, and his voice was renowned throughout the Worlds. Songs can open doors, he knew, and stories make connections. And so he went into World Below and sat beside the railway tracks, and sang a song of love and loss, and waited for the Night Train.

‘He sang of King Orfeo, a legendary King of the Folk, known throughout the Nine Worlds for his skill with every musical instrument. King Orfeo had a wife, taken much too soon by Lord Death to his hall in World Below. So the King, in his despair, travelled to the Land of the Dead, and begged Death for his wife’s release.

‘Lord Death looked down from his bone-white throne, in his crown of dead man’s ivory. His living eye was blue as the sky; his dead eye dark as for ever.

‘What will you give me in return?’ he said with his twisted half-smile.

‘Anything I own,’ said the King. ‘Gold, and lands, and tapestries, and carpets from beyond the seas, and perfumes from the islands.’

‘Lord Death laughed, and his living eye shone with terrible merriment. ‘I have no need of treasures,’ he said. ‘Gold and land have no currency here, nor gems, or wealth, or perfumes.’

‘King Orfeo looked around him at the dusty palace of Lord Death; its ivory floors; faded tapestries; vaulted, bone-white ceilings. Everything was silent here: the people were nothing but shadows. His wife was among those shadows, he knew, but she did not know him now, for when a mortal loses their shadow, they lose all of their memories.

‘‘Then let me play for you, my Lord. Music is my currency. I can play a reel so gay that all the bones in this palace will dance; I can sing a song so true that even the dead will listen.’

‘Lord Death looked down from his bone-white throne, and his face was both handsome and cruel. ‘Then sing to me,’ he said with a smile. ‘And I will return your wife to you – but only if you can make me weep.’

‘So King Orfeo sang a song of love so sweet and true that Death himself was moved to sigh, and a single tear ran down the living side of his ruined face. And when it was over, from the shadows, he led forth a pale and beautiful woman: it was the wife of Orfeo.

‘I promised you your wife,’ said Lord Death with his mocking half-smile. ‘And here she is. But her shadow remains in my Kingdom, for ever and without release.’

‘And so Orfeo took his wife back into the waking World. But she did not know him, or herself, but walked with him as if in a dream, and would not eat, and would not drink, and looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if he were a stranger, for she had lost her shadow, and with it, all memory of her former life.

‘‘Do you not remember me, my love?’ asked King Orfeo.

‘The young woman only shook her head. ‘I was dreaming such a beautiful dream,’ she told the King, with tears in her eyes. ‘I was in a land far away, over the seas to Norroway, and there I slept in a grass-green glade, all scented with summer roses.’

‘In vain, King Orfeo tried to coax his Queen into remembering their love. But he was a stranger to her now, and she would not be comforted. And so, in despair, he took her to the Oracle of World Below, which slumbered deep in its cradle of fire, all bound with runes and glamours.

‘‘How can I make her love me again?’ Orfeo asked the Oracle.

‘And the Oracle opened one eye and spoke:

When you can make me a cambric shirt,

Every sage grows merry in time

Without any seam or needlework

Then will you be lovers again.

‘‘How can that be?’ asked Orfeo. ‘Is this a riddle? Is this a trick?’

‘The Oracle gave its twisted smile.

When you can find me an acre of land,

Every sage grows merry in time,

Between the ocean and the sand

Then will you be lovers again.

‘King Orfeo shook his head angrily. ‘Mock me you will not,’ he said. ‘Ask of me anything you will, but let us have no more of these riddles.’

‘The Oracle’s dark eyes shone cruelly. ‘I speak as I must,’ it told him. ‘I speak as I must, and cannot lie:

“When you can walk shadowless at noon

Every sage grows merry in time

Hand in hand, once more you may

Lovers be; together again.”

‘And at these final words it sank back into its cradle of glamours and would not speak another word.

‘And so King Orfeo took his Queen back into the land of the living, but the reunion brought him no happiness. His Queen stayed cold and sad and remote from that day till the end of their lives, and the King never played or sang again.’

King Alberon paused to finish his wine. ‘Beware asking Death for a favour,’ he said, ‘lest Death be inclined to grant it. That is the moral of my tale, and the lesson is a harsh one.’

Four

As Alberon finished his goblet of wine, Fay looked once more at the banqueting hall. Everything had stopped as the King told the tale of Orfeo. Dancers, musicians, revellers all now stood in reverent silence: with feathered masks, furred faces and gowns of moth’s-wing velvet. Few of them now looked human at all. Faceted eyes, plumed feelers, long beaks all turned to the royal couple.

‘What a sad story,’ said Fay with a smile that hid her deep and growing unease. ‘And was the King of your story not discouraged from his quest?’

Alberon shook his head. ‘He was not. He was a constant lover, even in the face of his lady’s desertion.’

‘It seems to me that his lady was somewhat justified,’ she said. ‘But tell me: how did he manage to board the Night Train?’

Alberon smiled. ‘I do apologize: my love of old tales can sometimes lead my tongue astray. My Queen, I understand that you prefer not to drink, or eat, or dance, but I beg of you, grant me the pleasure of hearing you sing, for I have heard tales of your marvellous voice, and, like Lord Death, I would hear it.’

At his words, the revellers all murmured their agreement. A figure standing behind them said: ‘Much can be paid for with a song – as long as you choose the right song.’ She turned and saw Mabs, in a long grey gown of embroidered moth velvet, her hair shining like starlight beneath a circlet of twisted silver. Behind her, she saw Peronelle – barely recognizable now but for the tumble of purple hair – watching her from behind a fan of jewelled lacewing and multicoloured moth’s plume.

‘Go for it. Sing,’ said Peronelle, their smile revealing pointed teeth. ‘Give us a song. A chorus will do. It’s the least you can offer, my Queen, to thank us for our welcome.’

Fay hesitated. Where lay the harm? Surely a song could not be dangerous. And besides, she was eager to learn how the King had managed to board the Night Train.

‘If I sing for you,’ she said, ‘will you promise to get me aboard the Night Train?’

King Alberon gave her a smile that was as warm as it was dangerous. ‘If you still wish it, of course, my Queen. But sing me your song, for my heart is sore, and your voice may help to heal it.’

And so Fay took a breath and sang, for the first time since the loss of her daughter. She was out of practice, and her voice sounded lost and plaintive in the enormous banqueting hall. But she thought of the moment when Alberon had tried to take her backpack; the moment at which he had tried to trick her into taking a goblet of wine; and she sang the song the tiger had sung to her at the edge of the forest:

My plaid away, my plaid away,

And o’er the hill and far away,

And far away to Norroway,

My plaid shall not be blown away.

Why did she choose that particular verse? She did not know, except that it felt powerful, somehow, and that the words had surprised the King, and shaken his composure. They did not shake it now, she saw, with a touch of disappointment: his eyes were bright with amusement, as all around her the dancers stood, their moths’ wings fluttering eagerly, their plume-like feelers reaching out as if to feed on the music …

As Fay reached the end of the song, Alberon clapped his approval. ‘Brava, brava, brava!’ he cried, and all his courtiers clicked their claws, and fluttered their wings, and capered, and danced. ‘And now you must rest,’ said Alberon, ‘and take the Night Train in the morning.’

Fay tried to protest, but King Alberon swept away her objections. ‘You must be exhausted,’ he told her, ‘after all your adventures. What you need is a good night’s sleep, in a bed of softest swansdown, with sheets of the finest, whitest lawn, scented with sage and lavender. Cobweb! Peronelle!’ he called. ‘You shall see to her every desire, and sing her to sleep with lullabies. My Queen,’ he said, once more addressing Fay, ‘I bid you good night, and sweet slumbers. And in the morning, if you so desire, we will speak once more of the Night Train, and of your quest for your Daisy.’

Fay found herself being led away between Cobweb and Peronelle. There were a hundred questions she wanted to ask King Alberon but her head was spinning with fatigue, and the thought of sleep was too tempting. She allowed herself to be led into a cavern of majestic proportions, with a floor of raw granite, gleaming with gold, lit with clusters of torchflies, in which stood a huge claw-footed bath and a bed with green brocade curtains. The bath was filled with hot water, and there were warm towels by a fire, and rose petals scattered over the floor and in the steaming water.

‘Shall we help you disrobe, my Queen?’ said Cobweb.

Fay shook her head.

‘Then maybe we could sing to you? A lullaby, to soothe your sleep?’

Once more Fay shook her head. ‘No, thank you. Leave me alone, please.’

Peronelle shot her a mischievous look. ‘My Lady is an ungracious guest,’ they said. ‘What does he see in you?’ And then they turned and left the room, singing an impudent fragment of song. Their voice, as high and sweet as a lark’s, echoed down the passageway:

Queen Orfae went down to Mayfair,

Every rose grows merry with time …

Cobweb shot Fay a reproachful glance and followed Peronelle, leaving Fay alone in the beautiful chamber. The steam from the bath rose into the air, warm and irresistible. The torchflies glowed and glittered and shone like dancing wreaths of fairy lights.

She took off her brocade ballgown and stepped into the water, feeling her aching muscles relax at last as she surrendered to the warmth. She closed her eyes and, for the first time since her daughter had died, felt a genuine sense of well-being; even almost of happiness. The water was scented with lavender and scattered with scarlet rose-petals. Eyes still closed, she breathed in the scent – and then she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, light as a cat’s, and opened her eyes to see Mabs at her side, still in her moth-grey velvet gown and her crown of twisted silver.

‘My Lady,’ she whispered, ‘have no fear. I’m here to help.’ Little remained of the woman she’d been that night on Piccadilly. Now she seemed regal, luminous, her eyes as dark as the night sky.

‘Help me?’ Fay said. ‘Why?’

Mabs lowered her voice still further. ‘I don’t have much time to explain,’ she said. ‘King Alberon knows everything that happens here in World Below. He wants you to forget your life, to remain here in his kingdom. So far you have resisted him, but if you want to leave this place, take nothing, give nothing, and most of all, do not give up your shadow.’

Fay looked around at the bedchamber; the warm and welcoming fire, the bed piled high with pillows and surrounded with hanging draperies.

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘For everything you accept from him,’ said Mabs, ‘he steals one of your memories. Small things at first but soon you will find yourself losing days, and weeks, and years, until all that is left is Alberon – his face, his voice, his glamours – and your shadow, and with it your memory, and all that remains of your other life will fade away, so that you will be bound to stay in his world for ever.’

‘But I haven’t accepted anything,’ protested Fay.

‘Oh, but you did. A story. A song. A dance. These things all have power,’ said Mabs.

‘But that’s impossible,’ said Fay. ‘How can a story have power?’

‘Stories and songs are the language of Dream,’ said Mabs. ‘The oldest and most magical tongue. The bees discovered it, long ago, and carried it throughout the Worlds – all the Worlds of the honeycomb.’

‘But he promised to help me find Daisy,’ said Fay.

‘And so he will, if you hold fast.’ Mabs sighed. ‘I have told you all I can to help you vanquish Alberon. Stories and songs are his currency, his power and his glamour. Riddles too – especially those. But they can be used against him, too – as long as you keep your wits about you.’

She looked behind her into a dark that was stitched with gleaming torchflies. ‘I must go, my Lady,’ she said. ‘His servants and spies are everywhere. But keep your plaid safe, and your memories, even if they give you pain. Oh, and if you can’ – she turned, light-footed, at the cavern’s mouth – ‘find out how King Orfeo came to lose his shadow.’

And then she was gone into the dark, her silver hair shining like starlight; the sound of her feet against the stone no louder than that of a moth’s wing against the flame of a candle.

Five

Fay dried herself with one of the towels hanging by the fireplace. Mabs’ visit had troubled her, and her sense of unusual well-being was gone. And yet in spite of this she felt better; more grounded, more true to herself. As if she had emerged from a cocoon of novocaine. The numbness was deceptive; hiding pain, not healing it.

Had Alberon charmed her somehow into forgetting her grief? Fay could almost believe he had. For a magical evening, she had … no, not quite forgotten her loss, but at least had felt the pain recede into something approaching acceptance. Was that what Mabs had meant when she said: Keep your plaid safe, and your memories? And what had she meant when she spoke of losing her shadow?

Fay dropped the towel and looked for her shadow on the chamber floor. In the soft light of the torchflies, it looked less distinct than usual. But that was just the light, she thought. There was no reason to believe that her shadow had lost definition. And yet – she looked at the four-poster bed with its curtains, its white linen sheets; its blanket of silk and swansdown. It looked like a ship, she told herself, tall enough to sail away across the sea to Norroway. What dreams would she dream in such a bed? What distant shores would she visit?

Her pack was still lying on the floor, looking old and out of place on the gleaming granite. She opened it and looked inside, hoping to find something to eat. She was very hungry now, having eaten nothing in twenty-four hours but a handful of blackberries. She found an apple, two cereal bars, and a bottle of water – enough to make a meal of sorts, without eating the food of London Beneath. She felt very tired, and longed to try the beautiful bed that looked like a ship but, remembering what Mabs had told her, instead took out the dark-blue blanket beneath which she had slept the previous night – a blanket much too small for her, and printed all over with silver stars. Looking at it now, she knew the blanket must have been Daisy’s. Daisy had stars on everything – her tent, her toys, her bedclothes. And it must have been important to Fay, for her to have taken it on her run. How could she have forgotten it? And yet, somehow, she clearly had. Could this be Alberon’s doing?

She thought back to the previous night. It seemed so long ago to her now, so far away, in another world. But she remembered dancing with him, and sharing a madcap cigarette, and drinking a cup of that harsh, but somehow smoky, woodland spirit—

I accepted his hospitality, thought Fay to herself in dismay. That’s why I forgot Daisy’s blanket. How many of her memories had she already lost to him? And what unknown risks was she taking, just by being in his kingdom?

She spread Daisy’s blanket on the gleaming granite floor. It was cold and hard, but the layer of fabric would give her some protection. Her running things were gone, and only the hoodie in her backpack and the dress made by the tailor bees remained. She put the dress on, and the hoodie for warmth, and lay on the blanket on the ground, using her pack as a pillow. She did not expect to be comfortable: and so it was with some surprise that she awoke from a dark and dreamless sleep to find herself on a railway platform, deserted, with no sign of life, and saw it was morning.

The Night Train

Dan he took out his pipes to play,

Bit sair his hert wi d’ol an wae.

The Child Ballads, no. 19: King Orfeo

One

For a moment, she was disoriented. Where was the beautiful chamber? The bath, with its feet of polished brass? The four-poster bed, like a sailing ship? The clusters of blinking torchflies?

All that was gone. The bedchamber had become a railway station. High above her head, a glass roof allowed a cold and wintry light to filter onto the platform. The gleaming granite floor had changed to a worn and grubby concrete. The dress that she had worn to the ball had become a scant thing of colourless rags that disintegrated like cobwebs at the touch of her fingers. Her running shoes were still intact, except for the missing laces, but otherwise she was wearing nothing but her underthings and the oversized hoodie, which had belonged to Allan, and thus was large enough to pass as some kind of minidress.

She rolled up Daisy’s blanket and looked around. Where was she now? What world was this? The station was not unlike King’s Cross, but without any of the chaos of London Beyond, or the dark brilliance of London Beneath. A pale dust lay on everything, undisturbed but for the marks of her presence. Could this be Nethermost London? And if so, where was the Night Train?

Looking across the railway lines, Fay could see no sign of a train. The signal at the platform’s end gleamed a dark, impassive red. There were no departure boards; no advertisements; no graffiti. A single bench stood on the platform, although there was no sign of other passengers. She could not even be certain that the pale light above her was daylight. She looked for her shadow on the ground. It seemed rather fainter than usual, though whether this was due to the muted light or Alberon’s glamours, she could not tell. She realized she was hungry but searching through her backpack she found only the crumbs from her cereal bar and a mouthful of water left in the bottle. There were no vending machines in the station, and no sign of shops, or an exit; and so Fay finished her crumbs and drank the dregs of her water, and bundled Daisy’s blanket away, and tried to fix the broken straps of her backpack by knotting them firmly together, and then she sat down on the bench and tried to list all the details she could about her life in London, to see if she could identify any gaps in her memory. But all that seemed very far away; far away and long ago, and all she could really be sure of was the glimpse she had seen of Daisy that night, through the crack in the pavement—

Then she remembered the notebook that was clipped to her key ring. She searched for her keys and located the book, no larger than a matchbox, with its tiny pencil attached. It was far from easy to use: her fingers were clumsy, the pencil so small, and yet she managed to use it to write, in words almost too small to read:

Daisy’s eyes: blue. Her hair: brown. Favourite toy: her stuffed tiger.

Fay frowned, trying to recall the name of the tiger. Had it even had a name? She remembered the little travelling girl saying to her in London Below: Tigers don’t have names. Had Daisy said that too? Fay couldn’t remember. The girl had looked like Daisy, she thought: perhaps she had confused the memories.

Or maybe it didn’t happen, said a quiet voice at the back of her mind. Maybe you were dreaming, and none of this ever happened at all.

‘That isn’t true,’ said Fay, as if someone had spoken the words aloud. Perhaps they had; she told herself. Perhaps this was another of Alberon’s tricks, and she was still in London Beneath, asleep on the gold-studded granite floor.

If you say so, said the voice, and once more Fay turned around to make sure no-one had spoken. But tell me, how did Daisy die? Tell me again. I’ve forgotten.

Fay shook her head. ‘I don’t have to,’ she said.

She stepped in front of a train, didn’t she? said the voice relentlessly. Stepped under a speeding train that didn’t stop at the station? Fay said nothing. The voice went on: Do you think perhaps this obsession with trains might have something to do with that?

Fay shook her head. ‘You’re not real,’ she said.

As opposed to the giant moths, and talking tigers? Oh, Fay, said the voice, and now Fay thought that perhaps she knew whose voice it was. Janine, her therapist, had precisely the same tone of slightly jaded sympathy. Don’t you think it’s more likely that you’ve had some kind of an incident? Maybe you were mugged, Fay, on your nightly run through the West End. Or maybe you’re inventing all this as a diversion from the truth: that you’ll never see your daughter again?

Once more, Fay shook her head. ‘That isn’t true,’ she said aloud.

Oh, but it is, said the quiet voice. And now you’re sitting half-naked on a railway platform, talking to people who aren’t there, waiting for a train that will never come.

‘Be quiet! This isn’t a dream!’ cried Fay. Her voice clanged against the brickwork of the empty station. But there was less conviction in it, and at the back of her mind there was a cold and growing fear that if she stopped and listened hard, she might hear the sounds of the real King’s Cross ringing out between the Worlds …

‘It wasn’t a dream,’ she repeated. ‘It wasn’t a dream. I can prove it.’ And from the pocket of her pack she brought out the rose that had come to her on the wind of London Beyond: its petals slightly withered now, but red as the heart of a furnace.

A rose? said the inner voice mockingly.

‘The rose that came to me after I saw Daisy through the pavement cracks,’ Fay said with a surge of triumph. ‘After I met Alberon. After I woke up on the street.’

Proving nothing, said the voice, although it lacked conviction.

But Fay had regained her self-confidence. Picking up the pencil once more, she wrote in the tiny notebook:

The cake I made when she was four, shaped like Thomas the Tank Engine.

The first time she went to the theatre.

The sandcastle we built, the three of us, on the beach in Brighton.

The coffee shop at King’s Cross, with a cup of chocolate.

Feeding the squirrels in Green Park.

The toy theatre Allan made for her third birthday.

Her first day at school.

Her first Christmas.

Her blue tent, embroidered with stars.

In the park on Bonfire Night, writing our names with a sparkler.

Making cookies with Allan and me.

The pavement game.

The Shadowless Man.

Grabbing my finger, the day she was born. It felt as if she would never let go.

And then with a final effort, she wrote:

I’ll never forget her. Whatever it costs. I saw her, asleep in the bluebells.

I’ll find her, and I’ll bring her back. My plaid shall not be blown away.

At the back of her mind, the inner voice gave a kind of defeated sigh. Fay smiled and kept on writing. These stories had power. She knew that now. She found herself singing as she wrote:

My plaid away, my plaid away,

My plaid shall not be blown away.

Two

Time passes at a different pace in the path of the river Dream. Fay tried to work out how long she had been waiting on the platform, but her phone had run out of battery, and her Fitbit was telling her that it was six in the morning, midnight and ten minutes past five on 8 April, 3 June and 19 December simultaneously.

She put the Fitbit into her pack, next to the blanket and the dead phone. The light from the station roof had not changed since she had woken up, and there was no way of telling if it was daylight up there, or some other form of illumination. When will the train arrive? she thought. How will I get on board? She had no money to speak of: besides, she guessed that her currency would have no value in this world. So what did she have to offer? Tales and songs are his currency, Mabs had told her in London Beneath. Well, Fay knew plenty of both, she thought, but what kind of story would summon the Train? Once more she thought of the travelling girl; the tiger; Alberon and his people. All had shared versions of that same song – a song that told the mysterious tale of a knight whose horn could summon the winds …

The elphin knight sits on yon hill,

Bay, bay, lily, bay.

He blows his horn both loud and shrill,

The wind hath blown my plaid away.

My plaid away, my plaid away,

And o’er the hill and far away,

And o’er the sea to Norroway,

My plaid shall not be blown away.

Her voice was a little uncertain, but it rang across the platform. And couldn’t she feel a distant response – a subtle resonance – that gilded the air like pollen and lifted the fine hairs on her arms?

Fay stood up and looked at the red-light signal. It showed no sign of changing: it shone as bright as the sun on a winter rose. What kind of stories had Mabs meant? Was this another riddle?

For a moment her mind went back to the tale of King Orfeo and the Oracle. The King had rescued his wife, and yet, robbed of her shadow, she had been unable to remember her life, or rekindle her love for him. Like the knight in the song, the Oracle had given the King three riddles to solve before he and his wife could be together again.

When you can make me a cambric shirt …

Without any seam or needlework—

There must be a solution, she knew. But a shirt without seams or needlework? Even allowing for poetic licence, how was that possible?

Just then, Fay noticed something perched on the flap of her backpack. Looking closer, she saw that it was one of the tailor bees that had helped weave her gown the previous night. It was alive, but barely: for the air of Nethermost London was cold, and there were no flowers to be seen anywhere in the station.

Fay held the tiny bee in the palm of her hand. It looked so out of place in this world. She wished she could help it, somehow. And then she thought of the red rose, and taking it out of her backpack again, she set the tailor bee down gently onto the scarlet petals. Maybe it would find nourishment there. The bee crawled into the heart of the rose and Fay heard it begin to buzz contentedly. She gently replaced the rose and the bee into the pack’s side pocket.

And then she realized that she knew the first part of the riddle. ‘The answer is bees,’ she said aloud. ‘The first part of the riddle is bees.’

Fay looked at the signal-light again. The light had dimmed, she was certain of it. Her head felt suddenly as light as after a dose of madcap. At the time she’d assumed it was the madcap smoke that had shown her the vision of Daisy, but could it have been the song itself that had opened the crack in the pavement?

The signal light was definitely a little dimmer than before. Fay searched in her mind for the words of the song, fearing she had forgotten them, but there they were, and the melody too, as clear as a childhood memory. She stepped up to the platform edge, clutching her pack like a lost child, and raising her voice, she let it rise like a cloud of butterflies:

My plaid away, my plaid away

And o’er the hill and far away …

The signal was visibly darkening, changing slowly from red to green, and now Fay could hear a roaring sound, like an approaching hurricane, like a tide of floodwater running along the railway tracks, like a swarm of wild bees, although there was still no train in sight—

She raised her voice, feeling it soar, sweet and powerful and strong:

And o’er the sea to Norroway …

Now she could feel the slipstream dragging at her hair, her clothes, but still there was no train in sight, and no change but for the signal light that now shone green as springtime. The easiest way to board the Night Train is to die, she thought. What if all this was a mistake? What if the inner voice was right, and the Night Train would not accept her fare?

She took a breath. The air was sweet as honeycomb.

‘My plaid shall not be blown away,’ she said firmly and, closing her eyes, her pack still held tightly against her body, she stepped right off the station platform and into the path of the Night Train.

Three

For a moment Fay was in darkness. Her head was filled with tumbling stars; her heart raced like an engine. Then she opened her eyes to find herself lying on a carpeted floor, a floor that thrummed and shuddered.

For a few terrifying seconds, Fay had no idea where she was. What was she doing? What was this place? Then her outstretched hand touched her pack, and her memory returned. She was on another train, she saw: a train that seemed to be travelling through a tunnel – the stutter of lights through the windows was the only illumination.

She struggled to her feet, keeping hold of her backpack as she did so. Now she remembered the travelling girl; the station and the Night Train. She remembered Mabs and Alberon, and the hellride into London Beneath, and waking up on the platform at last, dressed in nothing but spider silk and her dead husband’s hoodie. A light came on in the carriage now; it was yellow and intermittent, but it gave her the chance to look around and take in her surroundings. The seats were of ancient velvet, the carriage windows milky with age. And in the seats were passengers, looking wanly through the glass, their dead and expressionless faces livid in the corpse-light.

‘Excuse me?’ said Fay.

No-one replied. Her fellow travellers sat and stared, unblinking, through the windows.

‘Is there anyone in charge?’ called Fay, but her voice sounded dead and exhausted in the velvet-lined interior. She found a vacant seat and sat down. From outside came a blur of light as the train flashed through a station. Fay read a sign on the white tile wall: ELPHAME. And then they were back in the hurtling dark, and she watched the tunnel lights strobing. Sometimes she caught glimpses of their surroundings, flashing by at the speed of Dream. Sometimes they seemed to be underground, sometimes high above the clouds; sometimes running through desert sands, sometimes underwater. And the signs flashing by said: TIR NA NOG, THE LAND OF ROAST BEEF, or FAERIE, or ALFHEIM, or XANADU, or ATLANTIS. But however intently she looked, she saw nothing that looked like the place she had seen through the cracks in the pavement; and even if she did, she thought, how would she stop the train?

She turned to the nearest passenger, a woman in her twenties, wearing jeans and a pink sleeveless top and a vinyl necklace. In another kind of light she might have been pretty, but in the intermittent gleam of the Night Train’s exhausted cells, she looked as dead as the rest of them. Fay put out a hand to touch her bare arm. The young woman did not respond.

‘Talk to me. Please. Am I still alive? Is this the Night Train?’

Still the woman said nothing.

Fay reached out to touch the woman’s necklace. The name MAISIE had been laser-cut out of a piece of black vinyl, and studded with little crystal stars. ‘Maisie? Is that your name?’ she said. ‘Maisie, please. Talk to me.’

At the sound of her name, the young woman’s eyes finally quickened into a kind of awareness. She turned her head slightly, parted her lips and whispered:

‘A named thing is a tamed thing. I speak as I must, and cannot lie.’

Fay’s heart gave a leap, and she took the young woman’s hand in hers. ‘How do I find the Hallowe’en King? Where do I ask the Night Train to stop?’

Maisie gave a weary sigh. ‘The Night Train never stops,’ she said. ‘I speak as I must, and cannot lie.’

‘But it has to stop!’ said Fay. ‘The Hallowe’en King has my daughter.’

‘The Hallowe’en King takes his due. I speak as I must, and cannot lie.’

Fay struggled with the urge to cry from sheer frustration and fatigue. But she had not come so far simply to give up now. ‘The Train will stop for me,’ she said. ‘All I need to know is where.’

Maisie sighed again, and said: ‘Dream is a river that runs to the sea. I speak as I must, and—’

‘So tell me!’ said Fay. ‘How do I get to the Hallowe’en King? How do I make him give Daisy back?’

Maisie gave a final sigh. Her voice, faint from the start, had grown almost inaudible. ‘If you can find me an acre of land between the salt water and the sea sand,’ she whispered, her eyes beginning to close. ‘Then, and only then …’ Her whispering voice fell silent once more. The fleeting life in her features was gone. And Fay was alone on the Night Train, with only the dead for company.

Four

For a time, Fay travelled in silence, looking out at the scenery. Sometimes they travelled in darkness: sometimes through a field of stars; sometimes underwater or across bright meadows of sunflowers. The stations were places from legend and dream; cities long vanished; deserts unknown. Some had names that she recognized; others were written in foreign script, hieroglyphics or ancient runes.

Inside the carriage, nothing moved. The passengers – even Maisie – were impossible to rouse. Fay wondered how she had managed to communicate with the young woman at all. Perhaps only because she had known her name – after all, hadn’t Maisie said: A named thing is a tamed thing?

Was that another riddle? It had not escaped Fay’s notice that Maisie’s reply to her last question had been very like the riddle the Oracle had given King Orfeo. And the words with which she punctuated each answer was similar, too: I speak as I must, and cannot lie. It could hardly be by chance: that story, thought Fay, was linked to hers in ways that could not be coincidental. Bees had been the first clue, and Fay had managed to solve it, and buy her passage on the Night Train. But … a land between the shore and the sea? A man without a shadow? Surely these were simply ways of asking the impossible?

And yet a riddle had brought her on board. Perhaps another could direct her where she needed to go? And so she raised her voice and sang to her audience of the dead:

Who can find me an acre of land,

Bay, bay, lily, bay

Between the salt water and the sea sand?

The wind hath blown my plaid away.

For a time nothing happened. Fay’s voice sounded strange and flat inside the crowded carriage. But then she began to become aware of a change in the sound of the engines; a slowing of the scenes outside as they passed through the alien countryside. Until finally, in a long squeal of brakes, the Night Train stopped at a platform by the side of a long grey beach, with no sign of habitation but a hand-lettered sign that read: NORROWA.

Norrowa

‘I have an aiker of good ley-land,

Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand.’

The Child Ballads, no. 2: The Elphin Knight

One

Fay stepped out onto the platform, still carrying her backpack. The air was mild and smelt of the sea, and of the salt of the sandy dunes that lined the deserted platform. There was no sign of any kind of human habitation: no road; no buildings; nothing but the dunes, and the path to the beach, and beyond it, the gleaming grey ocean. A few blue thistles lined the boards; otherwise, the platform was bare. Fay took off her running shoes and stepped barefoot onto the sandy path. She turned – and saw that during those moments, the platform, the rails, the hand-lettered sign and the Night Train itself had all vanished, leaving nothing but dune and grass, and the long, bare, bleak expanse of the beach, shining in the sunlight. The shadows were long, the sun low, and there was nothing to hear but the keening sound of the wind and the waves on the sand. Where was she? Her head felt strangely light, and looking for her shadow, she saw that it was unusually faint against the mica-speckled sand.

A phrase from a song came back to her: The wind hath blown my plaid away. What was the song? The memory seemed very distant, and yet it felt somehow significant. She closed her eyes and tried to recall why it had been so important to leave the train. What had she been looking for? She looked down at her backpack and for a moment could not recall who it belonged to, or where it was from: then she saw the corner of Daisy’s blanket poking out from under the flap, and remembered why her shadow was dim –

I accepted a ride on the Night Train. I forced one of the dead to speak. And I accepted the challenge that Lord Death gave to King Orfeo.

Fay’s heart seemed to tighten with dread. How much of her memory had she lost? She opened the backpack and laid out the contents onto the sand. The blanket of stars; the tailor bee; the rose; her phone, the first-aid kit and the key ring, with the tiny notebook attached. She opened the book and read aloud the words she had written the night before, but none of them seemed like memories. She still remembered Daisy, of course, and the terrible grief of losing her, but the memories she had written down – the sandcastle, the birthday cake – seemed as remote as the Night Train now, with all its silent passengers. There was no recognition, no spark: no light behind the images. She thought of a Polaroid photograph, fading out of existence. That was all that remained of them now. The words were only a story.

She picked up the tiny pencil and wrote:

I am still losing my memories. Payment for the progress I’ve made. Mabs warned me to keep my plaid close. I have to remember Daisy.

And then she wrote:

Daisy’s princess dress, all white, embroidered with silver stars. She wanted to wear it all the time. With a sword, of course: because why shouldn’t princesses have swords?

A cherry strudel, on a bench, at a Christmas market.

The first time she went on an aeroplane, and how she said she could see the clouds from the top of the sky.

The answer to the first was bees. I’m here to find the second.

There were now only two tiny pages left of the little notebook.

Fay slipped it into her pocket and turned towards the ocean, which shone like a shield in the burnished sunlight. The sea was going out: she could see the gleaming of the wet sand. A cone-shaped shell lay on the shore, larger than any she had ever seen.

He blows his horn both loud and shrill, thought Fay, and picked up the seashell. It felt smooth and inviting.

I wonder, would it make a sound? Fay raised it to her lips. There was a tiny aperture at the sharp end of the shell, and blowing into it, she thought she heard whalesong, low and sweet and melancholy, over the sound of the waves on the beach.

The sun was setting at her back, sending the shadows sprawling. Even her own, faint as it was, stretched all the way to the tideline. She put the seashell in her pack, along with the rose and the blanket of stars. Over the sea to Norroway, she thought, as she stood on the seashore, watching the silver sky darken to blue, until at last all the shadows were gone, and nothing was left but a river of stars.

Two

Fay lay on her back on the sand with her pack as a pillow. The stars were coldly, achingly bright, wrapping the night in a broad, bright band. Slowly the moon rose over the sea, painting a silver path to the shore. Then came the bats – hundreds of them, swooping and dancing like butterflies across the broken face of the moon. They reminded Fay of Alberon, and of how he and Moth and Peronelle had vanished into a cloud of wings. She remembered that night vividly: the moonlit statue of Anteros; the madcap and the butterflies; the vision of Daisy through the cracks. Whatever had happened to her mind and to her memories of home, these memories were still intact, like the tale of King Orfeo, and the Oracle’s riddle:

Who can find me an acre of land,

Between the salt water and the sea sand?

The words had power. The riddle, too. And had not the tiger told her there was truth to be found in stories? Alberon’s tale of the Queen who left her kingdom to fall in love; the tale of King Orfeo and the Hallowe’en King; the Oracle’s mocking answer – all these were linked to some deeper truth, some message she was meant to decode. And under the glamours and stories and tricks, through the veil of the madcap smoke and her failing memory, she knew that Daisy was waiting. She had to solve the second part of the riddle. The Night Train had carried her thus far – surely for a reason. And so she lay on the cool dark sand and watched the river of stars above, and listened to the sound of the waves that slowly crept back up the beach, and somewhere between the tideline and the pale rags of the rising waves, Fay heard the sound of distant song, and soon fell asleep and was dreaming.

Three

Dream is a river that runs to the sea, the dead girl on the train had said. And now Fay dreamed – or thought she dreamed – of lying on the beach at night, looking up at the circling stars, with the sound of the sea all around her. The moon was high now, pale and sharp above a silver bank of cloud: its light shone on the water like a ladder to the sky. And in her dream Fay saw a ship moored between the banks of cloud; a ship that shone with the light of the stars, its sails as fine as spider silk, and she could see people clinging to the rigging and looking down from the deck, and soaring like birds around the hull on wings that gleamed like moonlight.

Awake or asleep, Fay thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen; and as she watched, she realized that she could hear voices, raised in song above the rushing of the sea:

There lived a king unto the east

(Blow, blow, the winds blow)

Who loved a queen unto the west

(Green, green, the hedgerow).

The king he has a-hunting gone

(Blow, blow, the winds blow)

And left his true love all alone

(Green, green, the hedgerow).

The King o’ Faërie, with his dart,

(Blow, blow, the winds blow)

Hath pierced the lady to the heart

(Green, green, the hedgerow).

Hath kept her in his fortress deep

(Blow, blow, the winds blow)

Within the realm of endless sleep

(Green, green, the hedgerow).

But King Orfeo in pursuit

(Blow, blow, the winds blow)

Played a reel upon his flute

(Green, green, the hedgerow).

And first he played the notes of noy

(Blow, blow, the winds blow)

And then he played the notes of joy

(Green, green, the hedgerow).

And then he played the gabber reel

(Blow, blow, the winds blow)

The notes that make a sick heart hale

(Green, green, the hedgerow).

‘What does it mean?’ said Fay aloud. The song had sounded so familiar, the words so intimate and strange. There had to be a message in there – it could be no coincidence that this was a version of Alberon’s tale of King Orfeo and the Hallowe’en King, who, in this version, seemed to be the King of Faërie. She thought of the travelling girl’s words in London Beyond: Some call him Lord Death, the Harlequin, the Erl-King, or the Elphin Knight. Sometimes they call him the Shadowless Man.

The Shadowless Man. The object of Daisy’s night terrors featured in the story that had brought her here. A man of many identities; a trickster and a teller of tales, who could, depending on the circumstance, be either the King of Faërie or the Lord of the Kingdom of Death.

Stories and songs are his currency, Mabs had told her. Riddles too. She had been speaking of Alberon. But in this version of the Orpheus tale, Hades and Oberon seemed to be interchangeable. Of course, it was only a dream, she thought, looking up into the brilliant sky. The sky-ship was still sailing there, sails unfurled like Northern Lights. And yet she could feel the sand beneath her palms, smell the sharp scent of the surf, feel the chill of the sea wind against her bare legs. It all felt so real. Was she dreaming at all?

Dream is a river that runs to the sea, the dead girl on the train had said. And if Mabs were to be believed, the Night Train itself was powered by dreams and riddles and ballads and stories. Over the sea to Norroway, she thought, and felt the hairs on her arms rise as if in response to the words.

Once more she looked up at the sky-ship, gleaming in the moonlit sky. Then she closed her eyes and thought once more of the Oracle’s riddle:

Who can find me an acre of land,

Between the salt water and the sea sand?

‘The answer is Dream,’ she said aloud. ‘The second part of the riddle is Dream.’

And then she opened her eyes to find it was daylight once more, and that she was standing on the bank of a broad and fast-running river, while far beyond, in the distance, stretched a bone-grey, bone-dry expanse of sand. The sky was grey; the ground was grey, but the river – if it was a river – seemed made up of shining fragments like pieces of tinsel, or fireflies, or flares of incandescent gas. And up, behind and over her there loomed a shadow dark as Death, which, when she turned to look at it, revealed itself to be a cliff so high that it vanished into the clouds.

‘Those are the cliffs of Damnation,’ said a voice at Fay’s side. ‘And on the far side of the river Dream is the Kingdom of the Dead.’

Four

Fay turned, and saw a young woman standing beside her on the bank. Her hair was closely cropped, and her eyes were dark and sweet as honeycomb. She was wearing ripped jeans and a T-shirt printed with the words: LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY. She looked vaguely familiar, though Fay could not quite place her. And in one hand she held the rose that Fay had found on Euston road, as long ago and far away as anything from a fairy tale.

‘Who are you?’ said Fay.

The young woman smiled. ‘I am many things. A woman of the travelling folk. A tailor bee. An old friend. Today I am a messenger, here to deliver a warning.’ She held up the rose to inhale its scent. The flower was slightly faded now, but the scent was still surprisingly strong, filling the dead air with sweetness. ‘Nothing is scented here,’ she said. ‘Nothing beautiful grows here. This is the Shadowless Land, a province of the Kingdom of Death. And only by leaving your shadow behind can you hope to find your daughter again.’

‘My shadow?’

The young woman nodded.

‘But wouldn’t I also lose the memory of my former life?’

The young woman shrugged. ‘Lord Death takes his toll. His rules date back to the birth of the Worlds, and memory cannot linger in the Shadowless Land, where Life is nothing but a dream, and even Love is forgotten.’

‘I could never forget Daisy,’ said Fay.

‘Then take your chance,’ said the young woman serenely.

Fay thought back to the tale of King Orfeo and the Oracle. ‘To free your lady,’ the Oracle said, ‘you must find the madcap mushroom, which grows in the caves on the shores of Dream, under the cliffs of Damnation.’

She turned once more to the dark-eyed woman. ‘To pass into the Kingdom of Death, I need the madcap mushroom,’ she said. ‘Can you show me where it grows?’

‘I can show you,’ the young woman said. ‘But to use it here is dangerous. It gives the taker the power to pass through the islands of Dream at will. But Dream is a dangerous country, my Queen. You will need all your courage and strength to cross it with your mind intact.’

‘And yet I must,’ said Fay, ‘if I am to reach the Hallowe’en King and ask him to free my daughter.’

The young woman said, ‘Very well, my Queen. I will show you the madcap mushroom, which grows in the caves deep under the cliffs. This I will do, in return for my life, which you saved in Nethermost London. But I cannot help you in Dream. There you will either cross over, or drown.’

And with those words she led Fay into the shadow that lay at the foot of the cliff that reached above them into the clouds. For a moment the darkness was so complete that Fay had to feel her way along the rough, dank walls of the passageway. But little by little, as they advanced, her vision began to adjust, and she saw that she was in a cave that was broader and higher than any Fay had ever seen or imagined. There was a lake in the distance, lit by dim phosphorescence, and in the nooks and cracks in the wall there grew small five-petalled flowers that looked like strawberry blossoms and gave off a sweet and earthy scent.

‘No, not those, my Queen,’ said her guide, as Fay stopped to smell the flowers. ‘Here is the madcap mushroom, that led King Orfeo into the Lands of Death, and which, if used correctly, will take you to the Hallowe’en King.’

She indicated a fungus that was growing out from the side of the wall. ‘A single dose,’ she said, ‘will take you into the realms of Dream. But whatever you see there, keep moving. The bubble-worlds and skerries of Dream are not for you to inhabit. And if you reach the Lord of Death, take nothing, not even a handshake from him, for if you do, you and your Daisy will stay in his kingdom for ever.’

And at that the young woman’s image dissolved into a golden blur of bees that fanned out over the shining lake like a plume of dragonfire.

‘Wait!’ called Fay. ‘How much is a dose? What is the answer to the final riddle? And’ – her voice echoed forlornly around the enormous cavern – ‘tell me, how did King Orfeo come to lose his shadow?’

But there was no answer from the young woman who had guided her, except for the distant drone of bees, far away, in the darkness.

Five

Her feet were sore. Fay realized that she had left her shoes on the beach. She was feeling cold, too, so she took Daisy’s blanket from her pack, and tied it, sarong-style, around her waist. The madcap mushroom that grew from the wall gave off a faint and pallid glow. Correctly used – what did that mean? Was she supposed to smoke the thing, or swallow it? She didn’t know. And what would happen if she were to use it incorrectly?

There’s no time for this, she thought. I’m so close to reaching Daisy. The mushroom might be poison, or she might use it incorrectly, but she couldn’t know until she tried. And so she broke off one of the thin pale stems of the fungus growing out of the wall, brought it close to her face, and inhaled the scent of the madcap mushroom.

A bitter luminescence drooled out of the broken part of the stem, and a scent of something muddled and sweet – and by now, very familiar – filled the air of the cavern. It was the scent of the madcap smoke, but oily, and less volatile: the scent of something that has grown for far too long away from the sun. It made her remember how long it was since she had eaten or drunk anything. But there was nothing to be done about that until she was back in her own world – for had not the tailor bee warned her? And so she inhaled the madcap scent, and tried not to think of anything, and felt the world blossom around her, turning the dark of the cavern into an astonishing plume of sounds and scents and colours.

‘My plaid shall not be blown away,’ said Fay to herself. The meaning of the mysterious phrase might have been unclear to her, but its power was unmistakable, for the colours responded to the words, making spirals in the dark, which beckoned to her eagerly. Well, for want of a plaid, Fay thought, she could at least keep her blanket close, and wrapping it tighter about her waist, she clutched her backpack to her chest and prepared to face the onslaught of Dream.

The Hallowe’en King

An first he played da notes o noy,

An dan he played da notes o joy.

An dan he played da g’od gabber reel,

Dat meicht ha made a sick hert hale.

The Child Ballads, no. 19: King Orfeo

One

It came to her first as memory. Memory is a bubble, thought Fay, in a river made of Time, and the river Dream took hold of that thought and shaped it into a tiny world that spun and sparkled like a bauble on a Christmas tree—

That Christmas, thought Fay. Our first one together, the three of us, when Daisy was only eight months old. Allan brought the Christmas tree home, and we hung the baubles all over it – glass baubles that were silver and scarlet and gold, and sparkled like all the worlds of Dream …

For a second, Fay could actually see herself inside the bauble. And then she was there – in London, at home, with Allan sitting beside the tree and Daisy beside him, on the floor, among the wrapping paper.

Allan was wearing a red checked shirt, a Christmas present from Fay that year, and Fay a white cashmere jumper. Daisy was in her pink sleepsuit, her stuffed tiger under one arm. And the scent was cut pine and cinnamon, and orange peel and nutmeg and clove, and Fay knew without looking that there would be Christmas cake in the kitchen, and apples baked in spices, and mince pies dusted with sugar, and wine mulled with sugar and allspice. She knew that night would bring them stars, and a new moon and a sparkling frost, and stifled laughter, and long slow love, and a feeling that this could never end …

‘It never has to,’ Allan said, looking at her and smiling.

His voice was warm and familiar, his presence impossibly real and strong. ‘No, no, this is a dream,’ she said. ‘I have to find Daisy.’

‘Daisy’s right here,’ Allan said. ‘Everything you want is here. Dream is a river that runs through every world there is, or was, or can be imagined. And Dream has brought you back to me. Wouldn’t you rather stay here?’

‘Oh, Allan,’ said Fay. She did want to stay – to be here at a time when things were safe and good, and they were a family – but how long does a dream last? Fifteen seconds? A minute? More? Already the colours were fading; the plaid of Allan’s shirt had changed from bright red-and-black to a dusty rose. Daisy’s eyes were on her now (Her eyes were blue. Remember that, thought Fay to herself), looking wide and anxious. This is for Daisy, she told herself. This is to bring Daisy home.

‘Allan, I can’t. I love you, but—’

‘Please, Fay, don’t forget me,’ he said. ‘The thoughts of the living are all the dead can hope for. Memory keeps us alive. Let it go, and I may as well never have existed at all.’

‘I’m sorry, darling. I have to—’

‘Don’t go. Just take my hand and stay with me. Here, where no-one can reach us.’ He stretched out his hand and smiled at her. ‘Don’t be afraid. Just take my hand. We can be together for ever.’

This isn’t fair! Fay thought. Why did no-one tell me Dream would be so cruel?

She closed her eyes and clenched her fists in the fabric of Daisy’s blanket. What made you think it would be fair? said a dry voice in her mind. Is Life fair? Is Death fair? So why should Dream be different?

The voice was vaguely familiar, although she could not place it. Was it a voice from Norroway? The Night Train? Nethermost London? In any case, it spoke the truth from deep within her memory. To get your Daisy back, it said, you must give as well as take: and when you have given all you can, then maybe you can earn your reward …

Allan was watching her, hand outstretched. His eyes, so kind and familiar, were dark with pain and foreknowledge. ‘You’re going to forget me,’ he said. ‘You may not mean to, but you will. This memory, and so much more, will be lost like a soap-bubble in the sun. And when you set foot on the shore of Death, you will have nothing left to pay your debt to the Hallowe’en King.’

‘Pay him what? What debt?’ said Fay.

‘The price of Daisy’s life, of course. When you can walk shadowless at noon …’ They were the words of the Oracle: the last part of the riddle.

‘Do you know the answer?’ she said. ‘Please, Allan, I have to know.’

Allan sighed. His face had become as insubstantial as morning mist. ‘I speak as I must, my love,’ he said. ‘I speak as I must, and cannot say more.’ And then, both he and the dream were gone, and Fay found herself on a sandy shore, with tears on her face, and no memory of why she had been weeping.

Two

The sun was shining. The sky was blue as only memories can be. Fay felt a warm well-being in every part of her body. The sand was warm under her feet, and she realized that she was barefoot, and wearing a blanket around her waist. She had a backpack with her, too; a broken, ragged scrap of a thing, empty but for a large, cone-shaped seashell.

The blanket was old and faded. The pack was missing both its straps. And yet there was something that stopped her from simply leaving them behind. She put a hand into her pocket, and found a key ring, on which hung a tiny notebook. Opening the notebook, she saw that on the penultimate page someone had scrawled the mysterious phrase: My plaid has not been blown away.

I’m supposed to remember what that means, thought Fay. Why can’t I remember?

There was a little girl on the beach, building a castle in the sand. She must have been about six years old, blonde, and wearing a yellow dress. Her eyes were blue and filled with stars. Your name is Daisy Orr, thought Fay. You’re Daisy, and I love you.

She went over to the little girl and sat down on the hot white sand. Daisy looked up and smiled. ‘I made a moat for my castle,’ she said. ‘Now we just wait for the sea to come in.’ And then the child began to sing a song Fay almost recognized:

My father left me three acres of land,

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme—

Those aren’t the words, said Fay to herself. And yet, it was the very same song she had used to board the Night Train; to cross the sea to Norroway; to reach the shore of Dream – and now she remembered those things again, like pictures from another life. She remembered the rose, and the madcap smoke, the tailor bees, and Alberon; and, looking down at the hot white sand, she saw what was left of her shadow, fainter than a heat haze.

For a moment all she could feel was dismay. So much of her memory was gone. But the vision of Daisy, asleep, through the cracks in the pavement below Piccadilly was clear, and she knew what she was here to do. The first of the Oracle’s riddles was bees, the second Dream, and the third, the third …

‘Your father,’ said Fay. ‘I loved him so much. And yet I don’t remember him.’ The thought filled her with a sudden grief. Was this the price of her journey so far? And when would her debt be paid in full?

‘He’s gone,’ said the child. ‘He fell through the cracks between the Worlds, and the Shadowless Man took him away. But you’ll stay, won’t you? You won’t leave me?’

‘Oh, sweetheart,’ said Fay. ‘Of course I won’t. I came all this way to find you.’

‘Then stay with me,’ said Daisy. ‘Stay until the sea comes in, and my castle is all washed away. We’ll lie on the beach and watch the stars and be here, together, for ever and ever.’

But now Fay could see the sides of the dream, like a soap-bubble ready to burst. The sky was several shades lighter already; the sea had lost its rich dark shine. The sun was veiled, and on the sand, there was no longer any trace of her shadow. She held out her arms and Daisy crept into their sheltering circle, but already she felt insubstantial, her body an armful of butterflies, ready to scatter to the winds.

When I leave this dream, thought Fay, will this memory be gone? Daisy, aged six, in her yellow dress, building a sandcastle on the beach? She feared that it would: and yet she knew this was the only way to reach the other side of Dream, where the Hallowe’en King was waiting.

The dream world was losing substance fast: Fay closed her eyes and tried to hold on to the image of her daughter’s face as it faded from her memory. Daisy’s eyes were blue, she thought. Her eyes were blue. Remember that. And then she raised her voice and sang the last of the Oracle’s riddles:

When you can walk shadowless at noon

Every sage grows merry in time …

And opened her eyes on the dusty, desert, sunless shore of Death – which, of course, was the answer.

Three

The first was Bees.

The second was Dream.

The third was Death.

And Death was all around her. It was in the strange, pale sky; the dusty ground; the thousand tiny fragments that shone like mica in the air. So this is Death. It isn’t so bad, Fay thought as she scanned the horizon. Death’s country is all absences; absence of scent; absence of sound; absence of the sun in the sky. No shadow on the hard, dry sand. No heat; no cold; no pain; no regret; nothing but her consciousness standing on the shore of Dream, with a handful of star-patterned rags, a notebook and a seashell –

This must have been something important, she thought, looking at the ragged remains of the blanket tied around her waist. I brought it here for a reason. Why? But try as she might, she could not recall and, seeing it so faded and torn, she let it fall to the dusty ground, where the wind-blown sands were gathering. Next, she placed the seashell into the pouch of her hoodie and opened the tiny notebook. Maybe it would remind her of what she had forgotten.

She read the words: I’ll never forget her. Whatever it costs. I saw her, asleep in the bluebells. And with that came the memory of looking through a crack in the ground, and seeing a girl, asleep in the woods—

Daisy, thought Fay. My Daisy. Her eyes were blue, and I loved her. And once more, she remembered why she was there, and raising her voice to the hard grey sky, she said in a voice that rang across the desert like a summons:

‘The first was bees. The second was Dream. The third was Death. Now come to me; I will sing you a song the like of which you have never heard, and you will give me my daughter back, and then my tale will be told.’

For a time there was no reply from the dusty plains of Death. And then Fay heard the sound of laughter behind her, and turned to see a man standing there on the turbulent shore of Dream. A man – she could not in fairness say if he was a friend or a stranger – his face, his handsome profile both well known and unfamiliar. His hair was dark and shoulder-length; a gemstone gleamed on one pale hand.

Had she met him before? Perhaps. So much of her memory was gone. Her passage through Dream; the Night Train; the sky-vessel of Norrowa; the court of Nethermost London; the singing tiger; the travelling girl; all these things were like images from a half-remembered dream, falling away as she opened her eyes into a different reality.

‘You must be the Hallowe’en King,’ she said.

He turned to her and smiled. ‘Must I? Then I suppose you must be right. Well met, Queen Orfeia,’ he said, and held out his hand in greeting.

But Fay did not take it; instead she watched in horror as he faced her, the illusion of beauty falling from his person like a garment. For the Hallowe’en King was handsome only in profile: one side of his body was that of a well-proportioned, fine-looking man, the other was shrunken and skeletal; and the hand he held out to greet her was nothing but a handful of bones under the rings of silver. One eye was dark as honeycomb in the living part of his face; the other shone blue as glaciers in a socket of burnished bone. For Death has two faces; the face of memory and Dream, which endure in spite of everything, and that of darkness and despair. And now Fay remembered the tailor bee’s words: Take nothing, not even a handshake from him, for if you do, you and your Daisy will stay in his kingdom for ever.

And so she smiled at the Hallowe’en King, and knelt to kiss the hem of his robe (making sure to keep to his living side), and said: ‘I come not as a Queen, my Lord, but as a humble supplicant. You have my daughter Daisy. I am here to plead for her return, just as she was taken from me.’

The Hallowe’en King gave his tilted half-smile. ‘It has been some time since Death surrendered one of its people. What do you have to offer me?’

‘Anything you want,’ said Fay.

The Hallowe’en King raised an eyebrow. ‘And what do I want, my Queen?’ he said. ‘I have everything my heart could desire. My kingdom is a thousand times greater than any realm that has ever been. I have wealth beyond the dreams of any lord of the living. I can see into every World; every antechamber of Dream. Whatever you have will one day be mine: every thought; every memory. Knowing this, how can you hope to seduce me into doing your will?’

The King was right, thought Fay to herself. She had nothing to offer him. And yet, the King in Alberon’s tale had managed to reach his cruel heart. She summoned a smile, although she felt very small, very wan in his presence. ‘Music is my currency,’ she said, remembering Alberon’s tale. ‘I can sing a song so gay that even the dust will stand up and dance. I can sing a song so true that even the dead will listen. Let me sing for you, my King, and if I can make you weep—’

‘I have heard this claim before,’ said the Hallowe’en King, with a smile. ‘That tale has been told, and the riddle, too. Such child’s play may have brought you here, but if you hope to win my favour, you cannot expect to do so with a tale that has been told a thousand times before.’

‘Oh,’ said Fay in a small voice.

The King went on, his golden eye shining with amusement. ‘But yes, my Queen, I know of your voice. And I do so love a challenge.’ He smiled again, and once more Fay saw both charm and horror in his smile. ‘Very well. You may sing for me. But I too am accounted to have something of a musical flair. You shall match my voice with yours in contest, and we shall see whose is the most eloquent. We shall sing three times, my Queen, and if you win, you shall have your way. But if I win’ – his blue eye glittered like ice – ‘then you shall stay here, in my realm, and share my throne for ever.’

Fay took no time to consider it. ‘Done,’ she said, and the Hallowe’en King put out his living hand to shake. ‘Have no fear,’ he said, seeing her pause. ‘This is no trick. The ruler of the Land of Death can never break their word, for fear that all the Worlds be thrown into chaos and disarray.’

Fay took his hand (it was long and cool and pale, and laden with many silver rings). ‘I agree to your bargain,’ she said. ‘If I win, my daughter goes back with me to the land of the living. If I lose, I stay here with you. Now let the contest begin.’

And at that, the King lifted his hand, and once more, the mournful scenery changed, and Fay found herself in a banqueting hall, filled with the trappings of the dead.

Four

At first glance, the banqueting hall was not unlike that of King Alberon. But where the court of London Beneath was lit with living torchflies, the cavernous hall of the Hallowe’en King was garlanded with foxfire. The ceiling was vaulted with fungi that shone with a ghostly greenish light, and the walls were alive with curlicues of bioluminescence. In its undersea light, she could see the bone-white throne of the Hallowe’en King, and among the pillars that lined the hall, she could see the ranks of the dead, standing there like an army of shadows. She could hear their voices, too: a kind of rushing, whispering sound, not unlike the sound of the sea. All sounds resemble the sound of the sea, when multiplied to infinity, and the gathered dead were like grains of sand endlessly shifting and moving, until the air was alive with the sound and the restlessness of their presence.

And now she could see that the hall was all bones: there were skulls lining the portals, and spines along the architraves, and set into the smooth pale polished floor was a mosaic of finger-bones. On the walls there were tapestries of rich and marvellous design, spun from the hair of a million dead, depicting scenes of dancing, and battle, and feasting and merrymaking. And, as in the court of King Alberon, there were tables laden with dainties from all the known Worlds: delicate fruits from Fiddler’s Green; sea urchins from Atlantis, served on a bed of luminous seaweed; flower-wines from Tír na nÓg; spiced pastries from Antillia.

Fay was so hungry she felt almost faint. But even so, she knew not to touch of the food of the Land of Death. Not a drop of wine, not a seed could safely pass between her lips. She looked neither left nor right as she passed between the laden tables, moving towards the end of the banqueting hall. Behind her, she heard the sounds of the tables with their tempting wares crumbling back into the dust, but she did not spare them a second glance, nor did she stop until she was standing at the foot of the throne, where the Hallowe’en King awaited her, flanked by two of his servants.

These servants were colourful creatures of indeterminate gender and race; one with extravagant purple hair, the other, in what seemed to be a mask adorned with blinking eyes. I’ve seen them somewhere before, thought Fay, but try as she might, she could not remember the circumstances of their meeting. The creature with the purple hair grinned, revealing a set of long, sharp teeth. The creature in the mask made a sound like someone scraping a violin, and Fay realized it wasn’t a mask, but the nightmarish face of an insect.

‘You mustn’t mind Cobweb and Peronelle,’ said the King with a lazy smile. ‘But entertainments such as this are few in the Land of Shadows.’

He gestured languidly towards Fay. ‘My Queen, I trust that this attire does justice to the occasion?’

Fay looked down at her clothing and saw that she was dressed in a beautiful gown of blue-green moiré, with gemstones clasped around her neck and cascading into her décolletage. The Hallowe’en King, too, had taken pains with his appearance. Gone was his skeletal aspect. His face was once more handsome beneath his crown of dead man’s ivory; his form once more harmonious, his smile entirely charming. His cloak was made from ten thousand skins of the long-extinct Cloudrunner mink, and his boots were of dragonfly leather that reflected the undersea glow of the walls.

Fay met the Hallowe’en King’s eyes: one honey-golden; the other, ice-blue. ‘I prefer to keep my own clothes,’ she said, remembering what the tailor bee had told her in the caverns.

He shrugged. ‘Whatever my Queen desires.’

Fay found herself back in her hoodie, barefoot, her bare legs covered in scratches.

‘Thank you,’ said Fay. The Hallowe’en King seemed unmoved by the tartness in her voice. He smiled at her with deceptive charm, and with a wave of his pale hand, dismissed the scene around them. Gone now was the banqueting hall: instead, the hall of the Hallowe’en King had become a theatre, larger than any Fay had ever seen or imagined.

There were rows and rows of seats, reaching into the distance – stalls, dress circle, upper circles, many boxes and balconies – all upholstered in velvet as dark as blood, and gilded with the bioluminescence of the Underworld. Fay and the King were standing on the largest stage she had ever seen, with curtains that reached up to the ceiling vaults, and dizzying catwalks, and footlights like St Elmo’s fire, and many elaborate carvings of angels and dragons and mythical beasts, all gleaming with the strange energies of the Kingdom of the Dead. The audience was the ranks of the dead, remade by the King from the dust of the past. All of them pale and attentive; all in their finest evening dress. Moth and Peronelle were there, too, in the front row of the stalls, whispering behind their fans of spider silk and filigreed bone. The gleam of gems; the rustle of silks; the breathless hush of an audience awaiting a much-anticipated performance – all this was so familiar, and yet so very strange, that Fay was suddenly sure that she had never left London Before, that she was asleep and dreaming.

The Hallowe’en King smiled again, and Fay saw that he was holding a gilded harp that shimmered in the footlights.

‘This harp was made from the bones of a girl who died at the hands her lover,’ he said. ‘The strings were made from her golden hair, the crown from her skull, the pegs from her toes, the pedestal from her pelvis. It was fashioned by a craftsman long dead; a luthier whose name was once renowned across the Nine Worlds, and this instrument was the last of his work: the rest has long since gone into dust. What will serve to accompany you, my Queen, in our musical contest?’

Fay looked around. ‘I—’ she faltered.

The King’s smile broadened. ‘Brave of you to go unaccompanied,’ he said. ‘But I must trust that you are prepared.’

For a moment Fay was aware of her courage beginning to fail. But then she remembered the seashell in the pouch of her hoodie, and felt its reassuring weight against her lower belly. She held it out to the Hallowe’en King and summoned her brightest, bravest smile.

‘This will be my instrument,’ she said with a confidence she did not feel. ‘A conch from the shores of Norrowa, its music the voice of the ocean.’

The King’s smile did not falter, but the fingers of his living hand tapped an impatient rhythm against his throne of dead man’s ivory.

‘Then, my Queen, let us begin,’ he said in his smooth and gracious voice. With a languid gesture, the King summoned a bright, narrow spotlight, and Fay Orr lifted the shell to her lips and began to play for her daughter’s life.

Five

The shell had sounded like whalesong to her on the beach of Norrowa. In the hall of the Hallowe’en King, it sounded still more melancholy, still more mysterious and strange, and it made her think of the Night Train’s horn, as she heard it in Nethermost London. And, as its echo resonated across the auditorium, Fay raised her voice and started to sing a song from the days of her stage career.

It was the song of a woman who has given up everything she has; a song of broken dreams, lost hopes, and a mother’s enduring love. It had been a long time since she had sung it, and she was out of practice, but her voice had its own kind of memory. It soared into the waiting air; it torched the theatre vaulting into frantic luminescence; it stirred the innumerable dead like a forest of fallen leaves. In the front row, Moth and Peronelle leaned forward in their seats, lips parted, eyes glittering. But Fay sang only to the King. Half-turned towards him on his throne, she looked straight into his face and sang; and saw the sum of all her grief reflected in his living eye.

At the end of the song, there was applause just like the sound of waves of a beach, and the Hallowe’en King gave Fay a tiny nod of appreciation.

‘Brava, Queen Orfeia,’ he said. ‘Your voice is sweet as honeycomb. Now, my Queen, let us see what I can bring to this contest.’ And, lifting the gilded harp, he ran his living hand across the strings, and a strange and beautiful music filled the theatre of the dead.

It was like no harp Fay had ever heard. It sounded like a human voice, sweet and sad and far away, and when the King’s voice joined it, they made a single, perfect resonance. And the Hallowe’en King sang a song of love; of longing and of sorrow. It was a song about letting go of all the joys and dreams of Life; of sleeping next to a lover, a child, and knowing that happiness cannot last. The voice of the King was more resonant than any Fay had ever known; its tenderness was astonishing, its compassion endless. And at the end, the applause was like the raging of a storm, and Fay found herself almost in tears, and knew that he had won the round.

‘Now for your second song, my Queen,’ said the Hallowe’en King with a smile. ‘I’m sure you must have many more in your extensive repertoire.’

Fay did not answer, but looked at the boards as the spotlight moved back onto her. She could see that, in spite of the glare, her shadow was barely visible. And now, as she tried to think of a song, she realized that her memory, so rich with music a moment before, had vanished like a handful of dust. Not a lyric, not a tune could she recall from her West End days. The part of her that had trodden the boards, that had recorded albums, that had sung duets with Allan, that had picked up flowers on the stage and hung up costumes in dressing-rooms – all of that was gone for ever. Her career had been erased in the time it took her to sing one solo.

And now she had to do it again: and what might it cost her this time? Fay was aware she had already lost a significant part of her memory. Only a handful of fragments remained of her life in London Before, and yet, while there was breath in her, she would fight for Daisy’s life; and Death himself would not stop her.

And so she raised the shell to her lips and summoned the sound of the Night Train’s horn: then she sang to the Hallowe’en King the only scrap of melody that she could still remember:

My plaid away, my plaid away,

My plaid shall not be blown away.

The simple tune sounded out of place and strange in the cavernous theatre. Fay found herself very conscious of her bare legs under the hoodie; of grubby hands and her tangled hair; of the faces of the dead watching her, reflections in a mirror maze—

What am I doing here? she thought, and for a terrible moment she could not recall who she was, or why she was standing there in the spotlight. Looking down at the boards, she saw that she cast almost no shadow. Am I even here at all? And why is someone clapping?

She turned to see the Hallowe’en King, applauding her with a twisted smile. ‘A brave attempt, Queen Orfeia,’ he said. He had once more assumed his true aspect, and his dead eye shone like polished chrome as he picked up his instrument.

‘Your voice is sweet as ever,’ he said, ‘although your material lacks in range.’ And then he touched the strings of his harp with the skeletal fingers of his dead hand, and the theatre of the dead was filled with a terrible music. And the Hallowe’en King sang a song of pain, of sacrifice and suffering. His blue eye shone like starlight, and his voice was rich as blood. He sang of great loves gone to dust; of empires built and fallen; of long-abandoned philosophies and of gods reduced to children’s toys. And Fay looked up at the bone-white throne and knew that the King had won the round, and that Daisy was lost to her, for ever, and without recall.

Six

The applause for the King’s performance went on for a long time. It could have continued for ever, had not the King dismissed it with a wave of his skeletal hand. At the gesture, his audience of the dead, in all their gems and finery, vanished back into the dust, and the great auditorium was left empty and echoing. Except for Moth and Peronelle, still standing by the front of the stage; their finery gone, their gowns transformed into scant and colourless rags.

‘I think we can do without them, don’t you?’ said the Hallowe’en King, and, with a gesture, he banished the pair. Then, turning again to Fay, he smiled; and although his smile was unbearable, she thought she saw in his one living eye something like compassion. ‘You fought a brave battle, my Queen,’ he said, ‘but Death always wins. You must know that.’ Still smiling, he held out his skeletal hand. ‘Come to me, Queen Orfeia, and you will learn that I can be kind. My kingdom has no limits. It can be anything you want it to be. Do you wish for company? I can give you handmaidens, entertainers, dancers, clowns. I can make the halls of Death ring with music and laughter. Are you hungry? I can bring you wines and fruits from every World. I can build you a library of a hundred thousand books; I can give you gardens filled with the most fragrant of flowers. Only stay, and rule at my side, and I will give you your heart’s desire.’

Fay looked for her shadow on the boards. For a moment she thought it had disappeared. But then she saw it – the tiniest, the most translucent shimmering, less than a heat-haze, less than the glimpse of a moth’s wing through gossamer – and knew that her task was incomplete. She still had something to bring to the fight, though what that was, she did not know. Playing for time, she looked up at the King, and said:

‘You promised three rounds.’

‘But I have already won,’ said the King. ‘What purpose would a third round serve? Already, your shadow is well nigh gone, and with it, much of your memory. Stop now, and join me, and keep the memory of your Daisy. If it amuses you, I can even bring her, sometimes, to keep you company.’

For a moment, Fay felt herself weaken. What was she still trying to prove? The King was much more powerful. Another attempt to match him would rob her of what little was left. There could be no shame in accepting defeat: after all, had not Mabs told her to keep her plaid, and her memories, close?

The Hallowe’en King seemed to guess her thoughts. ‘Come to me,’ he repeated, now holding out his living hand. ‘Come to me. Take my hand, and you can see your Daisy.’

And with a gesture, he banished the lavish auditorium, with its empty seats and stifling draperies. In its place was a forest scene, with sunlight filtering through the leaves. It must have been spring, because Fay could see hawthorns in bloom, and the spikes of wild garlic, and primroses, and bluebells.

It was the scene she had glimpsed through the cracks in the pavement on Piccadilly. She felt a surge of fierce joy. It was real; so real that she could hear the leaves, smell the bluebells. And there was Daisy, lying asleep under a blanket embroidered with stars.

Instinctively, Fay started towards her. But even as her feet touched the grass, the idyllic scene faded away and she was alone with the Hallowe’en King in the dusty hall of the dead.

‘The choice is yours,’ said the Hallowe’en King. ‘Your daughter by your side, or the loss of everything you have ever loved. Which is it to be, my Queen? Your King awaits your pleasure.’

Fay sighed and turned to face him again. The fleeting scent of bluebells still lingered in the dusty air. But it was an illusion, she knew, like all his other illusions. Nothing grew in the Kingdom of Death. Nothing was scented or beautiful.

The Hallowe’en King was still waiting, his living hand outstretched. She looked into his dead blue eye and said: ‘Then hear my decision. If I must I will give myself to you, shadow and substance, body and soul. But we shall have our final round, whatever it may cost me.’

The Hallowe’en King shrugged. ‘So be it,’ he said. With a weary gesture, he summoned the stage and the spotlight. Fay could just see her shadow, pale as a petal on the boards. Let the wind blow, she thought. Let the horn play. Whatever else you take from me, my plaid shall not be blown away.

There was no auditorium now. But she needed a song. What was left to her but scraps? She reached into her pocket and drew out the tiny notebook. Concealing it in the palm of her hand, she looked up at the Hallowe’en King and, summoning her most artless smile, said: ‘May I make a request, my King? I need some time to collect my thoughts. Perhaps, if you were to perform first?’

The King raised an eyebrow. ‘Playing for time? My Queen, we have all the time in the Worlds.’ And he picked up his harp and ran his hands along the strings of golden hair that had been cut from a murdered girl, long ago and far away.

‘I wonder,’ said Fay, ‘could I make a request for the ballad of King Orfeo? For I have heard only part of the tale, and long to know the whole story.’

The Hallowe’en King gave a tiny frown over his gilded harp of bone. ‘The ballad of King Orfeo?’ he said. ‘What makes you speak of that old tale?’

Fay said: ‘I heard it in London Beneath. A pretty tale, with a haunting melody. But I never heard how it ended. And so, if it please Your Majesty, I would have you tell me how King Orfeo lost his shadow.’

The Hallowe’en King seemed to hesitate. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘If that is your wish, so be it, my Queen.’ And he started to tell her the story.

The Shadowless Man

‘Yees tak your lady, an yees gaeng hame,

An yees be king ower a’ your ain.’

He’s taen his lady, an he’s gaen hame,

An noo he’s king ower a’ his ain.

The Child Ballads, no. 19: King Orfeo

One

‘Long ago,’ began the King, ‘long ago and far away, when all the Worlds were honeycomb, King Orfeo went to the Land of the Dead to plead for the return of his Queen. The Hallowe’en King was moved by his song, and agreed to release the lady, but Death is one of the Trickster’s line, and his gift was a cruel one.

‘Returning home to his own land, King Orfeo found his wife much changed. Her time in the Kingdom of Death had made her cold and unresponsive. And then one day, Orfeo awoke to find that she had fled his side, forsaking her realm and her subjects, and leaving no clue to her whereabouts. For six long years, King Orfeo sought her all across the Worlds, but when he found her, he realized that she no longer knew him. She had fallen in love with a commoner, and given him a daughter, whom she loved more than anything. She remembered nothing of her life, her encounter with Death, or even her name.

‘And yet the King would not let go – could not let go – of his love for her. He went to consult the Oracle, to find out how to win her back, but the Oracle merely responded with mockery and riddles. And so the King took his golden harp and journeyed back to the Land of the Dead. The road was long and dangerous, but finally he reached Death’s shore, and called for its ruler to come to him.

‘‘You lied to me, Lord Death,’ he cried. ‘You promised to return my wife. But the woman I brought home with me is not my wife. You kept back her shadow, and with it, her memory of the love she once bore me. Thus, by the bond Death cannot break, I challenge you to face me.’

‘The Lord of the Kingdom of Death took his time in answering the summons. When he finally appeared, regal in his hawkmoth cloak and his crown of dead man’s ivory, his face was grim, and his living eye gleamed with a fearsome anger.

‘‘You called me a liar,’ he said; and although his voice was very soft, the Nine Worlds shivered at the sound. ‘No-one in the Nine Worlds has ever called me a liar.’

‘‘Then seek satisfaction,’ said Orfeo, ‘and we shall see whose cause is just.’

‘Lord Death gave a crack of laughter. ‘You think you can win against me? I am Death. By my nature, I win all battles.’

‘‘Then you cannot fail to win this one,’ said King Orfeo, smiling.

‘Lord Death gave his twisted smile, although deep down he was puzzled. What could King Orfeo hope to achieve through a duel? How could a mortal defeat Death?

‘‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘Name your weapon.’

‘‘I have it here,’ said Orfeo, holding out his golden harp. ‘I challenge you to a contest for my lady’s shadow. The one who wins will claim her heart, and take her, either to the Land of Death, or back to the land of the Living.’

‘The Ruler of the Land of Death considered the words of King Orfeo. ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘But if you lose, I will take you both, body and soul, for ever.’

‘King Orfeo smiled. ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘But you are ruler of this land. Everything in it obeys you. I request the right to hold our contest in neutral territory. Let us hold it in Dream, where neither of us has the advantage.’

‘Lord Death frowned at King Orfeo’s words. ‘Death cannot leave his realm,’ he said, ‘without risking disaster.’

‘‘But time has no meaning in Dream,’ said the King. ‘In Dream, a lifetime may pass, or a world can be built in a second. Our contest would pass in the blink of an eye. No-one need even know of it.’

‘Lord Death considered the request. ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘We shall duel as you say.’

‘King Orfeo smiled. ‘I have but one more request.’

‘The Ruler of the Land of Death was surprised into laughter, for the first time in many years. He said: ‘Is there no end to your demands?’ but his living eye shone with amusement.

‘‘Your living eye sees the Nine Worlds,’ King Orfeo went on humbly. ‘But your dead eye sees all that happens in Dream. To ensure that our duel is conducted in complete fairness, I would ask you to put it aside. Leave it here in Death, my Lord, and meet me, man to man, in Dream.’

‘Lord Death was of the Trickster’s line, which meant he was suspicious. But it also meant he was arrogant. He knew that King Orfeo was the greatest musician alive, but Death is the master of everything and everyone that has ever lived, and he knew Orfeo could not win. And so he took out his all-seeing Eye and laid it on his bone-white throne, and Lord Death and King Orfeo stepped into Dream together.

‘Death went first, and played a music so sublime that dreamers all across the Nine Worlds heard it, and wept, and smiled. Estranged lovers remembered their love and reached for each other in the dark; children called out for their mothers; old folk dreamed of summers past. King Orfeo heard it, and he knew that this was a contest he could not win.

‘But the Trickster’s line is a long one. King Orfeo, too, was a trickster, and he had taken years to make his plans. As Death played his melody in Dream, having left behind his all-seeing Eye, King Orfeo began to put his long-dreamed plan into action. The Oracle’s riddles had proved easy to solve. The first answer was bees, the weavers of dream. The second, the land of Dream itself. And the third was Death, the shadowless land where the people themselves are all shadows.

‘Now, he knew he must act fast. Time might seem endless in Dream, but in fact he had only seconds. First, he reached out to a dreamer, and sent her a vision of himself: a vision that would stay with her for all the years of her young life. Then, in an instant, he crossed into Death, and stood before the empty throne. And there he thought of the Oracle’s words:

When you can walk shadowless at noon

Every sage grows merry in time

Hand in hand, once more you may

Lovers be; together again.

‘For this, of course, had been the truth of the Oracle’s prophecy. The only way for King Orfeo to be reunited with his beloved was to take the throne of the Hallowe’en King, and to assume his regency. And so he plucked out his left eye, and in its place put the Eye of the King, and sat himself on the bone-white throne, and put on the crown of ivory. And there he waited for many long years, knowing one day his lady would come; awaiting his chance to reclaim her.

‘As for Lord Death – without his powers, he was left floating helpless in Dream, trapped in a web of music. Dream took his mind, but his music remained, spinning out into the Worlds like shining strands of spider silk. And there he remains eternally, for Hallowe’en Kings and Queens come and go, but Death is an ocean without any shore, and it endures for ever.’

The Hallowe’en King paused in his tale, and turned his mismatched eyes towards Fay. ‘Are you sure you want the end of this tale?’ he said, and his voice was gentle.

Fay nodded. ‘Did she come?’ she said. ‘Did she answer his call from Dream?’

‘Oh, his call was not to her,’ said the Hallowe’en King with a smile. ‘I told you, the Queen had already moved on. She had another family now; a daughter she loved more than Life itself. No, King Orfeo knew she would never respond to his voice. And so he called to someone else: his Queen’s six-year-old daughter.’

Two

For a long time Fay said nothing. Her thoughts were like a tangle of briars; her heart like the Night Train’s engine. It was all beginning to make sense to her, with the twisted logic of certain dreams: the Shadowless Man; the riddles; the rose – even her failing memory.

‘You knew that if you took Daisy, I’d come,’ she said at last, in a trembling voice. ‘And you knew that bringing me here, like this, was the one sure way to make me forget her.’

The Hallowe’en King gave his twisted smile. ‘Believe me, it hasn’t been easy,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d make it this far. And yet you did. Your love brought you here. You followed the trail I left for you, all the way across the Worlds. I was in your daughter’s dreams; I showed her to you in London Before. I led you closer, step by step, through the realm of Faërie, over the sea to Norrowa, into the maelstrom of Dream and finally, to the Shadowless Land. Through my all-seeing Eye I watched; and through your dreams I led you home.’

Fay listened to the Hallowe’en King, suddenly feeling very calm. There was a rushing sound in her head like that of a cold wind through the eaves. ‘You were King Orfeo,’ she said. ‘You were Daisy’s Shadowless Man. You’re the reason …’ she went on, feeling the words turn to ice on her tongue. ‘You’re the reason she killed herself.’

He nodded. ‘It was the only way. I did it because I love you, my Queen. Love greater than Life and stronger than Death. I did it all for you, for the sake of the love we had together.’

Fay felt the rushing sound in her head swell to a blizzard. ‘And Alberon?’ she said at last. ‘Was he another illusion?’

‘Do not despise illusions,’ said the Hallowe’en King in his quiet voice. ‘Glamours are how we show the truth that cannot be spoken. You loved me once, as Alberon, back in our realm of Faërie. I hoped you might remember me if I showed you what you had lost.’

Fay looked at him, and did not flinch at the sight of his skeletal profile. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘So what happens now?’

The Hallowe’en King raised his skeletal hand, and from the hall of dust there came a woman, all in white brocade. Her hair was longer than Fay’s, and yet Fay still recognized her face – after all, she’d seen it in the mirror every day for the past forty years. But it was Fay as she might have been, in some alternate story: a fairy tale; a distant dream, from when the Worlds were honeycomb.

‘Make a choice,’ said the Hallowe’en King. ‘Take my hand and you can reclaim your shadow; your true memories. You can be the woman you were; the woman with whom I fell in love. Your life among the Folk will be a fading dream, a candle flame that flickers out, leaving nothing but smoke behind.’

‘And if I don’t?’ said Fay.

‘Then you will be nothing; shadowless. It will be as if you never lived.’

Fay nodded slowly. ‘And Daisy?’

‘Forget her,’ said the Hallowe’en King. ‘You have already forgotten her. Take back your shadow and share my throne, and you shall be my Hallowe’en Queen, just as the Oracle prophesied.’

Fay looked at the shadow of herself standing before the bone-white throne. The other Fay was so beautiful that she could hardly look at her, and yet she knew they were one and the same; reflections in a dark glass. For a moment, she found herself thinking of the statue over the Shaftesbury fountain: the one that so many call Eros.

Eros, god of love, she thought. So many cruel and selfish things have been done in Eros’s name. Like the man before her now, who had lured an innocent girl to her death in order to satisfy his desire. Strange, that he should be revered, and his twin almost forgotten. And yet, that was his statue: Anteros, the selfless one; high against the London sky on wings as light as a butterfly’s.

‘Why do you hesitate?’ said the King. ‘I’m offering you eternal love. I am restoring you to your real life, to the future that was taken from us. Take back your shadow, and come to me, and we shall set the Worlds aflame. All you have to do is choose.’

And just for a moment, Fay could see the attraction of that future. Herself, immortal; perfected; all sorrow put away for good. Smiling, she reached out her hand—

And said: ‘I’ll take my turn now.’

Three

The Hallowe’en King made no protest, but Fay could sense his baffled rage. With a gesture, he banished the hall, the throne, and Fay found herself in a desert, bleak; unbroken to every horizon.

He faced her, one eye like a blade, the other dark with anger. ‘Then take your turn, my Queen,’ he said. ‘And weep for what you could have had.’

Fay reached into her pocket for the shell, and into her memory for a song. Neither was forthcoming. She must have dropped the shell, she thought, while the King was telling his tale. And now, without a song to sing, she had no chance of matching him.

I had no chance anyway, she told herself. And yet my Daisy shall have her song. If it costs me the very last drop of my blood: if it costs me my mind, she shall have it.

And she opened the tiny notebook that she had kept in her pocket, and started to read in a low, clear voice, while all the time watching the thin heat-haze of her shadow on the ground. As she read the words aloud, they faded from the page like smoke, leaving the paper blank once more.

‘The cake I made when she was four, shaped like Thomas the Tank Engine. The first time she went to the theatre.’

The Hallowe’en King narrowed his living eye. ‘This is pointless, my Lady,’ he said. ‘I beg you, spare us both this charade.’

Fay ignored him and went on. ‘The sandcastle we built, on the beach in Brighton. In the coffee shop at King’s Cross, with a cup of chocolate. Feeding the squirrels in Green Park.’

‘Please, my Lady,’ said the King, and she thought his voice was unsteady. ‘Let us have no more of this.’

Fay went on ignoring him. Her voice rang out across the sand. ‘Her first day at school. Her first Christmas. Her midnight-blue tent, embroidered with stars. In the park on Bonfire Night, writing our names with a sparkler. Grabbing my finger, the day she was born. It felt as if she would never let go.’

‘Don’t,’ said the King in an urgent voice. ‘Just take my hand, and I’ll release her. Only stop this madness. Take my hand, and I promise you—’

‘Her name was Daisy. Her favourite toy—’

The King made a sound of anger and pain, and Fay saw tears in his living eye.

‘—her favourite toy was a tiger.’

She looked down at the hot pale sand, searching for her shadow. But looking down, she found it gone, and now she realized that she could no longer remember the toy, or even the colour of Daisy’s eyes.

Then she looked back at the notebook, and saw that all the pages were blank.

Four

Time passes differently in Death, if it can be said to pass at all. Fay had no sense of how long it was before she looked back at the Hallowe’en King. He was watching her with a strange expression, and Fay saw that his eyes were wet. His features, too, looked different to her: and she thought the dead side of his face looked no longer hideous, but simply exhausted and very sad.

A gesture of his living hand summoned the woodland scene again, but this time Fay could feel the grass under her feet, and the bluebells gave off a wistful scent. Daisy’s eyes were opening, drowsily, as if from a dream.

Blue. Her eyes are blue, thought Fay. Her eyes are blue, and I love her.

She glanced back at the Hallowe’en King. ‘I don’t understand. What’s happening?’

‘I have released your Daisy,’ he said. ‘The Night Train will take her back to her World, to a time before her accident. She will have no memory of this place, or the Shadowless Man. Her mind will be healed of its trouble, and she will live a long and happy life.’

Fay stared at him. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You won the contest,’ said the King. ‘The Lord of Death concedes defeat.’

‘But how?’ said Fay.

He gave a slow, unhappy smile. ‘I loved you, my Queen,’ he told her, ‘with all the passion of Eros. But yours was the love of Anteros, the love that makes not a single demand, but gives, and gives, and gives, no matter what it loses. And that I cannot equal, not in this, or any World.’

Fay nodded. ‘Thank you.’

‘As for you, shadowless as you are, I cannot restore your memory. If I could, I would, but that gift is beyond the power of Death. But if you choose, you are free to return once more to the World of the living. I will not stand in your way, or pursue you any longer.’

Fay closed her eyes and breathed in the lovely scent of the bluebells. It felt as if she were breathing it in for the very first time; the new grass at her feet was soft; the air was bright as butterflies. A marvellous emptiness filled her mind; and with it a deep contentment, as if she had accomplished some gruelling task that she could no longer remember; and with it, a love as vast as the sky; as wide and deep as the ocean.

Blue. Her eyes are blue, she thought.

‘Goodbye. I love you, Daisy.’

And then she smiled at the Hallowe’en King, and reached out to clasp his skeletal hand …

The Hallowe’en Queen

One

They say that the madcap Queen of the Fae once fell in love with a child of the Folk, and brought her back from the Shadowless Land, forsaking her life and her memory.

And sometimes, in her dreams, she caught a fleeting glimpse of what she had lost, and heard the music of days gone by, and awoke with tears in her living eye. And sometimes in her dreams, she ran, endlessly, through London streets, and heard the voice of another woman, calling her from between the Worlds, and almost remembered what she had known, long ago and far away. But still she was content with her choice, for in dreams she remembered her daughter.

Almost every fairy tale begins with the death of the parents. That is how it is meant to be. That is how it has always been. But Death is not the end of the tale; merely another verse of a song. And love is a bird that never dies, but soars through the sky, and sings the song it cannot keep from singing.

For a song can climb higher, live longer, see more than any bird that ever flew. A song can pass from mouth to mouth, changing with the seasons. A song can pass between the Worlds, even to the Kingdom of Death, where the Hallowe’en Queen on her bone-white throne watches the Worlds through her all-seeing Eye, and contemplates the honeycomb.

This is the story of such a song. A song born of a mother’s love, given wings by a mother’s grief. A song of memory, and loss, and of the magic of everyday things. A song of rebirth, and rejoicing; the song of a journey to Death and beyond. And its variations are endless, and the song is never over.

Death and the Crone

Death and the Crone

Most living Folk are afraid of Death. To them, Death means sorrow, sickness, pain – but the kingdom of Death is none of these things. Sorrow and pain belong to Life. And Life itself is the servant of Change. But Death – Death is eternally changeless. Death is tediously dull. A million million years of dust, under a drab, unchanging sky. There are no trees; no flowers, except for those the Lord of Death may sometimes command to shape themselves: flowers with no colour, no scent, fashioned from dust and fine-milled bone. There are no people, except for the dead, whom the Lord of Death may command at whim to rise up and dance, or play at life; but they too are only shadows, speaking his lines; dust-pale under their finery; forever cut off from the world.

Thus, the Lord of Death, whom some Folk call the Hallowe’en King, and others call Lord Alberon, exists in a state of perpetual tedium. On his bone-white throne he sits, watching the Worlds through his living eye, while he watches the dead through his blue eye with a harsh, unblinking envy. For there is a price to be paid for his reign of perpetual half-life; a price to be paid in sorrow, and grief, and all-consuming boredom. Which is why, every year, on All Hallows’ Eve – when he is celebrated by the Folk – he leaves his dead eye on the seat of his throne to watch over the Land of the Dead, and ventures into the living World in the guise of a one-eyed man in a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat.

As the Folk burn their bonfires, and leave gifts for their lost ones, and tell stories of ghosts and revenants, the Hallowe’en King walks the land in search of the man or woman who will agree to take his throne of dead man’s ivory, and wear the bone-white crown in his place. Only then will the Lord of the Dead rest in the dust of his ancestors, and a new King or Queen rule in his place.

On this particular Hallowe’en, the King found himself in a distant land ravaged by plague and famine. Many had succumbed; and those who remained were grieving and sad, and filled with anger. In this land, there lived a woman who some called a witch, a woman who refused to die. Older she was than the land itself; more stubborn than the rocks in the ground. She had survived the famine, the plague, the death of her children, her grandchildren, and her grief had shrunk her to walnut-size, hard and brown, and filled with bitter memory. And yet still she refused to acknowledge Death, but lived in her cottage in the woods, and fed on acorns and blackberries, and spoke to no-one but the trees, and the ghosts, and the woodland creatures.

The Hallowe’en King heard of the stubborn crone, and, curious, he came to her. He came to her dressed as a beggar man, with a patch over his missing eye, and a cloak that was made from ten thousand scraps and patches of burial finery. He came to her in disguise, but the crone knew him at once for the Hallowe’en King, and slammed her cottage door in his face, and left him in the darkness.

‘Get thee hence,’ she cried, through the door. ‘For I am not yet ready.’

‘Old woman,’ said the Hallowe’en King. ‘I do not come to bring you Death. Instead, I offer eternal Life, and the chance to rule my kingdom.’

From the other side of the door came the sound of the old woman’s laughter.

‘I swear to you,’ said the Lord of Death, ‘that my offer is sincere. I will give you the crown of Death, and with it, life eternal.’

The cottage door opened a crack. ‘What’s the catch?’ demanded the crone.

‘There is no catch,’ said the Hallowe’en King. ‘You will rule the dead in my place, and have them serve at your pleasure. My bone-white palace will be yours, and with it my throne and my coronet. My wealth is beyond imagining; my power greater than that of any alive. And all this can be yours, if you will take the gift I offer you, and release me from my burden.’

The old woman thought for a long time. Then, she opened the cottage door.

‘From what I understand,’ she said, ‘I’d be doing you a favour?’

The Hallowe’en King nodded.

The old woman laughed. ‘What an offer,’ she said. ‘Eternal life, and untold wealth, and the gratitude of the Lord of Death!’

Once more, the Hallowe’en King nodded, hardly daring to hope that, this time he might find the peace he craved.

The old woman hobbled to her stove and poured herself a cup of tea. Then she sat in her rocking chair, and drank it very slowly.

‘Well?’ said the Hallowe’en King at last. ‘Will you accept my offer?’

The old woman put down her cup, and said: ‘You have taken all I had. My friends, my man, my family. And now you dare ask me for a favour?’

‘Well, yes,’ replied the Hallowe’en King. ‘I mean, that’s how it works.’

‘Then I decline your offer,’ she said. ‘You may return to your Kingdom. My life has been spent awaiting the day when I can slam my door in your face, and I do so today with pleasure.’

‘Please,’ said Lord Death. ‘Reconsider.’

The old woman shook her head and laughed.

‘But you’re so old,’ protested the King. ‘Death will surely come for you soon.’

‘But not today,’ replied the crone, and once more shut the door on him, and bolted it, and made more tea, and drank it in her rocking-chair, while outside the cottage, the harsh wind wailed, and shook the leafless branches.

And so, the Hallowe’en King returned alone to his lifeless kingdom.

And in her cottage, the old woman smiled, and wondered at the sweetness of her long-deferred revenge; a sweetness just like honeycomb.

Acknowledgements

Some stories are planned many years in advance; others appear without warning and demand to be written down. This was one of the latter, delivered by a white-headed crow sometime around Hallowe’en, 2016. No-one expected it – least of all my publishers who nevertheless both embraced it and moved mountains to bring it out in time for my favourite season.

It takes nine Worlds to make a book: and most of the people behind the scenes never see their names in print. I would therefore like to thank all those who worked so tirelessly to help make this omnibus as good as it could possibly be: my editors, Gillian Redfearn and Claire Ormsby-Potter, my publicist Jenna Petts, and all my great team at Gollancz. Also, thanks to my agent, Jon Wood; to Sue Gent for her inspired cover design, and to my superb illustrator Bonnie Helen Hawkins, brought to me by chance on the wind of a summer’s day, whose vision helped bring my story to life. Thanks, too, to the booksellers, reps, bloggers, Tubers, Tik-Tokkers and tweeters whose enthusiasm keep my books on the shelves: to the Storytime Band, who helped me take things into a different medium; and of course, to you, the readers, without whom no story is ever more than just words …

Also By Joanne M. Harris from Gollancz:

Runemarks

Runelight

The Gospel of Loki

The Testament of Loki

A Pocketful of Crows

The Blue Salt Road

Orfeia

Honeycomb

Copyright

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Gollancz

an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

Copyright © Frogspawn Limited 2023

A POCKETFUL OF CROWS first published in Great Britain by Gollancz in 2017

THE BLUE SALT ROAD first published in Great Britain by Gollancz in 2018

ORFEIA first published in Great Britain by Gollancz in 2020

Illustrations © Bonnie Helen Hawkins 2023

The moral right of Joanne Harris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN (eBook) 978 1 399 61402 3

www.gollancz.co.uk