The Holly & the Ivy

J. A. Clement

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

THE HOLLY & THE IVY

Copyright © 2017 by J. A. Clement

Cover design by Wesley de Souza

ISBN- 978-1-908212-40-5

Kindle Edition

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Created with Vellum

Contents

1. The Storm in the Night

2. The Hare Returns

3. The Shutters are Open

4. The Smashing of the Mug

5. The Courtesy of Trees

6. The Consequences of the Tea-party

7. The Solstice

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other books by Weasel Green Press

1

The Storm in the Night

BLAM! Greta was woken by a crash right there in the bedchamber. “What-?” The room was filled with the howl of wind, and the rumbling boom of thunder. Rain battered at the windows and the shutters swung wide as lightning crackled white across the darkness over the mountains.

“The wind has forced the shutters open!” Matthias threw back the blankets, hurried to the window and reached for the shutters which flailed back and forth in the wind. After a couple of attempts, he caught hold of one and managed to pull it towards him, but the force of the wind was too strong and the hinges squealed and broke. The shutter plummeted to the ground, leaving the other banging against the wall with some force.

“Wonderful!” Matthias wrestled the windows closed with some difficulty. “If it’s this wild I’ll be surprised if the other shutter doesn’t smash the window, and then there will be glass everywhere. We’d be better off downstairs.” He dragged the blankets from the bed and bundled them over his shoulder.

“I’ll check on Holly.” Greta put on her slippers and wrapped herself in a shawl, her heart rate slowing after the shock of that awakening. Taking the flickering lamp, she went into their daughter’s room. The child blinked sleepily at her, not properly awake despite the noise. “Come down to the kitchen, Holly. The storm’s raging.” Greta helped the sleepy girl out of bed, bundled her into a warm robe and led her, still drowsy, downstairs.

In the kitchen, Matthias opened the squat iron stove and began to rake up the embers of the fire, clearing the ash while behind him, Greta arranged the blankets on the sofa and settled Holly on it.

“If you can get back to sleep, Holly, do.” Greta lit a couple of candles and set a pan of milk to warm over the stove. Holly snuggled into the comfortable cushions of the sofa, still blinking the sleep away from her eyes.

Matthias added kindling and then a few logs to the embers and pushed the stove door to, leaving it just open enough to draw air in. “It’ll be a while before it’s warm enough to heat the pan.”

“I know, but after waking up like that, I don’t think I’ll be going back to sleep for a while. Hot milk might help.” Greta set mugs on the side and then took a seat next to Holly on the sofa.

Holly snuggled up to her, stifling a yawn. “I’m not sleepy any more either. Will you tell me a story?”

Greta threw an amused glance at her husband. “I don’t see why not. What story do you want? The Clever Princess? The Axe of Errol? The Old Man and the Parrot?”

Holly thought for a moment. “Tell me about the time the snowmaiden helped you, before you had me. I like that one.” It was the story Holly asked for most often.

Matthias came to join them as Greta began to talk. “Well, as you know, this was a few years ago, because you are… let’s see, how old are you now?”

“Eight!” Holly was outraged at the mild tease.

“Eight! How did that happen?” Greta smiled to herself. “Well, if you are eight, then it must have been ten years ago now. The snows were very deep that year, and we were almost entirely cut off from the town for a while. I was restless and a bit lonely, and one night I was out in the snow and there was a hare that came out to play in the snow nearby. I decided to make a snowmaiden, as detailed and beautiful as I could. It was cold, but I was happy doing it, and with the hare jumping and diving in the snow, it felt companionable, somehow. Your Papa had travelled down into town to get supplies-”

“To get an engagement ring so I could ask you to marry me, actually…”

“So there was no-one to help when Grandpappy and I had an accident while we were out cutting wood for the fire. I was not badly hurt, but Grandpappy would not wake up, and I was all alone in the snowy night. I needed to get him back to the lodge before we both froze to death, but I couldn’t lift him.”

“And then?” Holly prompted.

“The hare appeared, and I was so worried that I started talking to it, and I told it what had happened. It disappeared again, and soon after, who else do you think turned up?”

“The snowmaiden!” Holly’s eyes sparkled.

“The snowmaiden I had made, all come to life. I don’t know how or why. She brought us back to the house, and we made a fire with the very last pieces of wood that we had. Once I had made sure Grandpappy was all right, I sat in front of the fire to work out what to do, but I was tired and hurt, and I fell asleep.”

“Oh no! Then what?”

Matthias grinned. “You know very well, you little imp! In the meantime, I was trying to get back from the town but the snow was very deep and my wagon was stuck. Then, a mysterious white figure turned up and hauled my wagon out of the snow as easily as if it were a child’s toy! I was quite scared of course, but she didn’t seem to be threatening me, just beckoned me on the way I was going anyway. And I wanted to be home and out of the snow as soon as possible. So I followed her through the night and through the snow and along the mountain passes – she had to pull the wagon out of the snow a few times, I can tell you – but when we got home, instead of heading to my house, she led me to the lodge. I was a bit concerned about how your mother and Grandpappy had got on in the storm, so in I went. I took my packet of food and all the wood from the stove in my wagon, but it was still very cold, and there wasn’t enough to keep us all warm for more than a few hours.”

“So what did you do?” Holly’s eyes were beginning to close.

Matthias smiled over Holly’s head at Greta, who was stroking the child’s hair. “What did we do? Nothing much. We kept the fire warm and looked after Grandpappy and waited for the storm to pass. And in the middle of it there was a crashing and a banging, and in the morning when the storm had subsided, we discovered that the snowmaiden had broken down the old holly tree into pieces small enough for the fire.”

“And then what?”

Greta continued the tale. “We wanted to thank her, so the snowmaiden chose some paints, and we painted her dress in bright, pretty colours. Then we made a snow lad and the snow lad and the snowmaiden danced in the night, under the full moon. We left them hand in hand, under the moonlight, looking out across the valleys.”

Holly blinked in her efforts to stay awake as Matthias finished, “But in the night it rained, and all that was left of them was two sprigs of holly which we planted by the gate, and which you are named after. It was all as if it had never been, only without the snowmaiden’s help, I think none of us would have survived the storm. It is all very mysterious.”

Holly roused herself slightly. “And it is true? You swear to me that it is true?”

Matthias tweaked her nose. “As true as the nose on your face, sweeting. Sometimes it seems like a dream, but if it was, who tore down the tree? It was not cut by axe or saw as it would have been if we had done it. It had been ripped into chunks by something awesomely strong. Even if all the rest had been some sort of dream or hallucination, the tree was real, and the logs were real, and I don’t know anything else that could have done that to it.”

A hissing from the stove made Greta look up. “Oh no – the milk! Quick, Matthias!”

Laughing, Matthias jumped up to rescue the pan, as a cloud of white froth bubbled up above the edge. “Just in time!”

When they had drunk their milk, Greta and Holly lay back on the sofa and Matthias on the armchair, watching the fire.

Holly fidgeted and wriggled. “This is all squashy, Mama. There isn’t enough room. Can I go back to my own bed? There’s nothing wrong with my shutters.”

“Not while the storm is so wild,” Greta stroked Holly’s hair. “It might break your window too, and you might get cut by the glass. Stay here for the moment.”

Holly looked vaguely rebellious, but it was very late and she settled again quite quickly, her eyes closing. Greta nodded to Matthias, who turned down the lamp and closed the shutter door so that the kitchen was dark and cosy. They lay awake for a while, listening to the irregular bangs of the remaining shutter, until eventually there was another crash.

“There goes the other one.” Matthias yawned. “Still, at least the banging has stopped. Let’s get to sleep.”

2

The Hare Returns

Later, Greta woke slowly, and with reluctance. The storm had fallen quiet at some point and the kitchen was quiet in the early morning light, so this noise, when it came, was startling; a kind of hollow thumping. Blinking, she listened but it had stopped. Had she dreamed it? No, there is was again – three fast thumps. They sounded to be just outside the house.

“Matthias, did you hear that?”

“Uhm?”

Seven thumps this time, faster and louder. Greta sat up and almost rolled off the sofa. Holly was not there, and Greta felt a rush of irritation that the child had gone back to her own bedroom when she had specifically told her not to.

She went to the door and looked through the little glass pane with the border of holly. More thumps.

“What is it?”

Greta hesitated and did not answer. After a moment, she fumbled with the lock and opened the door. “It’s the hare, Matthias. I couldn’t swear it but it looks a lot like... that one.”

“It can’t be the same one that helped us with the snowmaiden. They don’t live that long.” But once Matthias had jammed his feet into his boots he came to look.

The hare sat on the wooden steps leading up to the house. It looked straight at them and drummed loudly with its back foot on the stair again. Then it hopped around the side of the house.

“I’m going to see what it wants.” Greta felt slightly foolish, but she pulled on her boots and her mother’s red scarf, fastened up her coat over her nightdress and ventured out into the chill morning.

The hare was waiting at the edge of the house for her, and as soon as she was in sight, it disappeared round the corner. Following, Greta was struck by the damage the storm had wrought.

Matthias followed her out. “What a mess.” He surveyed the roof tiles scattered across the garden and the fallen chimney pot. “I’m afraid the shutter has flattened your flower garden, just as it was starting to look so pretty, too. I wonder what happened to the other one. It must have blown away.”

Greta’s gaze was drawn up from the wreckage of her plants to the gaping window above, and her heart began to pound. “Oh no. Matthias, it wasn’t our shutter, it was Holly’s. And she sneaked back into her room in the night.” Holly’s shutters were shattered on the ground beneath her room and the windows hung open. Seized by panic, Greta ran for the house, Matthias just behind her. She dashed upstairs, flung open the door of Holly’s room, and stopped. The bed was empty, the sheets neatly drawn up to the pillow, and the room was full of storm-blown leaves and detritus.

“Where is she? Is she hurt?” Greta could hardly get the words out.

Matthias looked under the bed and in the cupboard. Greta hurried into their room - no Holly. She searched everywhere she could think of. Holly was not in or under the bed, not in the cupboards, not downstairs. She was not even in the attic, though when Greta climbed up to check, a set of dolls suggested that she had found her way into it at some point.

Numbly Greta picked up the little rag doll. Holly loved to play tea parties. The table was set for two dolls and two others, as she always had it. There was a little figure in the place of the second doll that Greta had not seen before. She picked that up too. Her hair snagged on the ivy that had inveigled its way in under the eaves, and she ripped it free, too consumed by fear for her daughter to waste time untangling it.

There was nowhere here for Holly to be hiding, and Greta knew with increasing certainty that her little girl was gone. She could only clutch at the hope that the hare had come to help, as it had done last time.

Matthias was on his way up the stairs but, when he saw her face, he halted on the top step. She came and clung to him for a moment.

“She’s not there, Matthias. What shall we do?”

“Perhaps she has gone outside.” Neither of them spoke of the picture in their minds, of Holly’s little body having fallen from her window in the storm. “Come on.”

Stopping in their room, Greta quickly dressed in her most practical clothes. “Why would she leave the house? Do you think she went to visit Pappy or something? She’s never done that before?”

Matthias grabbed a shirt. “What else could it be? I don’t believe she would have run away.”

“I can’t believe she would either. I know we argued, but surely that can’t be it. But the hare is back. The hare alerted us. I don’t think she would have woken us if Holly had just gone to Pappy’s. And he sleeps so soundly, I’m not sure that he would wake if she knocked on the door.”

“You can’t base all that on the actions of a woodland animal, for goodness’ sake.” He sat on the bed, his head in his hands. “I think you’re right. Whether or not she meant to go visit Pappy, it is unlikely she will be there now. We’ll check there first, but if not, she must have gone somewhere to play.”

Greta stood, buttoning her top. “Why would she go without having her breakfast? You know how hungry she gets at the moment. If she had gone to Pappy and he had not let her in, she would have come back here for food, not gone off to play hungry. Something is not right, something has been awry with her for some time, and nothing makes sense.”

“Let’s go check with Pappy first. For all we know, she might be sitting there chattering merrily right now.”

“I hope so, Matthias, I really do.”

3

The Shutters are Open

Holly was not with Pappy. Greta chafed at the time it took to wake Pappy and explain it all to him. She was becoming more and more convinced that the hare had something to do with it all.

“I won’t be much help in the search,” Pappy bent stiffly to put his boots on. “You two will cover more ground without me. I’ll wait in the house. If she comes back I’ll put wet straw on the fire and the smoke will go black. And at least I can have something ready for you all to eat when you do find her.”

No-one wanted to question that “when”.

Matthias stood. “Where do you want to search, Greta? The meadow or the woods?”

Greta thought for a moment. “Your tracking skills are better than mine. Why don’t you check for tracks around the house? She may come back on her own… I do hope so.”

“And you?”

She shrugged. “I will follow the hare. It’s no madder than just casting around with no real clue. The only other time in my life that we were in dire need, the hare helped, and now we desperately need help and here she is.”

Matthias looked from her to Pappy in protest, but Pappy nodded slowly. “It would be madness of course, but we should cover all possibilities. Expecting a snowmaiden to come to life and help us would be no less mad, but it happened.”

Matthias nodded doubtfully, but he gave her a quick hug. “Be careful, Greta. We will meet back at the house again before dark, and if the hare takes you beyond the valley, please leave sign for me along the way. I can’t lose both of you.”

“I will.” Leaving Matthias casting around the area looking for tracks, Greta hurried back to the house with Pappy. Grabbing her satchel, she threw in some travel rations, a first aid kit and, after a brief hesitation, the two dolls from the attic.

Pappy raised an eyebrow.

“I just want something of Holly’s, something to hold on to.” Greta admitted.

Pappy kissed her. “Of course you do, my girl. Now, go find her, and bring her back to us. The hare will take you where you need to go.”

Greta nodded, obscurely cheered that he believed the hare would help. Slinging her satchel over her shoulder, she shut the door behind her. “Right, hare.” The animal was still waiting outside. “Do you know where Holly is? Can you show me?”

The hare lolloped away across the garden and under the fence, stopping to wait under the holly saplings that Matthias and Greta had planted on their wedding day. A sprig of holly had fallen from one in the storm, and on an impulse, Greta picked it up and threaded it through her scarf.

Holly can’t have got far, surely? But then, I’d have sworn that Holly could not have got past us without waking me, and she must have done. The only other way out would have been out of the window, and even Holly, sure-footed as she was, could not have climbed down the ivy on the house in the dark in a storm. Could she….?

Or was there was something she had missed, something that would have prevented Holly’s flight? She had known for a while that something was wrong, but not wanting to admit it, she had persuaded herself otherwise. Perhaps if she had reacted right at the beginning, perhaps if she had done something differently…But she did not know what else she could have done. As she followed the hare towards the rising sun, she considered the past few days, looking for answers.

* * *

It had been coming on for a while but finally, a few days back, Greta’s worries had crystallised into something definite. She had decided to talk it over with Matthias, and after dinner that night, she had started the conversation.

“Matthias, I’m worried about Holly. I can’t wake her again. Something’s not right.”

“She’s sleeping a lot at the moment. Do you think she’s poorly?” Matthias came to stand beside her, putting an arm around her. “Should we get the doctor?”

Greta leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m not sure. She doesn’t seem to have any pains or anything of that sort. It just doesn’t seem right that a child of her age should be so tired every morning.”

Matthias stroked her hair. “I suppose it couldn’t be a growth spurt or anything like that?”

Greta desperately wanted to believe that. “I don’t know. I’m probably worrying about nothing.” But Holly was not growing particularly fast at the moment.

That afternoon came and went before Holly woke up. At about dusk Greta heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to see the little girl, still languid with sleep. She looked thinner than she should be.

“Hello there.” Greta patted the settle beside her, and when Holly came for a hug, she stroked the thick dark curls which were so like Matthias’s. “Do you feel better for having a nap?”

“Yes, Mama.” The girl yawned.

“Would you like something to eat?”

Holly looked thoughtful. “Porridge with berries in it and honey on the top, please.”

“And nuts? We mustn’t forget the nuts, must we?”

Holly dimpled. “And nuts. I like the crunchy bits.” Yawning again, she lay on the settle watching the flames leap and dance in the fireplace while Greta sorted out the porridge.

Two bowls later, Greta shook her head. “I’m not sure I could eat that much porridge. You must have been hungry.”

Holly finished off her mug of milk. “Yes. That was nice, thank you. Mama, will you play with me? We could have a tea party, or make a den with blankets, or you could read me a story.”

“We could go through your sums and spellings for that matter…”

“Aw, Mama!”

Greta laughed. “Your lessons are important, Holly. But today, as a special treat, I think we might miss them. Besides, I have dinner to make.”

Holly looked serious. “Mama, I know you have lots to do and I keep having to have lessons….”

“We’ve had this conversation before, Holly.” Greta felt a surge of irritation. “I know you want to go to school in town with the other girls, but that would mean we all had to move down there, and then who would look after Grandpappy?”

“He is quite grown up, Mama.”

“He is very old. Eighty years old. He is not as strong as he was, and what would happen if he fell down and we were all in town? Who would come to help him? There is no-one for miles who would even know. We need to live here to look after Grandpappy.”

Holly sighed but she let it drop. It was an old argument, but she was very fond of her Grandpappy and that clinched the argument every time. “Where is Papa?”

“He’s in the workshop with Grandpappy, finishing off the decorations on the sleigh for Goodman Tolling.”

“Can I help?”

“Why don’t you ask?” Greta held up a hand as Holly leapt up. “But if Papa says no, don’t pester them. They have a lot of work to do. And put on something warm. It’s a clear evening, so it will be chilly later on.”

“Yes Mama.” Holly danced along the hall to the porch like a puppy going on a walk, grabbed a coat and skipped away.

Greta followed Holly outside, and paused to admire the view up to the mountains and down to the far valleys. Her garden flowered later than the ones lower down the slopes, but even so the flowerbeds were dotted with colour. It had not been a warm spring, but now the temperatures were climbing, in daylight at least. Less so at night; but that was partly the altitude too. She stopped by her favourite flowerbed. Some early phlox and yarrow and cornflowers were peeping through, all tumbled together in a colourful mess that would include dahlias soon, the tight-furled buds just starting to take on colour. It was as pretty as it was accidental, Holly having upset the carefully sorted seed tray into the flowerbeds in the spring.

Holly threw open the workshop door with a bang that would have Matthias wincing, and a merry chatter of voices greeted her. Greta smiled to herself as she went on to get grain from the crock in the outhouse. At this end of the day it was difficult to believe that this energetic child bounding away was the same person as the quiet, lethargic child of the mornings. As the day went on she seemed to wake up more and more until in the evenings she was as bouncy as a child of her age should be. Even Pappy, Greta’s grandfather had never seen anything like it, and he had raised Greta’s mother and then Greta herself.

The door did not immediately shut; yet another strand of ivy had got in the way. She frowned as she pulled it away and closed the door. The ivy had appeared just after the thaw, and was spreading so fast that it had covered two whole walls of the house entirely in just a few short weeks. It was now advancing on the other two walls, Greta noted. They should strip it off before it damaged the stone really, but she would worry about that later. Her priority now was Holly.

The days passed and Holly became increasingly drawn, recovering her energy later and later in the day.

“A very odd case,” the doctor remarked. “I can’t find anything wrong with her. She’s as healthy a child as I might wish to see, though a little thin for her height. I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps a passing phase. Some children do get very tired from time to time, but usually they perk up again. They’re resilient little creatures.”

Once the doctor left, Greta put Holly to bed with a mug of hot milk and her favourite book, as was their habit. “So long as you are reading quietly in bed, you don’t have to go to sleep. I will come and put the lamp out later.” Tousling the dark curls, she and Matthias kissed Holly good night and went back down to the living room, where Pappy was sitting, drowsily digesting his dinner.

Greta took a seat on the sofa and hugged a cushion to her gloomily. “She’s had the window open again. Do you think she could be getting too cold at night?”

“Her bed is well covered with blankets,” objected Matthias. “And if the window is properly closed she says it’s too stuffy and she can’t breathe.”

Pappy scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Is she naturally a warm-blooded one? Your mother, Greta, she was always cold. Least little draught and she’d be bundled up in shawls and scarves – probably would have worn furs if we’d had any. My friend Suzanna, on the other hand, she was always hot. Middle of winter, I’d be wearing my thick coat and scarf and she’d be wandering round in the same old waxed leather she’d been wearing all year. Left to herself, would Holly bundle up warm, or would she not bother?”

“I don’t know…”

“Well, to come at it another way, has she always wanted the window open?”

Mathias shook his head. “No. It all started just after the thaw. When there were those three or four warm days her room did seem quite stuffy, so we let her air it a bit.…”

“She started getting tired not long after that!” Greta stared at Pappy. “Can it be that simple?”

“One way to find out.” Matthias stood and climbed the stairs, reappearing shortly with the empty mug from Holly’s room. “Sound asleep, I think. She didn’t stir when I closed the window, in any case.”

Pappy heaved himself up from the chair. “Well, we’ll see if it makes any difference tomorrow I should imagine.”

4

The Smashing of the Mug

The hare had led Greta across the meadow behind the house and up the wooded slope that led into the unmapped wilderness further up the mountains. In the early morning, the air was moist and heavy with the earthy smell of the forest, and birds chattered and swooped in the trees around them, stilling when Greta approached. Up until now they had been on familiar ground: she knew the logging trails well, but now the hare turned off the path to lead her along the valley rather than going higher.

Greta paused for a moment, brought out of her musings. If we're leaving the path, it's time to start leaving signs. She set stones in the shape of an arrow for Matthias, and carefully bent down a branch above it to catch his eye, then hurried after the hare.

The trail led along a narrow ledge. The ground along the left quickly dropped away to a sheer precipice. Greta had to suppress the urge to hurry. She was desperate to find her daughter but the track was treacherous with smoothed clay, and she needed all her concentration to make her way over the crooked tree roots and through the tangled branches along the way.

As she clambered carefully along the way, she was suddenly seized by a panicked thought. What if Holly had come this way in the dark? She might have slipped and even now be lying at the bottom of the precipice!

“Hare, she didn’t fall did she?” She could barely breathe at the thought. She stopped to look down over the drop: it made her giddy but just as she thought her knees would go out from under her, common sense suggested an answer. “If she had done we would be climbing down rather than up, wouldn’t we?”

The hare paused and looked back, but it carried on the way it was going.

Greta followed numbly, and went back to her thoughts.

* * *

The following morning, Greta had found Holly’s room cold, a drift of ivy leaves on the floor and Holly sleeping like the dead. She slipped in and latched the window, then came down to breakfast.

“How is she?” Matthias paused in stirring the porridge.

“The window was open.”

“I must not have fastened it properly,” he sighed. “Let’s try again tonight.”

So, after Holly’s book had dropped from her hand that night, and she lay limp in the bed, they both crept upstairs and made sure the window was closed and latched.

In the morning they found it open again. Matthias was doubly irritated. “That’s annoying. She must be waking in the night to open it.”

Later that afternoon, they tried to talk to her about it. Matthias began. “Holly, the last two nights, we closed your bedroom window when you were asleep, but in the morning it has been open. We are doing this for a reason. Please leave it closed tonight.”

Holly stared at him. “But I want it open.”

Greta set aside her needlework. “We’ve let you have it open for a lot of nights but we think that the cold is making you poorly, and we’re worried.”

“No!” Holly jumped to her feet and glared from one to the other. “I don’t want to shut it!”

“Don’t contradict me, Holly. Keep it shut for a week or two until you’re better, and then if you want you can have it open sometimes.” Greta was not prepared for the reaction her words caused.

“No!” Holly grew red in the face, and her fists clenched by her side. She looked ready to burst into tears, almost, but tears of anger. “I won’t close it, I won’t! You can’t make me! I will open it and open it and open it every time!”

“Holly…!”

“I won’t close it, ever! Stop telling me to! I won’t!”

“Don’t speak to your mother that way,” Matthias chided. “If there is a good reason for the window to be open, then tell us, don’t shout at us. It’s rude.”

“I need it open, Mama. It has to be open!”

Matthias frowned. “Holly, please try to help us understand. Why are you so determined to keep the window open? If you are too hot, we can give you a thinner blanket.”

Holly stamped her foot. “I don’t want a thinner blanket! I want my window open!”

Greta put her hand on the girl’s arm. “It can’t be that you’re claustrophobic. You were playing hide and seek in the cupboards the other day. I don’t understand, Holly, and I’m really trying to. Why is it that you want the window open so badly?”

Holly shook her hand off, and glanced sideways almost craftily. “I just do. It’s my window. I can open it if I want to. You can’t tell me not to. I want the window open and I won’t shut it!” She seemed almost calm now, with a determination that was oddly un-childlike.

“Enough! Just because you want to is not a good enough reason when having it open is making you ill.” Matthias slammed the heel of his hand on the table. “If there is another reason you need to tell us now. If there is no other reason, then we will close it. I warn you, Holly, I am going to come into your room tonight and check and I do not expect to see it open.”

But Holly just looked away resentfully, clearly simmering with defiance.

That night conversation languished after dinner. The wind fingered its way through the cracks in the casement and muttered round the house, and the night was chill with the first frost of autumn.

Greta and Matthias had had another confrontation with Holly when they put her to bed. They had left her reading quietly with a mug of hot milk a little time before, and suddenly there was a shriek which had them both leaping up the stairs in alarm.

“Are you all right, Holly?” Matthias had stopped dead in the doorway. “What on earth…?”

Greta peered round him; Holly was rattling at the window.

“You fastened my window! I told you not to fasten my window!” She slammed the window frame with her hand and then, apparently too angry to speak now, she whirled, snatched up her mug and threw it at the wall so hard it smashed.

There was a moment’s silence. Matthias wiped the milk that had splashed on his face. All of them knew that she had gone too far now.

“What is going on up there?” There was a series of creaks as Pappy made his way stiffly up the stairs. They sounded loud as thunderclaps in the ominous quiet.

Holly looked around at the milk splashed everywhere and the shards of pottery on the floor, almost shocked.

“Holly has had a tantrum.” Greta and Matthias stood back to let Pappy past.

He surveyed the little room, with the sodden rugs and the smashed cup. “I am sorry that you saw fit to break the cup that I gave you.” Pappy poked one of the shards with his foot. “If you did not want it I should have preferred you to give it back to me. It belonged to your grandmother, and I thought you were grown up enough to look after it.”

Holly did not answer, but a solitary tear rolled down her cheek.

“Was there a reason for this?”

She looked at her feet and muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“They closed the window, and I told them not to.” She did not sound any more convinced by it than they were.

“I see. And is there a good and proper reason why they should not, to offset the good and proper reason that they want to close it?”

Holly looked down.

“Is there a silly reason why you want it open? Or rather, why do you want it open? Even if it’s a silly reason, I’d rather you told us. At the moment you look like a child who is being naughty, and it’s not like you.” He looked at the pieces of the cup. “But then, if someone had told me that you would smash the special mug I gave you, I would not have believed that either.”

They waited, but Holly did not say anything.

Eventually Pappy sighed, and without another word he turned and went back downstairs.

“Well, I think you should start to clean up the mess, don’t you?” Greta watched the child silently start gathering the shards of the cup. “I will bring you a cloth to wipe up the milk with and in the morning you may wash the rug clean before the milk starts smelling sour.”

She left Holly trying to fit together the pieces of the mug.

A little while later, Greta left Holly lying quietly in bed. She gathered together the dirty cloth and bowl and the soggy rug, and she took them all into the kitchen, dumping the rug in the tin bathtub by the fire. It took several trips to the pump to get enough water to cover it, and once it was soaking she returned to the others.

Matthias and Pappy were discussing Holly, of course.

“I don’t like it. She’s never been that sort of child.” Matthias paced to the fireplace.

“Do you think she’s just got to that age, Pappy?” Greta shut the door behind her and went to sit on the sofa.

Pappy shook his head. “It would be awfully young if it was. And it still wouldn’t explain the tiredness.”

“Is something seriously wrong with her? But the doctor said she was healthy.”

“I don’t think she’s ill, no. I wonder if she might be lonely though. She’s getting on for when girls do better with a little company of their own age.”

Greta hackled slightly. “I never had any problems like that, and it was just you and I.”

Pappy laughed. “And Matthias! You had him to talk to. Holly has no-one of her own generation. She’s going to start feeling it sooner or later. You should perhaps think about sending her to the school in town a couple of days a week.”

“But she has lessons here…”

Matthias sighed. “Pappy’s not questioning her learning, my dear. You teach her admirably well but it is true that she could do with some friends. She studies remarkably well but she also needs to learn about other people, the good and the bad. We can’t keep her to ourselves forever.”

“That is not what I am trying to do,” Greta snapped, then hesitated. “Oh dear, it is what I’m trying to do, isn’t it? But the idea of sending her away just fills me with dismay…”

“I think it probably dismays us all, but it is in her best interests,” Pappy replied. “She’s lonely. She’s always wanting to play with one of us, but for a child it just isn’t the same. She could have all the attention we can give her, but she’d still be better with a pack of friends her own age. I’m sorry, Greta, but it is true.”

Greta’s face fell, but she nodded mournfully. “I suppose so.”

Outside, the wind howled around the house, hissing through the thick ivy that clung to the walls.

Matthias sighed, and looked from one to the other of them. “Very well. It is agreed. We will write to Mistress Ecklin at the school and ask her if she could take Holly for a while.”

“I will write the letter tomorrow,” Greta agreed reluctantly.

5

The Courtesy of Trees

Greta stumbled on after the hare, her thoughts in a whirl. The sun was over the horizon now. It was a clear, chilly morning, and the pale sunlight threw every detail of the drop below into sharp definition. Greta’s fingers were cold and it was difficult to hold onto the slick branches but the hare led on, stopping every so often to wait, and Greta’s need for her daughter spurred her on beyond any thoughts of turning back.

Soon the trail led away from the edge of the drop and along a steep wooded slope, through the stands of ironwood that covered a great swathe of the mountainside. The going was getting increasingly difficult as the trail narrowed, though. Bushes scratched at her. Glossy ivy tangled her feet, and the skeletons of brambles clutched at her clothes and tripped her. She stumbled on doggedly.

The hare stopped in a clearing, listening.

“Trouble?” Greta murmured.

The hare froze for a moment and then with a flash of white tail it was gone, sped into the bushes. Greta dashed after it, but before she had taken two steps an arm clamped itself around her throat from behind. She struggled but whoever it was was solid as a stone. She was beginning to see black dots in front of her eyes when all the pressure disappeared. Suddenly she was able to breathe again, and dropped to her knees.

At first all she could do was fill her lungs, too desperate for air to even look round, but something grasped her arm and pulled her to her feet. She twisted round to see... What?

Greta stared, and a cold prickle went down her back. Her assailant wasn’t human, that much was immediately obvious, even if she looked womanly. For a start, she was easily seven feet tall. She was slender and wore a short-sleeved shift of summer green. Her hair was a cloud of tiny fluttering golden leaves, and there was something about the paperiness of her skin that reminded Greta of silver birch bark. A dryad? She seemed to have stepped out of the tales of the ancients and into real life, and she looked angry.

“You! You are human. Yet you wear the sign of the holly!” The dryad gave her a look of deep distrust.

“The sign of the holly?” Greta looked down to see the sprig in her scarf. “This? I... If it offends you, I can take it off–”

From the frown on the dryad’s face that was clearly the wrong answer. There was a rustle in the undergrowth. The dryad whipped round to see the hare, now back in full view. “You are with her?”

“The hare? She brought me here. My daughter is missing.” Greta’s brain was frozen with fear.

The woman glanced at Greta, shook her head, and looked back at the hare. “Why did you bring humans here?”

The hare scratched itself.

“Very well. I will take you there. But Hyaria will not be pleased. Follow.”

The dryad set off, walking at an immense pace. Her legs were long and Greta struggled to keep up with her. Hurrying after her was exhausting and though she was determined to keep up, the point came where Greta was so hot and thirsty and out of breath that she had to pause for a moment. The dryad stopped, folding her arms impatiently.

“I’m sorry, I can’t walk as fast as you can.”

The birch woman’s expression did not soften. “A mere sprig of a sapling could keep up better than you! It comes of living in caves the whole time. Why your progenitors do not make you stand in the sun a little more I shall never know.” She strode on again, leaving Greta to clamber over the rocky outcropping which was barely knee-height to the dryad.

“I have never seen your like before,” Greta offered. “I did not know you existed outside of folk tales. My name is Greta. What should I call you, please?”

“You would not be calling me anything if your friend had not brought you here.” The dryad stared sourly at the hare as she continued. “She is quick to presume at times. And you are very quick to hand over your name. That is a deep magic to give away so lightly.”

Greta grimaced. “Oh dear, am I getting that wrong too? I apologise.”

The dryad shook her head. “Humans! You are like children! Stupid, destructive children. What makes you think that I shall not use your name to make you do my will?”

Greta felt a nervous laugh escape her. “I don’t think you need magic to do that. You’re quite a lot bigger than I am.”

The birch woman let out a laugh, apparently involuntary. “Earth and water preserve us!” But she slowed her pace a little to walk next to Greta who was struggling up the rocky slope. Finally she commented, “Very well; I am Alba, soul to the birch. I must admit to some curiosity. How do you come to wear the sign of the holly?”

“There was a storm, and this sprig had fallen from a sapling I planted.” Greta gestured at the holly she wore. “It is a tree that is special to me, and... it just seemed such a waste to let it wither on the ground.”

“You planted a sapling?”

“Two. I planted them a decade or so ago, before my daughter was born. They were from a holly tree that grew outside the house. That was a very odd time. I had begun to think that perhaps I had remembered it wrong or dreamed it or something, until today.” Greta stopped again to catch her breath, and looked ahead of them to the summit of the slope, intimidatingly far ahead of them.

Alba stared at her. “There is a tale to be told here, I can see. Let us hurry to Hyaria.” She bent and picked up Greta. “Hold on.”

The birch woman began to run then, and Greta did not know whether to be exhilarated or terrified. Alba was surefooted as a goat, darting between trees and rocky outcroppings. Branches whipped past but did not seem to hit her, though Greta could not help but wince away from them.

Alba ran a considerable way up the mountainside and then took a winding path down into a high valley between mountain passes. The path levelled out gradually, and she slowed to a trot and then to a walk, finally slowing to a halt by a clearing surrounded by immense trees. A stream meandered across to a pool whose mossy banks were dotted with tiny star-flowers. Birds chattered nearby, and a plump bee lifted from one yellow star-flower to move onto the next.

Alba set Greta gently upon her feet. “Hyaria! I bring a mystery.”

A whisper sounded; though there was no wind, it was the hushing of leaves in a breeze.

“What is it, Alba?” A second dryad entered. She wore an air of calm authority, and was stately as an empress. The thick dark braid which crowned her head was interwound with tiny leaves and flowers, bright as gems, whose colours were reflected in the intricately embroidered hem of her robe.

Alba dropped to one knee and bowed her head briefly before answering. “An intruder. But one with a puzzle, and a story.” Alba gestured to Greta. “A human who wears the sign of the holly, and plants saplings, but has lost one of her own.”

Hyaria turned to Greta, who almost staggered under the impact of that thousand-year-old gaze. “A human…”

“Yes, ma’am.” Greta found herself curtsying. It seemed appropriate. “My daughter has gone missing and the hare brought me here.”

Hyaria pursed her lips. “It has pretty manners, at least.”

“May I stay to hear the story?” Alba asked. “From the little I heard I am intrigued.”

“Very well.” Hyaria walked across the clearing to where an immense ironwood tree stood, and gathering the long folds of her robe out of the way, she sat on one of the jutting roots. Greta realised immediately that this was Hyaria’s tree. The smooth bronze of her skin echoed that of the bark, and her braid was, at closer look, made from long spines like those of the ironwood. Hyaria gestured her to a rock. Greta clambered up onto it and sat cross-legged, thankful that the moss insulated her from the chill stone. Sitting up here, she was about at eye-level with Hyaria.

“So. Tell me why we should let you pass unmolested.”

Greta felt like a little child surrounded by adults older and taller than she was. It was more than a little daunting, and only her desperate need of help overrode her exasperation and fear enough to keep her there. She looked to Alba for guidance.

“Start with the holly,” the birch woman suggested.

Greta nodded, and began to tell the tale. She did not think it wise to mention that she and her Pappy had been going to cut wood when they had had their accident, but even so she could not avoid telling them that the snowmaiden had destroyed the holly tree. At that part there was a thinning of lips from both dryads, but they did not stop her so she went on to the end and told them how the two sprigs of holly had sprouted roots, and she and Matthias had planted them on their wedding day.

“And now?” Hyaria did not look to have been particularly won over.

“My daughter, Holly, disappeared in the night. We are desperate to find her and...” Greta faltered, looking down. “I just want to find my daughter.”

“What makes you think that I should help you?”

“You should help her, Hyaria, because Holly should not have been taken.” The voice came from behind Greta, startling her. She turned to see a more human-looking newcomer, a pale-skinned woman with brown hair and kind eyes. “Show them the dolls, my dear.”

“How do you know about the dolls?” The woman did not reply. Greta was far beyond understanding any of this anyway, so she unbuckled her satchel. “This rag doll is Holly’s, but I’ve never seen this one before.” She laid the second figure next to Holly’s. “It’s odd; it looks as if it’s twisted out of the woody part of some plant. I don’t think Holly would have the skill to make it.”

“Ivy!” Alba stared at it.

“That little mischief-maker!” The displeasure faded from Hyaria’s face.

“She’s been loitering round the house for a while now, looking in the windows of the upper floor.” The woman leaned on a boulder nearby as if weary. “I had other things to attend to, or I would have put a stop to all this sooner.”

“Couldn’t you have got a message to us, Leoflynn?”

“As it happens, no. I’m sorry, my child.” Leoflynn turned to Greta. “How has Holly been these last few weeks?”

“Tired. She sleeps late in the day, and then gets more lively late at night.”

“And the window?”

“Always open. She hates having it closed, even though the room is cold in the night. We tried to make her shut it but she went absolutely wild. In the end we had to wire it shut.”

“That was last night, I should imagine?”

“Yes, before the storm started...” Greta looked at Leoflynn. “I’m sorry, do I know you? I’m pretty sure I’ve never met you before but there’s just something about you that seems... familiar.”

Hyaria raised an eyebrow. “She is not aware of you and yet she still followed you here?”

“Followed...?” Greta frowned. “I followed the hare.”

Alba covered a smirk and Leoflynn looked slightly embarrassed.

“You should explain why she sees things other humans do not, Leoflynn. It is only right.”

“What do you mean?” Greta was feeling increasingly lost. She just wanted to get back to her search.

“We don’t have time for this, Hyaria. We need to find Holly.”

Greta’s fear suddenly flared into anger. “I am not a child, and I would like to know what’s going on as it obviously affects me and my child. Please explain. Now.”

Leoflynn looked stubborn.

“Earth and waters, how difficult can it be?” Hyaria rolled her eyes. “Your progenitor was of the same set of saplings. And that is quite evident at times!”

“What does that mean?”

Leoflynn hesitated. “Your grandmother was my younger sister.”

“So that would make you – what, my great-aunt? You look awfully young for your age.”

Leoflynn shrugged. “For a human, yes. We are not entirely human, though.”

“Not entirely human?” Why does nothing make sense?

“On my father’s side my grandfather was a dryad, a mountain ash, and my grandmother a water sprite. My mother’s side was all human. We have just a little dryad blood so we look like humans, but have certain talents that humans generally do not. My sister chose to relinquish her dryad lifespan to be with your grandfather. Sadly she died young even for a human. I have tried to keep an eye on you ever since.”

“As a hare.” Greta supposed it answered the question of why the hare was so long-lived at least, though all this was making her head spin.

“Dryads don’t change shape. That’s your naiad side, is it?” Alba asked.

“Don’t confuse things, Alba. This is a lot to take in all at once.”

Greta ignored the aside. She wasn’t taking much of it in anyway. “And Holly?”

Leoflynn smiled. “Holly reminds me so much of my sister. She is a cheeky little thing, isn’t she? But doesn’t have any friends her own age, so she just saw Ivy as someone to play with.”

“And who is Ivy?” Greta was trying to stay calm, but it was not easy.

Hyaria straightened one of the leaves in her braid absently. “Ivy is the most disobedient sapling I have ever come across. She is everywhere. She thinks she has reached an appropriate age to find her host but she is resisting her intended partner, not because she objects to him, but simply because she hates being told what to do.”

“Her host?” Greta was quite bewildered now. “Like a husband?”

Leoflynn shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that. Ivy draws sustenance from its host so once they get to a certain age, ivy dryads have to be careful to maintain a balance. With the right host tree, Ivy will be able to thrive without harming her host by drawing too much energy from it, but if the balance is wrong it can be risky.”

“If the balance is wrong?”

Leoflynn smiled to herself. “It’s like drawing water from the well outside your grandfather’s house; you can’t draw it out faster than it comes in or the well will run dry and that doesn’t help anyone.”

Hyaria continued. “Because it is so important to find the right partner for her, Ivy’s progenitors - her parents, as you’d call them – have been working for a long time to find just the right one. Ivy has been involved in the process since she was a little sprig, of course – she will be the one to make the choice – but she has a stubborn streak as wide as a redwood.”

Though Ivy was the cause of the trouble, Greta felt herself hackle on behalf of the unknown child. “She doesn’t want any of them? Are they making her choose someone she doesn’t like?”

Hyaria looked horrified. “Goodness, no, that wouldn’t work at all! No-one is pressuring Ivy to do anything. She has picked three possible hosts herself, and if she decides she would rather not have a host at all, that is quite acceptable too. All she has to do is to make her decision. The problem is that she has reached the age of drawing now, and until she chooses her host, for safety we need her to remain in the valley with her parents. This is to ensure she does not accidentally draw on a host she is not bonded to. That is discourteous at best and dangerous at worst.”

“Ivy is a rebellious little sprig.” Alba shook her head disapprovingly. “She does not want to bond with a host, but she refuses to stay in the valley. We have been keeping an eye on her when she is playing with the other saplings, and making sure she does not spend a lot of time with any one of them, but it never occurred to us that she might seek out a human.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Greta did not like the sound of this.

Hyaria brushed her dress down. “The only way she can get it wrong is to choose a host who does not understand what is going on. Because of the danger involved, we consider this a wrong thing. We do not think she has thought it through but in her haste to rebel this is just what Ivy has done.”

“Ivy has been visiting Holly.” Leoflynn gestured at the dolls. “She has exchanged a token of friendship, which is the first stage of hosting. Holly won’t understand what that means, but Ivy probably hasn’t realised that. The longer Ivy is in her company, the more she will leach away Holly’s energy. From the right tree, that is sustainable. But I have no idea what that would do to a human.”

Fear arced through Greta like lightning. She leapt to her feet on the stone. “That’s why she’s so tired in the mornings! But – it’s harming her? It’s horrible! We have to stop it!”

“We will stop it.” Hyaria stood. “This is not acceptable behaviour.”

Greta jumped to the ground and turned on Hyaria like an angry lioness. “And this Ivy – she took my daughter? Did she kidnap her? Did she come into my house and take her?”

“I don’t believe even Ivy would take her unwillingly,” Leoflynn answered. “But I can believe that she would entice Holly to sneak out of her own volition, and I don’t think it would take much persuading, knowing Holly.”

That was probably true, but it did not make Greta any less frightened for her child. “We’ve got to bring her back!”

Alba looked to Hyaria. “I will go, if you are amenable. I know where Ivy will be.”

Hyaria patted her tree fondly and came to join them. “We will all go. Ivy might not appreciate the danger she is putting her friend in but she must know that she is doing wrong. It is time to address this problem.”

Alba picked Greta up again, settling her in the crook of her arm. Leoflynn had disappeared but as Greta looked for her, the hare lolloped back out from the undergrowth.

“Lead on, Alba.” Hyaria strode after the birch-skinned woman, and they set off at the same breakneck pace that Alba had employed on the way here, Hyaria keeping the speed with ease despite her long skirts. This time they left the valley and returned down the mountain to the sheer cliff along which Greta had struggled earlier. Despite her load, Alba leapt from crag to crag without hesitation. Greta had to shut her eyes to stop the drop beneath swimming in and out of view.

Finally Alba swung down to ground level, and Greta opened her eyes just in time to see a majestic waterfall thundering down into a bowl of a valley. The trees around were entwined with ivy, but they looked healthy and the ivy did not seem to be smothering them.

On a flat stone by the waterfall, there was a flash of colour; a little figure wrapped in a red shawl.

6

The Consequences of the Tea-party

“Holly!” Greta nearly fell out of Alba’s grip at the sight of her daughter. Alba set her down and loped away into the woods while Greta ran across to the child who lay, pale and unmoving on the stone, damp and cold with spray. “She’s only just breathing...”

Hyaria knelt to lay a hand to Holly’s face. “She is sleeping, nothing more. She will not stir until Ivy wakes her, but she is in no immediate danger.”

There was a shrieking in the woods beside them, and a sudden murmur of leaves heralded Alba, holding a sleek young girl by the arm despite considerable screeching and struggling.

“Hyaria? What on earth is going on here?” A third dryad strode into the clearing.

Hyaria inclined her head graciously to the other woman. “Hedera. Were you aware of your daughter’s latest mischief?”

“Her latest...?” Hedera looked blank, until Hyaria gestured at Greta, who sat rocking Holly in her arms. “Good grief, is that a human?”

“Ivy has exchanged gifts with a human sapling and I don’t think she explained anything about what that would entail.” Hyaria replied grimly.

“With a...” The ivy dryad stared, horror-struck for a moment, then she straightened the shiny green of her dress and turned to her daughter who was still attempting to bite Alba. “What have you done, Ivy? After all we told you!”

“I didn’t do anything!” The young dryad stopped struggling and stood straight, looking her parent defiantly in the eye.

“And yet a human has your token. Can you explain that?”

“We never exchanged them. We were just playing a game. Holly explained it all to me. You sit and pretend that the dolls are taking in sustenance, and then you pretend that you are taking in sustenance.”

Hedera looked at Hyaria pleadingly. “Can this be a real human game?”

Greta’s mind was blank for a moment, and then light dawned. “The doll’s tea party?” She did not know whether to laugh or cry. “All this is because of the tea party? Yes, it is one of Holly’s favourite games.”

“And you make light of this process?” Hyaria shook her head. “The connection with earth and sky, and for humans it is a game?”

“For humans, it is not about connecting with the world so much as each other.” Leoflynn had reappeared from somewhere. “But it is still about togetherness. They just enact it in a different way. Children play at it when they wish to feel togetherness.”

“But that is what you have been doing, Ivy?” Greta saw it now, and the casual danger of it horrified her. “In the night, you come through the open window, and while she has been playing a game, you have been...”

“...drawing sustenance as from a host.” Hedera finished.

Ivy held up her hands in appeal. “I didn’t mean to. But she seemed to like playing, and she asked me to come back and play the next night and the next night.” Ivy looked at her fingers. “But then she started to get all tired, and I thought that perhaps I had got it wrong, only I didn’t know how to fix it. I couldn’t let you keep me out in case she had bonded with me,” she added, not looking at Greta. “So when the storm came I pulled off the window and brought her here.”

“Why here?” Greta tried to keep the hostility out of her voice. “Away from her parents? What did you intend to do?”

Ivy cast a beseeching glance at her mother. “I was working up to asking you to help us.”

Hedera sighed. “It’s true. She was being a bit obscure about it but that’s what she was doing when you arrived.”

“Can you help her?” The young dryad twisted one of the bracelets that ringed her wrists with leaves.

Hyaria shook her head. “You are lucky we are here, sapling. It is not an easy thing, reversing the flow of a hosting.”

“But you can help her? Please, Hyaria. She’s my friend. I don’t want her to be hurt.”

Hyaria looked a little more kindly at the dryad child. “We will need to return her strength to her. You are prepared to do this?”

“It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.” Ivy turned to her mother, who looked as if she might object. “I want to do this. I need to make it right.”

Hedera locked eyes with her, but finally nodded. “Very well.”

Hyaria, Alba and Hedera stood around Holly and Ivy lay on the rock next to her. The older dryads linked hands, and for a long moment there was total silence, heavy with expectation. Then the sound of rustling, as of wind in the leaves, and suddenly all sorts of dryads strode out of the woods; pine dryads and ironwood dryads and birch and fir dryads, each recognisable as their trees. There were males and females, and they made two further concentric circles around the little group, kneeling on the ground.

When all were in place, Hyaria nodded approvingly. “Greta, get ready to call your child back.”

Greta and Leoflynn climbed up on the rock next to Holly. Greta arranged the two dolls in the girls’ hands for luck, and kissed Holly. Leoflynn squeezed Greta’s hand comfortingly. Then it all began.

The ritual to reverse the bonding was lengthy and complex, and none was in words that Greta could hear. At first they were all still, though she did not know what they were waiting for.

Then first one, then another, the dryads began to sway from side to side like trees in a storm. It seemed random and patternless at first and the air was heavy with the rustling of leaves and the creaking of branches. But eventually a rhythm built up, and first the inner circle then the outer circled synchronised, all moving left and right together. Suddenly and in eerie unison, they began to beat their hands on their laps, and again; first it was just a rumble of sound but gradually amongst the thunder of claps a beat became clear, a pattern, and with a jolt, Greta realised that it was the double beat of a human heart.

They beat it slowly, slap-slap, slap-slap, but gradually it quickened until Greta could feel her own pulse thundering along with it. Tension built in her until she half-expected lightning to strike, but just as she felt it was becoming unbearable, Hyaria opened her eyes, her face strained. “Wake her now, Greta. Whatever it takes.”

“Holly?” Greta shook her daughter, but the girl just murmured and ignored her. “Holly, time to get up. Come on, quickly.” The little girl screwed her face up and would not open her eyes.

“Quickly!” Hyaria’s voice cracked. The rhythm of the heartbeat clapping was starting to sound frayed.

Leoflynn dug in the satchel and handed Greta the canteen. In desperation, Greta upended it over Holly’s face, and now Holly did open her eyes, coughing and spluttering. “Mama? I’m all wet!”

Hyaria and Alba sank to the ground, and the kneeling dryads sagged in exhaustion.

Hedera staggered over to Ivy. “Ivy? Are you all right?”

Ivy groaned, and yawned. “...so tired...”

Hedera smiled in relief. “She’ll be all right.”

Greta hugged Holly to her, so relieved to have got her safe and sound and back in her arms.

“Mama? Where are we? …Ivy?” Holly glanced round guiltily. “Are we in trouble?”

Hedera put on a stern expression. “You aren’t, spriglet. Ivy here may be another matter...”

“Oh dear. You’re her mother, aren’t you? You look like her. Please, don’t be cross. She told me that she wasn’t supposed to talk to humans. It’s just... I wanted someone to play with. Someone my own age, I mean. But there isn’t anyone near us. It was just — fun.” Holly fiddled with the button on her sleeve.

Greta sighed. “I wouldn’t put it past Holly to have played a large part in the mischief, Hedera. I don’t know your Ivy, but this one is quite stubborn in the pursuit of the things she wants.”

Hedera looked down at Ivy, who had fallen asleep, and smiled at Holly’s contrite expression. “That sounds remarkably familiar.”

Holly was looking at her friend. “She is all right, isn’t she?”

“She’s very tired. She has been using your energy, but she took too much and we had to give it back to you. She’ll sleep more than usual for the next season or so I should think. And then we will ask her to think in earnest about what she wants to do about a proper host.”

Holly’s eyes filled. “Does that mean I won’t be able to see her again?”

“Earth and skies, no. But it does mean that she won’t be out so much for a little while.” Hyaria looked to Leoflynn. “Do humans celebrate the solstice?”

“Not formally, but I’m sure they’d like to.”

“Then we shall come down to the meadow in front of the field.” Hyaria laid a hand on Holly’s shoulder. “The saplings can play to their hearts’ content without getting into trouble. We shall learn a little of the ways of humans, and you shall learn a little of the ways of the tree people.”

Holly muttered something indecipherable.

“I think Holly would very much like that, and so would my husband and I. And Pappy too, I have no doubt.” Greta hesitated. “Will you come and speak to him, Leoflynn?”

Leoflynn looked away. “It would not be kind. He loved my sister very much, and we look similar. But I will attend.”

“As a hare?” Greta shook her head in wonderment. “Just when I think the world cannot get any stranger…”

* * *

After a certain amount of chatter, Hyaria picked up Greta and Alba took Holly, and they began the journey back to the trails that led them home. Now that there was no hurry they could make a more leisurely journey, and the dryads took them via pretty places Greta was reasonably sure would be inaccessible to humans on their own. They stopped in the place of the dryads, and at Hearer’s invitation Holly trotted over to Hyaria’s tree and laid a hand upon it.

She jumped back, and then laid her hand upon it again. “Mama, he says hello! Come and see!”

Greta glanced at Hyaria, who nodded, and then joined her daughter, laying a hand next to hers. The tree was too vast and old to think in the same way she did, but she had a sense of long years of warm sun, drinking deeply of the rain and watching the stars wheel overhead. The sense of the great circuit of years made her feel like a child, but she knew she was welcomed, and all the memories she gave would be considered and added to the long wisdom of the trees. She thought of her adventures before Holly’s birth, of the snowmaiden and the great holly tree that had been outside Pappy’s cabin. It startled her to understand that Hyaria’s tree recognised and missed the holly, but it rejoiced in the knowledge that she had planted the two sprigs of holly and that they were growing well. In return Greta was offered a very clear thought of long ago, and of skies filled with the flash and swoop of dragons. That was an old, old memory, passed from tree to acorn a hundred times, but though the trees were wary of the dragon’s fire and potential for destruction, the exhilaration of their flight coursed through her veins.

“Beautiful!” she gasped, and by way of thanks thought once more; of the great slopes of the mountain turning red with autumn and the vibrant green of spring; and then of the careful tending of her garden, the nurturing of each plant as it grew beautiful. She was wrapped in a wave of approval, as she dropped her hand from his bark.

“You give him hope.” Hyaria stroked a fond hand over the rough bark. “We see so little of humans, but the forest knows about the destruction they wreak. It is good to see that some of you share our love of growing things.”

“Mama, is it time to go back now?” Holly tucked her hand into Greta's. “I’m hungry. It's nearly the end of the day and I never even had any breakfast….”

Greta laughed and nudged her teasingly. “I see some things don't change!”

Again they set off, the tree women walking easily down the steep slopes towards the end of the forest as the sun drew down to the horizon and the sky faded to blue. Greta was quite pleased that they didn’t have to go past the cliff again.

Alba and Holly striding on ahead, Greta was quiet for a while. Then she looked up at the dryad. “Hyaria, the holly tree outside my grandfather’s house - was it...?”

“Not a dryad, no, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Greta sighed in relief. “I’m so glad. I was upset when the snowmaiden smashed it up because it was so beautiful. But it would have been truly horrible if she had killed a dryad.”

Hyaria shook her head. “It doesn’t work quite like that. We age with our trees, and when they start to become fragile, we nurse them along as far as we can. When the tree finally dies we too fade, to become part of the greater soul of the dryads, and are re-formed when the right seed sprouts and we become saplings. Every sapling is part of the old tree, but a totally new plant, just as every dryad is part of the wisdom of the dryads, but a totally new character. Your tree is a little different though.”

“It is?”

“Because of your grandmother. To become mortal, she would have to pass her immortality on to another object or creature. She was very fond of the holly tree and gave her immortality to ward it and its saplings. It is not exactly a dryad but it carries with it an element of her. The snowmaiden came alive because of the sprig of holly, and it was that element of your grandmother that sacrificed the old tree for you, knowing that it would continue in the new saplings. The holly is not aware, but it is filled with the need to watch over and to protect your family.” Hyaria sighed. “It is an extraordinary thing that she did, but she lived every day a hundred times as vividly as a human as she did as a dryad, and she was very happy. I sometimes think that though you humans are as short-lived as mayflies, you don’t live less, just more strongly than we do.”

“You knew her?”

“For many decades. I regret her loss still. But Leoflynn is just as much trouble as her sister ever was, so she keeps us from settling into the autumn of our lives too comfortably.” The ironwood woman’s eyes twinkled. “And now there is you and your sapling. I am glad to have met you both.”

They caught up to Alba, who was swinging Holly round at high speed, to her great delight and Leoflynn’s amusement. Alba set Holly down, rosy-cheeked and laughing. “This is the edge of one of your roads. Will you will be safe going home from here?”

Greta took Holly's hand. “We will, thank you. And we shall look forward to seeing you at the solstice. Leoflynn, will you walk with us?”

“Not now, my dear, but I will be in the area for a while.” Leoflynn pointed down into the valley. “Look, Matthias and your grandfather are coming to look for you.”

Greta and Holly turned to look, and when they looked back, the three women had gone.

7

The Solstice

“Is it the solstice yet?” Holly was having difficulty sleeping.

“In a short while, yes.” Greta sat on her daughter’s bed and smoothed those dark curls back from her face. In all truth, she was not the slightest bit sleepy herself either. Though they had all gone to lie down for a few hours’ sleep, none of them had had much luck.

A sudden bang on the window made them both jump.

Holly threw the covers back. “May I?”

“Go on then.”

Matthias came to join them in the lamplight as Holly threw the window open and Ivy swung in. The girls threw their arms around each other and after a brief hug, started chattering nineteen to the dozen, interrupted only by a bang from downstairs.

“That’ll be my progenitors.” Ivy grinned. “We’re supposed to come in the main door in case it’s politer but I couldn’t wait.”

Greta went downstairs and opened the door to see Hedera standing there along with a male dryad, a larch from the look of him. “Hedera, how lovely to see you. You look well.”

“This is my host, Larix.” Hedera turned and took a little pot from him. “Hyaria’s tree tells us you are a nurturer of bright flowers so we have brought you a plant for your growing area.” It was a gentian, the first of many slender trumpet buds split into petals as blue as a little scrap of sky.

“Thank you.” Greta was delighted. “It's beautiful!”

“We have told Ivy that it is not right to leave your cave covered in growth, as when she chooses her host, she will entwine with him. She will amend that now. Would you like to come and see?”

Greta put on her coat – unlike Hedera who still wore her gleaming dress of leaves with no sleeves or shoes, she found the early mornings chilly - and followed the dryads out into the garden. The sky was beginning to pale with the first light of dawn, but the sun would not rise for a while yet; however, Hedera cast a significant glance at the sky.

“Ivy! Come along now. We must not delay or we will miss the equinox.” The bedroom window opened, and Hedera sighed as her daughter began to climb back out of it. “Not that way! You must come down with Holly as we discussed.”

“But Holly can come down this way too, just like we used to do!”

“Please don’t!” Greta was moved to say.

Ivy gave an audible sigh. She did pull her head in the window, though both mothers heard the grumbling as the girls finished what they were doing and came down.

Greta had to smile. “They are very similar.”

“At least yours are only like this for a decade or so,” Hedera grumbled. Greta decided not to ask how long it lasted for a dryad.

Ivy and Holly erupted out of the door and came to stand by the others, Larix and Matthias having now followed, and Hyaria and Alba came striding along to the house.

“Ready?” Hedera asked. “Remember what we said?”

“Yes.” Ivy joined hands with her parents, Hyaria and Alba on either side of them. A movement caught the corner of Greta’s eye as a Leoflynn hopped into sight.

Ivy began to sing in a low murmur, and one after another, the other dryads joined in. Greta could not hear any words, but their song made her think of slowing and going to sleep, and dormancy. After a few moments, the ivy that wreathed the house began to rustle. Greta realised that the leaves were getting smaller and younger - it was as if it was growing in reverse, much speeded up. She watched one individual leaf get smaller and lighter green until it shrank to a mere tendril, and that tendril withdrew into the branch, and the branch became less woody and more tender and green until it too was little more than a shoot, which withdrew into what had been the trunk of the ivy. Eventually the ivy had all shrunk back to a tiny sprig, which Ivy picked up and threaded through her hair.

“All done!” Hedera announced cheerfully, but neither of the girls were particularly cheerful about it.

“This doesn’t mean that we can’t see each other anymore, does it?”

“No, it does not.” Hyaria patted Holly's shoulder. “Just come to the edge of the trail and call, and we shall be glad to see you all. We are neighbours, after all, and I hope that now we know each other a little better, we may be friends too. Greta, I have been thinking about it and as we tend the forests in any case, we will bring to the edge of your valley the dead wood we find, which you may use with an easy conscience. If you have need of something other than that, come and talk to us before you lay axe to tree, and all will be well.”

“Thank you, Hyaria.” Greta squeezed Matthias’s arm, pleased. “That's very generous, and I must admit, something of a relief. It had been preying on my mind.”

“Thank you.” It was virtually the only thing Matthias had said since the dryads turned up. He seemed to be as awed as Greta had felt at the great beings who surrounded them.

“Look! It is nearly time!” Alba called.

Pappy was in his lodge, and when they knocked he was ready to come out. The dryads joined hands with the humans as they faced the east, and they all waited. Holly fidgeted, but all the dryads, even Ivy, seemed fixed on the eastern sky. As the tension rose to a pitch, the tip of the sun edged over the mountains. Dawn- red sunlight spilled over and the dryads sang again.

“Welcome, Sun!

Life-fire, unfurl the leaf,

Enrich the pale blossom

and swell the fruit to ripeness

through vivid blaze of leaf fall

to the slow sleeping season.

Bring long days of sharp-rising sap,

rich green of leaves matured,

slow swell of seed

ready for the scattering.”

The sun grew from a shard to a sliver to a great bowl of fire, and Greta felt for the first time the deep-rooted connection that the dryads shared with the earth, and the water, and the skies above. The dryads’ song rolled on across the valleys as the rosy light of dawn spilled over the lands below.

“Bring kindly warmth to the rain!

Bring the busy hum of bee.

Bring young of bird and beast,

and softness of earth.

Bring Summer, oh Sun!

Life-fire, welcome!”

As she watched, the sun lifted free of the horizon and the dryads’ song swelled to a deep joyous note. Greta realised she was singing too, carried on the exultant wave of emotion which had them all standing, arms raised to welcome the sun.

And then the dryads dropped hands, and mingled with each other, touching foreheads, and that intense focus eased into a celebratory atmosphere.

Hyaria knelt so that her head was on a level with Greta’s, and suddenly understanding, Greta touched foreheads with her too. Happy solstice little sister, Hyaria’s voice whispered in her mind, but this time overlaid with the awareness of the great ironwood tree from the clearing. We rejoice to have made your acquaintance.

And I yours, Greta responded.

Hyaria leant back and beckoned to Holly, who scampered over as cheekily as a squirrel to lay her forehead on the dryad’s. There was a brief pause, and then Holly giggled. “I like your tree, Hyaria, he has the best stories.”

The sun rose high as they chattered and told stories of dryadlore and folklore. Some of the dryads ran races or played what looked like a very complex game of Tag with multiple people chasing the others, and all the spectators cheering on their friends. There was much laughter, but in ones and twos, the dryads drifted off until there were only the original four there, Hyaria, Alba, and Ivy’s family.

Alba bent and whirled Holly around lightly, in a way that had Holly squealing with delight and Greta shuddering with apprehension. “You will come and see us when you can, youngling? If your parents give permission?”

“Mama, may I?” Holly was breathless as she was set down again.

“When you can, yes.” Greta exchanged knowing glances with Alba.

“We wish you all the best in your coming endeavours,” Hyaria added. “And yes, we look forward to hearing all about them afterwards.”

Holly's brown wrinkled, but nevertheless she dropped a little curtsey. “Thank you.”

“We had best be on our way I think. We have celebrated and now it is time to rest.”

“I think we’ll be doing the same, at least for the rest of the day.”

Hyaria smiled. “Such quick little creatures you are! But kin to us, now you have shared solstice with us.”

“We are honoured.”

Hedera stepped back to let Hyaria and Alba pass, and made a little bow to Greta. “I am glad we all came together in the end. Your sapling is very engaging, and I think talking to her has been very good for Ivy now that they may safely do so.”

They looked at the girls, whispering and giggling as Ivy pointed at a male dryad loitering halfway up the path.

“Her current favourite,” Hedera confided. “She will take a while to commit herself, but I think it looks promising this time. And I would rather she took her time, so long as she stays safe.”

“He has a kind face.”

“He is a good person, we think, and of good stock. She would be able to draw from him and still he would be hale and hearty. If she chooses him, they will be well suited.”

Greta sighed. “I have all that to look forward to yet.”

Hedera patted her on the arm and went to collect Ivy. Greta watched as the young dryad protested a little but consented to hug Holly and turned back to waved her goodbyes to the others – and then went running ahead of her parents, slowing just in time to saunter up the path towards the waiting dryad, who stepped forward and offered her his arm with a shy smile.

Greta, Matthias and Pappy watched them go, and then returned to the house, tired but happy.

Holly skipped ahead, tired but still not too tired to play in the long grass. “Well, that was fun! It won’t be the same without Ivy though. Who shall I play with now?”

“Your mother and I have been talking about that, my dear, and we think it’s time for a change.” Matthias winked at Holly.

“A change? Do you mean....?” She stared at her mother, delight dawning in her eyes.

Greta paused to settle her coat over her arm. “Yes, Holly. When the passes are clear we shall move down to the city for the summer and you shall go to school with all the other girls. It’s time that you had some friends of your own age.”

“Oh Mama!” Holly launched herself at Greta and squashed her in a big hug.

Greta caught Pappy’s eye. “I think you were right, Pappy.”

“You should get her to sign an affidavit to that effect.” Matthias ducked out of the way as Greta swiped at him.

Pappy just smiled. “It was time, for her and you. And now there are new neighbours to keep me in firewood and out of trouble, you can spend a bit of time socialising in town. It will be nice for you, my girl. And don’t you go worrying! I should imagine that interfering hare of yours will be around to keep an eye on me.”

Greta looked at him wonderingly, but he did not comment further. “She will do just that, I have no doubt. Now, who’s hungry?”

“Me!” And Holly bounded into the house gleefully.

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the usual suspects who have all helped in this undertaking.

- Mike Rose and Julia Lee Dean, for editing it into a far more readable shape,

- Wesley de Souza for another splendid cover,

- Lise Lotten for making me laugh with her comments during beta-ing,

- My family and friends in real life and cyberspace who continually egg me on,

and last but certainly not least, my lovely husband Will and our frankly daft dog, for keeping me either sane or too entertained to worry about it.

About the Author

J.A. Clement lives with her husband and a lunatic lurcher in the South of England. She absolutely loves having the opportunity to share her stories with real live readers, and is working to finish the next book rather faster than this one... and the next series and a few other things.

To hear first about new releases you can sign up to her mailing list via her website; mails are only sent when new books are released or if there is an author event (a few times a year at most).

However if you have questions or comments, she’d love to hear from you - email is probably best but she lurks in cyberspace as below.

Connect with JAC via:

jaclement.wordpress.com

jaclement.ondarkshores@gmail.com

Facebook

Twitter

Other books by Weasel Green Press

J.A. Clement

On Dark Shores:

The Locket

Flight from Shantar (due)

The Lady & The Other Nereia

Parallels:

The Black-Eyed Susan

The Scarred Artisan (from Song of the Ice Lord)

The Last Dragon (from Song of the Ice Lord)

Tales for the Telling

A Sprig of Holly

The Holly & The Ivy

* * *

Jo Edwards

Work-Wife Balance

Potbound

A Mixed Reception

Foggy’s Blog

A Very Foggy Christmas

* * *

Dulcie Feenan

Christmas Comes to Oddleton