

## SpinDell

Jon Jacks

Other New Adult and Children's books by Jon Jacks

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella's Slipper? – AmeriChristmas – The Vitch's Kat in Hollywoodland

Blood of Angels, Wings of Men – Patchwork Quest – The World Turns on A Card – Palace of Lace

The Wailing Ships – The Bad Samaritan – The 13th Month – The Silvered Mare

Text copyright© 2018 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Thank you for your support.

'Oh, don't deceive me, Oh, never leave me,

How could you use A poor maiden so?'

# Chapter 1

'Early one morning, just as the sun was rising'

It was February, and the light was at last beginning to return. In fact, it was unusually bright for this time of year.

Beith had long, silver hair; yet it was the bright and glistening silver of youthful beauty, not age.

In the wood's clearings, where the sun streamed down towards her at its brightest, her hair sparkled, such that as she walked and it flowed about her she could have been robed in glittering fairies.

However, her dress was of green ribbons, decoratively serrated at the edges. It could have been tailored to emphasis the fluid grace of her moves, the slenderness of her body.

Her skin was of the purest white, as if made to reflect the sun at its brightest.

Despite her every move being as smooth as water, as one relaxed amongst her surroundings, anyone seeing her today could be forgiven for thinking she was shy.

For her head was low, and her smile wasn't as bright as usual.

*

# Chapter 2

'I heard a young maid sing in the valley below'

When Beith at last looked up towards the still rising sun, so that he bathed her face in his warm glow, she managed a sad smile, enjoying his lingering caress.

Yet he was rising still, of course, and she sensed his glow was cooling as he moved away from her.

Lamenting this cooling of his embrace, she thought to express her sorrow in a song; and yet hardly had she uttered the first words than someone broke out into a melody of his own.

'Down yonder green valley, where streamlets meander...'

It was a tune she recognised, she was sure, unless she was being maliciously fooled. It was a song that had always made a deep impression upon her.

Who could be singing such a melody deep amongst the trees?

She broke into a run, eager to see who sang so entrancingly.

*

Beith broke through the dark undergrowth, coming out into another clearing, albeit one where the sun hadn't yet reached.

In the clearing's centre, a spinning wheel whirled, as if powered by an invisible maiden; and the most gloriously coloured wool wildly and freely spun from it as if drawn from nothing but the air.

'...When twilight is fading I pensively rove...'

Yet there was no one here singing that Beith could see, no matter how hard she peered into the shadows lying beneath the clearing's surrounding trees.

Besides, the voice seemed to emanate from where the unseen spinner should be sitting; or rather, perhaps, it came from the whirling wheel itself as it played with the wind rushing through its blur of spokes.

The wheel slowed, the melody faltered, halted.

Once again, it could have been that some imperceptible spinster had been disturbed by Beith's arrival on the edge of the clearing.

Yet, Beith noticed, it was still and quiet everywhere about her.

Not a bird, not an insect, could be heard.

Even the gently rustling wheel had become entirely motionless and silent.

Cautiously, Beith approached the silent wheel that now stood so still at the hub of the clearing.

Naturally, the spinning of the wool had also come to an end. As the wheel had spun the gloriously multi-coloured thread – it could have been the curling bands of a rainbow, had a rainbow not being so relatively short of colours – the yarn had coiled and floated up and up into the air, merrily intertwining as if wishing to create its own elaborate tapestry; but now many of the fibres lay as if forlornly stranded upon the grass, while others appeared to have simply evaporated back into the air from which it had been rapidly drawn.

It was so quiet in the clearing, one might have thought that the Great Wheel of Time itself – rather than this lowly reproduction, this apparently spiritless replica – was somewhere standing frozen.

But no; it wasn't _entirely_ silent.

There was a beating of a heart, a breathless sobbing, that Beith could hear if she listened carefully, patiently, enough.

Naturally, she thought it could only be her own sadness that she could hear.

Could it really come from so deep within herself, though, that she wouldn't be aware of her own weeping in any other way but hearing it?

Surely such a thing wasn't possible.

She held her breath; tried to still her heart.

She consciously ensured that she no longer bewailed his leaving her.

The sobs continued, as did the anguished beat of a torn heart.

She cocked her head, as birds do to pick up the slightest sound, bringing an ear closer to the wheel to see if it still sang, if in a whisper.

Yes; the weeping came from the stilled wheel.

Beith drew closer to the wheel, dropping to her knees by its side, reaching out to reassuringly steady herself by holding gently onto its rim.

'How can a spinning wheel weep? _Why_ would it weep?' she asked herself curiously.

'Why, because I am no longer alive, of course!' the wheel wailed despondently.

*

'You can _talk_? You can _hear_ me? So it _was_ you I heard singing!'

Beith, of course, should have been more than shocked; surely, she should also have been terrified to find herself talking to a spinning wheel!

Yet what harm could a spinning wheel do to her? Even one that talks and sings?

Besides, as the wheel talked, it whirled; and as it whirled, it spun, throwing gloriously hued streamers out into the air as if they were a flock of exotic birds conjured up from nowhere.

'Yes, yes, yes,' the spinning wheel admitted. 'That _was_ me! When I saw you, I thought it best to go quiet; I thought you might be terrified to come across a singing spinning wheel, fearing it was bewitched!'

' _Are_ you bewitched?' Beith said worriedly, even as she uttered it realising it was a foolish thing to ask: the spinning wheel was hardly likely to answer truthfully now, was it?

It might not even _realise_ it _was_ bewitched!

'No, no, no,' the spinning wheel replied in an anxious rush, a rush of colours more gorgeous than ever. 'At least, not that I'm _aware_ of,' he confessed unsurely.

His uncertainty and honesty reassured Beith, in its way.

At least, it seemed to her, he was prepared to tell the truth.

And hadn't he revealed in his wailing that he suffered an even greater sadness than even hers?

'But...you said you were no _longer_ alive?'

'That's right!' the wheel groaned sadly, the tones of the threads abruptly muted, the strands chaotically entangling and throttling the life and movement out of each other.

'Yet...'

Fortunately, she stopped herself from blurting out that a spinning wheel, surely, cannot ever really expect to be alive? And so, instead, she quickly said;

'You _talk_! You _sing_! You _spin_ the most _glorious_ of threads! How _more_ alive could you wish to be?'

'But, obviously...' the spinning wheel began, as if choking back a sob, 'at one point I was a mighty tree! Not some frame for people to twirl out their threads!'

A _mighty_ tree?

Beith thought to correct him, but thankfully thought better of it.

Spinning wheels were usually made of quickenwood, and the quicken tree rarely grew so high it could survive in the old woodland shadows of oaks and pines. It was relatively small, and fairly short lived; which made Beith empathise all the more with the plight of this poor spinning wheel.

'Yes, it's true we use wood to construct the things man lives by,' Beith admitted. 'Yet the tree you were shorn from most likely still lives, for we recognise we must ask permission before taking what we need.'

'Hah!' the wheel exclaimed sceptically. 'Then how do you explain how I remember – I can hardly forget! – the agony of being bodily wrenched from the ground, roots and all?'

Beith winced at the thought.

If this were indeed a wheel of quickbane, and it had indeed been taken without asking the tree spirits to relinquish a share, then it didn't bode well at all.

'They made of me sticks, that made dogs run faster when tucked into their collars,' the wheel continued huffily, 'and whips to calm a restless horse. There were bundles and loops, all tied with red thread, necklaces, used to ward off witches from cattle or babes, or keep milk from curdling!'

And yet, Beith thought morosely, all these charms would hardly offer protection if the wood had truly been so sorely collected.

'What its name, this tree?' she asked fearfully, although everything she had heard so far pointed to her initial assumption being correct.

'My name? Why, my name is Luis!' the wheel answered brightly.

'No, not _your_ name!'Beith retorted, a touch irritated because she sensed the wheel had known what she meant, yet had chosen to try and allay her fears by avoiding a direct answer. 'The tree from whose wood you are formed; tell me, now,' she added quickly and bluntly, no longer wishing to linger any more than she must, 'it is _witchbane_ , isn't it?'

She used the tree's other name, wanting surety in his answer this time. It was rumoured that some used it to make the frames on which they stretched the skins of their sacrifices.

She had a mind to walk away, before something ill befell her.

'No, no; please don't go away!' the wheel begged, 'Can I help the way I was made?'

'Couldn't a wolf claim the same?'

'My wood is culled from the Tree of Life,' the wheel assured her, 'its scarlet berries like living drops of blood. From me walking sticks have been made that keep people safe as they travel at night, while my bark gives up a dye that make cloaks as dark as night's shadows.'

Beith paused, in two minds now, not the one.

'It's witchcraft then, no two ways about it,' she said, more to herself than the wheel, 'but good or bad, white or black; I cannot tell!'

'Did you not answer that query yourself only moments ago? Didn't you admire my _glorious_ threads, as you called them? Why, if it's not the _darkness_ you seek safety from, then maybe it's the rays of the sun you would wish to wrap yourself in?'

With a whistling whirl, the wheel spun into action, taking in from one end nothing but the gloom and spinning out the other side yarn as gold and as bright as the sun's rays – such that where it spooled up and up into the air, it glowed as if a miniature sun had been brought down to earth.

'But how...?'

Beith was amazed; she had never seen such a thing. It could have been threads of pure light that the wheel was spinning out before her.

She glanced up towards where she had seen the sun rising. Even now, its rays failed to reach into this dim dell, which seemed to her so far away from anything she was familiar with.

So, it wasn't a trick of the light, then. This wheel was indeed spinning this most marvellous yarn.

She felt the cold of the gloom lying about her, the warmth of the glistening streams of thread; she felt lonely, and yet reassured by the bright, welcoming light.

It _would_ be nice, she realised, to have the sun embracing her once more in his warm caress.

Without thinking anything more about it, she stepped into the glistening coils, letting herself be enveloped by the radiance, the heat of it all.

She twirled happily amongst the light, letting it touch, letting it kiss, every part of her.

If only a gown could be made of such wondrous thread, why, then she would always be bathed in the sun's golden rays.

But as before with the other threads, she noted, these brief bursts of illumination only passed so far into the air before returning once more to what they had always been; a gloomy air.

You can't make any gown out of nothing, can you?

Beside her, the wheel chuckled merrily.

'I know what you're thinking!' he said, almost giggling in his joy.

'Now how could you _possibly_ know what I'm thinking?' Beith protested.

'Because I can see it on you face; why, even on the happy blush of your otherwise perfectly white skin,' the wheel explained. 'You wish you could cover yourself forever in the warm embrace of my yarn!'

'Hah, but then you don't read _everything_ I think, I'm glad to see!' Beith replied with a triumphant laugh. 'Because then you would see that I have sense enough to realise it can never be; for your magic threads only last briefly, then return to what they had always been – a shadowy nothingness.'

The wheel clucked dismissively.

'Then you haven't been watching me long enough!' he pointed out. 'For don't I have a spindle that's there to collect it all, rather than letting it all go to waste?'

Beith looked towards the wheel's mother-of-all, the supports for the maidens, who in turn usually hold the bobbin in place. And this being a wheel of the older kind, it did indeed have a whorl and a spindle to collect the yarn.

'All you have to do,' the wheel informed her, 'is to fix a thread to the spindle; and I will do the rest for you!'

Immersed in her shower of light, a joyful Beith laughed.

Yes, it would indeed be wonderful to have a gown of such a glorious material.

A thread spun by her in the air, rising, rising, as if to soar away from her; she couldn't let that, too, leave her behind.

She reached up for it, took its end tenderly in her fingers, fearing she would spoil and shatter the magic that had wound and twirled these delicate fibres of light into being.

Catching it, as she would, perhaps, the most fragile of fairies, she brought its sparkling end towards the point of the spindle.

She touched one to the other.

And pricked her finger on a splinter, drawing a drop of blood that could have been a glistening berry of the witchbane.

*

# Chapter 3

'Oh, don't deceive me, Oh, never leave me'

It didn't hurt at all, of course; it was only the most minor of scratches.

She should have been more careful, she told herself.

She instinctively and immediately brought her wounded finger up to her mouth, sucking it clean of the blood.

The end of the thread forgotten, and still unsecured, it wound up into the air once more, streamed there for a while – then that end vanished, and the end that came after it too, a whole series of ends glistening brightly then vanishing as if they had never, ever really been a reality.

The wheel itself, its own use having at last come to an end, naturally slowed, then stilled.

Then, of course, there were no more threads to be had.

Beith didn't mind.

What was she doing here anyway?

She wasn't a spinstress; was she?

No – of _course_ she wasn't!

She sucked on her finger, drawing the blood, sure it would heal without any permanent damage.

*

Although she felt a touch dazed, as if, maybe, she had been close to fainting (the shock of pricking her finger, perhaps; but surely she wasn't _so_ delicate a creature!) she naturally recalled everything else there was to know about herself.

How could she forget that!

If only she _could_ forget it! Then, maybe, she wouldn't be so sad, feel so lonely and abandoned.

By her feet, upon a leaf, one of the drops of blood she had failed to catch glistened there, as bright as any berry. A bird, a blackbird, had obviously mistaken it for a berry too, for he landed, drew close, eyed it warily; and then flew away.

A blackbird had sung, merrily indeed, when she had first encountered her love.

The bluebells strewn about them had rung with joy.

But now that ash grove was dark, a memory she both clung on to and yet also wished to forget, neither knowing which was good and which was bad.

*

Where her own blood glistened amongst the fallen leaves and grass, something else caught Beith's eye.

A key

But such a strange key.

It wasn't of metal, yet wasn't, either, fully of wood.

Reaching down, Beith clutched at and picked it up so she might study it more closely.

Yes, it was more seed like, as if naturally grown, than originally made molten, or cut and hammered into shape.

It seemed hard to believe it was a construct of man; indeed, if it were, then it was artfully done.

Nature's own construct, then? Key in form only, by chance alone, rather than an actual key that opened and closed the locks that none but men and the fairies foolishly surrounded themselves with.

More like it was the work of the Sidhe, then, the fairies of woods such as these, where all kinds of tree grew freely and without constraint.

Upon the key, a word, perhaps even a name, had somehow been etched there.

Nion.

Unfortunately it gave no clue to its purpose.

Still, it was a key; and so Beith did the only sensible thing and pocketed it, in case she found herself needing it later on in her travels.

*

# Chapter 4

'How could you use A poor maiden so?'

Entering the shadowy darkness of the densely packed trees lying on the other side of the clearing, Beith immediately felt direly cold, and wished the sun still garbed her in its warmth.

The murky woodland quickly gave way to areas increasingly broken up by ever-branching rivulets, streams which in turn became closer to being rivers opening up into ponds then lakes.

The trees here hugged the sides of the banks in clusters, like tottering drunken men scrabbling to cling onto each other in search of support, lest they fall into the waiting waters. In the waters themselves, dark, wayward roots and gloomy reflections mingled, an undersea forest forming there that appeared every bit as substantial as the trees of this world.

Beith sang as she walked, a lament at odds with the easy, flowing grace of her every move. The wind, rushing through the topmost branches, strummed and played them, whistling along in an accompaniment to Beith's misery.

In a panicked cawing, the ravens and crows nestling there took to the air, black threads rising up as if spooling from the spinning wheel; a simile Beith herself might have recognised, if only she could recall what she had witnessed earlier in the clearing.

She did recognise, however, that the whistling of the wind could have been the trilling of a flute. It had a harmony, a purpose to it, that couldn't have occurred by chance alone.

Moreover, it was now a faltering melody that Beith heard; as if, ironically, the wind itself had become breathless after a round of overexcited warbling.

As the last of the frightened birds left, taking their loud, anguished calls with them, the flute's tune became more easily distinguishable, despite the way it was rapidly fading away. Its increasingly faint spluttering of missed or mishit notes drew Beith to curiously peer into the wickerwork of entwining branches, causing her too to cautiously part the sticky leaves, taking care to ensure they didn't adhere to her fingers.

The tackiness of the leaves was strong enough to hold any unwary insect. Or, as in this case, a fairy, whose playing of her minute flute had left her far too exhausted to attempt an escape.

*

The fairy looked up wearily, resignedly, at this looming giant staring down at her.

Her delicate wings, she knew, were held firmly fast against the sticky leaf. Perhaps if she had tried to free herself earlier, when she had first accidentally fallen against the leaf, she might have had chance to escape. But now, without help, she would probably permanently damage her wings if she struggled to tear herself away from the leaf's grip.

Her instinct, even as she had been blown aside by the downdraft of a raven's relatively huge wings, even as she had toppled against this tacky leaf, had been to keep on playing; to warn the other fairies that a stranger, possibly human, was close by.

She sighed; she had hardly any breath left inside her tiny body, so it really was the very quietest of sighs.

Even so, Beith heard it.

She smiled.

'Can I help you?' she kindly asked the little fairy.

*

It took quite a while to free the fairy from the leaf's sticky embrace.

First, Beith carefully stripped the leaf from the tree. Then, even more carefully, she painstakingly tore off the outer edges of the leaf, until the pieces still sticking to the fairy's wings were so small they could be prised away from the delicate membranes without risking causing damage elsewhere.

Even when the leaf had been completely removed, however, the wings remained sticky, and Beith feared that if they weren't soon cleansed of this gluey substance then it would soon attract dirt that might weigh the poor creature down.

Moreover, unless the poor fairy kept her wings wide apart, then it was highly likely that they would end up sticking together, causing her to fall from out of the sky if she tried to fly away.

Throughout the process, the fairy had stubbornly refused to answer any of Beith's questions, bar an admittance to having a name; Fearne.

Cupping the seated fairy in her hands, Beith made her way towards the lakeside, where she hoped the fairy would be able to bathe and clean her wings.

Accepting her dilemma, the fairy scowled miserably at Beith.

'What are you _doing_ here?' she demanded irritably. 'You shouldn't _be_ here!'

'Here?'

Beith looked about herself in surprise.

'It's just any old _woodland_ ; why _shouldn't_ I be here?' she asked innocently.

As she continued to take in her surroundings, however, Beith began to realise that there was something distinctly odd about this place, although she couldn't quite put her finger on what it might be.

Kneeling by the bank, and letting the fairy hop from her hand onto the grass, she dipped her bloodied finger into the water, giving it a gentle swirl to wash away the sprinkling of dried blood that remained there. Capturing a few droplets between her fingers, she shook the drops clear so that they landed in the curved bowl of a curled leaf, presenting the fairy with the means to wash herself.

In ever expanding circles, the water rippled away from where her fingers had breached its surface.

Once again, Beith noticed, there was something strange about the water's behaviour; but what, she couldn't be at all sure.

'It's _not_ any old woodland!' the fairy scoffed as she tenderly began to use the leaf and its drops of water to wipe the tackiness from her wings. 'It's _ancient_ woodland!'

She had slipped the flute into a belt about her waist. Although it was far too tiny for Beith to be entirely sure, she could have otherwise sworn that it was made of the same wood that had been used to make the fairy's miniature clogs.

'I didn't realise that meant I wasn't allowed here,' Beith honestly replied. 'It isn't as if there are any fences or signs warning against trespassing here!'

'Oh, come now!' the fairy hissed in exasperation. 'It's hardly the sort of place you can just accidentally wander into, is it now?'

'Well, I'm afraid that that's _exactly_ what I did; I _wandered_ into here!'

The fairy shook her head in disbelief.

' _Impossible_! Either someone lets you in, in which case we'd know you were coming; or – even more unlikely–' and here she stared spuriously at Beith, as if this likelihood had only just occurred to her – 'you've somehow come by keys that you have no _right_ to be holding!'

Naturally, Beith couldn't help but wonder if the fairy was referring to the key she had found in the clearing and pocketed.

And yet, of course, she had come across neither gate nor door that had required unlocking.

'Key? Which key?' Beith asked curiously.

'The key of the Three Giants of the Five Chieftains; Tortu, Dathi and Usnech!'

The fairy said this as if it were something Beith should already be aware of it.

The key she held was hardly a _giant's_ key, Beith realised; even so, realising that the fairy might be able to identify the key anyway, she reached into her pocket, withdrawing it.

'This couldn't possibly be the key you mean, could it?' she asked, showing it to the fairy.

The fairy's eyes sprung wide. She leapt up towards the key Beith was holding high above her, threatening even to risk using her still sticky wings to launch herself upwards in flight; but thinking better of it, forlornly dropped back to earth, even as Beith sharply lifted it higher and farther away from her tiny grasping hand.

'You keep it then!' the fairy snapped sourly, returning to the washing of her wings as if the key suddenly no longer concerned her. 'If you think it will bring you any good!'

Her feigned nonchalance didn't last long.

'How did you come by it?' she demanded, whirling back on Beith.

'I found it,' Beith confessed.

'Huh, a likely story!' the fairy huffed dismissively. 'It's not as if it's the sort of key that just _anyone's_ going to lose, is it now?'

'But what does it do?' Beith asked. 'I didn't use it; there were no locks I came across to get here – wherever "here" is!'

' _Locks_?' the fairy scowled. 'Who needs _locks_ , when you have such a key? You had it with you, didn't you?'

'That's all that's needed?' Beith said uncertainly. 'If you just _have_ the key on you, it unlocks doors!'

'Not just _any_ old door!' the fairy jeered

'I get it,' Beith said with a knowing smile. 'The _ancient_ door!'

*

Where would this ancient door – the _oldest_ door, possibly – be?

Beith still wasn't sure what the key was really for.

It had obviously allowed her to enter _here_.

But _where_ was _here_?

Curiously, she reached out towards the water once more, gently touching it again with her recently bloodied finger. The surface naturally wrinkled, the circular waves rushing away from her fingertip; seven circles in all, she noticed, just as the seven planets circle the earth.

Once again, there was an unfathomable weirdness to the waves' behaviour, imbuing a strange sense within her that it was all happening in reverse, even though she could plainly see that this wasn't the case.

Looking so intently into the water in this way, seeing the reflections of the meandering lines of trees where they touched the water, such that they merged, reality and image, she noticed for the first time the small doorways carved into the bases of the trees, where the fairies had made their homes. Of course, with her attention focused solely on the doorways like this, they no longer appeared to be upside down to her, despite these being only the reflections of reality.

That which was in fact below her now appeared to be above her, as if she were looking up into the sky. And from this unusually low angle of view, the trees took on some other life, the frozen spirits of anguished, drowning men, writhing in agony as the undulating water once again briefly granted them the most grotesque movements of tiring, weakening limbs.

Beith abruptly pulled her finger clear of the waters, fearing she had indeed been close to granting the captured souls a renewed if plainly awful life.

A drop still clung to her fingertip, magnifying its rippled skin.

Where she had been pricked by the spindle, there was the very smallest of inflammations.

A splinter.

A tiny sliver of the wood was still embedded there.

*

Beith hadn't been aware that the splinter was still there: it hadn't hurt in any way, not even so much as an itch.

Now that she had so abruptly become conscious of its presence, however, she once again instinctively brought her fingertip up towards her mouth, just as she had when she had first pricked it.

She sucked on the sliver, hoping to draw it out.

But there was no moving it. It steadfastly remained embedded within her skin.

Best leave it then, she thought; she didn't have anything on her sharp enough to loosen it without causing more damage than she wished to prevent.

By the time she had come to this decision, and looked back to where the fairy had been finishing off the cleaning of her wings, the fairy had flown.

*

# Chapter 5

'Remember the vows that You made to me truly'

Beith's fingertip throbbed, the splinter embedded there now uppermost in her mind, whereas before she hadn't given it a second thought.

To ease the ache, she dipped her finger into the cooling water of the lake. And where it touched, the finger set in motion the wrinkling of the surface, the circular waves spreading out and out across the lake.

Beith watched the progress of the ripples, marvelling at the way they rushed across the water, travelling far beyond the point where she expected them to flatten out, to blend into the far more irregular waves caused by the wind. The ripples curled outwards, moving smoothly and, it seemed, relentlessly. And just when Beith was beginning to consider them unstoppable, they struck the far shore, coming at last to an abrupt halt, failing even to rebound back upon themselves.

A figure, a giant, stood on the other bank. Motionless, rigidly upright.

No; he wasn't a giant after all, a relieved Beith realised.

At least, he wasn't a _real_ giant.

He was made entirely of wickerwork.

'Help me, please,' the giant woefully, wearily pleaded.

*

Was it ever sensible to try and help a giant?

And as for a magical giant, made of the wickerwork of the saugh tree; why, didn't that make this 'man' even less likely to trust?

Even so, Beith recognised, the 'man' had called on her for help.

_How_ to help though? – _that_ was the question.

The giant lay across a large stretch of water. Yes, she could go around it; but that would be quite a distance to walk, and she had no idea what other obstacles she might come across on the way. This whole area was broken up into sometimes incredibly tiny islands by the rivulets and streams that, tree-like, seemed to almost endlessly branch off.

As she looked for a way to solve her problem, Beith noticed a dark, semi-spherical shape bobbing on the waters a little farther up the bank from her.

A coracle.

If she could find its owner, she could beg him, perhaps, for a passage across the lake.

*

As she made her way closer towards the small boat, Beith didn't come across or see anyone who might have been its owner.

'Hello; is anyone there?' she asked unsurely into the wind. 'Does this coracle belong to anyone?'

What a silly question, she thought.

Of _course_ it belongs to _someone_!

But would they mind if she borrowed it to help the poor giant?

She had no choice, she decided; she would have to take it for a while at least, and hope no one minded.

Inside the coracle, besides its paddle, there other things that, like itself, had been carefully constructed of saugh tree wickerwork; lobster pots, baskets, even a beehive. She briefly consider leaving these on the bank, but realised this would cause even more confusion for an owner who came back to find all their belongings split up and left on either side of the lake.

Carefully stepping inside the unsteadily rolling boat, Beith took the seat, and the paddle, and began to slowly make her way across the waters.

The giant hadn't spoken since his plea for help. Perhaps he was weak, dying; she had to hurry.

She looked across the waters towards him once more, wondering if he was quickly failing.

He still stood upright, still motionless.

Now, at last though, she could pick out more details about the giant.

Yes, he was of wicker, constructed every bit as skilfully as the coracle and its accoutrements.

Yet there was something not of the trees but something darker, more solid, inside the wickerman.

It was a man; a _real_ man.

Imprisoned there amongst the wickerwork.

Of course; _he_ must have been the one who had called to her for help.

*

Beith came ashore a good distance from the feet of the looming wickerman, choosing to avoid the marshy lakeside that lay closer but looked darkly treacherous.

She leapt from the coracle, as quickly as she could without upending it, and rushed up the grassy bank towards the towering figure.

'Are you all right? Who put you in here?' she anxiously asked even as she drew closer.

Standing at the feet of the wickerman, she had to stretch right up to reach through the wickerwork of intertwined branches and give the man encased inside a comforting touch.

Even though her touch was light, she could tell the man was cold, rigidly still.

'You have touched my soul!' the man hoarsely whispered, though there was an undoubted tone of anger in his voice, as if he believed this were a terrible thing.

'I'm sorry, so sorry,' Beith fearfully whispered back, wondering what it could be that the man believed she had done wrong. 'I was trying to see if you're still alive; if there's anything I can do to save you!'

'Yes, I'm still alive; but only just! For my soul is dying – and I need a new one to live again!'

' _New_ souls are impossible to come by!'

Beith peered up into the darkness formed by the labyrinth of shadows created by the latticework, trying to see the man's face as he talked down to her. But the angle was wrong, his face hidden from her by his slumped chest, the hanging of his head.

'Really? But what of yours? I _could_ live again, if _you_ were my soul!'

'I need to get you out of there,' Beith replied bluntly, seeing no further purpose in continuing with the poor man's bizarre conversation; quite obviously, his weakened state had made him quite delirious.

She glanced about her, seeking something with which she could hack at and cut through the thick and hardened branches.

'Ah, then you _will_ replace my soul!' the man said as happily as he were able, for he was fading fast now. 'Good, good; I thank you for that! We will make a fine couple, I can assure you of that!

'This talk of souls is nonsense,' Beith retorted absently as she frustratedly continued her search for something sharp, stepping away a little from the wickerman's feet to explore the surrounding area. 'You need releasing, so I can take a proper look at you!'

'The nonsense is that you still deny me the soul you've promised me!' the man growled ominously.

Beith glanced up, seeing the face at last of the talking man.

But it wasn't the trapped man, slumped in his petrified pose within the wickerman's torso, who was speaking.

It was the wickerman, and he was glowering down at Beith through eyes as red as berries.

*

The eyes _were_ bunches of red berries; berries already drying, losing their lustre.

As the man, his 'soul', died within him, so the wickerman also died.

And, Beith realised with growing horror, the wickerman expected her to take the place of and become his new soul.

She stepped even farther back from him, fearing he might still possess enough strength to reach down for her.

Yet if he moved at all, it was an action undetectable to her.

The giant sighed, as if he had perhaps tried to grab her, but had found himself frustrated, too exhausted, too weak, to carry out his attempt.

'Who...who _are_ you?' Beith asked him tremulously, cautiously approaching him once more.

'I am Saille,' the giant replied. 'And who are _you_?'

'I'm the girl who came to your aid when you pleaded for help; and yet, in reward, you seek only to take my life from me, to make my life yours!'

'Hah!' Saille gasped in astonishment. 'You see what nonsense you talk? Why, as a part of me, you could be a giant among men; who wouldn't flee at our roar, or give us everything we desired from them?'

Beith glanced uneasily toward the dead or dying man caged within the wickerman's robust frame.

'Is that what you promised _him_?' she asked. 'So you could ensnare him?'

'I? _I_ ensnare _no_ one. Man vows to chase those things he vies for, bound by his _own_ foolish constructs – why, then how is that _my_ fault?'

There was a callous shrug in the giant's tone as he added.

'Yet _while_ he lived...why, what _power_ he held! How could he _not_ relish such an opportunity as _I_ granted him?'

Towards the end, the voice slurred, a sign of the giant's now flagging powers.

'You _imprisoned_ him!' Beith scolded. 'How can that be granting him _power_?'

Again, there was an emotional shrug in the giant's voice.

'I _carried_ him for a while: besides, in what other way would I live? Surely you cannot fault me for seeking to live, as you do?'

'At the expense of some other poor soul? How can _that_ be right?'

'And you? Do you not eat...'

The sentence faltered, faded.

He was drawing on the last dregs of the man's own life.

'Do not the animals, even the plants, give over their spiri...'

A berry fell from his eyes, splattering its bloody juices across the grass.

*

Beith had been unable to find anything sharp enough – not even in the similarly well-made coracle – to cut away at the wickerman's sturdy torso.

There was nothing for it but to wrench hard on each band of wood, sensing which the looser ones were, the ones she might be able to pull free of the rest of the lattice.

As one at last sprang away from the rest of the tightly entwined wickerwork, to be tossed aside by a sweating Beith, it left another branch slightly looser than it had been before: and so that, too, could – after much pushing and shoving and grunting – be torn free.

It was painstakingly slow and frustrating work. Every now and again, Beith would find that the strands still remained firmly bound to each other despite the increasing size of the gap she was creating. Then she would have to carefully inspect the way the branches cleverly curled, coiled and knitted together, finding a weak spot, pulling hard and unforgivingly on a branch until it snapped free.

It was every bit as tightly bound together as the coracle, such that Beith believed they might well have come together through the work of the same skilful hands.

Nonetheless, at last the hole Beith had created was large enough for her to reach inside, grab the dead man's ankles, and pull him towards and then down though the gap, a grim parody of a birth.

Maybe she should have burnt the giant, the flames consuming both him and the dead man he carried within him. Not that she had anything to start a fire with, of course.

Still, it would have been far easier than this, she realised bitterly, struggling to pull the heavy and cumbersomely floppy man clear of the giant.

She laid him out upon the grassy ground. She rested, breathing hard.

She still had to bury him; she still had no suitable tool to help her.

The marsh: would the marsh take him?

Taking him by his ankles once more, she unceremoniously dragged his limp form towards the marshy area she had earlier avoided.

The land sucked at her shoes hungrily, licking its lips in a series of satisfied slurps.

Letting go of the man's legs, Beith hurriedly skipped back towards the drier land. She turned the man's lifeless body about, and rolled it towards the marsh.

The soaked, peaty soil began to almost immediately part like black lips beneath the man's weight, this time a dark reversal of his birth.

The earth took him in; then it closed once more above him.

In a moment, the settling earth ensured that there was no sign that he had ever been there; that he had ever been.

Beith wished she could leave some marker in remembrance of him.

Once again, though, a quick search of the local area came up with nothing suitable.

Then she saw that one of the branches she had pulled clear of the wickerman still had buds. She forced its end deep into the soil, having heard that a shoot of the saugh tree easily took root, and would grew strong and tall.

Let his spirit be reborn, then, in a tree that could weep for him.

*

Where next? Beith wondered.

The saugh tree giant, she saw now for the first time, stood by the meeting point of roads coming together in a Y, as if he were a self-appointed guardian of the three ways on offer.

One road led off into the darkness where night still appeared to linger, as if waiting for the sun to continue its rising into the heavens. Or, maybe, the sun had already passed this way earlier, and so darkness had returned.

Another road, then, headed off to where the land appeared to be gloriously bathed in light and warmth, as if the sun were still rising. If, then, she wished to chase after the sun, this could be her only choice.

The third way was neither dark nor light, for a lonely moon shone there, its glow mercurial, ever changing, never stable.

'Thank you!'

Hearing the voice coming from behind her, Beith whirled about on her heels.

Where she had planted the shoot, a tree now rose high above her.

And once again, the gentle flowing of its cascading leaves whispered their thanks to her.

*

Where the rippling leaves dipped their innumerable tips into the lakeside waters, they strummed it as one would a lyre, making it sing.

The tree rose as tall in the water as it did on land, its reflection soaring up towards the deep blue of the twined sky.

'Open your heart,' the new spirit of this new tree whispered enticingly. 'Tell me your secret.'

So Beith told the willowman her secret, ensuring no one else would hear.

His answer came in a song, a song of her love, etched somewhere deep within her memory.

'Or at the bright moontide in solitude wander,

Amid the dark shades of the lonely ash grove.'

*

# Chapter 6

'Remember how tenderly You nestled close to me'

The moon caressed Beith's silvered hair, complemented it, and made it sparkle like a stream carrying fallen blossom.

Strangely, though, this track wasn't one of solitude after all.

From the twilight surrounding her, young couples appeared, dancing about her in circles, as ripples flow in water but in reverse, rushing joyfully towards her. Each couple took turns to take the long ribbons of her dress in their hands, using them to weave in and out as they circled in opposing ways, crossing by each other until they had been drawn so close by the entwining cords that they had no choice but to gleefully nestle together: and once they realised they were as one, they rushed off, back towards the dim light of a new dawn.

As thanks, the last couple crowned her with a garland of woven branches, heavy with white blossom. Then these two also vanished, to be as one together.

Yes, as one together.

Whereas she, of course, was so, so alone.

Ah, so this was the track of solitude after all, then.

*

On a hill, a bent old crone stood forlornly all alone.

This old lady, however, was a whitethorn tree, ancient and gnarled, twisted and warped, her branches densely black in the way they wove endlessly in and out between each other.

Yet there was a brightness to her garb, the reds, blues, yellows and greens of so many rags tied like ribbons about her; gifts to appease the faerie folk.

Despite being on a hill, then, this might well signify that a well, or maybe even a spring, lay at the old dear's knotted roots.

Not _any_ old spring.

An _ancient_ spring.

Its waters, though, would be fresh, sparkling.

The earth herself took hundreds of years to thoroughly cleanse rain that had fallen so long, long ago. And here it was where the earth's waters broke, springing renewed into the world.

Beith was thirsty. How could she resist the calling of the purest water?

She skipped excitedly up the hill, the exertion making her thirstier than ever. She thought herself quite parched by the time she at last arrived by the quickthorn, and was overjoyed to see that bubbling water sprang from between its contorted roots.

She knelt by the side of the small pool it formed, wetting her lips in anticipation of slaking her thirst. Throwing back her hair and catching it in her hands, she draped her locks down her back to save them from tumbling into the water.

'Aah, I see you are in need of my waters, child.'

The thornbush spoke to Beith in the quavering voice of an old woman, a spinster who threw her ragged, hooded cloak about herself, partially hiding limbs and face as gaunt and bandied as the branches she had collected in a bag carried upon her back.

Despite her thirst, in fact deliberately ignoring it and putting it to the back of her mind as well as she could, Beith stopped herself from bending closer to the waters.

'Why would you say that; that I _need_ your waters?' she asked warily, her suspicion aroused by the crone's willingness to share her sparkling waters so freely.

'Well, _aren't_ you thirsty?' the woman asked, looking back towards the steep incline Beith had just ascended. 'That's quite a hill you just climbed!'

Indeed it was, Beith silently agreed; looking back, she was surprised how high she had managed to climb. It had looked neither so far nor so steep when she had glanced up at it from below.

She would never have bothered making the journey if she had known from the start how long it would be.

'Why yes, yes; of course I am!' Beith agreed in answer to the woman's question.

With a smile she prepared to drink; then held herself back for doing so once more.

She needed to know more about these waters before she drank from them.

'But you said " _need_ ",' Beith reminded the woman. '"I see you are in _need_ of my waters"; _that's_ what you said. That implies more than just quenching a thirst, doesn't it?'

'Aren't you over thinking all this, my dear?' the woman replied sagely. 'What _is_ it you thirst for, child?'

'That's for _me_ to know, isn't it?' Beith said.

A secret, between me and the willow man, she thought.

'Then...yes, you _need_ my waters, I see for sure now.'

'Are these waters...is it ...well, _water_ – and nothing more?'

'What other kind of water is there, dearie?'

'Water that...well could send me to sleep!'

'These waters _won't_ send you to sleep,' the woman assured her.

'Well, then... _poison_ me; take my _life_!'

'These waters won't poison you, I assure you.'

'Then...then...why, what _other_ kinds of water are there?'

'My point exactly, my dear.'

'Wait; the rags, on the tree – on your...well, you know what I mean! The fairy realm...these are waters that will steal my wits away. And all so the fairies can take me away for...what is it? Seven years?'

'Isn't it all a bit late for that, my dear?'

'Late for wha – my _wits_? Are you saying my wits have _already_ left me?' Beith irately retorted.

The old woman seemed to give a nonchalant shrug beneath her ragged robe.

'It's true that some say waters such as mine can be a gateway between worlds; but can that be _so_ bad? If it takes you to a better realm than this one?'

Beith briefly pondered this.

'To go to a better realm?' she said dreamily. 'Why, yes; I suppose that, yes, like anyone, I'd like to go to such a place, if it were possible.'

'Would you now; and which realm is that?'

'This other one you speak of; a better one.'

'Ah, which is _other_ than this one, of course.'

'Of course; it would have to be, wouldn't it?'

The woman appeared to shrug once more.

'I'm just saying, my dear; in case you were interested in going back there?'

' _Back_ there? I've never _been_ there!'

'Are you sure? Surely you have, at some point, _lived_ there?'

Beith shook her head in denial.

'I'd recall _that_ ; of _that_ I'm sure!'

'Hmnn...it's strange that you _can_ be so sure of such a thing, don't you think?'

'Not at all!' Beith replied confidently. 'I'd remember being there, for surely I could never have returned! At least, not for seven years, if everything I've heard is true.'

'You can know for sure, my dear, that everything you've heard can't be true.'

The woman turned her hooded head slightly, as if to observe Beith more closely.

'I only ask,' she said, 'because I see you have a bloodied finger.'

Beith was surprised that the woman could have noticed such a thing, for she had sucked away all the dried blood long ago, and all that remained there now was the small dark spot of the embedded splinter.

'It's only a splinter,' Beith pointed out dismissively.

Maybe the old woman frowned; maybe her old face was so creased it just briefly appeared that way.

'Only? You _do_ have such an odd way of talking, you know?'

Beith frowned in a mix of annoyance and surprise.

How else was she to describe something so unimportant as a splinter?

As if aware of Beith's vexation, and wishing to make amends for her rudeness, the old woman offered Beith a gnarled hand.

'I am Huathe,' the woman said pleasantly, a smile in her tone if not on her wizened face, 'and I assure you, I only mean you well.'

Beith stared at the proffered hand unsurely.

She had neither heard nor seen anything indicating she should trust this crone.

'Surely amongst everything you've heard,' the old woman said, noting Beith's reluctance to take her hand, 'you learned that a sprig of quickthorn can bring you protection, even hope?'

'Why would I need protection?' Beith enquired, still suspicious of the woman's intent. 'What could possibly harm me here?'

'That's good, I suppose, that you have no fear,' the woman replied. 'Still, take a sprig, my dear; I'm sure you need it far more than you believe.'

Within the woman's hand, a sprig of branches had suddenly burgeoned with berries.

What harm could there be, Beith reasoned, in accepting a sprig of whitethorn?

In a gesture of goodwill, Beith took the woman's offer of the branch.

But the branch, of course, was also a hand.

'To hold someone's hand,' the woman pronounced jubilantly, 'is to take them on trust.'

*

# Chapter 7

'Gay is the garland'

The hard and unyielding fingers of the old woman firmly impressed their gnarled nodules, their rigid curves, into those lines of fate naturally occurring upon the flesh of Beith's own hand.

Beith felt there a rush of blood, coursing through her own innumerably branching veins. A rush that rose up through the many hidden pathways lying within the flesh of her arm, that connected her limbs, her body, to the even more labyrinthine thoughts of her mind.

And here, of course, wrapped about her head, she had a garland of whitethorn. Instantly, it began to throw out tendrils, reaching out to those simultaneously erupting from the sprig in her hand, enveloping her, drawing her into this mass of ever forking, ever separating, ever intertwining branches.

Suddenly, Beith found herself lost in a dark maze of uncountable, unfathomable ways, the branches now as thick as paths, anyone of which she could take; but which one?

Which was the way out?

Which, indeed, was up, which down?

She could no longer be sure.

*

Wherever she walked, the dense wickerwork of branches threw hard shadows that made everything almost impenetrably dark.

So dark, that she could now have been deep down within the earth itself.

What was the difference, after all, between branches and roots in the contorted shapes they took?

Had she been heading downwards rather than upwards?

Besides, which way was good, which bad?

As it seem to become ever darker, ever more silent about her, she naturally began to fear that she had taken a wrong turn somewhere; but then, there were so many turns to take – how could she ever hope to make the right choice?

*

She sensed – though she couldn't be sure why she did – that she was now heading upwards rather than down.

Then again, it felt as if the whole forest of branches was also ascending, the affect similar to the light headiness she'd felt when rising higher and higher upon a swing.

Despite the shadow lattice cast by the dark branches remaining indistinct from the real thing, she was at last beginning to espy light between the myriad of gaps that opened up between them. It was yet a dim light, but when she glanced upwards, she saw it was shining brighter there; so bright, she even dared to hope she was somehow drawing nearer towards the sun, which – surely by now? – had at last halted its seemingly never-ending race away from her.

'Welcome to my realm, little one!'

*

The voice was deep, rumbling, and – as if it came from far below her – it actually made her tremble, as if the earth itself were shaking and making her unsteady on her feet.

'Your realm?' Beith repeated uncertainly, looking about her to establish where the voice actually emanated from. 'Where am I? Who _are_ you?'

'I'm King Duir.'

As the king answered her, it dawned on Beith that the voice was coming from far below where she was standing. Grabbing hold of one of the thinner branches close by her, she used it as a support as she cautiously leant forward to peer downwards.

She found herself looking down upon a huge craggy face, the size of a cliff. It stretched away from her, the brow as furrowed as a well turned field, eyebrows as shaggy as herds of highland cattle, a nose as large as a burial burrow, a moustache and beard as dense as a wood.

On top of his head, however, there wasn't hair, but this great tree she was standing within, rising up from his crown in the style of massive, robust antlers.

Peering once again over the precipice of his forehead, Beith saw that his great trunk of a torso stretched on and on, such that she was high above the earth. She would have been even higher, but the giant was strangely buried half in, half out of the ground.

As if he had somehow overheard her thinking this, the giant reached out to either side with his massive arms, placing the palms of his outspread hands upon the ground. Then he began to push upwards on these hands even as he also rocked back and forth and from side to side, loosening the earth about his waist.

With a flexing of muscles undulating like rolling hillocks, the king gradually wrenched himself clear of the confining earth, great sods falling everywhere as he brought up legs that could have been formed from the twisted roots of an immense tree.

He stepped up and out the hole he had been half buried in, shaking off the last of the earth clinging to him, so that it rained down in a dark shower back towards the ground.

'You have arrived at a most inopportune time, I'm afraid,' the king declared wearily.

'Inopportune? Why's that?' Beith asked curiously.

'It is time; it is Litha,' he said, as if this should explain everything.

As he spoke, he picked up a shield that could have been the hulls of a fleet of great ships welded together, such that they formed a shape similar to the oak leaves springing from the branches close to Beith's head. He also took up a huge spear, its point a massive obelisk of iron, its shaft the carefully spliced trunks of a whole wood of oak. His armour, too, was made of thick wooden plates that could have been the great doors to hundreds of palaces, all tied to and hanging from a hairy skin that could only have come from vast herds of deer and bear.

'Where are we going?' Beith enquired as the giant began to stride across the landscape, each step taking in the distance that usually lay between remote farms.

'Why, to do battle, of course.'

*

'A battle? Who are we fighting?'

'My twin,' the king said in reply to Beith's question.

'Can't you make amends, seeing as how he's your brother?'

'Everyone expects us to fight; we'd be letting them down, wouldn't we, if we didn't?'

'That seems a ridiculous reason to fight your own _brother_! In fact, it's no valid reason to fight _anyone_.'

'Truth is, we're old enemies; I'd no longer feel complete, to be honest, if it wasn't for him and our age-old duels!'

It sounds to me like you enjoy it!' Beith scolded him. 'If it wasn't him, I bet, then you'd just go out looking for _any_ old enemy!'

'Hah, I'd hardly call my brother _any_ old enemy!'

'Yes, yes, I see – he's an _ancient_ enemy, correct?'

'Correct!'

Although the king obviously believed he had been proved right, there was no sense of triumph in his voice. Rather, Beith detected great sadness there.

'If you're looking forward to this fight, then why are you so miserable?' she asked.

'Did I say I was looking forward to it? I don't think I could have, for I surely don't think that way at all. It is simply _expected_ of us, as I said; is that _so_ hard to understand?'

'Why do something simply because it is expected of you, if you don't wish to do it?'

'Responsibilities, child; we all have our responsibilities to bear, whether we like it or not.'

Once again, he said this jadedly and with great sorrow.

'Besides,' he added even more resignedly, 'it wouldn't be fair on him, to call off the fight simply because I'm failing in my health.'

'Your health is failing? Then it's more ridiculous than ever to go ahead with this fight! You're almost bound to lose!'

'That is the whole point, don't you see? Why should I continue to rule when my strength is failing me – failing everyone?'

'You sound as if you _hope_ to die! Tell your twin you cannot fight; that your spirt is ailing you!'

'Hah!' the giant chuckled. 'If it _were_ my spirt that was ailing, then there would be no use in our fighting. Thankfully, it is merely my body that has been ravaged by time.'

'You're taking all this surprisingly light heartedly!'

'And why not; for didn't I take advantage of my brother when he was ailing at Yule, when we last fought? Time comes around, as it always must; I cannot shrug off my duties. So many depend upon me.'

'Ho there, _King_ Duir!'

The harsh yell came from somewhere way ahead of them, the word 'king' emphasised in such a way it was given a hint close to mocking scepticism.

Walking towards them, taking strides every bit the equal of those of the king, another antlered giant was swiftly approaching.

*

# Chapter 8

'Fresh are the roses I've culled from the garden To bind over thee'

From a distance, the king's twin did indeed appear to be like him in so many ways.

Yet these were obviously not _identical_ twins.

The first difference that Beith noted was the shield, its edges curling off into many sharp points rather than being formed of a series of smooth, melded curves.

Instead of a spear, he wielded a huge whip, its handle of extremely pale wood blending imperceptibly into tightly twisted hides spun into a leather tail. His armour, like that of his brother's, was constructed of many wooden plates, but these were semi-spherical, like so many upturned bowls, such that it was chainmail-like in its appearance.

As he confidently strode towards them, he sang merrily.

''T was there, while the blackbird was cheerfully singing,

I first met my dear one, the joy of my heart!'

Beith immediately recognised the words. It was that song again, the one that always made such a deep impression upon her.

No more words were sung.

The two giants bowed their heads, as if in respectful greeting.

Then they suddenly charged towards each other, like stags fighting for the rights to a single doe.

*

The antlers of the two horned giants clashed together, the branches of one interlocking with the branches of the other as they tussled, each grabbing the other in his arms and attempting to throw his foe to the ground.

The weapons they had carried, as if there only for show, had been cast aside, as had their shields. They were fighting as nature had intended, all tooth and claw, the smash of a fist and the locking of horns.

Caught up within the midst of the wickerwork of intertwining branches, Beith lost her footing, fell, reached out for and gripped the nearest slender branch to steady herself.

The leaves were different on this branch. Like the twin's shield, they curled up into many sharp points, and were of a vibrantly dark green.

Holly; it was the leaf of the holly.

Before she had a chance to clamber back amongst the oaken branches of the ailing king, somehow the struggling wrestlers accidentally precipitated the unlocking of the many branches, their heads violently swinging apart as the forces they were ranging against each other abruptly found nothing restraining them anymore.

Equally abruptly, Beith found herself stranded within the antlers of the twin, the king stepping back and away, already weakened and failing to realise that he had lost his charge.

'He's your brother!' Beith shrieked at the twin, hardly caring what he might think when he discovered there was now this flea-like creature amongst what passed for his hair. 'Spare him, I beg you!'

'And then how could I be expected to live?' the brother cried back, displaying neither shock nor disgust at Beith's presence within his wickerwork of ever branching antlers.

'He'd spare you, I'm sure!' Beith yelled back unsurely.

'Given the chance, he'd kill me!' the twin retorted. He does each year, in fact!'

Talking was over once more as the raging brothers viciously clashed again. Yet the clash wasn't as thunderously terrifying as it had been at first, for the oaken king's powers were rapidly waning. The brother, on the other hand, was apparently gaining in strength and confidence, now and again lifting the king entirely off his feet, close indeed to contemptuously throwing him aside.

They pulled apart, the king reeling, the would-be usurper dancing elatedly upon the balls of his feet.

'Put me down!' Beith screamed. 'It's dangerous for me here!'

'Hah!' chuckled the twin. 'And give him chance to take me by surprise while I'm otherwise occupied? I'd surely die! If I died in his place, what sort of tragedy do you think that would be for the world?'

'You think mightily highly of yourself, if you think your death would be a tragedy for the whole world!'

The twin wasn't listening.

He was charging again, his head bowed, his brother dazedly stumbling and totally unprepared for the massive force of nature that struck him hard, the antler tips gouging deep and injuriously into what passed for flesh and bone.

*

The king is dead.

Long live the king!

'I'm your new king; King Tinne,' the victor exclaimed proudly as he surveyed the old king lying still upon the floor.

The corpse wasn't completely motionless, however.

The breeze still took and delicately moved leaves and branches, the fur of the hides rippling like fields of corn. Animals that lived amongst it all lived there still, completely unaware of the passing of the old king's spirit.

With a graceful waving of his hands over his twin's body, the new king showered the old one in a shroud of gleaming red berries that fell everywhere across the carcass. As they splattered, releasing their bloody juices, their skin opening up like blooming petals, they could have been an offering of so many scarlet roses.

'Why bewail his loss?' Beith asked curiously, seeing that the new king was mourning the loss of the old, honouring him with funeral rites. ' _You_ killed him!'

'He was growing weak; the inevitable decay of age. How else can we ensure his spirit lives on?'

With a trilling of bird song, blackbirds rose up from amongst the many branches of the dead king, only to descend again and feast on the splattered berries. Their hunger couldn't be assuaged, however, for they continued their feasting long after the juices had gone, their attention now on drawing what could have been the blood of the dead king, pulling at and eagerly gobbling the worms of his veins, gouging at the succulent fruit that was his heart until there was nothing left of it.

Beith turned away in horror as the poor king was so ruthlessly riven apart.

'Why be so delicate?' King Tinne scolded her. 'Do you know so little of life that you don't realise his carrion will spread his seed? He will be revived; he will live again. And then it will be _my_ time to die.'

With an apparent careless nonchalance, the new king flicked one of his berries off towards where salmon were leaping down the rapids of a stream, one of many branching and flowing everywhere about the remains of the dead king.

But it was a throw with far more purpose, with far better aim, that Beith had erroneously supposed; for it landed, plop, within the gaping mouth of one of the salmon, causing it to drop a nut it was carrying there, and perhaps swallow instead the red berry.

'Did you know,' the king said mysteriously to Beith, 'that amongst the blessings a good king is expected to bring to his land is an abundance of hazel-nuts, as a mark of a prosperous and plenteous season?'

Beith shook her head; no, she hadn't known that. Neither did she know why the king had mentioned this unimportant fact, unless it was some bizarre attempt to boast about his supposed prowess.

The salmon had slowed, either surprised or dazed, Beith couldn't be sure.

Reaching out with a hand greater in size than a vast barn, the giant effortlessly scooped up the delirious salmon, cupping along with it a substantial amount of water.

As he did this, with his other hand he delicately plucked Beith from his antlers, putting her down by a narrow stream that ran by his feet. In the same easy flowing motion, and with equal care, he lowered the hand cupping the salmon into the river, allowing the fish to swim into the flowing waters as if suddenly revived and given new purpose.

Yet the salmon was now apparently obliviously swimming in the opposite direction to that it had taken before.

'Follow the salmon,' King Tinne advised Beith, 'and you may find the wisdom you lack.'

*

# Chapter 9

'Here I now wander Alone as I wonder'

The giant strode off languidly, yet every stride was so great that he soon left Beith far behind and unable to protest at the way he had simply abandoned her like this.

She had no choice then; she would have to take his advice and follow the salmon as it swam along the only slightly meandering river.

'You're following me?' the salmon asked her, noticing that she was running along the bank just off to his side. 'It's a long way; and, I would think, impossible to reach by running!'

'But King Tinne said I had to follow you; how else am I supposed to keep up when you move so fast?'

'Then it would be easier for you if you rode upon my back,' the salmon offered.

Glancing at the relatively small salmon, Beith had to politely hold back a bemused laugh; it was a kind offer, or course, but she was far too large to clamber upon his back.

'Don't worry about the differences in size,' the salmon said, noting her bewilderment. 'You can stand on my back, balancing there as if you were a jester walking a tightrope!'

*

Riding upon the salmon's back was far easier than Beith had supposed it would be. He seemed to anticipate whenever she was close to toppling, swimming off to one side to counteract the way she was precariously leaning. She also held in her hands a long and slender shoot of hazel she had discovered on the bank side, and this helped her maintain her balance, just as she had seen palace entertainers use them.

In this way, they rushed up the ever narrowing stream. Their speed now was so fast that waves were curling up on either side of them, at times almost threatening to drown a spluttering Beith in the high arching of their waters.

It was briefly so bad that Beith could have sworn the salmon had forgotten she was riding upon his back and had ducked down deep in the waters, diving far below the surface, even gaily twisting round, such that she could have been upside down; but just as she was beginning to think they were never coming up again, she realised she must have thankfully been imagining it after all, for ahead of them now she could see a copse of trees rising up from the ground.

There were nine trees, each one perfectly reflected in a glistening pool from which the stream emanated. Six more streams poured from the pool, seven in all, each one spreading out in a different direction as if this pool were their hub and they were the spokes.

Salmon were everywhere now, heading both up and downstream, every one of them in a headlong rush. And as Beith at last found herself in the pool itself, she saw that the salmon were taking into their mouths the nuts that fell from the trees, only to immediately turnabout and carry off their prizes down one of the other streams.

'I have to return to the sea,' the salmon she was riding explained apologetically, 'so I will have to put you ashore here.'

*

'Who are you?' Beith asked the kind salmon as he prepared to take one of the nuts in his mouth.

'I'm Coll, thank you for asking: and you are Beith, I see.'

Beith was taken aback by the salmon's knowledge; how could he possibly know that, when she hadn't yet revealed her name?

'This is the "Well of Knowledge" and these are the "Nine Hazel Trees of Wisdom",' the salmon explained, having noticed Beith's surprise. 'Everyone who drinks the well waters, when the hazel nuts fall, receives wisdom.'

Beith stared longingly at the glistening waters, sorely tempted to cup a portion in her hands, to slake her thirst for knowledge.

And yet...hadn't she been tempted to take a drink from a well earlier, and hadn't she suffered as a result, being thrown into realms she had never imagined could exist?

'Would that be wise?' she asked. 'To drink waters I have no knowledge of?'

'If not this well, then which?' the salmon asked. 'Surely you cannot always refuse things simply because you yourself possess no knowledge of them? How could the world possibly continue to work, if everyone took that stance?'

Beith agreed with the salmon that her attitude – when considered in such a more universal way – was indeed ridiculous.

And yet...how could any problems arise when she alone adhered to this ideal?

'My real thirst is only for something dear to me that I have lost,' she admitted.

The salmon nodded, in the way salmon nod in understanding.

'Then the trees themselves can help you there; you can use cuttings of their slender shoots to create divining rods that can help you find things hidden, things lost.'

Beith hung her head sadly.

'I'm afraid that what I have lost cannot be found so easily,' she confessed miserably.

'Still; you still have your shoot that helped you keep your balance,' the salmon pointed out, drawing Beith's attention to the rod she had continued to hold onto. 'Take it with you; what harm could there be in that?'

Then the salmon turned, took one of the kernels of wisdom into his mouth; and rapidly swam off down one of the streams stretching far away from the pool.

*

# Chapter 10

'Why did you leave me To sigh and complain?'

Within the pool's waters, Beith caught the reflection of a flash of silver in the sky high above her.

When she glanced up towards the sky, however, there was nothing there to be seen.

On looking back towards the pool, Beith could clearly see the glittering light once more, and it was swiftly growing in size, as if it were rising up from the very deepest point of the pool at a phenomenal rate. As it rushed up towards her, Beith began to make out ever more details, seeing now that it was a man, seeing next that he had wings, albeit wings that were crumpled about him, as if badly injured.

It looked to Beith far more like the man was falling from the sky rather than rising up through the waters, and the presence of the useless wings only added to this impression.

As she looked, she expected him to come crashing through the surface of the waters at any moment; only to realise late on that the poor man was somehow going to miss the pool, as if he were indeed plummeting from the sky rather than coming from the depths.

Whether he was falling or rising, if he hit the ground rather than the pool at such a speed, then he would be dead for sure, Beith realised.

He would probably strike the earth so hard, he would undoubtedly break the soil's surface.

Indeed, if he had been falling normally, rather than in this bizarrely unfathomable way, then he would surely end up interring himself within his own grave.

*

Over to Beith's side, a group of brambles shuddered under the impact of the man striking them unseen on their undersides. They rattled and shook as the force of the man's fall – or rise – caused him to tear his way through their maze of branches.

At last, the brambles fully arrested his fall, but still curled everywhere about him, completely encasing him in their thorny wickerwork.

Beith rushed towards the entrapped man, fearing he must be dead, or at least close to dying. Yet as she drew closer, she saw that the man had survived his violent crash, for he was struggling to free himself from the thorns tearing at his bared flesh.

'Are you all right?' Beith cried out worriedly to the man as she slewed to a halt by the brambles. 'Who are you?'

'I'm Muin,' the bramble replied, 'and yes, thank you, Miss, I'm sure I'll recover soon enough from the unwarranted damage this man has inflicted on me!'

'Not you!' Beith snapped exasperatedly. 'I meant the poor man we've just seen falling! And who still needs to get clear of your thorns!'

'Yes, yes; if you could let me go now, please, I'd be extremely grateful,' the man said as he failed once again to pull himself clear of the bramble's constraining bands.

Beith reached out across the top of the brambles with the hazel stick she carried, vainly hoping that the man might grab its end to gain purchase and drag himself clear.

'I don't think you should be helping him, Miss,' the bramble said gloomily. 'He's not the kind of man you might think he is!'

Beith ignored the bramble's miserably blunt comment.

The man was incredibly handsome, more beautiful than any other man she had come across. His flesh would have at one time being flawless, she saw, for although it was now torn where the bush's thorns continued to rive at it, in every other way it was perfectly smooth. Gleaming even in what little light was reaching him through the branches, it might at one time have been entirely luminous.

When it came to his limbs, his torso, his head, he had come through his crash remarkably unscathed.

His wings were another matter completely, however. The deeply embedded thorns had obviously caused a great deal of damage to the feathers that still hung loosely from their supporting membranes; yet most of the damage appeared to have been sustained before the fall – indeed, it might even have been a cause of the fall – for although there were few feathers left, neither was there a mass of shredded feathers strewn throughout the bush.

'Are...are you an angel? Beith asked hesitantly, even as she withdrew the proffered rod and looked instead for some other way of fighting her way through the brambles to help the man escape his unnatural confinement.

'Angel? Why yes; could you tell?' the man replied, his tone so charmingly different to that of the gloomy bush.

'Please, let him go,' Beith begged the bramble once more. 'He's suffered enough, don't you think?'

'Begging your pardon, Miss,' the bush retorted sourly, 'but I'm afraid you don't know who you're talking about here! I mean, do you have _any_ knowledge of this man?'

'If you _could_ help me, I'd _very_ much appreciate it...' the man pleaded pleasantly.

Beith still couldn't see any way in which she could draw closer to the man to help him escape.

'As you're an angel, can't you...well, use some sort of _magic_ to free yourself?'

'Ah, well, as you can doubtlessly see,' the man said, sounding a touch embarrassed, 'I suffered _badly_ in my fall...'

'So you _did_ fall!'

'Why, yes; where else could you think I might have come from?'

Beith raised her head, looking up longingly into the sky.

'You came from the _heavens_ themselves...' she gasped in awe.

'Naturally; that is my _realm_!'

'Your _realm_?' scoffed the bush. 'A _likely_ story!'

'It's true,' the man assured Beith. 'My throne is the _highest_ of all!'

' _This_ is the throne you've been cast down into now!' the skaldberry bush jeered. 'A throne of thorns! As befits a man who sought to soar too high, thinking himself higher than the highest himself!'

Had he got too close, then, to the sun? Beith wondered.

Had his wings burnt away, or otherwise lost the things that invisibly bound so many feathers together?

'I see you're fortunately wise to this ridiculous bush's foolishness,' the man chuckled richly, warmly smiling at Beith. 'How can anyone trust a producer of fruit best left for the fairies?'

'Personally, I think it's quite a delicious fruit,' Beith chuckled back. 'And so freely given too, without work or tending by anyone.'

'Thank you, Miss,' the bramble replied. 'Your appreciation is much appreciated!'

'Still, they're staining me completely black,' the fallen angel complained with a disgusted sigh.

'Here, let me help you!' Beith adamantly declared, stepping closer into the bush's embrace as she finally decided she would have to brave the bramble's defensive barbs, no matter how much they tore at her own flesh.

'Miss, I'm not sure you fully understan–'

'Stop!' a harsh voice sternly commanded. 'I cannot allow you to release a spirit even darker than mine!'

*

# Chapter 11

'I ask of the roses Why should I be forsaken'

These voices always seemed to come from _nowhere_!

Chiding her at every turn!

Beith urgently glanced every which way about herself, exasperated that she had once again been assailed by an unseen, unannounced presence.

Who could it be _this_ time?

A talking frog, maybe?

A whispering wind?

Who knows!

It seemed to her at this moment that everything she came across claimed to know more about the world than _she_ did!

'Who _is_ it? Who is _this_ time?'

Her tone was weary, irate.

The voice had seemed to come from within the copse of trees, yet the shadows were so dense that she found it hard to believe anything – let alone anyone – could somehow make a life for themselves in there.

And no, the voice _hadn't_ come from the tree itself; she was sure of that.

It had _definitely_ emanated from the dark shadows lying between their maze-like branches.

Failing to see anything there amongst these dank, undesirable spaces, she let her gaze drift higher, taking in the leafy foliage of the tree, marvelling at the unexpected bursts of purest white amongst the green; the blooms of a climbing rose, arcing far up into the branches of the hazel, the petals undoubtedly as soft and warm as flesh, the white luminous, as if reflecting the sun at its brightest.

Now that she had spotted the blooms, she peered again into the copse's gloomy interior, seeking the glistening silver stalks of a climbing rose there.

'Hello? Is _anyone_ there?' Beith shouted into the darkness of the copse. 'Please don't call for me then desert me as soon as I respond!'

She was startled as she was answered not by one voice, but my many, and coming too from everywhere around her rather than from somewhere directly amongst the trees.

'Around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing,

Ah, then little thought I how soon we should part.'

She was surrounded by bluebells, a carpet as glorious as a summer sky, even though not a single one of them had been there only a moment ago.

And as their singing faded, they began to fade too.

A memory, then; that was all.

Something she had been cajoled into recalling, even though it was from a time now long gone and irretrievable.

She had thought the moment forgotten. Best forgotten, too, if it saved her from suffering more than she should.

She glanced at the hazel stick she still grasped in her hand.

Was this to blame? Was this the 'things hidden' it had decided to recover for her?

'There are dark things we must recognise; if only to keep darker things forever under our control.'

This time, the voice did indeed come from with the darkest shadows.

A woman was walking towards her, a woman wearing a dress of darkest ivy green, one emphasising the fluid grace of her moves, the slenderness of her body.

'I am Gort,' the woman declared. 'And I see you now require my support every bit as much as I require yours.'

*

The woman had not completely stepped free of the darkness of the copse; tendrils of ivy curled back from her ribbon-like dress of green, linking her with those stalks energetically spiralling up the stalks of the climbing rose, those rising up through the trunks and branches of the trees, taking advantage of their strength and growth to soar upwards with them.

'My support? How can _I_ help _you_?' Beith said in reply to the woman's cryptic statement.

'You have control over the world where I don't, just as I can temper things you might attach too much importance to; as long, of course, as you recognise me for who I am.'

'You told me to stop,' Beith recalled, briefly turning back to forlornly stare at the man still firmly entrapped amongst the brambles. 'This is your support; your tempering?' she added contemptuously. 'Preventing me from helping someone in distress?'

'Maybe there is a _reason_ for his distress; have you considered that?'

'Thank _you_!' the blackberry bush exclaimed gratefully. 'It's good to see we've at last got someone with sense around here!'

'What do you know of him then?' Beith demanded of Gort, her gaze flicking anxiously between the imperious woman and the imprisoned man.

'He has fallen; fallen farther than you could possible imagine,' Gort replied sagely. 'I understand why you might seek the empathy and reassurance of someone you believe must be as hurt and forsaken as yourself; but sinking so deeply into your darkness can only make things far worse!'

Beith glanced back at the heavily entangled man.

'I _can't_ leave him like this!'

'Why be so delicate?' the dark Gort scolded her. 'You _can_ ; you _must_! Otherwise, he will be revived; he will live again. And then it will be _my_ time to die.'

With a slice of a sharp finger nail, the woman took a cutting from her own gown of ivy.

'You must _beat_ out the old, malign spirits, Beith!' the woman implored.

She bent down towards the ground, planting the stem in the dried soil that lay about a tumbled pile of rocks.

Despite the adverse conditions, the ivy took root, grew, gaining support from the very rocks that might have been expected to thwart its rebirth.

'See?' Gort said. 'You can draw strength and be reborn from even the most unfavourable ground – even from the darkness of sorrow that lies deep within you!'

*

# Chapter 12

'Why must I here in sorrow remain?'

'Must I accept my sorrow?' Beith asked, her head forlornly hanging low. 'Is that what you're saying?'

There was no answer.

When Beith raised her gaze, the woman was no more; the tendrils of ivy were withdrawing once more, snaking back into the depths of the shadows.

'Pst! You!' a hiss came from nearby waters, an overspill of the pool of the well. 'I can, perhaps, answer your question!'

This time Beith could see that the call came for the whistling of the wind amongst the reeds growing on the swampy banks.

She headed there straight away, for it had now almost become an ingrained habit of hers that she should respond to what had become regular calls. In fact, she was so intent on receiving an answer to her questions that she failed to notice the witch landing behind her on a broom, a broom the witch swiftly and deftly used to entirely eradicate the footprints – yes, even the footfalls, and the recall of those footsteps that had been taken – Beith was leaving behind her.

In such a way, when a track we've previously taken is lost to us, we also lose so much of what lay off that track, or at least become confused as to its position and relevance within our lives.

The witch remounted her broom, and silently took to the air once more, refraining, even, from a jubilant cackle that might have alerted Beith to her presence.

Beith's attention was now fully focused upon the reeds, for in their stirrings within the wind, they were forming shapes, shaping a form.

It was a girl, a truly beautiful girl.

'I'm Ngetal.' she announced, adding conspiratorially, 'and like you – and _unlike_ Gort – I know fully of the agony of sorrow!'

*

'How could _you_ know of my sorrow?' Beith asked. 'Other than what you have just overheard?'

The girl seductively ran a hand over the tops of the reeds that had remained as reeds. They sang at her touch.

'The wind, of course,' Ngetal explained. 'It catches and carries all secrets; then brings them here to me, where I catch and hold them in turn.'

She smiled knowingly at Beith, even as she began to take the reeds, snap them free, and deftly weave them together.

'It sustains me, you see; to know that others, like you, have suffered as I have.'

'You were betrayed too? Left alone?'

'Ah, now my sorrow – my tale – is _slightly_ different to yours, but no less _agonising_ for that!'

She conjured up images of her tale in the shifting of the reeds, where those blown one way created the lighter areas of the pictures, and those waving the other way were the shadows.

'I was in love, yes; but not with the man who pursued me for _my_ love. This man was a god, of sorts, and when I managed to escape his clutches I ran and ran – only to find myself on the banks of a river I couldn't cross. The water nymphs took pity on me, taking me into their arms. And as coarse material is spun into thread, they transformed me into slender reeds, so that I might hide at the water's edge. The god came and left, amazed to find no trace of my tracks, and thankfully unable to see though my guise; but then neither could my true love find me. I watched as he forgot me, and courted a new wife on these very banks. This is why reeds sadly sigh, whenever lovers are close.'

'Then...your sorrow is something you can never forget?' Beith asked, making sure she had understood the girl correctly.

Every reed shook its head along with the girl. Her weaving, which she had continued as she had gloomily recited her tale, was taking form quickly, basket-like in its curves, if of an overly-large size.

'Never; and neither, of course, have I accepted it.' She looked close to weeping, before more sternly adding, 'Why _shouldn't_ I resent my misfortune?'

'Then there's no escape for us from this agony?'

Again the reeds and the girl shook their many heads as one.

'How could there be? Do we wish to forget the one we lost? No! And so we are fated to endlessly recall what might have been.'

She had finished her weaving, having created an especially large Moses basket that she gleefully set afloat upon the waters.

'Do you like it?' she happily asked Beith.

Beith nodded, smiled. It was indeed beautifully constructed, and so remarkably watertight too.

'When he was abandoned as a babe, the poet Taliesin was found floating in a basket of my creation: by Elphin, who became his foster parent.'

She looked up towards Beith once more, smiling.

'It was his _rebirth_ , you could say; after being _abandoned_?'

She added an emphasis to the word 'abandoned' that could only imply one thing; Beith had been abandoned too and this, perhaps, was her chance to leave all that pain behind.

*

# Chapter 13

'Through yonder grove by the spring that is running, There you and I have so merrily played'

Of course, Beith had attempted to argue that Taliesin had indeed been a babe when he had been set afloat in a basket upon the river; which meant he was light enough to be borne quite easily by a wickerwork structure.

Moreover, he had undoubtedly been in need of foster parents whereas she, of course, wasn't.

These arguments were of no avail to her however, as Ngetal insisted her construction was every bit as stable as a coracle, and the winds had told her that Beith had quite happily set sail in one of those.

The waters ran into one of the seven streams, where Beith was briefly escorted by shoals of salmon, the school diminishing at each branching until there was but one salmon with her. Soon even this one left her behind, surging ahead when the current slowed, the river now coursing its way through relatively flat land.

Here the running waters from a nearby spring joined the slowly streaming flow, causing an eddying of interweaving currents that set Beith's almost circular vessel giddily spinning. The basket whipped sharply around, whirled uncontrollably; and was abruptly beached on a narrow band of coarse shingle.

Carefully stepping from her boat, Beith nervously looked about her, taking in the dark lines of grotesquely warped elders, the wind rattling their thinner upper branches and making them cackle like playful witches.

Is that what they were; witches frozen by charms into these equally wizened bushes?

And if so, who had cast that charm?

An enemy of the witches, who had resented their wicked dancing and punished them by transforming them mid leap into petrified contortions, warning everyone to behave in future?

Or could it be the witches' own doing, a disguise developed to help them apprehend the unwary?

Hadn't she heard of the man who had cut a stick from an elder, and seen it bleed? And this is how the witch had been revealed, for she later appeared in the village with a bloodily bandaged arm.

Then there was a farmer who had unwisely repaired his babe's cradle with wood from an elder: and so the old witch had plagued the child, pinching it black and blue until the farmer's wife had more sensibly replaced the rocker.

Beith moved cautiously along the line of elder, fearing at any moment the reaching out of a bony hand, the casting of a spell that would freeze her too, and enjoin her to the permanently stilled dance.

Yet the elders weren't quite as frozen as she might have supposed.

There was a movement down by the base of one of the trees, the snaking roots trembling, as if cold, then quaking, as if disturbed.

The soil lying about them loosened, dropped away in parts, such that Beith expected a badger to erupt form its home amongst the roots at any moment.

Instead, the freed roots writhed, twisted and coiled, weaving together like weft and warp, a tapestry of darkness that came swiftly together, more crone like with every passing second.

A _witch_!

What _else_ could it be but a _witch_?

And Beith was too petrified to flee.

*

It wasn't as if Beith could have run away anyway.

For as the gnarled old woman rapidly took form before her, behind her other shoots of the elder's root had broken the ground's surface to rise up and create an interwoven circular fence.

The woman, now complete, smiled at Beith, her lips formed of twigs, her teeth of blossom.

'Don't worry, my dear,' she said, ' _I_ can protect you from the witches!'

*

'I am Ruis, the Elder Mother,' the woman declared, her tone pleasant rather than threatening. 'I am not a witch, as you might obviously fear!'

'How can I know what you're saying is true?' Beith asked. 'Wouldn't a witch say she _wasn't_ a witch?'

'Indeed she might,' the woman agreed. 'The world can be _so_ confusing, can't it?'

As she spoke, the fence encircling Beith retreated back into the ground once more.

'Why did you fence me in, if you're as innocent as you claim?'

'Because I didn't want you to flee until I'd had time to explain you had nothing to fear from me.'

'Again – isn't that _exactly_ what a _witch_ would claim?'

The woman nodded.

'Indeed; it seems, my dear, that you have learned you cannot ever take _anything_ on trust.'

'Isn't there _any_ way that you can prove who you say you are?'

'Is there any way that _you_ can prove who you say you are?'

Beith pondered this a moment.

'No; I don't suppose there is.'

The woman shrugged, sighed resignedly.

'Ah, then there is no hope for us, is there?'

She smiled, wryly raised her eyebrows of leaves.

'But is this _really_ what you seek – proof of who I am?' she asked.

Beith shook her head sadly.

'I suppose not,' she admitted. 'Yet surely I need to know if I can _trust_ you?'

'Yet you have trusted far worse than I on your journey here,' the woman pointed out.

'All the more reason for me to be cautious now; for I only have your word that they were worse!'

'Faerie folk can seem pleasant enough when they are far from being so, and vice versa; good or bad, dark or light – it is so hard to tell.'

As she said this, the most beautiful white blossom erupted from the darkness of her wood. In the freshness of its birth, it was wet with dew.

'Perhaps you need to see the faerie folk again, my child,' she continued, tipping her blooms slightly so that the dew drops poured into her cupped hands.

As she reached out with her hands towards Beith, they imperceptibly became a real cup, which she held in her hands.

Wash your face in the blossom's dew, child,' the woman instructed kindly.

'What if it's a charm?' Beith exclaimed, drawing back suspiciously.

'Of _course_ it's a charm!' the woman chuckled brightly. 'I know the explanation you _really_ seek; why did your love forsake you, yes?'

The woman's eyes were dark berries, shining with the promise of the new life they carried within them.

Beith reached a hand into the cup that had become a bowl, uncertainly testing the waters; and seeing that no harm had come to her, she dipped in her other hand too and began to wash her face in the cooling dew.

*

'Now what?'

Beith was both disappointed and yet also relieved that washing her face in the dew from the elder's blossom hadn't resulted in anything noticeable.

'We wait; _patiently_ , we wait beneath my branches,' the woman replied, comfortably settling down amongst the wickerwork of her own tree.

With a wave of a hand, a tilt of her head, she offered her lap to Beith

'In complicated situations such as yours, answers come only in fragments, and slowly at that.'

Beith seated herself upon the woman's lap, pleasantly surprised to find how comfortable the bony knees actually were.

It was so so good to rest; how long had she been walking for?

She settled farther back into the woman's warm, reassuring embrace.

In a moment, she was asleep.

*

Beith woke to a noise that could have been the heralding of the end of the world.

It was incredibly dark, midnight perhaps. All about her, she heard the shrieks of bushes being torn and violently shredded, the hard, continually rolling thunder of charging horses. Mixed in with all this there was the jubilant barking of a mass of great dogs.

A hunt, then; but what kind of hunt, to be riding when none could hope to see anything, let alone their prey?

And where was the old woman?

Beith found herself seated amongst the branches of the elder, as if this was where she had fallen asleep, perhaps in a daze, conjuring up in her imagination old women who had no real existence.

Her wondering came to an abrupt halt as cold shadows rushed close by her; no, _not_ shadows – the great, pitch-black dogs of the pack. They hurtled past her, hundreds of them, a seemingly never ending stream of a darkness more intense than the night itself.

The riders and their mounts were even more terrifying, somehow incredibly dark towards the mingling of their centres, yet also luminously glowing about the surface. Looming over Beith, they charged past like dark giants, crashing through the woodland without a care of the harm they were causing. In their wake, each was leaving havoc, the branches snapping and briefly flying up into the air, the bushes they swept through completely ripping apart; as a whole, though, the hunt was causing damage more usually associated with a whirlwind of a storm.

Amongst the hunters, one stood out because of his strangeness, his otherworld nature.

He was a man; a _hu_ man.

*

The man appeared even more excited by the chase than his elven companions.

He seemed intoxicated by the excitement of it all, the grin on his handsome face almost manic in its joy.

Alongside, a girl of remarkable beauty rode with him.

She had the radiance of the elven about her, the darkness within hidden by a dress of fairy material that could have been spun from moon beams.

Bringing her horse to a lightly prancing halt, she turned toward the man, her laugh as relaxing as the sea whispering over beach shingle, her smile as bright as a brook's fresh waters glittering in the sun. Seeing her stop, the man brought his own mount up, such that it reared impatiently, wheeled around excitedly, and only fully obeyed its master once it had calmed enough for him to draw close to the girl.

Leaning over in her saddle, the girl caressed the man's cheek, lightly kissed him upon his lips.

'We've had such a wonderful time, don't you think?' she whispered seductively to the man as she pulled back and the man reluctantly followed suit.

There were many tales of how elven women abducted unwary, besotted men. They vanished, it seemed, into thin air, for nothing was seen or heard of such men ever again.

'But, it troubles me; even the very best of times must one day come to an end!' the elven girl said to the man, whose face contorted in anger as the meaning of the words sank in.

'But I've given up–'

He said no more.

For he began to fluidly change, in the blink of an eye transforming into one of the great, black dogs that formed the hunters' pack.

Unbalanced in the saddle of his luminous mount, he leapt down to the ground. He turned about, briefly bounded up into the air, and excitedly ran off through the undergrowth to join the others.

The elven girl was every bit as thrilled as the dog who had just rushed off

She laughed joyfully, mischievously.

She made to spur her mount into continuing the chase; but then she held back, brought her horse around a little so that rider and mount were now directly facing Beith's hiding place.

With eyes narrowed beneath a lightly furrowed brow, the girl peered intently into the darkness.

Beith trembled in her fear that the elven girl couldn't fail to see her, seated underneath the elder tree.

She stared back into the girl's probing eyes.

And she saw there an event from the past: the girl's past; and Beith's past.

*

He wore, as usual, armour of purest, ever sparkling gold.

How could Beith fail to recognise such a wonderful sight?

His luminosity was such that it spread entirely over his mount, the whole effect one of a wonderful radiance, bringing light to what could have been a dark forest.

He made this ride daily; but today wasn't just any old day.

How could Beith be sure?

Why, because she could date this day ever so accurately just by noting which plants were blooming, which trees were in leaf, or bearing berries or blossom.

It was a very _very_ special day.

It was the day when he was due to leave her for a while; not that they wished to part, of course – but they had no choice in this particular mater.

Duty called.

They each had their responsibilities, after all.

Accepting their roles, they decided instead to meet up before their enforced parting; to swear their love for each other, to each assure the other that their love would always be true, they would always remain faithful.

Neither would forsake the other.

And so here he was once again, on his way to meet her.

Yet that had all happened so long ago, hadn't it?

It couldn't be happening again.

It could only be a vision; a memory, momentarily brought back to life.

'Still glows the bright sunshine o'er valley and mountain,

Still warbles the blackbird its note from the tree'

Yes, yes; she remembered _his_ song too, of course!

Although here _he_ wasn't the one who was singing.

It was a girl's voice; a voice as seductive as a brook's waters trickily gaily over a pebbled bed.

*

The delightful singing came from behind the bushes, deep within the wickerwork of massed trees.

Dismounting, the rider made his way through the encircling elders to see for himself who could be singing so entrancingly.

She was knelt by a bubbling spring, washing her face, her slender arms, in its cooling, fresh waters.

She seemed surprised when she heard him enter the dell, whirling about as if disturbed in mid-thought.

It was the elven girl, Beith saw; but he, of course, didn't see that she was eleven.

He saw only the most beautiful of girls.

'Oh, I–'

She stopped mid-sentence, as if abruptly entranced by his beauty.

She acted now as if flustered, rising to her feet, pretending to nervously adjust her sparkling dress, her tumbling hair.

'Please, don't trouble yourself...' he began to ashamedly apologise for his rude intrusion.

She interrupted his apology, her smile as relaxing as the whispering of waves over beach shingle.

'Oh there's no _trouble_ ,' she assured him pleasantly enough, 'absolutely no _trouble_ at all...'

*

# Chapter 14

'Kissing and courting and gently sporting'

He had promised her so much, when they were kissing and courting.

Yet now, she saw, his promise had meant nothing; for he had gone off merrily sporting with another.

Her visions of what might have been crumbled, vanished.

Beith was staring once more into the eyes of the Elven King's daughter; for yes, she saw now who she was.

Fortunately, the elven princess saw nothing but the shadows of an old elder.

The Elder Woman must have disguised her well, Beith realised thankfully.

Wondering now what she had believed she might see amongst the elders, the princess wheeled her mount about, spurred her into action, galloped at full tilt through the undergrowth to catch up with the rest of the hunt.

She left Beith with an explanation for the deepness of her sorrow.

The Elder Woman had been wrong in one respect.

She now had _all_ the answers she needed.

*

Taking up her rod of hazel, Beith dejectedly stepped out from beneath the sheltering elder.

Not caring if anyone from the hunt was still around, she set off walking through the dark woodland. Even when she heard the snort of a horse, the rattling of disturbed branches, she refused to slow her pace.

If she were to become a target of the hunt, so be it. Of what use was her life now?

Even through the dense covering of interweaving branches and their covering of leaves, she could see now the luminosity of the waiting hunter.

Still she continued on her way.

Let him hunt her down!

She was a fool!

Far too trusting!

The horse whinnied, hearing Beith's approach, tilting its head to look her way.

But there was no rider.

This was the abandoned horse of the poor man who had become yet one more dog in the elven pack.

*

The horse unerringly raced through the woodland, uncannily aware of obstacles where anyone else would see only dark shadows.

Her radiance spilled out over everything she came across, bathing it all in a silvery, milky light.

Shinning so unbelievably brightly, Beith realised that she still might yet be seen by the hunt: but besides no longer caring about such things, she believed now that she could easily outrace them all.

Looking as far ahead as she were able through the darkness, she saw they were heading directly for what could have been a thick, solid fence of trees. How could they possibly avoid such a barrier, when it appeared to her to run unbroken for miles in each direction?

The horse continued her headlong rush towards the thick line of trees as if, remarkably, she had completely failed to spot it.

Just as Beith feared they were going to violently collide with the fencing of trees, she glimpsed within the reflection of their own light an opening, a trunk of one of the trees splitting like some vertically positioned mouth with lips, the interior revealed fluidly red as it bathed in the oncoming glow of rider and mount.

They plunged into the eagerly welcoming opening, slipping easily into what proved to be a deep hollow.

It was in here that Beith once again came across the old crone.

*

'I'm not just _any_ old crone, you know!'

The old woman was obviously affronted, even when Beith profusely apologised for calling out to her.

'And I'm not this _Ruis_ , or whoever it is you _thought_ I was!' the crone fumed. ' _I'm_ Ioho!'

In the glow Beith presumed was emanating from the fairy horse she had dismounted, she saw that this woman was indeed different to the Elder Woman, for there were tones of gold, orange and purple within her ancient, withered skin

The crone unexpectedly reached out, taking Beith by surprise as she took a tight hold of the poor girl's face around an eye socket, using a thumb to painfully force an eye lid higher, baring the glistening pupil.

'Are you ill?' the crone demanded rudely, intently observing the naked eye as a surgeon might check for an ailment.

'Not that I know of–'

' _Liar_! I can _always_ detect the effect of a _poison_!'

'A _poison_!' Beith gasped, shocked by the totally ridiculous nature of such a claim.

'Yes; I'm an expert on such matters, so don't go denying it! It's obvious to most, I would suspect, that you're suffering the effects of the very worst poison of all!'

'Then surely I should be _dead_!' Beith scoffed.

'Oh, and aren't you already dead?' the crone sneered back in retaliation. 'Can you honestly tell me that you don't feel completely dead _inside_?'

'Well...yes! _Inside_! But that's not the effect of any _poison_ but...well, if you _must_ know; _love_! It's the downsides of _love_!'

'Ah, see? Didn't I tell you!' the crone yelled triumphantly. 'I could see the signs, right enough; so melancholy! And yet, otherwise, not a single blemish – let alone any inflammation, or _wound_! – on your obvious beauty!

'Love's hardly a _poison_!' Beith forthrightly declared. 'Just the opposite, in fact; it makes you feel like you're the happiest, most wonderful person in the whole world!'

'Yes, yes!' the crone agreed. 'Until it is _withdrawn_ ; and then it is the most powerful poison! For the _lower_ the dosage, why, the _greater_ the effect on the victim!'

'Well, yes: but that is because the love is _lost_!' Beith continued to now more uncertainly protest.

'So? If you hadn't been affected by this poison of love in the first place, then you could hardly have lost it, could you now?'

'Well, I suppose not, but surely–'

'Surely what? Do you now seek to make some excuse for your stupidity? Love, like poison from my yews, destroys the vital functions, act upon the nerves, and usually without any immediately noticeable affects upon the body!'

'Hah!' Beith exclaimed exultantly, at last seeing a chink in the armour of the crone's argument. 'Whereas if I could somehow _replenish_ the love I've lost, why, _then_ I would be instantaneously _cured_!'

The crone grimaced sourly, eyed Beith with sly curiosity.

'This love, then; _where_ is he?'

Beith paused, sensing that here lay the weak link in her own defence.

'I...don't know,' she answered, wondering as she said it if it were half a truth or half a lie.

'Is he...is he in _this_ realm, do you think?' the crone asked, her demeanour abruptly changed, as if she now saw a reason to treat Beith more sympathetically.

'I wouldn't think so; which realm _is_ this?'

'Pah! You've no idea which realm this is, and yet you say he wouldn't be here? What nonsense is this?'

'It's not nonsense at all: I honestly don't know if he's here! That's the honest truth!'

'There's _no_ other type of truth, dearie! But...I can help you determine if he lies within this realm or not – if it would be of help to you?'

'You'd help me?'

'You're surprised?'

'Well, it's just that...well, you didn't seem particularly, you know–'

'Helpful? Is _that_ what you're trying to say?'

Beith nodded ashamedly, worriedly, anxious that the woman might now withdraw her unexpected offer of help.

'Ah well; at least you've been honest about that, eh, girlie?'

Beith nodded again, more embarrassed than ever.

The crone also nodded, but in satisfaction that she now seemed to indisputably have the upper hand in their conversation.

'You have the key?' she asked.

'Key?' Beith repeated bemusedly.

'The key to the realms! Come, girlie; don't deny _this_ to me! I _know_ you have it! How else would such as you have arrived here so easily without it?'

'Oh! _That_ key! I'd forgott–'

'Yes, _that_ key! What _other_ key would I be talking about, do you think?'

With a wave of a hand, the crone dismissed Beith's attempts to retrieve the key from her pocket.

' _I_ don't need it, girlie! It's not that sort of a key, is it, that opens up man's foolish locks!'

This time as she talked she leant aside to break off three long shoots from the yew trees surrounding them.

'But if _you_ didn't have it,' she admitted, now inscribing names upon the yew wands, 'this trick would be so much hard to perfor–'

'Trick?' Beith said suspiciously.

'Oh, all right; if it makes you feel better, let's call it a _charm_ , shall we?'

'But charms are dangero–'

Ignoring her, the crone threw the wands high up into the air, calling upon them to aid Beith.

'BriLeith, Midir, Eochy: bring light to this girl on her darkest day!'

*

Falling slowly through the air, the wands crackled, burst briefly into flame at all their ends; and then, as the fire died, each end curled up into two new growths, as if it had rooted there in the dark air.

The new shoots arched up, forming great hoops as they at last bowed under their own unsustainable weight; and then each end rooted in the magical soil of the darkness, shooting up yet again into two further growths.

And so it went on, increasingly uncountable waves flowing off seemingly endlessly into the darkness.

'What's happening? Where are they all going?' Beith asked curiously.

'No one knows better than the yew whose nourishment they feed upon!'

'Nouri– you...you mean they grow on _graves_!' Beith stammered in disgust and horror. 'He's not dead! He...he just _left_ me, that's all!'

'Most girls, I think,' the crone replied bluntly, 'would prefer a man to be dead rather than have him leave them!'

The rolling waves of yew shoots that had sprung from one of the wands were now quickly returning, flowing back, dragging up their own roots from the dark air, leaving nothing in their place.

Back in its original form, the wand spun horizontally in the air.

The crone frowned in disappointment.

'Nothing there, it seems,' she spat gloomily.

Beith grinned happily.

The waves of a second wand flowed back towards and into their originator, the yew shoot again hovering in a horizontal spin as it returned to its true state.

'Nothing!' the crone pronounced miserably.

'Just the one now!' Beith declared joyfully, hopeful that this last one, too, would return with no news of her love's death.

' _One_?' The crone was shocked by Beith's naivety. 'But there are _innumerable_ possibilities, dearie!'

The last of the hooping shoots were now retracting, merging back into the third and final wand.

This shoot whirled in the air on its end, vertically.

'Success!' the crone cried out ecstatically.

*

'Quick, quick; take hold of the wand, dearie!' the crone cackled excitedly, reaching over towards Beith, almost over-eagerly grabbing the girl by her arm to drag her closer towards the floating yew shoot.

Beith held back, clutching on instead all the tighter to the shoot of hazel she already held in her other hand, as if this might be a source of reassurance that all this was a dreadful mistake.

'But he can't be dead, he...'

She sensed the vibrations of the hazel stick in her arm, her chest – her heart.

The wide-eyed crone stared at her expectantly, impatiently, urging her to step forward, to grip the now violently quivering wand.

Close to weeping, Beith forced herself to reach out, to grasp the hovering yew wand.

Her hand touched the shoot, took hold of it tightly: and immediately, the shoot was grounding itself in the black air once more, again and again, this time just taking the one, single course, this time rapidly taking Beith on its journey through the darkness.

*

Beith's careering journey through the darkness, following hoop after rising hoop, came to a shuddering halt on top of a large mound topped with a number of yew trees.

She was somehow now seated, dazed and almost delirious, upon the ground, grasping the shoot of one of the trees in one hand, the hazel rod in her other.

Standing up, she took in her new surroundings.

She immediately recognised – through the uniformity of its structure, compared to a natural hillock – what type of mound this was.

A burial mound.

And weren't the yew strewn across such mounds said to draw their nourishment from those interred below?

The hazel wand vigorously vibrated in her hand; it had found that which she had lost.

In disgust and dismay, a miserable Beith threw away the hazel divining stick.

*

# Chapter 15

'Oh, my innocent heart you've betrayed'

'Oww!'

As Beith spitefully threw away her divining rod, she felt an abrupt, pained sting in her finger tip, as if she had caught a splinter there.

She glanced worriedly at her injured finger; of course, it wasn't a fresh splinter.

It was the one she'd borne all along, right from the day when she had first come across the spinning wheel.

As she had thrown the hazel wand away, it must have caught the end of the splinter, causing the sudden jolt of pain, reminding Beith it still lay embedded there.

Another thing the rod had rediscovered for her; the sharp agony of the splinter.

The rod had caught it, she saw, because a part of it was now slightly protruding from her skin.

Perhaps now, then, she could at least make another attempt at withdrawing it?

She sucked hard on her finger, hoping to draw it out.

She felt something small, like a seed, plop onto the tongue of her mouth.

She almost swallowed it, startled by the shrieking crack of what could have been a large cartwheel, shattering along a number of its spokes as it at last gave way under a far too heavy burden.

She spat the splinter out, and took another look at her fingertip; yes, it had gone!

She had withdrawn the painful splinter that had plagued her for so long.

But...what was it that she had heard breaking so agonisingly?

She looked about her, across the mound.

Another tree grew incredibly tall amongst the more relatively stunted yew: a fir tree.

And at the base of this fir, Beith saw the remains of the cartwheel she had heard shattering.

What was it doing here?

Why would anyone place a cartwheel on top of a burial mound?

And what had caused it to crack into pieces just now?

Besides wasn't it rather too small to be a cart wheel?

She stepped a little closer, seeing now other parts of its original structure.

A mother-of-all

Two maidens

A spindle.

It had been a spinning wheel, then, not a wheel for a cart.

And as it had used a spindle – which only the most ancient of spinning wheels required – it could even have been the one she had come across earlier, if it wasn't for the fact that this one lay uncountable miles away.

Indeed, the miles were truly uncountable.

For Beith, of course, no longer had any idea where she was.

She glanced forlornly about herself, hoping to see some sign within the surrounding landscape she might recognise.

She recognised none of it.

She was lost.

The hazel rod had helped her find her lost love; but now she was the one who was hopelessly lost.

*

Beith looked once more towards the fir tree.

It rose majestically high, the burial mound only adding to that incredible striving for height.

That's why they were often planted on burial mounds, of course; to help the spirit of the deceased warrior soar up into the heavens.

And if Beith could climb even part way up it...why, _then_ she might be able to see _something_ about this alien landscape that she recognised.

Firs were also used to mark the points where trackways crossed. So she might, at the very least, be able to spot an area of the road that could point her in a number of directions.

She stepped closer towards the broken wheel, wondering if there were parts of it she could prop against the fir's trunk to give her her first step up into the branches. The various pieces lay amongst a scattering of violets that glowed like spilled blood at the tree's base.

Looking at the wheel's pieces close up, she felt sure that it could only be the spinning wheel she had come across earlier.

Did that mean she wasn't as far away from home as she had first feared?

This time she was careful to avoid catching a splinter as she picked up one of the larger part of the wheel's supporting structure, as this was the most obviously step-like piece. She sized up the piece in her hand, trying to work out the best position for it against the fir's trunk.

'I hope you're not thinking of putting _that_ thing up against my foot!' the tree grumbled.

Beith was shocked.

'Why?' she retorted dismissively. 'What harm could something as small as this do to someone as tall and mighty as you?'

'It's made of the spindle tree: why, haven't you heard how a spike of its wood in the flesh stops the spirit rising? Some malign charm is already at work about me, as I've had no cause yet to lift anyone into the heavens!'

'Then is there some way you could lift me up, please?' Beith pleaded. 'I only need to go so far; so that I can look out over the land, and work out where I am!'

'But aren't you already here within my branches?' the tree replied mysteriously.

'Of course not,' Beith replied bemusedly. 'How can I be both within your branches, yet also here at your foot?'

'I must admit, I usually pay so little attention to the people rushing ever so impatiently about me that I have little idea of what you're capable of. Just as your lives, I suppose, are too short to see how patiently the forests move slowly across the land.'

Beith had heard how the fir forests did indeed seem to gradually walk across the landscape when you measured their progress in thousands of years. Their own cones failed to take root beneath their dark canopies; and so they rooted somewhere out beyond the spread of the branches, seeking the sunlight.

'Then again...something has just dawned on me,' the fir said. 'In my time, I have heard many tales; and I may have one that explains how you come to be both here within my branches while also being here at my foot!'

*

'A goddess was once dismayed to find that – as far as she could tell – her lover had been unfaithful to her. As punishment, she drove him so mad that it drove him to sorely injure himself; and, at last heartbroken by what she had caused to happen, she changed his body into an evergreen pine. A wickerwork image of the man was formed from its branches and, tied to a log, it was ceremoniously burned – and in three days, the man arose to a new life!'

As if ending his tale with an elaborate flourish replicating the parting of theatre curtains, he drew apart a great many of his branches in a rippling series of moves. Despite this, he made no effort to explain why he thought his tale clarified his reasons for believing that Beith was both at the foot of his tree and yet also hidden somewhere within his branches.

Beith waited, wondering if he had simply paused for breath.

As if to break the silence, the fir said, 'I'm Ailm, by the way.'

'I'm Beith, and I'm pleased to meet you, Ailm,' a confused Beith replied. 'But...what _does_ this tale have to do with _me_?'

'Why, everything of course!' the fir exclaimed, as if surprised that she hadn't already realised this. 'If you'd only care to look _up_ ,' he added, ' _then_ you might begin to understand.'

With a further swishing motion of his needle-clad stems, he drew Beith's attention to the tunnel he had created leading upwards through his innumerable branches.

She peered up into the darkness, seeing nothing there that seemed unusual or of interest to her. Even the glow that seemed to have continued emanating from her ever since her ride upon the fairy horse failed to completely penetrate the deepest parts of the gloom presented to her.

She frowned in bemusement.

'Can't you see?' the fir asked, dismayed it seemed by her incompetence, her incomprehension.

See what? It's just...well, lots and lots of your branches!'

'But...but, can't you honestly see?' the flustered fir gasped. 'I mean, look; look hard! For that's where _you_ are: right amongst my stems!'

*

Beith once again peered intently into the darkness of the massed, interlocking stems.

Then, at last, she began to make something out that was _slightly_ different to all the interweaving branches.

A wickerwork figure.

A figure wearing a green dress made of ribbons of ivy.

*

'Why one earth would anyone put such a figure right up there?' Beith wondered out loud.

'Well, of course,' the fir replied, 'that's _precisely_ what _I've_ been asking myself, too! Why else do you think I've allowed myself to get into this rushed conversation with you? _Obviously_ , you're someone _special_!'

'Special? _Me_?'

'Well, originally I thought it _was_ you, of course: but _now_ I see that it's a replica and an extremely good one too!'

Beith once again tried to get a better look at the wickerwork figurine, but it was too dark amongst the branches for her to see it clearly. Even so, it appeared quite crude to her.

'To be honest,' she said politely, 'if you hadn't said it _was_ me, I'd never have seen any likeness there myself. Did you see who left it here?'

'Of course not! You all move so _foolishly_ quickly, don't you see? Whoever it was, they will have been and gone in an instant!' the fir explained in exasperation, adding more circumspectly, 'Times change, they say, don't they? And at the moment – which, I sense, is an unusually _long_ one – I'm not sure if it's changed for the better or the worse.'

Not quite sure what the fir tree could mean by this, and thinking that he could only be confusedly rambling, Beith returned their conversation to the figurine.

'But if it's a replica of me, then weren't you scared that someone intended to burn you along with it? As in your tale?'

'Well, I thought it _was_ you, of course; not a figurine! Though naturally, I _did_ wonder how you managed to sit so _patiently_ amongst my branches!'

'But as it _is_ a figurine like the one in your tale – then why _didn't_ they burn it?'

'No, no; you still don't _fully_ understand, do you? No one was going to _burn_ it, I'm _sure_!'

'But your tale...'Beith said confusedly.

'Well, yes; the _tale_ , you see, showed how a wickerwork of fir could represent the boy – and as we see so many times, your people and the fairies had to go and take a _good_ thing and _ruin_ it, didn't they?'

'I'm _still_ not sure I understand...'

'Haven't you heard the stories? There really are plenty of instances of the fairies in particular using these replicas to their own ends! Why, not far from here, and not at all so long ago, a farmer thankfully overheard them as they gathered within a broom grove and plotted the kidnapping of his wife! The farmer startled them, and they fled; leaving behind the wickerwork replica of his wife they had planned to leave in her place!'

'Surely he would have noticed if they'd left that in her stead!' Beith scoffed. 'But...are you saying someone must have been plotting to kidnap me?'

'I'm not _suggesting_ such a thing at all! For to all intents and purposes, as I've explained now a _number_ of times, I believed it really _was_ you: which – if you had heard the tales I speak of – you would know means that the kidnap was successful! For the poor people robbed of their loved one accept these replicas as the genuine article!'

'How can that be?' Beith asked sceptically. 'It's a _wickerwork_ figure; _anyone_ can see that!'

'Ah _but_...what if that wickerwork figure– this _replica_ of you – was given life by your _spirit_ , now?'

'If it had my spirit, why, then I wouldn't be here talking to you now, would I?

'Wouldn't you?'

'Well, I mean; wouldn't I know if I'd lost my spir – well, no, I suppose I _wouldn't_ realise it, would I? Because I'd be _dead_!'

'Or, perhaps, you'd simply _find_ yourself in the _land_ of the dead?'

'I'd know, surely, if I were in the land of the dead!'

'Would you? How?' he asked this as if intrigued, as if he hoped Beith had an illuminating answer.

'Well...there's got to be a big difference, hasn't there? Between the land of the living and the dead?'

'I thought you were saying _you're_ the expert on such matters?'

'It's the difference between good and bad, light and dark! It would _have_ to be _obvious_!'

'If you say so...' the fir said doubtfully.

'So...' Beith, flustered by her inability to win this discussion, wanted to change its course slightly, 'how, do you think, should I go about trying to find those who wanted to kidnap me?'

'Why, the _tale_ , of course!' the fir sighed, as if it were all so self-explanatory.

Beith thought back to the tale he had told, seeking the words he seemed to think offered a clue to her would-be abductors.

She couldn't think of anything pointing to the probable culprits.

'Go on then,' she sighed resignedly. ' _Please_ tell me what I've missed!'

'The _broom_ , of course: the farmer heard them whispering in a _broom_ tree!'

*

# Chapter 16

'Soon you will meet with another pretty maiden'

Away from and to one side of the sore abscess of the burial mound, there was a plain of an orangey-yellow gorse; and in its midst, there was a flame of brightest yellow – a gloriously flowering broom.

'There?' Beith asked the fir. 'That's where they are?'

'What better place to start looking?' the fir observed with a shrug of its lower branches. 'Do you know of any better place?'

Beith shrugged resignedly.

'I suppose not,' she admitted.

She had made her choice.

She had seen the path she must take.

With a quick exchange of goodbyes with the fir, she stepped down off the mound, directly heading out through the painfully prickly gorse, intending to confront this sun-like broom no matter how crazy she might appear to anyone watching.

And as she carved her track through the gorse, she sang, sang the song that had always made such a deep impression upon her:

'Still trembles the moonbeam on streamlet and fountain,

But what are the beauties of nature to me?'

Sensing her deep sorrow, the gorse whispered to her as the sweeping hem of her dress gently caressed their tiny blooms.

'They hide amongst me, you know? Those who mean you harm; they _are_ here!'

*

'Who _are_ they? _Why_ do they mean me harm?' Beith whispered back to the gorse.

'Who _are_ they? You don't know?'

'No; why would they hide here, amongst your prickles? What have they got against me?'

'Amongst my prickles they feel safe because no one will come searching for them here! Fairies, witches – they're all here!'

Now that she thought about it, Beith recalled hearing how fairies would come out of the golden gorse to head to the fairs, where the coins they bought things with would later turn back into acorns or leaves, once a charm had worn off.

'Then...perhaps I should leave, _now_!' Beith replied fearfully, coming to an abrupt halt in her tracks.

'Nonsense!' the gorse admonished her. 'The framers round about here know how to rid themselves of such a pestilence; they set fire to me!'

'What? But that's _awful_! Why should _you_ suffer for the misdemeanours of witches and fairies?'

'Oh, I soon recover,' the gorse said dismissively. 'It saves me, too, from spreading out too widely, too thinly. I quite like seeing the other glories of nature arranged about me, to be honest; don't you?'

'Why, yes, I...' Beith replied absently, still worriedly pondering this problem of the witches hiding amongst the gorse. 'I do think I should turn about and–'

'And let them win, you mean? Let them scare you away?'

'But what else can I do?'

'Why, do what the farmers do – set fire to me!'

*

'I can't do _that_!' Beith exclaimed, shocked by the gorse's shocking offer to allow herself to be sorely harmed. 'I can't set _fire_ to you!'

'Haven't I already explained? I can be wounded, but I heal! My regeneration is assured; I have no fear of such a thing as fire!'

'No, I'm sorry; I _can't_ do it!' Beith declared proudly. 'I have no right to take your life simply to better mine! I _shall_ turn around; and look _elsewhere_ for those who wish to harm me!'

'So...you would look where you know they _aren't_ hiding?'

They both paused, as Beith considered this.

'That _would_ be ridiculous, wouldn't it?' Beith said a touch ashamedly, only to abruptly add, with a hint of triumph, 'Then again, this is all _so_ academic, isn't it – for I have _nothing_ to set you _alight_ with anyway!'

*

The gorse chuckled.

'There stands you, so incredibly bright, and you say you have _nothing_ to set me aflame with?'

Looking everywhere about her, Beith was startled to see that everything was indeed bathed in a silvery glow emanating from where she was standing.

The fairy horse; it had obviously left its own brightness upon her.

What other explanation could there be?

Even so, she couldn't understand how her bright glow could set the gorse afire.

'It seems a particularly _safe_ glow to me,' she pointed out to the gorse. 'Not like the sun's _flames_ at all!'

'I can _take_ that glow,' the gorse whispered conspiratorially, 'and I can take on the _appearance_ of being aflame!'

Within the wide area illuminated by Beith's mercurial glow, the colours of the gorse began to become richer, brighter, the yellow tones turning to a glorious orange, the hints of orange becoming a blazing red.

The prickle-covered stems crackled and snapped, as if they were indeed now afire.

A hare leapt up from amongst the loudly cracking stems, hurriedly bounding off across the brightly shining blooms. It was followed by another hare, and then another, until hares throughout the field were rapidly fleeing the gorse covering as if they feared for their lives.

No witches or fairies at all then, thought Beith; just some poor innocent creatures unnecessarily scared out of their wits.

The blooms of the broom glowed now as if the tree had been carelessly decorated with the brightest, dearest candles of honey wax. Its leaves shone too in their sparkling radiance, crackling like the gorse as if truly on fire.

Deep amongst those quivering leaves, Beith thought she glimpsed a silvery thread, swiftly winding its way up the tree's narrow trunk.

A serpent, fleeing what it thought was a blaze by heading upwards, where it would surely die.

Yet as it reached higher and higher, it didn't slow its ascent, even as the uppermost branches became thinner, weaker.

Then, just as it seemed the serpent must fall along with a breaking stem and perish as it fell to the ground, it sprouted a pair of leathery wings.

And with a sudden, hard flap of these wings, it launched itself towards Beith, hissing with hatred.

*

Instinctively raising her hands to protect her face from the oncoming serpent, Beith expected to be fighting for her life at any moment – yet it was a moment that seemed to stretch on and on, and still there had been no hard strike against her shielding hands.

From behind her hands, there came an amused, girlish giggle.

Warily lowering her hands, Beith found herself facing a beautiful girl.

It was the elven princess.

*

'I never realised how _easy_ it would be to _scare_ you!' the princess laughed delightedly.

She ran a hand tenderly through the blazing blooms of the gorse.

'But as for you, Onn,' she said chidingly to the gorse, 'I'm _far_ from being amused by your betrayal!'

Without a care for the harshness of the gorse's thorns, she angrily and effortlessly ripped away a huge portion of branches and flowers, contemptuously throwing it aside as if it were the most disgusting waste.

'Onn means "ash",' the princess coolly declared to Beith, 'and unlike _you_ , _I'm_ going to burn her and turn this _whole_ area into a grove of ash!'

'You took him: I saw you take him!' Beith furiously spat at the princess.

'Took him? Don't you mean he _took_ me?' the princess casually replied.

Taking in the princess's incredible beauty, Beith sadly realised that this was probably all too true.

Seeing the dismay in Beith's face, the princess struck all the harder.

'Like Onn, here,' she said, 'I'm such a glorious beauty from afar; but get me close, and I'm prickly and _ever_ so hard to tame.'

*

# Chapter 17

'Some pretty maiden, you'll court her for a while'

'What's that clichéd old saying?' the elven princess said to Beith, feigning puzzlement with a suitable frown. '"You've led me a merry dance"? But this was hardly _very_ merry, I suppose. And hardly a dance. Oh, and _I_ was the one doing all the leading, too, wasn't I?'

'Then I've _no_ idea why you said it, to be honest,' Beith replied scathingly.

'It seemed strangely apt, I suppose; on account of the way we've been dancing about each other all this time, even though you've blissfully remained completely unaware of it.'

'What have I _ever_ done to you to deserve your hatred?'

'Hatred? I don't _hate_ you! And even if I _did_ , could you please tell me what it is you think I've done to you to make you _think_ I hate you?'

'Well, you...'

Once again, she was about to accuse the princess of taking him away from her.

But how much was that down to _him_ rather than _her_?

'Me? Don't put the blame all on _me_ , my dear,' the princess retorted, as if fully aware of Beith's own thinking, only to add at the end, with a wave of a hand indicating that Beith should turn around, 'Blame _them_!'

Beith spun about on her heels. Behind her, four of the hares that had fled the gorse earlier had gathered together once more, each one safely seated in a clump of glistening purple heather, and all blankly staring up at her as one. She returned their vacant stares with a perplexed smile.

How could these poor things be held responsible for _anything_?

With an abrupt shiver, the growths of heather began to shoot upwards, lifting up the hares with them; and as the shape of the hares shifted, pouring back down to the ground like dark waterfalls, the heather became sweeping brooms, the cascading water black-garbed witches.

'Digde, Milucra, Biróg, and Bua,' the princess breezily intoned, as if making formal introductions at a palace ball, 'or the Storm Hags, or Cailleachan, as some prefer to call them.'

Naturally, Beith worried what these hags might do to her; and so she sighed with relief when, rather than casting some evil charm upon her, they began instead to hurriedly sweep the area about them with their brooms of heather. Upon their backs, they bore great sacks of branches, as if they had been out collecting firewood like any old ladies of the forest.

'The return of the bright sun can turn them to stone; and yet they made sure the first day of February was unusually bright for that time of year,' the princess said as the hags continued to assiduously get on with their cleaning.

'That doesn't make any sense at all!' Beith scoffed, although she marvelled now at the speed of the hags sweeping.

She wasn't to know, of course, that heather brooms are used to prepare an area where magic is about to be performed.

'Ah, but they wanted time to collect as much firewood as possible,' the princess continued, as if Beith hadn't interrupted her at all, 'for they wished to make sure winter lasted a _good_ while longer,'

The brushes of the hags were now a blur, sweeping up the wind itself into whirling gusts.

'Forgive me, please,' wailed the heather tips of the brooms, as their minute violet petals began to swirl up into the miniature storms being created by the hags, 'for they are using us to enchant you!'

*

Beith broke into a run, thought she was even getting away; but then the whirlwind of purple petals suddenly caught her up, and fully enveloped her.

She choked, fighting for air, as if caught in the very worst sandstorm.

She couldn't help but breathe in the petals.

'I'm Ura,' the heather sighed miserably as Beith deeply breathed it in, 'and we are both being abused for unnatural purposes!'

'What will happen? What do they intend for me?' Beith anxiously asked the heather, though she needed no voice or mouth to ask it.

'Your death, I think!'

*

Within the field of heather, there was a fairy ring.

And within the fairy ring, the princess happily sported with a lover.

And another lover.

And another.

Another and another.

So _many_ lovers.

Why _did_ she need _so_ many lovers?

The princess turned to face the disgusted Beith.

'What right have you to judge me?' she asked, not irritably but with a mischievous grin.

'Doesn't a woman only require one _true_ love?'

'Not if she has a _bargain_ to fulfil!'

'It's all for a _bargain_?' Beith exclaimed in horror.

'I pay a tithe, if you must know. But why should I waste time explaining such things, when you are here to spare me my exhaustion and take my place for a while?'

And before Beith knew what was happening, _she_ was the one within the circle, and the princess was the one observing, laughing at the irony of it all.

For Beith wasn't allowed to resist; she suffered unbridled passion, as if drugged, as if bewitched.

She was now the one taking on all these lovers.

Taking their lives.

For as they gave her their love, they also gave her their spirit.

And the tithe that was paid was to Hell.

Her own spirit waned, sucked dry by all this wasted, abused emotion.

That was what the princess wanted, Beith realised; she wanted Beith's spirit every bit as much as she had sought and stolen the spirits of all her lovers.

So be it, Beith sighed.

She _wanted_ to die.

*

# Chapter 18

'Thus ever ranging Turning and changing'

Beith woke up amongst the purple heater.

Here am I?

Oh, yes – of course.

She recalled, now, her experience of – well, whenever it was! A moment ago? A few hours?

Was this why those abducted by the fairies were said to wake up, dazed, amongst the heather?

Then again, she had expected to _die_ here; not to merely fall asleep and wake up a touch delirious.

She was startled as something hard fell against her chest.

She reached for it, sat up a little to take a look.

A piece of amber.

More startling still, it wasn't the only one spread across her chest, or littered on the floor about her amongst the heather.

There were a great number of them, all curiously shaped like tear drops.

'You're _alive_!'

'Thank goodness!'

'If only we'd been able to do the same for our dear brother!'

The amber tears were falling from three poplar tree rising high above her.

'You've been like this for three days!' one of the trees said to her, apparently trembling with excitement, or perhaps nervousness.

In fact, all three trees were quivering, as if overcome with emotion.

'We have heard from afar,' another tree said, as Beith more fully sat up amongst the heather, 'through our leaves, of your dreadful experiences!'

The tree shuddered at the thought.

'It reminded us so of our poor, dear, _dead_ brother!' the third tree explained, quaking uncontrollably as she recalled the events that had led to his death.

'I'm sorry to hear of your brother,' Beith said, rising to her feet and looking up into the three trembling trees. 'What happened to him?'

'He took our father's chariot!'

'But the mighty stallions sensed the unfamiliarity of his guidance!'

'They _refused_ to be guided!'

'They dragged the reins from his grasp...'

'...And careered out of control!'

'They moved so fast, they scorched forests into deserts!'

'Melted the snow on the mountains!'

'And so the gods, to avert any more damage...'

'...Struck out at the now burning chariot...'

'...Shattering it into a million shards!'

'We, the Eadha, found our poor brother lying here...'

'...Where you lay now.'

'We wept such inconsolable tears for him, too; but to no avail!'

'But now that _you_ have recovered, my dear...'

'...Why, perhaps we can renew our hope for our dear brother too!'

*

# Chapter 19

'Always seeking for a girl that is new'

Far outside of the glow still suffusing her, Beith could see that it seemed far darker than she recalled it being earlier.

Then again, had she ever really taken much notice of areas lying so far outside her own little world, which had always seemed so full of the most important things to her?

Now, however, she was seeking fresh answers; seeking the girl who could give her those answers.

Were the spirits that the princess had confined to Hell in anyway redeemable?

She would find out; she would find the princess!

*

Within the surrounding darkness, she saw the flickering glow of soaring flames, a dying sun that had fallen to earth.

It was a huge bonfire, the people gathered about it illuminated like cavorting red devils. They drank from goblets regularly dipped into a huge bowl, making merry; they poured their drinks, too, over the roots of a nearby apple tree; they banged rods and pans of metal together, creating a cacophony that would have scared away the devil himself!

They sang of the silver apples of the moon. The golden apples of the sun.

As the revellers at last spilled drunkenly away from the tree, Beith approached it.

'Did they harm you? Those drunkards, I mean?' Beith asked the tree worriedly.

The tree chuckled, but thanked her for her concern.

'They're protecting me from evil spirits; so that, in return, I produce a good crop for them in my own good time!'

Now she was beneath the tree, Beith could hear the most beautiful melody, sung by voices tinkling as delicately as small bells.

'With sorrow, deep sorrow, my bosom is laden,

All day I go mourning in search of my love.'

It wasn't anything like the raucous singing she had heard coming from the revellers.

'The singing; where is it coming from?' she asked, glancing everywhere about her curiously and seeing nothing that would serve as its source.

'Oh, you can _hear_ it?' the tree said in surprise.

'Why, yes; what is it?'

From the veiling darkness of his branches, the apple tree lowered a silver bough.

Despite this not being the time for it, it was covered in blossom, each small flower tinkling like a bell.

There was also a golden apple, glittering seductively.

'Yes, that's it!' a delighted Beith exclaimed. 'It _is_ singing, isn't it?'

And as the bells sang to her, she felt all her worries, all her cares – even her sorrow – thankfully dissolve.

*

'It's beautiful, quite wonderful!'

Beith was entranced by the silver bough.

'I _knew_ you would like it!' the apple tree trilled excitedly. 'Oh, it's so, _so_ wonderful to see my boughs used to aid rather than injure!'

'How could such a wonderful gift _ever_ cause injury?' a carefree Beith joyfully chuckled; indeed, her only care at the moment was that the apple tree should concern itself over something so ridiculously unlikely.

The apple tree dropped his voice to a whisper, as if fearful that he might otherwise be overheard.

'Even the finest gifts, when abused, can lead to injury!'

'Who would abuse such a truly _delightful_ thing?'

'Why, its _owner_ of course; the Queen of the Fae herself!'

*

'She's beautiful, of course; no man can resist her!' the apple declared brightly in his description of the Queen of the Fae. 'Yet, of course, many of these men have been taught from an early age to be wary of her entrancing beauty; and so she relies on her Silver Bough to erase all their worries, all their sorrows.'

There was something about the apple's account that, far from erasing all Beith's worried, began to stir them.

Didn't this Queen of the Fae and her many entranced lovers remind her of something?

She shook her head, as if to tell herself that she was being ridiculous, and needed to come to her senses; she knew of no one like this astonishingly beautiful Queen of the Fae!

'And your wondrously gorgeous golden apple,' she said to the tree, admiring once again the sheer perfection of the single apple hanging from the Silver Bough, 'did that have any part to play in the queen's seductions?'

'She promised her paramours eternal youth and beauty!' the tree said proudly. 'All they had to do was eat of my golden apples; yet she herself had to pick and hand over the apple, for if they tried to take it themselves, it would turn to ash!'

Ash?

Wasn't there something about ash that Beith was supposed to remember?

Something that had happened to her only recently; or was it something that had taken place a long, long time ago?

'You seem deep in thought,' the apple tree observed, noting that she had remained quiet now for quite a while.

'There's just something about your tale that strikes a chord...' she admitted absently.

What was that song the Silver bough's blossom had sung?

Wasn't it one that had always made a deep impression on her?

It reminded her of _him_.

It was _his_ song.

He had left her in _sorrow_.

So why didn't she feel sorrowful now?

*

'My account of the Queen of the Fae seems to have affected you far more than I could have expected,' the apple said worriedly, clearly noticing the transformation in Beith's demeanour.

The return of a frown to her face.

The way she narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, painfully, as she tried so hard to recall things she had forgotten.

Things she _shouldn't_ have forgotten.

No matter how much forgetting these things relived her of her sorrow.

'This queen of yours...' she said hesitantly. 'Is she called by others, perhaps... _princess_?'

'Why, yes, she goes by many names, of course! The people have all manner of terms for the fae, don't they; it is all such a _confusing_ world to them, after all!'

' _Elven_ ; is that another name that could be used to describe her?'

'She thinks it's such an _ugly_ word...'

*

He had been charmed.

_That's_ why he had left her!

'These lovers of your queen's,' Beith asked the tree, 'are they redeemable; from Hell, I mean?'

'Ah, so you're well aware of their fate, I see,' the tree sighed sadly. 'But please don't blame me! My powers are being abused by the queen!'

' _That's_ of no concern to me!' Beith retorted with a sharpness that took the tree by surprise. 'Can he be _saved_ ; that's what I need to know!'

' _He_? Then you are _searching_ for someone?'

Beith nodded sadly, for her sorrows had now completely returned to plague her.

An apple dropped by her feet.

'Take it,' the tree said kindly. 'Pierce it with twelve thorns of blackthorn, and throw it on the fire; it will help you make contact with his spirit.'

Beith gratefully picked up the proffered apple.

'Thank you...'

She realised she didn't know his name.

'Quert, I'm called Quert,' he said.

'Do you know where I might find a blackthorn?' Beith asked.

'I can't provide you with answers to _everything_ you need,' the tree sighed sorrowfully.

*

# Chapter 20

'Thus sung the maiden, her sorrows bewailing'

Beith's radiance spread out before as she walked on through the darkness.

It was a glow that, once she had got beyond the extremes of the ruddy light from the fire, was reflected back at her by the blossoms of a blackthorn hedge, lit up like a band of sparkling stars in the night sky.

The small trees were bushy and black, their fruits like tiny dark-blue damsons. Their long thorns rose up completely upright from the stems, sharp and threatening.

Beith knew that the witches used them as pins, to stick into their dolls.

She was careful as she reached inside the tangle of branches, careful too to ensure she wasn't harming the tree unnecessarily and without permission.

'I'm sorry,' she apologised, 'but I'm in desperate need of a handful of your thorns.'

'By my guest, my child,' the blackthorn replied sympathetically. 'But take care: the Devil himself uses them to prick his victims' fingers, and seal his deals in their own blood.'

When Beith had carefully helped herself to three of the thorns, the tree said:

'Ah, you want me to unburden you of your secrets?'

'No, no; not that,' Beith replied, as she delicately broke off another thorn.

'Pity,' the tree sighed. 'I am Straif, the "Increaser of Secrets"; I could relieve you of the pain secrets can cause.'

When Beith held seven picked thorns in her hand, Straif said;

'Ah, then your child has been abducted by the fairies? The child will be released if you–'

Straif went quiet again as Beith continued with her taking of the thorns.

When Beith had reached twelve, and had at last stopped her picking, Straif sighed:

'Oh dear, my child! Are you _sure_ this is what you want?'

*

The apple sizzled in the dying flames of the fire.

The pins of blackthorn hissed, the back smoke emanating from them drifting up from the reddened embers.

The handful of revellers who had remained drunkenly seated about the fire had been here only a moment ago; but now they had gone.

The veil between the worlds is not so much an entity as a condition: and so Beith no longer saw those things of one, but heard the elatedly harsh baying of the hounds of the other.

She had heard those hounds once before; their howling could never be mistaken for the barking hounds of any other kind of hunt.

So; she was to meet the elven princess – or should that be the Queen of the Fae? – once again.

*

It made sense, Beith realised.

Even to hear the hunt, some claimed, was a portent of an imminent death.

And the Master of the Hunt; why, didn't he raise the souls of those who had fallen in great battles?

As before, the hunt tore towards her with all the uncontrollable rage of a tumultuous storm.

The cold shadows of the great, pitch-black dogs of the pack rushed close by her, hundreds of them, hurtling past her.

Then came the riders, their massive mounts churning up the soil in the relentless thundering of hooves. Any bushes unfortunately lying in their path were carelessly if unintentionally shredded.

This time, though, the wraith-like glow of horse and rider seemed less intense against the darkness.

Yes, they glowed brighter than ever, and yet–

It was her own radiance that was causing this effect, Beith realised.

She couldn't hide away this time.

*

She didn't want to cower and hide anyway.

She needed to find him.

Could he be a part of this hunt? Was that why the charm had revealed it to her?

As the riders charged by her, she spun around to run along with them, dangerously weaving in and out of the hunters to get closer to their middle.

She needed to get a look at every one of them; to see if he was here, riding with them.

Of course, she couldn't hope to keep up with the charging horses. But she didn't need to, she didn't want to.

As they hurtled past and around her, it gave her a chance to closely study them, seeking any features she might recognise.

'You! What are _you_ doing here?'

It was a shriek of accusation, one Beith sensed was aimed at her.

She whirled around, looking back to where she thought the cry had emanated from.

It was the elven princess; and she looked far more furious than she had been at their last meeting.

*

The princess wheeled her horse around and around Beith, as if trying to create a circular wall preventing her from escaping.

'You'll spoil our hunt, you fool! Don't you realise how bad that is for _everyone_?'

'You know why I'm here!' Beith shot back irately. 'Where _is_ he? That's all I need to know!'

Their argument was indeed causing consternation amongst the other riders, many of whom had already slowed to see why the princess had brought her horse to a halt, when she had previously been riding almost in their very midst.

One of the riders rode up, demanding to know what was happening, and why the princess was causing everything to slow down

He was finely and elaborately dressed; the Master of the Hunt.

He saw Beith standing by his mounted daughter.

He looked at her angrily.

'What are _you_ doing here?' he furiously demanded.

*

'Your daughter has consigned my love to Hell!'

Beith showed no fear before the Master.

The princess laughed uproariously.

'What? Are you _mad_?'

The master glanced angrily between them both.

He saw the seriousness in Beith's stern frown.

He knew what his daughter was like.

'And if she _isn't_ mad?' he said to his daughter suspiciously.

'She _is_ mad!' the princess adamantly declared. 'I _didn't_ take him!'

'She's lying!' Beith furiously retorted. 'I _saw_ it within her own _eyes_!'

As she said it, Beith realised it was weak reason for the Master to disbelieve his daughter. Yet, strangely, he seemed to accept Beith's version of events unchallenged.

He glared at his daughter, his expression one of a king daring someone to continue lying to him.

'He couldn't be seduced!' the princess casually yet petulantly admitted.

'What?'

Beith was both surprised and gladdened by this news.

'Then _where_ is he?' she asked. 'Why is he _dead_?'

'He's _dead_?'

The Master was clearly startled to here this.

'Is this _your_ doing?' he furiously growled at his daughter.

'No...well, the Storm Hags–'

'The _hags_?' the Master exclaimed exasperatedly. 'How _stupid_ can you be? They'd have him lying dead for years! And where's the good in _that_ for everyone else?'

The princess hung her head ashamedly.

'So...how did you do it? How _did_ you restrain him?'

The princess shrugged peevishly, but nevertheless answered her father.

'He...he believes _she's_ dead because...well, she went _missing_ , didn't she?'

Beith scowled, wishing to point out that she hadn't 'gone missing' through any choice of her own.

'He was left with, well – a lifeless replica?' the princess continued. 'So he didn't have the spirit to rise, like he should have done.'

The Master curiously shuddered. He appeared aghast.

'This isn't an _easy_ task you've left me with!' he snarled at his humbled daughter.

'You can help?' Beith asked in pleasant surprise, adding more doubtfully, 'You _will_ help?'

The Master turned to her.

'I'm _willing_ : I'm probably not _able_ ,' he confessed.

'But you...you can _control_ the spirits! Surely–'

Beith's protest was brought to a sorrowful close by the Master's shaking of his head.

'He doesn't _possess_ a spirit; surely _you_ realise that?' he said to her.

Noting the bewilderment on Beith's face, he once again whirled angrily on his daughter.

'What _have_ you done, girl?' he fumed.

*

# Chapter 21

'Thus sung the maid In the valley below'

'The valley; we have to go into the valley!'

With a scowl and a furious wave of a hand, the Master directed his scandalised daughter to immediately dismount and give up her horse to Beith.

'The valley; is that what I fear it might be?' Beith asked as she energetically swung herself up into the saddle.

'It is,' the Master confidently replied, spurring his horse into a frenzied gallop.

*

They hurtled through the darkness.

Soon they were overtaking those of the hunt who had continued the chase, having failed to realise that the riders to their rear had drawn to a halt.

In a moment, the only thing lying ahead of them was the dark, engulfing wave of the hound pack.

'Dormarth!' the master cried out. 'To me!'

A loud, repeated howl came back from the darkness in reply.

The howl became increasingly louder as the dog rapidly drew closer, as both hound and riders were now furiously rushing towards each other. From out of the darkness lying far ahead of them, Beith caught the massive hound in her glow, startled to see that it was almost the size of her mount.

Dog and riders slewed to a sudden halt alongside each other.

'Death's door!' the Master blurted out urgently. 'I need the Golden Bough!'

The ruddy nosed hound eyed Beith suspiciously.

'I can't allow anyone to pass through on a whim,' the hound growled. 'I need surety; to be sure that my task is neither abused nor trivialised!'

The Master sighed, slumped a little in his saddle.

He turned apologetically towards Beith.

'You must offer your own life – it can _only_ be _yours_ , I'm afraid – as guarantee that this is a serious venture: we can't waste time making bargains at the wrong moment!'

Beith frowned anxiously.

'Wait: I have a _key_!' she said suddenly, urgently fumbling in her pocket for Nion, the key that opened the doors to the realms.

'We know,' the Master replied sadly. 'Otherwise, there would be no offer at all being made to you.'

'If we find what you have lost,' Dormarth growled, 'he can only be _revived_ with the _gift_ of a new _spirit_!'

Beith sighed.

Yes, she knew now what offering surety entailed.

She hung her head.

'I agree,' she said. 'My soul is given as forfeit.'

*

Their riding now was harder, faster, than ever.

They followed Dormarth, who confidently leapt through the darkness as if he were a part of it, forged from it even. Even as they rushed headlong through a forest than managed to be even darker – for it seemed to be entirely dead, devoid of leaves, and curiously hard and brittle – there was no slowing in their pace.

Fortunately for Beith, her radiance continued to light the way lying ahead of her.

They're course was downwards, ever steeper.

They were going deeper, deeper into the valley.

At last, the track they were taking began to level out. They broke through into a clearing of sorts, for just the one tree grew at its very centre.

In Beith's glow, it shone with a mercurial lustrousness, its leaves like a cascading waterfall of silver hair.

They pulled up their exhausted horses and, dismounting, stepped closer towards the tree, with Dormarth assuredly leading the way.

Sensing their approach, the birch tree parted its great branches.

And within the tree's very centre, there wasn't darkness, but a glittering moon.

*

No, not _a_ moon.

Countless _small_ moons.

All coming together in a vast ball to create this greater moon.

Of course, as Beith drew closer, she instantly recognised that this wasn't the _real_ moon.

It was mistletoe.

It had no roots, she knew.

It fell from heaven (some said, as the result of a lightning strike).

It was betwixt and between; the portal between both worlds – the living and the dead.

'I am Omnia Sanantem; All Heal,' the mistletoe proclaimed. 'And I give up for the moment the one you seek.'

And within its womb of sticky, milky fluid, first a child and then a man began to take shape.

'Dormarth and I must leave now,' the Master cautioned Beith. 'And we will take your horse; you'll have no further need of it.'

*

Tentatively, Beith approached the glittering ball that was Omnia Sanantem.

She couldn't step inside, as she had hoped.

Something prevented her from breaking its surface; and yet, like a veil becoming ever lacier, that surface was thinning until it became nothing but a tangled glow of brightest silver and muted gold lying between her and him.

'I thought you were lost!' he said, curling his arms about her, cold arms that were thankfully becoming rapidly warmer.

'And _I_ thought it was _you_ that had left _me_!' she laughed, kissing him again and again, her lips becoming harder, his softer.

The weave of muted silver and brightest gold began to part.

Then, the moment over, he was pulling away from her, rising up once more.

'Come with me,' he pleaded, reaching out with warm arms that touched but could not hold, 'I can't bear to be parted again!'

'I can't, I can't,' she said, holding back her tears, her smile sorrowful despite her best intentions. 'I agreed!'

'Agreed? Agreed to what?'

'There's only one spirit for us to share; and now it's yours, not mine!'

He was rapidly rising, now farther away from her than ever.

Perhaps he hadn't heard, she feared sadly.

He had heard.

'I'll find you; and I'll return your spirit!' he vowed.

But now she was rapidly failing.

She hadn't heard him.

She was in the valley, after all.

*

# Chapter 22

'Oh, don't deceive me, Oh, never leave me,

How could you use A poor maiden so?'

Every day, he seeks her.

He tries to probe into every dark cranny, every dark forest, anywhere he comes across that lies in darkness and he's been unable to explore.

As he searches for her, he sings the song that had always made such a deep impression upon her.

'Ye echoes, oh, tell me, where is the sweet maiden?

''She sleeps, 'neath the green turf down by the ash grove.'''

End

If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll's Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella's Slipper? – AmeriChristmas – The Vitch's Kat in Hollywoodland

Blood of Angels, Wings of Men – Patchwork Quest – The World Turns on A Card – Palace of Lace

The Wailing Ships – The Bad Samaritan – The 13th Month – The Silvered Mare

