Moon Song (19 page)

‘Strewth!’ Mark exclaimed. ‘That’s not like he was here at all. Wonder what happened up there. It almost sounds like another person and yet, from your description of the place, it’s really
him.’

‘And Embar’s really at home here. There’s even old tins of cat food in the cupboard. He had his lunch with me on the balcony before it began to rain, Embar I mean, not Tristan.’

‘Are you OK? You want me to come up and get you? I can drive most of the way up and you could come back on the path to the old well at the end of the lane.’

‘I’ve not finished yet. There’s still light and I brought fuel for the tilly lamp, so I’m good.’

‘OK, but if I don’t see you come supper time I’ll come and find you. You won’t be able to reach me down at the house I expect, with the signal coming and going like it does down there.’

‘OK. Hey ho! Hey ho! It’s back to work I go …’

She put the phone back in her pocket and lit the tilly lamp. The cloud and rain made it dark inside the cottage, she needed to see what she was doing. Working steadily through the piles she didn’t notice the time at all, and Embar didn’t remind her. He had resumed his watchman’s post on the chaise longue and dozed intermittently in between bouts of watching her intently. When she next looked up it was black dark outside.

With a shock, she realised there was no way she could safely find her way back down to the house and she recalled Gideon’s admonition that the path was not safe until it knew you. Mark had said something about a path to the well and the lane that led up to it from the road. She’d not been that way but she knew it from the map. Was there a map here? It was the sort of thing Tristan might well have had. She got up, muscles creaking a bit from the crouched position she’d been in for some time, and went over to the bookcase. Yes, there on the top shelf was a little pile of ordinance survey maps. Stretching, she could pull them down. They fell on her, scattering her with dust.

One was of the local area though very old, from the fifties by the date on it, but the lane wouldn’t have changed, it had been there forever, like the well. She took it over to the ash table and
spread it out. There was Caergollo and the path leading up to the kieve. Here was the cottage, clearly marked and, over to the side, about half a mile away, was the well, in a grove with a standing stone marked. The metalled track led up to it from the road and there was a footpath marked between the cottage and the well.

‘Do you know this path?’ she asked Embar.

He stood up, arched, stretched and came over to jump on the table, putting his nose down onto the map just where the cottage was. Isoldé blinked. She hadn’t thought about it at all, had just spoken to the cat as she would to Mark or another person. And the cat had responded, apparently understanding just what she’d said. He sat down now and looked her in the eye. She looked back. Hmm! It seemed he did understand. If she told Mickey or any of the others at the paper they would say she was off her head. But she knew she wasn’t. Was this part of learning to know the land and its creatures?

Still holding her eyes with his own brilliant green ones, Embar nodded slowly, once.

There was a chair beside the table. Isoldé was glad of it as her legs wobbled and she sat down heavily in it. ‘Oh ye gods! What have I got into?’ she muttered, more to herself than to the cat. Embar leaned towards her, gently butted her hand then licked her fingers. ‘Oh ye gods …’ Isoldé muttered again.

Getting a grip on herself, she looked at the cat. ‘I suppose we’d better head for that path, get to the well and down the lane back to the house. Looks like it’s a couple of miles,’ she said.

Embar chirruped softly in his throat.

‘At least it’s stopped raining,’ she said, glancing at the blackness on the other side of the glass. The cottage felt strange now, in the dark, now she’d come out of the work-space she’d been in while she was going through the papers. The ash table held seven separate piles now and the junk-box was near full of the odds and sodderies that had all been mixed in with the work.

Part of Isoldé didn’t want to go outside. It felt like another
world out there. She could sense things moving, not all of them physical, she was certain. There were strange sounds sometimes, just on the edge of hearing. Suddenly a something flashed past the long window. Isoldé let out a strangled squeak and half leapt out of the chair. Embar put a paw on her hand. She sat down again. He began to purr.

‘Oh hell’s bells and buckets of blood,’ she muttered. Embar carried on purring.

She got the phone out of her pocket. There was still a signal, she tried calling Mark. The phone told her his phone was either switched off or out of range. ‘Damn and blast!’

She sat still for another moment. Either she was going to spend the night here in the cottage or she was going to find the path, the well and the lane and get herself home. Very likely Mark was on his way up the lane right now to fetch her. She was being ridiculous.

She pulled her jacket on, donned the knapsack, picked up the tilly lamp and followed Embar to the front door.

Outside, the night closed in on her. It was warmer than she’d thought, sticky almost, clammy. The trees dripped on her. In moments she was quite wet despite that it had stopped raining. The lamp showed her the ground a few feet ahead, she tried to orient herself but Embar was already leading her in what looked like the right direction. She followed.

Leaves dripped on her, on the map, on Embar’s fur sparkling in the lamplight ahead of her. It looked as if the path was used by animals but taller, human traffic had probably been scarce since Tristan’s death. Half a mile shouldn’t take very long she kept telling herself, but the footsteps continued, same on same, seemingly marching on the spot.

‘Embar!’ The cat stopped, turned to face her.

She could sense the question in his eyes, what was the matter? Then, suddenly he sensed what she had felt too, his fur bottled, he sprang in the air turning back the way they had been going.
Lights flickered amongst the moss-covered tree branches, bright shadows stretched between the lights. They looked like the outlines of Arthur Rackham’s fairy folk. Both cat and woman stood stock still, staring. The lights danced around them, Isoldé could see them out of the corners of her eyes, in front the shadows danced more clearly, they were little people, slender, translucent, sharp noses, pointed ears, fine fair hair and expressions that were interested in the two newcomers to their woods, almost to the point of being predatory.

Embar stood guard in front of Isoldé although both cat and woman were well aware that the faer folk were all around them, behind as well as before. He backed carefully towards her until his huge fluffy tail touched her legs.

Isoldé relaxed, very visibly, allowing her shoulders to slump and her knees to buckle slightly. She turned her hands palmoutwards.

‘We come in peace,’ she whispered, feeling as if she was in some sci-if B movie and glad the faer folk didn’t look in the least like the victims of Roswell.

The lights came down from the trees, coalescing into Rackham-like forms. On the edge of sight were some very strange ones, more on the lines of John Anster Fitzgerald’s beasties, part animal, part human, part demon. One of these slid down a branch to land at her feet with a little bounce, making Embar flinch and emit a slight hiss. The cat checked himself immediately. The little demon stood looking up at Isoldé, he reached about to her knee.

She slowly squatted down, coming nearer to eye level with it. Him. He was rather obviously male. As she noticed so he grinned, seeing her looking at him. He pushed his hips forward and backwards at her, like Brad Pit in “Thelma & Louise”. That made her grin too.

‘Hello,’ she said softly. ‘What might I be able to do for you?’ The creature gave a crackly hissing noise, like a wet fire just
getting going. She realised it was a chuckle.

‘Ssss! It’ssssssssss what we can do forrrrrrrrrrr you,’ he replied.

‘And what might that be?’ she countered, then, remembering what Uncle Brian used to say. ‘And what will it cost me?’

‘Ssssss …sssssssss …’ the little creature chuckled again. ‘Ssss–she thinks, she thinks!’ He turned to his compatriots smiling all over his face.

There was a rumbling grumbling of agreement, amused, approving.

‘You want the songs. The Trickster told you to find the songs.’

‘That’s right,’ she replied.

‘We want the songs. The Moon wants her song so she can direct all the songs so they synchronise …harmonise …match up.’

Inspiration smacked Isoldé in the mouth. ‘You mean so we all sing from the same hymn sheet?’

More hissing and rumbling, grins spread across the sharp, pointy faces surrounding her.

‘I sssss–said ssss–she’ssss ssss–sharp’ hissed the little demon.

‘So, I’m smart,’ Isoldé tried to steer back to the point of their conversation. ‘So what’s your help going to cost me?’

‘First I’ll stew and then I’ll bake, then I will the queen’s child take …’

‘No! I’ll not play Rumplestiltskin with you,’ Isoldé told him. ‘There may be prices I will not pay, that are too high.’

There was a hush for a moment. Just the dripping of the leaves punctuating the silence.

‘Tell me what the songs’ purpose is, what they’re for, what will happen if they’re not found. And what will happen if the Moon doesn’t have her song,’ she said.

The strangest thing began to happen. The grass began to draw back from the surface of the soil revealing a flat area of level dirt. A silvery vertical line stretched up away from Isoldé. Two lines
crossed it at a point making three angles of sixty degrees to each side of the vertical line.

‘A …a six-armed cross …?’ Isoldé asked tentatively.

‘Yesssss …watch …’

More lines grew, threading themselves together into more sixarmed crosses, becoming a web of silvery lines. The edges of the pattern reached out into the grass, disappearing under it. The demon looked at the pattern then looked pointedly at Isoldé.

‘I get it …I think …’ Isoldé said softly. ‘This is the web of life, yes? Like the ley lines. Like the wyrd. It connects everything to everything.’

‘And the Moon …?’ There were no hisses from the demon this time.

Isoldé was silent for a moment. She thought of how the moon governed and presided over the tides in the sea, the flow in a woman’s body and many other rhythms under her direction.

The little demon watched her face, nodding slowly. ‘That’s the sort of thing,’ he said, again without the hisses. ‘We need her to direct the flow. She enchants us. She sings us into life.’

Isoldé sat back on her heels, staring off into nothing. ‘And I must find the song that enchants.’

‘Yes …please,’ the demon replied.

‘You know where it is?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘In Tristan’s mind …’ Inspiration struck Isoldé again.

‘And you must tap that mind to find it.’

‘Just how do I go about doing that?’

‘We can show you.’

‘And that brings us back to the price again,’ Isoldé said, a slightly sour note in her voice.

The demon sighed, shrugged. ‘It’s complicated,’ he began. ‘We don’t know what the price is either. If Tristan had just gone on and finished the job the price would have been his life. He was quite willing to pay that. Too willing, in fact. He jumped ahead of
time. That’s what screwed everything up.’

‘Ha!’ Isoldé snorted softly. ‘Is it likely to cost me my life?’

Again there was a hush. ‘We don’t know that either,’ he answered her.

‘So, I go into this without knowing what I’m doing nor what it will cost me. Or Mark.’

‘That’s about it,’ the demon agreed.

‘But you’ll all help me?’

‘We will.’

There was a soft rumbling of agreement from all the faer.

Isoldé began to try thinking then realised what a complete waste of time that was. She had no parameters to work with, no idea, just a gut feeling that this was what she had to do. She took a deep breath. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m in.’

The little demon reached out a long, silvery claw and took her hand in his. He pulled her fingers to his lips and kissed them. She felt a fire course through her hand, quickly filling her whole body.

‘Come,’ the demon said. ‘It’s time to get you home.’

Mark was sat on the step of the truck at the far edge of the grove when Isoldé got there. He got up as she appeared, holding out his arms to her. She went to him. They stood holding each other without saying anything for several minutes.

‘What happened?’ he began, pulling a little away from her so he could look at her.

‘I met the faer,’ she told him.

Mark’s eyes opened wide, he watched her. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

‘At home,’ she answered, taking his hand and pulling him back to the truck. They climbed in, Embar jumping into Isoldé’s lap. Mark drove fast down the bumpy, twisty track. Isoldé hung onto the cat in case he fell. At home, they tumbled into the kitchen, Isoldé collapsing into a carver-chair with Embar sat on the table beside her.

Mark had left soup on the back of the stove before he came to get her. He brought the pot, got dishes, spoons and bread, made coffee. Isoldé was as glad of the respite as she had been of the journey home. Her mind was all at sea, she needed time to pull herself together. Mark served the soup, poured coffee, put a shot of brandy into both mugs, put out a plate of cat-food for Embar then sat down opposite her.

‘Now, tell me?’ he said.

‘I found lots of the notes and manuscripts,’ she began. ‘Tristan’s working stuff for the Ellyon Cycle. Got them sorted. It was absorbing work, I never noticed the time, nor the change in the weather, not till it happened.’

‘That’s when you called me?’

She nodded. ‘I carried on working, sorting, then I suddenly realised it was pitch dark outside, that it must be late. It was weird …’ She stirred her soup ate a couple of mouthfuls. ‘I thought I saw something fly by outside. Yes, I know, it could have been an owl, there are lots up in the woods, but there was a
frisson. Embar was with me, it felt like he was watching out for me. Anyway, I realised I must pack up and try to get home. I tried phoning you but your phone had no signal, left a message on the landline but I supposed you were already on your way up here. It felt strange, I didn’t want to go outside, prevaricated a bit, got a map, looked up the path and eventually got my ass outside and started off to meet you. All the time I was hoping you’d suddenly appear and everything would be all right. Didn’t happen like that though.’ She stopped again, ate some more soup then got back to her story.