13 Treasures

by Michelle Harrison

  “But Florence had always been the weaker of us. I knew that doubts would start to creep into her mind. Her word was not strong enough for me to trust, and so I made her swear to keep her promise. We pricked thumbs, sealing the pact in blood.

  “Midsummer’s eve arrived, and I waited in the woods. Florence never came. I went to the manor, where the groundskeeper told me that she was feeling unwell. In other words, she had lost her nerve. But it was too late for me. I had to go on.”

  “The groundskeeper was Amos, wasn’t it?” said Fabian. “It was my grandfather.”

  “The lovesick fool,” said Morwenna. “He begged me not to go when I told him I was running away. I gave him a lock of my hair to remember me by, and told him to keep it secret and safe. Little did he know his little ‘love token’ was part of a bigger plan. Into it I had also woven a few strands of Florence’s hair, stolen from her comb, to strengthen the promise she had made.”

  “A lock of hair?” Fabian’s voice was strained.

  “The key to my immortality,” Morwenna said slyly. “Something of myself as I was. Its preservation in the human world would allow me to be seen by the mortal eye when I chose and keep me forever fourteen. And so I shall be still, when I return.

  “At midnight, I passed into the fairy realm. To begin with I was happy, although I knew I would never forgive Florence’s cowardice. But as the years passed, I found that an immortal existence is a lonely one. I came to regret my decision. However, when you give yourself willingly to the fairy realm, there is no way out, save one.”

  “And what is that?” Tanya asked, her voice hoarse.

  “That another mortal of second sight and linked by blood should exchange places with me,” said Morwenna. “I knew of no blood relatives with the second sight. But by making our promises in blood Florence had linked herself to me. Thus she was the only one who could have taken my place, but she was far too clever to venture into the woods. So I waited.

  “Years passed. Florence married, and was expecting a child. Finally, I saw the opportunity I had been waiting for. Never underestimate the power of a mother’s love.”

  “You stole the baby to take your place.” Fabian’s voice was thick with disgust.

  “No,” said Morwenna, with a cruel laugh. “The child shared Florence’s blood, of course, but it did not have the second sight; therefore it could not have taken my place in the fairy realm. The child was merely a bargaining chip… I stole the baby to lure Florence into the woods. I had the child brought to me. I knew Florence would guess who was behind it, and face up to her past. When she found us she begged for her child, as I knew she would. I told her I would return the child if Florence would exchange places with me then and there. If she refused, I would take the baby into the fairy realm and she would never see it again.

  “Florence knew there was no escape. She agreed to exchange places, but begged me to take pity on her and allow her a few years to raise her child. She promised that if I would give her seven years she would willingly take my place. She swore that on the child’s seventh birthday, she would come back and pay her debt. Stupidly, I agreed. For after so many years, what did a few more matter? I had lost nothing of my life. I could afford to show a little mercy. Little did I know then that she’d tricked me.” She stared hatefully at Tanya. “The child I’m speaking of was your mother.”

  Tanya remembered the hidden nursery.

  “But my mother was born on the twenty-ninth of February—the extra day of a leap year.”

  Fabian gasped. “So her true seventh birthday wouldn’t be until twenty-eight years later!”

  “Indeed,” said Morwenna. “Nature had allowed Florence another escape. After that I knew I had no chance of getting anywhere near the child again—Florence would have taken steps to ensure that the child was well protected. All I could do was wait for the years to pass until she would have to fulfill her promise. But as the time neared, something unexpected took place. Another child with the second sight linked by blood to Florence was born. And with it, the perfect opportunity for revenge.” She smiled at Tanya, completely demented-looking. “You.”

  “No…,” Tanya protested.

  “I must say you took some finding—you were protected well,” said Morwenna. “But not well enough.”

  “Who was protecting me?”

  Morwenna did not answer. “At midnight our places shall be exchanged.”

  “No!” Tanya shouted. She turned to Fabian, but he was motionless, with an absolutely petrified look on his face.

  “The trees… look at the trees!”

  Fairies were emerging from their hiding places, and some of them were unlike any she had ever seen before: broken, twisted beings that looked as if they knew nothing of goodness. They had skin like bark, and limbs of twigs and branches. They were the woodland. And then, within the depths of the trees a tiny movement in a moonlit clearing caught her eye. Fabian was right. They had been followed.

  A face was visible from within the trees for a split second before vanishing—a familiar face. One that Tanya had thought she would never see again. For a moment she wondered if she had simply made the whole thing up in her mind, but then the face appeared again, a finger pressed tightly to its lips, warning her to keep silent.

  The face belonged to Red.

  Quickly, Tanya averted her eyes, her mind racing. What was going on?

  “Bind her!” said Morwenna.

  Oberon snarled and snapped as the fairies approached.

  “You’re outnumbered,” said Morwenna. “And if you do not call the dog off, I promise you they will kill him.”

  Tanya glanced at Oberon. It was a risk she couldn’t afford to take. She called him off, despite his whines of protest. He nuzzled her in confusion, but she pushed him away.

  “Run!” she yelled to Fabian, but the fairies were swooping already, forcing her backward until she hit a tree. She felt herself being bound tightly to the trunk with something she could not see or fight against; something cold, thin, and sticky. The fairies trussed her up until she was unable to move an inch then slithered back into the shadows, all except for an ugly old fairy crone who held her arm with a surprisingly strong grip.

  “Staying with us?” she wheezed. “You’ll make a fine playmate for my children. Let’s hope you last longer than the others…”

  Fabian’s eyes were wide with dread.

  “She’s protected! Leave her alone! You can’t touch her!”

  Morwenna’s lip curled in contempt as she looked at Tanya’s T-shirt. “The color red merely acts as a concealment from the fairies… which you surrendered the moment you called my name.”

  “Then how about this?” yelled Fabian. He reached into his pockets and pulled out one of the small cloth pouches Tanya had sewn. Fumbling with a penknife, he made a small incision in the cloth and allowed some salt to spill into his hands. He hurled it into the face of the fairy crone and dashed to Tanya’s side. The hag backed away, screaming hideously and clawing at her eyes. Tanya watched in horror as her skin blistered and bubbled, and she crawled away, out of sight. More fairies advanced.

  “Watch out!” Tanya shrieked.

  Fabian turned, throwing salt in every direction. Howls of pain and fury filled the night as some of the salt made contact—but all too quickly it was gone, and new fairies were already replacing those that had been injured and were scuttling away.

  “There are too many of them!” Fabian whispered. “And I don’t have any more salt!”

  “They don’t know that,” Tanya gasped urgently.

  “Not yet,” he said. “But it won’t be long before they realize.” He began wrenching at Tanya’s bonds, but it was useless. He succeeded only in cutting his hands.

  “Spidertwine,” said Morwenna, savoring the word as if it were delicious to her. “It is enchanted, and therefore unbreakable by mortal hands. They say it fetches a fine price at the fairy markets. Mainly it’s used for weaving nets used in the changeling trade, magical nets that
can’t be broken easily. It was used to capture your mother all those years ago. Ironic that it should play a part in your fate also.”

  The bonds seemed only to grow tighter as Tanya struggled, cutting into her and drawing blood. Then suddenly she remembered the scissors.

  “Fabian! The scissors… they’re in my pocket. Morag said they’d cut through almost anything!”

  Fabian grappled with the spidertwine despite his wounds, but to no avail. Morwenna watched with obvious gratification. Tanya knew then, with absolute conviction, that whatever the girl had once been she was beyond mercy now. Half a century in the fairy realm had accomplished that. All that remained was a shell capable of revenge and hatred, unrecognizable as something that used to be human.

  “I can’t get at them,” Fabian said. “I can’t reach the scissors!” He finally gave up his fight with her bonds, and slowly stepped back. The resignation on his face was unmistakable.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, backing away farther. He hesitated, and then ran without another word.

  “What are you doing?” Tanya screamed. “You can’t leave me! Fabian, you coward!”

  But Fabian was already gone.

  24

  Fabian sprinted blindly, stumbling through the darkness. He knew from the look on Tanya’s face that she thought he had abandoned her—just as he’d intended. It had been necessary for her to believe it in order for his plan to work, for if Morwenna had guessed what he had in mind she would never allow him to leave the woods alive.

  A low scurrying noise behind him told him he was being chased, and in that instant his fear turned to panic.

  “Leave him!” Morwenna shrieked from within the depths of the trees. “The boy is not important!”

  The scurrying fell back and then stopped altogether, until all Fabian could hear was his own ragged breathing. Without warning the ground inclined, and he went sprawling to the earth. There was a horrible splintering sound, and the flashlight suddenly went out.

  “No,” said Fabian, feeling around in the darkness. “Please, no…”

  Already he knew that the flashlight was useless. He clambered to his feet shakily. The forest was pitch-black.

  “Think!” he told himself. “Calm down and think!” He pressed a button on his watch and the tiny screen lit up. It was seventeen minutes to midnight.

  He knelt down and patted the earth blindly until he found his knapsack. It had flown off his back in the fall. It was a moment before he remembered what was inside it.

  “The compass!”

  Almost crying with joy, he ripped the bag open and rummaged inside until his hand closed around the smooth, cold brass. He pulled it out, and using the light from his watch, read the needle. It was pointing straight ahead.

  Without further ado Fabian battled on. He ran for what seemed like forever, until his limbs ached and his lungs were burning, but he did not stop once. Every second was precious.

  Twice more he fell, tearing both his clothes and his flesh, but he held on to the compass with a vise-like grip and plowed onward. When the edge of the forest appeared he felt an elation he had never known before, and a renewed sense of strength surged through him.

  Then he was out of the forest and hurtling toward the manor.

  Back in the woods Tanya slumped against the tree, her energy spent. In her attempt to reach the scissors she had become even more entangled in the spidertwine, and now her right hand was caught at a painful angle behind her back.

  “Why didn’t you try and take me before?” she said, her anger finally overwhelming her fear. “You had the chance weeks ago, the day Fabian and I were lost in the forest.”

  Morwenna brushed a black tangle away from her face. “I was leading you away that day,” she said, with a mad grin. “My plan was to take you so far into the woods that you would never find your way out—at least not before midnight. But then help arrived.”

  Tanya remembered how she had kicked Warwick that day, and wished with all her heart that he would somehow magically appear now.

  Morwenna laughed, reading her mind. “There’s no one to save you this time. Even your little friend has deserted you. He didn’t wait around once he knew his precious grandfather was innocent, did he?

  “If it’s any consolation, he’ll never make it out of the forest. Hangman’s Wood has a strange way of eluding mortals. He’ll be wandering around, lost for days. Half-dead by the time he’s found—if he ever is found.”

  “How did you know it was me that day?” said Tanya. “You’d never even seen me before!”

  There was a short silence before Morwenna replied.

  “I have an informant.”

  Tanya began to struggle again, her eyes scanning the woods desperately for any sign of rescue. If Red was still there, she was staying well hidden.

  Fabian reached the house, his lungs ready to explode, then flew through the kitchen, not even stopping to shut the back door behind him. He ran swiftly up the stairs to the first floor, then to the second. He paused outside his grandfather’s room.

  The old man was mumbling to himself over the low murmur of the television. Thinking quickly, Fabian rapped on the door, then darted along the corridor and into the alcove.

  Amos stepped out into the hallway unsteadily. “Warwick? Is that you?”

  Quick as a flash, Fabian pulled the tapestry aside and slipped into the servants’ passage. There, in the darkness, he felt his way along the wall, counting the doors until he came to his grandfather’s room.

  With bated breath he turned the handle. Luck was on his side.

  The door opened and Fabian peered into the disordered room. The main door was ajar, and there was no sign of Amos anywhere. He stepped inside, and a wave of desperation washed over him. His eyes scanned the room, darting from one pile of junk to another. He crawled on the floor to peer beneath the bed. He pulled out several cardboard boxes, stuffed with clothes and yet more newspapers, and overturned them. His grandmother’s belongings were still there; the abandoned wedding ring rattling about loose. The lock of hair was nowhere to be seen.

  He saw the newspaper scrapbook lying on the bedside table. He grabbed it, thumbing through the pages. Several clippings fell to the floor. He snapped it shut and threw it on the bed. Quickly, he went to the chest of drawers and began rummaging through his grandfather’s clothes.

  “Where would he keep it, where?”

  He could not believe he had seen it and not made the connection—the most obvious connection of all. The destruction of the hair would break the spell of Morwenna’s youth. It was this, Fabian knew, that she valued above all. And it was all he had to bargain with.

  The chest of drawers yielded no answers. Fabian closed the last drawer clumsily, clothes spilling out. In frustration he kicked at one of the boxes which he had not bothered to push back under the bed. It landed with a thud, and he flinched as footsteps came thundering back down the hallway.

  “Warwick!”

  Amos appeared in the doorway. His sunken eyes were pits of madness.

  “I didn’t do it!” he spat. “I keep telling them it wasn’t me. She ran away!”

  “I… I know,” Fabian whispered. He began to back away, toward the servants’ door.

  Amos walked jerkily to the unmade bed and sat down.

  “I loved her, I loved her,” he repeated, rocking softly. His withered hand moved across the bed-clothes and slipped beneath the pillow. It was all Fabian needed.

  With a speed that surprised himself he sprang forward and flung the pillow aside. There, beneath the space where his grandfather laid his head every night, a lock of hair was looped like a thin black noose. Guilt eroded him like acid rain as he tore the lock of hair from the old man’s frail fingers.

  Amos cried out like a wounded animal.

  Fabian made his escape through the servants’ door, his grandfather’s cries ringing in his ears. He emerged from behind the tapestry, waiting a moment to make sure the coast was definitely clear. Hearing nothi
ng but Amos’s tortured wailing, he slid out of the alcove—and collided with a hard body that was standing just around the corner.

  Fabian gasped as he looked up.

  “W-what are you doing here? I thought y-you’d gone hunting!”

  “Change of plans,” Warwick hissed, taking in his son’s ripped and bloody clothes. “I decided to come back early—and a good thing too, by the look of it!” He grabbed Fabian’s shoulder roughly. “Now you better tell me what you’re up to this time of night!”

  Fabian opened his mouth to speak, but no words would come out.

  “Explain yourself!”

  “Warwick!” Amos called out.

  Warwick glared at his son. Then, still holding on to his shoulder, he marched him along the hallway to Amos’s room.

  “What is it, father?” His usually gruff voice was surprisingly gentle.

  Amos shuffled to the door, his shoulders shaking wretchedly as he began to sob.

  “He took it… he took it.”

  Warwick caught sight of the hair in Fabian’s hand, and a flicker of recognition crossed his face. “What are you doing with that? What do you want with your grandmother’s hair?”

  Fabian instinctively held the hair behind his back.

  “It’s not… it’s not my grandmother’s hair.”

  “Give it to me!” Amos sobbed. “I promised her I’d keep it forever!”

  Warwick’s eyes widened. “Where’s the girl?”

  Fabian froze.

  “Where’s Tanya?”

  “She’s… she’s in the woods!” Fabian croaked, unable to contain it any longer.

  Warwick’s face went completely white. Without a word, he grabbed Fabian’s arm and wrenched the lock of hair out of his grasp.

  “What are you doing?” Fabian cried. “Give it back!” He raced after his father, who was already halfway down the stairs, leaving Amos sobbing behind. He caught up with him on the first-floor landing, and tried to snatch Morwenna’s hair from his father’s hand.