An Unexpected Invitation

by Ceillie Simkiss

  Molly scoffed.

  “Winston made me promise not to tell anyone about him, what with him technically not being allowed on the island and all. He told me if I did, he’d feed me a candy that turned me into a mongoose.”

  Mongoose. I sat up straight, my thoughts racing. Both Molly and Winston stared at me.

  “Addanc have crocodile teeth in a beaver mouth. Often invisible unless you can see fae… I think I know where Atticus is.”

  Winston leapt to his feet and flapped his arms at me, startling both Molly and I.

  “Take me to him immediately! What in the Goddesses name are we waiting for?”

  I stared at him. If I’d been a dog, my fur would have been puffed out and my hackles up. He knew better than to take that tone with me.

  “Where is he?” Molly asked

  “It’s halfway up the mountain, if he’s even where I think he is. I’m not trudging up that mountain when the sun’s about to go down and neither are you.”

  “Why the devil not?” He retorted, flapping his sleeves at me. “It’s not like it’s far. We’ll just hop on a horse and go find him.”

  At that, I lost my temper. Winston knew better than that after all these years of friendship.

  “I’m not hopping on anything other than my own two feet!” I snapped. “You know it’s not safe to be out on the mountain after dark. Especially with that creature of yours on the loose! You will meet Molly and I at the base of the mountain tomorrow morning and we will go find him. And then you will help me to figure out what I’m doing wrong with my transformation spell.”

  My face was red and my chest was heaving. Winston had the sense to look slightly ashamed of himself. Molly looked shocked. I had probably gone a little overboard, but the day’s frustrations and my friend’s thoughtless entitlement had me boiling mad.

  The wrinkles in his forehead deepened in confusion.

  “What transformation spell?”

  Oh. Right. I hadn’t actually asked him for help with that yet.

  “I’ll explain tomorrow while we walk. Molly and I need to be getting home before it gets too late out here. We will see you an hour after dawn.”

  Without another word, we walked back down the steps, headed homeward. My own footfalls were closer to stomps than my usual bouncing steps, but I knew I would cool off by the time we got home. A fifteen minute walk was perfect for that. I wouldn’t regret spending time working to find Atticus with Winston, but he did not get to talk to me like that.

  We were going to have to have a conversation about it once everything was settled.

  Dawn came earlier than I wanted it to the next morning. Molly, always too energetic for her own good in the morning, informed me that it came at approximately the same time it did every day. I growled wordlessly at her and her smile in return was almost as bright as the rising sun. Why had I chosen this goddess awful hour to meet Winston?

  Luckily, she also made tea, which was the only thing that kept me from growling at her cheerful whistling any more than was strictly necessary. Once I was a little more awake, I realized it would be nice to have a day outside of the cabin and away from our experiments. Even if it did start significantly earlier than I would have liked.

  We made our way across the island at a leisurely pace, watching the world come alive around us. The sounds of crunching grass and singing birds filled the crisp morning air around us. It was surprisingly lovely for as early as it was.

  The other thing that was surprising about this morning was that Winston had beaten us to the base of the mountain. I knew he was an early riser from my earliest days on the island, when I lived in a spare room near the coast. I’d expected him to be taking his time on his daily constitutional, watching the fisherman prepare their boats for the day’s catch.

  As we got closer, I had to do a double take. Winston was sitting astride his grey horse wearing a plain pair of black cloth pants and a lightly decorated tunic. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him in anything other than a floor-length robe that Aislinn had decorated with embroidered flowers and symbols that he swore were sacred in his fae language.

  Knowing him, however, I was fairly certain that he’d just convinced her to embroider swear words into his clothing so he could have a private joke at everyone else’s expense. It was exactly the sort of thing he would do.

  He dismounted gracefully when we were about ten feet away, speaking quietly to his unsaddled horse. After a moment, the gelding cantered back towards town, and I frowned.

  “Aren’t you going to need that horse to get home?”

  He raised a thin eyebrow at me.

  “You think a horse is gonna be okay with a crocodile-sized addanc following him home? I certainly can’t carry Atticus home. We will walk back to the lake together, and the horse will find his way back home. He’s well trained to do so.”

  “Well, then, what are we waiting for? Let’s go find this creature of yours.”

  We wound our way through the mountain’s trails, searching for Atticus. Molly and I were armed with Glain Neidr, glassy stones with holes in the middle that assisted with seeing fae. People who weren’t trained as witches called them adder stones, because the holes are thought to be created by the bite of an adder. Scholars tended to believe that the hole, and the glassy exterior of the stone, were created by the buffeting of water. However, that was much less interesting than believing snakes created them. Whatever they were called, Winston didn’t need them, since he was a member of the fae himself.

  Addanc had the unfortunate ability to be invisible to humans when it suited them - which tended to be most of the time when they were above water. There was only a small stream near the top of the mountain, and I suspected that would be where we’d find Winston’s furry, toothy friend. But I didn’t want to risk any of us being bitten like Graham was while we searched.

  “We should check in on your Pa while we’re up here,” I told Molly. “I’m sure they’d love to make sure I haven’t turned you into a toad or anything while you’ve been at my house.”

  She laughed, a tinkling sound that always made my heart swell.

  “You would never turn me into a toad, Miss Beatrice. They’re much too noisy.”

  I grinned. She knew me well.

  “I’d like to see Graham as well. I see the lovely Aislinn often, but I hardly ever get to see her hunk of a husband.”

  “Don’t be creepy, Winston,” I chided him. “You know Graham isn’t into men. Especially ageless ones who keep crocodile beavers in their backyards.”

  “A man can admire, can’t he?” Winston fluttered his long, dark lashes at me. As if that would work to distract me. I wasn’t attracted to anyone in a romantic or sexual fashion. If I had been, Winston was too much of a perv to be my type.

  “Not out loud where his daughter can hear. Come on.”

  He sighed loudly.

  “Fine. Then how about you tell me about the transformation spell you mentioned yesterday. It’s giving you trouble?”

  I groaned.

  “Okay, so here’s the story.” I told him all about the wedding and what we’d tried. He nodded and hmmed at the appropriate places before falling silent. If he’d had a beard, I suspected he’d be stroking it in thought while we walked.

  “Oh! I know what’s going wrong! You’re trying to transform into the wrong things.”

  I squinted at him, confused.

  “What do you mean? Transformation spells can turn you into anything, right?”

  “Not exactly. Not with just human magic, anyway. When you’re transforming yourself into an inanimate object, you need something in mind that someone has put their life and love into. Something they made with time and patience.”

  “I don’t remember that from my classes.”

  “That’s because your classes were from other humans, were they not?”

  I nodded.

  “Most humans do not try to transform into inanimate objects. It tends to have unfortunate side effects, like the on
es you mentioned. It wouldn’t be appropriate for a longer journey like that, anyway. There’s a very high risk of getting stuck in that shape, and it gets higher the longer you stay in it.”

  “So how does transforming into something that someone made help?”

  “When you create something like a book or a scarf or even a meal, you put a part of yourself into it. No one else could have created that exact same thing, much like no one else could have created someone like you. I don’t know why it works, but it should work better. Plus, they’re smaller items, so they’ll be easier to transport.”

  I blinked. That made sense, in the way that only magic could.

  “Have you got the post-transformation tea recipe? I’ve got a great one my ma always used to make me.”

  “Your ma? Somehow I never pictured you having a mother.”

  He sniffed imperiously at me, recognizing the ridiculousness of my statement. Of course he had a mother. Fae didn’t just fall out of flowers fully formed, no matter what the fairy tales said. They had families of all sorts, just like humans.

  “I’ll give you some tea after we find Atticus and get him home.”

  I smiled at him in thanks and fell silent, thinking hard about what he’d told me. Magic was strange, but it followed a certain set of processes that made sense in a way that only they could. Based on my studies of magical theory, transforming into a specific object that had been made with love was exactly what I should have been doing from the start. I wished that I had thought of it myself, but that was always the way these things worked.

  Molly gestured to me, then to the ground between us. At first I wasn’t sure what she was pointing to, but I realized that we were standing on the outsides of a set of very large footprints. The front feet looked like large human palm prints, while the back looked like webbed versions of our own feet. I suspected they belonged to our fae friend.

  Winston had gone further ahead of us, so I whistled to get his attention. He stiffened and turned to face us.

  “I’m fairly certain we’ve found the path Atticus took up the mountains.”

  He pushed the brush and fallen tree limbs aside, rushing back to us. His tunic snagged on one branch and he swore at it. Molly giggled. When he reached us, he fixed me with a glare.

  “I may be fae, but I’m still a person. You don’t get to whistle at me like I’m an animal. I don’t care what you’ve discovered, you will address me as another person, understand?”

  I nodded, feeling guilty. I hadn’t realized that he would have such a negative reaction to it but I filed it away for later interactions. I didn’t intend to upset him ever, and I planned to never do that again. Nodding in return, he squatted next to the footprints

  “There’s human footprints here as well,” Molly pointed out. “It looks like he was escorted up here.”

  “Morons. He had a perfectly good lake at home. Why the devil would they take him out of his lake and put him on a mountain? This isn’t even his natural habitat,” Winston muttered angrily.

  “It seems like they just panicked and went ‘Oh, I know, nobody goes all the way up the mountain. Let’s take this magical creature there,” Molly said with a frown. “Which seems like about the same level of logic Alis might show. And she’s five.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Winston continued muttering under his breath angrily as we followed the path. Molly and I exchanged amused glances whenever he trailed off for a few minutes then picked back up with a grumpy fervor. It was kind of cute. Usually, Winston was much more aloof, hiding his emotions. Except for the gleam in his eye when he looked at the fisherman unloading their day’s catch. He had been a sucker for a handsome man for longer than I had known him.

  When I heard water burbling, I suspected we were getting close. From the focus I could see furrowing Winston’s brow, I could tell he thought the same thing.

  “Should Molly and I be worried, Winston? I’m fairly certain he bit Graham last week for just being up here.”

  “I mean, maybe? I’ll go ahead of you two, just in case. It’s not like his bites are poisonous, though.”

  “No, but they are huge and toothy,” Molly pointed out worriedly. “I don’t want to get bit like Pa. Ma will kick your ass.”

  “She’s liable to do that anyway. Your creature should know better than to bite a person just for accidentally getting into his territory.”

  “He was in a new place where he’d been dumped by people he didn’t know and probably scared. He’s a very sweet creature under all that fur and teeth. If that were me, I’d probably have bit you too,” he said with a shrug. “Now focus.”

  I pulled Molly behind me. If one of us was going to get bitten for helping to find Atticus, it ought to be me. Aislinn would still be mad at me if I got bit, since she’d be the only one able to stitch me up, but she’d be slightly less mad than if her daughter got hurt.

  Winston called Atticus’s name and Molly and I employed the use of our Glain Neidr. We didn’t see the addanc, but we did catch glimpses of some of the small folk, dressed in dark gray ornamented with flowers and leaves. They were lovely. With the help of the stones, the forest became very different. It was much more alive than I usually found when I came to gather mushrooms and other herbs. I found myself wishing I could see all of this every time I traversed the mountain.

  Just as I began to get lost in the scenery, I heard a slapping sound. I looked around, searching for the source of the sound, but saw nothing.

  “Is that-” Winston cut me off with a jerk of his hand.

  “Atticus? It’s Winston. Are you there?”

  A slew of chattering and barking greeted him from the water. As Molly and I watched in shock, Atticus the addanc emerging from the water, sending out a wave of water. He was far too big for the tiny stream he’d risen from. Even knowing how big he was supposed to be, I couldn’t fathom just how large he was. And he was grinning what looked like a giant beaver-crocodile grin at Winston. I traded wide-eyed glances with Molly behind Winston’s back.

  “Atticus, you remember Molly, right? You met her a few months ago.” Winston was speaking slowly to the gigantic creature. “This is my other friend Beatrice. I’ve told you about her before. She made that potion that helped me feel better, remember?”

  He pointed as he spoke and Atticus rested his beady eyes on us each in turn before returning his attention to Winston. He clearly had a lot of affection for the tall, willowy man. Molly put her stone back into her trouser pocket as Winston turned back to us. I followed suit, as clearly he had no interest in turning invisible again.

  “Molly, Beatrice, this is Atticus.”

  The creature turned his grin on us, and I couldn’t help but grin back. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as I had expected it to be.

  Part Three

  We dropped Molly off at her parents house, making plans to meet up the next morning for breakfast in town. She planned to get her parents’ official permission to travel with me to Bryn Eirian and back for the wedding. Neither of us expected them to say no, but she was still young. It was good to still ask permission for things like leaving town for more than a month at a time.

  Atticus and Winston spent the walk back into town chattering and barking back and forth while I followed behind them. I was almost impressed that Winston had clearly mastered the creatures language, but he did say that they had been friends since Winston was young — however long ago that actually was. I would have been disappointed if he hadn’t figured out how to communicate with the addanc.

  “You know, I’ve actually got something I’ve been meaning to give you at home besides the tea. Would you walk all the way back to town with me?”

  I agreed happily. I’d only been to his home a few times, despite our shared skills in witchcraft. We both tended to be more reclusive than was strictly necessary. I wondered what the interior of his house looked like, and realized that despite living on the island with him for more than a decade, I’d never thought about what his life was like outside of the
public eye.

  His home was one of the oldest buildings on the island. The round, tiled roof of his home stood above the scruffy trees on the path, reflecting the bright early afternoon sun back towards us. His house had always looked like it had been built one foraged stone at a time, without a single thought to whether they fit together or not. I wondered if it would be as drafty as it looked, but I didn’t think he’d have stayed in it for so long with drafts coming in all the time. It suited him, somehow. While he was meticulous with his clothing, he tended to be lackadaisical with everything else in his life.

  I had a tendency to throw myself into my work like I had for the last few days. I knew Winston liked to do the same, though he rarely missed his walk along the docks in the morning.

  I had always loved to find a sticky problem and dig into it, pulling on all of my knowledge of magical theory. It was even better if I had to dig into my craft books. It brought a lot of frustration, but once it was finished, it came with such a sense of accomplishment once the charms were ready to sell. If we were going to spend time together, we tended to do it in my cabin, for some reason.

  Idly, I thought about what charms were ready for sale, and wondered if Molly and I could sell them on our way back from the wedding. I hadn’t managed to sit down and finish the fertility charm I’d been working on when Graham was injured last week. I pushed the thought from my mind with a shake of my head. If we were going to pull this off, it would be by the skin of our teeth. Besides, it was not a good idea to have Molly traveling essentially on her own while I remained transfigured with a load of magical charms. That was asking for trouble, which we definitely didn’t need.

  We rounded the last turn in the path, and I was stunned. I knew that Winston had done a lot of work with plants around his home in the last few years, but I’d never managed to come see it. I hadn’t realized that he had created a garden that would rival those of the royal family in the early spring.