by Anna Mendell
First published
by Second Spring, 2016
www.secondspring.co.uk
an imprint of Angelico Press
© Anna Maria Mendell 2016
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission.
For information, address:
Angelico Press
4709 Briar Knoll Dr.
Kettering, OH 45429
angelicopress.com
978-1-62138-193-8 Pb
978-1-62138-194-5 Cloth
978-1-62138-195-2 eBook
Cover Art & Design by Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs
Back Cover design: Michael Schrauzer
1 Ninny Nanny
2 The Princess and the Moon
3 Ninny Nanny’s Bones
4 The Silver Wolf
5 The Faerie Ring
6 Mnemosyne
7 The Mirror
8 Mercurius
9 The Summer Palace
10 The White Ruins
11 The Singing Pearls
12 The Grey Lady’s Spindle
13 The Weeping Queen
14 The King of the Wood
15 The Engagement
16 The Spinning Wheel
17 The Prince’s Homecoming
18 The Grey Hawk
19 The Shadowood
20 Barden of the Winds
21 The Underground Labyrinth
22 The Rose Garden
23 A Flight in the Shadows
24 The Faerie Company
To my parents:
without your love and support
you would not be reading this now.
I WOULD like to thank Our Lord and His Blessed Mother for watching over me and blessing my work. This story belongs to them. I would like to offer my sincerest thanks to all those at Angelico Press and Second Spring who helped make my book possible, especially my publisher, John Riess—his vision brought this book out into the world—and to copyeditor Mark Sebanc, whose careful edits and suggestions gave my work the polish it needed! I would also like to thank James Wetmore for his typography, which greatly enhanced the text. My deepest love and gratitude go to my first and dearest editor, Lucy Wells, who read every single chapter as it came out, and whose continual advice and support spurred me on to complete my work. I would also like to specially thank Nathan Pinkoski, Laura Bement, Mark Forrester, and the incomparable Rodkey siblings, Erik and Krista—traces of their creative insights glimmer in my story. I would also like to acknowledge my indebtedness to the grandfather of all fantasy writers, George MacDonald, most particularly as it relates to his story, The Wise Woman. My book is, in a way, a dialogue with all the haunting impressions that story has left on me ever since I was a child. I also would like to acknowledge the inspiration I drew from Michael Ward’s book Planet Narnia, his insights into C.S. Lewis’s works having helped shaped my faerie world. I would like to thank all those others who encouraged me through the labor of a first novel: Sarah Hinkle, Rebekah Lamb, Beatrice Ellis, Gemma Myers, Tessa Cialini, and Sophie Lippiatt. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents. They took me in, jobless and homeless; they gave me the time and the space to write and never once told me that I should be doing something else. Without them, my dream would never have become a reality.
A NOTE ON THE WORD Faerie: The word “faerie” is both the adjectival and plural form of the singular “faery.” When it is capitalized, it then describes the “realm” of the faeries.
A SHARP THORN of sorrow pierced the young prince’s heart. He had stolen deep into the forest to cry alone under the elm tree, where no one could hear him. But he was not as alone as he had thought, for a shrill cackle of laughter broke in on his sobs.
He craned his neck to peer through the thick gloom of the wood, where he glimpsed an old woman peeking at him from behind a tree trunk. Her eyes glittered from the shadows and fixed him with their keen gaze. Then, as she hobbled toward him with another cackle, the boy rose, warily watching her approach —there were stories of a witch that lived in the forest who drove men mad and was mad herself. The old woman certainly seemed mad, for she muttered as she hobbled.
Under the dark side of the moon
The old man went fishing for trout.
But he only found shoes,
And he only found spoons,
For there were no fishes about.
She cackled again and circled around the elm, reciting this time:
Old Ninny Nanny’s bones did moan
Rattle tattle bags.
Old Ninny Nanny’s bones did groan
Skittle skattle skunk.
Speak to Ninny Nanny’s bones.
Then she popped out from the other side of the tree and, fishing a little handkerchief from her voluminous coat of tatters and rags, held it out to the boy. He stared at the old woman. She was stretched and gaunt and stooped; her silver, wiry hair stuck out in knots like whiskers; wrinkles crisscrossed her face; her eyes were bright and sharp. Her handkerchief was white and clean, but the boy did not take it.
The old woman cracked into a smile and tucked her handkerchief back into her tattered coat.
“Why have ye been crying?” she asked.
“I wasn’t crying.”
Salt tears turn sweet when they water your feet.
Tears that are dammed poison the land.
They slay your enemies and worse,
Yourself!
“Tell me why ye have been crying.”
The boy’s lips trembled but his voice remained steady. “My mother’s dead, and my father married again yesterday. He says that it is weak to cry.” Two lone tears trailed down his face. “My father is the king, and I cannot shame him.”
The old woman whisked out her handkerchief again, and this time he took it.
“Princeling, what be your name?”
“Erik.”
“Come to my cottage, Erik. Ye can wash your face an’ eat some hot soup, eh?”
“I don’t know if I should, aren’t you a…”
“…Witch?” she finished for him. “Some would call me that, but everyone gets everything backwards. I promise ye that no harm will come to ye through me. Ye can even cry in my cottage an’ I won’t tell.”
He took her outstretched hand, and his feet crunched the dry leaves as she led him on a winding path through the forest until they came to a small, thatched cottage with a picket fence. In the yard were hens and geese, a bleating black and white goat, and a well in the far corner.
The old woman opened the creaking gate and led the prince into the cottage, sitting him down on a wooden chair at the table. Then she hobbled over to the hearth to kindle the fire and get the pot boiling. Erik heaved the occasional sigh, but mostly he watched the old woman’s goings on with interest. Soon she placed before him a bowl of soup, and the warmth of the rising steam soothed him. The old woman sat beside him and did not say a word, which relieved the prince because he did not yet feel like talking. After he finished, he leaned back against his chair and gazed into the old woman’s rough but friendly face.
“Are you one of the good wood folk my mother told me about?”
“What makes ye ask that?” the old woman chuckled.
“You are kind to strangers in the wood. No one else that I know is kind to strangers. I wager you can speak to animals too.”
There was once a young maid who bathed in the river an’ lost a silver trinket from round her neck in its shiny waters. I spied the silver, thought it was a trout, an’ fished the gleaming thing from the river. I found the maid weeping over the loss of her favorite bauble an’ returned it to her. An’ here ‘tis now!
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With a swift jerk, the old woman yanked a silver pendant from under the prince’s tunic before he could even blink in surprise. The pendant was shaped like a half moon, its straight edge notched in places. On its face was the delicate carving of a bird in flight clutching a fish in its outstretched talons.
“You knew my mother!” the prince exclaimed.
The old woman nodded.
“Did you know who I was all along?”
The old woman grinned.
“What else do you know?”
“Now that would be telling.”
“What is your name, then?” asked the prince.
“Ninny Nanny.”
“That is a children’s rhyme. What is your real name?”
The old woman was silent.
The prince saw that she was not going to answer him.
“My mother used to tell me stories about Ninny Nanny and her old bones. Didn’t you marry the old man of the moon, so you could live on the moon too?”
Ninny Nanny grunted. “Backwards… Why does everyone always get the stories backwards?”
“My father doesn’t like the old stories. He says that the time of magic is now past. If there is any magic left, it is wild and dangerous.”
“And what do you believe, princeling?”
“I don’t know… but I miss my mother’s stories. Ninny Nanny, can you tell me more about her?”
The old woman took the prince’s chin in her hand, and he could feel the rough calluses on her fingers.
“Your hair is dark as the raven’s wing, an’ your eyes are the clear grey of the sky after the rains. Ye take after the western peoples like your mother.”
The prince nodded. “She used to tell me about her people from the west and how their ancient lands were once the Golden Kingdom from the old stories, and that their king traveled throughout his realm and spoke to animals like one of the good wood folk. Then the Golden Kingdom was lost and became a part of Lothene, and the king now wanders throughout the kingdom searching for his golden crown.”
“A gentle woman was your mother an’ she loved the old stories. I told her a few myself before she married your father. She had traveled far from home an’ was lonely. Mind ye don’t forget the stories she told ye.”
“Of course not! They are all I have left of her. That and this.” Erik held up his silver pendant.
“Did ye know that silver belongs to the moon?”
“Does it?” Erik asked. “What does that mean?”
The old woman fell silent, and Erik heard the crackling of the fire in the hearth. A drowsiness swept over him, and his eyes grew heavy.
“Would ye like to take a nap on the heather?” the old woman asked. “I’ll make sure an’ waken ye before it gets dark.”
He nodded sleepily, and Ninny Nanny led him to a mattress that smelt of straw and heather in the corner of the room.
Erik fell asleep.
A warm light surrounded Erik and, as he blinked back sleep, the light turned into the clear light of day.
He was standing in a silver field of tall feathery grass that rustled in the breeze and was spangled with little white flowers that looked like stars. Gazing to his right, the prince saw that the field went far into the distance and turned into a dark wood and then finally grew into blue-grey mountains that faded on the horizon; to his left was a riverbank sheltered by soft, purple trees.
Erik accepted his presence in this otherworldly landscape with the calm acceptance of a dream. The purple trees shading the river bank and the wind in the leaves seemed to rustle secrets that drew him through the field to the shaded bank, where he peered into the river water.
The prince gasped in surprise.
The river was so clear he could see right through it and count every pebble. But what truly took his breath away was that, drifting on the bottom of the river bed, a fair maid lay sleeping.
Erik knelt down by the bank and stared long and deep into her lovely face. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Her floating hair formed a soft golden aureole about her face, and her expression was gentle and peaceful, if a little sad. If only she would open her eyes, he thought.
Slowly the prince stretched out his hand and touched the surface of the water. Ripples radiated from that point, and the water shimmered and blurred as the whole world about him dissolved.
“No!” he gasped.
Then he found himself lost in the dark.
He must have woken up. Night must have fallen, and the fire gone out in Ninny Nanny’s cottage.
He called out. There was no answer. All he could hear was the thump of his heart growing faster and faster. He was alone, trapped in a mad woman’s cottage in the absolute darkness. Erik fought down panic. If he found his way outside, the moon and the stars would shed enough light for him to make his way home.
Erik fumbled about the room until his fingers finally found the door and clutched the latch. He pushed the door open.
No cold, night air rushed to greet him. Instead, he stumbled into a large room lit by candlelight and firelight, with large candelabras hanging from the ceiling. Rich, red curtains were draped over the windows, and the walls were painted with garlands of stars, their colors shining subdued in the flickering shadows.
The prince saw that he was not alone. A stately lady, wearing a crown, sat embroidering by candlelight. He supposed she was the queen of a wealthy kingdom; her gem-encrusted dress was richer by far than any dress he had ever seen his mother or stepmother wear. He spotted the king standing before a table on which lay a box painted with stars of all different colors. Beside him was a girl about the prince’s own age. Her perfect milk-white face looked almost unreal, as if she were a doll, and her eyes were latched on the box with such greedy intensity that Erik grimaced, though he could not help being struck by how pretty she was, how golden her hair and blue her eyes.
Nobody noticed him. I must still be dreaming, he thought. Strange, to feel so awake and yet know he was dreaming.
The princess snatched the lid off the box, and, for an instant, her face was transformed by wonder. But then her expression vanished, replaced by a dark look glimmering with rage. She reached into the box and held aloft a glass globe that sparkled in the flickering light.
A wild howl burst from her lips.
The princess hurled the globe across the room, and it splintered in a heartrending crash against the wall. Shocked, Erik watched as she flung herself to the ground, punctuating the air with cries and shrieks.
A flood of disgust washed over him. What a brat, he thought. Her parents were just as bad. There they were, trying to calm her down when they should just give her a sound spanking. His father would have had him beaten with a stick if he had behaved like that, and rightfully so.
He turned his back on the scene. A door stood before him, and he pulled it open, hoping to step into another dream, maybe even return to the field with the beautiful sleeping maid—she was so peaceful and serene, so different from the princess shrieking behind him.
He stepped through and found himself opening his eyes. Ninny Nanny’s thatched roof loomed above him, and he smelled straw and heather. The prince swiftly sat up, and there was Ninny Nanny herself, sitting in her chair, knitting by the fire.
She chuckled. “Ye slept soundly, princeling. I didn’t know if I should waken ye.”
Erik rubbed his eyes and rose to stand next to her by the fire. The searing heat blasted his face. He sprang away from the fire and wondered how the old woman could stand it.
He gave Ninny Nanny a curious sidewise glance. Who was this old woman with her bizarre words and riddles, who might or might not be mad, and who lived all alone in a cottage deep in the wood?
“I had the most strange dream,” he said. “It was so real.” He described his dream of the selfish princess, but did not mention the sleeping maiden in the waters. It was as if his vision of her would be spoiled with words.
“What did you think of the young princess, princeling?
”
“I don’t like her. She’s spoiled and cries too much.”
The old woman raised her eyebrows.
The prince straightened. “But she had no reason to cry. She’s a brat and a baby.”
“Ah, but we have to allow that little ones grow. An’ sometimes people’s goodness is hidden very deep inside. Sit ye down beside me at the fire and let me tell ye a story. It’s about a princess who wished for the moon.”
THE PRINCESS FLUNG the moon across the room, and it shattered against the wall into millions of slivers of glistening glass. She trembled violently and let out such howls and shrieks that the flustered king immediately ran to her side and the queen dropped her embroidery. Together, the distressed parents managed to soothe the screeching child enough to sit her on a chair and hush her piercing screams.
“I told you I wanted the moon. Why did you give me that silly glass ball?” the princess gasped from her heaving chest.
King Aurleon IV stroked his beard, which was as golden as a lion’s mane, and, as he stroked it, he patted his daughter on the head.
“It is not a simple task to bring the moon,” he said. “The moon is hard to come by. Besides, that was not just an ordinary glass ball—it was a globe hand-blown in the east. I went through much trouble to find one with just the right silvery complexion. Why it cost me half of my kingdom. I’ll have to raise the taxes!”
The princess glared at him. “You promised you would bring me the moon. Kings do not break their promises.”
He sighed. “Dear heart, how about I give you a little dog?”
The princess shook her head.
“I know.” The queen wrapped her arms around the child and lowered her face down to the princess’ ear to whisper, “How about I give you my pretty pearl ring? I know how much you like it.”
Tears welled up in the princess’ eyes, and she started crying again.
“Shh! Shh! Enough! I shall bring you the moon, but please, no more tears.” The king wrung his hands.
The princess sniffed and her sobs subsided. “You promise?” she whined, her tear-stained face upturned.
“There, there.” The king stroked her hair. “Don’t look so sad, kings always keep their promises.”