Ferryl Shayde - Book 3 - A Very Different Game

by Vance Huxley

  The tickle of whiskers came as a shock, as did her lips, then Ferryl pulled back. “New Year kiss. It’s traditional. I kept it to the kiss you negotiated with Jenny.” This time Abel could see the humour in those great big eyes.

  “The whiskers were a shock. I thought they were a seeming.”

  “They are.” She winked. “It’s magic.” Before Abel could ask how she did that, Shawn turned Ferryl away for a Christmas kiss.

  A loud clap quietened everyone, and a voice called, “Attention everyone, please.” Abel turned to see Claris, her makeup repaired and wearing a big smile. She raised her hands to make sure everyone knew who was talking. “I wasn’t really keen on coming here tonight. It went better than expected, because I got to find out I can hurt those monsters. I still owe you all a huge apology, and hope you’ll accept it.” A ripple of clapping, not a lot, went round the room. “I know, hard to believe. Still, finding I’ve got some mojo left means I can keep a promise. When that leech was in me, Ferryl asked if I’d kiss someone to get it out.” Abel started to get worried, and so did Rob, Kelis and Jenny. “She meant to let the magic inside to heal me, but I said if I had to I’d snog Abel’s brains out as often as necessary.” A ripple of laughter spread out, relieved laughter from four of them. “Mr Hand-Holder never collected, because he’s a gent. Look up Abel.”

  As Abel did so a bunch of mistletoe held in a wind glyph slowed and stopped right above him. There were a few whistles and some applause. Abel opened his mouth to say no chance, but as he looked down Claris connected. The mouth part was a mistake because snogging brains out involved an open mouth, apparently. He certainly felt as if his brains had been scrambled as Claris stepped back and high-fived Jenny. “Okay girls, he’s all trained up.”

  Jenny laughed and pushed forwards. She lowered her voice as she put her arms round him. “I owe you one as well, a proper kiss instead of those careful chaste versions.” This one wasn’t snogging his brains out but it definitely went beyond Jenny’s previous kisses. “Thanks, Abel.” Abel watched her go in a daze.

  Kelis bent down and whispered, “This is all you’re allowed, idiot,” before kissing him on the cheek. “At least you got to kiss someone without using magic.”

  Abel lost his temper, just a bit, because the magic link to Kelis had been a genuine mistake. Worse, she’d pushed the boyfriend thing with the other two girls but kept tweaking him about it. “And I won’t be binding anyone here even if I kiss them properly. They’re all warded.” He turned as someone pulled his shoulder, put his arms round her and kissed back, hard. For a moment he thought he’d made a mistake because her back felt furry, but it was Petra.

  “Hey, he really is learning.” As Petra pulled away Sarah smiled and held out her arms. Abel was either still mad, or maybe enjoying himself, he didn’t care which anymore. He didn’t kiss many girls, but none of them were possessed or magically linked. Or most weren’t, the fur on the last one’s back suddenly felt like skin and he realised her whiskers were tickling.

  Ferryl laughed at him. “I’m your date tonight, so I get the last kiss and it was a lot better than the first. You seem to be in the mood now so come on, I want a proper smoochy last dance.” Abel almost said no, but then he saw Kelis smooching with Emst.

  “Why not? It’s about time I learned how. Maybe I can get a dancing wit.” After all, Ferryl said she just wanted to have a date for tonight. The least he could do was go along with it. Abel didn’t even get uptight about the kiss at the end because Ferryl kept it to the Jenny original, or thereabouts. He’d lost track of that somewhere along the way.

  The party broke up soon after, with Jenny’s taxi arriving within minutes. Abel smiled as he saw Petra in her Ferryl Shayde costume leave with Creepio Mysterio. That sight really would give the actual vicar a heart attack. Claris checked he would fix up a baseball bat if she bought one, and left looking downright cheerful. Poor Emst looked really upset when Kelis went towards the BMW, then she laughed and got into the Corsa with him. He’d borrowed her cloak as a costume for the fancy dress, but Kelis insisted on taking it back when they all arrived home.

  Abel walked home from Kelis’s hoping this New Year would be just a bit less traumatic. He even had an answer when Rob teased him about Claris’s kiss, because he’d seen the fan club bushwhacking Roughly Hewn under another bunch of floating mistletoe. Tonight Abel didn’t even have questions from mum. She must still be at the New Year dance in Stourton.

  ∼∼

  Ferryl Shayde lay awake for a long time, her mind whirling. Something had happened tonight, something that frightened her, something that had never happened in all her thousands of years. Perhaps it had started sooner, when she had become embroiled in the lives of these children? They had somehow wrapped her, Pungh Hmmshtfun, into their dreams and schemes. Humans only ever spoke to her host, because Ferryl always hid herself to avoid the church. These children spoke to her, not the host, and they knew she wasn’t human, that she was incredibly old and that she possessed bodies. Despite that they took her into their homes, and introduced her to their friends.

  Perhaps it started because she had almost faded in the pit, had looked extinction in the eye and then been snatched back to the world. Maybe it had been the time spent riding in that tattoo, a vessel within a human and powered by that human’s magic, but without any binding. Those three, then four frail, short-lived children had accepted her as one of them, not a monster to be controlled or destroyed. Even her ex-host Jenny, knowing what she was, laughed and joked with her. With her, using her name and not a host’s.

  Ferryl could have understood if they had bound her, or held the secret of her existence as a threat. Instead, all four had agreed she could stay herself for ninety years and had lied to church and sorcerers to keep her secret. Abel had signed away his new-found wealth, a large part of his income, to let her stay. He’d done it without hesitation, because he considered her a friend. She liked that too much, being accepted. Somehow it made her feel less like Pungh Hmmshtfun, perhaps like a Ferryl Shayde.

  Tonight she had risked her existence to attack a creature that had been no threat to her. A small risk but Braeth Huntian would have wriggled away from the loose agreement with Abel and run, as she had so many times before. Instead she had led the attack, deliberately trapping herself in the attic with the creature to give Abel, Rob, Kelis and Jenny the best chance of survival. She had stood watching Abel walk towards the dryads and worried about him, then felt a fierce pride when they had all kept Laurence out of trouble.

  Afterwards the entity Ferryl Shayde had cheered and danced with the Taverners, basking in a very odd sensation that as yet had no name. It felt similar to sensations she remembered in her hosts, their feelings, which she had mimed to conceal her existence but never understood. Was this friendship? What was friendship? Ferryl had never understood those helping and supporting others without any promise of return.

  Perhaps Zephyr was to blame? Ferryl knew her own kind were rare, created by chance and dying without trace. With Abel she had deliberately brought a new life into the world, not a mindless slave but something that thought. Something free, with magic and will of her own, a hybrid that included some human traits, Abel’s traits. Had the magical equivalent to a child awoken something inside herself?

  A child only partly hers. Zephyr would never act as Pungh Hmmshtfun had, possessing human after human to supply her with a form that could hold knowledge and magic. That aversion came from Abel because despite his growing strength and skill, he had flaws. Abel gave up control of a powerful ally, Woods, without hesitation, and released Zephyr knowing she might never return. He squandered tree magic training two score potential rivals, with no tether or even an oath of fealty. Abel cared too much for the lives of others, for their freedom, to reap the rewards that his growing skill and powers had earned him so far. His plan to share the magic from his trees with strangers all over the country relied on the basic good nature of the recipients. Ferryl knew that magic brought out the
worst in those who used it, fed their ambitions and greed. Sooner or later, a spared enemy or a faithless friend would stab Abel in the back.

  In the darkness, Ferryl Shayde’s lips peeled back in a soundless snarl. He would need someone or something at his back, one who would not hesitate to strike. If Abel Bernard Conroy really was her first friend, then regardless of what Pungh Hmmshtfun should do, Ferryl Shayde would not allow the world to take him from her. She lay in the dark, trying to work out where the threats might come from so she could be ready.

  Though time and again she came back to possibly having a friend, or friends. Did that explain the feeling she had whenever she thought of Abel? Is this what caring felt like? How did she find out for certain?

  ∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼∼

  Gathering Wits

  The week between New Year and going back to school turned out to be busy for everyone close to the five Taverneers. Their parents were discussing either the Christmas presents and the extra windfall their children had found, or the letter that arrived from the bishop. The bishop wanted a proper explanation of how the charity would use a leased church, and the alterations they might want to make. The latter part came down to Jenny’s dad. The goblins in the churchyard had to be very still gargoyles during the three days Mr Forester and two of his men measured up and checked the condition of the stonework, timbers and roof.

  Abel found himself looking through internet pages of second-hand cars with his mum. She now had a rough idea of what the earrings would bring, and what she’d get as trade-in for her old car, and wanted the newest car she could manage. Abel kept steering her away from the larger ones, insisting the Tavern could supply their own transport. She wore the earrings most of the time, especially the two days she went to work, and now Abel wished he’d kept quiet and found another way to replace the car.

  Kelis’s mum had made definite plans to sell her engagement ring and the brooch as soon as she was divorced. The divorce still dragged on because some of the evidence was tied to the court cases for assault. Two cases because as Abel had thought at the time, the police were charging Mr Ventner with assaulting their officers. Kelis would eventually have to give evidence about her own and her mum’s injuries, probably at the end of January because Mr Ventner’s lawyer kept wriggling and putting off the final reckoning. There’d definitely be no money at all left from the house or the business after the bank and the lawyer were done. Mr Ventner would probably end up both bankrupt and in jail, so there’d be no maintenance money either.

  In the meantime Kelis finished scribing her German language onto a wit, becoming more fluent even if Emst had now gone home. She’d taken a break after getting the basics because the scribing hurt, just as Ferryl warned. Abel could testify to that, because he’d managed to put all those complicated geometry equations onto a small wit in his shin. He could manage because that bone wasn’t deep, but it certainly felt sore. Rob explained his comment about a better use for his wits, he already had one containing the entire periodic table and had started on a long list of facts he needed for his Science GCSE. Since he could read and manipulate earth better than the rest, getting below his skin and scribing on bone turned out to be relatively easy once Rob got the knack. Not that he would be recording anything he didn’t think was essential, because of the pain.

  All three agreed that actually turning the knowledge into a sort of cipher, not actual letters but a representation in thought, had been the hardest part. They’d only managed it after Ferryl passed the feeling, how her mind felt the sensation as the memory turned to a solid mark, to Zephyr. Zephyr passed the feeling on to Kelis, Rob, Jenny and Abel. Even then Kelis and Abel had chosen subjects where a mistake wouldn’t matter too much. Jenny still couldn’t manage reliable scribing under the surface of a length of branch, but ferocious practice would soon solve that.

  Between that and homework, and keeping up general glyph practice, none of them even thought about how they’d open the next door in Castle House. They’d got plenty to do right now, even Ferryl. Her charred wit held several languages, though many were old ones and often didn’t include the written version. She’d also found information on seemings, like the ones Creepio cast over the lorry door and the stretchers rather than the ones cast on bandages or skin. She’d found different ways to bind various types of entities, and some knowledge of the weaknesses of the more dangerous magical creatures, but much of that was incomplete. The charring meant Ferryl had to work through all the memories to make sure she’d got it right before re-scribing the missing portions. Her fluent German had come from the wit, an older version she’d had to update once she saw Kelis’s books and heard her tapes.

  Rob had an extra distraction, at home. Either something visible to ordinary sight kept looking over the back fence, or Melanie had started to get hints of creatures. According to Rachel, one of the few Taverners the same age, there’d been no sign of Melanie activating magic when they played Bonny’s Tavern over Skype. The latest peeping whatevers had supposedly been toadstools, which Ferryl couldn’t match up with any magical creature. They all hoped Rob’s dad wasn’t right about Melanie playing Bonny’s Tavern too much and imagining monsters. At least Melanie had promised Rob she’d only tell him if she saw any more, so her mum and dad didn’t get uptight.

  Abel had a ticking off rather than a distraction. Dryad Woods, through Terese Green, politely told him he’d carried out the whole negotiation with Laurence’s dryads the wrong way. As Mz Green told him four different ways, having a legal representative usually meant including them in any agreements before finalising them. Abel apologised, feeling about ten years old again as he explained why, and asked Terese to organise the details. She promised that Woods and Green would be in touch with the dryads near Laurence’s home to find out when each one could ripen seeds. A lorry carrying saplings in pots would transport several at a time. Terese Green suggested she should explain the rules to the seedlings, or in a few years’ time they would start seeding all over their new home. Abel didn’t argue.

  The comments from Laurence’s dryads led to the Taverneers having a long conversation with Chestnut, the dryad on the village green. After negotiating the price in honey, Chestnut explained that dryads would sometimes agree to guard woodland for a sorcerer or supply magic for a limited period. In return the dryad would be allowed to ripen a seedling and place it in a protected sapling. The seedling usually stayed within sight of the dryad, because sorcerers were notorious for either breaking agreements or binding young dryads if they caught them alone. The sorcerer didn’t have to negotiate if the dryad was bound and would put them into different trees on a whim, which could be painful and very confusing. For the first time, Chestnut seemed genuinely interested in homes for seedlings in Dead Wood.

  ∼∼

  The visits to Chestnut used up the last of the honey. Since Chestnut had just had some, Abel felt it might be past time that Dryad Sycamore, the one watching over Dead Wood, had a treat. The simplest solution, now they all had a few quid, was to buy a pot from the village shop even if it would cost a bit more. Mr Summers was his usual grumpy self. He didn’t want to talk about the huge For Sale sign beyond grumbling that if the locals had bought more honey, he wouldn’t be leaving.

  After buying the honey, the five of them set off for Castle House and Dryad Sycamore, but Stan diverted them. “Careful Abel, if you start shopping there the Slummers might stay.” He looked the group over before turning back to Abel. “How’s that lass, Claris? I haven’t seen her lately.”

  “Still doing well, thanks Stan. She might be visiting, so I’ll ask her to call in.” Claris would be bringing her baseball bat sometime and Abel would insist she called in on the old poacher. Stan still worried about how Claris was coping with whatever had been inside her, and drinking blood to feed it.

  The pensioner turned his attention to Ferryl. “Watch him love, he’s a real lady-killer. I can’t keep up with them.” Stan winked at Jenny. “As this one and Ke
lis can both tell you.” He looked back towards Ferryl with a cheeky grin. “Though you’ve been around here too long already. You’re either hooked or immune.”

  “Hooked, Stan, definitely hooked.” Ferryl turned to inspect the other four. “Though is it Abel or Rob, or maybe Kelis or Jenny?”

  “Don’t start that sort of shenanigans, young lady. My heart won’t take it.” Stan paused, then finally got to why he’d come out to intercept them. “Are you going into that house again?”

  Abel didn’t bother denying it. Stan lived almost next door, with just a bramble and shrub-filled empty plot between him and the wall around Castle House gardens. “We kept exploring the gardens and found a key in a box, so we tried it in the door. It must have been left there for deliveries or something because it only lets us in the front bit. Most of the house is still locked up but the front entrance is warmer than that cave, and we don’t need a chicken.” As expected Stan laughed, though he looked a bit curious because Ferryl laughed as well.

  “You know about that? I thought you were from Germany?” Stan had definitely been asking around. “How come you know all about the weird stuff?” There wasn’t any point hiding it, so Ferryl looked sad and explained about being an orphan and seeing creatures. As expected, Stan apologised for prying, though the old poacher would no doubt do so again if he felt like it. The five of them left laughing at the parting shot. Stan had offered to give Abel refuge and loan him the shotgun if his women ganged up on him.

  ∼∼

  After opening Castle House, and suffering more teasing about the shotgun, Abel headed for the library. He’d brought his own reading, a history text book, but found the room relaxing. Kelis and Jenny headed upstairs. They were cataloguing all the old clothing so Abel could decide if he wanted to sell some or give most of it to a museum. Rob went to study in the sitting room, because he couldn’t concentrate on school work with other people in the room.