by Jocelyn Fox
“You did not tell me you were not alone,” Glira said to Molly, her lovely voice just this side of annoyed.
“I apologize, Glira, but I was about to introduce you,” Molly said in the tone of a forbearing long-time friend.
“Very well. Make the introductions,” Glira said imperiously. If I had been able to see her I would have bet that her arms were crossed and her little chin tilted up in an expression of utter superiority.
“Tess, this is Glira. Glira, this is Tess, my best friend from school,” Molly said, bringing her finger a little closer to me. “Hold out your hand, palm out,” she said in an undertone.
I obediently held out my palm and felt Glira press her hand to my skin. Her small hand fit perfectly in the curved center of my palm, and it felt very warm in contrast to my memory of Wisp. “Pleased to meet you,” I said as politely as I could.
“We’ll see whether you will be so pleased in a night’s time,” Glira said. She turned toward Molly again, flitting off her finger to hover in front of her face again. “I would have thought that Trillow and I raised you better than this! All that time in the mortal world with the cold metal and this is how you thank us?” Extensions of glow that I thought might be her wings fluttered furiously. “Ignoring a message from the Lady of the Dark Court! I would have never thought you to be the type!”
“Glira,” Molly said soothingly, “I read the message, I didn’t ignore it.”
“You are testing the patience of the Sidhe!” Glira circled once about Molly’s head, her melodious voice conveying a surprising amount of force.
“Calm down,” Molly tried again. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you know anything about why they want to talk to me?”
Glira laughed. The sound sent a shiver down my spine.
“It is not my place to guess why the Dark Lady would want to talk to you,” she said.
“You don’t mean to say that you don’t know anything at all,” I said, unable to help myself.
Glira cleared her throat. “Molly, please tell me again why you have allowed this mortal to accompany you thus far.”
Molly sighed. “Glira, she read the letter. Or…she saw it. And another trooping faery by the name of Wisp came to her last night to urge me to accept the summons in the Lady’s message.”
“Well and right he should urge you to accept the Lady’s word!” Glira rustled her wings again. “If he is the one I think you mean, this Wisp you speak of has good judgment, of all the messengers for the Dark Court that I have met.”
“You were once a messenger,” Molly reminded Glira gently.
“And I probably shall be again, once they forgive me for losing the first message to you,” Glira said. “But the Sidhe have long memories, and it will probably be beyond your lifetime before they let go their grievance.”
“You never told me exactly why you lost it,” Molly said. She glanced at me quickly, a cautionary arch to her eyebrow. I nodded slightly to show that I understood—she was prying gently into the root of this whole mess, or trying to at any rate.
Glira hovered. “You are right. You probably think I’m like Trillow, a silly little flit who can’t remember her own name in the noon-time sun.”
I gathered that was a type of insult in the faery world.
“But,” she continued, “I was told not to tell you what befell me, or I would have.”
“Go on,” Molly prompted, resting her chin in her hand.
“I was given the message by one of the Dark Queen’s knights.”
“They have knights?” I asked, a spark of interest flaring in my mind.
“It is more a title of courtesy than anything else,” Glira said, explaining a little grudgingly but now seeming to accept my presence. “There has been no need for the actual services of the knights for many years now, but that is all about to change.”
Molly leaned forward a little farther. “Why? What’s changed?”
“I do not know whether I should tell you this,” Glira said.
“If you don’t tell us, I’ll just call Wisp,” I told the glow, looking unconcerned as she whizzed by close to my face. A fresh scent like the open night sky lingered in her wake.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she said, quivering as she hovered in front of my face. She flew back to Molly. “Not only do you bring another mortal when you call me, you bring an impudent one!”
Molly smiled a little. “What can I say, Glira. Tess has always had a mind of her own. You know,” she continued with that sly glance at me again, “I should just let Tess call Wisp. He can probably tell us more than you can anyway. Or at least he’d tell it to us faster.”
Glira pirouetted in midair, transforming into a whirling gleam of light. She stopped and pulsed in thought, bending forward to point a delicate little finger at Molly’s nose. “In all the years I have known you, the lesson you have learned best is how to persuade faeries to do your bidding.” She actually sounded pleased. “That will stand you in good stead at the Court, although I can tell you that the Sidhe are not nearly so susceptible to flattery as I am.”
“And I am sure the Sidhe will also not be quite as beautiful as you are,” Molly replied without skipping a beat, only a slight smile betraying her amusement.
Glira fluttered her wings. “Enough. I will tell you all.” She circled and hovered around the circle of small stones, clearly interested in the chocolate placed in the middle. “And when I tell you, I expect that I will be….rewarded.”
“After you tell, not before,” said Molly gently but firmly. She said in a quiet aside to me, “Glira can’t take the chocolate until she holds up her part of the agreement, once she’s inside the circle.”
“Very well,” Glira said, unperturbed by Molly’s conditions. She alighted gracefully in the stone circle, perching on one of the border-stones as Molly carefully completed the pattern.
Molly sat down on the ground, leaning back against the rock she had used as a seat. I followed suit, folding my legs Indian-style, ready to hear more about this situation in the faery-world, or whatever it was that they called it.
“We’re listening,” Molly said.
“Very well,” Glira said again. Her voice changed, taking on a lower, more authoritative tone as she began her story. “Our time is not reckoned as your time, so I do not know exactly when the story begins. But suffice it to say it was probably around the time that you were born, Molly. The story of your birth and your lineage is not mine to tell. I will leave that to the Knight of the Dark Court that will be coming to collect you tonight.”
Molly saw me furrowing my eyebrows and shook her head, warning me not to interrupt.
“The Lady of the Dark Court sent me to watch over you, and the Queen of the Bright Court sent Trillow. After all is said and done, Trillow and I have no quarrel with one another. We are not beholden to either Court except when we choose to put ourselves in their service. One just has to find the right fee, and a trooping faery will be glad to perform most tasks.” Glira glanced significantly at the foil-wrapped chocolate. “Obviously the fee for watching over you, my dear Molly, was most extravagant. But after those first years, after the summer in these hills, I would have watched over you for nothing.”
The fondness in Glira’s voice made me smile. Perhaps these faeries wouldn’t be so hard to deal with after all—they seemed to possess the same kinds of emotions and attachment as we mere mortals.
“But when you were on the brink of womanhood, we were called back by the Courts. Trillow, especially, was most distressed, since it was the Court to which she was beholden that had experienced the upheaval.”
“I thought I had killed you both somehow, or that you were angry at me for telling the school psychiatrist that you didn’t exist,” Molly said softly in a voice barely above a whisper.
“No, my
dear. We allowed you to think that we were angry. We chose the day of our leaving very carefully. It was a necessary precaution. The Courts were in upheaval.” Glira flew a little around the ring of stones in agitation. “Suffice it to say that I know very little about the cause of the strife. That story, too, belongs to the Sidhe.” She stopped in the center of the ring again. “All that I can tell you for certain is that there is such tension between the Courts, between the Dark Lady and the Bright Queen. Even the trooping faeries, we have started to feel it, this war that is coming.”
“War?” Molly breathed.
Glira’s glow dampened a little. “Yes. That is what it is going to come to. There has always been some amount of conflict between the two Courts, but in past years it has been settled in genteel manners as the numbers of the Sidhe have dwindled. But this war is not between the Courts.”
“Why are there less Sidhe now than in the past?” Molly asked.
Glira looked at me. “You should ask Tess. I can feel the power of her thoughts as I speak, and I am sorry I was ill-mannered toward her. She will be a great ally for you in the Courts.”
Molly smiled and looked at me with that same forbearing expression she had used when talking Glira into telling her story. “So, Tess, why have the numbers of the Sidhe dwindled?”
I took a breath, ignoring the sting of her condescension. “If I’ve heard Glira correctly,” I said, giving a little nod of courtesy to the glow, “she made it sound as if staying in the mortal world hurts faeries, or weakens them. ‘All those years in the mortal world with the cold metal,’ is what she said. So if man-made things hurt faeries, then it would stand to reason that as we expand and industrialize, it would affect the population of the Sidhe, if they’re affected just as the trooping faeries are.”
I looked to Glira for validation of my statement. She flew a lap around the stone circle and spiraled upwards in pleasure.
“Very good,” she said. “If only you were so quick to think, Molly.”
“I can…I mean, I’ve always been able to solve puzzles,” I said. “It’s easy for me to hold all the pieces together in my head and see what fits.”
Molly nudged me with her elbow. “Well, at least I know you’ll be good for something,” she said with a wicked glint in her eye.
“Good,” Glira repeated. “May I have the chocolate now?”
“Of course,” Molly said. She reached into the circle and politely unwrapped the Hershey’s Kiss, smoothing out the foil into a flat square and placing the chocolate back into the ring. Then she turned away and whispered to me, “It’s not polite to watch them eat.”
“Oh.” I diverted my gaze. “Right. I need an etiquette course or something.”
Molly chuckled softly. “I don’t know anything about etiquette with the Greater Fae. The Sidhe have their own set of rules.”
After a few moments, Glira said, “Thank you for your courtesy.”
Apparently that meant she was done eating her chocolate, because Molly turned back to the little stone circle. Glira had eaten about a third of the chocolate and had neatly cut the rest into little blocks. She was in the process of wrapping the little blocks in a package with the silver foil.
“I have a question, if you would be willing to answer it,” I said.
Glira paused in wrapping up the chocolate. “I suppose this is more than enough reward for another question.”
“What are the weaknesses of the Sidhe? How can they be hurt?”
The quivering slivers of light that were Glira’s wings stilled. “Oh, you do not want to anger the Sidhe.”
“We need to know,” I said. “I need to know. You want me to be able to protect Molly, right?”
Glira paced around her bundle of chocolate. “I do not know whether I should tell mortals the weaknesses of the Sidhe. I am not bound by their laws, but it would not go well for me if they find out.”
“Well,” I said firmly, “they won’t find out.”
Glira made a sound that sounded like wind rustling through green leaves—what probably passed for her sigh. “I do not know why I trust you so, Tess,” she said. “There is something…different…about you than other mortals I have met. So I shall tell you. Listen well. I will not repeat myself for even the trees can hear if they desire.”
“All right,” I nodded. “I’m listening.”
“What they lack is what hurts the Sidhe most,” Glira said. Then she picked up her bundle of chocolate and hovered at the edge of the circle. “Now, Molly, please release me.”
“What? Wait. That doesn’t tell us what hurts the Sidhe,” I said.
“Such is the way of the faeries, Tess,” Glira said, “and it would stand you well to learn it now. We do not answer all questions as plainly as you would like.”
“I don’t think you answered it at all,” I said in irritation.
Molly reached forward and removed one of the rocks.
“Fair nights and bright days to you,” Glira said with a twirl of her wings, and she was gone.
I stood up and brushed the dirt from my skin. “Well, that was certainly productive,” I muttered, my voice heavy with sarcasm.
“The Sidhe could kill Glira, if they found out what she just told us,” Molly said seriously, zipping up the front pocket of the backpack.
“She didn’t tell us anything!”
“She told you exactly what you asked, just not very straightforwardly. And that’s not her fault. It’s just in their nature to be like that.” Molly swung the backpack onto her shoulder again.
“There’s no way we can go to the Unseelie Court with no defense,” I protested.
“I don’t really have a choice, Tess. Did you hear Glira? They’re sending a knight to come collect me. I don’t think I’d win even if we tried to fight. And who knows what supernatural apocalypse we’d set off if we killed a Sidhe.”
“Can they even die?” I asked.
Molly shook her head. “I don’t know, Tess.” She took a step backward and sat down on the rock again. “Look, you don’t have to come with me. I know that you want to protect me, but….I might be safer if I don’t drag you into all this. You saw how Glira reacted when she realized I’d brought a strange mortal to meet her, and that’s after I’ve known her for over ten years. Think about how the Sidhe might react.”
“It’s a package deal,” I said firmly despite the quavering in my stomach. “They take you, they take me.”
Molly sat silently for a moment. “Well, then. You’d better set your mind to solving that riddle.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said mockingly. Then I pressed my lips together. “What they lack is what hurts the Sidhe the most. How in the world are we supposed to know what the Sidhe do and don’t have?” I wondered.
“Hm. Let me think.” Molly paced around the little depression, trailing her fingers over the trunks of the trees. She suddenly stopped, stock-still. “I’ve got it!” Her eyes widened as she turned to me and gestured grandly with her hands. “Trillow told me the story once, of a Seelie prince who loved a lady of the Dark Court. I don’t remember all the details exactly…it was a kind of Romeo and Juliet retelling, I think…or maybe Romeo and Juliet is a retelling of the Sidhe tale.” She waved her hand dismissively. “But I do remember that Trillow said the Seelie prince bled blue on the blade he used to kill himself, and the Unseelie lady cried sweet tears over his body.”
I frowned. “He bled blue. And she cried sweet tears.”
“Come on, Miss Riddle-solver, Lady of the Puzzles,” cried Molly impishly, dancing a little around the glade and ignoring my strange look.
I sat down on the rock and rubbed my nose. I always rub the scar on my nose when I think hard. I waited patiently, mulling all the pieces together in my mind, sifting them against one another. Then, finally, it all fell into place. I looked up
. “Salt and iron. They can be hurt by salt and iron.”
“And why is that?” Molly asked, grabbing hold of a low branch and pulling herself up into a tree. She settled against the trunk, dangling one leg into the air.
“Iron is what makes blood red. So if the Seelie prince bled blue…that’s probably because they don’t have iron in their blood. And sweet tears…obviously, we’re taking this literally, but that means they don’t have salt in their bodies somehow. So, what they don’t have hurts them the most.”
“Salt and iron,” agreed Molly. “I remember that Trillow and Glira never let me put salt on any of the rewards I gave them…it was always sweet stuff, like chocolate or a teaspoon of sugar.”
“Then we need to find some iron and salt,” I said, starting back down the hill.
Molly leapt down lightly out of the tree and shifted the backpack on her shoulders. “Salt will be easy enough. But iron?”
“Any places around here that we could find old nails? The kind that would be mostly iron?” I asked, my forehead creased in thought.
Molly paused in thought. “There’s an old cave down in the gully southwest of here. We call it the Indian Cave. Sometimes around there we’ve found old nails or horseshoes that were cast off when it was used as an outlaw camp.”
I arched an eyebrow. “An outlaw camp?”
Molly grinned. “Okay, okay, so maybe it’s only Austin and I that think that it was an outlaw camp. We found it when we were kids.” She motioned. “Come on.”
Chapter 5
Molly led the way through the glade, picking up a small trail that threaded down the opposite side of Crownhill. The trail wended through the trees, meandering like a stream under the green-dappled forest floor. The forest only extended for about a mile or so after we came down from the hill, eventually dwindling to a few scrubby cedar trees dotting the dirt. Molly continued unerringly, making for the crux of two hills up ahead. Between the two hills, there was a steep valley cut into the rock. It looked as if giants had sliced open the hills with a knife, shearing the earth straight through and revealing the pale veins of gray and blue in the white rock.