by Anna Tan
Ivy strode across the village to the council hall, her long skirts swishing against the grass. Her mind tumbled over a million and one scenarios, all of them starting with grave injury to Jane and ending with the death of Darrick. With great effort, she pulled herself together and banished all her morbid thoughts. It would do no good to dwell on such negativity. As it would also probably do her no good to talk to the council. She still had to try.
Rowan glared at her as she entered the council hall. The other men studiously ignored her, concentrating instead on their game of cards.
“What do you want?” Rowan asked brusquely.
“My daughter is missing.”
“So?”
“We need to organize a search party to look for her.”
He folded his arms. “Send Darrick.”
“Darrick went to look for her last night and hasn’t come home either.”
“So that’s two search parties you’re wanting?”
Ivy hesitated. “Yes.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“They’ve not been gone long enough. No one else has reported them missing. For all we know your daughter is hiding somewhere and your husband has decided to desert you once and for all.”
“Why would he do that? Why would she do that?”
He shrugged. “Can’t say. People’s funny. He’s good for nothing anyway.”
“Rowan Forrester! What do you mean by that?” Snickers came from the other men on the council. Ivy turned her scornful gaze on them. “And you, Matthew, don’t tell me you too advice that no action be taken? With two of your villagers missing? Gil? Pete?”
One by one, they shrugged and turned back to their game. “Darrick can look after himself and I dare say that you’ll find Jane waiting for you when you get home, looking sheepish-like for having fooled you,” Rowan said dismissively.
Ivy stood there, her clenched hands trembling with rage. “A pox on you, Rowan Forrester. A pox on you and your family.” She stormed out of the hall, her face as dark as the previous evening’s clouds. Behind her, the councilmen shared nervous glances. Rowan stared into the rafters, thinking about the past. He shook his head. Mere fancies.
Chapter 11: The Imaginary Dragon
1919
Grandpa always began his stories with ‘once upon a time.’ Those are the best, he often claimed. Six-year-old Rowan agreed. He settled on his grandfather’s lap and waited as the old man cleared his throat.
“Once upon a time, there lived a dragon. He was huge—huger than the whole village—and he was very, very wise. He was wiser than the oldest man in the world. Every evening, he would fly over the forest. James would hike up to the tallest hill near the village to catch a glimpse of him as often as he could.”
Rowan’s eyes lit up. “That’s you, Grandpa!”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Can I go with you to see the dragon?”
“I haven’t seen him for a long while, Rowan,” Grandpa replied with a sigh. “I wish I still did.”
Father rolled his eyes. “You’ve never seen a dragon in your life, dad.”
“I have.”
“Probably a large lizard, like your elves.”
Grandpa ignored his son’s snort. “James had a cold-hearted son named Adrian. He didn’t believe in dragons, but he believed in dragon gold. Every day, he set out to gather as much gold as he could for himself. Even if he could not gather gold itself, he tried to gather things that could be eventually exchanged for gold, even if it harmed everyone in the village, even himself.”
There was an irritated rustle of the newspaper. “Why do you always make me out to be the villain for telling the truth?”
“Is it my fault that you cannot bring yourself to entertain the fancy of your only son?” Grandpa snapped.
“Why should I subscribe to an old man’s folly?”
Rowan could feel his grandfather’s hand shaking. “Oh, come on, Adrian. Just this once for the boy’s sake. He needs to learn about dragons and elves and the fairy kingdom.”
More angry rustling came from his father’s direction. “No, he needs to learn about how to survive in this world. He can’t live in a made-up magical world all his life.”
“And so,” Grandpa continued spitefully, “the greed in Adrian’s heart grew bigger and bigger as he hoarded more and more gold. In due time, he attracted the attention of the dragon, because the one thing that a dragon can’t stand most in the world is if anyone other than him has a great hoard of gold. So it happened that with a big whoosh, the dragon swooped down on Adrian’s house and swallowed the house and Adrian whole.”
“But what about us, Grandpa? Won’t we have been swallowed too?” Rowan asked worriedly.
Grandpa smiled at him. “Of course not. My friend, the Elven King, warned me that the dragon was coming and I managed to get everyone out of the house—except for your father because he refused to believe that the dragon was real.”
Father slammed the newspaper onto the table. “Dad, stop being so ridiculous. The dragons aren’t coming. They don’t exist. Your friend the Elven King doesn’t exist.”
“You’re still hurt that Lisse chose Adam over you, aren’t you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Grandpa looked at him for a long time before saying, “You know what she is.”
“What is she? She’s human. Same as you and me. Same as your friend the ‘Elven King’ and his girlfriend who threatened the whole council with death.”
Grandpa shook his head. “I believed better of you, Adrian.”
“I thought better of you, dad.” He stood and dusted down his suit. “You can continue playing make-believe with my son all you want, but I’m running this council now, and I’ll see to it that they don’t get fooled by you any longer. Elves and dragons indeed. In the long run, Rowan will appreciate what I’ve done to help build our village and our people more than the stories you tell him.” Father left, slamming the door behind him.
Rowan stared after him, listening half-heartedly to his grandfather’s next story. Grandpa died a year after that and no one mentioned dragons in the house anymore. After all, a boy could only tolerate so many stories about father-eating dragons.
Chapter 12: The Witch’s Deal
1954
The walk home didn’t do much to calm Ivy’s seething thoughts. Slamming her front door shut didn’t help either.
Stupid, stupid council, and Rowan the worst of them! If you can’t send a search party for them now, when will you do it? When you find their body parts strewn across the forest? And what will you do then? Oh, I know you hate Darrick for the way he stands between you and your logging profits, but you can’t do this. You can’t do this to me.
She slowly unclenched her fists and breathed deeply until her hands stopped trembling. There was one thing she could still do – though she didn’t want to. She had been so careful all these years, trying to make sure the girls grew up as normal as possible—though what normal really was, she couldn’t quite define. But Jane’s life—and Darrick’s—was more important than that. There was still a chance—if she were incredibly careful—to keep it quiet. Secret.
Finding Mary reading quietly in her room, she closed her daughter’s door behind her and returned to the living room. Crossing to the fireplace, she pulled out a loose brick from above the mantelpiece and scrabbled in the hole until she found a sheaf of parchment. She laid them out in front of the fire, taking a seat cross-legged in front of them. Silently, she recited the words in her head, trying them out until they clicked. It had been at least a decade. Too long. Ivy took a deep breath and started chanting aloud.
At first, nothing happened. Ivy chanted louder and louder as if willing for it to work. Then the imps fell like raindrops from the roof, chattering incessantly. Ivy fell silent as they formed a circle around her. She gathered up the sheets, waiting.
“You have not summ
oned us for years,” a white-haired imp with mud-blue eyes said, not quite looking at her. “The pledge has lapsed.”
“I have not had need until now, Teal.”
“And we should help you? Now, after all this time?” He crossed his arms in front of him, tapping his fingers on his forearm.
“If you honour the old ways, yes. I will renew the pledge.” Ivy arose to put the parchment back into its hiding place. Only then did she turn to face them, the mantelpiece at her back.
“Oh, we still honour the old ways, Witch. But do you?”
“I have done nothing wrong to you.”
“Nothing wrong, except allowing our pledge to lapse. You did not want us then so why should we help you now?”
“What is your price?”
“So quickly you ask for a price! It must be urgent and important, otherwise the Witch would not condescend to call on us.”
“What do you want, Teal? I don’t have time for this.”
“We could ask for your firstborn...” They shifted uneasily at the look in her eyes. “Or we could not.”
“As I said, I do not have time for this, as much as it pleases me to play words with you. My firstborn is missing, along with her father.”
“Pah. We have nothing to do with his kind.”
Ivy frowned, confused. She ignored the comment and pressed on, “And yet you have everything to do with hers. She was last seen by the dryad Euthalia in the Old Kingdom. Find her for me and I will reward you greatly.”
Murmurs started amongst them, growing from a trickle to a roar. Ivy glanced at Mary's closed door.
“Quiet,” she hissed. “Will you do it?”
There were silent nods. Teal looked up at her and said, “We will try.”
Ivy watched as the imps disappeared back into the woodwork, then closed her eyes and slumped against the wall. Teal’s words irked her. What had he meant by ‘we have nothing to do with his kind’? She did not recall the imps having anything against humans, unless something had changed in recent years—something that she had missed after being away from the Kingdom for so long.
Only sixteen years, she reminded herself. Not that much can change in sixteen years, can it? Not where time itself bore little meaning.
She gasped, her eyes widening. She had not set a price with the imps. There was no telling what they would demand in return for finding her daughter now, if they did, and there was no anticipating what kind of tricks they would play on both Jane and Darrick.
That is what ten years can do, she rued to herself as she made a second cup of tea, what more sixteen.
Chapter 13: The Imps’ Mischief
1954
Darrick fumed silently. As soon as the Elven King had dismissed him, Erurainon had grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the elven halls. Once more, the elves flung a sack over his head and with grips as tight as vices, started to haul him away.
“Wait—Please—you need to help me. Please.”
“Shut up.”
“Eru—”
“Don’t you ever speak my name. Now shut up or I’ll shut you up.” The bitterness in Erurainon’s voice seeped into Darrick’s soul. He flushed, setting his jaw obstinately.
They’d been walking for a long time since then, as silent as the grave. Darrick guessed that they had long left Elvish lands as they were definitely on rough tracks again. The loose gravel rattled under his feet, even as the twigs snapped beneath them. He wondered how many elves were escorting him this time. He could barely hear the sound of their footsteps—they were as quiet as his mother—
Mother.
“Just listen to me... uncle.” He felt the grip on his arm tighten. “You have searched far and wide for my mother. You know the pain of a missing loved one. Don’t you realise I feel the same for my daughter?”
He waited for a reply. None came.
“Just lead me to the Old Fairy Kingdom. Lead me to where your... people last saw her. I won’t come back here again, I promise.”
There was a whisper.
“You won’t be disobeying anyone. Please, just this one favour.”
They stopped so abruptly that Darrick jerked in their grips. He blinked as they pulled the sack off his head. They were back in familiar forests and the sun had risen higher than he’d expected.
“You are at the edge of the three realms,” Erurainon said. “Straight ahead you'll find a portal through to the Old Fairy Kingdom. It only opens for a span from even until midnight. We go no further than here in this light. Unlike humans, we keep our side of the covenant.”
Darrick scrutinised the place Erurainon had indicated. When he turned back again, the elves had vanished into the trees.
“Thank you,” he called anyway, sure that they could still hear him. Thank you... uncle.
Darrick stepped forward cautiously. There was nothing in the clearing except for the rubble of an old house. He walked around the ruin, inspecting it, occasionally trailing his fingers on the crumbling brick as he tried to find the portal. There didn’t seem to be anything that vaguely resembled one, though he wasn’t quite sure what he should be looking for.
Finally, he sat down on what used to be the porch and stared out into the forest as he contemplated his next course of action. Sundown was a long time away. He decided that he might as well head home first since there wasn't anything to see here and, he supposed, there would be nothing for him to find until the appropriate time. Besides, he had been out all night and more than half the morning by now. Ivy would be frantic.
With a loud sigh, Darrick headed back towards the trail, keeping his eyes to the ground to see if he could find Jane’s tracks. There was nothing to be found. He turned back right before joining the trail to take a final look at the place, fixing it in his mind. As long as the building didn’t walk away, he was quite confident that he would be able to find it again later. After all, he was a tracker, wasn’t he?
Just as he was about to leave, something heavy hit him from behind, sending him tumbling like a rock. Twenty small, ugly creatures surrounded him, laughing.
Darrick pushed himself to his feet. “What was that for?”
“Get down, elf-man. A jaculus hunts you.”
“A what?”
“Just follow us.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere. Nowhere. Anywhere. Just follow us if you want to live. Or stay here if you want to die. We don’t mind either way.”
“Who are you?”
None of them bothered to answer him. Instead, they hassled him, half-pushing, half-dragging him away from the trees back towards the rubble.
He saw it then. A small dragon-like creature hissed from the tree line, seeming to glare malevolently at him before slinking away. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before. Questions swarmed in his head. If it were a fairy creature, why was it here now? Had it always been there, stalking him? Or had it just appeared from wherever the portal was supposed to be? Had he somehow been unable to see the portal? Was there another way into the Old Fairy Kingdom that didn’t involve the portal?
He couldn’t find a way to ask all his questions, so all he said aloud was, “thank you.”
“Thank us?” the lead imp replied. “Thank the Witch. If it were not for the Witch, we would not care about you. Already we waste time because of you, clumsy elf-man.”
Now that the danger was past, the imps huddled together in discussion, ignoring him. Darrick resumed his study of the ruins, unsure now if it was wise to leave. Stray words about witches and lost girls and portals caught his attention, but the continued silence of the forest made him uneasy again now that he wasn’t absorbed in thought. The disquiet he had felt the night before returned; his senses seemed to stretch to encompass the ruins.
There was a flash of dark gold. Darrick tensed. He had no weapons, not even a knife, so he cast his eye around for anything that could be of use. This time, when the dragon creature pounced, he ducked, grabbed a convenient rock and threw it at the creature. It hissed and s
lunk away again.
The imps stopped squabbling to stare at him.
“Hm. The elf-man has his uses after all.”
“Who are you?” he asked. “Who are you looking for?”
The imps shared uneasy glances and huddled again, this time whispering so quietly that Darrick couldn’t make out what they were saying. He waited patiently, stifling the urge to scream at them, until they turned around to face him.
“We have decided that you will indeed be of greatest help in our mission for the Witch, no matter how much we do not like your kind. We search for the Witch’s daughter.”
Darrick stared at them in incomprehension. “I don’t see—”
“Come, we have no time to waste. The portal here is closed. We must go the long way.” The imps set off at a slow jog.
“The long way to where?”
“To the Old Kingdom, of course.”
Darrick scrambled after them.
“Why do you search for the Witch’s daughter?” They’d been walking for what seemed like hours, making an incessant racket. Darrick almost missed the elves, especially the way they glided so silently and effortlessly. As it was, Darrick figured he might as well add to the noise since he had nothing else to do. It wasn’t as if they weren’t already scaring away all wildlife and making themselves a huge target for any wandering predator. Maybe if they grew even louder, they’d be able to scare the predators away. At the very least, asking questions would take his mind off his hunger and thirst. And the missing Jane.
The imp beside him looked confused. “Because the Witch asked us to.”
“Oh. So imps answer to witches?” He could barely recall the fairy tales his father had told him, but he was fairly sure these creatures were imps. Maybe he should have listened in more when Ivy had told her stories to the children. Too late now.
The imp shrugged. “Most. But mainly to this one.”