I ignored him. The boy at the gate had just shouted for admittance: he must have discovered that he couldn’t pass the Keep Out spell on the gate. It would only open from the inside, or to either Akiva or myself.
Bastian shot past me in a blur of grey and disappeared over the fence while I made my way to the gate, rather out of breath. I assumed that he was going away in a sulk. I was wrong.
A moment after I reached the gate, while my fingers were still on the latch, he leapt, growling, onto the path behind the woodcutter boy.
The boy said: “Quick, get back into the house!”
“Don’t be silly!” I told him crossly, pushing past him to face Bastian. I shook off the hand that tried to pull me back, and addressed Bastian. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Bastian gave toothy grin. “Step aside, little witch. I won’t hurt him, I just want to frighten him.”
I glared at him. “You’re such a nuisance today!”
A tentative hand pulled at my hood, and the young man said: “Are you talking to the wolf?”
“Of course!” I said, turning to him in some surprise. “Can’t you hear him?”
Bastian, with a look of malicious enjoyment, said: “Didn’t I tell you? You’re the only one who can understand me without magic.”
The woodcutter lad shook his head in wonder. “I hear your voice. The wolf growls, but he doesn’t speak.”
“Ignorant whelp!”
The boy eyed Bastian nervously. “Does he want to eat me?”
“No. He’s cross because he thinks it’s indecent for me to talk to you in my shift. He’s trying to scare you away.”
The boy grinned. “Well, so long as I know he won’t eat me, I won’t be afraid to come back. It’s a very nice shift, anyway.”
“There, I told you,” I said to the still-growling Bastian.
“I came for Kelsey’s medicine,” the boy explained. He offered me his hand. “I’m Gilbert.”
I offered my own hand in return. “Rose.” I rather expected to have my hand shaken, but instead Gilbert bowed and kissed my fingers, smiling up at me while Bastian snarled.
“I’ve been looking for you ever since you disappeared into the forest. If I’d known, I would have come for Kelsey’s medicine before this. I thought you were the fairy queen, the way you vanished into the forest that day.”
“I’m Gwendolen’s sister,” I said, ushering him into the front garden.
Bastian would have followed close behind but I shut the gate on his nose, feeling as though he deserved to be annoyed.
“She’s the tiny one with gold curls,” Gilbert nodded. “My brother wants to marry her.”
“Everyone does,” I agreed cheerfully. Gilbert held the front door open for me, and grinned.
“Not everyone,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Gilbert stood by Akiva’s workbench, fiddling with the little vials as I searched for Kelsey’s medicine. It had been in the middle of the bench last night, but somewhere in the confusion of the morning it had disappeared. Search as I might, I couldn’t seem to find it. It wasn’t until I moved a pile of rosemary leaves that I discovered what had happened to it.
I said thoughtfully: “Hah.”
The phial was imbedded in the wood as if it were a small, glass branch, wood and glass meeting seamlessly together without the tiniest crack of space. The vial was not simply stuck in the bench, it had become part of the bench. The glass base poked out from the underside of the table, giving much the same effect as a wood knot, and when Gilbert attempted to jolt it loose by thumping his fist down on the top of the tiny bottle, all the attempt achieved was the bruising of his hand.
“That’s no good,” I said, when he was red in the face from popping under the table and back up again in his endeavour to see if he had moved it at all. “I’ll have to try something else.”
“Do a spell,” Gilbert said, with interested anticipation.
“I don’t do spells.”
He protested: “But what about the tree?”
“That wasn’t a spell, it was just forest magic. Be quiet. I’m concentrating.”
Gilbert obediently shut his mouth but continued to watch in interest as I ran my fingertips over the grainy bench, searching uncertainly for threads of forest magic. I wasn’t sure if there would be any, for the bench was old and faded, and it was many years since the timber had been hewn from the forest. The lines were still there in the grain, but glowing only very faintly: if I hadn’t had Akiva’s cape I probably wouldn’t have been able see them at all. I tried pulling at them, but they were too old and tired and sluggish, and the only effect was a prolonged, groaning creak from the bench.
“I don’t think it’s working,” Gilbert said helpfully, raising his chin from his hands. His mute but interested gaze was unexpectedly annoying, used as I was to Bastian’s uninterested waiting, and I tried to ignore him. I was beginning to remember my first, uneasy reaction to Gilbert, and regretted that I had brought him into the cottage in the first place.
Trying a new tack, I gave up my attempts at pulling and instead put my hands on the wood, palms down, feeding power from the forest into it to quicken the strands of magic. I closed my eyes out of habit though I could see the glittering lines of magic perfectly well without doing so, and watched as the green life threaded gently through the benchtop. I heard Gilbert draw in a sharp breath but paid no attention, my focus on the glittering whorl that was coiled about the phial. The lines loosened, rejecting the foreign matter, and as I reached out my hand to take the tiny bottle, a shiver passed through the bench; a whisper of rippling magic. I let go of the threads with a sigh of contentment and opened my eyes.
At first I thought that the tiny window above Akiva’s desk had come open and a branch had pushed its way through, so much twig and foliage was waving before me. But it was the work-bench itself, growing and sending out new shoots with bright green, furled leaves. Where the glass vial had been was now a branch, growing toward the ceiling and unfurling its leaves to the room.
One of Gilbert’s hands curled around mine, fingers rough and warm. He said: “Look!” and pointed. I did look, and puffed out my cheeks in resignation at what I saw. The bench had become part of the wooden floorboards, growing into them with a seamless grain, and from the place that I stood to a radius of two yards, the boards were as alive and eager as the desk.
Gilbert, looking at me with a disconcertingly wondering gaze, drew in a deep breath, and said: “You are the fairy queen.”
I grimaced ruefully, disengaging my fingers from his. “When Akiva sees this, she’s more likely to tell me I’m a feckless, shiftless child. You should go now.”
Gilbert took the phial from my outstretched hand and said: “What do I owe you?”
“No charge,” I said in surprise. I had expected him to know.
Gilbert only grinned at me in a way that made me think he had known after all, and said: “I’ll think of something.”
He allowed me to shepherd him to the gate where Bastian was waiting, and this time I wasn’t surprised when he kissed my hand instead of shaking it. But he held my fingers still, and said suddenly: “We’re having a party this night next week. Will you come?”
Unnerved to find that I couldn’t tug my fingers free, I said hastily: “I don’t know. Yes, if I can.”
Gilbert released my hand, grinning, and said: “There will be caramel apples and ice cream, you know.”
I laughed then, my sudden nervousness swept away, and ignored Bastian’s low, warning growl. “Oh, in that case! You should have said.”
He grinned and I was able to herd him out of the gate, leaving time enough for Bastian to slink into the yard at a dash. Evidently he was not giving me a chance to shut him out again.
Gilbert lingered by the fence, his eyes mischievous, and said: “I’ve thought of a payment for the medicine, Rose. I’ll give you a kiss for it.”
Bastian snarled but stayed in the yard. I snorted cheerfully an
d somewhat rudely. I was perfectly well aware that I was not pretty enough to be romantically interesting to any boy, and that Gilbert was not to be taken seriously. Gwendolen’s older suitors tended to chuck me under the chin and call me pretty lady, and I was reasonably sure that Gilbert was another of those. He had an odd habit of reaching for my hand, I thought doubtfully, but that wasn’t anything to worry about: he might have younger sisters.
“I’ll ask Akiva if I can come to the party,” I said. I left him by the gate and returned to the house with Bastian close at my heels.
As the door closed behind us, Bastian said ominously: “You, little witch, are a shameless flirt.”
“Piffle!” I said, standing on tiptoes to peep out the window above Akiva’s leafy work bench. Gilbert was still standing by the gates, but as I watched, he turned away and headed back down the path. He was smiling.
“You’re not listening!” Bastian accused.
“Piffle!” I said again, leaving the window. “I was just making sure that he was gone.”
“You took long enough to get the medicine,” he added sourly, making himself a bed and curling up on the fireplace rug.
I pointed wordlessly at Akiva’s workbench, which was now beginning to flower, and one of Bastian’s ears perked.
“Ah!” he remarked. “I didn’t notice that.”
“No, you were too busy being rude.”
“You shouldn’t let strange men offer to kiss you,” Bastian rejoined. His voice was brooding, and I knew that he hadn’t yet forgiven me for disobeying him.
“He isn’t a man, he’s a boy,” I pointed out, ignoring his ill humour. “I suppose you expect me to gag him? He was only being nice to me because I’m Gwendolen’s sister: everyone is in love with her.”
Bastian, as Gilbert had done before him, said: “Not everyone.”
“That’s what Gilbert said, but it’s wrong, all the same.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Bastian muttered, but his voice had lost its annoyed edge and was now simply amused. I wanted to know what was funny, but it looked as if he were having a private joke with himself and I knew better than to ask. Instead, I sat down with a sigh in front of the living workbench. Judging by the blossoms, the wood must have originally come from a peach tree.
I watched a peach bloom and grow, fuzzy and ripe and red-gold, and said glumly: “Akiva will never leave me alone in the house again.”
Bastian left the fireplace rug to sit next to me, studying the workbench with curious eyes. After a moment he said: “You poured forest energy into the bench to liven it, little witch. Surely it’s only a matter of drawing it out again.”
I blew out my cheeks, then scowled. “I don’t think I can.”
The truth was, I didn’t think I could bring myself to do it. Not now that it was living and growing: it would be too much like committing murder.
“Then you really are in the suds,” Bastian said laconically. He trotted closer to the bench, sniffed cautiously, and recoiled. “Whoof, that’s strong!”
“That’s because it’s forest magic,” I explained gloomily. I could almost see the cynical gleam that would appear in Akiva’s eye when she got back. But there was nothing more I could do, so I gave the workbench a kick and left Bastian in the main room so that I could at least dress myself.
Bastian called after me: “Where are you off to, little witch?”
“Deep forest!” I yelled back, muffled and tangled in my last clean dress. It didn’t seem to want to be worn. I tweaked the cotton threads in the material, and the sleeves, which had been resisting my attempts to force my arms through them, hurriedly straightened. “I have to walk the boundary.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Bastian said indifferently, through the door.
I opened the door, rather flushed and untidy, to demand: “Why?”
“You look as though you’ve been dragged through a bramble bush backwards,” Bastian remarked, surveying me critically.
“I have to walk the boundaries,” I argued, twitching my skirt straight and smoothing my newly short hair perfunctorily with my fingers.
Bastian shrugged. “Do as you please, of course; but there is a full moon tonight and the fairies have been rather active the last few days. It’s a bad night to be abroad in deep forest.”
I tried to look as though I had known perfectly well that of course fairies were real and living in deep forest, and asked: “Well, what else can I do? It needs to be done.”
“You could leave it for one night,” Bastian suggested, leaning against the doorframe.
“I can’t,” I said; and I knew it was true as I said it. Taking the wardship temporarily had made a few things clearer to me. I was now reasonably sure that walking the bounds was not simply to check on the wardship, but that it served the double purpose of safe-checking and warding. In touching each thread as I progressed clockwise around the wardship, I was setting up very powerful wards of protection. If anything intending harm did get past them, I was certain I would know about it.
Bastian didn’t move away: if anything, he shifted until he seemed to fill the doorway. I gave up trying to tie my pinafore tapes and instead put my hands on my hips in order to glare more effectively.
“If you won’t let me through the door I’ll only climb out the window,” I told him.
There was the suspicion of a growl in Bastian’s voice. “It’s not safe out there tonight.”
I laughed, because of course it wasn’t safe in deep forest. It never was.
“I’ve got Akiva’s hood, and I should be back before dark. Besides, the forest likes me.”
“The forest doesn’t like anyone: it simply grows and lives.”
I didn’t argue because I knew I was right. “I’ll climb out the window if you don’t move,” I repeated.
“Smugness is unbecoming in a young woman, little witch,” Bastian said sourly, moving aside. “You are impossible to look after.”
I put my nose in the air, but ruined the effect when I tripped on Bastian’s tail as I pushed past him.
“I don’t need looking after.”
“We’ve discussed this before,” retorted Bastian, following me outside. “And it’s arrant nonsense. The minute I turn my back you’re talking to gryphons and contracting dragon fever, not to mention allowing young country bumpkins to flirt with you.”
“I don’t flirt!” I said indignantly, annoyed to find that there was only one fault laid to my charge that I could refute. “Besides, it wouldn’t be your business if I did! You’re not my father, or my brother.”
“Don’t be snide, little witch. In my human form I’m not nearly old enough to be your father.”
“Well, you’re old, anyway,” I argued, closing the gate behind us.
Bastian, looking particularly annoyed, retorted: “I’m not in my dotage!”
“Oh, well,” I said comfortingly, since he really did seem outraged. “I still like you the best out of anyone, even if you are bossy.” I laced my fingers through the fur at his scruff and tickled his ear.
“Just as well,” Bastian said coldly, but he didn’t shake my hand off. “Onward, little witch. Let’s be done with this.”
The moment we stepped into deep forest I could feel the difference. It was colder there than in the regular forest and suddenly as dark as if night had fallen. I could hear the same wild, animal keening that I had heard the night before, louder and more urgent; and a rank smell I didn’t recognise hung on the air, blanketing us in fetid sweetness. I shivered, and my hand tightened in Bastian’s fur.
“What’s that smell?” I asked, wetting my lips. The chant around us had quickened to a pulsing, frantic beat, and it left me feeling decidedly nasty around my stomach.
Bastian said matter-of-factly: “It’s blood. Touch each thread quickly and leave. And stay close to me: it’s a bad night to be out.”
I did as I was told, and the new sense I found in the threads told me that the rules were different tonight. The fairies, whoever an
d whatever they were, in all their savagery were as much a part of the forest as the trees were. Tonight, I was the stranger.
So I trod carefully around deep forest with my eyes very wide and bright, one hand always grasping Bastian’s fur and the other outstretched to guide my way between the trees; for though the moon was full it was blood-red, and the light it gave was queer and dull. Once I saw grotesque shapes slipping through the branches before me, saffron-yellow and cobalt blue, and caught my breath sharply. I knew that somewhere deep in the forest there was a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice just like in the old stories.
“It’s a seventh year,” said Bastian’s voice, a soft growl at my side confirming my guess. “It’s always blood the seventh year.”
“Human?” My voice was gruff, but steady. I felt a remote kind of satisfaction that it didn’t betray my sick horror.
“Sometimes. Not tonight. Not while Akiva guards the wardship. She has always taken care to bar the forest to humans when it comes to full moon in a seventh year.”
Before he had finished speaking there was a drawn out scream that tore through the forest, and the lines around me gave one massive throb. I saw, quite clearly, the moment a rabbit was slaughtered, the tortured arch of its body and its sudden stillness. They had cut out its heart slowly, while it lived. I squeezed my eyes shut but it did no good. The scream went on and on while the forest gibbered and shrieked with mad blood lust around me. I picked up my skirts and ran, hardly aware of each thread as I touched it.
I completed the wards somehow, and came home at last, shivering, to enter Akiva’s garden gate in early, bright moonlight.
I blinked in the sudden brightness, bewildered, and swayed on the balls of my feet; but Bastian was there under my hand, firm and certain. I don’t remember opening either the gate or the front door, but somehow we were back in the house. The salamander was in the fireplace, glowing red, and I let go of Bastian only to set the wood in order around it. I felt as though I would never be warm again.
The wood combusted without my tinderbox while the salamander churred its pleasure, and I curled myself up on the rug, putting off lighting the lamps until I could feel the warmth in my fingers again. Bastian came and curled around me silently while I gazed into the fire with glazed eyes. It seemed to me that I could still see the rabbit in its dying contortions. After a moment I buried my head in the soft, springy fur of Bastian’s chest.
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