“You mean tricky?”
“Tricksy. Trust me. That’s how you’re supposed to say it.” Ewan pointed up the hill. “Come on. We’re almost there.”
The two once again traipsed through the vibrant wood, the echoes of galloping hooves and distant laughter adding a heartbeat to the twittering trill of life all around them. The scents were stronger here, the wildflowers delivering delirious intoxication, hints of jasmine and honeysuckle tickling notes of mountain laurel. Meanwhile, time continued to waver, patches of moments sprinting ahead of them as the trees wobbled and oscillated in a fast-forward stop-motion flutter before their boughs and leaves slowed down, waving again at more appropriate speeds. Clouds burst and dissipated above them. Temporality held no sway here. They were two soap bubbles circling time’s drain, sometimes spinning very quickly—about to be sucked down into the darkness—before being flung back out to orbit slowly for a while longer on the outer edge again.
As they approached the very top of the hill, a shadow flickered beside a tree, as if it were somehow outside of time, slipping in and out of the peculiarity that held them both so tightly. Ewan looked nervously at Colby. “Oh no,” he whispered. “It’s the Old Man.”
“Who’s the old man?” asked Colby.
“Only the tricksiest of them all.”
Coyote laughed, his smile as bright and as untrustworthy as ever. “Don’t fill the boy’s head with tales about me. Let him find out for himself.” The two boys fidgeted in place, staring at Coyote, both spooked—Colby because he didn’t know what to expect, Ewan because he did. Coyote grinned broadly at them, his copper skin cracking with weathered smile lines and crow’s-feet. “And just who might you be, young man?”
“I’m Colby Stevens, sir.”
“Colby Stevens, huh? Never heard of you.” He shook his head and looked at the ground, seemingly tsking under his breath, all the while hiding a playful smirk. Then with a glimmer in his eye he looked up and said, “But I think I might just know who you are. Come on, let’s show you around.”
From the haze of mist and trees emerged Yashar, having stayed just close enough to keep an eye on Colby, but far enough away to not seem like it. He grinned, tickled by what he’d seen.
Coyote waved at Yashar. “Is this yours?” he asked of Colby.
“Yes, sir. He’s my djinn.”
Coyote looked Yashar up and down, stroking his chin. “Do we know each other, stranger?”
“Of one another, yes.” Yashar smiled. “You’re the trickster, Coyote.”
Coyote’s smile grew impossibly wide, considering how broadly he’d been smiling before. “And that would make you the Cursed One.”
Yashar nodded, unfazed by the nickname. “Yashar,” he said, offering his hand in friendship.
“Coyote.” The two shook hands. “Come, let me show you both around camp.” Coyote walked away, rather abruptly leaving the three behind.
Yashar, walking along beside them, motioned with a hurried flap of his hand for the boys to follow. He looked down at Colby. “So, did you learn anything on your walk?”
Colby nodded excitedly. “Yeah, it turns out Ewan knows stuff after all!”
“Really? So he’s not as dumb as you thought?”
“No! Well, he still hasn’t seen Aladdin and doesn’t know what a video game is, but I can teach him that.”
“Can you?” asked Yashar.
“Yeah, but only if he keeps teaching me how to defeat fairies.”
“I can teach you that!” Ewan beamed.
Colby nodded with a smile. “Cool.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
COYOTE THE TRICKSTER AND THE LAKE BIRD
An excerpt from Twelve Dozen Trickster Tales, by Randolph Wagner
Once, Coyote found himself walking through the forest, singing at the top of his lungs. Coyote could not sing a lick, but that didn’t stop him from belting out tuneless note after tuneless note. He sang from dawn until dusk with nary a complaint from the other woodland creatures, mostly because no one wanted to tempt Coyote into making a meal out of them. But as he walked through the woods that day, he came across a fantastic mountain, covered base to tip in pine trees, upon which rested a beautiful, mirrorlike lake so calm you could see in it the reflection of miles around.
But as Coyote made his way up that mountain, singing as he often did, he began to hear a few precious notes of the most wonderful singing he’d ever heard in his life. The melody of this song was comprised of two different singers, chirping tweets together in harmony to create such beautiful songs that Coyote demanded to know their origin. So he made his way up the mountain, past the lake and toward a rather large tree upon which sat the singers: Blue Jay and Cardinal.
Both were large birds, stout and proud, with fancy plumage and well-cared-for feathers. Each sang such lovely songs that Coyote found himself struck noteless, unable to concentrate while listening. When the two finished singing, Coyote broke into applause.
“What wonderful music!” Coyote exclaimed. “However do you sing so well?”
“Practice,” said Blue Jay.
“Noble birth,” said Cardinal.
“Oh yes,” agreed Blue Jay. “You have to be born with it too.”
“Well, I’m quite the singer myself,” proclaimed Coyote. “I have sung since the beginning of time and never has a creature complained.”
“We would love to hear you,” said Blue Jay.
“Oh, yes, we certainly would,” said Cardinal.
So Coyote began to sing in yips and howls that hurt the delicately trained ears of the two birds. They flapped their wings to cover the sound, but the notes were too powerful and sharp. When Coyote finished his song, both birds fell out of the tree laughing. Never had they heard such terrible singing. Together they rolled on the ground, slapping themselves with their wings over how funny Coyote looked and sounded.
“That is the worst singing I have ever heard,” said Cardinal.
“Yes,” agreed Blue Jay. “I would rather listen to Frog and Raven sing all night than listen to you for another moment.”
“Well, perhaps you could teach me to sing, then,” said Coyote.
“Oh no,” laughed Blue Jay. “You could no more teach a rock to dance than teach a coyote to sing!”
“Oh, well,” said Coyote, shrugging, “I guess I’ll just go ask Lake Bird instead. He’s a much better singer anyway.”
The two birds stopped laughing and looked up at Coyote. “What is a Lake Bird?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. Please, go back to singing. The forest sounds empty without you.”
Both birds jumped to their feet. “No,” said Blue Jay. “Tell us. What is a Lake Bird?”
“Yes,” said Cardinal. “Tell us!”
Coyote leaned in close to the two birds. “Well, he is a most accomplished singer, so good that no one can quite hit the same notes. He lives in the lake, beneath the surface, and will attack anyone who gazes upon him the moment he sees them. He will at first look surprised, but then will charge unless you charge him first.”
“Well, I’ve never heard his singing,” said Cardinal.
“Nor have I,” said Blue Jay.
“He does not sing so loudly, as he does not wish to offend any of the other creatures by hurting their feelings.” Coyote shrugged at the birds. “If I wanted to be known as the best singer on the mountain, I would first have to kill Lake Bird.”
“Well, I am the best singer on the mountain,” said Blue Jay. And he flew off to kill Lake Bird.
Blue Jay flew to the lake and landed on a nearby tree branch. He looked around but did not see Lake Bird anywhere. “That filthy Coyote is lying to me,” he said. But he decided to fly over the lake to see if Lake Bird was actually living in the lake. As he flew over the lake, he saw his own reflection. His reflection looked surprised, and Blue
Jay, remembering what Coyote had said, instantly charged at the bird in the lake.
Blue Jay splashed into the water and drowned.
Back up the mountain Coyote waited with Cardinal. After a while, Cardinal began to worry about Blue Jay but did not trust Coyote. “I don’t think I should go to that lake,” he said.
“Of course not,” said Coyote. “I’m sure Blue Jay will be back soon.”
“No,” said Cardinal. “Something has happened. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, if something happened to Blue Jay, you definitely shouldn’t go down to that lake.”
“Why not?” asked Cardinal.
“Blue Jay might not have been as good a singer as you, but I think he would be better in a fight. If he could not kill Lake Bird, then I certainly wouldn’t recommend that you try to.”
Cardinal did not trust Coyote, so if Coyote wanted him to stay with him, he must have had a reason. So Cardinal flew away to check on Blue Jay. He landed on a tree near the lake and looked around, but saw neither Blue Jay nor the Lake Bird. So he decided to fly over the lake to see if he could see Lake Bird below the surface.
Then Cardinal saw his own reflection, which, like Coyote had said, looked surprised. So Cardinal dove at the Lake Bird, splashed into the water, and, unable to swim, also drowned.
After hearing the second splash, Coyote made his way down to the lake, fished out both birds and cooked them over a roaring fire. They tasted even better than they sang, and that is how Coyote became the best singer on the mountain.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE FIVE STONE COUNCIL
Night had fallen. After dinner, both Ewan and Colby retired to the floor of Dithers’s limestone cave, Yashar having conjured up the boys a sleeping bag each and a stack of comic books to be read with a small penlight.
The adults, however, had more pressing concerns.
Coyote had spent the entirety of his night getting to know the interlopers, knowing full well what was to come. So when the trees moaned out their message in the wind and the bugs buzzed and hummed just a bit out of tune, he knew that by moonrise he’d best find himself at the Five Stone Circle waiting for Meinrad—if Meinrad wasn’t there first. So leaving Yashar to the hospitality of the nocturnal fae, Coyote made his way to the circle to discover that he was, in fact, the last to arrive.
Five gray slate stones stuck out of the ground, forming a thirty-foot circle, at the center of which rested a large, flat-topped, limestone boulder covered in garlands and flowers. At the foot of each of four of the five stones stood an elder, bound there by ceremonial purpose. At the center-most stone stood Meinrad, the Limestone King, who nodded silently to Coyote, motioning to the fifth and final stone. Coyote solemnly took his place.
“The moon is above the horizon,” said King Ruadhri, head of the local Sidhe mound. “You are cutting it awfully close, old friend.” Dressed entirely in silk robes and adorned with tasteful jewelry, his graying hair spilling in a sleek train down his back, festooned with fresh flowers, and framed with a silver crown, Ruadhri was the very model of regal elfin beauty.
“It still sits on the edge of the world,” said Coyote. “Almost late and right on time would seem to mean the same thing.”
Ruadhri frowned. “It would seem that way.”
Meinrad gazed around at the elders, stone groaning against stone with the slow turn of his head. “The council knows why they’ve been gathered. I would like now to know what it thinks.”
“I think he looks delicious,” growled Schafer the redcap. “He’ll cook up well for breakfast.” Schafer was a squat and portly redcap standing immediately to Coyote’s right; never had there been a more unpleasant, rotten, dastardly cudgel of a creature in all the days of the court than he. Dressed head to toe in soiled, loose-fitting garments, he wore a scraggly beard that unfurled almost to the ground from his massive overbite, dangling just above cast-iron boots that were rusting slightly around the rivets. His long, gangly fingers, which ended in sharp, yellowing, talonlike claws, gripped tightly a massive iron pike. The only portion of him that appeared ever to see care was his meticulously dyed red woollen cap. Still dripping from a bath in this morning’s freshest carcass, the hat seeped bloody tears down the side of his red-stained cheek, tinting his beard a reddish-brown before it trickled into gray and finally white on its way down toward his knees.
Meinrad nodded, shaking a wise old finger at the redcap. “Ah, but what of his companion—a djinn whose tale I’m certain you are all in some way familiar? What might he think of his ward’s blood freshening your cap?”
Schafer folded his arms, glaring at Meinrad with a stare that could curdle milk at twenty paces. “He can deal with me directly.”
Rhiamon the Gwyllion, the voice of the dark things, laughed. An aged, decrepit crone, this once beautiful maiden had a single gnarled goat horn growing out of the side of her head, curling back into a twice-completed spiral. Though crooked and hunched, a certain grace still shone through years of wrinkles and liver spots hidden only by flowing, ash-colored, gossamer dresses woven from wisps of smoke. “He could evaporate you with a thought were his ward to wish it.”
“It’s not like I’m going to announce it first,” said Schafer.
King Ruadhri shook his head in contempt. “I cannot believe we are discussing this as if it were even a possibility.”
Schafer spat on the ground. “Do you have a better idea, sparkles?”
Meinrad’s voice boomed, “You will show respect to the council or you will find yourself off it, redcap.”
“My apologies, my lord,” said Schafer, enjoying how far he’d managed to get before castigation.
“Can we not just say what we are all thinking?” asked Ruadhri.
Rhiamon reached up, scratching the base of her single horn. “That the arrival of the boy Colby and the visit by the Wild Hunt last night are somehow linked?”
“Yes,” Ruadhri said. “Without a doubt this is what we were warned of. The boy brings with him trouble and that trouble is most likely cursed.”
“Which is why we should kill him,” said Schafer.
Rhiamon shook her head. “I’m not so sure that is the solution.”
Meinrad nodded. “Better we banish him now rather than risk the anger of his companion.”
“Well, if we can’t kill him . . . ,” agreed Schafer, waving off the end of his answer with a firm flick of his wrist.
King Ruadhri nodded. “Schafer and I are oddly in agreement.” He turned his gaze to Coyote. “What say you? You’ve been surprisingly quiet.”
“I don’t like it when he’s quiet,” said Schafer. “It makes me think he’s up to something.”
“I can speak up if you like,” said Coyote, beaming.
“I like it even less when you speak. Then I know you’re up to something.”
“I think you have this backward but far be it from me to argue. Banish him if you must.” The faces of the council fell all at once. There were two places one never wanted to find themselves with Coyote: agreeing with him and disagreeing with him.
Ruadhri’s face fell firmly into the palm of his hand. “I know I’m going to regret this, but what exactly do you mean?”
Coyote motioned to Ruadhri as if to say I’m glad you asked. “Prophecy, in my experience, has never been hints of what might happen; it is warnings of what will be. Banish this boy now, and you might be paving the road to your own destruction. Of course, ignore him and you risk the same thing. Even more troubling is that this boy and his guardian, though arriving at the opportune time that they did, never saw the Wild Hunt. Only Dithers and the younglings did. Everyone else who saw it is now dead. So who was the warning really meant for? Those of us here on the council? Or the boy upon whom our court will so soon rely?” He paused. “It was his mother, after all, who came.”
The council stood silent. The air was still. The n
ight felt hollow, devoid of answers. Schafer was the first to speak up. “I hate you so much,” he growled.
“This doesn’t change anything,” said Ruadhri. “If it does not concern the boy, then there shouldn’t be anything keeping us from turning him away.”
Coyote shook his head. “No, there isn’t.” Everyone stared blankly at him. “I told you there was no reason for me to argue. You merely have it backward. Unless”—his smile crooked to one side—“the very act of me speaking up is what brings about the hunt’s future.”
Schafer crossed his arms, pacing back and forth in place, his eyes trained upon Coyote. He swore softly through gritted teeth.
Coyote bowed politely. “My work here is done. So if there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave.”
Schafer spit in the dirt. “Trickster, if you’re up to something . . .”
Coyote stopped smiling and the very air around the court grew cold. “Redcap. When will you ever learn? I’m always up to something.”
CAITLIN SLIPPED OUT of her dress and into her nightgown in a single, fluid motion. Her eyes were heavy, the lure of her bed too great to stay up any longer. Aodhan followed closely behind her. Crawling beneath the covers, the two lovers wove their bodies together.
Above them, perched silently in the rafters of their underground dwelling, crouched Knocks, a white knit cap clutched tightly in one hand and a small, wicked dagger held in the other. He peered down at his parents from the dark.
“I saw him today,” said Caitlin.
“Who, my love?” asked Aodhan.
“Our son.”
“How was he?”
“He looked good,” she said. “Strong. Healthy. It makes me so angry.”
He squeezed her tighter. “I know.”
“Why can’t he live here? Where he belongs? With us.”
Knocks loosened his grip on the knife, his jaw and eyes widening at the admission.
“I know. I know. But Meinrad was very specific. He could not have been clearer. He’s not ours.”
“But he should be. We asked for him. I told Dithers: bring me a son. And he went out and got our son. And he brought him back to the court. And Meinrad took him away.”
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