‘S’funny,’ said Tamar. ‘I mean, it’s horrible isn’t it? But the brat seems to like it. The only time you ever see it smile is when someone sings – even that badly.’
‘Hush now my little one – please don’t you cry,’ Cindy warbled tonelessly.
Denny raised his head. ‘I know this one,’ he said. ‘It sounded better when my mum used to sing it to my brother.’
‘To your brother?’ said Stiles surprised.
But Tamar shook her head warningly. Denny’s family relations were not a fit subject for conjecture at the best of times – and this was not the best of times. She wondered at Denny for bringing it up at all.
‘She had a lovely voice my mum,’ said Denny. ‘Voice like an angel – face like a hatchet,’ he ended wryly.
Tamar smothered a laugh. ‘I guess that’s where you get it from,’ she said. ‘Oh, er – the voice,’ she amended hurriedly, ‘not the face,’
‘Both,’ averred Denny mournfully.’
~ Chapter Two ~
Denny’s search of the usual suspects had, so far, turned up few hopeful leads. Trolls were fond of eating babies (when they could get them) but there were no records of them transmogrifying into babies. And, anyway, the last known kidnap attempt by a troll had occurred more than two hundred years ago and had been unmistakable for what it was. It is hard to mistake a large club-wielding troll for anything else really. Ditto various demon cults, which used babies in the “ritual sacrifices to their filthy gods” – Cindy.
In any case, in no cases of infant abduction, that Denny could find, were the babies replaced.
‘I get the feeling that I’m not looking in the right place,’ said Denny. But he could give no good reason for this assumption, other than “it’s just a feeling” and beyond the incontrovertible fact that he had, as yet, found nothing.
‘Why replace the babies at all?’ pondered Tamar. ‘I mean, what’s the point?’
‘A clean getaway?’ suggested Stiles. Tamar nodded uncertainly. It made some sort of sense, but it just did not seem like a strong enough reason for such elaborate precautions.
Denny flatly disagreed. ‘It takes powerful magic to transmogrify,’ he said, ‘and even more to keep it up for any length of time. Why go to so much trouble, when with much less magic, you could teleport the child to the other side of the world if you wanted? Unless,’ his face brightened, ‘you were a shape shifter – but why would a shape shifter want to kidnap children?’ Denny’s face fell again.
‘You know, this whole thing seems familiar somehow,’ he said after a minute’s thought. ‘I feel as if I should know what’s going on. I’m sure I must have read about this somewhere. I just wish I could remember.’ Denny’s italics were getting out of hand – a sure sign of stress.
‘You wanted to know about the other children,’ said Stiles after an awkward pause. ‘The ones left behind.’
‘Yes?’ said Denny.
‘Well, according to reports they are all acting mean, you know bullying and teasing other children at school and so on and talking back to their parents. Showing all the signs of being teenage delinquents in training, in fact. Natural signs of stress according to the police psychologists. But I take it you disagree,’ he finished, apropos of the look that had come over Denny’s face.
‘The behaviour fits,’ said Denny more to himself than to his listeners.
Tamar and Stiles just looked at each other and shrugged.
‘Fits with what?’ asked Stiles. ‘Are you on to something?
Denny was gnawing a fingernail in a distracted fashion and ignored him.
Tamar shook her head and put her hand on Stiles’s arm. ‘Best just leave him to it,’ she said. ‘He’ll let us know if he’s found anything.’
* * *
But Denny did not find anything, and the situation was only getting worse. And now there was another problem emerging on the horizon.
At first it did not seem to come within their purview – that is to say it did not seem to be supernatural. Not far from where the large house that they occupied was situated was a village (currently anyway – the house that they all shared moved location frequently – usually when Tamar got bored) and this was surrounded by large areas of dense woodland. So large, in fact, that it could credibly be called a forest. The locals had recently been complaining that a large band of unruly gypsies had taken over the forest and were causing trouble.
At first Tamar and Denny ignored these reports as none of their business, although Cindy had casually mentioned gypsy magic and said that it was extremely potent and powerful when used correctly, but that it was white magic and not to be feared.
However, this seemed to be irrelevant as far as it went, and they all assumed that these were not actual gypsies but rather “travellers” of the sort who roamed around the country in rainbow coloured vans, kept big, ugly dogs, lived on social security and did not bathe.
In view of the complaints of the locals, this seemed a reasonable assumption.
But the incidents were mounting up, and not all of them could be explained away. Most disconcerting was the number of people who seemed to be drawn away into the “forest” – presumably against their better judgement – and, when they returned, claimed that they had no memory of what had happened to them.
Maybe, this was their business after all.
‘Kidnapped by aliens?’ suggested Denny only half jokingly, when this was brought to his attention. (He was a devotee of the “X Files” and he had never yet given up hope that their investigations would bring them into the realm of science fiction.)
He was unanimously ignored.
‘Could be hypnotism,’ suggested Stiles disinterestedly. He was still concerned with his missing children, and this seemed to him to be a divergence that they could do without.
‘To what purpose?’ said Tamar.
But Stiles just shrugged. He neither knew nor cared.
‘This thing with the kids is really getting to him,’ said Denny as Stiles slouched away despondently.
‘Not surprising really,’ said Tamar.
‘No.’ Denny looked away and pretended to be absorbed in the newspaper report about the gypsies’ latest outrage. They were finding it increasingly difficult to talk about the missing children. He was not terribly interested in the gypsies himself, and could not think of a single reason why they would use hypnotism on the locals – it was probably all hysteria. People got lost in woods all the time, after all.
Suddenly Denny gave a yell of surprise, leapt up from his seat and threw the newspaper to the floor.
‘What?’ Tamar was startled.
‘Shee,’ muttered Denny mysteriously enough.
‘What?’ repeated Tamar.
‘Shee, Shee,’ he reiterated and pointed to the newspaper. He was becoming incoherent, so Tamar picked up the newspaper and read.
Eventually she said. ‘So these people, gypsies, travellers whatever – call themselves the “Sidhe”* so what? That’s not a Romany word is it?’
‘No, it’s damn well not,’ said Denny, grim faced and angry. ‘It’s Celtic, and I think we’ve just found our child snatchers.
*[The correct spelling but Denny had pronounced it correctly]
Cindy was in the forest. She had no idea why she had come, but she felt the compulsion to go on even as her reason told her to go back.
But she went blindly on; struggling against the underbrush and low branches that tore at her hair and clothes (she had never been so careless of her appearance before – it had to be a spell.) Lured on to a destiny that was both vague and terrifying and yet could not be evaded.
‘What do you mean she went into the woods?’ Denny’s fury was something to see when Hecaté reported Cindy’s absence. He did not unleash it very often, and it was all the more effective because of it. Even Tamar was impressed, and Hecaté was downright intimidated. She shrank visibly and Stiles put a comforting arm around her.
‘It wasn’t her fault,’ he told Den
ny belligerently.
‘I didn’t say it was,’ said Denny, nonplussed, ‘but we have to find her – it’s … dangerous … really dangerous out there. I mean you have no idea …’ he trailed off, thinking.
‘What is he talking about?’ Stiles asked of Tamar, knowing that he would get no answers from Denny now that he was in meditation mode.
But Tamar just shrugged. ‘He didn’t get a chance to tell me,’ she said. ‘But I think it has something to do with those gypsies.’
‘Not gypsies,’ said Denny abruptly.
‘No?’ said Stiles (the interrogator) ‘What then?’
Denny looked sharply at him suddenly and shook his head. ‘I’m going after her,’ he announced. ‘Alone!’ he added firmly.
Stiles began to protest, but Tamar thought she understood and came down unexpectedly on Denny’s side.
‘Oh let him go,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s probably just a wild goose chase anyway. Denny’s just got a bee in his bonnet again I expect.’
Denny threw her a grateful look, which did not go unobserved by Stiles. But he held his peace. If Tamar did not care about going, then perhaps it really was nothing. It was not like Tamar to shun danger. Not on purpose anyway.
The truth was, of course, that Tamar had remembered Denny’s final remark to her about the connection of the gypsies to the child snatchers and had realised that Stiles would not be constrained by any method known to man or demon if he had known this. Better that Denny go alone to retrieve Cindy, since he alone, at this point, seemed to know what he would be getting into. Tamar, meanwhile, would try to find out what on earth had prompted Cindy to do such an uncharacteristic and foolish thing.
Another truth, as yet unknown to Tamar, was that Denny, in fact, had no idea what he was getting himself into. Not that it would have stopped him if he had.
‘When did she go?’ asked Tamar, realising, even as she said it, that it was now a moot point.
‘Not long, I think,’ said Hecaté.
‘You think?’ said Tamar. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘Well,’ Hecaté explained laboriously, ‘two-year olds have little sense of time you see and so the little one could not tell me how long ago she left exactly. Only that it was before lunchtime …’
‘Little one?’ snapped Tamar. ‘You mean that demon spawn of hers is the only one who saw her go?’
‘Do not call him that,’ begged Hecaté.
‘Did it … did he tell you that she went into the woods?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then,’ said Tamar grimly, ‘we only have his word for it. And frankly I don’t think …’
‘Shhh,’ said Stiles as little Jacky came toddling into the room with such a look of malevolence on his face as is rarely seen on a child of that age – teenagers, now that’s a different thing.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ he demanded, looking at Tamar with no very friendly gaze, as if he suspected her of spiriting her away.
‘You tell me – rug rat,’ said Tamar unconcernedly. It was not for her to be intimidated by a rebellious toddler even one with such a look of concentrated evil on his face. It was like “The Return of Chucky” she thought inconsequentially and almost laughed out loud.
‘Mummy’s gone to the woods,’ said the child and smirked in a disconcerting fashion. He looked very pleased about it for some unfathomable reason.
Tamar was immediately suspicious. ‘What do you know about it?’ she said menacingly. But she did not approach the child, Stiles noticed.
Jacky ignored her, but began to sing softly to himself. ‘If you g’ down t’ the woods t’day, you’re in for a big s’pise. If you g’ down t’ the wood t’day you better g’ in di’guise.’
Tamar could have killed him.
Denny caught up with Cindy with surprising ease. She was wandering aimlessly in a small copse that was not more than a mile from the house and yet it felt as if he had left civilisation a long, long way behind him. ‘I don’t remember the place being like this,’ he thought.
The forest (it simply was not possible to think of it as merely a wood when you were in it) was making him uneasy. Although it was only around two thirty in the afternoon, it was as dark as midnight in here, there was a primeval atmosphere and Denny could not shake the feeling that scary, primitive things were lurking in the shadows. The sooner they got out of here the better.
When he called her name, Cindy turned to him with a blank stare as if she did not recognise him.
He strode up to her and shook her by the shoulders. ‘Cindy?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Are you all right? What are you doing out here?’
‘Not sure,’ she muttered. Then suddenly she focused sharply on him. ‘Denny?’
‘Of course you nit wit,’ snapped Denny, his voice shrewish with relief.
Cindy smiled and suddenly she was beautiful, ethereal. Denny stepped back in shock. Of course, Cindy was attractive – she worked hard at it. But this was something different. As he looked at her, Denny felt his head swim.
‘I love it when you do that,’ she told him dreamily.
‘Do what?’ asked Denny knowing full well what she meant but inexplicably wanting to encourage her.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘when you go all masterful.’ She gave a deep languorous sigh. ‘It’s so sexy.’
‘Oh God’, said a little voice in the back of Denny’s head, but he scarcely heard it. He brushed her face lightly, and she shivered ecstatically.
‘Yeah?’ he said. Something was bringing out the greasy rebel in him.*
*[All men have a little “rebel” in them]
Her hair was astonishingly beautiful, he realised suddenly. It gleamed a pale gold in the … total lack of sunlight actually. He shook himself, momentarily disorientated. He became vaguely aware of the sound of silvery laughter in the trees. Then he looked at Cindy and forgot everything else.
‘Mmm.’ She leaned in toward him.
He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and bent her head back.
She closed her eyes in anticipation ‘I always liked you,’ she told him.
Denny knew it. But his own feelings had always been somewhat ambivalent toward Cindy; he tolerated her – that was all. And Cindy herself would never throw herself at him like this, she was too proud.
In the end, it was his sense of morality that stopped him. Something was wrong with this scenario. If he let himself be tempted, he would never forgive himself.
Oddly enough, it was not Tamar he was thinking of. Cindy’s feelings may be real or not, but his own definitely were not, and he must not hurt her by taking advantage of this situation. He drew back sharply and the world came back into focus. He felt suddenly certain that they were being watched.
‘It wasn’t real,’ he thought.
Cindy’s face mirrored his confusion. ‘What just happened?’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ said Denny brusquely. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Where are we anyway?’
Denny opened his mouth confidently and then shut it again abruptly. ‘I have no idea,’ he admitted eventually.
Cindy rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly!’ she sniped and Denny felt a strange sense of relief about this. He wondered why.
‘You don’t remember anything?’ asked Tamar.
‘No.’
‘No.’
Both Denny and Cindy were tired, dirty and fed up, and Tamar’s relentless questioning was not helping. Both also felt inexplicably guilty under Tamar’s accusing gaze.
‘But you were gone for hours!’
‘I told you, we got lost,’ snapped Denny
Tamar was not really suspicious. That was in their imagination; she was, in fact, only extremely worried, and it was making her push them.
‘But …’
At that moment, rather fortuitously, Cindy fainted. Denny had never been so grateful to her.
Then all warm and fuzzy feelings evaporated as Jacky came running into the room with a look o
f concentrated malevolence on his face and bit him on the leg.
It was surprisingly painful, and Denny fell as his ruptured leg collapsed beneath him. ‘What the hell …?’
Tamar never hesitated. She swept Jacky up in an iron grip and belted him across the face in fury.
Jacky, not unpredictably, began to wail and struggle. The noise brought Hecaté running into the room. She saw Denny and Cindy on the floor and Tamar gripping the screaming Jacky at arm’s length with a look of horror on her face, and a terrible fear took hold of her. What had the monster child done?*
*[Now and then, Hecaté admitted to herself that she was afraid of Cindy’s baby]
‘Let him go,’ Denny’s voice came from the floor. He sounded calm enough, but there was an undertone that Tamar knew well enough to make her suddenly drop Jacky like a hot coal. He scampered away whimpering.
Stiles listened with a grave face as Tamar related what had happened. On the face of it, it would not seem like a serious incident. Infuriated toddlers often bit, but the fact was that Denny had a severe wound that would not heal magically and was now sitting with his heavily bandaged leg elevated while the blood continued to flow. He looked pale.
Cindy was in bed and Hecaté was with her, watching her anxiously. No one knew where Jacky was, and Tamar said she hoped he had fallen down the well* and good riddance to him if he had. Neither Stiles nor Denny were inclined to disagree, but it seemed too much to hope for.
*[They did not have a well, this being the 21st century. But you did not argue with Tamar]
The fact was they were all tired, bewildered and confused. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Bad things were clearly afoot – and that was nothing new – but they had no idea what they were or who was behind it or why it was happening. There seemed nothing to get hold of – nowhere to start. It was exhausting just thinking about it.
Something clicked in Tamar’s brain. ‘Who are the Sidhe?’ she asked Denny.
‘Not who,’ said Denny. ‘What.’
‘Okay then, what are the Sidhe?’
Faerie Tale Page 2