Elfland

by Freda Warrington

“Who told you?”

  “No one.” Lucas looked bewildered. “I saw it.”

  “And we’re meant to be allowed into the Spiral when we’re sixteen?” said Rosie. “That’s two years for me. Perhaps Lawrence will have changed his mind by then.”

  “Perhaps. Or you could call it a lucky escape, since initiation has its own dangers.” Auberon’s expression darkened. For all his kindness, there was an edge of flint in him that made her wary. “It’s a difficult situation. You saw how frustrated the Vaethyr are with Wilder’s stubbornness. If he won’t budge, I don’t know what will happen.”

  “You think they might lynch him?” said Lucas hopefully.

  Auberon laughed. “In a cowboy film, yes, quite possibly. In reality, no. His position is sacrosanct. It would be a devastating breach of tradition. Sacrilege.”

  Rosie bit her lip and watched her father’s troubled face. “He must have done it for a reason.”

  “There’s a precedent; Liliana twice sealed the Gates to protect us from storms raging on the other side. Only for weeks, though, not years. Now Lawrence claims a similar danger.”

  A chill went through her. “Do you believe him?” she asked.

  “You can’t believe a word the old bastard says,” Auberon answered with unusual venom. “However . . . this time, yes, I suspect there is something behind it. And that it’s worse than he will admit. That’s his trouble: he’s honest with no one, least of all me. He is the appointed guardian and we have no choice but to trust him, however obstructive and bloody-minded he is. As for his sons . . . their father isn’t their fault, but you can see the damage it’s caused the older boy. Always in trouble at school, and Lawrence making prodigious donations to smooth things over.”

  Rosie’s heart jumped at the mention of Jon and Sam. Dozens of questions clamored inside her. “Dad, do you know exactly who is human and who is Vaethyr in Cloudcroft? Can you always tell?”

  The question seemed to throw him. “Usually, but . . .” He hesitated. “You’ll learn. Some of us are better camouflaged than others. There’s an aura, however subtle, that you’ll pick up, but it’s not infallible. There’s a vein of snobbery among some Aelyr who insist that Vaethyr are not pure; that interbreeding has put too much human blood in our veins. Usually our identity is clearly defined but there may be the occasional individual in whom the borders blur. There must be a tipping point, a certain balance of genes where a potential Aetherial simply never “wakes up,” as it were; has no idea they’re anything but human. Likewise, if we lost our connection to the Spiral, we might all fall asleep and forget what we used to be . . . We need Elysion as we need water, we must go there to refresh our essential natures, but . . .”

  He trailed off. Again Rosie heard the eldritch voice and suddenly realized, with shock, that Jessica was not singing in reality; that her song was entering her mind from the ether of some lost place and time.

  All the demons of Dumannios

  All Maliket’s fire and Melusiel’s flood,

  All the stern towers of Tyrynaia

  Cannot keep me from you, my love, Elysion.

  As if I lay down with a lover, I will lie down in Elysion

  And drink your sweet dew . . .

  The voice faded. Auberon cleared his throat. “Those matters aside, I’m trying to keep things calm between Lawrence and Comyn. Alienating Lawrence Wilder is not the way to resolve this. Apparently my role is to play the diplomat, as usual.”

  “What about Matthew?” said Lucas. “Was he . . . initiated at sixteen?”

  “No. Nor the Wilder lads. The Gates were shut by then.”

  “Is that why Matt tells us to forget the Otherworld and live in this one?” asked Rosie.

  Auberon exhaled. “I suspect that Matthew’s trying to protect you. As am I. Understand, there’s one thing I put far ahead of Aetherial politics, and that’s the safety of my family. Believe me, there’s no harm in concentrating on the human world, rather than yearning for what we can’t reach. Ah, I didn’t mean this talk to frighten you; but you deserve the truth.” He reached out to ruffle their hair. “You’re a good girl, Rosie. You and Luc and Matthew are the best children any man could have, mortal or Aetherial.”

  Jessica’s eerie music ceased and the study resumed its normal boundaries, the tree root a leather couch, the flowers of light simply embers in the grate. Rosie sat at his feet like a child, but she was a child no longer. What else was being kept from them? Sam’s knowing mockery stung. She understood more now, but the talk had left her more disturbed than reassured. Her father’s frowns and silences were gaping dark holes in which fear swirled.

  Auberon seemed the center of the Earth, the axis around which the Spiral revolved. Everything flowed from him as he sat secure on his throne at the heart of the Tree of Life: Auberon, King of Elfland. She had to trust him. Yet, because he was the center, all the unsaid things were a thousand times more terrifying.

  Two days after the party, the Christmas trees remained like icy sentinels in the great hall, but the festive atmosphere was ash.

  Sam stood in the doorway between his father’s study and his workshop. Lawrence was sitting with his back to the door, silhouetted against the concentrated pool of light at his work station. A grinding machine buzzed, spraying a mist of water from the gem he was shaping.

  “Dad,” said Sam in a low voice. “I’m sorry. That is, not about what I did—I had to—but I’m sorry I let you down.”

  As if he hadn’t heard, Lawrence said, “Is albinite a hologram, do you think? Every single piece containing the whole? The macrocosm in the microcosm. If it is so, why can’t I find it?”

  “What?” said Sam. “Dad, did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard.” Lawrence did not turn round. He didn’t even look up from his work. “You have narrowly avoided a custodial sentence and acquired a criminal record that will follow you for the rest of your life. It’s an utter miracle that we kept it quiet this long. I cannot begin to imagine how your mother would have felt.”

  It was so rare for Lawrence to mention Ginny at all that Sam couldn’t speak for a moment. “I know, I’ve disgraced you,” he said. “Totally screwed up this time, haven’t I? Ruined Jon’s life, as well as my own.”

  Lawrence replied in a thin and final tone, “I cannot disagree with anything you’ve said.”

  Sapphire was alone in the sanctuary she’d created on Stonegate’s top floor. Disused servants’ quarters became a stylish relaxation zone where she now sat and looked out over the estate in icy winter sunshine. One hand fondled the matte black cover of a catalogue. The only image on the blackness was of a solitary tear-shaped stone that glittered with incredible rainbow fires. It was like a galaxy in space. Even in a photograph you could see layers and layers within the crystal, whole worlds into which you could fall forever.

  The catalogue was from Wilder Jewels. She’d designed it herself. Although Lawrence sold to anyone with money, he preferred his jewelry to adorn the necks, wrists and brows of Aetherials. Sapphire touched the ice at her throat. The albinite stones were so cold and smooth they were actually arousing. She didn’t mind that they stayed white, marking her as human.

  She knew about albinite long before she met Lawrence. She even knew about the secret mine, Valle Rojo. She had heard strange stories of Aetherials and dreamed of infiltrating their circles, working for them . . . hardly dared to dream she would actually marry the man himself.

  She’d dreamed of wealth and jewels, the shiny magazine lifestyle she deserved. And now she had it, but it was only a gloss on her true goal. She had known Lawrence would be difficult. That was a given. When he was in a dark mood, she couldn’t easily get round him with sweet talk or sex. And sometimes all it took to put him in a dark mood was a single misplaced word; she was allowed to refer to Aetherials, even Vaethyr, but heaven forbid she should ever utter the sacred term Estalyr.

  She also hadn’t bargained on his appalling sons.

  Still, she was more tenacious than he dr
eamed. The voice of Marilyn Monroe slipped silkily through her mind, making her smile. “Square-cut or pear-shaped, these rocks don’t lose their shape . . .”

  She had to understand what Aetherials were. If it was the last thing she did, she had to understand. She’d been striving to do so for years, through meditation and observation. There must be a way to break through, to reach the heart of the infuriating mystery, even to become Aetherial if that was what it took. The hypnotic effect of albinite on all who saw it proved it was more than decorative; surely she could use it to change herself, channel its energy through her own chakras, something, anything to transform her own consciousness.

  You can break through to their plane, she told herself. It’s so close.

  You can make him open the Gates for you.

  4

  About a Bull

  “I don’t know why Dad couldn’t have told us before,” said Lucas. The Christmas break over, he and Rosie were walking along a lane towards the bus stop, school bags on their shoulders, their breath clouding the air. It was an iron-hard winter day and the hedgerows glittered with frost.

  “Well, if there were no adult secrets to discover, we’d have nothing to look forward to, would we?” Rosie answered. “They think they’re protecting us.”

  “Like, if they don’t tell us there are scary things out there, we’ll never find out? But we will. There are things in Stonegate you don’t want to meet at night.”

  “I know,” Rosie said darkly. “So, we still have the Dusklands, because it’s part of Earth, part of us . . . but we can’t go into the Otherworld proper. I can’t bear to think we’ll never see Elysion.”

  ‘D’you remember how Matthew would get mad if we entered the Dusklands in front of him?” said Luc. “Maybe it is dangerous, but he can’t protect us forever.”

  “Matt says that being Aetherial doesn’t matter in the human world. It holds us back and stops us being part of things.”

  “Really?” Lucas kicked a frozen pebble. “Why can’t we be human and Aetherial at the same time?”

  Rosie huffed a vapor cloud. “I suspect Dad agrees with him. As if to say, we mustn’t worry our little heads about the Gates being closed, it’s not our concern.”

  “But it is,” Luc said, frowning.

  They reached a tight bend in the lane, where her favorite tree stood proud on the inside of the curve, a glorious oak of great girth and age called the Crone Oak. She stopped to look up into the frosted limbs. Doubt needled her. She trusted her parents—but what if Matt was right, and they were living in the past, and there was some vital reason for abandoning their origins and embracing the human world, because it was more . . . real?

  “I love this tree,” she said. “It looks like it’s been here a thousand years, and seen everything.”

  “Rosie, come on, we’ll miss the bus.”

  He walked on but she hesitated. There was a face looking down at her from between the branches. A small heart-shaped face, green as lichen, with straggling leafy hair.

  “Come on then, ducky,” said the green woman. “Climb up to me. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Rosie took a step back. “I can’t,” she gasped.

  “You’ve climbed up before. I’ve seen you.”

  “I know, but it’s slippery . . . and there isn’t time . . .”

  The dryad slithered headfirst down the trunk and reared out from the branch like a snake to put her face near Rosie’s. She was semitranslucent, sinuous. “I will not have blood on my tree,” she hissed.

  Alarmed, Rosie backed away. “I love your tree, Greenlady. I’d never harm it.”

  “I know you wouldn’t, but I see blood and broken limbs.” The dryad’s cracked voice was fervent. Rosie had glimpsed elementals before, but this was the first time one had spoken to her. “You make them keep their blood off my tree! I won’t have it!”

  Rosie ran. The dryad came after her, snatching at her blazer and hair. Lucas was farther up the lane, almost at the intersection with the main street. She saw her friends at the bus stop, heard the rumble of the Ashvale bus. With cold air searing her throat, she ran until she shook off the clawing mist of the Greenlady’s fingers.

  Later, she sat with Faith and Mel on a wall under the horse chestnut trees at the edge of the school quad. They were wrapped in gloves and scarves, their legs mottled purple. Pearl-grey rime sheathed the twigs; puddles cracked with ice.

  “Your explanation for vanishing midparty is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Mel, amused but sceptical.

  “Oh, Dad said it was some sort of, er, neighbourhood dispute.” She was uncomfortable. To pacify her abandoned friends, she’d described the clash with Sam and the strange Vaethyr gathering. It was natural to confide in them—especially about Jon—but Rosie knew it sounded fantastical. So now she backtracked, to make herself sound less mad. “He wouldn’t tell us much, really.”

  “Sometimes parents keep things to themselves,” said Mel, “and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “Oh, I wish mine would keep it to themselves,” Faith said under her breath. “When they fight, the whole street hears. They were awful over Christmas.” Her head drooped. Faith had a difficult home life: squalid house, no money, a mother and father who drank and fought like demons and sometimes even vanished for nights on end, leaving Faith to fend for her two younger sisters. The others gave her pats of fellowship.

  “You sure you didn’t have a drop too much punch, Rosie?” Mel teased. “Nothing weird happened to Faith and me at the party.”

  “Maybe.” Rosie nodded. “That’s it, I was drunk.”

  “Don’t say that,” Faith put in. “I love the idea of people with animal heads and a beautiful boy reciting poetry. It was scary there, but so magical you could taste it. We saw the masks, Mel.”

  “Mm. Still sounds crackers.” Mel smiled to herself, gazing across the quad, where dejected groups of teenagers shuffled around, blowing on their hands. “Funny, these peculiar events only seem to happen to you, Rosie.”

  Mel was cheerfully dismissive, but Rosie was crushed. “I didn’t make it up, honest,” she said, deciding not to mention the dryad who’d terrified her just this morning.

  “The Cloudcroft Mafia,” said Mel. “That’s what my mum calls people like Lawrence Wilder, the Lyons and the Tullivers, all that lot. They swan about as if they own the village. They think they’re special, but all they are is far too rich. Nothing against your folks, Ro, they’re great—but some of the others . . .” She shook her head.

  “It’s not like that. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s only trying to keep old traditions alive, like . . . speaking Cornish,” she finished lamely.

  Mel raised her eyebrows. “So now you’re Cornish?”

  “Er. No. For example.”

  “I see how it is,” said Faith. “Rosie has to keep it secret, but there are people in the village who are different, a mysterious older race who look human but can change shape and walk in other worlds. They’re called Aerials.”

  “Aetherials,” Rosie said automatically. Then she paused, certain she’d never spelled it out that plainly. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I don’t know.” Faith reddened. “Sorry, I’ll shut up. I’d really like it to be true, though.”

  “So Rosie’s a fucking Cornish elf,” exclaimed Mel. “Yippee. I love you two, but you’re the bloody limit. Can we talk about something normal, please?”

  “Fine by me,” said Rosie.

  “I mean, your parents look as human as anyone. Okay, Lawrence Wilder is rather gorgeous in a scary way, but still human. Looked like he’d got everything in the right place, if you know what I mean.”

  That set them laughing. “You think everyone’s gorgeous,” said Faith.

  Mel didn’t respond. She was suddenly wired, sitting forward with her hands braced on the edge of the wall. “Oh, my god!” she whispered, her attention on the school gates.

  Then Rosie saw. Her jaw dropped. Utter d
isbelief, excitement and panic surged through her.

  Jonathan and Samuel Wilder were prowling across the quad, wary and predatory like two dark panthers unleashed from a cage. They were wearing the school uniform; black trousers and jacket, white shirt, black and silver striped tie. “I don’t believe it,” she said.

  Mel laughed. “Close your mouth, Ro, you’re drooling icicles.”

  Rosie’s teeth began to hurt with the cold. She snapped her mouth shut and accidentally bit her tongue, causing her eyes to fill with water. “Fuck,” she said, remembering to breathe. “Fuck.”

  The bell sounded and chilled students began to stream towards the school building. Jon and Sam, moving with the flow, would have to come past the wall where Rosie was. They vanished behind other students for a moment. When they reappeared, Sam had moved off with a group of sixth-form boys and Jon was on his own, walking straight towards her.

  Her pulse quickened. Their eyes met, disengaged, met again. He paused as if not sure what to do. Mel poked her in the hip and the next thing she knew, she was on her feet in front of him.

  His long hair was tied back and he looked more beautiful than she remembered; perfect face, dark long-lashed eyes, sensual mouth. Her heartbeat shook her whole body as he approached. She’d thought falling in love would be wonderful; no one had warned her it could be painfully mortifying. Her watering eyes made her nose run, while her mouth was glued shut.

  Jon wore a slightly startled, do-I-know-you expression, which she hadn’t expected. This seemed a good moment for a chasm to open beneath her.

  “Hi, I’m Rosie.”

  He gave a small frown. “Rosie . . . ?”

  “We live down the hill from you.” Her tongue felt clumsy. “We met at the party, do you remember?”

  “Er . . . yes, you’re really familiar,” he said, still looking blank.

  How could he not remember, when she’d obsessed about him ever since? Her fingers described a muzzle in front of her face. “In the fox mask.”

  “Oh yes, yes.” Light dawned at last. “Rosie Fox. Course.”