Then, worse than the pain and shock and confusion of a newborn drawing his first breath to yowl his protest at all the world, Meg was dragged out of that happy dream. Hard goat horns butted her backside, shoving her from that merry musical place of ecstatic peace to the dark, dangerous real world. No, not utterly dark. To the east rose the faintest glow that presages dawn. She gasped, then flinched at the rawness of the air, so unlike the fairy air that had floated over her lungs like soothing balm.
“Go, at once. You just have time,” Pazhan said, giving her another butt. “I have to get my master out now, but I’ll delay him long enough for you to get to the hill.”
She didn’t stop to wonder why Pazhan had to get Gwidion out … after all, Gwidion hadn’t had time to issue an order. Perhaps the goat had a scheme of his own.
Her legs were rubbery, her mind a jelly. Part of her was still stuck in that wild whirling dance, and as for the rest of her, it moved leadenly. She staggered a step or two before she got her bearings, then ran off with a strange gait that consisted of falling forward and catching herself just in time with one leg, then repeating the process with the other.
She crashed through the blackberry thorns, and when she emerged on the other side, her skin was a mess of her own blood and sweet blackberry blood. She snapped off a handful of canes, pricking her palms deeply.
“Stop her!” came a voice from the woods as she laboriously climbed and staggered and fell her way up the hill.
“Fool,” said the goat, trotting to her side. “He didn’t say when to stop you, or where.” Meg ignored him, saving all her concentration for putting one foot, then one knee, in front of the other. “Will right here do for you? A little higher?” Meg was locomoting by grabbing handfuls of sod and hauling herself up to the summit inches at a time. “Here, then? Okay, consider yourself stopped.” And the goat sat down on his haunches to see what would unfold.
Meg was struck with an unaccountable stage fright. She was tongue-tied. Why hadn’t Phyllida told her what to say? Declare her intentions, she’d said, no magic spell or ritual words needed … but this was a moment of such gravity, Meg didn’t want to bungle it, and she was suddenly sure she would.
“I…,” she began, then used the excuse that it wasn’t quite precisely sunrise to buy herself a bit more time to think what to say.
Then Gwidion pushed his way through the thorns, and it was too late for more thought.
“I am the…,” she started to say, forcing herself to sound confident, then the knife flew point over hilt and hit Meg in the chest. Luckily she was struck only with the heavy double-goat pommel, but still it hurt enough to silence her momentarily. She turned to run again, but Gwidion tackled her from behind, knocking the wind out of her as she fell. She rolled to her back and kicked out at him, but he caught her ankles in one hand, as easily as you’d catch a baby’s to change its diaper, and pinned her to the ground with his body. That alone was almost as unpleasant as her fear of imminent death, for he smelled nastily of sweat and turpentine and goat, though in all fairness Meg herself smelled of sweat and fear and stagnant water. She thrashed at him with the blackberry brambles but he just laughed and tore them out of her hands.
He stretched for the dagger and held it high above her head.
“You’ll never be Guardian,” Pazhan said, walking calmly to stand beside them.
“Shut up, goat!” Gwidion said. “I kill this one, then force Phyllida to give me everything.”
“Force her? How? You’ve taken away her beloved. If you take away this girl too, what do you have to threaten her with? There’s nothing else she loves, except perhaps the Green Hill. Methinks she’s not one to value her own life or comfort so highly she’d violate her beliefs by turning the Green Hill over to you.”
“Shut up!” he said again, but didn’t stab.
“The portrait might have worked, I’ll own that much. You have a certain talent for persuasion, and had that boy not destroyed your painting, you might have gotten Phyllida to quite calmly and naturally make you her heir.” The goat chuckled to himself. “A fine mess he made of things, too. When I found him there with the paintbrush in his hand—”
The first touch of gold peeked over the horizon.
“You saw him? You actually saw that brat destroy my painting, my dreams, and you did nothing! You should have killed him where he stood!”
“I had no orders,” Pazhan said softly, glancing at the sun that heralded a new day.
“Orders be damned!” Gwidion said, and smashed the butt of his bronze knife over Pazhan’s skull.
The goat sank to one knee under the blow, but rose smiling.
“Thrice in three days you have struck me, former master, and my bond to your family is broken.” He tossed his head and ruffled his mane. “Stand aside, man.”
“Then you’re next, goat,” Gwidion said, and plunged the dagger down toward Meg’s exposed throat.
Thick, curving horns came up and caught the dagger, tossing it into a high arc. It fell, burying itself to the hilt in the summit of the hill. Pazhan swung his head around and stabbed upward again through Gwidion’s belly until the points emerged from his back. He paraded Gwidion’s body until the screaming subsided to a whimper, then tossed aside the silent corpse.
“Say your words, Meg Morgan. Tell all who live under the Green Hill what you are.”
Shaking but strong, Meg hauled herself to her feet and faced the rising sun.
“I am Guardian of the Green Hill!” she shouted to the dawning splendor.
Then, as she had the last time she saw someone killed at dawn on the Green Hill, she fainted, and the earth drank up Gwidion’s blood ravenously while the Rookery crows circled and dropped to the treetops.
My Heart’s Desire
FINN SPENT THE NIGHT on the croquet lawn, stretched out among the earwigs and beetles. He hadn’t the heart to go back inside the Rookery. He knew he was a coward, but there it was. Lysander was dead, Phyllida might be dead too, for all he knew, if the banshee was right. Seeing her husband slain before her eyes would be enough to kill a much younger person, and watching Meg run off to an unknown fate with a madman behind her would finish the job. He didn’t want to know, not till he had to. Eventually someone would find him and break the news, but until then it was better to hide, if lying spread-eagle on an open lawn was hiding, until someone remembered him.
It’s all over, he thought. The Ashes are gone, or soon will be, and Meg.… He didn’t have any hopes for Meg. I should have gone after her, he thought. I should have called the police. Someone should have, anyway, for to his surprise, lights and sirens never materialized. The house stayed closed and eerily silent.
For a while, he stared at the stars. Under the ointment’s influence, they seemed brighter, and he thought he could see the play of distant gases and combustion in their twinkle. Moths fluttered across his vista, some real, some fairies, but he didn’t try to talk to them. If the Seelie prince wouldn’t help, what could a tiny moth fairy do?
He slept eventually, more soundly than he would like to admit. People aren’t supposed to sleep well when their worlds are crumbling. His sleep was so deep he didn’t hear any of the feet, or hooves, or claws, or wings, or flippers that passed near him. He didn’t wake until after sunrise.
The first few somnolent moments between true sleep and true consciousness are the most delicious of the day. You are awake enough to shape your dreams into thoughts, but not quite awake enough that all the troublesome realities have rudely made their presence known.
It was just in those precious moments that Finn saw a fairy who looked very like Meg. The ointment must not have worn off yet, he thought blearily, and indeed there was very little glamour about this figure striding slowly toward him. Its dark brown hair hung in muddy locks. Its feet were bare and dirty. It was covered in grime and dried algae and thorn scratches and blackberry juice. But for all the filth, there was something otherworldly about its aspect that convinced Finn it was a fairy. Perhaps
it was the way the figure seemed to glow, even beneath the dirt … or was that only a trick of the morning light? Finn sat up, bringing his face directly into the glaring rays of daybreak, and was dazzled into blindness. Then the sun kindly ducked behind a cloud, and he could see it was only a very disheveled, tired, and scruffy Meg stumbling toward him.
“Meg!” he cried, and threw his arms around her so hard he almost knocked them both over, then, embarrassed, released her so abruptly she actually did fall down. “You’re alive!”
Pazhan ambled into view behind her, and though Finn initially ducked behind Meg, he very quickly realized what he was doing and jumped between her and the goat.
“It’s all right,” Meg said. “He’s no threat now. He’s free.” Which Finn didn’t understand at all.
“Where is everyone?” Meg asked.
Finn didn’t answer.
“Inside?” They couldn’t see the house from where they were; a line of tall privet hedges obscured their view. She started walking, and he followed her.
“Gwidion?” he asked.
“Dead,” she said, leaving Finn with the astounding impression that she’d killed Gwidion single-handedly and then tamed his goat.
Meg stopped suddenly. “Is … I don’t remember all of what happened last night. At least, it doesn’t quite feel real. Is Lysander really … really dead?”
Finn could only nod.
“And the others? Are they okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t know?”
“I’ve been out here all night.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t think they’d want me.”
“Oh, Finn,” she chided in her Mother voice. “You’re as much a part of this as any of us. Come on. I know where they’ll be.”
She led Finn around the side of the house to the garden kitchen and thus didn’t see the delegation that awaited her at the front of the Rookery. She slipped inside the house and took the shortcut to the main dining hall. It was rarely used by the family, for they weren’t given to grand entertainments. Its last use had been as a temporary mausoleum for Bran during the brief and terrible time when he was dead.
Now it held another fallen member of the family. Rowan and the doctor had carried Lysander’s body to the grand banquet table and then retreated discreetly, leaving Phyllida to keep watch overnight. Now Rowan, Dickie, Silly, Dr. Homunculus, and Bran waited awkwardly outside the door, wondering if they dared break in upon Phyllida’s grief. James lay curled across two armchairs that had been pushed together, sleeping soundly.
Bran saw Meg first. “Heavens be thanked!” he said, and tried to pick her up in a hug, but she evaded him.
“Don’t you dare hurt yourself again for my sake,” she admonished. The others crowded around her, gently patting her shoulders and back, as if she were particularly fragile. They asked what had happened, of course, but she said she’d tell them later.
“We don’t have to worry about that painter chap anymore, I warrant,” Bran said, looking at her with grandfatherly pride.
Meg smiled wanly and let herself into the dining hall. Silly made an attempt to follow her. Meg politely but firmly closed the door in her face.
Phyllida looked up at the sound of the door.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Meg asked, standing beside her over Lysander’s body. “If we cut his ash tree, like we did with Bran…”
“No, child. This is different. When a person has lived a long and vital life and dies of natural causes, there is no way to undo it.” Meg would have argued with the phrase natural causes. Gwidion was as unnatural as they come.
“He gave his life to save me,” Meg said softly.
“To save all of us. To save the Green Hill. To help ensure the future of our line. My line, that is. He leaves no children in this world. All there was of him is gone.”
She had to be silent for a while. Floods of tears can sometimes be dammed by a levy of silence, where a single word would send them surging.
Meg looked down at Lysander. Phyllida was right. She’d never thought of it before—relations are so hard to keep straight—but he was no blood kin of hers. He felt like a grandfather, though, far more than the unlikely Bran, and she’d loved him as she loved Phyllida. She cringed inwardly at that past tense. Loved? No, I love him still, she thought fiercely, as I will love Phyllida when she is gone. The banshee heralded her death. How much longer do I have, does she have? A day? A week?
Lysander had been cleaned and dressed in an old-fashioned black suit. Had Phyllida done all that? No, Meg saw now. Crouched in the corner was the rookery brownie. He must have helped her with that age-old task of laying out the body.
Meg put her hands in her pockets and rocked back and forth. She desperately wished there were something she could do to ease Phyllida’s suffering. Her fingers curled upon a stone in her pocket. Of course—the heart’s desire stone.
“Here,” she said unceremoniously, thrusting it into her great-great-aunt’s hand. She half expected Lysander to rise up from the table, look around, and demand his breakfast and his pipe. Surely that must be Phyllida’s heart’s desire. Maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe there was a spell. Or maybe Phyllida just had to speak her wish aloud.
“That’s for you,” Meg explained. “It will give you the thing you desire most.”
Phyllida looked at Meg, then the stone in her cupped hand. She closed her other hand around it and murmured words Meg couldn’t quite catch, though she heard “my great thanks” among them.
“Will it work? Will it bring him back to life?”
“Back to life? Why, child, I told you it cannot be. This day has been long in coming. Lysander’s heart has been failing for many years now, though he tried to hide it and mend himself with foxglove. When the banshee wailed, we knew it was only a matter of time.”
“You mean you knew he would die of grief from losing you?”
“Losing me? Whatever do you mean?”
“The banshee was washing your shirt, the one you gave me. At first I thought it meant Rowan was going to die, because I gave the shirt to him, or that I would. But we figured out you really owned the shirt so it must mean you. Oh, Phyllida, I know I’m being selfish, but what in the world will I do when you’re not here? I don’t know anything. I need you to teach me. Bran can help, but it’s not the same. I need you, Phyllida. Please, please, please don’t die!” She wept hot, bitter tears onto Phyllida’s cheeks.
“Here, child, take back your pebble, and we’ll both have our hearts’ desires, then.” She sighed deeply. “The shirt wasn’t mine. It was Lysander’s. I took it to paint in, but really because I liked to wear something that smelled like him.” She laughed to herself, a secret, loving laugh of shared intimacies that baffled Meg. Will I ever know something like that? she wondered. “When you told me what you saw, well, there was no mistaking that shirt. I made it for him myself, back in my younger days, when my eyes were good enough for fine stitching and I had more patience. And time.” She stared out at something Meg couldn’t see—her own mortality.
“You mean you’re not going to die? You’ll still be here to teach me?” Phyllida nodded. “But I want you to have your heart’s desire. Doesn’t the stone work? I’ll ask Dickie or the Wyrm. They’ll know how to make it work. We can bring Lysander back.”
“Child, no,” she said, restraining Meg as she headed for the door. “It has worked. I have gotten my heart’s desire.”
“What do you mean?”
“I always knew that Lysander would die someday, as we all will. And lately, knowing his heart, I’ve assumed he would beat me in this last great race. Tell me, what did you say when you stood on the Green Hill at dawn?”
“I told it I would be the next Guardian,” Meg said.
“No, you didn’t. Think. What did you say?”
“I said … oh, I said, ‘I am Guardian of the Green Hill.’ Oh, Phyllida, did I do it wrong? What are you laughing at? Did I ruin it?�
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“Meg, Meg, my own, you have given me my heart’s desire. That was the only pain of my life, the only real sorrow. Lysander’s death, though it has torn out a piece of my soul, is after all only the lot that awaits all of us. And he’s not really gone, you know. You’ll understand that someday.” But she already did, a little. “The only thing I feared was that without a daughter of my own to carry on, my life, however well lived, would be wasted. If there was no Guardian, the link between fairies and man would grow weak, and both would diminish, fairies until they were gone, I suppose, shrunk to emmets or memories, and man until he was like the cold iron the Good Folk fear, dead inside, without the pulse of the earth in his veins.
“Now in the twilight of my life you come along, the daughter I couldn’t have, and you change the world. My world and, I have reason to suspect, the rest of the world too.”
Meg’s eyes were huge.
“Don’t look so frightened. I will be here to help you, as will Bran. And don’t discount your siblings and your friends. I didn’t understand it at first, this great change you have wrought, but when my burden was lifted, it became clear. You will see, very soon.”
There was a solemn and dignified knock on the door, a knock such as only an experienced butler can make, and after a suitable pause, Wooster stuck in his head.
“My Lady, the wake.”
“Very well. Tell them we will be out presently.” She turned back to Meg. “Now you must assume your duties as Guardian. I am sorry your first task will be seeing off the spirit of one we both loved so well, but—”
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