Fearlessly—because he did not know enough to be afraid—Finn climbed the Green Hill and settled himself at the summit. For several hours he didn’t see any fairies, and it occurred to him he might have been duped. The sun climbed higher, and the day grew uncomfortably hot and bright. Sweat started to bead on his forehead and drip down the back of his neck, and little sweat bees (which don’t sting) hovered to sip the salts his body was shedding. Then, when the sun was directly overhead and he could hardly see for the glare, shapes finally emerged from the place where the brilliant, sunny green of the hill met the forest’s deep shade.
Finn saw the Seelie Court that day, marching in their fairy rade. It is a rite that reconnects them with the real world, the world of humans and sunshine, to which they are bound. For the fairies, like captured humans, are sometimes wont to retreat to the twilight lands beneath the Green Hill, and if they stay too long, they may sink irrevocably back into the earth from which they were born. And so they emerge to salute the day, greet the trees, touch the flowers, and sometimes give a lucky mortal a glimpse of their grandeur.
Perhaps two dozen fairies rode past Finn that day, but in his eyes there was only one. There below him on her dappled palfrey rode the Seelie queen, bewitching, enticing, untouchable. It was all he could do to keep from jumping to his feet and running after her. But he knew that would give away his secret, and he didn’t want to take any chances. The queen passed out of sight, and Finn was left in solitude.
No more fairies came that day, nor did the trooping court return by any path visible to him. As the sun set, he crept down the hill. Though dejected, he was not without hope…and not without a plan. He was wise enough to know he might have trouble finding the Green Hill again on his own, and so he’d brought with him a skein of red wool swiped from Phyllida’s knitting basket. Every few paces as he made his way home, he tied a snip of wool to a bush or a low-hanging tree branch, leaving a foolproof trail to follow the next day. And, sure enough, the following morning, while the others were anxiously watching the tree-entombed Bran for any signs of recovery, Finn traipsed off into the woods and followed his well-marked trail straight to the Green Hill.
Every morning, he spied on the queen and made grand resolutions to greet her. But his dread of being banished from the Green Hill overwhelmed his desire to be near her. Better to do no more than see her each day, than to bask for a moment under her eyes only to be forever after exiled. He would not sacrifice the chance of future gain on an impulsive, premature act, for his sights were set high—he hoped to discover the entrance to the Green Hill itself, and introduce himself in the queen’s own realm.
One day, he saw a courtier pause a moment to nudge a little stone with the toe of his boot. It piqued his interest, and when the troop melted into the forest, Finn investigated and found an innocuous piece of worn red shale lying in the grass. Tentatively, he shifted it to the left, and at once, grandly and silently, the earth heaved as it has not since glaciers shouldered up mountains and left gorges in their wakes. The hill lifted, and the vacuum it created as it rose sucked the air from Finn’s lungs. He took a step back, and beheld the inside of the Green Hill.
The hill perched on alabaster columns, a many-legged turtle. A soft glow came from within, and, hesitantly, Finn advanced until he just peeked his head between two columns. He saw no fairies, or life of any kind, but the air was thick in a swirling silver mist, and he could not see well beyond a few yards. He took another step, and he was under the Green Hill. It seemed as if the hill was hollow, for above him arched a dome of dark slate blue, speckled with what might be stars—if stars could come to earth and then move of their own volition, for the lights shifted slowly against their false sky.
The movement of the mist around him made him dizzy, and for all that he stared hungrily about him, he could never, as long as he lived, remember quite what he saw that day. Sometimes it seemed that he stood in a vast hall illuminated with cold fire and pale jewels, and there was a rock-ringed well in the center. Other times he thought he was in a garden tended by fireflies, where the bloodless leaves knew no sun and the fruits never ripened. Once, when he looked at the floor, he saw no more than rough dirt strewn with hay, as in a stable; yet another time it seemed that an endless black chasm lay at his feet, with a narrow staircase spiraling down to the heart of the earth. Did the air beneath the Green Hill smell like sweet grass and new lambs? Or did it reek of brimstone and the dank, rich rot of decaying things? He could not tell, then or after, but only knew that something strange and old and unknowable was washing over him. Did he dare to take another step? Would the garden await his footfall, or would he plummet into the abyss?
His trial did not come that day. From behind him came the wild, joyous baying of hounds on a trail. The fairy dogs, with milky coats, and ears and eyes that burned red fire, had picked up the scent of Finn’s trickery, and now the pack surrounded him, snarling and wagging their tails at the same time, as dogs will do when work and sport are one. The noon light shone through their carnelian ears, and a dozen pairs of ruby eyes stared him down. Before he knew what was happening, he was on the turf outside the Green Hill, and the pillars were gone, the ambiguous inside was sealed—the hill was closed and solid once again. He was found out, and the way was now barred to him.
The fairy hounds drove him away from the hill, but they showed him mercy, and did not hunt him till he dropped. They chased him only as far as the road, baying and nipping at his heels but never harming him. It was not the ending he’d anticipated—an inglorious retreat, without acknowledgment or reward. But what did it matter? He had been inside the Green Hill! He had seen the fairy home, looked into its heart. Could the Morgans say that? Finn had been chased away that day, but tomorrow was still before him. He could return to the Green Hill whenever he cared to. He believed he had discovered the key, that the fairy world now lay open to him. He did not know that no man may enter the Green Hill twice by the same path.
On the next day, the ninth day of Bran’s entombment, Finn rose full of enthusiasm and confidence and set out as usual to the Green Hill. Just out of sight of the Rookery, he came to the first piece of yarn that marked the red trail he’d set.
He looked ahead for the next piece, and his mouth gaped in horror. There before him, on every tree, every bush, every creeping bramble and lowly herb, was tied a piece of red yarn. The entire forest was decked as though for a holiday in brilliant scarlet bows. Each was exactly like the ones he’d tied. His carefully marked trail was obliterated.
“No!” he cried to the heavens. He stumbled this way and that, trying to find a path in all the sameness, looking for any clue that might set him on the right trail. But the bedizened trees mocked him, and even the tiny flowers, prideful in their new finery, tittered at the fool who crashed and staggered through the woods, screaming protestations and pounding his fists against the rough bark. At length, deep in the woods and completely surrounded by red yarn bows, he sank to his knees.
It’s over, he thought grimly. Dickie was right, Meg was right. The fairies don’t want me there. I’ll never find the Green Hill again.
But Finn did not have the constitution for lingering despair. He was young, his mind was lively, and he was supremely egotistic—it was not possible for him to fail. The Morgans weren’t barred from the Green Hill. They could lead him back. He fell to plotting. Scowling at each and every one of the red bows around him, he headed back to the Rookery, working out the lies and half-truths he’d use to convince the Morgans to help him. Meg, he thought, would be his best bet.
“I’ve just seen the most remarkable thing,” Finn began as he approached Rowan and Meg in the ash grove, intending to spin a convoluted tale, the exact details of which he’d not yet worked out. But, to his irritation, neither so much as looked at him. They were both gazing up into the tree, rapt and intensely still, like bird dogs at their quarry. Finn glanced up, but Bran was still in the same place. Finn grimaced. Country fools! He had to be dead by now. Why didn’
t someone take him down and bury him before he began to smell?
“You’ll never guess what I’ve seen,” he tried again, but Rowan hissed at him to be quiet. In the silence, while Finn tried to think of something particularly cutting to say, a faint sound rose above the bee buzzing and leaf rustle. It was like the low groan of ice breaking at the thaw. It was quiet, barely a sound at all, but, like the ice, it was the sound of a beginning. High in the tree, Bran made the first noise of consciousness.
The Morgans exchanged a glance. Hopelessness and hope had stood hand in hand for so long—did they dare give preference to one yet? Bran’s head shifted on his wooden pillow, and then—oh, wonders!—he opened his eyes!
“Go get the others,” Rowan said.
“No…you go.” Already Meg was climbing up the ladder. As Rowan dashed off for the Ashes, and Finn looked up with cynical interest, she reached Bran’s side and pushed the matted hair from his face.
He looked around in confusion—and wouldn’t you, if for some reason you woke up in a tree?—and finally his bleary, befuddled eyes rested on Meg. She said nothing, only stroked his poor ravaged face. He had taken neither food nor drink in all that time, and what little she could see of him was angular and wasted. But the ash tree had nourished him somehow, keeping him in close symbiosis all those days, sharing its life with him. His body was still hidden within the trunk, but it seemed that there was now a little extra room around him, that perhaps, with a little judicious wriggling, he could be pulled free. He shifted his torso in his wooden tomb (which had turned into a cradle), and viscous waves of sap lapped at his neck.
“You…you…,” he began, his voice as hoarse as a raven’s and as weak as a newborn kitten’s mew.
“Don’t try to speak, Bran dear.”
But he paid her no heed. “You shouldn’t have done this. You should have let me die.”
Now, this isn’t exactly the sort of thing a girl wants to hear when she has gone to all the trouble of killing you and bringing you back to life, not to mention suffering through the agony of waiting to see if you’d survive after all. It makes her feel unappreciated.
“You did die,” she said, in rather too sharp a tone for a sickbed. “And that seems to have satisfied all the Midsummer War requirements—since the world hasn’t ended yet. Now you’re going to live.” Whether you like it or not, she added to herself. She smiled a bit ruefully. She’d expected thanks, but neither healers nor soldiers ever get the thanks they deserve.
Though Bran tried to focus his eyes on her face, they had been closed for days, and the morning sun was intense. All he could see of Meg was a pale moon surrounded by dark clouds against a piercing blue sky. “I wanted to die,” he said weakly. “I can’t go back under the Green Hill. I should have died.”
Meg was angry now. After all she’d done…after all everyone had done! “Hang the Green Hill!” she said, and he winced as if at blasphemy. “Why do you think your life began and ended there, Bran? You said yourself it’s all illusion and lies. Pretty lies, seductive illusion, and it holds you—I know how it holds you. But you’re here now, alive, whole. Can’t you see what’s in the rest of the world, our world? Look at it all!” She swung her arm wide and teetered perilously on the ladder.
Around her, the land was green and fresh and fertile. Nut trees blossomed, fruit trees set out tiny, hard green nubbins that would one day be peaches and apples. The world was in flower, and in the fields around Gladysmere the wheat and barley were growing tall. Glossy black rooks danced in the sky, flying with overlapping wings and turning cartwheels against the azure infinity. “Look at it!” she cried again. And he looked. But all he could see was a firmament so bright the blue was almost white, and against it all, Meg’s radiant face.
She did not know if she had convinced him. But she determined that she would never stop trying until she made him see what a beautiful place the world is, how much better sunshine and birdsong are than all the allures of the Green Hill.
Phyllida and Lysander came, with Silly skipping after them. Dickie came, too, trailing a bit behind, always remembering that he wasn’t a part of the family. But Silly, so happy to hear that Bran was awake, caught Dickie’s hands and danced him around in a circle. Dickie Rhys he might be, but as far as she was concerned, he was an honorary Morgan. (James was in the kitchen, helping the cook make pastries—and by “helping” I mean “eating.”)
Meg slid down the ladder and Phyllida took her place, climbing on bones that had grown oh so weary in the last weeks. Disturbing thoughts came more often to her now: What will be when I am gone? But when she saw Bran awake, the new weight of her years fell away. She felt his pulse and propped open his lids to peer into his eyes, and determined that he was strong enough to be moved—if the tree allowed him.
A few minutes later, Bran was on the grass, with all the family crowded around him. Naked and frail he lay, covered in red and amber sap. The raw lips of the gash made by the Hunter’s Bow had sealed themselves, though a cicatrix would always mark the spot where his heart had been pierced. He was changed—how can a man not be who is killed, and then reborn from an ash tree? His family could not yet see it, and in their hearts was the fear that it had all been for nothing, that he would never know peace in this world.
But trees—rooted, stolid, steadfast trees—know the art of contentment. They rely on the chance of wind or squirrels to spread their seeds, and from the earliest days of sprouthood are at the world’s mercy. Should rain fall in its appointed measure, should the winds not blow too hard or the hungry young rabbits not nibble away his greenery, the tree will live, and he will love his life. Men rarely see the moment they live in, for the past haunts them, the future lures them on with promises, so that now does not exist. Trees have no such blindness. All that comes is welcome, and they stand, well rooted, as the world goes on around them.
Bran had been nine days in the womb of his ash tree, and, like the tree, he had begun in his convalescence to have neither regrets nor anticipation. Now that he was torn from the tree, alone as the air dried his sap to hardness, he felt the old sadness creeping upon him. But the tree-ness was there, too, and though the loss never quite left him, it never again filled him with despair. The grass under him was soft and cool—could he mourn the loss of a bed of silken sheets with a fairy lady beside him when such a bed of grass lay under the sun’s benevolent warmth?
His family only saw that he was recovered—not wholly, for it would be days before he could walk again, weeks before some strength conquered his newborn feebleness—though enough so that the real danger was past. Meg looked up to the ash tree and saw that branches that had drooped, leaves that had withered were once more fresh and green, reaching heavenward. Fresh sap bled down the bark, but the roots reached deep, the trunk stood firm.
From the woods came a tinkle of bells, and Gul Ghillie skipped into their presence. Though Meg was disposed to resent all fairies just then, Gul in his childish guise looked as innocuous as a village lad, and his irrepressible merriment made her forget—almost—that he was prince of the Seelie Court, and one of those who had brought this trouble upon them. As a rather decent playwright said, and many have said since, all’s well that ends well, and she had already learned the valuable lesson that it seldom pays to hold a grudge.
Since Midsummer Day, she’d been convinced that fairies were vile, villainous, heartless, unnatural creatures, and that whatever charms they might possess were vastly outweighed by their vices. Now time had cooled her passion, and Bran’s recovery erased fully half of the unpleasant memories. With him alive, what had happened had left the realm of tragedy and was now an adventure—and who can resist an adventure, particularly when it is already successfully completed?
She had begun, though, to see why there needed to be a Guardian, and people who understood the nature of fairies. They were dangerous, and their allure was such that many will walk headlong into that danger. Once, she had hoped for nothing more than to leave all this behind, never to se
e so much as a fairy whisker again. Now that things were seeming to work out well, she was glad to see Gul Ghillie, her first fairy friend.
Gul was singing a song about magpies as he skipped toward them. In his hand was what looked like an old-fashioned toy—a little hoop that he twirled around a short, sharp stick. He tossed the hoop in the air and then caught it, still whirling, on the stick.
“So,” he said, drawing near to Bran, “the big brute lives, despite our best efforts!” But Meg could see relief in his eye, and she knew that, whatever the stories might say, whatever she herself had once thought, there are times when the fairies care for humans. Bran had ridden with the Seelie Court for years (though a heartbeat in fairies’ endless time) and had been well loved. Whatever rules might have bound them to seek Bran’s death, these were not enough to kill all feeling for him. The fairies had grieved when Bran was taken from them, and would have grieved more deeply at his death. Still, they would not have sought to prevent it, and that is one of the things that is hardest for us to understand about the difference between humans and fairies.
“You’ve done a great deed, Meg Morgan,” Gul said, turning to her. “You’ve laid a spell on this land far greater than death can bring, and it will not be forgotten. In the years to come…” But he spied Finn smirking at him. Finn, you will remember, did not know that Gul Ghillie was anything other than a mortal boy, and found it amusing that a mere village lad should take such a grandiose tone.
Gul laughed, but beneath that merry sound was something that made Meg shiver even in the late morning sun. “And you, Finn Fachan. You’ve been up to a thing or two yourself, haven’t you? Gadding about the forest while the rest of the household is occupied. Seen a few things, haven’t you?”
Under the Green Hill Page 25