by Dave Butler
The valley was forested. It was damp with the waters of a rivulet that bounced and rolled down from the mountain, leaving splashes of bright green moss on a broad channel of stones and filling the valley with gnarled but cheerful little trees.
“Doesn’t this feel like a pixie place?” he asked.
Gnat stopped her march and looked around. She huffed and puffed from the hike, which Charlie wasn’t used to. Usually, the pixie flew, and her flight seemed effortless. “In fact,” she said, “we’ve passed markings. Doors. But they’re old and faint. Pixies lived here once, but ’twas a long time ago.”
Charlie looked at Gnat, standing on the trail. “How long, do you think?”
Gnat shrugged. “I’ve no way to know, short of asking.”
Lloyd Shankin stopped the bouncy tune he’d been muttering under his breath. “Hundreds of years, I think. Before I was born. Before my great-grandfather was born.”
“Oh, I see….” Charlie looked at his feet. It wasn’t what he’d meant, but now he was too embarrassed and afraid to say what was really on his mind.
“You mean how long until my wings grow back, don’t you?”
Charlie couldn’t meet Gnat’s gaze. Staring at his shoes, he nodded.
Gnat sighed. “If I could perch in a proper fairy nest and molt, not long. A day. Two at most.”
“Molt?” Charlie knew what molting was. It was when an animal’s skin all came off and there was a new and slightly different animal underneath. He had a hard time imagining Gnat molting.
Or perching.
“Aye,” she said. “If I’d a nest and a bit of quiet in which to spin a proper cocoon, my wings would return in no time at all.”
“I wish the gaoler hadn’t taken away my book and pen,” Lloyd said.
“You spin cocoons?” Ollie sat down on a cushion of moss and stared.
“And otherwise?” Charlie asked.
The set of Gnat’s mouth was flat, and her eyes were fixed on a distant patch of forest. “And otherwise, I don’t know whether they shall.”
Ollie squinted at Gnat. “Do you lay eggs?”
Bob swatted Ollie on the top of his head. “That’s personal, mate.”
“I don’t mean her,” Ollie objected. “I mean, you know, fairies.”
“That’s it—this conversation ’as become entirely too analogical.” Bob spun on her heels and started hiking up the mountain again.
“Do you mean anatomical?” Charlie followed Bob up the track.
“That’s what I said!” Bob yelled over her shoulder.
Then she stopped. Stared at the path in front of her.
“The ’eck.”
“What is it?” Charlie picked up his pace to catch up, but Bob didn’t answer. When Charlie reached her, he looked with her at the damp earth.
There was a paw print. Just a single one, in a soft patch of dirt surrounded by stone.
“Dog?” Charlie asked.
Bob knelt on the stone and spread her hand as wide as she could. The span of her hand from the tip of her thumb to the end of her pinky was not as broad as the paw print.
“If that’s a dog, Charlie, then it’s the size of an ’orse.”
“Maybe it ain’t a dog, then,” Ollie said as he stepped up. “Maybe it’s a wolf.”
“Cŵn Annwn,” Lloyd Shankin said. It sounded like coon-ANN-noon. “The Hounds of the Lord of the Dead.” He stood tall, looked about, and inhaled as if he were trying to suck the entire mountain into his body. “This is fantastic.”
“It ain’t fantastic if it eats us, mate,” Ollie said.
“Maybe it’s a…” Charlie tried to think of some harmless creature, but the size of the print boggled him. “Maybe, whatever it is, it left this spoor on its way off Cader Idris forever.” He liked the word spoor. Using it made him feel like Allan Quatermain.
Gnat stood beside the paw print and shrugged. “This animal went up the mountain.” Then she continued on the trail. “Wild animals mostly leave folk alone.”
Bob followed. “ ’Oo says as it’s wild?”
Ollie trailed after his friend. “Giant Welsh attack dogs. I never should have left London.”
They approached the timberline, the line of altitude on the mountain where the trees stopped growing and the mountain became bare grass and rock. High up on the rock, there were still patches of unmelted snow.
Movement off to the side, in a thicket of trees and tall brush, caught Charlie’s eye.
He froze.
Could it be a giant dog?
He was unarmed. They were all unarmed, except for Gnat.
If only Lloyd Shankin knew a good song about lightning bolts.
Charlie was a stone’s throw behind the others. It was possible he hadn’t been spotted.
Slowly, he sank to a crouch. Easing to one side, he pressed himself into a patch of tall grass and watched the thicket.
There it was again, a flash of movement and, clearly framed in a dappled patch of sunshine, black-and-white fur.
Charlie wished he could whistle, like Syzigon. On the other hand, a whistle that alerted his friends might also alert the lurking creature.
Charlie scrabbled about in the grass until he found a pebble. Rising as little as he could off the ground, he bent back his arm and let fly with the rock.
He nailed Ollie, right between the shoulder blades.
Ollie turned around, saw Charlie, and frowned.
Charlie pressed a finger to his lips. He pointed at the thicket. He pantomimed a four-legged beast.
Ollie’s eyes grew wide. He nodded, then turned, took a couple of quick steps to catch up to the others, and said something Charlie couldn’t hear. They kept walking.
Moving on all fours like an animal, Charlie crept sideways. He kept his friends in sight; their path rose above the thicket on an eyebrow of earth and turned past it. Charlie scrambled across splotchy grass and behind a long finger of stone, and then he saw the fur again.
Just a patch, black and white.
The creature was lurking in the thicket. It was watching them.
Charlie picked up the biggest stick he could find. He slipped through a stand of trees and snuck toward the thicket. He could see a cave opening, low and partially covered by bushes.
The creature watched his friends. Charlie saw upright ears, the back of a round head.
He noticed, too, that Bob had picked up a large rock in the turn of the path. And Gnat wasn’t leaning on her spear like a walking stick now, but held it ready to stab.
His friends passed right above the creature.
The creature moved, and Charlie charged.
“Pondicherry’s!” he yelled, and crashed into the thicket with his stick raised high. Bob and Gnat jumped into the thicket from above while Lloyd Shankin raced around to the side of it, all three of them screaming bloody murder, and Charlie suddenly smelled rotten eggs.
The creature whirled to face Charlie.
It was a rabbit.
It was as tall as he was.
And it was wearing a red-checked dress and a kitchen apron.
And spectacles.
Charlie and his friends stopped. Charlie had his stick raised over his head, but the sight of the big rabbit wearing little round lenses made him feel ridiculous.
Also, the rabbit struck him as familiar.
He dropped the stick.
Bob followed his lead, tossing her rock into the bushes.
Bamf! Ollie rose from the thickets in his boy shape. He stepped toward the rabbit but then stepped back again, uncertain, his hands dangling at his side.
“The Hound isn’t abroad yet,” the rabbit said. “But you can’t stay out here much longer. Night is falling.”
The rabbit’s voice sounded like a cheerful old lady’s. English, though not a London accent. And there was a twangy, slightly metallic element in her speech.
Gnat looked at Charlie and arched her eyebrows.
Lloyd Shankin’s eyes quivered with delight, at slightly diff
erent speeds.
“Listen to your auntie, now.” The rabbit reached forward and laid a paw on Charlie’s wrist. The paw wasn’t exactly like a rabbit’s paw should be. The digits were longer than he would have imagined, and almost like fingers. “With night comes the Hound. Do you wish to die, boy?”
“No,” Charlie said. “But who are you?”
“And how do we know we can trust you?” Ollie added.
Charlie thought about Syzigon’s instructions. The dwarf had said that Charlie and his friends would meet one of Caradog Pritchard’s agents and be tested. Only if they passed the test would they be allowed into his realm. Could this rabbit possibly be in the service of the Old Man?
Could it be a shape-changer, in fact, who could also assume the form of a giant hound?
And then he remembered: in his dream, the only dream he had ever had, hadn’t his bap been wearing exactly this dress and apron?
The rabbit gasped and clapped her hands to her apron. “Betsy’s sake, children! Don’t you have the sense to know a friend from an enemy? I’m your old auntie, Aunt Big Money. I’ve been watching you come up through my woods and I see you need taking care of, so here I am. Come on in the house and get some shepherd’s pie.”
“We don’t need taking care of.” Ollie thrust out his chin and planted balled fists on his hips.
“I dunno.” Bob slipped a finger under her bomber to scratch her scalp. “I reckon I might ’ave a use for a wedge of shepherd’s pie.”
“Your house is still on the Cader, is it?” Lloyd asked.
She nodded.
Charlie saw the others looking to him for a decision. If they had to, he supposed, they could defend themselves from Aunt Big Money. From a hound that left the tracks they’d seen lower down the mountain, though, he wasn’t so sure. Even if the hound didn’t belong to the Lord of the Dead.
“I would love some shepherd’s pie,” he said. “And I never turn down an offer of help.”
Aunt Big Money patted Charlie on the cheek. “You learn this much good sense at your age, I shudder to think what a font of wisdom you’ll be at mine.”
Aunt Big Money whirled abruptly and ducked into the hole at the back of the thicket.
Charlie hesitated. Ollie pointed at the hole and grinned, a treacly sweet exaggeration of a smile. “Go on, then, mate. Follow your old auntie.”
Charlie stooped and stepped into the hole.
Steps led down. They were made of flat slates, very smooth, and they were well swept. The walls were of hard-packed white chalk. Charlie hadn’t seen chalk since he’d come out of the Path of Root and Twig; where had Aunt Big Money gotten hers? A kerosene lantern hung above the steps, casting a greasy yellow light upon Charlie’s descent. Bent over as he was, Charlie had to press himself against the wall to avoid bumping his head on the lantern.
At their bottom, the steps opened into a long, narrow room. The ceiling rose several feet, so Charlie straightened up. Against one wall was a broad stone hearth, with a fire burning on a thick pile of embers and multiple pots hanging from iron hooks. A teakettle sat at the edge of the fire, gently piping steam.
A long table of thick, scarred planks filled the room. It was laden with bits of string, tall stacks of books, scraps of note-filled paper, sealed packets, jars containing withered roots, eyeballs in liquid, small animal skulls, and stranger things. At the end of the table stood a rocking chair beside a pair of knitting needles and a basket of yarn in many colors.
The wall opposite the hearth was covered from floor to ceiling by a cabinet with a thousand tiny drawers. Each drawer was carefully labeled with a bit of paper pasted to the front of it, the neat letters on the paper identifying the contents of the drawer. Charlie leaned in to read some of the slips of paper: COMFREY, ST. JOHN THE CONQUEROR, PLANTAIN, ALOE, MANDRAKE.
Charlie heard his friends’ footsteps on the stairs behind him.
“Books,” Lloyd Shankin said reverently.
“It’s like a library, innit?” Bob said, pointing at the drawers.
“What do you know for libraries, mate?” Ollie’s voice was sour. “You ain’t never been in a library.”
“Yes, I ’ave,” Bob said. “Many times. ’Ow do you think I researched the design of my flyer? An’ libraries ’ave card caterpillars.” She gestured at the wall of tiny drawers again. “Like this.”
“Catalogs.” Charlie had read about libraries.
Ollie frowned. “Where was I, then? I would have helped you, if I’d known you wanted to go to a library and read its card catalog.”
Bob shrugged. “I did some of my research before I knew you, Ollie. An’ some of it was while you was busy doing other things.”
“Well, ain’t you the mysterious one?”
Bob grinned at her friend. “I ’ave depths about me, Ollie, I ’ave.”
Aunt Big Money shuffled into sight from around the bend of the room. She carried a tray bearing empty teacups and saucers, along with a loaf of crusty bread and a tall brick of butter.
“You’ve a lovely home,” Gnat said to the rabbit.
“Thank you,” she answered. “Now sit down and eat.”
She brushed aside clutter on the table to make space for her guests, then produced plates and silverware from a cabinet in the corner. Gnat pointed out (she was short enough that she could see this) that there were stools beneath the table. Charlie, the dewin, and the chimney sweeps pulled stools out and sat, and then the rabbit brought out a round iron pot full of crispy golden mashed potatoes.
“I’d murder for that shepherd’s pie right now,” Bob said cheerfully, “but I’m right glad I don’t ’ave to.”
Beneath the mashed potatoes lurked layers of peas, carrots, leeks, tomatoes, and minced lamb. Lamb had been one of Bap’s favorites. Charlie put his hand in his peacoat pocket and fingered his bap’s broken pipe stem, then accepted only a small portion of shepherd’s pie and a cup of tea.
“Do you have any music books?” Lloyd Shankin leaned conspiratorially toward Aunt Big Money as he asked. “Or poetry?”
The rabbit shrugged. “I have what I have; you can look and see for yourself. Up on this mountain, most of the poetry doesn’t come out of a book, if you know what I mean.”
The dewin stared at her with quivering eyes and slowly nodded.
“This is a comfortable home for such a wild place.” What Charlie wanted to ask was Who are you really and what are you doing living up here on this mountain? but that would have been rude.
Aunt Big Money also had only a small portion of food in front of her. “They say a person who spends a night alone on Cader Idris comes down mad, or a poet.” She smiled. “Of course, that isn’t true. I can’t rhyme to save my life.”
Ollie poked his fork into his shepherd’s pie as if he suddenly wondered what was in it.
“I’m glad I’m not alone,” Charlie said. “How about the Old Man, then? Caradog Pritchard? Is he mad, or a poet?”
“He might be both.” The rabbit cocked her head to one side and then the other. “Betsy’s sake, he’s at least mad. He’d have to be, to make a poor little creature like me.”
Make?
Before he could say what was on his mind, Aunt Big Money continued. “You know, they also say the Cŵn Annwn hunt this mountain, and that if the Hounds catch you, they take you to Annwn’s realm and you can never leave.”
“You see?” Lloyd murmured.
“And that’s true, is it?” Gnat knelt on her stool to be able to reach her plate, and it took her both hands to productively use her fork.
Aunt Big Money shook her head. “There’s only the one Hound, and he’s a recent arrival. Of course, if he catches you, he’ll kill you, and as far as I know, you don’t come back from that.”
Lloyd Shankin looked disappointed; Ollie snickered.
“When you say Mr. Pritchard made you,” Charlie said slowly, “do you mean…does someone have to come wind you up, from time to time?”
“I have friends in Mountain House,” the
rabbit said. “But you didn’t come here to talk about boring little details like that, did you?”
“No?” Charlie didn’t think the details were either little or boring.
“You came here for a scrying.”
Charlie nodded, wondering what that could mean. It sounded like magic, but magic was something that folk did, and each folk, or each nation of humans, had its own magic. Turkish dervishes, Dutch ichthyomancers, troll blood witches. Welsh dewins.
Hadn’t Aunt Big Money told him that she was a clockwork creature, just like him? That someone from Mountain House came here and kept her wound?
Could a clockwork device perform magic?
He caught Ollie’s eye and saw by his wrinkled brow that the chimney sweep was also baffled.
“Listen to your auntie, now,” the rabbit said. Then she got to work.
She grabbed a bowl of brown eggs and moved it to a spot on the table nearer the fire. Then she folded her apron several times over to make a thick protection for both hands. Bending down, she grabbed something in the fireplace, something that had been lying buried under glowing coals. She heaved it out and laid it on the floor beside Charlie.
Charlie again remembered his dream. In his dream, his bap had pointed at the embers of a fireplace just like this one and said he had something to show Charlie.
And hadn’t Bap also had a lady’s voice, with a metallic edge to it? Had Charlie really been dreaming of Aunt Big Money? And how was that possible, before he had met her?
But Charlie couldn’t really ask any of this, let alone the biggest question: How could Charlie dream at all?
Charlie forced himself to pay attention to what was happening in front of him.
The object Aunt Big Money had dragged from the fireplace was a flat, circular stone with carvings on it.
Charlie examined the stone. The images were of figures, folk and animal, as well as signs Charlie couldn’t identify. They formed a spiral that ran continuously from the outside edge of the stone into the center. At the same time, certain images in the spiral, by the way they faced, seemed to divide the stone into four quarters. The positioning of other images created tiers; Charlie counted seven—three with figures facing the top of the stone (from his point of view) and four with figures facing the bottom.