by Roz Marshall
She crossed her fingers. I hope Corinne's had better luck than me.
-::-
Corinne dragged her feet back to the white cottage, the empty bowl tucked under her arm. She felt such a failure—how had she not been able to carry out such a simple quest? But the black cow she'd found behind a picket fence in a meadow over the hill had refused to be caught. Every time she came close to grabbing the red harness the animal wore, somehow it ended up yards away, on the other side of the meadow.
She'd tried all the tricks she knew for catching a reluctant horse: handfuls of grass, chasing it in an attempt to tire it, hiding behind a tree, or even just sitting still and hoping curiosity would draw it over. But nothing had worked. Eventually, after wasting at least half an hour with the bovine equivalent of the Scarlet Pimpernel, she realised she would need a clue. Or some help.
The brownie looked up as she approached, a glint appearing in his dark eyes. "Milk?" he asked.
She shook her head sadly. "I couldn't catch her. Could I get a clue?"
In a trice, a second wooden bowl appeared in the creature's gnarled hands. "In return for a clue," he croaked, "more milk."
Corinne nodded. Anything, if it means finding Elphin sooner. "Okay."
The creature's face creased into something approximating a smile, revealing yellowing pointy teeth. "Music has charms to soothe the savage beast," he quoted, and handed her the second bowl.
Corinne's shoulders slumped. Music? That was the last thing she'd hoped to hear—she who was tone-deaf and had a voice like a bullfrog. She sighed. How would she rescue Elphin now, if she couldn't even get past this simple quest? I have such bad luck.
Glancing at the elapsed time meter on her game interface, her thoughts turned to Ghost, and to the auction which must surely be over by now. I hope Phemie's had better luck than me.
CHAPTER 14
SITTING IN THE land-rover with Phemie an hour later, Corinne swallowed, her eyes stinging. We lost him. She couldn't quite believe it. Ghost was hers.
In Feyland, she'd tamed him as a unicorn, and he'd followed her back here, into real life. So how could Sonya's dad have won the auction? Surely this wasn't meant to happen? Unable to stop the tears, she dug in her pocket for a tissue.
Beside her, Phemie leaned her forearms on the steering wheel, eyes bright and shoulders slumped. "I don't know what to say to you," she shook her head. "I never guessed she'd be there."
It made Corinne feel even more upset, seeing the old lady emotional too, and for a minute she gave in, letting the tears flow and the grief take over. She felt so alone; she'd lost all her friends—even her Feyland friends were out of reach, now.
After the worst had passed, a calloused hand patted her arm. "I'm sorry."
Corinne blinked away the tears, and wiped ineffectually at her face with a tissue. "It's just—I lost Midnight. And now I've lost Ghost." She hiccuped. "And I think I've lost Elphin for you as well—"
-::-
After the girl had finished her halting explanation, Phemie scratched her head. "So, let me get this right—you used to get into fairyland through that game you play. And that's where you met Elphin. But now you can't get in that way, all you're getting is the game's first quest."
"Yes. And I can't sing." Another tear rolled down Corinne's cheek.
"Hmm." Phemie rubbed her chin. "Could I try? Might it work for me?" The idea of the faerie realm scared the pants off her, after all these years thinking that the wee folk had stolen her brother. Which was probably what had actually happened. But if it meant she could get him back, she was willing to risk it.
Corinne's eyes widened. "Can you sing?"
Phemie gave a wry smile. "No' like my brother. But good enough."
"You could try, then, I suppose. We could go into the game together; I could show you the controls and everything. We could rent a two-person booth."
"How long will it take?"
"Maybe an hour, by the time I explain everything to you and we do the first quest." Corinne shrugged. "After that, it depends if we can find Elphin. Or if the brownie will show us where to go."
Phemie checked the dashboard clock and her mouth set in a line. She was desperate to hunt for her brother, but there weren't enough hours in the day. She shook her head. "There isn't time this afternoon. We'll do it tomorrow, after the morning chores round the farm. I'll take you to the café, and you can show me this game of yours. Now," she started the engine, "we'd better get back. I've a delivery of fertiliser arriving this afternoon."
CHAPTER 15
IN THE HALF-light of evening, the time the Scots called the 'gloaming'—when the sun was setting and the world transitioned from the lightness of day to the blackness of night—Corinne dragged her feet the last few steps to the summit of Chessaig Hill.
Faerie Hill, Phemie had called it. And it was Corinne's last chance to get back into the realm.
For the Feyland version of fairyland was closed to her now, and whatever glitch it was that had let her traverse from the virtual world of the game into the actual realm of faerie seemed to have broken the previous day when she'd run out of credit at that new sim café.
All she'd been able to do in the frustrating few hours this morning was to meet that cursed goblin, again and again, every time she logged in to the game. She'd got so fed up of his grinning face and his stupid quest that she'd finally logged out in disgust and gone outside to wait for Phemie.
And then when Phemie's land-rover had finally appeared, Corinne's heart had nearly broken when she'd heard the news from the auction. Why hadn't she gone herself? Perhaps she could've done something. Persuaded Sonya not to bid. Phoned her mother to get more credit… Elphin had survived for years in the realm of faerie. It wouldn't have hurt him to have waited a few more hours.
But it would have hurt Phemie.
She bit her lip. That annoying voice of reason in her head was right. The old lady had been so upset when she'd discovered that Elphin was still alive—albeit that he appeared to be living in a computer game—and then so excited about the thought of getting him back to the real world, and back to the farm. Her excitement had been infectious, and Corinne had wanted to help, to do something nice for the farmer who'd been so kind to her.
But then her day had gone from awful to agonising when she'd been waiting to get picked up at the farm, and subjected to the sight of Ghost being led off Sonya's posh horse lorry—looking overdressed and sheepish in a fluffy blue rug and matching padded leg wraps—and into Maestro's old stable. Not her stable, where he should have been.
She kicked at a stone that lay in the middle of the path. Why do I have such bad luck? Things had gone wrong ever since they'd moved to Scotland; ever since the promotion that meant father had to work in Edinburgh and mother had moved to a research job in the university in Dundee. Both of them were so busy with their jobs—like mother having an urgent meeting so she had to miss the auction and send Phemie instead—that Corinne had had to learn to fend for herself. And Father seemed to hardly ever be at home. He'd even been away when Midnight had died.
Pushing past one of the lichen-covered granite monoliths that circled the hilltop, she blinked hard and swallowed the lump in her throat.
If school had been okay, it wouldn't have been so bad. But starting a new school at age fifteen, friendships had already been made, and only the geeks and nerds were prepared to befriend an incomer from England. It had been easier to keep her head down and make her own entertainment. Riding, reading—and gaming.
Which is what had started all of this in the first place.
A tear trickled down her cheek. But if she hadn't gone into the game, she'd never have found Ghost, and she'd never have met Elphin…
A twig snapped behind her and she just about jumped out of her skin. Whirling round, she reached instinctively for her bow and nocked an arrow before she'd even seen the threat.
But it wasn't an enemy or someone with evil intent. As if her thoughts had somehow, magically, made him a
ppear, Elphin stood before her, framed in the shadow between two of the standing stones, a rueful smile on his leathery face and his large hands raised as if to ward off an attacker.
"Don't shoot," he said.
She looked down at her hands, at the magnificent maplewood bow and the bronze-headed arrow that was nocked to its string. How has that appeared again? It was like… She couldn't explain what it was, or why it should be. But all she knew was that she was pleased—overjoyed—to see Elphin. Coming here had worked! She could enter the realm and save Elphin!
Throwing the bow and arrow to the ground, she raced the few steps between them, her arms outstretched.
-::-
"No!" Elphin held up a hand. "Do not touch me. I am… I am not in your world. And a mortal cannot cross the portal." Not without magic.
"But I went through before? And if I can see you, why can't I go through?" Corinne slid to a stop, the delight fading from her face.
"Myrddin was here last time, that was why." Elphin touched one of the stones. "At a time of transition like this," he indicated the darkening sky above, "they are like a conduit between our worlds, or an open door—so you can see both sides. And when the magic is right—and strong—you can cross between." He sighed. "But I do not have magic." Or I would not be in this situation.
"So why are you here, just now?" She pointed around the circle.
"I—" The words dried in his throat. I come here as often as I can. Just in case you come here again. Like that first night. Just in case I might catch a glimpse of you. But he could not tell her that. He took a deep breath. "I like it here. It brings me peace. And what brings you, my lady?"
She smiled. "I came because I hoped I might see you."
His spirits leaped.
Then her face turned serious. "But, Elphin, I've got something to tell you. To ask you. Something important."
"Yes?" He put out a hand to steady himself on the nearest rowan.
"I came to get you out of there. To rescue you. To bring you back here." She gestured at the patchy grass around her. "Back home."
"Home?" he repeated, blinking. How can she…
"Yes. I met your sister. I know her. Phemie. She wants you back."
Phemie. Suddenly his legs were too weak to hold him up, and he crumpled to the ground.
Across in the real world—just a short distance away, but sadly so far out of reach—Corinne sat too, crossing her legs underneath her and gazing intently at him.
"How—how is she?" His voice sounded strange.
"She's good. She runs the farm where I keep my horse." Her face fell. "Kept my horse." She shook her head quickly. "But things are… different there. It's like… things in Feyland—"
"The faerie realm," he corrected.
"Yes, the realm. Things in the realm move at a different pace to here in Scotland. Phemie's changed. Things have changed."
"I understand. We never used to have horses at the farm. She had sheep. That is how…" He clenched his jaw, remembering that night, that fateful night long years ago when he had gone to rescue Phemie's sheep in a storm, and come to this very spot. Chessaig. Faerie Hill. Well-named, as he had discovered.
Corinne's nose wrinkled. "That's how…?" she prompted.
"That is how I ended up here." He nodded over his shoulder. "In the realm." I suppose I may tell her the story, now, as she seems to know already. "There was a terrible storm coming, and I went out at dusk to get Phemie's sheep from Chessaig and herd them down to the fold for the night. To keep them safe. But…" He took a deep breath. "But Cailleach was at the other side of the stones. And she has magic…"
"So the portal was open?"
He inclined his head. "And she put a spell on me," he glanced down at his ugly body, so different from the form he had had in Scotland, "so that I was unable to return." He shrugged. "And here I am."
She chewed her lip again. "How do we get you back, then? Can I break the spell?"
Yes.
But he could not tell her how, or that would trap him here forever.
He chose his words carefully. "The spell can be broken. But it will not be easy."
Wrinkling her nose, she grimaced. "Will I have to come into Feyland—the realm—again?"
He nodded slowly. "I believe so."
"But…" Her eyes filled with tears.
Seeing her sad like that made his heart wrench. He reached out to wipe the tears away.
Carelessly. Stupidly.
Because his hand touched the invisible barrier between their worlds, and a shaft of energy like an electric shock shot through his arm, throwing him backwards and knocking the air from his lungs.
Gripping his numb arm, he gazed frantically at the place where she had been.
But the air between the rowan trees had turned black like an impenetrable curtain, the mossy grass below dull and straw-like.
She was gone.
His shoulders drooped. He had broken the connection between their worlds. And I am still here in the realm.
CHAPTER 16
"…I'VE TRIED…" HER words were drowned by a flash of light, and when she opened her eyes again, Elphin had disappeared. "Wait!" she cried. I need to find out how to get back in. I need to find out how to rescue you. But he was gone, and in the space where he'd been the grass looked leaden and grey in the dim light of gloaming.
What just happened? She glanced around her. Had Cailleach appeared and done something? But there was no sign of the witch. The sky, however, had turned a deep navy, like finest velvet set with sparkling rhinestones where the early stars peeked through the firmament. Perhaps the time of transition is over and the portal has closed.
She shivered. I should get home. I'll speak to Phemie in the morning.
But as she started back down the hill, something drew her steps towards the farm, rather than home. A tugging at her heartstrings, and a feeling that, somehow, she was meant to go there, not home.
As she got nearer, hurrying down the dirt track beside the hay field, that feeling intensified. And clarified. Ghost. Ghost needed her.
By the time she reached the farmyard, she was practically running, heedless of the dark. Ghost's whinny greeted her as she rounded the corner to the barn where Sonya kept him, even though he wouldn't yet be able to see her. She flicked the lights on and hurried to the stable. "What's wrong?"
His head came over the door to meet her, and she rubbed his forehead. Then he looked meaningfully at her, and over his shoulder at the water buckets in the corner of the stable.
"What is it?" Glancing around her, worried that Sonya would somehow pounce out of the shadows and accuse her of tampering with her horse, Corinne pulled the bolt and opened Ghost's stable door. She patted his neck. "I don't know why she's got you in, anyway. You'd be much happier outside."
He nuzzled her hand, then threw up his head and stamped his foot.
"Okay, okay." She pushed past him to the corner of the stable and checked the buckets.
They were empty.
She reported me the the NAPC for not caring properly for my horse, and now she doesn't even leave him anything to drink. Grabbing the buckets, Corinne rushed outside to the tap, anger kindling in her stomach.
As she stood waiting for the buckets to fill, the noise of the rushing water and the faint hammering in the water pipes filled her ears, and calmed her fury, so that by the time she was lugging the buckets back to Sonya's stable, her temper had cooled.
But her resolve hadn't.
"I'll get you back, Ghost," she whispered, scratching his ears as he drank thirstily from the buckets. "Somehow. I'll get you back."
-::-
With a last "Goodnight," to Ghost, Corinne flicked the lights off and stepped back into the darkness of the farmyard, the reality of her current situation coming into sharp focus.
She was a mile from home, a walk that was possible in the evening light, but treacherous in the pitch dark. I could use the light from my tablet to see my way? Or phone mother for a lift? Scrabblin
g in her pockets to find the device, she jumped out of her skin when a bright torch beam dazzled her, and a gruff voice shouted. "Stop, or I'll shoot!"
CHAPTER 17
THE LAST THING Phemie expected was for the intruder to turn a bow and arrow on her; an impasse that could easily have turned nasty—except that she recognised the chestnut curls that flared brightly in the torchlight. "Corinne! What on earth have you got there?"
The girl looked at her hands, as if she were as surprised to see the weapon as Phemie was. "It… Uh, I can explain…"
Phemie cracked open the shotgun barrel and crooked it over her arm, shining the torch at the ground between them. "Point that thing away from me and come into the house. You can tell me there."
A minute later, they were sat at the kitchen table, the maplewood bow and its quiver resting benignly on one of the spare chairs.
Phemie jerked her chin at the weapon. "Does your father collect antiques, or…? And why would you bring it here anyway? Nobody's going to hurt you h…" She pursed her lips, not finishing the sentence. Nobody except Sonya, maybe. But a weapon was still an over-reaction. "You can't have things like that here—you should know better."
The girl swallowed. "I didn't bring it here. Well, not really." She looked down at her hands. "You know I said about the game?"
Phemie nodded.
"Well, I play an archer in the game."
Corinne caught Phemie's gaze, and understanding started to dawn. "Wait, you're saying that bow is from the game?"
"Yes."
Phemie blinked. This was unbelievable. Or perhaps not. The horse had come from the game—a unicorn, the girl had said. And the girl had found Elphin in the game…
But the repercussions of all this made Phemie's head hurt. This was not the life she knew, the safe, predictable life where the rhythm of the seasons and the vagaries of the weather dictated when to plough and sow and harvest. This was a life where the magical intruded into the everyday, where legends became real. A life that was unpredictable and bewildering.