Guardian of the Green Hill (23 page)

“We're celebrating,” said Fenoderee. (He wasn't drunk, though he had a crusty white mustache from all the celebratory buttermilk he'd imbibed.) “My friend knows the most interesting songs. What are you doing out? Most people don't like the darksome times. They hurry and scurry and creep until they're safe in bed.”

“I'm looking for Meg. She went to the Green Hill.”

“Oh, I can take you there, lickety-split. It's just around the bend.”

“Just up there?” Finn asked, pointing into the dark.

“Wherever you are, it's just around the bend. Come on, I'll show you.” He took Finn's hand in his, exuberantly crushing it, and with Tansy in tow, dragged them along.

“Are you sure you should take me? I don't want you to get into more trouble.”

“No trouble,” Fenoderee said. “If you're not meant to find it, you won't, no matter how close I lead you.”

But the fairies evidently had something in mind for Finn, for they soon found themselves among the brambles at the foot of the Green Hill.

Once, when Finn used the seeing ointment that cost him an eye, he could see the Green Hill for what it really was, a hub of life and power, throbbing as with the hum of a thousand cicadas, singing with the trill of a thousand warblers, a place where every clover held the wisdom of life and death, where the roots of the lowliest weed sucked up an energy that would inspire a man to greatness—great goodness or great cruelty, depending on the man. But unlike men, the weeds simply grew and enjoyed themselves, and became wise and powerful in their own weedy way.

Tonight Finn could only see what the hill wanted him to see—just a pretty mound under the faint starlight, with a girl perched at its crest like the pale risen moon. While his companions feasted on blackberries, Finn climbed to her side.

“It was here I killed Bran,” she said without preamble.

“I wish I could have been there,” Finn said.

“No, you don't. You wouldn't, if you knew what it was like.” There was silence for a moment, and Finn didn't know how to break it.

“He fell right where you're sitting,” Meg continued. Finn wondered if he should move. “And there was so much blood. Not on Bran—that was the odd thing. You'd think a man with an arrow in him would lose all the blood he had, but no, there was not so much. It was the others, the fairies all around us. Their blood was strange, and when it flowed, it found other blood and pooled, just like mercury. Not Bran's. His sank into the ground and was gone. The ground was hungry for it. This is a terrible place, Finn. Every seven years, it eats someone.”

“But Bran lived,” he pointed out. There was something that had been bothering him for weeks. “I'm sorry, Meg. About the eggs I mean. There was a lot I didn't understand then. About you, about your family, about the fairies. I just wanted to be a part of it too. If I'd known that those eggs held Bran's life and Rowan's, I would have given 'em back.”

Easy to say now that he knew the consequences of his actions. If he hadn't forced Meg to show him the way to the Green Hill, spied on the fairy court for days, they probably would have let him keep his eye.

“You're a part of it now,” Meg said, and sighed. “What a place this is! My baby brother stolen. Phyllida and Lysander liars. The whole village ready to trick poor, helpless fairies. Other fairies not so helpless, gouging out your eye. Don't you wish you were back in Arcadia?”

“Almost,” he said, and proceeded to tell her about his vandalism and his encounter with Gwidion's goat.

“Another time I might worry about what he's up to, but not now. Not with James down there.” She thumped the hill with the flat of her hand. “I don't even care about Phyllida. I don't ever want to see her again.”

“What's going to happen to all this if you don't take her place?”

“I don't know, and I don't care,” Meg said as meanly as she could, though it mostly sounded sulky. “I'm going home as soon as I get James. The others can do what they want. Let her teach Silly … in the time she has left. Or Lysander can teach her. Or Bran. She'll love it. Not me.”

That reminded Finn about his other piece of news, but he softened it to the point where he was almost telling an untruth. “Lysander isn't well. They called the doctor in, and they're making him rest.”

“I don't care!” she said so defiantly it was obvious she did. “What happened?”

“As soon as you stormed out, he fell down, and we got him on the sofa and then the doctor came. I don't know what the doctor said. I was in Gwidion's house then.”

Right when I left, Meg thought. That's my fault too. And Bran pushing himself to exhaustion because of me, and now in a drugged sleep. Even James is my fault. I should have known better than to leave him alone, though the others said they'd watch him. I knew they wouldn't, not really. Everything is my fault. All the more reason to leave now. I didn't know the Ashes a few months ago, except from a card once a year or so. Now Phyllida will die, and I'll be home, and I'll forget all this.

Turn tail, the brownie had said.

“But first I have to get James,” she said, continuing her thoughts aloud. “Before the Midsummer War, I tried to get in, tried to get the Green Hill to open, but nothing worked. I've called and pounded and threatened, and no one answers. I don't know what to do. Phyllida said there's always some way to get a fairy prisoner back, and it's different every time. If I could just get them to open up, just see James, I know I could get him back. I'd do anything.”

“I opened the Green Hill once,” Finn said.

“What? How!”

He pointed. “Right over there was a rock, looked like any other rock, but it was a little lever, and when I moved it the whole hill opened.”

“Did you go inside?”

“Yes, but just a few feet. There were columns, like marble, but they looked like they were made out of giant bones. It was dark, almost completely dark, but there was a swirling mist hiding something I could almost see. Then the dogs came.”

“Dogs?”

“White with red ears. They chased me away.”

“Nothing will chase me away if I get in!” Meg insisted. “Now, show me the rock.”

He found it easily enough, but no amount of manipulation produced any result. Finally Meg scooped it up and threw it into the brambles. It hit Fenoderee on the head, but whether because his skull was tough or because she threw like the proverbial girl, he took it as a friendly way to get his attention.

“Fenoderee, can you get inside the Green Hill?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“Will you let me in? Please?”

“I have to wait another hundred years or so. And a day. I can never forget the day. Then I'd be happy to.” His entire face was smeared with blackberry juice.

“Oh,” she said. “Never mind. I have to get in now.”

“If you had a key, you could let yourself in,” Fenoderee said, doing his best to be helpful.

Gee, thanks, Meg thought, but Finn said, “Wait a minute.… Why didn't I think of it before? It's not a lock, exactly, but it wouldn't hurt to try, would it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The skeleton key,” he said proudly, pulling the bag open. It was a pain to lug around, but he'd known it would be useful. “Excuse me, but would you mind opening this hill for us?” He tipped the bag over, and the hand crawled out.

It glanced over its shoulder at Finn (that is, if a hand could glance, or had a shoulder) as if to ask him, Are you he sure?

“Please. Meg has to get in. It's very important.”

The hand loved a challenge, and though the stakes were high, it figured nothing much worse could happen to it. It had already been severed from its body (which was long dead). The fairies might be angry, but there wasn't much more they could do to it. It didn't even have any fingernails left to pull out, or jab bamboo slivers under. It cracked its knuckles, crept around the base of the hill looking for a likely spot, and set to work. It fiddled with some stones, bent a few leaves, then plunged itself into the soft earth and quivered. When at last it pried itself free, there was a low rumble and the dirt where it had been collapsed in on itself in a circle, exposing a low tunnel.

“But where's the arch?” Finn asked. “The columns?” He bent low and peered in, but saw only darkness and dirt. “We can't go in there. We'd hardly fit, and the thing would cave in on us. It's a trap.”

But Meg's feet were already disappearing inside.

Why Are You Showing Me This?

“D
O YOU HAVE ANY IDEA
where we are?” Dickie asked.

Silly set her jaw stubbornly and said, “We're almost there.” They had been wandering the woods for three hours.

They'd set out confidently enough. “Meg can find the Green Hill whenever she likes, and I'm sure I can too,” Silly assured him, and she'd blustered like a bear through the forest, not looking for trails, not paying any attention to her direction, just knocking aside vines and stepping on late violets, relying on instinct to guide her. Every animal that could move faster than a slug fled from the great crashing monster who invaded their home, and Dickie (and the Wyrm) followed sheepishly in that young juggernaut's wake.

“We certainly won't catch them by surprise,” Dickie said early on, when he still had some hope and fight left in him.

Now, his legs aching and scratched by thorns, he moped silently on behind her. He'd have headed home if he'd had any idea where home was. He even asked the Wyrm, who replied that, alas, he could only navigate by the stars in the southern hemisphere.

“If it pleases you, I'll brush up on my celestial navigation when we get home. Much though I loathe adding to the store of knowledge I am so earnestly endeavoring to forget.”

“Fat lot of good that'll do us. We won't ever get home,” Dickie grumbled. “You might as well get used to living in the woods.”

The Wyrm, alarmed, longed aloud for his comfortable library and promptly went to sleep, on the theory that when he woke up, things might be better, and if not, at least he would have missed a few hours' unpleasantness.

Silly stopped abruptly and glared at the encircling trees as if they were her mortal enemies. “Don't you have any idea where to go, you silly little thing?” she asked her baby fairy fondly.

The fairy turned into a fat pink dahlia, then a spider monkey, then a blue-tongued skink before nuzzling Silly's ear, cooing, and following the Wyrm's example. “That's all right, darling,” she told it, kissing its green forehead. “I don't really want to give you back anyway.” She pressed onward, hoping for the best, and Dickie followed.

In the end it was Silly who called the halt. “I'm not giving up,” she said adamantly. “But it's almost midnight, and I admit I'm a little lost. Just a little. I know the Green Hill's over there somewhere.” She made a vague gesture into the blackness. “Still, at this point we might as well wait till morning. I'm going to sleep here. Once the sun's up, I'll be able to find our way.”

Since he didn't have much choice, Dickie lay down near her in a hollow of moss and fern. It was more comfortable than that bed of pine boughs survivalists are always encouraging you to make, but just barely. Bugs, sensing their warmth, came eagerly from the moss and sought out their crevices. Dickie eventually stopped scratching long enough to fall asleep, but not before he heartily wished himself back in Arcadia.

*   *   *

I'm not going in there, Finn told himself as Meg's heels disappeared into the crumbling hole. No way. Nothing doing.

And so he was as surprised as anyone to find his own head plunged into the earthy den as he crawled after Meg. While his mind urged him to worm his way backward before it was too late, his arms and legs kept pulling him deeper.

There was no light past the first few feet. “Meg, wait for me!” He grabbed her by the foot and shouldn't have been surprised that she kicked like a mule—who wouldn't after being unexpectedly grabbed belowground?

“You should go back,” she said.

“I know I should, but I'm not.”

“This isn't your problem. James is my brother. I'll take care of it.”

If he'd been gallant, he would have said,
And I'll take care of you
. But his thoughts hadn't gotten nearly that far, and he only knew he was going with her whether she or, more to the point, he liked it or not. All he said was, “If you're gonna go, then go,” and gave her sneakered foot a shove.

At the mouth the tunnel was big enough that if they wanted to have very sore backs, they could have walked in a deep stoop. But as they progressed, it narrowed by almost imperceptible degrees until Finn could feel the dirt scraping his back even though he was crawling. It was warm, too, even warmer than the summer night air outside. The earth around them was just about body temperature, and humid, so they felt like they were inside a living thing.

“It's getting too narrow,” Finn said, but he wasn't sure if Meg could hear him. Meg, slightly smaller than Finn, was having an easier time, and she pushed on. Finn had to drop to his elbows in a military crawl.

“This is ridiculous,” he said as he wormed blindly forward. “I'm going back.” But he only said it in hopes that she'd go back herself. It suddenly occurred to Finn that he might not be able to reverse course if he tried. He made an experimental wiggle and all of his bones seemed to bite like backward-curving viper teeth into the earth, holding him snugly in place.

Meg crawled on as if she were deranged. Her love and anxiety for James combined with her rage over Phyllida's lies and her own guilt about not doing something herself sooner spurred her on to bravery. Perhaps she had been brave before in the Midsummer War and when facing down Smythe, but confronting a known danger in the open air is a very different thing from plunging yourself into what is practically a tomb. Though she wasn't positively phobic, she didn't like tight spaces. And indeed, the air itself was getting tighter. Eventually she too had to drop to her elbows and squirm her way forward, and it felt like the weight of all the dirt above her was crushing down on her back, choking the life out of her. The air was dank and rotten; the hole got tighter and tighter. She heard Finn say something behind her, and though his words were muffled, she knew he was saying exactly what any half-sensible person would say at that moment: “Let's get out of here before it's too late!”