Guardian of the Green Hill (26 page)

“Oh, my dear heart, I came as soon as I could. Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Were you scared? I'm sorry I didn't come sooner.”

“I've only been here a few minutes. No time to get scared. Meggie, why are they all wearing leaves and rags?”

“You mean you don't see all the pretty clothes and good food?”

He looked at her like she was daft.

“Maybe you should be the Guardian,” Meg said. He was apparently immune to fairy glamour. “But you've been here almost two days.”

“Nah,” he said. “I know it's just a few minutes 'cause when I got here I started singing ‘Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer,' and I'm only down to seventy-three.”

Which tells you something about time under the Green Hill.

“Now we just have to find a way to get you out of here.” Meg glanced anxiously at the Seelie queen, who for some reason looked as lovely as ever. But the queen stared through them as if they did not exist. Apparently they wouldn't meet with any resistance from that quarter.

“We can just go out that door,” James said, pointing. Meg saw that where there had been bare rock there was now a simple wooden door with a brass knob. “And can you hear? Someone is knocking.”

Meg was a bit distrustful. She half expected to have to tunnel her way out, or fight a dragon, or answer an impossible riddle. A door? That's it? Well, she thought, perhaps I've done all I need to do down here. History lesson of the past fifty thousand years—check. Terrifying premonitions about the world's future—check. A reminder to not feel sorry for myself—check. James—check. That, she thought, about covered it.

She opened the door to gold-white afternoon sunlight, and as soon as they'd passed through it, the door was gone.

They were attacked by a young panther, which after a baffling moment resolved itself into a joyous Silly, who knocked them to the ground with her fierce hugs.

“I knew it I knew it I knew it!” she said, letting them go to do a little dance. “The piggie fairy told us you went inside and I said to Dickie well we'll just wait 'cause she's bound to come out eventually and I know she'll have James with her or she'd never come out and here you are!”

“What are you doing here?” Meg asked, scarcely able to see now that she was in harsh real light, feeling as if she might crumble to dust at any moment like Angharad.

“We had the baby fairy and Dickie wanted to tell you but I didn't and I made him so it's not his fault and we came here last night only not really till this morning and we were going to trade our fairy for James but now we don't have to and I'm so glad 'cause look at him isn't he the most perfect little thing you ever saw?”

She might have been thrifty with her punctuation marks, but Silly could tell a complete story in a single sentence.

“It's afternoon?” Meg asked, though the position of the sun made it rather obvious. “It didn't feel like we were in there for more than an hour. I was going to declare myself as Guardian at sunrise. I missed it.”

“Oh, you changed your mind
again
?” Silly rolled her eyes. “Are you still mad at Phyllida? 'Cause you shouldn't be if it's not really her fault, since everyone did it before her and she didn't know what else she could do.”

When Meg sorted that one out, she said, “No, I'm not mad anymore. Not very much, anyway. James is back, so it doesn't really matter, and since I'm going to be the Guardian after all, I can't be mad at her, can I? But I swear, if I ever have a daughter, I won't put her through that. I will always tell her the truth, and I'll always help her, no matter what!” She stomped her foot and had no idea she would one day break her oath.

“Tomorrow, then,” Meg said. “Tomorrow at dawn, I'll make it official. Right now I want to go home.” And this time, when she said “home,” she meant the Rookery.

As they started down the hill, they heard a low moan that rose to a keening wail. Meg grabbed the first hand she could find, which unfortunately was Finn's. She released it immediately.

“The banshee,” Silly said. “We heard that last night when we fell asleep in the woods.”

“No, it's not the banshee,” Meg said, though the sound was, if anything, more mournful.

A ragged figure came into view, her clothes torn by thorns, her hair in matted locks. With her red hair loose around her face and her eyes crimson with weeping, she looked a great deal like the banshee.

“It's Moll,” Meg said.

Moll looked at her without recognition. “Lady? Fairy lady? Do you have my Colin? I've come for my boy.”

Meg felt her eyes grow heavy. Moll was insane with the grief of her loss. I have to do something for her, Meg thought. I'm not the Guardian yet, not officially, but this is what it's all about. What do I do now? I can't change the past, and I can't heal her. There's nothing for her but—

She had an idea. She whispered something to Silly, who pulled away, eyes wide, and said, “No! Please, Meg, don't make me! I love him.”

“You know where he belongs, Silly. You can't give him what he needs. And you know she'll love him too.” Meg held out her arms, and the little fairy crawled into them. She spoke softly for a moment, and when he understood, he changed. He grew bigger, to about the size of a one-year-old boy. His skin went from pale jade to pale tan. She set him down, and he tottered a few uncertain steps.

“Mama?”

Moll's hands went to her mouth, and she fell to her knees. The fairy, who now looked exactly like Colin, ran to his mother, stumbling over his pigeon toes, only to be caught in the most grateful and loving arms he'd ever known. “I knew I would get you back. I knew the Good Folk would keep you safe and return you to me.”

“But you have to go under the Green Hill,” Meg said. “There's no place for you here, but if you go below, you can be with your little boy forever.”

She got to her feet and nodded. “Anything you say, little Lady, so long as we can be together. How do I go?”

Meg didn't know, but the Green Hill opened of its own accord, and without a farewell or a backward glance, Moll disappeared forever from this world with her baby at her breast.

She Can't Give You What You Want

M
EG WALKED HOMEWARD
with the others in autumnal peace. She felt older—perhaps she'd been longer under the Green Hill than she realized—and a bit sad, as if she'd set aside something she loved very much but could do without. You might call it her childhood, but despite the heavy times before her, she would be a child for years to come. It was the carelessness of childhood she'd left behind, the idea that no matter what happened, there was always someone she could run to who would make it all better. She felt very strong now that she'd completely made up her mind and the dreads and uncertainties had ceased warring with her duties and secret desires—for despite everything, she had always wanted to be the Guardian, even when she'd wanted to run away at the same time. What was once strife and opposition was now balance, and (she thought) the path before her was clear. Not easy, perhaps, but clear. There would be no more doubts.

Silly, irrepressible even in her sorrow at losing her little charge, skipped and cavorted in the afternoon haze, and Dickie kept up an animated conversation about Gothic architecture with the Wyrm. To Meg they seemed impossibly young and removed from the real world, Silly for her lively immaturity, Dickie for his immersion in the purity of knowledge. Only Finn, darkly brooding and abstracted, walking slowly at her side, seemed a fit companion for her mood. She felt very alone.

“I wanted to stay,” Meg confessed. “Even after I'd seen through the glamour. Do you know, even when I was about to drink that wine or whatever it was, I knew in the back of my mind what would happen, but I didn't care. I wanted us to stay there. We wouldn't have had to worry about anything, ever again, because nothing would be real, nothing would matter.”

“The easy way out,” Finn said.

“Exactly. Because I think things are coming that I won't like. But I have to do them.
Someone
has to do them, and I'd rather it was me than anyone else.”

Finn, understandably, didn't feel quite the same way. Better anyone else, he thought, than me.
You will do a great evil, for a good cause, and the world will despise you for it, though you are their salvation. But Meg will know the truth of it. That must be your comfort. You will have no other.

He shook his head irritably and pretended to tie his shoe. What does she know, the old witch. Probably batty from spending two thousand years underground on a pile of rocks and old moth-eaten pelts. But he felt a chill through the blaze of afternoon sun, and hastened to catch up with Meg.

“Silly! I just remembered Finn told me Lysander isn't well. Is that true?” Meg asked.

“Doctor said he'd be fine,” Silly said, saying what she believed.

“Okay, then I'm sure Phyllida can start to train me, before … Oh, do you think it's really true, about the banshee?” She had a quavering moment of self-doubt. “I don't know if I can do this without Phyllida.”

“Oh, she'll be around for ages,” Silly said. They were just in sight of the Rookery. “That banshee doesn't know what it's talking about, and even if it's true, I'm sure it won't be for years and years.”

Meg was reassured because she desperately wanted to be.

They had grown accustomed to a certain bustle about the Rookery, for it is impossible to run such a large estate without a great many servants. Phyllida's and Lysander's personal needs were few, but the garden and grounds had a veritable army of caretakers, several gamekeepers looked after the pheasants and foxes, four capable men looked to the horses, and a slew of household staff kept everything presentable. It was therefore odd that no one was about. Meg didn't know that Phyllida had given the entire staff the day off.

Dr. Homunculus's red convertible was pulling away as the children came up the drive. He honked his horn, and they gathered around.

“Will you please talk some sense into that relation of yours?” he said. “This is the second time I've come today and the second time I've been turned away. Mr. Ash should be in a hospital, but I made allowances—he's old, there's not much more we can do, and he wants to be comfortable in his home at the end. But he still needs my care! Ye gods and little fishes!” He slapped his forehead. “I begged her, practically on bended knee, to let me see him, just to give him something to ease his discomfort, and she refused. Will you lot let me in? If I could just see Mr. Ash.”

“Of course,” Meg said. “I can't guarantee anything, and I have to respect her wishes—and Lysander's—but you can come in.” In her newly accepted role, she knew she must handle things with grave calm, but inside she was quaking. Lysander's case was that serious? She might lose Phyllida and Lysander both, at once? How would she manage without them?

“I'm surprised Rowan didn't let you in,” Meg said as she fumbled with the front door. It was locked. Where was Wooster? She saw Finn about to open his hemp sack for the skeleton key but shook her head, nodding to the doctor, and they went around back to one of the servants' entrances.

“That's the oldest of you lot? Didn't see him. There was a chappie in the window upstairs looked at me, a long fellow. Did Mrs. Ash hire a nurse?”

“I don't think so,” Meg said. She felt a tug on her arm.

“I'm
hungry
,” James said with emphasis.

“Okay, go to the garden kitchen and get yourself a snack—but no bowls of butter and no whole hams! Doctor, come this way up the back stairs. Careful, they're a little rickety.” She led, with the doctor right behind her, Silly and Dickie behind him keeping up a chatter about the baby fairy, and Finn bringing up the rear. Meg took them directly to Phyllida and Lysander's bedroom, assuming they would be gathered there.

She walked in the door and froze, giving everyone behind her time to file obliviously in and be trapped in their own paralysis. Everyone but Finn. The doorway was too crowded, and he was out of sight just outside. Meg saw the scene in bits and pieces: the knife before anything else, double-edged, almost long enough to be a short sword, with a heavy golden split pommel of two outward-facing stylized goats. It was an akinakes, a Persian dagger, acquired at the same time as Gwidion's magical art. Then she saw Phyllida's throat, thin and pale with faint tracings of thick blue veins at its side.

Meg took a step forward, and the knife and throat came closer together, the point making a dent in Phyllida's skin.

“Hail, hail, the gang's all here,” Gwidion said. “Close the door, or I cut her throat.” Dickie, closest to the door, did so, casting a meaningful look at Finn, who'd gotten only a glimpse of what was going on inside—Lysander unmoving, eyes closed, on the bed, Phyllida in a chair beside him, Gwidion standing over her with a knife, the goat Pazhan at his side. Finn was sure Pazhan had met his eye, and he expected to be gored from behind at any moment as he crept back down the creaky stairs.

Gwidion glared at Dr. Homunculus. “Who are you?” he snarled.

“What the blue blazes is going on in here? Is this a joke?”

“That's the doctor,” Phyllida said, her voice low and shaking. “Let him go, please. He's no part of this.”

“And let him tell the world? First things first, old girl. Now that I have a few more bargaining chips at my disposal, shall we resume negotiations? I've been at 'er all day, Doctor—knife and fists and threats—but she's a tough old nut.” Meg could see bruises on Phyllida's face and along her arms. Gwidion leered at Meg, like her fairy dance partner unglamoured. “Perhaps the sight of her pretty little Meg all sliced up will persuade her to see things my way.”

“This is absurd,” said the doctor, starting forward with more courage than good sense, but Meg intercepted him.