Kelpie Curse: A Feyland Urban Fantasy Tale (The Celtic Fey Book 2) (3 page)

-::-

"Your breakfast will be ready momentarily, milady," Elphin said as Cailleach approached the fire, hoping he could head off any complaint.

There was a grunt as she sat down and arranged coal-black skirts around skeletal knees.

Quickly, he spooned berries and nuts into a wooden bowl and poured boiling water into a horn containing dried herbs and flowers.

"I will need to go foraging again today, milady," he said as he handed her the dish and her drink. "Supplies are running low."

"Harumph." The guttural sound emanated from somewhere deep in her scraggy throat. "Be back before we need to leave for the Bright Court." Glacial-blue eyes stared unnervingly at him through the steam rising from her beverage. "Do not make me send the wolves after you."

"Yes, milady." He had been lucky yesterday, when Corinne and her unicorn had helped him to escape the Wild Hunt. But he could not rely on that luck holding. Not here in this magical land, where misdirection and subterfuge were a stock-in-trade and trickery was a way of life. "I will make sure that I return in plenty of time."

-::-

Her hand raised to knock on the farmhouse door, Corinne froze in place, wondering once again if she really
should
be contemplating this. She hardly knew the horse. Could she seriously think about taking him to a competition so soon?

But… He'd seemed to enjoy jumping so much.

And being a show-jumper was something
she
'd dreamed of; she'd just never had much chance before. Midnight had been perfect for a first horse—kind, easy to ride and safe. But he hadn't seemed to enjoy jumping. And then shortly after they moved to Scotland, he got sick and…

She wiped her eye with the back of a hand. Thinking about Midnight still made her sad.

But now she had Ghost to care for, and Ghost seemed to have a talent for jumping. He made her feel like she could fly. Like she could do
anything.
Perhaps he could help her to realise her ambition.

"Aye, there you are!" Phemie's Scots burr greeted Corinne as the old woman swung the door open.

But I didn't even knock!

Phemie jerked her head into the gloom down the hallway. "I think the schedule's in the kitchen. Follow me."

The farmhouse kitchen was a surprise. It was large, and brighter than Corinne had expected. A squat yellow Aga cooker was surrounded by cupboards in warm oak tones, and a large pine dining table had pride of place in the centre of the room. On the far wall was an oak dresser, shelves overflowing with photos of what Corinne assumed must be Phemie's family.
Funny. She never struck me as the sentimental type.

Striding across the room, Phemie pulled some papers from a pile on the dresser, shuffling through them as she rejoined the girl. "Here it is," she said, handing over some typewritten sheets clipped together by a staple. She pointed at some wording near the top. "Closing date is tomorrow. So you've still time to enter." Her mouth quirked up at one side. "I reckon you'll cause some upset with yon new horse. Show Son— eh, show some of the other teenagers what you're made of."

T
HAT
AFTERNOON
IN
the sim café, Corinne settled into the sim chair and flexed her fingers in the gaming gloves. It seemed an age since she'd been in Feyland. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

As the game started up, a flaming 'F' swooshed into the background and a pair of glowing eyes stared menacingly from the shadows.

Moments later, her archer avatar was standing in a mushroom ring in the middle of a clearing; soft grass underfoot and silver-barked birch trees all around. A gentle breeze caressed her cheek and the smell of the damp earth tickled her nostrils, as if it had just been raining. A shiver ran down her spine.
Can this really be just a game, or is it something more than that?

Finding the white horse yesterday had convinced her that the unicorn from Feyland had somehow made it into real life. But how could that be possible?
Could fairyland really exist?
Maybe it was just coincidence that the horse seemed so connected to her.
Maybe he's just friendly.

She chewed her lip thoughtfully, then stepped resolutely from the ring and onto the dirt path leading out of the clearing. Today she was here for a reason.

Time to find that minstrel.
Time to find out why she kept dreaming about him.

Perhaps she was supposed to help him escape the blue-faced hag. But if she was going to do that, she'd have to be sure and avoid the Wild Hunt. There would be no unicorn to help her today.

-::-

It only took a few minutes in Feyland for Corinne to wonder if she'd got it wrong, and if Ghost was, in fact, just a normal horse.

As she followed the path from the faerie ring and entered the forest, a flash of white up ahead caught her eye. Jogging forward, she caught another glimpse of a distinctly equine-shaped creature.
Another unicorn?
Or the same one that she'd met the other day?

Ducking to avoid low-hanging branches as she hurried through the trees, the magical beast was always tantalisingly far enough away that for a long time she couldn't get a proper look at him. After endless minutes of fruitless pursuit, the ground started to slope gently downwards and the trees thinned, letting her finally see the animal in profile.

He had no twisted horn protruding from his forehead.

She frowned.
Just a normal horse?
But he disappeared into the forest again, and she gritted her teeth and set off once more in pursuit. Whatever he was, she wanted to find out more about him.

After another couple of minutes, the ground started to flatten and Corinne could hear a strange thrumming roar, which grew louder the further she walked. Could it be anything to do with the horse?

Rounding a corner in the path, the source of the noise became clear. A waterfall plunged over a rocky edge at least fifteen feet above, and fell into a deep pool. There was no sign of the white horse, but around the pool, tall grasses grew in clumps intertwined with tufts of delicate blue forget-me-nots which had tiny pea-green leaves. The pool drained to a wide stream that continued through the wood, with stepping stones over it taking the path on into the distance.

Now that she was closer to the waterfall, she could also hear a rhythmical knocking and whirring, which intermingled with the falling water. Could
that
be anything to do with the horse?

As Corinne moved towards the pool, the mechanical knocking sound stopped and a movement over by the waterfall caught her eye. She stopped in surprise. On a ledge beside the waterfall was a strange, hairy creature with the body of a man but the legs of a…
goat?

C
ORINNE
MUST
HAVE
made an involuntary noise because the strange creature's head jerked up, beady black eyes darting straight to where she stood in the line of trees flanking the stream. Corinne's left hand inched nervously towards the bow slung over her shoulder, as the creature jumped off the ledge and skipped around the edge of the pool until he stood in front of her.

"Good morrow, fair maid," he said in a reedy high-pitched voice with a hint of a lisp. "I'm Urisk. Who be you?"

Corinne took a half step backwards. "H—hello. My name is Corinne."

He smiled, showing small, slab-shaped teeth, but when he didn't say anything else or do anything threatening, she added, "I wonder if you could help me? I saw a white horse in the trees, and it led me here."

Urisk inclined his head questioningly.

"Have you seen it?" she asked.

The creature nodded sagely. "The water horse. Yes. He is very flighty. I am trying to catch him." His eyes narrowed. "Would you like to help me?"

Could this be another of Feyland's quests? The first time she'd played the game, she'd met a goblin who'd said in a sing-song voice,
'Only the pure can see the pure, only the pure will find him. Only with love will love be shown, only by love unbind him.'
And after that, she'd found the unicorn. So she was probably due another quest by now. Maybe she had to help Urisk before she could hunt for the minstrel.

"Okay. What do you need me to do?"

"Follow me." Urisk jerked his head to the right and led her around the pool.

When Corinne stepped closer to the torrent falling off the cliff, a reviving mist of droplets peppered her skin. Motes of sunlight hitting the spray caused effervescent rainbows, which hung like will o' the wisps above the pool. That same spray sheened the rocks as Urisk led her onto the ledge at the base of the cliff and disappeared behind the waterfall.

Stepping carefully along the narrow ledge, her childhood fear of water had her hugging the cliff-face, well away from the scarily deep pool. Once behind the curtain of water, she moved slowly to let her eyes adjust. Inside, the cave was dark but not pitch-black. Faint dapples of light filtered through the waterfall; constantly moving to create a strange, underwater ambiance.

In a corner of the cave lay a nest of rough-woven blankets; a niche in the wall held wooden implements and crockery; a ledge was arrayed with baskets of what looked like herbs; and nearby, chunks of tree-trunk were arranged to provide a rustic table and stool. This must be where Urisk lived—and he was obviously house-proud, as the place was tidy and swept clean.

At the front sat a wooden spinning wheel with a pile of silvery material on the floor beside it and a skein of glistening thread wound onto its bobbin.

Urisk pointed a long, thin arm at the spinning wheel. "I need to fill my bobbin with silver thread before I can catch the water horse. Will you assist me, fair maid?"

-::-

Elphin hummed to himself as he hurried down the dirt path through the scree-filled lower slopes of Schiehallion, a woven willow basket over his arm and his cloak billowing behind him. High above, the snow-covered upper slopes of the conical-shaped mountain were wreathed in wispy white clouds; down here, the chill from Cailleach's cave was slowly lifting as the sun's rays warmed his leathery skin.

Clumps of purple heather began to line the track as the barren slopes of the mountain gave way to the more undulating terrain leading to the faerie wood. Yellow-sprigged gorse peppered the peaty ground, and a few yards later, a small blue bird with a white face hopped onto a nearby bush and cocked a head in Elphin's direction.

"Hello, my friend," he said. "Time for a duet?"

The bird gave a chirrup in reply, and with a flutter of tiny wings, he was joined by another white-faced bird, red this time.

"A trio!" he laughed, and cleared his throat. He began to sing a folk song he remembered from his studies at the Conservatory; a rhythmical tune with onomatopoeic lyrics, which evoked the sounds and cadences of tweed weaving in the Scottish islands.

As the tune filled the air, the little birds sang a counterpoint to his melody, hopping from bush to bush and then tree to tree as he strode along the path and into the faerie wood. As they travelled, other birds joined their chorus until he had a veritable choir in accompaniment as he reached the end of the final verse.

"Well sung, my friends." He opened his arms like a conductor in front of an audience, and gave a bow. "But now I need to attend to my task and collect some supplies. I will sing with you again very soon, I promise."

The rainbow-coloured flock cheeped their farewells as he turned to the stream that crossed the path in front of him, and eyed up the stepping stones. They looked sturdy enough to support his weight, and on the far side he spied some mallow root—one of Cailleach's favourite delicacies.
Time to forget pleasure and think about work.

-::-

After an hour, the tips of Corinne's fingers were starting to burn from the effort of teasing the silk into a thread and feeding it into the spinning wheel. But more worrying was the fact that the pile of raw material had dwindled to nothing, and Urisk had disappeared without saying where he was going. He'd only offered the vague instruction that if she needed more silk, she should collect it from the webs in his cave.

His spotlessly immaculate cave.

How am I ever going to find a cobweb here?
She stopped pushing the wooden foot pedals that turned the wheel. Flexing her cramped fingers, she stood up.
Maybe outside?
The sooner she finished Urisk's spinning, the sooner she'd be able to search for the minstrel.

Birdsong filled the air as she stepped out from under the waterfall and onto the ledge.

Spotting a figure on the stepping stones at the other side of the pool—Elphin, her friend from her last visit to Feyland—she raised an arm and waved to catch his attention.

But the sudden movement made her lose her footing on the slippery rock, and with a stab of panic she slid off the ledge and fell helplessly towards the icy depths of the pool. Plunging down, she had time for only a single, terror-filled gasp before the dark water closed like a coffin over her head.

E
LPHIN
WAS
NEGOTIATING
the last stepping stone when there was a yelp of alarm followed by a large splash in the pool to his left. He
knew
who it was before he saw her, and was tearing off his cloak and boots before Corinne had breached the surface. But instead of swimming or floating, she flailed her arms and started to sink again. Without thought for his own safety, Elphin took a deep breath and dived into the pool, aiming for the spot where she had gone under.

The seemingly-still pool was far from it, underwater. Eddies and rills from the nearby waterfall disturbed the depths and caused the pondweed to ripple and flail like a forest in a hurricane. But the water was pure and clean, and Elphin caught a flash of Corinne's archer costume descending rapidly near the far bank.

With a couple of powerful strokes, he crossed the pool and lunged down to where a smear of green glimmered tantalisingly below him.