First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts (16 page)

After a long, dull day at school, Helen arrived home bedraggled and sleepy. She had hoped for a sign from the fabled beasts that the Book was safe, but they’d made no plans for a signal nor arrangements to meet, so she was slowly accepting that she may never know what happened next.

She trudged into the kitchen and slung her bags under a chair. On the table was a roll of cream paper, tied by a gold ribbon, with her name in curly letters on the outside. Helen sat down and looked at the parchment warily. Surely it wasn’t another riddle? She picked it up, slid the ribbon off the end of the tube, unrolled it and began to read.

She jumped up when her Mum strode through the back door, slamming it behind her, and flinging the torn, dirty and burnt first aid kit onto the table.

“I found this in the garage. Did you steal it? There are syringes and scalpels missing! What on earth have you been doing with syringes and scalpels?”

Helen didn’t try to answer, she just handed her Mum the roll of parchment. Her Mum read out loud:

Her Mum looked up.

“Is this your explanation for the stolen equipment and the late night walks? These friends — Yann, Rona, Lavender and Sapphire — needed your help with some injured animals?”

“Yes. That’s about right.”

“How did the animals get injured?”

“It was mostly a mad bull.”

“That can be nasty. But why did they need you to fix their animals? Why didn’t they phone a real vet?”

“They couldn’t. Their parents don’t approve or something. But I used all the right equipment and copied techniques from your books. And so far everything has healed fine.”

“Even the splinted wing? That’s hard to do.”

“Well, it’s a bit difficult to tell with the splinted wing right now, but he did seem to be flying fine last night.”

“Well, I think you were very irresponsible to take this on yourself, but I can’t really criticize, as I spent half my childhood fixing rabbits and owls and weasels.”

Helen shivered at recent memories, as her Mum grinned at old ones.

Her Mum sat down and thought for a moment.

“Oh, alright. I will let you go to this party, but you must promise that if anyone else asks you to provide first aid for an animal, you will consult me as soon as possible.”

“As soon as possible, Mum, absolutely. Thanks so much.” Her Mum pulled the exotic animals textbook out of the rucksack and flicked through the crumpled pages. “We could look through this together sometime if you want,” she said
hopefully.

“Yes,” smiled Helen. “That might be useful. But …”

“But not right now. Go and get ready for your party!”

And Helen went upstairs for a long hot bath, and to get needles and thread from her sewing box, rather than her Mum’s surgery.

At five to nine, Helen was ready. She had her own blue rucksack packed with no veterinary equipment whatsoever, and was wearing clean jeans and warm socks.

The doorbell rang at nine o’clock and both her parents went to answer it.

Helen peered round them. Rona was standing on the doorstep, wearing a sleeveless blue dress that shimmered in the light from the hall.

“I’m Rona,” she said politely to the Strangs. “I’ve come to take Helen to our Gathering.”

“Of course,” said Helen’s Mum. “But aren’t you freezing in that dress?”

Rona looked at her arms and smiled. “It’s fine, I have a layer of fat that keeps me really warm.”

Helen tried not to giggle, then she hugged her Mum and Dad. “I’ll be back after midnight. Is that okay?”

“So long as someone brings you home.”

“We’ll get her home, don’t worry,” said Rona. “We always have.”

With the adults watching, Helen and Rona left by the gate, rather than leaping over the fence.

“Thanks for the invitation,” Helen said as they walked down the path.

“Oh, we were always going to invite you. We just never got time to do it properly before.”

“But thanks especially for the PS. It turns out that Mum will forgive me anything if she thinks I’ve been helping poor dumb animals. It got me out of a lot of trouble.”

Sapphire was waiting in the lane and the girls climbed on. They flew for only quarter of an hour, before landing on the edge of a flat grassy space
bordered by a small woodland, a curve of river leading to the sea and a stony beach. The sea and the river were calm on this dry windless night.

Helen looked towards the centre of the clearing. It was filled with moving lights and shadows. There were figures milling around on varying numbers of legs: some walking, some flying, some huge, some so small she could hardly make them out.

“Where are we?” asked Helen.

“A place where all the fabled beasts, from land and sea, from river and tree, can feel at home. We gather here every Solstice, Winter and Summer.”

They jumped off Sapphire and were met by Yann and Lavender.

Lavender was wearing a very frilly purple dress and carrying a large wand, bound with ribbons. Yann had several narrow plaits in his hair and had groomed his coat and polished his hooves.

“Tell me about the Book,” asked Helen. “Did you get it home safely?”

“Yes, we did,” whispered Yann, “but no one else knows, so don’t shout about it. Our parents will be bringing out the Book soon, and unless the Book decides to tell of its adventure, we may have escaped punishment.”

“Hardly,” said Helen. “Every single one of you will have a scar of some kind. Is Catesby still an egg?”

Yann patted the embroidered pouch on his hip gloomily. “Yes.”

“So what happens at your Solstice Gathering?”

Rona answered, “First we consult the Book, then some families and tribes dance or sing, or
create beauty in other ways. Then we all eat and drink far too much and go to bed very late!”

Helen took off her rucksack. “Well, in my family, we give gifts at this time of year, so I brought you each something.”

She pulled four packages from her rucksack.

First she handed Sapphire a hard round package. “So you can see how you look with your necklaces and bracelets on.” Sapphire ripped the paper to find a mirror with gemstones round the frame. The dragon held it in her silver claws and admired
herself
, rumbling a note of deep pleasure.

Then Helen handed Rona a square package. “For singing on rocks.” Rona found a book of sea shanties and ballads, and started humming them immediately.

Helen gave Yann another flat package but said nothing as he opened it. He found a hardcover book too, but with blank pages. “Now you can write your own answers,” said Helen quietly.

Last, she gave Lavender a tiny soft package and an envelope. Lavender opened the package and out fell a little white dress with pink and blue ribbons. “Oh Helen, it’s lovely … but I can only wear purple.” Lavender sounded on the edge of tears.

“Open the envelope.”

Out of the envelope fluttered pictures from a gardening catalogue; varieties of lavender with white, pink and blue flowers.

“You can wear lots of colours, and not lose your Lavender luck.”

Lavender squealed, and created a small cylinder
of black round herself while she changed quickly into her new dress.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she shouted and kissed Helen on the nose.

The others thanked her too, in quieter voices. “We don’t have gifts for you,” apologized Rona.

“I can watch your celebration and that will be your gift.”

They turned towards the centre of the field, nearer the lights and the shifting figures.

But Helen’s way was suddenly blocked by a huge white beast.

Its head towered over her, and its powerful legs and hooves forced her backwards.

“Who has brought a human to our secret
gathering
?”

“I have,” said Yann, trotting to Helen’s side.

The beast shifted back slightly and Helen saw that this was another centaur. A pure white horse, joined to a man’s pale torso and blond head. But he was a chest and head taller than Yann.

“Why is she here?” he demanded, his voice deeper and richer than Yann’s. “These creatures have poisoned our land, cut down our woods and built on every inch of good galloping ground. They use our cousins the horses as slaves. Humans are more our enemies than any practitioners of dark magic. Get her away from here, son.”

Helen felt all her friends move closer to her.

“Humans are not our enemies, Father. And dark magic is not to be talked of lightly.”

Yann spoke in his usual arrogant voice, but Helen heard a quiver that was not normally
there. She wasn’t sure if she should speak up, try to defend Yann. Then she remembered Yann listening awkwardly to her and her Mum arguing and decided that a human girl getting between him and his father wouldn’t help Yann at all.

His father spoke high above them all. “You know little of the world, colt. You do not know how even the most silver-tongued human can betray you.”

“I judge this human girl not by what she says but by what she does. And she has never betrayed us. So she will stay with us tonight.”

Yann’s father took a sudden pace towards him. But Yann stood firm. The huge stallion wound one of Yann’s plaits round his fingers and pulled his head up.

“Do you defy me? You will not mix with this kind. You will not risk our people being betrayed and discovered. If you will not remove her, then I will do it myself, with my hooves and my hands.”

Sapphire growled gently behind Helen.

The white centaur glanced over. “I am not afraid of dragons, lizard child. I have beaten your father in a fair fight before now and would make easy work of you.”

Concerned that this was becoming more than a family disagreement, Helen said softly, “I don’t want to cause trouble, Yann. I’ll just go home if I’m not wanted.”

Yann jerked his head back out of his father’s grip. “No, healer’s child. I invited you here, and you are my guest. Please stay. Most other fabled beasts will treat you with courtesy.”

He raised his voice to the skies. “Father, she is a healer, a musician and a solver of riddles. This gathering has welcomed bards and adventurers from the human race for millennia. More than that, she is my friend. If I have to, I will fight for her right to be here.”

Yann stood as tall as he could, chin up, and looked straight at his father.

The white centaur reared once, his hooves a hair’s breadth from his son’s face. Yann didn’t move.

His father laughed as his hooves touched the ground. “You are growing up, boy. Don’t let her run off with any of our treasures.”

He turned and walked away, flicking his silvery white tail, and lifting his massive hooves delicately over the long dark grass.

Yann watched him go, his face pale and his chest heaving. When his father was out of sight in the crowd of beasts, he turned to the others and muttered, “Come on, let’s go and watch the Book reading.”

He started to move away, but Helen touched his arm and he stopped.

She waited until the others were out of earshot.

“Thank you, Yann.”

Yann was silent for a few moments. Then he said quietly, “My father is not always right.” He grinned at Helen. “Neither am I, but don’t tell anyone!”

The two of them followed the others to a small rise in the grass, behind the mass of fur, feathers and scales gathered around a central space. They could see over the fabled beasts’ heads to a white stone in the middle of the crowd.

Yann looked around. “If the Book wants to accuse us of rule breaking, then we might be able to make an escape from here.”

Helen asked, “You would run away?”

He sighed. “No. We brought the Book back, and no one died. If the Book tells, we will be in a great deal of trouble, but we would see it through. Wouldn’t we?”

Lavender looked a bit weepy, but Rona and Sapphire nodded. Then they waited for the Book.

As Helen watched, a procession emerged from the forest. Leading it was Yann’s father, followed by a red dragon, a tall willowy woman with stiff arms, a tiny flickering blue fairy and a short plump woman in shimmering green who looked like Rona.

“Our elders,” Rona whispered to Helen. “That’s my mum.”

They were carrying a carved wooden box, passing it round, always to the right, so that they each held it for a moment. The crowd opened to let them through.

Then Yann’s father stood by the shining white stone, opened the box and lifted out the Book that Helen had spoken to only that morning. Placing the Book gently on top of the stone, he opened it and called in a clear, carrying voice:

“A delegation from the western forests wishes to ask the first question. Step forward, Brother.”

A low grey form, shaped like a man but with a line of shaggy fur down his back, stepped forward and spoke in a growling voice:

“Honoured Book. The faery queen of the forest folk is sending heralds to prepare the way for her home-coming to the new forests of the west. Those of us who have homes there fear her return and
her changeable moods. We question her right to drive us away after so many centuries’ absence.”

Helen looked at Rona beside her and Rona shrugged.

A sudden wind blew from the sea and rippled the Book’s pages. When they settled the centaur read:

“Brother, the Book answers you. Those wooded lands that are hers are hers by ancient right. Those wooded lands that have never been hers, she may covet but she should not take, whether by charm or cunning or force. So there will still be forests you may dwell in, if you can defend them.”

The questioner nodded his thanks and slipped away into the crowd.

Then the centaur called out again. “Honoured and Revered Book. The second question. There have been sightings of the Master of the Maze in our lands these last days. Need we fear him and his creatures this winter?”

The pages moved again in a breeze that didn’t reach Helen and her friends on the mound. When the paper settled, the glowing white centaur read:

“No, you need not fear him, for this year he has been defeated by the elders of the future and the healer’s child.”

There was a murmur round the crowd and a cheer started up.

The centaur raised his powerful voice over the noise. “And finally, Honoured Book, is there another question we should ask this year?” Rona whispered to Helen, “If we have a spare question we always ask this, just in case there is anything
new we need to know. If the Book wants to reveal its travels and our quest, it will do so now.”

Helen felt Rona go tense beside her. She heard Yann take a deep breath and saw Lavender bite her little lip. Sapphire’s scales were dull with anxiety.

The pages rippled again, right to the end. Then the wind died down and the pages stopped moving. Yann’s father read:

“How do you make amends when you have broken the rules? Fix the damage done, retrieve the things lost and fear the anger of those betrayed.”

There was puzzled silence for a moment, then Yann’s father and the other elders bowed to the Book, placed it in carefully back in its box and carried it away, whispering among themselves.

Rona and Lavender hugged each other, then both hugged Helen, while Yann gave Sapphire a hearty thump between the wings.

“The Book has forgiven us!” squealed Lavender. “Our punishment was to fear their anger, not to feel it!” She gasped, “Oh, I must go. Our flower dance is the first show!” She flew off as fast as a hawk diving.

“This is a good place to watch Lavender dance. We will stay here,” said Yann.

“Do you all perform at the gathering?” asked Helen.

Rona answered, “No. Some families, like Lavender’s, practise for months and do really fancy things. Others, like the centaurs, think entertaining a crowd is beneath them!” Rona laughed. “Selkies sometimes sing, but my mum isn’t singing this year.”

She looked at Helen. “We could perform together though. I saw your fiddle in your bag. You must have thought of playing it here.”

Helen watched as dozens of fairies spiralled up from the grass, twisting and spinning like seeds caught on the breeze. She saw Lavender, bright in her white dress, in the midst of many colours.

“I don’t think I should play to your families and friends. They don’t really like humans, do they?”

“Nonsense. We tell so many stories about humans that most would be fascinated to see a real one close up. Anyway, I can’t sing the song without you because we wrote it together, and so much of it is yours alone.”

“But won’t the song tell everyone about how you lost the Book?”

“No, it is like an olden-days tale; a quest. It won’t seem real, will it, Yann?”

“Rona needs to sing before this gathering sometime soon in order to be accepted as a
sea-singer
by her people.” He smiled at the
selkie
. “But sometimes she’s shy! Would you find it easier with the healer’s child than on your own?”

Rona objected, “It’s not that I’m shy. It’s her song too. She asks the questions and she puts the broken bits back when the melody fractures.”

Helen said, “I need to play too, at my school concert on Monday, to be accepted for the music school I want to go to next summer.” She thought for a moment, then nodded.

So Rona and Helen sat watching the fairies’ intricate aerial dance above the white stone, and
hummed the tune to each other, finding their way round each other’s notes.

When the fairies had finished, and Lavender was back with them, perched breathless on Yann’s shoulder, Rona took Helen’s hand and Helen grabbed her fiddle. They walked down the small hill to the back of the crowd.

Rona pushed past various beasts and peoples, most of whom Helen couldn’t identify, though they avoided the group with the yellow eyes and fur running down their spines. When they reached Rona’s mother, Rona whispered to her and the short woman looked briefly at Helen. Then she nodded and turned away again.

Some small bearded men were juggling rocks in the middle of the gathering, and when they had finished, Rona led Helen out into the centre. “Just a moment,” Rona said and vanished.

Helen looked round at the circle of faces, large and small, all staring at her; most curious, some hostile. She had a moment of panic.

Then she heard a note from the ground and looked down. Rona was still there but now she was a seal. Helen laughed as she remembered Rona saying she sang better as a seal. This was exactly how their quest song was meant to be performed!

She brought her fiddle to her shoulder and they began. Although they had never actually played the whole piece together, nor rehearsed with Rona as a seal, Rona’s high unwavering voice and Helen’s soaring music worked perfectly together. They knew the story so well and could still feel the fear of failure, the frustration of the riddles, the
pain of battle, the concern for each other and the final relief of success.

This was the perfect place to compose the ending. So they did.

When the quest song was over, the gathering cheered loudly, and Rona, dressed again in her blue dress, smiled shyly and bowed. Helen bowed too and waved to Yann and the others up on the mound.

When they left the centre of the circle, the tall willowy woman took their place and started to tell how the northern islands were created, from stones thrown by ancient giants in battle. As Helen and Rona returned to the mound, there were fewer hostile faces in the crowd than before; some people and beasts smiled directly at Helen and even patted her on the back.

Before their friends could tell them what they thought of the performance, a red streak buzzed up to them and hovered just in front of Lavender.

It was a wizened little fairy in a dress made of poppy petals. She twittered to Lavender, “If I heard the Book’s answers and that selkie song correctly, then you have been very busy lately, you and your great daft hulking friends.” She waved her wand vaguely at the other fabled beasts, who all ducked. “But I
am
glad you got it right in the end. That is often — though not always — the only thing that matters.”

Then she darted over to Helen and peered at her. “So you are Lavender’s human friend. She’ll grow out of it eventually I’m sure, or you will. In
the meantime, be welcome at our gatherings. If you keep our secrets, we will keep yours. Oh, and don’t pester her for love potions or tinctures to get rid of spots. That’s very tiresome.” And she flew away.

Yann grunted. “They will all know in the end, won’t they? But that song means we are already telling the story from our point of view. If you sing it often enough, Rona, then our version of foolish curiosity followed by bravery will be stronger than anyone else’s accusations of stupidity or treachery.”

Rona said to Helen, “I think Yann is right. We should play it together to our people when we can. Will you join me again in our quest song?”

“Of course, but I would also like to play it next week, Rona, at my school concert, because I need to play a piece I really care about, and this quest song is perfect for me. Do you mind if I just do the tune, without your voice?”

“You don’t want me to go on stage with you in my seal self?” Rona tried to sound offended but then laughed. “Your human audience will never know what it’s missing.”

Yann sighed deeply as if all his questions had been answered, then settled on the ground, his legs bent under him. Lavender stayed perched on his shoulder, and Rona sat on the grass, leaning against Yann’s flank.

Helen stood awkwardly nearby for a moment, then Sapphire growled a comment and took off towards the gathering.

“Do the dragons dance too?” Helen asked.

“No, they do a firework display,” said Yann. “Please, sit down with us and watch.”

Helen sat down beside Rona, leaning back on Yann’s warm flank. Lavender dimmed the light balls around their heads as six dragons met in the sky above. It was not possible to see their colours in the dark but Helen thought Sapphire was probably the smallest one.

Suddenly, the dragons began to send arcs of sparks and flames into the darkness. There were no startling explosions like a human firework display, but a constant roar from the dragons’ throats.

They created worlds of fire, globes, boxes and pyramids; they caught golden sparks in meshes and nets of flame; they made red-hot rubies and white-hot diamonds and strung necklaces with the stars.

Finally, they created a huge waterfall of rainbow f lame falling towards the earth, which faded and went out only a hand-span above the watchers’ heads.

The roaring stopped and the sky went dark. Still dazzled by the display, Helen heard a tapping noise behind her. Yet there was nothing there but Yann’s warm ribcage … and the pouch around his waist.

“Can you hear that?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Yann, “Catesby’s hatching already. Soon we will all be together again.”