Under the Green Hill (20 page)

Meg, amazed, was laughing and crying all at once, and her vision was so blurred she missed the remarkable transformation back from otter into girl. When she could see clearly again, there was Lemman, barely recognizable as the poor pathetic prisoner who had worked the dairy. There was no denying she was a fairy now—no human ever looked the way she did. She might take human form, but no instant of carelessness would ever deprive her of her freedom again. Meg found herself somewhat in awe of Lemman now, and she bent her head and shifted from foot to foot nervously.

Lemman lifted Meg's chin with one alabaster hand and looked sweetly upon her. When she spoke, her voice was low and melodious, like a flute in its deepest tones. “My little savior!” she said. “My little friend. Always you have been kind to me, and now you have done me the greatest kindness of all. You have set me free, Meg Morgan. What a human stole from me, a human has returned. But for that, I'd have…” And for a moment Lemman's features shifted to a grisly mask of menace, and Meg fancied she saw sharp otter teeth between those human-seeming lips. It occurred to her that it was a very lucky thing Gus Leatherman was already dead, and beyond any vengeance.

Then Lemman's face softened again, and she was once more benevolent and beautiful. “Now the humans have my gratitude, and you most of all, little one. Friend to the fairies, friend to me…as long as you live, I will do everything in my power to aid you. Anything, that is, which does not cost me my freedom again.” She gave a musical laugh. “What would you have, Meg Morgan? Riches? Your true love? A life unblemished by sickness or sorrow? Now that I have been restored, very little lies beyond my power.”

“Please,” Meg began, hardly tempted by those lofty offers, “my brother Rowan. He goes to the Midsummer War tonight.”

Lemman looked as though she was retrieving a distant memory. “Ah yes. Your brave brother, and poor Bran, who longs for what is lost to him.” All that had happened in her mortal years was rapidly fading away. Humans' cares were not hers, their fears and sorrows did not touch her anymore. Bran had offered her a measure of solace in her torment, but now even his life meant very little to her. She was immortal again, inhuman, and as far removed from them as a chilly mountaintop. But kindness always has a stronger hold than cruelty, and though she would shortly forget whatever pain and indignities she might have suffered at the hands of Gus Leatherman, her jailer, she could still feel a vague interest in the fleeting lives of Meg and Bran and those they loved.

“Please…Lemman…” She did not know if she could still call her that, now that she'd reclaimed her glory. “Can you keep him from fighting? Is there any way you can keep him safe?”

“Child, you know the laws of the Midsummer War. He is bound to fight unless he refuses to come and a willing substitute takes his place. The Seelie queen's power is such that he will never deny her. And who will stand in his place?”

“I will!” Meg said impulsively, though in truth the thought had been building within her ever since that night at the foot of the Green Hill when that little voice inside her cried, Me! Let it be me!

The epiphany was as shocking as diving into a glacial spring—her entire body seemed to gasp, and she trembled in astonishment even as her eyes opened with a startling new clarity. I want to be the Seelie champion, Meg thought. It was what she had wanted all along, not just selflessly, for Rowan, but selfishly, for herself.

The fairy looked down at her skeptically. “You would deny him his right, as the chosen champion, to fight, to kill or die, with honor?”

“I would protect him!” Meg said grandly.

“You would kill Bran, beloved of the fairies, your own ancestor?”

Meg gulped. She'd hardly considered that. At last she said, “If there is a hard thing to be done, I'd rather do it myself.”

Lemman smiled at her. “Yes…after all, you are a woman, however young. Would it stop you if I told you I believe your brother will prevail in this battle?”

“Do you know that for sure?”

“I know nothing for sure,” she said. “I do not know if the moon will rise tonight, or if the world will end tomorrow. But I believe your brother will take the field for the Seelie Court.”

“That's not good enough. I have to protect him.” She squared her shoulders and said again, resolutely, “I will fight in his place. Can you help me?”

“Call it not
help
, child. Call it merely granting your wish. I fear I do you harm in this, but, yes, I will do as you ask. I will keep Rowan from the fighting, and let you take his place.”

“But can you really?” Meg asked, assailed by doubts now that there was finally hope. “He must refuse to come, of his own free will. How can you make him?”

Lemman laughed in a silvery lilt. “He is a man, and a child. If I care to, I can make him believe he's a locust or a grandfather or a statue of stone! He will see what I tell him is there, believe whatever world I choose to create for him. Have no fear for that, Meg Morgan. The fairy glamour has never yet failed with any living man. Do you think the Seelie queen the only one to hold such power?” She closed her eyes briefly. “He is in his chambers, thinking great thoughts, with his sword and shield spread before him. I will go to him now, and tell him pretty things, and sing him secret songs, until his mind is not his own. I will tell him that the Midsummer War is over and won, that he has acquitted himself like a champion and now reaps a hero's rewards. I cannot change his mind, but I can make him believe his duty is done. Thus, willingly, he will not go to his appointed place, and you will be there in his stead.”

As she preceded Meg to the Rookery, Lemman offered one final piece of advice: “The minions of the Black Prince have been watching you all for quite some time. It will not take them long to divine the change of champions, nor would it be past them to attempt some treachery. The battle will be dangerous, but your journey to the battlefield may be just as hazardous. Go with care.” And she went to find Rowan, to lull him with pretty lies and cozen him with unearned praise. Ere long, he found himself in a pleasant, proud stupor, and he lay content under her glamour without a thought of his obligations.

Meg ran to her own room to collect the Hunter's Bow, and as she strapped the full quiver to her back, she found that the dull target tips had changed of their own volition to wicked wedge-shaped points. The Seelie relics knew that war was upon them, and though they'd thought to have no part in this fray, they now made themselves ready. She touched the tip of one lightly, and it pierced the pad of her finger. First blood, she thought as she sucked her fingertip. If they can do that to me with a touch, what will they do to Bran?

She almost put the bow down, but gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt and clung to it. She remembered what Gul had told her about the one who made the bow, the Hunter. When an arrow hits home, his is the hand that launches it, but when the arrow misses, his is the hand that knocks it aside. Maybe there's a way around this, she thought. Maybe there doesn't have to be any blood on these arrows except mine. But she didn't know how.

The bowstring sang with an urgent pitch when she plucked it, and the leopard wood was warm to her touch. She shouldered the Hunter's Bow and scampered downstairs, pausing only to listen to the low sounds of Lemman's singing that came through Rowan's door.

The Rookery was dark and almost deserted, with most of the servants already in Gladysmere; those few who remained were busy in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on the lemon and ginger cakes that would be eaten after the Midsummer fires. Meg ran through the long, bare entrance hall to the front door. She flung it open, then slammed it shut again with a terrible scream. The servants, chatting over their work, didn't hear her. Nor did Finn, upstairs. But Dickie, on brief hiatus from his studies, was in the garden kitchen in search of sustenance, and he came running. (He'd changed for the better since coming to the Rookery—a few weeks earlier, that scream would have sent him running in the opposite direction.)

He found Meg still standing before the closed and bolted door, pale and panting. She jumped when he took her shoulder. “What is it?”

“There's something out there!” she said, looking as if she needed to sit down.

“What kind of something?” Dickie asked.

“I…I don't know. It was…it was…” That was just the trouble—she couldn't say what it was. It was horrible, she knew that much. Beyond that, she had no way to define it. When she opened the door, it had lurched toward her, making a sound like a slab of meat hitting the ground. But it didn't seem to have a proper shape, or perhaps its shape changed too fluidly to be identified. At first it seemed like a jellyfish, then a cloud, then a wet sheep without legs. It was like a cold, damp blanket about to envelop her, and then like a tentacled octopus, slimy, and as heavy as the ocean's depths. Even behind the closed door, it hovered in her memory, an amorphous form that threatened to overwhelm her by its frightful ambiguity. She was unaccountably terrified, with a tremulous, instinctive fear that went beyond the creature's appearance.

Dickie looked out the window, and to Meg's surprise didn't seem at all put out by what he saw.

“Couldn't you see it?” Meg asked. “Is it gone?”

“No, it's still there. Oh, look, now it's like a drowned dog! I never thought I'd see one!” Meg stared at him incredulously. Was this Dickie, or some apparition? “It's one of the Frittenings. They call it Boneless in some places, in others merely It. I've read all about them, but I never dreamed I'd be lucky enough to see one. Don't be afraid. That's what it wants. It can't do anything to you. It doesn't have a real body, or any powers other than changing form. But sometimes people die of fright when they look at it. It's kind of silly, really. Nothing scary in a soggy ball of yarn. Oh, that's better! Now it's more like a bloody side of beef. Oops, back to jellyfish again.”

Timidly, Meg peeked out the window beside him. The thing was still there, changing shape furiously as she looked at it. She was a little less frightened, but, “I can't go out there, Dickie!”

“Why should you have to? It'll get bored and go away, eventually. Come up to the library, and I'll read you what they say about it in Shetland—”

“You don't understand. I have to go out. I have to get to the Green Hill and—” She stopped short, and he looked at her quizzically. Oh well, she thought. What harm can it do to tell him now? She explained the matter in three sentences, and was stunned to find that Dickie seemed to know all about the Midsummer War.

“And Rowan was chosen? That's odd. How'd you get him out of it? Oh, I see. That's the Hunter's Bow, then? My! I thought that was only a legend. What are you going to do about the eggs?”

Meg cut him off. “I need to go now. I have to get there—”

“Just after the sun sets, I know. Well, you don't have much time. Go on, then.”

“I can't go out there…not with that thing looking at me.”

“Don't be afraid of it. I told you, it can't hurt you, only scare you. I'll go out, too. Will that make it easier?” Who was this strange new Dickie, so casually brave?

“Will you come with me all the way?” she pleaded. “I think there might be other…things…that want to stop me.”

“Oh…all right,” he said, with a scholar's characteristic antipathy for the real world.

Dickie was right. Boneless hovered around them as they left the Rookery, and did its best to look disturbing, but when they showed no signs of being afraid, it grew disheartened and evaporated into a mist. By her side, Dickie babbled excitedly. “I really get to see the Green Hill? Wow, and the Midsummer War. You know, some say that it goes back to fertility rituals, but I think it really…” He found he had to save his breath for running. Meg set a fast pace, and he was hard-pressed to keep up with her.

The Black Prince's spies were in a tizzy that Meg Morgan seemed to be going in Rowan's place. While some little monsters darted off to try to warn their master before the war began, others set about interfering with her progress. Malicious stray sods tried to turn her around, but fortunately Dickie knew a charm against their trickery. All you have to do is turn a piece of your clothing inside out and they can't misdirect you.

On they went, past leering fairies who didn't quite dare attack, and into the woods. The moon was just full and, having risen a few hours ago, was waiting in the east to take the sun's place. In the west, the molten orb was sitting on the horizon—the Seelie Court would be gathering now, Meg thought as she pushed onward. In a few minutes, the Host would follow.

The evening was bright with the strange and shifting light that comes when two opposing heavenly bodies compete in the same sky, and Meg had no trouble seeing where to go. In fact, she rather wished she couldn't see quite so clearly, for the things that dogged their steps were getting worse, and she feared that at any moment they might spring on her. At least they kept her mind somewhat off what lay ahead of her in the next few hours. If she'd had a calm and uneventful stroll to the Green Hill, all the way there she'd have pictured Bran's death…and have tried with limited success not to picture her own.

Her hand stayed tight on the Hunter's Bow, though she did not draw it. Not only did she want to save her arrows for more dire need, but she guessed (rightly) that physical weapons would have little effect on fairies. Dickie seemed strangely unconcerned, and only exclaimed occasionally that one was a Jack-in-Irons (wearing a fashionable ensemble of chains and shrunken heads) and another a Redcap, who liked occasionally to redye his chapeau with fresh blood. To the one Dickie stuck out his tongue, to the other made an odd gesture, and both seemed utterly cowed. Dickie was as pleased as anything that his studies were serving him so well—so pleased, in fact, that he did not warn Meg in time to keep them both from stumbling into an oak coppice.