Oberon noticed me, too—but only that. He bowed and swept his hat widely, almost a satire upon himself, but did not invite my company on his couch, nor did any of the others. Not that I’d have consented, but it would have been nice to be asked. After a few days of this treatment by all of them, I decided to find out why, not caring greatly except that I like to know what is going on. I thought Puck would tell me, so I wandered off into a copse of lacy trees and called him up. He did not want to tell me, but did, finally. He says I smell differently now. Mortality, he says. Before, I was in the juice and fat of life, but now I know what age is, I have a scent of sootiness, like a candle burned down to its end.
“They can’t see it,” he said, kissing me on the cheek to take the pain of his words away. “But they can sense it.”
“I’m half mortal,” I cried angrily. “I’ve wondered what that means, really. Can’t the mortal half die and the other half remain?”
Puck shook his head. “I’ve known several begot by mortals, half fairy like yourself. If they were born here, or if they came here as wee children to stay, then they seem to partake fully of Faery. If they live in human lands, they seem to grow up mortal. It’s as though the heritage is the smaller part, and the rearing is the most of it. You were reared to a good age in the real world, so your fairy half maybe didn’t have a chance to develop. Don’t ask me, Beauty. I grow less and less sure about things.” He looked older to me than he had in the past, if those in Faery can be said to age. Perhaps Bogles do, if they choose.
“You don’t blame me, do you?” I asked, needing him as a friend and not wanting him to disapprove of me. “You don’t blame me for coming back?”
“Ach, no,” he said. “I don’t. The Fenoderee doesn’t. None of us do. Carabosse wants to see you, when you’ve time.”
“Everything looks much the same,” I commented.
“Thus far,” he agreed. “Though Oberon is coming close to changing his world. He’s bored, I think.”
The words set up a dreadful resonance in my mind. I had seen another ruler change his world out of boredom.
“He’s gotten sneakier,” said Puck, going on with his comments. “He’s fallen into this pattern of evasion.”
“Evasion?”
“Of the terms of the covenant. You remember his enchanting people into deer, and then killing them? Cleaving to the letter, but not to the spirit? He’s doing more things of that kind. No matter what Oberon says, it’s at least a small infraction of the covenant. It’s like the agreement they made with the Dark Lord, a kind of slyness. It’s unworthy of what he once was, is what it is, but you wouldn’t dare say that to Oberon now.”
“What would a big infraction of the covenant be, then?”
“Well, they almost found out, didn’t they, seven years ago, when they set out from here intending to give Thomas the Rhymer to the Dark Lord?” He made a disgusted face. “They came close then!”
I went back to the castle feeling dismayed but trying not to show it. I needn’t have bothered. The people of the hills simply weren’t paying any attention to me. Partly because of my mortality, I suppose, but partly something else. Some great event due to occur, something that was known of and planned for even before I came back, something mysterious that even Oberon doesn’t speak of. There is whispering, something I don’t remember from my former visit. In a land in which everything is known, nothing really hidden, in which all veils are merely seeming, what is there to whisper about?
Finding out will be more exciting than sitting in the Dower House growing lame(r) and blind(er) while Elizabeth simmers. So, when I’ve had my bath and something more to eat, I’ll return to Faery.
* * *
The Sidhe are as nervous as sparrows, twitching at every sound. Some great doings are abroad in the land, but they will not tell me what they are. There are tents set up in the meadow, as though the Sidhe were expecting guests. Everyone pretends not to notice them.
I have been left much alone since my return, full of doubts and vagrant memories which sometimes overwhelm me. I spend much time thinking of Giles and of my life in the twentieth, wondering what I might have done differently with both. Sometimes I simply sit about, doing nothing purposeful, trying to make meaning of my life. It comes back to Mama, always. Why had I been born? For what? How had I failed her?
At last I begged her to walk with me in the flowery meadow, and among the copses I asked her to tell me what was going on.
“Going on?” She drew herself up and made her eyes glitter at me arrogantly. “Going on?”
“Come on, Mama,” I said desperately. “You know what I mean. There’s a definite mood of apprehension about.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Beauty,” she said, striking a very dignified attitude. “I have no idea what you can be speaking of.” She spoke as though to a stranger.
“Who is it that’s coming?” I wanted to know.
She looked suddenly very haggard. “We’re not sure who they are now,” she admitted. “They were our kindred once.”
“Then how do you know they’re coming?” I asked.
“We just know,” she said, the glitter in her eyes looking more like tears than arrogance. I tried to put my arm around her, and she pushed me away. “You should have come when you were young,” she cried. “I told you to come to me when you were young! And when you came
