We rode out at evening. As we went from Faery into the world, the sky lightened and turned to rose and salmon and violet. The air suddenly smelled alive. There were sounds of things living and dying all around us. We went down the road, and people, seeing us pass by, crossed themselves and dipped their heads. Oh, we were glorious to see, like smoke, like mist, like visions of glory, the horses like the waves of the sea.
We went through Miles Village and toward Ercle’s Down. A mile from the village was the crossroad, with a large cross set up at its center. The fairy host rode by, not seeing the woman huddled there until she came running toward us to throw her arms around Thomas’s legs, pulling him from his horse.
“Thomas, True Thomas,” she cried. “I’ll never let you go!” She was a middle-aged woman, with gray in her hair. Thomas, suddenly no longer young, looked as surprised as anyone else.
Janet could not have said anything more guaranteed to make Mab angry. Thereafter Janet embraced a dragon, a worm, a snake, a spider, a giant many-armed thing from the sea. She held bears and tigers and man-eating lions. She held dogs and hogs and eagles which tore at her eyes. Held them all, crying the while, “I’ll never let you, never let you go,” the muscles in her arms knotted as though forever and the ugly tears raining from her eyes.
Too much time went by. Oberon cried like a hawk, pointing at the sky. There was a line of gold along it, the night going fast. “Come,” he cried. “We must ride.” And they fled away, leaving only Janet to struggle with the monsters in her arms. Janet and me. I looked down to see Puck holding the bridle of my horse to keep him from galloping after.
“Get down, my girl,” he cried, “for it will not take them long to find you gone.”
“I should be with them,” I said stupidly. “Mama will miss me.”
“And who will they use as a teind with Thomas gone?” Puck asked. “You, Beauty, be your mama ever so fair and ever so wise, and even fond of you a little, still they’ll use you rather than one of them. Carabosse never intended you should ride farther than this. Carabosse sent us, and Carabosse says to go home.”
I was sensible for the first time of how foolish I had been to come on this ride. “How will I get away? My cloak, my boots are back in Faery.”
“They are here,” said Fenoderee, holding them up for me to see. He pulled me down, slapped the horse on its rump to send it galloping after the others, and then shoved the boots on my feet and my shoes in my pocket. “They do not know you are involved in this. Better they do not know.”
“Ah, Puck, thank you,” I started to say, not really knowing whether thanks were due.
“Go, Beauty,” he said. “We’ll meet again,” and he turned me about, whispering to my boots, “Take this lady home.”
Then was the familiar whirlwind, and I was gone and so were they.
22
I stood beside the rose-mound of Westfaire. Tottered, I should say, suddenly dizzy, as though something in my head had gone awry. Embarrassment, I supposed, at the prospect of meeting Edward once more. And little Elladine. She would be two, or perhaps even three by now. She would not know I was her mother, of course. She would think the wet nurse was her mother or, if she had been weaned, the nursemaid. I thought of my daughter as I had seen her last, asleep in her cradle beside the fire, her dark hair bubbling over the pillow, like black water in torrent, already long enough to reach her shoulders. A pretty child. Not one a mother should have fled from.
Though Carabosse had said that mothers and daughters might not be sympathetic. “Particularly if the child resembles … the other side of the family.”
Well yes, but she was not a devil. Merely a child who resembled her actual father in some respects. Now she would be walking and talking, but her speech would be the speech of Wellingford. She could not possibly sound like Jaybee.
With these thoughts I calmed myself as I stood beside the shepherd’s well, leaning against it almost, pulling myself up straight with an unaccustomed ache, looking myself over to see if I was well enough dressed to go straight to Wellingford. I picked at a fold of my gown, stared at it in confusion, caught in dream, nightmare, pulling the fabric through my hands.…
Aside from my cloak and the seven-league boots, I was dressed in rags. Scarcely one thread held to another. I put hands to my head in confusion, only to feel oily tangles and squirming locks. I had seen myself in the Pool of Delights only this afternoon, with my hair swept up in a net of sapphires and my dress of fine muslin, embroidered all over with flowers. How had I come to be dressed like this? And my hair so filthy? It stank. It smelled of smoke and grease and less acceptable things. My fingers found small hard specks caught in the coils: nits!
Shock held me motionless for a long, calculating moment. Hush, I told myself. Figure it out
