The Land of the Silver Apples

“Parts were horrible. Others…” Jack’s voice trailed off. There was no way he could explain the wonder of Yggdrassil to someone who hadn’t seen it. “Anyhow, magic is what I’m talking about. It’s close to the surface here, and dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Like when I called fire. I couldn’t stop it.”

Pega looked around. The trees were covered in thick moss, like sheep after a cold winter, and clusters of bluebells grew at their feet. The ground was a carpet of strawberries. Toward the stream was a swath of yellow irises. “All right. I agree. It does look a little too perfect. Are we going to have trolls stomping around demanding our blood?”

“Not here. It’s too warm. But what,” Jack hardly dared say it, “if this is Elfland?”

Pega’s eyes opened wide. “Crumbs! It’s pretty enough.”

And wet enough, thought Jack. If ever there was a place the Lady of the Lake would love, this was it. “Brutus must be around somewhere. I wonder why he isn’t calling for us,” he said.

“We haven’t been calling him, either.”

“No,” said Jack, once more aware of a watchfulness in the trees. Sometimes it seemed far away, concerned with other things, and sometimes it was right there next to them. “I haven’t seen a sign of him, though he must be around. Unless he’s dead. That would be a problem.”

“It’d certainly be a problem for him,” Pega said.

“I’m not being heartless. Of course I’d feel sorry if anything happened to Brutus, but we were counting on him. I suspect he’s done something stupid, like challenge a dragon and got himself eaten.”

“Inconsiderate of him.”

“Do we keep exploring?” Jack said, ignoring her sarcasm. “We could wander for weeks. Or do we go back down the hole and choose another tunnel? The fire must be out by now.”

“Go back down?” Pega turned very pale, and her birthmark stood out like ink. “I wouldn’t want to meet another of those—you know.”

“Me neither.”

“Well then.”

They went back to the meadow. By day the hillside appeared an even greater ruin. A huge section of cliff had fallen, leaving a giant scar on the mountains above. The slide went halfway up and ended in rocks too rugged to climb. “This looks new,” said Jack, shading his eyes. “I wonder if it happened during the earthquake.”

They followed the edge of the meadow, fording little streams that poured out of the mountainside, keeping the grass to their left and the rocks to their right. Deer watched them gravely from the shadows of the trees, and red squirrels followed them with bright, black eyes. Voles, dormice, and shrews rummaged through the flowers, unworried by the appearance of strange humans. Even hedgehogs were foraging.

“That’s another thing that just shouts magic,” Jack pointed out. “Hedgehogs in daylight.”

“I could catch those,” Pega suggested. “You roast them coated in mud and the quills come right off.”

“You aren’t allowed to hunt in magic places,” Jack said decisively.

“We’ll need something. Those strawberries wore off hours ago.” Eventually, Pega found a field of pignuts. She pulled them up and collected the round nuts on their roots. “I used to eat these when my owners didn’t feed me,” she explained. Jack decided they weren’t too bad—like hazelnuts dipped in mud. Besides, he had nothing else.

The sun sank behind the mountains. Blue shadows flowed over the forest, and the temperature dropped. They hurriedly tried to gather firewood, but strangely, the forest produced nothing but a few twigs and damp leaves. The ancient trees clung on to every gnarled branch. “Doesn’t anything die here?” Pega cried.

“Not if it’s Elfland,” Jack guessed. The light was fading, and his teeth chattered with cold. They would have to find shelter or freeze to death. They searched until they found a ring of trees so close together, the trunks formed a natural room.

“Can’t you use your staff to call up fire?” Pega said, stamping her feet and rubbing her arms to keep warm.

“Even magic fire needs fuel. Somehow I don’t think it’s safe to burn these trees.”

They were exhausted from walking, but sleep would not come. A chill came up from the ground, and neither Jack nor Pega cared to snuggle close to the roots. Jack was aware, though he couldn’t say how, of a brooding dislike in the trees. They seemed to be making up their minds about what they might do with the intruders in their midst.

“That does it,” Pega said, sitting up. “I’ve had it with those trees whispering.”

“What whispering?” said Jack, jarred from what little comfort he had.

“Those sneaky sounds. Surely you heard them? I don’t know what they’re saying, but I don’t like it. What did Brutus tell us to do when we were dispirited? Sing something cheerful.”

“You mean his ballad about a knight hunting an ogre in a haunted wood? Remember how it ended?”

“Not that one,” Pega said. “The one your father sang on the way to Bebba’s Town.” She immediately began Brother Caedmon’s hymn, given to him by an angel in a dream.

Praise we now the Fashioner of Heaven’s fabric,
The majesty of His might and His mind’s wisdom…

Jack had to admit it was an excellent choice. For one thing, its soaring power put those whispering trees in their place. Jack couldn’t hear them, but he didn’t doubt that Pega could. For another, her voice was so marvelously fine. He’d been jealous of her at the Bard’s house, but he knew even then he was being unfair. She wasn’t a strong singer, yet her music filled the night. In the darkness you could believe you were listening to an elf lady.

Afterward they curled up together as they had in the hollow tree. No looming menace disturbed their sleep, and when they awoke, they found themselves covered with a blanket of the finest wool.

Chapter Twenty-one THE GIRL IN THE MOSS

The little hollow was filled with a dim, green light. Jack could see sunbeams in the distance, but here the branches formed a dense mat. The air was heavy with the scent of lime flowers, and above, unseen, hummed a multitude of bees. For a moment Jack thought they had found their way into the Valley of Yggdrassil. But the hum wasn’t frenzied as it had been there. It was merely the sound of bees going about their usual chores.

“Where did this blanket come from?” whispered Pega.

“Elves?” guessed Jack.

“Brother Aiden said elves were completely selfish. Someone else left this, but what kind of people creep up on you in the middle of the night?”

“Maybe Brutus found a village and borrowed some things,” Jack said doubtfully. “I could shout for him, but —”

“It doesn’t seem quite safe,” Pega finished.

“He’s got to be here somewhere. He probably went to the stream to fill the empty cider bags,” said Jack. “He would have returned for us, unless…” Unless he never got out in the first place, the boy thought. But, no, they would have heard Brutus shouting if anything had gone wrong. It wasn’t like the slave to go quietly into a knucker hole.

The trees weren’t as threatening as they had seemed the night before, but they still made Jack uneasy. “This is an odd kind of wool,” he said, feeling the fine, soft weave. From underneath, it was visible, but when he spread it on the ground, it vanished.

“It’s magic,” Pega said. “I’ve heard about cloaks of invisibility in stories. We’ll have to be careful, or we’ll lose it.” She folded it up and put a rock on top to mark its position. “Look!” she cried. She pounced on what Jack had