“Yes, but I should be able to understand them.”
“Do you know what else is strange?” said Jack. “There’s not one single honeybee.”
“There’re butterflies,” observed Thorgil, and indeed, the meadow thronged with them. They were so large and magnificently colored, it was difficult to tell them apart from the flowers.
“My mother keeps bees,” Jack said. He knew this, and yet, when he tried to picture the farm and its hives, he couldn’t. It was as though a mist had risen up in his memories. “Mother says bees carry the life force from plant to plant.”
“That’s interesting,” said Pega, not sounding interested at all. She was making a wreath of flowers, her clever fingers weaving them into a kind of crown. Jack saw, with a trickle of fear, that none of the blossoms were familiar. They were beautiful—everything here was—but strange. Almost daisies, near marigolds, could-be buttercups, much-too-large larkspurs covered the meadow.
Jack reached for his staff, willing the tremor of power into his hand. There was nothing.
“It feels real,” Pega said, pulling up some of the grass.
“This is the glamour Mr. Blewit was talking about.”
“Who?” murmured Thorgil.
“You know. The guy with those blobby creatures who threw us into the whirlpool.” Yet even as Jack thought it, the memory came apart. As he struggled to pull it back, he heard the most wonderful sound in the distance. It was a thrilling, clear-voiced hunting horn. And with it came the baying of hounds, if you could compare that ecstatic noise with the racket ordinary dogs made. It was a celebration of summer, green trees, and running. It was pure joy. And just when Jack thought it couldn’t get any better, he heard the voices.
There was no describing
He had one of the finest voices in Middle Earth, but he was nothing compared to the elves. They weren’t even singing. Their ordinary speech was more melodious than any earthly song.
Deer burst from the trees. The horn sounded again, and appearing from the green darkness came a mob of beaters. They ran before a band of horsemen, thrashing the bushes with sticks to drive the prey. They were small men, naked except for loincloths. They were covered in swirling designs like the shadows of the forest so that it was hard to tell them apart from the trees.
These weren’t the peddlers who roamed the roads of Middle Earth, selling metalware and pots. These were the Old Ones who inhabited Jack’s nightmares, the ones who had bargained for Lucy and who conducted secret ceremonies under the moon.
The Picts halted, uttering loud hisses. The horsemen pulled up their steeds and called to their hounds. “What have we here?” cried a glorious voice. Jack looked up into the fairest face he had ever seen. The man’s golden hair was bound by a silver crown. His tunic was the green of beech leaves and his cloak the deeper shade of ivy. A broad-chested Pict with a shaggy beard and drooping eyebrows grasped his horse’s bridle as the animal tossed its head.
“Leave off, Brude. You’re frightening him,” said the horseman. “Well, strangers! What are you doing in our realm? To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” He smiled, a flash of perfect teeth that made Jack feel unaccountably happy. Behind him jostled other riders. Their steeds were nothing like the sturdy battle horse John the Fletcher owned. These were no broad-hoofed animals with shaggy coats and tails cut short to avoid burrs. They were as graceful as deer. Their eyes were intelligent, and their manes and tails shone like silver.
As for the riders, Jack hardly dared lift his eyes to them. Their beauty was dazzling. Both men and women rode in the company, dressed in varying hues of green, and all were without the blemishes that plagued mortal men. Here were no crooked teeth or flawed faces, no marks of illness, accident, or famine. Suddenly, Jack saw his companions in the light of these perfect beings. Thorgil was coarse, and Pega—poor Pega!—scarcely seemed human. As for his own looks, Jack had no illusions.
“Has the cat stolen your tongues?” the huntsman cried merrily.
“Do not mock them, Gowrie,” said one of the women. “They are but newly arrived from Middle Earth, though I wonder at the small one. She has the look of the changelings.”
“She is human, dear Ethne,” replied the huntsman. “I detect the stench of mortality.”
“Then they must be brought to our halls,” declared Ethne. “The queen will surely want to see them.”
The company rode off with a winding of horns and crying of hounds. Brude and the Picts remained behind. “You commmme,” Brude hissed, as though human speech came to him with difficulty. His followers grasped their beating sticks and formed a guard around Jack and his companions.
Chapter Thirty-one
THE DARK RIVER
It should have been frightening, but Jack was too enchanted to worry. The forest through which they were passing was lovelier than anything he’d ever seen. Each tree was perfect in its own way yet different from every other tree. Each opening revealed an unexpected delight. A waterfall poured over a white cliff, a pool was dotted with flowers big enough to sit on, a field of daffodils—or something like daffodils—stood as tall as your head. Jack looked eagerly for the next revelation. He scarcely noticed the sullen band of Picts or that he wasn’t free to wander.
An eagle took to the air from a distant cliff. Its wingspan dwarfed any bird of Middle Earth and its claws could easily have carried off an elk. It screamed a challenge, yet even this cry was delightful and not alarming.
“It’s as large as a Jotunheim eagle,” Jack murmured.
“But different,” added Thorgil, sounding half asleep.
“Browner. Bigger.” Jack found it difficult to describe what set the eagle apart.
“Like something from Yggdrassil.”
Jack was jolted awake. The eagle was nothing like a bird that would perch on the Great Tree. It was too perfect. It would never drop a feather or get its feet covered in mud. Yggdrassil’s creatures were awe-inspiring but not immune to change. Nothing living was. Jack felt a whisper of the fear he had experienced in the whirlpool.
“What’s wrong?” said Pega.
The whisper went away. Jack willed it to go away. “Just a stomachache. Must have eaten too many apples,” he said, smiling.
A Pict nudged him with a stick, and he moved on. They passed a tree entirely covered with butterflies and another hung with vines so delicate, they were like shreds of mist.
The forest ended, and everything suddenly changed. Before them was a dark river—or perhaps it was a long, thin lake, because the water didn’t move at all. The path vanished underneath it and reappeared on the other side. It actually did disappear. You couldn’t see into the water, nor did it reflect the sky or shore. It was simply a band of darkness blocking their way.
The Picts halted, obviously taken by surprise. They gestured at the barrier with hisses and growls, and Brude’s voice rose above the rest. He wanted to go on; it was clear from the way he waved his arms. Jack thought the water hadn’t been there long and probably wasn’t deep. He probed with his staff. The water swirled sluggishly, creeping up the wood toward his hand. Jack retreated at once.
“We could easily swim that,” Thorgil pointed out.
“I’d rather walk,” said Jack, watching oily ripples spread out from where he’d stirred it.
Finally, Brude prevailed, and the Picts once again formed a guard. “Go,” Brude commanded, poking Jack with his stick.
The children held hands, forming a human chain, with Jack in front, followed by Thorgil and Pega. Two Picts led them, carefully feeling the way. The rest brought up the rear. The first part was only ankle-deep. Jack breathed a sigh of relief and tried to ignore the tendrils of water exploring his legs.
The river became deeper. Now it came to his knees, and Jack noticed something odd. You could always feel
