climbed out and they walked together, crossing a bridge to Tintagel Island and going farther uphill with every step, until they came to an open gate.
“This gate’s meant to be locked, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” Alan said, with an unexpectedly wicked smile. “Meant to be.”
He gestured in a courtly manner, and Mae rolled her eyes at him and went through the gate first.
Then she gazed up at the mountain beyond the gates, slate balanced in a haphazard, tilting pile as if a giant child had stacked stones into something that was meant to be a tower. Except it wasn’t a tower; it was just a towering heap. One that they would have to climb.
Mae looked up and up at the jagged gray crest of the mountain, like a black crown inscribed on the twilight sky.
She opened her mouth to say she wasn’t really very athletic, but then remembered Alan’s lame leg and shut it. She began to climb the wooden steps that wound up to the cliffs.
She’d danced at clubs and raves until five in the morning, even if she did walk through relay races in gym class. She should have been able to climb steps. Only dancing was euphoric, made her feel dizzy and delighted, keenly conscious of where to put her feet but not truly aware of their weight.
Her feet felt like dumbbells she was lifting with every step now, and there were hot lancing pains in the backs of her thighs. Behind her she could hear Alan. He was not panting as much as she was, but every second step he drew in a tightly controlled breath, snatching back a moan just before it escaped into the air.
Alan didn’t like being asked if he was all right.
“I’ve been giving some thought to the importance of Arthurian legends and historical sites,” Mae announced to the night wind. “And I’ve come to the conclusion: Sod them.”
Alan laughed a little, shaky and hurting. Mae was very sure that he hadn’t told Nick they were holding the Goblin Market on top of a mountain this month.
They were only halfway up the mountain. She should really suggest to Alan that they turn back and go home, that this wasn’t worth it. Only Alan wouldn’t go, and besides that … guiltily, horribly, in spite of the fact that Alan was in pain every step, Mae wanted to go to the Market more than anything.
They followed the steps in a steep curve around the mountain, dirt on worn wood crunching under Mae’s shoes, the wind turning her hair into whips that cut across her face.
She was just staring at her feet, dragging up one after another, when she came to a door in the dark.
It was curved like a chapel door, but the wood in front of her was rough and unpolished, ghost gray in the moonlight. She put her hand to it, and it felt cool and smooth as pearl, worn down by years of sea breezes.
The door swung open and revealed a fairy-tale castle.
It looked like someone had been planting stars. The castle was in shreds, flagstone floors tiny islands in a sea of stones and wild grass, but clusters of lights were nestled on the castle floor and the earth of the cliffs alike, lanterns strung from the crumbling battlements.
There were so many lights they cast a shimmering haze over everything, bathing the ruins in a pale glow. Mae walked, hardly aware that she was walking, through Tintagel Castle over stones washed in brightness.
There were stalls nestled around the castle the way the lights were, not in rows but in odd spots, as if the stalls had grown there or alighted on random places like birds. There was one stall with ringing chimes that was set halfway up a ruined wall, so the customers had to climb sliding pieces of slate to get to it. There were more stalls set in the grassy hollows among the stones and nestled into the corners of the walls. One woman had actually turned a ruined wall into her stall, brightly colored jars arranged on the jagged, protruding shards of stone.
All through the fragments of a lost castle lit by magic moved the people of the Goblin Market. There was a man hanging up knives alongside wind chimes, which made dangerous and beautiful music as they rang together in the sea breeze. There was a boy who looked about twelve stirring something in a cauldron with a rich-smelling cloud hanging over it, and bark cups ranged along his stall.
There was a toddler who had just walked into Mae’s knee.
“Whoa,” said Mae, who had nothing against toddlers but didn’t know any personally and wasn’t that interested in the whole sticky children business.
The toddler, who had golden curls and wide blue eyes and looked like he had recently been eating grass, charged into her knee again, as if sheer willpower could remove this obstacle from his path. He looked mildly bewildered when he bounced off.
“That’s Toby,” said Alan’s voice behind her, making her jump. She’d almost forgotten he was there. “He’s the baby of the Davies family. And he’s a pest.”
Alan supported this statement by saying every word in a delighted, caressing voice that made even Mae turn to him and Toby laugh. He wasn’t looking at Mae but at the child, a smile making his narrow face shine like the ruined castle.
“He’s always escaping from his crib and making his sister worry herself sick. Aren’t you, you little fiend?”
Toby beamed with the wide, somewhat crazy grin kids got, and lifted his arms to be picked up. Alan did so at once, the baby cradled carefully in the crook of one elbow, his head bowed down over the smaller head.
“You really like children, huh,” Mae said, mystified but charmed as well. There was no denying that Alan with a kid was about as adorable as a basket of kittens wearing tiny kitten bonnets, and it also meant that she wasn’t going to have to mind Toby.
It occurred to her that this might be why women went for men who were good with kids: It meant they wouldn’t have to be.
“Hmm? Oh, they’re all right,” said Alan, obviously besotted.
The baby squirmed, and Alan knelt with some difficulty so he could let him down and still keep him safe in the circle of one arm. Toby made a grab for something shining up Alan’s sleeve: Alan produced the knife for him and
