30th October
Bambleby insisted on a visit to the tavern last night, naturally, a divertissement eminently acceptable to our two assistants, who were wearied from their work in the field.
Lizzie and Henry, both attractive if bland ambassadors of the scientific community, were warmly welcomed by rustics and gentry alike, and bonded quickly with the village youth over their enthusiasm to sample the local wallop. Bambleby, of course, was in his element. With a speed that I suspected to be record-setting even in his books, he soon had half the tavern roaring with laughter over one of his many stories of foreign misadventure, delivered in charmingly accented Ljoslander, whilst the other half gossiped about him at a distance, including several ladies whom I overheard scheming over private invitations of a decidedly unacademic nature. The result was easily the most enjoyable evening I have spent in Hrafnsvik, as the villagers largely forgot about my existence amidst the gale-force winds of Bambleby’s personality. I was delighted to sit in the corner with my food and a book and speak to no one.
Bambleby seemed particularly drawn to the beautiful woodcutter, Lilja, and spent a good portion of the evening—when he was not occupying his proverbial hour upon the stage—wooing her by the fireside. I am afraid that one source of my enjoyment was in the continued politeness with which she received his attentions, which never warmed beyond tepid. It seemed Bambleby had never encountered such a result before, given the puzzlement in his gaze, which kept straying in Lilja’s direction from across the room.
This too was met with an amiable wall of obliviousness.
The only person to converse with me was old Thora Gudridsdottir, who heaved herself into the other chair at the corner table. “Not much for entertainment, eh?” she said.
I gestured to the academic tome in my hands. “This is much more entertaining than stories I’ve been subjected to more than once.”
“What a cold fish you are.” Unlike Finn, Thora did not appear to mean it as an insult. “Not one to be charmed by a pretty face, eh? What on earth are you reading?”
I explained that it was a treatise on the Russian forest faerie, the leshy, whom some scholars theorize to be cousins of the Hidden Ones of Ljosland (those inclined to entertain the idea of the Hidden Ones). Thora seemed
intrigued and asked many questions.
“May I borrow it?” she said.
“Of course,” I said with some surprise, and handed her the book.
“Perhaps, after you’ve read it, you could offer your opinion on the merits of Wilkie’s theory.”
She snorted, thumbing through the pages. “I don’t need to read this to know that it’s nonsense. There’s none like our snow-dwellers, neither in this world nor the next.”
I blinked. “Have you encountered other Folk?”
“I’ve encountered them. That’s enough.”
“Have you?” I was so filled with questions that I could not work out which to utter first. She seemed to recognize this and gave another snort.
“I will not speak of them here,” she said. “Nor should I speak of them anywhere, this close to winter, but if you visit my house upon a midday when the sun shines and the wind is fair, I will answer your questions.
Those I have answers for.”
To this I eagerly agreed. She went back to the book, occasionally blowing air through her nose in sharp bursts, though her gaze often strayed to Bambleby. I enquired whether she wished to move closer to hear his stories.
“Oh, I prefer to enjoy the view,” she said with a cackle that I couldn’t help but smile at. She motioned to Shadow, curled up at my feet beneath the
table, his large black eyes tracking the currents of the gathering, but always returning to me, regular as clockwork. “That’s quite a singular dog. Had him long?”
“Some years now,” I said. Thora asked a number of questions about Shadow, and I told her the tale I’d invented of our meeting, which I try not to vary. It’s easier, I’ve found, to have only one story to remember.
I must have enjoyed myself at the tavern, for I slept a full half hour later than habit the following morning. When I rose, I found the cottage empty and Shadow dozing contentedly by the fireside, having already been fed his breakfast. Bambleby’s cloak was gone, as were those of his students, and the remains of their breakfast were scattered upon the table.
I was astonished. Had my lecture actually penetrated Bambleby’s head?
Or was he off interrogating the common fae about faerie doors again?
Either way, I was happy to have a few moments of peace, and settled myself at the table with my notes and a cup of tea.
Bambleby’s door swung open, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. A freckled, redheaded young woman poked her head out.
“Oh!” she tittered, adjusting the sheet wrapped round her. “I thought I
was alone.”
“As did I.”
She seemed to take no notice of my tone, but slunk smiling into the main room, mischief on her face that she seemed to imagine I would take part in.
“Did he leave?”
“Miraculously, yes.”
The girl—one of Thora’s many granddaughters, I believe—settled herself, sheet and all, opposite me at the table and indolently helped herself to the remains of the breakfast. She proceeded to question me about Bambleby’s past, particularly in reference to his dalliances, a subject upon which I could have spoken volumes had I elected to take leave of my senses. I replied with answers so staccato that she soon began to smirk at me, imagining me jilted or jealous, or both. Thankfully, Shadow frightened her when he padded up to the table, hoping for scraps, and she exited the cottage shortly thereafter.
The morning was grey and windy with intervals of sleet, as miserable a face as a sky can put on, so I ventured only as far as the spring for my now habitual visit with Poe. I spent the remainder of the morning with my notes and Bambleby’s, which were exactly as cursory as I had expected them to be. Patches of blue sky appeared around noon, and so I donned my hat and coat and packed my camera, intending to venture up to the mountains to hunt for Bambleby’s supposed kelpie, which Thora had informed me was known as the nykur in Ljosland.
I was just stepping through the door, however, as Bambleby came striding up the path, collar notably askew, looking put out. He started a little at the sight of me, then looked guiltily away.
“What has happened?” I said, already dreading the response. “And where on earth have you been?”
“It seems I must resign the field,” he said. “I displease you when I sleep late. I displease you when I rise early. I displease you when I do exactly what you tell me to do, when you tell me to do it. I cannot win with you, Em.”
“Yes, that’s enough of that.” I narrowed my eyes. “You visited the changeling.”
“Indeed. Though I’m afraid I could get little information from him, and that is because he has none to give. He does not know when his parents will return, nor why they abandoned him here.”
I scanned the path as he strode past me into the cottage. “Where are our assistants?”
“I thought it best to leave them at the tavern with their pockets full of coin.”
I did not like his tone one bit. “And what was the cause of this munificence on your part?”
He took his time in answering, using Shadow as an excuse as he greeted the dog with a lavish display of affection. “I brought them along to the farmstead.”
“Oh, God.” I stared at him. “Why would you do such a thing? That is not a creature to be dealt with by amateurs!”
“I am responsible for their education. An opportunity to study a changeling in person is invaluable to any budding scholar. Besides, you made it sound as if the creature was nearly harmless, Em.”
“I never said the word! If you think—”
“Well, you implied it. And you mastered that thing with a bit of iron!
You are every inch as fearsome as I always supposed you to be.”
“The iron was of less importance than a knowledge of the ways of the Folk, gleaned through extensive reading and experience in the field. Such an understanding takes years.”
He gave me a look that I found difficult to interpret. “Had I known what that changeling was, the power it possesses, I would not have let you go there alone. I am a better friend to you than that.”
“I didn’t need your help,” I snapped. “I handled the situation adequately.”
He pressed his hands to his face. “Yesterday you were angry at my lack of assistance. Today you bite my head off for helping. You are the most contrary person I have ever known.”
That took the wind out of me. Being labelled contrary by Wendell Bambleby would stop any sensible person in her tracks. “I suppose I could have been more forthcoming,” I said grudgingly. I sat down at the table.
“Well. What are we to do?”
“I don’t know.” He sat opposite me, drawing one knee up and resting his arm on it. With his other hand, he spun one of the empty teacups. “I don’t know what visions the creature showed them. I only know they were ghastly, given their reactions. Yet they both seemed calmer with some food and wine in them. I shall give them tomorrow off.”
I felt a niggle of guilt. “I suppose I should have mentioned,” I said, “that I did not leave the creature in the best of moods yesterday.”
He tilted his head at me in a look of wordless exasperation.
“Well, what visions did it show you?” I said, to redirect his attention.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. Cold and ice and bloody wolves howling away.”
The teacup rattled against the table as it spun. “Suffice it to say that I’ve met with worse Folk than that brat. Mord and Aslaug seemed disappointed
that you did not accompany me. Did you realize you were capable of inspiring affection in others?”
“Only narcissists and layabouts, I thought.”
He leaned back, a smile playing on his mouth. “You know, Em, you could make life so much easier for yourself if you tried to be liked once in a while.”
“I do try,” I said, overloud. His words stung more than he could have guessed. I tried and tried—or at least, I used to, and nothing had ever come of it.
“Well, either way, you’ve outdone yourself this time. How you’ve convinced almost an entire village to hate you in the space of a week is beyond me. It will not make our research here easier, given the necessity of talking to said villagers.”
I gave a wordless sound of frustration, running a hand through my hair and dislodging yet more of it from its tie. He was right, and I hated it. “I did nothing to set them against me. Only somehow I offended Aud, and it seems the others are offended on her behalf.”
“Tell me,” he said, using his knee to push the chair onto its back legs.
Scowling, I gave him an account of my ill-fated visit to the tavern. By the time I was through, he was wincing and shaking his head.
“Oh, Em,” he said. “Em. Did you do no research at all before coming here?”
Now that galled me. “No research! What do you—”
“I don’t mean the Hidden Ones. I’ve no doubt you scoured all of Cambridge for every passing reference to them—I can picture you terrorizing the poor librarians now. I was referring to the mortal inhabitants of this delightful winter wasteland.”
He flicked open his satchel and pulled a book out, which he tossed to me. “What is this?” It appeared to be written in Ljoslander.
“A novel,” he said. He pulled out another book, which I barely caught.
“On the smutty side, I’m afraid—not to your tastes at all. That one’s an account of a very dull trade war. Here.” He pulled out a third book, also in
Ljoslander. “A biography of their last queen. That one’s not bad—she shot one of her suitors in the foot. By accident, of course.”
I folded my arms. “Thank you, but you needn’t go on. I understand.”
“Do you? Can you even read Ljoslander?”
“Well enough to get by,” I lied, for I had no intention of listening to him brag. Bambleby is irritatingly adept at languages. Small wonder—the Folk can speak any mortal language they encounter. As they flit through the physical barriers erected by mortals, so too do they evade those of our cultures.
“Hospitality is important to these people,” he said. “You’d know that if you’d bothered to learn anything about them at all. You offended Aud by insisting on paying for your supper.”
My mouth fell open. “That’s it? That’s why she hates me?”
He sighed. “Perhaps if you were not so covered in prickles, she would have forgiven you by now. But if there’s anyone who could encourage others to go looking for excuses to take offence, it is you. And then you compounded the mistake by barging into her village with your questions, and without seeking her permission first.”
“I cannot believe that the villagers require her permission to speak to me.”
“Of course they don’t. You should have sought it regardless.”
I put my head in my hands. Bambleby was right, damn him. “Well, what are we going to do?”
“You are going to have to allow her to be kind to you,” he said. “To welcome you as a guest. And to do it in such a way that she will not simply assume I told you what to do.”
“I have absolutely no idea how to achieve that.”
“I know.” He thunked his chair down and gave me a considering look. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you, only that we must not let on to Aud. We need to work through this before we go much further in our research. The villagers were evasive with me last night whenever the subject turned to the Hidden Ones. My friendship with you means that I will not get much from them, either.”
I groaned. “Can’t you charm them into giving you what you want, as you usually do?”
“Probably. But that will take time. Do we have it to waste? As you are so fond of reminding me, we have only a few weeks.”
I stared at my hands. Thora would speak with me, but I could not base my research on the testimony of a single person.
I have always hated this sort of thing. I would sooner interview a dozen bloody changelings than navigate my way through this thicket of social conventions. I thought to myself that perhaps I should simply avoid conversation altogether going forward, seeing as I always make a mess of it.
“My dear Emily. I’ve never seen you look so dejected.” He was regarding me with affection—and something else, but it was gone before I could name it. “Why don’t we go for a stroll? You can entertain me with a list of your demands. Then I can find a nice place for a nap whilst you hunt for some common fae to harass.”
“I wish to see the lake,” I said, already on my feet. I wanted more than anything to put the conversation from my mind. “You say you found a footpath?”
He groaned a little at that, but I was already out the door, and so he donned his coat and followed.
