31st October
I arose to darkness and silence. Bambleby’s enthusiasm for early rising, it seems, was short-lived—well, fine; I shall have plenty of quiet to write in my journal. I have just opened the shutters; a landscape of white and shadow gazes back at me as I pen these words.
Bambleby and I made it to the lake yesterday after a steep climb. It was one of those scenes that froze me in place, a little cup of velvety blue between towers of rock. At our backs was the furious arctic sea, thick with ice, too much of it visible from that height. Too much rather summed up the place, I thought as I hurried after Bambleby, who apart from giving the volcanic stones scattered here and there a few desultory kicks seemed barely conscious of the feral nature of the surroundings. The wind yanked on my bun and sent the loose strands lashing against my face.
Though we found only tenuous evidence of the nykur—misshapen prints in the frozen muck by the water’s edge, which I photographed—I returned with my spirits improved. As Finn had informed us that the weather was changing, evidenced by the looming cloud upon the horizon, I determined to make the most of the sun and set off on another survey of the eastern peaks, whilst Bambleby, despite lacking any visible signs of fatigue, pleaded exhaustion and retired to the cottage.
Solivagant, I misjudged the distance and returned in the dark, the stars a thick glittering above me like a spill of treasure. I could not help pausing to stargaze, a pastime I indulge in but rarely in Cambridge, the nights there being blurred by gaslight and hemmed in by trees and towers. By the time I clambered up the little mountain path to the cottage, our students had
returned from their sojourn at the pub rather the worse for wear and had gone to bed early to sleep things off.
I hardly recognized the cottage whereupon I stepped in from the windy night. The fire merrily crackled, and the whole space was illuminated by strategically placed oil lamps that had not been present before. Woollen rugs scattered the floor, and the windows were hung with curtains. And there were things atop the mantel: pretty things that seemed to have no purpose at all. I recognized one from Bambleby’s office, a little jewelled mirror that flashed merrily in the firelight, but others seemed to be artefacts of Hrafnsvik, including a Madonna carved from whalebone and a little seascape painted on a scrap of driftwood.
Bambleby himself was seated at the fire, mending a curtain. He explained to me that he had borrowed most of the furnishings from Krystjan, including the curtain that he was presently repairing and which he intended to be strung up in the kitchen.
I hardly heard any of it through my amazement. “You are darning curtains? You?”
“My family has a talent for needlework,” he said merely, his fingers moving with an improbable deftness.
I informed him that the cottage had been perfectly satisfactory as it was, to which he replied that the place had been so dank and cheerless as to be suitable only to bats and unsociable gargoyles brooding over their books, and he would sooner put his eyes out than endure weeks of such wretched environs. I contemplated unleashing Shadow and his muddy paws upon Bambleby’s efforts, but the truth was that even I could see that our humble abode was much improved, with a sense not only of warmth but of safety, an enveloping cosiness whose source I could not wholly put a finger on. I settled for brooding over my books for the remainder of the evening, ignoring him completely, which he hates above all else.
—
I’m afraid that, since writing the last, things have turned upside down.
Finn was late with breakfast, which did not at first alarm me, given the conditions. I pulled a chair up to the window and watched the snow fall as I brewed tea. I had not forgotten my promise to Poe, and did not look forward to plunging into those drifts, though I estimated the snowfall at less than a foot.
As I sat, a sort of inexplicable dread grew within me, a sense that I was the only person for miles about. I stood abruptly and threw open Bambleby’s door, banging it into the wall.
From the bed came a sort of confused mumbling, and there was a flash of golden hair. Yet my relief was fleeting, and I was already stamping down the hall when Bambleby croaked, “Em? What the bloody hell?”
The students’ room was empty. I had known it would be, somehow. Not only that, but their trunks were gone, their cloaks. I stormed back to Bambleby’s room, banging the door again, and flung back the curtains.
“Good God,” he muttered from his pillows. “If this is your manner of setting an alarm, I am asking Krystjan to install a lock.”
“They’re gone.”
“What?”
Moments later, there came a knock at the door. Bambleby answered it, having roused himself at last. I knew it wouldn’t be them, and it wasn’t; Finn’s worried face gazed back at us.
“Thank God,” he said. “There are rumours going around town that you set off this morning in Bjorn Gudmunson’s boat, bound for Loabær. It’s rough weather for sailing.”
I exchanged a look with Bambleby. “The rumours are half true. Our students, it seems, have absconded. But what on earth are their plans in Loabær?”
Finn shifted his weight, looking guilty. “From Loabær, there are merchant ships to London that depart every other day. Perhaps they’ve a mind to board one.”
Bambleby gave him a level look. “Perhaps?”
“I may have—heard them discussing it with Bjorn yesterday in the tavern,” Finn said, adding quickly, “I had no idea they intended to leave today.”
“Thank you, Finn,” I said grimly. We took our breakfast from him— bread and cheese only this morning; he hadn’t had time for anything else, what with the burden the storm had added to his chores. Several sheep were missing, it seemed, and the weight of the snow had caused the roof of an outbuilding to collapse.
Bambleby paced back and forth. While I had calmed somewhat, he seemed to grow more and more agitated. “This is a fine thing. We are nearly out of wood.”
Trust him to be concerned with his own comfort, when his students could that very moment be drowned in an icy sea. I said as much, and he waved his hand. “I met Bjorn. He’s a man who knows his business. He wouldn’t have taken on a suicide mission.”
I watched him for a moment—I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him so unravelled. “Have you ever travelled abroad without servants? I’m sorry, students.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “There has never been a need.”
“I see.” If I hadn’t been worried about our research, I might have been enjoying myself. “What are we going to do? We have limited time, and now we are without our assistants to help with the data gathering.”
“I’m sure we’ll muddle through,” he said distractedly. I could tell he wasn’t worried one whit about data gathering—well, why would he be, if he was used to fabricating said data? No, he was wondering who would prepare his tea and wash his laundry.
“We will have to roll up our sleeves from now on,” I said, placing heavy emphasis on the first word.
Bambleby collapsed into one of the armchairs, looking faint.
There was no water left for the washing up after breakfast, so I donned my boots and tramped outside to the stream. The snow had ceased, and the sky was a soft eggshell colour, the mountains dreaming under their woollen
blankets. There was a loveliness in the forest’s absence of colour, its haunted dark framed by grey-white boughs, as if the snowfall had winnowed it down to the essence of what a forest is.
My sense of peace was short-lived. The stream was covered in ice too thick to pierce. I slipped trying, covering myself in snow. In a burst of inspiration, I filled the pot with snow, then set it over the fire. Bambleby was outside by the woodshed, looking like he was trying to solve a mathematical equation. For some reason, he had pushed away the snow with his boot so that he could stand upon the frosty grass. I actually felt a little sorry for him, shivering despite the weight of his cloak, for he reminded me of some temperate tree or bush, transplanted and forced to grow in some northerner’s garden against its will. I hefted the axe and placed a log upon the stump.
“Perhaps we should send for Finn,” Bambleby said.
“I’m perfectly capable,” I replied, though the axe was of an unnerving Ljoslander design and nearly came up to my shoulder.
I swung. The dull blade glanced off the log, which went careening into a tree, dislodging a small avalanche of snow. My axe buried itself in the stump; unbalanced, I fell over.
He looked appalled. “Good God, what a violent process.”
I dragged myself to my feet, cheeks flaming as I brushed the snow from my backside. “It’s not supposed to go like that.”
“I won’t be helping.” He backed up a step, raising his elegant hands.
“I’ll cut off my foot. Or you will.”
“Oh, come on.” I wasn’t looking forward to trying a second time, and in my anger, I couldn’t help baiting him. Baiting a faerie prince! An unfortunate habit I have fallen into, that. “Do you not heat your houses with wood,” I said, all innocence, “in the place you come from?”
He gave me a withering look. “I’m quite happy to say that, in Dublin, we have servants to deal with these things.”
“Well, this is not Dublin, and I’m not getting anywhere. You have to help.”
“I do not. Give it one of your scowls; it will split itself in two.”
“God!” I went to impale the axe in the ground in frustration.
Unfortunately, Bambleby, contrary creature that he is, had just stepped forward to remove it from my possession. I redirected my swing just in time to avoid relieving him of his arm, but not fast enough to save his sleeve.
“Dammit!” He pressed his hand to his arm, and at first I thought it melodrama, but then the snow beneath him began to turn pink.
“I knew it,” he snapped as blood leaked through his fingers. “I knew you would be the death of me. I wish you had chosen my foot. This is my favourite cloak.”
“Hang your cloak!” I shoved him towards the cottage. “Get inside!
You’re bleeding!”
“I will not bleed any less indoors, you utter madwoman.”
But he allowed me to shove him inside, leaving behind him a trail of blood like tiny red footprints. To my horror, the pot of snow I had set over the fire had unbalanced itself during the melting, falling onto its side and extinguishing all but a few embers. Shadow, having been roused from his nap by the fireside, sat sneezing in the smoke.
When we peeled away Bambleby’s cloak, we found that the iron of the axe had bit deep, down to the bone. A scrap of flesh hung loose like a ghastly piece of cloth. As there was no water to wash the wound, I settled for a temporary dressing using scraps of my scarf. By the time I finished, Bambleby’s arm was blood-soaked, and his face was white.
“Just stay there,” I said.
“Oh, must I? Let’s head up to the fells again.”
“Quiet.” I was a storm of anxiety—the missing students, the rapidly cooling cottage, the water pot, the blood everywhere. It took me twice as long as it normally did to light the fire again, and I was forced to use the last of our logs. Then there was the business of heating more snow in the pot, which I was now in terror of overturning. I was equally concerned by the dearth of quips from Wendell’s direction. I went to examine the wound again and was alarmed to find a puddle of blood on the floor.
“Why are you still bleeding?” I demanded, absurdly offended.
He let out a breath of laughter. He was resting his head upon his uninjured arm. “Em. You nearly severed my hand.”
I shook him. “Tell me what to do!”
“I have no idea.” His voice was faint. “I have never been injured before.
I don’t much care for it.”
I let out a string of curses. My mind ran through everything I knew about the Irish Folk, flipping through stories like the pages of a book. There was the tale of a faerie lord injured in battle who had been tended by a mortal girl, after which he turned her hair to gold and she lived as a queen, buying herself a new house with every new inch of hair she grew. Another story of a faerie maiden turned into a tree which a woodcutter half cut down, only to realize his mistake when the tree began to sob. There were plenty of stories of Folk nursed back to health by mortals, but none ever explained how; they were told because people loved hearing that the Folk ever needed mortal aid and about the lavish rewards they granted after.
“I need stitches, I think,” he said.
“Can you do it yourself?”
“No.” He sounded so certain that I did not think to question him. I tightened the scarf and helped him to his bed, then I ran.
I went first to Krystjan’s door, but no one answered my frantic banging, and I was left to assume they were off in some fold hunting their errant sheep. I then ran to the village, and must have looked an utter fright when I clattered through the door of the tavern, for Aud, standing by the counter with her frowning husband, exclaimed, “My God, Emily! Who did this to you?”
She grabbed me by the shoulders. I was so astounded that I could only stare at her, which seemed to alarm her even more. Realizing that she was referring to the blood on my hands, I pulled myself together and explained the situation.
Aud listened with a stillness that reminded me of the mountains. In Ljoslander, she said, “Ulfar, Thora, Lilja, come with me.”
“Já,” Thora said, taking up her cane and drawing herself to her feet.
“Eventually.”
I don’t remember much of the walk back to the cottage. I recall Aud holding my arm and murmuring, “He’ll be all right, don’t worry. He will.”
Then we were at Wendell’s bedside, and the sheets were soaked in blood.
His skin was the colour of old ashes, and his eyes were closed, his golden hair flame-bright against the pallor.
Ulfar tossed herbs into the water, and Aud washed Wendell’s arm. She sewed up the wound with the same steadiness and was done before Thora stomped up to the door. The old woman laid her hand on Wendell’s forehead and clucked her tongue.
“What?” I demanded, overloud. There was a ringing in my ears.
“Nothing,” Thora said. “You must have nicked a vein. He’s lost plenty of blood, but that’s no death sentence. He should recover once he gets some food in him.” She gave me a wink. “He’s prettier when he’s asleep, eh? You don’t notice that big mouth of his.”
She shuffled into the kitchen and began banging pots and pans. Someone must have summoned Groa, for she appeared shortly after with a basket of meats, vegetables, and cheeses, greeting me with her customary cheerful indifference. The kitchen din intensified, but still Bambleby did not stir.
My mind had begun to work again by this point, and I remembered the tale of a prince of the Irish Folk, held captive at the bottom of a lake by a water sprite, and the faerie princess who had liberated him with—with— With a token of the world above. I dashed out the door, even as I mentally cross-referenced the tale with others concerned with faerie potions. Yes—it could work. Nobody even noticed my going, apart from Lilja, who was in the yard making short work of the woodpile. She slung the axe over her broad shoulder and called something after me, but I was already halfway up the mountainside.
The forest was silent as I ducked beneath the boughs, holding its breath in that curious way the wilds do after a snowfall. I floundered about for a time, for the drifts were deep in places, filling my boots with snow.
There it was. A red willow, scrawny and malcontent, the only tree that I was certain grew also in Ireland. I wrenched free a handful of browned
leaves and ran back to the cottage. Bambleby was alone in his room, still asleep, still pale, while the women filled the kitchen with noise.
I stared from Bambleby to the leaves in my hand, suddenly unsure.
Perhaps there was no need for my desperate remedy? But there was something in Wendell’s face that made the terror churn within me again.
When looked at from certain angles, he seemed to lose substance, as the changeling had done. My tangled thoughts drifted into place, and I recalled that the faerie princess had brewed a tea—yes, a tea. For the prince’s weakness had come not from drowning, but being severed from his own green world. I filled a cup with hot water from the pot and took it back to Bambleby’s bedside, where I crumbled the leaves into it and held it to his lips.
There was a noise in the doorway. I turned and found that Aud was watching what I was doing with a queer expression on her face.
“Why—” she began, and as her gaze strayed to Bambleby, fading in and out against the pillow, as if his edges had been subtly blurred, I stepped between them to block her view.
I don’t know why I did this; surely his secret is nothing to me. But I wasn’t quick enough, in any case, and Aud went very still, like a deer noticing the snap of a twig. We stood frozen like that for a moment, and then her face grew hard. I felt certain she would flee, or perhaps knock the cup from my hand, but it was only her inborn decisiveness reasserting itself.
“Here,” she said, stepping forward. “Not like that.”
She tilted Wendell’s head back, spilling his hair across the pillows. Her hand shook ever so slightly, then stilled. A mouthful of the tea passed his lips, and he swallowed.
I was staring at her. “It’s not—I mean—”
“You’re clearly mortal.” She didn’t look up from her task. “And he hasn’t harmed you. That’s something, I suppose.”
“He wouldn’t,” I said, then stopped. Then, “He doesn’t know. That I know, I mean.”
She pursed her lips and said nothing for a moment. “Well, isn’t that perfect?”
I blinked, astonished to see a smile playing on her lips.
“They’re so full of themselves, the lot of them,” she said. “They love their games and their tricks. This may be the funniest thing I’ve heard all year. I hardly know the man, but I’ve no doubt it serves him right.”
A burble of laughter escaped me. Wendell muttered something. Aud handed the cup back to me and returned to the kitchen without another word, leaving me staring after her.
I got another mouthful of the tea into him before his eyes drifted open and he shoved my arm away. He grimaced and pressed his sleeve to his mouth. “Good God, what is that? Couldn’t axe me to death so you’ve
turned to poison, is that it?”
To my horror, I burst into tears.
Bambleby stared at me, and I have never seen him more astonished.
“Em! I was only—”
I fled the room, too embarrassed to stay a second longer. I leaned against the fireplace and tried to control myself, while Shadow pawed at my leg, distressed.
“What on earth is the matter, child?” Thora called at me from the kitchen.
“Nothing, nothing,” I choked out, then went outside. I lost my inclination to cry in the bitter cold, and so gave Lilja a hand hauling the chopped wood. In the space of minutes, she’d filled our wood box twice over. Bambleby was up and looking himself again by my third trip, in the kitchen laughing with Aud and Thora about something.
“Where is Ulfar?” I said, though I didn’t care.
“Out back, patching up a hole in the wall,” Aud said. “I must speak to Krystjan—he should not be accommodating guests in a hovel. It’s a wonder you haven’t frozen before now.”
“No lodging is a hovel after you’ve been put up in a Swiss crypt advertised as a slice of Alpine serenity,” said Bambleby, all charm as he elicited another round of laughs while neatly sidestepping Aud’s insult of our host. We sat down and had a meal of lamb stew, mussels, and a delicate pancake made from ground moss, and if Aud’s gaze kept drifting to
Bambleby more often than necessary, he seemed to think nothing strange about it, surprising me not one whit.
“Now, there’ll be no talk of payment,” Aud said to me after, a flintiness coming into her voice. I stammered out my assurances on that point, and something in my voice—or perhaps my bedraggled state—seemed to soften her, and she gave my hand a squeeze.
“Be careful,” she said, and there were several layers of meaning in it, none of which I was in a state to parse.
Then they were all gone, leaving behind the echoes of their voices and merriment.
Bambleby turned to me, puzzlement all over his face, but before he could say a word I announced my intention to visit Poe at the spring—for I had not yet fulfilled my vow to clear the snow from his home, and in truth it was much on my mind—and hurried outside with Shadow at my heels.
I find myself cringing as I read this over; ordinarily, I try to keep these journals professional, yet on this expedition I find myself continually struggling to meet this standard. I blame Bambleby, of course. I suppose one must expect some blurring of boundaries when one works with the Folk.
