13th February
In the end, we missed the plenary.
It didn’t much matter, of course. Wendell sat on three panels and charmed his way onto a fourth, and charmed my way onto another. I sat through the interminable dinners without overly hating them; I was on familiar ground with scholars, and I even enjoyed some of my conversations, for they were conversations of the mind with nothing to do with small talk or social conventions.
And then it was time for our presentation. I paced about in the little room behind the stage. Through the half-open door I could see the two podiums, as well as the scholars filing into the room in their dowdy suits and dresses. Many of them wore their coats, for if there is one thing that unites scholars, it is complaining about the temperature of conference rooms.
Wendell swept in at last, looking resplendent, all sharp edges and lean grace in his own black suit, as plain as any other scholar’s but immaculately tailored. His gaze swept over me in polite appraisal, though I could tell he was suppressing his smile. I glowered back. I was wearing one of the dresses he’d fixed up—out of necessity only, for I hadn’t the money to buy new ones in Paris, and we’d had no time to stop in at our apartments at Cambridge.
It had taken him a full two days to return to his former glory, which he had spent mostly in his cabin on the ship, staring into a mirror and muttering to himself as he moved his nose this way and that or stretched his limbs out. It was an appalling process, and I had spent as little time in his company during the homeward voyage as possible.
“The exhibits are prepared,” he said, and I nodded. Awaiting us behind the podium were three trunks, one containing the remnants of the faerie cloak, now badly melted but still recognizable; one a necklace the king had given me, a delicate spiderweb of ice chains that, unlike the cloak, didn’t melt; the last a jagged spire of volcanic rock from one of Krystjan’s fields, in which there was a tiny wooden door that vanished in direct sun. I felt like a magician.
He held out a hand to me. I accepted it, feeling a little shiver as I did, and he smiled. He had seemed especially happy with himself lately; I guessed the source of his pleasure to be his transformation back into his old self.
“We’re about to create quite a stir,” he said, looking misty at the prospect. “And just think—if you’d finished mulling over my proposal by now and said yes, we could have introduced you as Mrs. Wendell Bambleby. They would never stop talking about us.”
I gave him a long, thoughtful look. “What?” he said.
“It’s your chin. It’s still a little crooked.”
His hand went immediately to the feature. “It is not.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps it’s my imagination.”
While he prodded at his jaw, I looked back at the crowd, the assembled scholars arguing quietly with one another or sitting mulishly with their arms crossed, as if already going over their criticisms in their heads. I drew a deep breath, my grip tightening on my notes. Then we stepped onto the stage.
This particular tale is one of the oldest in Ireland, and is told throughout the northwestern counties in varying iterations. Appended here for future reference. —E.W.
The Golden Ravens
or, The Serving Girl and Her Faerie Housekeepers
There once was a kingdom in the bleak and mountainous north of Ireland called Burre, which was ruled by an old queen with twelve sons and daughters, including one who was half Folk. This prince was the youngest of the lot and least likely to inherit the throne; thus, in typical faerie fashion, he went about improving his odds in a roundabout way that nevertheless proved quite effective. He released the queen’s three golden ravens into the wild, which had been gifted to her by a powerful witch for luck, and this caused a great sorrow to spread over the land. The queen’s other children began squabbling amongst themselves, culminating in treacherous intrigues and assassinations.
After the golden ravens were released, the ordinary peasants of Burre also met with one misfortune after another. Crops failed, and cursed children were common. One of these was the adopted daughter of a poor serving woman. The daughter was unnaturally clumsy and brought disorder with her wherever she went, which made the serving woman’s lot very hard. The mother and daughter were dismissed from position after position, being unable to keep any house clean despite their best efforts.
One bleak winter the mother died, leaving her barely grown daughter to fend for herself. Everyone in town knew the daughter’s reputation, and she could not find any work. In desperation, she ventured far into the wild white
mountains until she came upon a castle owned by a duchess, the queen’s sister. Living in such a remote location, the duchess and her family were always short-staffed, and so the duchess hired the serving girl on the spot.
The duchess set the serving girl a simple task: scrub the floor of the kitchen, particularly minding the corners where spiders had built their nests.
But this task was not simple for the cursed serving girl, and no sooner had she scrubbed the floor to a shine than she tripped and upset the spice rack.
The spice spilled everywhere, mingling with the damp of the newly washed floor to form a fragrant mud. The serving girl at once set to cleaning it all again, but it was no use: she seemed able only to move the muck from one place to another. She went to bed weeping, certain she would be dismissed again.
But when she came into the kitchen in the morning, she found the duchess in a state of delight. The kitchen gleamed as it had never gleamed before, even the corners, every last spider having been relocated to a luxuriously intricate web high in the rafters. The duchess and her family begged to know how the serving girl had made the floor shine so, like a winter pond in the starlight, and what on earth had she done to the spices, which filled the kitchen with scent as if newly ground?
The serving girl realized that the castle must be home to the oíche sidhe, the little faerie housekeepers. They must have plucked up each grain of spice one by one with their clever fingers and dried them with their breath.
The girl kept her mouth shut, overwhelmed by her good luck.
As the days passed, the family’s respect for the serving girl only grew.
Never had they had such shining floors, windows of such purity as if made of air, such fragrant, spotless bedding. They did not know that they only had such things because the oíche sidhe had to work twice as hard to clean up the mess made by the serving girl, who could not cross a floor without leaving behind a muddy trail, nor open a window without smearing it with handprints, nor pin the bedding up to dry outside without it being blown across the fields and into some muddy puddle.
But then began a series of strange events. After the serving girl dusted the portraits, somehow managing to summon more dust than had been there
before, the portraits the next morning were not only free of dust but everyone in them had their hair combed and their clothes brushed and straightened. After the serving girl washed the duchess’s dogs, they were found the next day with their hair in elaborate ringlets. Rearranging furniture would cause rooms and windows to change shape, taking on a rigid and unnatural symmetry. Laundry was the worst of all; after the serving girl had washed it to the best of her lamentable abilities, clothes not only cleaned themselves to spotlessness but grew threads of gold and buttons of ivory, or sometimes became new garments altogether, pyjamas growing into evening gowns and wool socks to silken stockings. If the serving girl cleaned the chicken coop, the chickens would appear the next morning with their beaks polished and their feathers pomaded, looking very self-satisfied. The duchess and her husband began watching the serving girl with concerned looks and encouraging her to take frequent breaks for tea and a lie-down. They did not send her away, though—indeed, they more than doubled her pay to ensure she would never wish to leave.
The serving girl began to fear that she was driving the oíche sidhe mad with her impossible messes—she knew the poor creatures did so abhor disorder. Further evidence of this came unexpectedly and unpleasantly in the form of sudden wet smacks to her face when she was working, rather like being struck with a small, invisible mop. The serving girl lived in terror that the oíche sidhe would murder her one day.
Eventually, the serving girl snuck out into the woods where an old witch lived and begged for help. In exchange for one of the pomaded chickens, the witch informed her that the serving girl’s curse originated in the royal family with the youngest prince, and that only he could undo it.
Fortunately, the serving girl knew the queen and all her children were due to pay a visit to the queen’s sister soon. The night before their arrival, the serving girl took her shabbiest dress, freshly stained with kitchen grease, and tore it to shreds, which she scattered over the floor.
When the serving girl awoke in the morning, she found in place of her old dress the loveliest and most eccentric gown imaginable. It was quite clear that the oíche sidhe were indeed going mad, for the dress was at odds
with itself, one moment deciding to be murky pond green and the next ocean blue or harvest brown. It was festooned with baubles and ribbons like a Christmas tree, including a crystal that showed flashes of strangers’ futures and a live hedgehog, which with its tiny claws climbed from pocket to pocket as the mood took it (the dress had an infinite number of pockets).
Dubious, the girl donned the dress and went downstairs. The castle was full of royal attendants and various hangers-on, all bustling about importantly, and in her ridiculous dress, everyone assumed she was a relation of the duchess. She asked one of the ladies’ maids where the youngest prince could be found, and she was told: in the garden.
She found the prince wandering the garden with a displeased look on his face, for those whose blood is half Folk and half mortal exist in a state of perpetual displeasure—the typical games of the Folk leave them perplexed, while they find mortal pursuits dull. In truth, the prince was only scheming to obtain the throne for want of anything better to do with himself.
The prince took one look at the serving girl and fell instantly in love with her, just as she’d hoped. Most young men fell instantly in love with her when she was not dressed in rags and covered in stains, as the serving girl was beautiful, with black eyes, pale golden hair, and skin of a darker gold, a strange but irresistible combination. The duchess was furious when the prince expressed his intention to marry her cherished serving girl, but she could not very well gainsay the queen’s favourite son.
On her wedding day, the serving girl was elated. Once they were wed, she planned to order the prince to undo her curse—if he did not, as her husband he would have to share it and endure a life of mess and disorder.
She was certain that the curse that had plagued every season of her life was soon to be broken.
In a way, the serving girl was right. The oíche sidhe fashioned her a magnificent wedding gown—though it was also rather lunatic, having not one but eight hedgehogs roaming the pockets, as well as a bodice that was a portal to Faerie if turned inside out and a train with a ghost hiding in it who disrupted the service with bursts of cackling. At the banquet after their nuptials, the serving girl naturally managed to spill the entire contents of a
gravy boat upon herself, and it was the sight of their finest handiwork in ruins that finally broke the oíche sidhe. They swarmed out into plain view as the oíche sidhe never do normally, halfling men and women the colour of dust, and began walloping the serving girl with their faerie mops. No one and nothing could stop them, and the wedding guests began to fear that their new princess would be beaten to death. Whenever the prince tried to pull his bride to safety, the hedgehogs would bite him. Golden feathers began to fly through the air, and the wedding guests could not at first make sense of it. The oíche sidhe kept whacking and whacking until the serving girl split apart like an overripe plum and became what she had been long ago, though neither she nor the mother who raised her had guessed it—a golden raven, one of the three enchanted birds that the prince had released to bring strife to the kingdom.
The serving girl flitted out the window, free at last, while the oíche sidhe dusted their hands and went smilingly back into hiding. They stopped pomading chickens and turning pyjamas into evening wear, which was ultimately a relief to the duchess, who had been down to her last nightgown.
As for the prince, the serving girl’s disappearance finally gave him a purpose in life. He retreated to the wilderness to learn magic from witches and any Folk who would teach him. Eventually he succeeded in turning himself into a raven, whereupon he flew off in search of his beloved. In the northeast of Ireland it is said that he is still searching for his golden bride to this day, and that if you listen closely, you can hear her name in the croaking of the ravens.
The story of Emily Wilde and Wendell Bambleby will continue in Book 2.
