She took a place away from the fire, and one of her daughters fanned her with a wide fig leaf. The Eldest’s face was scored with more than fatigue, and she stared without knowing what she saw at the juices of cooking onions running off the heated stone into the sizzling coals.
The children gathered around her, gazing at her with no less adoration than they might have bestowed upon a goddess. Foxbrush listened with care to their talk. He found that he could, upon occasion, pick out a word or two, even an entire phrase. Perhaps their ancient language was not so dissimilar to his own.
Forgotten in his corner, he felt awkward in this setting of family warmth, coupled so strangely as it was to the knowledge of blood and death and dirt etched on every face present, both young and old. Even small Wolfsbane was not untouched by it, and his dark eyes, so odd beneath a mop of curly red hair, were sweet but not as innocent as one might expect in a child of his age.
“I fear I bring evil tidings from Greenwell,” Eldest Sight-of-Day said at last. To Foxbrush’s amazement, she spoke now in Redman’s language, which Foxbrush could understand. At first he was surprised by this. But then he saw that the younger children did not know what she said, and he wondered if she meant to spare them hearing the news she brought. Only Lark, alert and bright-eyed, seemed to follow the conversation.
“I thought as much,” Redman said, motioning to Lark, who brought him carved wooden bowls. He served up their meal as he and his wife spoke. “So the Greenteeth of Greenwell is no longer accepting the agreed-upon tribute.”
“Mama Greenteeth is dead.”
A sudden stillness took the room. Even the fire seemed to shrink into itself. The children, who did not understand, read the gravity in their parents’ faces. The two little girls whose names Foxbrush did not know clung to each other and hid in the shadow of their mother, while Lark took hold of both Wolfsbane and Cattail, drawing them close in silent protection.
Redman cleared his throat and continued serving. “Lark, child,” he said, his voice a deep growl. “Come, help me as you should.”
Lark obeyed, handing out the steaming, aromatic concoction, which the children and the Eldest accepted. Foxbrush, whom Lark seemed to have forgotten, watched hungrily and dared not speak up.
The Eldest selected a small chunk of fish from her bowl and held it between two fingers. “Blow,” she said to her son, and Wolfsbane obeyed, his posy mouth spitting with the effort. The Eldest blew on it herself, then fed him like a baby bird.
Redman banked the coals and settled back along the wall near his wife. He did not look at her. “Dead, you say?”
“Dead.” Eldest Sight-of-Day continued to feed her son from her bowl. “When I arrived late this morning, I found the village in uproar.”
“Another Faerie?” Redman asked. “Worse than the Greenteeth?”
But the Eldest shook her head. “So I thought and feared. But they tell me otherwise. They say a maid came out of the jungle, a maid wearing a bronze stone about her neck. She dived into the well after a child who was lost. No one saw what happened, but she disappeared and more than an hour passed before suddenly the well frothed and churned and spat her up again, with the living child in her arms. Later they found Mama Greenteeth’s body, withered and shrunken like dried waterweeds.”
“And this maid,” Redman persisted. “Not Faerie?”
“They claim not. They insist she was mortal. A fiery mortal, they say, with hair as red as yours.”
At this, Foxbrush felt his empty stomach heave and drop. Redman turned to him sharply, as though he’d heard. “A fiery maid?” he said. “Could it be your lost one?”
All eyes in the room turned to Foxbrush, and he writhed under their stare. The Eldest regarded him with interest now, a knot forming on her brow. “Do you know something of this, stranger?”
“I . . . I’m not sure,” Foxbrush admitted, finding it difficult to speak with the dryness of his mouth. Lark, suddenly reminded of his existence, hopped to her feet and filled a bowl for him, which he accepted from her even as he spoke. “I am come seeking my betrothed, Lady Daylily of Middlecrescent, who is not of your . . . of your . . .”
“What our good Foxbrush wishes to say,” Redman interrupted, smiling at his wife, “is that neither he nor the maid he seeks are of our time.”
The Eldest accepted this with far more ease than Foxbrush might have expected. “Sylphs?” she asked.
“Aye. Sylphs,” said her husband. “Though he is a man of our own Land, he wandered into the Wilderlands in search of his missing lady and, as far as I can gather, was caught in a sylph storm. They dragged him far from his own Time. I would be willing to bet my beard his lady was caught by sylphs as well, for it would appear she is the fiery maid of whom the people of Greenwell speak.”