I could detect no hidden meaning in his words, and so decided to take them at face value. Perhaps he truly had no idea why the Folk of Ljosland stole children. Indeed, he was so detached about the whole thing that I felt a sliver of doubt enter me. Yet what reason would Poe have had to lie about Bambleby’s identity?
“I would like to at least try to help.”
“Help whom?”
I wanted to shake him. “Mord and Aslaug!”
“Ah. How do you propose to do that? Their son will die if the changeling is killed. If we somehow chase it from its abode, it will die, and thus the outcome is the same.” He leaned back against the tree, his eyes drifting shut again. “Besides, it would hardly be professional. We’re here to observe, not interfere.”
I watched him carefully. “Perhaps you could visit them.”
His eyes opened to slits. “And what will that accomplish?”
His voice was as bored as ever, but there was an undercurrent of something that made me feel as if I was edging onto dangerous ground. Only I didn’t care. I knew that if I left Mord and Aslaug with the changeling without making every effort to free them from its poisons, I would regret it until the end of my days.
“I don’t know,” I said, meeting his gaze levelly. It was true enough. I don’t know what powers he has or what he is capable of. “Perhaps you can get more information out of the creature than I could. The Folk of Ljosland clearly find you disagreeable company, for reasons unimaginable to myself.”
He laughed. His eyes become very green when he laughs; you wonder if the colour will spill from them like sap. “I hardly recognize you, Em. I never would have thought that you of all people would come to care for any of these villagers. Are they not mere variables in your research?”
“It’s not that I care for them,” I said heatedly, before realizing that my offence rather made his point for him. I could tell by his smile that he knew it too.
“I’ll pay your afflicted horticulturalists a visit tomorrow,” he said. “Will that suit?”
“Thank you.” I stood, feeling off-balance and wishing to escape the conversation. “Perhaps we can return to the cottage. I would like to review your notes, and hear what your students have discovered.”
“Very well.” He looked at me woefully, as if expecting me to help him up. I folded my arms. With a dramatic groan, he pulled himself to his feet with his customary grace, and we departed the Karr?arskogur.
Skip Notes
* All dryadologists accept the existence of those doors that lead to individual faerie homes and villages, such as those inhabited by the common fae. Theories about a second class of door are more controversial, but I myself believe highly credible, given the stories we have of the courtly fae. These are thought to be doors that lead deep into Faerie, into a world wholly separate from our own.
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.