“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.
12th November
There are now two Hrafnsviks in my mind: the one that existed before Wendell’s injury, and the one in which we found ourselves afterwards.
We have entertained a steady trickle of visitors over the past few days, so many that I have had little time for either journaling or venturing up to Poe’s spring for a visit. They come with offers of food and assistance, but also with stories of the Hidden Ones.
“I suppose it is because Aud pities us now,” I said. “They all do. We have proven ourselves inept at the basics of existence in this place.”
“Oh, Em,” Wendell said. “It has nothing to do with pity. Aud has forgiven you because you let her help you.”
“She helped you,” I pointed out, but he shook his head as if I were being obtuse.
“Why did you offend her initially?”
“Because I did not ask her permission to interview the villagers.”
Again he shook his head. “That was part of it, perhaps, but also you refused to allow her to treat you as a guest. If you do not admit kindness from others, you cannot be surprised when they fail to offer any.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with your arm,” I muttered, more to end the conversation than anything. To my surprise, he did not persist in arguing the point, merely gave a breath of laughter and went to fix tea.
Within the span of a single day, I learned more of the ways of the Ljosland Folk than I gleaned during the entirety of my research heretofore. In the space of two weeks, I may have gathered enough material for not only a chapter, but an entire book.
To summarize broadly: the interactions of mortal Ljoslanders with the common fae follow established patterns seen on the continent. Offerings are left for them, most often in the form of food; those with wealth and status are expected to leave trinkets, with mirrors and singing boxes being especially favoured. Mortals will sometimes enter into bargains with the common fae—like my bargain with Poe—but this is seen as dangerous given their unpredictability, and a road taken only by the desperate or foolhardy. None of the common fae of Ljosland dwell within households; that is the key difference.
As for the courtly fae, they are wholly unique.
They are, above all else, elusive. Few mortals have laid eyes on them—of the villagers of Hrafnsvik, Thora alone makes that claim, and she only spied them once from a distance a very long time ago, whilst playing with her schoolfellows in the woods. Their courts move with the snows, and they dwell for much of the year in the mountainous north and interior of the country, where winter never rests. They love music and hold elaborate balls in the wilderness, particularly upon frozen lakes, and if you hear their song drifting on the icy wind, you must stop your ears or burst into song yourself, or be drowned by it and swept insensible into their realm. For they are also hungry.
They have a particular fondness for youth in love. Those who are drawn into their dances are invariably found wandering alone the next day, alive but hollow. It was not always so; it is said that the courtly fae of Ljosland were once a peaceable people, if somewhat standoffish with mortals. No one is certain when the change occurred, but this behaviour has persisted for many generations.
Au?ur is the only living victim of the courtly fae in Hrafnsvik. But another boy was taken last winter, two girls the winter before that, and three years ago, a child of fifteen. Victims of these Folk are continually drawn to the winter wilderness after their abduction, and will wander into the night in their shifts or shirtsleeves when their guardians are distracted, to be found frozen a little distance from town. The “tall ones,” it seems, have no interest in taking them back.
It seems clear these creatures are increasingly drawn to Hrafnsvik, though it is unclear why. Until recently, the village had not lost anyone to their bizarre vampirism in more than twenty winters. Their stories reflect this; it is said in many villages in the south and west of Ljosland that the “tall ones” take from every generation one youth (naturally this youth is said to be of surpassing beauty and/or talent, particularly musical talent, a feature that will not surprise scholars even superficially versed in folklore). Yet here in Hrafnsvik, five have been taken in the last four years.
I mentioned stories, and I will turn to those now. Most, unsurprisingly, concern encounters with the common fae. I have thus far recorded a round dozen, some fragmentary (perhaps part of a larger saga?) and others filling multiple pages. I will summarize here those that I find most intriguing—later I will choose one of them for my encyclopaedia.
The Woodcutter and His Cat
(NB: I have been informed that this is the oldest folktale of Hrafnsvik origin, though one villager argues that it drifted here from Bjar?orp, a village ten miles to the east. The story follows a familiar pattern in folklore: faeries often aid mortals in roundabout ways, and their generosity is instantly turned to vengefulness if their gifts are unappreciated.)
A woodcutter dwelt at the edge of the forest in a tiny hut that was all he could afford, and he could barely hold body and soul together. In his youth, after a night of drinking, he became lost and wandered into the mountains. He lost his right hand to frostbite and was terribly disfigured.
The woodcutter struggled in his work, naturally, and was sometimes forced to borrow money from his brother, who never missed a chance to rail against his foolishness, though the brother was a rich man whose larder was always full.