The Fey Quartet

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Maythorn, the Widow Miller, shuffled through the forest. Her basket bumped against her hip with each limping step. A stream chuckled and burbled close by. You will find fresh mint along my banks, the water seemed to murmur. And sweet thyme.

The stream hadn’t taken exactly this course the last time she’d been so deep in the woods, and it wouldn’t the next time, but Widow Miller had roamed the forest for too many years to be disturbed by signs that the border with Faerie lay near. And she knew that the chuckling water spoke truly: she would find fresh herbs along its banks.

She turned her steps towards the stream, peering into the shadows with her one good eye, and on the grassy banks, she spied a patch of thyme.

The widow knelt painfully, awkwardly. “Thank you,” she told the stream, and “Thank you,” she told the thyme, and carefully she plucked a dozen stems and laid them in the basket and heaved herself to her feet.

A song thrush poured its heart out on a nearby branch. The widow listened for a moment. When she looked back at the stream, it had gathered itself into a pond.

The widow didn’t draw her shawl around herself and hobble home as fast as her crippled leg could carry her. She smiled a faint, ironic smile and set off around the pond. These woods were safer than any woods in England. Trees and mossy stones and sunlit glades might rearrange themselves between one blink of an eye and the next, but no outlaws roamed here, nor king’s men, nor bloodthirsty beasts.

A patch of tender-leaved mint caught her eye, and alongside it, comfrey. By the time she’d worked her way around the pond, the widow’s basket was full. “Thank you,” she told the pond, and sunlight flickered across the water, as if the pond smiled at her.

The widow caught a glimpse of her reflection—the ruined face, the withered left hand hanging at her side—and turned away. Behind her there was a moment of silence and stillness, and then a low, musical burbling. She glanced back. The stream had returned, but now it flowed in the opposite direction.

Widow Miller turned her steps homeward. The stream lay along her path for the first half mile, chuckling and murmuring. “Thank you for your company,” she told it when they parted ways, because it was always best to be polite, even to streams, when one was near the border with Faerie.

Without the stream alongside her, other noises filled her ears. She heard leaves rustling in the breeze, the twitter of birdsong, twigs snapping beneath her feet . . . and a sound like a lost kitten wailing, faint and high-pitched.

The widow c****d her head and listened.

The crying came again.

“I don’t like that sound,” the widow told the trees, and she clutched the basket more tightly with her good hand and shuffled in the direction of the noise.

Within a dozen steps, she came to another stream. This one was dark and swift and hissed as it flowed, as if whispering fierce secrets.

The crying sound came again, louder, closer, and it seemed as if both she and the stream were headed for it. Widow Miller eyed the dark water warily, and pushed through a grove of prickly yews. The ground was rough and rocky, the trees gnarled, the forest dark with shadows. I don’t like this, the widow thought, and she hesitated and considered turning back. Through the trees she glimpsed a deep, black pond, and bobbing on the deep, black pond was a basket like the one she carried, and in the basket was a baby.

The widow uttered a cry of horror, and she cast aside her herbs and hurried forward, lurching and hobbling. Boulders tripped her and branches clawed at her clothes, but the widow fought her way to the pond. She flung aside her shawl and plunged in. Two steps, and the bottom fell away beneath her feet. Dark, icy water engulfed her, filling eyes and nose and mouth.

As a bride, the widow had swum naked in moonlit river pools, but she no longer had two strong arms and two strong legs and a strong, young husband beside her. Panic spiked in her chest. She clawed frantically at the water. Her head burst free, and she gulped for air and turned desperately towards the safety of the bank.

The high, thin wail sounded again.

Widow Miller found the bottom of the pool with one foot, and wrestled with her panic. Her lungs heaved and her heart hammered and she felt the prickling of Faerie over her scalp. She was near the border of the forbidden realm. Dangerously near. Too near. Common sense urged her to turn back, but the widow had been a mother three times, and motherhood was in her blood. When the wailing came again, high and thin and desperate, she thrust away from the bank and swam towards the basket bobbing in the middle of the pool.

Widow Miller was crippled and lopsided, and the pool was wide—and growing wider with every heartbeat—but she kicked and swam with all her might, hauling herself through the water. The basket bobbed out of reach, and the kitten-like wail came again—and then the widow’s groping hand found the woven rim and she gripped it tightly and pulled the basket towards her. “I have you,” she choked out. “You’re safe.” But the pool grew choppy, as if a strong wind blew. Waves slapped the widow’s face. Water filled her nose and mouth. She couldn’t see the bank, could barely breathe. Her clothes dragged her down, her left hand was useless, her weak leg a dragging weight. She gripped the basket and thought, We’re both going to drown, and then she thought of her daughters—solemn Ivy, bold Hazel, shy Larkspur—and she gritted her few teeth and kicked her good leg with all the strength she had.

Widow Miller fought her way back across the pond. The bank drew painfully nearer, and her feet eventually found purchase. She dragged herself clumsily ashore and knelt, gasping and shivering, clutching the basket. When she’d caught her breath, she lifted her head and gazed at the crying baby she’d rescued.

She saw a pale, heart-shaped face and a wailing pink mouth with tiny teeth as white and sharp as a fox cub’s.

Fear prickled up the back of her neck. Faerie.

Widow Miller cautiously stroked the baby’s pale cheek. “You’re safe,” she whispered.

The wailing died to a whimper. The baby blinked and gazed up at her.

Every hair on Widow Miller’s scalp stood on end. She had never seen such dark and terrible eyes. They were fully black, black to the outermost edges, as black as the deepest, darkest night, full of wisdom and cruelty.

Widow Miller suppressed a shiver. A babe, she told herself. ’Tis but a babe. She took up her shawl and gently tucked it around the infant in the basket, and then she stroked the pale, tender cheek again. “I shall take you home with me, and tomorrow we shall find your mother.” And somehow, she found the strength to stand.