He shook his head. “There also appears to be a pair of spurs and a bottle of some sort.”
Sorcha hadn’t the first idea why Granny Winter had chosen those particular items, but Granny Winter seldom explained herself.
“There does not seem to be a single item in here that might aid in our defense,” Duncan said.
“Seldom can the creatures that inhabit the realm of fairies and monsters be defeated by the clash of arms. Most are overcome through cleverness and an understanding of the laws that govern them.”
Duncan peered inside his bag once more. “I cannot imagine a stuffed vole proving useful in a battle of wits.”
“Somehow, it will,” she said. “Granny Winter is as clever as the fairies. I would wager that even the strangest things in that bag will prove absolutely vital.”
“Even the vole?” Duncan asked with a raise of his eyebrows and a tip of his mouth.
She smiled in return; she couldn’t help herself. She was often reserved, struggling to show lightness even in pleasant moments. He brought that out in her, miracle worker that he was.
As they continued on their journey, the land around them grew more untamed, more untouched. The trees grew taller. The thistles grew thicker. On and on they walked. Closer and closer they came to the first of many dangers such a journey must hold. Oh, courage! Oh, selflessness!
“Where did you live before you came to our village?” Sorcha asked as they walked along the edge of a crystalline river.
“I lived in a village in the north of England, not terribly far from the border country.”
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“A little. My family is no longer there, and they were the strongest tie I had to it.”
Had her family a proper home, a place that was theirs permanently, that is where she would have felt a pull as well. As it was, she felt them everywhere and nowhere all at once.
“My family traveled a great deal,” she said. “We spent most of our time in places like this.” She motioned to the surrounding vista. “There were times when I would wonder if we were the only humans to have ever seen what we saw or heard what we heard. I grew up more acquainted with fairies than with children, more with monsters than with people.”
“Were you scared?” he asked.
“Sometimes. My family taught me of their ways and kept me safe. Until the end, at least.”
He glanced at her but didn’t press. She suspected that he, good man that he was, meant to save her from the misery of recounting such a difficult moment in her life. But she was made of stronger stuff.
“I was fourteen years old. My family, in our travels, found ourselves at a crossroads. Those are dangerous places, you must realize. For whilewemight see only the meeting of two roads, crossroads are where the human world and the fairy world often meet as well. And not every creature that emerges intooursphere does so with good intentions.”
“Was that the case on that day?”
She nodded. “We were intending to pass the night in a small, nearby cottage and regain our strength. We had only just come to the crossroads when an enormous dog appeared. It had the look of a wolf but the size of a calf. When the light hit it in precisely the right way, we could see something even more extraordinary about this canine. It glowed an otherworldly green.
“My father shouted to all of us to run, that we must reach the cottage as quickly as possible. We immediately obeyed and ran as hard as we could toward the shelter in the distance. One piercing, terrifying howl called after us. The sound filled me with terror like I had never felt before. I ran faster, more desperately. My family did the same.
“Another howl pierced the evening air. I didn’t know this creature well, but the sound of its horrifying cries told me in ways words could not that it was to be feared and for good reason. The terror I felt nearly stopped me in my tracks, nearly froze me to the spot. I sensed that one more howl would literally stop my heart.
“The time was approaching when it must, with surety, howl once more. I reached the cottage, threw open the door, and tumbled inside. In the very next instant, that third howl sounded. I huddled in the corner with my back against a wall, shaking, terrified for my very life.”
“And your family?” he asked gently.
“I emerged the next morning after the light shining through the windows of the cottage revealed that I was in the home alone. I searched for my family but found nothing of them beyond my father’s hat. For days, I wandered those roads, hoping to find my family but terrified I would only find that dog again. I kept at my search, going to places we had been before, all the while losing hope. It was nearly a year later when Granny Winter found me and took me in.”
“You searched for a year?”
She nodded. “And I would be searching for them still if not for her. I told her all that had happened. She told me the creature we had encountered was thecù-sìth. It is, as I had suspected, from the realm of monsters. It hunts with howls. Humans who hear its terrifying cry but don’t reach shelter under a protective roof by the time the third howl sounds ... they die.”
He took gentle hold of her hand and squeezed. It was a friendly and kind gesture. “I am so sorry for your loss.”
“Granny Winter has spent these past years teaching me of the dangerous difficulties my father hadn’t time to explain to me. I suspect there is little of the fairies and monsters I do not now know. I have taken refuge in her cottage for a long time, afraid to return to the paths I once knew.”