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.
I was just stepping through the door, however, as Bambleby came striding up the path, collar notably askew, looking put out. He started a little at the sight of me, then looked guiltily away.
“What has happened?” I said, already dreading the response. “And where on earth have you been?”
“It seems I must resign the field,” he said. “I displease you when I sleep late. I displease you when I rise early. I displease you when I do exactly what you tell me to do, when you tell me to do it. I cannot win with you, Em.”
“Yes, that’s enough of that.” I narrowed my eyes. “You visited the changeling.”
“Indeed. Though I’m afraid I could get little information from him, and that is because he has none to give. He does not know when his parents will return, nor why they abandoned him here.”
I scanned the path as he strode past me into the cottage. “Where are our assistants?”
“I thought it best to leave them at the tavern with their pockets full of coin.”
I did not like his tone one bit. “And what was the cause of this munificence on your part?”
He took his time in answering, using Shadow as an excuse as he greeted the dog with a lavish display of affection. “I brought them along to the farmstead.”
“Oh, God.” I stared at him. “Why would you do such a thing? That is not a creature to be dealt with by amateurs!”
“I am responsible for their education. An opportunity to study a changeling in person is invaluable to any budding scholar. Besides, you made it sound as if the creature was nearly harmless, Em.”
“I never said the word! If you think—”
“Well, you implied it. And you mastered that thing with a bit of iron! You are every inch as fearsome as I always supposed you to be.”
“The iron was of less importance than a knowledge of the ways of the Folk, gleaned through extensive reading and experience in the field. Such an understanding takes years.”
He gave me a look that I found difficult to interpret. “Had I known what that changeling was, the power it possesses, I would not have let you go there alone. I am a better friend to you than that.”
“I didn’t need your help,” I snapped. “I handled the situation adequately.”
He pressed his hands to his face. “Yesterday you were angry at my lack of assistance. Today you bite my head off for helping. You are the most contrary person I have ever known.”
That took the wind out of me. Being labelled contrary by Wendell Bambleby would stop any sensible person in her tracks. “I suppose I could have been more forthcoming,” I said grudgingly. I sat down at the table. “Well. What are we to do?”
“I don’t know.” He sat opposite me, drawing one knee up and resting his arm on it. With his other hand, he spun one of the empty teacups. “I don’t know what visions the creature showed them. I only know they were ghastly, given their reactions. Yet they both seemed calmer with some food and wine in them. I shall give them tomorrow off.”
