Chapter Three

By the time Myrina got to Gottreb’s cottage, shame had displaced shock.

What had so overcome her in that glade? It was as though someone else, a different and unknown Myrina, had taken over her body and mind. And the voice in her head…was she going mad? ’Twas a frightening, sobering thought.

Pausing outside the woodsman’s door, she wiped her face with an edge of her cloak and tried to compose herself enough so the old man would sense nothing wrong. After knocking and being bade to enter, she pushed the door open and went in, smiling as best she could at the elderly man lying on the bed.

“Good eve, Myrina. Have you brought my provisions from Goodwife Harbottle?”

“Indeed I have.” Myrina placed her basket on the table and lifted the eggs out carefully before removing the package and beginning to unwrap it. “She sent a loaf fresh from the oven, butter, cheese, a side of beef and a jar of ale.”

“Ah,” sighed the half-blind old man, “the goodwife, bless her soul, takes great care of me. I don’t know what I would do without her aid and that of you young people who bring the food. Once, not so long ago as you might think, I could hunt and catch my own food, going into the village only to sell my wood and buy whatever I needed.”

Myrina nodded, bustling about the room, putting the food on the shelves, hardly listening as the elder rambled on about times gone by. Inside, shame and fear still roiled, making her feel almost ill.

Turning her back to the woodsman, she stood as though looking out the window, trying to slow the still-frantic pace of her heart. The pleasure, the journey to that ultimate moment of soul-destructive release, would not be denied. She must have been ensorcelled, the spell drawing her to that place, creating her wanton behaviour, the voice in her head. Yet she didn’t believe in magic—not really. Surely it was just something parents made up to keep their children in line with fear? If you don’t behave, the faeries will be angered, the pixies pinch your toes at night.

Perhaps Elawen was right in saying it was time Myrina found herself another lover? Surely this unseemly reaction was a result of loneliness, of being untouched by a man’s hands for all these months? But how could she have imagined, on her own, a man putting his head between her legs to kiss her quim? Not even Elawen had ever told her of such a thing. Did people actually do such things to each other?

“Does aught ail you, Myrina?”

Gottreb’s querulous voice brought her out of her turbulent thoughts, and Myrina pushed them aside, drawing a shuddering breath before turning to face him. “No, Master Gottreb. I was just thinking.”

“I was beginning to wonder what you were looking at.” The old man paused to cough. “If perhaps faery folk were outside making faces at you through the glass.”

Myrina shivered to hear him say so, so close on the heels of her own similar musings, but forced a brief laugh. “Surely you don’t believe in such things, Master Gottreb?”

The old man shrugged. “I won’t say I do, and I won’t say I don’t. Many a strange tale I’ve heard in the past—some beyond explaining.”

“Like what?”

The old man narrowed his eyes as though thinking deeply. “Like the story of the red stag my father swore led him on a chase through the woods and then vanished in the blink of an eye. Or that of the prince who disappeared without a trace, leaving only his bow behind.” Gottreb nodded, as though seeing the scepticism on her face. “There is even a place in the woods I once found, where although it were winter, the grass was green and littered with flowers. The horse I was on refused to go into it and reared before galloping away. ’Twas a beautiful glade, ringed with trees, and I was of a mind to go back, for it was so pretty. But never could I find it again, although I know these woods like the back of my hand and spent many a day searching.”

Myrina wanted to ask him more about the glade, but his words robbed her of speech. Why was the thought of never being able to find that place again so heartbreaking, when she had run from it as though chased by the devil himself?

Gottreb gestured to a battered chest in the corner of the room. “Look in there for my pouch and take a shilling for the goodwife.” His face was suddenly sly, and his rheumy eyes blinked rapidly. “And there might be a penny in there for you, if you would do an old man a little favour.”

Feigning ignorance, Myrina went to the chest and opened it. Although the pouch lay right on top, she took some time getting it out, knowing her face was already pink with embarrassment. “I’m afraid I can’t stop tonight to do any more for you, Master Gottreb. Perhaps another time.”

The old man sighed, but didn’t pursue the matter. “If you come another time, I will tell you the story of the missing prince.” The old man’s voice was eager, the words rushing one upon the other. “I’m so lonely here, and the company will do me good.”

With her back still to him, Myrina took out the shilling for the goodwife and returned the pouch to the trunk. “I’ll try,” she said, and meant it, for then she could ask him about the glade as well. Bidding the old man goodnight, she left him and stepped out into the twilight.

All around her the night seemed to hum and sing. A full harvest moon was rising, blood red, behind the trees. Suddenly frightened for no reason other than the lingering yearning twisting in her belly, Myrina began to run. She would be safe at home with her mother, out of the woods.

Yet no matter how fast she ran, the sensation of a dangerous, uncontrollable something chasing her would not subside, but followed, snapping at her heels, the entire way home.

When Myrina pushed open the door to their cottage, her mother was dozing by the fire, head slumped to her chest, the flickering light and shadow emphasising her frailty. For a moment Myrina simply stood, letting her gaze take in every line of the beloved face, the once-strong hands now almost bird-like in their delicacy, the small lump her body made beneath the quilt.

The click of the latch as the door swung shut woke the sleeping patient, who looked up to smile at her daughter.

“Ah, you’re home,” whispered her mother, in a soft breathless voice. “You’re later than I expected.”

Myrina turned away to hang up her cloak on a peg by the door and to hide the sudden flame of her cheeks. “Goodwife Harbottle asked me to deliver the woodsman’s provisions, and it took longer than I thought.”

“Hmm,” was the sleepy reply. “I’m glad you stopped for a while with Gottreb. He must be lonely by himself so deep in the woods.”

Wanting to change the subject, Myrina asked, “Did you have some of the soup I left you?”

“Oh, yes. And I’ve already taken my nightly draught.”

Myrina glanced into the pot hanging over the fire and knew if her mother had eaten any, it was only a mouthful. But although words of remonstration rose to her lips, she swallowed them back down and simply said, “That is good, Mama,” before helping her mother to ready herself for bed.

The moon had risen fully by the time Myrina climbed the ladder leading to her little attic room and was so bright she blew out her lamp and undressed by the silvery light. Clad only in her shift, she stood at the window, trying to sort through the disparate emotions—fear, disbelief, desire, shame—all churning together in her heart.

Out there, somewhere, the glade would be bathed in moonlight. The magical circle of trees stood guard. The spirit or faery who spoke in that deep, thrilling voice was there, waiting for her. How she knew that, Myrina could not say, but it was a conviction that grew and widened until the pull of his voice, his passion, was almost too strong to resist.

“No good will come of this, Myrina Traihune. Best to forget—go on as though it never happened.”

The whispered words held no weight and floated away like smoke, insubstantial and unimportant in comparison to the fire raging inside.

Prince Ryllio had learned not to count the days or measure the nights, even when he was aware of them. Time had become meaningless and, for long, blessed ages, he sank into a dream state, as though the stone encasing his body had travelled to his brain, giving it infinite slowness. Between those periods he was awoken by the Fey, became aware of and treasured each contact with the living, be it animal or bird, faery or human, although the latter were rare indeed.

Visits from the Fey were once more frequent, but had slowly dwindled. The king and queen had sometimes returned, rousing him from his stupor to watch their midnight parties in the glade, where they and their court caroused by torchlight. Sometimes, coming alone, they made love as on the first day when they caught him watching. Energetic and adventurous lovers, their couplings left him almost weeping with desire. Better, he thought at those times, for them to have killed him outright rather than torture him in such a cruel way. His body was stone, but his emotions, his needs, remained intact, becoming painful as he watched them make love and was touched and aroused by the tenderness between them.

Golden-haired Kestor also sometimes came to see him, allowing Ryllio a few weeks or months of consciousness, but his visits, like those of the king and queen, came with less and less frequency. The Fey, Kestor once explained, were slowly retreating beyond the veil. Some would always remain in the human world, and there were portals between the two planes if you knew where to find them, but they were becoming fewer. It was only as Ryllio considered the oak on the other side of the glade had gone from sapling to towering behemoth in the time since he last saw a faery that he realised they were probably gone from this part of the human world forever.

“Good riddance,” he thought, but in his heart he knew it to be a sad thing, irrespective of the trouble they had visited on him. The thought of their magic being lost to this world was an unhappy circumstance indeed. And their company, tantalizing and frustrating as it was, was some relief from the loneliness which otherwise was complete. Growing to appreciate the birds that nested in his thicket, the foxes that sometimes denned nearby, was not the same as hearing voices, seeing others like his former self, be they human or Fey.

Living this mostly timeless existence had been the norm, until today.

Now, desperation forced the counting not of minutes but of seconds since the black-haired nymph had left the glade.

She had entered as though in a dream—a little smile tipping the edges of her full pink lips, the motion of her hands languid and graceful as she doffed her cloak. Beneath a small white cap edged with lace lay coils of midnight-dark hair, small tendrils escaping in ringlets to play around her face. Heavy-lidded eyes of sparkling blue seemed to look right at him, and a blush of rosy colour stained from throat to softly rounded cheeks.

Ryllio had felt her presence, her beauty, like the pull of a rope anchored to his soul. As she stopped before where he knelt and reached to unbutton her jacket, the pounding echo of his heart shook his stony prison and rushed in his ears.

The need to touch her, learn who she was, was so overwhelming he forgot the spell holding him in place—tried to reach for her although it was impossible. Straining, he imagined touching her face, the sensation of her peachy skin beneath his fingers. When she arched her face skyward, raising her hands to her cheeks, her neck, Ryllio knew she could hear his thoughts, his wishes, although he knew not how.

Oh, the joy of it! The desire! Watching the innocent exploration, her sweet face tight and flushed with need and knowing she could sense all he desired made Ryllio feel alive, truly human for the first time since his punishment began.

Her small breasts were sensitive. It was obvious from the way simply touching them excited her, took her close to the apex of passion. His yearning to enhance her pleasure led him further and further until he imagined her naked beneath him, thighs open, revealing her most secret place to his avid gaze. She shuddered, her little hand creeping beneath her skirts, and he pictured himself lifting her hips, covering her delicious wet flesh with his mouth.

The sound of her release was sweet torture—the sight of her falling back, writhing among the flowers, crying out again and again, brought him to a pitch of need never felt before. As a man he had loved women, taking delight in their charms. As a lump of stone he had seen beautiful Fey, scantily or even sky-clad, watched the royal couplings and known the rush of arousal. But never had he wanted, craved, another as he did this woman.

Then she ran away, and Ryllio was left to grieve as he had not sorrowed since the days after Mab transformed his body into rock. Again and again he called to her, knowing she could not hear, or perhaps was too frightened to heed, but unable to stop. Each degree of the rising moon was marked, noted, added to the tally of heartbreak when she did not return. And so would it be with the sun the next day, and the next, he knew, and again with the moon or stars each lonely night for eternity.

He did not even know her name, knew not whose loss he mourned—knew only the prison he was in had never felt as all-encompassing as it did this night. And as the moon rose to tint the hollow silver, and the night breezes rustled through the leaves, over and over he whispered:

“I mean you no harm, beautiful one. Please, come back to me.”

And suddenly, as though in answer to his entreating words, she was there—and his heart almost burst with happiness.