Sixty-One Nails: Courts of the Feyre (36 page)

    Meg Highsmith had her hand across her chest as she calmed herself. Blackbird burst through the doorway from the yard.

    "Are you all right? Where have you been? Are you OK?"

    "I'm fine," I admitted under the barrage of questions. "Where did everyone go?"

    "They're readying the forge. You've been gone over two hours."

    "Have I?" I looked at the knife in my hand and then placed it carefully on the table. It faded to grey. "Two hours?" I glanced at my watch, confirming what she was saying, but still finding it hard to accept. "Where were you?"

    "I'm not sure. I think I was in lots of places, all at once. They all overlapped, it was confusing. Some of them were different, really different."

    Jeff Highsmith burst into the door behind Blackbird. "What happened? Are you OK?" He looked to his wife.

    "I'm fine," she echoed my remark. "He just made me jump. One second he wasn't there and the next he was."

    "You've been gone for hours," Blackbird repeated, coming close and looking up into my face. "I didn't know what had happened to you. You just vanished. "
    "I was floating." I tried to conjure up a mental picture of the myriad of places jumbled up together but it just made my eyes ache. I tried again. "There were facets of places, like slivers." I shook my head, trying to clear the fogginess shrouding my thoughts.

    Meg Highsmith was practical. "Do you want tea? Tea is supposed to be good for shock."

    Blackbird declined her offer. "No thank you, Mrs. Highsmith. I think we should go. We've prevailed on your hospitality too much as it is. Is there anywhere nearby where we could stay the night?"

    "I'd offer you a bed here, but…" Jeff trailed off, looking at his wife. She didn't say anything, but her answer was written on her face.
    "That's OK, we understand."

    We could see they were not going to be comfortable with us in the house, given what they'd seen, and neither would we be comfortable there. There was too much iron in the place.

    "Let me phone down to the village for you," she suggested.

    She went through the door into the rest of the house. Jeff stayed with us, unwilling to leave us unsupervised, but with nothing to say.

    "Would you put the knife back in the box for me, Jeff?" I nodded towards the Dead Knife resting inert, its shadow burnt into the tabletop beside it. I didn't want to touch it again and find myself somewhere else.

    He nodded and there was a brief moment of discomfort as he opened the box and slipped the Dead Knife in next to the broken one.

    "What time should we return to collect the new knife tomorrow?" I asked him, taking the box from him and passing it back to Blackbird to stow in her bag. "If you come late morning, we'll have it finished."

    "Thank you. I appreciate that we've just appeared and asked you to drop everything to do this."

    "That's the agreement, isn't it?" he shrugged.

    "Yes, I suppose it is. Is there anything we can do to help?"

    "Not unless you can hold a pair of tongs over a hot forge?" He smiled at our expressions. "No, I thought not."

    Meg returned. "The nearest hotel is in Bridgnorth, but there's a pub in the village called The Chequers that would put you up for the night. They don't take guests normally, so it might be a bit rough and ready, but it's clean. They do nice food. "
    "That's great," Blackbird thanked her.

    "Do you want a lift down to the village, Jeff will take you?" She was obviously feeling guilty now about turning us out.

    "No thanks, Mrs. Highsmith. I think the walk would do Rabbit some good. The night air might clear his head."

    "We'll see you tomorrow, then," she said.

    There was an awkward moment when we would have shaken hands, but Jeff rescued us from it. "Come on then, I'll have to open the gate for you." He escorted us out into the yard. It was full dark now and clouds had appeared to dapple the sky, backlit by a low moon. There was a slice of missing time I couldn't account for that left me feeling slightly at odds with the world.

    "The village is about fifteen minutes' walk down the lane. Are you sure you don't want a lift?"

    "No thanks. We'll be fine making our own way."

    "Yes. I suppose you will. The Chequers is on the main road through the village, on the right. You can't miss it. See you tomorrow then."

    I wished him a good night as we slipped carefully through the gate and into the lane, walking into the darkness a little apart.

    "I was worried about you," Blackbird said, after a few minutes. "You just vanished. I had no idea whether you were coming back." There was a note of accusation in her voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was so long. "
    "Where did you go?"

    "Everywhere, and nowhere. I must have lost track of time. It wasn't anywhere but it was close to a lot of places. You said your elements were fire and air, and when you held the knife, that's what appeared. The same must have happened with me and the void. I think I was between things, in the space that separates. Does that make sense?"

    Blackbird considered this. We were walking along separately and I couldn't help thinking back to when we had both touched the knife. I had felt her presence then, a kind of warmth running through the contact, and I was pretty sure she had felt my presence too. The question was, what had she felt?

    The void was there all the time now, not as an intrusion but rather like a thought mulling away at the back of my head, unresolved. Just thinking about it reinforced the connection with it, calling it forward. So when the flames on the knife held between us had turned black, had she touched that aching emptiness, felt the endlessness of it?

    At first I had been frightened by the void but then I began to understand that it knew me, welcomed me, that it was home for me. Blackbird didn't have that connection. She was something else, a creature of fire and air. Did that mean it felt different for her? Did it frighten her. Repel her? I wanted to ask her, but it was too close to other questions I was avoiding. I had seen Blackbird embrace a monster, shaggy with hair and with tusks for teeth. But the Feyre didn't tell stories of trolls to frighten their children. The Feyre had a different idea of what constituted a monster. They frightened their children with the wraithkin.

    Walking along the lane, the hedges silhouetted against the moonlight, I wondered. Was my future to become like Raffmir and his sister?
    "How are you feeling?"
    She hadn't raised her voice but it sounded loud in the stillness broken only by the rhythmic trudge of our feet. How was I feeling? In the context of my thoughts it was not such an innocent question.
    "OK, I guess. Tired."
    "It's been a long day for you."
    "And a strange one. Full of surprises." I glanced sideways at her, seeing only her outline.
    "Yes, for me as well."

    A car came out of the dark towards us and I dropped back behind her to allow it to pass more easily. It rolled down the lane, coasting past us, its lights bright then gone as it faded into the lanes. I increased my pace to catch up with her, feeling even that small effort draw on my depleted reserves.

    "Not far now," she encouraged.

    We came to the first streetlight of the village and passed beneath it. Houses bunched along the road and a few windows still had curtains drawn back showing families clustered around the bluish light of the TV. A man walked a dog towards us, the dog pulling at the lead to investigate the strangers and then trailing behind to sniff at our passing. At least it didn't start howling. The Chequers was an island of brightness in the village, the car park half-full and the noise of rock music emanating from the bar. It was a large two-storey building with a high peaked roof and tall bay windows with mock-Tudor beams painted black against the white of the walls. We followed the signs to the lounge bar where it was quieter. It was still brash after the quiet intimacy of the darkened lane. There were a few couples sitting at tables and a group of friends, drinking and laughing at the far end of the bar.

    "A very good evening to you both. What can I get you?" The landlord was a stocky man, with a neatly trimmed beard and bushy eyebrows. The welcome was warm considering that he must have known we weren't local.

    "Mrs Highsmith phoned for us earlier, about accommodation?" Blackbird explained.

    "Ah, yes. I spoke to her myself. It's for the one night, is it?"
    "Yes please."
    I leaned against a bar-stool.
    "And it's just the one room, or is it two?"
    "One," she said.

    "Two, please," I said at exactly the same time.

    She turned and looked up at me, and there was something in her eyes I hadn't expected. She looked hurt.
    "One," I said to the landlord.
    "Two," she said at the same time.

    She laughed and the hurt vanished, replaced by amusement.

    She lifted a hand and pressed her forefinger against my lips, hushing me with a touch.

    "We'll have one room please," she clarified, glancing sideways at the landlord.

    "You're sure? It's a double, but we charge the same for two singles." The landlord was amused at our confusion.

    "Quite sure," she confirmed. Her eyes gleamed up at me and she lifted her finger away slowly, daring me to contradict her.

    "Right you are then. The missus is just airing the room for you now, but it'll be a few minutes yet. Would you like a drink while you wait? The kitchen will be closing soon, so if you want food, you'd best order straight away."

    My stomach rumbled in answer to that. "Food would be great," I told him.

    He passed a menu from along the bar. It offered pubgrub standards like lasagne and fried scampi in breadcrumbs. Everything came with chips.

    Blackbird quickly settled on a shepherd's pie and I chose steak. We ordered the local brew and the landlord pulled us two pints of fragrant dark beer before taking our food order through to the kitchen. We took our drinks to a table away from the noise of the other customers.

    The foam of the beer made a moustache across my upper lip, which amused Blackbird. I felt a little awkward after the discussion about the room. Did that mean we were spending the night together or was it that she didn't trust me to spend a night alone without getting into some sort of trouble? We were safe here, weren't we? No one but the Highsmiths knew we were here. "A pigeon for your thoughts," she offered.

    "It's a penny, a penny for your thoughts. "
    "Not where I come from," she grinned.

    I smiled in response and shook my head. "I don't think I'm thinking clearly enough to translate my thoughts into anything worthy of a pigeon. "
    "It's certainly been a full day," she admitted, resting back against the padding of the bench seat. "I'm glad we came here, rather than trying to stay at the farm. "
    "I think Mrs Highsmith would have found that difficult. They are a lot like the people from where I grew up, in Kent. It's the same sort of countryside, similar background. The people keep to themselves, not trusting outsiders. "
    "The Highsmiths are good people."

    "Yes, Jeff will have some explaining to do when this is over, don't you think?"

    "That might be a conversation to stay clear of. Do you think they'll be able to do it, in one night?"

    "We have to trust them to do their part. I don't know anyone else who can do this for us, do you? "
    "No."

    "Then we just have to assume they can and they will. We won't know until tomorrow in any case." We lapsed into silence, the boisterous noise from the group of friends filling the room.

    "So tell me what it was like, growing up in Kent?" she asked.

    It was a neutral topic, away from the trials that tomorrow might bring, so I told her about the village in Kent where people from ten miles away were considered foreigners and everyone knew everyone else's business. She was a good listener and I found myself talking about favourite pets, long departed, and running wild across the countryside with a gang of similarly unkempt children. I told her about making arrows from bamboo sticks filched from the potting shed and bows from willow branches and how we had shot the arrows as far as they would go, just for the fun of running after them and seeing where they landed.

    "It wasn't a safe childhood," I told her, "but it was adventurous. I went weir riding, just the once. The kids that I hung out with had all done it and they dared me. They would get a fertilizer bag and hang off the bridge on the upstream side and then drop and ride the millrace down into the pool at the bottom. "
    "I thought you said you couldn't swim."

    "I can't. And after that I didn't want to. I had this idea that I could grab the bridge on the other side as I passed and climb up. The mill-race was covered in slippery weed and when the moment came I couldn't reach and it swept me down into the roiling water at the bottom. I was pulled under, into the churning river, deep into the hole carved out by the tumbling water, turning and twisting. My lungs burned while I thrashed about, unable to tell which way was up. "
    "How did you get out?"

    "My friend Rich jumped in after me. I nearly drowned him as well, but he fought me off and caught hold of my shirt and dragged me to the bank. I owe him my life for that, I would have drowned. I still don't like water, even now. "
    "Are you still in contact with him?"

    "No, I lost touch with him when I went to university and he went to work on his father's farm."

    "You should send him a postcard or something," she suggested.

    "Dear Rich, still out of my depth here in the land of 'you wouldn't believe'. Having a lovely time. Wish you were here."
    Her smile vanished at my words.

    "I'm sorry, that sounded bitter and I didn't mean it to."

    "That's fine. You're entitled to a bit of cynicism from
    time to time."
    "Am I?"

    I was rescued by the food arriving. We tucked into it and there was silence for a while, punctuated by appreciative grunts from me as I found the steak both large and juicy and the chips freshly cooked. We were both taxed by the day, but the combination of good food and decent beer helped us to recover both physically and emotionally. I finished my steak while Blackbird was still eating, so I told her about my job and projects I had worked on. I ordered another pint while she finished her food and then she told me about life in the university. She described her students, the hopefuls and the wastrels, the ones she knew would pass and the ones that would certainly fail. She parodied her academic colleagues with their pet theories and rivalry, their affairs and indiscretions. Eventually the bar was all but empty.