Chapter 1
The storm
clouds were barely visible in the distance beyond Hackpen Hill, but that didn’t
stop gooseberry-sized drops of rain from pelting me as a sudden wind whipped my
cloak.
The English
weather could be unspeakable, but there was an upside. The smell of the rain
mixed with the petrichor rose from the freshly plowed fields and mingled with
the chocolate, raspberries, and elderflower truffles in my basket.
Half the joy of
being a confectionary to the fey were the smells and flavors of Wiltshire, it
was one of the reasons I put up with tramping through the mud. The other half
were the stunning vistas most people didn’t see: the fairy castle on Hackpen
Hill, where the king of the fey kingdom of the Fareesee dwelt, which was
invisible to the thousands of tourists who passed through every year. They
would never know of the many wondrous creatures who inhabited both fields and
woods of this land.
“It’s gonna be
a gloomy night,” Noreen complained as she tried to duck under the half-empty
basket I carried in my arms, clearly hoping to use me as a shield against the
rain. But Noreen, my pixie familiar in the form of a hedgehog, was frankly
roly-poly and didn’t fit well under my basket. A golf ball-sized rain drop
landed between her ears, causing her to sputter and curse.
“There’s no
point complaining,” I said. “You were the one who spazzed out and smooshed a
spider. This rain is on you.”
“It jumped into
bed with me, what was I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Not kill it,
obviously. Next time, breathe and think happy thoughts,” I teased.
Noreen groaned
and rolled her eyes. “We were due some rain. I only wish it hadn’t come today.”
Noreen had a
lot of power, and by extension, so did I. Because of this, things considered
old wives’ tales sometimes actually worked for (or against) us, such as
accidently making it rain. Of course, she was right about us being due rain,
not that I’d tell her so. The truth was, it had been a pleasantly warm spring.
I’d been out early to pick the violets and elderflowers that my family used for
cooking.
My name is
Winifred Unity Gaveston, a witch and confectionary to the fairies. I do
everything from mixing the cocoa with the flour and hand-making each step of
the way, because feeding fairies and pixies wasn’t a straightforward task.
Cocoa beans arrived from overseas, but the wheat came from local farmers and
was ground in the old mill. Berries, fruits, and flowers were gathered wild,
and I used local honey rather than sugar whenever we could.
As the baker
and chocolatier, I only created confections and desserts, whereas my father
cooked meals with a dozen helpers in his big kitchen. He was the true master,
but I was happy to bring my own joy with truffles and scones. It wasn’t as
prestigious, but it was the career I’d chosen. I didn’t want the limelight.
Three rainbows
glowed, one above the other, as I turned and trudged up the hill. They shone
over the Chalk Horse mural that adorned the far side of the Hackpen. The storm
was bearing down upon us now, the wind pushing my cloak against my legs as I
avoided the worst of the mud. The trees on the top of the hill began
disappearing into the cloud, and soon, the cottages and fairy castle dotted
along the hillside would be enshrouded in the fog as well. I walked faster,
hoping to outpace the storm, at least long enough to deliver my goods. After
all, no one would want a soggy scone.
“Car coming,”
Noreen said as I climbed a stile over the wall that separated the field we’d
crossed from the road.
I froze in the
tall grass that lined the pavement and held my breath, making myself close to
invisible. They could have seen me if they were looking hard enough, but most
people are too unobservant for that. Not that it would matter much if they
could see me, since people might not know (or even believe) that witches
existed. They even saw us in our strange clothes all the time, but never
commented. Hiding was just habit on my part.
“This rain is
going to ruin Lady Raynott’s ball,” Noreen complained.
“Why? It’s not
like her manor isn’t heated,” I said.
“How can you be
so unconcerned? A hard rain could ruin the entire night.” She turned and shook
her little hedgehog finger at me. “Where’s your empathy?”
“Didn’t you
know? We invented roofs in the last 10,000 years. I’m pretty sure we’ll be snug
and dry all evening,” I said while chuckling to myself.
The Fey tended
toward dramatics, or perhaps they were just overly-emotional. Or maybe they
were equally overly-emotional dramatics. Everything managed to get blown out
proportion for them, and spending my days with an overly-dramatic pixie in the
form of a hedgehog had given me a sharp edge of sarcasm as a defense.
“The roof
covers the boring part of the party, where polite things happen,” Noreen said.
“I prefer to be outside in the gardens, where improper meet-ups happen. The
rain makes that more difficult.”
“Consider it an
added challenge to lure men into the gardens when it’s raining,” I said, trying
to keep my smile under control. “But in a pinch, I’ve found that Lady Raynott’s
library has several interesting nooks where one can be alone.”
“Which you probably
discovered to literally be alone in a library,” Noreen said as she stuck her
tongue out and hopped over some thistles.
I felt the
telltale tingle as we went from the Pixies’ and Moors’ territory in the open
fields to that of the Fareesee’s, who’d taken to hiding in the small patches of
woods in Southern Wiltshire after the Pixies had conquered this land nearly a
hundred years ago.
About a mile
north, the situation reversed. The pixies hid in the trees, and the Fareesees
ruled the open spaces. Since the war, this borderland between two fairy
kingdoms had gone quiet, for the most part. There were still small raids and
skirmishes between the two, but the larger body of witches and Fey Kingdoms of
Britain (in which there were 27) did their best to ensure that the truce stayed
in place.
The clouds
caught up with us, and the sporadic plops of rain turned into a downpour.
Noreen scowled at the clouds and ducked under the edge of my cape, which I’d
hiked up to cover my basket. My legs were wet and cold, and I cursed my
forgetfulness. Why hadn’t I brought my umbrella?
Noreen’s scowl
vanished quickly at the sight of a Fareesee, Miss Bakelsdale, emerging from the
ground. Her twenty plus cats hovered near the door of her den, unwilling to
step out into the rain.
Noreen dared
not be seen scowling in front of a Fareesee, for she was one of the only pixies
allowed on Fareesee territory, only thanks to her being familiar with a
chocolate-making witch (me).
My family were
some of the few people that both sides of every conflict in the region trusted.
Sweets don’t have that much power, but they had been bringing a semblance of
peace to fairyland since a caveman was brave enough to snatch honeycomb from
bees before running like hell. The Fey are even more addicted to sweets than
humans, and they’ll come to blows over chocolate if provoked.
More
importantly, there is magic in the way a human can prepare food that all the
fey need at least a little of.
“Mrs.
Bakelsdale,” I said, bending slightly and handing her a package of truffles and
scones from my basket. In exchange, she gave me a small bottle of lightning.
Mrs. Bakelsdale was one of the few fairies who could gather firebolts. I got
one tiny bottle a month in exchange for my chocolates, and I felt like I was
getting the better deal. Being a chocolatier in the human world wouldn’t make
me much more than a merchant, but among the Fey, it was important enough to
make some of us us minor folk nobility. This was a fact my mother would never
let me forget.
“There are a
few samples of a new wine and pear truffle I’m trying,” I said. “Be sure to
tell me what you think.”
I smiled and
started to turn away, but her hand caught my sleeve.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, “but don’t run
away.” She hit me with her smile, hearth fire warm and beaming. “My cats are
nervous. The kind of agitated they get when dark creatures roam the woods. You
haven’t sensed anything, have you, dear?” She plucked up a bilberry truffle and
took a dainty nibble.
“No, Mrs.
Bakelsdale, I haven’t. Just the normal boogies and werewolves.” I hadn’t even
heard of a troll sighting lately, not that they would show themselves to me.
“This is
lovely, dear,” she said, waving the uneaten morsel of the truffle in the air.
“You should make more. And my cats are never wrong, so you be careful, you
hear?”
“Nothing to be
worried about today,” I said, the rain streaming off the end of my nose.
“Nobody wants to be out in this.”
Mrs. Bakelsdale
didn’t seem to notice the water dripping from the ropey strands of her greying
blond hair, or the fact that Noreen was sheltering under a burdock leaf.
“It will be a
good year for the farms, and you watch, the spring flowers will be out in full
force tomorrow,” she said, lifting her face to the downpour.
“I’m sorry, but
my chocolates will get ruined if they get wet. I really must be moving on,” I
said, taking a step backward.
“Oh, of course!
How silly of me,” she said and held up a finger. “Wait, just a moment, dearie.”
She skipped
through the herd of cats behind her and emerged a moment later, dragging a hot
pink umbrella twice as long as she was tall and handed it to me.
I opened it and
was glad of the reprieve, although a little miffed that she hadn't finished
gossiping.
“Do you know
little Susie Baker, the human girl in the village?” she asked.
“Not really,” I
said, knowing I would shortly know more about her than I wanted to.
“Such a to-do,”
Mrs. Bakelsdale said. “Her parents forbade her to stop seeing the boy that runs
the petrol station, but she refused. They tried to ground her, but that just
doesn’t work these days. They finally told her she’d have to give him up or
move out of the house. But then he dropped her, and nothing came of it. And the
rows that ensued- you could hear them up and down High Street. Young people
these days don’t have any restraint!”
The fact that I
was a young person with plenty of restraint didn’t seem to faze her. She’d
probably say it was because I had so much responsibility or some such dreck,
but I wasn’t going to point it out to her.
“And Rona
Butler got into Cambridge. Such an honor, but she’s going to study literature.
I don’t understand. If I got into Cambridge, I’d study physics or chemistry.
Something difficult. Why waste a Cambridge education on literature? You can
study books anywhere. You don’t even have to leave the house. Don’t you agree?”
Mrs. Bakelsdale asked, eyeing me quizzically.
I nodded,
although I’d lost the thread of the conversation by now. Noreen had a smile
plastered on her face and was desperately trying to keep her eyes open. Mrs. B’s
discussions tended to have a hypnotic effect on Noreen.
“Mrs. B,” I
said, “I’d love to stay and chat with you, but I still have deliveries to do,
and I must get home in time to be ready for the ball, or my mother will be
unhappy.” I smiled apologetically.
“Of course,
dear, why didn’t you say something sooner?” Mrs. B asked. “Off with you, and
don’t forget your little pixie friend.”
I turned to go,
still carrying her hot pink umbrella. If she didn’t ask for it now, I would
bring it back with my next delivery.
“Spriggans,”
Mrs. B said.
I turned back
to her.
“Spriggans?” I
asked.
“The last time
my cats acted like this was when the Spriggans tried to steal my lighting,”
Mrs. B said, waving at the cats waiting under her door roof.
That was
disturbing. Were cats an accurate early warning system for Spriggans? Ghosts of
giants who’d refused to leave the world were dangerous enough, but these were
bandits, known to be ruthless. They mostly lived in Cornwall now. We hadn’t had
a problem with them since Lord Humphrey had taken up his post as Reeve a
hundred years ago. As much trouble as the sheriff gave me, at least he was good
at keeping the peace.
“Be safe, Mrs.
B,” I said, “and lock your doors at night.”
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