THE HAG…

Boy to Man.

He grew up overlooking the Atlantic, his playtime spent on the nearby cliffs and beaches, watching birds, catching fish, crabbing, playing chicken with the tide.

Taught by his father to swim, on top and underwater, practicing holding his breath, both in the sea, and in the winter months at home in the bathtub.

His father’s career, a merchant seaman, took him away from home for months at a time, far, far away to exotic climes.

On his return, he’d always bring the boy some gift to mollify him for his absence, for it was true that the boy missed his father, and that the father missed the boy.

Life was hard for the boy without his father at home, times were difficult, and his mother struggled with the maintenance of their home.

Calamities always seemed to befall them when his father was least likely to come to repair some ailing part of the house.

So, part of the young boys growing up, was seeking knowledge of tools and wood from an early age, therefore with hard work and the upkeep of the house thrust on his back, the boy became responsible at an early age.

His mother was good to him, lovingly feeding him, clothing him, and making sure that he didn’t miss his schooling.

He loved learning and was happy to read even more of an evening, but he was intentionally solitary, or spent time with older folk in the local fishing harbour, or maybe off alone along the coast.

If he had any true friends, other than odd school chums, they were the much older grizzled men, dour retired fishermen who sat around the nearby harbour.

‘Men of oak’, as the younger fishermen called them, because they came from harder times, when sail was the norm for fishing boats, not today’s modern Diesel engines.

They’re hands often missing fingers, their palms like sun bleached shagreen, made scaly from hauling rigging or lobster pots, these hard men who scorned him first, but grew to respect him as he did them small favours.

He was always, unlike the other lads, happy to filch a hot mug of tea from the harbour master’s office, or collect their tobacco from the town, and for these favours, these old men would reluctantly trade a yarn or two.

With waving gestures, these ancient mariners would tell tales of the sea, or when he enquired, explain what their tattoos meant for them.

The boy was fascinated by the wrinkled stains upon their hides, the colourful swallow in the crook between finger and thumb, anchors, hearts, the scaly fish laid out across their back.

 Some even had ports of call, or sweethearts or exotic woman’s names scrawled across their heavily veined arms or barrel like chests.

But the one he liked the best, was on a large Scot who’d fished between the tip of Cornwall and Cape Wrath.

This giant of a man with rusty red bushy hair and a full beard and moustache, had a magnificent drawing upon his broad muscular shoulders, or so the boy had heard.

One sunny afternoon after asking the lad for a large, enamelled tin mug of coffee, something that the harbourmaster only gave to this one man, the rumour was that the Master’s life had been saved by the Scot once, it now that the boy asked a favour.

He’d heard the tale at school, that the Scottish seaman had a beautiful tattoo on his back, but that he was loathe to exhibit it.

Having asked, he attempted to stare down the older man, quite ridiculous when the boy at no more than five feet six, had to crane his neck back to look up at the Scot’s eyes at a lofty six feet seven.

Men around the harbour often commented that ‘Wee Haggis’ wasn’t the right shape to be a fisherman, because surely if he stood up in his small Cornish crabber, the boat would capsize when he leaned into pulling a catch in.

These same men would never call him Wee Haggis to his face, or even in his hearing, as he had a mighty reputation for his temper when it broke.

So, the boy hoped that as he stared in the deep blue eyes of the Scot, that he wouldn’t take offence, but he was poised to scamper off if needs be.

The man stood like an iron post on the quay side, and as the boy watched, he lifted the hot mug of coffee to his mouth, quaffed it, wiped his moustache with the back of his hand, and then gave the boy back the mug.

The man foraged in his pocket, bringing forth a rumpled packet of ‘Navy Cut’ cigarettes, he extracted one slowly, put the packet away, found a ‘Swan Vesta’, stooped to the granite quayside, and struck the match, lit his fag.

Standing upright he dragged on the white paper stick, inhaling deeply, the tip of the cigarette reddened, but his face was emotionless as he exhaled a cloud of white smoke out into the boy’s face.

The boy knew better than to ask again, the Scot was known to be unpredictable at times, so he left without a sound and returned the mug to the harbourmaster.

The master smiled and said he’d never seen a harbour rat stand up to Wee Haggis, told him he’d some spunk, but maybe this one favour just wasn’t to be had.

The boy left the shelter of the office to have the Scotsman call him over in his rough accent.

Once again standing before the man, the boy stared up into his wrinkled face, the man stared back, and for a while they stood fixedly glaring.

The harbour edge went quiet as the other harbour rats and more and more men became aware of this match of wills, but then the Scot put his palm out, took a long drag on his fag, before stubbing it out on the skin off his hand, and then dropping the butt to the ground.

Slowly he unfastened the small buttons of his sky-blue washed-out canvas shirt, slipped it away from his shoulders and off, and the boy found himself staring at the man’s massive hairy chest, before he turned and flexing his musculature, showed off the large tattoo on his back.

From base of back, to nape of neck, there was a magnificent, inked picture of a naked woman, correct in all anatomical detail, or was it a woman?

Her skin appeared slightly lightly scaled, her skin colour had more than the merest hint of the shade of a wild winter sea.

Her hair was reddish and there appeared to be ornaments entwined in its many curls, her aquiline nose rode above a curvaceous slightly cruel full lipped open mouth, but her teeth appeared sharp and somewhat dangerous.

The boy wasn’t sure on reflection if she could be called a beauty, but there was no doubt in his mind that she was attractive if unnerving.

She had wide shoulders for a woman and full breasts that jutted proudly, not just hanging from her shoulders, her waist curved inwards before flaring out into her slim but rounded hips.

Between her hips, a hairless mound, the detail of the inking of her sexual outer lips most insightful, the first the boy had ever seen.

On his eyes reaching this detail, his face coloured up, first pink, and then red as he forced his stare to move on.

The legs of this woman were the strangest of all, something wasn’t right, and even with his limited experience of a mature woman’s frame, he’d seen his mother naked once, just a glimpse, he was aware that they did not appear thus normally.

Unexpectedly the Scot flexed his back muscles and turned slightly, it’s then that her legs became a scaly tail, and her face drew ugly.

The boy stepped back, and the Scot turned abruptly to face him, his gruff Scot’s accent rang out.

“Aye lad, it’s a Sea Hag herself, one who tried to drag me down into the briny! You do yourself a favour, should you meet her on a lonely beach or boat, turn away, accept nothing of her favours”.

He loved both his mother and his father, and when home, his father spoke of his adventures on the oceans of the world.

When the boy had been much younger, his father had told his impressionable son of many lands, of islands with dancing palms, and of high seas around the capes.

The boy would often sit at his fathers’ feet on the rug by the fireside, hands clasped in front of his bare knees, and he’d gasp with each new tale that his father would tell from his newest voyage.

Over time, the boy had found out that his father was merely ships cook, not the captain as he’d supposed, but he did have other chores aboard the ships he sailed on.

His father had never told him otherwise, there’d been no exaggerations on his part, it was more the boys desire that his father be a hero.

As the boy had grown older, his father had taught him seaman’s knots and how to cook a good nourishing meal from simple ingredients, but also told him of the somewhat lonely life he led upon the waves.

It became obvious that his father missed his family, and only sailed to pay the bills, also the boy came to feel that if his father hadn’t married, he’d have been free to do as he wished, and not chained to some ship.

It was at this still early age that the boy resolved to live alone, and to pave his way through life in any way he desired.

In his late teens, the boy left school, and he discovered that once away from his chores and responsibilities, he preferred less complicated company.

So, the boy, now nearly a full-grown man at six foot five, and certainly with the determination of an adult male, began to fish as a job with the usually sullen solitary Scotsman.

The fisherman owned a cockle shell boat, a crabby vessel called the ‘The Craic’ and the boy was now a constant addition to its normal crew of one.

They seemed an unlikely pair, but their comradeship became ever stronger as they pulled in the feathers of a catch of Mackerel or hauled in the crab pots.

They often worked in silence, but occasionally the Scot would produce a bottle of his favourite tipple, and he’d encourage a wee break for a smidgeon of craic.

The big man had many tales of the fishing as he called his life’s toil, tales of various ports around the four kingdoms of his drinking, fighting, and squandering his hard-earned money on various women, but never once, could he be brought to again mention his tattoo’s meaning.

The boy would listen avidly, although became somewhat embarrassed when the other man described in full detail his tryst with the many port women that he’d he met.

But on the other hand, he learned a lot about where this grim man had grown up, the hardships and values of the Western Isles.

He lapped up this knowledge, believing every word that the Scotsman dropped, and sometimes he squeezed even more information if the man appeared somewhat hesitant.

It was on this day the boy asked to know the Scotsman’s name, the man was leaning forward examining the label on the whiskey bottle in his hand.

“Aaran, my baptism name, my parents called me Aaran, it’s meaning holds that I am strong like a mountain and enlightened to the natural way.”

Returning home of an evening, his mother would place his meal on the family board, and as he ate, his head would be buried in various books from the local library, the subject he studied? The Outer Hebrides where Aaran had been born and raised.

A year after the boy had left school to fish with Aaran, a man visited his mother, and when he returned from fishing, he found her with her head in her hands, his father had been drowned.

She keened her grief, her sobs carrying throughout the night, the boy was the man of the house now, his own grief he knew, he’d have to tuck away, for now, he was the only bread winner.

Three months later, her grief finally too much for her to bear, his mother threw herself from the cliffs high above the beach, and the man as he was now, knew he’d not be able to console himself of her death by staying at his childhood home.

Settling his family’s affairs brought home some truths that the man had not been aware of, the family home was mortgaged to the hilt, and his father had a large overdraft at the local bank.

After the sale of his parents’ home and using the money leftover to pay off the loan on the house and the bank, he was still in debt, but only by a small amount.

By chance, the Scotsman’s landlady offered him lodgings for a reasonable sum, and the man moved in, and continued to fish with his now close friend.

Two years passed uneventfully, he pulled fish, crabs, and lobsters from the Cornish seas, paid his lodging, bought his food and carefully payed off the remainder of his parents’ debt.

He could have moved away, started a new life, left his now dead parents’ problems far behind, but they’d always looked after him, and now, he felt a need to let them rest in peace, their reputations intact.

He drank of an evening at a local bar above the harbour, often he became drunk and loud, and like his close friend the Scotsman, he was somewhat leary when he drank far too much.

Because of this, the local girls, although admiring his work hardened physique and flashing sea green eyes, tended to avoid more than a fleeting kiss.

Sure, there were pretty lasses who flirted with the now twenty something man, but their mothers warned them of his known temper with the drink, of how other men would move when he hove into view.

They said that a man such as this, was not the type to marry, for if they did, they’d maybe long regret this union.

It was true though that the locals had time for the man, he worked hard for his money, he caught some of the best fish the port had seen, and he paid his debts, and for these reasons he had their respect.

However, when one day Wee Haggis’s boat was seen to leave the harbour as normal on the early morning tide to ply the sea, but later when it didn’t return with the tide, there was consternation, for it was well known that the Scotsman couldn’t swim.

There was concern for the other man, his companion, but he could swim well, and unlike Aaran, he often wore a life jacket.

The lifeboat was launched, the coastguard notified, and fishing boats, manned by the men of the harbour searched for bodies, or signs of wreckage from of the Craic, but none was found.

Then five days later, ‘Wee Haggis’ was found washed up a mile north along the rugged coast, where the drifting currents had carried his corpse.

His massive frame stretched out on the yellow sands, the crabs and fish had been at him, but he was still easily identified by his Sea Hag tattooed back, but of his fishing companion, sightings none…

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Four – Part 9.

Chapter Four – Part 9.

Btu Chun below Sheffield’s Brightside.

Chun observes one of the children above him, to be as Man would call him ‘Evil’. This is the one he will take first, this one he will hide away deep down in the soil, this one he will have sport with. The other child however would seem to be good, not that Chun really understands good or evil, for Chun had no religion, nor even understands the concept. If it had not been for the Green Man’s curbing of his activities, he would be rampaging throughout Cornwall enjoying himself. Here in the north however, Chun believed him-self to be safe from the Green Man’s rebuke. Since the Green Man had bound him with magic spell, Chun had no option but to obey his now Lord, but Chun was always conspiring to win his freedom back. Chun is not aware of his Lord leaving Carniggy House for a very long time, and he has the germ of an idea that indeed the Green Man cannot leave his home any longer. Chun’s Lord will however be a worry no more shortly, when Chun’s new cunning plan comes to fruition, and so Chun turns his full attention to the two young boys in the street above. One of them has been chasing the other, and now events are coming to a climax. The younger and better boy, is attempting to hide from the other, and to Chun, the lad’s fear of the other boy is almost tangible. The chaser has now bent to scrabble for a stone on the edge of a large pothole in the roadway. Chun realises that this boy fully intends to hurt the other lad when he catches him, Chun strikes like a snake, up through the ground, grasps the boys ankles and draws him down.! The lad makes no sound, and Chun binds him with a spell and then tucks him away for later. Chun’s attention now turns to the other boy who is inside an old building, trying to find to somewhere to hide, and he feels sudden fear bloom in the boy, strange.!

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Jack Roberts inside the factory.

Under the stairs, yes definitely something or someone moves. I’m scared after all the faery stories I have read and heard, I’m sure something ugly and bad waits for me within that gloom.

Yes, yes.! I clearly see something now, something whirring, something spinning in the darkness and then two red points of light, just like a great beasts eye’s.! I stumble back and fall heavily as something fast, something dark, flies out, and over my outstretched body as I lie prone on the cold damp factory floor. My skin goose bumps, and I roll to see what is behind me, there is darkness, struck through with many colours and hues, and rising from about a foot above the concrete to the very factory ceiling, it stretches outward across the room. Then from behind me I hear a low grumbling voice. I rise from the floor, but I fear to turn, for what beast now stands behind me..? The weight of what I think is a hand descends on my right shoulder, and slowly I am turned against my will. My body is shaking, my teeth chattering, for I truly believe I am about to die, and I feel a dampness in my shorts, I’ve pissed myself. I clench my eyes tight, not wishing to meet my assailant eye to eye; maybe I think that if I cannot see it, then it will not be real, although the weight of the hand on my shoulder belies that thought.

The smell of my fresh urine floods the air as I stand before some hideous creature from the depths, and then I feel warmth upon my face and opening my eyes fully expect to see a demon with open maw breathing into my face. Instead there is the factory stairs, and I realise that the weight upon my shoulder has gone. From behind me I hear a whirring sound, and its almost as though a thousand birds were in the room with me. There is a chattering, but this babbling is unlike any bird song I have ever heard, and with these sounds comes an intense perfume as though I am surrounded by a truckload of flowers on a summer’s day. As I stand looking into the space between the stairs and listening to the sounds behind me, I see an old man peering back out of the blackness at me, and he beckons with one hand, somehow I how it would be best if I were to follow him. Walking forward as though in a dream, I see him grow dim and start to fade, and then from each side of me, things start to fly past to disappear beneath the stairs, more and more, and I have the impression they are flowers, how can this be.? As I draw nearer to the gap beneath the stairs, I grow nervous once again, and hover on the edge of its shadow. The flowers, if that is what they are, fly past with increasing speed, until they are no more than a blur, and then all are vanished, and yet still I linger on the edge of uncertainty. For if I go, will I return.? I feel as though some wonderful enchantment awaits me within, and is just out of my grasp, and then I hear a hideous sound from behind my back and turn. My back is now to the uncertain darkness, but before me, I see a hideous apparition, a creature all covered in brown/green-matted fur, and its jaundiced eyes are fixed on me. I know this to be death come for me, so I willingly back into the dim hole behind me, feel warmth and comfort and then there is a bright light, so bright I must close my eyes again.

The air I am breathing is impossibly sweet, its warm, there’s no breeze I can detect, and so gradually I open my eyes. Before me are some trees, and they are arranged to make a square, with one tree at each corner. The trees are covered in with intense pink flowers, and when I say covered, I mean I can see no branch or twig through these blooms. As I stare at them, they appear to shuffle on the branch, and then settle once again.! In the centre of the square is a white statue that looks as if it is carved from stone, and it seems to be wearing a headdress of flowers in full bloom, its clothing is some sort of draped cloth that is also covered in the same flowers. Its quiet here, and even straining my hearing, there is not a sound to be heard. Gazing around me, and then farther a field, I see the garden is walled in on every side, and that the walls are made from heavy grey blocks and also that is very high. Moss and lichens cling to its surface, and I know I could climb this wall, so outside will remain a mystery for the moment. There’s movement within the garden and I turn back to the statue in the middle, and see that it’s gone! Hastily I look around me for it, and its then I spy a wooden house set into one of the walls, its roof line all curved and carved with fantastical beasts. Along that wall and in one corner, grows a massive tree, but although its boughs bend low, I can see from here that I would not be able to reach them to climb up and escape. Looking back to the house again, I see that a woman is walking towards me from the house, under her feet, flowers seem to bud and then flower and as she draws near, she speaks

 “Good day my friend, I am ‘Hav’, or as I would be called in your world now ‘Summer’ and who are you?”

Up close to me now, she is so beautiful, she almost sets my teeth on edge, and her odour arrives in great wafts, intense summer fruits, flowers and newly mown grass. I just know that she is a Goddess, and here am I standing in my freshly pissed shorts, I feel myself blush, and she laughs, her laugh reminds me of ice cream, sweets, Christmas and many other joyous things..

 

 

 

 

 

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Four – Part 7.

Chapter Four – Part 7.

Four years later, Btu Chun in the caverns below Carniggy House on the Lizard.

 Chun strode the caverns; he was starving and would need to eat very shortly. He was like all of the Green Man’s vassals unable to kill and eat anything within the walled garden of Carniggy, so he must look farther afield. Chun turned to look to where Bertram Smythe stood by Chun’s cooking pot, his empty cooking pot which hung over dead coals, time had past by, but as of yet the time was not right for Chun’s deed to be committed on the Green Man. Chun could have eaten the corpse of Bertram, sated his hunger with the rotting flesh. Chun however wanted to rule the world, and believed that with the Green Man gone, he ‘Chun’ would inherit the powers of the House above, and then his fist would descend upon man. So Chun needed Bertram much more than he hungered, but that need to feed would have to be appeased. At the same time however, Chun was aware that the Green Man’s ‘Major domo’ Jago was missing from the house and garden, and he decided on a whim to find Jago, and food for himself in one trip. Chun knew that one of the Green Man’s daughters was in the north, and Kynyav (autumn), had Chun was aware, been with child the last time she had resided in her walled residence. Chun was sure that she was with the father of her child, and that Kynyav had birthed an heir for the future of Carniggy.

Chun stands clenching his fists, the Green Man had not called him to do any work for a few years, and it was almost as though he had forgotten Chun.! Chun had nothing to do, and when bored his mind tumbled with awful images of before the Green Man had brought him to Carniggy and curbed his excesses. Although he had his master plan, Chun felt it was time for him to leave Carniggy, he felt the pull of his need, his need to kill and revel in the warm blood of his kill. When he had slaughtered Bertram for the theft of the Green Man’s clock, the experience had reawakened this need again within him. Chun looked away from his vassal Bertram and then made a decision, he’d go north, follow Jago’s trail, and once he found him, he’d see if his feelings on the birth of Carniggy’s heir were in fact true, and then maybe, just maybe, he’d make feast on the child.

Early September in Brightside Sheffield.

Young Jack Roberts is playing cars in the front lounge of his home, his mother is trying to iron; it’s how she earns her meagre wage. ‘Jackie’ as his mother calls him, is only seven, and his play is raucous as he imitates the sounds of the various vehicles he imagines. Jack has been home for the last six weeks and has really gotten on his mother’s nerves, she is looking forward to his return to school tomorrow, but at this very moment she is really frazzled.

“Jackie, will you not shut up for yur mam.?”

Jack took no notice, he was used to his mother shouts and also the occasional pinches and slaps. Jack just kept playing in earnest, he was well aware that tomorrow he would have to return school, and he trying to put that out of mind. Jack was a rather insular child who did not make friends easily and had suffered at the hands of the bullies who took full advantage of his lack of pals. Jack never heard the slap coming, his mother frustrated with his lack of hearing her commands, had left her ironing board and bent to deliver his punishment along with another screamed order,

“For God’s sake Jackie, go out to play, I don’t want to see you until its teatime.!”

The slap stung Jacks ear and he scuttled out of the mean lounge into the uncarpeted hallway, and then out through the front door. The door exited just like all the other terraced houses, straight onto the pavement, outside there were other children playing street football, hop scotch and a variety of other games. As soon as he stood on the pavement with the front door shut firmly behind him, and knowing full well that a return to the house would result in his mother ire being vented upon him physically, he heard a loud shout. One of the local street bullies had spotted him already, and without thinking Jack ran the opposite way to the shout. Jack neither looked behind to see if there was pursuit, nor thought of where he was running to, all he wanted was escape, escape from the bully, and escape from suffering anymore of his mother’s anger. Jack ran, and ran, but eventually of course he lost strength as he tired, and he came to a stop and looked around. Brightside was largely industrial, lots of factories churning out smoke and dirt, but there were just as many empty buildings as there were filled with industrious men and women, and Jack discovered he had stopped right opposite one of the empty ones. The building windows were like vacant eyes, dark and grey, and Jack found it hard not to believe someone was watching him from them. The cracks in the pavement under his sandaled feet were filled with various weeds; ants crawled languidly about little dusty piles of fine earth as they attempted to improve their nests. Jack knelt to see the ants better and then in his now crouched position, he had the sudden feeling he that was definitely being watched, and from further down the street there was a shout, and look to where the cry had come from, Jack saw another boy, one of the bullies he presumed.

“Jack you turd, I see you!”

Jack leapt to his feet and then frantically looked for somewhere to hide, the entrance to the old factory beckoned and Jack ran towards its entrance and finally disappeared into the depths of the shadows in the interior.

If Jack had stopped, and looked backwards to the street before entering the factory, he would have seen that the boy who had shouted at him had disappeared, and that it was as though he had never even existed.

 

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Cora turns five. 

The years have whipped by and Cora who is now five has been a fast learner, Kynyav has taught her at home, and Cora is so knowledgeable now about the English language, that she is using words that even I do not understand, all this astonishes me. In her bedroom Cora has a little desk that she likes to study at, I worry a little that Cora is not having a true childhood, but Kynyav assures me that Cora gets plenty of time to play, and I admit she spends a lot of time in the garden. Even when it rains, she will be outside of the house, although she will hang out in the shed talking to her two imaginary friends rook and Jago then. With Kynyav in the house and now Cora, it seems as though the weather has no effect at all in our garden, but if I venture away from the house in winter, it feels somewhat colder out of their company.

Over the years I have noticed some strange things that have happened since Kynyav has come to stay with Cora. Our fruit trees that Kynyav and I planted together seem now to be flowering and fruiting at the same time, and all year around. What is more unnerving though is that once amongst the branches a plum tree in our garden, I saw a little man eating a plum. He was sitting on one of the branches as bold as brass, his legs hanging down and swinging from side to side. Now I have become used to seeing all sorts of strange things out of the corner of my eye, but this was broad daylight and I was looking straight at him, straight at him..! But I could have let that go, and even walked away, if it had not been for the plum flower sitting next to him, and to which he was talking to.! I was gobsmacked to say the least, and when he turned to look at me, he spoke, calling me ‘Tom’ and asking if I would give them some privacy.! As I backed away, I saw the plum flower had a small face and legs, sprouting from under the flower petals. So if the faery, and it must be a faery I felt, had been standing; the petals would have been something like a natural skirt. I stopped and unashamedly stared, and then I saw it had little shiny black pinprick eyes, no nose, and a slit for a mouth, a mouth it opened wide in a yawn, and revealed that it had shark like teeth.! Now that’s one faery I wouldn’t wish to meet on a dark night, or to be truthful, I would not wish to meet it in the garden in the daytime, and especially if it has its brethren with it.!

 

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Four – Part 6.

Chapter Four – Part 6.

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Below Carniggy House on the Lizard cliffs.

It’s the darkest of nights, and Btu Chun is revelling in his necromancy, he had fashioned a sword from Bertram Smythe’s heart and various Cornish metals earlier, and he now wields the blade above corpse of Bertram. The blade glints even in the intense darkness of the caverns below Carniggy House, but only Chun sees this, for the sword is black, and the tiny sparkles are even blacker, but to Chun’s trained eyes, they are easily seen. Chun stands and mutters a long and complicated spell, and as though his words are somehow solid, he scoops them from the air with one of his huge taloned hands, and then presses the solid spell to Bertram’s forehead, before plunging the blade deep into where Bertram’s heart had been. Chun steps away from Bertram’s corpse, he leaves the sword within his chest, and then Chun turns and crosses the cavern to his cooking pot, which rests on a bed of red-hot coals. The coals attempt to light the cavern, but their poor light fails miserably against the powerful profundity of darkness. From behind Chun, and out in the blackness he has just left, comes the sound of a rasping indrawn breath, Bertram lives again, and there’s a rattling clank as the sword falls to the rock flooring.! Btu Chun has a use for a dead, and yet living Bertram. It is a goal most unpleasant that tempts Chun to this enchantment, but for now he will have to hide the undead Bertram here in the caverns until the time is right. Only then will Bertram will be given back the sword that Chun has fashioned with his magics, and then, and only then, Bertram will issue forth into the outside world once again to carry out his deed most foul.

Above the caverns in the Carniggy House, the Green man sitting slouched in his chair in his study feels Bertram awaken in the caverns below. The Green Man had felt Btu Chun’s earlier unwholesome magics, knows of the casting of the black blade. He is feeling most tired nowadays, and he knows the world will not last for another eternity with him looking after it, The Green man also knows exactly what Btu Chun, his so called vassal, has a mind to do, and what foul deed he has dreamt up. However the Green Man will not enquire of Chun, for what is going to be, will happen no matter how hard the Green Man seeks to change events of his future. So instead he turns his mind inwards, and seeks ‘Jago’ in his thoughts, ah there he is, and he appears to be having breakfast with Rook, Rook whom the Green man has sent back to the north to check on his new granddaughter.

Kynyav seeks to keep the birth of her child a secret, but in the past nine months that she rested fast asleep in her garden under her cherry trees, he had seen her belly growing fuller each month. So now she has returned to the father, a father that the Green man is content with, but the child still needs protection from the men around her in the outside world, and also from Pan, who has followed Kynyav, hence the need for Jago to be in the north with her.

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Tom, Kynyav and Cora several months later.

I find myself seemingly to be sitting in someone else’s garden, or that’s how it feels to me. There are sunflowers towering over my head, and out of season.! I am enjoying one of our new deckchairs (recently bought at Kynyav’s on insistence), We have two new borders, recently dug by me, one filled with flowers, and in fact although I knowing nothing of flowers, I think some of them are meant to flower only in the summertime, and yet here they in our garden in full bloom. The other border is crammed with vegetables that are huge and ripen much too quickly to my mind, and so of them I have not heard of.. I took some of them to a guy down the road who has a little allotment, he was most puzzled when he saw them, saying that he too had no clue what type they were.! I mentioned this to Kynyav when I returned home, and she just smiled the little smile that I have come to realise means no more would be forthcoming on that particular subject. A few weeks later however, I saw the same man in the corner shop, and he told me that his allotment was now growing the same vegetables, and also it was also more verdant, oh and by the way, Kynyav had visited him to see his allotment for herself.

After that meeting of my friend within the shop, I find out that somehow we have an allotment of our own now, Kynyav seems to like me working amongst the flowers and vegetables. In this new patch of ground she has planted a cherry tree, and also plum and apple trees. Cora’s out here with me in the back garden, enjoying the hot sun, she’s been happily crawling around on the little bit of grass that we have left around the garden shed, meantime Kynyav is in the kitchen making dinner. I’m not quite sure how, but Kynyav uses our garden produce for all our meals, and cooking all sorts of vegetarian dishes that I have never tasted. I find to my surprise that I do not desire meat any longer and do not even miss it. Nowadays I hardly ever visit the corner shop for anything much, just condiments mostly, although Kynyav makes us mustard, but I must buy vinegar and salt, pepper she somehow grows. Everything Kynyav touches in the garden seems to grow so fast, she tells me that she has her father’s hands when it comes to growing things, and certainly the tomatoes, cucumber and melons we grow are not only large, but also taste delicious, so maybe there’s something in what she says. When however I tell her that she has ‘green fingers’, she holds out her hands, looks at them quizzically, and then looks me straight in the eye saying seriously, that her hands are mostly milk white, but her fathers fingers are most definitely green.!

My life as settled into yet another rut, but one that I can honestly love, and although I do the same job of work as always, coming home to Kynyav and Cora makes that somehow ok now.

As time passes there are however odd events that worry me sometimes, like when I catch Cora apparently talking to a rook, the same rook which seems to live very close by. When I ask what her conversation with the rook was about, she tells me she is enquiring after her grandfather.! I don’t ask how the rook would know about her grandfather though, and later I tell Kynyav about what I have overheard, and also Cora’s reply to my questioning. She tells me that Cora is just playing like a normal little girl, and that she has several fanciful friends that I shouldn’t worry about. Rook is apparently one, and another is called ‘Jago’, when I ask who ‘Jago’ is however, Kynyav gives that look of ‘leave the subject alone’.

Another thing puzzles me; at night sometimes there are loud bangs at the front and back doors, which Kynyav always insists are well locked up before darkness falls. When I said I was going to investigate, Kynyav said not to worry, and diverted my attention with her voluptuous body, but even so the thuds and banging un-nerved me, especially as then happened right after dusk. Kynyav would tell me to put these concerns from my mind, and somehow she calms me and makes me feel secure.

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Four – Part 5.

Tom in a northern city

Chapter Four – Part 5.

Holding Cora in my arms, I feel her little bodies warmth through the swaddling cloth, and there and then I swear an oath to always care for my child no matter what.! I find the intense emotion of paternity for the very first time strange, but maybe it’s part of a love spell cast upon me on by Kynyav, and maybe it’s always been inside of me, but hidden away in the depths of my head . Kynyav has now presented me with such a beautiful baby girl, a beautiful baby girl, whose eyes are wrinkled up in a smile that would seem to be just for me, and I suddenly understand why men find themselves so protective of their daughters. I sit down on the couch beside Kynyav, holding our baby carefully in my arms, Kynyav seems to be almost asleep, and so I deduce that the journey here has been arduous for her, and just as she had described to me earlier. Thinking back to her explanation, I wonder again who Pan is..?

When next I consciously think, I realise that I have been asleep on the couch next to Kynyav, and as I slowly wend my way back from sleep, and find the air to smell strongly of primrose, strange. As I look about the room, sleep still clouding my thoughts; I see something up in one of the corners of the room. It appears to be a solitary yellow flower spiralling slowly to the carpet, and then suddenly I hear what appears to be a loud band from the front door.! Instantly I am fully awake, and I see that once again Kynyav appears to have left, and then abruptly I think of the baby she brought with her, where is the babe I held in my arms earlier, and then I realise she has taken my Cora away with her..!

I panic for a moment as I sit there on the couch listening to the silence that reigns within the house. I’ve only just found out that I have a gorgeous daughter, and already I seem to have lost her. I get off the couch as I remember the loud sound from the front door, and go out into the hallway, there to open the door. Nothing, no one, and I guess some kids are having a laugh on me, although they should be at school at this time of day.? Having looked up and down the street, I turn to shut the door; it’s certainly not warm out here in the street and I don’t want to lose what heat I have in the house, and it’s as I go to draw the door closed that I see the surface of the front door has been scored right down past all the many years of gloss paint, scored right down to the bare wood.! Who the hell.? And then I think I hear a soft noise from upstairs in the house. I shut the front door firmly, but quietly, and move to the bottom of the stairs. At the first step I stand and listen hard, but hear nothing. Slowly, and carefully, I climb the stairs one at a time, and once at the top of them, I once again take time to listen carefully, and just as I think that I have imagined the noise, there’s a slight giggling from the bedroom.

The bedroom door is ajar and I give it a gentle shove, as it swings open, the first thing that I see is Kynyav lying propped up on the bed, and she’s obviously just fed Cora, whose gurgling contentedly now. I tear my eyes away from my new daughter, and catch her mother’s eyes, whose golden hazel depths have me lost for words.

It’s Kynyav who speaks first, and she asks me if she can have some herbal tea, and also do I have any vegetables in the house..? I warn her that I shall have to go out, as I have nothing of what she wants.! Kynyav then asks me what I eat myself, and I reply,

“Baked beans mostly, bread, and sometimes sausages..”

“That’ll have to change, but I can cook, and you look as though you need some feeding up.”

I ask her if she is going to be staying with me..? And quite simply Kynyav tells me that we have a child to bring up now, and life will have to change for both of us.

I slip out of the bedroom, down the stairs and out of the front door; it’s only a two-minute walk to the corner shop, where I select a lot of different vegetables, carrots, potatoes, parsnip, and swede to name a few. I then rifle through the tea section, and to my vast surprise, I find they actually do have herbal teas, so I add a few boxes of various flavours to my basket. When I arrive at the checkout however, the local woman whose known me since I was a boy, takes a good look into my basket, and then takes a hard look at me, before laughing and saying,

” Come over all weird have you pet, where’s your usual beans, or have you gone and got a woman at last.?”

I feel myself blush, she’s laughs again, and then bags up my items, and then I’m off out into the street before she can inquire as to if, I actually have a woman.! There will be plenty of gossip as it is, without fuelling it even further now. I don’t even know if Autumn is going to stay with me yet myself, and then add a baby, my baby to that equation, and I’ll be the talking point of the street for several months..! Back at the house, I’m not sure what to do with the vegetables, or even what she might do with them. I personally cannot see the point of cooking, and not when there’s a good chippy just two streets over. I put the kettle on however, and whilst it starts to boil, I read the instructions on the side of the first fruit tea box I pick up. ‘Black currant’, I remember my mum making me hot Ribena, and remember just how much I enjoyed that. I set out two mugs, and drop the one of the sweet smelling tea bags in each mug, followed by the now boiling water. I leave the teabags to brew for about four minutes, and whilst I’m standing idle in the kitchen and as the time ticks by, my eyes are drawn to the kitchen window that looks out over the back garden. There’s movement out there, damn it, have I got some pesky kid in the garden again! The kids around here seem to think my garden is some sort of assault course, and I’m always chasing them out of it.

The back door leads into a small lean to porch, and I have to traverse any number of obstacles to reach the locked door that leads out into the garden. Since my first encounter with Kynyav, and the sudden changing of my ways, I’ve been trying to cultivate the mud patch I call ‘Garden’ into a flower and vegetable patch. Somewhere to sit out in and enjoy what nature you can encourage into a northern town, and that’s not much. So the porch is full of gardening essentials, wellies, implements for digging and turning the soil, weed killers (they’ll have to go now I have a daughter), and many other sundry items. In my haste to unlock the door, and luckily the key is always left in the lock, otherwise that would have been a failing point straight away; I fall heavily over my dirty wellies, banging my head on the way down. On picking myself up, I find myself somewhat dizzy, and so it’s in that confused state that I finally arrive outside in the garden.

I stare out from the porch doorway over what is largely mud patch with odd tuffs of grass sprouting here and there. I’m not much of a gardener and there’s not much out here apart from the little wooden shed at the far end of the narrow strip of garden. Well there appears nothing untoward out here, and certainly no errant children to be seen. Standing here in the wan autumn sunlight, I realise I need to get a grip; I seem to be always seeing things that are not there nowadays. I guess I’d better check out the shed though. I have bought a new padlock, and although the little wooden building is crammed with things, it’s mostly rubbish from the house, paint tins, brushes and the like. Still I should at least take the time to check that nothing has been stolen, it might be a boon if they have taken some of my crap. Luckily at this time of year, the mud has all dried up so that I do not need my wellies, so I plod out across the long strip of land between the house and the back garden wall, and finally arriving where the shed nestles against the back wall. Once there, and the sunshine feels mighty good upon my t-shirt covered back, I rattle the padlock, to find it’s still firmly locked. On a whim and with no real thought, I look in through the sheds one dirty window. The shed looks just as it should, and apart from some leaves that must have blown in last winter, there’s nothing much more to note, apart from in one shaded corner there lies what looks like an old horse chestnut casing, I’m not sure where that came from, but next time I go into the shed, I’ll kick it out to the compost heap. What I don’t see as I leave the window and start to walk back to the house however, is the spiky ball unfolds, and a little brown face stares out, the face yawns, before rolling inwards in itself again… Jago is already bored with his quest..!

As I amble back to the porch, I’m almost reluctant to go back inside yet, as the sun is so pleasant on my skin and I look up into the clear skies, not a cloud in sight, it’s a fact that the weather has been better since Kynyav returned to me. I notice that there’s a large rook perched on the guttering of the house, and I hear it caw, I smile to myself, for a moment I could have sworn the rook said the name ‘Jago’.!

 

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Four – Part 3.

Chapter Four – Part 3.

Tom in the northern city of Sheffield

I suddenly realise with a start, that she is speaking to me and I have been rudely staring into her face, just busy losing myself in her strange beauty, but as I return from my daydream, I realise she’s speaking a language that I do not understand. This is not too surprising as I only just about learned English when I was at school. I’m no fool, but my learning’s been more through the hard knocks of life rather than academic. She’s still talking in her lilting accent, which weirdly sounds a little like some Celtic dialect, something about her speech reminds me of a friend I had at school who had come from Wales to live in Sheffield, and he could swear really well in Welsh. At the same time I begin to wonder if she’s on some sort of drug, there’s plenty of people around here who take them to relieve the boredom, but I’ve no time for that, but then of course I just drink myself to a stupor on the weekends.

And then she stops her dirge, and says to me,

“what’s your name man..?” 

I’m sure there’s a more polite way to address me to my face, but what the hell, it’s not very often, in fact I’d say never, that I get interest from such a gorgeous woman,

“Tom, Tom Espenson…” 

She sits quietly for a moment and then she speaks softly again,

“There’s a strength in that olden name, your surname that is, and I’ll wager you are the one that I have been looking for here in the north. How would you like to take me to your home ‘Tom Espenson’…?” 

I’d just taken a mouthful of my mild when she spoke, and very nearly spat it out all over the table so surprised was I.! Was this the hidden fault of the perfect woman in front of me, this wondrous woman, who’d go home with just anyone.? I thought she was too good to be true, was she in fact a prostitute.? I mean even if she was, I’d not be turning her down, but she’d not be a keeper if she turned out to be that easy. And so I find myself standing from my chair, and then as if in a dream moving to the pubs doorway with this vision of loveliness on my arm. At the doorway out to the chill of winter, I pulled my coat and scarf from the coat pegs, and then offered her my coat. The woman looked at me, and shook her head slightly, the landlady called out something as I reached for the door handle, but I just raised a hand and gave her wave, as my mind was already lost in thoughts of what this woman might look like undressed and lying on my bed. My bed… I realised suddenly what a mess everything was at home, but then also knew that I’d not take the chance of putting her off now that she’d suggested that I take her to my home. Fleetingly I wonder what her name is.?

On opening the pub door, I’m welcomed by a blast of freezing air from outside, I step out onto the slippery pavement, and then turn to make sure that this mystery woman is actually following me. I’m wondering now if this isn’t all some kind of joke that some of the locals are playing on me, I’ve never seen myself as the type of guy who walks into his local, and straight back out again with the hottest woman he’s ever imagined, let alone seen in real life. Standing on the pavement waiting for her to exit the warmth of the pub, I see her walk out through the ‘Jack O’Green’s door, and feel an instant difference in the air around me, it’s warmer somehow, and then I’m surrounded by her perfume which seems even stronger outside, we set off up the street towards my house…

The street is empty, the smell of coal fires burning, hangs in the air, I can almost taste it so strong is the aroma, the woman’s perfume, if that what is, is somewhat diminished by this so-called fresh air. The roads gutters are full of miscellaneous rubbish, fag ends and chewing gum covers the pavement, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a street cleaner here. There is only a smattering of cars; most of the residents of Brightside being far too poor to even contemplate owning a personal vehicle. On my street, the is only one, and that’s an old crumbling wreck, a Morris Minor which has seen much better days,  and that it’s owner uses to go out with his missus on the odd Sunday. When he starts the Morris, it coughs and sputters into life, and each time I hear it, I honestly believe that the engine will die, but the guy who owns it, tickles it into rattled life, and then off they go to the countryside. I’m sure everyone on the street is envious of them, I know I am, and I always daydream when they have putt putted to the end of the street, and then turn away from the greyness of northern city life.

We reach my front door, I fumble for the house keys in my coat pocket, and realising they are not there, wonder if I’ve put them in my jeans pocket, a much more sensible place. The woman however pushes past me gently, telling me that she thinks I may well have left the door unlocked. Her hand rests on the handle of the front door, and she’s so close to me now that her hair is blowing in my face in the evening breeze. The wind should be freezing, but with her red hair resting on my cheek, it almost feels as if it’s an Indian Summer in Autumn, warm and reassuring, and I wonder how I can be so pissed on one pint of mild to actually imagine that the weather outside is so warm..?

The handle turns beneath her hand, she swings the door inwards and steps inside.. Now there’s a first time for everything, but I never ever go out without locking my house door, and then checking that I have locked it securely. There’s reason for that, because without a doubt, the thieving bastards around here would strip my house clean in a moment, and although I haven’t much, what I do have, I want to hang on to.

Once we are both inside and the door shut, I think to myself that I will worry about the front door keys later. I start pulling off my heavy coat and hear the keys drop onto the linoleum floor.! It’s almost as though when I thought of the front door keys, they appeared! I’m starting to get used to the fantasy state I presently seem find myself in, and just suggest a brew to the woman, what is her name.? The woman is not having any of that drink tea business though, and even before I can complete tugging my coat off, she’s persuading,me up the narrow stairs to my bedroom. Once at the top of the stairs, she yanks me into my chilly bedroom. She’s damn quick, or I’m slow, because I seem quite befuddled by her perfume, almost as though it was some drug. Her deep wide golden hazel eyes seem to be bewitching me, and then she’s somehow out of her clothes and quite naked. I get a momentary glimpse of her white curved back, a back that is covered with what I see now to be little leaf shaped freckles. Theses freckles appear darker on her shoulders, sitting on her white skin like small shawl, and as my gaze runs fleetingly down to the top of the cheeks of her buttocks, I see they also become denser across the domed tops. She bends showing me the perfect vision of a well-rounded bottom, clambers swiftly into my bed where she slips beneath the quilt. I’m not sure, but I do believe she has a tattoo running underneath her full pink nippled breasts, a tattoo which looks a little like Autumn leaves in shades of red and brown, and in the moment that I see her naked, and climbing into my bed, I could have sworn I saw this tattoo shiver ever so slightly as though wind has gusted the leaves. I wonder for a couple of seconds if the leaves I saw on her back were actually tattoo’s like I originally thought back at the ‘Jack O’Green, or freckles, or just my imagination.

Well I’m not slow in joining her in the bed, the rooms so damned cold, and my skin goose bumps all over as I speedily strip, and I’m beginning to wish that I’d had a wash before going out tonight. As I slip beneath the quilt I feel her bodies fiery warmth meet my skin, it feels much warmer than I would have expected, almost feverish. She’s lying on her side facing away from me, and almost as though she’s shy, and I find that hard to believe after the way she dragged me up here to the bedroom, undressed unashamedly and then speedily slid beneath my quilt. Well sadly I’m not the sort of man to let the cream go sour, so I slide across the white sheet and spoon her. She pushes out her soft white buttocks to meet my groin, and my ardour is pointedly put between her pillows of softness. I slide my arms around her, and cupping her full breasts with both of my hands, I feel her nipples blossom, and then with blood pounding in my head, I pull her tight to me, burying my head fully in her beautiful hair. I breathe in great lungfuls of her scent, I can smell the aroma of her wetness, and on now being so close, she smells so much more of flowers, but not like any florae I have ever smelt before. She turns within my arms, and takes me on top of her, where resting on my arms I look down into that perfect visage, she smiles slightly, and then pouts in a coy way, and I feel as though I will die, she is so beautiful. She shifts her legs slightly, opening them, and I feel softness coupled with a raw body heat and then wetness beneath my groin and we are making love.

A while later… And when I have my breath back, I ask her name, she looks deep into my eyes and tells me,

“Kynyav” 

I tell her that she has a lovely name, but also strange, does she come from another country..? To which she replies,

“Mayhap, but if you like, you Tom can call me ‘Autumn’, as that is what Kynyav means in your language… And maybe, I’ll make you the prince of my faery kingdom.” 

I love her name, so unusual, and definitely not a name I have heard before, so exotic. I haven’t a clue what she was talking about, making me a prince of a faery kingdom, whatever next, and I don’t really care, after all a man with a girlfriend like this, will agree to almost anything to keep her happy. Kynyav, as I know her now, suddenly rises and gets out of my bed as quickly as she got in, and again in just an instant, she drapes her clothes back over her naked body. I think, only think, that I see that tattoo move again, and the freckles/tattoo’s on her back seem to rustle with intent, strange. Lying on the bed outstretched, I watch her as the chilly air of the room starts to quickly cool me from my previous ardour, and still cannot believe this to not be a dream. Kynyav moves towards the bedroom door as if to leave, and I’m out of the bed trying to force first one leg into my jeans, and then the other. As I hop across the floor, she opens the bedroom door, and it’s then that I know that she going to leave me, and that I may just never see her again, and I have no clue who she is, or where she comes from.! By the time I’m safely in my jeans, and with t-shirt in hand, she’s already halfway down the stairs and heading for the front door. I stumble down the stairs trying to catch up with her, or at least follow her. I try to take two steps at a time calling out, asking if I will see her again, but she’s already out of the front door, and just to damned quick for me.

The door bangs shut behind her, but I’m close behind, but surprisingly I find the door locked.! What.? Luckily after a short pause, I remember the keys are on the floor beneath my feet where they dropped from my coat earlier. Bending swiftly I scoop the keys up from the floor, jam them into the door lock and click the lock open. Still in bare feet, and half naked with my T-shirt still gripped in my hand, I pull the open the door hastily, and stumble out into the street, look right, look left frantically, but there’s no sign of her at all, it’s almost as though she blew away like some leaves in a winter breeze.!

One of my neighbours is walking past, a thin plastic bag swinging from her elderly hand, chinking noises coming from within, a plastic bag with writing on, which proudly proclaims that she has been buying from our local off-licence. She yells at me,

“I’d get inside if I were you chuck, it’s like brass monkeys out here, and you shouldn’t be out in the street half naked, you’ll catch your death of cold..!” 

I thank her for her wisdom with a quick wave; take one more look up and down the street before retiring back inside the supposed warmth of my house. She’s bloody right though; it’s damned cold, funny how when I was with ‘Kynyav’ that I never even noticed. Once inside, I pull my T-shirt on, and then pop into the kitchen to make a brew, and with the kettle filled and on, I head back upstairs. I might as well be in bed, as in the lounge with the little gas fire. Arriving in the bedroom, I decide I’ll keep my clothing on, it’ll probably help to keep Jack Frost at bay tonight, and then I tug on the bed clothes to pull them back far enough for me to at least get in! And there on the bottom dirty white sheet, a large bloodstain, that damned woman was a virgin.!

Later in bed cradling a mug of hot tea, and feeling very sleepy, I think I see a small flower drift across the room in mid air, just like some faery from a land beyond my ken. The flower hangs in a slight draught of air, that I, do not seem to feel, it’s a light pink, and seems to be trailing a musky perfume behind it, an enchanting scent reaches my nose, cherry, the warm aroma of cherry. I think myself to be already asleep and dreaming of strange lands, filled with the presence of a fae princess… Later my actual dreams have shadowy autumn leaves blowing through them, and as a backdrop, an old house set on tall cliffs, cliffs that are stark and constantly pounded by the restless sea beneath them. Then suddenly my dream is filled with what appears to be a hideous apparition, some beast with large nasty teeth, and I awaken covered with a cold sweat.

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Four – Part 2.

Chapter Four – Part 2.

Tom in a northern city.

Trying to be casual, I let my eyes fall softly on the lone woman sitting in the corner, what I see, is about the most beautiful woman that I have ever seen. I turn back to where the landlady is rubbing at some glasses as though they were out of the story of Aladdin, and as she rubs desperately at the spotted glass I smile to myself knowing that she is definitely hoping some Genie will leap out in a cloud of smoke, and then give her three free wishes.

“Whose she..?”

I hiss out of the corner of my mouth to the Landlady, I’m trying hard not to let the woman in the corner hear me, and probably not being too successful.! The Landlady never even looks at me, and just keeps furiously rubbing away in her attempts to make old crap glasses look presentable, before answering.

“How the hell should I know, she’s only been here a few minutes, and hasn’t even had the politeness to buy herself a drink yet, if’n she’s a tart, I’ll have her out of here in the quickest time..!”

Through slitted eyes, I examine the woman, she is most definitely not from around here, I mean for a start I’d know her otherwise, and by now she’d be sick of my rather pathetic chat up lines. Of course she’d not even come here if she had any sense, after all, the local men would be all over her like flies on poo. Presently we are on our own in the Jack O’Green, which in itself is unusual, as there are always a few Brightside men in here when it’s opening time. The woman has dark red curly hair that would fall to at least the cheeks of her buttocks if she was standing that is. I try not to stare too hard, but I could swear that I see her hair moving as if in a slight breeze, or as if it had a life all of its own, I feel my stomach flip slip. It’s as though she has another dimension to her, and I am only just catching a mere glimpse of what she really is. She’s dressed Hippy style, or maybe gypsy boho, her dress is long, and falls right down to her flat summer style sandals. This dress, it’s ever so slightly see through, and beneath I catch a hint of some sort of tattoo maybe, it looks almost as though she’s covered in golden leaves.? Bizarre, that’s the sense of her, and I find myself to be some extent on edge. It’s almost as though she is a visiting dignitary from a strange ethereal world. I shake my head, and the feeling passes. I smile to myself for a second time this evening, and that’s strange, as lately I just haven’t had anything to smile about, times must be a changing. There’s no hint of winter about her, her clothes are very light, silky, and she must be freezing, especially as I notice straight away that she had no undies on. Her skin is white, no sign of any tan, but if she lives here in the north, that’s not all that surprising. Looking right into her face, I see she has dark hazel eyes, and her lips are the colour of red of wine, all set off by her wild hair, to be honest it looks rather like the north wind is her hairdresser. Whilst I’m observing her however, she gets up slowly, and I quickly look away, but not before I get a very memorable glance of her full figure through her light clothing. Wow she’s got generous breasts, a narrow waist, and long legs, and looks as though she might be in her late twenties. I feel myself blushing, and I know that I’ve not had anywhere enough to drink to be getting frisky with any woman who looks this good.!

She walks up to the bar, one hand holds her skirts off the pubs dirty carpet in a most old fashioned way, I like that, makes her look really elegant, so I risk a smile.

As I watch, the woman glides across the pub floor, and it’s almost as though her legs are not carrying her weight, but also almost as though she is floating just above the sticky pub carpet. She arrives at the bar right next to me, and I catch a very faint, but extremely fetching whiff of her perfume, although it could have been her own personal musk. This aroma somehow frames a picture in my head, a picture of wind swept cliffs, wild seas smashing into the bottom of these high cliffs made from God’s hewn granite rocks, Gaia’s land. Gaia I think, who the hell is that.? Along with this sudden unbidden vision, arrives the tang of sea salt, bracken, and late hedgerow fruits, and it seems to momentarily float into my nostrils, but then as suddenly as it arrived, the vision and fragrance are gone. She leans on the bar top right next to me, seemingly unconcerned of its beery state, and I’m left with a very slight smell of stale flowers hanging in the pubs miasma of stale beer and piss. I’m not a country boy, having been brought up in Sheffield in the industrial Brightside, but I’m sure that she smells of autumn. Glancing sideways with my eyes, I notice that she has gold rings on all fingers, and gold bangles on both arms, I would say she’s wearing a fortune, that’s if they all real of course, and this coupled with the way she is dressed, I’m beginning to guess her to be a traveller of some kind, maybe a Tinkers lady.

The woman speaks in a very soft voice, so much so that I can only just make out the words,

“Perchance I could have a glass of water.?”

The words are directed at the Landlady on the other side of the bar; where she is still busy trying to rub a new surface on those old pint pots. The land lady’s face which had been attempting an ingratiating smile, hoping no doubt for a big spender, drops away just as easily as it had appeared and into its usual scowl,

“We don’t do water here me dearie, if you want to satiate your thirst, you’ll need to buy a real drink from me..” 

The woman looks a little miffed, then asks for Meodu… The landlady gives her a rather strange look, and says,

“I’ve not heard it called that since I was a little tacker, and me Dad held bar here.! You’re not a Tinkers woman are you, I’ll not have any truck with ‘em..!

The woman shakes her head, and so reluctantly the landlady bends and pulls forth a small dusty bottle, breaks the cap and then pours the golden liquid inside into a glass. From where I stand, I can see the word ‘Mead’ written on its dark brown side, it’s not something I’ve ever drunk, but I have heard it’s made with honey. The woman lifts the glass to her mouth and downs the whole glass in one go, and then nods for another. The landlady is much quicker this time to oblige, and this Mead speedily follows the other, at this point however the landlady points out that she will need paying and holds out her palm. The woman stands quite still, and time stretches out with the woman neither answering nor handing over the hard cash that the Landlady expects. Just before the landlady begins to become really irritated, and it’s only then when the landlady begins to show her ire, that the woman reaches forward, her hand like a striking snake, it brushes across the landladies outstretched palm, and on moving away again, it would seem as if to have left behind one of her golden rings. The landlady raises the ring to her eyes, and then promptly bites down on it, this action seems to satisfy her as she tells the woman that with that ring in the till, she can drink all night. I’m surprised, I’ve never seen the ‘Jack O’Green’ landlady ever accept anything but hard cash..! I take a sneaky look at her, and see she’s even smiling, another unheard of thing. The woman turns away from the bar, and as she twirls, and I tell you, she most definitely twirls, but in a elegant way, she catches hold of my arm in an almost nonchalant fashion, and with no further adieu, draws me towards her table in the dimly lit corner.

I only just have time to drag my half finished pint of mild with me, and then there I am, sat at a table with this lady staring at me from just across its beer mat covered top, and she is a lady, somehow I just know this to be a fact, but couldn’t explain it to you the reader if I could even be bothered to try.

She’s staring dreamily into my eyes now, maybe that mead she drank a few moments ago has already gone to her head. I stare back unashamedly, I have the feeling that I could just fall endlessly into her gold-flecked hazel eyes, and then momentarily I catch her aroma, which now excites my body more than I can almost bear. My skin tingles with her earlier grasp of my bare arm, and  in a silly schoolboy way, I feel as though she’s put a love spell on me.

 

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Four – Part 1.

Chapter Four – Part 1.

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Summers heat has left the land as autumn walks this Isle

This new daughter has all the trees leaves falling like the rains

The beaches sands are turning from hot white to a duller yellow

Cliff sides show warm Browns and burnished gold’s across their tops

And summer and autumn will touch fingers for mere moments

And then they will be separated in time for another year

Animals all through this cooling land hurry about their chores

For autumn trails her very fingers through their fur

They know it’s time to be ready for the arrival of her chillier sister winter

But for now there are still nuts and berries to be hurriedly gathered in

The wind raises a notch as autumn surveys her quarter realm

And Sunset deepens over land and sea as nights draw quickly in

The daytime skies turn grey as buzzards seek their prey

Squirrels hide their hordes of nuts and then seek their dreys

Hedgehogs rolled in darkened leaves ready then to make their nests

Mice and voles scurry forth one eye on the skies for predator on high

The rabbits make warmer warrens, while fox’s watch with evil eyes

It’ll not be long before winter with her chilly hand is all across the realm

But for now autumn casts a comfort of gold and brown across this land.

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Tom in the northern city of Sheffield.

Another day, days one after another, dreariness ad nausea leads away into the future… I am standing in my cramped bathroom, my bathroom that has just enough room for me to turn around to walk back out of the door. What with the bath on the left tight up against the sink, and then the toilet on the right, it’s hardly palatial. There’s moisture on the walls, there always is in the wintertime, and cold weather brings black mould, which no matter how much I scrub at it, will just not stay away. I look out of the tiny bathroom window that is positioned above the washbasin; the view shows me rows of slated houses roofs leading away into the far distance. There’s a mist hanging over the roofs, a mist which forms due to the of heat escaping to the sky from each house, it must be very cold outside today, as the mist appears to be more of a fog hanging in the late afternoon air. Mixed into that mist is the eternal cloud of burning coal, from the hearths of all these huddled home, and everything in winter is pervaded with that burning smell, unless a heavy wind is blowing those obnoxious gases away. I guess it’s around 4pm from the way the light is lowering; evening is fast approaching Sheffield where I live, where I have lived all my life. I’ve only been up a few minutes, it’s Saturday, and I don’t have to work the weekends luckily. Payday yesterday, and already I’ve pissed most of my wages up against the wall, bloody fool that I am. I’m still wearing the hangover from last night’s beer, and yet even so I’m still contemplating going out again tonight.

And that’s my life in a nutshell, work the week, and then drink away the weekend, a vicious circle, because I’d like to do more. I have a dream of visiting Cornwall where my family originally lived, but I’ll never save enough to go whilst I piss my wages away every week..! God, I’m not religious, but if I was, I’d pray for something more dramatic in my life, a new job would be good, but I’m just to lazy to look for one, and so firmly stuck in this rut. Selling white goods in a large store isn’t very exciting, hence my drinking, and because of my drunken weekends, and therefore lack of any money, I have no partner, in fact not even a girlfriend. Well I thought, I’d best get something down in my stomach, other wise I’ll not have anything to chuck up later..!

On the way down to the kitchen, the house is only a two up, two down affair, I quickly throw on some clothes, just black jeans and T-shirt that have been hanging in front of the little electric fire I have ensconced in the bedroom opposite the bathroom. I don’t even bother with underwear, it’s all in the washing machine anyway, and so arriving in the tiny kitchen, which is not much bigger than the bathroom, I quickly get the kettle filled, and onto the gas hob. Just to keep my bare feet off the cold tiles that make up the flooring of the kitchen, I sit on the only battered kitchen chair, and then put my feet up on the table, not comfortable, but far better than the freezing floor. The only room in this house with real heating is the tiny lounge, at least when I have my mug of tea, I can retire there to wait for the pub to open. I scan the kitchen worktops for any bread, but see that the plastic bags it comes in, are all deflated, that’s a shame, as I fancied some toast. I know without even looking, that the kitchen cupboards are all bare, I’ll need to do something about that tomorrow after I once again fight my way up from yet another hangover.

I could of course stay in tonight, save a little money, buy much better food, but of course I won’t! For some reason I truly believe that I’ll meet my soul mate on one of my sad weekend piss ups… So today will be no different, I’ll drink my tea, maybe even have another, but then I will sit in the tatty green armchair by the coal fire toasting my bare feet, and worrying about my chances of getting chilblains, and then at some point just before 7pm, I’ll try to match some socks, and wedge my feet into any shoes that come to hand. I’ll pick up my old army surplus coat from the narrow hallway that houses the stairs and also separates lounge from kitchen, and then I’ll wrap my old college scarf around my neck to try and keep the winter chill at bay. After locking the front door, it’s a short shuffle in the intense cold down the road, my thin-soled shoes skidding and sliding on the icy pavements as I make the journey to the green painted local pub on the corner, my local. The pub is a strange affair, it’s name ‘Jack O’Green’ which means nothing to me, is painted on an old fashioned swinging sign, which along with it name, has a grinning mans face made from what looks like twigs, painted on its surface.

When I arrive at the main door, I’m chilled right to the marrow, I push the door open, and a sudden blast of fetid heat hits my face, causing my cheeks to flush after being out in the intense cold. The Jack O’Green always smells the same, blood, sweat, tears, coal, piss, and stale beer. The landlady told me once that the pub had been here before the very streets that it sits in, personally I think she not all quite right in the head. The landlady immediately calls out if I want my usual, and I nod, it’ll be a pint of mild to start, and most likely to finish as well, but for now  I take off my coat and assume my usual place in front of the gas fire warming the back of my legs.

The Gas appliance is set into what should have been a big coal fire, sadly replaced in what the brewery had called a refurbishment, but had just resulted in the loss of said coal fire. I turn and rub my hands vigorously in the warmth of the appliance, there’s only two rules in this local, both of which the landlady enforces harshly.! If you get pissed, and you’re sick, you’ll clean it up yourself, or be barred, the other..? Close that ‘bloody door’ quick when it’s cold as you arrive or leave, or she’ll kick your backside hard, and believe you me, there’s none who’ll stand their ground when she gets a grump on.

Still in a way she’s been like a rough mother to me, I lost both my parents five winters ago, my Da to the big ‘C’ and me Ma died I believe, a month later from a broken heart. They had been together ever since meeting at school, and there was the crux see, I wanted for myself what my parents had, a long and loving relationship… I turn again and allow my ass cheeks burn in the warmth of the gas. I hold the fancy that if only I could find a decent woman, then my whole life would change for the better, I might even get a better job, you never know..! It was on turning back to face the landlady, and then seeing my pint of mild growing old on the none too clean surface of the bar top. The bar top with its already sodden beer mats, that I spot a very attractive woman sitting on her own at one of the tables in one the rather dismal dark corners of the pub. I cross the short distance to the bar top, lean on it using one elbow, and realise quickly that was a big mistake as my elbow slips slightly in pooling stale beer. Feeling somewhat foolish I pick up my pint, and stand, but then feel the beer run off my elbow onto the shabby faded red and brown patterned carpet. A carpet that at sometime in the past would have been soft and forgiving, now however, and I knew this from personal experience having passed out on it a few times, it was sticky, and smelled of wee and ale.

---

 

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Three – Part 11.

Chapter three.

Jago and Rook go forth – Part 11.

Jago hovered by the backdoor of the house, his back to the bricks; he knew the kitchen laid just the other side of the door. There was no need for him to check this fact, his nose and the noises from within the house told their own story, and he was dwelling on just how he’d get into the kitchen itself, when the backdoor opened slightly and Jago heard the sound of heavy footsteps moving back away from the door, followed by a loud woman’s voice muttering,

“Phew some fresh air, this kitchen gets too damned hot!”

Jago inhaled the aroma from within the kitchen, the wonderful smell of frying bacon, and so strong smelling was this hot air from the kitchen, and which carried gusts of cooked sliced pork belly to his nostrils. Jago became enchanted under it’s spell, and he followed its strong savoury trail to find himself in the kitchen without realising he had even moved a step, and then having to slip quickly behind a metal bucket that stood to one side of the doorway. Jago pressed back against the wall, which was damp, and a bit smelly, but the bucket contents took some of the musty stink away from the wall. The stainless bucket smelt of disinfectant and pee, dog pee, Jago would know that smell anywhere, he cautiously peered out, no sign of any dog, thank the Gods.!

From where he hid, Jago could see a large plump woman, her arms bare and pink, she was huddled over a small cooker at the end of the kitchen. Just now she was frying eggs; Jago’s mind rioted with images of white frilly brown edged eggs with golden domed yolks set in their centres, and he would have done just about anything to be his proper size, and sitting at the kitchen table eating a fried breakfast. Jago watched closely as she bent slightly and opened the oven below the hob, and then lifted out a large warmed plate piled high with crispy bacon, his chin began to get wet as he dribbled from the sight of all this fried food. The woman scooped the eggs from the frying pan on to the top of the still sizzling bacon, and then called out loudly, before placing the plate on the table that stood in the middle of the room.

“Breakfast!”

A shouted reply from upstairs confirmed that a man was on his way down to eat. A few seconds past, and Jago observed that the woman was becoming impatient as she moved to the closed door that gave her access to the rest of the house. On reaching the door, she jerked it open and left the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. ‘Now is the time to lift my breakfast’ thought Jago, and slipped swiftly from his hiding place, and then ran swiftly across the red ceramic tiled floor to the nearest chair. As speedily as he could, Jago climbed up the nearest chair leg, luckily the chair legs had been turned from pine on a lathe, giving him plenty of hand and foot holds in the carved pattern on it’s surface. Once on the seat he pulled himself up the slotted back, and then jumped across the short distance to the table top. As fast as any weasel, he was across the old scratched yellowed pine surface to arrive at the bacon and eggs. He grasped two slices of the streaky bacon quickly, but it was too much for his diminutive size to carry, and so regretfully he had to let one-piece fall back to the plate. ‘Don’t be greedy Jago’ he thought, but his tummy didn’t agree and spoke with a huge grumble, ‘bugrit’ Jago thought, ‘I’m famished’, and then he heard the woman shouting somewhere out in the house,

“Are you coming down to breakfast before it gets cold, or should I eat the lot.?”

Again a man’s voice replied, and this time the answer was unprintable, and Jago heard the woman’s heavy footsteps begin her return to the kitchen. He ran to the nearest chair that was opposite the cooker, and holding firmly onto the slice of bacon, he dropped to the polished seat of the chair. The wood had become slick with the constant rubbing of the many buttocks that had used it over the intervening years it had seen service in the kitchen, and on landing on its surface Jago slid towards the chairs edge, and a drop to the floor which might very well kill or badly injured him. He relinquished his grip of the bacon and scrambled for a foot or handhold as he slid ever nearer the edge. Jago’s bacon greased hands could find no purchase on the polished wood, but as luck would have it, the edge curved up a little and he slid to a stop with his feet just out over the edge. Clambering gingerly back to his feet, Jago hurriedly retrieved the strip of crisped bacon, and then preceded to drop it out over the lip of the chair, where it fell to the floor. Jago then swung his legs out over the edge and found a foothold on the chair leg nearest to the bacon on the floor. With the speed of a field vole hunting its quarry, Jago was down the leg and onto the red tiled floor, and having grabbed up his prize again; he made his way towards the back door, which still stood slightly ajar. Just as Jago reached the door, and was about to quickly sidle through the small gap with his treasure, the other door into the kitchen opened.! The woman stood there staring directly at him, but Jago was more worried about the portly old Dachshund at her feet, which with it’s belly scraping the red tiles, shuffled into the kitchen with his mistress.!

The old dog obviously couldn’t believe it’s eyes, and above him, his mistress set up a huge cry,

“Rat, rat, rat, there’s a rat in the kitchen stealing breakfast.!”

The sound of heavy footsteps crashing down the house stairs caused Jago to flee the kitchen, and he heard the Dog hit the back door just after he had slipped through, he heard the woman shouting,

“GET HIM BOY, KILL HIM.!”

Jago ran for his life, the backdoor now the only thing keeping the dog from grabbing and killing him.! Jago headed straight for the willow hedging, it was his only chance, behind him the dog set up a loud yapping, it’s small sausage shaped body had slammed the door to when it charged at Jago in it’s haste to have at him. For now the angry dog couldn’t get out, but Jago knew that the woman would soon open that door, and then the Dachshund would be hot on his trail.

Jago reached the safety of the plaited willows and slipped into the hedge. He still wasn’t safe from the Dachshund however and pushed deeper, he really needed to be on the other side to be truly safe from man’s best friend. Back at the house the old dog stopped baying for a moment and Jago knew that the woman had reached the door, and was in the process of releasing her dog. The winter air suddenly filled with the baying of the Dachshund, which was now eagerly pursuing Jago, and Jago shoved even harder at the hedging, frantic to make his way through to safety on the other side. As the willow parted slightly, it caught on the bacon in Jago’s hands and snapped it in half, but that allowed Jago to fall through the small gap generated by his pushing, and not be held back by his intended breakfast. As he lay just the other side of the willow fence, the dog arrived barking furiously, and proceeded to start snuffling and sniffing at Jago.! Jago stood, picked up what was left of the bacon strip and hurried away along the hedging as he attempted to find somewhere secure from the dog. Jago knew if he wasn’t hidden shortly, the Dachshund would find a way to follow him, in fact he was surprised it wasn’t following him on the other side of the hedge.?

From back at the house, there came a man’s voice shouting,

“GET HIM BOY, CHEW THAT RAT UP.!

At the same time, and in between the shouts, Jago heard the dog chewing something, and in the background he heard the woman shouting,

“Good boy, you eat that rat all up.!”

Jago realised the dog had got through far enough into the hedge to find the piece of bacon that had broken off, and was making a meal of it. The dog’s masters obviously thought that the dog had caught him, and was busily eating him, but Jago still didn’t feel safe, and so whilst the dog was occupied, he cut across the field to where Rook had dropped him. It took him some time to get over to the other hedge, and as he scurried through the snow-covered grass he heard the dogs owners congratulating it for its apparent deed, and offering more food and a seat by the fire.

Jago had to make do with clambering into a nearby hawthorn for shelter, its black thorns would keep most predators away, but with no foliage it was a poor seat. Nonetheless Jago enjoyed the bacon, and there was more than twice what he needed to fill his tiny stomach, and so with his tummy at last full, all he needed was some water. Jago scanned the field and the sky before even entertaining the idea of climbing down, and then when he saw nothing untoward, he quickly slid to the ground, where he shoved some snow into his mouth. Several handfuls of snow later, his thirst was sated and he clambered back to his perch, there to make himself as comfortable as possible, and then fall into a troubled sleep.

As Jago slept, he dreamt of ‘Carniggy House’, and more specifically about the Green mans roots deep under the ground. In the large cavern where ‘Bertram Smythe’ had met his fate, he saw Btu Chun, and the evil creature was up to no good, Jago could feel that in the pit of his stomach. Btu Chun appeared to be committing some act of foul sorcery, and in Jago’s dream he watched as Chun used one of his long claws to punch a hole into Bert’s corpse and then rip out his heart. It seemed as though Bert’s heart was still alive, and Jago mewed in his sleep as he saw Chun take the heart across the rocky floor to a large iron pot set over a fire. Once there and with his hand over the steaming pot, Chun crushed the heart with his mighty fist, and then dropped it into the pot. Jago saw Chun then take a large chunk of something metallic, as it caught the light from the fire, he saw the colour of raw copper ore glinting, this Chun dropped into the pot, followed by a little tin ore, and Jago realised that Chun was making some sort of Bronze. Chun loomed over the pot muttering strange words, and the fire became ever more smoky, and then… Some impinged on Jago’s dream, someone calling his name, and for a fleeting moment, Jago was terrified thinking it to be Chun, but as he roused further from his sleeping state, he clearly heard Rook calling his name.

“Jago, Jago, where are you hiding, come out now you ruffian.!”

Jago saw that it was late evening now, and that he had slept through the daylight hours. Quickly Jago grabbed up what was left of his breakfast and stuffed into the inside of his cape. Jago then slipped down from the hawthorn to land on the frozen ground beneath it, Rook’s eyes saw his movements and for a second he lifted into the air, quite ready to fly away if there was danger. Jago called out to Rook, and Rook landed again and urged Jago to climb aboard him swiftly. As soon as Jago was securely aboard Rooks feathered back, Rook took a few hops over the snow and then lifted away into the dark skies. Once they were in the air, Rook tersely berated Jago for not being where he had left him. Jago didn’t bother to tell Rook of his adventures, as he was far too busy staring at the bright lights ahead of them, and toward which they were now flying. A while later after a difficult silence, Rook informed Jago that the lights were from a northern city called ‘Sheffield’, he also informed Jago that he knew that this is where Kynyav was heading.

Carniggy House (A Most Dark Faery Tale) Chapter Three – Part 10.

Chapter three.

Jago and Rook go forth – Part 10.

Nonetoogood, had, on seeing the marquee of Oona his Queen disappear in a flash, and on spying that her lover was now revealed to his sight, lifted on his wings, and then flew high above the forest and up into the sky where his faery steed awaited him. Nonetoogood mounted his steed with alacrity and flew with haste back to the Rainbow Bridge. Nonetoogood didn’t want Oona to find he had been spying on her at her tryst with Pan, that would never do, she might well fall into an even worse rage, and then do something very nasty to him. Nonetoogood was not sure yet just how he was going to use this new information of her cuckolding of Finvarra to his advantage, but he knew a time would come when he needed favour from Oona, and then he might need this knowledge.

Ahead of Nonetoogood, and not, behind him as he thought, Oona rode her own steed speedily towards the Rainbow bridge. Oona’s annoyance with Pan was cooling somewhat now, but her ardour for him had not abated at all. Oona swore within her mind that she could conquer Pan, and free him from this love he bore for another. At the back of her head she started to form a plan, a plan to replace the yapping Finvarra with Pan as the King of the ‘Daoine Sidhe’, and then to rule together for eternity. Oona had felt Finvarra’s wrath for her past infidelities for long enough, and although she knew he had always been true to her even when she was guilty of being a cuckold, to Oona at this moment though, it mattered not, for she was so smitten with the wild God Pan. Oona’s steed cantered over the Rainbow Bridge, her steed’s hooves barely touching the surface of the cobbled surface. The Rainbow Bridge, named from the bridges surface cobbles, which each had captured a different hue of the sunrise and sunset. None of the stones shared the same shade, and each gave off lustrous light from within, and on either side of the bridge, sunset coloured clouds rolled away into the distance. It would be true to say that the faery court lay beyond the sunset, and should you seek them in any other direction, then you would fail in your quest. However it was also true that only a faery fae could enter the faery realm by the bridge, unless one of the faery court called you forth. Oona saw none of this as she exited the bridge, and then rode at speed towards the stables of her husband.

Meanwhile Jago and Rook took to the air once more, the light was dropping fast and the wind which had fallen, was now rising once again, and causing Rooks wings to flutter alarmingly, making Jago hang on hard as he feared for his life. They flew over field after field; men’s homes were beginning to be lit from inside and the small villages and towns they past by, were lit with a dull orange glow. Rook made a point of not flying directly over any of man’s dwellings, and that made Jago rather disappointed, for he had rather hoped to see something of the larger towns. A city Jago thought to himself, I’m going to a city, he had heard of them of course, there was always gossip passed amongst the animal kingdom. Some of the badgers and foxes arriving at the heaven, of Carniggy House, told Jago appalling stories about the cities and their dirtiness, most of these creatures had also died as direct result of men and their ways. It appeared from the stories that Jago had listened to, that men had iron steeds that they rode inside of, and these steeds had often been the killers of a lot of the animals arriving at Carniggy House. Now Jago had seen the iron beast that the Clemmo brothers sometimes rode, and he had sat beneath the May flowering hawthorn and pondered long on just how it ate, and he had never ever seen it defecate, and it was also true that it smelt awful. Jago had seen the steeds that the animals spoke of as they occasionally visited the Halzephron Inn to which Jago was a sometime secret visitor. He knew a way into the cellar, and enjoyed his fill of man’s ale, and it wasn’t unknown for him to steal away some of the Landladies excellent food. For quite a few years now, Lowena the Landlady had been leaving little portions out at night for the ‘Piskies” as she called them. Jago had overheard a conversation between her and her husband as to the theft of small portions of food from the kitchen, and Lowena telling him she was blessed by the Faery folk. Lowena’s husband had huffed out of the kitchen, and then Jago had heard him laughing out in the bar, but he’d also seen Lowena’s lips curl upwards as she also heard her husband’s laughing.

So Jago and Rook soared past the towns, towns that got steadily larger the further they travelled northwards. The air became filled with smoke, and grime floated in the very clouds through which they sometimes passed, but still they flew on and on further and further from the Lizard. Dawn was just beginning to break when Jago’s stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him that he had not eaten for two days, and he called out to Rook, asking him if there was anywhere they could stop and take their chances at gathering something to eat.? Rook said nothing, but Jago could feel Rook losing height in a slow spiral and Jago guessed that he was probably looking for somewhere suitable to land. Rooks flight pattern changed and he stooped down now towards a hedgerow made from willow, landed, and hopped under its cover.

“I cannot stay here, for there maybe foxes still about at this early hour, or now I am landed, buzzards maybe on the prowl looking for an easy breakfast.!”

Cawed Rook, Jago scrambled off Rooks back, and then sought refuge further into the branches of the willow hedging. Jago had seen that the hedges were woven from willow and knew that this tree liked damp ground, so he would need to be away from the ground whilst he was sleeping in the daytime to remain dry and warm. Jago had also noticed that one hedge away from where he was hidden, there was a house that was brightly lit from within, although no lighting on the outside presently, could he find his dinner there.? Rook peered into the undergrowth were Jago had disappeared, and then calling out to Jago, told him he was off to find some of his brethren, or a tree to roost in for the day. Jago ignored Rook though, as he was caught up thinking of finding his breakfast. Rook took to the skies and quickly disappeared, Jago looked to the skies himself, but apart from an odd little bird flitting along the hedges, everything was quiet, and no hunting owls slid through the air silently seeing all that moved. Standing just within the cover of the willow, Jago surveyed the field in front of him, he had to be cautious, there may well be a solitary Stoat out there in it’s winter colour, it’s white fur hiding it from Jago until it moved. Jago wetted his finger, and then held it up to the chilly morning air, the little breeze lightly crossing the fields, came across from the far hedge that he was examining, and his nose would quickly capture the rank stink that often Stoats stunk of. Jago slipped his bow from his back where it had been slung since his hunting trip was broken by the Green man, strung it, and then pulled one of his black crow feather arrows from it’s Cynin quiver. Jago felt more confident now he was armed, and under his cape he carried a flint knife he had made for himself, and that would act as a last defence should he be attacked by any predator. It would be true to say these weapons would do little good against a man or one of his hunting beasts now that the Green man had so reduced Jago’s stature, but he felt more confident with his old bow in his grasp.

Slowly scanning the hedge before him, Jago crossed the field slowly; he chose to use his ears to guard his back, using the fact that any hunter behind him would make noise on the snow as it stalked him. It took a few moments, but at last Jago was under the opposite hedge without any problems. Jago then forced his way slowly through the plaited willow and came out on the other side and much nearer to the house he had seen as Rook came down to land. On the breeze now, Jago smelt hints cooking, and then on one hurried gust, savoured the odour of frying bacon; oh Jago would have known that smell anywhere. Through one of the houses windows Jago could just make out the shape of a woman who was probably generating the deliciousness he could almost taste, his mouth dribbled and his stomach rumbled. Jago sorely needed to eat, and all sorts of plans ran through his head to gain bacon for his own breakfast this chilly winter morning.