Chapter 3

Little could be seen through the midnight shadows of the forest men called enchanted. She didn’t have a light, so Eibhlin set herself beneath a large beech tree just beyond the tree line, hugged herself in her cloak, and after a few minutes fell asleep. When she woke, her body was stiff in the chill air. Sunlight passing through leaves tinted the world in soft green and gold.

After a few painful stretches, Eibhlin stood to her feet and took out a biscuit to eat while walking. She needed to find a fairy. Deeper into the forest she went. The ground foliage thickened, causing her to trip on hidden sticks, roots, branches, and stones. The thought already arose to abandon her search, but she clutched a gold coin and went deeper. Deer, rabbits, birds, insects, she saw plenty of wild life, but not a single sign of a fairy.

As afternoon arrived, she heard the sound of water and followed it to the wide river Lúrin, the border of Enbár, a river quickened from the recent rain. Eibhlin took off her shoes and stepped into the river, shivering as cold water bent around her ankles. She looked up through breaks in the trees to the bright sky. By now, her father was certainly awake and looking for her, or maybe even sending out a search party, and many in town knew the woods far better than she did. With that thought, she shook the numbness from her feet, dried them with her cloak, and slipped them back into her shoes. She mustn’t be found, not yet.

She followed the river south. Leana had once said the river led down to the sea. “Might as well head that way,” said Eibhlin. “At least it’s somewhere.”

It was about an hour down river that her luck turned. In the heat of the day, over the river’s chatter, at first faint enough she thought it was her imagination, she heard singing. As she continued downstream, the voice grew clearer, as clear as cold starlight, and the words were not anything Eibhlin knew. Curiosity turned her from the river. Hope kept her quiet.

Not far into the undergrowth, she came to the voice’s origin, and it was only her careful eye that kept her from stepping too far, for she saw a small fairy singing as she skipped around a near perfect ring of mushrooms. A fairy ring, a gateway into the Fae Country. Sweat chilled on the back of Eibhlin’s neck. A fairy! What luck, and yet what terrible circumstances! One wrong move, and Eibhlin could fall through the fairy ring and find herself lost in the Fae Country. And then what? But time didn’t favor her, and the fairy was there.

Creeping closer, Eibhlin took off her cloak and waited till the fairy hopped to the closest mushroom, and then the girl pounced, throwing her cloak over the tiny woman. If she had not surprised the fairy, Eibhlin might have died a cursed frog. As it was, she managed to capture the creature in the layers of cloth. The fairy nearly broke free, but Eibhlin curled over the bundle and pinned it to the forest floor. From inside the cloak came several shrieks and what sounded like half-formed curses.

“Calm down, Miss Fairy,” shouted Eibhlin. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just need to ask you something.”

The fairy stopped. “Ask me something?”

“Yes. You see I—”

“I shall not answer anything so long as you treat me like a bug,” said the fairy. “Next thing I know, you’ll stick me in a jar and pull off my wings.”

“Please! Just a few questions,” said Eibhlin.

The fairy fell silent for a few moments then said, “Let me go. I won’t speak with you while you hold me captive. Such inconsideration!”

Eibhlin relaxed and moved. The fairy shot from the cloak. Landing on a high tree branch, she began to laugh. “Silly, stupid human!” she said. “If you want to force a fairy’s help, don’t let it go so easily next time.”

Eibhlin flushed to her ears. “Well, you’re free. Now won’t you answer my questions?”

The fairy started straightening her hair. “Not at all.”

“What! Why?”

“Why should I help you?” said the fairy. “If you’ve got a problem, fix it yourself. Why do I need to get involved? There’s nothing in it for me, anyway. So, since it’s a nice day, I’ll let you go, but try anything like that again and you’ll wish I had drowned you in the Lúrin. Now, bye-bye.”

As the fairy flew away, Eibhlin said, “Wait! Wait! Um… how… how about a deal!”

The fairy’s ears twitched. Glancing down, she asked, “What kind of deal?”

“I give you something you want in exchange for answers to my questions. Simple as that,” said Eibhlin.

For a long moment, the fairy hovered, staring at Eibhlin with a blank expression. Finally, the fairy said, “Sweets.”

“Huh?”

“Sweets,” the fairy said. “I smell sweets. If you give me the sweets you have in your bag, I’ll answer three questions as best I can.”

“Oh, okay.” Eibhlin pulled out a biscuit and the jam from her bag. The little fairy grew to the height of a small child and snatched the treats. She dipped a slender finger into the jam and scooped some into her mouth before spreading sticky fruit preserves over the biscuit. Between nibbles, the fairy said, “All right, give me some context and ask your three questions.”

After Eibhlin’s summary, the fairy frowned. “A fairy from two days back. Long, black hair, dark but bright eyes, and a taste for enchanted artifacts? Sounds like you made a deal with the fairy your country calls Mealla.”

“Then you know her!” said Eibhlin.

“I know about her, and it would be shameful if I didn’t,” said the fairy. “She’s famous in the Fae Realm as someone not even royals mess with. Why would you do such a stupid thing as make a trade with Mealla? No matter how long I spend under the Mortal Sun, I still can’t understand humans.”

“I didn’t know who she was,” said Eibhlin. “Now, for my first question, I need to find this Mealla. Where and how can I find her?”