Goblins

"Up the airy mountain, down the rushing glen,

We daren't go a-hunting, for fear of little men."

-William Allingham, "The Fairies"

***

"I want to dance with the hill people at night," Flora said, standing on a chair and looking out the window.

Megan looked with her. The summer sun was slipping behind the yew trees on the hill beside the big old house, but no one was there that Megan could see. She frowned. "What do you mean?"

Flora looked up at her. "Every night the people dance and sing all over that hill, and the lights are very pretty."

"They bring lights?"

"They ARE lights."

Megan tsked. "No nonsense," she said. "Get ready for bed."

Flora climbed off the chair and trotted up the stairs, skirting past her brother on the floor. Megan snuffed all the candles except one, which she took with her. With the lights out, the bruised yellow color of the sunset crept around the curtain sash, turning things in the playroom a feverish color.

The old oaks and ancient yews around the estate seemed to stir like dismal, sleeping things. Megan looked at Miles. "Have you seen your sister's lights?" she said. But Miles was busy building a castle out of blocks and didn't answer. Megan set him on his feet and ushered him up the stairs after Flora. She was about to follow when Peter came in, carrying an open book.

"Are the children in bed?" he said, reading.

"I just sent them up."

"If you see Mrs. Rhoslyn upstairs tell her I want to talk to her about the staff." He closed the book and handed it to her. It was heavy.

The staircase creaked as she climbed it. The old house always seemed noisier at night, for some reason. This was a summer home, in Sir Rowland's family for generations, but nobody had ever really made long use of it until now, and it had perhaps grown used to being empty.

Megan quickened her pace. Giggles and the sound of little footsteps told her that the children weren't in bed yet. Before she could chide them she heard Mrs. Rhoslyn's voice coming around the bend in the corridor.

"...at least he was always practical before. Not that I hold it against him, mind you, given what the poor chestnut has been through, but there's no sense pretending—"

"Pretending what, Mrs. Rhoslyn?" Megan said.

Mrs. Rhoslyn had been talking to one of the wash maids (Megan could never remember their impossible Welsh names), who jumped and flushed as red as an apple. Mrs. Rhoslyn herself, though, didn't miss a beat.

"We were just saying how badly we feel for Sir Rowland," she said, smiling and smoothing her apron. "How is he holding up these days?"

"Shouldn't you know? You see him every day."

Mrs. Rhoslyn's smile grew to distinctly impertinent proportions. "But you see more of him, don't you Miss James? It's all right, no need to be embarrassed, I know how it is: I was a pretty young thing once too, not that you'd know it to look at me now."

"Yes, Mrs. Rhoslyn: I will keep in mind how little you are to look at now. Sir Rowland would like to speak with you, by the way. Something about the staff."

This caused the other maid to flush even brighter, and Megan felt their pointed stares all the way down the hall.

She found Flora and Miles just slipping under the covers of the old canopy bed in the second-floor bedroom that was serving as theirs. She clucked her tongue in disapproval and they giggled more. Megan sat, adjusted her bustle, and opened the book.

"Which story do you want?" she said.

"'Childe Rowland,'" Flora said, before the question was even finished.

Megan cocked her head. "I'm not sure that's in this book."

"I'll show you" Flora said, flipping to just the right page. Then she pulled the blanket up so that only her shiny blue eyes peeped over it. So Megan read:

"...they sought her east, they sought her west, they sought her up and down. At last her eldest brother went to a wizard and asked him if he knew where Ellen was. 'The fair Burd Ellen,' said the wizard, 'has been carried off by the fairies. She is now in the Dark Tower of the King of Elfland. It would take the boldest knight in Christendom to bring her back.'"

Megan stopped. "This doesn't seem like a good story."

"It's pretty," Flora said. "And it's called 'Rowland,' just like us. Miles likes it too," she added, and Miles nodded, though he didn't seem to want to come out from under the covers. Megan kept reading.

"'The eldest brother of Burd Ellen set out for Elfland to save her. But long they waited, and longer still, and woe were the hearts of his brethren, for he came not back again...'"

When the story was over she kissed the children on the forehead (Flora insisted on being kissed twice), helped them say their prayers, then closed the curtains and went downstairs carrying a single candle.

Mrs. Rhoslyn insisted everyone use single candles after hours because "There's no sense going out and buying more when as soon as I do Sir Rowland will pack us up back to London again, mark my words."

Peter was in bed but still awake when she came in. "Are the children settled?" he said.

"As they ever are." Megan sat on the edge of the bed, much as she'd done in the children's rooms. "Mrs. Rhoslyn's been at gossip again. I don't suppose you're letting her go?" She gestured that he should help with the buttons on the back of her dress.

"There's no harm in it," Peter said. "She keeps the house running."

Megan wriggled out of her dress and petticoat and slipped out of her chemise. Peter put his arms around her naked body and she huddled up against him, burying her face in the side of his neck. His hands felt rough on her bare skin. She never understood how a man who never handled anything rougher than pen and ink ended up with such hands, but she liked the feeling.

She wondered, idly, if Lady Rowland had ever liked it too, but the thought horrified her a little, so she put it away.

Peter was kissing his way down her neck when she remembered what Flora said before bed. "Peter dear, are there, I don't know, gypsies or anything, in those woods?"

"There damn well better not be," he said. His mustaches tickled her bare shoulders.

"Flora said something about dancing people on the hill. It made me nervous. You told me no one in the family had stayed here since your grandfather's day. Could bad sorts have taken up in these parts?"

"We keep servants on to make sure they don't. You should know better than to pay too much attention to Flora's stories."

"I suppose you're right. That feels good..."

He had moved down to kissing her naked thighs. Summer nights were hot and stuffy in this little room, and the heat of their two bodies pressed together made it worse, but Peter never wanted to move to a bigger one. At least the heat was a welcome change from the coldness of the rest of the place.

She spread her legs wider and Peter's lips traveled up and down, tracing the outline of her calves and ankles before slipping up beyond her knees and then higher still. His stubble was so rough on her sensitive skin that she bit nearly through her lip, but she didn't want him to stop. His arms cradled her hips, and looking down she could see his broad shoulders and great mane of hair. Just a little bit more now...

"Oh!" She melted, sliding back into the decadent softness of the pillows.

But he would go no further than this. She understood why: Part of it was practicality. Nothing would be a greater disaster for either of them than if Megan were to find herself carrying his child.

And part was the memory of Lady Rowland. For the same reason, Megan could never sleep in the same bed with him. If he woke in the night he'd assume that any woman next to him was his wife. Megan understood.

Later, in her own room, she caught herself stealing a glance out at the hill. There were, of course, no lights there, but for perhaps a second she imagined she saw—no, nothing, she told herself, closing the curtains.

Peter was right; she shouldn't let Flora's storytelling get the better of her. It was simply too easy in this old house and these queer woods to imagine...well, anything at all.

She said her prayers twice but still felt restless as she lay down. I sleep alone in here, she thought, and Peter sleeps alone too. And as for Bryn—

But no, she wouldn't think about him now either. She rolled over and put everything out of her mind. If sleep didn't want to come on its own, she'd simply make it.

***

It was Saturday, and Megan took the children for a walk in the gardens. It was the blooming season, and everything was red and yellow and it felt warm and alive outside of the old, dusty house.

Miles held Megan's hand while Flora flounced along the path a few feet ahead of them, chasing the bees and telling stories:

"Then the queen and her daughter and 300 fairies went up on the hill with a pole and a ribbon and a mirror, and the queen had a harebell in her left hand and a cup of burning perfume in her right hand," Flora was saying. She paused. "Does perfume really burn?"

"Sometimes," said Megan, lifting Miles over a hedge and then clambering over it herself.

"Oh," said Flora. Then: "So, the fairies tied the ribbon to the top of the pole and stuck the pole in the ground, and they all danced around it, and wherever they danced the grass died. What's the name for a pole with a ribbon that you dance around like that?"

"A maypole."

"Can we make one?" Flora said.

"If you're good, and if Sir Rowland says so. It's a pagan thing, though."

Miles had discovered an old, empty badger den under the hedge and Megan was down on her knees in the grass with him, vaguely concerned that it may, in fact, not be empty after all. "What's 'pagan' mean?" said Flora.

"Godless," Megan replied, brushing the grass off her skirts. Something caught her eye: At the top of a nearby hill, Bryn was trimming the hedges. She looked over both of her shoulders to check if any of the other servants were nearby and then told Flora, "Both of you wait here. Finish telling your fairy story to your brother."

She hiked up the slope toward Bryn while Flora plunked down in the middle of a ring of toadstools and took Miles by the hand, relating the rest of her tale in a whisper, just quiet enough that Megan couldn't really make out the words but loud enough that she could tell Flora was still there.

Bryn nodded as she came up, but his sheers never stopped working. "Good afternoon, Miss James," he said.

Megan found a soft spot on the clover bed and sat, watching him work. He was wearing a short-sleeved work shirt that showed an awful lot of his arms. "How are things in the big house?" he said.

"Just fine. ...actually, not fine at all."

"But saying 'fine' is polite."

"I guess it is." She waited for him to smile but he didn't. He was always like that: Stern when she expected him to be jovial, amused when she expected nothing at all. She used to tease him about being a melancholy Welshman, but stopped because he took it so personally.

"Will you all be staying on with us the whole summer?" he said, sounding like he was talking to the postman.

"I imagine. It's up to Sir Rowland, though."

"That's fine. That old house always looks lonely without tenants. It's good you've all come, and brought the children too. I trust they're well?"

Megan threw a handful of clover at him. "You know they are. Why are you talking to me like a stranger?"

"Little pitchers have wide ears, as my grandmother used to remind us."

"The twins?" Megan twisted around to glance at them over her shoulder. "They're in a world all their own. Besides, we're not going to say anything they shouldn't hear, are we? Sit down and talk to me like a civilized person. If anyone tries to get you in trouble for lazing about I'll say it was entirely on my account."

He seemed hesitant, but sat anyway. She noticed his hands and took hold of them, turning them over. His fingers were covered with tiny cuts. He shrugged at her scrutiny and looked embarrassed.

"What in the world have you been doing?" she said.

"I was taking the thorns off the roses."

She wanted to laugh but was sure he'd be too insulted. "Why would you do a thing like that? And without gloves?"

"You always do it without gloves. It's traditional."

"A Welsh tradition?"

"A family one. My mother did it in the summer. She said that in the earthly paradise, roses had no thorns. You take them off by hand to remind yourself that getting back to a state of grace takes hard work and hurt."

"That's almost sweet. The maddest thing I've ever heard. But sweet."

'You didn't come up here to chat about the flowers though, did you?"

A bee landed on Megan's foot, and she watched it tickle its way across the buckle of her shoe. "I'm anxious lately. Stir crazy. Something about this place bothers me. Not the house, but the land. As the summer gets on it seems like everything here has a kind of mind of its own. Does that make any sense?"

Bryn seemed to be looking at something very intently, and Megan realized it was the children. When he spoke he looked at them, not her.

"I've lived here so long I guess I don't notice anymore, but you wouldn't be used to it. Summer is a strange time in this place. My grandmother told me stories about such things. Do you want to hear one?"

I want to listen to just about anything you want to say, you dolt, she thought. But instead of saying that she just nodded.

"Here's one that happened to my grandmother's uncle: It was in summer when Uncle Tudur was walking about these hills at night, and he met a strange man playing a fiddle. And while the man played, people came up and formed a ring and started to dance.

"Poor Uncle Tudur couldn't help tapping his foot along with the music. Eventually he threw his cap in the air and joined in the pagan dance, and when he did the fiddler's face became black as soot and the horns of a goat appeared on his head, and the fairy dancers became goats and cats and dogs and foxes, and poor Uncle Tudur was forced to dance with them until the cock crowed morning.

"He very nearly danced his legs off, and would have died for exhaustion if they hadn't let him go."

Bryn stopped and licked his dry lips. Megan had never heard him speak for so long at one time. "That's like one of Flora's stories," Megan said.

"I imagine it is." He hopped up. "I have to finish these hedges by sundown, Miss James," he said, loudly.

"Bryn, wait. I want to apologize for what happened the other night. And...I want to come see you."

"What about Sir Rowland?"

"He won't miss me."

"The other night you said—"

"Forget what I said. I really need to see you. And I have to get out of that house for a little while. Please?"

He wavered with one foot off the path, and behind his eyes Megan could sense a million conflicting wants vying for his favor. Eventually he nodded, and Megan felt something like a great weight come off her shoulders.

"Tonight?" she said.

"Tonight, yes. But I've got to get back to this before anyone sees us talking."

It seemed the sun was warmer and Megan's steps lighter as she went back down the hill. She chastised herself for being so pleased. If Bryn ever noticed how easily he could change her mood, or her mind...

But of course, he wasn't the observant type. Not when it came to people, anyway.

Megan found the twins precisely where she'd left them, Flora still telling stories to Miles. But it was a minute before she was close enough to really make out the words.

"...and the men of Ardudwy raided the Vale of Clwyd, and carried off all the women there, and they spent two days drinking and raping them, until finally the fairy men caught up and flayed their hides and hung them up from the trees.

"And the fairy women all threw themselves into the lake and drowned, and so it's called Maiden's Lake. And if you drink from it—"

"FLORA!"

The little girl spun around, eyes wide.

"Where did you hear such awful things?" Megan said, marching down to them. "You've scared your brother half to death!"

Miles ran and hid behind Megan's skirt. Flora stood like a cornered doe. "I didn't mean to say anything bad," she said, looking at her hands. "I was just telling stories the way they're written in the book."

Megan went to slap her, but Flora flinched immediately and began to bawl as if she'd already been hit. Megan sighed. "There's no such thing in any book you have," she said.

"That's not true!" Flora said, startling Megan with the force of her reply. "It's a story right out of the book, and it's a true story too. They're all true stories!"

And before Megan could say anything more Flora ran off toward the house, ribbons and curls bouncing all the way. Megan could only stare, dumbfounded, and Miles clutched her skirts even tighter.

***

The sunny day turned to rain soon enough, and Megan lay awake that night listening to the storm pound the roof of the garden cottage. She jumped when a hand touched her bare shoulder, but then she took it and squeezed.

"You're fretting," Bryn said in the dark. Megan rolled over to face him.

"Yes," she said.

"You're thinking about Sir Rowland."

"No. I mean, yes, but that's not—"

"Do you love him?"

Oh for fuck's sake, she thought. "Don't ask me things like that."

"But you don't love me."

She glared at him. "I never led you to believe I did. Do you really want to talk about this now? We've only just made up, let's not fight again."

As soon as she said it she knew it was a mistake: When told not to do something, he became twice as determined to do it. "If you're not in love with Sir Rowland then why not just leave him?" he said.

Megan sat up. "You complete ass." She started to dress.

"Don't go," he said, touching her back, but she shook him off.

"I certainly won't stay. You know that a girl in my position can't just walk away from a job anytime she pleases. I realize your ego is bruised, but don't just cavalierly suggest I put myself out on the street over it. And DO NOT suggest that I can live with you if I have to."

Bryn had been about to speak but now shut his mouth. Megan paused with a stocking in hand. "Besides," she said. "I like Sir Rowland. I don't LOVE him but I like him just fine. You knew that when we started."

Bryn gave up the tiniest bit of ground: "Even if you don't quit you don't have to go to bed with him."

"He might put me out if I don't."

"Do you really think Sir Rowland would do that?"

"He's a man; I have no idea what he might do."

She was half dressed. Bryn was still naked, with only a blanket to keep the draft off ,and he suddenly looked much smaller and more afraid than she thought he really was. Her heart softened. She sat down again and kissed him.

"Listen," she said. "I'll do terrible things to your heart if you let me. So don't let me. Let's just enjoy this for what it is."

"You do terrible things anyway," Bryn said, pulling her back onto the cot. She swayed a little, as if to resist, but ended up tumbling right back into bed with his young, muscled body pressed up against hers.

The wind rattled the lattice and the whole cottage swayed, but they paid it no mind. Bryn's lips were soft, but his kisses hard. Megan was half-clothed and tried to free up enough room to wriggle out of her undergarments again, but he held her in place. The curve of his prick pressed against the inside of her leg.

She let him keep kissing her, chasing his mouth with hers, her tongue darting into his mouth now and then. The cot creaked. Megan got her legs out from under Bryn far enough to wrap them around him. Their kisses went white-hot, breathless, painful. The tip of him pressed into her. She gasped and cried out, smothering the sound by burying her face against the side of his neck. Then she panted: "Bryn..."

"Do you want to stop?"