“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 slipped 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 come and 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 a feverish color. The old oaks and ancient yews around the estate seemed to stir like dismal, sleeping things. Megan shivered. She looked at Miles. “Have you seen your sister’s lights?” she said. But Miles did not answer. He was building a castle out of blocks, operating by touch in the dark. 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,” said Megan. “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. The old house was quite pretty during the day, but the long corridors and tall rooms seemed secretive and closed-off at night. It was a summer home, in Sir Rowland’s family for generations, but nobody had ever really made 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 were not 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, though, did not miss a beat.“We were just saying,” said Mrs. Rhoslyn, smiling and smoothing her apron, “how badly we feel for Sir Rowland. 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? 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 room that was serving as their bedroom for the time being. 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 it’s in this book.”“I’ll show you” Flora said, flipping it open 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 did not 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.” Nights in the old house were gloomier things now. Peter was already 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. “It’s what she does,” Peter said. “There’s no harm in it. 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 and calloused 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 avcılar escort bayan tickled as he kissed 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. She tolerated the heat, and in truth it 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 even 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. She braced for the feeling of his hot breath. 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, she could never sleep in his bed. She did not resent it, instead preferring tremendous pity. In her own room, she caught herself stealing a glance out at the hill. There were, of course, no lights, but for perhaps a second she imagined she saw—no, nothing, she told herself, closing the curtains. Peter was right; she should not let Flora’s storytelling get the better of her. It was simply too easy in this old house and these queer woods. She said her prayers twice but still felt restless as she lay down. She slept alone in here. Peter slept alone in his own room. And Bryn—But no, she wouldn’t think about that now. She rolled over and put it out of her mind. If sleep didn’t want to come on its own, she’d simply make it. ***It was a bright Saturday, and Megan took the children for a walk in the gardens. It was the blooming season and everything was red and yellow and blue 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 three hundred 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. 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,” said Megan, brushing the grass off her skirts. She spied Bryn trimming the hedges at the top of the slope. “Both of you wait here. Finish telling your fairy story to your brother.” She began hiking up toward Bryn. Flora plunked down in the middle of a ring of toadstools and took Miles by the hand, relating the rest of the story in a whisper. 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 Bryn 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.”“Will you all be staying on with us the whole summer?”“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 I’m a stranger?”Turning so that he faced only her for a second he said: “Little pitchers have wide ears, as my grandmother used to remind us.” “They’re in a world all their own. 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. “What in the world have you been doing?” His fingers were covered with tiny cuts. He shrugged and looked embarrassed.“I was taking the thorns off the roses.”She wanted to laugh but was afraid it would sound like she was making fun of him. “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. 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. “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. Am I talking nonsense?”Bryn seemed to be looking at something very intently, and Megan realized it was the children. When he spoke he looked at them, not beylikdüzü escort bayan 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. Here’s one that happened to her uncle: It was in summer when Uncle Tudur was walking about these hills at night, and he met a strange man playing a fiddle. He stopped to listen because he’d never seen such a thing before. “And while the man played, people came up and formed a ring and started to dance, and poor Uncle Tudur couldn’t help tapping his foot along with the music. This went on into the night and eventually Uncle Tudur couldn’t help himself. 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 died for exhaustion.”He 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 still want to apologize for what happened the other night. And…I want to come see you tonight.”“What about Sir Rowland?”“He won’t miss me.”“But the other night you said—”“Please just forget what I said. I really need to see you. I have to get out of that house for a little while.”He wavered with one foot off the path, but eventually nodded. Megan felt a great weight leave her. The sun was warmer as she went back down the hill. She was so pleased that it was nearly a minute before Flora’s voice registered with her:“…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? You’ve scared your brother half to death!”Miles ran and hid behind Megan’s skirt. Flora stood like a cornered doe. “It’s in the book,” she said. Megan went to slap her but Flora flinched immediately and began to bawl as if she’d already been hit. “There’s no such thing in any book you have,” said Megan.“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 Flora ran off toward the house, ribbons and curls bouncing all the way, leaving Megan to stare after her, dumbfounded, and Miles to clutch 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?”“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. Let’s not fight.”“If you’re not in love with Sir Rowland then why not just leave him?”She sat up. “You complete ass,” she said. She started to dress.“Don’t go.”“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 shut his mouth. Megan paused with a stocking in hand. “Besides, I like Sir Rowland. I don’t LOVE him but I…like him…just fine.”“Even if you don’t quit you don’t have to go to bed with him.”“He might put me out.”“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, and 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. Don’t let me.” “You do terrible things anyway,” Bryn said, pulling her back onto the cot. She swayed a little, as if to resist, but she 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. She panted: “Bryn…”“Do you want to stop?”“No…”He slid in. She tightened her hold, shuddering as the entire length of him entered her. Rain pattered the tin roof, covering up the sound of their bodies rising and falling and the springs bouncing up and down and Megan’s quiet, strangled cries. He plowed into her and her muscles contracted, gripping him tight. It was too dark to see but she could imagine his dark brown eyes holding her gaze as they ebbed and flowed together. His body was hot and slippery. She licked his bare chest, tongue tingling with the salt of perspiration, then cried out when he buried his smooth face between her breasts. Even the thin blankets became uncomfortable with all this heat esenyurt escort and they ended up a tangled mass on the floor as the two of them went on.She felt him tense up all over and then begin to withdraw. She stopped him. He mumbled a warning but she told him it was fine. “I had my time,” she said. “It’s safe.”“You’re sure?”“Too many questions,” she said, swallowing his mouth with hers and guiding him back, squeezing his rear with both hands. She was obscenely wet. He reminded her of a sprinting colt, all muscle and sinew and sweaty flanks. She encouraged him to go faster. When he came it was a hot rush and he gasped a wordless, soundless cry into the dark and fell over her. They clung together while she brushed the hair back out of his face and accepted a series of small, loving kisses one by one on her lips and cheeks and chin as they waited for their hearts to stop racing. He could not convince her to stay. Megan wrapped herself in a shawl for protection from the rain and pressed a finger to his lips before he could speak. The storm was at a lull and only a drizzle touched Megan as she ran from the garden cottage along the dark but familiar paths to the side door. She stepped in a dish as she let herself in. One of the maids, it seemed, had left some cream out. Was there a cat about? She shook her wet foot and padded inside. This was the part she hated most of all. It was one thing going through the dark halls when she at least had a small light, but this mad sprint to her own room in the pitch black was unbearable. This time she didn’t bother pretending she was not afraid. This time she ran as fast as she dared and didn’t stop until her bedroom door shut behind her. She sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her heart to slow again. It took some time. She was brushing out her damp hair and slipping off her wet shoes when she heard the voice. It came right out of some darkened corner of her room, and she jumped and held her chest, as if her heart would stop. And the little voice said: “As St. Collen sat in his cell he heard two men conversing about the king of the elves and fairies, and Collen put his head out of and said to them, ‘Those are but devils.’“It sounded as if it had come from the closet? But that was impossible. She must be overhearing something from one of the nearby rooms, though almost all of them were meant to be shut up. Anxious, she lit a candle and eased the closet open anyway. Of course, no one was there…“Collen heard a knock at his door. It was a messenger saying that the king of the fairies bid him come to a certain hilltop at midnight. But Collen did not go.”Now it was in the hall. Heart racing again, Megan pushed the bedroom door open. Nothing there but shadows. From further down, perhaps in one of the empty rooms?“Three times the messenger came and three times Collen refused, until finally the fairy threatened its most dire curse, and Collen relented…”Padding in her bare feet up the stairs, Megan followed the voice. She wanted to call out after it but was afraid. It sounded like a woman, but no one she’d ever heard before.“Collen went to the top of the hill, and there was a man dressed in hides with a crown of stag’s antlers and a face as black as coal and a spear as long as three men. Down in the town the bells were tolling twelve.”There was a light under the door of the children’s room, but not like a candle or even a lantern. This was pale green, like marsh gas. Megan pressed her ear to the door:“Then he beheld the fairest castle he had ever seen, and the best appointed troops, and numbers of minstrels and every kind of music and voice and string, and steeds with youths upon them, and maidens of elegant aspect and every magnificence becoming the court of a sovereign. But the sickly sweet beauty of everything filled his heart with dread.“That’s when the king of the fairies said to Collen—”Megan pushed the door in. She was not sure what she expected (or dreaded?) to find, but waited for her was…Nothing. There was no light, and no one here but Flora and Miles, and they were both asleep, with their little heads together on the pillow. The voice was gone, its tale lingering in mid-sentence. Cupping the candle flame, she looked behind the door and in closet and even peered under the bed, but no one was hiding. The window was closed, and this was the second floor in any case. The children stirred. Megan sat on the foot of the bed. When she put a hand on the comforter it was warm, as if someone had sat there only a second ago…She noticed a pair of eyes peeping over the covers. She’d woken Miles. She told him to go back to sleep, but he pointed to the rosary around her neck. She dangled it over his head and helped him count the beads very quietly, as they did every night, then kissed him on the forehead and went back downstairs. There were no voices in the dark now, but she locked the door behind her and left a candle burning in the closet all night (never mind what Mrs. Rhoslyn might say). She did not want to run the risk of waking up and not being able to see who else could be in the room with her.***It was Wednesday. Megan couldn’t concentrate. She’d been reviewing Catechisms with the children and kept losing her own place. Finally she sent them to play, on the solemn promise that Flora would not sneak off. Megan paced the sunroom, thinking. Sir Rowland had gone for a few days on business; the twins were being attentive; she was able to see Bryn every night. Everything was peaceful, but she still felt uneasy. It must be the queer summer, like Bryn said.Lady Rowland’s portrait was in this room. She’d spent much of the last year of her life sitting for it. Megan, who had come to work for the family only after she died, was not sure if it was a good likeness, but she hoped not. It looked downright ghoulish. Megan tried to read but made little headway. The window was open and she heard Mrs. Rhoslyn and one of the maids clucking away like a pair of hens as they folded the wash. She couldn’t help but eavesdrop:“…because my father’s father was a miner, and you know they’ve always lived down in the mines,” Mrs. Rhoslyn said. “They knock three times to warn a man he’s about to die, but never soon enough that he’d be able to save himself. It’s their way.”“My mother’s bachelor uncle fell in love with a woman who rowed a golden boat across the lake over in the glen of nights,” said the maid.