Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)(10)
I was puzzled. “Surely there’s no reason why she would?”
“It’s fine, Finn,” Lilja said. “I’d be pleased to welcome you to my home, Professor.”
I encountered similar reticence from several other villagers, though in each case, Finn, smiling and polite, smoothed the waters. I wondered if the locals had not fully understood the purpose of my visit, though it was clear that Krystjan had not hidden the details of our correspondence.
Eventually we came to the table of the go?i, Aud Hallasdottir, who looked up from her conversation with two rough-looking women to smile at me. I found myself abruptly caught in a tight embrace. Aud stepped back, her hands still on my shoulders, and informed me that I would dine at her home at my earliest convenience. I acquiesced, telling her that Finn had notified me of her expertise where the Hidden Ones were concerned, and expressing my gratitude for any information she could share.
Finn’s smile took on a fixed quality, and Aud blinked. She was a short, broad woman with two deep lines between her eyes, the only visible sign of her age. I had only a moment to wonder where I had gone wrong before she nodded and said, “Of course, Professor Wilde. Please, sit down, and allow my husband to serve you. He makes an excellent mulled wine—you must take a bottle home with you. I’ve been in that cottage of Krystjan’s, and find it very drafty.”
I told her politely that she was very kind, but that I insisted upon paying for my refreshments. As a rule, I avoid accepting favours from the locals while conducting fieldwork, as I dislike the potential for partiality it produces. Every village has its share of scandals where the Folk are concerned, mysterious pregnancies and the like, and my job as a scholar is not to censor but to decide upon the inclusion of such accounts in my research—with names redacted, of course—based on scientific merit.
Aud nodded and excused herself to discuss something with her husband, Ulfar. I had not been introduced to him yet, though I was constantly aware of him looming at the back of the tavern. He was not a tall man, but something about the heavy brows and sharpness of his countenance, which created little peaks and valleys of shadow, gave him the quality of a brooding mountain. I at first thought him to be glaring at me as he moved about the room, serving up platters of fish and bread or a nearly solid dark stew, until I noticed that he looked that way at everyone.
Finn seemed oddly flustered after my conversation with the headwoman, and I began to worry that I had given some offence. However, Aud reappeared with a smile and a table prepared for me—close to the fire, a position from which she had needed to evict a trio of sailors, who complied without noticeable objection. One woman remained at the table, and I sensed that no command, from a headwoman or otherwise, could move her from her preferred spot. As I seated myself opposite, she smiled at me.
I smiled back. She was a woman of advanced years—so advanced, in fact, that I felt momentarily as if I had never truly known old age. Her eyes were mere slits within that wrinkled countenance, her hands a riverbed of spots. But the eyes were a vivid green, the hands moving rapidly through the wool hooked around her fingers, which she seemed to be knitting without the aid of needles.
“Thora Gudridsdottir,” Finn said, before retreating towards the bar. Shadow tucked himself under the table and contentedly worked at a mutton chop.
“They’re laughing at you,” the old woman said. “They’d never do it to your face. Well, Krystjan, maybe. They call you a—you don’t have a word for it in English. It means something like library mouse.”
My face heated, though I kept my voice even. “There are worse epithets, I suppose.”
“They also say you are a silly foreign girl who lost her head over some faerie back home and now trots round the world on her parents’ penny looking for a way back to his world. They can’t fathom another reason why you’d be doing this. Makes no more sense to them than a sheep taking it into its head to look for wolves. If you make it through the week, you shall astonish them. Bets have been placed.”
This speech concluded, she went back to her knitting.
I had not the least idea how to respond. My stew steamed before me, my spoon held foolishly in my hand. I set it down. “Do you agree?”
Thora Gudridsdottir’s bright gaze was wholly focused on her knitting. I almost disbelieved that she had spoken at all, so intent was she on her work, her person butterfly-fragile but eminently well cared for, the picture of a beloved grandmother in her dotage. She didn’t look up as she let out a rude sound of disbelief. “Do I agree? Why would I be telling you any of this, if that were so?”
I appreciate blunt people. It takes the guesswork out of conversations, and as someone who is terrible at guesswork and always putting her feet wrong, this is invaluable. I could only say with perfect honesty, “I don’t know what to make of you.”
She nodded approvingly. “You’re clever. And how do I know?” She leaned forward, and I found I had to do so too, all my supposed cleverness bewitched by this strange old woman. “Because you’ve seen them, and lived.”
I gazed at her, stunned. “How do you know that?”
She made that rude noise again. “I’ve a grandniece at university in London. When Krystjan told us you were coming, I wrote to her and she sent me some of your papers.”
I nodded. “Well, my successes with other Folk may have little bearing on my fortunes here.”