Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)(26)
“Purpose? Or purposes? The Folk are diverse in many ways; no doubt this is one of them.”
I could detect no hidden meaning in his words, and so decided to take them at face value. Perhaps he truly had no idea why the Folk of Ljosland stole children. Indeed, he was so detached about the whole thing that I felt a sliver of doubt enter me. Yet what reason would Poe have had to lie about Bambleby’s identity?
“I would like to at least try to help.”
“Help whom?”
I wanted to shake him. “Mord and Aslaug!”
“Ah. How do you propose to do that? Their son will die if the changeling is killed. If we somehow chase it from its abode, it will die, and thus the outcome is the same.” He leaned back against the tree, his eyes drifting shut again. “Besides, it would hardly be professional. We’re here to observe, not interfere.”
I watched him carefully. “Perhaps you could visit them.”
His eyes opened to slits. “And what will that accomplish?”
His voice was as bored as ever, but there was an undercurrent of something that made me feel as if I was edging onto dangerous ground. Only I didn’t care. I knew that if I left Mord and Aslaug with the changeling without making every effort to free them from its poisons, I would regret it until the end of my days.
“I don’t know,” I said, meeting his gaze levelly. It was true enough. I don’t know what powers he has or what he is capable of. “Perhaps you can get more information out of the creature than I could. The Folk of Ljosland clearly find you disagreeable company, for reasons unimaginable to myself.”
He laughed. His eyes become very green when he laughs; you wonder if the colour will spill from them like sap. “I hardly recognize you, Em. I never would have thought that you of all people would come to care for any of these villagers. Are they not mere variables in your research?”
“It’s not that I care for them,” I said heatedly, before realizing that my offence rather made his point for him. I could tell by his smile that he knew it too.
“I’ll pay your afflicted horticulturalists a visit tomorrow,” he said. “Will that suit?”
“Thank you.” I stood, feeling off-balance and wishing to escape the conversation. “Perhaps we can return to the cottage. I would like to review your notes, and hear what your students have discovered.”
“Very well.” He looked at me woefully, as if expecting me to help him up. I folded my arms. With a dramatic groan, he pulled himself to his feet with his customary grace, and we departed the Karr?arskogur.
Skip Notes
* All dryadologists accept the existence of those doors that lead to individual faerie homes and villages, such as those inhabited by the common fae. Theories about a second class of door are more controversial, but I myself believe highly credible, given the stories we have of the courtly fae. These are thought to be doors that lead deep into Faerie, into a world wholly separate from our own.
30th October
Bambleby insisted on a visit to the tavern last night, naturally, a divertissement eminently acceptable to our two assistants, who were wearied from their work in the field. Lizzie and Henry, both attractive if bland ambassadors of the scientific community, were warmly welcomed by rustics and gentry alike, and bonded quickly with the village youth over their enthusiasm to sample the local wallop. Bambleby, of course, was in his element. With a speed that I suspected to be record-setting even in his books, he soon had half the tavern roaring with laughter over one of his many stories of foreign misadventure, delivered in charmingly accented Ljoslander, whilst the other half gossiped about him at a distance, including several ladies whom I overheard scheming over private invitations of a decidedly unacademic nature. The result was easily the most enjoyable evening I have spent in Hrafnsvik, as the villagers largely forgot about my existence amidst the gale-force winds of Bambleby’s personality. I was delighted to sit in the corner with my food and a book and speak to no one.
Bambleby seemed particularly drawn to the beautiful woodcutter, Lilja, and spent a good portion of the evening—when he was not occupying his proverbial hour upon the stage—wooing her by the fireside. I am afraid that one source of my enjoyment was in the continued politeness with which she received his attentions, which never warmed beyond tepid. It seemed Bambleby had never encountered such a result before, given the puzzlement in his gaze, which kept straying in Lilja’s direction from across the room. This too was met with an amiable wall of obliviousness.
The only person to converse with me was old Thora Gudridsdottir, who heaved herself into the other chair at the corner table. “Not much for entertainment, eh?” she said.
I gestured to the academic tome in my hands. “This is much more entertaining than stories I’ve been subjected to more than once.”
“What a cold fish you are.” Unlike Finn, Thora did not appear to mean it as an insult. “Not one to be charmed by a pretty face, eh? What on earth are you reading?”
I explained that it was a treatise on the Russian forest faerie, the leshy, whom some scholars theorize to be cousins of the Hidden Ones of Ljosland (those inclined to entertain the idea of the Hidden Ones). Thora seemed intrigued and asked many questions.
“May I borrow it?” she said.
“Of course,” I said with some surprise, and handed her the book. “Perhaps, after you’ve read it, you could offer your opinion on the merits of Wilkie’s theory.”