Faerie Tale Read Online Free PDF Page A

border into the gypsy camp, everything in the forest felt different.  The air was sharp, clear and cold.  The ground under their feet crunched, and the trees were rimed with frost.  It was like passing into another country. 
    The gypsies were welcoming.  It was like a small court really. Despite the tattered tents and dirty faces, there was a certain tawdry grandeur about the place, a kind of stateliness.  A certain decorum was followed and a loose hierarchy appeared to exist.  And all this was presided over by a ragged yet colourful king, who had a face like a piece of carved teak (yet the features were more like those usually found carved in marble) perfect manners and a tent to himself with gold braiding around the door flap, and his own blanket. 
    They were fed and placed by the fire to warm them up.  Then the gypsies told them what they knew.
    They had been living in the forest for some weeks when their people began to disappear and they saw the strange lights in the trees.  They knew that the local people were blaming them for the trouble because lately several strangers had turned up wandering near their camp and told them so, but they swore they had nothing to do with it. 
    ‘It is a power far older than ours,’ they said. But they did not know what it was. 
    So they had fenced themselves in with spells and charms and, so far, it seemed to be working as long as they kept their vigilance.  Sometimes people tried to leave the camp but were always stopped, and the strange lights never entered the camp at night now, but the gypsies were worried that they would not be able to hold them off forever.
    ‘We might …’ began Tamar but was nudged into silence by the ever-suspicious Stiles.  She had been about to say that they might know what the lights were, but Stiles reminded her to trust no one at this stage. As far as he was concerned, it was either a remarkable coincidence that these “gypsies” had turned up at exactly the same time as all the other trouble had begun, or else they were, at the very least, not telling them the whole truth.  If it was not an absolute tissue of lies from beginning to end. 
    Fortunately, no one seemed to have noticed that she had spoken.
    The gypsies did have a name for the strange lights in the forest.  “Sidhe”.
     
    ‘I thought the gypsies were the Sidhe,’ said Tamar a little later, as they sat apart at the edge of the campfire.
    ‘No,’ said Denny. ‘We just assumed it because of the way the newspaper article was worded.  It never actually said as much. It talked about “gypsy outrages” and then later mentioned the name Sidhe as the one people mentioned when they returned’
    ‘So, it’s a coincidence?’
    Stiles snorted sceptically.
    Tamar nodded. She did not think so either.
     
    Later that night, around midnight, when the camp was silent, Tamar was filled with a sudden urgent desire to wander into the forest.  Why, she could not have said, even if questioned at the time – later she was to be equally uncertain. 
    Stiles – who was born vigilant – saw her go and silently followed her.  He did not wake Denny who, unable to walk, would only have slowed him down. 
    After she had walked about 400 yards Tamar stopped abruptly and, without turning round, said, ‘I know you’re there Jack.’
    ‘Damn! I was sure I didn’t make a noise,’he thought.
    She turned to face him ‘I didn’t hear you,’ she said as if reading his thoughts.  ‘I just knew.  I knew you would follow me.’ 
    She moved toward him slowly.  ‘And now we’re alone,’ she said.  There was no mistaking her meaning; it was in the tone of her voice. She sounded … seductive. 
    Stiles immediately became nervous. ‘A-alone?’ he stammered.  ‘Are you sure, that’s a good idea … out here I mean …?’ he gestured vaguely around him. 
    Tamar was beautiful even by ordinary standards – even by supermodel standards – but Stiles had got used to it by now –