heights—and leading him off to find hidden wildflowers for his potions, which, as it happened, were exceptionally fine.
Hmm
, thought Elsie, and
hmm
, and she lay awake all night remembering every good thing she ever knew of Loren Dean—there were a lot!—and by morning she was convinced she’d wanted him all along.
As for Scylla Grey, it was a lie the Breeds told that she’d lit a candle for phantoms. Sure she had an eye on Matty, but being a town girl, she didn’t believe in that phantom malarkey at all. She was down in the square, dancing to the strangers’ music, spinning and twirling, and one of their scythe-billed birds took a fancy to her and came to perch on her head. Her Manx cat got jealous and tried to eat it, and in the commotion the stranger had to drop his lute to rescue his bird, and that was that. He was handsome as a pirate, and hedidn’t pick up his lute again all night, just danced with Scylla instead, and he danced her right to the church door at sunup, his bird riding on the Manx now, bird and cat giving each other smug looks like they’d arranged it all between them.
Up in the orchard, a squirrel came upon Pippin’s wedge of abandoned cake. It had some kind of markings etched into its surface, the squirrel saw, but he couldn’t read, and nor could he count to tell if there was one set of initials or two. He just ate it up, happy as only a squirrel can be who’s found a wedge of cake abandoned on a tree root, even if it
did
savor of flower-rot water.
As for Pippin, when she ran off and left Matty behind, she didn’t have a thought to where she’d go. Tears were streaking down her cheeks and she kept raising angry fists to swipe them away. Every time she thought of him straightening up clear of her kiss, her face went hot with shame. By the green god’s mercy, what madness had come over her, trying to kiss him when she knew it wasn’t her he wanted?
She stumbled and went down on her knees, biting her tongue in the process, and it was all just so pathetic.
Some fairy I make
, she thought,
tripping over branches!
Anyway, fairies didn’t weep. They didn’t even have tear ducts, which was why, Nasty Mary had taught her, if you ever saw fairy tears in the ingredients to a spell, you knew it was a fake. Pippin got to her feet and kept running, and soon enough she came to a path—a path made by many feet over the years, including her own. It led to just one place, and she found herself going there.
Since she happened to know Matty was elsewhere, it was sure to be empty. She came around a curve and there it was, tucked under the giant oak: Matty’s house. It looked almost a toy under the great tree, and Pippin came to a halt when she saw it was lit up.
Orange light played out the windows, and since there was no roof yet, it glowed up and lit the underside of the oak too. Wind was tossing the branches and shaking loose leaves, and they swirled all around and fell right inside. “Careless,” Pippin whispered, surprised that Matty had gone off and left a lantern lit. That wasn’t like him at all.
She hugged a tree at the edge of a clearing and watched the house. She felt shy being here, and then mad at Matty about it. This had been a place for all the tots and kids once, the pair of them especially. They’d built a nest high up in the branches of that oak and kept watch over the whole earth, or so it had seemed to them then. They’d called it their crow’s nest. She wondered if he remembered that.
But now he’d gone and built his house here and made it his own place, and worse: it would be his wife’s soon enough, though Pippin could scarcely see fine Scylla living up here so far from town, and having to set her slippers to that muddy footpath all the wet winter long.
I hope your toes mildew
, Pippin thought pettishly, little imagining the other girl was at that moment clasped in the tattooed arms of a pirate lutanist from over the Bigwater, and more than halfway to falling in
Hmm
, thought Elsie, and
hmm
, and she lay awake all night remembering every good thing she ever knew of Loren Dean—there were a lot!—and by morning she was convinced she’d wanted him all along.
As for Scylla Grey, it was a lie the Breeds told that she’d lit a candle for phantoms. Sure she had an eye on Matty, but being a town girl, she didn’t believe in that phantom malarkey at all. She was down in the square, dancing to the strangers’ music, spinning and twirling, and one of their scythe-billed birds took a fancy to her and came to perch on her head. Her Manx cat got jealous and tried to eat it, and in the commotion the stranger had to drop his lute to rescue his bird, and that was that. He was handsome as a pirate, and hedidn’t pick up his lute again all night, just danced with Scylla instead, and he danced her right to the church door at sunup, his bird riding on the Manx now, bird and cat giving each other smug looks like they’d arranged it all between them.
Up in the orchard, a squirrel came upon Pippin’s wedge of abandoned cake. It had some kind of markings etched into its surface, the squirrel saw, but he couldn’t read, and nor could he count to tell if there was one set of initials or two. He just ate it up, happy as only a squirrel can be who’s found a wedge of cake abandoned on a tree root, even if it
did
savor of flower-rot water.
As for Pippin, when she ran off and left Matty behind, she didn’t have a thought to where she’d go. Tears were streaking down her cheeks and she kept raising angry fists to swipe them away. Every time she thought of him straightening up clear of her kiss, her face went hot with shame. By the green god’s mercy, what madness had come over her, trying to kiss him when she knew it wasn’t her he wanted?
She stumbled and went down on her knees, biting her tongue in the process, and it was all just so pathetic.
Some fairy I make
, she thought,
tripping over branches!
Anyway, fairies didn’t weep. They didn’t even have tear ducts, which was why, Nasty Mary had taught her, if you ever saw fairy tears in the ingredients to a spell, you knew it was a fake. Pippin got to her feet and kept running, and soon enough she came to a path—a path made by many feet over the years, including her own. It led to just one place, and she found herself going there.
Since she happened to know Matty was elsewhere, it was sure to be empty. She came around a curve and there it was, tucked under the giant oak: Matty’s house. It looked almost a toy under the great tree, and Pippin came to a halt when she saw it was lit up.
Orange light played out the windows, and since there was no roof yet, it glowed up and lit the underside of the oak too. Wind was tossing the branches and shaking loose leaves, and they swirled all around and fell right inside. “Careless,” Pippin whispered, surprised that Matty had gone off and left a lantern lit. That wasn’t like him at all.
She hugged a tree at the edge of a clearing and watched the house. She felt shy being here, and then mad at Matty about it. This had been a place for all the tots and kids once, the pair of them especially. They’d built a nest high up in the branches of that oak and kept watch over the whole earth, or so it had seemed to them then. They’d called it their crow’s nest. She wondered if he remembered that.
But now he’d gone and built his house here and made it his own place, and worse: it would be his wife’s soon enough, though Pippin could scarcely see fine Scylla living up here so far from town, and having to set her slippers to that muddy footpath all the wet winter long.
I hope your toes mildew
, Pippin thought pettishly, little imagining the other girl was at that moment clasped in the tattooed arms of a pirate lutanist from over the Bigwater, and more than halfway to falling in
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