Page 14 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
I can’t help the quizzical look I give Morgen, and affront flickers over her face. She really believes that Ceridwen will return to her and live this life they’ve planned. I could almost laugh. There’s no way I’ll let Ceridwen stay here. I tell myself it’s because she’s too ill and Gran needs her, but a twisting, selfish part of me knows it’s because I cannot bear to part with her. Certainly not if it gets her something I’ve always wanted, while I’m left behind.
“I will,” I lie.
Morgen beams, believing me wholeheartedly even though I lied to her mere moments ago and got thoroughly caught. Clearly, no one has ever lied to her before today.
I’m delighted to be the first.
I cross the haphazard bridge and look back once I’m on dry land. Morgen watches me, unblinking, and though I turn quickly I know she’s staring until I disappear into the trees and take her last tie to Ceridwen with me.
Of course, I don’t go far. I make it deep into the woods, then immediately drop onto the nearest pile of sturdy-looking roots and stare, dumbly, into nothing. Something brushes against my skirt and I yank it, expecting a mouse to have scampered by, but there’s nothing beside me. Only disturbed leaves, as if something had slipped past unseen.
This is Eu gwlad, there’s worse than mice here.I shiver at the thought.Eu gwlad—their country. Their land, not mine. This is not the Wales that I know.
Fairies. My sister, away with the fairies. I laugh, then cover my mouth, trying to trap the sound. It carries further than I intended anyway.
“What’s so funny?”
I yelp and launch away from the tree.
A man reclines on a low, thick branch, swinging one leg just above my head. He wasn’t there when I sat down and I should’ve heard his arrival—not to mention his scrambling up the tree.
“I was already here.” He leers over the branch, answering a question I haven’t asked. “But really—what’s so funny, little mouse?”
He is gangly, like his limbs have been stretched on a rack, and his clothes are bizarre. He wears puffed sleeves and equally puffy breeches in a violent purple, with an exposed corset at his waist. Stockings cover oddly bowed legs, ending in clawed paws that have burst through the thin silk. His face is strangely human, framed byheavy muttonchops. His eyes are covered by purple-tinted glasses, creating a void at the center of his otherwise unremarkable features. A floppy hat sits at an odd angle atop his shaggy reddish hair, and alert, wolflike ears protrude from the felt. When he grins, I see that his incisors are gold and far too long. He could be a pwca. Morgen warned me that they hunt nearby.
I have only my father’s tales and untested rules to go by. The tylwyth teg like games. The tylwyth teg bestow gifts and favors that twist themselves into curses when brought into the light. They are childlike in their cruelty and aimless in their ambitions. They covet beautiful mortals and steal them away—no wonder they called out to Ceridwen and not me—but, most importantly, the tylwyth teg want your name. It binds you to them, lets them call upon you and make you do their bidding.
“I… was laughing at my own stupidity.” I carefully edge away.
“Oh?”
“Yes.” I glance around for a lie and find it on my hand. “See this?” I wave Ceridwen’s ring at him. “It’s iron. A sharp thing. I forgot to take it off when I came into Gwlad y Tylwyth Teg and now no one will talk to me. You’re the very first, sir.”
“It does smell rather… rancid.” His nostrils flare. “Take it off, then, mouse.”
“I can’t,” I counter. “It’s stuck. Could you help me take it off—Oh, you can’t touch iron, can you?”
In one deft motion he leaps down from the tree and lands right before me. There are three steps between us and for every move I make to get away, he comes closer. He smells like old dirt and rotten leaves. If Morgen is right, the pwca must want me to see him—must wantsomethingfrom me.
“I’ve seen you before,” he says, after sizing me up.
“I have one of those faces.”
“So does your sister.”
My eyes widen against my will and his lip curls on one side.
“My next guess was cousin.” He flicks a leaf from his shoulder.
Morgen’s words come back to my ears: a trickster led my sister astray. Could it have been him?
“I’m only surprised because I had a sister many years ago, but she died,” I lie.
The man looks me up and down, a bemused smile on his lips, and I wonder if fairies tell their children tales of tricky humans who lie and cheat and steal and take advantage of their golden honesty.
“Let’s play a game,” he says. “I’ll ask a question and if you get it right, I’ll tell you where your not-sister went.”
Likely story.
