Page 3 of Beyond the Faerie Gate

“In the church,” Clair says. “I followed him this time. They’re all there. The miller, the butcher, and the hunters, even the ealdorman. And the children are with my mother, so stop making excuses. Come on.”

Admittedly, the idea of my brother in a room with Colbert and half the important men in the village doesn’t sit well with me. What if they’re discussing my marriage?

Clair can tell she’s caught my interest with that one, and rushes to continue. “We can watch them through the window, and if it is just taxes or men’s gossip, at least we’ll know.”

I nibble at my lower lip and tighten my grip on my stick. “Fine.”

She doesn’t need any further encouragement to tug me back into a fast walk down the narrow lane.

The churchyard is now completely empty. The few friends my father still had at the end of his life who attended the funeral have left. It makes what we’re doing feel illicit as we both crouch behind the wall and press our ears to the shutters.

It’s impossible to see anything through them, but deep male voices echo loudly inside the cavernous building.

“Tom, with your father’s death, the title of warden of the gate falls to you.”

“I’m honoured, ealdorman,” my brother replies, but I can tell he’s lying. His words are laced with a subtle undertone of resignation I doubt anyone else would’ve picked up on.

“You’ll have to move into the warden’s cottage,” the ealdorman continues. “And you’ll be required to continue relaying the wee ones’ messages whenever they come, as you have been. I trust you have no objections?”

Tom mumbles a negative, and Clair thumps her thigh in anger.

“He promised me he would sell the house,” she snarls under her breath. “Not move our family into it! It’s far too small for all nine of us.”

I hush her and turn my focus back to the conversation.

“What about the bargain? With David’s death, the protection and prosperity the fairies provided the village will end,” the nasally voice of the village hunter, Alaric, demands. “Already, there are signs of intruders in the forest. We are unprotected and bandits are circling.”

“The changeling turns twenty-five tomorrow,” the ealdorman replies. “It’s unlikely that we’ll be beset upon in such a short time. If the wee folk do return for her, Tom will strike a new bargain.”

Wait… I quickly do the calculations in my head. I turn twenty-five tomorrow.

A stone settles in my stomach.

There’s no way…

“Are you daft, lord?” Tom demands. “You want another fairy bargain hanging over our heads? What of the price? My sister may not have caused us much trouble beyond her sickly nature, but I doubt they’ll be so kind as to give us such favourable terms a second time. Our village cannot be a boarding town for unwanted fairy babes forever, and not all of them will be so gentle and lovable as Rose.”

They’re mad.

My eyes snap to Clair, who’s obviously come to the same realisation that I just have. The shock and… fear—yes, actual fear—in her gaze cuts deep as a knife.

“I’m not a fairy,” I insist, forgetting to lower my voice. “I can’t be. I’m just ill.”

There’s a scuffle from inside before the shutters are flung wide open. The heavy wooden shades would’ve knocked both of us flying if we weren’t crouched below the windowsill, but our position does nothing to hide us from my brother.

I’m not sure whose expression is worse: his wife’s as she backs away from me, clutching the wooden crucifix around her throat, or his, as he realises what I’ve just heard.

“I’m not,” I insist, backing away from the window, dropping my stick in the process. “You’ve gone mad.”

“Rose, get back here,” Colbert commands, joining my brother in the window.

The miller is just as large as my brother, but infinitely more terrifying.

At first, I thought my gut reaction to him was simply disgust at the way he leered when I passed him in the street. Then Maeve stalked him for me when he first approached my father, asking for my hand in marriage, and what she discovered chilled me to the bone. The man beats his widowed mother. When she displeases him, he locks her in the grain store for days.

Of course, I tried bringing it up with my brother, but she wouldn’t speak out against her only son. Eventually, Tom dismissed it as another of my fanciful imaginings, brought about by my ill health.

But I know the truth, and that makes the rage in his eyes all the more terrifying.

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