Page 59 of Stolen Threadwitch Bride
The Albionic tradition for Calan Mai centred around May crowns woven by young men and gifted to their chosen women, then a run through the forest at night. There was no wolpertinger. We searched for each other.
I’d never taken part, but Rose had told me plenty about the giggles and rustles, the kisses and couplings enjoyed in the darkness. The forest was not a place for society and its rules and its shadows granted permission to cross lines. Many a wedding followed Calan Mai and many a babe was born nine months later in February.
As well as the wolpertinger hunt, did fae do the same? If Ly found me, would we continue what we’d started on the terrace? Maybe it was my turn for a run through the forest at night…
A thrill rippled through me as I stepped out into a small clearing. Starlight added to the dim, drifting fae lights, revealing a blanket of bluebells. In the clear night air wafted the sweet, dark taste of black cherries.
Crack. Behind me.
Although I was safe within these lands, my heart hammered. Was that Ly? Or Sylvie, perhaps? I spun on my heel.
Only shadow upon shadow, leaves and trunks punctuated by fae light. I clutched my chest as if that could slow my heartbeat. It could be the wolpertinger. No, if a fae made a noise walking, it had to be deliberate, which brought me back to my friends, perhaps signalling they were close.
“How dare you?”
Gasping, I spun again, but I couldn’t put a direction on the feminine voice. And I couldn’t have said whose it was, though something about it was tantalisingly familiar.
Although the night was mild, goosebumps pricked their way up my arms and down my back. “Who’s there?”
“How dare you stand here on fae land like you belong?” It was a whisper on the wind, a dark voice, its tone tugging on recognition.
“Ly?” Maybe he was nearby, searching for me. “Sylvie?”
Cold laughter chimed, tinkling like broken glass, the sound fractured as though it came from everywhere at once. “You call upon the Lord of this land though you are nothing but a mere human.”
Ice crept through my veins. Something must’ve got past Ly’s wards.
I tugged on the high neckline of my gown, though it wasn’t constricting my throat. A great weight pressed on my chest. I backed away from the trees, finding the centre of the clearing. No signs of movement in the forest and out here, there was only me and my gasping breaths.
“A mere human, pathetic and weak. Already dead.” More of that chilling laughter. From… ahead? “You call on him and yet you endanger him.”
Yes, definitely ahead. It was as though the sound had consolidated on one spot on the edge of the forest.
My eyes burned. I didn’t dare blink.
“You are nothing but a weight around his neck.”
Something… a deeper shadow in the darkness moved from behind a trunk.
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. My mouth was open, but I couldn’t even speak.
“You know it’s true,” it said, a sharp slither of a voice, soft and cruel.
It wasn’t wrong.
“You couldn’t even help your own family.” It hissed a laugh, though the shadow didn’t move. “What use would you be to him?”
My gift… no, itwaswrong… I was working to help him restore the yew. I didn’t have much magic, but I could help him be unseen, unnoticed, a being of pure night.
I clenched my trembling hands into fists and lifted my chin.
“It should’ve been you.” In my ear.
I jerked and turned, the movement taking an age as though the world had turned to tar.
It stood there. My opposite in every way—black hair, pale skin, white eyes… and yet I knew the shape of those large eyes, the full lips that stretched in a sharp smile, even the scars creeping up its neck.
Itwasme.
