Free Stories 2016 Read online

"The big kids always win," muttered Larmna.

  Pohut felt a longing to tell them what had happened, how they really had won, but no: Mulack would keep this secret, and so must Pohut.

  "It's not so bad," he said. "We could be eating with the pigs." There were some chuckles. "You know what I think? That next time, I want every one of you on my team."

  Reluctant and shy smiles came his way.

  "We still have our cakes," Innel said brightly. Pohut smiled at his brother, proud of him for keeping up the pretense that their boxes were not empty.

  Putar opened his mouth wide and mimed eating the entire cake at once, cheeks puffed out.

  "But we'll wait until midnight," Pohut said, "so that we have the best fortune of the solstice. And we will have it, too, beginning tomorrow."

  Tomorrow, when the younger children would find Mulack and Sutarnan quite a bit more pleasant.

  "I wish we had found a bell," Larmna said to him, "but I'm glad we found you, and you found our cakes back again." Nods all around. Malrin began to hum the Finding Song, and Putar began to clap.

  Then the door opened, the sounds of the feast momentarily loud, and they fell silent. Sachare entered, came to the brothers, put a hand on each of their shoulders.

  "Come with me," she said softly.

  Bemused, they followed her out the side door, past the guardians, who, oddly, did not object, into a small chamber, a tiny side room. The door closed behind them, and one of Cern's attendants, an older girl, glowered down at them. "You will say nothing of this. Not a word." Then she opened the door. In came Cern.

  Innel inhaled sharply. They both dipped their heads. In a private room, with the princess. What did it mean?

  "I don't have long," she said to them, "before I'm missed. So don't waste my time. Tell me why you gave the bell to Mulack." Pohut's mouth fell open in surprise. Her lips twitched in a humorless smile. "I am told things all the time, and most of them lies. But this I know: you traded away the silver bell. No one else in the Cohort would have done such a thing. I want to know why."

  "Your Highness," Pohut said, stuttering. "If we sat at your table…" How to finish the sentence?

  "No one would like us," Innel said. "Even more than they don't like us now."

  "Yes," Pohut continued. "At least for now. Next year, it might be different." Then, under his breath, "It will be different."

  Cern appeared to consider, then gestured to her attendant. "There aren't supposed to be any extras, but…" She handed them two solstice cake boxes, seals intact.

  Pohut blinked, trying to reason through what this implied. That they had her attention and her favor, yes, but only for a moment. She turned to go. He thrust a hand into his pocket.

  "Your Highness, we have something for you. A solstice gift."

  She turned back. He held it out to her.

  "A rock?" she asked disbelievingly, looking at the stone, then back at the brothers. "You have seen the presents I receive," Her expression darkened. "Do you insult me?"

  "No, no," he said quickly. "Not at all. This rock is special. It…we…" He swallowed hard.

  "It's not even pretty," she said.

  That was true. So true. How to explain?

  "It comes from our home," Pohut said.

  "We miss our home so much, Your Highness," Innel said, his high voice so sad it tugged at Pohut.

  "It doesn't make color or sounds," Pohut admitted. "It is what it is and nothing else. The other gifts you receive—those beautiful things—they are given to you because they are so precious, all by themselves."

  "Of course," she was bemused, bordering on irritated. "So?"

  "So," Pohut said, summoning the courage to meet her eyes. "We give you this, because it's that precious to us." He raised his hand a little and held his breath. Would she understand?

  She looked away and he thought he'd made a mistake, but then she looked back, nodded and took the rock from his hand. Relief flooded him.

  From the hall beyond came sounds of wild cheering as some act concluded. As if in response, from the door they had entered, came the sounds of his own team clapping, high voices loudly singing the Finding Song.

  Cern's eyes flickered between the two brothers. "I believe I understand now," she said.

  For a moment Pohut had no idea what she meant. Then, suddenly, he did. She meant the reason the king had brought them into the Cohort. Across months and years to come, he would remember those words.

  As he watched her leave, his rock gripped as tightly in her hand as it had been in his, Pohut felt an ache pass through him. A weight seemed to ease.

  He smiled at his brother, who held the cake boxes.

  "I think it's midnight."

  Trouble: The Changeling and the Phooka

  by Dave Freer

  Ireland, 1799

  The cold rain fell steadily. It ran down Edmund’s neck…and he was grateful for it.

  It was all he had to hide in.

  Red-coated soldiers were sweeping the stony field, bayonets fixed. He knew they’d kill him without pause or question if they caught him here. The British were nervous, here in the Wicklow Mountains. General Holt and the United Irishmen had made them so.

  The message he had inside his shirt would get him executed even if they didn’t kill him out of hand, Edmund knew. And there were more lives riding on this than his. Right now all he cared about was his survival.

  And then, through the rain, came the sound of an old woman’s cracked and tuneless singing. Edmund could not quite hear the words of the song but he heard a soldier shouting at her. “What are you doing here, you old besom?”

  She answered in the same sing-song lilt…in English, which was surprising in itself. “I’m pickin’ nettles, boy.”

  “Well, go pick your nettles elsewhere,” said the soldier crossly. “We’re searching for a fugitive. Get along with you.”

  “It could be a clever disguise, Sergeant,” said another voice.

  “Not unless he’s shrunk,” said the first. “She’s not even five foot tall. What’s in the basket, old woman?”

  “Now why would I be after telling you, you red-coated rogue?" she answered crossly. “Pestering old Annis, when all I am after is some greens to fill my stomach.”

  “Better search it,” said the sergeant.

  “Ill fortune will come to you,” said the old woman. “Ill fortune. You was warned, boy. Search old Annis’s basket, indeed.”

  There was the sound of a blow…and Edmund realized that luck had favored him…if not the old woman. He began creeping slowly towards the soldiers’ voices—if he could get past them while they were busy…

  He froze at the sound of a sharp intake of breath, followed by a curse.

  “I told you I was a-picking young nettles, boy,” said the old woman, with a cackle of glee. “And you didn’t listen.” Edmund crept on. He could see them vaguely through the grey mist of rain. All he needed was a few more yards to be past them.

  “Tip them out,” said the sergeant.

  “Me food in the mud! You’re a cruel, hard man, soldier. Ill fortune will be comin’ your way.”

  There was a thump. “There was something in there! Ouch. It’s a damned hedge-hog.”

  “A stickly-pig I catched for my dinner,” said the old woman. “Let go o’ me. I needs to bag it again before it gets away.”

  Edmund crept on. With any luck he could be through their cordon now, thanks to the old woman, her nettles and hedgehog, and the noise she was making about it. He reached the dry-stone wall bordering the field. On the other side of that was the pike road, and eventually Dublin, and a house he had to reach.

  He gathered himself to climb over it…to freeze for the sound of near-tuneless humming. Coming closer, obviously someone walking down the roadway.

  The unseen person stopped next to his hiding place. “You can come out now, Princeling. They’ll not be coming back down here,” said the old woman. “Feeling in Black Annis’s basket,” she chuckled darkly. “It�
�s lucky they’ll be not to find their own bones in it.”

  Edmund didn’t move. And, next thing, she vaulted over the top of the wall, as spry as a goat, to land next to him, in a flurry of black petticoats. Edmund found himself being stared at by black eyes, set in face full of wrinkles surrounded by wild grey hair. She smiled at him. It was not a kind or nice smile, but full of snaggled teeth. “Well, Princeling? Are you going to lie here and shiver all day? They’ll get over the mazing I’ve laid on them.”

  “Who are you? What do you want?” asked Edmund, warily.

  “I’m Black Annis, Princeling, and I was sent to find you. Sent to give you your birthright. So you can go home to the shoulder mounds, Princeling.”

  “I’m not going home. You can tell my mother…” He should have guessed who she was from by the “Princeling.” His nursery-maid had called him that. It was better than “Changeling,” that the other servants and, yes, even his mother had called him, sometimes. He couldn’t help being dark when she and his father were both blond.

  Black Annis sniggered. “Not that woman, Princeling. I was sent by your father.”

  “He’s dead, old woman,” said Edmund. Remembering still hurt, terribly. They’d made him watch while they half-hanged his father. He’d been ten years old, then. His father had been a man of strong principles, but those hadn’t kept him alive.

  She positively cackled at that. “You could say so, Princeling. You could say so. But he sent this to you.” And she drew with a wrinkled old hand—with long black nails, he noticed—a jewel from her bosom.

  At least, he thought it must be a jewel. It sparkled and shimmered oddly, as if it had a light within it, changing color like no precious stone he’d ever seen. It was attached to a sinuous sliver chain, the links of which were so fine they seemed to flow as she picked it up and held it out to him. “Take it, son of King Finnvarra. Take your key and go home.”

  It drew him. There was something terribly compelling about its shimmer. And something utterly terrifying. He reached for it, and then pulled his hand back. It was hard to say, but he said it. “Sorry. It’s not me you’re looking for.” His father had been a solidly Anglo-Irish Baronet, a man who died for his belief in an Irish Union, not “Finvarra” whoever that was. It was tempting just to take the jewel, but he could not. It would be a betrayal. He had no idea what the jewel was worth, but it looked as if it would buy a lot of muskets. The rebels could use those. They could use just about everything.

  “Oh, it’s you all right, Princeling. Your phooka-servant, lazy thing that he is, led me to you, straight and true.” She tipped her basket and a black hedgehog rolled out with a bump, and landed against his foot.

  It uncurled slowly and looked at him. It had odd eyes…

  She kicked it and it curled up again. “And ill luck the phooka will bring you, if you use it for your own ends. That’s the curse a changeling wears.” She was clearly mad, Edmund realized. Suddenly, she thrust the jewel into his hand. “Take it to Cnoc Meadha, changeling. Your father waits…And I do not.”

  And before he could hand it back, she was gone. He looked around frantically. But the only sign of her having been there was the jewel, and the small black hedgehog, nuzzling at his foot. He drew breath to call out, to say he couldn’t take it, and then realized that he was still very close to British soldiers, searching for a rebel. She must have jumped the wall again. So he scrambled over the wet rock himself, and into the lane.

  But there was nothing to be seen there, just grey curtains of rain. Edmund stood for a moment in indecision, and then heard a soldier swear—in English, so it had to be a soldier somewhere in the field. Panicking, he ran.

  After a half a mile he was completely blown, but he felt safe enough to take shelter under a roadside blackthorn hedge and pant. There’d be other checkpoints, but he was safely past that one now. He looked down. He still had the jewel clutched tight in his hand. It was on a chain, he could put it around his neck…but something about it made him reluctant to do so. He decided it would be safe enough in the pocket of his coat.

  He stuck his hand into the pocket of his overcoat, and pulled it out in a hurry. “Ouch!”

  He had thrust his hand onto a hedgehog, which had somehow, mysteriously, got into his pocket. A pink-grey nose whiffled at him. “How did you get in there?” Edmund exclaimed.

  “It seemed easier than to be running after you,” answered the hedgehog in a burring gravelly voice.

  Edmund sat down, hard, in the mud in the shallow ditch, trying to get away from his own pocket. His life had made some kind of sense up to this point. Maybe what had happened to him had been horrible and harsh, but it made sense. This did not.

  The hedgehog obliged him by wriggling its way out of his pocket. It had very strange eyes for hedgehog, and it was more black than grey. But it was a hedgehog.

  “What are you?” asked Edmund, nervously. “I…I thought I head you speak.”

  “I only speak when spoken to,” said the hedgehog. “I am your phooka. I am bidden to serve you, Prince.”

  “Look, there is some mistake. I need to return this thing. It’s not me you’re looking for. I’m just…” he hesitated. No point in telling even this…hedgehog his name. “Edmund.”

  “It’s not by your name I know you, Prince, but your blood. I could find you were you buried under one of a thousand haystacks, master. Your blood draws me.”

  Edmund wondered if the creature planned to get it out of his veins. It was no hedgehog, of that he was sure. He needed to get away from here, away from it. He had a task to do. They needed relief. They needed arms and they needed money. “It’s this jewel, isn’t it? I don’t think I want anything to do with it. Or you.”

  “I don’t either, Prince. But you are my geas. And thus I am bound to serve you. I’d rather be out and about, causing trouble,” said the phooka.

  Edmund remembered, finally, what a phooka was, from the stories that the housemaids had told him as a child. They’d believe anything and had expected him to, too. It was a fairy, and a shape-changer, but always black. Well, that fitted. If he remembered it right…not actively malevolent, but fond of practical jokes, quite nasty ones. Appearing as swaybacked old ponies and offering the unsuspecting a ride…and after a wild ride which had the victim clinging on for dear life, flinging them into a bog or lake.

  This was all beginning to feel like one of those jokes, especially the nasty part. Lately it seemed his life had all been that. He’d left his home and mother with a lot of dreams. Nightmares, they’d turned out to be. He could never forget his father, or the reprisals at Scullabogue barn. “Do you want this thing?” he asked suddenly, of the black hedgehog that was watching him with un-hedgehog-like eyes.

  “What would I be doing with such a thing, Prince? I am a part of the company of air and darkness, whether I like it or not. It’s of no value to me.”

  “Is it valuable?” asked Edmund. It looked it.

  The phooka gave a sardonic little chuckle. “More so than any other jewel above the hollow lands. A Prince’s ransom, you might say. Some would say that it was still not worth having.”

  Edmund bit his lip. “So could I sell it?” It would be for a good cause, at least.

  The phooka gave a little snort. “It’s a key. There are always those that search for that door.”

  Something about that tone made Edmund wary, but not as wary as the sound of horses’ hooves coming down the lane—riders at a brisk trot. The thick blackthorn hedge on either side of the lane offered no hiding place and no way through into the field. The ditch was too shallow to offer cover. “Oh help! I need to get out of here.”

  “Is it of me that you’re asking, or the blackthorn?” asked the phooka.

  Edmund was too busy scrambling to his feet, trying to decide whether to try clambering over the high thorn hedge or to take to his heels, to reply.

  “Likely the blackthorn then, son of Finvarra. A mistake, if you ask me,” said the phooka. “Bloody war, strife and d
eath in the blackthorn. Well, by oak, ash and thorn, so be it.”

  The little woven gate in the dense hedge swung open and Edmund didn’t think twice about what the hedgehog-phooka had said. He just bolted through it and pulled it closed behind him.

  It led him into…not the field beyond, but into a space inside the thorny branches, a sort of bower. Not a very large bower—a thorn scratched a bleeding gash on his hand as he reached back to free his overcoat from a thorny branch. It seemed to be closing in on him.

  “You have your blood-payment, Luantishee,” said the phooka’s gravelly voice.

  “There’s more in him,” someone answered.

  Edmund turned…and scratched himself again, and looked into the beautiful face of a black-haired girl, a quarter his size, but with a maturity in her sloe-dark eyes that did not go with her size.

  “But it is given to me to serve him, Luantishee,” said the phooka. “And fire and mischief are in my gift.”

  “And if you scratch me again,” said Edmund, “I’ll take out my knife and start scratching back.”

  She gave a sour grunt, but held off from stabbing Edmund with the bloody black thorn in her hand. Instead she looked at him with narrowed eyes. Not knowing quite what else to do Edmund stared back. Eventually she said: “What do you want, changeling? It’s too late to burn the blackthorn twigs on your father’s mound. The child you were changed for is dead, for you to be called home. Humans love faerie, but do not thrive there.”

  “Um. I just wanted to hide. It must be a patrol. There’s supposed to be a curfew.”

  “Oh yes, child of Finvarra. They hunt you.” She drew a pattern with the bloody thorn in the dirt, four stripes with one crossing them. “Straif,” she said pointing at the symbol with her thorn. “Hear me. There will be bloody havoc, war and wounding across the land. Division and death. A hundred years of it.” There was dark glee in her voice.

  “Luantishee. Morrigan’s children. They’re always a bundle of joy,” said the Phooka, kicking the symbol and grinding it out. “I’ll leave you to your thorns and happiness, Luantishee.” He looked up at Edmund. “The soldiers have gone. She’s had her blood payment, invoked her magic, and had her fun. Let’s go, Prince.”