The Pathless Woods

By Morgan Smith

An unnamed and mutilated corpse in a windswept field. Some street kids gone missing. Vampires and hellhounds appearing where they should not be, and a woman whose witchcraft has gone out of control.
Someone is trying to destroy all of Elfhame, and is using the Human world to do it. One young Fae girl is determined to stop them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morgan Smith
• Release date: Jul 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005508395

Morgan Smith

Morgan Smith has been a goatherd, an artist, a landscaper, a weaver, a bookstore owner, a travel writer and an archaeologist, and she will drop everything to go anywhere, on the flimsiest of pretexts. Writing is something she has been doing all her life, though, one way or another, and now she thinks she might actually have something to say.

Book preview

1

It was no big surprise that on the last day of April in Alberta, the weather had turned chilly and overcast. The day before, it had been almost like summer, but the Canadian prairies are like that. You can get snow in June, and be sun-tanning in February: you learn not to trust the weather too much.

By the time I drove into the parking lot at the trailhead for the Evan Thomas Trail, just south of the Kananaskis golf course, it was late in the afternoon, and it smelled like rain.

I was earlier than I’d expected to be, but later than I’d intended. Traffic had been light on the TransCanada, and almost non-existent once I’d turned south onto Highway 40, but I had dawdled, getting ready, because I wanted to look my best

I unloaded the basket filled with loaves of freshly-baked bread – bread’s the one thing we always run short of at these get-togethers, and everyone who can is encouraged to bring some – and looked around.

There were a few other cars parked there, but they were cars I recognized, cars that I would have expected to see. Other than that – well, it was too late in the season for winter sports and too early for a stroll in the wilderness, even if the weather had been nicer. Most people would be working on a weekday afternoon, anyway.

It was incredibly quiet. I began hiking along through the trees and past the springtime meltwater coursing down the rocks, enjoying the cool silence and the faint rustling of the wind flicking through the pines, until I came to a wooden bridge, and crossed over.

I paused, and looked back along the trail. There was no one in sight, and there weren’t any sounds at all, save for the wind and the faint rustlings of small creatures in the underbrush, and even those were far away. I kept walking steadily until I came to the place I needed to be and I stepped a little way from the path and faced the rocky outcrop.

No one who wasn’t in the know would have given it any special thought or scrutiny. They would have simply followed the trail in the accepted way, all the way around the circuit, and then gone back to their cars and headed homeward to the city, feeling better for a couple of hours spent in the fresh air.

I spoke the formal words, and the rock wall I was facing shimmered a little.

And then I was through, into a world of dappled sunlight and warm, fresh, pine-scented air, and as I skittered down the carved stairs into the valley below, I heard the lilting laughter of my friends.

Oak Woman was just setting a familiar-looking ceramic casserole dish down on the long table when I came up to hand off my contribution. Her dark brown hair, the colour of chestnuts in autumn and normally worn long and loose, was arranged into a towering crown, encrusted with glowing purple gems and glittering bronze wire spirals.

It was beautiful, queenly, and a little unnerving.

Don’t say it, she said before I’d uttered a word, and then she hugged me.

It suits the day, I said, and looked down at the casserole dish with trepidation.

At every big family gathering, there is that one relative who brings the same thing – that revolting and inedible party dish that you feel duty-bound to take a scoop of, and then spend the rest of your evening trying to find a discreet way to dump it out without her knowing about it.

Auntie Woodrush’s fiddlehead fern salad was that dish. It was there in that casserole, in all its glistening, green, gelatinous glory.

You’re only a bit later than usual, I know, but the sprites are still in a panic – you’d better get on or we’ll have Bunchberry up here again, buzzing around and making a confusion. Oak Woman gave me a push toward the circle of elderberry trees, and turned back to start unpacking my basket.

No one ever argues with Oak Woman. I went.

Two steps into the grove and Bunchberry was hovering an inch from my nose, her wings flapping at the speed of a hummingbird’s, screaming imprecations at me, and then, of course, all the other sprites joined her.

Beings that are only eight inches tall can’t make a lot of noise individually, but together, twenty of them can produce a hellish racket.

At this hour? Do you expect miracles? Bunchberry shouted, having exhausted her supply of curses.

No miracles, sang out the rest of the sprites.

I’ve a good mind to let you go into the Dance looking like a – a – a Human!

A Human, chorused her flock.

I’ve got other Folk to see to!

Other Folk, screamed nineteen tiny voices.

The woman sitting on one of the tree stumps in the clearing turned and smiled.

The sprites had been doing her russet hair into a mass of tiny braids, entwined with silver wire and set about with brilliant emeralds. It looked wonderful, framing that delicate, heart-shaped face – but that was sprite talent. They knew at a glance what suited you for any occasion, and they loved doing it.

They loved doing it so much that whatever you might think you had wanted, you were wiser not to even make suggestions, and just let them get on with it, because in the end, they got their way, and you were always forced to admit that they had been right.

Bunchberry, having vented her anguish, and seeing that her flock had gone back to work, ordered me onto an empty stump and began issuing commands, and most of the sprites zooming around my friend River broke off to attend to me, leaving only three to finish their task.

We’d grown up together, River and I. She was only half-elven, of course, but she was a little older than I was, which meant that, for now, our ages, in the terms that the Folk worked in, marched along together pretty much exactly. In a couple of hundred years or so, we would start to diverge, but that seemed – since by Folk standards, I was a mere child – a long way off.

Rubies, Bunchberry was saying, and the sprites all fluttered and twittered in rapturous agreement. Rubies, and gold – that’s what she needs.

She needs them! the flock sang out together, and five splintered off into the bushes. The rest produced tiny combs made of birch wood, and began to untangle my hair.

Lovely, I said. It would be. It always was.

May Day Eve is always the same, right down the sprites doing our hair into amazing and wondrous confections, and I never missed a single one. There was food, there was dancing, there was laughter, and then there was the music.

Sunny was talking about you, said River, as if she sensed my thoughts. She probably did, I thought, because seven decades of friendship can do that to you. There wasn’t much about our lives we hadn’t either experienced together or discussed in extensive detail before, during, and after the fact.

And Sunlight On Meadows was a topic for everyone.

Maybe it was because he was Oak Woman’s son. Even here, in this peaceful place, beings are drawn to power, and Oak Woman had a lot of power. People like to speak about these things.

Maybe, probably, a lot of it was because he was one of the most incredible and gifted singers anyone had ever known. No one was ever left unmoved by his performances - he could have wrung tears out of the very mountains themselves, if he’d ever wanted to. Every musician clamoured to accompany him, and every poet yearned to hear their verses sung in that incredible voice.

Like River, he’d been part of my life for as far back as I could remember, a constant companion and a good friend. Well, most of the time he was, anyway.

Sunlight On Meadows was, even by Folk standards, one of the most beautiful beings ever to walk the Land. What humans think of as beauty would have been like a rock-troll, standing next to Sunny.

He was also sexually so voracious that almost everyone I knew had slept with him at least once.

Except for me, which apparently he had begun to view as both an affront and a challenge.

Ah, well, I said lightly, that’s not really news, is it?

River laughed, a silvery shower of bells and birdsong that echoed off the trees.

Hold still, snapped Bunchberry, and tugged viciously at my hair.

Sorry, I said meekly. She was still angry at my imaginary lateness, although really, nothing was going to start until sundown, and despite her claim that she still had other Folk to attend to, it was only River and I in the grove.

Still, it never does to be at odds with sprites. They might be small, but they can trip you up in ways that are far larger than one might wish, and they flitted freely between the Folk Lands and the Human world. That kind of communication network can be vital, and I wasn’t about to jeopardize it.

Tell me, I said, while trying to keep my head as solidly in place as I could while she worked, tell me all the gossip, Bunchberry. You always know more than anyone.

There was a slight pause. Then she shrieked out some orders to Wood Lily, who zipped off into a clump of low bushes.

Well, she said, there’s been some talk about Brécilien sending someone Across. But, she added conscientiously, it’s only talk, and you know that comes up about once a century, and never do they actually come.

This was true. The old Elfhame Courts weren’t happy about Folk living beyond their control, but there was little they could do about it. They were rumoured to be always just about to re-open negotiations, with an eye to not letting Folk come so easily to places where they were more or less free to do as they liked, instead of being mostly tied to the Courts, but in nearly ten thousand years, they had not actually done so.

Walks Under Moon had struck a sort of a deal with them long ago. He didn’t harbour dangerous Folk (although he reserved the right to determine what dangerous constituted) and the Courts left him alone. At the time, there hadn’t seemed to be anything his Folk had that the Courts really wanted, but over the centuries, things had changed.

For one thing, there were Folk like me: descended from the old Courts, but living here, and mainly in the Human world.

Folk did that back in the Old Worlds, too, but the pathways and portals were ancient and well-used: the Courts could lay hands on those Fae pretty easily, and frequently did. You couldn’t really hide over there.

But here, well, if you could get here, you were almost safe. Never completely safe, because there was always the chance that someone in the Courts had a use for you, and they might be willing to try a quick kidnap, but that was pretty rare, because Walks Under Moon and Oak Woman between them did not take kindly at all to interference.

You could make a life for yourself in the Human Lands.

Well, several lives, because the trouble with not aging the way Humans do meant that every three or four decades, you had to re-organize and reframe yourself, in new ways and new places, or you came here, if Walks Under Moon was agreeable, and then you waited until the Humans who knew you were either dead or too old to remember anything much at all.

There. Bunchberry and her merry band were holding up a silver looking glass. What do you think?

I gasped, and there wasn’t anything feigned or forced about my reaction.

Intricate curls framed my face, and glowing red gems, bound with gold, had turned my black hair into a filigree of twists, twirls, knots, and jewels that trailed down one shoulder in a cascade, a fantasy waterfall one could only have dreamed of.

It was amazing, and when I got my breath back, I said so.

Bunchberry zipped up to my cheek, kissed me ferociously, and screeched, Now go out there and make everyone mad with jealousy! and then all the sprites were off in a cloud of perfumed air and the sound of wind-chimes.

River grabbed my hand, and we ran out of the grove, laughing like children.

We had a little time before sunset, and we spent it, as always, wandering aimlessly among the grassy vales, stopping to listen to Folk singing the traditional songs, and chatting pleasantly to others we met along the way. Slowly, though, we all were going to the same place by various pathways and trails.

Up on the ridge, the younger Folk had spent days gathering deadfall and dried brush, carrying their bundles to the summit and piling them into two massive, careful heaps.

The sun was only a thin arc now, with twilight flickering in its wake as we reached the top of the ridge and walked out from the edge of the trees.

Nothing moved. There wasn’t even a whisper of wind, and this peaceful silence reigned for one long and hushed moment.

Then the last of the light faded, the two bonfires leapt into flame, and from the lush forests below, the Land was alive with movement.

Be among us in peace, Walks Under Moon said softly. Stay in happiness.

The Welcoming had begun.

Shadows in among the trees became forms. Large and small, the creatures of the woods walked out into the open space and then they ambled between the two fires, nodding to those among us that they knew.

Moose, bears, and big-horned sheep stepped onto the flat rock floor, alongside cougars and lynx. Snowshoe hares gamboled along, and swift little squirrels darted between packs of wolves, while owls and sparrows and a host of other birds, big and small, swooped low and then high again as they sped through our midst.

Every wild creature, in the Fae Lands and Human Earth alike, passed by us and between the fires, and the beauty, the enormity, the sheer wonder of all the worlds was there.

That’s why I never miss, never would allow myself to miss, The Welcoming. None of us do. It might be called something else in other places, and the form of the ceremonies might differ, but it means the same thing.

Renewal. The beginning of all things.

Of course, there’s the party afterwards, too.

The moment the last white-tailed deer had slipped back into the shadowy pines, a drum began to sound, slow and rhythmic, and a voice, so vibrant and full, rose up, chanting out long, deep memories of ages past. No heart could have stayed unstilled in response.

Sunlight On Meadows sang of light in darkness, of warmth and fellowship, and the evening stars reeled overhead, as we broke into dancing, skipping runs, leaping back down through the trees to the open glades and meadows below.

One never recalls all the specifics after that moment – there’s too much drink, and too much food, and almost too much laughter.

I remember Auntie Windrush chiding me for being too thin, which was ridiculous – there was nothing any one of us could do to change our willowy frames. Then she was urging more fiddleheads on me, and that was unfortunate, because I’d only just managed to find a place to dump the first scoop of that mess. She was too persistent, but really, it was a small thing to take more and let her be happy, so I did, and then quietly abandoned my plate under the leaves of some dogwood shrubs beside the stream that ran along the side of the meadow.

Runner Bean dragged me into a circle of dancers, and then, later, when we were both breathless with it all, we stumbled out of the crowd, where we sank down onto the ground.

Seen Aedan anywhere? he asked.

Not yet.

Nor I.

Well, he must be here somewhere, I said. I was up at the shop last week, and he was making huge whacks of that vegetable terrine that was such a hit last year.

The thing is, Runner said reflectively, the thing is, I have some purple heartwood he asked for especially, and he said he would pick it up last Thursday, but he never did. If you see him tonight, tell him I’ve got it in the back of my truck.

Sure, I said, and got up. I’m going for more of Oak Woman’s elderberry wine before it runs out. Do you want some?

He shook his head. I wandered back to the tables. They were still groaning under the weight of the wooden platters and clay pots of every delicious thing one could imagine. There were, among many other things, bowls of fresh Saskatoon berries glistening with purple brilliance, platters of wild carrots swimming in fresh butter, green glass jars of pickled mushrooms, an enormous bronze cauldron of wild rice wafting out an intoxicating aroma of herbs and garlic, and a tray piled with fry-bread drizzled in honey.

There were the casks of wine, kegs of beer, and bottles of mead.

I filled my cup, then looked along the table again.

Not a single plate held vegetable terrine.

Someone grabbed my hand.

Dance with me, Morag! and then Sunny was there, dragging me back into the mass of Folk tripping along