Trev had not objected. It was not his way to do so. In the morning, however, after he’d slept the night, Mari was shocked to see the hair had grown back. All of it had returned—as if she’d never cut it at all. It reached his shoulders again, just as it always had. And it was the same bright color he’d been born with.

  Kaavi saw him to the door. She touched his locks and ran her fingers through them. Mari’s face darkened. Had she performed some elf-trick? Had Kaavi thwarted her plan to make him seem more normal? If she could make flowers take root on a roof, perhaps she could cause hair to grow where it had been roughly shorn off.

  Mari fumed. She considered cutting it all each morning before he went to school, but the very idea of a daily haircut seemed absurd. Hands on her hips, she’d thought hard and finally sent him to the schoolhouse with a hat upon his head. The silvery locks were stuffed up inside.

  A week later she’d tried to cut it again, with the same results by morning. By this time she’d become distraught, and after she’d sent Trev off wearing his hat, she confronted Kaavi directly.

  “I know what you’re doing,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “With Trev’s hair. I want it cut short.”

  “Whatever for, dear?”

  “It doesn’t matter why I want what I want,” Mari said, becoming indignant. “I’m his mother, and I want you to stop fooling with it.”

  “And I’m his auntie,” Kaavi replied. She still smiled, but there was a narrow cast to her eyes.

  Mari drew herself up and put her hands on her hips. “Kaavi, I want to thank you deeply for all you’ve done for me and Trev. I do appreciate it, really I do.”

  “Are you asking me to leave?”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you sought a husband again?” Mari asked her. “It’s been so long. You need a son of your own.”

  Kaavi’s face fell at these words and she looked at the floor. Mari knew pity for her then. The girl had come to think of Trev as her own, and both women knew the danger in it.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Kaavi said.

  “There are any number of boys in Riverton who’ve been pining away for you for years. But you have never allowed any of them to court you.”

  Kaavi laughed. “If I had, I would never have been able to help you with Trev.”

  “I know you’ve sacrificed much,” Mari said. “And I truly thank you. You will always be welcome here should you need solace.”

  “Solace?” laughed Kaavi. “What elf would ever need such a thing?”

  Kaavi walked outside at that very moment, without closing the door behind her. The two women did not even hug.

  Mari stood in the doorway and watched her sister-in-law walk toward the woods. She felt as if she stood in a dream. Kaavi went as she’d come, without a single possession other than her scandalous clothing and graceful self.

  “Make sure to come back and say goodbye to Trev!” Mari called after her.

  Kaavi laughed again. “He’s an elf, he’ll understand.”

  Mari shook her head. She told herself that one could hardly marry an elf and bear his child and then expect to lead a completely normal life.

  * * *

  Trev had nearly a league to walk through the Haven Wood to school. There were spots along the way he liked to visit each day. These were private places, which he explored alone. His favorite was a tiny graveyard. Broken sticks marked most of the graves, but there were small, carven boulders here as well. Reportedly, a battle with the goblins had taken place here long ago and Haven militia men had been laid to rest where they died. More recently, it had served as a spot where children buried dead pets.

  The graveyard was not deep among the trees, it was no glade or grassy dell. Instead, it was heavily overgrown with feathery ferns and ragwort. The graves themselves were all hidden beneath these growths. The lush greenery attracted Trev and made him feel at home.

  The boy did not stop here to commune with the Dead, but rather to commune with the natural world. For him, it seemed that the Haven was not as lush as it should be. Many spots were positively barren. But not this place. It was a green tangle of leaves, vines and stony, forgotten graves. He was not sure quite why he felt so at home here, in a spot shunned by most children, but he did. With the simplicity of a child, he followed his instincts. In the morning he paused here and let dew drops falling from the trees above to wet his face. In the afternoons when he walked home and paused, he crouched below the ferns, delighting in the cool feathery touch of their fronds.

  Trev crawled among the ferns one late afternoon when he noticed something odd. The birds, who forever kept him company with their cheerful songs, fell silent. Unlike a human boy, he did not stand and look about for the cause. He did not gaze into the trees to see if the birds were still there, or had perhaps flown off in a flock. Instead, he crouched and listened.

  After a time, he heard something. The rustle of footsteps. They were not stealthy, but neither were they direct and purposeful. It was as if someone wandered nearby aimlessly, slowly, shuffling about. A scent soon came to his twitching nose as well. A musty smell of age and dust.

  Still, Trevor did not move. Only his eyes shifted from where he sat under a large fern. Through the fronds, in the late afternoon gloom of the Haven Wood, he saw a figure moving about.

  The figure appeared to be a cowled old man who leaned upon a silver cane. Trev knew where each of the graves were in his hideaway. The old man walked between them, almost without aim. At each spot where a carven rock marked a grave, he bent and touched the stone with thin fingers.

  “What are you doing?” asked Trev suddenly. He still did not move, but instead stared watchfully.

  The other did not lurch with guilt, but he did straighten. Slowly, the cowled head turned in his direction. Trev saw ice cold eyes swimming in pits of shadow beneath the cowl, and he knew in that instant he faced one of the Dead. He’d never met one before, but they’d been described to him by his Aunt Kaavi.

  The dead-thing came a step closer. Trev’s haunches gathered beneath him, ready to bolt like a rabbit from the ferns. Something in the other’s burning gaze kept him from moving, however.

  “I plant seedlings,” said the dead-thing. “What dares to speak with me?”

  “You are a dead-thing. You haunt my place. You must answer my questions first.”

  At that, the dead-thing halted its advance and made a raspy chuckle. “Such arrogance and assumption!” it exclaimed. “I sense youth! Dare you believe this is your place, not mine? I am a thousand times your age, stripling. Perhaps more than that.”

  This answer disturbed Trev. He’d learned from Kaavi that as the younger of two who have just met and the interloper, he would have to answer the dead-thing’s questions first.

  “Why do you want to know what I am?” asked Trev.

  “It would not be polite to dine upon a stranger,” said the dead-thing.

  Trev’s heart pounded and he swallowed with a throat that had gone dry. He had calculated he could outrun this shambling creature, as it had not moved quickly up til now. Could it be faster or more able than it looked? For the first time, he feared for his life.

  “Good!” said the dead-thing. “I scent fear now. It is a perfume the Living ever wears to attract me.”

  “I am Trev. You can’t eat me, dead-thing. I’m the son of Puck—the grandson of Oberon, King of the elves.”

  “King of the elves, is it?” the dead-thing asked. “Such nonsense. Your grandfather does not know his place, any more than you do.” It shuffled forward with purpose.

  Trev tried to run then, but he found he could not. Bones had reached up from the soil around him. They held him fast. Tiny claws, wing-bones and the lace-work of a single human hand gripped his boots. He knew they must be the bones of the Dead of this place, awakened and brought to movement by this thing that shuffled toward him.

  “I have done as you asked,” Trev said. “Now name yourself!”

  The dead-thing paused. “I am Arawn, boy. King of the Dead.”

  “What do you do here in the Haven? What of the Pact?”

  King Arawn chuckled. The sound was like grit being rasped between stones. “No Pact has ever included the Dead, child. Now sit while I taste thy tiny, flaring soul.”

  “I would offer you magic,” Trev said, terrified.

  The lich paused. “What magic would a child have?”

  “I have magic. Mother says so.”

  “Something you can give me?”

  “Yes,” said Trev, almost unable to speak for his fear. King Arawn’s bony hand had appeared now and hovered near his brow. The staff he carried, Trev now saw, bore a Black Jewel in it. Trev saw the Jewel reflect light, even though there was only gloom beneath the trees. What shone within it, he had no inkling. It was as if an Eye winked at him.

  “If you are playing me false, child,” said the Dead King in a hushed voice. “I can do with your soul as I will. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “And you understand that if I speak the truth, you can never harm me?”

  The lich rasped with laughter. “An immortal will never agree to never.”

  “For a year, then.”

  “Agreed,” said the lich. His bones shifted and creaked under his robe. The ice that formed his eyes shifted and glinted. He made odd sounds, as if he lusted.

  Trev could not speak, such was his fright.

  “Now, we have a bargain, infant,” said King Arawn. “I call upon you to give me this magical bauble of yours, which does not exist.”

  “It is my hair,” said Trev. “Cut away a lock of it, and you will see.”

  “What?” cackled the dead-thing. “Hair?”

  “Yes. When it is cut, it grows back by the next morning. Mother has tried twice—”

  “Ha!” shouted the lich, shuffling forward like a lusty merchant after a tavern wench. “Now I have you! Your soul will twist for me until the sun goes out and long after!”

  “You dishonor our bargain?” asked Trev.

  The lich’s staff hovered over him. Inches from his face, the Black Jewel stared down at him as a snake might examine a trapped mouse.

  “Fulfill your part, foolish half-breed, or I will have you this instant! Give me your magic hair.”

  Trev searched his pockets for a knife, but had none. He scrabbled amongst the debris at his feet, but found nothing but squirming bones. Finally, something nipped at his fingers. The exposed skeletal bones of a militia man who’d died here long ago had arisen with a dagger in its grasp. It was rusty and ancient, but Trev grabbed it up and sawed at his hair.

  “Your time is up, child. Accept your fate.”

  “Wait!” cried Trev. He could not cut his hair with the edge, as it was too dull and rusted. But he lowered the blade to his scalp and cut away a hunk of flesh and hair together. Trev’s teeth were set with pain, but he did not scream. He handed the mess to the outstretched, bony hand.

  “What’s this?” asked the lich, holding up the bloody lock.

  “It is my magic hair,” said Trev.

  “Ha!” roared the lich again. “Fool, it is not magic!”

  “But my mother said—”

  “Then she is a bigger fool than thee!”

  The bony hand extended, and the Black Jewel came down toward Trev’s bleeding head. He knew this was his last moment upon this green world. He wondered what the next would be like.

  The Jewel stopped and did not descend to kiss his forehead. Instead, it withdrew. “You did believe your hair was magic, didn’t you boy?” asked the lich.

  “Yes, I’ve always been told that.”

  A long hissing sound erupted. Trev did not know what to make of it.

  “You have frustrated me as few have in centuries.”

  Suddenly, Trev understood. “You cannot take me, as I did not play you falsely. Is that it?”

  “Yes, child,” said the Dead King, retreating from him. “I’m so glad I could give you this lesson today. Perhaps the next time we meet, you will not be so fortunate, and the learning will go harder for you.”

  “I hope not.”

  The dead-thing chuckled again, and shuffled away from him. When Arawn was gone, Trev found the bones that grappled his feet weakened their grip and he was able to free himself and run home.

  Chapter Seven

  Life and Death

  Brand’s first child was a son named Cadmon. Two years later, his wife became pregnant again with twins. The twins were difficult for Telyn to carry, and Brand found himself wishing Gudrin or Myrrdin were around to help. He sent a letter off to each, but Gudrin offered him sagely advice, without her presence. He was hardly surprised, as she had a kingdom of her own to run. From Myrrdin, he got no response at all. To his surprise, Tomkin responded after learning of the situation. He’d been away in the land of Eire for some time now, and Brand had not thought to ask him. The Wee Folk lord sent a wise-woman midwife to aid with the birth when the day came in early spring.

  The midwife was named Sofia, and she stood barely two feet tall, but she bustled about with such energy people tended to duck and wince when she entered a room. Sofia always seemed to be found standing upon chair backs and tabletops rather than the floor. Brand found her fascinating, as he’d never seen a female of the Wee Folk before. They were famously reclusive, staying in their homes, usually under a Deepwood oak or high up in a Deepwood tree house.

  Quick of movement and wit, Sofia was less wild than males of her folk. She was almost practical, and never short-tempered. When the day came to deliver the twin girls, she’d built up a poultice in a pot that was almost as big as she was. Brand helped her carry it upstairs where Lanet fussed around Telyn, who laid sweating and puffing on her birthing bed.

  “All wrong, the way you folk do things,” complained Sofia. “A bed? What kind of a place is that for a woman to have a child?”

  All along, Sofia had requested Telyn tie her wrists to a tree and squat outside to have the child. Telyn had considered it, but the River Folk women had been scandalized at the very concept of such a lack of modesty and overruled the tiny midwife in this detail. She’d never gotten over it, however, and brought it up constantly.

  “It’s all wrong, lying flat on your back. Don’t know why you girls relish the pain so much.”

  Lanet rolled her eyes at Brand, who smiled, kissed his wife’s sweaty forehead, and ran out of the room as fast as he could. He felt instant relief when he closed the door behind him. He was worried, but he had faith in Sofia. The woman had reportedly managed a thousand births in her long life.

  Brand walked out into the apple orchards. It was early spring, and the trees were blossoming. The scent in the air was fine, but when the winds came, sometimes his nose tickled. Jak followed him out into the orchard and offered him a slice of cheese he had cut free of a hunk he was carrying.

  “Did you ever think we would get to this point in our lives, Brand?” Jak asked him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Here we are, fathers five times over between the two of us. Yet we still live on our parents’ home isle.”

  Brand chewed his cheese and nodded slowly. “I do still love it here,” he said. “But Jak, I’m leaving soon. After the babes are born and hale.”

  “I know,” Jak said. “You’ve muttered and packed and planned all winter long.”

  It was true, it had been no secret. The Haven had been quiet for some time now, and Brand wanted to get to the task he’d vowed he would: to rebuild Castle Rabing.

  “Are you sure it’s worth the effort, Brand?” Jak asked.

  Brand sighed. They’d had this talk a dozen times before. Strangely, it was not Telyn who forever tried to dissuade him from frittering away his fortunes upon a ruined castle in the badlands beyond the borders of the Haven. It was his brother Jak who took that role.

  “Jak,” he said. “Don’t you want to see the River Folk grow and take root in new places? We once carpeted this land with villages, farms and castles. We had seaports and mills. Forges produced tools, weapons and armor comparable to those made only by the Kindred now.”

  “And what a great deal of good it did our ancestors back then, didn’t it?”

  “Is that it then? You fear to reach for our glory days?”

  It was Jak’s turn to be annoyed. “You could just take down a dozen of these apple trees and build a second house, you know—if that is the matter.”

  “It’s not about the size of your house, Jak! There are still two empty rooms upstairs, even with both our families living here. And I could always build a new wing, if that was the worry.”

  Jak shrugged, looking down. “You could at least wait until next spring. Your family will be stronger then.”

  “It’s now or never, Jak,” Brand said. “Soon, I’ll grow too comfortable. And Telyn might well have another child by then.”

  Jak frowned fiercely for a time. Finally, he spoke up again in resignation. “All right, I’ll not try to turn you from this path, Brand. I know when a Rabing man has made up his mind there’s no convincing him otherwise.”

  They clasped arms, and parted. He was glad to have his brother Jak’s neutrality, if not his blessing. He vowed in his heart to move forward. Someday, it would be his turn to offer his brother’s family a place to stay.

  As Brand walked back to the house, he heard a scream that rose up and up until it filled his ears. He knew the scream—it was Telyn’s voice. He ran up the stairs, and despite Lanet’s hands trying to stop him, pushed past her.

  Telyn lie on her back, her knees up and bare. Her face was as white as the pillows beneath her. The bed between her legs was bright red and pooled with blood. Standing in the center of the blood puddle was the tiny midwife, Sofia. Her boots were soaked, and her bare arms were slick and stained. She worked with unnatural rapidity. Her fingers seemed to glow—no, to shine. What was it she had? A needle and thread?

  “Get out! Do not disturb me, axeman, or I’ll lose all three!” Sofia cried without so much as a glance over her shoulder at him.

  Brand felt Lanet’s small hands, pushing him out into the hallway. He staggered back out of the room.