Ledger of the Fae

He hated being on duty. It was boring, tiring, and frankly, he had better things to do. Still, his orders were simple enough: observe, remember, don’t interact.

The evening was warm; air scented with midsummer cut grass and honeysuckle. From behind the laurel bushes where he crouched, he could see the just-built houses of the Ridge. They perched along the hillside like silent interlopers, sandstone walls just a little too clean, tarmac just a bit too smooth. The Ridge screamed “newbies”. Humans had built them where only woodland had existed but two summers ago, now too close to the Green Lane for comfort.

He peered through the leaves, scanning the house and the yellow stage-glow of its lit open garage. A red removal lorry squatted outside, two overweight men painted on its side, grinning around the words Watson’s Removals — We’ve got all the right moves. Human humour, he guessed.

Inside the garage, a tall man in a mustard jacket was directing the removal men; inside the house, a woman with deep auburn hair flitted past a window.

But it was the girl he’d been sent to scout out.

She was slender, all elbows and long sleeves and teen awkwardness, her hair catching copper, a shade lighter than her mother’s, in the last of the inky light. An alert Alsatian bounded at her side playfully as she crossed to the small, ragged green across from the houses.

He logged her features automatically yet, when she paused and turned, something jolted through him. She was looking straight across the ever-darkening grass, directly toward the laurel hedge. For a heartbeat, her gaze seemed to meet his. Impossible, of course, no human could see him at this distance in the fading light, let alone behind the thick bush. Still, her eyes didn’t waver till the dog barked and she turned away.

He let out a long, slow breath.

Coincidence, surely. Disconcerting, definitely.

But he’d remember that look.

***

The morning air above the valley shimmered with the early summer sun.

Lucy Farrier decided she rather liked Egglestone. Yesterday had been a blur of boxes and tempers and Bolt getting underfoot, but today the town below looked like something from an old storybook: crooked roofs, slate chimneys, and a languorous serpentine river winding lazily through.

She followed the new road down from the Ridge, tarmac still slightly sticky and sweet-scented from its recent lay. The little town gathered itself around the hill above the river Els in a loose embrace, its streets and form clinging to the river’s whimsy. Even the High Street dog-legged twice for no apparent reason, as if it had forgotten its purpose, or no longer cared. At seven o’clock, the market town was mostly asleep, save for a single bakery she discovered by the river, breathing out the smell of yeast and bread.

The Little Els, it read above the door. She bought a flat white, one sugar, and an Egglestone Fairy; a sugar-and-cinnamon coated spiral pastry that collapsed at the first bite. She sat outside on a table in the shade of a blue umbrella to watch the poplars and willows whisper amongst themselves on the riverbank. It was hard to imagine London was just a few hours away. Here, everything moved to its own music. Played slower.

Back home that afternoon, sunlight spilled casually through her window, Bolt snoring uncaringly at the foot of her bed. When she’d finished her novel, she reached for A History of Egglestone, the battered local guide her mum had found in a local second-hand shop. The pages smelled faintly of musty-damp and dust, curled slightly at the edges. Real old.

The map at the front had been hand drawn before being copied and printed in the book, a little like those you saw at the start of fantasy novels, with the main parts of the town highlighted with little icons. She ran her finger on an area at the top of town, clearly marked as The Ridge. But there were no roads or dwellings shown where she assumed their house was now, save a slender dotted line a way off from the Ridge that ran through thick woodland, labelled in looping script:

The Green Lane.

Outside, the world sang with natural excess, crickets slowly winding up their orchestra to share their lived experience. Occasionally a rare breeze slid through the window, fluttering the curtains and making her eyelids heavy.

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew Bolt was licking her hand, tail thumping expectantly against the bedside table.

“All right, all right,” she said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “Walkies it is.”

It was now early evening, and the light had mellowed to a soft gold. Across the road, the scrub ground shimmered with dusty seed heads and the dark mass of the laurel bank beyond. Yesterday she’d had the oddest sensation there, as though someone had been watching her. Silly, she told herself, settling-in nerves and her own skittishness.

Bolt dashed ahead, nose down, free, tail a metronome of excitement. The laurels swallowed them both quickly, thick leaves brushing her arms, the air turning cooler and still. On the far side lay the border of a wood of oak and beech, shafts of sunlight dappling through.

The start of a track sprang up just at the edge of the trees; well, not quite a path, more a grassy road sunken between centuries-old earthen banks where gnarled roots twisted out through the soil. The ground was firm, but flint-strewn, worn smooth by the passage of time. Lucy crouched, brushing her fingers over the ruts. “This must be the Green Lane,” she murmured. “Must have been some ancient road into town or something.”

The tree branches met overhead, turning the lane into a tunnel of green light. It should have felt peaceful, but the air felt somehow close and expectant, like pre-storm thunder. Even Bolt hesitated, tail stiff, ears pricked.

“Come on then,” she said lightly, and stepped forward.

They followed the curve of the Green Lane which wound slowly downhill at its own pace and whim, birds fluttering through the canopy. Bolt bounded from side to side, over-excited by the thousand smells and sounds. When she threw a stick, he raced after it with abandon, scattering leaves and soil in his wake before trotting back, contented, triumphant.

After a while the lane forked. One branch seemed to continue parallel to the Ridge; the other dipping down toward the valley. Through a break in the trees, she glimpsed the top of a church spire rising above a thin veil of mist.

“Well, Bolt?” she said. “Which way now then?”

Silence.

She looked down. No Bolt.

Turning, she spotted him fifty metres back, standing rigid in the lane, nose and tail in line, gaze fixed on something in the trees.

“Bolt! Come on!”

But he didn’t move. The fur along his spine lifted.

With a sigh she trudged back, stick in hand. “You’re meant to be the brave one,” she muttered.

When she reached him, Bolt gave her a quick glance, then returned his stare into the woods, ears forward, tail still. Stealth mode.

“What is it?” she whispered, peering into the dimness. The shadows between the trunks seemed thicker now, textured somehow, as though the air itself had substance.

For a moment, a sparrow’s second, she thought she glimpsed movement. Not a shape exactly, more a shimmer, like heat over stone. Then it was gone, leaving only the soft rattle of leaves.

Bolt whined.

Lucy swallowed, glancing once more at the dark between the trees.

“Come on,” she said quietly, giving his collar a tug. “Let’s go home.”

As they turned back up the lane, the wind rose behind them, sighing through the branches. It sounded like words in a dream: soft, uncertain, half-remembered, before fading into the hush of evening.