My legs and fingers are cold now, and I rub my hands briskly, watching as the golden sparks fly into the air. Within seconds, he’s there, and he laughs as I hop up and down, trying to dispel the cold.
“Oh, shut up. My legs are made for the ground. Not being fifty feet in the air.”
He throws his arm over my shoulder as he comes next to me, and I nestle close, loving the heat he gives off.
“It’s like being with a six-foot-five hot water bottle,” I say dreamily, and he snorts.
“Why did I ever settle for the Minack when I could hear such poetry from you?”
“What can I say? It’s a gift.”
I look around. We’ve left the field and are now walking on a grassy path, our way lit by the moonlight and the torches that mark the route. Ahead of us, the fiddle plays, the sound soinfectious that my feet long to tap and my fingers tingle with the need to clap.
Sigurd stays me. “I must give you some warnings. This is a place that has been magic for many centuries. It lies on the crossing of ley lines, and as such, it is a wild, unpredictable magic, and you must take care. Do not accept any offerings of food or drink.”
“You never said that with the Mer.”
“They rarely offer.” He rolls his eyes. “They hardly eat, and do not look to others’ comforts in that area.”
I repress a smile at the disgruntlement. He has a hearty appetite.
“Okay. No food or drink offered by anyone. Why? Will I have to stay here forever?”
“No,” he says solemnly. “But this is the stone king’s domain, and although they dance and sing under the full moon, at dawn they return to the stuff of which they are made, and so does their food. It becomes stone once more even if it is in your belly.” I gulp, and he nods. “It is a favourite trick of the stone people to offer humans their food, but I do not think they will try this with you as they do with the strangers who cross their path.”
“Why?”
“Because you are with me, and I will rain fire not seen in centuries if one hair on your head is harmed.” The threat is explicit in his voice.
I pat his arm. “Thank you.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You are not angry that I seek to protect you?”
“Not really. I’ve no desire to eat a stone pie by mistake. I can cope with indigestion but not much more.”
He chuckles and then becomes serious again. “And do not dance.” I immediately pout, and he pinches my chin gently. “Isee your foot tapping, and I know that the melody is infectious, but it is that for a reason, Cary.”
“What would happen if I danced?”
“You would be condemned to stay with them forever. ’Tis how the court of the stone people has grown so big.”
The sound of the fiddle rises on the air, and I bite my lip. “But what if I dance before I realise? I mean, I’m tapping my feet now, and I didn’t even know it.”
“They will not try anything with you. They know your importance.”
What importance?
“They know the penalties, and although the stone people may be wild, they are not foolish. The king will leave you alone.” He holds out his hand, and I immediately slide mine into it. “Ready?” he asks.
I nod. “I’ll stay close to you.”
“It would make my mind easy if that were so.”
Hand in hand, we walk towards a large opening in the bushes. Sigurd squeezes my hand and guides me through. I find myself standing in a large field that’s on a gentle slope. It’s in a small valley and surrounded by dark, bulky land with no sight of the sea.
The stars above us are so plentiful it’s like someone threw a curtain of fairy lights over the Cornish countryside, and the moon hangs full and swollen. However, most of my attention is on the sight before me.
There must be a hundred people here. Men and women dressed in clothes dyed green and a dun brown mill around the field. Their skin is grey in the moonlight, their faces discontented, and their movements are oddly stiff. Their attention is all on the fiddle player who’s situated on a raised grass area that looks like a stage. He’s a tall, brawny-looking bloke wearing a cap with a piece of holly in it, and he’saccompanied by two other men who are playing pipes. An area of flattened grass has become an impromptu dance floor, and the female dancers reel and dip with their male partners. They’re dressed in green with headdresses made of winter flowers, their red hair dancing in the breeze. When one looks up, I see that her eyes are scarily wild and cruel. The music rises and falls, and the beat of the dancers’ feet seems like a metronome.
