“Yes, we have.” She pulled another sheet of paper from her pocket. “I wrote this down before coming here. I wanted to make absolutely sure I got it right.”
“Good. Go ahead then, please.”
In spite of his reluctance to accept everything he’d heard as factual, he leant forward and listened as she carefully read the translation.
“The words must be spoken by the one who holds the Earth—and the one who carries the Sight.”
Silence greeted Elinor’s words for a few moments, as Caleb tried to make sense of them. “Would you be the one who carries the sight, d’you think?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think so. I can see Bronwen and, through her, her world. And, following that theme, you are the one who holds the earth. You are the owner of the Tylwyth Teg lands.”
“Oh. Oh, right.”
“Now all we have to do is find the words, of course. And there is a clue as to how we do that.”
“Thank God,” he said fervently. “What is it?”
“The last line of the translation…” She held up the paper. “It says,Where my words begin, take the first. Where my words end, take the last.”
“Ah.” Caleb sighed. “Is there any clue about how to solve the clue? I’m terrible at this, Elinor, I’ll confess…”
“Woof” added Carrádog.
“See? Even my dog knows.”
Elinor chuckled. “Never fear. I’ve been trying to solve this since I read it, and I think there are a few things we can try.”
“All right. What’s the first one?”
“Well, we could take the very first words in the book, and the very last words. Perhaps the sentence. That would make more sense, I think.”
Caleb, doubting that anything could make sense at this point, merely nodded. “I have paper and a pen here, just a moment…”
Elinor focussed, turning the pages from the front to the back of the book several times. Then she shook her head. “No, that doesn’t work at all. Maybe we could try…”
Thirty frustrating minutes later, Caleb held up his hand. “A moment.” He frowned. “What if…what if they’re talking about thechapters? The first word…where the words begin…and the last word, which is where the words end?”
She paused, thinking. “It’s worth trying.”
It took another half an hour, since there were sections within chapters, footnotes, and a lot of other things that were probably designed to be incredibly confusing to someone like Caleb, who loathed puzzles to start with.
But eventually the words began to make sense, to form lines and rhythms that could easily be some sort of incantation.
“That’s it then,” sighed Elinor, putting her pen down carefully, and wiping her ink-stained fingers on her skirt.
Caleb rolled his eyes, but refrained from pointing out the damage she’d just done to the fabric. “Let’s see what we have?”
She passed him the sheet they’d used for their solutions, and the last was clearly in the form of a poem, or a chant.
“Definitely has relevance,” Caleb stared at the words. “I’m still not convinced that this will restore Tylwyth Teg to the elves, but I’m certainly willing to give it a try.” He looked up. “We don’t have to do this under a full moon or a new moon, or on some odd Tuesday after All Saint’s Day, do we?”
Elinor managed a tired laugh. “No, Caleb. We just have to hold hands and say it.”
A slight whimper sounded from the floor.
“It can’t hurt to have Carrádog be part of it as well, perhaps?” He glanced down at the thump of a tail on the carpet.
“Of course.” Elinor reached down and gave him a much-appreciated ear-ruffle. “He’s the one who pretty much started this whole thing, the glow, my fainting spell, his arrival…in some order or other. It seems like years ago now, doesn’t it?”
