I looked around but did not see him, nor anything that might be him, not even the twitch of a butterfly’s wing. Laughter rang out, deep and thick like velvet as I squinted into the brush around me. Yellow gorse bloomed at the foot of the well; the riotous ferns crept up the stone.
“Show yourself,” I commanded.
“One who does not look deep for her answers does not deserve to find them,” came the response.
Ihadlooked deep. And I had waited. It earned me nothing but the Fool’s mockery.
I wished I was a mightier fae, a redcap, who might dye their hat with his red blood. A fachan, whose hideous appearance would stop his heart; the Cailleach Bheur, who would freeze the ground where Amadan stood.
The very queen of the fairies, who might command him to reveal himself. But I dared not claim that title. Not yet.
I squeezed my fists tight, and demanded, “Do your beastly manners betoken a beastly nature then?”
I could not get Beltane out of my head, the enormous wolf with its glistening dark fur. The creature I suspected was him.
The Dark Fool made a rumbling growl deep in his throat, as the shepherd sometimes did when we were making love. “Stay and you might find out.”
I did not want to. I had faced down the beast once; I felt no need to do so again. Yet I kept thinking,What if the trickster has the knowledge you seek?
Mairi’s gifts. Mairi’s deeds. Anything that might reveal whether the rumor was true.
I clutched the basket in my hands.One who does not look deep for her answers does not deserve to find them.There was a riddle in there, was there not? Tricksters adore riddles. Deep—as in, deep into the forest? Deep in the ground? Must I dig my way into the very Underhill to find him?
Deep into myself? I was not certain I could face what would meet me there.
A glint of sunlight reflecting off the water caught my attention, and I turned again to the well.
There was a face reflected there, and this time it was not my own. It was too male, hair too dark, features a hint too sharp to be human, but handsome, and fine.
Except where his cheek was marked, as though burning fingers or branches had stroked his face.
This was my handiwork, and my proof: Amadan had indeed been the wolf.
“Come forth, Dark Fool,” I called.
A chuckle. “Oh, and look who is making demands now? You speak as more than peasant girl, Bess-you-seem.”
A flash of sunlight hit the water just so, and the reflection blinded me. I turned my head and threw my hand in front of my eyes.
When I dropped it, the Dark Fool himself stood before me. He wore a cotehardie of leaves again, snug and short, but the leaves were larger, darker, no longer the new leaves of gentle spring. We were in full summer now, after all, and the ends of his dark hair seemed tipped with gold.
“What a commanding manner you now have,” he observed. “I like this new confidence of yours. You were such a little mouse before.”
My impulse was to lower my gaze, shrink into myself, slide back into that cloak of unnoticeability I had once worn. I would not give in to it. “It is nice to see you standing upright,” I said instead. “When last we met, you were on all fours.”
His lips quirked and he scratched his chin. “Really? You would think I would have remembered that.”
I’d swear, my entire body went red as a burning rosebud then. I had no time for either his innuendo or my own embarrassment. “You hunted the shepherd. You were the wolf.”
He grinned and made a wolf whistle, not as his beastly self or in fact a mortal wolf would have done, but rather the sound cruder men do make at beautiful women.
“Stop that!” I protested. “You know very well what I meant.”
“I do.” Amadan circled me slowly like a predator, causing chills whenever his shadow fell across my skin. “One might think a shepherd would have more experience dealing with wolves. But yours was in the forest after nightfall while the Veil was thin.” He tsked and shook his head slowly. “Even the dullest of mortals should know better. On Beltane, it belongs to us.”
We were too close. He loomed over me, and my gaze fixed upon the smooth perfection of his jawline. Through his clothes, his flesh seemed cool and pliant, flora, not fauna. His breath ruffled my hair, cool and scented of green herbs.
I took a step back. “Thomas would not have been in ‘our place’ if not for you. You beckoned him with your song.”
