Chapter 1
The storm clouds were barely visible in the distance beyond Hackpen Hill, but that didn’t stop gooseberry-sized drops of rain from pelting me as a sudden wind whipped my cloak.
The English weather could be unspeakable, but there was an upside. The smell of the rain mixed with the petrichor rose from the freshly plowed fields and mingled with the chocolate, raspberries, and elderflower truffles in my basket.
Half the joy of being a confectionary to the fey were the smells and flavors of Wiltshire, it was one of the reasons I put up with tramping through the mud. The other half were the stunning vistas most people didn’t see: the fairy castle on Hackpen Hill, where the king of the fey kingdom of the Fareesee dwelt, which was invisible to the thousands of tourists who passed through every year. They would never know of the many wondrous creatures who inhabited both fields and woods of this land.
“It’s gonna be a gloomy night,” Noreen complained as she tried to duck under the half-empty basket I carried in my arms, clearly hoping to use me as a shield against the rain. But Noreen, my pixie familiar in the form of a hedgehog, was frankly roly-poly and didn’t fit well under my basket. A golf ball-sized raindrop landed between her ears, causing her to sputter and curse.
“There’s no point complaining,” I said. “You were the one who spazzed out and smooshed a spider. This rain is on you.”
“It jumped into bed with me, what was I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Not kill it, obviously. Next time, breathe and think happy thoughts,” I teased.
Noreen groaned and rolled her eyes. “We were due some rain. I only wish it hadn’t come today.”
Noreen had a lot of power, and by extension, so did I. Because of this, things considered old wives’ tales sometimes actually worked for (or against) us, such as accidently making it rain. Of course, she was right about us being due rain, not that I’d tell her so. The truth was it had been a pleasantly warm spring. I’d been out early to pick the violets and elderflowers that my family used for cooking.
My name is Winifred Unity Gaveston, a witch and confectionary to the fairies. I do everything from mixing the cocoa with the flour and hand-making each step of the way, because feeding fairies and pixies wasn’t a straightforward task. Cocoa beans arrived from overseas, but the wheat came from local farmers and was ground in the old mill. Berries, fruits, and flowers were gathered wild, and I used local honey rather than sugar whenever we could.
As the baker and chocolatier, I only created confections and desserts, whereas my father cooked meals with a dozen helpers in his big kitchen. He was the true master, but I was happy to bring my own joy with truffles and scones. It wasn’t as prestigious, but it was the career I’d chosen. I didn’t want the limelight.
Three rainbows glowed, one above the other, as I turned and trudged up the hill. They shone over the Chalk Horse mural that adorned the far side of the Hackpen. The storm was bearing down upon us now, the wind pushing my cloak against my legs as I avoided the worst of the mud. The trees on the top of the hill began disappearing into the cloud, and soon, the cottages and fairy castle dotted along the hillside would be enshrouded in the fog as well. I walked faster, hoping to outpace the storm, at least long enough to deliver my goods. After all, no one would want a soggy scone.
“Car coming,” Noreen said as I climbed a stile over the wall that separated the field we’d crossed from the road.
I froze in the tall grass that lined the pavement and held my breath, making myself close to invisible. They could have seen me if they were looking hard enough, but most people are too unobservant for that. Not that it would matter much if they could see me, since people might not know (or even believe) that witches existed. They even saw us in our strange clothes all the time, but never commented. Hiding was just habit on my part.
“This rain is going to ruin Lady Raynott’s ball,” Noreen complained.
“Why? It’s not like her manor isn’t heated,” I said.
“How can you be so unconcerned? A hard rain could ruin the entire night.” She turned and shook her little hedgehog finger at me. “Where’s your empathy?”
“Didn’t you know? We invented roofs in the last 10,000 years. I’m pretty sure we’ll be snug and dry all evening,” I said while chuckling to myself.
The Fey tended toward dramatics, or perhaps they were just overly-emotional. Or maybe they were equally overly-emotional dramatics. Everything managed to get blown out proportion for them, and spending my days with an overly-dramatic pixie in the form of a hedgehog had given me a sharp edge of sarcasm as a defense.
“The roof covers the boring part of the party, where polite things happen,” Noreen said. “I prefer to be outside in the gardens, where improper meet-ups happen. The rain makes that more difficult.”
“Consider it an added challenge to lure men into the gardens when it’s raining,” I said, trying to keep my smile under control. “But in a pinch, I’ve found that Lady Raynott’s library has several interesting nooks where one can be alone.”
“Which you probably discovered to literally be alone in a library,” Noreen said as she stuck her tongue out and hopped over some thistles.
I felt the telltale tingle as we went from the Pixies’ and Moors’ territory in the open fields to that of the Fareesee’s, who’d taken to hiding in the small patches of woods in Southern Wiltshire after the Pixies had conquered this land nearly a hundred years ago.
About a mile north, the situation reversed. The pixies hid in the trees, and the Fareesees ruled the open spaces. Since the war, this borderland between two fairy kingdoms had gone quiet, for the most part. There were still small raids and skirmishes between the two, but the larger body of witches and Fey Kingdoms of Britain (in which there were 27) did their best to ensure that the truce stayed in place.
The clouds caught up with us, and the sporadic plops of rain turned into a downpour. Noreen scowled at the clouds and ducked under the edge of my cape, which I’d hiked up to cover my basket. My legs were wet and cold, and I cursed my forgetfulness. Why hadn’t I brought my umbrella?
Noreen’s scowl vanished quickly at the sight of a Fareesee, Miss Bakelsdale, emerging from the ground. Her twenty plus cats hovered near the door of her den, unwilling to step out into the rain.
Noreen dared not be seen scowling in front of a Fareesee, for she was one of the only pixies allowed on Fareesee territory, only thanks to her being familiar with a chocolate-making witch (me).
My family were some of the few people that both sides of every conflict in the region trusted. Sweets don’t have that much power, but they had been bringing a semblance of peace to fairyland since a caveman was brave enough to snatch honeycomb from bees before running like hell. The Fey are even more addicted to sweets than humans, and they’ll come to blows over chocolate if provoked.
More importantly, there is magic in the way a human can prepare food that all the fey need at least a little of.
“Mrs. Bakelsdale,” I said, bending slightly and handing her a package of truffles and scones from my basket. In exchange, she gave me a small bottle of lightning. Mrs. Bakelsdale was one of the few fairies who could gather firebolts. I got one tiny bottle a month in
exchange for my chocolates, and I felt like I was getting the better deal. Being a chocolatier in the human world wouldn’t make me much more than a merchant, but among the Fey, it was important enough to make some of us us minor folk nobility. This was a fact my mother would never let me forget.
“There are a few samples of a new wine and pear truffle I’m trying,” I said. “Be sure to tell me what you think.”
I smiled and started to turn away, but her hand caught my sleeve.
“Thank you, dear,” she said, “but don’t run away.” She hit me with her smile, hearth fire warm and beaming. “My cats are nervous. The kind of agitated they get when dark creatures roam the woods. You haven’t sensed anything, have you, dear?” She plucked up a bilberry truffle and took a dainty nibble.
“No, Mrs. Bakelsdale, I haven’t. Just the normal boogies and werewolves.” I hadn’t even heard of a troll sighting lately, not that they would show themselves to me.
“This is lovely, dear,” she said, waving the uneaten morsel of the truffle in the air. “You should make more. And my cats are never wrong, so you be careful, you hear?”
“Nothing to be worried about today,” I said, the rain streaming off the end of my nose. “Nobody wants to be out in this.”
Mrs. Bakelsdale didn’t seem to notice the water dripping from the ropey strands of her greying blond hair, or the fact that Noreen was sheltering under a burdock leaf.
“It will be a good year for the farms, and you watch, the spring flowers will be out in full force tomorrow,” she said, lifting her face to the downpour.
“I’m sorry, but my chocolates will get ruined if they get wet. I really must be moving on,” I said, taking a step backward.
“Oh, of course! How silly of me,” she said and held up a finger. “Wait, just a moment, dearie.”
She skipped through the herd of cats behind her and emerged a moment later, dragging a hot pink umbrella twice as long as she was tall and handed it to me.
I opened it and was glad of the reprieve, although a little miffed that she hadn't finished gossiping.
“Do you know little Susie Baker, the human girl in the village?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said, knowing I would shortly know more about her than I wanted to.
“Such a to-do,” Mrs. Bakelsdale said. “Her parents forbade her to keep seeing the boy that runs the petrol station, but she refused. They tried to ground her, but that just doesn’t work these days. They finally told her she’d have to give him up or move out of the house. But then he dropped her, and nothing came of it. And the rows that ensued- you could hear them up and down High Street. Young people these days don’t have any restraint!”
The fact that I was a young person with plenty of restraint didn’t seem to faze her. She’d probably say it was because I had so much responsibility or some such dreck, but I wasn’t going to point it out to her.
“And Rona Butler got into Cambridge. Such an honor, but she’s going to study literature. I don’t understand. If I got into Cambridge, I’d study physics or chemistry. Something difficult. Why waste a Cambridge education on literature? You can study books anywhere. You don’t even have to leave the house. Don’t you agree?” Mrs. Bakelsdale asked, eyeing me quizzically.
I nodded, although I’d lost the thread of the conversation by now. Noreen had a smile plastered on her face and was desperately trying to keep her eyes open. Mrs. B’s discussions tended to have a hypnotic effect on Noreen.
“Mrs. B,” I said, “I’d love to stay and chat with you, but I still have deliveries to do, and I must get home in time to be ready for the ball, or my mother will be unhappy.” I smiled apologetically.
“Of course, dear, why didn’t you say something sooner?” Mrs. B asked. “Off with you, and don’t forget your little pixie friend.”
I turned to go, still carrying her hot pink umbrella. If she didn’t ask for it now, I would bring it back with my next delivery.
“Spriggans,” Mrs. B said.
I turned back to her.
“Spriggans?” I asked.
“The last time my cats acted like this was when the Spriggans tried to steal my lighting,” Mrs. B said, waving at the cats waiting under her door roof.
That was disturbing. Were cats an accurate early warning system for Spriggans? Ghosts of giants who’d refused to leave the world were dangerous enough, but these were bandits, known to be ruthless. They mostly lived in Cornwall now. We hadn’t had a problem with them since Lord Humphrey had taken up his post as Reeve a hundred years ago. As much trouble as the sheriff gave me, at least he was good at keeping the peace.
“Be safe, Mrs. B,” I said, “and lock your doors at night.”
Noreen dropped an awkward curtsy, and we started on our way. A moment later, we started up the muddy bank of a stream, and she climbed up on my shoulder as the wind blew stray drops of rain under the umbrella. I knew that come tomorrow on this same route, I’d be up to my knees in mud. The amount of effort my parents spent lecturing me on propriety was ridiculous, considering the amount of time I spent covered in cocoa and mud. I may be nobility, but 90% of the time, I looked like a regular chocolate-maker.
Noreen and I disturbed a bullfrog sitting on the bank. He dove into the water and swam to the other side of the creek as fast as his little legs could kick. A school of pollywogs was frightened into hiding, and the minnows changed direction in a hurry. The scene made me smile. You’d never know that a few miles to the north, the industrial parks of Swindon had turned the rural countryside into a concrete wasteland.
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