“Father says you’re writing a book,” he said, heaping logs by the fire. “About our Hidden.”
“Not just the Hidden,” I said. “The book is about all known species of Folk. We have learned much about their kind since the dawning of this era of science, but no one has yet ventured to assemble this information into a comprehensive encyclopaedia.”[*1]
He gave me a look that was both dubious and impressed. “My, but that sounds like a lot of work.”
“Yes.” Nine years of it, to be specific. I have been working on my encyclopaedia since earning my doctorate. “I hope to complete my fieldwork here by spring—the chapter on your Hidden Ones is the very last piece. My publisher is eagerly awaiting the manuscript.”
The mention of a publisher seemed to impress him all over again, though the furrow in his brow remained. “Well. We have plenty of stories. I don’t know, though, that they’ll be any use to you.”
“Stories are of great use,” I said. “Indeed, they are the foundation of dryadology. We would be lost without them, as astronomers cut off from the sky.”
“They’re not all true, though,” he said with a frown. “Can’t be. All storytellers embellish. You should listen to my grandmother when she gets going—she’ll have us hanging on every word, yes, but a visitor from the next village will say they don’t know the tale, though it’s the same one their own amma tells at her hearth.”
“Such variation is common. Nevertheless, when it comes to the Folk, there is something true in every story, even the false ones.”
I could have gone on about faerie stories—I’ve written several articles on the subject—but I didn’t know how to talk to him about my scholarship, if what I said would be nonsense to his ears. The truth is that, for the Folk, stories are everything. Stories are part of them and their world in a fundamental way that mortals have difficulty grasping; a story may be a singular event from the past, but—crucially—it is also a pattern that shapes their behaviour and predicts future events. The Folk have no system of laws, and while I am not saying stories are as law to them, they are the closest thing their world has to some form of order.[*2]
I finished simply, “My research generally consists of an amalgam of oral accounts and hands-on investigation. Tracking, observations in the field, that sort of thing.”
If anything, the furrow had deepened. “And you—you’ve done this before? You’ve met them, I mean. The Folk.”
“Many times. I would say that your Hidden Ones would be unable to surprise me, but that is a talent universally held by the Folk, is it not? The ability to surprise?”
He smiled. I believe he thought me half akin to the Folk at that point, a strange magician of a woman conjured into his midst in a village little touched by the outside world. “That I couldn’t say,” he replied. “As I’ve only known our Folk. That’s enough for one man, I’ve always thought. More than enough.”
His tone had darkened a little, but in a grim rather than an ominous way, the sort of voice one uses when speaking of those hardships that are a fact of life. He set a loaf of dark bread upon the table, which he informed me quite casually had been baked in the ground via geothermal heat, along with enough cheese and salted fish for two. He was quite cheery about it, and seemed intent on joining me for the humble feast.
“Thank you,” I said, and we gazed at each other awkwardly. I suspected that I was supposed to say something else—perhaps enquire about his life or duties, or joke about my helplessness—but I’ve always been useless at that sort of amiable chatter, and my life as a scholar affords me few opportunities for practice.
“Is your mother about?” I said finally. “I would thank her for the bread.”
I may be a poor judge of human feeling, but I have had plenty of experience with putting my feet wrong to know that it was the worst possible thing to say. His handsome face closed, and he replied, “I made it. My mother passed a year and more ago.”
“My apologies,” I said, putting on a show of surprise in an attempt to cover the fact that Egilson had included this information in one of our early letters. What a thing to forget about, you idiot. “Well, you’ve quite a talent for it,” I added. “I expect your father is proud of your skill.”
Unfortunately, this inept rejoinder was met with a wince, and I guessed that his father was not in fact proud of his son’s skill in the kitchen, perhaps even viewing it as a degradation of his manhood. Fortunately, Finn seemed kindhearted at the core, and he said with some formality, “I hope you enjoy it. If you need anything else, you can send word to the big house. Will half seven suit for breakfast?”
“Yes,” I said, regretting the change from his former easy conversation. “Thank you.”
“Oh, and this arrived for you two days ago,” he said, withdrawing an envelope from his pocket. “We get mail deliveries every week.”
From the way he said it, he saw this as a source of local pride, so I forced a smile as I thanked him. He smiled back and departed, murmuring something about the chickens.
I glanced at the letter, and found myself confronted with a florid script that read The Office of Dr. Wendell Bambleby, Cambridge in the upper left corner, and in the middle, Dr. Emily Wilde, Abode of Krystjan Egilson, Farmer, Village of Hrafnsvik, Ljosland.
“Bloody Bambleby,” I said.
I set the letter aside, too hungry to be vexed just then. Before I tucked into my own refreshments, I took the time to prepare Shadow’s, as was our custom. I collected a mutton steak from the outdoor cellar—to which I had been directed by Finn—and set it on a plate beside a bowl of water. My dear beast devoured his meal without complaint, while I sat by the crackling fire with my tea, which was strong and smoky, but good.
I felt some regret at having poorly repaid Finn’s kindness, but I didn’t mourn the absence of his company—I had not been expecting it.
I gazed out the window. The forest was visible, starting a little higher up the slope and giving off the inauspicious impression of a dark wave about to come cresting down on me. Ljosland has little in the way of trees, as its mortal inhabitants denuded much of the sub-Arctic landscape. However, a few forests remain—those claimed, or believed to be claimed, by their Hidden Ones. These are largely comprised of the humble downy birch, along with a few rowans and shrub willows. Nothing grows to a great height in such a cold place, and what trees I could see were stunted, tucking themselves ominously into the shadow of the mountainside. Their appearance was mesmerizing. The Folk are as embedded in their environments[*3] as the deepest of taproots, and I was all the more eager to meet the creatures who called such an inhospitable place home.
Bambleby’s letter sat upon the table, somehow conspiring to give off a kind of negligent ease, and so finally, once I had finished the bread （good, tasting of smoke） as well as the cheese （also good, also tasting of smoke）， I took it up and slid my nail through the seam.
My dear Emily, it began. I hope you’re settled comfortably in your snowbound fastness, and that you are merry as you pore over your books and collect a variety of inkstains upon your person, or as close to merry as you can come, my friend. Though you’ve been gone only a few days, I confess that I miss the sound of your typewriter clack-clacking away across the hall while you hunch there with the drapes drawn like a troll mulling some dire vengeance under a bridge. So woebegone have I been without your company that I drew you a small portrait—enclosed.