I glared at the sketch. It showed what I considered a highly unfaithful rendering of me in my Cambridge office, my dark hair pinned atop my head but terribly dishevelled （that part, I admit, is true—I have a bad habit of playing with my hair whilst I work）， and a fiendish expression on my face as I scowled at my typewriter. Bambleby had even had the gall to make me pretty, enlarging my deep-set eyes and giving my round face a look of focused intelligence that sharpened its unexceptional profile. No doubt he lacked the ability to imagine a woman he would find unattractive, even if he had seen said woman before.
I was certainly not amused by the caricature. No, I was not.
Bambleby then went on at length about the most recent meeting of the dryadology department faculty, to which I would not have been invited, being only an adjunct professor and not a tenured one, including many entertaining observations about how prettily the light caught at Professor Thornthwaite’s new hairpiece and asking whether I would agree with his theory that Professor Eddington’s relative silence at such convocations suggested a mastery of the open-eyed nap. I did find myself smirking a little as he rambled on—it is hard not to be entertained by Bambleby. It is one of the things I resent most about him. That and the fact that he considers himself my dearest friend, which is only true in the sense that he is my sole friend.
Part of my reason in writing, my dear, is to remind you I am worried for your safety. I speak not of whatever unusual species of ice-encrusted faerie you may encounter, as I know you can handle yourself in that regard, but of the harshness of the climate. Though I must confess a secondary motive in writing—a fascination with the legends you’ve uncovered about these Hidden Ones. I urge you to write to me with your findings—although, if certain plans I’ve set in motion come to fruition, this may prove redundant.
I sat frozen in my chair. Good God! Surely he was not thinking of joining me here? Yet what else could he have meant by such a remark?
My fear ebbed somewhat, though, as I sat back and imagined Bambleby actually venturing to such a place as this. Oh, Bambleby has done extensive work in the field, to be sure, most recently organizing an expedition to investigate reports of a miniature species of Folk in the Caucasus, but Bambleby’s method of fieldwork is one of delegation more than anything else; he settles himself at the nearest thing that passes for a hotel and from there provides directives to the small army of graduate students constantly trailing in his wake. He is much praised at Cambridge for deigning to provide co-author credit to his students in his many publications, but I know what those students put up with, and the truth is that it would be monstrous if he did not.
I was unable to convince even one of my students to accompany me to Hrafnsvik, and I very much doubt that Bambleby, despite his charms, would have much better luck. And so, he will not come.
The remainder of the letter consisted of assurances of his intention to provide the foreword to my book. I felt a little ill at this—a combination of relief and resentment—for though I do not want his assistance, particularly after he scooped me on the gean-cannah changeling discovery, I cannot deny its value. Wendell Bambleby is one of the foremost dryadologists at Cambridge, which is to say that he is one of the foremost dryadologists in the world. The one paper we co-authored, a straightforward but comprehensive meta-analysis of the diet of Baltic river fae, earned me invitations to two national conferences and remains my most cited work.
I tossed the letter into the fire, determined to think no more of Bambleby until the arrival of his next letter, which would no doubt be swift if I did not reply with a haste sufficient to his self-regard.
I turned to Shadow, curled at my feet. The beast had been watching me with solemn dark eyes, concerned for my well-being in the wake of my panic. I discovered another chilblain upon his paw and fetched the salve I had purchased specially for him. I also took the time to comb through his long fur until his eyes drooped with pleasure.
I removed my manuscript from my suitcase, carefully unfolding the protective wrapping, then laid it upon the table. I flicked through the pages, savouring the crisp sound of the heavily inked paper, ensuring they were still in order.
It is a heavy thing, presently totalling some five hundred pages, not inclusive of the appendices, which will likely be extensive. Yet within these pages, like specimens threaded with pins and trapped behind glass in a museum display, is every species of faerie yet encountered by Man, from the mist-dwelling bogban of the Orkneys to the ghoulish thief known as l’hibou noir by those inhabiting the Mediterranean country of Miarelle. They have been alphabetized, cross-referenced, and paired with figures where available as well as a phonetic guide to pronunciation.
I let my hand rest briefly on the stack of pages. I then set atop the manuscript a paperweight, one of my faerie stones[*4] —devoid of magic now, of course. Beside it, at a right angle, I placed my favourite pen—it bears the Cambridge crest; a gift from the university when I was hired—ruler, and inkwell. I surveyed the tableau with satisfaction.
Now, with the world swathed in the total darkness of provincial villages, and my eyelids growing heavy, I am off to bed.
Skip Notes
*1 There are, of course, detailed compendia pertaining to specific regions, e.g., Vladimir Foley’s Guide to Russian Folklore. And Windermere Scott has her I’ll Take the Iron Road: A Rail Journey Through the Otherlands, but this is a narrative account of her travels and highly selective in nature （Scott also undermines her credibility by including ludicrous accounts of ghosts）。
*2 Esther May Halliwell’s Essays on Meta-Folklore includes an overview of how our thinking has evolved on this subject, from the scepticism of the Enlightenment, in which faerie stories were viewed as secondary to empirical evidence in understanding the Folk—if not completely irrelevant—to the modern view of such tales as elemental to Faerie itself.
*3 Here of course I refer to Wilson Blythe’s Wilderfolk Theory, widely accepted by dryadologists and often referred to as the Blythian school of thought. Numerous guides have been written on the subject, but essentially Blythe views the Folk as elements of the natural world that have gained consciousness through unknown processes. According to Blythian thought, then, they are tied to their home environments in ways we humans can barely hope to grasp.
*4 Faerie stones can be found in a variety of regions, being particularly common in Cornwall and the Isle of Man. They are unimpressive in appearance and hard to recognize with the untrained eye; their most distinguishing feature is their perfect roundness. They seem primarily to be used to store enchantments for later use or perhaps for the purposes of gift-giving. Danielle de Grey’s 1850 Guide to Elfstones of Western Europe is the definitive resource on the subject. （I am aware that many dryadologists today ignore de Grey’s research on account of her many scandals, but whatever else she was, I find her a meticulous scholar.） A faerie stone with a crack down it has been spent and is thus harmless. An intact stone should be left untouched and reported to ICAD, the International Council of Arcanologists and Dryadologists.
21st October
Normally, I sleep poorly in foreign accommodations, but I surprised myself by resting soundly until Finn’s promised knock came at half seven.
I rose from the straw-stuffed bed that took up nearly the entirety of the little bedroom, shivering in the cold. The only fire was in the main room, and it was down to the embers. I threw a robe over my nightdress and padded to the door with Shadow at my heels.