The Demon's Covenant

9

Come Buy

Mae hadn’t really thought about the fact that the Goblin Market was held in a different place every month. It made sense to her that a secret gathering would be held in a different place every month, but still the image of people dancing in a wood filled with fairy lights had stayed with her. She’d thought it would be more or less the same.

On the hour-long drive to Cornwall, Alan explained that they were holding this Goblin Market on the sea-bound cliffs of Tintagel Castle.

“Is this a castle like Cranmore Castle was a castle?” Mae asked, referring to the green hill, once a fort and nothing like a castle, that had been near the woods of the last Market.

“No—it’s a castle like a proper castle,” Alan said. “Mostly.”

“Oh, mostly?”

“Well, a lot of the castle has fallen into the sea,” said Alan. “But it’s very impressive apart from that.”

Mae laughed, and Alan laughed with her, teeth flashing white in the dark. He looked happy, recovered from the emotion that had made his face drawn and desperate in the shadowed kitchen. It didn’t take much to make Alan happy; he was used to living on crumbs.

It made her feel terribly sorry for him, but she couldn’t really understand it. She was pretty comfortable with wanting a lot from life.

“So if a storm comes, we could all be blown out to sea with what’s left of the castle,” she said lightly, and then stopped and cursed her own stupidity as they both thought of storms.

“It’s the first weekend in June,” Alan said after a moment, his smile dimmed but his voice still trying to be light. “I don’t expect storms.”

Mae looked away from the loss of Alan’s smile to the open night road, the tarmac briefly white in the car’s headlights and then fading to black in the side mirrors.

“Gerald said there was a storm in Durham,” she said. “Wasn’t that where—where your family lived?”

Alan’s family: his aunt—the sister of Alan’s long-dead mother—and her children. The aunt Alan had written to in secret. The family Nick had not known existed, because he’d thought Olivia was Alan’s mother, because he’d thought that he and Alan were really brothers.

He had taken the revelation that they were not actually related extremely badly.

“Yeah,” Alan said, rough and short as his brother for once.

“And the storm that was going on in the background when I called you,” said Mae carefully. “That was due to—”

“It was my fault.”

When she glanced at Alan, she saw his jaw was tight.

“I shouldn’t have gone there.”

He looked over at Mae suddenly, just a glance, soft and gentle as if he’d reached out and touched her, or as if he wanted to.

“We should have come back to Exeter with you guys.”

“I’m glad you’re here now,” said Mae, which was true. “So this place is meant to be where King Arthur was conceived,” she said to change the subject, since if she knew anything about Alan, she knew it would make him happy to go on about history and legends. “That’s really nobody’s business but the queen’s.”

“Think the king might’ve been slightly interested as well,” said Alan. Mae made a dismissive gesture, and Alan laughed.

“Also, there’s the problem that probably none of it happened. At least, not here.”

“Well, maybe and maybe not,” said Alan, and looked immediately enthusiastic. “During excavations in 1998 a stone was discovered onsite with the word ‘Artognou’ on it, which could mean ‘descendant of Arthur.’ It’s interesting how people want to believe; words have so many different meanings.”

“It’d be more interesting if it was one of the druidesses,” Mae said.

Alan had read Malory, and Mae had read Marion Zimmer Bradley. They were able to talk about King Arthur until they turned right for Boscastle and Alan paused in his mini-lecture on seventh-century Britain to check the signpost. When he chose what Mae hoped was the right narrow country road lost in pitch blackness, she clenched her fists and tried to be patient as Alan parked his car somewhere high up in the hills that definitely wasn’t a car park. She climbed out and they walked together, crossing a bridge to Tintagel Island and going farther uphill with every step, until they came to an open gate.

“This gate’s meant to be locked, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” Alan said, with an unexpectedly wicked smile. “Meant to be.”

He gestured in a courtly manner, and Mae rolled her eyes at him and went through the gate first.

Then she gazed up at the mountain beyond the gates, slate balanced in a haphazard, tilting pile as if a giant child had stacked stones into something that was meant to be a tower. Except it wasn’t a tower; it was just a towering heap. One that they would have to climb.

Mae looked up and up at the jagged gray crest of the mountain, like a black crown inscribed on the twilight sky.

She opened her mouth to say she wasn’t really very athletic, but then remembered Alan’s lame leg and shut it. She began to climb the wooden steps that wound up to the cliffs.

She’d danced at clubs and raves until five in the morning, even if she did walk through relay races in gym class. She should have been able to climb steps. Only dancing was euphoric, made her feel dizzy and delighted, keenly conscious of where to put her feet but not truly aware of their weight.

Her feet felt like dumbbells she was lifting with every step now, and there were hot lancing pains in the backs of her thighs. Behind her she could hear Alan. He was not panting as much as she was, but every second step he drew in a tightly controlled breath, snatching back a moan just before it escaped into the air.

Alan didn’t like being asked if he was all right.

“I’ve been giving some thought to the importance of Arthurian legends and historical sites,” Mae announced to the night wind. “And I’ve come to the conclusion: Sod them.”

Alan laughed a little, shaky and hurting. Mae was very sure that he hadn’t told Nick they were holding the Goblin Market on top of a mountain this month.

They were only halfway up the mountain. She should really suggest to Alan that they turn back and go home, that this wasn’t worth it. Only Alan wouldn’t go, and besides that … guiltily, horribly, in spite of the fact that Alan was in pain every step, Mae wanted to go to the Market more than anything.

They followed the steps in a steep curve around the mountain, dirt on worn wood crunching under Mae’s shoes, the wind turning her hair into whips that cut across her face.

She was just staring at her feet, dragging up one after another, when she came to a door in the dark.

It was curved like a chapel door, but the wood in front of her was rough and unpolished, ghost gray in the moonlight. She put her hand to it, and it felt cool and smooth as pearl, worn down by years of sea breezes.

The door swung open and revealed a fairy-tale castle.

It looked like someone had been planting stars. The castle was in shreds, flagstone floors tiny islands in a sea of stones and wild grass, but clusters of lights were nestled on the castle floor and the earth of the cliffs alike, lanterns strung from the crumbling battlements.

There were so many lights they cast a shimmering haze over everything, bathing the ruins in a pale glow. Mae walked, hardly aware that she was walking, through Tintagel Castle over stones washed in brightness.

There were stalls nestled around the castle the way the lights were, not in rows but in odd spots, as if the stalls had grown there or alighted on random places like birds. There was one stall with ringing chimes that was set halfway up a ruined wall, so the customers had to climb sliding pieces of slate to get to it. There were more stalls set in the grassy hollows among the stones and nestled into the corners of the walls. One woman had actually turned a ruined wall into her stall, brightly colored jars arranged on the jagged, protruding shards of stone.

All through the fragments of a lost castle lit by magic moved the people of the Goblin Market. There was a man hanging up knives alongside wind chimes, which made dangerous and beautiful music as they rang together in the sea breeze. There was a boy who looked about twelve stirring something in a cauldron with a rich-smelling cloud hanging over it, and bark cups ranged along his stall.

There was a toddler who had just walked into Mae’s knee.

“Whoa,” said Mae, who had nothing against toddlers but didn’t know any personally and wasn’t that interested in the whole sticky children business.

The toddler, who had golden curls and wide blue eyes and looked like he had recently been eating grass, charged into her knee again, as if sheer willpower could remove this obstacle from his path. He looked mildly bewildered when he bounced off.

“That’s Toby,” said Alan’s voice behind her, making her jump. She’d almost forgotten he was there. “He’s the baby of the Davies family. And he’s a pest.”

Alan supported this statement by saying every word in a delighted, caressing voice that made even Mae turn to him and Toby laugh. He wasn’t looking at Mae but at the child, a smile making his narrow face shine like the ruined castle.

“He’s always escaping from his crib and making his sister worry herself sick. Aren’t you, you little fiend?”

Toby beamed with the wide, somewhat crazy grin kids got, and lifted his arms to be picked up. Alan did so at once, the baby cradled carefully in the crook of one elbow, his head bowed down over the smaller head.

“You really like children, huh,” Mae said, mystified but charmed as well. There was no denying that Alan with a kid was about as adorable as a basket of kittens wearing tiny kitten bonnets, and it also meant that she wasn’t going to have to mind Toby.

It occurred to her that this might be why women went for men who were good with kids: It meant they wouldn’t have to be.

“Hmm? Oh, they’re all right,” said Alan, obviously besotted.

The baby squirmed, and Alan knelt with some difficulty so he could let him down and still keep him safe in the circle of one arm. Toby made a grab for something shining up Alan’s sleeve: Alan produced the knife for him and flipped it, making sure the hilt caught the fairy lights and keeping the blade always trapped between his deft fingers, away from the child’s small reaching hands.

“There, Toby,” he said. He flipped the knife again and smiled, and Toby laughed, either for the knife or the smile. “I remember Nick at this age,” Alan continued, his voice gentle as his free hand stroked the child’s hair.

Mae looked down at Toby’s small, bright face. The lights of the Goblin Market danced in his fuzzy curls and seemed to create light, gold irradiating his hair like a hazy halo. It was hard to think of Nick as anything like this.

“Was he cute?” she asked doubtfully.

She thought Alan might be offended, but he laughed. “No, I suppose he wasn’t. But he was mine.”

Toby made a spirited lunge for the knife, and Alan blocked him.

“No, I won’t let you hurt yourself,” he informed him, pocketing the knife and turning the child around in his arms so they were facing each other. Toby regarded him solemnly for a moment, and then reached up to curl a fat fist around one of the lenses of Alan’s glasses. “Speaking of belonging to people, I suppose I should return you to the people you belong to. That’ll be fun.”

He gathered the child back up and rose as he did so, using a ruined wall to help him stand. His eyes traveled to Mae.

“Do you want to go see the dancing?” he asked, with a small smile, a little wicked, that was for her and not the child. “I’ll catch up.”

“Well,” said Mae, because it seemed tactless to say that she wanted to run to wherever the dancing was more than anything in the world.

Alan’s wicked smile became a wicked mind-reading smile. “Have fun,” he told her, and limped away with Toby in his arms still negotiating over the possession of his glasses. Mae smiled after his retreating back.

Then she turned and walked through the beautiful ruins, reaching a part of the castle that was paved over for tourists, stone smooth and modern as a brick road. Even that was iced over by the goblin lanterns. Light turned a brick road into something like a path cast by the moon, leading the way to magic.

She knew which way she was going. She could hear the singing over the sound of the sea.

Mae followed the music and reached a place where the ruins were cut almost in two by a crevasse with a river rushing through it to crash into the sea and foam against the rocks below.

Across the crevasse was a bridge made of ropes, spangled with lights and tied to the crumbling ruins at either end. It looked like glittering gossamer. It looked like it could snap at any moment.

There were four couples dancing on the bright threads suspended over the rocks.

Mae saw the girl right away.

She was unmistakably the leader again, with a red crown of flowers in her hair. She’d been like a vivid forest creature in the woods, and now she was like something born from the sea foam.

She was wearing white that reflected the moonlight, material that the night wind sent clinging and fluttering down her body, so thin you could almost see her skin dark and soft beneath it. Her hair was threaded with silver ribbons, and her skirt was slashed into silver ribbons as well, trailing over and wrapping around her legs as she danced. Her feet landed light as air, perfectly balanced in the strange web above the waters.

The ropes trembled whenever a foot touched them, shivering over the abyss. The boys were all in black, shadows following the brightly colored girls, none of them as arresting as Nick had been when he danced. The girls in red and yellow and blue looked like shadows as well, next to the girl in white.

Lanterns were swaying over Mae’s head. She looked up and saw the thin, steely flash of the wire supporting them, and then down, all the way down the cliffs that the light laid bare. They were jagged and cruel-looking, stone sharp as knives and going on for miles, and Mae’s stomach sank even as a thrill chased up her spine.

By lantern light the sea below looked a strange, clear turquoise. Mae wondered if that was more magic.

There were people singing on the other side of the abyss, their voices high and rising as the girl in white was thrown up easily as a white flower into the night sky and came tumbling down like an acrobat, feet curving onto the exact same strand of rope she’d been standing on before.

The audience murmured, voices warm as the sound of the waves was cold. The girl paused, hanging there, being still in beauty as much a part of the dance as hurtling through the air. Her dark hair streamed out with her silver ribbons, like a flag of shadows and light.

Then she lowered the arms held in a triumphal arch over her head and dismissed her audience by simply turning away, walking along a tightrope more lightly than Mae could have walked along a street. She leaped from the rope to the edge of the cliff and stood facing Mae, her dark eyes suddenly wide.

“Oh,” said Sin of the Market, red lips curving back from her white teeth. “It’s you.”

Her look and smile were brilliant: Mae glanced backward to see who they were for and saw nothing but ruins and the sea by night.

“Yes,” she responded, disbelieving, a little breathless. “It’s me.”

Sin’s attention was like a spotlight. She smiled, and the whole world became brighter and more intense, seemed to hold the possibility of becoming another world entirely.

She said, “I was hoping you would come back.”