They emerged from the trees into a clearing. Brendan caught his breath. They had crossed some kind of invisible barrier. The island had been grey and bare the last time he’d been here. The park surrounding the Community Centre had been utterly transformed. A city of magnificent tents and pavilions crowded around the white clapboard building. The entire space was ablaze with torchlight. Multicoloured flames sprouted from torches planted in the ground on long poles. The tents were a riot of different cultural designs: wigwams, yurts, teepees, brocaded silks, and billowing Arabian fantasies, all in bright and festive hues. There was no rhyme or reason to the layout. It was as though a caravan of insane nomads had fallen from the sky and decided to set up camp.
“Wow,” Brendan breathed. Then he had a thought. “What do the Humans who live on the island think of all this stuff?”
“They won’t see any of it.” Charlie laughed. “They’ve been convinced to stay in their homes by glamours.”
The variety of tents was exceeded by the variety of Fair Folk frolicking among them. Every imaginable national costume was represented, and every historical era. Each Faerie had dressed extravagantly in order to stick out, and the result was jarring to the eye. Brendan had never seen so many Fair Folk in one place. The effect was overwhelming.
He looked up and gasped again. Faeries had strung cables from tree branches and stretched a maze of colourful high wires across the entire open space. Faeries dashed and somersaulted along the tightropes performing amazing feats of agility. Everywhere, Lesser Faeries swarmed and chased one another at dizzying speeds.
Brendan noticed something else. “Hey… Am I crazy, or is it suddenly warm?”
“As balmy as a spring day,” Charlie agreed. “Part of the glamours. We don’t feel the cold, but why not just have a bit of spring in the heart of winter?”
Brendan couldn’t argue with that. Still, he was dumbfounded and his expression must have been goofy because Charlie laughed again. “Come on,” she said, tugging him back into motion. “Let’s go to the market.”
They plunged into the heaving throng, shouldering their way through the press. Brendan’s ears rang with a barrage of languages: English, French, German, Chinese, and others that he couldn’t place. Musicians added to the din, playing impromptu concerts on a bizarre array of traditional and incomprehensible instruments. DJs were spinning club mixes in tents filled with gyrating dancers. In the alleyways between the pavilions, Faeries blocked the way in knots, pausing to dance whenever they felt inspired.
Brendan’s worries melted away. He had been concentrating on the Proving so fiercely, he hadn’t given a thought to what a Faerie Clan Gathering might actually be like. He found himself caught up in the insanely joyful mood of the Faerground. As they made their way through the chaotic maze of cloth tunnels, he found himself dancing with a number of partners, singing songs he’d never heard before, and being embraced by total strangers. He was only slightly aware that people were pointing at him and whispering. He tried not to feel self-conscious. By the time they reached the lawn-bowling green beside the clubhouse in the centre of the tent village, he was feeling a lightness of heart that he’d never realized he’d been missing these last few weeks.
When the Faerie convention wasn’t in town, the bowling green was a flat, manicured lawn bordering the Community Centre. Now it had been appropriated as a marketplace. Stalls had been set up all around the perimeter, selling a bewildering variety of wares. Toys, clothes, jewellery, hats, books, and antiques with indecipherable purposes were laid out on velvet pillows to be pawed by potential buyers. Potion sellers hawked their wares, professing the beneficial health effects of their herbal infusions and ointments. Souvenirs were on offer just as they would have been in a Human flea market. Faeries haggled with merchants. Coins were exchanged along with insults and jokes.
Everywhere Faeries wandered, singly or in raucous groups. In the centre of the green, a large tent sheltered a temporary extension of the Swan of Liir. Huge wooden kegs were suspended on sawhorses, and the ale flowed liberally. Charlie led Brendan into the tent. As they arrived, Og was just topping off a foaming mug. He turned, slopping the amber contents of his tankard as he raised it to his lips. He saw Brendan and his heavy face split open in a grin.
“Well, well, well! Here he is himself. Welcome, Brendan, me boy!” He made his way through the throng toward them.
Brendan’s stomach fluttered. Everyone nearby had heard Og’s booming greeting. Most eyes turned to search for him and he wished he could disappear. Some of the faces were filled with curiosity, a few were unreadable, and a few revealed undisguised disdain. He tried to cling to the happy mood and ignore the worry that gnawed at his mind once more.
Og found them a rough trestle table and they sat down.
“Will ye have a pint of ale, then, Brendan? Put hair on yer chest?”
“No thanks, Og,” Brendan declined. “My mum wouldn’t approve.”
“She wouldn’t even know!” Og declared.
“Gotta stay sharp,” Brendan insisted.
“Suit yerself,” Og conceded. “What do ye think of the Clan Gathering, me lad? Impressive, what?”
Brendan nodded. He cast his gaze about the clearing, marvelling at his surroundings. If only Harold and Dmitri could see this. They’d flip! Brendan immediately felt a stab of sadness. He could never share this with them. He’d made that decision when he’d Compelled them to forget. Now he was alone. Well, not exactly alone. He had Greenleaf, Deirdre, Og, and Kim. He had Charlie.
He watched her as she waded through the crowd to the bar. She had really wrapped herself around his life in such a short time. He didn’t know how he felt about that. She was certainly very beautiful. She was fun to be around. But he’d seen another side of her: she was desperately lonely and sad. He remembered her crying in his arms and saying, “I never wished you harm.” What did she mean by that?
She sensed him staring at her and turned her head to smile at him. His heart tightened. He was about to wave at her when his eye caught a sharp movement behind her shoulder.
Brendan saw Lugh, the tall, sinister Faerie companion of Pukh. The silver-haired Faerie bent over and spoke angrily into Charlie’s face. The revellers parted for an instant, long enough for Brendan to see that Lugh had a huge hand clamped on Charlie’s shoulder.
Brendan was out of his seat in an instant and forcing his way through the crowd. After a few curses and well-placed elbows he reached Charlie. Just as he arrived, he heard Lugh’s sharp voice.
“You must reconsider. Pukh will not be pleased if you refuse him.”
Charlie shook her head fiercely, her jaw jutting out. “I don’t care what he threatens me with.”
“Let go of her,” Brendan demanded.
Lugh stared hard at Brendan with his cold grey eyes. Finally, he said, “This does not concern you, Princeling. Begone.”
“She’s my friend.” Brendan tried not to let the fear jangling in his heart show in his voice. “So it does concern me. Let her go.”
Lugh continued to stare at Brendan, hand firmly clamped on Charlie’s arm.
“Let de girl go,” said a deep voice, echoing Brendan’s demand.
Leonard stood with a wooden keg on his shoulder. His muscles bulged from the strain of holding the barrel upright. His dark face was serious as a gravestone as he stared Lugh down.
Lugh’s lip hovered at the doorstep of a sneer. He let go of Charlie’s arm and without a word stalked off into the crowd.
“Thanks, you guys,” Charlie said. “But you didn’t have to worry. I’m fine.”
“What did he want?” Brendan asked.
“It was nothing.” Charlie waved the question away, but Brendan saw the lingering fear in her eyes.
“It didn’t seem like nothing. What did he want?”
“Nothing I could give him.”
“That Lugh is a creepy dude.”
Charlie’s face clouded. “Yeah, he’s creepy, all right. You should stay away from him. He’s dangerous.”