Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier Page B

time I had been too wretched to think much of it. Perhaps Father and I had looked the way we’d felt: powerless, incapable, numb with grief. No threat.
    ‘Best have a story ready,’ suggested Sage, ‘and brazen it out. Walk on the track, hold your head up, and when you get to the bridge, don’t let on what you’re thinking. It’ll be risky, mind.’
    ‘Risky, aye,’ put in Red Cap. ‘But not as risky as trying to slip by unseen and being spotted. If king’s men catch you, it’s all up.’
    ‘Is there no other way across the river?’
    My companions exchanged a look, but did not speak.
    ‘Another bridge, higher up? A different path that will lead me to the Three Hags?’
    Sorrel cleared his throat. ‘There might be.’
    ‘How do I reach it?’ What was it they were not saying?
    ‘You’d go up this side of the Rush, half a day’s walking,’ Sorrel said. ‘There’s a track. Folk live up that way, here and there.’
    ‘Where does the track lead?’ I asked, hearing the reservation in Sorrel’s tone. Sage’s eyes were troubled. Red Cap was scratching his furry head, as if wondering whether I was crazy. Clearly there was a reason why this way had not been mentioned earlier.
    ‘Nowhere,’ Sage said flatly. ‘You wouldn’t be wanting to go that way. Folk don’t cross the Rush up there. Your kind of folk, I mean.’
    ‘But there is a bridge?’
    ‘Oh, aye. If you can call it that.’ There was a weighty pause, then Sage added, ‘Do what you think best, lassie. You can go by the big track and hope nobody stops you. Or you can take the wee bittie path and hope it’s not a foolish risk.’
    ‘Which way would you go?’
    ‘Ah,’ said Sage. ‘It’s not for me to choose.’
    Time was passing. If I did not move on soon, I could be stuck out in the open at nightfall. I must get past the farms by dusk. ‘I’m not asking you to choose, I’m asking for your advice!’ I heard how sharp that sounded. ‘Please,’ I added more softly.
    ‘It’s your own path that lies before you,’ Sage said. There was a weariness in her tone. ‘You’ll make your own choices, for good or ill.’
    ‘If you wanted my advice,’ put in Sorrel, ‘I’d bid you take the three of us along with you. Any path’s easier when you’re not on your own.’
    Tears welled in my eyes, and I blinked them away. ‘You mustn’t leave the safety of these woods. Where I’m going there’s scant cover, it’s all rocks and open hillsides. It’s cold and bare. And while I might pass for an ordinary traveller, the first sight of you would tell any sentry that you’re . . . Other.’
    The three of them hooted with laughter.
    ‘Shh!’ I hissed. Gods, they’d alert every sentry in the valley at this rate.
    ‘You forget,’ Sage said, ‘we have the knack of blending. An ordinary man might look at us and see only stones or water or leaves in the sunlight. If we couldn’t blend, we wouldn’t have been in Alban since long before your grandmother’s great-grandmother was a bairnie in the cradle.’
    There was no disputing this. Most men and women in Alban had never seen one of the Good Folk. Most people were not like me. ‘Sometimes I think my gift is a curse,’ I murmured. ‘All it seems to do is bring down trouble. Please don’t come any further up the valley – being with me must put you in danger.’
    ‘True, no doubt,’ said Sage. ‘We know you’re set on going forward alone, and perhaps that’s the way it has to be. Go safely, and find what you’re searching for.’
    They were fading before my eyes, blending into the shadowy hues of the forest.
    ‘Goodbye,’ I said, shouldering my bag. ‘Thank you for your kindness.’ But they were already gone.

    I chose the path on the near side of the Rush. The smaller bridge, the one the Good Folk had not seemed to want to talk about, was a lesser terror than the king’s bridge with its guards, and this track a more likely prospect than the broader way on which I would be