The Jack Hansard Series: Season Two

Episode 5.5

'Do you have what you came for, Jack?'

Wenna stepped out of the fog. Incorporeal wind swept her hair into a mane.

'I've got what I needed,' I said confidently.

'And our prize?'

'You might say I have something better.'

'I might. If I were a fool. But I have played your word games before.' The wind around her sighed. 'Why must you make things difficult? You could have stayed with us. We could have danced together forever.'

'Yeah, it's the 'forever' part that bothers me,' I said. 'I notice the others aren't here.'

'They thought you would have been swallowed.' Her eyes drifted to the mound of the Green Man, its ghastly tongue still occupied with slurping juices. She bowed to it and hushed at the ground. 'Sleep,' she said tenderly. 'Return to the deep earth. Curl your ever-spring under the living soil. We leave you to feast and slumber.'

Slowly, the tongue sank back into the mound. The Green Man's tendrils shrunk away, retreating through cracks and crevices and soft dirt, until all that was left was the stone chamber poking out of a crumbled pile of earth.

I cleared my throat, a bad attempt at hiding my awe. 'Was this . . . one of yours, then?'

There was a wicked glint in her smile. 'When I roamed the earth, we did battle with such things as piskies. This place, we won it from them. We made it ours. A place of life and veneration. And we welcomed the Green God, who gave us many bounties. We drank his divine nectar and knew the taste of power, and of adulation.' Now the sigh came from her lips. 'But now he sleeps. And he bears fruit for us no more. That one you wasted probably took a thousand years to grow, you know.'

We stood silent, staring at the eerie shadow of the tomb. Perhaps in a show of generosity, or just to sate her own nostalgia, Wenna waved her arm and a shaft of sunlight fell through the fog on top of the capstone. I gasped.

'It sparkles,' Ang said.

'Fey dust,' Wenna said, smugly. 'Baked into the stone. No one knows the way of it, now. There were many magics we used to wrought with that powder.'

'Used to, you say?' I said, my ears pricking.

'You know we cannot touch iron any more, Jack. There is no other way to collect it.'

'Yes. So what you're saying is . . . that you would benefit from a new supply?'

Ang wrinkled her nose. 'We worked hard fer that stinkin' dust, gwas.'

Wenna's demeanour changed. The wind fluttered around her in excitement. 'That's why you were here? To collect fey dust?' She laughed joyously. 'You mad fool!'

I pulled a jar from my pocket. 'How's this for making amends? A ride home, and we'll say no more about the past, eh?'

As soon as she saw the glittering essence, her face sallowed; eyes became hungry. 'Anything,' she rasped.

There, it shifted. The glamour of her face fell away and revealed what lay behind. Stretched and blackened skin, cracking like dry leather, pulled taut over sharp cheekbones. Sunken, empty eye sockets, and the desiccated wisps of long-dead hair. The profile of a bog body, intact but not at all whole.

'It's yours,' I said.

The husk-face of Wenna grinned. Her bent hands reached out knuckle-first, locked into claws by rigor mortis. 'You are forgiven,' she croaked.

* * *

'Half a jar,' I argued with Ang.

'Branok ain't gunna like it gwas, that's all I'm sayin'.'

'And I feel we deserve more than just a fifty-fifty split, if you see what I'm saying. We're the ones who risked our lives for it!'

'But what's it matter if we have an extra half or not? Ain't one jar enough, what wi' how valuable this stuff apparently be? Twpsyn. It's worth keepin' nasty knockers on our side, right?'

'Nasty knockers?' Goron had ambled up behind her. Ang froze for a millisecond, then crossed her arms with a cursory huff.

'Only nasty knockers be eavesdropping.' She turned back to me and said firmly, 'It's good business, gwas. Ye knows it. Give Branok the whole jar.'

'This about yer spoils from Trevethy Quoit, eh?' Goron said. 'Don't look at me like that, lass. The whole mine knows where you've been. No good trying to keep secrets from knockers, eh? We're right up in each other's business.' He leaned in confidentially. 'But between you an' me, as knocker to coblyn, none other knocker knows that you're keeping some piskey dust for yeselves. Right? So best keep that hushed, and give Branok his whole jar, in case he has a change o' heart.' He grinned toothily at me. 'What heroics our guests do us! T'be gathering new piskey dust, free o' charge, as a gesture o' friendship. Surely we'll be doing good trade t'gether fer many years to come.'

'All right,' I grumbled. 'But you better come through on that.'

Ang rolled her eyes. 'We still gots one whole jar to ourselves, gwas. Plenty rich with that, right?'

'Right.'

Except, of course, I was going to have to find a way to explain its sudden disappearance when I handed it over to Quiet Eyes.

'Now then. Got news fer you, I do,' Goron said, straightening his hi-vis vest. 'Come see. Your definitely-not-an-egg has some mighty curious qualities to it.'

Oh yes. My shoulders slumped. The phoenix egg. But if Quiet Eyes wasn't interested in it any more, was it even worth still pursuing?

What am I thinking? It's a phoenix egg! Of course I want to everything about it!

Can't let Mercer have all the glory. If Quiet Eyes didn't want to sell it to the highest bidder, well then – I would!

* * *

Author's Note

Fun fact: the capstone of Trevethy Quoit really DOES sparkle! This is because it contains a lot of mica - glittery crystals that occur naturally in the granite, and reflect light wonderfully. I had the pleasure of seeing the effect up close on a sunny day.

I've also since learned that the structure probably wasn't entirely covered by the earth mound, so it's likely the capstone would have been visible when it was built. It was probably a major landmark in its time. If you've ever been on top of a hill, and seen the shine off a building in the far distance - it would have looked much like that. A shining beacon on an otherwise empty moorland.