Milady
I had been shocked beyond speech at my first sight of Hob in the castle; barefoot, ragged and somehow thin – not slender, but … translucent perhaps, as though she had been living on some other sustenance than mortal food, she seemed fey enough to slip away from us and into mist as soon as I brought her back into the light of the real world.
Of course, Hob being Hob, she did nothing of the sort. Instead, as I led her out of the forest and across the lawn towards the house, she looked up at me through her tangled hair and I was relieved to see that, in the full light of day, other than being dirty she looked as solidly herself as she ever had.
“I’m hungry, Elizabeth,” she said. “In fact, I could eat anything you put in front of me right now, cooked or not!”
“I am not at all surprised,” I said, greatly reassured. “I can’t think that you have eaten at all well where you have been.”
“You know,” she said, “when I think about it I can’t remember eating at all. I’m sure I must have, of course, but I don’t recall it.”
I said nothing to her, but I would not have been amazed to learn that she had not eaten for three months. I could have believed anything about that place.
We reached the closest door into the main house, the one that opened onto the conservatory, but it was locked, so we walked around to the main entrance at the front of the house, only to find it locked and bolted too.
“What’s happened here?” Hob asked. “Were you expecting an attack or a robbery or something?”
“I have no idea,” I said. I was both irritated and apprehensive. “Oh, what’s gone wrong now?”
I rang the bell and we waited a while, but no one came to open the door. I knocked, Hob battered on it with both fists and kicked it once, but the door stayed shut.
“Now what?” Hob said, sounding rather more amused than I felt.
“We wait?” I suggested.
We did just that, and after a few more minutes had gone by David came rushing around the corner of the house.
“I’m sorry – we haven’t the keys,” he called out before he caught sight of us. “I had to climb out of a window.”
“A fine welcome home,” Hob said indignantly. “Perhaps we should leave again, Elizabeth.”
David stopped in his tracks. “Hob?” he said wonderingly, staring at us. “Hob!” He ran towards us and caught up Hob in a fierce embrace. She hugged him back as he swung her around and around, and I could not stop smiling. I barely stopped my tears.
At last he put her down. “You look…mucky,” he said.
“It’s the weather,” she said with an attempt at dignity. “The mud, you know.”
They looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Oh, I’ve missed you,” Hob said.
“We’ve all missed you,” David said, serious for a moment.
“Well, here I am,” she said. “Home again.”
“Good,” he said.
He pulled me over to him and sneaked his arm around my waist, while slinging the other one around Hob’s shoulders. He kissed me on the cheek, but instead of laughing at it as she once would have, Hob looked rather wistful.
We walked back around the house to the large dining room, which boasted a number of large and easily accessible windows that opened out onto a currently rather trampled looking raised flower bed. He jumped up onto it and reached down to help each of us up in turn.
