Cocot fell to the ground and hit a stepping stone. Ignoring the pain, she scrambled to her feet.

"Wait! He just wants a carrot. He's my horse," she cried, rushing between Hector and the shining blade.

"Step away, girl," the fairy said through clenched teeth. He raised the knife to chest level, holding it in both hands as though to drive it straight into Hector's heart.

She stood in his way. "No, I won't let you hurt him." Two heavy footsteps thudded in the dirt behind her and Hector's hulking presence was at her shoulder. He huffed and hot air hit her nape.

"Listen to me carefully," the fairy said. "If you value your life, move away very slowly. I know this creature appears to be an ordinary horse, but he is the hunting steed that many a huntsman rode into battle. He will kill you, child. Come here to me."

Her will was bent nearly to the breaking point; her bare feet shifted on the ground, preparing to move her body forward, but she ground her teeth together, resisting. Standing ankle deep in carrot tops, she reminded herself that Hector was her horse, the horse who stole all her vegetables. "Whatever this horse used to be, he is old and sick and he is my friend now. I'm going to cure him of the huntsman's magic, you'll see. I won't let you hurt him."

"Do you have any idea what he's done? How many creatures he has killed for the simple pleasure of it?" His mouth twisted in an ugly grimace as though he was chewing something disgusting. "He deserves to be punished!"

"Look at him. He already is punished."

"Then my act will be final act of mercy."

"Please, I need him," she begged. "In less than two weeks, he'll be cured and I need him to help me carry supplies from the market and to help me...and he is my friend."

The fairy took several steps along the path, but Cocot kept herself in front of Hector. In the fairy's hands, the blade made tiny zig-zags with its point, adjusting its aim as the fairy walked. The king's nephew narrowed his eyes, deciding upon some course of action. "It was this horse who helped the former huntsman kill all three of the king's sons. What do you think the fairy king would do if he knew you were harboring this monster, keeping it near to have it help you?"

"I am not the king's subject to do his bidding and this horse is no longer the same as when he went on the hunt," said Cocot. The beast who had tried to kill her on the doorstep a few nights ago was inside of Hector; but that was the part she hoped to destroy.

"You choose your company and your fate chooses you," the fairy said. He turned his hands and in the low light of evening, the blade shone coldly from within.

"There's moonlight in your knife," Cocot said out loud as realization struck her.

Her mother was lying in the bed, whispering, "Leave some of the brambles high for the moonlight." Cocot shook her head and was staring at the fairy again.

"Yes?" the fairy asked, surprised. "Does it bother you?"

Cocot's mouth opened, but she didn't know what to say.

The fairy hissed several words at her in a language she did not recognize. A distant echo sounded in her mind an instant later, saying, "Does the moonlight in a silver blade bother you, dark huntress? Are you afraid for yourself and your slave horse?" The echo could have come all the way from the dank cellar under the workshop.

Still she simply stared, unmoving and uncomprehending until he finally lowered the blade.

"It is true that you are only part fairy, isn't it? You don't understand or know anything at all. And to think, my cousin Farafell took you in and raised you as her own child," he said.

"She didn't raise me as her own, I am her child and she is—was—my mother."

The fairy raised his eyebrows. "Then that makes us cousins, of sorts. I remember Farafell, she was nearly an adult when I was still a youngling and my mother died."

Cocot felt a pang of sorrow for this fairy whose mother had also died when he was young. Hector, behind her, tore up a carrot to eat and for once she didn't have the strength to scold him. "I'm sorry. What do you remember of her?"

"She was beautiful, always smiling. She was the only one in the family who would play games with me and I recall she would tell me stories during winter's long evenings or sing lullabies until I slept."

Cocot nodded. This was exactly how she recalled her mother before the sickness came. "Your uncle was very strict?"

"My uncle, the king, sees only mistakes and faults in others and he sent Farafell to her death, just as he sent my aunt and then my mother to theirs. When Farafell stopped smiling and singing songs, I knew something was wrong, but what could I do—a mere youngling? She fought with that charlatan court magician the king keeps near him, the one parading about with flowers in her hair. Our uncle abandoned her to misery, madness and isolation. Then after the Spring Equinox one year, she disappeared," he paused, calming himself. "Do you know of the fountain?"

"Yes," Cocot breathed.

"I do not have the magic that the female fairies in my family possessed—the magic that allowed them to trap and harvest what was in the fountain. Nevertheless, it is my duty to keep watch, to guard the seal Farafell set over the crack. Since she left, there has not been one friend or family member I could trust under the hill; I am alone among the multitude." He paused, then knelt. "Would you like my name?"

She nodded, uneasy at his sudden friendliness.

"I am called Wenslar. Would you give me your name?"

What an odd way of asking. "My mother called me Cocot, short for Coquelicot."

"Poppy," he said in the fairy tongue.

She caught herself before she nodded in agreement and pretended to look at her feet.

"Coquelicot," Wenslar said, "it would make me very happy if I could count on you as friend and family, and in return you give me your trust. I am tired of being alone."

She reached back to twist her hair together nervously. Wisps were coming loose around her face as it dried.

"Coquelicot, would you like to be cousins and friends?"

"You want me to be a part of your family?" she asked, not believing his sincerity.

"That is what I want, yes. For you to trust me as kin and friend. Farafell is our common bond; I loved her as much as my mother."

Cocot's heart skipped a beat. Her mother was rocking her in her arms, whispering, "I waited so many years for you to come, sweet daughter."

"I will be your family and friend," the girl told the fairy.

"This is good. I am sure Farafell would be happy. And it goes without saying that I will keep your secret of this horse from the king. You cannot imagine his wrath if he should ever find out. Our secret, cousin Coquelicot."

If it went without saying, then why did he say it?

"You will see you can trust me," he continued and then repeated it in the fairy tongue to himself, only adding, "We will show them."

"Wenslar," she said, "earlier, you told me that you were very young and Farafell was nearly an adult, but when my mother died a few months ago, she was old, and you are still..."

"A young adult?" he answered for her. "You say she was human to you, then she would have aged and grown sick as a human. Fairies live easily to over four hundred years. Humans are lucky to make it to seventy. You should be glad you are part fairy; humans are feeble, unintelligent beings."

"I see," she said. Her mother's words, 'I loved my uncle, but I loved Jean-Baptist more,' revealed a new depth of meaning to Cocot. Fanchon loved a human so much that she sacrificed her fairy life to be with him. "It is growing dark, I should go."

"Good eve to you, cousin. Until the next time—and not a word of this to any other creature!" He bowed low and then left, his feet silent on the ground as he went.

She lingered in the gloom after the sun disappeared, but the sky had not fully darkened yet.

He lied about the maidens with him, threatened to kill Hector, and finally promised to keep the horse a secret from the king's wrath. He said he was alone since the king had forced Farafell to go to the fountain. Were these things true or were they simply what Wenslar wanted her to believe?

The memories she had of walking into the hill and standing before the king were fading. She tried to repeat the words she had heard in the fairy tongue, but she could only recall their meaning.

The fairy tongue was water she scooped up with bare hands and tried to drink. Tried and failed to drink; it vanished through the spaces between her fingers by the time she had her hands to her lips. But she could remember holding the water: its freshness, the cool slide on her skin as it drained away, the almost nonexistent weight and the taste of a drop or two. Though she could not keep the water, she was beginning to understand what it meant to lose it. If she went too long without, she would perish.

Wenslar was her kin, she was no longer alone. Did that mean she could trust him, she could tell him about the bottle in the cellar with her mother's handwriting on the tag? Share her darkest secret?

She returned to the echoing quiet of her chalet.

"Mother," she sighed, "why did you put the last bottle down there? You knew you would grow old and die. Why leave it in the root cellar, instead of hiding it where no one would find it?"

What better place than a human home to hide something from fairies? But why on the shelf, as though she shoved it up there and promptly forgot about it—along with all the other fairy tales she forgot during her last years?

She had not forgotten the raspberry bushes and the moonlight. She had talked about these things on her deathbed. So there were some things she remembered up to the end. Wenslar had moonlight in his blade. Could a magician put moonlight in the brambles?

And Daniel wanted to walk with her to the hilltop at night. It wasn't safe to go out at night, she could never go. Evil fairy creatures might lead them from the path.

She hugged herself. Of all the fairy creatures she had met, the only one who had seemed caring and honest had been the king right up to the moment when he banished her. And she couldn't remember exactly what he had said. However, the idea that she was supposed to stay with him was firmly planted in her heart.

***

*** She would heal Hector in less than two weeks time. ***