Peter Beagle - Tamsin

I don’t think Judge Jeffreys heard her much better than I did; or if he heard her right, he didn’t take it in. He just gaped at her; but a sort of whimper came from the Wild Huntsmen, waiting where she’d ordered them to stay. Even in the darkness, I could see Mrs. Fallowfield’s eyes: blacker than the Black Dog, black as deepest space. She said, “We was here when your Almighty woon’t but a heap of rocks and a pool of water. We was here when woon’t nothing but rocks and water. We was here when we was all there was.” She smiled at Judge Jeffreys again, and that time I had to look away. I heard her say, “And you’ll tell me who’s to bide with me and who’s to hand back? You’ll tell me ?”

And Judge Jeffreys lost it, lost it for good, and I’ll tell you, I don’t blame him. There’s no way I’ll ever again hear the kind of contempt—the size of the contempt—that was in those words. He went straight over the edge, shrieking at her, “You dare not defy, dare not challenge… You’ll be as damned as they, hurled down with the rebel angels—hurled down, hurled down.” There was more, but that’s all I want to write.

He was plain gibbering when he came for Tamsin and Edric Davies that last time, stooping at them like a hawk from tree-top height. I can’t guess what was in his mind—he might have thought his rage would darken them, put them out, the way it had before, this time for good, before Mrs. Fallowfield could protect them. As much as I saw of him, as much as I feared him and hated him and tried to imagine him, finally I don’t have any idea who he was— just what he was. It’ll do.

Mrs. Fallowfield hardly moved, Judge Jeffreys was right over her before she raised her left hand slightly and made a sound like clearing her throat. And he… froze in the air. Or maybe he didn’t freeze; maybe the air condensed or something, thickening around him so he couldn’t move, ghost or no ghost. He stuck there, burning, like a firefly trapped in a spiderweb—although what he really reminded me of was the fruit that Sally cooks into lime-green Jell-O for big dinner desserts. It’s always lime—I don’t know why—and the bits of peaches and pears always look like tropical fish hanging motionless in the deep green sea. Except that the fish are silent, and Judge Jeffreys was still screaming his head off, though we couldn’t hear him anymore.

Mrs. Fallowfield said, “I’m wearied of ye. Dudn’t like ye then, wi’ your soldiers—dun’t like ye no better now. Off wi’ ye, and dun’t ye plague me and mine nivver no more. Hear.”

I thought she was letting him go with a warning—not even a speeding ticket—and I was getting ready to mind, because it wasn’t right, it wasn’t justice, no matter who she was. But she hadn’t been saying, “Hear,” the way I heard it—what she really said was, “ Here .” The way you call your dog.

And the Wild Huntsmen came to her. Their monstrous beasts were actually trembling under them, actually having to be kicked and goaded toward Mrs. Fallowfield and that animal of hers, and even the most horrendous of the Huntsmen themselves were looking small and rained on. I still dream about them, like I said; but when I get awakened by the pounding of my heart, I can put myself back to sleep by remembering them then, as terrified of Mrs. Fallowfield as I was of them. And me not scared of her at all, but pissed because I thought she was going to let Judge Jeffreys off way too lightly. I can’t believe it. I was really pissed at her.

Mrs. Fallowfield looked up at Judge Jeffreys for a long time without saying anything. He’d stopped his yelling and was watching her, poised helpless just above her in the flypaper night, his own ghost-light flickering like a bad bulb. I couldn’t help wondering if he might be imagining what those people dragged up before him at the Bloody Assizes must have felt, waiting for him to sentence them… hoping, crying, praying—looking into that gentle, handsome face of his and hoping . Probably not. I don’t think he had much imagination that way.

“Off wi’ ye, then,” Mrs. Fallowfield said again. “Till mebbe zomeone cares to come for ye.”

She didn’t seem to make any gesture this time, and I didn’t hear her say anything else, but Judge Jeffreys was ready when the air turned him loose. He shot crazily backward like a toy balloon when you let go of the pinched end, growing so small so fast that it seemed as though we were racing in terror away from him. Maybe we were, in a way, Tamsin and Edric Davies and me. Not Mrs. Fallowfield.

She turned to the Wild Hunt, and she said one word. I heard it very clearly, and I’d forget it if I possibly could, but it’d be like forgetting my own name. He must have remembered it, too—however he learned it; he used it at least once, I’m sure of that. But I never, never, never will.

The Wild Hunt gave one great howl and went after Judge Jeffreys. They took off like helicopters, rising straight up into the night sky in a kind of windblown spiral; and in a weird way they made me think of children just let out of school, running and yelling for the pure unreasoning joy of making noise. But they weren’t children: They were the Wild Hunt, the pitiless harriers of the dead, and they roared and wailed and laughed their skirling laughter, and blew their horns and spurred their dragony horses on, chasing that spark of desperation that had been Edric Davies for three hundred years, and was Judge Jeffreys now. It didn’t matter to the Wild Hunt.

And it didn’t matter to me. It should have—I know that—and it should matter now, on nights when I hear them again, the terrible Huntsmen in the wind, eternally hounding a human spirit whose only crime was being just as cruel as they. There’ll never be a Tamsin Willoughby come to save Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys of Wem. Most times I go back to sleep.

Things get a little blurry here—not the things themselves, but the order they happened in. I can’t remember when I finally made it up on my feet—maybe I could still hear the horns of the Wild Hunt, maybe not—but I know it was while Tamsin and Edric Davies were still there. Because it was time to say good-bye, had to be, and I didn’t want to make a stupid scene. So I got up, all over mud and with my ankle giving me fits, and I limped toward them where they stood with Mrs. Fallowfield.

She was just Mrs. Fallowfield then: everything back in place, from the army boots to the cold, sharp blue eyes, to the little pink horror squirming in her coat pocket. No fur hat, though—that hair was still streaming away over her scraggy shoulders like the Milky Way. Her voice was strangely gentle when she spoke to me. She said, “Ye’ll forget this, girl. Ye’ll forget this all.”

“No,” I said. “No, don’t make me—I have to remember. Please, I have to.”

Mrs. Fallowfield shook her head. “And have ye meet me in the lane or the market tomorrow, and know ? What I am—what we’ve seen this night, the two on us—”

“I don’t know who you are,” I practically yelled at her. “And I don’t care, either!” I pointed at Tamsin, where she stood beside Edric Davies, so beautiful I could hardly stand to look at her. I said, “I don’t want to forget her. I don’t care about a damn thing else, but I have to remember Tamsin. Please. Whoever you are.”

Mrs. Fallowfield smiled at me very slowly, showing her strong gray teeth; but when she spoke, it might have been to Tamsin, or maybe herself, but not me. “Aye, and here’s first ’un, here’s first on ’em. Aye, I knowed they’d be cooming along any day, the childern as wuddn’t know Lady of the Elder Tree. Zo, there ’tis. No harm.”

I remembered Tamsin saying—God, a hundred years ago— “ Even the Pooka steps aside when she moves .” I started in on some kind of dumb apology, but Mrs. Fallowfield had turned away and Tamsin and Edric Davies were coming to me. It was awkward with Edric—there’s not a whole lot to say to someone who’s been through what he’d been through, and who’s now going away forever with the person who really did become your sister for a little while. I was happy she’d rescued him, and happy that her task was done, and that she wouldn’t be stuck haunting the Manor anymore… but at the same time I hated him worse than I’d ever hated Judge Jeffreys, and that’s the truth. There—I’ve got that down.