Peter Beagle - Tamsin

The Pooka didn’t say anything. I started walking away from the beeches, back toward the Manor, but the Pooka didn’t move in my hand. He didn’t direct me to go this way or that, or to put him down, so I kept going along until I heard Sally playing the piano, singing “What Shall a Young Lassie Do with an Old Man?” and Evan singing with her. Then I stopped, and listened, and waited.

“Jenny Gluckstein,” the Pooka said at last, “mystery belongs to mystery, not to Dorset or London. You are yourself as much a riddle as any you will ever encounter, and so you will always draw riddles to you, wherever you may be. If there should be a boggart in New York, he will find your house, I assure you, as any pooka in London will know your name. You will never be further from— what did you call it?— old weirdness than you are at this moment. And on that you may have my word.”

“Thank you,” I said. “ Thank you,” and I actually bent to kiss him, but his spines came up with a mean whisper, and I backed off. Then I said, “But a pooka’s word isn’t good for much. Pookas lie. Tamsin told me.”

The Pooka kept his back spines up, but hedgehogs don’t have any on their bellies, so my hand was all right. “True enough, Jenny Gluckstein. Pookas lie as humans lie, but not to hide the truth. Never that.”

“No?” I said. “Silly me. I thought that was why everyone lied. Human or anything else.”

“Of course not,” the yellow-eyed little creature in my hand said. “Only humans would lie for so drab a reason. Pookas lie for pleasure, for the pure joy of deception, and so do all your other old weirdnesses—all those night friends you pine for now. Remember that in London.”

“Yes,” I said. I felt tears in my eyes, without knowing why. I said, “I’ll remember.”

“Yet sometimes we tell the truth,” the Pooka added, “for very delight in confusion. Remember that, too. Set me down here.”

We were near Evan’s swing, which was stirring very slightly in the night breeze, like Mister Cat’s sides when he sleeps. I stooped to put the hedgehog on the ground, but it rose through my hands in the form of a tall gray bird—some kind of heron, I think—and circled over me once before it flew off, away from the light. I thought I heard it say some last thing that ended with my name, but that’s probably just because I wanted to hear it so. I stood there for a while, and then I walked the rest of the way to the Manor, because I had to finish packing and get moving early.

Peter S. Beagle is the bestselling author of the fantasy classic The Last Unicorn and many other highly acclaimed works, including Giant Bones , A Fine and Private Place , and The Innkeeper’s Song , which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of the Locus Award. His novels and stories have been translated into at least sixteen languages worldwide, and his long and fascinating career has covered everything from journalism and stage adaptations to songwriting and performances. He has given readings, lectures, and concerts of his own songs from coast to coast, and has written several screenplays, including Ralph Bakshi’s film version of Lord of the Rings . He is presently at work on a new novel.