Joanne Harris: Runemarks

It had long been known as a goblin stronghold. Such places drew them, the villagers said, lured them with promises of treasure and tales of the Elder Age. But it was only in recent years that the Good Folk had ventured as far as the village.

Fourteen years, to be precise, which was exactly when Jed Smith’s pretty wife, Julia, had died giving birth to their second daughter. Few doubted that the two things were linked or that the rust-colored mark on the palm of the child’s hand was the sign of some dreadful misfortune to come.

And so it was. From that day forth, that Harvestmonth, the goblins had been drawn to the blacksmith’s child. The midwife had seen them, so she said, perched on the baby’s pinewood crib, or grinning from inside the warming pan, or tumbling the blankets. At first the rumors were scarcely voiced. Nan Fey was mad, just like her old grandam, and it was best to take anything she said with a dose of salt. But as time passed and goblin sightings were reported by such respectable sources as the parson, his wife, Ethelberta, and even Torval Bishop from over the pass, the rumors grew and soon everyone was wondering how the Smiths, of all people-the Smiths, who never dreamed, went to church every day, and would no more have flung themselves into the river Strond than truckle with the Good Folk-could have given birth to two so very different daughters.

Mae Smith, with her cowslip curls, was widely held to be the prettiest and least imaginative girl in the valley. Jed Smith said she was the image of her poor mother, and it almost broke his heart to see her so, though he smiled when he said it, and his eyes were like stars.

But Maddy was dark, just like an Outlander, and there was no light in Jed’s eyes when he looked at her, only an odd kind of measuring look, as if he were weighing Maddy against her dead mother and finding that he had been sold short.

Jed Smith was not the only one to think so. As she grew older, Maddy discovered that she had disappointed almost everyone. An awkward girl with a sullen mouth, a curtain of hair, and a tendency to slouch, she had neither Mae’s sweet nature nor her sweet face. Her eyes were rather beautiful, halfway between gray and gold, but few people ever noticed this, and it was widely believed that Maddy Smith was ugly, a troublemaker, too clever for her own good, too stubborn-or too slack-to change.

Of course folk agreed that it was not her fault she was so brown or her sister so pretty, but a smile costs nothing, as the saying goes, and if only the girl had made an effort once in a while, or even showed a little gratitude for all the help and free advice she had been given, then maybe she would have settled down.

But she did not. From the beginning Maddy was wild: never laughed, never cried, never brushed her hair, fought with Adam Scattergood and broke his nose, and, if that wasn’t already bad enough, showed signs of being clever-disastrous in a girl-with a tongue on her that could be downright rude.

No one mentioned the ruinmark, of course. In fact, for the first seven years of her life no one had even explained to Maddy what it meant, though Mae pulled faces and called it your blemish and was surprised when Maddy refused to wear the mittens sent to her father by the village’s charitable-and ever-hopeful-widows.

Someone needed to put things straight with the girl, and at last Nat Parson accepted the unpleasant duty of telling her the facts. Maddy didn’t understand much of it, littered as it was with quotes from the Good Book, but she understood his contempt-and behind it, his fear. It was all written down in the Book of Tribulation: how after the battle the old gods-the Seer-folk of that time-had been cast into Netherworld, but how in dreams they still endured, fragmented but still dangerous, entering the minds of the wicked and the susceptible, trying desperately to be reborn…

“And so their demon blood lives on,” had said the parson, “passed from man to woman, beast to beast. And here you are, by no fault of your own, and as long as you say your prayers and remember your place, there’s no reason why you should not lead as worthwhile a life as any of the rest of us and earn forgiveness at the hand of the Nameless.”

Now, Maddy had never liked Nat Parson. She watched him in silence as he spoke, occasionally lifting her left hand and peering at him insolently through the circle of her thumb and forefinger. Nat itched to slap her, but Laws knew what powers her demon blood had given her, and he wanted as little to do with the girl as possible. The Order would have known what to do with the child. But this was Malbry, not World’s End, and even such a stickler as Nat knew better than to try to enforce World’s End Law so far from the Universal City.

“Do-you-understand?” He spoke loudly and slowly. Perhaps she was simple, like Crazy Nan Fey. In any case, she did not reply, but watched him again through her crooked fingers until at last he sighed and went away.

After that, or so it seemed, Jed Smith’s youngest daughter had grown wilder than ever. She stopped going to church, lived out in Little Bear Wood for days on end, and spent hours at a time talking to herself (or, more likely, to the goblins). And when the other children played jump stone around the pond or went to Nat Parson’s Sunday school, Maddy ran off to Red Horse Hill, or pestered Crazy Nan for tales, or, worse still, made up tales about terrible, impossible things, which she told the younger ones to give them nightmares.

She was an embarrassment to Mae, who was merry as a blue jay (and as brainless) and who would have made a brilliant marriage but for her unruly sister. As compensation, Mae was spoiled and indulged far more than was good for her, while Maddy grew up sullen, unregarded, and angry.

And sullen and angry she might have remained but for what happened on Red Horse Hill in the summer of her seventh year.

No one knew much about Red Horse Hill. Some said it had been shaped during the Elder Age, when the heathens still made sacrifices to the old gods. Others said it was the burial mound of some great chieftain, seeded throughout with deadly traps, though Maddy favored the theory that the place was a giant treasure mound, piled to the eaves with goblin gold.

Whatever it was, the Horse was ancient-everyone agreed on that-and although there was no doubt that men had carved it into the flank of the Hill, there was something uncanny about the figure. For a start, the Red Horse never grassed over in spring, nor did the winter snow ever hide its shape. As a result, the Hill was riddled with whispers and tales-tales of the Faërie and of the old gods-and so most people wisely left it alone.

Maddy liked the Hill, of course. But then, Maddy knew it better than most. All her life she had stayed alert to rumors culled from travelers, to pieces of lore, to sayings, kennings, stories, tales. From these tales she had formed a picture-still maddeningly unclear-of a time before the End of the World, when Red Horse Hill was an enchanted place and when the old gods-the Seer-folk-walked the land in human guise, sowing stories wherever they went.

No one in Malbry spoke of them. Even Crazy Nan would not have dared; the Good Book forbade all tales of the Seer-folk not written in the Book of Tribulation. And the people of Malbry prided themselves on their devotion to the Good Book. They no longer decked wells in the name of Mother Frigg, or danced on the May, or left crumbs by their doorsteps for Jack-in-the-Green. The shrines and temples of the Seer-folk had all been torn down years ago. Even their names had been largely forgotten, and no one mentioned them anymore.

Almost no one, anyway. The exception was Maddy’s closest friend-known to Mrs. Scattergood as that one-eyed scally good-for-nowt and to others as the Outlander, or just plain One-Eye.