Miss Ellerby and the Ferryman

Chapter Nine-3

Isabel watched. Pinch marched off into the trees, bristling with indignation. A stream of cinnamon-coloured smoke billowed out behind him, in the midst of which floated Pinket. The pair halted a few feet off the road, and Pinch adopted an uncompromising stance with his legs apart and hands upon his hips. Pinket hovered a few feet above his head and swelled in size, until the tiny bubble of light became as a small sun; so bright that Isabel was obliged to look away from him.

Dark figures approached through the trees, some of them as small as Pinch, others rather larger. At first they appeared as mere shadows, but as they grew closer Isabel discerned spindly frames with gnarled limbs and overlarge hands, feet and ears. They wore ragged clothing, shoes with pointed toes and black caps upon their heads, from underneath which their wispy hair protruded. They were odd creatures, gangly and ungainly, though not ugly; only the expressions of their faces deserved that term. They glared at the travellers with chilling malevolence, and more than one bore weapons: long, jagged knives and stout sticks. Isabel saw no piper among them, but nonetheless the music continued, growing in eeriness and volume as time passed.

‘Ho!’ shouted Pinch as the nearest came within earshot. ‘Trow party, is it? We decline your kind invitation! Be off.’

These words had no effect upon the trows, but Pinch did not appear to be concerned. He made some kind of signal to Pinket, and then abruptly vanished. In his place hovered a second wisp, which grew in size and brilliance until two miniature suns hung there. Isabel blinked, sun-spots dancing before her eyes. She lost track of what happened next, so blinded was she by the dancing and weaving of the two wisps as they darted among the trows. She could not understand what they were doing, but its effects were clear. The trows halted, some of their truculence fading into confusion. Some few of them began to retreat, step by step, into the trees.

Then the wisps vanished. Pinch reappeared in his pixie form, his green jacket somewhat askew. In his hands he held a little golden pipe, which he began to play at a dizzying speed, the notes rippling over the glade like tumbling water.

To Isabel’s surprise, he was not alone. Pinket had also disappeared. Where he had previously floated there now stood a second pixie, slightly shorter than Pinch, and dressed in a red jacket and trousers. This pixie — Pinket? — held a tiny fiddle, and this he began to play with a speed to match the pipe. The melody clashed horribly with that of the trows’ horn, and Isabel winced and clapped her hands over her ears. This did little to exclude the sounds, and she gritted her teeth, waiting in intolerable discomfort as the fae’s strange musical battle proceeded.

It did not seem to her at all likely that Pinch and Pinket could win, for they were sorely outnumbered. But that they were gaining ground against the trows soon became obvious, for the dark figures began to retreat further. At length, the horn faltered and fell silent, and the trows broke and fled.

Pinch and Pinket maintained their exhaustingly lively music for some minutes longer, and finally ceased only when every last hint of the trows’ presence had faded. Even the light had returned to the forest, to some degree, though it remained shadowed, and darker than it had been before.

The pixies shook themselves mightily, and then packed away their instruments. They directed matching grins back at Isabel and Sophy, though Pinch’s bore more of mischief; Pinket appeared simply pleased with himself. Then Pinket resumed his wisp shape, while Pinch swaggered over to Sir Guntifer and held up his arms to be lifted. ‘Gunty!’ he bellowed. ‘I am tired!’

‘Did you know he could do that?’ Isabel asked of Sophy.

Sophy shook her head. ‘Pinket! No, indeed. I thought he was a wisp only.’

Pinch cackled, restored now to his throne atop Sir Guntifer’s shoulder. ‘What’s the use of secrets if you tell them to everyone?’

‘A reasonable point, Pinch,’ said Sophy drily.

‘Are they brothers?’ said Isabel, aghast. The two pixies had looked very much alike — too much so, for her comfort.

‘A horrifying thought, is it not?’ Sophy agreed. ‘As if Pinch were not enough by himself!’

‘Ungrateful!’ said Pinch in a mournful voice. ‘When we have but just saved both your skins from the most menacing band of trows I have seen in many a year! Tsk! But it is always that way with the ladies of England. You do them all kinds of favours and they only screech at you.’

‘When I first met you,’ Sophy said, ‘the favour you were doing me was to lead me off an incline.’

‘An incline of two feet!’ Pinch protested. ‘I would have been much surprised if you had done more than turn your ankle, and if you had suffered so much as that I should say it was due to your own clumsiness.’

‘I hope your brother is more congenial than you are!’ Sophy retorted.

Pinket answered this by shining a little brighter for an instant or two, which struck Isabel as rather like a smile — if wisps could be said to smile.

‘A pitiful band of trows!’ interjected Sir Guntifer. ‘Insolent noise-makers only! Thou art a plague, pixie. Thou and thy brother hath dispatched the miscreants, indeed, and with skill. But do not imagine that I would have allowed any harm to come to the ladies of our party if ye had not! Ye will find that my protection is no small thing.’

Pinch rolled his eyes and collapsed backwards upon the giant’s shoulder with an exaggerated display of exhaustion. ‘Lecture me later,’ he said, ‘for I am all to pieces with weariness. Heroism! It is so exhausting!’ With that, he began to snore.

Isabel could not help smiling a little. Pinch’s manner could irritate, but at times he could also be an amusing companion.

‘We must take more care,’ said Sir Guntifer, and the smile faded from Isabel’s face. ‘I had not expected to find such creatures so near to Mirramay, and methinks they will not be the only loathsome band lurking in these parts.’

‘What are “trows”, Sir Guntifer?’ asked Isabel.

‘They are part of the Goblin King’s Court,’ the giant replied. ‘Darkling beasts, full of mischief and noise, but no true threat to such as our party. However, worse may follow.’ He glanced around at the dark trees that crowded close to the road, his twisting brows drawn together. ‘I mislike the looks of this.’

Isabel guided her mount a little closer to Sophy’s, who responded with an encouraging smile. ‘All will be well,’ she said to Isabel. ‘Sir Guntifer will permit no harm to come to us, I am sure. Rarely have I encountered so impressive a gentleman in Aylfenhame!’

Sir Guntifer heard this, and Isabel judged by the softening of his mighty frown that he was pleased. ‘Onward with us,’ he rumbled. ‘Keep a wary eye upon the trees, gentle ladies.

Isabel did so, shaken more than she cared to admit by the trows’ unfriendly intentions and the oddity of their darkling music. As they rode, she could not shake the sensation that something — or someone — watched them still, even when they had ridden far from the spot where the trows had appeared. She thrice considered imparting her concerns to Sir Guntifer, and seeking his opinion. But neither he, nor any of the rest of her party, appeared to share her unease, and at last she put her unsettled feelings down to the effects of lingering alarm, and said nothing.