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Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands

Book by Heather Fawcett · 44 quotes · Faerie, Fairy Realm, Heroine

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Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands Quotes

“Wait," I said. He tilted his head in exasperation, clearly anticipating some sort of lecture. He went completely still when I strode up to him and kissed him. For one strange moment, I felt like laughing, because it was so clear that I had shocked him. I soon forgot about that, though, as well as everything else. I had not kissed him since Ljosland, and that barely counted; the first time, I had been so nervous that I barely touched him, while the second he had been in his other, oiche sidhe form. Perhaps it was the leaves rustling invisibly or the breeze that plucked at my hair, but I had the sense that I had left the mortal realm somehow, and that when I opened my eyes, I would find myself in some enchanted grove surrounded by faerie lights. This impression was so strong that I pulled away, dizzy.”

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“Throw the offerings!" Agnes and her husband had returned--- I could just make them out, clambering unsteadily down the hillside with their lanterns raised. In an act of ill-advised and entirely undeserved kindness, they had gathered up a handful of villagers to ride to the rescue of the idiot scholars who had tangled with the most fearsome of the local Folk, despite their warnings. A strangled sound escaped me, something between a sob and laugh. "Get back!" Eichorn shouted at the villagers. Rose was clambering to his feet, wheezing, for the fauns had released him to snatch at the "offerings" tossed their way by the villagers. I would have expected bloody hunks of meat, but instead, ludicrously, they seemed to be throwing vegetables--- carrots and onions, predominantly. How did it happen? The scene is a blur of noise and movement, to my memory. I believe I was laughing at the time--- yes, laughing. The image of those nightmarish beasts appeased by a hail of carrots was too much for my frayed composure, and for a moment it seemed this would become another story I told at conferences or to rouse a laugh from my students. For the Folk are terrible indeed, monsters or tyrants or both, but are they not also ridiculous? Whether they be violent beasts distracted by vegetables, or creatures powerful enough to spin straw into gold, which they will happily exchange for a simple necklace, or a great king overthrown by his own cloak, there is a thread of the absurd weaving through all faerie stories, to which the Folk themselves are utterly oblivious.”

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“He smiled. "This is all going into your book, isn't it?" "I was not even thinking about my book," I said defensively--- I was only half lying. With my encyclopaedia complete, I have, as Wendell knows, turned my attention to another large project--- creating a mapbook of all the known faerie realms, as well as their doors. Such a book will be a patchwork thing, unavoidably so--- faerie realms are often attached to specific geographical locations in the mortal world, though only a few have been explored in a meaningful way--- but I wish to use it to argue Danielle de Grey's point: that the realms are more interconnected than previous scholarship has suggested. Finding evidence of the nexus would be the linchpin of the entire project.”

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“I had several sketches drafted for my mapbook--- my intention for the first edition was to focus on the best known faerie kingdoms of Western Europe, scouring the literature for references to their doors. Some doors have been documented; more have not, or exist as rumors. While it's true that many faerie kingdoms are tied to specific mortal regions, others are more nebulous, and a tale may place one at the edge of a village a hundred miles from the setting of a later iteration of the same story. I am aware that mine is no easy task, given that faerie doors can and do move, and what I will accomplish is likely to be a mere snapshot of Faerie during this particular era. Even so, it will be a monumental achievement for scholarship, something for others to build upon--- particularly if I can produce evidence of such disputed doors as the nexus.”

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“We seemed to have emerged upon a snowy curve of mountainside below a glacier--- I believe we were in Faerie, for there were two little stone houses tucked in amongst the jagged icicles at the glacier's edge, with smoke curling from their chimneys. One had an apple tree in its yard, the apples coated in a rind of ice. The icicles themselves were like a forest of glittering trees, through which the fox faerie was darting, deeper into the glacier. "Hurry up!" the faerie called. I hurried, against my better judgment I might add, but then that is almost always the case when interacting with the Folk; stumbling into an impossible forest of icicles is not the most ill-advised thing I have done in my career. The forest made little plinking sounds and reflected our darting shapes strangely. In the distance, there was music.”

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“We will be taking a long sabbatical from Cambridge, both of us. Wendell does not believe he will return, and why would he? The scholarly life was for him merely the means to an end, the end being finding a way back to his home. But I know that I will, if only from time to time. Perhaps a semester here, a semester there. A tenured scholar has a great deal of freedom, after all, and once the article I have written on my journey into the Silva Lupi (much redacted and condensed, of course) appears in next month's issue of Modern Dryadology, Cambridge will be all the more eager to retain me. Rose, who acted as co-author, and actually deigned to allow my name to appear first in the publication, is certain it will send the scholarly community into a tizzy. And also--- I will have my mapbook to publish.”

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“Though I could guess which doorknob was for Wendell's kingdom, I could not resist trying the loveliest first: the tiny turquoise sea. Hardly daring to breathe, I turned the doorknob, and the door swung open with a gentle sigh. Salt wind spilled into the faerie's house. Before me stretched a dry, rocky coastline punctuated by groves of yellowish trees. The turquoise sea was endless and far too bright, broken only by an ellipsis of rugged islands. Just beyond the door was a spindly olive tree and a cairn of white pebbles. Largely to see if I could, I reached through and took one--- the sun beat down upon my arm, a most curious sensation, while the rest of me felt only the cozier warmth of the faerie's alpine home. I closed the door. "Greece," I murmured. "I think. It looks to be situated either in the mortal world or a place of overlap, like Poe's door. I had no idea the nexus led there--- they have no stories of tree fauns in Greece. Perhaps they do not use it much?”

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“I had a weapon with me, but--- I lost it." For the briefest of moments, she looked confused. I cannot say for certain--- my memory of these moments is poor, and also, I have never been skilled at reading others. But I am, of course, an expert in the ways of the Folk. And whatever else she might be, the woman before me was inarguably Folk. "What was it?" she said. "A horn," I replied. "The horn of a faun." She did not move, though something in her face relaxed. "That would have been a fearsome weapon indeed, for one brave enough to wield it. Pity." I nodded. "Fortunately, I had made a little powder from the tip, which I had in my pocket before you came in." It was not my imagination--- the queen was visibly tired, exhausted even. It had come on quickly. She seemed to make an effort to focus on me. And then I saw the moment she understood. Her hand clenched around the fine tablecloth. "You---" "Yes," I said. "I put it in the wine. At least, I'm fairly certain I did--- you'll have to excuse me, but Faerie does not agree with my memory. Of course, I did not know you would come here to taunt me--- but I thought it a possibility. I suppose you were right: the capacity for forethought is an advantage we mortals have over the Folk.”

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“Wendell marched down a winding path in the mountainside--- he must have conjured it himself--- to engage the elder horsemen in a square of meadow tucked between two crags. I don't know if it was some inane faerie custom or simply the custom of the horsemen, but the one who appeared to be their leader--- judging by the size of his horse and the number of scars he bore--- stepped forward as if to challenge Wendell to single combat. Wendell, still with that calm detachment, somehow cut out the beast's heart in two sharp movements and hurled it at the rider in a stomach-churning spray of blood, knocking him from his saddle. At that point, the remaining horsemen decided to abandon honor and charge him together, but their horses were, wisely, terrified of Wendell by this point, and shied away when he neared, some throwing their riders off, which Wendell dispatched in various appalling ways, sometimes appearing to forget about his sword entirely. Rose stood there the whole time, aghast, but I was familiar with Wendell's murderous moods and turned away after the third or fourth death, drawing Ariadne with me to the fireside. I was still shaking with fury. So he would risk killing himself rather than pausing to think our way out of things, would he?”

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“Bran tells me that you wish to find the nexus not for science, but so you may put your faerie lover back on his throne. It is the height of stupidity to involve yourself in their politics. You will thank me one day." I stared at her in dumbfounded agitation. This was not how it was supposed to go. I had imagined Eichorn and de Grey full of gratitude for our assistance and eager to help in our search for the nexus. Not condescending, dismissive, and--- well, bloody rude. To my surprise, it was Rose who came to my defense. "Our reasons for seeking the nexus are beside the point. A promise was made, and we have the means to see it is kept." "Do you?" De Grey cast a cool look in Wendell's direction where he lay by the fire, little more than a lumpy collection of blankets and a tuft of gold hair. "This faerie king, as Bran has termed him, does not seem to be made of strong stuff." "He pulled you both out of Faerie, you ingrate," I snapped. "Not to mention out of time. If you do not help us, I will see to it that he throws you into a realm far more unpleasant than the one you have left behind, with a populace decidedly less well mannered than the fauns." A little silence followed this.”

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“For now, to keep myself sane, let me focus instead on the bluebells carpeting the forest floor; the misty sunlight that broke through the clouds, blurring the edges of things and turning the world to watercolors. The occasional glint of silver from the treetops. These are indeed baubles--- I climbed up into one of the oaks to check--- but larger than the ones mortals place on Yuletide trees, globes of delicate silver, hollow and light as eggshells. Something about them put me in mind of faerie stones, and I hastily released the bauble to drift back into the trees, among which it hovered like a puff of mist, disdaining the notion of gravity.”

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“Perhaps you can burrow down into the turf and make from the moss a quilt, as the rhyme goes, but I cannot."* *Pillows made of stones, Bed of old kings' bones, Quilt of moss and earth, Deep beneath the turf, Sleeps the faerie child, Dreaming of the wild, Hidden and unknown. --- From "Now the Faeries Sleep," a nursery rhyme originating in Kent, c. 1700.”

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“No, Emily--- it was you I worried about. From the first rumors I heard of you, of your cleverness, your high regard for my silly son, I knew you were the real threat. Mortals always are, aren't they? If you read the stories. The arrogant faerie prince who can make gold from straw is always undone by the humble miller's daughter, not some powerful rival of his own stature." My stomach grew queasy. I had never felt so out of my depth when conversing with one of the Folk, not even the snow king of Ljosland. Wendell had been right, but it was no comfort to know that his stepmother had been afraid of me. I am used to being underestimated by the Folk--- nothing could be more dangerous than the opposite.”

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“I spotted Poe immediately. He was raking the leaves around his tree home, a lovely aspen. The whiteness of its bark seemed brighter than the other trees, the knotholes darker; the moss creeping up the south side was luxurious with fat purple flowers, and the leaves were a riot of green in every shade with veins of pure gold. It was, in short, the prettiest tree in the Kyrrðarskogur, which was Wendell's doing, but Poe was clearly taking his responsibilities as the owner of such a fine specimen seriously. He had built a trellis against the tree, up which climbed a vine of wild roses, and he had made little furrows in the ground to irrigate the tree's roots.”

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“We stood upon a hill, green and studded with pale stones. Below us was forest, bluebells undulating among the trees, a tide of purple dissolving into shadow. There was a lake-- no, two lakes, the second a mere line of glitter in the distance. At our back, behind the nexus and extending to the northern horizon, were mountains of indigo and layered shadow, some darkened to black by the moody sky overhead, some greyed and smudged by shafts of sunlight. Must I even say it? It was beautiful--- of course it was. The forest in particular, which glinted here and there with silver as the wind rode the branches, as if someone had clambered into the canopy to hang baubles. And yet I had the sense that I was not seeing the entirety of it, that the shadows were thicker here, more obscuring, than those in the mortal realm, and many of the details were clouded by a dreamlike haze. Even now, as I write these words--- I am still in Wendell's kingdom!--- I find the memory of that view trying to slip from my mind like a bird darting through the boughs, so that I catch only the flickering edge of it. Perhaps there is some enchantment embedded in the place, or perhaps it is simply too much for my mortal eyes to take in. Where the Trees Have Eyes.”

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“The walls of the compartment were covered in flowering ivy. The floor had turned into some sort of stone, damp and mossy, and one of the walls seemed to have vanished entirely, offering a view of a lantern-lit path that bent towards several shadowy dwellings, turreted and roofed in green turf. Wendell lay asleep in his bed like a forest king in his leafy bower, oblivious, covered in blankets apart from a foot that stuck out.”

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“The fox melted back into the shadows of the cave, but not before I sensed something terribly amiss about it, which jarred at my awareness like a toothache. "Emily," Rose murmured. I turned. Several more of the little vulpine Folk, perched upon a log on the bank--- for naturally they were Folk, like the one I'd observed briefly by the cottage; I felt irritated at myself for not realizing it before. Even at close range, they looked a great deal like foxes in all but their faces, which reminded me of a human infant, all overlarge eyes and small rosebud mouths. They might have been small children wearing costumes, but for the unnerving glint of very small, but very sharp teeth, and the wet, all-black of their eyes. They darted in and out of the meadow grass, which was riddled with foxholes, so quick it was difficult to ascertain their number, except that it was great.”

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“As soon as I opened my eyes, my vision was obscured by a large quantity of black fur, a cold, wet nose, and an enormous tongue. I was not offended at all--- quite the contrary--- and let Shadow lick my cheeks before burying my face in his neck. "Poor dear," I murmured. "There, there--- you needn't worry about me leaving you again!" He has been like this each morning since my return, but I can scarcely object. I missed him as much as he missed me, and have vowed never again to venture anywhere he cannot follow.”

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“Toss me one of your pencils!" "Have you gone mad?" I cried even as I removed the pencil from my cloak pocket and threw it at his head. It began to transform before it even reached him, elongating and flashing through the shadows--- a sword. I regretted aiming for his head then, but Wendell caught it with the grace of a trained swordsman, which of course he was. Watching Wendell with a sword is like watching a bird leap from a branch--- there is something thoughtless about it, innate. One has the sense that he is less himself without a sword, that wielding it returns him to the element most natural to him. He drove the sword into the nearest sheerie, and before it had fallen he had spun round to slash at the one behind him, slicing it open like overripe fruit. The other three fell just as easily.”

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“If this is a shortcut," I said, "then we will be bypassing a great deal of Where the Trees Have Eyes." "Hum!" Snowbell said. "I suppose so. The Weeping Mines, for one--- terrible waterfalls where the high ones harvest their silver. The Gap of Wick, which a nasty boggart has claimed for his own. Also the darkest part of the forest, the lands of the hag-headed deer, which they call the Poetry. And many other perils besides." He said it in his usual bragging tones, assuming that I would be nothing but grateful. And I was, I suppose, but another part of me wept at the thought of finding my way to the Silva Lupi, a place of scholarly legend, so magnificently fascinating and terrible, and then hurrying through like a busy shopper at a market.”

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“The mountains I saw through the break in the fog were familiar, and yet something was off about them. They seemed too dark, somehow, and the nearest was riddled with hollows where tiny lights glimmered. The fog shifted again, and I was gazing at a luxuriant rose garden. The flowers were fat and healthy, but the garden itself was overgrown and had the air of abandonment, the rosebushes almost swallowing their trellises, some of which had collapsed. A little wind blew back the heads of the nearest roses, and I felt as if they were turning to gaze at me.”

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“Naturally, Wendell's apartments are absurdly comfortable, and somehow there is the atmosphere of a forest about them, though I know this makes little sense. The ceilings are very high, rather like the canopy of an ancient grove--- I suspect he has enchanted them somehow--- and always there is the sound of rustling leaves, though this abruptly ceases if you listen too closely. I would have expected a lot of luxurious frippery from faerie royalty, but his furnishings are simple--- a scattering of sofas, impossible soft; a huge oak table; three magnificent inglenook fireplaces; and a great deal of empty floor through which an impossible little breeze is always stirring, smelling of moss. For decoration there is the mirror from Hrafnsvik with the forest reflected inside it and a few silver baubles, sculptures and vases and the like, which catch the light in unexpected ways, but that's it. And, of course, the place is so clean one feels one may sully it by breathing too hard.”

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“She is sending assassins after you because she thinks we are engaged, and thus her mad faerie logic tells her that I will devote my life to seeking revenge against her if she murders you." "That's generally how these things go. You know the stories." Of course I did. Deirde and the River Lord; The Princess of Shell Halls.* *Deirde was an Irish queen who sent her army into Faerie to avenge the death of her faerie husband at the hands of his brothers. The Princess of Shell Halls is likely of French origin, a variant of La princesse et le trône de sel. "Sel," meaning salt, was likely mistranslated as "shell," but the framework of the story is the same: a faerie princess of an undersea kingdom dedicates her life to avenging the death of her betrothed, the prince of an island realm. This despite the fact that leaving the sea condemns her to a slow death, to which she eventually succumbs only after murdering the last of the conspirators in her fiancé's murder.”

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“Neither of us was hungry, but we managed to force down a little of Poe's bread, which was, as ever, delicious, buttery with a hint of chocolate, and very refreshing. Having finished the water we had brought with us, we were now forced to drink from creeks and streams. I was not happy about this, but there was no alternative.* *In some stories, drinking from faerie streams has the same effect upon mortals as faerie wine.”

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“Yes, I wanted to remain here in Faerie, with Wendell. Yes, I knew it went against reason and common sense--- ordinarily two of my strengths. My arguments with Rose had been nonsense all along, because the truth was that I agreed with him. Of course it wasn't a sane decision to befriend a monarch of the Folk, let alone marry one, particularly if he reigned over the Silva Lupi. Nor did I think Wendell was different from other Folk, particularly--- kinder, less enigmatic, or somehow more human. I simply didn't care. I loved him, and I suspected that I would grow to love this beautiful, horrifying place if given the chance. I wanted the chance. I wanted Faerie, its every secret and its every door. If there was danger in my decision--- and I knew there was--- then so be it. I would accept danger, if it meant I could have this.”

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“I realized that part of me had been waiting for Wendell to make a miraculous recovery. To rescue us all, as well as himself, just when we needed him most. It would fit the pattern of innumerable stories. But perhaps Wendell wasn't part of his kingdom's story anymore. Or he was, but merely as a footnote, a trial for his stepmother to overcome as she rose from powerful to unstoppable-- to irrevocably weave herself into the fabric of her world, as the king of Ljosland had. And if he was a footnote, what did that make me? I leaned close, breathing in the smell of his hair--- the salt of sweat; smoke from the fire; and the distant smell of green leaves that never left him. "My answer is yes," I whispered in his ear.”

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“If you do not allow me to come, I shall write to my father." I gave a sharp breath of laughter. "You think he will sympathize with your desire to go charging into Faerie? I will rise in his esteem for refusing you--- though admittedly this is because his expectations of me are at ground level." "You don't understand," she said. "I shall write to him to say that you have given me little in the way of supervision, and allow me to wander the mountains at all hours, despite the danger. And then, after I have sent the letter off, I shall follow you into the nexus. And what will happen, do you think, if I do not catch up to you?" We gazed at each other in silence for a long moment. Ariadne looked pale, and several times she had the appearance of biting back an apology, but she did not apologize. Nor did she drop my gaze. "You wretched brat," I finally said. "I will tie you to your bed.”

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“Wendell looked at the faerie stone in his hand, shrugged, and smashed it against the floor. Out burst a flock of parrots. The birds shrieked and squawked, and the sheerie were momentarily distracted--- not afraid, they lunged at them like cats. Each parrot seemed to be carrying a tropical flower in its beak. Wendell hurled another stone. When it smashed, glittering banners unfurled upon the museum walls, covered in the faerie script. The ceiling was suddenly painted in frescoes of Folk lounging in forest pools, surrounded by green foliage. Vases of unfamiliar flowers appeared on every surface next to bottles of wine in ice buckets, and the air filled with the muffled sound of violins, as if drifting in from the next room.”

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“It is in part, I suppose, that the thought of marrying anyone makes me wish to retreat to the nearest library and hide myself among the stacks; marriage has always struck me as a pointless business, at best a distraction from my work and at worst a very large distraction from my work coupled with a lifetime of tedious social obligations”

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