to console Alfred eventually, when the adrenaline wore off. She cared for his cuts, fixed him some tea and sat quietly with him awaiting her husband’s return.
Several hours went by and Jessica sat with her son in silence, holding him closely. Finally, she heard keys in the lock. The door opened and there stood Mr. Cyning and her husband. She noticed the look on her husband’s face was one of confusion, or perhaps better, uncertainty. He took her aside, “I think we should leave those two alone. Come with me and I’ll tell you what Mr. Cyning said.” What it was Mr. Cyning told his father, Alfred could not hear. He had, instead to focus his attention on Mr. Cyning who had now sat himself opposite Alfred.
“Alfred, my dear child, your father told me about the fright you had today,” he said slowly and sadly.
“It was a goblin, Mr. Cyning, I’m almost sure of it. It was chasing me down the lane. I thought they couldn’t be out in sunlight. I thought it killed them or something. You always say that they hate sunlight, but this one didn’t. Or maybe it was something else, are there other evil things in the forest?” Alfred’s eyes were wide, his voice quick.
“Yes, there are other evil things in this world. Alfred,” he said looking intensely at the boy, “we need to spend some time apart. It’s too dangerous. Today you could have—” he stopped, tears seemed to be welling in his eyes. “You’re getting too old to believe in my stories, Alfred. It’s time for you to move on from them.”
“But I don’t want to. I believe, Mr. Cyning, I believe in your stories.”
“Stay away, boy. For now you must stay away. But never stop believing.” He added in a whisper. If Mr. Cyning realized he just contradicted himself, he did not let on. He simply walked out of the inn.
Alfred, near-teenager though he was, wept. His parents tried to console him as best they could, but for weeks Alfred did little but go to school and come home again. He began to play video games and watch television, reading only occasionally and mostly for school. It took months before he ventured back into the forest. His mother began sending him for mushrooms every now again, going with him the first few times and then sending him on his own. It was even months before Mr. Cyning started telling stories at the inn again. When he did, Alfred, if not already otherwise occupied, would go to his room. Wini he altogether neglected. It was not her fault they did not speak much after the incident, or at least not wholly. She tried to talk to him about fairies, but Alfred would put on a superior air and say something about kid’s these days. She often went to the inn to see Alfred and listen to Mr. Cyning’s stories. She saw little of Alfred, but she drank in the old man’s stories. Life, for Alfred, continued this way for many years. He went to university, studied literature, and returned home, uncertain of what to do with his life.
Chapter 3
Alfred had been home for several months and winter was fast approaching when one morning, well before sunrise, Alfred’s mother knocked on his bedroom door, “Alfred, would you be a dear, and go into the wood to fetch me some of the mushrooms for my mushroom soup? It’s rained overnight and there ought to be a fair few to be had.” Jessica Perkins’s mushroom soup was famous several miles around Carlisle, particularly for its rarity and freshness. Jessica only used a certain kind of mushroom, and then only fresh picked. Alfred stumbled out of bed, pulling on trousers and a jumper his mother knit for him last Christmas; it being a chilly morning. Alfred had a quick bite of toast and glug of coffee and went out into the mist.
It is about two miles from Alfred’s home to the edge of Fey Forest, so Alfred had to walk by the old church St. Nicholas’s, which had burn marks on the stones still from some attack back in the late middle ages or early renaissance. Alfred could never remember. Local history did not interest him too much, and no one could settle on the date anyway. Some said it happened during the reign of Queen Elizabeth when some of the old Catholic churches were being burnt down. Others said it was during the time of Oliver Cromwell. Still others said it was a much more ancient and diabolic attack from early in the church’s history. Whatever the truth was, no renovation was allowed since it was deemed a historical landmark.
When Alfred reached the forest’s edge the mist became even worse. “It’s going to be damn near impossible to find mushrooms in this mist,” he said to himself. “Oh well, in I go.” With that he plunged into the wood. The trees were close together in this small wood and blocked out whatever sunlight might be burning the mist off outside of it. Alfred put his headphones in his ears and was listening to music as he searched, none too carefully. He yawned, another thirty minutes and he would simply give up and tell his mother there were no mushrooms yet. Off in the distance Alfred saw a light. As he walked closer to it, he could tell it was several lights, as if from torches. Wondering what on earth could be going on he decided to walk towards them.
If Alfred had not had his headphones in he would have been surprised still to be hearing music. He would have heard music that could leave no listener unmoved. It was both morose and jovial. It sounded both as if it were the music of another world and yet as if it were the rocks, trees, streams, Nature herself singing this song. But all Alfred could hear was his own music pulsing through his ears as he walked ever closer to the torches, looking like phantoms of red and orange in the mist.
Although Alfred could not hear the merry voices and beautiful music, he could smell the food: roasted meat, delightfully prepared vegetables, and wine. The mist obscured his sight even more as he ventured closer. He was quite near the torches and could almost taste the food when suddenly all the torches vanished. The dark enclosed his senses and he fell.
“I must have fallen asleep,” said Alfred out loud as he pulled his headphones out of his ears and stowed them in his pocket. He looked around confused. “Well,” he thought, “I must have been more tired than I realized this morning. Imagine me thinking there was a party going on out here in this mist, this early in the morning.” He looked around for any signs, but all he saw was a fairy ring, mushrooms in a perfect circle with one enormous mushroom directly in the middle.
“Well, today’s my lucky day,” Alfred said. “Just the mushrooms Mum needs for her soup. I think I’ll grab this big one first.” Alfred reached down, but as he did so he knocked the top off the mushroom before he even got his hands round its base.
“That’s not a very kind way of introducing yourself, knocking off my hat, Alfred Perkins.” Alfred looked around. “Down here, my son. My how you humans persist in not seeing what’s right before you. I said down here.” Alfred could not believe what his eyes beheld. Standing before him not more than two feet off the ground was a brown, dry looking figure with a sort of green tunic and shoes on. It had almost no nose and its eyes were a loam brown, and it appeared to have no teeth or discernible ears. All Alfred could see at the moment, however, was a talking mushroom without its cap.
“Well, it seems I will have to re-collect my own hat. Oh, and don’t be worried, my son, you are not dreaming. I promise you I am quite real. My name is—” The creature bent over to pick up its cap and Alfred took his chance and ran.
Alfred ran past several other collections of mushrooms, shuddering as he did. “I was still half asleep,” he told himself. “I couldn’t find any mushrooms, laid down, and fell asleep dreaming of fires and talking mushrooms. Yes, that’s it. There can’t be such things as talking mushrooms. There just can’t.” Alfred stopped running when he reached the church. He needed to collect his thoughts before he got back home. He decided to tell his mother that it was too soon after the rain for there to be any mushrooms yet.
“Well, no mushroom soup today, then,” his mother said when he arrived back at home. “You look a little
