“But I don’t want to be a nun, I want to go home. Take me home, fool, please. It’s dark, and you know what happens when it gets dark in the forest?”
I had spent more than a few nights in the forests of Britain in my youth and I remembered little to fear in the forest dark beyond the cold and damp, which, to be fair, was often the case any place or time in Old Blighty. “Supper?” I ventured hopefully.
“Not supper! Creatures of the dark! Evil ravening creatures that rend the flesh from your bones and eat it while you watch. Some say it’s the forest people themselves, transformed into night beasts. They are demons, sir. No one who has seen them has lived to tell the tale.” She flinched, startled by a noise in the bushes. She dug her nails into my arm and pulled me tight, as if to use me as a shield against the stirring. “Alas, it is too late. They are upon us.”
“Unhand her, you rogue,” said a male voice from the bushes, and then an entirely unremarkable yellow-haired bloke stepped out of the bushes. He was dressed in a belted jerkin, leggings, and tall boots, so not at all how I had been led to believe proper Greeks dressed from the vases I’d seen, which was a nappy and a sword.
“Demetrius!” said Helena. She moved to rise but I held her fast.
“Oh, that scoundrel,” said I. “Shall I purple up his eyes, milady? Shall I relieve him of his teeth so he may send his stuttered lies through broken bleeding lips? Give the command, milady.”
“You can’t say that,” said Demetrius. “She is . . . I am . . . You are . . . Helena followed me into the forest.”
“And you did not want her. Used her. Spurned her. Pushed her down and ran after another.”
“Well, yes, but I don’t want anyone else to have her.”
“And you have come back to me,” said Helena. She stood and rushed to him, her arms wide to receive his embrace. He stepped aside and she tumbled headlong into the shrubbery.
“I’m lost,” said Demetrius. “I heard voices and ended up here.”
Helena climbed out of the bushes. Her hair had shed some of its pins and hung in tendrils in her face. She spat out a leaf. “And you returned to rescue me,” she said with entirely too much hope.
“I was hoping someone would know the way back to town,” said Demetrius, ignoring the girl.
“You don’t know the way to Athens and you’re not wearing your nappy and sword. You are a shit Greek, Demetrius.”
“Sir, count yourself lucky that I have left my bow and sword at home, for on my honor, if I were armed, I would make you pay for your words.”
“A shit Greek, I say. Everyone knows that you always go about with a sword, maybe even a shield if you’re out walking your three-headed dog.” I have read the classics. “I, too, am unarmed, but just as well, that I might box your ears until you beg for mercy, then slay you later at my own convenience.”
Of course I lied about being unarmed. I’m not mad, the Greek was a foot taller than I, two stone heavier, and had probably eaten more than a handful of nuts and berries over the last week.
“Lay on, thou piss-haired spunk-whistle!” I should probably have stood up at that point, but truth be told, I was feeling weak and thought if I stood up quickly I might faint.
The Greek looked confused. He had stumbled into a fight he did not want over a girl he did not fancy, and even in the moonlight I could see his eyes darting around in search of an exit like flies buzzing in a jar. And an exit was granted, as from the other side of the clearing a great roar sounded out of the bushes, and a figure rose tall in the darkness, thrashing in the undergrowth as it charged.
“Bear!” cried the puppet Jones.
“Did that puppet just talk?” asked Demetrius.
“Run,” said Helena, grabbing Demetrius’s hand and dragging him off into the forest, both of their voices rising in high terror as they went.
I stood, then, and reached into the small of my back for a dagger, which I drew and held before me, but I swooned and fell back onto my bottom on the rock. “Oh balls,” said I as the moonlight-laced clearing began to spin. As I dropped my dagger and as I sank into the darkness I heard high, happy giggling.
“Haw, haw,” sang Cobweb. “They thought I was a bear!” She danced a jig before me, hopping from foot to foot, as if some piper were trilling a shanty only she could hear. “Haw, haw. Cobweb the scary bear. Did I scare you?”
I shook my head, more to clear the haze in my vision than as an answer. “Most excellent bear, Cobweb. And well done on the timing, as well.”
She giggled, clapped, and hopped, delighted with herself. “I saw you was going to fight that straw-haired bloke and you didn’t look up to the task.”
“Well, I was murdered at lunchtime, so I’m not at my best.”
“Where’s your big friend?” She picked up my dagger and handed it to me. When she bent before me I got a good look at her right ear, which tapered to a gentle point, like the Puck’s. So.
“Taken by the watch,” I said, sheathing the dagger. “And the blackguard captain who killed me. I reckon I am doomed to walk among the living until I rescue the great ninny, and only then will I find eternal rest.”
Cobweb tilted her head as if examining a spot between my eyes, like a cat might consider a dragonfly before dashing it to bits with a quick claw. “You’re daft and you stink of rotting fish. You didn’t wash your clothes in the stream like I told you, did you?”
“It was on the agenda, but then I was murdered.”
“No you weren’t. Now shed your shabby husks and I’ll give them a slosh while you eat.” She turned and marched to the edge of the clearing.
My stomach lurched at the mention of eating. “Where are you going?”
“To build you a nest to lie in so you don’t fall against the rock and dash out what’s left of your brains. Now off with your kit, fool.”
“I’m fine,” I said, standing up to show I was, but stumbled a bit to catch my balance. “Bit dead, but for a ghost, fine.”
“Pocket!” she said, using my name for the first time, wheeling on a heel. She strode back across the clearing and stepped up to me until her nose near touched my chin. “You are not dead. You may be a bloody loon, but you are not dead.”
“I am. Slain this very day by Blacktooth.”
“Are you hungry?” she inquired, stepping again so close she might have rung the bells on my toes if the pirates had not stolen them.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Are you thirsty?”
“Well, yes.”
“Does this hurt?” And at that she viciously pinched and twisted my starboard nipple.
“Ouch!” I pushed her away, resisting the urge to return a twist of the tit, as I am a fucking gentleman. “That is no proof—”
“Does it hurt?” she snapped.
“Yes! Yes it hurts, thou venomous mouse.”
“Then you’re not bloody dead, are you?”
I rubbed my offended man-pap and considered her thesis. The eternal sleep did seem rather uncomfortable, itchy even, although not so much as to constitute hellish torment. “Well, I was dead. Blacktooth and the guard could not see me, even as I passed not an arm’s length before them. Explain that.”