weapons, and they hadn't said more than a few words. Over lunch, they maintained an uncomfortable
silence, and I could not understand how these two were of any interest at all. The sullen pair headed
back to a green pickup parked on the slope beside the road, and the boy stepped into the passenger's
side. As he crossed the front of the truck, the father muttered, "That was a fucking mistake." Igel
scrutinized the pair with savage intensity, and as the truck pulled away, he read out the license plate
numbers, committing them to memory. Smaolach and I lagged behind Igel as he marched home, intent on
his private ruminations.
"Why did we track them all day? What do you mean, he found a child?"
"Them clouds are ready to burst." Smaolach studied the darkening sky.
"You can smell it coming."
"What is he going to do?" I yelled. Up ahead, Igel stopped in his tracks and waited for us to catch
up.
"How long have you been with us, Aniday?" Igel asked. "What does your stone calendar say?"
Ever since that day when they turned on me, I had been wary of Igel, and had learned to be
deferential. "I don't know. December? November? 1966?"
He rolled his eyes, bit his lip, and continued. "I've been looking and waiting since you arrived, and
it's my turn now and that boy may be the one. When you and Speck are in town with your books, keep
an eye out for that green truck. If you see it again, or the boy or the father, let me know. If you have the
courage to follow them and find where he lives or goes to school, or where the father works, or if he has
a mother, sister, brother, friend, you let me know."
"Of course I will, Igel. I'd be happy to spy on him at the library."
He bade Smaolach to walk with him, and I brought up the rear. A bit-terly freezing rain began to
fall, and I ran the last few moments to escape from being drenched. The warren excavated by Igel and
Luchóg over the years proved an ideal shelter on such blustery nights, although most of the time
claustrophobia forced me out. The cold and damp drove me into the tunnels, and with my palms I felt
along in the darkness until I sensed the presence of others.
"Who's there?" I called out. No answer, only a furtive muffled sound.
I called out again.
"Go away, Aniday." It was Béka.
"You go away, you old fart. I've just come in from the rain."
"Go back the way you came. This hole is occupied."
I tried to reason with him. "Let me pass by, and I'll sleep somewhere else."
A girl screamed and so did he. "She bit my damn finger."
"Who is there with you?"
Speck shouted out in the darkness. "Just go, Aniday. I'll follow you out."
"Vermin." Béka cursed and let her go. I reached out in the darkness and she found my hand. We
crawled back to the surface. Stinging rain gathered in her hair and flattened it against her skull. A thin
layer of ice caked over her head like a helmet, and the drops collected on our eyelashes and streamed
down our faces. We stood still, unable to say anything to each other. She looked as if she wished to
explain or apologize, but her lips trembled and her teeth knocked and chattered. Grabbing my hand
again, she led me to the shelter of another tunnel. We crawled in and crouched near to the surface, out of
the rain, yet not in the cold earth. I could not stand the silence, so I yam-mered on about the father and
son we had followed and Igel's instructions. Speck took it all in without speaking a word.
"Squeeze out that water from your hair," she said. "It will dry faster that way and stop dripping
down your nose."
"What does he mean, he found a child?"
"I'm cold," she said, "and tired and sick and sore. Can't we talk about this in the morning, Aniday?"
"What did he mean that he's been waiting since I got here?"
"He's next. He's going to change places with that boy." She pulled off her coat. Even in the
darkness, her white sweater threw back enough light to allow me a better sense of her presence.
"I don't understand why he gets to go."
She laughed at my naiveté. "This is a hierarchy. Oldest to youngest. Igel makes all the decisions
because he has seniority, and he gets to go next."
"How old is he?"
She calculated in her mind. "I don't know. He's probably been here about one hundred years."
"You're kidding." The number nearly fried my brain. "How old are all the others? How old are
you?"
"Will you please let me sleep? We can figure this out in the morning. Now, come here and warm
me up."
In the morning, Speck and I talked at length about the history of the faeries, and I wrote it all down,