For Kslchen, who wanted something cheerier. Sometimes, very, very occasionally, I comply. Though, actually, if there is anyone you want to hear about, drop me the odd line. I'm happy to take things on suggestion. In the meantime, thanks ever for reading and/or reviewing.


Nov., 1923


It was winter the year they came to Crow Lake. The snow was deep and the horse, an affectionate and child-tolerant creature by the incongruous name of Lamia was reluctant. Nan heard this from the man who sold them the horse and wondered idly if there were also horses Melancholy, Indolence, Belle Dame Sans Merci, and so on. It made her smile in the face of the cold, this array of might-be Keatsean horses. The runners of the sleigh crunched and squeaked over a sea of white snow. There was, of course, absolutely no hope of propelling an automobile forward through the inclement weather. It was the end of the world, or at least the place that time forgot, and it was beautiful. Cold, snow-buried and deeply, achingly beautiful. Welcome to Crow Lake. Well, Nan supposed, they had to get there first.

But first they were to stop at Lea Rigg, home to Poppy and Peter, and not so many miles as the eponymous crow flew, from the lake in question. As it fell out Poppy must have spotted them from a window, because they had barely drawn abreast of Lea Rigg and its elegantly crafted sign when Poppy descended on them. She was pink-cheeked with cold and breathless with running.

'I thought it was you!' she said.

'Mouse, your fingers!' said Nan by way of reciprocating the greeting and promptly made a dive to encircle Poppy's diminutive hands with their infamously bad circulation. Her index fingers were already the tell-tale white as Nan rubbed them between hers.

'Stitch,' said a disembodied voice, 'is that them?'

Before Nan could pinpoint the speaker, Peter came limping around the side of the house as dark and handsome as he had ever been. He descended upon the sleeping babies at once, which freed Jerry to see to Lamia and, presumably, ensure she neither vanished, nor became a serpent, nor made any bargains with trickster gods.

'And they've brought us fairies,' Peter was saying positively nonchalantly when Nan emerged from her reverie. 'How lovely. I take it we have suitable food?' He began to walk up to the house, a baby on each arm.

'Define suitable,' said Poppy, even as Peter kept up the kind of steady patter that was both charming and entirely nonsensical. Nan could see this and approved heartily. So did Mandy; sh twitched dainty fists in the direction of Jerry force of habit but did not otherwise protest her seizure by a stranger.

'Come on,' said Poppy, tugging Nan into the house, 'Rock up ahead isn't actually wrong about getting out of the cold. Anyway, my hands hurt.'

Nan laughed. She leaned her glossy, nut-brown hair against Poppy's shoulder and said contentedly, 'I've missed this, Mouse.'

'Me too,' said Poppy. 'I've got a bone or three to pick with you and Ariel about all this traipsing around the globe. Why don't you stay put like normal people, the pair of you?'

She installed Nan comfortably at the kitchen table and began to clatter around with saucepans and kettles, murmuring all the while about fairy cakes, tea, and what an unkindness it was to serve this last without biscuits. Now and then she paused to wring out her whitened fingers, but the blood was slow returning to them. Unable to tackle the many pieces of this barrage at once Nan let it be known that the day she put words into Mara Blythe's mouth about anything was due to arrive several worlds after Never, which made Poppy laugh until her eyes watered.

'Sensible,' said Poppy. 'Anything less and she'd have your head for your trouble. I still don't have to like it, though. One day Scotland's going to stick, you watch.' She produced iced gingerbread from a tin in poinsettia stamp with a flourish and said as an afterthought, 'Though all things being equal, you'll probably do the watching from the frozen north or something. How would you feel if I spun a web or six around Crow Lake and sort of held you hostage?'

It was Nan's turn to laugh. The kettle began to shriek, and Poppy turned to deal with it. This left Nan to scrutinise the amassed tea things. She held up a delicate square of sponge and said to the back of Poppy's dark head, 'Fairy cakes?'

'Well,' said Poppy, not turning round, 'worthy of fairies if not actual fairy cakes, which have a different consistency completely. We're not really cake people – but I did want something your girls could eat.'

'You,' said Nan, 'want to spoil them.'

'Of course I do,' said Poppy without apology and finished with her tea tray. 'Mara and Faith won't on principle, and Di's not here, so I must.'

Nan reached across the table moved to pinch the back of Poppy's hand, ineffectually as it turned out. One well-aimed swat of her tea towel by Poppy was enough to offset Nan's aim, and she ended with her fingers in the Devon Cream. It was thick, yellow-crusted and rich smelling, a lovely, subtle compliment to the cardamom of Poppy's rising bread and the spice of the tea. It would be a shame to leave the kitchen.

They did, though, laughing and teasing and jockling so as to set the Spode Woodland chattering on its tray. It competed amicably with the little girls, who were racing precariously around the twig furniture of the sun room, stout young arms flapping. Jerry had come in by then and was stretched out in a battered but obviously well-beloved armchair, his legs a hurdle for his daughters to jump through. Peter sat opposite, his bad leg resting atop the good one, his back against the sofa.

'Half a minute, Sitch,' he said as As Poppy came in with the tray. And to the raucous imps in his sunroom, just as amicably, 'I think, Lady Sylph, we'll just put you where you can't be scalded, shall we?' He snared a wayward Miri under one arm as he said it.

Miri should by rights have voiced a protest or six, Nan thought. Instead, she let herself be cuddled against Peter's side and placated with one of the fairy cakes. Mandy, ever more tractable, scrambled into her father's lap on the termination of their hazardous round of Tig and nestled her red head against the crook of his arm.

'Your Peter,' said Nan as Poppy poured out, 'has got those girls bewitched. As long as you're holding us hostage, any chance of rostering him on to keep them perpetually malleable?'

'They malign you, fawn,' said Peter with mock hurt, as he stroked Miri's sleek brown hair. Jerry snorted.

'Don't you just, Angel,' he said to Nan, but he raised a conspiratorial eyebrow. 'Scheherazade over there,' and he nodded towards Miri, 'wouldn't know the fine art of negotiation if it poked her in the – admittedly aristocratic – nose.'

'Well no,' said Peter, 'because it would be going about it all wrong, wouldn't it, Miss Mab? Poking your lovely nose indeed! Though I like Scheherazade for her. Who coined that one?'

Three guesses,' said Jerry, 'as to which of us speaks literary allusions the way normal people do English.'

The fire crackled magnificently. Peter shook his head. To Nan he said, 'I'm still disappointed you never did write that essay on Clarissaas discussed.'

'I had a word count to meet,' said Nan, but she smiled. Had it really been years ago she had threatened to sum up that long, overwrought book; Clarissa dies a virtuous woman? It felt like yesterday. The fire popped and snapped as little blisters of sap burst making the little girls jump. Poppy offered them a bag of corn kernels and they dove upon it, throwing handful after gleeful handful into the dancing, spiting flames. The fire popped more than ever. Outside it had begun to snow, but silently. Nan watched the whirls of white lace and nursed her tea. If this was a hostage-taking, she thought, she could graciously put up with it.

The children presently succumbed to sleep, sweets and the comfortable blaze of the fire, and were bedded down among good, stiff cushions and thick wool blankets. The adults, left to their own devices, began a tentative round of Whist, which Jerry only half-knew his way around, and Poppy knew only very slightly better.

'I'm surprised you know it,' she said to Nan. 'I always think of good, Presbyterian Ingleside eschewing cards.'

Nan shrugged. She said, 'It was always cropping up in my reading, wasn't it? Of course I learned to play the same things as Elinor Dashwood.'

'Of course you did,' said Jerry, and there was a ripple of laughter around the room. Mandy snuffled in her sleep, and Miri coiled protectively round her.

It continued to snow; now and then the wind snatched at it and whisked it into swirling white bridal lace. Or else it whistled and keened its way down the chimney so that the fire bellowed and snapped against it. Nan and Peter took it in turns to feed the fire. By the time they looked up from cards, or the little girls woke – Nan afterwards forgot which way round it was – the snow was deep and still falling, the light long reduced to mere squibs.

'Still amenable to hostage-taking?' asked Poppy. She said it with a smile, and Nan thought, Later I must explain to Jerry. Caught in the moment she squinted out at the deep, crepuscular landscape, all shadow and drifting snow like one of Jerry's paintings. Winter Evening in North Ontario, she thought. Aloud she said, 'Is it a hostage-taking if we agree?'

'You're the one with a gift for words, Catkin,' said Poppy. 'You tell us.'

Nan batted at her playfully. Then she went to help make up the spare room. It was a little afterthought of a room, for which Poppy's everlasting apology, but Nan loved it at once. The ceiling sloped invitingly towards the floor at great, steep angles and was full of notches and knots that spoke of a storied past. And it smelled wonderfully of cloves and beeswax.

'I shouldn't worry,' said Nan in the face of the nth apology. 'We have good luck with garrets, Jerry and I.'

When they regained the sitting room the fire had been rekindled and the little girls were wrestling gamely with Peter. He had Mandy 'round his neck, and Miri hanging off one arm, while Jerry looked on placidly, as if mentally filing the scene away for drawing later. They were jabbering pure twinnish while Peter jabbered right back. Poppy shot Nan a look that said all too clearly is this all right? Is Jerry all right. On cue Jerry joined in the communal round of gibberish and Nan inclined her head in reassurance. All well, her silent answer. She followed Poppy into the kitchen and while Poppy prepared meat, Nan diced potatoes with half a thought for her next Lord Harrington. It was going to be set, she decided with a glance out the window and an ear for her chattering, tumbling children, in the depths of a snowstorm.

Jerry did sketch Peter and the girls later. Nan woke up late to find the wick of a nearby lamp burning low and the sussuration of one of Jerry's pencils rustling in the dark. She leaned over to see it better, and there they were, resident imps of the house of Meredith, Peter at their centre, a laughing, tussling triad. Jerry finished with it, dated it and set it on the dresser by way of an indirect thank you. The snow kept falling. The cold deepened. The sun came up and the snow went on falling. Nan sat opposite Poppy as she set her bread and launched into the form of their old economies, What I wish for most in the world…Poppy beamed at her. They were interrupted by the girls running skip-change into the room with what Poppy made enviable turn-out. Nan hadn't even noticed they did it.

They clamoured for biscuits and it was all Poppy could do to find an appropriate delicacy.

'Do they ever come down off their toes?' asked Poppy, arcing Mandy up off the ground and into her arms. Mandy clapped her hands and Poppy handed over a fine, buttery shortbread finger.

'Chance would be a fine thing,' said Nan.

There was still no hope of leaving Lea Rigg, but no one seemed to mind. Lamia got on with the other horses, and the little girls were revelling in the adoration of Poppy and Peter. Jerry went off to sketch and then to pain the surrounding landscape, rendering the wash of snow in everything from the slow-bleeding pinks of sunrise to the darkling purples and bruised blues of a four o'clock sunset. It was bitterly cold, of course, but there were blankets, good fires and better company. Snow drifted and swirled; Nan began to write up Harrington, occasionally reading snatches to Poppy, Peter and the children if they were on hand. They weren't always; Mandythought nothing of trekking after Jerry through the snow though it was quite as tall as she was and made her unsteadier than ever. Often she fell down in the drifts wheeling and squealing like an over-wintering seagull until Jerry capitulated and took her on his shoulders. Or Miri might fall backwards into a snowbank, Mandy following, and in great puffs of white they would create snow-angels until they were soaked through and in need of baths. This was a job various devoted adults took in turn, but invariably came away from sopping wet, often laughing.

'Little Naiads,' Peter called them, laughing and struggling to dry the ends of Mandy's red hair. It fell wet and gleaming down her back as she wove around the furniture in a frantic bid to elude the snare of a towel.

'Selkies, surely,' said Nan. Peter nodded approval of this judgement.

'If they are,' said Poppy, 'you keep a tight hold on their skins. They'd be missed if they up and vanished on us.' She got half a hold of Mandy as she said it, but not tight enough and the would-be selkie was off again, squealing irascible triumph. The snow kept on falling.

Some days into their stay Jerry scrambled up on to the roof and hefted great clouts of snow off of it, because Peter was ill-equipped to do that sort of thing, and anyway, there was no one nearer. He did it to the outbuildings too, the little girls watching with round, wide eyes. Mandy declared a resolution to take up climbing, and Peter revised his assessment; they were dryads, the little girls, after all.

'They're pucks,' said Jerry laconically, 'and that's a fact.' It was difficult to argue with him, Nan thought, but the others gave it a fair try.

The snow settled finally, silent and deep as a blanket. Nan replenished the fire, eyed the wood pile and trusted there were further supplies somewhere. No one, least of all Poppy and Peter would have headed into a winter like this under-prepared. Someone took a picture of her there by the fluctuating firelight, hands full of wood, the thick corduroy of her skirt, and Jerry afterwards coloured it in by hand. It was lovely. Charmed, even. They were cocooned in snow, and it was almost like slipping back in time to the days of Nan's economies, Applewood fires, and later the frantic bustle of Mara's Halifax family.

But Lea Rigg wasn't Halifax, so when Nan came into the kitchen to find Poppy sorting cautiously through her pantry, Nan felt her stomach twist. It was still snowing, and still too deep to travel, but Nan didn't need to have read mathematics to appreciate that it was a leap to jump overnight from feeding not two but six people.

'How can I help?' said Nan, watching.

Poppy shook her head. 'The perils of unanticipated hostage-taking,' she said and smiled wryly. 'Never mind Catkin, we'll muddle through.'

'No,' said Nan with a kiss for Poppy's cheek. 'We should think about leaving. We should have done it ages ago, Mouse. I'm sorry.'

'Don't be,' Poppy said, and pulled Nan into a hug there by the pantry. She smelled of yeast, flour and cardamom. Nan was glad that Crow Lake was not so far as all that.

'And of course,' said Poppy, 'we'll see you as often as we can manage.'

'We wouldn't have it any other way. The little girls will be sorry to lose their courtiers.'

Poppy snorted. 'Fairies,' said Poppy. 'If they're ordinary girls, I'm a Dutchman.' She laughed her wonderful, ruddy laugh and again there was that timeslip feeling of stepping backwards again. They were in Swallowgate with its imperfect oven, Poppy's bread rising on the scrubbed pine table. In a minute Pilgrim would wreak some domestic devastation and answer for it.

Said Poppy as an afterthought, 'it's a reciprocal sentiment. We'll miss you, too. Not just because of your sprites, either.'

They chose a clear day to set out. The air smelled cold and crisp, and it made their breath form fine, misty clouds on the air. Peter and Jerry had done what they could to shovel out the front of the house and a little up the road, but it wasn't much. Now and then sun sent gouts of snow sloping off trees and onto the ground where it flowed seamlessly into the drifts. Lamia whickered uncertainty at navigating through the cold feather-down of the landscape, but Poppy charmed her into her place at the helm of the sleigh. Peter got out a wagon and arranged to go part of the way with them by snowshoe, because, as he said, there were things he'd need in the town anyway.

'You're just reluctant to leave your wee elven queens,' said Poppy. 'I consider myself thoroughly displaced.'

'Never Stitch,' said Peter, with a kiss for her cold, white fingers.

'It won't be for long,' said Nan.

'No,' Jerry said. 'There's Christmas coming, remember. They,' he nodded at the little girls, swaddled and blanketed within an inch of their little lives, 'will never let us forget it if we don't reconnect with you for that at least.'

'I should think not,' said Poppy.

The snow did not crunch this time; it did not so much as squeak. The sleigh slipped mute through the vast white sea of snowfall, and they were off to Crow Lake at last. It was heavy, slow-gong work, and Nan pulled her girls close for warmth in the face of the exposed landscape. Peter kept steady pace with them, snowshoes schluffing through the white velvet lace of the snow. At the crossroads that parted them, Peter pointed the way with one great, beaver-lined mitt. Nan cradled her daughters to her and followed his finger norward to where a cardinal winged like a lone scarlet streamer, and the crows called out a welcome. If she squinted, Nan could just make out the shadow of the lake, it's outline against the bruise of the conifers. It was the end of the world. The place time forgot. Cold, snow-buried and deeply, achingly beautiful. And for a little while, Nan thought, Miri and Mandy burrowed under one maternal arm apiece, it would be home. Crow Lake at last. She raised Peter a final salute and the last sound as they pulled out of sight was his 'Haste ye back!' arm waving madly.