"They did vanish, and they did return. " Gregory smiled.
He didn't smile often. His brothers and sister found them-
selves smiling too, even though they were nowhere nearly as certain as he was. In fact, when they stopped to think about it, a feeling of dread began to seep through them.
Geoffrey couldn't allow that. "Out upon them!" he cried. "Seek and find!"
Magnus and Cordelia cheered, and dashed for the door.
"Now I cry HOLD!" Puck roared.
They froze, with Magnus's hand on the latch. "But Puck —an our parents be strayed, 'tis our duty to seek them!"
"'Tis thy duty to do as they have bade thee!" The elf seemed to flicker like a candle flame, and was suddenly standing with his back against the door, fists on his hips, glaring at them. "They have charged thee to stay, and obey my commands—so stay thou shalt, and stay I shall, until their return!"
Storm clouds began to gather in the boys' faces.
Cordelia tried reason. "They did not know they would vanish, Puck. Assuredly, then, they would have wished us to seek them. "
"Assuredly, if their enemies have become strong enough to capture them, they would wish thee safe at home! And safe thou shalt be, guarded by legions of elves!"
"Legions?" Gregory stared, wide-eyed.
Then he dashed to the window, to peer out. Geoffrey was right behind him—"legions" meant an army. Cordelia and Magnus wavered, then ran for the window too.
They stared out at an empty garden and a meadow beyond it, with the forest rising up at its far edge.
"There's naught there!" Geoffrey cried in disappointment.
"Nay, there is, " Puck assured them. "Thou mayest not see them, but there's not a foot of that meadow or garden that hath not its elf with his sling, or a fairy with her dart. Thou couldst wander all day, and see never a one of them—but let a stranger approach, and he'll stumble and fall, never to rise again. "
Magnus turned slowly, his face set and expressionless. "Are they to keep us penned within, also?"
Puck answered with a sour smile. "Credit me with some sense, warlock-ling! I know thy sister can fly away on her broomstick, and that any of thou lads can fly without one—or disappear, and reappear miles away. Nay, I'd not seek to pen thee here by force. "
"Yet thou wilt seek to hold us, " Cordelia said quietly.
Puck nodded. "I will hold thee by thy love of thy parents —for look you, what was their last command to thee?"
The children were silent, scowling at the floor and scuffing their toes.
"What did they say?" Puck demanded.
"That we should stay, " Cordelia admitted, as though the words were dragged out of her, "and obey thee. "
And they did obey him, all that day. Two wizened little women, scarcely a foot high, popped up to make breakfast, and two more to make dinner. It took three to make supper, though.
And all the while, the children did their best to find things to do. They tried a game of hide and seek, but their hearts just weren't in it; Magnus just barely managed to make himself look like a little apple tree, and Gregory did so poor a job of casting his glamour that Cordelia lifted her head, saw the large toadstool next to her, and scowled. "Thou art not to hide 'round my base, Gregory! 'Tis thou must be 'it' now!"
Freeze-tag was worse; they couldn't summon up the energy to freeze a beetle. And when they tried to play catch, Magnus's and Cordelia's minds kept wandering, so the ball would fall to the ground in the middle of a throw.
Finally, in desperation, Puck sat them down and gave them lessons. This was bad enough while they were angry and grumbling; but it became worse when they became puzzled.
"But, Robin—Papa says there are ninety-two elements that endure, " Cordelia said.
Gregory nodded. "And some of those are so rare, they are never seen. "
"Thy father!" Puck wrinkled his nose in disgust. "He, with his outlandish notions of what is real and what dreamlike! Children, reach about thee, and feel what is there! Canst thou see this 'uranium' that he speaketh of, or mis 'aluminum'? Nay! But thou canst feel the earth 'neath thy fingers, and the air blown against thy cheek as a wind! I tell thee, there be but four elements, as there have ever been—earth, water, air, and fire!"
"Yet what is rock, then?"
"Only earth, packed tightly. "
"And what's a tree?"
"Why, a thing compounded out of earth and water!"
"And iron?"
Puck shuddered; iron was poison to elves. "Let us speak rather of copper. Where dost thou find it? Why, where rocks are put into fire! What should it be, then, but a thing made up of earth and fire?"
And so it went. Puck had very definite views about everything in nature, and the children began to become interested, in spite of themselves.
"Now, there do be three trees only that do signify, " Puck lectured, "Oak, Ash, and Thorn. "
Gregory frowned. "What of the pine?"
"Fit only to be brought within doors, for the Yuletide. "
"What of the holly and the ivy?"
"The one's a bush, the other a vine. I speak of trees!"
"What of the briar, and the rose?"
What could Puck do then but sigh, and tell them all the tale, the sad, winding story of Fair Margaret and Sweet William, of their meeting and courtship, of his leaving her to wed another woman, and Sweet Margaret's death, and Sweet William's, and the briar and the rose sprouting from their graves, to climb to the top of the church steeple and twine in a true lover's knot.
Cordelia sat enthralled throughout it, but the boys did begin to seem a little restless; so of course, for them, Puck had to tell the tale of the child Merlin, and his capture by the evil King Vortigem, of the tower that would not stand and the two dragons that slept under it. From there, one tale led to another, of course—of the boy Arthur, and his growing to become a king who brought peace and plenty to a strife-torn England; of Lancelot, his bravest knight, and his saving of the sweet Elaine; of their son Galahad, and his quest for the Holy Grail; and of Arthur's nephew Gawain, and the Green Knight.
"And what of his brothers?" Geoffrey demanded. "What of Agravaine, and Gareth and Gaheris?"
"Ah, but if thou hast heard of them aforetime, " Puck sighed, "wherefore shouldst thou need to hear of them again?"
"Because the tale is always filled with wonder and magic!" "But most so when thou dost tell it, Robin. " Cordelia already knew the virtues of a compliment.
So did Puck, but he puffed out his chest and grinned any-way. "Ah, but I've had such practice at the telling of them— hundreds of years! Yet the hour groweth late, and I think I smell a supper cooking. "
Four little heads snapped up; four small noses sniffed the
evening air. Then four voices yelped, and the boys disappeared in miniature thunderclaps. Cordelia leaped on her broomstick, and sped like an arrow toward the front door, crying, " 'Tis not fair! Thou must not commence without me!" Puck heaved a long, shaky sigh. "Eh! I've kept them busy for this one day, at least. Yet how shall I manage for the morrow?"
But the next day took care of itself; for Cordelia awoke before the sun was up, and sprang to her window to look for her parents—and, by the cool, moist gray light that comes before dawn, she saw, in their garden, a unicorn.
She was tall and slender, milk-white, with a golden mane and a gilded horn; and as a cry of delight welled up within Cordelia, the unicorn lifted her head and looked right into Cordelia's eyes. The girl froze in wonder.
Then the unicorn turned away, lowering her head to graze among Mama's flowers, and Cordelia rushed to pull on a dress, hose, and slippers, and ran out into the garden, still lacing her bodice.
She skidded to a halt, realizing again that she might scare the unicorn away; but she had nothing to fear. The unicorn stood quietly, watching her, chewing on a mouthful of sweet clover, and Cordelia caught her breath, enchanted by its beauty.