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away with a hiss.
    ‘Share,’ Long Fingers said. ‘ Ssshaaaare .’
    ‘Break it up, then, break it up!’ urged Red Cap, and a chorus of voices chimed in. They would get a crumb each, at most. A creature with a tube-shaped snout leaned over to suck the brew direct from the pot, and another gave it a smack on the head.
    My makeshift poultice was ready. I sat down with Flint’s cloak over my shoulders and the fire warming my face, and wrapped the cloth around my feet. It was awkward, the lack of a binding component making the thing too ready to slip at the slightest movement. I kept perfectly still, wondering what would happen when my meagre offering was gone. Would they be angry and turn on me? Would they vanish without another word? Every part of me was on edge with anticipation, but for what I did not know. Their presence, so close, felt both wondrous and perilous. I had seen their kind as shadows passing in the woods or eyes in the night. Seeing them was my gift and my curse. I had heard their eldritch voices. But they had never come so close before. The squabbling division of the unexpected bounty went on awhile, and then silence fell, a silence so sudden and profound that, against my better judgement, I turned my head to look directly at them.
    They sat in a neat circle, as if holding a council, but every one of them was facing me. I felt the weight of all those eyes: little beady eyes; large lustrous eyes; narrow eyes; long-lashed, lovely eyes; eyes of every shape and colour I could imagine. The smallest was no larger than a hedgehog, and indeed somewhat resembled one. The tallest, standing, might come up to my waist. One or two were still nibbling on fragments of way-bread. Their gaze was neither friendly nor unfriendly, but deeply Other.
    The silence was full of expectation. Plainly, I was expected to make a speech of some kind. With my feet wrapped up, I felt at something of a disadvantage.
    ‘Greetings.’ My voice had a nervous wobble in it. It was one thing to see Good Folk more or less wherever you went, but quite another to be surrounded by them and attempting a conversation. ‘I’m afraid I can’t get up, I have blisters. Thank you for letting me shelter here with you. I regret that I didn’t have something better to share.’
    ‘The brew was sufficient,’ said a little woman in a leaf-coloured cloak, dabbing her lips with a spotted kerchief. ‘Besides, such gifts are not offered for the purpose of nourishment or our kind would all have perished from hunger long ago. They’re given as a sign of trust, and accepted in the same spirit.’ She gave her companions a withering look. ‘Though there’s one or two let their appetites take the place of their common sense.’
    ‘Your friends were welcome to my food. But I will need to forage soon enough. What I have won’t last long.’
    ‘Aye, you’ll be hungry tomorrow,’ said the little woman. ‘Closer to the loch there’s nettles to be found. And you’ll see some wee toadstools at the feet of the great oaks. Take care which you pick or you’ll set your guts in a twisty tangle.’
    ‘There’s fine fish to be had,’ put in Red Cap, revealing that although he looked somewhat like a pine marten, he spoke much as I did. The voice was undoubtedly male, but I noticed the creature bore a sling on his back, and from it peered tiny bright eyes. ‘Along Silverwater, past the big man’s house, a fall known as Maiden’s Tears tumbles down toward the loch. Above it lies a pool where they rise by moonlight to be taken. Their flesh will keep you strong. We will show you.’
    A chorus of protest rang out in many voices, high and low, rough and sweet, sending my flesh into goose bumps with their strangeness. ‘No!’ ‘No show, no show!’ ‘Fool, Red Cap, fool! What are you thinking, to trust such as her?’
    ‘Never mind,’ I said, a shiver of foreboding running through me. ‘I’ll be going on alone.’
    ‘We would expect no less.’ The being