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Afterwards, if they'd remembered, they would have said that it began that summer. Not the summer when everything blew up, or nearly did, but the summer they'd first moved to Marsh Manor. Maybe if they had remembered, they would have done things differently, or known the things they needed to know sooner. Maybe. Maybe they would have wondered if Puck had known then where that tunnel would lead, but the Old Things play by their own rules, and children who remember might become adults who would use that knowledge in ways they shouldn't. Better they forget and Puck and his kin remain no more than a childish fancy
It began in June, of course, not quite Midsummer. They'd barely even unpacked, and school had been brushed of as "next term" or perhaps "in the autumn". February hoped it would be autumn, she was enjoying the unexpected holiday and looked forward to summer days reading, exploring their new home, quarreling with Friday (Gail and Berry were way too young to quarrel with) and generally being free to do what she wanted. Maybe her parents would even get her a pony. They'd said they would to make her feel better about moving away from her friends, but parents lied sometimes or decided there wasn't enough money.
The first few days at Marsh Manor had been spent unpacking and getting things in order in the new house, but the fourth day it rained and Dad had had to go into London, leaving Mum to look after the house and February and her brother and sisters. It might have been fine except Berry had been colicky, Gail still hadn't found her favourite teddy bear, and February and Friday had argued about everything from where to store the games to who got to have which storybooks in their room. The very moment the storm had stopped, Friday and February had been sent out of the house that evening with instructions to explore the Downs and not to come back dark. So off they went, with a pack containing Friday's shovel, their suppers, and the picture book of a Midsummer Night's Dream they'd quarreled over the day before.
At first, they were happy just exploring. They'd done the house, the garden and the barn already, so they picked a direction and wandered. The downs were lovely and novel, if a bit damp. They'd trudged up and down and up and at the top of the second rise, February had collapsed on the ground, which was now drying off, and announced dramatically that she wouldn't go any further unless Friday found a better place to eat. Friday ignored her whinging and looked at the surrounding countryside.
"Look, a fairy ring," he announced, suddenly. Perhaps he'd been listening after all.
"Where? Where?" February was back on her feet in a flash. And there was one, tucked in the valley at the bottom of the hill. She was very much a fan of fairies in those days. All sorts of fairies, from Kate Greenaway and the Flower Fairies, to the nastier sort found in books of legends. "Race you!" and she was off down the Down.
Friday shook his head and followed. February could be so predictable.
It was indeed a fairy ring, and February announced it was the perfect place to have their meal. Friday just nodded and distributed sandwiches, fruit, and bottles of soda. There was a little stream nearby where they could wash and they could see a road curving in the distance but no traffic and otherwise it was the perfect spot, quiet and secluded.
"We should act it out," February said, with her mouth full of sandwich, the book open in front of her.
"What? Here?" It took a minute for Friday to understand what she meant. So far his digging experiments had failed, and he'd been thinking about where to try next. "You want to act out a Midsummer Night's Dream? You can't even read all the words yet."
"I don't need to," February announced proudly, "I have it memorized. And the fairy ring would be the perfect spot, it's almost like a stage."
She had him there, February was generally good about memorizing things she was interested in.
"After we eat," Friday agreed. "I'll be Bottom if you be the fairies." As pretty as the Downs were, they hadn't produced much in the way of fun things to do, and just walking was already boring him. Plus he fancied he'd make a really good Bottom.
They finished off lunch with little tarts, leftover from tea, and after a few quibbles about minor roles, they began. The picture book was just of the Nick Bottom bits, which made it easier. February thought there was more to the story, but this was the best part.
It proved to be a very entertaining game. After the first run-through they criticized each other's acting - Friday mispronounced words, February, who was going from her memory of how things sounded rather than the book, kept coming in at the wrong point. Some of the actions they thought would work had ended up in them colliding and falling down laughing - and then they'd begun again with a will, stubbornly trying to get it right.
They'd done it three times and Friday was trying to figure out a way to stop February pinching him quite so much when Puck showed up.
"By Oak and Ash and Thorn," he said, "what were you thinking, playing that play in a fairy ring on Midsummer's Eve."
"It's not," February protested, "not till tonight anyway," but both children suddenly noticed how dark it was getting. That last rendition had taken longer than they realized. And then February remembered her manners, "Do you live around here? Were we bothering you?"
"Time was you would have had all the People of the Hills out, now I'm all that's left." He paused, and smiled at them. "I'm Puck, the oldest of the old things in England, and I am very much at your service, if you are willing. If not, say the word, and I'll go."
"Puck? Like in the story?" February asked, not sure if she believed him.
"The One and Only." He grinned at them again.
Friday fished the last of the tarts out of the bag, the one he'd been hoping to eat without February noticing. "Would you like a tart?" He wasn't sure he believed the strange man, but he'd liked Puck.
"Salt it well, and I'll break bread with you. There's those of my kind who couldn't abide salt, or any of the other things said to keep us away, but I'm Puck."
That did it, in Friday's mind. Even if Puck wasn't a fairy, he was a cheerful man, nattering on about fairy lore, and there was no harm in that. He did worry for a moment when Puck asked for a knife, but he dug the fancy pocket knife he'd gotten for his birthday out of his pocket and handed it over.
But Puck had no thought of harm, he merely cut a clod of earth and handed it to them, declaring "Now are you two seised and possessed of all Old England. By right of Oak, Ash, and Thorn are you free to come and go and look and know where I shall show or best you please. You shall see What you shall see and you shall hear What you shall hear, though It shall have happened three thousand year; and you shall know neither Doubt nor Fear. Fast! Hold fast all I give you."
Any desire the Callender children had had to make fun of this speech had ceased by the end. It felt true and right and they wanted to believe in magic. And in this time and place they believed. They settled down to listen and learn.
They ran into Puck multiple times that summer, learning about Roman encampments from a woman who had followed her husband to the wall, old wars and peace, friendships that had stood the test of time and brave men and women who had made England a place to be proud of.
It was a fortnight before Friday let slip his penchant for digging holes, and Puck had brought forth one of the Spiros who had been brought to England to build Lord Querbury's canal.
Later, February and Friday would recognize the Caprian accent and would know about the Spiros scattered about nearby, but they'd been in Marsh Manor only a fortnight. So this was all new and wondrous to them. February asked endless questions about what it was like in Capria and why their new friend had chosen to stay rather than return home. Friday fixated on the canal and the tunnel, swearing that he'd find it and finish the job that Jasic Spiro and his countrymen had started. Even after Puck had once again used oak and ash and thorn on them and they'd forgotten all that happened that afternoon, that desire shaped Friday's life.
The summer swept by as summers often do. And another of digging and pony rides and exploring and growing up. By the third summer, they rarely saw Puck anymore. They had different places to play and other, better ploys, or thought they did.
The summer February was ten, there was a small electrical fire at the school she and February attended and they were sent home in the middle of summer term for a surprise fortnight's holiday. Friday, being Friday, had immediately grabbed the younger ones and headed for his tunnel for some extra digging.
February scorned the idea of spending such a gorgeous first day of summer in a dark, damp tunnel, so after she'd finished her chores, she'd packed her lunch and a battered paperback of A Midsummer Night's Dream and saddled Gorse and rode out on the downs. The senior classes at their school had given an abridged version of the play at the end of Easter term and she'd gone on and on about the charms of the play and its author to her family during the break, and they had predictably started teasing her about it.
Stubbornness had won, and February had decided that she'd learn the Bottom part and prove her point. She rode off guided only by vague memories of a nearby fairy ring, which, in her mind, would make the perfect setting for the play.
The ring was nearer than she thought, and the spot was lovely enough that she wondered why they'd stopped coming here. She dismounted expertly and made sure Gorse was settled near the stream, before digging out the play and beginning.
It was harder than she expected. There were lots of words she didn't know and having to switch between multiple parts was tricky. After stumbling over
I’ll follow you. I’ll lead you about a round,
Through bog, through bush, through brake,
through brier.
for the second time, she decided to take a break and have lunch.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't dream anyone else would be here, and I do so like to lunch in a fairy ring. It makes me feel like anything could happen." The speaker had come up from the road while February was getting her lunch from the saddlebag.
February turned and smiled. "You're Mrs. Farris, right. Mum told me you'd moved in." She'd raved a bit, in fact, about what a lovely woman Una Farris was. And despite her struggles with Shakespeare, February was in a good mood and willing to be social for once.
"Una Farris," she confirmed. "I missed the Downs. I grew up among them. Well, East of here, but close enough. I lived in London for a while, and a few other places, but when my youngest daughter married in the spring, I decided it was time to come home to the place I loved best. My brother Dan got the house we grew up in, and I'll visit, but I decided it was best not to be right on his doorstep."
"I've got a brother, I understand completely," February said with a grin.
They both settled down in the ring and they ate and talked. Una's husband had died in the war and left her with three children to raise alone.
"And me with nothing but a degree in history. But I managed. First I taught history at a big school in London and then I got a job at a museum, cataloging artifacts and doing tours and lectures. That suited me much better," Mrs. Farris said cheerfully. "I even wrote a couple of books about my research. I've left the museum now and the children are all starting families of their own, but my publisher is waiting on my next book"
February didn't have as much to tell, but she mentioned Friday's tunnel and their whole long family, not caring if her mum had already done so. And then, daringly, she mentioned her attempts to perform bits of Midsummer Night's Dream and asked if Mrs. Farris wouldn't help her.
"Of course I will. It was a favorite of mine when I was your age. My father wrote out abridged versions and Dan and I would perform them. No television then," she added absently. "I'm glad to know that children still do things like that."
It wasn't evening, not for hours yet, but who understands the way of fairies. Three times they performed the scene, stumbling and laughing. And then memory came flooding back, unbidden.
"Performing that play on Midsummer's Eve," Puck started, sound less happy and more harassed. But even he was unprepared for both February and Mrs. Farris to blurt out "Puck!"
"Do I know you? It's February, right? It has been a while."
"But longer for me," Mrs. Farris said, "I was Una once. Still am. But I knew you fifty years ago. I'd forgotten though. Oak and ash and thorn. No matter how we tried to escape them, they won in the end." She didn't sound upset, just wistful. "You told me then that we had broken the hills and that hadn't happened in a thousand years."
"It hadn't, then," Puck said ruefully, "since you, there have been others, girls and boys with a copy of the play and stars in their eyes, thinking a ring like this makes the perfect stage. It's tiring, is what it is. What used to be near impossible has become almost commonplace." He paused. "I don't always offer seising, not to the ones who are rude or refuse to break bread, but there are enough that I worry less about the fate of this land in this future of cold iron and electricity." He pronounced the last word as if it were unfamiliar.
"Friday found the tunnel," February said, changing the subject. "And you couldn't drag him away from it these days."
"I studied history," Mrs. Farris said, "made a career out of it. And so did Dan. He became an archaeologist. He's in South America right now, but he's done plenty of work in England. And I wrote a book about the Wall and the Roman occupation. It would have been better if I had remembered, but I suppose I couldn't have backed up my sources."
"That's well done, then, I am pleased to know you took my little ploys to heart. It's not done, you know, coming back like this. I never know how the children end up. And they forget. Beyond Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. They forget to believe that there is magic in the world."
Mrs. Farris sighed. "I know I did, during the war. Between the bombs and the rationing and losing my Robin, it was very hard to believe there was any good in the world some days. It's easier now, on a day like today in a place like this. But even now, there are days when the world creeps in." She looked at February. "You'll understand when you're older."
February made a face. Grown-ups were always telling her that. It was a pity one couldn't just stay ten forever. "You should get a job as a teacher, Puck. Your lessons are so much more interesting than the ones we get at school. Though forgetting them immediately after wouldn't be much of a help." She tried to think of something else to say. "Thank you, though. We had some grand adventures together when I was younger." That was the sort of thing one said in this situation, she thought, even though two years wasn't very much younger. She offered him a jammy dodger, store bought, but she salted it well and he ate it.
Mrs. Farris hadn't packed a sweet. "Next time." She promised them both.
They knew there wouldn't be a next time. Puck slipped the leaves of oak and ash and thorn into their laps and the memory slipped away. He regretted it, in a way, life as the last of the Old Things in England was lonely sometimes, but one never knew what a human might do even with the best of intentions.
The magic was powerful enough that the memory of that afternoon slipped out of their minds before they woke the next morning. They greeted each other, as neighbours do, but a ten-year-old girl and a woman in her fifties don't have much in common.
They never did see Puck again, but later, much later, when February was all grown up, she'd walk into a café in Querbury, see Una Farris making the sign of ismo and know that Mrs. Farris was the contact she'd come to meet.