Free Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon by Lisa Goldstein

did she come to have business with the Queen of Faerie? Aye, she would certainly go and have a talk with her friend, whether she had the time or not. There were questions she had to ask her.
    At the printing house near Paul’s Wharf she sought out the proprietor, a plump graying man whose leather apron had turned black across the stomach from bending over the presses, and gave him her order. One of her pamphlets and several of the ballads needed to go back to press, and already some acting companies had given her orders for playbills. He looked over the list and nodded, his free hand moving in the air as he calculated costs. The stationers whose books he printed complained loudly and often about his rudeness, but she liked him just for that reason, because he treated her the same way he treated everyone else. If he was curt to the other stationers he was also curt to her.
    As he looked over the list she watched his employees at work. In one corner the compositor set up type, and when he had finished the corrector of the press looked over what he had done, reading it backwards like a Mohammedan or Jew. Then another man inked the type, worked the screw on the press and took out the finished pages.
    Finally he looked up from the list and named a figure. She countered with a lower one, and he handed the list back to her and made as if to go. She called him back, the ritual familiar to her from her other visits and from the times before that, when she had accompanied John to the shop. Finally they agreed on an amount and she left.
    It had rained that morning and the water in the ditches and gutters reflected the damp gray clouds. As she watched the sun came out, striking the water and turning it pale gold. The sudden blaze of color gladdened her, reminded her that spring would be here soon. The trees around her were starting to put out fine green leaves. Winter had lasted too long; they had been packed within the walls of the city like goods in a peddlar’s bag. The brownie had done well to bring her outside.
    Something moved on the surface of the water, something small and clad in gold. Was she always to be haunted like this, by things barely seen? Jewels hung on tavern signs and in horses’ manes, and motes of silver winged past her. The gold reminded her of faerie coins, and she put her hand in the purse at her side. She felt the small coins she carried with her, groats and pennies, and a hard round lump. A piece of coal. So that was why they had laughed!
    Margery lived out beyond the city walls, and as Alice passed through Ludgate she looked around her, hoping to find some trace of the faeries’ revels. These fields, that stand of trees, the small stream running over stones in the distance—it all looked familiar, or nearly so. But where was the cottage? And where the hill where Robin Goodfellow had stood? And yet, look—faerie rings covered the grass as far as she could see.
    At last she came to Margery’s small thatched cottage and knocked on the door, but to her intense disappointment no one answered. Just as she was about to go she saw Margery coming up the path, asphodels in her upturned apron.
    â€œGood day,” Margery said, opening the door.
    Whenever she saw the inside of Margery’s house Alice always thought that it looked bigger than she would have expected from the outside. Books and scrolls lay open everywhere, the books bound in cracked leather, in vellum or not bound at all. Vegetables and herbs and stones set in silver hung from beams in the low ceiling, and cobwebs fell from the walls. The floor was littered with the parchment Margery used for her calculations, and a scrying stone covered with dust lay half-hidden in a corner. Alice smelled flowers and cat dung and tobacco. The first time Margery had invited her in Alice had thought, Marry, all she lacks is a stuffed alligator to set herself up as an apothecary.
    As they came in a plump ginger cat jumped down from one of the