Free Guardian of the Green Hill by Laura L. Sullivan Page B

ten-pound weight. He’d rather ditch it than carry it miles to town to spend. Finn slipped it back in his pocket and felt the same way himself. He’d carry it in his hand until he got back to the Rookery, then leave it in his bureau until he could find a way to spend it.
    He took it out, expecting it to be feather-light again, but though it perched ephemerally on his hand, he could hardly lift it. Even out of his pocket, it now weighed ten pounds.
    He tossed it away, and it drifted and twirled to the ground like a winged maple seed.
    â€œDo you mean,” he asked aloud, indignantly, “that if I want to spend this thing, I have to carry ten pounds around?” No one answered, but he fancied he heard a giggle in the breeze. “I mean, not that it’s heavy or anything.” He didn’t want the kid to think he was a weakling, but ten pounds would be an annoying burden for a grown man; it was all the more difficult for Finn. He picked up the bill. He put it down again. He looked at the bill. The bill looked at him.
    â€œFine!” he said, almost angry at his gift. He shoved it into the hemp bag, and when his fingers hit the knobbly thing again, he remembered that he had two presents.
    Something grabbed his hand, and he squealed and pulled it out. Clutched in his hand—clutching his hand … in fact, shaking his hand in a cordial way—were five skeletal digits. If they’d been clean and white (or not following an enchanted ten-pound note), he might have thought they were no more than a prank, a prop left over from Halloween. But it was evident that these bones once had flesh and skin and muscle on them and that the softer tissues had mostly (but not completely) rotted away. There was even a slight stickiness to them and a stale odor somewhere between a dog bone and an unused attic.
    He tried to drop the thing, but it held on, pumping his hand in so friendly a manner he could almost see the rest of the body attached to it—a man of medium build in neat but mended clothes, dark hair, a hat, a wry smile, a cunning look.… Finn shut his eye and shook his head, dispelling the vision, and was left only with the hand, which now skittered back into the bag and held fast. No matter how hard Finn tried to pull it out, it gripped tight, clutching the bottom of the bag in its decomposing fingers. He shut the bag and looked around him one last time. What could he do? He was afraid, but how could he not keep his presents? How could he be invited into a world of mystery and oddity and decline the invitation?
    â€œI won’t take it,” he said.
    He stared at the bag for a long moment.
    â€œYes, I will.”
    *   *   *
    â€œThere you are, child,” Phyllida said when Meg found her, still in her little sitting room. There were crumpled tissues on the vanity table, which Phyllida hastily brushed into a polished wooden wastebasket before Meg noticed them. “How did the painting go?”
    â€œOh, fine, I guess. I’m not very good. The others liked it, though, especially Rowan and Dickie. But not Finn. He left—I don’t know why.”
    â€œOh, good, good,” Phyllida said absently. “Meg, sit down if you please. Just move those things onto the floor. I need to talk with you about something, something very serious.”
    Meg perched on the seat, two lines deepening between her eyebrows. “Is it Moll? Have you found her?”
    â€œNo, not that. Not yet.”
    â€œI’m going out this afternoon to look for her. I was going to before Gwidion came.”
    â€œYes, do. There’s no harm in that. But what I must talk with you about, Meg … Meg…” She sighed deeply. “I am going to die.”
    Meg’s eyes blurred and welled, and fat tears like late-summer-afternoon raindrops rolled down her cheeks. She threw her arms around Phyllida so hard she hurt the old woman.
    â€œNo, no, no! Not now, child!