The Hidden World

Chapter 5

She walked back out through the front door and stood gazing across the small meadow behind the house. It was covered in wildflowers: bright buttercups and daisies and the tall spikes of lupins, pink and blue-purple and white. Suddenly, she noticed the little girl, Cordelia, standing nearby, watching her just as intently as Maeve was watching the scenery. Cordelia's blue eyes were very wide—not in fear, Maeve sensed, but in a young child's unabashed, open stare of curiosity. She was clutching her rag doll.

"Who is that, Cordelia?" asked Maeve, trying to smile reassuringly as she gestured to the doll.

"Gwendolen,'' said Cordelia succinctly.

"Is Gwendolen your friend?"

Cordelia's eyes widened further. "Gwendolen is my doll," she said.

Maeve blushed, then turned at a laugh from behind her. Padraig came striding up, grinning broadly. "There, now! Good morning to you both! Are you being a good hostess, Cordelia?" He picked the little girl up, swinging her through the air. She giggled and hit him with the doll.

Maeve smiled at the sight, and sighed. Their mutual affection was as natural as the sunlight on the meadow. Dad played with me like that once, she thought.

Padraig set Cordelia down and beamed at Maeve. "Now, how are you this day? Better for a night's sleep?"

Maeve nodded. "You didn't get hold of my aunt and uncle?"

"I fear not, but we will ride out again later. Have no doubt, we'll find your family."

The kind assurances were beginning to sound repetitive.

"But Papa, she's not from here," objected Cordelia. "She's from the other place."

"What other place do you mean?" Maeve asked urgently, before the child's father could interrupt.

"You know," said Cordelia unhelpfully. "You're from there." Maeve looked in bewilderment at Padraig.

The big man looked apologetic. "I have told her all the old stories, and now she thinks the Shadow-world lies behind every rock and tree. You mustn't mind her. Cordelia is a romantic, like her old papa." He smiled ruefully.

"Shadow-world?" Maeve repeated. "You mean, the land of the fairies? The Otherworld?"

Both Padraig and Cordelia were wide-eyed now. "The Otherworld?" he repeated at last. "The Otherworld ... But that is not the name of the Shadow, it is what the Shadow- people call our world—

"You see, Papa? You see?" the little girl shrilled. "I was right, you see now I was right!"

"Well, I'll be blessed!" the man murmured, almost prayerfully. "Come, sit down a moment and talk to me."

"What about?" asked Maeve, puzzled by his reaction.

"Oh, everything about yourself. Where you came from. Who you are."

He seemed curiously excited, seemed also to be holding that excitement back with an effort. Cordelia was almost dancing on her toes, her small, pointed face flushed and eager.

Padraig led Maeve to a rough wooden bench behind the house and sat down beside her. She proceeded to tell him, in detail, about her relatives, her family, her vacation, her home. As she spoke, a curious sequence of emotions crossed Padraig's face. There was confusion, and blank incomprehension, and curiosity. Once or twice he seemed about to interrupt, and then to think better of it; his already ruddy face became flushed, and his blue eyes grew very bright, as if with excitement. Cordelia, on the other hand, grew uncharacteristically still. Her eyes never left Maeve's face, and seemed to grow ever larger as she listened.