Does she have a bed and a roof over her head?” Lucy asked Emma. “Oh wait, I’m being silly. That tree trunk is probably more comfortable than any kind of pillow and It probably never rains in this…you said it was called the Forest Sadducee?”

“Forest Sagesse, Lucy. It is the forest of Merlin. Scholars come from all around Fairy and even from realms beyond Fairy to sit and listen to his gentle guidance carried in the wind-rustled tree branches.”

“Ah. That explains why Sally isn’t holding a book. She loved reading. You let her alone and she’d pick up anything and read it. But if the great Merlin is whispering in her ear, I can understand her not having a book and sitting against that tree with her eyes closed. It’s fitting, actually. Sally used to do a lot of reading and her poor eyesight suffered for it. We had to buy the poor girl glasses. So now in her time of rest, instead of reading she’s read to. That’s nice. That’s fitting.”

Suddenly, a four legged creature with red fur, built a little like a small horse or a large dog, trotted out from beneath the cover of a large, winding root.

“Oh! What’s that?” Lucy asked.

Emma had not the slightest idea. “It’s a…merga.” she lied. “It’s a…fairy creature, as you can see, native to forests and possessing a red coat.”

Emma learned long ago that in doubt, state the obvious as if it wasn’t. It never failed to make one seem more knowledgeable than they really were.

“What a pretty name!”Lucy exclaimed. “And it has a pretty pelt as well! I wouldn’t mind wearing a coat like that!”

Suddenly,Sally’s eyes opened.

“Oh look! She has the same brown eyes! Even from where we’re standing I can tell those are the same brown eyes!”

Sally stood up and stretched herself. She looked at the red creature with an interested expression. Then, she crouched down and pulled something hidden by a tangle of roots next to her.

Lucy squinted. “Now, what is that? Is that a harp?”

Emma wasn’t sure what it was either. “It’s…her’s, obviously, since she was keeping it out of sight beneath those roots.”

The object was U shaped and seemed to be made out of wood. Between the two ends a thin string was drawn.

“That can’t be a harp.” Lucy said. “It’s only got one string and harps have several. What instrument has one string? Oh, wait, I know! Lyres have only one string, right Emma?”

“They…can have one string,” Emma said. She was certain that any instrument could, theoretically, have only one string.

“Our Sally used to play the piano.” Lucy said. “But I suppose a piano would be no good out in a forest, even in a forest of wizards and scholars. Oh! Do you think Sally is going to play a song for the merga? Could that merga be her pet? Do people keep mergas as pets? Or are all animals within the Forest Sagesse pets held in common?”

Sally reached behind her back.

Emma’s blood ran cold as she watched Sally produce a long object from a container on her back and place it against the strings.

“Oh! Is that a bow?” Lucy asked. “I didn’t know lyres were played with bows!”

In a single motion, Sally notched her bow and let it fly right into the heart of the strange beast.

Lucy’s face went white with shock. Then she looked like she was about to cry.

Emma suddenly realized her mistake and wanted to slap herself.

A forest of wisemen was still a forest. Why wouldn’t a forest have hunters?

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Emma believed that the beast wasn’t dead, not truly dead anyway, for John-a-Doors told her that nothing of Fairy could know of death, and for a moment planned to explain this fact to Lucy but quickly decided against it. So her scholarly, book loving daughter that loved animals had become a Diana of the forest? What then did it matter if her quarry only partly, only “became still” as John-a-Doors described it? The offense was in her being too far from her mother’s preconceptions.

Emma quickly clapped her hands and dismissed the image.

“I apologize, Lucy.” Emma scooped up her hands. “I sincerely, truly apologize. You were right to begin with. That is not your Sally. I have made an error, you see. That is someone else.”

“Oh. Oh of course you made a mistake, dear.” Lucy gave a sigh of relief. “I mean, ghosts are known to change, but…that couldn’t possibly be my Sally, not even if she spent a thousand years in Fairy! Why, Sally used to feel bad for the tigers at the zoo.” Lucy turned to her husband. “Didn’t she feel bad, Roger? Don’t you remember how she felt bad even for those vicious striped killers?”

Roger nodded.

Lucy turned to Emma. “These powers are new to you, aren’t they? I mean, you’ve always had powers, but now their potency has been increased, and it’ll take you some time to adjust to them. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, that is right, Lucy. I…” Emma brought a hand to her head in an exaggerated fashion. “I feel faint…I am sorry, Lucy, but my new powers have proven to be more taxing than I anticipated. Alas! I wanted to show you Sally and have instead shown you this huntress. She’s probably not even a ghost but a fairy. I have failed in my mission as a medium!”

“Oh no no! Don’t say that dear!” Lucy squeezed Emma’s hands consolingly. “Rest now. Take as much time as you need to recuperate from the strain of your ordeal.” Lucy flashed her husband a look, daring him to say something, but Roger remained as quiet as he had been since gazing upon Broceliande. “I know that some people are ignorant of the demands of mediumship, but I’ve read all about how physically and mentally taxing spiritual work can be. Why, Illustrated Phantom Stories once reported that Dr. Martin Glass was pierced by a ghost all around his body after working a manesological Operation. You couldn’t see the ectoplasmic shards sticking in his body, but they were there, and I bet they hurt.”

“Oh!” Lucy exclaimed. “You’re not like that, are you, Emma? Did pieces of ectoplasm stab you? Are you all in one piece physically and metaphysically?”

Emma smiled. She knew that she could definitely salvage this failure. With someone as trusting as Lucy, a great deal of the con was done for her.

“No, I am fine, Lucy. My corpus and spirit are both intact--but they are exhausted by my failure.”

“I imagine you’re very, very tired, dear--but don’t call what happened here a failure, please don’t! If anything, it’s a success! You can now do more than we ever thought possible! I’m sure that in time, you’ll be able to find my Sally out there in those wizard woods, if she’s even in them. I think you should try looking for her in a library, or an art gallery, some place civilized like that. She was always such a gentle thing. She liked reading about animals and the outdoors but oh, her weak constitution. She wouldn’t last a second in this savage place, even as a ghost, would she, Roger?”

Roger nodded. His eyes had yet to leave the valley below.

“Forgive me for speaking about things I’ve only read about, Emma, but I think you’ve made a tiny mistake with this whole “Forest Sagesse” thing. Maybe Merlin’s forest borders that forest of hunters you showed us?”

“That is quite possible.” Emma said.

“You’re just off the map a little dear, I’m sure of it. But please don’t be discouraged by this. I still believe in you And I know this husband of mind doesn’t want to show it, but he believes in you now more than ever, don’t you, Roger?”

Roger answered only with a quick nod of his head.

“Go and rest, dear.” Lucy said. “Take all the time you need. I’m sure that when you’re ready you’ll be able to bring us our Sally with just a snap of your fingers and we’ll find her hard at work reading through another book. Oh, I wonder what kinds of books they read in faeries? They must read a lot of fairy tales, right Emma? Since that would be to them what history is to us?”

“They have many wonderful books in Fairy and I’m sure that Sally is reading through the most wonderful books of all. I sense that to be true. Even as exhausted as I am, I am picking up signals from the beyond that tell me that this is true.” Plans were already forming in Emma’s mind. She would locate some book loving ghost somewhere in some presentable corner of airy and watch her very closely for a week or two. If she didn’t suddenly kill something, or half-kill something, or however it was that John-a-Doors described the way Fairy beings died-without-dieing, she would present her to the McNeils as Sally and all would be well.

“I must go now and rest.” Emma said. She wanted to start finding “Sally” as soon as she had a nap and a drink of laudanum.

“Don’t let us keep you, dear!” Lucy exclaimed. “We’ll hold our anticipation until you are well and ready!”

Emma departed the hill with a smile on her face that said “thank you” to Lucy and God only knew what to Roger. Emma wondered about Roger as she left. She usually had so much trouble with him. In their past sessions, he had been exhausting. He was the reason she would reschedule sessions with the McNeils more than any other. Sometimes, she just couldn’t stand his eye rolling and thinly veiled expressions of disbelief. But he barely said a word this time. Emma supposed that sufficient displays of power awed even the most caustic of critics to silence.