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The night of the seventh of Christmastide was cold and still in Wistman's Wood. Kathleen turned up the collar of her new parka and wished she'd brought some kind of hat. She didn't want to put up the hood because it blocked out too much of her vision at the corners, and she was already starting at shadows. "Be brave," she told herself. "You talked to him face to face when you were less than half your age now."
But that Kathleen hadn't known the danger she was facing. Now, she was working on an advanced degree in history and folklore. And the legends of the Master of the Wild Hunt were disturbing reading for someone who had reason to believe that myths were real.
Wistman's Wood in Devon was one of the places the hunt was said to ride. It was nearby, and Kathleen's plans had been last-minute. Mrs. Smith's social circle had widened since Kathleen came, and tonight she was celebrating the coming New Year with two of her card-playing friends and Anecia, the home healthcare nurse who checked in every fortnight. Anecia would make sure that the little party ended before Mrs. Smith became too tired, and she would walk Carya, who was old for a dog but in excellent health.
Kathleen, on the other hand, was supposedly celebrating New Year's Eve with friends in a holiday cottage in Devon. The cottage and the location were real enough. So were the friends — but they weren't here with Kathleen.
Now, over the whistle of the wind, Kathleen heard a faint, chilling whistle at the edge of her hearing. She was alert at once, remembering.
The whistle was coming toward her, although it still seemed distant. Now she could also hear a faint whisper of shrubbery and dead leaves, as though some wind was disturbing them. That sound was approaching her rapidly, without a doubt. Here came the hounds, just as she remembered them, icy white, red-eared even in the faint light of the quarter Moon. Kathleen had been preparing for this: a running club and martial arts classes were as close as she could easily come to training for grabbing a magical hound on the run. She leapt into a run, angling toward the torrent of hounds. Branches lashed her face, and brambles tried to hold her, but she ignored them, evaded them, and leapt to grab an icy white scruff.
The hound snarled, but its Master's whistle drew it onward. They was making for Beardown Tors, she realized, having studied the maps of the area. Her hound bore her across the rising ground and up to the striking formation of piled rocks, laced with crevices. For a moment, she saw the Master of the Hunt silhouetted against the stone, then he vanished into a crevasse that looked too narrow to receive the Kathleen-that-was, let alone a grown man on horseback — not to mention the spreading rack of antlers. The pack poured after him, and Kathleen came with them, willy-nilly.
Everything went still and dark. Gradually, Kathleen came to herself. She remembered this place, this shadowed hollow filled with panting hounds and softly glowing moss. "Sleep," said the soft, deep voice of the Hunter, gloomy and filled with emotion beyond mortal sadness. Kathleen made herself sit up and clutched the charm around her neck, an equal-armed cross of rowan bound with thread she'd made herself from the combings of Carya's undercoat. "Master of the Hunt," she said.
At once, the sound of the quieting breaths of the hounds dropped away. The green-shadowed light of the moss seemed to increase, and he was looking at her. She saw his round and liquid eyes, with a sheen of red to them, even though the only light to be had was golden-green.
"I know you," he said, his tone flat as a cracked bell. "How is that? Ah. I see. I remember."
Kathleen was trembling; she could feel the force of him even from half a dozen yards away. She set her jaw before she spoke. "How do you know me, Master?"
"It is not my doing," he replied. "You bear the light of your old companion in your heart. It is a green light, a luminary's light, and it does not belong here in my realm."
"I ran with your hunt," she said, her voice firm despite the cold clutch of her innards. "I have a right to a boon."
"You do. But you should recall what happened the last time you did so. I cannot save you from yourself," said the Hunter. "Ask, then."
She did remember. She took a calming breath. "Sometime within the year of Earth that begins this midnight, with no harm to me or mine, I want to be able to communicate with Luminaries and other such beings who know Sirius and wish him well."
The shadowed eyes blinked slowly. "Well considered. You have not wasted the years since last we spoke. Granted. But I hope you have fortified yourself well, young mortal. This will be a long hunt."
Her strength seemed to come flowing back. "All my thanks to you, Master of the Hunt."
He regarded her, a red gaze that was nevertheless cool, filled with the cold of stone and the peace of the deep woodlands. "This is the second time you have run with my hunt. I take it you know the rule of three. One time more, and that will be the end. Fare you well, and good hunting."
Kathleen found herself alone on the windy heights of the tors.