Iylaine scrambled to her feet, but the elf did not move.
It was not Vash. Somehow she had known at once that it was not Vash, even before she looked.
He was not young. He seemed quite as old as her father, in fact, and yet he hesitated before her as if he were as frightened of her as she of him. She dared take her eyes off of him long enough to wipe them on her sleeve, and then they stared at one another.
“How you find her?” he asked warily. “How you find here,” he corrected.
She glanced back at the ladder, and his eyes followed hers.
“You find this place how?”
“I don’t know,” she said evenly.
She told herself that she would have to lie. She had promised Vash so many things. She had already broken one of her promises by coming here, but she would not admit she knew him if she could help it. Fortunately the elf seemed apprehensive enough that she took courage.
“You come here, first time, this night?” he halted.
“I never came here before. I was only out walking in the forest, and – ”
She suddenly remembered Malcolm’s first rule of mendacity: don’t say a single word more than necessary.
She wondered what sort of elf he was – low or high, kisór or khírrón, as Vash had said. If he was low, he should not have dared to stand before her, or look her in the face – unless he didn’t know who she was. But he ought to know that this was Vash’s cave.
She drew herself up to her full height. At least she knew who she was.
“Have you ever come here before?” she asked imperiously.
“I come here, often time. I never see you.” A smile tweaked on one corner of his mouth.
“Is this your cave?”
“No.”
“Whose cave is it?”
He looked away in consternation. His little brown mustache made his mouth seem particularly expressive.
“Are you allowed to be here?” she asked, hoping to judge by his reaction whether he was a low elf unworthy of entering the cave of one such as her cousin.
“Here is quiet here,” he said.
She stared at him in confusion, and then she laughed. He smiled hesitantly.
“Not loud,” she said. “Allowed. Is it permitted? For you to come here.”
“I come here, often time.”
“Whose cave is it?”
He shook his head. “Anoder elf. You see anoder elf?”
“I’ve never seen another elf,” she said. This was not quite a lie. She had seen Vash, but she had never seen another elf besides him.
“Never?” he smiled. “You are baby elf, you see many elves.”
“Oh, when I was a baby,” she admitted. “But I don’t remember. Do you know who I am?”
“I know. Do you know who you are?”
“Nooo…”
He smiled and folded his arms across his chest. “Do you know who I am?”
“Are you my father?” she asked, thinking that if he were not, the audacity of the question might be enough to startle him into telling her more.
She was not mistaken. “No!” he laughed. “Your uncle am I.”
“My uncle!” she cried. “Are you – ”
She herself had very nearly been startled into asking him whether he were Vash’s father. It would certainly explain why she had found him in Vash’s cave.
“Do you have any children?” she asked, feeling particularly crafty.
His mustache twitched.
“They would be my cousins,” she explained.
“One boy, one girl.”
“What are their names?”
He smiled at her and shook his head.
“Older or younger than I?”
“Younger.”
“Very young?”
“No. Like you.”
So, he was not Vash’s father. “Are you my mother’s brother or my father’s brother?”
“Your moder, but I talk no more. Pok!” He squinted his eyes and clapped his hands in front of his face. He was so funny-looking she laughed aloud, and he laughed with her.
“What’s your name?” she begged him. “At least tell me your name! Uncle!” she added sweetly.
“Hahmmm…”
“Please?”
He looked at her sadly, as if he would have liked to have told her.
“You had better tell me,” she giggled, “or I shall call you something funny, and you won’t like it.”
“What funny? I like funny.”
“Tell me your name, or I shall call you Uncle Mustache!”
“Uncle Mustache?” he laughed. “Mustache is this?” he asked, and pointed to his upper lip.
“Uncle Mustache!” she cried. “I never had an uncle before. I wish – ”
Then she saw Vash behind him, creeping slowly out of the shadows. Her heart leapt up, and she felt as if she would split her cheeks with the breadth of her sudden smile.
But Vash only looked alarmed. He shook his head earnestly, and held a warning finger to his lips.
Oblivious, her uncle said, “Uncle Mustache is my name,” and bowed gracefully. “Little Iylaina is my… how you call…?”
“Niece,” she said quickly. Vash was creeping closer. She was nearly trembling. “And my name is Iylaine, not Iylaina.”
“Iylaine is boy name!” he laughed. “You are – Ah!” He spun around, panicking as he realized who was behind him. “Vash!”
He began to bend forward as if to bow, but Vash planted a hand on his shoulder and stopped him midway. Her uncle began an agitated explanation, it seemed, in a language she could not understand, and Vash replied with a low, grave voice. He had never spoken to her with such a voice, and it made him seem almost a stranger.
They both glanced at her from time to time as they spoke. She began to fear that Vash was angry at her for coming. It was true she had promised she would not.
Her uncle turned back to her then, but he hung his head.
“I apologize if I have startled you,” Vash said to her. His voice was cold. “Neither of us can guess how you found this place. We can only suppose it is some magic of the Midsummer Eve.”
She hung her head as well. He was angry at her.
“It is not safe for you to come here, and you mustn’t come again. Moreover, the men are out looking for you. It would appear that you have run away from them. I hope you are not in any trouble.”
She could not risk an answer other than a slow shake of her head. If she tried to speak, she would sob.
“You must go directly home to them. I beg you, tell no one you have seen elves. Your uncle – Uncle Mustache,” he said, and when she peeked at him she thought she saw a smile hovering at the edge of his own mouth, “was foolish to tell you as much as he did. He is always so!” he sighed. “But the damage has been done, and so for the sake of politeness I shall tell you that I am your cousin, and I am pleased to meet you, though I wish it had not been under these circumstances. You may call me Cousin… Toad.”
She looked up at him with a growing smile.
“Cousin what?” her uncle asked him.
“Toad,” he repeated. “Pad.”
Her uncle laughed.
“Pad?” she gasped. “Is that how you say toad?”
“Yes,” he snapped, “and now would you like me to tell you how to say ‘rude little girl who goes where she isn’t invited’?”
“No,” she said, blushing in mortification.
“Cousin Toad, you are not kind,” her uncle scolded.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Hmm! I know it was a mistake, but I hope you don’t make it twice. How did you get in here? By the ladder?”
“Aye.”
“Then out by the ladder you shall go. And I shall follow you to make certain you get well away. I don’t want you coming back to play with Uncle Mustache. Say goodbye, Uncle Mustache!” he commanded.
“Goodbye, Niece Iylaina,” her uncle said, waving sadly at her.
“Goodbye, Uncle Mustache,” she said.
He looked so sweet and kind that she longed to hug him, but she didn’t dare. Vash looked so annoyed that she could not be certain he was not truly so.
“Up the ladder,” he said to her, “and not a word out of you.”
He did not allow her to speak before they had stepped outside, and then, once they had, he immediately crushed her against his chest.
“Naughty, foolish, disobedient girl!” he whispered.
“But I missed you!”
“If I did something foolish every time I missed you – !”
“But it’s not the same,” she whispered. “You have your family and your elf friends and cousins and everyone, and I have no one, not even my Da, because he has that dog-elf now, and her dog-baby.”
He only twisted his fingers in her hair.
“Nobody wants me,” she said, beginning to cry. “I don’t belong to anybody, not truly. And everybody has somebody else besides me, even you do, but I don’t – I don’t have anybody!”
“You have me,” he whispered.
“But I never see you!”
“I see you very often. You mustn’t think that no one wants you, Iylaine, and that you don’t belong to anyone. You belong to us, the elves, your family. And we want you, and we love you – your mother, your father, I, Uncle Mustache, everyone. Now dry your eyes.”
He stroked a hand over her face and her tears vanished against it.
“We all look for you,” he said. “Often, one of us – your Uncle Mustache or one of your other cousins or uncles or aunts – will come and say, ‘I saw Iylaine today!’ And we all say, ‘Oh! What was she doing?’ And everyone will come to listen. So you mustn’t think that no one wants you. Someday you will laugh at the men who didn’t love you well enough. You belong to us.”
She sniffed. She didn’t like to hear it put quite that way.
“I only want to see you more,” she whispered.
“Someday you shall. And I keep my promises, naughty girl!”
It was nice of Vash to comfort Iylaine and tell her about her relatives and them watching her.
)
Chapters
Cool, "pad" is the word for toad in dutch as well.