The Lost Twin

Twenty years ago this very day, the twins were travelling to market – Willan on foot, Alys perched atop the colt so recently bought from a travelling pedlar. The pony was a pretty thing, glowing chestnut in the early morning light, and Alys was quite besotted with him, constantly reminding her brother that their father had bought the darling mount for her while her brother must walk.

Willan was complaining under his breath, wishing he had a mount to save him plodding along the country lanes in his second-hand boots, barely paying attention to the road at all, when suddenly Alys let out a high-pitched squeal. The colt had turned his head as if summoned and suddenly took off across the fields, the hapless girl clinging to his mane for dear life as he charged through the long grass, leapt ditches and hedges, with Willan in vain pursuit.

Ahead rose a small hill, a tump in the shape of an upturned pudding basin crowned with a single hawthorn tree. As Alys and the colt neared, she saw the mouth of a tunnel and Willan watched in confusion as his sister disappeared into its darkness, for by the time his legs had carried him to the same spot, no opening in the hill was to be seen…

The years passed, Willan grew, his father died and then his mother so that Willan was left alone in the world, his family all dead and buried – except Alys. What had happened to Alys on that distant morning?

The boy had, of course, heard of fairy hills and of young girls being taken to live with the fae, but they were just old wives tales...weren’t they?

With nothing to lose and no-one to judge him, Willan began to seek out the wise women, the gypsies, the story-tellers and thus he hatched a plan… His sister’s childhood doll he transformed by moonlit ritual into a servitor, a go-between who could travel through the other realms in search of the lost girl. Each evening as the sun set, Willan would wake the doll with bread and honey , speak the words of affection he wished to carry to Alys, and send the poppet on its way. For more than a twelve-month this continued, until Willan grew quite used to the strangeness of the ritual and each day looked forward to the time he would spend in the company of the little doll.

Of course there came the morning the poppet returned with news – Alys was indeed within the hill, was dwelling in the silver halls of Faelan where she spent each night feasting and dancing with the faerie king himself. That day and the following thirteen, Willan barely slept, barely ate, paid no mind to his chores as he laid plans for a daring rescue, laid plans to return his beloved sister to the land of the living.

Thus it was, on the occasion of the next full moon, he lay down beneath the lone hawthorn with the doll in his left hand, a tincture of belladonna upon his tongue and a prayer for protection upon his lips. In time, he felt the hill open beneath him, the tunnel appear once again, and Willan entered hand-in-hand with the poppet – whose size now matched that of the man. Or was it vice versa?

Down the tunnel, through crystal chambers, past congregations of strange creatures and into the storied ballroom of the faerie king crept the two allies, skirting the dancefloor in the shadows, both seeking a glimpse of the lost girl.

Willan took a sharp breath – there she was, looking not a day older than she had upon the day she disappeared, clad in a shimmering gossamer gown and held in the arms of the king himself.

Now the plan was for Willan to cast a glamour over the poppet so that all who saw it would be unable to distinguish doll from girl, then to effect a substitution leaving the poppet as a changeling in exchange for Alys. The spell was cast, the magic made, and Willan found himself holding the hand of his sister after all these years, yet this was not his prideful sister, it was the obedient servitor which he had created and shaped himself.

Willan hesitated, looked long at Alys, the real Alys, laughing as she span around the ballroom as partner to the faerie king. Who was he to tear her away when she was so content here? Who was he to take her back to a life where she would wear rough wool and linen rather than gossamer silk? Who was he to return her to the role of milkmaid when she was now consort to the king?

Willan turned then, moved back through the shadows of the ballroom, back past the gathered pixies, back through the crystal caverns to the tunnel and out into the moonlit night. Still the poppet held the shape of his sister, and thus Willan kept it. When neighbours asked, he span a tale of having discovered Alys’s daughter travelling with the gypsies who must have taken her all those years ago. While beneath the hill the real Alys danced still..