The Elfin Ship Read Free

not really concerned yet but being polite out of regard for the mayor, who seemed about to pop from the importance of his mission.
    Old Bastable looked at Jonathan bug-eyed. ‘Why which traders do ye suppose, Master Cheeser? Do we have such a crowd of ’em that we can pick and choose which ones we’d wade knee-deep through a hurricane to chat about?’
    Jonathan had to admit that the mayor was right although he could see no reason to bluster about it. ‘That would be the traders of Willowood then,’ he said, putting on a serious look ‘Have they been caught dipping into the cargo again? Trading to the linkmen for brandy and hen’s teeth?’
    ‘Worse than that,’ replied old Bastable, leaning forward in his chair and squinting like a schoolteacher. ‘They’ve absconded – disappeared!’
    ‘They’ve what!’ cried Jonathan, interested finally in the mayor’s story. ‘How?’
    ‘Why walked away, I suppose. Or, more likely, sailed away downriver. Willowood is deserted. No one’s there.’
    In truth, Jonathan was only a week or so away from his own annual journey from Hightower to the trading station at Willowood Village where the traders would give him a note for the Christmas cheese, transport it downriver to the edge of the sea, and return with honeycakes. He’d accomplish all of that, that is, if there
were
traders at Willowood. But why, one might ask, would anyone suppose otherwise? And it was just such a question which Jonathan posed to Gilroy Bastable.
    ‘Because word’s come up from Hightower,’ said Bastable. ‘They found the Willowood Station looted and smacked up. Deserted, it is, and the wharf is gone. Or at least half of it is – all off down the river. Whole place gone to smash. Now, Wurzle says it’s pirates and Beezle says it’s flood, and the bunch from Hightower say the traders went downriver to the sea just out of lunacy.’
    ‘Like lemmings,’ offered Jonathan.
    ‘Just so,’ said Bastable. ‘And me, well I don’t pretend to know, but they’ve gone, and that’s sure.’
    ‘I don’t like the sound of this,’ Jonathan said ominously. ‘Something’s afoot. I saw an airship today.’
    ‘In a storm like this? Very odd, an airship in a storm like this.’
    ‘Just what I said myself. And then here you come, out in the rainy night like a duck.’
    Bastable was at a loss for words. He could see that, as he’d hoped, his news had startled Jonathan, but he wasn’t sure of all this duck business. ‘See here,’ he began in a mildly questioning tone. ‘I’m not sure that ducks – ’
    But Jonathan cut him off short, although under normal circumstances he wouldn’t consider doing so. ‘My cheeses!’ he cried, and Ahab, noting the perilous tone in his master’s voice was up and racing toward the kitchen at a gallop, toppling a chair, setting the rest of the ball of cheese into flight, and careening off a stout wooden breadcupboard before becoming sensible again. He wandered back across the wooden floorboards of the kitchen and peered around the sideboard at the two men who sat astounded, gaping at him.
    ‘The news has rather upset your hound, Jonathan,’ said Gilroy Bastable, retrieving the cheese and gouging out a hunk the size of his nose. ‘And well it should. Do you know, Jonathan, what the word about town is?’
    ‘Not a bit,’ said the Cheeser.
    ‘The cry goes round, my man, that you’re a stout enough lad to sail downriver yourself, all the way to Seaside with your cheeses and back again with cakes and elfin gifts.’
    ‘Stout lad, is it!’ shouted Jonathan, astounded at the suggestion and calculating the time it would take to make such a journey – weeks, surely. ‘It’s a fool’s idea; that’s what it is.’
    ‘But the people will have no cakes!’ protested Gilroy Bastable.
    ‘Then let them eat bread,’ Jonathan almost replied before wisely reconsidering. It
would
be a sad holiday without honeycakes, not to mention elfin gifts for the children. But