I winked at the old man. "Really? Bad, is it?"
"Aye. 'Tis evil." He winked back at me, and spat again.
"That's a common fallacy, you know," I said, tucking away the notebook. Beside me, Sarah groaned. "Although faery rings have been considered places of enchantment for many centuries, they aren't really made by faeries. They are the result of a fungal growth pattern. Mushrooms, you know?"
The man blinked at me. Sarah tugged on my shirt and tried to pull me to the car she'd rented for the duration of our trip.
"I know this area is rich in folklore, and faery rings certainly have their share of believers, but I'm afraid the truth is much more mundane. It turns out that there are three distinct types of rings, and that the effects on the grass depend on the type of fungus growing there, although not all rings are visible..."
"Ignore her, she's a heathen," Sarah said, yanking me toward the car. "Thank you for your help! Have a good day!"
The old man waved a gnarled hand, spat again, and hobbled past us toward the pub.
"You are so incorrigible! Honestly, spouting off all that stuff about fungus to that very colorful old man."
I got into the car, taking a moment to readjust myself to the English-style cars. "Hey, you started this bet, not me. I'm just doing my part to win serious 'I told you so' rights. Ready?"
"Just a sec...oh, whew. Thought I'd forgotten this." Sarah folded a wad of photocopied pages and stuck them in her coat pocket. "I can't wait to see what effect these spells have on the faery ring!"
"I am obliged by reason to point out that some weird quasi-Latin words found in a Victorian book on magic are not very likely to have any result other than making your friend and companion don a long-suffering look of martyrdom."
Sarah lifted her chin and looked placidly out the window as we crept through town. "You can scoff all you want - these spells were written by a very famous medieval mage, and passed down through one family over the centuries. The book I found it in was very rare: only fifty copies printed, and most of them destroyed. And I have it on the best authority that the spells are authentic, so I have every confidence that you'll be eating that long-suffering martyred look before the sun sets."
"Uh-huh."
By dint of Sarah consulting the hiking map she'd picked up in London, we tooled along the lazy river that wound around the town, headed over the stone bridge, and turned the car in the direction of farmland and the famed Harpford Woods.
"Left side," Sarah pointed out as I strayed to the right.
"Yup, yup, got it. Just a momentary aberration. Let's see...down past the big farm, then take the road south to a bunch of trees. Beware of the varments. What do you think a zat combe is?"
"I have no idea, but it sounds fabulously English. Here, do you think?"
We pulled off the road and got out of the car to eye the field stretched out before us. It was the perfect day for a walk in the country, what with pale blue, sunny skies, the bright green of the newly dressed trees, hundreds of daisies scattered across the field bobbing their heads in the breeze, birds chattering like crazy as they swooped and swirled around overhead, no doubt busily gathering nesting materials. Even the sheep that dotted the hillsides were picturesque and charming...at least when viewed from the distance.
We gave them a wide berth as we followed what the hiking map showed as a right-of-way through a huge open pasture and up a hill to where a sparse crowning of trees waved gently in the June breeze.
"This is so awesome. It's absolutely idyllic! And the emanations - my god, they're everywhere. We have to be close, Portia," Sarah said emphatically, looking around us with happiness. "I feel a very strong sense of place here."
"Yeah, me, too," I answered, stopping by a fallen tree to scrape sheep poop off my shoe.
"I knew you'd feel it, too. I can't wait to try the mage's spells - they simply can't fail. Interesting arrangement of the trees, don't you think? They appear to make a circle around something. Shall we investigate?"
"Lead on, MacDuff." I followed obediently as Sarah, glowing with excitement, broached a sparse ring of trees. In the center, a space of about eighteen feet was open to the sky, covered in lush, emerald grass.
"There it is!" Sarah grabbed my arm and pointed. Her voice dropped to an awe-filled whisper. "The famed West County faery ring! It's perfect! Just what I imagined it would be! It's like a holy place, don't you think?"
I left her hugging herself with delight, marching over to squat next to the bare earth that marked the boundaries of the faery ring. The ring was about four feet wide, a perfect circle of bare earth surrounded by lush grass growing on the inside and outside of it. There was nothing to indicate the cause, no mushrooms visible, but I knew they weren't always seen. I touched the sun-warmed dirt, and mused, "I wonder if there's a lab around here where I could send a soil sample so we can find out just which fungus caused this ring?"
"Infidel," she said without heat, slapping her coat pockets, pulling out the spell pages, and turning around in the way women who have forgotten their purses have. "Do you have the camera?"
I cocked an eyebrow at her. "You took it away from me at Denhelm, if you recall."
"Oh, that's right - you insisted on taking pictures of the farmer's son rather than the bog man mummy. I must have left the camera in my bag."
"You have to admit, the son was much better looking than that moth-eaten old bog man."
She straightened up to her full five-foot nothing. "That bog mummy is said to have been used in a druid sacrifice, and thus could well contain the spirit...oh, never mind. I can see by the mulish expression on your face that you are closing yourself up to any and all things unexplainable. Let me have the car keys so I can run back to town and get the camera."