Before going to the pub, I take a quick stroll, to pluck up courage.  Turn along the lane out of the village, my smart shoes softly tap-tapping on the tarmac. A few early stars shine bright in the clear autumn sky and my stomach does somersaults. Internet dating? Me? I must be nuts. I nearly walk back to the farm, then and there.

I stride the grassy track leading uphill, dew speckling the ends of my trousers. My daughter’s words come to mind. Too old to pick and choose, she’d said. Try it. You’re not going to meet anyone new, milking those ruddy cows every day.

I sigh, catching a whiff of my freshly ironed shirt, all mixed in with the smell of bracken in the hedgerows. She’s right. I need a woman. Need a change. Need to get out the damn door, once in a while. Five years since my wife Morwenna died. All I’ve done in the meantime is run the farm. Dawn until sundown, five years straight. Going out for a meal with someone would be good for me.

I stop dead, at the stone. This seemed enormous to me when I was a child. It towers ten foot high – a rounded oblong shape that seems out of kilter with the moorland landscape around it.

Blisland Stone. Tourists call it the Jubilee Rock. We villagers simply know it as the Stone.

I run my work roughened hands over the lichen-bearded granite. The rock is covered with carvings, like tattoos on a fairground freak. Some are relatively recent: coats of arms from rich families at the turn of the century.

The Stone is older than that, though. In fact, it’s the most ancient piece of granite on Bodmin Moor. Some say it predates humankind.

I crouch at the back of the Stone, feeling down for the secret symbols half-hidden by long strands of grass. Here there are jagged lines, off-centre squares, oddly dotted circles. The information board they’ve put up says these could be runes, dating from Viking times.

I know better, or think I do. 

They’re ancient as the land itself, and they hold power.

I trace one with my finger, squinting in the half-light. Everything is greyed out, shaded to black and white, now that the sun’s rays have gone from the sky. I do what I always do, and run my hand backwards along the line, three times for luck. The lichen crackles into fragments under my fingers.

It’s done, and I’m ready for this bloody date now. I stride back downhill and the lights of the village draw me in like a moth to a bonfire.

A clear night.

And yet, as I walk downhill towards the houses, my skin prickles. A thick mist shrouds the pub. I blink. Sometimes we do get a convection fog up here, in the summer months. Everywhere else in Cornwall can be broad sunshine, and we get a strange white obscurity in the air of the high moors. 

But I’ve never seen it on a crisp autumnal evening. I smell a strange floral scent, but there are few blooms in the hedgerow this time of year. I close my eyes for a second, trying to place it. When I open them again, my vision flickers. Just briefly, as if the world itself has adjusted.

It isn’t mist. More like a visual thing. I blink, and feel in the pocket of my wax jacket to check for my glasses. I’m forty-two, and like to think I don’t need them. I’ll be lucky if any woman’ll want me.  

 

I stand at the door of the Blisland Inn and my heart races. John Hick, out on a date with a stranger. I breathe in deep, and push open the oak door.

 

She said in her email that she’d get there at seven o’clock sharp and go to the table by the window. Well, I’m never on time and I know it’s a bad start to any relationship, but I walk straight across the pub floor to the bar. I can’t do this without a pint of ale in my hand. My mouth waters. I don’t look left or right, but I hear a low hubbub of voices and the crackle of flames from the fire. There’s the smell of woodsmoke and the slate flagstones are smooth under my feet.

You’d think I’d want a date farther away from my own village, my own farm. Away from the prying eyes of neighbours. 

But no – I’m honest, always have been. If I’m dating, I’d rather do it in the open space of my local pub. Let people talk, if they must. I’ve been brought up with these men and women, and they’re all familiar faces.  

I don’t recognise the barmaid as being a local, but that doesn’t stop me ordering a pint of bitter and grasping the glass thankfully. My stomach churns with hunger after a day in the fields.

Hang on. That barmaid. She’s gorgeous.

She stares at me with beguiling green eyes which dance with reflections from the fire behind me. She’s unsmiling and yet her face is fine-featured. Her long fair hair is streaked with silver and I fancy for a moment there are strands of gold along her skin, caught in the wrinkles around her eyes. She wears dangly earrings: on one side is a tiny silver sun, on the other is a wide full moon. I smile, starstruck, and pass her a five pound note. As she spins around to work the till, I breathe out and my heart stumbles to a steady pace. I’d been holding my breath, but don’t know why. This barmaid, she’s not my type, and I’m not here for her, anyway.

Turning, I scan the room for someone sitting on their own. 

A dark-haired woman catches my eye, and waves. I nod, and walk over.

“You must be John,” she says, and I go to take a seat opposite her. 

“Eve, isn’t it?” I put down my pint, and it slops onto the varnished wood of the table. My hands are chattering with nerves and I pull them back onto my knees, stretching out my fingers to ease the tension.

“You nervous?” she asks, and her voice is the same relaxed tone as when she called me on the phone, the other night. Perhaps she thought I was going to stand her up, and she wanted to check the number worked. 

“A bit.” I nod, slowly. “It’s not my thing, this internet dating lark.”

“And I’m your first, aren’t I?” She smiles, and it’s genuine. She’s trying to put me at ease. “It’s nice to be someone’s first. Haven’t been one of those in a long time.”

I chuckle. “Done this before then, have you?”

“Not for a while.” A shadow shifts across her face. “I – I lost someone dear to me. In fact, I’ve lost a few.”

“My wife passed away five year to the day. Daughter signed me up to the website, said it’d do me good.” I smile apologetically and reach for my drink, then pause. “Dunno if I’m ready, but here I am.”

She nods, and tips her head sideways, listening. Her hair’s curly and it bounces on her shoulders. “You’re looking good though, John. I mean, smartly dressed and that.”

I shift in my seat. “Clean shirt, is all. Should’ve seen me when I come off the fields earlier. Live in my overalls most days. Covered in, well, you know. I’m a dairy farmer. Got a herd of a hundred, give or take. Keeps me busy enough.”

“If you’ve been out all day, you’ll need feeding.” She hands me a menu and I reach for it. My hand’s shaking, and she laughs. “Look at that! Shivery with hunger, you are.”

“Let’s see what we fancy.” I open the menu in front of me but the words swim in front of my eyes. I daren’t sip my pint; I’m feeling anxious enough as it is.

Instead, I look at her closely. It was the eyes and the hair that I liked, on her photo, and I still do. Reminded me of someone, from years back. Different from my wife’s red curls and freckled skin, and God knows I need different. 

I landed on this Eve, and I’m not so sure she was telling the truth about herself. Is she like her picture, or no?

I took my photo the day I posted it. Standing in the fields, feeling like a loon, with green fields and blue skies. Looking like the farmer I am. There’s wrinkles on my forehead from the hard winters, and my neck’s thick as a bullock. I wouldn’t win any races, but my forearms are muscled from driving tractors across icy rutted fields.

I thought her photo was an old one, taken when she was younger. I frown, trying to make out what’s clanging in my head like a warning bell. Something’s off. I’ve a gut feeling – like at the auction, when I’m being done over for an animal that’s advertised the wrong age.

“Quick question, Eve.” 

She looks up, eyes all innocent. As she holds the menu, I notice her silver Celtic rings, intricate and beautiful. Suddenly, I can visualise her in bed with me quick as a flash. She’d writhe around, her hair loose on my pillow. I’d hold her tight against my chest, and she’d smell great. 

“It’s silly, really. I just wondered…” 

“I’m not after your money, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I laugh. “No, it’s just…you’re…looking really good for your age. You’re the same age as me, you know?”

“And how do you know that so exactly, Mr Hick of a hundred cows?”

My laughter tails off. “Well…your age was on the site, see. And I’m forty-two as well.”

She frowns, as if trying to work something out. “Really?”

“Yup. And… you look bloody amazing for forty-two.”

She frowns again, then chuckles. “Honestly. If I was going to lie about my age, I’d have gone the other way, you daft bugger. Pretended to be twenty-one or something.” She puts the menu down. “What’s good here?” she asks.

“Haven’t been here in years, to be honest. But food’s always good.” I close my menu, running my hands over the black smooth cover. “I’ve chosen.”

“And?”

“Steak and ale pie.” I nod toward the bar, gesturing for the barmaid to come and take our order.

“Oh, don’t rush me.” She sips of wine. “I’m making the most of this. My night out. What about the pheasant in red wine?”

“I’ve a herd of cattle, remember? Always recommend the beef, in any form.”

“That’s it, then.” She flashes me a contrary look, and I warm to her. “I’m going for the pheasant, John. I like the wildness of it.”

“Not wild enough though, are they? Farmed down in the valleys, penned and fed up… then let loose to be shot by the posho’s one weekend a year.”

“Can’t put me off.” She unwraps her knife and fork, and they shine against the varnished wood of the table. 

The barmaid’s come for our order and I glance at her. She watches me with her icy green eyes and I can’t look away. Something’s certainly in the air tonight, something special. My blood’s rising. I’m getting so as I want to hold someone tight, and yet I’ve got to play this dating game all evening.

I lean against the hard oak back of my chair. “Steak and ale pie for me, and the pheasant for this young lady.”

“Less of the young, please. I sound like your daughter or something.”

The barmaid scratches her pen on the pad. “And to drink?”

“We’re fine, I think,” Eve says, “Oh, hang on, though.” She tips up her glass, and the red vanishes to the back of her throat. “One more, please. And a jug of water, if I may.” She smiles, waiting for her to leave.

I’m not sure what to talk about, and I fidget. The fire is suddenly too warm, and the room spins. “I don’t feel great.” I say.

“You do look a touch pale.”

I reach for the window next to me, and try to manoeuvre the catch to let some air in. It’s jammed. Damn thing. I give up, and meet her eye.

She talks, as the barmaid brings her wine. “So, tell me about yourself. Not that garbage on your profile. What life really means to you.”

I lean my elbows on the table. “Well, I was brought up here. In the village. Lived on the farm all my life, inherited it young.”

“Did you never want to leave? To travel?”

I shrug. “Nah. Well, maybe…when I was a teenager.” I stop, not wanting to remember. “Before then, though, when I was a kid – living here was heaven. All that moorland, the rivers to muck about in. I love it. Not just the fields and the farm, but the Moor itself. It’s part of me.” I break off, embarrassed. 

“It is gorgeous up here, you’re right.” 

“And whereabouts are you from?”

She smiles. “Funny you should ask. I lived in this village, for a bit, when I was young.”

“Really?” I shuffle my cutlery to one side. I lean closer, staring. “When? I mean, if you’re the same age as me …” 

“Would have been about seven or so.”

I stare at her. Trying to figure it out. Trying to place her. The school’s tiny, and back then it was even tinier. 

“Evelyn? From Miss Taylor’s class?”
I look at her dark curls, smell woodsmoke from the fire, and grip the edge of the table with hands that are white at the knuckle.

I blink, and in my head we’re out there, up on the moors, after school. I’m a boy in short trousers and my hands are black with peat-mud. Evelyn had persuaded me to dam the stream, and she stood in the middle of the water, her red gingham school dress tucked into her knickers, a devil-may-care attitude on her face. I finished, and smile at her, triumphant. The water pooled at her feet and deepened, puddling and trickling at the edges.

“That’s done it.” I smacked pebbles into the gaps, shoved in handfuls of gritty mud. “Water won’t break through this.” 

She laughed, and the water bulged and trickled over the dam. “It’s going anyway, Johnnie. Let’s smash it.”

We’d kicked down the damn then whooped with laughter as the water rushed away downstream, running clear. A skylark called, singing her high-pitched tune. We’d paid no mind.

“What’re we doing next, Evelyn?” I had to ask, every time. And every time it was the same answer.

“Gonna go find the faeries.” She’d leapt out of the water and ran barefoot up the hillside, skipping ahead, her dark hair dancing in the wind. I grabbed her sandals and scrambled after her.

We made it to the top of Rough Tor and I handed her sandals back. We searched among the stones and bushes. 

“It won’t be much,” she said, “Just a little sign. A clump of grass tied in a knot. Stones in a ring. Something like that.”

“Like this?” I squinted at a tumbled cluster of sheep droppings, tried to pretend I knew what she meant.

“Oh, Johnny. You are funny. That’s poo. Not faery-stuff. You’re not looking hard enough.”

At tea-time, my stomach had grumbled, and I’d persuaded her homeward.

I look at the woman opposite me, trying to fit her face to that girl with flyaway hair and a vivid imagination. I frown. Evelyn had moved out of the village mid-way through primary school and my heart had ached with sadness. The other boys were into football; the girls into Barbie princesses. No-one wanted to search on the high moors for faery rings like my friend Evelyn.

She smiles at me, leans forward across the table and I smell her perfume, sharp and sweet. “Do you remember me, Johnny?”

“You knew! You knew, and made me guess!”

“All part of the game, Johnny. All part of the game.”

She has the same eyes. The same hair, if I look closely. 

“I didn’t recognise you, Evelyn. Or are you Eve, now?”

“Well…”

“So? What happened, where did you end up?”

“Oh, we travelled all over, when I was a kid. Then…I had a partner, and a little boy. Went back to college, when we split up. Studied history at Exeter, then a masters in mythology.”

I shake my head. She’s bound to be out of my league. I was never one for the books, myself. “You always were too clever for me. All I am is a farmer. Always was going to be.”

“Nothing wrong with that. You’re grounded. Safe, I mean. You knew where you were going to stay, and you’re right here.”

Her eyes flick to the door behind me and it closes after someone. She tightens her lips and there’s a flicker of recognition in her eyes. I turn my head. A young man in jeans and tee-shirt has walked into the pub. He’s rubbing his eyes as if he’s been out at a rock concert, and he’s only just woken up. 

Her voice lowers. “Look Johnny, it’s complicated, this. My son…I haven’t seen him for a long time. I miss him, you know?”

She startles at the sound of a footstep next to the table. It’s the barmaid with our meals and the food steams on the plates. I unwrap my knife and fork, slowly.

“Any ketchup, or sauces at all?” The woman hesitates.

I shake my head. I want to talk to Eve, learn more about her. Where she’d lived, what she’d been up to, exactly what she’d been studying. My mouth salivates and I breathe in the steam of my steak and ale pie.

Eve’s eyes flash at me as I stab into the golden crust. “Don’t! For God’s sake, don’t eat it!”

The barmaid waits, smiling. Her elfin face looks down at us and I fancy her cruel, suddenly. She waits, like a hungry raven watching baby birds in a nest.

“Eve. You okay? It’s just steak and ale pie.”

“Don’t touch it. Please. It’s a trick.”

I look up. The fire flickers bright green in the grate. Burns down, then flares high, as if snatched by a gust of wind. The people in the room are statue-still, stuck at their tables with cutlery poised in the air like weapons. I gasp for breath, and smell spring wildflowers. Am I having a stroke? Is this it – the end? Too much excitement for a middle-aged man?

“Eve. Evelyn?”

She stares over my shoulder, then straight at the barmaid, as if she knows her, too. She’s cross, or upset, or both. “You tricked me. You said you wouldn’t. You promised.”

The woman smiles gracefully like an apologetic politician. She speaks, and my ears tingle. Now, her voice is silver bells, whistles and flutes, sharp and fine as linnet-song. I clamp my hands over my ears, but I still hear her, as if she’s speaking in my head.

“I never play fair, mortal ones. You should know that, you of all people. And this is so much more fun. Now, look who’s here to join us for dinner.”

Eve waves, frantically, at the person behind me.

“Mum?” The young man’s voice echoes, concerned. “Mum? You alright?”

She stands, knocking her glass over. Red wine splotches her flowered dress. 

“Get out, James,” she says, then switches to a low persuasive tone, “It’s only a dream, love. Don’t stay here. Just go right out that door and you’ll wake up. It’ll all be fine in the morning.”

“Mum?” He says again, but it’s confused this time, and the door slams shut after he leaves. 

Eve stays upright, face-to-face with the strange woman. “You’ve had your game – I’ve seen my son. Now let this one go. Please, your majesty.”

“Oh, my Evelyn. You know the rules, better than I.” She shakes her head, and there’s that scent of flowers again. Night-scented stock, it is. I recognise it from the kitchen garden, back home.

 The woman laughs, and viridescent fire dances around the logs in the grate, and I think I hear pixie-song.

My date stands up for me. “He hasn’t. I swear he hasn’t touched it.”

I look down at my pie. The fork drops from my fingertips.

“Evelyn?” I say. “Where exactly are we? And what happens if I eat this?”
She leans forward, sweeping my meal onto the flagstones of the floor. The plate smashes into shards of white china on the dark slate and the pie-dish sings out a high note. The other diners stay stock-still. If this is a dream – and perhaps it is – then I’m stuck inside of it. With my old friend Evelyn, who I haven’t seen for thirty-five years.

Evelyn looks down, embarrassed. “Well, Johnnie, it’s like this. I had a research project I was working on. Finding evidence. Of ancient myths. And …faeries. It went wrong. I went too far.”

Fear shoots a bolt into my heart. “Who are you?” I ask the green-eyed woman, and I know the answer already.

She laughs, and her eyes are cruel. “I’m the Queen of Fey. You’re mine, like the other one there. Mine until the end of time. If any sustenance reaches your lips, I’ve won you.”

“But he didn’t….” Evelyn’s eyes stop at my pint, sitting on the table in front of me. It’s only four-fifths full.

“Oh yes. Oh yes he did.” She points, and my stomach twists a fresh somersault. I glance sideways at the table, like a naughty schoolboy.

“Hang on, ma’am.” I push back the chair and its oak legs scrape against the stones. The sound pulls me back, and my head clears as if I’ve taken a breath of fresh moorland air. “Just you hang on.” 

I stand taller than her and I hold myself strong, staring her down.

“I’m a farmer from Blisland and I called for protection from the Stone before I came here. You’ve got nothing on me. Look at the table.” 

Both women stare down at the varnished wood.

There’s a mucky puddle of slopped beer around my glass.

“I spilt it. Not like me to chuck good ale around, but I was nervous.”

Evelyn’s eyes widen.

I seize the moment, and reach for her hand. It’s soft, and warm, and for a moment I’m back in my childhood. 

The barmaid, or queen, or whoever she thinks she is, narrows her eyes. 

I haul Evelyn towards me. “We’re leaving.” 

She reaches out for Evelyn and her voice turns to rock. “She’s mine.”

“Not any more,” I say, and dash for the door, holding my date’s hand fast.

I push open the oak door and a burst of fresh air hits my face. My legs feel stronger, now I’m away from that infernal warmth and that strange fire. I breathe in deep and look at Evelyn. Her face is excited and fearful, all at once. There’s a howl of rage from inside the pub, and the sound of a solid table crashing onto the floor.

“Time to head home to the farm. The Stone’s on the way.” 

Tears brim in her eyes. “Am I safe? Am I?”

I look around me at the clear autumn air, and the sprinkling of stars, all in the same places as earlier. A blackbird flits across the green and the sounds fade to the simplicity of a calm night. 

“Yes. We’re back. And she can’t interfere, if I’ve touched the Stone. I always do. No-one can take a Blisland man.”

She smiles, and leans on my shoulder, puffing out a breath of air. “I hoped you hadn’t changed. And you haven’t, Johnnie. Let’s go home.”