Unnatural Issue Read Online Free Page A

Can’t say. Bad, for certain sure.” He hesitated then added, “All the signs and warnings say this will be a to-do that changes everything.”
    She looked about her, at her serene and beautiful sanctuary, and shivered. What could be so bad that it would come to affect things here?
    “I’ll do what I can, but I’ve all of England to look after,” Robin told her, solemnly. “And what’s coming, well, the best we can all do is keep our little plots of land healthy and safe. Naught to be done about the foolishness of man in the wider world.”
    Then he laughed and plucked a bit of mayflower from the verge, tossing it to an undine to put in her hair. “But ’tis not here yet, and’tis nothing to be done to keep it from coming, so let’s us dance a roundelay while we can.”
    Sensible of course, even if she didn’t much like it. But Susanne was used to not liking a great deal of her life, and she was accustomed to coping with it all.
    “I suppose we’ll have a better notion of what to do when it gets here,” she said philosophically.
    “We won’t be alone,” he reminded her. “There’s the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, and mortals have a powerful will to bend things when needs must.”
    “So you keep telling me!” she teased, tossing a bit of mayflower at him herself. He caught it deftly and grinned, showing his kinship to the little faun in that grin.
    “Ah, well, it’s naught I had to teach you about,” he replied, sticking the flower behind his ear. “Oh, I mind you, no more than six summers old, running off out of that blighted garden and into my wood and calling me. Me! Oldest thing in Old England! Such a will you have!” He shook his head. “And a good thing for you that you do, or the power in you would have driven you mad by now.”
    “And a good thing for me that it was you that I called,” she replied. “It could have been—well—anything.”
    “Hmm-hmm!” he agreed, and turned his attention to the fish again. “Except for your will, again. ’Twas a good playmate you wanted, and with the single-minded will of a wee child behind it, it would be nothing else you got.”
    She wondered about that. Was it true? There was no telling, with Robin. Certainly when she had felt the power coming up through her bare feet, power she had only ever tasted in little, little sips before, and she had stood there in the wood and demanded that a playfellow come at last, that had been all and everything she wanted in the world. Cook’s daughter and the infant she’d nursed alongside of Susanne had gone back to her husband’s little farm as soon as Susanne was weaned, and she hadn’t seen a child of her own age at the Manor since. The maids had limited time for play, Cook had none at all, the gardener had left in disgust when nothing would thrive and had taken the boy that helped with him, leaving only the stableman and his boy, who were just as busy as the maids. Housekeeper lamented that the Manor had fallen on such sorry times, so many rooms closed up, staff reduced to next to nothing, but with Master Richard going nowhere and seeing no one, there was no reason to have more than they did. The accounting was all done by Master Richard’s solicitor in the village; he turned up once a fortnight to disburse funds and paid out wages every quarter. No one came to the Manor anymore to pay their rents, and all the Manor farmland was tended by tenants who were too far away for Susanne to play with their children.
    She had been lonely, she had been frustrated, and she had a very strong will. Naturally, she had taken matters into her own hands. She had gotten as far as the green space beyond the blighted gardens once and had felt a strange sensation through her feet, as if everything around her were connected to her and responding to her. She had gotten called back before she could explore that sensation, but on that special day, she knew she would not be looked for all afternoon, for it was spring