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Part III: Where we hear the giving of answers to the asking of questions, an exchange of favors, and a most wondrous and beautiful sound.

Being removed from time, losing your newly minted bride to a goat, and having your stiff still body carted away in a wheelbarrow can be very traumatic. This explains why, when Andrew found himself sitting in the center of a circle of stone in the middle of nowhere without family, friends, music or Colleen, he started screaming.

For some reason, the old man found Andrew’s dismay amusing and fell into a hearty bout of laughter.

“It always amazes me. You people are always so fragile,” he chuckled.

Andrew took a deep breath and climbed to his feet. “Where are we?”

The old man looked around at the stones and shrugged. “I just found the nearest doorway. Don’t think it has a name.”

Andrew just stared at him.

“Oi. I hope you’re not one of them empty headed ones. It is just my luck that I need a mush to help me and I get the daftest one of the group.”

“Who the hell are you?” Andrew managed to get out.
“Well, that may be a bit too much for your little mind, so you can call me Salty John.”

The groom looked down at his feet. “Why would I want to do that… why would…” and then reality of things came on him like a mallet. He charged the old man, grabbing him by the collar. “Where is Colleen?! What the hell have you done?!”

Smiling the old man replied, “Best be putting me down, son. I’m the only one you’re going to have as a friend for a bit, now. Besides…” The old man began to shimmer in front of his eyes. Andrew released the man’s shirt and took a step back as a change began.

The old crooked back straightened and lengthened. The baldhead sprouted a fine gray mane of hair and the wrinkles smoothed. Soon, the ancient man was not so ancient; though he was not a youth by any stretch. The new man smiled and his eyes twinkled at Andrew who stuttered out a simple “How?”

“Just a simple bit of glamour. I find that toothless wonder tends to keep the maids at bay so I might be about my work. When you’re as handsome as I am, they can be such a distraction.” He took a seat at the base of one of the stones. “Now, let’s get two things straight, right off. One, I’m here to help you and will give you as many answers as I can. Two, you touch me like that again, I will twist your guts around your neck and choke the life out of you.”

Andrew again offered him nothing but a blank stare and muttered, “Colleen?”

“Right, so, sit down on the grass there,” John suggested. “Good, now she was taken by the Tuatha De Dannan and before you ask, shame on you for not knowing.”

Andrew wrapped his arms around his knees and tossed his head back. “What is going on?” he moaned.

“I suppose that the best way you’d understand it is they are the Sidhe, the fair folk.”

“You’re saying Colleen was taken by little fairies? With what? Wings?” he said.

John sighed. “You mush-folk have so removed yourself from the real world you can’t even see it when it hits you in the face, eh? Only some of them have wings. The ones what took your lady had hoofs and an amazing amount of fat.”

“Good. No wings. Only hoofs. I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel.” Andrew said with no hint of humor in his voice.

“Right!” John said bursting to his feet. “Believe it or not, I have a ship to catch and can get on fine without your help if I must. You want to find that wife of yours or do you not?”

Andrew looked up at Salty John, his eyes tearing up and scared.

“I need to find her,” he softly answered.

John pulled a kerchief from his pocket and tossed it to Andrew. “Well, stop with the waterworks and listen carefully. I will help you, but you must do me a small favor in exchange, but we must hurry. The sun will be rising soon and you must be on your way before it does.”

“Hurry? Why?”

“Cor! You’re a pinhead. You can’t move from here to there save during dawn or dusk, right. It’s the rules. I don’t make them, you know.”

Andrew sighed deeply and his head dropped a bit lower.

“You will see your wifey again, mush. You got the promise of Salty John on that one. Now again, please, carefully listen. I’m gonna be shoving you through a door in a moment. There will be a path leading up a hill. Follow it till you see the old Wych Elm off on the hill. Under that tree is my favor needs doing. It needs delivering to the High Court which is exactly where you’ll find your lady.”

“How do I find the court?” Andrew asked. “And where exactly is this door?”

John’s eyes darted to the left and then quickly to the right, then directly at Andrew. “Instruction will be given at the tree, right?” He grabbed Andrew under the arms and stood him up. ”You just get to the tree and pick up my treasure. You do that, you’ll get all the help you need.”

“From who?”

The sky had begun to grow light and John had started to twitch slightly. “When they find out you are in their realm they will test you. They won’t give up their prize easily. Are you ready to fight for that woman of yours?”

“Of course. I love her.” Andrew replied.

John walked over to him and places both hands flat on the young man’s chest. “Good, cause you won’t cross back with her if your love fails, right.”

Andrew nodded and Salty John, with a burst of force, pushed him over onto his back. His arms pitched back behind him to try and stop the fall and right before his head smacked into the hard turf Andrew heard John’s voice. “Just hope they don’t eat you, son.”

The thud of impacting the ground shook through his body and Andrew was slow to get up. “What the hell was that?” he asked loudly and found that there was no one there to hear him. The circle of stones had vanished the sky was bright mid-day and the path Salty John had referenced invited him up the hill. “Okay,” he said to himself, “This is insane.”

He sat down on a small stump and decided to give the matter some thought. Clearly, something was going on. Colleen had gone missing. He had mysteriously left the reception, seen an old man change into a less old man and then pushed to the ground to find himself somewhere else completely. “That sounds about where I am,” he muttered. “Question is what next?”

Now, there was one thing that Andrew believed about himself and that was that he was particularly clever. He had found very few problems that he was not able to think his way out of. “If you just look at this logically,” he told himself and then quickly came to a conclusion.

“You’ve either gone mad or Colleen has really been kidnapped by faeries,” he told himself as he stood up and started up the path. “If I’m mad, it doesn’t make a difference to go find John’s treasure and if there really are faeries, well, then, I suppose I will need John’s treasure.”

He felt quite proud of himself and even prouder when at the top of the hill he saw the Wych Elm. Removing his coat, Andrew made his way across the long grass to the base of the tree and began looking for whatever John had left for him. Behind the tree, under the tree, around the tree he looked, but there was nothing there. He sat down to think again when he heard the most amazing and musical laughter that he had ever heard in his life coming from above him. Andrew tilted his head up, shading his eyes from the sun and saw a young woman sitting in the branches above him.

Her bright green eyes crinkled as she smiled at him. “If you’re the mush my father sent as an escort, I’m thinking you have bitten off way more than you can possibly chew.”

Andrew sighed deeply and hung his head, suddenly very, very tired.