Rowan, Meg, Priscilla, and their little brother, James, are off to the English countryside to stay with relatives at the Rookery. The children are looking forward to exploring the ancient mansion and perhaps discovering a hidden secret or two. Little do they know this is a seventh summer. Every seventh summer, a fairy war is fought on the Green Hill―to the death―with a human champion. And Rowan has been chosen as one of the champions. Meg is desperate to save her brother. But the Midsummer War is far more than a battle between mythic creatures: Everything that lives depends on it. How can Meg choose between family and the fate of the very land itself?
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
LAURA L. SULLIVAN is a former newspaper editor, biologist, social worker, and deputy sheriff who writes because that's the easiest way to do everything in the world. She lives in the woods of Kentucky with her loved ones. Laura's next book, Guardian of the Green Hill, will be available from Henry Holt in October 2011.
UNDER THE GREEN HILL (Chapter One)
“Oh dear,” said Phyllida Ash as she read the telegram. Even in these days of telephones and e-mail, the only messages that reach the Rookery are hand-delivered by a sly-faced young man who pads down quiet paths from the nearby town of Gladysmere. “They want to come here, ’Sander. On the first of May. Oh, this will never do at all!”
She ran her free hand distractedly through short, thick curls that in some lights were almost lavender. Though she had, even at her great age, a brusque force to her movements, there was something about the way her fingers lingered at the ends of her curls that hinted she’d once been a coquette. Lysander stifled a grunt as he pushed himself up with a stout, gnarled cane and crossed the garden kitchen to put an arm around his wife of sixty years.
“Why now?” she moaned, leaning into him. “Of all the years, of all the times, why does she pick the most dangerous to send her children here?”
Lysander Ash took up the telegram and scanned lines written in the age-old truncated style. Dear Aunt Uncle Ash, stop. “Aunt and uncle, hogwash! Great-aunt and -uncle, maybe....”
“One more ‘great,’ I think.”
“Be that as it may.” He read aloud: “Urgent favor needed, stop. Fever rampant in States, stop. Can you take children for summer, interrogative. Awfully grateful, stop. Arriving May One, stop. Rowan, Meg, Priscilla, James, stop. Do they think we don’t even know their names?”
“Well, we’ve never seen them. We’ve never seen any of them, not since Chlorinda left.”
“Your sister wasn’t able to take on her responsibilities,” Lysander began hotly.
“Now, don’t open old wounds,” his wife said, with a reproach so gentle it was obvious she’d been repeating it for many years. When people have lived together for six decades, and played as children in the years before that, many of their conversations go by rote, and often entire arguments can take place with a brief glance.
“Four generations living across the ocean, and those children so far removed from what’s in their blood. And now they want to traipse across the ocean just in time to get themselves captured or glamoured or torn to shreds!”
“It’s not as bad as all that,” she said, wondering, as she frequently did, whether he became deliberately contrary just to force her into an opposing tack. She’d been dead against the children’s coming the moment she read the telegram, but now, in the face of Lysander’s opposition—it was her family, after all—she was almost reconciled to their arrival. “We can take precautions.... They’ll be all right if we keep them on the grounds. The house and gardens will be enough for them, and there’s nothing that can hurt them there. It will be safer than staying where there’s fever. A lot of children are leaving the States, I’ve heard, or going off to the mountains. I’m ashamed I didn’t think to invite them here. Why, our house could hold a hundred children, with no danger to anyone! What harm could four come to?”
“Four children here, at Midsummer, on a seventh year? Even the villagers hide their children at the teind times.”
“They’ll be fine,” she assured him, squeezing his hand. “Bran will look after them. Oh!” She gave a little gasp. “Someone has to tell Bran.” She looked worried, perhaps even a bit frightened.
Lysander turned away from her abruptly to poke the low fire that burned winter and summer. “Well, it’s not going to be me.” After all, he had to put his foot down somewhere.
UNDER THE GREEN HILL Copyright © 2010 by Laura L. Sullivan
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 2.64
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 13565047-n
Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Under the Green Hill 0.58. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780312551490
Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. 0.98. Seller Inventory # 0312551495-2-1
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ABLIING23Feb2215580108282
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # I-9780312551490
Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. THIS BOOK IS PRINTED ON DEMAND. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # L0-9780312551490
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. This item is printed on demand. New copy - Usually dispatched within 5-9 working days. Seller Inventory # C9780312551490
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published 0.98. Seller Inventory # 353-0312551495-new
Book Description Condition: New. PRINT ON DEMAND Book; New; Fast Shipping from the UK. No. book. Seller Inventory # ria9780312551490_lsuk
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 6666-IUK-9780312551490