The King's Oak Druids gathered by the flat stone in the clearing in Oakton Wood when their ceremony was completed. April fought back a yawn and waited. Ben watched from King's Oak. The moon shined through the leafless trees and cast odd shadows.

"Mrs. Waverly, we've finished the ceremony here," said Mrs. Bigwood. "We're going to elect a new Archdruid. You don't need to stay for that. Mr. Muir, if you would drive her back."

Drew nodded. He wanted to stay for the election and the talk they'd surely have afterwards, catching up, but he had been dismissed. By his housekeeper! He wouldn't forget this slight. He got in the golf buggy.

April climbed in the passenger seat beside him. "I can drive myself after this, if you don't want to come."

"No problem. If I'm here, I'll come. As Executor." He started up the buggy and drove down the path.

The druids watched silently until the buggy disappeared around a curve.

"Now we elect the new archdruid to replace Drew Ramsey," said Estelle. "The candidates are Arthur Green and Boris Smithson."

She placed a box with a hole in the top on the stone and gave each of the 14 druids a black stone and a white stone. "Put the white stone in the box to vote for Arthur and the black stone to vote for Boris."

Stones thunked into the box. Estelle counted the stones and held out her hands. Five white rested in her left and 10 black in her right hand. She showed the others the piles. "Congratulations, Boris, you are elected archdruid of our congregation."

"Thank you," he said, looking around the group. "Thank you all. I promise before you all to do my best to confine the horned one, and protect our shire, with your help." The other druids raised their arms in agreement. Boris was a short man who ran an architecture firm in Pelham. "The first order of business is to decide what to do about the missing bell, the Hydd bell. Mr. Ramsey didn't bring it on Lughnasadh. He was very disoriented. We didn't need it then, but we should have had it tonight. No one knows what he did with it. Estelle?"

"I searched the house and Bill searched the outbuildings. Sir Drew took the bell from the safe so he could bring it that night," said Estelle. "I put it on the desk for him. When we got here, the Master had had one of those transient ischemic things. No sign of the bell in buggy or by the stone. We couldn't find it anywhere. Mr. Muir said he hadn't seen it. Sir Drew was not able to talk coherently, and died before he could tell us. We will have to replace it, but that will be difficult."

"Aye," said Arthur. "Linking a bell to Hydd means the sacrifice of a stag, and the law's against that. Hydd must be propitiated soon."

Boris said, "We know the dangers of failing to restrain him. We don't need the bell absolutely till next Lughnasadh. We can use our ordinary bell till then. We'll think of something." No one spoke of breaking the law to sacrifice a stag. "Our next festival is the winter solstice, the Yule. We'll meet here next Sunday and talk again."

The group broke up and went their ways. Several minutes after the clearing was deserted, Ben drove the buggy out of the woods.

"Worse luck, losing the bell. Hydd will be difficult to appease without the bell to master him." He stood up. He'd spent as much time as he could spare searching the woods using a metal detector without finding the bell. He'd found coins, some nails, and a pocketknife. On the way here he'd found an old axe head. He turned the axe head over in his hands and threw it under the King's Oak. It bounced off a root and lay in the shadows between the oak's roots.

He walked under the branches of the oak and rubbed the bark. "Restless, are you, Hydd? I'll take care of you, and you'll do my bidding." He went to the buggy hidden in the woods and drove back to the Lodge.

***

Estelle stopped by the Lodge before going to her cottage. She hurried into the kitchen where April, in her pajamas, was eating cinnamon toast and drinking tea.

"Mrs. Waverly! I thought you'd be in the sitting room. It's only 9 PM." She looked at the toast on April's plate. "I'd have made you something before I went home. Was Beatrice able to take of everything today?"

"She did everything well. I just can't seem to stop eating sometimes. Please sit for a minute."

"Your nerves bad again?" Estelle pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. It had been a long day and the loss of the bell worried her. Hydd probably wasn't loose, or there would be slaughtered sheep and deer, other animals, and if he were free enough, he'd seek out his preferred sacrifice, humans.

April nodded. "I'm going to see a doctor next week. I hope he can suggest a new medicine." She changed the subject. "When is your next festival? December?"

"Aye, the solstice. Some call it Yule. Till then, we have weekly groves. You don't have to come to them."

"Do you ever join up with the other druids in Pelham?'

Estelle said, "No, we worship different. They're more in the old ways, nature worshippers. We keep Hydd captive."

"Hydd? I've heard that name."

"Welsh for stag. Hydd is a horned spirit. Actually, antlers, but we say horns."

"Do you mean Herne?"

"No, no, they're different. Herne is the old horned god. Hydd is, the stories say, the son of a Roman lady and a Welsh druid. He helped clear the Romans out, and when they left, tried to keep the Christians away. They came anyway. Hydd made a deal with an evil spirit, and his soul lives on. He appears as a great stag, or a man with antlers. He's dangerous, wanting blood and souls, and would cause a great deal of trouble if we didn't keep him confined to King's Oak."

"Really?" April bit into the toast, made from bread Estelle baked weekly. "This is good bread."

Estelle smiled, pleased at compliments for her baking, but not distracted. "We've kept him under control since the Romans left, even after the Christians came. Most of our druids have been here since there was a king in every county. The Ramsays came with the Conquerer."

"I never knew. Are the Christians involved with this?

"No more since the Reformation. St. Duncan managed the woods, the warden for the Norman knight who took over after the Conquest. That was Sir Drew, who married the Saxon heiress of the property. Duncan lived in a cabin in the woods with his great tan hunting dog. He was a prayerful man, well respected by the priests. He wanted to live alone in the woods to pray."

"One Samhain St. Duncan and his dog chased Hydd and bound him in Queen's Oak, as was the tree growing there then. We druids kept him bound till the Civil Wars. Sir Edgar Drew Ramsey, who supported the Stuarts, was then lord at Oakton, and fled to France with the Queen. The Roundheads chopped down the Queen's Oak, as they called it supersititon." She swallowed hard, remembering the old stories. "Hydd was free. Sheep died, people got sick, and some died. We couldn't do anything about it. When the King returned in the Restoration, Sir Edgar returned. His son, Liam Drew Ramsey planted a new oak, now the King's Oak, and bound him to the tree."

"Interesting."

"We summon Hydd with a bell. We have to appease him, to keep him bound." She looked at April. "I must warn you that Mr. Ramsey lost Hydd's bell, probably in the woods and there will be trouble coming. We will order a new bell and dedicate it, but it will take months."

April held back a grin.

Estelle leaned forward and April realized she believed what she said. "If you find a bell in the woods, about so big." Estelle held her hands up to show the size she meant. "Old bronze, with a handle. A stag's head is engraved on the waist. If you find it, you mustn't ring it. It will breach the barrier between this world and the next, and Hydd may come through. We'll have to drive him back and bind him. He'll rampage to get what he wants. Blood and life. Souls."

April lost her appetite for toast. She pushed the plate away and lifted her teacup. "That's quite a story."

"St. Duncan has a bell too. Hanging now in the belfry at St. Pelham's church. We can hear the church bells tolling here, on quiet Sundays. Mr. Ramsey hated the sound of St. Duncan's bell." Estelle yawned again.

"You're tired, Mrs. Bigwood. I'll put my dishes in the dishwasher and go upstairs."

"I'm just going to get some eggs for Bill's breakfast, then I'm off."

"Good night." April left and climbed the creaking wooden stairs to her room. She tossed and turned for an hour before falling asleep and dreamt of running through the woods with a stag chasing her and a solemn bell in an oak tree ringing, ringing.