A Faerie Tale

I woke up to the thick smell of baked goods and fresh fruit preserves. I was lying on the settee, my head propped up by thick down pillows. I could her the woman in the kitchen, clanging small pots and opening the oven. The mouthwatering scent of baking pastries sent pangs of hunger through me; I felt as though I hadn’t eaten in days.

“Oliver,” I whispered. I couldn’t remember where I’d put him before I fell asleep or if he’d found his own place in the cottage.

“I’m here.” I felt more than heard his muffled reply and lifted my pillow to see him nestled between the cushions, looking less than content.

“Good, you’re alright,” I said before gently replacing the pillow.

I sat up, running a hand through the frizzy tangles in my hair. I stood and the woman appeared in the doorway.

“Good morn, child,” she greeted. “You must have been dreadfully tired; I wasn’t sure when you were going to wake.”

“My apologies, miss,” I said, feeling slightly ashamed that I’d abused her hospitality and slept so late. “Please, allow me to bring in some wood.”

I pulled my now-dry clothes off the line and dressed quickly, eager to repay the woman. As I was lacing up my thick-soled boots, she remarked, “I remember a time when young girls wore skirts, not trousers. Am I older than I thought that attire has changed so drastically?”

“No, ma’m. These are just easier clothes to travel in without having to worry about skirts and petticoats being in the way,” I answered, fastening my cloak with a leaf-shaped brooch.

She pursed her lips. “Hmm, well I do believe I have a lovely dress that would fit you beautifully. It belonged to one of my daughters, though of course she doesn’t wear it anymore.”

I didn’t truly care for a dress to take along my travels but I wished to be polite and, if dressing me in one of her skirts would bring her happiness from remembering her children, I wouldn’t object.

When she left to tend to the stove once more, I uncovered a disgruntled Oliver from the couch and set out to bring in more firewood.

“Can’t we have a bite to eat first? I’m starving,” he complained.

“No, we cannot, my rude little friend,” I replied, though I could feel the hollowness of my own stomach as well. “First, we—and by we, I mean I, will cut wood for—”

I stopped mid-sentence as we rounded the corner and I caught sight of Sweet Pea. Her coat was dull with dried mud and dirt and she seemed much thinner than when I had last seen her. She whinnied and pulled at the reins that tethered her when she saw me.

“What’s happened here?” I said, untying the reigns. She cantered to the forest edge and set about grazing hungrily at the foliage. I took out her currycomb from the saddlebags and began to clean her coat.

“I have a sense of unease, Ariana,” Oliver said. “This place is…strange.”

“I agree. We’ll take our leave after I get the wood,” I replied.

“You don’t think we ought to just leave now?”

After several minutes of thorough scrubbing, Sweet Pea’s coat was finally starting to look better. I finished the other side and returned to the shed for an axe.

“I’ve considered it,” I answered, “But I told her I would bring some firewood and so I shall. We can leave immediately after.”

I could tell he wasn’t completely happy with this plan but he was satisfied enough to help me with the wood. He dragged branches over for me while I halved small logs, stacking them on a tarp to drag them back. After an hour, my arms were aching and the tarp seemed full enough that I gathered the edges and dragged the load back to the cottage, leaving Sweet Pea to graze.

I stacked them near the back door so that they were easier to access from the kitchen. I walked in and Mother appeared at the kitchen doorway.

“O thank you many times, my child,” she said, a wide smile crinkling her blue eyes. “Come and sup with me, you must have worked up quite an appetite.”

I wanted to decline and be on my way but I could smell the food from the kitchen and the aroma compelled me to follow her. I was so hungry that all I wanted to do was run and devour everything I could find.

The kitchen table was like a dream true; plate upon plate of pastries and croissants and other baked goods awaited me. Mother wore an apron and was removing yet another pan from the stove.

“Do you like cookies?” she asked and for a moment the entire scene of domesticity shimmered like a golden mirage. I blinked but all that I saw was Mother standing with the pan, removing the cookies.

“Of course,” I answered. I sat at the table and tried to keep myself from grabbing everything onto my plate.

“Why, help yourself, child. A growing girl needs to eat well,” she said, bringing the steaming platter of cookies to the table.

I bit into a muffin and it was pure nirvana. It was quickly reduced to only a few crumbs on my plate and I reached for more. Whenever Mother wasn’t looking, I slipped pieces and chunks to Oliver and I could hear him happily munching away.

I lost track of time but the point finally came when I could not even touch another muffin or biscuit or cake. I was more satiated than I had ever felt and all thoughts of immediate departure were forgotten. At the moment, all I wanted in the world was slip off into a deep sleep.

“This is a sight I like to see—a well-fed child.” Mother gently took me by the arm and stood me up. “Now, let’s see about the dress I had in mind.”

She led me to a sewing room down the hall and had me stand next to a floor-length mirror while she rummaged through a wardrobe.

“Ah, here it is!” she proclaimed triumphantly. Mother turned to me, a scarlet dress held up in front of her.

I disrobed down to my chemise and put on the dress, with Mother’s help lacing up the back. In the mirror, I saw a dainty red girl with dark garnet hair and a scarlet dress with white trimmings on the hems and a fashionably square neckline. It laced in the front and back, a more comfortable form of a corset. With white stockings and gloves that were held tight to my wrists with lace, I looked every bit the lady that I had once been.

Once been.

But I’m not anymore.

I was so tired that the edge of my vision was soft like gauze but I managed to force my lips to form the words: “Thank you, m-ma’m. It’s a lovely dress but I must…I must be on my way now.”

“Oh? But you look so tired, my dear child.” She smiled her crinkly-eyed smile and the last things I saw were bottomless pools of blue fire.

❦❦❦❦

We pulled the landau off the road at a small flat clearing used for a rest stop and I swung out of the carriage. It had finally stopped raining and I was determined to find the girl. It was four days since the rain had started and she must have been drastically slowed from it. It was time to find her.

“Henry.” My companion looked up from where he was checking the horses’ hooves. “I must leave for a while—” He began to object but I stopped him—“But I will return soon, within the next day; you have my word. I have to find her—tonight.”

Henry knew the “pre-honeymoon” was merely a façade for my true intentions, just as he knew why it was important for me to find her. He was privy to every aspect of my life.

He nodded. “Would you prefer I stay here or continue on the main road?”

“Stay to rest as long as you please and then resume north. If I must, I will meet with you in Dreywood. Room at the Mayvern Inn if you do reach the city before I find you.”

He nodded and returned to tending to the horses. I removed my cloak, boots, trousers, and tunic, folding them and putting them in the landau. I walked to the edge of the woods, unconcerned with my nudity. As a shapeshifter, I have become less concerned with certain semblances of civility.

I walked deep in the woods before allowing myself to be swept away by my beastly counterpart. Though Henry knew I took a second form, I never allowed even him to see it. I crouched on the balls of my feet, waiting for the change.

It came in a burst of heat and pain, spreading down my back and shoulders, darkness sprouting as flesh gave way to fur and nails to claws. I was overtaken by the fervor, pain receding to exhilaration as feeble human muscles and sinews transformed, power humming through my limbs. I stood and stretched my monstrous form, nearly seven feet in height on all fours.This is true power, the beast whispered to me and, in that moment, I could not argue.

I roared my glory, my power, to the night sky so that the trees, the woods, and even the stars may know my strength.

It was a full moon and the entire night bowed to me.

❦❦❦❦

I was slow to wake, my eyelids weighted by dreams of cakes and monsters. I was on the settee again, covered by a luxurious blanket. Mother—when did I start calling her ‘Mother’?—was in the kitchen again.

“Are you awake?” Oliver asked from somewhere below me. I peered over the edge of the settee to see him peeking out from under the bottom.

“Why are you down there?” I whispered, still muddled from sleep. I felt vaguely uneasy, as though I should remember something important, but I couldn’t.

“Something happened to you, Ari. You were sleeping so deep I couldn’t wake you for hours. We need to leave now. There’s something wrong with this place, I can feel it.”

I had never seen Oliver so worried. I nodded and stood up, setting him on my shoulder. I was still wearing the dress but I didn’t want to take the time to change. Instead, I pulled on my boots over the stockings, lacing them with quick jerks, worried that the woman would come in.

I wanted nothing more than to quietly leave, take Sweet Pea, and run far from here. There was nauseas feeling in the pit of my stomach with each step that took me closer to the door but I was determined.

And then I heard that sickly sweet voice crooning to me again.

“Leaving so soon? O but dear, you must have something to eat, you’re much too thin.”

I turned and with one look in her sky-blue eyes I was entranced again. Her voice wrapped around like a warm blanket and I never wanted to let go.

“Well, I suppose a quick breakfast would be best,” I agreed, following her to the kitchen and sitting down. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, ravenous in fact. I need my strength if I am to travel, don’t I?

“Ari, what are you doing?” Oliver whispered in my ear.

“I’m starving, and it makes sense to eat what we can before traveling again,” I muttered.

“It makes sense, but I don’t feel comf—” Oli was interrupted by a tremendous sneeze that ruffled my hair like a gust of wind. I quickly brought my hand up to my nose as though it had come from me.

“Oh, dear!” Mother exclaimed. “What a sneeze that was; you must be ill.” She moved closer to me, eyes radiating concern, but her smile now seemed grotesque. “Let me take care of you.”

I was frozen in the chair, unable to move away as she brushed a warm, wrinkled hand against my forehead. Her hand was thin-skinned and bony—in fact, she was so gaunt there were hollow pockets in her cheeks and her eyes were deep-set as though they were dark caves. Her pupils held a strange fire that wouldn’t allow me to look away.

“You’re in such good health, my dear,” she whispered, and her voice was like dead leaves rustling in the wind.

“W-what?” I managed to squeak out. My chest was tight with fear and I could barely breathe.

“So plump, just like all the others,” she continued, running her hand through my hair.

Some part of the old me managed to resurface. “Plump? I’m not p-plump.”

She ignored me, her eyes roving over me as though I were a meal she was contemplating on eating.

“I wonder…if a sweet child like you would do an old woman a favor,” she said, surprising me. The trance I’d been caught in receded a bit.

“Would you rekindle the fire in the stove?” she asked. “It’s down to coals and I have more cooking to do.”

I stood and the scraping of the chair legs seemed to echo in the room. I had enough sense to set Oliver down on the chair seat and I whispered, “Run” when she turned her back.

I was dizzy but I made my way to the stack of wood in the corner of the room next to the giant black stove. One log felt like a lead weight and it took using both of my arms to lift it and slide it into the stove’s underbelly. Sparks flew up as tiny flames began devouring the log.

“You need more, it must be very hot,” Mother instructed, leaning over my shoulder as small beads of sweat began to form on my forehead. I added another but she told me the same thing. In went another log and by now, I could nearly feel the flames on my face.

“More,” she hissed and when she gripped my arms, her hands felt more like talons, digging and sharp.

“It’s already hot, Mother,” I answered, fear clawing up my throat. I was so close I could almost feel my very flesh searing away.

“Stupid girl, don’t you know how to set a proper cooking fire?” she spit. She leaned down to pick up another log but stopped mid-motion, wrinkling her nose. “What on earth is that horrid stench?”

She twitched her nose, now long and hooked like a vulture’s, and set her gaze on my right wrist where Oliver’s daisy chain was still tied, albeit dried now.

How is it dried? I wondered inanely. He wove it only the other day and it usually lasts for a week.

“What poison is this? Why are you wearing such bane?”

Mother grasped my wrist and pulled me toward her but I whirled at the last second, pulling her off-balance. I gave her a mighty push and she fell against the red-hot stove. The smell of burning fabric and flesh filled my senses and I stumbled away, gagging. Mother screeched and I covered my ears, trying to block the sound.

I crawled backwards to the table, putting as much distance between us as possible. My eyes were blurry and everything was rippling. Mother spun around to face me, a black figure against the bright firelight. I saw the burnt flesh of her face, which gave her the gruesome appearance of melting. She was the epitome of every child’s nightmare, brought to life against a backdrop of roaring flames.

I wanted to scream but I knew no one would hear me. My only wish was that Oliver had gotten to safety somehow.

“Is this how you treat your mother?” She screamed, a thousand needles stinging my skin. “O how all my children betray me!

I did scream then, as she took a step closer.

“Why scream, my dear? You have no savior coming for you. The only thing you can do is apologize to your mother.”

“You are not my mother, you bitch!” I screamed, summoning every last drop of courage hidden in my chest to come pouring out of my mouth so that I may die defiant.

She shrieked in rage and advanced. Shadows spread from every footstep like pools of black ink. Tendrils of night unfurled against the walls as the image of a motherly figure was discarded, instead replaced by that of a skeletal hag-witch—for now, I had no doubt of what she truly was—closing in on her prey. I thought I saw scaly wings spreading from her back and talons protruding from her feet but I couldn’t be certain.

“Ariana!”

I turned to see Oliver, bless his little green soul, near the back door. He pushed the axe I had used to chop the wood so that the handle fell near my hand. I grasped the smooth wood and turned toward the witch, using the momentum to sink the blade deep into her outstretched arm.

The blade met the wood of the floor, slicing through flesh and bone. The witch howled like a shrieking storm wind as foul black blood sprayed, thick like mud and with a cloying scent of decay that caught in the back of my throat.

She thrashed, sending one of the black tendrils of shadow at me. I rolled to the right and it crashed into the heavy table, sending it flying against the far wall—and the door.

“Ungrateful child! You’re just like all the rest, trying to hurt your mother!

Her voice felt as though it were tearing right through my soul. I screamed for her stop.

“If you won’t love me, then your flesh will become my sustenance!”

The witch charged at me, gliding across the floor as though she no longer walked with two legs. There was an explosion of glass above me as an enormous black figure crashed through the window, hitting the witch with such force it vibrated my very bones.

Beastly snarls cut through the air as the thing—My savior?—snapped and tore at the witch. I couldn’t tell if it was causing much damage—how do you hurt shadows and darkness? But then again, I’d cut off the witch’s arm easily enough.

The witch was screaming in a language I could not understand, hurling what sounded like curses to the beast but they held no power as he charged again and again. More of the stinking black blood sprayed, coating the walls and floor. I clutched Oliver to my chest, shielding his tiny body with my cupped hands. He was saying something but I couldn’t hear over the cataclysmic sounds of the fighting creatures.

It will all be over soon, I wanted to tell him, And I’m sorry I don’t know our fate.

I was powerless, cowering in the corner of the kitchen as two monstrous forces collided over and over, sending tremors through the walls and floor. I wanted to pray but to whom? All of the gods and goddesses I knew of were related to the Fey and I had long since renounced any worship to them.

Would they even listen to this child they have long since forsaken? Or would they strike me down for my sacrilegious assumption that they would help me against one of their own?

“O Blessed be, Goddess of the Moon. Hear the plea of your earthly child, and protect me from all evil!” I cried into the heavens. “Let me walk freely in your woods once more.”

The fighting continued, ferocious and never-ending. There was a clatter and the axe slid to me, kicked out of the middle of the floor from the battle. I took this as a sign from the Goddess that perhaps She was looking out for me after all and it took it up in my hands.

I stood on shaky legs and turned to the shattered window. I used the head of the axe to break out the remaining fragments of glass and, tucking Oliver into my dress to protect him as I threw myself through the opening into the night. Small shards scratched through the dress but I fell onto soft grass.

My first taste of freedom was cold and refreshing, clearing my mind of all influence the witch had poisoned me with. I scrambled to my feet and ran around the cottage, towards the forest. As I passed the tiny stable, I had a moment of clarity and grabbed the saddlebags and supplies, taking only a few moments to shoulder the bags and saddle.

Then I ran, leaving behind the terrible sounds of carnage inside the cottage. I looked back only once to see that the once-pristine exterior was now dull and misshapen, as though it had been carved from mud and leaves.

A trap, like so many works of Fey.

I shoved through bushes and trees, trying to put as much distance between me and the cottage as possible.

“Sweet Pea!” I called desperately. What if that beast-creature had gotten a hold of her?, I thought, terrified.

I whistled, not caring if the terrible ones heard me. “Sweet Pea!”

Finally, ahead of me and slightly to the right, I heard a soft whinny and Sweet Pea came into view. I gasped in relief and ran to her, dropping the bags. I scratched her on the nose and she nuzzled my palm, happy to see me.

“We’ve got to go, and fast,” I told her. “You must have wings for hooves, Sweetie Pea.”

“Would you please stop talking to your cow and get us moving?” Oliver’s muffled voice came from inside the hemline of my dress. I scooped him out and set him on Sweet Pea’s rump while I busied myself saddling her.

“This cow is our only chance to escape, so you best watch your tongue, green one,” I snapped, quickly buckling the saddlebags into place before mounting. Behind us, I heard a great roar and I had no desire to discover which monster had claimed victory.

“Hold on,” I told him, pinning on my cloak and nestling him into the folds of my hood. I tapped Sweet Pea’s sides and we were off.

We had wings borne of fear and with the full moon the rest of the early morning and the crimson sunrise streaked by as we ran far away.

❦❦❦❦

I’d followed the girl’s scent from where she had rested against a tree—dampened from the rain, but still traceable—to a clearing with a strange little cottage in the center. With the full moon and my night-attuned vision, I could clearly see that it was roughly constructed of mud and leaves.What is this?

I had no further time for musings; my flesh suddenly pricked as I sensed a black aura emanating from the cottage. I bared my teeth and carefully crept towards the house, circling, trying to find an entrance.

As I found a stream of light shining through a rear window, I heard a scream, high-pitched and distinctly feminine.The girl.

I peered through the window and my vision was overtaken by a foul darkness like none other I had ever encountered. The darkness took the shape of a witch—a harpy, I was certain—advancing upon a flame-haired girl who was crawling away.

With a snarl, I leapt through the pane of glass, flashing fangs of daggers as I reached for the harpy-witch. I bit deeply into her bony shoulder and she shrieked, trying to deafen me. I laid my ears flat to block the worst of it as I lunged again and again, tearing at flesh and bone.

Her blood was thick and acrid on my tongue but still I attacked, overtaken by bloodlust and instinct to protect that which was mine. The harpy beat at me with its wings but I tore them to shreds with my claws. Her talons sliced my back and shoulders but most slid across my thick fur harmlessly.

I was stronger and she knew it.

I could taste her rage as I struck time after time but it was weak against my own. I felt her fragility as I wore her down to ragged flesh and shredded wings. I was lost in the intoxicating rush of my victory and not even the sound of breaking glass behind me could tear me away from my prey.

With a final snap of my jaws, the harpy lay dead, head severed and resting in a pool of gore. I was covered in it, my fur matted and stained, as well as the walls and floor of the room. My chest heaved, the strong pumping of my heart radiating with glory.

I loosed a thunderous howl as the passion of my victory swept through me and upward, spiraling into the stars.

❦❦❦❦

After hours of tense sprinting, with short intervals of resting with a canter, our exhausted group broke into view of Dreywood. Even in my fatigued state, I admired the expanse of the city that was vaster than any I had ever seen before. We could easily lose ourselves here.

I allowed myself to breathe a bit easier as we passed through the Gates that marked the entrance to the magnificent city, drawing a few strange glances from the Guards at my disheveled appearance. I felt safe here, surrounded by thousands of people.

As we walked, searching for a place to stay, Oliver spoke for the first time since our flight.

“Ariana, are you alright? Now that we have a slight reprieve, it’s best we account for damages and loss.”

In the absence of adrenaline, my body felt sore and stung in a few places for whatever miscellaneous reason but I was whole. I told him so and he sounded relieved.

“We were there longer than we thought, weren’t we?” I said softly.

“Yes. She caught us in a web of dark magick and, like being stuck in the Faerie Realm, time was distorted,” he answered. “I imagine we were there for three or four days rather than one, as we thought. It would explain what happened to Sweet Pea.”

All I could do was nod. No matter where we go, they won’t leave us alone, will they?

I led Sweet Pea to the center of the city and we lost ourselves in the crowd.