04 Jun Rings

“Cold grazes fat on the corpse of summer’s dew.”

“True.” I rip off a chunk of bread and toss it to her. “It would be easier.” She catches it with both hands and disappears behind a curtain of hair. Face, bread, and all. Squatted down, hunched over like a gargoyle. Growling as if someone might try to steal it. My wife. My eyes burn and I turn away. Try to focus on the little blue and green lights darting in and out of the branches above our heads. It’s a good plan. Clever. Efficient. And cruel. I trace my finger down the trunk and sigh. They haven’t done anything to deserve death. I watch her rip a bite loose and swallow it whole, searching for any hint of compassion.  “But we need it for Baba Yaga.”

She raises her chin. Stares at me with eyes I barely know. Eyes too wide to be human. Too deep. Too golden. “Go lick hooves on the snow, theirs the lip fungus that tastes of toe butter. Strangers thee?”

I shake my head. “It’s not that kind of tree.” If it was, the pixies wouldn’t have nested here. But she does have a point. In Fairie, you can never be too cautious. Glancing up at the pixies, I crouch down, flop open my pack, and grab my notebook. It’s not much. Well, it wasn’t much where we came from, just a Christmas gift. The standard, “Hey you’re a writer, here’s a notebook.” But now? It’s everything. A leather-bound record of everything we learned since we came here. Everything we encountered. A sort of field-guide of how to survive in Fairie.

Unbuckling the cover, I flip to the section on trees. The sketches I made. Bark patterns, where they grow, the shape they take, the look and size of their leaves. It all sounds scientific, but it’s not. The trees here aren’t all safe. They aren’t all trees. Some are shapeshifters waiting for passing prey. Some actual trees long to be more, and release pollen that lulls you to sleep, then, they feed on your dreams. Live through your imagination. And those are the more benign leafy predators.

I find what I’m looking for. Compare the notes I made about willow trees, how to tell if they’re safe. The curtains of moss, the low wide branches, the pixie nests. It all fits. “See?” I hold up the book for her to look at.

“Tube grubs slither in the moon beam,” she snorts, and goes back to her bread.

“Yeah.” I squeeze the book closed with one hand. “Right.” Slip the strap through the buckle and toss it back in my pack. “You don’t read. I forgot.” Not really. It’s not like you can forget your wife’s a goblin.  I mean, you look at her, and that’s what she is. From her frog like yellowish skin, to her freakishly long fingers. The fact that she hobbles around in a loincloth, just a loincloth, and oh, yeah, never says anything that makes any kind of sense, unless you’ve spent a serious amount of time in a goblin den. No. I didn’t forget. I don’t know what it is. Stubbornness? Refusal to accept the truth? That the woman I married, the woman I love, is gone?  I’m not sure. But I’m going with hope.

As it turns out, goblins don’t mate. They don’t have babies. They sort of… infect other creatures with a kind of virus. You catch it, you turn into a goblin. And there is no cure. At least, I haven’t found one. Yet.

Closing my pack, I peer up at the branches and watch the lights circle and dance among the leaves. “Awful lot of pixies up there.”

“Grubs sing of muck and birds of air.”

A smile pulls at my lips. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” But she’s not wrong. It’s been a long time since I climbed a tree. Still, if I read my pixies right, the nest should be… my gaze follows an outer branch back to the trunk, to a large bulge in the crotch. Where a little pink pixie stands at the mouth of a hole in the bark, gripping the edge of the opening as if her life depends on it. My brow peaks. It must be her first flight. Leveling my finger at the nest, I whisper, “See? Right there.”

I glance down at the Wife. “Told you.”

She belches, turns her head up toward the branches, at me, and snorts, “Fish farts.”

“Thanks.” Sighing, I work my way around the base of the tree, looking for a branch I can reach. “Just don’t miss the signal. Play your fife, and you can hold the ring for a while.”

She flashes a wide fanged grin, the kind a cat might give a mouse, and jerks the fife from inside her loincloth. “Gold?”

“Gold.” My voice cracks. The one word that actually somewhat describes what she’s talking about. Her wedding ring. I try to tell myself that it’s not about the gold. That somewhere, behind goblin greed, she’s still in there. That some part of her remembers the meaning behind the ring. That I love her. That I’ll stand by her, no matter what. But I’m not sure that part exists anymore.

“Of course…” I manage to find a little burl to use as a foothold, hoist myself up, and hook a hand over the top of a branch. “That’s assuming the pixies don’t turn me into a vole first.” I swing up my other hand, push off the trunk, lock my legs around the branch, a bit like a sloth, then squirm, twist, and shimmy my body up on top. It’s not easy, but from here on the branches look more in reach. No problem. The pixies on the other hand…

I watch the dancing balls of light drift away from the trunk. Some vanish into the leaves, others seem to congregate around a ball of leaves out in the thin branches. I swallow hard. It’s a distraction. A test to see why I’m up here. If I take the bait, they’ll know I’m after the nest, and then it’s vole time. Which, they’ll do anyway if I get too close, even if I wasn’t here for the nest. And that’s the rub. I am.

Faking a yawn, I lay down on the branch, fold my hands behind my head, and pretend to close my eyes. It takes a bit, but eventually the pixies go back to their slow, circling dance. I don’t move. Not for another half hour or so. And when I do, I sit up, rub my back, roll on my side, then sit up again, trying to make it look like I can’t get comfortable, before climbing up to the next branch and repeating the process. Over and over. Until I’m laid out on my back, just two branches below the nest. Close enough to see the pleats in the pink pixie’s dress. The way she has her bottom lip wedged between her teeth. The rapid rise and fall of her little chest as she stands there in the opening, clinging to the side of the nest. Terrified.

It’s time. I turn my head just enough to catch a glimpse of the wife out of the corner of my eye, picking her toes with the fife. My jaw goes tense. But it’s not her fault. I’ve been at this for hours. Anyone would get bored. All I can do now is give the signal, hope, and pray.

I suck in a deep breath and cough. Streaks of light rip through the air like a rainbow tornado. Below, the wife shouts, “Gold chirps vain clouds! Gold chirps vain clouds!” The fledgling pixie jolts, loses her grip, and falls, shrieking like a bit rabbit. And that’s when I see it. Her broken wing.

Without thinking, I stretch out my hand and catch her. As if on command, the pixie swarm stops. A million tiny balls of light surround me on all sides. Two million eyes. All locked on me.

Heart pounding, I sit up. Gaze fixed on the maimed pixie peering up from my palm with wide frightened eyes. Frightened enough to use the only weapon a pixie has, the magic that sustains her. Magic enough to turn me into a vole, but at the cost of her life.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I push myself to my feet, hold my cupped hand to the mouth of the nest, and wait. Completely at her mercy.

Everything blazes in perfect clarity. The soft tickle of the pixie’s hands and knees against my palm. The sweet scent of nectar on the air. The eyes of the hive boring into me. The shrill, incessant screams of the Wife below, begging me to drop the ring before they turn me, and it with me, into a vole.

I don’t know how long I stand there, barely daring to breathe, but after what feels like an eternity, two tiny pink hands peek over the edge of my thumb, followed by a tiny pink head. The pixie fixes her brilliant blue eyes on mine, blinks, then opens her mouth, takes a deep breath, and in the smallest, most innocent voice I’ve ever heard sings, “Holy fuck! You scared the living shit out of me, asshole! What the hell are you even doing up here, you hairless, anus licking troll?”

But I can’t answer. It’s like talking to a foul-mouthed angel. Her face, the essence of childlike wonder. Her voice, gossamer silk. Ear butter. I’m not even sure what’s happening. I didn’t even know pixies could talk.

“Gold chirps vain clouds! Gold chirps vain clouds! Go-ld chirps vain cl-ou-d-s,” the wife shrieks from the bottom of the tree, and a vein over my right temple throbs. Not a single worry about me. No. Just drop the ring.

“Oh, I see.” The pixie’s eyes widen. She glances around at the swarm of fairies surrounding us and yells, “Dipshit over here doesn’t understand words.” She scrambles up on the edge of my thumb. Arms out, palms up, she shouts very slowly, “Why? Are.” She drops her shrug and levels her index finger at my nose. “You.” Points at the sky. “Up.” Waves her hands at the branches, pixies, everything. “Here.” Then, she bends over and points at her backside. “Asshole.”

“Gold, no chirp vain clouds?” The wife calls, and behind me, a pixie snorts back a laugh.

Somewhere deep inside of me, something cracks. “I hate this place. I can’t even take a leak without some carnivorous grass, vampire deer, or spiteful gnome trying to kill me. Every time I find something pretty, it’s cursed, poisonous, vicious, or just plain nasty, like you.” My voice shakes. “Yeah, I saw your ripped wing. That’s why I caught you. I could’ve let you fall, but I didn’t. I don’t expect a thank you or anything, but…” Every muscle in my body twitches. “I hate this place. I hate Oberon. I hate what he wants me to do.” I lower my hand so I’m staring right at her. “I need a jar of pixie nectar. That’s what I’m after. I had hoped to get it without any fuss, that’s why I spent half the day creeping up here.”

Without breaking eye contact, I slide my other hand into the inside pocket of my vest, pull out a small, warm glass vial filled with dancing flames, and hold it up for all of them to see. “I have a flask of dragon’s breath. I didn’t need to do it this way. I could’ve just uncorked it, killed all of you, and helped myself. But I figured if I just took my time, I could get what I need and get out without any drama. Live and let live. But now? I sort of just want to watch you burn.”

And, that’s when I hear it. The venom in my voice. The same darkness that permeates everything here. Everything I hate about this place. But mine sounds even thicker. Darker. Dark enough that the pixie shrinks back behind my thumb.

And there I am. A giant threatening a tiny girl, cowering in the palm of my hand. An even darker hatred takes me. I hate me. I hate what I’ve become, that I was willing to take Oberon’s bargain.

Tearing my gaze from the pixie in my hand, I glance down at the Wife, still hopping and screaming at the base of the tree, and cough.

The Wife takes one last leap, cocks her head to the side, and blinks. I cough again, and finally she seems to notice the fife in her hand. She glances up at me, presses the armature to her lips, and blows.

The pixies scream, clap their hands over their pointy ears, and dart off into the canopy. Another ear-piercing shriek sends goosebumps racing across my skin. “Wonderful, Dear,” I shout, trying not to wince as I slip the dragons breath back inside my vest and fumble for an empty flask. “Keep playing.”

Her face splits into a wide, dagger-toothed, grin. She blows again, and another wail from the pits of hell assails my ears.

Taking the cork between my teeth, I open the empty vial and plunge it inside the pixie nest. I can’t see what I’m doing, but warm, sticky fluid runs over my knuckles.

Below, the wife spins in a circle, dancing as she tortures every creature in earshot with her demonic playing.

Somehow, she plays a chord. One that nearly renders my arms useless. A tritone. A chord so foul it was once banned by the Catholic church.

And another.

I thumb as much nectar as I can into the mouth of the vial, and jerk my arm out of the nest, jaw tense. It shouldn’t even be possible. It’s a fife. A fife! It only plays one note at a time!

And yet another.

Convulsing in auditory agony, I scramble down the tree as fast as I can, and hit the ground only a few feet from the Wife. But she barely seems to notice. Enraptured by her music.

Ears on fire, I hook a thumb under my necklace, pull the ring from under my shirt, and give it a shake. “Gold.”

She stops playing. “Gold?” Tucks the fife back in her loincloth, and licks her lips. “Shadow grass?”

“Absolutely.” I slip the chain up over my head. “That was the best I’ve ever heard you play.” She beams, and for a moment, the woman I married leaks through. My chin shakes. She’s still in there, somewhere. She’s not gone. Not entirely.

A deep resonating buzz draws my gaze back to the branches, to the swarm of furious pixies emerging from the canopy. “Crap.” They recovered sooner than I thought. “We gotta go. Now.” I don’t wait for her to argue. I grab her hand and run. Through thorns and thickets. Over stones and logs. Until at last the angry buzz vanishes. Lost in the rush of windswept pines. Until I’m certain we’re not being followed.

Only then do we stop. In a cedar grove beside a small spring. I crouch down, steady my breathing, and listen. Crickets. The flow of water. The Wife’s rasping purr. I stroke her knuckles with my thumb, and her cold, slimy hand slips from my fingers. “No Pixies,” I sigh. We made it.

“Gold fang round. Twig knot butt sour over cream.”

Right. Gold. How could I forget? I hand her the ring. But I’m not sure I heard that last part right. “What is what?”

She takes the ring in both hands, runs her tongue around the edge, and just like that the woman I married is gone again. “The crow barks nude in the winter sun.” She levels a long, spindly finger at my sleeve. At the tiny, trembling pixie clinging to my shirt. A pixie with a missing wing.

Just seeing her there is like a punch to the gut. “Oh, no…” Gently as I can, I pinch her under the arms, pull her off my clothes, and set her down on a rock. “Why didn’t you get off?”

“How could I?” She huffs, throws up her arms, and screams, “I can’t fly! Out of nowhere you just start flinging your arms around. I thought I was gonna die.” She flops down on her backside, wipes her nose on the back of her hand, buries her face in her palms, and starts rocking back and forth. “What are you gonna do with me?”

My mouth goes dry. I don’t know. I can’t take her back. The other pixies would turn me into a vole on sight. And with a broken wing, alone, she’s as good as dead. “If I took you close enough to your tree, can you walk the rest of the way?”

She peers up over her fingertips with wide, bloodshot eyes. “Don’t you know anything? You took my wing. I can’t leave you.”

“Soft ground wheat snarls in the bog of fetid tusks.”

I glance over at the Wife. She licks the ring and shrugs. I’m surprised she remembers. It’s old lore. Almost forgotten on Earth, but essentially, if you remove a Fae creature’s wings, it’s bound to you. “Crap.” My head throbs. I don’t know why this sort of thing keeps happening to me. It’s not like I go looking for trouble. I pinch my nose, desperate to clear my thoughts. There is something. Something I recorded in the notebook shortly after we first came here. But I can’t remember. I let go of my nose and squint down at the distraught Three-winged pixie rocking back and forth on the rock. “But, I can free you, right?”

The pixie nods. “Yeah, if you gave it back. But after your mad dash through every freaking bush in the forest, good luck finding it.” She gags. “You hear that? I can’t even use words you don’t like, you mother f-f-funning, piece of sh-sh-ship.”

She hugs her knees to her chest. A sobbing, glowing, pink ball. It’s so pathetic, that for the first time in my life, I actually hate not being cussed at.

“Eagle dung eats voles.”

I tear my gaze from the pixie just in time to watch the wife slip the ring around her tongue. “Yeah, I know.” Pushing to my feet, I glance down at the pixie. There’s nothing for it. She’s coming with us. And she won’t like it. Heck, I don’t like it. “Look, I’m sorry. If I can find another way to free you, I will. But we need to get going. You can ride on my shoulder, in my pocket, or wherever, but we have to go.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She sniffs back a sob, takes a deep trembling breath, and throws up her hand. “Your shoulder’s fine, I guess.”

The Merchant

“Buzzard gills ate green pus, slathered on cook stones of the gathering fish.”

“No, I don’t think so.” I pull the branch a little lower and squint up the side of the mountain, at the ornate wagon making its way down the switchbacks. The carvings on the side are definitely troll make, but the driver seems far too small for a troll.

The Pixie tugs at my hair. “What is it?”

“A merchant,” I whisper out of the corner of my mouth. “A troll, I think.”

“A troll?” Her face twists into a disgusted grimace. “You’re gonna trade with a troll?”

“Me? No.” Being human, I’m not exactly welcome in civilized society. “The Wife, yes.”

The Pixie glances at the Wife and snorts. “Oh, this should be fun.” Her voice twists into a guttural snarl. “Maggot juice grass of the water in snow.” Her voice goes back to normal. “And what if it doesn’t speak goblin? Did you even think about that, A-A-” Her face goes red. Her arms clamp against her sides. “Grass-hole!” Her whole body slumps, like even getting that out took everything she had.

Tossing her a sympathetic smirk, I go back to watching the wagon. “It’s a merchant’s wagon. Goblins are always looking to trade for gold. Shouldn’t be a problem.”  It rounds a switchback, and for a split second, the driver’s long, warty nose pokes out of its hood.

“Fire farts?” The Wife grunts.

“Fire farts.” I let the branch go, the warmth already seeping from my fingertips.

“Wait,” the Pixie chirps. “What does that mean? What are fire farts?”

“Well?” I scratch the back of my neck. “We don’t have a lot to trade. Only one thing, actually.”

I raise my hand to my shoulder, palm open. The Pixie doesn’t move. Just folds her arms over her chest.

I cough out a laugh. “I’m a human in Fairie. Everything hates me. Which makes me a freaking goldmine.” Her brow curls into a question mark, but I don’t give her the chance to ask. “I’m going to leave you here with the pack. Me? Even if we didn’t need supplies, that troll’s probably already caught my scent.” She steps onto my palm. I slip a strap from my shoulder, set her down on a branch, and drop the pack against the base of the tree, a carnivorous pine, judging by the needles, but not dangerous until nightfall. “Trust me, it’s safer this way.” For everyone but me, that is. I squat down beside the pack, open the flap, empty my pockets, and fumble through our supplies for a coil of rope.

I find it at the bottom. My stomach churns at the sight of it. But it could take weeks to track down the supplies we need, and Oberon? My hands shake as I toss the rope to the Wife. Oberon isn’t known for his long attention span. We can’t risk the wait.

“Gold?”

“Huh? Oh. The ring. Right.” I slip the chain over my head, stroke the ring with my thumb, and hang it from a broken twig beside the Pixie. “Can’t let a Troll get its hands on that.” I force a laugh, but my voice cracks.

“Smoke falls on the winter snake.” The Wife tugs at her hair, never taking her eyes from mine. “Kiss the squirrel, but do not inhale.”

“I know, but it’ll be fine.” I cup her cool, damp cheek in my palm and fake a smile. It’ll be fine.

“Wait,” The pixie squeaks. “What’s the rope for?”

But I can’t say it. “Stay here, and keep quiet. It’ll be fine.” I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “It’ll be fine. Just don’t leave this spot.”

Her mouth opens, as if she’s about to argue, but then snaps closed.

“Good.” She can’t disobey a direct order. Not since I took her wing. And I hate playing the slave-master, but I can’t risk this going sideways. “It’ll be fine,” I whisper, more to myself than to her, push to my feet, and offer my hands to the Wife. “We need Foxglove and Hemlock.”

“Gold?”

The question hits like a blow to the gut. “Yes, you can hold the ring for a while, if you get Foxglove and Hemlock.”

She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, pinning it in place with a row of daggers. “Small wheat molds on the shores of milk.”

“It has to look real.” My breath comes in shallow gasps. “Get into character.” We both need to play our part.

She rocks back and forth before looping the rope over my hands, humming to herself. Falling into character.

Her smile sharpens. Her eyes take on a menacing cast, and the Pixie cocks her head. “I don’t like this.”

“We’ve done this before. It’ll be fine.” I offer what I hope looks like a reassuring smile, and my attention shifts back to the Wife. I watch her feed the slack through the knot, her back curled in a hunch, her tongue caught between her teeth. So goblinlike, goosebumps prickle down my spine.  “Remember,” I whisper, and her hands fall still. For a moment the façade cracks, the Wife stares out at me from behind the goblin’s golden eyes, and my heart beat slows. “Foxglove and Hemlock. Mandrake if you can, but don’t get distracted.”

The Wife lowers her chin. A low snarl rumbles in her chest. And when she smiles again, all hint of compassion is gone. Only greed. Only cunning and violence. “Red?”

“Red.” I glance back at the cart rumbling down the path and my knees shake. I can’t do this. Not again. Heart beat pounding in my ears, my gaze darts to the woods, the Pixie, the rope around my wrists. The Wife. There’s no trace of the woman I love in her eyes. No softness in her smile. I’m nothing. A human lost in Fairie. A goblin’s prisoner. Meat.

Without thinking, I turn and run.

The Wife jerks the rope so hard it knocks me to my knees. “Charlie sat on starlight’s kiss.”

Coward. I don’t know if it’s the blow or the insult that settles my thoughts, but she’s right. I am. So much so, that it takes everything I have just to look at her. To scramble back to my feet and steady my breathing. Enough to remind her, “It has to look good.”

Her pointy ears droop like melted wax. She turns away. “Darkness weeps,” she moans. Then spins and backhands me across the face.

Pins and needles flash through my cheek. The taste of blood fills my mouth. But she’s holding back. She doesn’t want to hurt me. She’s afraid to.

I cup her cheek in my palm, and say the only thing I can. “Coward.”

She sniffs, nuzzles into my hand, pulls away, and tries again. Using her claws. A clenched fist. And when I fall, she rubs dirt on my face and clothes. Only then does she take the rope, and drag my limp body down to the path.

Sticks rip at my chest. Rocks and pebbles dig into my sides and back, and then it stops. The rope goes slack. I roll over onto my back just in time to catch the outline of a huge wooly beast lumber to a stop. “What this?” A shrill voice calls, followed by several long sniffs. “Human?”

The Wife hunches over me, glares back over her shoulder, and, to translate, says, “Nay, not human. Mine human, Troll flesh. Me finds him, me eats him. Mine.”

From her seat on the wagon, the Troll smacks her tusks. “Findsies-keepsies, but gold I have, Goblinkin. Trade? Yes? Gold for Manflesh?”

The Wife turns toward the Troll. “Gold, aye?”

The Troll barks out a laugh. “Yes, gold. Gold trinkets, baubles, coins, and all. One piece for every mouthful.” Again, her tusks clack. “Is it fresh?”

“Good price. Fair price.” The Wife’s catlike eyes find mine, but her face is a mask. I have no idea what she’s thinking. No way of asking. “Fresh as breathing,” she growls. “But, too hungry me be to trade meat for gold. Aye, even gold.” Without warning she snatches my arm and pinches my bicep between her claws. “Could use a bit of tenderizing, aye?” Her head jerks back to the Troll. “Herbs for a hit?”

“Needs a beating, does he?” The Troll howls out a long, choking laugh. “That be better still. Name your wish, Goblinkin.”

“Hemlock, Foxglove, and Mandrake. That be three good hits.”

“Hmmm,” Over the wife’s shoulder, I watch the Troll drag her claws through the stubble on her chin. “Five hits, where ‘ere I’s like.”

“Four. But no skull or crotch meats.” The Wife stretches out a foot and pushes my head to the side. “Baba Yaga be wantses this one on her fence, aye?”

The Troll coughs up a ball of phlegm and spits it in my face. “Hmm… ‘e does got a nice round dome, don’t he?” Her voice fades in a low wheeze, nearly drown by the squawk of her seat as she lumbers down from her perch.  “Done. Four hits, three herbs.”

The Wife cackles out a high-pitched laugh, hops sideways, and tosses the rope up over a branch. “Good hits for good herbs,” she sings.

Obeying the tug of the rope, I clammer to my feet. She wraps it around the trunk and pulls it taut, working out the slack with each tug. Until my feet swing.

I grab the rope to keep it from cutting into my wrists. It’s a trick we learned after hunting down the ingredients for a spell. One Oberon gave us that should have reversed the Wife’s transformation. After a Redcap pinned me up against a wall and broke three of my ribs. If I’m hanging, I can’t get pinned, and if I swing right, they can’t get a clean hit.

“Good. Good!” The Troll falls into a crouch when she hits the ground, her face hidden in the hollow of her hood. All but her long, warty nose and chin.

But it’s her fist I can’t look away from. The size of it. The size of her. All three meters of her. She fixes her glowing green eyes on me, and my lip twitches. Four hits, and I get everything we need. It’s only four hits. I clench my jaw, preparing for the first blow. It’s only one more beating. I swallow hard. Just one more time.

She plants her feet, draws back, and throws her weight into the punch. I jerk my legs at the last instant and swing with the blow. Her fist glances off, but it’s like getting hit by a truck. Pain explodes down my side. Forces the air from my lungs.

The canopy spins like dark claws against the pale pink clouds over head. Fading shapes that dim as I gasp for breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the outline of the Troll drawing back her arm, timing her next punch to match my swing.

I kick to the side, but her fist gets me in the gut. Everything vanishes in a flash of light, then goes dark. Bile burns the back of my throat. I wretch. The Troll’s laugh echoes all around me. I can’t see.

Fire explodes down my back. My body convulses on its own, and I almost lose my grip on the rope. Dim shadows pierce the veil of darkness. Shapeless, then horrifyingly clear as I spin. The forest. The Troll. The Wagon. The beast pulling it. And then the Wife. Her mouth curled in a jagged sneer. Her golden eyes gleaming. Her ears pricked high. Still in character.

I clench my jaw and kick sideways. The Troll’s last blow glances off my hip, barely touching me at all.

“Tough one,” the Troll pants. “Not so much as a squeak.”

“Hope’s not too tough for chewing.” The Wife’s sneer sharpens.

The Troll clacks her tusks. “No tellin’ ‘til the feast’s begun.” She lumbers to the back of her cart. “Deal’s a deal.”

Head spinning, lost in pain, I watch the Wife scamper after her on her knuckles. Like the goblin she is.

I try a shallow breath. Pain stabs at my side, but I don’t groan. Don’t make a sound. Not until the Troll mounts her cart and rolls away. Only after she’s out of sight, after the Wife unbinds my hands, do I sit up and check the damage. Only then, as the Wife dances around me laughing, “Gold smells sticky on the waters of Id,” do I test my voice.

“That depends.” I press my fingertips to a row of angry purple welts where the Troll’s knuckles landed, and wince. “Did you get everything we need?”

She pulls three little cloth bags from her loincloth and holds them out, beaming. “Gold?”

I wipe the blood from my chin, let my shirt drop, and struggle to my feet. “Yeah, you can hold the ring.” She rubs her palms together, hopping back and forth like an excited puppy. I try to force a smile, but I can’t. I just… can’t. “All the way to the Fen.”

Potions

“How did you even get here?”

I stop and glance back at the Wife hobbling along behind, licking her wedding ring as she scrambles over the rocks and exposed roots underfoot, then at the pixie on my shoulder. “Well, it wasn’t by choice, if that’s what you mean.” I shift the pack off the bruise under my shoulder blade. The pain dulls, and I take a deep breath. “Sorry.” But I’m not sure if it’s the pain that’s made me surly, or knowing where we’re headed. “The Wife and I were out hiking, saw a ring of mushrooms, and thought it would make a cool picture.”

The Pixie’s little brow wrinkles. I know what she’s about to say. That everyone knows fairy rings are doorways to other worlds, but I cut her off. “No, you don’t get it. Magic is dead there. There’re no pixies, no trolls or goblins, no dryads, nymphs or anything else. Fairy rings are nothing but an underground fungus that sends up mushrooms around its edge to spore. There’s nothing mystical about it. The only tie they have to Fairie is a bunch of old stories nobody believes anymore. It never even occurred to me it was a portal to another world. It was just supposed to be a stupid picture.”

She folds her arms over her chest and shakes her head. “Duckling Oberon.”

The Wife leans up against my knee, gives the ring a loud slurp, and wraps her arm around my thigh.

Patting her head, I hold out my hand, asking for the ring. “What about Oberon?”

The Wife glances up at me, at my hand, then slips the ring from her tongue, dries it in her loincloth, and lays it in my palm.

The Pixie watches me slip the ring back on its chain and over my neck in utter silence. As if thinking. “Magic can’t die,” she says at last. “And it’s never gone. It’s how you humans think that’s the problem. It’s like…” Her face screws up into an adorable knot. “Fish. Go to any pond, look at the water, and you only see you. The fish is there, but you can’t see it because your reflection is in the way. That’s what humans are like. And you weren’t always such basspoles. You used to know that things you couldn’t smell, hear, see, taste, or touch are still real. Now you only see your reflection. Doesn’t mean the fish isn’t there. It is. It’s not even hiding. You’re just not seeing anything but you.” The wing she still has, twitches. “You felt something magical about that fairy ring. That’s why you had to get inside it. You didn’t know what, because humans are slipheads, but you felt it. That’s why you wanted a picture. That’s how you got here. Oberon called you.”

“Snails walk on sunbeam bread.”

The pixie throws up her arms. “Then I’m not eating it. Why do you even talk to me?”

I blink down into the valley below, at the twisted husks of leafless trees looming out of the fog. “You mean…” The Wife eating that goblin infected peach, the chance encounter with Oberon where he offered us a chance to return home, for a price. Everything we’ve been through. “It was all for what? Entertainment?”

The Pixie shrugs. “Yeah, he’s a fu-” She huffs out a breath. “Fudge in deep stick. Like, this one time, he gave this human a donkey’s head and put a spell on Queen Tatiana so she’d fall in love with him. Just because he thought it’d be funny.” The Wife rips out a long, loud fart, and the Pixie slaps her forehead. “Why? Just, why?”

“Lovely.” Like I needed more reasons to doubt Oberon. I slip the pack from my shoulders, giving the Pixie enough time to step over the strap before I squat down and open the flap. The problem is, according to every creature we’ve talked to, everything I’ve learned, Oberon’s the one who controls the portals. Unreliable, cruel, and childish as he is, he’s the one we have to deal with. I know he’s a crapshoot, and that’s on a good day, but there is no other option. No matter how much I wish there was.  Which means, we have no choice but to keep to the mission. The trouble is, I never liked his price. I never liked myself for agreeing to it. And now that were here, at the edge of the Fen… Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the Wife stuffing a booger between her cheeks, and my train of thought shatters. She tosses me a sheepish grin, like she’s expecting me to yell at her, but I gave up on hygiene a while ago. “You have the herbs?”

Her brow furrows as she struggles to make sense of what I’m asking, then her eyes go wide. Her hand plunges into her loincloth and emerges holding three little burlap pouches.

“Good girl.” I run my fingers through her wiry, greasy hair. She shrinks back smiling, and drops them in my hand with a purr.

Tossing the pouches on the ground, I fumble through the supplies for my notebook. Page forty-seven. A protection spell I copied out of a Niad’s grimoire, while she was trying to keep the Wife from… well, I’m not really sure what, but it had something to do with her supply of toad skins. Sometimes, it’s best not to know.

The Pixie leans forward. “What is that? Magic? I didn’t know you were a wizard.”

“I’m not. It’s a bit of Green Magic I got off a Niad. Mixing herbs and things. No magic required. Just the right ingredients. It’s not even magic in the strictest sense. It won’t make us invisible or anything, just uninteresting. If we draw attention to ourselves, it won’t help at all.” And this one is species specific. I run my finger down the list. Pixie nectar is the base. I know the ingredients for goblins and humans, those I memorized. But, I only remember one ingredient for pixies, Hemlock. And only because I thought Pixies were Fairie’s version of wasps. A protection potion against the undead, for wasps, struck me as so ridiculous, it stuck with me. But that was before. Now? “Salt, check. Wormwood, check.” Luckily, the Pixie formula isn’t all that different. I have everything she needs too.

I dig out my mortar and pestle, a few empty jars, and lay out the herbs I need for each potion in three piles. I mix the Wife’s first. “Here, drink this.”

Without hesitation, she tosses back her head, and downs the bottle in a single gulp.

Next, the Pixie. “Your turn.”

She blinks at me like I’m insane. “The whole thing?”

That’s when I realize the bottle’s as big as she is. “Um…” I glance back at the notebook. I don’t know if the Niad planned on dosing the whole hive or what, but I followed it to the letter. “Maybe just one swallow? Like ours?” I guess we’ll have extra.

I tip the bottle so she can sip what she wants, then cork it, and slip the rest into my vest pocket. Now it’s my turn. I mix the potion and take a sip. It’s not bad, actually, kind of an earthy carbonated lemonade. I down the rest and stuff everything back inside the pack. “Now, I guess we’ll see if this potion is worth all the trouble we went through.”

“Son of a bee’s itch.” The Pixie’s face twists into the cutest scowl I’ve ever seen. “It’s the Fen. You don’t know that potion does anything, and you’re gonna walk in anyway? Do you even know what’s in there?”

“Yes.” But even as the word leaves my mouth, my cheeks burn. It was Oberon who told me where to find Baba Yaga, that the Fen was a bulge in the veil between worlds. A pocket filled with the restless spirits of the dead. But that was before the redcap. Before the Wife’s failed cure. Before a lot of things.

“Let me guess, Oberon. He told you where to find the Niad, right?” When I don’t answer, she rolls her eyes. “You’ve gotta be farting kidding me.”

I groan against the pain in my hip as I stand. “Okay fine, it was Oberon. But he want’s Baba Yaga dead.” That much, I do believe. “And we can’t kill her if we can’t get to her.”

The Pixie’s jaw drops. “Is that what you’re doing?” She pinches her nose and falls silent. In fact, she doesn’t make another sound. Not until we reach the edge of the mist. Then, she clears her throat. “Baba Yaga’s the only thing in Fairie Oberon doesn’t control. He can’t stand it. That’s why he wants her dead.” She whispers it so soft, that I stop to listen. “He knows you don’t stand a chance. I mean, sure, if you somehow pulled it off, he’d be happy, but he doesn’t expect you to. Putting you, a human, up against her? It’s an execution. Probably thinks it’s funking hilarious, watching you fight to stick your head in the guillotine.” She wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “Normally, I wouldn’t care. But you took my wing. I’m bound to you. You die, I die.” Her eyes flick back to the Wife, hobbling over a fallen log. “For her, it’ll be worse. She’ll live.”

“That’s worse?”

She shakes her head, like I’m the biggest moron she’s ever met. “Have you ever seen a goblin give up their gold? No. She does. Every time you ask, no problem. Think about it, shtick head. She’s a goblin. Who gives you her gold.”

The Wife summersaults down the hill behind us, coming to a stop beside my leg. She pushes her wiry hair from her face and smiles up at me. “Butt hairs sway in the cold dank air?”

My eyes burn. The Pixie’s right. I know she is. But I don’t have a better option. No other way to get our lives back. “Yeah, I saw. That was a cool roll.” I force a smile and pull her head to my thigh. “Stay close. I don’t want to lose you.”

The Fen

Mist presses in all around us, too thin to bar our passage, too thick to breathe without effort. It fills my mouth with the taste of rotten flesh. Shadows lumber past. Barely seen, groaning things. Creatures of the grave, according to Oberon. Restless horrors that haunt the twilight realm between dream and nightmare.

“I can’t see anything. How do you know where you’re going?” The Pixie’s hissing whisper sends goosebumps prickling down my back, but I don’t answer. I don’t want to shatter the potion’s shroud. Even now, creeping along as quietly as I can, I can feel eyes on my back, watching as we slip deeper into the mist.

Whatever the potion does, it’s not a shield. Not even a disguise. It feels more like high-school. Walking past the jocks, staring at the floor, and praying they don’t notice you.

A vaguely human shape limps across our path, barely shrouded in mist. It sniffs, jerks to a stop, and raises its nose. Sniff. Sniff.

The Pixie gasps. The Wife’s claws dig into my thigh. Patting her head with one hand, I press my index finger to my lips with the other. The Pixie tosses me a murderous, “I told you so” scowl, crawls over my collar, and hides behind my neck.

The shadow turns, and still sniffing, creeps closer. A shriveled hand comes into focus. A tattered sleeve. A mutilated leg, more bone than flesh. Ribs showing through a gash in its shirt. A skull, covered here and there with bits of flesh, but no jaw. No eyes. All of him rotten. He lumbers closer. Until not even the mist stands between us.

Heart pounding, I stand still as stone. All but the hand stroking my wife’s hair. To comfort her. Her hand slips from my thigh, but I don’t… can’t tear my eyes from the nightmare before me.

The corpse shuffles close, draws a single, deep sniff, and bends down with his head still raised. The hole where his neck vanishes into his chest widens. A snakelike tongue lashes out of his collar, and that’s when I realize, it’s not a corpse. It’s a Vetala. A vampire of the soul. A creature of madness, fear, and darkness, without substance in the mortal realm. But here, in Fairie, very much so.

The potion’s useless. Sweat trickles down my forehead. I step back, mind numb. Choked by a single, horrible, thought. The Pixie was wrong. Baba Yaga was never meant to be our executioner. We were never meant to make it that far.

The Vetala stretches out its arm, fingers twitching. Still sniffing.

I step to the side. It lurches forward, then stops and sniffs.

Vetala hunt by smell. I swallow hard. My stupid brain finally lurches back into motion. Like everything else in Fairie, it’s me, the human, it wants to kill. And just like trading, I can use that to my advantage. Thinking fast, I remember the snot-rag in my shirt pocket. If I wipe my face, and toss it into the mist, maybe the smell of my sweat would give us a chance to make a run for it. If not, I still have the dragon’s breath. I lick my lips. It’s not a great plan, but it could work. It has to.

I step again. A stick snaps underfoot. The Vetala cocks its head to the side. Every muscle in my body goes tense. It doesn’t just smell, it hears too. Not even daring to breathe, I sidestep back to where I was when we started this dance.

The Vetala makes a grab, but I’m not there. It swings its arms wide, and I creep back out of reach, slipping my hand inside my vest. Into my shirt pocket.

I pinch the snot-rag between my fore and middle fingers. An ear-piercing, hell spawned shriek, rakes up my spine like lightning. My gaze drops to the empty place at my side, where the Wife should be, and isn’t.

Another shriek assails my sanity. The Vetala roars, falls on its knees, but I know that sound. The Wife’s fife. I’d recognize it anywhere.

An impossible chord sends the hair on my back prickling, the Pixie screams, and the Vetala rips the skull from its shoulders. But it’s the other howls that freeze the blood in my veins. Too many to count. Too close to evade.

Without thinking, I grab the Pixie and drop her in the pocket with the snot-rag.

“Schmooze! Dogs pee bright in the sands of nod!” Another tritone rapes the stillness of the Fen.

Wincing at the unholy chord, I run toward the Wife’s frantic shouts. Her shape explodes from the mist. Fife in hand, eyes wide, her finger pointed at something behind me. “Jelly!”

Following her command, I duck. The Vetala’s skull whizzes by my ear. Without stopping, I snatch her hand and keep running. Shadows move all around us. Howling, sniffing shapes that dim in the thickening fog. Desiccated hands groping in the mist.

Fingertips brush my sleeve. I jerk right, squinting into the mist. Two yellow lights prick through the fog. Two more beside them. My heart skips the next beat. I know where we are.

Without a word of warning, I tighten my grip on the Wife’s hand, and bolt toward the lights. Another skull zips by my head, this one with a jaw. Its mouth open. A single giant eye lodged between its teeth. The mouth closes and opens like a giant eyelid, the eye spins, locks on me, and the skull vanishes into the fog.

A chorus of howls echo all around us, and I get the uneasy feeling that a lot of Vetala saw us through that single eye. No sooner than the thought crosses my mind, and I slam into some unyielding object. A kaleidoscope of color flashes before my eyes, and then nothing.

The Rule of Three

“Sugar swims free? Feed silk laden gold?”

“Gold, gold, gold!” A tiny huff echoes in the dark. “Is that all you can think about? Geese’s priced.”

I crack open one eye. Lurid shapes dance amid spinning balls of blinding yellow light and I shut it again. “Oh, my head…” I press a palm to my temple, just to keep the world together. “Where are we?”

“Hmmm,” a hoarse voice answers from above. “Lost ‘is memory, ‘e did.”

“Most unfortunate,” a smooth voice replies.

“Well, Pixie? Aren’t you going to answer him?” An old woman’s voice scolds.

“If you ever shut up!” The Pixie shouts.

“Yer a rude li’l harlot, ain’t-cha.”

“Quite so.”

“Why I never!” The old woman’s voice gasps. “And after we took care of those nasty beasts too!”

“Most ungrateful,” the smooth, intelligent voice agrees.

“What now?” Rubbing my temple, I sit up. My head aches almost as bad as the Bruises the Troll gave me, but I take a chance at opening my eyes again.

“Hi.” The Pixie leans over to peek under my hand and smiles up at me with puffy, bloodshot eyes. “You okay?”

“I think so.” And that’s when I notice what she’s standing in front of, what I ran into. A wall of posts. My gaze travels up the nearest post, all the way to a bleach white skull impaled on its top. A skull staring down at us with glowing yellow, empty, eye sockets.

“There we are now,” the skull says in an old woman’s voice. “All woke up?”

A shiver ripples down my back. I knew about Baba Yaga’s skulls, but knowing isn’t really the same as talking to one. But, unsettling as it is, I have an even bigger worry. “Where’s the Wife?”

“Git yer stinkin’ claws offa me, ya filthy creature.” A hoarse voice pulls my attention to another skull, one impaled a few posts to the left, with the Wife’s finger lodged in its eye socket.

Ah, there she is. Despite everything, I laugh. “Sorry, it’s your light. It’s golden.” I slip the chain over my head and dangle the ring like a hypnotist. “Gold?”

The Wife shakes the hair from her face and scampers to my side, clapping. I toss her the ring, watch her lick its curve. “I think we owe you our thanks.”

“At last, a creature with manners.” The intelligent sounding skull turns and nods at its fellows. “Think nothing of it, Dear Boy.”

I help the Pixie to my shoulder, then struggle to my feet.

“Nutin’ a’tall. Why, it’s our job to keep them nasty brutes away from her Yaganess’, now. Ain’t it?”

“We had our eyes on you for a while now, Dear. Didn’t think you’d make it.” The old woman’s skull nods. “One time I’m glad to be wrong.”

I can’t stop smiling. I’d forgotten how nice it is to be treated like a person. “Thanks.” I glance back over my shoulder, but from here, the mist is different. Still there, but only in hairlike strands where it swirls over itself. Every tree, every creature, everything clear as day.

“I assume,” the intelligent skull drawls. “That you are not fool enough to enter the Fen without purpose.” His jaw slides side to side. “Having been human ourselves, we bear a certain sympathy for the plight of any man unfortunate enough to find himself in Fairie.”

“Or woman.”

The intelligent skull glares at the old woman’s for a moment. “Yes. Quite.” He clears his… well, he doesn’t have a throat, but something. “As I was saying, regardless of our sympathy, we are the guardian’s of the Lady’s realm. As such, I must ask: Why have you come?”

“An’ no lies. This glow yer goblin friend be findin’ so intoxicatin’ don’t cotton to no lies.”

“I’m afraid that’s true, Dear. Speak true, or be burned to ash. I’m terribly sorry, but those are the rules.”

I scratch an itch behind my ear. The truth it is. “I just want to go home. Lead a normal life.”

The intelligent skull’s eyes narrow. “Very true.” The posts bend into a gap I can step through.

I nod my thanks and drape one leg over the threshold, but his voice pulls me to a stop. “A word of caution. I smell the Fae King’s scent on you, friend. If you come on his behalf,” he pauses, as if considering his words carefully. “Well, I will simply say Baba Yaga is no friend of Oberon, and leave it at that.”

Baba Yaga

I step through into a little courtyard. Green, manicured, a flower garden filled with daisies, violets, and daffodils, and at its center, two enormous chicken legs.

Licking my lips, I gape up at a little brown hut perched where the chicken should be.

“Fat maggots sing?”

“I have no idea.” I hate to admit it, but when Oberon told us about the Fen, it seemed like the bigger problem. I never even thought about getting into the hut once we got here. So, being an incurable nerd, and former gamer, I do the only thing I can think of. Cup my hands to my mouth, and shout a line I remember from an old video game. “House of brown, now sit down!”

The hut raises one leg, and scratches the other.

“Uh, please?”

Without hesitation, the hut squats down, like a hen on its nest.

“I can’t believe that worked.” Swallowing hard, I creep up to the front porch, wondering how much leaked from this world into mine. How many of the tales I read about Baba Yaga are true. How much I already know.

Laying my hand on the rail, I give the wood a pat. “Thank you.”

The door of the hut swings open.

“Holly truck, You’re really going in there?”

“Swamp candy. Scrambled brains go bad in the hot, hot sun.”

“Scrambled brains?” The Pixie tosses the Wife a murderous glare, but it melts into a panicked looking frown. “I heard she eats Pixies, and human liver steaks dipped in Troll pus with-”

“A side of goblin eye-jelly on rye.” The voice jerks my gaze to an old woman in a blue dress and red apron standing in the doorway. “Talk. Always talk. But words that be more than but noise?” She wipes her hands in her apron and motions us forward. “We shall see.”

Numb, having no clue how to act, I give her a slight bow and follow her inside. But given the tales about her, her house is nothing like what I expected. There’s a small wooden table, a little fireplace with a kettle boiling in the flames, a single bed in the corner under a window, well made, and covered with a patchwork quilt. There’s a counter with a washbasin under another window, cupboards above and below, a row of pots and jars on a shelf over the door. If I had to describe it in a single word, I’d say, homey.

Baba Yaga closes the door. “Strange triad, Baba.” She pinches a tuft of the Wife’s hair and rubs it between her fingers, never taking her eyes off me. “Aye, very strange, Yaga. To go home, it said. To lead a normal life, it wants.” She lets the Wife’s hair fall and steps close enough that I can feel her breath on my face. “Love, I feel, Yaga, of the goblin kind. And the stink of Oberon’s cruelty, Baba.” She sniffs at the Pixie. “Ah, the crack of the master’s whip, I hear.” She draws back and licks her lips, humming in a low cackle. “But no answer given to the question we asked. Why have you come, Man-child?”

Before I can answer, the Wife’s slimy fingers slip into my hand. “Forger’s dice, and rats grow thin on wind and rain. Small flies chew stone. Weep, young man, weep, and know the dawn has teeth. Firefly.”

I give her hand a squeeze. She’s right. I don’t know what it is, the tone of Baba Yaga’s voice, the scraggly old woman beard, headscarf, or the way she talks to herself like she’s two different people in one body, but she does remind me a bit of Gramma. More than a bit, actually. It’s uncanny.

My chest aches. I can’t do it. Maybe if she was the evil witch I read about, but I can’t kill her. It’d be like killing Gramma.

Wiping the tears from my cheek, I glance at the window over the sink, at the snow-covered pines beyond the glass, then into Baba Yaga’s patient, piebald eyes. I don’t know what she’ll do to us. It doesn’t matter. She’s just like Gramma, and even if she wasn’t, I don’t trust Oberon. At all.

I slip my hand free of the Wife’s grip, stuff it inside my vest, and pull out the vial of dragon’s breath. Baba Yaga’s eyes narrow at the sight of it, but before she gets the chance to speak, I clear my throat. “Oberon sent us here to kill you, with this. He said you were an evil old crone, and we’d be doing both worlds a favor. In exchange, he promised to restore my wife, and transport us home, to the exact moment we left.”

On my shoulder, the Pixie sniffs. Raises her chin as if preparing for a hit. But I’m not done. “I want to go home.” Without thinking, I reach down and drop the vial into a pocket on Baba Yaga’s apron. “But I’m not a killer.”

She stares down at her pocket. “Dragon’s breath be powerful indeed. Powerful enough to stop poor Yaga’s heart.” She raises her head. “And yours, had you used it.” She hobbles to the door, muttering to herself. “No daughters, Baba, sadly. But not all sons be fit for the fire, it seems.” Grabbing the door by the hinge, she swings it open, and motions us forward. Outside, the sun shines over a cow pasture in late spring, peppered by flowers, flanked by trees bending softly in the wind. And closer, just off the porch, a fairy ring pokes through the grass.

Home. My eyes burn. “Is it?”

Baba Yaga nods. “Where you was, and when. And worry not about your kin, the goblin poison be left behind.” She levels a finger at the Pixie on my shoulder and her smile fades. “That we cannot undo. Bound you be, and so together you must go.” She lowers her hand and her eyes sparkle. “Daughters be better than sons, Yaga. Name her Pixie, for that she ever be.”

I rub my eyes, not sure what to say. What to think. “I-I-”

Baba Yaga smiles. “Go on home an’ rest.”

Numb, I stagger through the door, drop down on my knees, and kiss the soft, cool grass.

“Honey?” I raise my head, watch my wife rub her fingers down her human forearm, her auburn hair blowing in the wind. A beautiful little red-haired girl at her side. I want to run to her, hold her, but I can’t move. I can barely breathe. It’s like a dream.

“Go tell your father, that we be just fine, and be coming to call soon.”

“Wait.” I glance back at Baba Yaga’s voice. At a doorframe standing alone in the field. Just the sight of it sends my head reeling. I can’t think. Not even as she waves, steps back, closes the door, and vanishes into myth.