Fey Child Fair

I took the girl-child from the arms of the dullard's wife three nights after its birth.

I had caught him, as surely I had caught a slow-footed rabbit, stealing from my garden.  A bit of flash and a pair of cheap conjuring tricks had made the fool nearly wet himself that night.  Oh, how he quivered and begged, falling to his knees and crying that his poor wife needed good, strong food for the babe in her womb.

I stopped the curse from spilling over my lips.  So the dolt and his woman were expecting?  I had watched them, my neighbors, from over my high stone wall for five years.  He was a petty thief, nothing more, too stupid to succeed at real crime and too lazy for honest work.  She was little better, drunken and mean of spirit.  I had heard her shrill
voice haranguing him to sneak over the wall and steal greens from my garden only minutes before he slipped over my wall.  I wondered which of the men she sold herself to fathered of the life quickening inside her.

Neither of them deserved a child, nor did any innocent deserve them for parents.

I extracted an oath from him, there under the bright full moon in my vegetable patch.  He could take all the food from my soil he wished, but his child was mine in exchange.  Either he could agree, or else...

I left the threat hanging, letting his own tiny brain conjure up any number of magical ills I might inflict on him, each imagined horror worse than the one before.  He agreed readily to my terms, the stench of sweat and relief pouring from his body.

I sliced his hand, bound his oath with his own blood, then stood laughing in the moonlight as he scrambled back over my stone wall.

I would finally have the child my barren body had denied me.  I would be her mother, and I would pass my secrets to my daughter, for daughter I knew it would be, even then.

I spent the next fortnight fortifying my crops, making them the vessel to strengthen the unborn babe.  Each night I watched the dullard climb over the wall, his head constantly swiveling, his eyes searching for danger in the shadows and darkness as he gathered the ripe fruits and vegetables.  For six months I watched, and on the third night of my
daughter's life, I took her from the arms of the fool's wife, took her and stole away to home of my ancestors, far from that sleepy village.

I should have wondered why the wife shed no tears as I tore the child from her arms.  I should have wondered that the child's father did not beg, nor plea, nor offer to bargain.  I should have wondered.

#

For fifteen summers we lived alone in the ancient stone and wood halls of my family, our only companions each other and lame Devis, the final, aging, most loyal family servant who had maintained the crumbling manor in my absence.  Our only visitors were the creatures who dwelled in the deep forest surrounding the forgotten manor.

My daughter grew strong and tall, as beautiful as I in my youth, though we shared no blood.  Her hair was the hue of the purest gold and when unbound hung to the child's ankles.  And if her eyes where the color of polished silver, and if her ears were a bit too long and seemed somewhat pointed in the manner of the fey folk, well then surely the mystery of her sire was solved.  She was a true child of the fields, conceived on the night of the bale-fires.  It was no wonder the dullard and his wife wanted to be shed of her: A changeling-child was thought to bring ill-luck.

It was the fey-blood that allowed her to learn with ease the mysteries and magic I taught her.  It was the fey-blood, I came to understand, that made her restless within the walls of the manor.  It was the fey-blood that drove her to seek the wilds of the forest, or so I thought.

I did not question that she spent hours in the forest.  I never asked how she, who owned neither blade nor bow, killed, dressed, and skinned the creatures she brought home.  I was unskilled in the art of hunting and Devis grown too lame to venture deep into the woods.  I was simply thankful for the fresh meat my daughter supplied to supplement the
bounty of my garden and the eggs from the chickens and milk from the cow Devis kept.  The pelts of her kills she turned over to Devis to scrap and cure and fashion into blankets or warm cloaks.

Even as self-sufficient as we were, still there was need for certain supplies, staple foods and items we could not produce.  Twice a year, in early spring and mid-autumn, I hitched our draft horse to a creaky wagon and traveled to the nearest village.  There I would trade our extra pelts, small valuables stripped from the old manor, and packets
of medicinal teas that I mixed for items we needed.

At first I took my daughter with me because she was too small to leave alone with only Devis to mind her.  Later, I took her for company and to familiarize her with the path through the forest and the customs of the people beyond.  We would travel four days down the forest path, at last coming to the remains of an old road from the long forgotten
empire.  Another day's easy travel would bring us to the village.  We would barter and trade for a day, exchanging our good for flour, tea, sewing needles.  At night we would take a warm meal and stay the night in the snug, clean inn the village boasted.  I bartered and traded for our rooms and meals as well: the innkeeper was a gentle widower and I
was neither so old nor so unattractive.  At dawn, we would begin the journey home.

The spring of her fifteenth year was the last I took my daughter to the village.  I had noticed the appraising looks the local males, from the greenest farm-boy to the oldest gaffer, gave her as we went about our business.  I was made five offers of marriage for her before the day was done.  I was careful to make sure we were not followed on the
trip home, using small glamours to hide our path.

When I set off for the village that autumn, I left my daughter behind.  She was more than old enough to fend for herself, and frankly, someone needed to watch after Devis, who had become less of a servant over the last several months and more in need of care.

I made the trip without incident, trading away my goods for the necessary items, trading away a night of favors for a soft bed and warm companionship.  My innkeeper was a little older, his hair a bit thinner, but then there as was more grey in my own hair every year as well.  In the morning I gently rejected his offer of marriage for the twenty-second time.

 I knew upon exiting the forest path and entering the clearing around the manor that something was wrong: my faithful Devis did not appear to greet his mistress.

She had buried him in the back of the overgrown family plot.  I came upon her carving a crude marker from a piece of timber.

"He died in his sleep," she told me in a manner-of-fact voice.  "The second night you were gone.  It seemed wrong to leave him under a sheet until your return."

I had no reason to doubt her.  Devis had seemed old when I was a child.  He had cared for me as my grandmere, my last living relative, had slowly succumbed to the madness any who practiced our Art faced. If I was well past forty winters, then Devis must have been almost ninety.  No, I had no reason to doubt her, not then.

In the days following my return, my daughter became more secretive. She would vanish into the woods, sometimes for the entire day, leaving before dawn and not returning until well after dark.

I worried.  I told her I was concerned about the wolves in the woods. She merely smiled as she prepared her most recent kill for the pot, and promised to be careful.  I could have forbid her from entering the woods.  I could have, but somehow I thought--no--I knew she would disobey.  Instead I set out to discover what she did in the forest all
day.

I followed her the next morning.  Calling upon my Art, I cloaked myself in shadows, hid myself from my daughter's eyes.  I carried a small basket with me so I could tell her I was gathering the last of the season's berries, should she discover me.

In truth, I carried the tools of my Art: amulets, talismans, other small items of power.  In case I needed to defend myself from the more dangerous denizens of the forest, I told myself.

I heard her voice before I saw her.  Pure and high, each note ringing true, she sang without words, only her voice rising and lowering in pitch, undulating, perfect.  I was drawn to the sound.  My feet moved without my willing it.  I paused and shook my head to clear it.  I reached into my basket and clutched one of the talismans, all bone and crow-feathers.

I had been caught in my daughter's magic.  Magic I had never taught her.  The magic of music was a power of her fey ancestors: I supposed she had worked it out on her own, here in the deep forest.

It was curiosity that drew my feet the rest of the way to her. Silently, I slipped close upon her, hiding behind my magic and the trunk of a formidable old oak.

She knelt on her knees, singing her wordless song.  Around her a handful of the forest creatures had gathered.  Rabbits, squirrels, and mice.  A fox.  A fawn.  They encircled her, wide-eyed, noses twitching, enthralled by her voice, as I had been moments before.

I watched from my hiding spot as she reached out a pale hand toward one of the rabbits.  The creature hopped up to her.  She lifted it into her arms, cuddled it, smiling and singing, as the beast looked up at her, almost lovingly.

I blinked several times in surprise as her hair, her lovely golden hair, began to wrap itself around the rabbit, moving independent of her hands.  The small animal gave no indication that it considered itself in danger as my daughter's pale mane encompassed its body.  I looked toward the other creatures.  They continued to sit quietly, their large eyes watching my daughter.

A wet ripping sound and a terrified squeal forced my own eyes back toward my child.  I choked back bile as her beautiful hair disemboweled and skinned the poor creature, ripping it apart in seconds.

I back away as she placed her kill in a small sack and reached out a hand toward where the other animals waited passively for her to sing them to their slaughter.

I turned and fled the forest, clutching the talisman guarding me from the spell of her voice.

That night we feasted on roasted rabbit.  Before I settled into bed I fashioned a crude necklace from a strip of leather lacing and placed the talisman around my neck.

#

The next morning I found myself standing before the grave of my last servant.

I had to know.

"Forgive me," I said, kneeling besides Devis' grave.  I placed both hands on the fresh mound of dirt and called.

Whatever power my daughter might wield, the land of my ancestors recognized me, heard my call, and bent to my will.  Slowly, as only earth can move, the ground gave up the body of my last retainer.

I was not able to choke back the acid tasting sickness that rose into my throat at the sight before me.

Parts were piled on top of each other in a gruesome tangle, as if he had been torn asunder, and then hastily tossed into his grave.  I could tell, even through the sickness that made me quickly avert my eyes, not all of his parts were accounted for.  His head, for instance, was missing.  I finally allowed my stomach to have its way.

I admit that I had, in my youth, exhumed a fresh corpse from time to time, seeking hair, nails, teeth and other items to work my magic.  I am not unfamiliar with death, but I had never traveled down the dark road of death magic.

I had never traveled down it, but I knew its stench.

I steadied myself and returned his sad remains to the earth.  Devis was beyond my help now, and I had another matter to attend to.

#

I called her to my room that night, as I had done when she was younger.  I told her that I missed her and wanted to spend an evening with her.  I sat behind my daughter and brushed out her lovely, deadly hair.  I hid my revulsion as I pulled the soft bristles through it, time and time again.  I blocked out the images of the terrified rabbit, entangled and doomed in her locks.

I called my magic as I brushed, pulling up the ancient power of my familial abode.  I wove a gentle compulsion around her.  As the strokes of the brush soothed her, the magic coaxed the truth from my daughter's lips.

She had murdered poor Devis, reveling in his terror as she slowly shredded him alive, drawing magic from his dying screams, his fleeing life-force feeding her own powers.

I braided her hair as she spoke.  She did not question my actions: I had braided her hair every night until her twelfth year, when she had asked me to stop.  I could only believe that for some reason, perhaps a flaw in her fey blood, my poor, lovely child had fallen to the madness that sometimes came upon those who practiced the magical arts.
 I bound her hair tightly with chord at both ends, the image of Devis's mutilated body strong in my mind.

She howled in surprise and pain when I slashed off the braid with the small bone-handled knife I had hidden in my clothes, its sharp edge cutting cleanly through the braided hair.

My mistake was thinking that would be the end of it, that without her long golden tresses, she was powerless.  She sprung at me, shrieking, her hands curled into claws.  Startled, I fell backward off my bed and onto the hard floor.

She was on me before I could recover, screaming and slashing at me with her fingernails.  I covered my face too slowly and felt her sharp claws dig into my cheek.  She snatched the braid from my hand and sprinted away.

I lay stunned for only a moment, then rose to follow her.  I chased her across the manor to her own set of rooms.

Perhaps she had not thought I would recover so quickly.  Perhaps she thought the sight of Devis' severed head on her dresser surrounded by other grisly trophies would give me pause.  Perhaps she thought I would not strike her, but I did, knocking my lovely daughter to the floor.  Blood trickled from her broken lip as she struggled to stand.
I ripped the braid from her grip and struck again.  As she fell to the floor, I twisted the braid, tied it into a knot, binding my daughter with my magic.  She sat and glared at me as her left eye began to swell shut from my blow.

I could not bear to kill her, this child I had raised, but I could not allow her to be free.  I bound her physically as well as magically and carried her to the last of the standing watchtowers, a stone building dating from the years before the manor was built.  I left her tied and gagged while I carried up a few items she would need to survive: food, clothes, bedding, firewood, cooking pots, other items.  I considered giving her a spinning wheel, but some small voice of intuition, or perhaps the collective memory of witches past, warned me against it. She would be able to draw water from the tower's small well on the first floor.

Satisfied, I loaded my cart with the things I would take with me, personal items, a few family treasures, seeds for a garden, my amulets and talismans, the long golden braid of my daughter.

At last I turned to the crumbling halls of my family.  She had defiled it.  The magic of my family's estate had been failing and fading since the fall of the old empire.  It was too weak to withstand what my daughter had wrought.  Even now I could sense the taint of her death magic on the slowly decaying manor.

I set the building a-flame and watched through the night while the final remnant of my childhood burned to the ground.  As the last embers lost their glow and dawn began to show in the east, I turned again to the old watchtower, climbing its steps to where my beautiful child sat tied to the wall.

"I cannot take your life," I told her.  "But I will not allow you to harm another.  I will return every two months with food and supplies, but I will not set you free."

I untied her, removed her gag, and left.  I sealed the tower behind me with a charm, and then unbound the knot in the braid.

Her screams and cries filled my ears as I drove my cart into the forest.

#

I married my gentle innkeeper.

I told the villagers that my daughter had died, killed by wolves.  I told them that I had barely escaped the attack.  The slashes on my face from my fight with my daughter seemed to verify my tale.  There was talk among the men of forming a hunting party, but naught ever came of it.

I settled into the gentle rhythm of village life, working at my husband's inn and acting as village midwife, administering healing poultices and teas.

My husband did not question me when I ventured into the forest every two months, but simply kissed my scarred face and bid me return safely.

Each time I visited my daughter, I grieved.  Each time I twisted her braid into a knot to bind her before I entered her tower, my tears fell.  Each time I was forced to remove the carcasses of forest creatures from the grim rooms of the tower, my sorrow deepened.  Each time I saw the look of hatred on her face and the growing madness in her eyes, I wept for the little girl she had been.  And each time I turned away from the tower to the sounds of her screams and curses, I wished I had the courage to end her life.

For four years I lived this way.

The Prince came to the village the spring of the fifth year of my new life.

To be honest, I had no idea there even was a Prince, or a King for that matter, who claimed sovereignty over our village.  Oh, I knew there had to be someone, somewhere who considered themselves ruler over the sleepy, back-water bit of village.  Since the fall of the old Empire a series of straw-kings, self-proclaimed grand-dukes, and petty
warlords had struggled to impose their wills upon the rotting carcass of a once mighty dynasty.

I had long ago stopped concerning myself with their antics.  I had long ago stopped clinging to my family's ancient titles and honors.  I suppose I would have as strong a claim to lordship over the village as any, if I chose to exert it.  Not that it truly mattered.

They stopped in our village overnight to rest.  One of the armsmen confided in my husband that their supposed mission was to survey the old roads and determine what, if anything, was to be done to repair them.  What they were really doing, the man said in a conspiratorial whisper, was getting the young Prince out into the world.  The king
and queen wanted the young man to experience more of life than the court, and perhaps to find a match of his own among the kingdom's maidens.

Had I known, I would have blocked the path through the woods.  Had I known, I would have worked a small magic into their meals to make them turn away from our village and forget it ever existed.

But I did not know that our young prince was descended from the royalty of old.  I did not know that his father had married his mother after waking her from a one hundred year slumber.  I did not know that the old magic ran deep in his blood.  He would be able to see past my little concealing spell and find the path to my old life.  To my
daughter.

They left in the morning and I thought of them no more.  I had a visit to my child to focus on.  Five days after the prince and his men rode away, I left the village, following the old road, as I had done so many times before.

I heard the sounds of demolition long before I reached the clearing. The sharp ring of hammers and picks and shovels filled the damp spring afternoon air with the sounds of industry.

I left the forest path and cautiously slipped up to the clearing.  A half-dozen of the young Prince's men-at-arms were using a handful of hammers, a pick, and a variety of make-shift tools to chip away at her tower, trying to breech the door, or the wall around it.  Thus far my charms seemed to be holding.

I narrowed my eyes as I considered the men attempting to tear down my tower.  Their movements were wrong: too slow, too stiff.  They did not speak or curse or cry out.  They did not perspire in the moist spring air.

I reached into my belt pouch and withdrew the long golden braid.  I tied the braid into a knot and forced my will upon it.  From within the tower I heard a shriek of rage as the six men-at-arms fell limp to the ground.

My casual walk toward the door turned into a sprint when I heard a distressed male voice call out from inside the tower walls crying, "My darling, what is wrong?  Where are you?"

I drew the charmed key from my pouch and placed it on the entrance.  I murmured the incantation and flung open the heavy oak door with a strength born of fear and desperation.

The stench of death made me reel and gag.  The putrid smell of rotting flesh, old blood, urine, and feces nearly overwhelmed me as I entered my daughter's lair.  Upward I climbed, past the corpses of small animals, past the bloated remains of the remainder of the Prince's men, their bodies torn and scattered, until at last I reached the top of the tower and drew breath from the fresh breeze blowing across the battlement.

"Mother."

My daughter spat the word as it were the most foul-tasting offal to ever touch her tongue.

I spared her only the barest glance.  She sat huddled against the stone and covered by her long hair.  She might yet be able to use her voice, but I wore my protective talisman and her body was bound to my will.  Though for how much longer, I could not tell.  The magic of my home were nearly spent, eroded by time and my daughter's power.

I focused instead on the Prince.  He stood with his back to me.  His rich tunic and vest was torn, his breeches stained down the legs.  He was barefoot, his high leather riding boots gone missing.

"My prince," I said softly.

"Who is there?" he asked, turning toward the sound of my voice.

I stepped away, back toward the door, fighting my urge to run, to flee.  Blood and dark fluid covered his face.  He peered at me with empty eye sockets.

"Who is there?" he demanded, stepping toward me and drawing his sword.

In that moment I felt the magic of my ancestors, the magic I had called upon to bind my child, waver and fade.

She laughed then, high and harsh.  My daughter stood in one fluid motion.

I took another step backward, towards the door.  "What have you done?" I asked.  "What have you done?"

She stopped at his side and placed a hand on his arm.  He turned his orbless gaze upon her and smiled.

My daughter tossed her long hair over her shoulder.  She wore no clothing under her hair; her body was naked and pale.

"I called them to me," she said.  "I let my hair down the side of the tower and they climbed to my room, each in his turn."

"His eyes--" I said.

"He has looked upon the fairest sight he shall ever see.  Why should he have need of his eyes again?"  She turned her gaze upon him.  My child spoke in a soft soothing voice.  "My mother stands before us, she who imprisoned me, she who slew your men and took your sight with magic.  Kill her for me, my love."

The blind prince raised is blade and turned toward me again.  Whether some magic of my child's moved him to sense my location, or some instinct of his own guided him, I know not.  I turned and fled down the stairs and out of the charnel house the watchtower had become.  I pushed past the suddenly reanimated armsmen at the door and ran as
fast as my aging legs would carry me, away from that place.

The sound of my daughter's voice chased me into the forest.  I turned my wagon around and cracked my whip over the ears of my startled draft-horse, demanding more speed from him.  I could still hear her horrible laughter in my head even as the miles between us grew.

#

 I stopped at the inn long enough to pack my few belongings and kiss my husband farewell in his sleep.  I traveled back to the beginning, to my old cottage, nestled behind its high wall. To the place of my daughter's birth.

I found the cottage empty.  The roof sagged pitifully.  The doors and windows were missing and there were signs of animals having sheltered there.  But I could tell no human had lived between these walls since I.  Even after eighteen years, the villagers were too afraid of my reputation for one of them to take up residence.  My garden, the place
it all had started, was a thick tangle of weeds and vegetables gone wild.  The tell-tale signs of rotted fruit from seasons past littered the ground of the orchard.

I had returned to this place because I had dwelled here for over half a decade.  I had left a bit of my magic, my power, imbued in the stone and soil.  Not as much magic as the home of my ancestors had stored. There, generations of my kind has cast their spells and worked their enchantments.  But still, anytime one worked with power in one place
for long, some of that power was bound to pool into the rocks and dirt within its boundaries.  No, there was not much magic lying dormant in the plants, soil, and stone, but it would be enough for the working I had in mind.

They caught up to me two months later.  The dullard, looking thin and grey and missing an arm, brought them to my door.  They bound my hands and stuffed a soiled rag in my mouth to stop my speech.  They ripped the protective talisman from around my neck and ground it underfoot. The one who seemed their captain took the braid of my daughter's hair and reverently placed it in a satin bag.  They dragged me out of the ruined cottage, past the dolt and his pox-marked wife.  They locked me in a cage on a wagon, paid the dullard his bits of coin and took me away, heading west.

They had no concern for my well-being or my privacy.  If it rained, I was soaked by its fall.  If I needed to relieve myself, I was forced to do so in full view of the company of soldiers.  I was tossed scraps of stale camp-bread and gristle to sustain myself.

For a month we traveled.  At last we reached our destination.  Someone had ridden ahead to tell of our coming.  I was pelted with stones and rotten fruits from the moment we reached the dirty shacks squatting clustered outside the high walls of the city until we gained the low inner wall of the great stone fortress and castle beyond.

At last we arrived where she stood waiting.

My daughter gazed coolly at me, her blind prince by her side.  She said nothing to me, only smiled as I was pulled from my cage.  I tried to gather my tattered clothing around me, determined to meet whatever fate she planned for me with dignity, if nothing else.

I was taken to a suite and given over to the care of a group of older, stern women.  They stripped the filthy rags from my body.  I was washed clean.  My hair was cut and styled.  My nails were trimmed and filed.  I was dressed in a long gown of grey velvet with red silk trim.  They bound my hands and secured a silken gag into my mouth before turning me back over to a pair of guardsmen in full dress uniforms.

I was marched into a large chamber.  The sanctuary of a church, I realized.

I was to bear witness to my daughter's wedding.

The guardsmen chained me to the wall, left of the alter and forward of the pews, where all could see.

She married her blind prince, standing up and smiling in front of an older couple I took to be the king and queen, and all of the royal court.  She married with all the pomp and pageantry of a fairy-tale wedding for a fairy-tale princess.

Afterward, there was a grand feast.  I was brought to this event as well, seated at the foot of a long table in the center of the room.  I was chained to the table and my mouth left constrained.  My stomach rumbled at the smell of the rich food around me.

I had been strategically placed so that my daughter could look down from her place at the high-table to where I sat bound, muffled, and powerless.

At last the feast ended.  I was brought forward to play my final role in her game.  My guards brought me to where she sat next to her husband, just below the King and Queen on their thrones.  I was shoved to my knees in front of her.  One of my guards pushed the back of my head down, so that I was forced to look at her slipper-covered feet.

Perhaps they thought they would need to beat me in order to make me comply with her wishes.  Perhaps they thought I would need to be cuffed about as if I were a disobedient dog, until at last I would do her bidding.

They brought it out on a velvet cushion all of purple and studded with diamonds and sapphires.  All in the room seemed surprised when I took the delicate circlet, stood, and smiled at my daughter.

They had taken the braid I had cut from her head so long ago, cleaned and replaited it, woven brilliant rubies and emeralds among its strands, and adjoined the two ends together with a clamp of gold.

I placed it on her head.  It sat upon her brow like a sparkling, golden halo.  I felt my eyes fill with tears.  She was so beautiful to me, even now.

"I love you," I said to her.

She smiled at me, a feral gleam in her eyes, and leaned toward me. "Tonight I shall sing for the court, and all shall love me," she whispered, too low for any but I to hear.  She sat up straight and motioned to my guards.  "Take her away and let her be forgotten."

#

They need not have bound my hands nor stilled my voice.  I was no longer any threat to them.  No, my magic was spent, used fully in one final working, one last grand charm.

My terrible child sang for her new family and their court.  Her voice rose pure and sweet, triggering my last spell.

What I could not bring myself to do before had to be done now.  I had no choice.  She could not be allowed loose in the world.

I wonder how it sounded as her song filled the air and her braid--the braid I took from her so many years ago--dropped around her neck and contracted.

I wonder, did her head roll far from her body?  Did it, come to rest at her prince's feet?

I hear the guards shouting, gathering outside my cell door. I hear the rattle of a key in the lock.

Perhaps they will tell me.

Perhaps.