Feast of the Elfs

by John C. Wright

  Gil, of course, did not have the ability to find these herbs and flowers in the pathless morass, but by a combination of wheedling and threatening, he convinced some opossums, raccoons, river rats, ringtail cats, and woodcocks to help him.

  He had to bribe them with his dinner, so he went hungry that night. But by dawn, the animals and birds gathered more into the bag of the poisonous flowers and sweet green herbs than Foxglove could have gathered in three trips. She was so happy when she saw the overflowing bag that she clapped her hands, hopped for joy, and leaped at Gil to kiss his cheek. Then she blushed as red as a beet and ran away.

  Gil said, “I hope she remembers to hide it. She is supposed to go out into the swamp from Saturday evening to Sunday morning, or else it won’t look like she gathered it.”

  Ruff, sitting nearby scratching his flees, watched the little witch’s maid run off, clutching her bag of swamp herbs. He whistled. “I’m telling Nerea.”

  Gil said, “What are you talking about? You’re crazy.”

  “Gilberec and Foxglove sitting in a tree… Kay, eye, ess, ess, eye, en, gee…”

  “Other dogs foam at the mouth when they are mad. You rhyme.”

  “She’s sweet on you!”

  “Can’t be. For one thing, she is thirteen. Or twelve.”

  “She is older than that. The witch feeds her a drug to keep her from growing up. To keep her too young to breed.”

  “That’s gross.”

  “Everything witches do is gross.”

  “Not in the movies. In movies, the witches are always young and cute—they’re always good witches.”

  “Hollywood is run by elfs,” grunted the dog.

  “Anyhow, I have talked with her maybe once.”

  “Listen. Listen. If you did not shout at her that once you talked to her, then you are the only who hasn’t. You were nice. That means a lot to girls like her. No one bothers to find out her name for the same reason they don’t want to bother finding out yours. She is not going to live long.”

  Gil said, “How do you know?”

  “Hey, I am a spy, after all, and I have lots of time to sniff around while you are busy getting hit on the head with wooden swords and falling off your pony.”

  “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “The elfs were thinking of giving the witch away at the tithe because the dark powers prefer to take a human in the place of an elf. But the witch will give them her prentice in her place, and they’ll agree, because the powers prefer a virgin in the place of a crone.”

  2. The Dovecote

  On Sunday morning an hour before dawn, Gil was in his armor and surcoat on top of Ceingalad, with shield and helm hanging from his saddle. He and Ruff trotted near the creaking old tower used as the dovecote where the Witch slept amid piles of white bird droppings. The moon was down, and the night was cool, and the insects and toads in the swamp were chirruping and croaking.

  The snores of the witch could be heard even through the stone walls and wooden cap of the tower. Her nose was like a foghorn.

  Gil asked Ruff to sniff around and find the trail of Foxglove.

  One of the doves called out in alarm, “Who’s there?”

  Gil said softly, “Please go back to sleep. If you wake up the witch, everything is lost!”

  “Is that you? Gilberec Moth? The trees are talking about you.” High above, a small white bird head peered out from between two broken tiles in the conical roof.

  Gil said, “Hush! Yeah, I am a friend of theirs. Sort of.”

  The white dove cocked its head to one side. “A tree-friend! Are you saving Foxglove?”

  “Yes, yes, now hush up. Don’t wake up the other birds!”

  “We like her! We do!” That was a second bird, which also stuck its white, slim head out of the dovecote to peer at him.

  And one or two other birds inside the tower cooed, “We do! We do! Dooo!”

  The second bird asked excitedly. “Do you like her?”

  “Sort of. Not really. Now please be quiet!”

  “Why are you helping her if you don’t really like her?” piped up a third bird. Now more and more little avian faces with bright eyes were peering down from under the roof eaves. “Who knows what the witch will do to you?” (and other doves cooed, “Do to you! Do to you! Youuu!”)

  “She’s a damsel. She’s in distress. It’s my job. Now hush up, for Christ’s sake!”

  The several birds billed and cooed for a moment, and one said, “For his sake, we shall. The spirit who descended on the Christ to baptize him was like one of us, which was a great blessing for all doves. I will go and tell the priest to ready the water, oil, and wine.”

  And one lone white bird flew out across the night sky. The others, true to their word, returned to their perches inside the tower most silently. No voice was raised in alarm, and there was no clamor as Gil followed Ruff away from the tower. The only sound that followed them was the raucous snores of the Witch.

  3. Foxglove

  Ruff led Gil directly to the little hillock beneath a moss-covered oak tree where Foxglove sat, shivering. The bag of herbs she was pretending to gather was hanging on a gnarled tree branch. She was sitting in her shapeless brown dress, her red hair a wild mess, her pointed elbows around her knobby knees, rocking back and forth, staring at the oily swamp waters and tufts of grass that hissed and murmured in the night breeze. Gil heard the noise of sobbing and crying.

  The twitter of the first bird broke through the susurration of insect whines and toad voices. “Dawn!” the bird cried.

  Other birds joined in, twittering. “Hail! Holy light! Offspring of Heaven firstborn! Of the eternal, a co-eternal beam! For God is light! And his first word of creation in his image his own image made, light from light!”

  Gil trotted up on horseback, tack jangling.

  Foxglove looked up at him, embarrassed, woebegone. Gil saw no sign of tears on her cheeks. She said, “What are you doing here? You are going to get us both in trouble.”

  Gil said to Ruff, “Good boy. You found her. And there is no one following? No one watching?”

  Ruff said, “Nope. The normal elf spies, owls, and pixies and the like, were baffled by the witch-spell Sir Bertolac ordered to cover your tracks.”

  Gil said to Foxglove, “Are you willing to give up this place forever. I can take you into the human world, and no one will be the wiser. Do you have any folks? Any place to stay?”

  She said, “I cannot go back to the human world. I never knew my dad, my mom’s boyfriends beat me, and I was in and out of doctors’ offices and clinics because I could see things that were not there. A witch woman found me. She was a friend of the elfs. She said she would teach me secrets. Skip was the name of Mom’s latest boyfriend. I might have killed him. I was trying to. Skip was screaming in his sleep when I got out of his car, and he got out, too, even though he was asleep. He was sleepwalking in the middle of the road, trying to hit the oncoming cars with a tire iron. I made him drive me in his sleep to the bus station. I can do that to people. Just with words and a stick from a willow tree. The witch taught me. Then, I sent him out into the highway to fight the cars. So I am a killer. Or just as good as one. I cannot go back.”

  Gil said, “You can find someone to take you in, if you are willing to try. An orphanage is better than this.”

  She shook her head. “I signed a contract. In blood.”

  Gil said, “Witches really do that?”

  She nodded, miserably. “I sterilized the needle with alcohol first. I learned all about needles from my mother. If I break the contract, the Devil takes me.”

  Gil raised his head and listened to the birds singing for a moment. Then, he looked down at her, frowned, and said sternly, “I know a prince who is stronger than any demon or devil, but he is bound by his love for you never to help you until and unless you ask. Will you foreswear witches and witchcraft, and her false promises of power, and the elfs and their glamour, and all the deceits and trumpery of the Devil
? My prince can protect you.”

  She looked up. Foxglove must have known some of the gossip about Gil because now her eyes were shining. “Do you mean Arthur? Is he not your lord?”

  “I mean the lord Arthur serves. Come. Get up behind me.” He leaned down and smiled and extended his hand.

  She shook her head, her eyes empty of hope and life. “The elfs will find me.”

  “No one will look for you. Hand me your shawl.”

  And, when he had her shawl, he whistled and called for an alligator. After a few minutes, two yellow eyes looked up from the deeper water, and a great red mouth opened.

  “What do you want, Son of Adam? My kind has nothing to do with yours! My kind is as old as the terrible lizards who once ruled all the world in aeons long past, when all the world was swamp and no flower had ever opened it face. We were here before you, and we will be here when you are gone and the world is ruled by a coleopterous race of great-skulled beetle monsters, with eyes like lamps, cold and cruel with insect wisdom.”

  Gil said, “I’d like you to take this shawl, leave some teeth marks in it, and leave it by a deep pool where the witch who lives in yonder tower might find it when she comes looking.”

  The alligator said, “Is this the witch who has a stuffed alligator hanging in her study?”

  Gil said to Foxglove, “Does your witch own a stuffed alligator?”

  Foxglove said, “Yes. She makes me push the little dreams down its throat when they don’t do as she tells them. The ghost of the alligator is still bound inside the corpse, and he torments them and digests them. They come out the nether parts as nightmares and go to live in the closets and under the beds of little children.”

  The alligator said to Gil, “I heard her. That witch offends me. Give me a name, and I will do as you ask. We shall fool her.”

  “You seek revenge?”

  “The stuffed alligator was my mate. All her eggs died. I am left without any progeny, without a future. We are a very old race and such a thing is shame to us. I seek revenge.”

  “Your name is Edmund Dantes, the Croc of Monte Cristo.” And Gil tossed the shawl to him. The alligator took it in his great, grinning mouth and without any further words, submerged.

  Foxglove climbed up behind Gil, her freckled face wreathed in joy, and she put her arms about his waist and hugged him.

  Ruff said, “Watch out! There is a wooden bridge over a river and a stone bridge over a canal where you have to cross! If Nerea sees this, what will she think?”

  Gil took out a piece of bologna from the breakfast satchel and tossed it to Ruff. “She will think I am a hero for saving Foxglove.”

  “Suzy,” the redhead said. “My real name is Susannah Winifred Wenk. My mom called me Winner. Get it? Short for Winner-fred. That’s how she said it. My mom. Sometimes she had good days. You know. Whenever she was out of money, she could remember who I was.” And her face fell, and she sobbed without shedding tears.

  4. Mist and Sunlight

  The warhorse with its two riders, with a bright-eyed dog leaping and cavorting after, passed two bridges.

  The first was a covered bridge that crossed a river of waters dark, deep, and swift. The ground was drier and higher on the far side of this river, but the trees were thicker, and Spanish moss was in the branches, and kudzu was along the ground.

  Gil asked, “What is this dank wood called?”

  Ceingalad said, “I am a Foal of Equus, the sire of all steeds. It is for the Sons of Adam to name things.”

  But a ringtail cat in a nearby branch learned down and said, “Gilberec Moth! Is that you? I am sent to tell you that this is called Backswamp of the Backlands. The soil is sterile here, and all the tree roots are shallow. It is an unchancy place for you, where vows are broken.”

  Gil said, “Thank you, bassarisk! Who sent you?”

  “Dominic Moth was his name in life. He was a great explorer, adventurer, and missionary. His is the only known map of the Elfinlands, and even it is not complete.” But then the ringtail cat was startled by a noise and fled before he could say more.

  Two hours later, under a brighter, hotter sun, they emerged from the wood. Ceingalad’s hooves echoed loudly on the stones of the arched bridge that curved lightly over the canal, whose clear waters with idle languor past the feet of the bridge. This bridge was made of many stones in a pleasant variation of light and dark grays, oranges, reds, and ochres. It was so simple and beautiful in design, so well made, that Gil said, “Did elfs build this? Or are we in the human world?”

  Ceingalad said, “Elves build nothing. This is something preserved from the old days, when things were built in the old ways. You can tell from the sound and the feel under your hoof if a bridge is sound and will last.”

  Foxglove said, “I don’t think elfs built it. Look: there is a big stone cross by the crossroad right before the bridge. We have left the twilight lands. This is the day world.”

  Gil was surprised at a feeling, something like shyness or stage fright, he discovered in himself. It had been two months since he had seen any human beings, aside from slaves and servants of the elfs.

  The horse halted. Gil sat, staring at the two roads which headed off, one to the north and one to the east, from the big stone cross. He sat on the horse, trying to remember what the noise of a motor engine, or an airplane, or rock music sounded like.

  Foxglove said, “Oh! You should not ride around in armor with a sword. People will notice. And if someone takes a photograph, it might get into the newspapers.”

  Ruff barked, “Hey! She’s right. She’s right! Elfs run the newspapers. And the madhouses. I think that is where they get the staff.”

  Just then, the sound of the bells from Saint Francis de Sales came floating and echoing over the trees. Gil pushed with his knees, and jabbed with his heel, and said, “Giddyup!” and snapped the reins.

  Ceingalad said sardonically, “Giddy what? Do I look like a cowboy horse to you? I am an elf steed. You are supposed to say Noro lim! Noro lim!”

  Gil patted him on the neck and said, “Head toward the sound of the bells, please, brave Ceingalad. I’ll get you a carrot if you do.”

  The horse nonchalantly turned that direction, and then began trotting over the fields, and then sped up, charging and jumping any fences or ditches that happened to turn up in his way.

  Ceingalad said, “This they call the steeple chase! You pick a steeple in the distance and leap over anything in the way! Only the best steeds dare try this. Hang on!” And he jumped again.

  Foxglove clung more tightly to Gil’s back. “That is amazing! It is almost as if he understands what you are saying.”

  Gil said, “A very wise horse, this.”

  Ceingalad said, “Thank you.”

  Foxglove said, “See! He neighed. It is like he knows you are talking about him!”

  Ruff, running alongside, tongue lolling, yipped, “Tell her is it an optical illusion of the ear.”

  They came to a dirt road and followed it at an easier pace. They passed a few farmhouses, and then more. The dirt path ran into a paved road. Ahead, downslope, they could see the roofs and telephone poles of the town and the church steeple.

  Foxglove said, “But… uh… Mr. Swan. What is your first name? You aren’t dressed right to go into the human world. Do you know how to hide your stuff in the mist?”

  Gil said, “Sir Bertolac showed me, but he did it rather quickly, and I am not sure I remember. First, you stare at what you want to hide… ah…”

  Foxglove chuckled. “So. You are a Son of Adam after all. Haven’t you noticed the elfs never need to jot down notes or write books? They memorize everything in their songs and triads. It is the mist that does it. In the old days, when there was less mist, a poet could recite long epics from memory, or a prophet could name his every ancestor back to Adam. So Sir Bertolac would never think of repeating himself. Here. I will show you again.”

  Gil was not using the reins anyway, so he let them drop, unclipped the swo
rd, scabbard and all from his belt, and held it before him.

  She said, “First, it takes mist to summon mist because like attracts to like. Your sword, for example, is a great and ancient artifact, made by Weyland, so its roots reach into the legendary past, which is also in the mist. Close your right eye. Look at a bright part of the sword, such as the pommel.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now find a spot seven times the length from forefinger knuckle to nail down from the pommel. Seven is the magic number. Place your thumb there. Um. Take your gloves off first.”

  “Gauntlets.”

  “Then, hold the sword a cubit from your nose.”

  “What is a cubit?”

  “The distance from elbow cap to forefinger. That is the only way to tell a girl is born to be a witch, by the way; only a born witch can kiss her elbow cap.”

  Ruff said, “No, that cannot be right! I heard the only way to tell was that witches never cry. Or is that mummies? And they have a mark where they suckle their familiars.”

  Ceingalad said, “I hate mummies! Bertolac always smells like mummy rags when he comes back to Uffern House.”

  Meanwhile, Foxglove was saying to Gil, “Now, fix your eye without blinking on the pommel, and be aware of your thumb, but do not look toward it, or the spell will be broken. Slowly draw the sword toward your nose until your thumb disappears. Your thumbnail should be in the mist by a very nail’s breadth. Draw your thumb down, scraping a tiny wisp of mist after it. Then, quickly take that wisp between thumb and ring finger, and draw again. The mist will be attracted to itself and come trickling out. You can see it with the corner of your eye. Then, you just rub it with your eyesight on what you want to hide.”

  Gil said, “It is the rub it with my eyesight part I don’t get.”

  She said, “I’ll do it this time.” Then, she smiled sadly. “This might be the last time I ever do any witchcraft. Will I miss it?”