The Boy Who Was Mistaken for a Fairy King

by HL Fullerton

…wake the hounds…

  A fairy by any other name is sprite, elf, pixie, brownie, gnome, ogre, troll, hobgoblin, leprechaun, so on and so on. There are as many species of fairy as there are countries of origin and bumps in the night. When Grandfather Chase’s Jeep broke down a mile from the scenic lookout they’d visited post-cocoa spill, a band of what appeared to be raccoons scurried out of the brush lining the deserted county route. Carrying what Evangeline’s fanciful mind insisted were torches and pitchforks (but what turned out to be red-bulbed flashlights and assorted wrenches), they gleefully introduced themselves as gremlins and offered roadside assistance—if the antlered one wanted it.

  The raccoon impression didn’t go away with proximity, or the knowledge that these six miniaturized, fur-wearing sapiens identified as gremlins. They had tiny hands and lumbering, pear-shaped bodies. Their skin, at least that on their faces, was brindled with bands of black encircling their eyes like tattooed Zorro masks. They stood in bowling pin formation and gibbered among themselves, hiding mouths behind doll-sized, belly-of-the-tiger-striped fingers.

  The antlered one—who preferred Carl, but introduced himself to the gremlins as King—was outside the car, standing even with the passenger side headlight, legs braced, neck bent, antlers forward. He towered over these would-be mechanics.

  “You want us to fizzit then?” the lead gremlin said, eyes gleaming while he strobed the Jeep’s hood—and King—with his garish flashlight.

  Evangeline thought they seemed too eager, and she wasn’t sure she wanted anyone ‘fizzit’-ing her grandfather’s car but Triple A—whom she’d call if her phone had a signal. She didn’t want to judge on appearances, only she didn’t have a lot else to go on, and it was more their manner she objected to. They acted—no, looked (if she were perfectly honest with herself)—like bandits. And, judging by the clothes they wore, they were excellent at trapping and skinning. It was the skinning that worried her. That meant they had sharp, skin-splitting knives as well as blunt-force trauma wrenches.

  “Do you know these guys?” she sotto-voce’d through the open window. She didn’t mind a boyfriend who listened to trees or had antlers, but she might draw the line at one who associated with pot-bellied gremlins.

  “I’ve never met gremlins before,” King said loudly.

  At that, Evangeline stretched her arm into the back, keeping her gaze upon the odd creatures. Surely, Grandpa had a weapon or two tucked away; all Chases did because one never knew when a chase might begin.

  “But I hear,” Carl King continued, “they like to tinker with machinery that doesn’t belong to them.”

  Gabbled rounds of “Tinker, tailor, soldier, gaoler” broke out in the ranks. The gremlin in the one-pin spot shushed his compatriots. “So you want fizzit or not, King-boy?” he said.

  King snorted, stepped closer to the gang. “I want you to un-fizzit whatever you fizzited while she and I scenic-ed, yeah?”

  “Traitor trees,” the middling of them grumbled. Flashlights clicked off and the road got dark.

  Deciding to forego subtlety, Evangeline scrambled into the back of the Jeep and tossed it. She discovered a trove of fishing supplies—useless—and, finally, a compound bow. She dug up three arrows—not enough—grabbed a couple of blankets to camouflage her finds, stuffed a pocket knife into a pocket, and exited the vehicle. She looked like an archer sporting a bow wrapped in a blanket. She’d feel better if she had some hot chocolate left to throw in glinting gremlin eyes, which indicated their night vision was far superior to hers.

  “The gremlins are going to put the Jeep back in working order,” King proclaimed. “You watch from the treeline.”

  “Hunter-girl.” The lead gremlin nodded as if he approved. As the rest of the gang swarmed the Jeep, wrenches at the ready, he squinted at Carl. “King-boy, you call Hunt?”

  King tilted his head into the breeze. Evangeline knew he was listening and hoped the trees knew what to do about a gremlin infestation. She held her breath as if that would help her boyfriend hear better. “No. I’ve called no hunt.”

  “You call Hunt, we soldier.” Whispers of tinker, tailor, soldier, gaoler echoed in the night. Evangeline assumed this was some sort of weird resume for the gremlins. She wondered if more than cars could be fizzited and decided she didn’t want to be next on their list of things to tinker with.

  “If I ever call a hunt, you’ll be invited to soldier. But I’ve called no hunt.”

  “We’ve gaolered well,” the gremlin said. “Time for soldier now.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The gremlin fidgeted. “We’ve heard the hounds.”

  King paused. Then he tossed his head. “There. Is. No. Hunt. Make the car go.”

  The gremlin grumbled his way over to the Jeep, whose hood was now popped, its bumpers adorned with gibbering gremlin mechanics. King joined Evangeline. “You may have to run,” he said.

  “Chases don’t get chased.”

  “Try slipping away without them noticing. There’s a deer path about twenty yards in. Keep to the left of the large maples to find it. I’ll follow.”

  “You don’t think they’ll fizzit—I mean, fix the Jeep?”

  “I’m more worried they’ll fix us next. There may be more on their way.”

  “So these are scouts?”

  “I guess,” King said. “Gremlins supposedly run in small gangs and bigger gangs—trees aren’t great at numbers. Or counting.”

  She stepped closer to the trees, nonchalantly removed the blanket from her weapon. She didn’t want to take her eyes off the gremlins, but if she and Carl were to run through the woods, she needed her eyes to adjust to darkness; staring into headlights wouldn’t accomplish that.

  “Do trees know the best way to kill gremlins?” Any help would be appreciated since gremlin hunting wasn’t something her family had done before. Evangeline was thinking a shot through the eye into their brain would be a good bet, but it was dark and her ability to take out an eye was compromised by her limited vision. Their skin appeared alligator tough, and she didn’t have arrows to waste.

  “Trees don’t hunt or soldier. We don’t need to, either.”

  A gremlin climbed into the Jeep and blasted the horn. He twisted the key; the Jeep spluttered. Evangeline took another few steps into the brush and turned into the night. Black on black on black. She blinked, then blinked again. Her sight would get better, but it was okay enough to avoid running straight into a tree trunk. Since Carl had warned against running, she moved cautiously so as not to engage a gremlin’s predator response. She smarted that she wasn’t doing the stalking, clutched her arrows a touch tighter.

  Slowly, she fled down a mountain crowded with trees, imagining gremlins nipping at her muddy heels.

  …gremlins are basically ants, strong but easily trampled…

  Carl King stood guard, claiming ground between Evangeline’s grandfather’s Jeep and the forest containing his fleeing girlfriend. He was scared, and if it weren’t for the trees whispering reports of the human girl’s progress, he would’ve torn after her. He’d promised Evangeline he’d follow, and he’d meant it when he said it. He only intended to serve as a distraction, then slip away after her, knowing—with the trees’ guidance—he could easily catch up to her. But once she left, he was assailed by new worries. His plan had flaws.

  The more he heard of the gremlins’ gibberish talk, the more he realized that if he slipped away to join his girlfriend, not only would the gremlins follow him, they’d think he was chasing Evangeline, hunting her, and they’d join in. Tinkerers turned soldiers.

  By sending Evangeline away, he may have put her in worse harm. He broke into a sweat thinking how other gremlins could be hunting her right this second. Perhaps he should’ve let Evangeline stay, let her hunt them. Although a fistful of arrows meant the gremlins still outnumbered them, and Carl was no use in a fight. Carl had never been in a fight.

  “Is it repaired yet?” His voice cracked, embarrassing him, ruining the
image he wanted to project. Be a King. Stand firm.

  “Tinkering goes best in other direction,” the lead gremlin said. “Soon, soon.”

  Gremlins, it seemed, were better at breaking things than putting them to rights. In the woods, something screeched. Carl pivoted and crashed into the brush, antlers first. So much for standing firm. He’d been antsy ever since Hobhouse’s, and meeting gremlins hadn’t helped his serenity.

  Behind him, a wrench clattered on the pavement. Like magpies, gremlins seek out shiny and new. They especially like exciting.

  Chase is to follow. To pursue. To hunt. To run to ground. ‘Chasing,’ however, isn’t the same as ‘catching,’ is it? No more than ‘hunting’ is the same as ‘killing.’ Except, of course, for those times when the first ends in the second.

  …a fairy wind blows…

  There are trails and then there are deer paths. Sometimes the two converge. In this case, they did not. Earlier, at the scenic lookout where Carl King and Evangeline Chase sipped the remains of their hot chocolate from polypropylene cups and walked among sane and sleeping trees in the hope of restoring everyone’s good humors, they strolled along a trail. Wide enough for two, it was intended for people-use so rocks and roots were infrequent.

  A deer path, down which Evangeline fled and Carl followed, was made by hooves for four-footed mammals. It was narrow at times seeming to disappear into no more than a few scuffs. Evangeline abandoned the deer path altogether when she sensed the path veering too far to her left, deeper into woods toward a water source, and Evangeline was more interested in finding road than rivulet, cars over streams.

  She took the path of least resistance down the hillside, her blanket wrap bearing the brunt of damage from stickers, prickers and thorns. The bow was a hindrance as were the arrows. She considered dumping them to pull out her phone to serve as a flashlight. It was a fine line between light as beacon to potential pursuers and a light to keep her from breaking an ankle. She fiddled about until she found a compromise where neither bow nor flashlight was particularly helpful, but both were better than nothing.

  Still, she startled at every rustling sound or snapping twig, and the forest was not a quiet thing, never was. Its night noises were far less familiar to her than its day noises, made more scary by the fact that she was one crashing about, drawing the most attention.

  Somewhere above, an owl screeched. She froze, then continued moving.

  Her somewhat reliable direction sense combined with the thumping bass of the occasional passing car led her back to the side of the county route, far enough downhill that neither gremlins nor her grandfather’s Jeep was in sight. She was smart enough to know that just because she felt she’d traveled far didn’t mean she had. There was every chance that she was closer to them than she thought. If the headlights had died, she could be right on top of gremlins and not realize it until it was too late.

  Breathing hard, she worried she wouldn’t hear a gremlin unless it screamed directly in her ear. She checked her phone for signal, and though it was weak, dialed home, thankful that her battery hadn’t conked out like the car. She didn’t use the word ‘gremlin’ but made her situation sound harrowing enough that her mother promised someone would pick her up immediately and that a tow truck would take care of Grandpa’s Jeep.

  Evangeline stayed away from the road, concealing herself as best she could in a mess of rhododendron. She situated herself for a long wait, preparing the bow and her three arrows for quick use, cringing at how noisy each movement was, despite the cushion of the folded blanket beneath her. The cold of the ground leeched through the blanket and into her legs, stiffening her muscles.

  She had enough time to think how sprinting down the road might have been a better and quicker way to distance herself from the fizziting gremlins. Surely, they had qualms about being seen by humans, though why she and Carl had been so blessed, she wasn’t certain. While Carl trusted trees, now that Evangeline had a few minutes to think on it, asking a tree for the best way to outrun something wasn’t the smartest thing. For one, trees don’t move, let alone run. And while Carl might have an advantage playing hide-and-seek from a rampaging band of gremlins among the trees, Evangeline couldn’t hear tree talk and so had no advantage. However, Monday-morning quarter-backing wasn’t about to get her out of her current predicament.

  She hoped her freezing fingers had enough sense not to let an arrow fly into Carl should he be the first moving thing to appear. She’d give him ten minutes, then she was marching back up the road, bow drawn, and reclaiming the broken Jeep. Chases ought to do the chasing.

  Seconds later, several somethings short came crashing through spindly branches and weaving around trunks. Her fingers loosed the arrow at one of the shadowy stumps. Whatever she hit, screamed bloody murder, which made her realize she’d missed her kill shot. More of whatever they were were coming, she was now down to two arrows, and her opponents could likely extrapolate her position from their wounded comrade’s.

  She notched her penultimate arrow and swore she’d make the next two dead, and when Evangeline Chase set her mind on a task, things got done.

  Mrs. Chase knew her daughter. She knew all her children, but especially Evangeline because Evangeline was not only the most direct—a trait she learned from her father—but the most over-competent. There wasn’t anything Evangeline didn’t think she could handle. So when Evangeline called and said she was having car trouble, could Dad bring the pickup with the gun rack—loaded—and maybe some bear spray? Oh, and tell Dad she and Carl might not be at the Jeep but down the road in the woods because Carl was scared of some aggressive, possibly rabid raccoons, but not to worry ’cause she had Grandpa’s bow, Mrs. Chase sent out every available adult Chase and Forrester to Evangeline’s reported location. If Evangeline was prevaricating and describing something as troublesome, it was probably the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse about to raise hell.

  Mr. Chase asked, “How many rounds am I putting in this boy?” and his wife said, “Check with Evie first so’s you shoot the right raccoon.” Then she tossed a couple of shovels from the gardening shed into her husband’s truck bed for “Just in case.”

  “Won’t be nothing left to bury,” her husband said and went to retrieve their daughter.

  …nothing left to bury: a sentiment (or goal) worth sharing…

  Carl stripped his antlers of their velvet in his haste to save Evangeline, turning them an eerie, near-phosphorescent white. He burst upon her rhododendron haven in a panic, chest heaving, antlers scrubbed (with one point chipped, another cracked), face scraped and hands bloody. Only to find Evangeline didn’t require saving of any kind. An arm’s length away a gremlin hopped about, holding his ear and screeching, “Hunter-girl shot me! Hunter-girl shot me!”

  There was a whipping of wind, a thunk sound, followed by more shrieking. Carl realized Evangeline was shooting gremlins. “Stop, stop. No hunt! No! Hunt!” he called—to her as much as the gremlins. “Evangeline, it’s me: Carl.”

  Evangeline didn’t leave her bower, didn’t make one sound. If not for the trees, Carl wouldn’t know where she was. He couldn’t see her among the leaf-adorned shrubbery. Couldn’t see much of anything, and had no idea how to triangulate.

  “Why Hunter-girl shoot us?” a gremlin voice asked.

  “Because you chased her. You can’t chase a hunter and not get hunted.” Carl was exasperated. And still frightened, damn it. Evangeline acting the sniper wasn’t helping any. Neither did not knowing what to do.

  “Not chase. Join!” another gremlin voice said.

  “We hunt with Hunter-girl.”

  Carl yelled, “Hunter-girl isn’t hunting! No one is hunting!” The forest went quiet. Even the trees held their breath. He felt he should apologize, but also felt he was the only one who hadn’t committed any violence. Then a caravan of headlights lit up the nearby road and the gremlins scrambled out of sight.

  “That’d be my family,” Evangeline said, dragging herself, her bow and the b
lanket out from her nest while twisting branches tugged at them to stay. “You may want to stay close behind me so you don’t get shot. They might be a little trigger-happy to see you.”

  In the language of flora, the rhododendron symbolizes danger. Apt, no?

  …ready the hounds…

  Evangeline’s father stared at the boy with antlers and then his daughter. Both looked like they’d been dragged backward through a rabbit hole. “Someone want to tell me what happened here?”

  Evangeline gave him a hug and a half-ass explanation. “The Jeep stopped working and we, uh, took a walk in the woods.”

  “With a bow?”

  “There were some aggressive raccoons.”

  “And the blanket?”

  “I was chilly.”

  He eyed the boy again, checked him for arrows ’cause he knew Evie didn’t miss much. There weren’t any: no arrows, no raccoons. “Do I need to go hunting?”

  “Daaad. Carl’s not the problem. Can we just go home already? I didn’t ask Mom to send an army, just a tow truck and a way home.” She gestured to the cluster of Chases and Forresters behind him.

  “Get in my truck.” When the boy went to follow, Mr. Chase stopped him with a raised palm. “You ride with Ivers.”

  Ivers—one of the clustered Forresters—waved the boy over to his ride, which was parked directly behind Evangeline’s dad’s. Evangeline called back, “Don’t you skin him, Uncle Ivers. I want him returned in the same condition or better. He’s taking me to the dance next week.”

  The boy reclined the seat before even climbing in, then ducked his head and entered Ivers truck antlers first. He didn’t seem worried about possible skinning, but tentatively felt up his shredded antlers, wincing when he touched a bloody streak, poked a chipped point. Ivers didn’t comment; neither did the boy.

  When Ivers’ truck’s headlights joined Evangeline’s father’s and both lit up the broke-down Jeep and surrounding pavement, Ivers made his first eye contact with the boy. One brow peaked as his said, “Raccoons using wrenches, huh?”