The bird fell silent.
The berries plunked into the bucket, the sound unexpectedly loud in the stillness.
Addie breathed warmth into her mitten and pulled it back over her fingers. She turned away from the bush and dropped the bucket in surprise.
He was tall and slender, and though he stood just a few feet from her, no footprints marked his passage through the snow.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to startle you.” His voice was quiet and low.
Addie picked up her bucket again, checking that none of the precious berries had been lost. “What do you want?”
“Only to help.” He did not smile. His hair was the color of the ice that formed over the river, dark blue-black, shot through with silver traceries.
Addie shrugged. “Don’t need your help.” She turned away and began walking.
“No, I suppose you don’t,” he said. “Still, I could help you fill your bucket faster.”
“Don’t want your help,” she said, and continued deeper into the forest. She found another bush and added another handful of berries to her bucket.
Again, the man was behind her when she turned. “I mean you no harm tonight,” he said softly.
“Go ‘way,” she said, and trudged on.
By the time her bucket was nearly full, the light was beginning to fade. She turned back toward home.
Once more, the man appeared. “Addie,” he said.
She stood still. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “But I know enough not to have truck with strange men in the woods who don’t leave footprints.”
His smile seemed startled but genuine, though Addie couldn’t help but notice that his mouth seemed to have more teeth in it than most mouths do. “All right,” he said. “Fair enough.” He thought for a moment, then gestured to his left. “Do you see that tree?” It was ancient and gnarled, its limbs twisted painfully.
She looked at it, then back at him, but said nothing.
“Should you ever have need, knock three times at that tree. Understand?”
“When I have need of you,” she said, “I’ll be pretty desperate indeed.”
He turned his palms upward and smiled again, though it didn’t reach his eyes this time. “Nevertheless, you need only knock three times if you find yourself in such desperation.”
She eyed him suspiciously for a long moment, then nodded once. “I don’t suppose your help comes free.”
His lips tugged up at the corners again. “Almost never.”
She nodded once more and turned away.
~*~
She didn’t say a word to her mother or sisters about the man.
~*~
In the morning, a raven was perched on the peak of the little cottage, just above the front door. Its glossy black feathers were threaded through with silver.
“Go ‘way,” she muttered at it, and threw a snowball. It cawed softly, fluttering out of the way, then landed again. It stayed there all day.
“A bad omen,” her mother said.
Addie said nothing.
~*~
She woke, a few nights later, to a sound of splintering, crashing wood. Peering out her window at the rear of the little cottage, she saw a great black bear nosing through the remains of their smokehouse. The moonlight glinted off the silver traceries in its fur.
In the morning, she went outside with her mother to see what was salvageable. They picked through the ruins but found little. She saw smoke begin to trickle out of the chimney as one of her sisters kindled the fire inside.
Her mother began sorting the timbers. “We’ll burn the ones that are ruined,” she said. “The bear has chopped our firewood for us.”
“And the rest?” Addie said.
“We rebuild.” Her mother was already heaving the wood into two piles. After a few moments, she pulled her sweater off, hung it over an evergreen nearby, and went back to work, her sinewy arms bare in the winter sun.
Addie watched her for a moment, then retrieved the axe from where it lay, half-buried in the snow, near the shrinking woodpile.
~*~
A blizzard howled round the cabin that night. Addie looked out her window to see the silvery snow streaming through the darkness.
~*~
Their food dwindled. Scraps of smoked meat and dried berries rattled emptily in their stomachs.
~*~
Her youngest sister fell ill. The girl groaned with fever, and sweat ran in silvery rivulets over her skin. Her mother rubbed her body with handfuls of snow, but the fever would not break.
Addie set snares for rabbits and winter birds, and dug for the hardy roots that hid under the snow. She made weak stews, adding some of the precious medicinal herbs her mother kept, and spooned them into the girl’s mouth. Still she burned.
Several days after the fever set in, Addie found her mother sitting still and silent by the fire. “Say your goodbyes, Addie,” she said.
Addie glanced fearfully to the cot where her sister lay.
“Not yet,” her mother said. “But soon.”
Addie knelt by the cot. The girl’s breath was shallow, barely discernable. Addie stroked her hair and squeezed her hand, but could find no words to say.
Finally, she stood. Silently, she pulled on her furs and walked out the door. Her mother watched her go, but said nothing.
When she found the tree, she banged savagely on it. Three times, then three times more. She was lifting her fist again when she heard his voice behind her.
“Desperate, are you?” he asked.
She whirled angrily and flung herself at him.
He stopped her easily, gripping her wrists. “Peace, Addie, peace.”
She sagged in his grip, then wrenched away. “You did this.”
He said nothing, but his eyes glittered icily.
“What do you want?” she said.
“What do you want?” he said.
She cursed at him. “My sister.”
He waited.
“Make her well.”
He waited.
She shivered. “I’ll do whatever you want if you make her well.”
He waited.
“Damn you, what do you want?” she yelled.
He smiled that cold, strange smile again, and held out his hand. “Plant this,” he said. “When it blooms, boil one petal for tea and give it to your sister.”
She sank into the snow. “She doesn’t have time to wait for plants to bloom,” she said.
“She has time,” he said. “I swear it.”
She tilted her head back, trying to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling out.
“I am many things, Addie,” he said, “but I am not a liar.”
“And what then?” she said. “After I make the tea, what then?”
“Then your sister will be well.”
“And what do you want from me? What’s the price?”
He spread his hands wide. “You,” he said. “You are the price.”
She stared at him.
“Plant the seed,” he said. “I will come to you when it blooms.”
~*~
Addie tried to explain what she had done to her mother, but she wasn’t interested. “This is not the time for fairy stories, Addie,” she said.
Addie dug a chunk of soil up and put it in a bowl. She carefully buried the seed and dripped a bit of water onto it.
In the morning, a tall sprout had sprung up through the dirt. Her sister still breathed.
The next morning, the stalk had grown taller still, and a flower bud, furled and tight, clung to it. “Tomorrow,” she told her mother. “Tomorrow it ends,” she murmured. Her mother gathered her into her arms and hummed an old lullaby to her.
~*~
The flower bloomed, silvery white petals with delicate black veins. Addie carefully plucked a single petal from it, boiled the tea, and dripped it down her sister’s throat.
An hour later, the fever broke.
~*~
Looki
ng out her window that night, she saw him waiting for her. She padded softly outdoors in her bare feet and short sleeves.
“Are you afraid?” he said.
She nodded. The snow gleamed in the moonlight. He took her hand and she saw that her veins showed blue-black through her pale skin.
“Are you ready?” he said.
She turned to look at the cottage behind her. The bare tree branches all around stood starkly against the moonlit sky.
“Will you give yourself to me?”
She turned back to face him and saw him staring intently at her. He held out his hand.
She nodded, closed her eyes, and took it.
The darkness was endless.
~*~
Kari Castor is a writer and educator. Her fiction and poetry has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including most recently In Gilded Frame, Spark: A Creative Anthology Vol. 3, and Serial Killers Tres Tria. She is co-writer of the monthly comic series Shahrazad and, in addition, serves as line editor for Big Dog Ink comics. She lives in the Chicago area with her husband, two dogs, and a cat named after a space princess. Find her online at www.karicastor.com.
~*~
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About the Anthologist
Rhonda Parrish is driven by the desire to do All The Things. She was the founder and editor-in-chief of Niteblade Magazine, is an Assistant Editor at World Weaver Press, and is the editor of several anthologies including, most recently, Sirens and C is for Chimera. In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been included or is forthcoming in dozens of publications including Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast, Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (2012 & 2015), and Mythic Delirium.
Her website, updated weekly, is at rhondaparrish.com.
~*~
More Anthologies in Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries Series
Corvidae
Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, Volume Two
Associated with life and death, disease and luck, corvids have long captured mankind’s attention, showing up in mythology as the companions or manifestations of deities, and starring in stories from Aesop to Poe and beyond.
In Corvidae birds are born of blood and pain, trickster ravens live up to their names, magpies take human form, blue jays battle evil forces, and choughs become prisoners of war. These stories will take you to the Great War, research facilities, frozen mountaintops, steam-powered worlds, remote forest homes, and deep into fairy tales. One thing is for certain, after reading this anthology, you’ll never look the same way at the corvid outside your window.
Featuring works by Jane Yolen, Mike Allen, C.S.E. Cooney, M.L.D. Curelas, Tim Deal, Megan Engelhardt, Megan Fennell, Adria Laycraft, Kat Otis, Michael S. Pack, Sara Puls, Michael M. Rader, Mark Rapacz, Angela Slatter, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Leslie Van Zwol.
Scarecrow
Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, Volume Three
Hay-men, mommets, tattie bogles, kakashi, tao-tao—whether formed of straw or other materials, the tradition of scarecrows is pervasive in farming cultures around the world. The scarecrow serves as decoy, proxy, and effigy—human but not human. We create them in our image and ask them to protect our crops and by extension our very survival, but we refrain from giving them the things a creation might crave—souls, brains, free-will, love. In Scarecrow, fifteen authors of speculative fiction explore what such creatures might do to gain the things they need or, more dangerously, think they want.
Within these pages, ancient enemies join together to destroy a mad mommet, a scarecrow who is a crow protects solar fields and stores long-lost family secrets, a woman falls in love with a scarecrow, and another becomes one. Encounter scarecrows made of straw, imagination, memory, and robotics while being spirited to Oz, mythological Japan, other planets, and a neighbor’s back garden. After experiencing this book, you’ll never look at a hay-man the same.
Featuring all new work by Jane Yolen, Andrew Bud Adams, Laura Blackwood, Amanda Block, Scott Burtness, Amanda C. Davis, Megan Fennell, Kim Goldberg, Katherine Marzinsky, Craig Pay, Sara Puls, Holly Schofield, Virginia Carraway Stark, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.
Sirens
Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, Volume Four
Sirens are beautiful, dangerous, and musical, whether they come from the sea or the sky. Greek sirens were described as part-bird, part-woman, and Roman sirens more like mermaids, but both had a voice that could captivate and destroy the strongest man. The pages of this book contain the stories of the sirens of old, but also allow for modern re-imaginings, plucking the sirens out of their natural elements and placing them at a high school football game, or in wartime London, or even into outer space.
Featuring stories by Kelly Sandoval, Amanda Kespohl, L.S. Johnson, Pat Flewwelling, Gabriel F. Cuellar, Randall G. Arnold, Michael Leonberger, V. F. LeSann, Tamsin Showbrook, Simon Kewin, Cat McDonald, Sandra Wickham, K.T. Ivanrest, Adam L. Bealby, Eliza Chan, and Tabitha Lord, these siren songs will both exemplify and defy your expectations.
Equus
Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries, Volume Five
There’s always something magical about horses, isn’t there? Whether winged or at home in the water, mechanical or mythological, the equines that gallop through these pages span the fantasy spectrum. In one story a woman knits her way up to the stars and in another Loki’s descendant grapples with bizarre transformations while fighting for their life. A woman races on a unique horse to save herself from servitude, while a man rides a chariot through the stars to reclaim his self-worth. From steampunk-inspired stories and tales that brush up against horror to straight-up fantasy, one theme connects them all: freedom.
Featuring nineteen fantastic stories of equines both real and imagined by J.G. Formato, Diana Hurlburt, Tamsin Showbrook, M.L.D. Curelas, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, V.F. LeSann, Dan Koboldt, J.J. Roth, Susan MacGregor, Pat Flewwelling, Angela Rega, Michael Leonberger, Sandra Wickham, Stephanie A. Cain, Cat McDonald, Andrew Bourelle, Chadwick Ginther, K.T. Ivanrest, and Jane Yolen.
Rhonda Parrish will be accepting submissions for a brand new fairy tale-inspired anthology series, Punked Up Fairy Tales, starting in 2018. More information can be found at WorldWeaverPress.com or www.RhondaParrish.com.
~*~
Also from the Contributors of Fae
Opal
Fae of Fire and Stone, Book One
Kristina Wojtaszek
White as snow, stained with blood, her talons black as ebony…
In this retwisting of the classic Snow White tale, the daughter of an owl is forced into human shape by a wizard who’s come to guide her from her wintry tundra home down to the colorful world of men and Fae, and the father she’s never known. She struggles with her human shape and grieves for her dead mother—a mother whose past she must unravel if men and Fae are to live peacefully together.
Trapped in a Fae-made spell, Androw waits for the one who can free him. A boy raised to be king, he sought refuge from his abusive father in the Fae tales his mother spun. When it was too much to bear, he ran away, dragging his anger and guilt with him, pursuing shadowy trails deep within the Dark Woods of the Fae, seeking the truth in tales, and salvation in the eyes of a snowy hare. But many years have passed since the snowy hare turned to woman and the woman winged away on the winds of a winter storm leaving Androw prisoner behind walls of his own making—a prison that will hold him forever unless the daughter of an owl can save him.
“A fairy tale within a fairy tale within a fairy tale—the narratives fit together like interlocking pieces of a puzzle, beautifully told.” —Zachary Petit, Edit
or Writer’s Digest
“Twists and turns and surprises that kept me up well into the night. Fantasy and fairy tale lovers will eat this up and be left wanting more!” —Kate Wolford, Enchanted Conversation: a fairy tale magazine
“Lyrical, beautiful, and haunting… OPAL is truly a hidden gem. Wojtaszek [is] a talented new author and one well worth watching.” —YA Fantastic Book Review
Char
Fae of Fire and Stone, Book Two
Fire is never tame—least of all the flames of our own kindling.
Raised in isolation by the secretive Circle of Seven, Luna is one of the few powerful beings left in a world dominated by man. Versed in ancient fairy tales and the language of plants, Luna struggles to control her powers over fire. When Luna’s mentor dies in her arms, she is forced into a centuries-long struggle against the gravest enemy of all Fae-kind—the very enemy that left her orphaned. In order to save her people, Luna must rewrite their history by entering a door in the mountain and passing back through time. But when the lives of those she loves come under threat, her rage destroys a forest, and everything in it. Now called the Char Witch, she is cursed to live alone, her name and the name of her people forgotten.
Until she hears a knock upon her long-sealed door.
Interwoven with elements of Hansel and Gretel and The Seven Ravens, Char is the standalone sequel to Opal, and second in the Fae of Fire and Stone trilogy.
Covalent Bonds
Edited by Trysh Thompson
Covalent bonds aren’t just about atoms sharing electron pairs anymore—it’s about the electricity that happens when you pair two geeks together. This anthology celebrates geeks of all kinds (enthusiasts, be it for comics, Dr. Who, movies, gaming, computers, or even grammar), and allows them to step out of their traditional supporting roles and into the shoes of the romantic lead. Forget the old stereotypes: geeks are sexy.
Featuring nine stories ranging from sweet to hot, by authors G.G. Andrew, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, Tellulah Darling, Mara Malins, Jeremiah Murphy, Marie Piper, Charlotte M. Ray, Wendy Sparrow, and Cori Vidae, Covalent Bonds is a chance for geeks get their noses out of the books, and instead to be the book.
Fae Page 22