Yet Another Dreadful Fairy Book

by Jon Etter

  “Oh.” Shade thought a moment. “You know, I’m actually part of another nuckelavee’s collection—much bigger and even more impressive than yours. I can tell you how to find him and I’m sure you could trade me back to him for—”

  “I’ll stop ye right there. A rumpelstilt tried that on me ages ago. Didn’t work for him then, won’t work for ye now.”

  “You could show me how strong you are by—”

  “Nay. Little black poltercat.”

  “See who’s faster by—”

  “Black and white poltercat. Look, me bonny, it’s all been tried. And don’t ye even think o’ telling me yer name’s ‘Nobody.’ Me eye’s still red from the poke it got from that one.”

  “Well, then how about this!” Shade sunk her teeth into the index finger gripping her around the chest. A sour, oily taste flooded her mouth, making her gag and spit.

  “That’s been tried an awful lot,” the nuckelavee sighed. “If ye’d asked, I would have told ye tae nae bother.”

  Shade racked her brains for some last, desperate way to trick the creature into letting her—and, she hoped, all his other prisoners—free, but she could think of nothing. Then she spied over the nuckelavee’s shoulder a patch of green in the window of a crumbling tower. It was a top hat. The hat rose higher, revealing fluffy blond hair and a pale, narrow face.

  “Professor?” Shade gasped.

  “Me? Nae, never had nae formal schooling. Mostly self-educated I am, but very flattering that ye should think so,” the nuckelavee replied as Shade watched the Professor jump from the tower and bound from crumbling wall to pile of rubble, something red clutched in his hand.

  He disappeared for a moment behind the nuckelavee’s back then reappeared as he vaulted over the creature’s head. Shade could finally tell what it was that he held: one of the squirt guns. As he plummeted past, there was a squick-squick-squick as the Professor pulled the trigger again and again, followed by a hiss when the water hit the giant’s fingers and a howl of pain as he loosened his grip.

  Seizing the opportunity, Shade reached down and pulled her own squirt gun from her belt and aimed it at the nuckelavee’s eye. Shade squeezed, water squirted, the beast screamed, and Shade fell, opening her wings to glide away to safety. As she flew, the Professor streaked past her to continue his attack on the nuckelavee. “He’s too big for us to take on by ourselves!” Shade shouted.

  “Then it’s-a the good thing you’re no on you own!” Ginch called as he sprinted past and squirted at the creature’s horse legs, making him hop and canter in pain.

  “This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid!” Grouse chanted as he ran up and smote the nuckelavee on the backside with his iron skillet. The nuckelavee leaned forward and kicked up with his back legs. One hoof connected with Grouse’s stomach, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying into and through an ancient brick wall.

  “I thought you were going to wait for me to—yikes!” Shade ducked and just barely missed being smacked as the nuckelavee swung his arms about blindly. “How did you know where I was?”

  The Professor paused mid-leap next to her and handed her a spyglass before launching himself at the beast again. “The Professor, he watch where you go and when we see you go down, we think maybe we no wait for you to come—”

  “Have at thee, dread beast!” Justinian jogged, limping slightly, through a crumbling stone arch. He hacked at the nuckelavee’s flank again and again with his bronze sword, but the sword could not cut the slimy red hide. The creature rounded on the good knight; its chest swelled as it took a deep breath.

  “Justinian, look out!” Shade cried. “His breath is deadly!”

  The nuckelavee blew a stream of yellow steam at Justinian. The knight dove to the side, tucked, and rolled, just barely escaping the poisonous vapors. Justinian got up, holding his side, as Grouse painfully rose from the shattered bricks he had been buried under while Ginch and the Professor squirted and dodged, dodged and squirted. The nuckelavee stomped and swatted at them. “I nae care how collectible ye be! I’ll make ye all meat!” the creature roared. “I’ll roast ye! Stew ye! Meat pie ye!”

  “Squirt guns and swords and skillets aren’t enough to stop this thing!” Shade shouted. “Think, everybody, think! How can we take it down?”

  The Professor gave a whistle and jumped over Shade. He thrust his squirt gun into Shade’s hand, then reached into his coat and pulled out the spray gun he had used on the Seelie and Sluagh nobles, leaped up onto the nuckelavee’s back, then sprang forward past the creature’s ear, pumping sleeping potion into the nuckelavee’s face as he sailed past. The nuckelavee coughed and shook his head but continued to flail and stomp.

  “Professor, keep blasting him!” Shade shouted, pumping the triggers of the squirt guns in both of her hands to get them primed for battle. “Everybody else, keep that saphead distracted!”

  Ginch jogged around the nuckelavee, stinging it with squirts of water while Shade swooped around him doing the same with hers. To avoid getting kicked again, Grouse peppered the nuckelavee’s flank with sizzling swat after sizzling swat with Skilly McSkillet. Justinian, for his part, managed to mount the horse half of the creature and pummeled the creature in the ribs and kidneys from the small of creature’s back, out of reach of its long arms.

  And through it all, the Professor nimbly danced about, sailing past swinging talons, dodging around stamping hooves, and jumping away from jets of deadly steam, spraying, spraying, again and again spraying sleeping potion in the creature’s face. The more he sprayed, the more the nuckelavee stumbled and slowed until at last the nuckelavee wobbled and fell to his knees. His half-shut eye peered blearily at the Professor as the pixie landed and gave him one last blast of his spray gun. “Pixieee … Have’n had one o’ them b’fer …” he slurred. “Bit ragged … would no grade him … ’bove ‘Fine’ condition … but might still be worrrrrr—” And then he collapsed, horse half on its side and humanoid torso on its back, his hideous face turned to the sky.

  “Professor, you did it!” Shade cried as the other three gave a cheer.

  The Professor dropped his spray gun, clasped his hands to together, and shook them in triumph on each side of his head. Then he sprang into the air, did a double backflip, and landed square on the nuckelavee’s chest, hands on his hips to strike a heroic pose. His landing, however, forced a cloud of yellow mist to spew out of the nuckelavee’s mouth, enveloping the victorious pixie. The Professor coughed and staggered then took a step forward and fell facedown at the nuckelavee’s side.

  Shade rushed to his side and rolled him over. His eyes stared up at her, seeing nothing. She put her cheek next to his open mouth. He didn’t breathe. She put her ear to his chest. His heart did not beat. Shade felt a chill breeze blow in on her back. She turned.

  There, standing above her, holding a long, sharp silver scythe, clad in flowing, tattered black robes, was death itself.

  In which Rigoletto Ginch has his finest hour …

  “The Grim Reaper,” Shade gasped as she gazed up at the skull whose empty eye sockets seemed to look down hungrily at her fallen friend.

  “The Grim … Oh, no, I’m not her, but it’s very flattering that you think so, although I’m not so sure she’d take it as a compliment, but then again, she is the Grim Reaper. Grim by name, grim by nature as the rest of us say. Heh, heh! Not to her face, of course,” the skeletal figure chattered, sweeping back one side of his robe to tuck his free bony hand into the pocket of a pair of tan cargo pants. The skeleton also wore a Hawaiian shirt covered in blue and green palm fronds and bright pink flowers. Between the outfit and his jovial manner, the reaper in question could easily have passed for your dear Uncle Lou. Well, if you removed all the flesh from Uncle Lou’s bones, that is, which I would advise against since doing so would make your Aunt Lucille ever so cross. “No, she’s in the outer isles at the moment, so you’re stuck with me, the Jolly Reaper.”

  “There’s more than one death?” Shade asked. />
  “What, you expected just one death to fly all over the world harvesting the souls of the dead? By the chills of St. Poe, I’m glad you’re not my supervisor, ha ha!” the Jolly Reaper chuckled as Justinian, seemingly unbeknownst to the specter, crept slowly up behind him, sword drawn and ready. “No, there’s a whole team of us. You’ve got me, old Grimmy, of course, the Stoic Reaper, the Peevish Reaper, the Grateful Reaper, the Red Death—ought to be the ‘Vain Reaper’ if you ask me, what with those flashy red robes of his. I keep telling him, ‘Hey Death, be not proud, you’re not that great, buddy,’ but he never listens—”

  “Have at thee, vile death! Thou shalt not take my friend in thy icy grip!” Justinian cried, swinging his sword at the Jolly Reaper. The sword passed right through the merry ghost, who turned to face the knight.

  “Well, you’re a spunky one, aren’t you? Taking a swing at death himself! That’s one you can be telling folks about for years, although I’d dress it up a bit. You can tell folks we wrestled for a while—you almost got me to say ‘uncle’ at one point—you know, puff yourself up in the telling. Don’t worry—it’ll be our little secret.” The Jolly Reaper somehow managed to wink his eye socket. “Well, much as I’d like to stay here and shoot the breeze, souls don’t harvest themselves. So if you’d kindly step back, miss, I’ll just—”

  “No!” Ginch jumped in front of the Jolly Reaper and held up his hands. “I’m-a no gonna let you get my partner! If you wanna take his life, you’re-a gonna have to take mine first!”

  “I’m afraid not. He’s due for pickup right now, and I don’t think you’re on the collection list for a while. I could check the schedule, but it’s all the way back at the office and I’m pretty booked up today, so if you’d all just step aside, I’ll get on with it and—”

  “We’re not moving,” Shade said. She stood next to Ginch and crossed her arms.

  Justinian joined them as well. “Aye. You’ll not take the sweet Professor as long as breath remains in our bodies, will he, my squi—my companion, brave Sir Grouse?”

  Shade, Ginch, and Justinian all looked expectantly at Grouse. He glowered at them a moment then trudged over, dragging his feet as he went. “Fine. Add this to the long list of stupid moves in my stupid, stupid life.”

  And so, the brave four defied death himself rather than lose their friend.

  Death himself, for his part, glanced at his wristwatch. “Okay, look—I’m a patient physical manifestation of the inevitable end that all living things must one day face, but if I have to muck about with people raging, denying, bargaining, weeping, and otherwise eating up a bunch of time before they just accept that it’s time to go, getting through all my pickups is going to be a real challenge, and—”

  “Challenge! That’s it!” Shade cried. “We challenge you to a game for the life of the Professor!”

  “What’s this now?” the Jolly Reaper asked.

  “A game,” Shade repeated. “We win, the Professor lives. You win, we get out of your way and let you take him.”

  “I don’t know. Seems like it might be against regulations,” the Jolly Reaper said uneasily.

  “No, it’s totally not,” Shade insisted. “In Ingmar the Sullen’s Tales of Ice and Melancholy, there’s a story of a knight who challenged the Grim Reaper to a game of chess for his life, so it must be okay.”

  The Jolly Reaper glanced at his watch again, then rubbed his smooth, skinless jaw. “Well, I do love games. And if old Grimmy herself does it from time to time … All right, let’s do it! But since this pixie should already be mine, I think we should make the stakes a little more even. You win, he lives. I win, whoever loses dies, which would save me or somebody a trip at some point down the line. So, who’s up for a game of chess?”

  The others all looked to Shade. “Um … I don’t … really know how to play chess. Sir Justinian?”

  Justinian shook his head. “The life of a knight errant allows not for such trifles. Sir Grouse?”

  “Don’t look at me! This wasn’t my idea,” Grouse objected.

  All eyes turned to Ginch. He raised a finger and opened his mouth, looking ready to object, but then he closed it, cocked his head, and arched an eyebrow. “Say, Julie Reaper—”

  “That’s Jolly Reaper,” the embodiment of death interjected good-naturedly.

  “That’s-a what I say. So Julie Reaper, do we have to play the chess or can it be something else?”

  Death shrugged. “No idea, this whole ‘playing for your life’ business is news to me. You know what? Why not? What did you have in mind?”

  Ginch took out a deck of cards that Shade immediately recognized as his favorite cheating deck, which he began to shuffle. “What do you think about the game of the cards?”

  “Sounds fun. Deal me in!” Death agreed amicably.

  Ginch grinned at the others. “Give me the ten minutes. Say Julie Reaper, you know how to play Tickle the Troll?”

  “Never heard of it, but I’d love to learn,” the Jolly Reaper replied.

  “Make it the five minutes,” Ginch amended. “C’mon, death, let’s find a nice flat something to play on.”

  “While you’re off playing, could you maybe—” Shade gestured toward the Professor with her hands. “You know, make him not dead?”

  “Hmmm …” The Jolly Reaper looked down at the Professor’s body and jingled change in the pocket of his cargo pants. “He might run off if I fully recorporate him, but I would imagine having to look at him like this while you wait would be a bit grim, and that’s much more the boss’s style than mine—Jolly Reaper and all, eh? Here, take a step back everyone.”

  They all took an uneasy step back. The Jolly Reaper swung his scythe through the Professor, much to everybody’s dismay. But their shouts and insults immediately fell silent when the glowing blue ghost of the Professor sat up from his body. He looked around at all the stunned faces then tipped his top hat to them and gave a double thumbs-up.

  “There you go and you’re welcome,” the Jolly Reaper said. “Now he can walk about and chat with you while we play our game of … what was it? Tackle the Troll?”

  “Tickle the Troll,” Ginch said, staring wide-eyed at the Professor, who was busy shoving his ghost finger through the nose of his corpse.

  “Even better! Let’s go.” The Jolly Reaper gestured for Ginch to lead him into the ruins.

  “Don’t you worry, partner,” Ginch said as he departed. “I’m-a gonna get you back in you body lickety-the-split!”

  The ghost of the Professor waved. “I’m sure you will,” he said in a sweet, high voice. “If anyone can literally cheat death, it’s Rigoletto Ginch.”

  “You can speak!” Justinian declared.

  “I spoke? Why, I suppose I did! I didn’t even mean to, it just popped out when I thought it. Normally, when I have something to say, first I think it and then I must find a way to translate it through bodily movement and the symbolic use of my accumulated mundane artifacts.” The Professor stroked his ghostly chin. “Fascinating.”

  “He can actually speak, Sir Justinian,” Shade explained. “He just doesn’t because of his stutter. What happened to your stutter?”

  “It would appear that whatever barrier normally occurs between thought and expression has been removed. That would suggest that my problem is physical rather than mental, but that hypothesis needs further study and experimentation to be fully confirmed. And speaking of hypotheses, this whole situation is a supreme vindication of my colleague René the Geomancer’s theory of dualism. Looks like I owe him an apology and a mug of mead. I’ll have to write him and the rest of the philosophy department at the University of Streüseldorff about this first chance I get! That will, of course, have to wait until I can hold a pen again, I suppose. In the meantime, my discorporation seems to offer a number of fascinating and unique avenues of study.” The Professor hopped over to Grouse and stuck his ghostly head into Grouse’s stomach, which was immediately followed by a muffled “Fascinating!”

 
“Gah!” Grouse jumped back and swatted at his tummy. “Don’t stick your head in me! That’s weird! And gross! And—and—just weird!”

  “Sometimes science is gross, my lad, especially when it comes to the biological sciences. Speaking of which, I strongly advise all of you to bind up old Unibrow Horsepants over there. By my calculations, given his size and presumed body mass—actually, why presume when I can just check.” The Professor dove headfirst into the nuckelavee’s body, which made Grouse, Shade, and even Justinian feel queasy. After a few seconds, the Professor’s head popped up out of the creature’s chest. “Looks like my estimate was more or less accurate. I’d say we have around two hours before the sleeping potion wears off, so you best get to it. I’d help, but I’ve got ghost hands.”

  “I think I like you better silent,” Grouse grumbled as he and Justinian went to fetch rope from their saddlebags.

  While Shade was amazed by the Professor’s ghostly transformation and worried about both his and Ginch’s fates, it was thoughts of her mother that were foremost in her mind. She took the prison key from the nuckelavee’s wrist while the Professor did a back-stroke through the air. “I don’t want to leave you, but there are fairies that have been imprisoned and—”

  “Of course, of course!” The Professor stopped swimming in the air and shooed her away. “By all means, take care of them. No need to hang out with my old bodysuit down there. Ha! Get it? ‘Bodysuit’ because—I’ll have to tell that one to old René next time I see him. He’ll love that!”

  Shade ran straight to her mother’s cell. Her mother’s face lit up with joy as Shade unlocked the door. “You’re alive!” Her mother threw her arms around her. Shade closed her eyes and savored the embrace—it was one she hadn’t felt since she was a small child and she wanted to enjoy every second of it. “Did you and your friends kill Old Nuck?”

  “No,” Shade said without opening her eyes. “But we knocked him out, and they’re tying him up right now.”