by S. C. Green
"Are these the Seers that awoke me?"
Cyhiraeth glided forward, her form making no ripples on the surface. "They could sense the Green Children even before they drank freely of my water. That one especially," droplets cascaded down her arm as she pointed at Tristan, "has impeccable Sight."
Two butterfae leapt from their perch and fluttered into the Queen's outstretched palm. They twittered at her for several moments, pecking for scraps, then flew off again.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" Tristan pushed wide-eyed Alice behind him. "You are the Queen of the Seelie court?"
"I am."
"My father-"
"The wretched Unseelie have him, no doubt." She spat - most unladylike - on the grass. The translucent sprites crowded round the spitball, and in a few moments it was gone.
"But why did they take him? How do I find him?"
"Why?" She turned and met his gaze. Her ice-blue eyes glowed with venom. "You want to know why?"
She spread her arms wide, gesturing to the crowded court. "Since the humans cut down our brugh to make way for their new road, the trees sag under the burden of the fey, the grasses are trod flat under our weight. Seelie and Unseelie territories are decimated, and there is no longer enough room for two courts to dwell here in the Garden. That’s why they took him."
"So they took him because the Garden is now smaller and they're upset about overcrowding? That's ridiculous. You don't even live here, not really. You all live in the faerie realm. Can't one court just go someplace else?"
"Go someplace else? Dear boy, your kind bound us here in the Garden. This is ancient magic, powerful and nearly impossible to break. Fey cannot breach the brugh walls, and what is in this world, bleeds into the realm of faerie. That is why I have been sleeping, biding my time until we have the opportunity to be free. And that opportunity..." she gave him a wide, kind smile, "...has suddenly presented itself."
"But how will my father help?"
"The Unseelie seek to break the spell that keeps us here. They believe that is the only solution, but for that they need human sacrifices – the blood of certain humans contains magic that will break our bonds. Your father was a blacksmith I take it? He worked with iron?"
"He drives trucks."
The Queen looked quizzical. "Trucks?”
He searched for the right description. “They are like ... enormous carriages, but made of steel."
Murmurs rose through the faerie ranks.
The Queen's lips curled. "He must be a powerful Iron-Dweller. The Unseelie have chosen their victims well. They've taken other men, too, from your world, but I don't think they've made an attempt on the barrier yet. They are probably waiting for the full moon, when their power is strongest."
"You mean you don't know? You're the Queen, how could you not know what the Unseelie are doing, if it's really as crowded in here as you say."
"The fey don't work as you humans do. The Unseelie are free inside the brugh to do as they wish. We do not interfere, and they do not interfere with us. However, we have heard of the humans going missing, and we cannot allow the Dark Court to continue to endanger the whole of faerie. If humans discovered fey were responsible for these disappearances, they will take revenge on all of us. Humans do not understand that some fey are good and some are ..." she paused, her expression strained, as if she could not bear to speak of them. "Inside the Garden, I am all-powerful, but I have no influence outside these walls. You have the Sight, Tristan, and so does your sister. You are now friends of the Seelie, and we look after our friends. But you must understand we can't extend this friendship to anyone who is an agent of the Unseelie. If your father is helping them to escape-"
"No!" Alice leapt out from behind him, her little hands balled into fists. “My Daddy would never help the bad faeries. Never in a million years.”
Tristan pulled Alice back. “She didn’t mean it, Alice. He might not have a choice."
"Our laws are not your laws. We do not recognise a difference," said the Queen. "But the point is academic, because we can do nothing without your help. Will you help us gain dominion over the Unseelie? In exchange, we will be able to spare your father's life, if he is indeed still alive."
"If they needed his help, they’d have to keep him alive.” He glanced up at the Queen. “Right?”
Be cautious Tristan. The fey are tricky. Nothing is ever as it appears.
The Marble Queen smiled, and Tristan forgot the voice. Her sweet breath floated through the air, sweeping clean the hyacinth scent. She smelt as fresh as summer.
"With Iron-Dwellers in their possession, the Unseelie are strong, and their strength grows daily as the full-moon draws near. We are weak here, Tristan. Crowded like this, and battling for territory against the Dark Court, our magic is waning. But one such as you - a Seer with Iron-Dweller blood - can lead my court outside the walls. You can take us to a new brugh, where we can rest and roam and recoup our magic. From there, we can rise up and defeat the Unseelie, before they become too strong for us. And when the Unseelie bow before our power, you shall have your father back."
"Can't I just go to Unseelie-"
The Queen laughed, holding her porcelain hands over her mouth, as if her laughter was rude somehow. Unrestrained, her minions collapsed on each other, rolling on the grass and leaping on the branches as they choked and chortled and giggled.
“The Unseelie are cruel beyond the bounds of nature. They have your father, and now they will know you are a Seer, as well as an Iron-Dweller. They will have much use for you, too. If you go to them, you will never be part of this realm again. They will enslave you in their court, and you will never escape.”
She gave him a smile, triumphant.
Tristan tried to collect his disjointed thoughts, but his head felt light, foggy. "So I must help you. Do I have a choice?"
"There is always a choice." Her eyes bore down on him, and for a moment he swayed on his feet, descending into that blue. She blinked, and he reeled, grabbing Alice to hold himself upright.
"You made the right choice, Tristan."
"What do I do now?"
"You must find us a new brugh. You will find everything you need in those books of yours. Work quickly, for the full moon is in three day's time. I shall call for you when it is time for us to leave this place."
"How shall I know-"
"Oh." She smiled, and it frightened him. "You'll know."
***
The sun was just starting to rise as they crawled back in through Tristan’s window, casting a faint, warm glow over the sleeping town. Red-hued clouds stretched long over the horizon.
They kicked their shoes off, and Tristan pulled the covers over their heads, cradling his sister in his arm. Within minutes, she was asleep, breathing heavily against his shoulder.
He couldn’t sleep. His mind whirled through the events of the evening, through everything he’d seen, and everything the Queen had said.
Dad, if you’re out there, just hold on a little longer. I’m going to find a way to rescue you.
As Tristan closed his eyes, and let fatigue sweep over him, he thought he heard the voice inside his head answer.
I’m waiting, Tristan. I’m holding on.
***
In a few days the city would hold a street parade and market day to celebrate the completion of the bypass, and Ms. McAllister wrangled her students into cleaning litter from the footpath and the Garden as part of their community awareness project.
The Scot marched them along the footpath towards Settler's Garden, breaking off students into pairs and marking out the areas they were to clean. Tristan, bleary-eyed and groggy from lack of sleep, stared at the looming trees and tightened his grip on the rubbish bag, his knuckles burning white and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Where am I going to find a new brugh for the Seelie? The weight of his task loomed down on him from those trees, and it didn't help that he could see hundreds of the Green Children leaping through the branches and preening their moss-dressed win
gs. If they frightened him with their gaiety and mischief, how would he fare against the malevolent Unseelie?
He remembered the dark shape above the butcher's shop, just inside the boundary of the gardens, and the fright in Alice's eyes when she described the shadow in her room. He shuddered. If that shadow belongs to who I think it does, perhaps the Unseelie are already free ...
He was grateful when Old Mac handed Dave a pole and ordered them to clean the footpath along the perimeter of the Garden. At least he wouldn't have to go inside.
Ms. McAllister rubbed the goosebumps on her arms. "Feel that breeze? That's the Gaoth Shee – the faerie winds."
She stomped away, and Dave laughed. "She's a mental case."
Tristan forced a smile. He could feel the hairs on his legs standing on end.
Again, the area looked eerily clear of litter. They scooped up a couple of crunched beer cans and cigarette butts, and were congratulating themselves on a job well done when Dave happened to bend down and study the overhanging shrubs. "Crap, look at this. There's heaps of garbage trapped under here."
Tristan bent down and peered underneath. Seven pairs of blue-tinged eyes glared back at him.
"What the...?" He jumped back.
"What's wrong?" Dave grabbed his shoulder.
Did that litter really have eyes?
Tristan tried to shrug off his fear. "Nothing. I ... just got a thorn in my hand, is all."
"OK, then. You clear these bushes," Dave grabbed another bag. "I'm going to start at the other end, and I'll meet you halfway."
Tristan watched him walk away, then slowly, cautiously sank to his knees and peered under the bush. Something shuffled forward. "If you're here on her behalf," snarled what appeared to be a winged faerie twisted from potato chip packets and bent toothpicks. "You can clear off."
"I-"
"We saw you here last night. We heard what you agreed to do." More of the litter faeries emerged; their bodies formed of discarded coke cans and scrunched takeaway wrappers. Two stepped forward: one a thin, willowy man, his frame shaped from discarded popsicle sticks, the other was the strange, scorpion-shaped fey that had nipped his ankle the other day. "You doom us all, you know,” said the popsicle fey. “And your kind too, if you do what she asks."
"I have to help them find a new brugh. If I don't, the Unseelie will sacrifice my father." Tristan glanced over his shoulder. No one was looking. He turned back to the faeries. “Why do you care what I choose? Aren’t you Seelie? Don’t you want to be free of the Gardens?”
The scorpion faerie rattled its spines together, as if Tristan’s question caused great agitation. “Look at us.” it snapped. “Do you think she’d allow us to be part of her court? The Seelie only want to be surrounded by beauty, and we are far from beautiful."
"I thought you had potential, kid, but you’re just as foolish as every other human that trusts a faerie," said the popsicle fey. "Do you think when the Marble Queen is free she'll be bothered with humans? Do you think her grand plan is for humans and faeries to live together in harmony? She cares not one whit about your father. She could free him in a moment if she so wanted. But she knows as long as they hold him, you will co-operate with her. Are you really that stupid?"
“He’s my father. I have to rescue him. What else can I do?” Tristan hated that every faerie he talked to seemed to be mocking him.
"We would help you." The scorpion fey spoke, rearing up on its back legs. The jagged shards of broken beer bottles and gleaming caps that made up the armour of its underside caught the light and sparkled. "And we would save your father. All we want in return is a brugh of our own."
"We know you have the power to lead fey across the boundary without harm – that's how your sister took our brother Foam away, and brought him back. He is weak still, but he did not perish."
"I don’t just walk around with an endless supply of faerie brughs stashed in my backpack. You're offering me the same deal as the Marble Queen, except that you are made of garbage. How are you going to fight the Unseelie? I can't help you ... whatever you are."
"We're solitary fey," the popsicle fey answered. "I'm Popper and this is Spindle. We don't belong to a court-"
"We don't like court faeries!" Chimed Spindle.
“We have that in common,” said Tristan.
"Because we are on our own, they can rule us, tell us what to do, where to go. They force us to live on the edge of the brugh, closest to the iron.” Popper pointed up at the iron fence surrounding the Gardens, and shuddered. “They do it to keep us weak, because there are so many of us. And since you humans came along and knocked down half the brugh to build that motorway, they've pushed us further still, right to the very outskirts. We’re clinging to this poison boundary, and many of us have fallen through to the other side, and perished. Worse still, they've pushed the Unseelie so far behind that butcher's shop they're practically dancing on Iron-Dwellers. For someone who claims to be on the side of the humans, she's made it very easy for the Dark Court to take their victims. But you can tell your Queen," he spat out the word, "that we're building an army, and we-aaaargh!"
Something long and metallic pierced through Popper's belly, and yanked him away. Tristan whirled around, horrified to see Dave standing behind him again, shaking his pole off and sliding Popper into the garbage bag, where several of the litter fey writhed in their death throes. Tristan stared at his friend in horror. He could still hear Popper's muffled screams inside the bag.
Dave can't hear them. That's why he hasn't noticed anything odd ... to him they're just garbage, but I see the ... the ... litterfey.
Spindle and the other fey screamed and cursed at him, and scuttled away under the bushes.
“How come you’ve stopped working?” Dave wiped sweat from his forehead. "There must be a hundred potato chip packets tangled in that blackberry. It'll take us all morning."
"We should just leave them." The screaming inside the bag made Tristan feel ill. "No one can see them, anyway."
"True. Are you sure Old Mac won't notice?"
Tristan pointed. Their teacher, wearing furry boots and a fiery frown, clomped down the footpath like a Clydesdale, bellowing at a group of students who were engaged in a mock-medieval joust with their poles.
"Right." Dave tied up the bag and tossed it into a bin.
Tristan waited until Dave wasn't looking, then he slit a hole across the bag and pulled it open. "That's all I can do. People are watching," he whispered as he followed Dave up the street, a hundred tiny litterfey eyes boring into his back.
***
At lunch Tristan dumped his books on to the table in the library again, scouring the indexes for anything about faerie burghs.
"The word 'brugh' comes from an ancient tongue, and describes a fairy dwelling," he read. "The dwelling might be a castle, but it usually means a hollow or 'burrow' in a hill. The fey don't live inside their brugh, as such, but it serves as a glamour, a mirror through which they can reach their own realm. Because of the concentration of fey magic, brughs have a strange aura about them, an eerie sense of foreboding in the air, and few people will choose to venture inside alone. This is how the feyfolk keep their realm secret from humans."
He flipped to another book. "In ancient times, the fey would often venture from their brugh and terrorise nearby villages. This was especially common among the Unseelie, who would raise the souls of the restless dead to fly through the land, kidnapping kind spirits and bringing them back to the court. When humans found themselves the targets of fairy malevolence, they would often create a wall of iron around the exterior of a brugh. This iron barrier, if charged with a binding spell, would prevent the fairies from coming outside and causing mischief."
He found something else in a thick book about Celtic mythology. "Sometimes, the fey move in to places humans wish to occupy. There is very little that can be done to get them to leave. A human might make a deal with the fey to find them another brugh, but that human is then bound by that deal with their
life, and the fey are very stringent about these things. Certain spells can be used to bind the fey, to send them back to the realm of faerie, but these are extremely difficult, and only experienced magic weavers can perform them. The fey can also be weakened with iron, and they may leave a place of their own accord if it becomes poisonous to them. And, finally, some humans have elected to fight the fey for possession of their lands, but without magic, this is foolish, and they almost always perish. The only way to win a battle against a faerie is to steal a strand of their hair. If you steal hair from the head of a faerie, and eat it, you will own that faerie's power."
He scribbled it all down, staring at his notes till the words became blurry. Think, Tristan, think. Where can you take the Seelie? What is a place in town surrounded by iron that will be big enough to satisfy the Marble Queen?
Tristan sat down at one of the library computers and pulled up a map of the town, scanning every street for a possible solution. Nothing came to him. He knew the answer was in front of him somewhere, but his fear over his father's safety was clouding his mind. I need help. And there's only one person who would willingly talk about the fey...
Packing his books back into his bag, he went and knocked on Ms. McAllister's classroom door. She smiled when she recognised him. "Tristan, class doesn't start for another 20 minutes."
"I know. Can I talk to you? It's about ... the faeries."
She drew the door open wide and gestured for him to sit down. "Of course. I'm just finishing my lunch."
Tristan dropped into a chair in front of her desk. Old Mac divided her stack of roast beef sandwiches into two, and placed half of them in front of him. Tristan's stomach rumbled; he'd forgotten he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. He grabbed one and stuffed it in his mouth.
"What do they want you to do?"
"Excuse me?"
"Don't look so shocked, Tristan. I know you see them. It takes a Seer to ken another. What I need to know is, what did they ask you to do?"