Court of the Litterfey

by S. C. Green

"But- how do you-"

  "In the old country, we still believe in the magic of fey. That makes us more likely to see them, and to ken their tricks."

  "The Marble Queen says the Unseelie have my father, and the other truck drivers. She believes they are trying to break the magic of the brugh – the magic that binds the fey inside the gardens. She says if I find the Seelie a new brugh, somewhere nearby, and lead them there, her court will be able to defeat the Unseelie and I will get my Dad back."

  "And you believe her?"

  "Why would she come to me if she could defeat the Unseelie herself? She needs my help, and she made me a deal. I read that the Seelie can never go back on a deal."

  Old Mac nodded. "True enough. Have you found a brugh?"

  "That's what I was wondering if you could help me with." Tristan took another bite of sandwich and pulled one of his books onto his lap. "It says here that humans surround a brugh in iron to keep the fey inside, but I only have two days – not enough time to build a fence anywhere. So it should be a place that's already surrounded in iron, somehow. Also, it should be somewhere people hardly ever go, so no one accidentally walks into the middle of some faerie mischief."

  "You ken the fey well, lad. What about the old cemetery, behind the school?"

  When the town had first been founded, the schoolhouse had been built beside the church. Although the school buildings had expanded over the years and the church had long since been demolished to make way for the football fields, the old cemetery had never been touched. A high iron fence, warped in places but mostly intact, surrounded a tangled mess of weeds and lopsided gravestones. It had an air of desolation about it, and people didn't like to go inside. Kids would tell stories about ghosts between the graves and dare each other to walk through it alone, but apart from a few brave teens, no one ever really visited there.

  Tristan nodded. "That would work."

  "There are certain spells, incantations, that need to be said to prepare it for the fey," said Old Mac. "I will take care of this. You just lead them there."

  "Will Dad be okay?"

  "I don't ken, lad. You will have to be careful that when you leave the Gardens, you don't accidentally carry along any Unseelie. They aren't bound by the oath you made to the Queen, and they will fly out into our world, and remain here, weak by malevolent."

  "I'll be careful."

  She glanced out the window. "The full moon is tomorrow. The Queen will call on you tonight. We'll have everything ready by then. All you have to do is bring them to the graveyard. And stay out of the gardens. If the Unseelie take you too, we're doomed."

  ***

  His mother had locked herself in the bathroom. Tristan placed his ear against the door; he could hear the splash of the bathwater and classical music playing from a tinny MP3 speaker. He couldn't hear her crying, though, but he wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one, and he wondered if she'd given up hope. Tristan tried calling to her through the locked door, but she was gone somewhere else, deep inside her own pain, and she didn’t hear him.

  He found Alice in the living room, sprawled in front of the TV, her dolls stacked around her in a kind of protective bunker.

  One look at the forlorn newspaper crumpled on top of the TV told Tristan all he needed to know.

  Another trucker had disappeared, somewhere inside the city boundaries, somewhere along the new bypass. They'd found the truck behind the butcher's shop. The final sentence of the article fell like lead into his stomach: “The authorities are now searching the river for evidence.”

  Evidence. They were searching for bodies. They didn’t expect to find the drivers alive.

  Another article beside the report declared that, despite the new disappearance, the weekend parade would go ahead. "It is just the thing the community needs," the Mayor claimed.

  Tristan bit his lip. He wanted to tell Mom that he would rescue Dad, and everything would be okay. But he couldn't start talking about faerie courts and magic brughs, not when she was so fragile.

  Tristan found a stew in the crock-pot in the kitchen, half finished, the gravy congealing at the edges. Mom was trying. She must’ve been making dinner when the paper arrived, and then...

  The music blared from upstairs, louder than before, a haunting dirge flowing into a rising, crashing cacophony. Looking at that mix of gravy and meat and vegetables made his chest swell with emotion. Tristan bit his lip to stop the tears. They wouldn’t help anybody.

  He dished up two bowls of stew, and brought them through to the living room. He gave one to Alice and sat down on the couch with the other. The meat was tough, chewy, and it settled in his stomach like glue. Alice wolfed hers down, her eyes never moving from the screen.

  Tristan dumped the pot of stew in the overflowing garbage bag. He wound the elastic tie around the top of the bag and dragged it out to the mailbox. Owls hooted in the distant pine forest and a crisp breeze - refreshingly cool and not at all menacing like the breeze in the Garden - blew across his bare shoulders. He leaned the bag against the fence post and turned back towards the house.

  "Tristan!" a voice barked.

  He jumped. The voice sounded gruff, as though it chewed nails as it spoke. Run away, Tristan. That familiar voice inside his head urged. The voice wasn't his, but it sure sounded sensible. Without turning around, he sprinted back up the drive.

  His chest heaved, and his breath fell on the breeze in short rasps. He could hear the whatever-it-was stampeding behind him, its hot breath on his legs.

  "Tristan, stop!" the gruff voice barked again.

  He felt the creature's hot breath – burning hot – against his leg. Tristan yanked his leg away, tripped on loose gravel and fell, skidding across the drive and skinning his hands. Knowing he was beaten, he turned around.

  He faced the protruding snout of a massive dog, black as midnight and frothing at the mouth. It panted, breathing fetid air across his face.

  "What are you? How are you outside the gardens?"

  Silently, it pawed the ground and drew its gums back into a snarl.

  Tristan stiffened.

  "Never mind how I found you. I'm Cwn Annw. You're coming with me." The words grated like fine grade sandpaper.

  "Why?"

  "The Marble Queen sent me. It's time."

  Tristan looked down in dismay at his torn jeans, football jersey and bare feet. He wasn't really prepared for the Marble Queen's task. But, if he didn't lead the Green Children to a new brugh, he would never see his Dad again.

  He glanced again at the great dog, with its glowing orange eyes. "You are the Marble Queen's messenger? You are Seelie?"

  The dog growled. "Are you questioning my loyalty?"

  "No, it's just that, I thought you were Unse-" Suddenly, it dawned on him. "You're the shadow in the laundry pile, aren't you? You haunt my sister at night."

  It wasn't a question. The dog didn't reply.

  "You've been watching us from the roof of the butcher’s shop. But how come you can pass through the Garden walls?"

  "I'm a shadow messenger. I follow close to you Iron-Dwellers, and you don't notice me. How come you ask so many questions?"

  Tristan stayed quiet after that. He followed the terrible dog down the street and along the edge of the bypass. Across the road he could see the white glow of the faerie lights dotting the Garden fence. Their last night at the Garden.

  The dog hobbled across the road, baring its teeth and growling low at a truck that sped alongside the gardens. The proximity of the clanking steel monstrosity didn't slow him. Because he's with me, Tristan realised. He’s safe with an Iron Dweller.

  He followed the dog alongside the butcher's shop, crossing through the iron grating that marked the boundary of the Gardens. Debris and animal scraps tumbled from the overstuffed garbage cans. Suddenly, Cwn Annw disappeared into the shadows. Tristan froze, his eyes darting frantically around him, searching for movement in the shadows. Where’s the dog? Why has he left me here, alone?

  "Don't you
need me to lead them outside the iron gates?" he called out. “Hey ... hey, come back! Where are you? Come back!”

  Run, Tristan.

  He heard a growl, low and menacing, from the wall behind the shop. He took a step forward.

  “Hey ... is this part of the plan?”

  The dog stepped out from behind the building, and raised a huge black paw.

  "They're all back here, and so is the Queen," growled the dog. "Follow now."

  Run away. Run away NOW.

  I can’t. Tristan squeezed his shaking hands into fists. If there’s even a chance I can rescue my Dad...

  Heart pounding, Tristan stepped around the overturned garbage cans, and faced a horrific sight.

  Faeries of terrifying form and colour congregated in the back lot. Hundreds of burning crimson eyes flickered over his body as he shrunk behind the garbage strewn across the ground. Forked tongues protruded as they lapped blood and juices seeping from old containers and rotting newspaper parcels. Boggarts, Ghillie Dhu and Gitto pawed and screeched and scrambled over each other, fighting over scraps of meat and sawn bones. In the centre of the fray, four men sat, their backs to each other, barbed ropes binding their hands and feet. Two loathsome Fir Darrigs, their skin like tarnished rubber, wrapped their bristled tails around the ankles of one of the hunched figures, who hugged his arms around himself, moaning in pain.

  The figure looked up, staring wide-eyed at Tristan.

  The world slowed, the sounds around him fading away, replaced with a loud, frantic buzzing inside his head. The terrible faeries faded into the ground, the walls, becoming part of the background. Tristan’s face burned, and his stomach collapsed in on itself, as if he’d had the wind knocked out of them. He struggled to force a word out- a single, strangled word.

  "Dad?"

  The figure smiled weakly and raised a listless hand to wave at Tristan, shaking a barbed shackle that encircled his wrist. It was then Tristan noticed the thorned collar his dad wore, and the long cuts that criss-crossed his face. His hair was matted against his scalp and flaps of skin hung loose from his cheeks. He crouched with three other men, all bound and bleeding.

  The world came rushing back again. The stench of the garbage strewn across the concrete slammed into his nostrils. The frightening fey danced around their prisoners, taunting and jeering as they trailed wisps of black soot and darkness behind them.

  Tristan stared in horror. He had been tricked. Cwn Annw had led him into a trap. These weren't the beautiful and mischievous Seelie faeries. They weren't even the determined and ugly solitary litterfey. These were the Unseelie: chaotic, malevolent, and horrible.

  "Where's the Marble Queen?" he demanded. "I will do nothing without her present."

  Unfazed by his accusatory tone, Cwn Annw jabbed his snout towards the Gardens.

  Tristan turned, and saw her glide between the trees, her silver-grey skin shimmering in the feylight as she approached the boundary. Below her, tangled in the scraggly bushes enclosing the fence, he saw the shapes of the Litterfey scuttling away as silently as they could. Cwn Annw bounded up to her, barking with joy as he rushed to meet her.

  "You've done well, messenger." Cwn Annw rubbed himself against her legs, and she patted his snout.

  Tristan turned away from the Unseelie, balling his hands into fists as he crossed the road and approached her. "You tricked me," Tristan snarled, addressing her for the first time without fear. "You are not going to fight the Unseelie. You were plotting together this whole time."

  "Honestly, dear. It was too easy." She raised her hand. Several of the iridescent pixies tugged on her sleeve, but she flicked them away in disdain. "I thought you knew your faerie stories, but you just didn't think about these things. We fey have been trapped here for centuries, waiting for our chance to inhabit the world once more. And, when the humans began to tear apart the Gardens and Iron-Dwellers began to cross into our lands, we knew our chance had come. As you are bound by oath to me, I alone now rule the powers of the Iron-Dwellers. I dictate where the Unseelie are to settle, and they shall settle in your lands. Though they will be weak without the power of a true brugh, they shall use the power of the Iron Dwellers to tear apart everything that is poisonous to us. They shall enslave the city and control the spirits of the dead. And, when the Unseelie finally destroy this city in their furious Slaugh, our faerie courts will once again rule together over humans, as it should be, and will be forevermore."

  Tristan raised a hand, too, as if he meant to strike her. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but the anger was welling up inside of him, spreading from his stomach through his limbs, taking control of his body. "You can’t do this. I want my father back! Let him go!"

  "And you shall have him, my dear, as long as you fulfil your oath. You must lead all the fey outside of these walls to their new home, and you must bind your Sight to the Unseelie powers, to break the magic of the brugh."

  "I'll do no such thing until I see my father is safe."

  "That's not how this works, and you know it. Now, go, fulfil your duty, and your father will be released as soon as the Seelie are safe within the walls of their new brugh. And as added incentive," she clapped her hands, and two faeries – old men with gnarled skin and protruding fangs – brought forth a cage, with bars made of twisted vines shot with silver, and a great padlock made from tree bark that glowed blue in the moonlight. Inside the cage hunched a weeping Alice.

  “Twisty! Help me. They’re hurting me!”

  Tristan reached for the bars, but the Marble Queen slapped his hands away. "She's bound by our magic. If you touch her, it only hurts her more."

  Tristan squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't bear to see her suffering. "Don't cry, Alice. Daddy's with me, so you don’t have to worry. I told you I’d find him, see?" He pointed back towards the butcher's shop, hoping Alice wouldn’t be able to see the kneeling man from her hunched position. "Daddy’s right over there. He’s going to be OK. Don't cry now, be brave."

  Alice whimpered in reply.

  Cwn Annw nudged Tristan with his muzzle. "Go! I'm starting to weaken with all this iron around."

  "What do I-"

  "You just walk, Iron-Piper. We will all follow you."

  “But my Dad-”

  “We’ll bring him along, and your sister, too. Leave the others here – we will need to return to them later in the night to sustain our strength. Now, walk!”

  Tristan marched along the footpath, glancing behind him as the beautiful white lights of the Seelie, and the dark tails of the Unseelie fell in behind him, skipping and slithering and fluttering through the bars of the boundary fence. Fey shrieked and screamed as they scrambled over one another towards the gate. The water in the pond rose into a high column, swirling against gravity as Cyhiraeth climbed out of the concrete bowl. Tristan covered his face to protect it from the beating wings that flew around him. He shuddered as rough bristles and slimy wings scraped across the backs of his legs. Bursts of light darted around his face as the sprites and folletti fell in with the shifting faerie horde. The willowy Ghillie Dhu unfurled their bodies like spring foliage and lurched along behind him as he neared the highway overbridge.

  Finally, he saw the Marble Queen stalk past him, her skin gleaming like diamonds and a deadly smile on her lips. She was carrying Alice's cage under one arm.

  He watched Cwn Annw stalk beside him, and noticed for the first time how his canine limbs seemed oddly bent, how his paws stretched like hands, how his face seemed flat, not like a dog at all. The realisation suddenly hit him: Cwn Annw was human once, that's what made him strong enough to pass through the walls into our world before. Now the Marble Queen owns him, like she'll soon own me-

  The thought filled him with cold dread.

  "Faster, faster!" Cwn Annw barked. "They are almost all free."

  Tristan tried to look behind him, but he could see nothing but blinding faerie lights and splatters of black shadow. Something slithered around his ear. He could hear cars and tr
ucks zooming below. Collective shudders rose through his entourage.

  Tristan broke into a jog, and the fey had to race to catch up. Cwn Annw bounded awkwardly along beside him, his black fur invisible in the gloom.

  As he raced across the bridge, he noticed the black shadows begin to peel away from the group, darting over the edge and disappearing into the city below. Tristan reached out to grab at one, but it slithered through his fingers, leaving a stinging cut across his palm. Soon, all the shadows had disappeared from the horde that followed him, save that of Cwn Annw, who still circled around his feet as he walked.

  Tristan glanced over his shoulder, and saw two Seelie fey dragging the rowan rope on his father's bonds with impossible force, while his limp body scraped along the footpath. His father was no longer conscious. The voice in his head, too, had gone silent.

  This is bad, he realised. This is very, very bad.

  "Tristan!"

  He squinted. The fey dragging his father came closer, pushing through the crowd to come up alongside him. Tristan jumped when he recognised Spindle and another litterfey, with flattened cigarette butts for limbs, holding the rope binding his Dad. Spindle was trying to hold his dad’s head up off the road, but it was obviously heavy and he kept dropping it.

  Seeing his father's nose bleeding on the asphalt made Tristan's stomach clench. "Why are you helping them?"

  Spindle put a bottle cap to his mouth, signalling for Tristan to be silent. Tristan realised the Queen had never mentioned what happened to the solitary fey.

  He bent down to whisper to Spindle, "Who are you helping? Whose side are you on?"

  The hound whirled around. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Ah, er ... no one. I was just trying to get Dad to wake up.” Tristan met the dog’s eyes, keeping his face impassive.

  "He won't wake up, you idiot. Not until the Marble Queen wants him to." When Cwn Annw turned back, Tristan glanced down at the Litterfey. Spindle cradled his dad’s head in his spindly tail, and winked.

  On North Road Tristan turned into the gate of his school and cut across the playing fields, leading the fey in a direct line toward the back gate. He could see the cemetery up ahead, that tangled mess of weeds and crooked stones appearing to move and shift in the moonlight. The wind picked up, and the high iron gates of the cemetery swayed on their hinges with an ominous creak. It would've been a comical scene – a cliché from a horror film – if it weren't all too real.