by S. C. Green
"I'm okay, Sharon." He pushed her hand away, and took a big bite of his toast, as if that proved it. "A little bruised, perhaps, but the worst is behind me. I've missed the kids terribly, and I'd really like to take them to the parade today." He swallowed his mouthful, and shovelled in some more beans.
Tristan and his father exchanged glances. He didn't want Dad to go to the parade – the Unseelie would be there, and he'd learnt enough of what the fey could do. But he knew his Dad knew Tristan felt responsible for the Queen's escape and the Unseelie's release, and if the parade turned into a Slaugh, his power might help to save the town. He had to do something.
"I don't know if you should leave the house before you've had a chance to talk to the police." said Mom. "This whole case had them bamboozled."
Dad made his puppy eyes at Mum. The same eyes he'd made when he wanted to buy the giant plasma TV. She sighed, but it wasn't a real sigh. Her eyes no longer slipped down her face, and her skin glowed brighter than the feylights. "I'll get my coat."
City folk and families from the surrounding farms lined the bypass - closed to traffic today - waving flags and sucking down slushies from the cart outside the butcher’s shop. The local burger joint had set up a stand on the corner, and they were doing a roaring trade. Tristan sniffed the air, smiling at the familiar and comforting smells of cotton candy, hot dogs and roasted nuts wafted through the town. Retailers set up stalls outside their shops and sold bargain books and plastic jewellery. Children screamed from atop their parents' shoulders. Several of the city's cats prowled underfoot, howling in protest as pedestrians unwittingly stomped on their tails.
Excited whispers flew from mouth to mouth: about the spontaneous return of the missing men, about the vandalism of the beautiful water fountain and marble statue in the Gardens, about the mess of flowers on the school field, and all manner of strange noises and unusual goings-on of the previous evening.
“I went out this morning to check on my hens," said one farmer. “And you wouldn’t believe it. They had all laid eggs with purple shells."
"You're kidding?” gasped his friend. “I thought it was only mine!"
"My poor Rufus had one of his legs chewed right off!"
"Fluffy was crying at my door this morning. Some horrible person had singed all her fur – even her whiskers, the poor dear."
"That's awful. But you should see my fence-"
People kept stopping Tristan's dad, asking him what had happened to him, but he just shook his head sadly. "I don't remember." He hugged the children extra tight. Finally, they found a spot under the shade of the ash trees in front of Settler's Garden. The air was still: no wind blew. Tristan's father squeezed his hand.
Alice frowned at the trees. "They're gone," she said, sadly. "The pretty faeries are gone."
It just shows, thought Tristan. You can’t underestimate the power the fey can have over a seven-year-old girl. Only last night they'd held her in a cage and drugged her with faerie wine, not to mention the fact they’d kidnapped her father. But still, she still felt sad at their departure.
Tristan could hear distant bagpipes. The marching band set up on the town hall steps and would move at a snail's pace through the streets until they arrived at the city boundary of the new bypass.
"Pssst!"
Tristan looked over his shoulder. Spindle waved to him from between the bushes. A buttercup garland hung lopsided over his left eye.
"All our troops are on full alert."
"I don’t see any fey out here. Do you think the Unseelie will come?"
Spindle pointed. Tristan looked up. As the band rounded the corner, a sound like a helicopter landing flew overhead. The edges of a giant black cloud began to unfurl over the parade.
Alice saw the cloud, too. "They're back!"
The Unseelie descended upon the parade like fighter jets, screaming as they closed in for the kill. Several of the wingless beasts thumped across the highway, tripping the musicians and toppling over the police motorcycles. Tristan heard screams as ankles broke and exhaust valves burnt flesh.
The winged sprites flew at the crowd, tangling hair and biting at children. The parade erupted into chaos. Tristan’s mother screamed, and his father pulled them all down beneath the shade of the ash branches, his back against the iron fence. All around them, people screamed and ran for cover.
Tristan cried out as he saw something that sent a cold shiver down his spine. The Marble Queen. She had draped herself over the corner of the butcher's shop awning, twisting her gold hair between her delicate fingers, stroking the bristles of Cwn Annw, her shadow creature. She was laughing as she watched the madness. Laughing. Tristan's cheeks burned at her cruelty.
All the Seelie faeries were there also, he saw, flitting amongst the crowd, pulling up t-shirts and stomping on toes. Cyhiraeth sloshed through the band, clogging their uniforms with muck and spreading rust stains over their instruments. She found a way to break the binding spell.
The Queen's tinkling laughter carried high on the breeze, louder even than the screeching Unseelie and the terrified people.
A lot of good that banishment spell did.
His father squeezed his hand. "Tristan, is that-"
Tristan nodded. "The two courts are both free in our world."
The parade had stopped. People stared around in confusion, not able to move to safety because they couldn't see what was attacking them. Women cried as fey tangled in their hair, pulling and tugging at their scalps. Children cried as Fir Darrigs brushed past them, slashing at their arms with long claws.
"You're supposed to be a friend to humans!" Tristan screamed at the Queen. She only laughed harder, her emerald eyes dancing in delight as she surveyed the chaos below her. She raised her hands and chanted something in a language he didn’t understand, and a great, bitter-cold wind started to howl through the street, tearing up everything in its path, picking up tables and chairs and the hot dog cart and smashing them against the road. People clung to cars, lampposts, hydrants, anything to keep their feet planted on the earth. The fey tumbled around in the Gaoth Shee, the faerie wind, biting and snapping at anything in their path.
“Hold on, kids.” Their father pushed them to the ground, laying on top of them and linking arms with their mother before wrapping his arms around the iron rungs of the fence, holding them in place. Tristan covered his head with his hands and watched with horror as the grisly scene unfolded.
Only Tristan, Alice and their father could see the fey, of course. And this made the panic worse. Cwn Annw growled and frothed, leaping from the Queen’s side and darting into the crowd. The people could see him - for once he had been human - and they cowered in fear as he pounced on a young girl and tore a chunk of flesh from her arm.
"Let’s go, boys!" He heard Spindle yell.
Tristan whirled around. From the foliage behind him emerged a phalanx of litterfey, marching in tight-packed lines. When they met the Gaoth Shee they allowed the breeze to pick them up, carrying them into the fray.
People screamed louder, and no wonder, for when before they'd felt only the invisible hands tugging and biting at their flesh, now they saw great clouds of rubbish looming down on them.
"Tristan," Spindle cried. "I need your power!"
Not sure if he even had power, Tristan focused on the Marble Queen, sitting on her temporary throne, laughing at the pain she was causing. He imagined that same whirlwind of energy rising from the earth, surrounding all the faeries. He pushed with his mind, sending that wind of energy upward and outward, till it circled all the fey.
Tristan saw Spindle fly through the air toward the awning, his aluminium pincers outstretched as he reached for the Queen. Eyes flashing, she swatted at him and he stumbled, the sharp barbs on his tail tearing out a clump of her hair. She screeched.
Cwn Annw bounded through the crowd, bowling through Fir Darrigs in his madness to reach his mistress.
Smokey, his limbs ablaze, tossed cigarette ash at Seelie pixies. They tumbled onto t
he road, screaming as their hair singed and curled. The other litterfey pounced, pulling the Seelie and Unseelie to the ground.
Spindle took the Queen’s hair into his gaping metal mouth and slurped it up like spaghetti. No other faerie seemed to notice except for Cwn Annw, who froze, mid-leap, as if stunned, and Cyhiraeth, who instantly melted into a puddle on the footpath, washing several Seelie sprites down the gutter.
Suddenly, every fey in the street froze, some in mid-air, some poised over human victims with teeth bared and claws drawn. Every fey became as a statue, eyes glued on the awning, where Spindle stood triumphantly. The Gaoth Shee swirled upward, and fell away into stillness as quickly as it had come.
Spindle tilted his buttercup crown to the side, opened his mouth wide, and burped.
"You can all leave now," he said. "We have found a new brugh for you."
Painfully, as if their legs jerked and their wings fluttered against their accord, the faeries dropped their victims and moved across the highway and down the road towards the abandoned train station.
"No!" cried the Queen, as her own limbs jerked her awkwardly forward. She tumbled from the awning and landed on the street. Invisible hands pulled her to her feet, like a marionette. Her face streaked with asphalt, she began to jerk forward, following her kin. "No!"
As the people felt the tiny hands release them and the malevolent presence flutter away, they sank to the ground, curling around themselves in fear and relief. Several pensioners from the retirement village limped across the bypass towards Tristan and his family.
"You can see them, can't you lad?" a wizened man croaked.
Tristan nodded.
"Then the old magic isn't lost. You must ensure they don't escape." He pointed at the fluttering horde that scrambled around the corner after Spindle. The litterfey skidded across the road beneath them. Tristan let go of his father and scampered after them. Spindle led them down into the old railyard, across the tracks, over the broken pieces of locomotive.
Realising what Spindle had in mind, Tristan darted across the platform and clambered over the rubble. He saw Spindle hovering over the old iron rail car. Tristan crawled forward and yanked open the rusted hatch. "In here!"
Spindle waved his pincers, and shooed the fey inside.
Cwn Annw leapt in, snapping his teeth at Tristan's arm. "One night, in your sleep, boy, I’ll be there ..."
"Not likely," Tristan smirked as a heavy Fig Darrig crashed into the dog-man from behind, and he tumbled into the car.
When the Litterfey had rounded up the very last Seelie and Unseelie and had herded them into the car, Tristan slammed the door shut. Spindle called forth a faerie named Pinches - whose body was a set of discarded flat-nosed pliers - to pull an old iron pipe around the latch. The moaning of the fey grew muffled. The pensioners standing on the platform cheered, and whispers flew back and forth again along the breeze, memories of long-forgotten myths and centuries-old magic.
Spindle addressed them, although only Tristan and Alice could hear. "We will guard this prison against their escape, and we will protect this city from other malevolent spirits. All we ask in return is to be left in peace in our Garden. It is now plenty big enough for us."
Tristan smiled, and shook Spindle's tiny hand, the jagged metal cutting thin nicks cross his palm. He translated for his parents, and again for the pensioners, and again for the shocked mayor and there and then, amongst the wreckage of the failed parade, Settler's Garden was declared a faerie sanctuary.
***
"Hurry up, kids! Marcus, do you have your car keys?"
"It's such a lovely day," Dad glanced out the window. "Why don't we walk?"
So they did. Mom complained the whole way about her good sandals crunching in the autumn leaves, and Alice skipped in front, lost in her own world. Now that Cwn Annw didn't haunt her room anymore, she seemed happy enough to forget the fey.
"Wait till you see what they've done with the place," Tristan's mom gushed. With support from the new Settler's Garden Community Watch – a force comprised of several local pensioners and a few old hippies - she'd finally convinced the council to build the railroad café. The SGCW even helped with the early stages of renovation, picking up the twisted scrap steel and stacking it around the rail car. A local artist had welded the whole thing together into a remarkable installation. Every now and then muffled scratches and bangs rose from inside, but everyone moved about as if they didn't hear.
The food was delicious. All the time they were eating, people kept stopping by their table to congratulate Tristan on saving the village from the fey. He thanked them politely, while his Dad beamed behind him. Tristan beamed back.
After lunch they strolled in the Garden. A breeze blew, but it was only the autumn wind, no faerie magic. Tristan could see the litterfey swinging from the branches and sucking on honey cakes. Spindle waved at him from his perch on the broken water clock.
"Yuck." His mother shook a chip packet off her shoe. "This park used to be so pretty. Now it's a mess."
Tristan smiled at his father as they watched Spindle and Smokey glide across the footpath. "I think it's beautiful."
THE END
Want to read more by S. C. Green?
Try the first book in her dark fantasy series, set in an alternate history Georgian London where dinosaurs still survive ...
The Sunken (Engine Ward, book 1)
In the heart of London lies the Engine Ward, a district forged in coal and steam, where the great Engineering Sects vie for ultimate control of the country. For many, the Ward is a forbidding, desolate place, but for Nicholas Thorne, the Ward is a refuge. He has returned to London under a cloud of shadow to work for his childhood friend, the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Deep in the Ward's bowels, Nicholas can finally escape his strange affliction – the thoughts of animals that crowd his head. But seeing Brunel interact with his mechanical creations, Nicholas is increasingly concerned that his friend may be succumbing to the allure of his growing power. That power isn't easily cast aside, and the people of London need Brunel to protect the streets from the prehistoric monsters that roam the city.
King George III has approved Brunel's ambitious plan to erect a Wall that would shut out the swamp dragons and protect the city. But in secret, the King cultivates an army of Sunken: men twisted into flesh-eating monsters by a thirst for blood and lead. Only Nicholas and Brunel suspect that something is wrong, that the Wall might play into a more sinister purpose—to keep the people of London trapped inside.
Buy it now on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N17VVZC
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