Don't Let the Fairies Eat You

by Darryl Fabia

  Looking for the Witch

  DON’T LET

  THE FAIRIES EAT YOU

  Written by

  Darryl Fabia

  Illustrations and Cover Art by

  Julie Fabia

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this collection are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  DON’T LET THE FAIRIES EAT YOU

  Looking for the Witch, Volume 1

  Darryl Fabia

  © 2011 Darryl Fabia

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the author.

  Nyx Fiction

  www.nyxfiction.com

  Looking for more stories? The second volume of Looking for the Witch is available now from Amazon.

  A Path Far Away

  Introduction by the Author

  Once upon a time, a girl meets a wolf in the woods on the way to her grandmother’s house. He sends her on a longer route while he races to the grandmother’s house, kills her, stores her meat in the pantry and blood in a wine bottle, and then climbs into her bed. When the girl arrives, he pretends to be her grandmother, tricking her into eating her grandmother’s flesh and drinking her blood. He then has her burn her clothes and get into bed with him. The girl realizes she’s in trouble, tells him she has to urinate badly, and he lets her out. When she takes too long, he demands to know if she’s defecating, and discovers she’s fled. She runs naked all the way home, the wolf on her heels, and slams the door in his face, saving herself from her grandmother’s fate.

  This is an inspirational story for me, much more so than its later incarnations, called “Little Red Riding Hood.” The tale is strange, alluring, humorous, and terrifying in even measure. This form of the story holds a raw energy that fairy tales have lost since we domesticated them, making them fit for society.

  They shouldn’t be fit for society. These were once wild stories and in writing this collection, I wanted to set them free once more, teach them to be untamed, dangerous creatures. Once upon a time, when people heard a story around a campfire, they didn’t know if it’d be about a princess falling in love or a ghost seeking revenge.

  We need that unpredictability. Sometimes we smile for a happy ending, and sometimes we smile because we made it through the worst night of our lives. Fairy tales today could use some of that uncertainty, some bad luck, and maybe a devil here and there.

  That said, I leave you to the tales. May they be strange, humorous, terrifying, and beautiful, in an even enough measure.

  The Tales

  Sacrifice of the Cats

  Calling the Ladies

  Hunting Grounds

  In Her Service

  Dansi and Lyri

  Elephant Funerals

  The Fairy-Blood Curse

  Boy-Hunt

  Broken Horse

  No Shelter

  Krampus the Generous

  Delicacy for a Giant

  Legs

  Briar Thorns

  Half-Heart

  Ica and the Troll

  The House of Dreams and Promises

  The Shadows are Coming

  The Cold Thing

  Serpent's Tongue

  The Horn of Plenty

  Old Wolf and the Gremian

  A Night Without Souls

  Wedding the White Death

  Melemity, Esty, and Lality

  The Fevering Child

  The Graveyard Agreement

  Thunder Horn and Fire Box

  Art of Begging

  Death Dance

  Sacrifice of the Cats

  On Sacrifice Day in the ancient city of sand and clay, the people let the cats lead the sacrifice to the den of the fanged beasts. Unknown to the people, the cats first chose one of their kind to select the sacrificial child, before leading anything to the underground where the fanged beasts made their den.

  They came to the room of the black cat, invisible in his den’s darkness but for his startling yellow eyes. He had never led the sacrifice, never wanted to, yet he was certainly the oldest cat living under the adobe walls—or if not, his family was long remembered, and not one of them had participated in Sacrifice Day. The black cat had never seen the fanged beasts, never wanted to. He wanted only to be left alone. He was expected to follow in the steps of the clay city’s cats, to choose a child and lead the sacrifice to his doom.

  But the black cat would not do as expected.

  He left his room reluctantly, his demeanor one of disinterest that is common in cats, and climbed the adobe steps of the underground to the surface streets. After an hour, he returned with a thin string tied to his tail and a small boy clinging to the line, believing he had caught the cat rather than the other way around. The boy smiled and his eyes laughed, but not a sound arose from his throat. Something was wrong and the cats couldn’t fathom why the black cat would choose a sickly, mute child. A sacrifice meant nothing if nothing valuable was lost. And the fanged beasts so enjoyed the screaming …

  The black cat yawned and stalked away from the judging cats’ eyes, leading the child through a crowd of the city’s people. Red priests who bore smoking lanterns watched warily for signs and omens as the crowd parted for the lead and his sacrifice, and not one realized he’d let a black cat cross his path.

  At the end of the lines of onlookers gaped another entrance to the underground, leading directly into the fanged beasts’ labyrinth. The maze was observed from above through slits in the sand-swept street, and the people walked gingerly here so as not to fall into the lair beneath their feet. The black cat led the boy down the steps, tail twitching easily until they reached the bottom, where the string’s loop slid off.

  The cat’s yellow eyes stared intently at the child and he raised a black paw. Perhaps a speaking child would be too used to words to obey a cat or even understand one’s meaning, but the mute boy had spent his life watching others’ movements so he could understand and be understood. He waited at the entrance, as the black cat desired.

  The cat zipped ahead of the boy, through the maze that gave no trouble to felines, making a zigzag around the perimeter of the paths. Now and then he would rub his coat against a wall here, or mark a corner there, until he’d circled around back to the child. He spun in a circle, glancing at the boy over his shoulder, and the sacrifice followed the lead into the maze, as intended.

  The onlookers did not understand. They watched the two shapes of the fanged beasts emerge from their lair at the center of the maze, golden-furred and covered in dark spots, their faces cut sharply with malice and teeth when they smelled what had been done to their home. No normal cat was meant to defile their den. They followed the trail of piss and hair, prowling the maze in a wide circle that took them along its edges and past the entrance, the longest path in the labyrinth.

  The black cat led the mute boy through the straightest route, daring to pass through the fanged beasts’ den. The boy smiled and scampered along, dawdling as a child will, and in time they reached the point where the maze met the greater network of the underground. The black cat did not know what the onlookers might think as he led the boy up the steps, didn’t care to know. He only knew they could no longer watch him. The ceiling shook as they ran, their smoke-bearing priests seeking another entrance.

  Not far behind, the fanged beasts found the same opening and the black cat’s marking, ensuring they would follow the same steps and path. Other, smaller cats watched from cracks in the walls, and understood long before the humans that the black cat meant to save the boy somehow. They expected he would lead the child to the stairway entrance to the surface, where the
humans would block his way and the sacrifice would be finished as the fanged beasts closed in.

  But the black cat would not do as expected.

  He led the boy off the steps, marking the way again, and the two entered the black cat’s lair, where he was invisible but for his yellow eyes. He nudged the boy’s leg until the child stood in a corner, and then the cat nudged the boy’s thigh to make him sit, his knees and elbows to make him curl up, and his head so he would tuck it in. Wrapped in a ball, the boy was left alone in the dark corner while the black cat waited at the doorway.

  The fanged beasts appeared shortly, towering over the black cat, their eyes burning with hungry green fire. They knew the boy was inside, they knew the black cat had tried to hide him, and the black cat bowed, something he had never done. He backed away into the darkness with a submissive curl in his spine, his head lowered, his eyes downcast. The fanged beasts entered the black room, savoring the taste of the boy lingering in the air. They expected to kill the sacrifice quickly, and then the lead who had desecrated their lair.

  They did not expect the room to be so large, for the darkness to take them entirely as they sought the child. They did not expect the flicker of yellow eyes to blink, and blink, and grow larger. They did not expect that in complete blackness, when a black cat is not limited to the form you see of him in the light, that he may truly be a panther, as large and deadly as the fanged beasts—they couldn’t see him and so they couldn’t know. They did not expect the black cat to become the darkness, the kind of cat unseen in many thousands of years, whose teeth severed spines and broke skulls, whose throat swallowed men whole as easily as the night swallowed the sky, whose coat lit with stars when prowling the empty plains beneath the moonlit heavens, before there were cities at all, when he might feast on hairy elephants and birds the size of houses.

  The fanged beasts had screaming for their sacrifice after all.

  When the priests ran with their lanterns to light the room, they found the fanged beasts’ insides torn out, their blood painting the floor and their skins lying at the feet of the mute boy. The black cat sat on the child’s knees, licking his paw as if nothing mattered.

  The sign was clear to the priests—this Sacrifice Day meant a year of conquest, of the clay city rising to all its challenges, never anyone mind that a black cat had crossed its priests’ paths. The child was titled the Boy Who Slayed the Fanged Beasts, to sit by the city’s ruler as a lucky charm for the coming wartime. The would-be sacrifice need no longer chase cats in the street.

  Many cats expected the black cat to join the child he’d saved. He had the opportunity to live a life of luxury. He needed never to hunt again, never to starve. No street urchin would throw stones at him, no dog would eat him, and no man would drown his kittens should he sire any on some female he met in the warm nights. Few cats ever felt the paradise he could’ve had.

  But the black cat would not do as expected. He remained in his dark room, feasting on the remains of the fanged beasts. He did as he pleased with his days and his nights, he went on living in the blackness of his den, and he was left alone, as he’d wanted all along.

  Calling the Ladies

  Wendell the harper played his harp in inns and taverns and alleys, and he wasn’t terribly good with the strings. His fingers fumbled often and he forgot where to strike the right notes. This had little consequence on his wallet, as he had a house and parents and siblings to feed and care for him. But Wendell had a need greater than money. Every skilled harpist could draw the women to his table or their bedroom windows, or his bed with ease, but Wendell’s music lacked the knack. He saw it better apt for frightening cats and emptying rooms, unless they were filled with the deaf.

  One day as he plucked his strings at an alley’s edge, a bent old woman came creeping by. She was clothed in simple rags and carried a great bulging sack on her back. Wendell offered her a song for a coin, and began to play his noise.

  The old woman watched and listened, and when the torment ended, she cackled madly. “If I had a thousand coins, I’d sooner give one to a boy banging two sticks together. But cheer up—I have something better for you, for I am a heartsmith witch, and I know your desires. You may have them, if you’ll trade.”

  Wendell felt nervous, consorting with a witch, but if she knew what he wanted—and he could have it—she was worth a listen. “What do you propose?” he asked.

  Dropping her great sack on the cobblestones, the witch fished around inside and pulled out a stunted ivory pipe, half the length of Wendell’s forearm. “One blow on the Lady-call, and a maiden will be drawn by its entrancing music to you, its player dashing, and you need not even know how to play. Simply blow and the Lady-call does the work. But what will you give me? Not this harp you cannot play. It does me no good either.”

  “All I have is my family,” Wendell said.

  “An old woman could use a good family for some love and fattening in these last years of mine,” the witch said. “You have a deal.”

  So the witch went to Wendell’s home and took his place, mooching off his family and contributing little, just as he did. Once she was out of sight, Wendell blew the pipe. The Lady-call pulled his fingertips to its ivory, leading his fingers up and down to play the notes of the song. Its music was loud and soft, stirring but peaceful.

  After a minute, the spell released him, and a serving girl from his favorite tavern came running into the street, catching his arm. “What gorgeous playing from a gorgeous man. I want you and you’re mine.” She then threw her arms around his neck, and he led her to bed her shortly.

  There were many fine ladies in town, finer than serving girls, and a woman of one kind or another came at every call of Wendell’s pipe. Days and days passed, and Wendell drew woman after woman to his side, until he was sharing drinks, kissing, and bedding a woman every night.

  One evening, after a few too many drinks, Wendell had a revelation. “A common man seeks common company,” he said with a slur in his usually gentle voice. “I will take my pipe north from our little village, up the long road to the kingdom’s capital and castle, and I will call a great lady to me, perhaps a duchess—no, a princess! And when we’ve wed and I am king, I’ll have riches and fineries, along with any woman I choose, from anywhere.”

  With newfound ambition, Wendell stumbled from the tavern with only his harp and the Lady-call at his side. He passed his old home where the witch now lived, passed the crude wooden fence that guarded the town, and went lurching up the road in search of highborn prospects.

  After an hour or two, he began to sober, and quickly realized he was walking up a moonlit dirt road in the middle of the night, with thick woods to the west and empty plains to the east. “I should have started out in the morning,” he muttered. “No matter. I’ll blow on the Lady-call, and the nearest rural woman will appear to bring me to the safety of her home until dawn.”

  Wendell blew the ivory pipe, his fingers playing its notes, and its music swept over field and forest with the sweetest song a lady could hear. When it ended, only the wind answered, and Wendell wondered if he was too far from any woman for the music to entrance her.

  Then the trees rustled, leaves crunched on the ground, and a shape came running from the woods. Wendell sighed in relief at first. The woman quickly emerged from the shadows of the trees, and Wendell’s voice fled when he realized he’d summoned a hideous trollop. Her eyes were big black stones in her horrid, bulgy face, her body hunched and swelled in all the wrong places, and a thick ox tail swung back and forth, down near her cloven hooves.

  “I was off to check on my sister’s changeling, whom she traded for a human babe, but I have found a nicer prize,” the trollop cooed. “Your song is lovely, and you, lovelier. I want you and you’re mine.”

  Before Wendell could find his voice, the trollop snatched him up and carried him off to her home. She charged through trees and over hills, until they came to a castle at the foot of immense, white-capped mountains. Its parapets scowled a
nd its gateway grimaced, for this was the home of the trollop’s father, a fearsome troll king who ruled the dark forest.

  The trollop dropped Wendell in the troll king’s hall, a ratty, small corridor where troll statues leered, their stone faces frozen in bestial snarls. The troll king sat on the lap of such a statue, watching his daughter sullenly. There were others, a few fat trolls, two other trollops as hideous as the first, and beside them stood two young, bearded men, their eyes staring blankly.

  “I have found me a husband, father,” declared the trollop, and she took Wendell’s pipe and harp from his hands. “I have claimed him and all he owns, and carried him here, and I wish to wed.”

  “Then you’ll wed, youngest princess,” the troll king said, and he pointed a doughy finger at Wendell. “You will join my sons-in-law in the kitchen and make our feast for your wedding.”

  Wendell was carried by two lurching male trolls to the kitchen, where he was chained to the floor and made to work. He greeted the blank-faced men who joined him, but they said nothing, stricken with a trollop enchantment, and were bid only to speak when their wives wished. Wendell saw his fate in their eyes. For three days he chopped pig flanks and horse meat, diced vegetables, burned fats and his hands, stuffed breads, plucked chickens, and all the while he wished to have his harp in his hands instead—or better yet, the Lady-call! He could play and summon an army of amorous women to carry him to safety, or perhaps entice the other trollops to fight their sister, and meanwhile he would escape.