The man inched closer. His voice was low and gruff, like the groan of a heavy branch pushing against the wind; “We hear them sometimes,” he said. “From our cottage, at twilight—we can hear their laughter, their music.”
The woman agreed. “We hear the fair folk, luring humans into their realm. When the sound of the party stops, it’s quiet until...” Her eyes swerved around for moment. “Until the screams.”
“Your friend cannot be helped,” said the man. “Those who go there do not come back.”
“But you said the party was over.”
Callie didn’t believe in ghost stories, but she peeled back the lore to reveal the strips of truth they told her. Now, she knew that the party had ended and the couple had heard screams afterwards.
“If the party is over, where will I find her?”
The woman dipped her hand into her long-coat pocket. When her gloved hand reappeared, it was clasped around a small phial of white grains.
“Go to the crooked trees if you must,” she whispered, “but keep this on you at all times.”
Callie took the phial and inspected it. “Is this sugar?”
“Salt.” The man’s voice had lowered, and he coiled his arm around his wife’s.
He wanted to leave. There was no impatience in his creased eyes, but plenty of nerves. His moustache twitched like whiskers, and he tightened his grip on his wife’s arm.
“Wait,” Callie said and pinched the phial between her fingers. “What will this do?”
“Salt stops the fair folk,” he said. “They are compelled to avoid it. But it won’t work for long. They need only to get a broom and sweep it away, or steal the salt you have and bury it.”
Callie masked her huff with a sigh, tucking the phial into her back pocket. “Thanks.”
The old couple moved around her, their dog trotting behind them.
Just as Callie made to hike up the sloped path, the woman stopped her.
“Lass, wait a moment,” she said.
Callie turned to meet her gaze.
“The fair folk might still be wandering the woods. Some stay out after their parties, hoping to meet more humans that they can … play with. If you see anyone who does not look like they should, hold the salt in your hand and ignore them. And,” she added, “do not be surprised if the trees and paths begin to look the same. One of their favourite games is to have you think you are lost, when you are not. Stick to the map, get to the crooked trees, and only then should you stop.”
The man said, “Good luck.”
Then they both shuffled down the path, leaving Callie to stare after them for a moment.
Callie shook her head, tossing the tales from her mind, then trekked up the slope. She kept the phial in her pocket, but as more of a souvenir from the crazy town she never wished to visit again.
To distract from the aches in her legs, Callie tried to use her phone again. She raised it above her head and turned it on its side, but no matter what she did all she got was one measly bar of signal.
It wasn’t even enough to send a text message.
When she reached the mermaid tail, her phone beeped and shut off. That was strange, it had been fully charged before she’d left the tavern.
But then, Callie suddenly didn’t care about her phone’s mysterious shut down anymore. She looked up at the mermaid tail and frowned.
Phone loose in her grip, she ran her gaze over the wooden sculpture.
Callie had been there before.
It was where she’d met the old couple. But that had been an hour ago, at least.
Callie yanked the map out of her bag and skimmed over it. Her gaze rested on the plot she stood by. It was the halfway mark of where she needed to be. After hours of walking, Callie should have been at the stones—the plot of stone-boulders planted in a circle. The stones were only an hour away from the crooked trees.
‘One of their favourite games is to have you think you are lost, when you are not. Stick to the map, get to the crooked trees, and only then should you stop.’
Callie held onto the map and walked uphill again. She didn’t stop walking, not even when her legs wavered and begged for a rest.
The map stayed in her hands.
‘I don’t believe in fair folk,’ she told herself. ‘I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and gotten turned around.’
Still, Callie held onto the map tightly as if it were her compass and followed its instructions through the woods.
2
After four hours of walking—four gruesome hours that pulled her muscles like taffy and set fire to the soles of her feet—Callie stopped. She wasn’t at the crooked trees. She was at the mermaid tail again. And she stood there, for minutes, just staring at it.
Callie glanced around and thought about turning back.
She had to use the toilet, her entire body was engulfed in a fiery pit of pain, and her phone had died. But it would take hours to get back to the village. Hours that she didn’t have to spare.
The longer she was up there in the deepest part of the woods, the more she believed that Meghan was in trouble.
A flash of silver caught her eye.
Her gaze swerved back to the tail. Only this time, it wasn’t wooden or short. It was a different sculpture—one made from steel that shined and sparkled beneath the afternoon sunlight. The fins that forked apart at the tip were darker than the rest of the sculpture, as if carved from shadows.
Callie hugged the map to her stomach, and inched closer to the tail. But with each step closer, her eyes unfocused. She clenched her eyelids and a blinked a few times, but her vision still blurred.
No.
That wasn’t her vision.
It was the mermaid tail.
The tail, sharp and metal, seemed to pulse before her very eyes. The chilly air around it vibrated, and Callie couldn’t help but watch with eyes wider than moons as it changed.
The tail groaned, stretching higher and higher, and its edges pulled apart into sharp pieces of deep brown.
It took Callie a moment to see what it was shifting into. The fins severed into thin, jagged branches that leaned to one side; the tail darkened to bark and thickened into a tree-trunk.
And then it stopped.
Callie took a step closer to what had been a mermaid tail a mere moment before. It was now a crooked tree.
Callie sucked in a breath through her teeth. The sound was drowned out by the whispers of the trees. She glanced around at them, whipping her head from side to side, and saw that they were all crooked trees now.
This was where the party had taken place. This was where people should have been, or at least some littered cans and bottles to show that they had been there. But there was nothing—no sign of anyone.
No sign of Meghan.
Callie began to back away from the suspicious trees when a twig snapped behind her.
She whirled around, tripping over her own feet, and staggered. She caught her balance and gaped at the path. But the path was gone. There were only more trees, bent in the middle, like half-moons.
A shadow moved between the slanted trunks. It glided beneath low-hanging branches, moving closer to where Callie stood, frozen, like the statue she longed to return to.
Callie couldn’t hear the footsteps of the shadow, not over the frantic thrum of her heart in her ears. Her throat thumped, her arms shivered and her legs wobbled beneath her.
Was she hallucinating, she wondered? Was she so exhausted and paranoid that she was seeing things?
The shadow stepped out of the trees and into the one stream of light that penetrated the thick branches. The sunlight washed away all the darkness, and revealed the rosy pink hair of the one standing metres away from her.
He wore a face that Callie recognised, but there was nothing familiar in the way his fierce eyes regarded her.
Her voice came out in a whisper, a shaken hushed sound slick with fear. “Cormag?”
Callie’s gaze followed Cormag as he took a step toward
her.
There was no sign of recognition on his expressionless face.
“I thought,” began Callie, but she swallowed back her words.
I thought I was the only one here, she was about to say.
Instead, she cleared her throat and asked, “Where’s Meghan?”
Cormag tilted his head.
“Meghan,” he repeated, rolling the name over his tongue as if trying to place it in his memories; as if he didn’t know who Meghan was. “Meghan…”
“My friend,” Callie snapped. “The girl you took to the party last night, a party that happened right here where we’re standing. Where is she?”
A spark of recognition lit up his leafy eyes. Unnaturally green, like the glassiness of shallow sea water of an island.
“Your friend is dancing,” he said. “I imagine she will be dancing for some time.” There was an infliction as he spoke, as if he knew a joke that Callie didn’t.
A chill trickled down her spine. Whether it was from Cormag or the cold, Callie didn’t know.
“Dancing where?”
Cormag stepped toward her—or rather, floated. Callie saw his boots touch the forest floor but they didn’t make a sound. She wondered if he had intentionally stood on a twig earlier to catch her attention.
Callie backed away as he advanced, but his gaze fixed ahead and he glided past her to the tree that had been a mermaid tail. Cormag stopped at the rough bark of the tree and dragged his finger around the large hollow in the centre.
Callie hadn’t noticed before how skeletal his finger was.
Cormag looked over his shoulder, his sharp fingernail digging into the bark. “Through there.”
“What?”
“You asked where your friend is dancing,” he said. “And I told you. Through there.”
Callie didn’t have the energy to laugh or shout. It had all been drained out of her over the past four hours. All she could muster was a steady, unwavering stare at Cormag.
Callie licked her lips and looked back at where the path should’ve been. The trees blocked her vision; she couldn’t see anything beyond them except more trees. She was in the thicket of them.
“I called the police,” she said, and turned back to face Cormag. “They should be here any minute now. If you don’t tell me where Meghan is, I’ll—”
“But I have.” Cormag’s voice hadn’t changed at her threat. He wasn’t afraid, he simply stared at her. But the sharp glint in the corner of his eye told her that he suspected she was lying. “And they will not come here.”
Callie frowned. “What do you mean they won’t come here?”
“These police you talk of,” he said airily. “You are here because I saw you wandering, and my mood is curious today. I let you see. And now you are here. But your police will not see us. They won’t find us unless I will it.”
Callie took a step back.
“Where is Meghan?” Her tense voice slithered out through gritted teeth, so harshly that it sounded more of a statement than a question.
“I told you,” he said patiently. “Your friend is through the hollow.”
Callie clenched her jaw. “You want me to believe that Meghan is in a tree? How mad are you?”
“I care nothing of what you believe,” he said. “You asked a question and I answered it.” Cormag stuck his hand into the hollow and twisted his wrist, as if to prove that there was no danger inside.
Callie watched him with slitted eyes.
“See for yourself,” he said.
Keeping her narrowed eyes on him, Callie crept toward the tree. As she neared, she stepped to the side to keep her distance from him. Their gazes never faltered, never disconnected—he was as watchful of her as she was of him. Though, Callie suspected he wasn’t afraid or cautious of her. In fact, she had the unnerving suspicion that she was entertaining him.
The soles of her boots crunched against the dried leaves as she moved closer to the hollow. Cormag pulled his hand out and stepped back. Whether he was giving her space or backing away from whatever was in the tree, she didn’t know.
With a deep inhale to steady her beating heart, Callie leaned closer to the hollow. The darkness inside of it had her skin prickling all over. Then, she froze at the edge of the hollow.
A magical tune whispered up to her, and beckoned her down the tree.
‘Come away with us human girl and see what we can give;
With fruits and riches to share, you’ll never want to leave.
It is in these lands where you will wish to forever live;
And your wish will be granted, for you are ours to thieve.’
Callie jerked back at the last line.
It struck a bolt of panic through her chest to her heart. But before she could push back from the hollow, before the melody stopped haunting her—she screamed.
Cormag had grabbed her neck and shoved her into the hole.
And then she was falling into the song.
‘The price to pay, forever taken, is not your scream;
The cost was great, you are forsaken, we stole your dream.’
Falling down,
Down,
Into the darkness.
3
The darkness was sucked away by bright lights and the music twisted into dark cackles.
Callie saw water rushing up at her. Before she could brace herself, she crashed into a lake with a feral scream.
The water jumped into her mouth, coiled around her arms, and dragged her down, farther down, and down—until she hit the bottom.
Pebbles, sharp and coarse, dug into her back. Callie pulled her limbs away from the water, twisting her body as she tried to free herself. But the water plunged down her throat and filled her body, searching her, inside and out.
Callie gurgled, but her throat made no noise.
Bubbles of precious air swam up ahead and reached the light that danced on top of the lake. She had to get up there. But the water pinned her down and lifted a pebble. Gold and silver, blue speckled, and with her name carved into it.
The pebble floated toward her. Callie flailed on the lake-floor, banging her head on the floor of the lake. But the pebble drew closer, her name etched into it with the shining curves of gold, gleaming brighter than the sun on a hot day—and just as Callie made to scream, the pebble plummeted into her mouth.
She choked, trying to reach up and claw it out from her mouth. Her hands were stuck to the lake-floor, as if chained there.
And then Callie felt it—the sudden loss of something important. Like an ice-cream scooper gutted her heart out of her body.
Before she could grab onto whatever was taken from her, the pebble flew from her mouth, glowing like a ball of sunlight, and fell to the other pebbles.
Distantly, the melody sang through the water to her, barely reaching her. A whisper of a memory...
‘We stole your dream.’
The water released her. Whatever had been holding her down was gone, like the dream she didn’t remember.
Callie spun around, pressing her feet against the pebbles, and kicked herself up through the water. Her arms, heavy and exhausted, stroked above her, pulling her further up. There was nothing left inside of her, but ice-cold water and panic. Her thirst for oxygen pushed her higher up to the shining roof of the lake. It promised sunshine, warmth and air.
As she reached the surface, her entire body seemed to propel out of the water. Her back arched, head throwing back, and a gust of air filled her starved lungs.
Callie floated there, on the surface, for a moment—breathing, gasping, sputtering water from her body. The lake-water tasted like boiled eggs and toads. She retched, and pools of it spewed from her blue lips. But she didn’t feel the cold. She could only breathe.
After she caught her breath, Callie began to relax in the lake.
Keeping her head above water, she moved her arms to turn herself around. Her eyes, fringed by wet lashes, roamed the landscape.
The lake was large. Larger than any sh
e’d ever seen before, so large that she wondered if it were even a lake at all. What if she was in the ocean? A jolt of panic shot through her. Would that be possible?
Nothing that had happened that day seemed possible.
Callie turned in the water again, looking out over hazy horizons that licked the top of the clear water.
If she looked down, she could see the pebbles glinting from below, far down on the bed of the water. Too far for it to be normal to see.
“If I were you, I’d get out of there!” shouted a voice. “The merfolk like to eat humans!”
Callie spun around in the water.
Across the lake stood a young boy beside a black horse.
He was on the shore—the shore!
Callie dived forward and dragged herself through the lake. Her aching arms reached out and pulled her tired body closer to the stone-shore.
It felt as though she’d been swimming for hours when she reached the stones and heaved herself out of the water where she collapsed.
Callie sprawled on the stones, not feeling their sharp sides dig into her skin. Her limbs lay limply around her, and her hoarse, hitched breaths raked down her eardrums. Her eyes threatened to close, to take her dreamland, but she fought to keep them open.
Wherever this place was—whatever this place was—Callie was certain that it wasn’t a place safe enough for her to sleep out in the open.
When she had sucked some energy back into her body, she sat up. Her clothes were drenched, stuck to her body, and her hair was plastered to her cheeks.
Callie peeled back her hair and let it fall in a limp, soaked curtain down her back. The pallor of her skin had taken a blue-tinge, and goosepimples spread all over her.
It was then she realised that she was shivering.
Callie craned her neck to look for the boy. He wasn’t there. No one was there. There was only the horse the boy had stood beside and one other horse beside it, draped in a silver saddle, wearing a studded collar and a muzzle.
The steeds were tied to wooden posts beside a pebbled path, with names that gleamed from their polished surfaces. Little mason-jars bordered the path, and batting around inside of the glass-prisons were fireflies and glow-worms.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 13