by Caleb James
He’s too young. Too young!
“You can fix that.”
Yes. I will age him. He will do. He must do.
The boy stared at her, his expression more curious than afraid.
I have come for you, child. Her gaze raked over his tiny hands, one clutched in his mother’s, the other hanging tight to his father’s pumpkin-colored cape. This should have been a moment of triumph, but something weighed upon her thoughts. His coloring, the red hair, the milky skin. He was blood of something both forgotten and familiar… hound. Blood of the Hound. I should have seen this.
“The Hound is but a legend,” Dorothea blurted. “An ancient tale.”
Forgotten memories intruded. Battles rich with blood. A dual-natured human who came to her by night… or she to him. My Hound.
She hesitated. And in that pause, no more than the space of a breath, Cedric gathered his family inside his russet cloak, and with an inrush of air, like a vacuum sucking the place clean, they vanished.
Dorothea shouted, “They get away. You must be quick!”
May tasted and inhaled the afterburn of their getaway, an acrid mix of ozone and char. She should have been frustrated or disappointed. But the emotions that bubbled through her like a well-seasoned stew were too complex to pull apart: anger, disappointment, and the bittersweet memory of something wonderful she’d once had. It resonated deep. I was loved.
“I love you, Your Majesty.”
May looked at Dorothea. Her words were truth. Different love. Blood of the Hound. I can smell it. Smell him. I will find you. But then…. How could this hurt so much? How could I have forgotten?
Dorothea kept her gaze fixed on May and gingerly touched her shoulder. “My lady, among my species we have little use for the male. Or rather, two specific ones. They give us babies, and then we bite off their heads and our babies feed on their bodies.”
Not a bad system. But the Hound….
“Tell me,” Dorothea urged. “There’s something you seek to remember.”
Yes, something hidden. Something important. Something I have forgotten.
“It involves the Hound.”
Yes. She cocked her broad white head. His smell… and then it came to her. He took something from me…. No, that’s not it. I gave him something.
“Tell me.”
How have I forgotten this? She growled as the answer came. No. She shrugged away from Dorothea’s touch. This is not to be shared. Tricked. She growled.
Dorothea filled in the pieces, though she did so with caution. “To not remember something and someone so important reeks of magic.”
May smashed her head into a wall. The building shook as enchanted blinders fell away.
She pictured her two sisters. Lizbeta with the magic of the Mist, which carried peace and forgetfulness, and Katye, who emanated love and all its deceptions. And his image came to her. Tall with locks of flame red, a body stronger than any mortal man, and eyes that could hold her in thrall. Hound, I remember you. Tears of blood and acid streamed.
Lost in reverie, she did not feel Dorothea’s gentle touch on her flank.
I will find you. I will take back the stolen part. I will take back my heart.
“Finally,” Dorothea stated. “You now have the missing piece… you know what must be done to become whole and to march in glory across the worlds as the one and only queen. Though it pains me to see your hurt, this is marvelous news.”
Take back my heart. I will be whole. It’s why I failed. This is how I shall succeed. Take back my heart. A cancerous doubt grew. So long ago….
“Yes,” Dorothea said. “Humans do not live that long. Not even here. Though your heart, as the rest of you, approaches immortality. It must still beat. And if I may be so bold as to comment on the males of the human species. You must take back your heart, and if by some chance he still possesses it, then bite off his head. In my experience, it’s the only satisfying way to end a relationship.”
Eleven
ON THE receiving end of salamander May’s assault, Marilyn Nevus, a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, watched the air waver as the edges of her husband Cedric’s protection wards unraveled. “It will not hold.” She clutched her haffling son, Adam. Cedric’s arm enfolded them both.
“It will hold,” he said without assurance.
It will not, she thought, as spiderweb cracks spread across the plaster walls and debris rained down from above.
For his part, Adam, only two years old in human time but so precocious he’d skipped several years through fey influence and appeared around seven, did not shed a tear. He held silent as fairy fire whistled down and the building trembled.
A missile landed on the porch’s flat roof. It sizzled and burned through shingles.
Marilyn smelled the fire as it caught on the dry timber. She leaned back and whispered in Cedric’s ear. “We must leave. If she does not break through the ward, she will burn us to death.”
“It’s her way.” And he wrapped his wife and son within the folds of his cape.
Despite the warmth of his body, her teeth chattered. “Where?”
He shuddered. “No questions.”
In a less fraught moment, she’d have spat back that she’d ask all the damn questions she wanted. But now…. It’s all up to him. I have no power here. She felt like screaming, so sick of running, of this constant fear that at any moment May would come for one of her children. She tried not to think of brave Alex and soulful-eyed Alice. At least she’d recently received word from Cedric’s nephew Liam that they were alive, and while battle-weary, they were well.
Though the memory of that conversation left her with fresh fears, especially the way Liam and his boyfriend, Charlie, hedged their words as they told her of Alice. Something is wrong with her. I can feel it.
Another shriek of fairy fire hurtled toward them. In the awful moments before it hit, she knew their time here was up. From the periphery she saw flames on the porch and from back in Adam’s bedroom.
“It’s time,” Cedric acknowledged as he twirled circles in the air with his wrist and extended a forefinger.
Hiding Adam’s face in Cedric’s cloak, she braced as a creature unlike anything she could have imagined pierced through the ward and through the walls. It tangled in the spidery threads of Cedric’s magic as a disembodied sword attempted to pierce its flesh, only to be shattered like a toothpick.
“Hurry.” She was unable to rip her gaze from the slobbering white lizard with its spewing nostrils and razor-toothed maw. What is that creature? I’ve seen it… her, before. It cannot be. That is what has become of Queen May. Her gaze landed on Dorothea, a vile insect of a creature, ever eager to do May’s bloody bidding.
“Traitors!” Dorothea shouted. “How dare you assault the queen!”
“She betrayed her people,” Marilyn spat back. “She comes to steal my child, as she has done before. She cannot have him.” And with an inrush of air that made her want to vomit, Cedric’s arms tightened around her and Adam and they were up, up, and away.
Below them the creature howled. It reared back, aimed, and shot a ball of fire straight toward them. She fell into Cedric as he twisted and feinted to the right. She felt heat as the missile whistled past them.
“Fairy fire,” Cedric hissed as they soared higher.
There was nothing to say, but Marilyn wondered at the weapon’s source. If that thing was May, or some part of her, it would not have been meant as a killing shot. At least, not for all three of them. She has come to take Adam.
Despair threatened to overtake her. First Alex, my brave boy, then Alice. Her rage, never far from the surface, roared to her aid. It pushed past the sick clutches of hopelessness. She failed before, and she will fail again. If that creature is her… she is not well. In a clear voice, she asked, “Where to?”
Cedric recoiled at her use of forbidden interrogatives.
“Where to?” she repeated. I will not be cowed by her.
He whispered, “I hav
e a thought, and you won’t like it.”
She turned into him and pressed her lips to his. She held her hands tight over Adam’s ears. “Tell me.” Though she knew what he’d say. It was the only thing that made sense.
“We must send Adam to his brother and sister in the See. Alex and Alice can protect him… we cannot.”
She gasped. It felt like she’d been sucker punched. “Yes, it’s the only solution. I will go with him.”
“Dearest, you cannot, and you know that is truth. You are mad beyond repair in the See. Our oldest has reached majority and can be a legal guardian to Adam. It would be good for them to spend time together. And they have your changeling doppelgänger as well. Ripped from your own true flesh.”
She hissed and continued to shield Adam’s ears. “Are you mad? He’s too young. I will not send a seven-year-old, who in fact is only two, alone on the back of a puka. I will go with him.” This was not to be argued, and while Marilyn loved Cedric, brave he was not. Even robbed of her reason in the See, she’d do what needed to be done. “Will May follow us?”
Cedric gazed down at the creature, little more than a pinpoint on the ground. “She will break if she tries. I cannot say how. But the queen we knew grows ever more unrecognizable. With our three children safely tucked away in the See, she cannot follow. She will break. Adam will be safe there. They will all be safe.”
Marilyn prayed that he was right. Still, the plan carried horrible risk. But in times of war, which this was, mothers faced unbearable choices. She gazed into Cedric’s beautiful face. Much of this was his fault. She had forgiven him, though at times like this it was difficult to remember why. With her fingers twined in her son’s silken red hair, she spoke. “Call the puka.”
Cedric shifted in the wind, his course now clear. He tried to soothe her with his voice. “He will be safe there. This is what must happen.”
Marilyn held her tongue and tried not to think of the horror that awaited her. An awful doubt took hold as she remembered how difficult—almost impossible—it had become for her to think clearly in the See. She had been broken by the trip. Sane in this realm and bereft of all reason in the world where she’d grown up. Her every waking second hounded by nonsensical voices and rambling thoughts, one disconnected from the next. But even more awful was the realization I have to send my last child away. She clutched Adam to where she could feel his heart beat against her chest.
I will fight for your return. And if I must, I will die to keep you safe.
Twelve
REDMOND STOOD in front of the packed Level Four Psychopathology class. His head felt like it might explode. I can’t believe I did that. This is bad. So bad. Sunlight streamed through the windows in the round auditorium. Dust motes glittered in the rays. His eyes teared, and his thoughts were dragged to the sound, sizzle, but mostly the smell of the fairy fire and residue of dust in May’s cell. And they traveled from there to…. I did not do that.
Yes, you did.
Centuries of being a functioning dusthead, with endless practice of pretending all was well, had not been wasted. As he moved around the room, casting sigils into the air illustrating today’s topic—eating disorders that afflict the fey—he was at war with himself. What made matters worse, and the excuse he’d given himself last night to have just a taste, was May. It was the stress. Yeah, right. It’s always something. It always was… is. Hidden from his eager-eyed students, he ran the litany of all the reasons to have a taste, and then a bit more: stress, celebration, fuck it all, check out, get high, boredom….
Moving on autopilot, something he did better than most, he rattled off criteria for each of the eating disorders that affected fairy, pixie, ogre, sprite, gnome, troll, and so forth. He heard the words stream through his lips. These were addictions too, only they involved food. He weighed the pros and cons of his own love of dust. On the plus side, the dust bunny he’d gobbled last night had sent him into a beautiful world that not even May could touch. He’d felt happy and free, and like nothing bad existed in this world or any other one.
Followed by waking up with a crushing dustover. No stranger to the rhythms of dust addiction, he knew how the day would go. A pounding headache, like wearing a hat three sizes too small, accompanied by absolute resolution to never touch the stuff again. But come midday, there’d be a shift. He felt it now, and it wasn’t yet ten. His head would clear, and the hunger would start. By eventide it would be unbearable, and only one thing would slake it—dust.
A redheaded pixie in the front raised his hand, Colum something. His tiny wings twitched with nerves. “I don’t understand how Brownie Eating Disorder… BED, works.”
Redmond, as he’d done during the centuries of his rampant addiction, focused and coped. “It’s complex, but once you understand the subtle psychosis involved, it makes sense. Let’s start by having you tell us what you do know of that disorder.”
Colum flitted onto his desk and, like a contestant in a spelling bee, restated the subject and then dove in. “Brownie eating disorder mostly affects ogres, but occasionally trolls and giants.”
“Correct,” Redmond stated. “Though there have been exceedingly rare reports of water worgs and even one of a cyclops, but continue.”
“It’s a binge-purge phenomenon. The ogre has a building need to eat brownies, while simultaneously resisting the urge to do so. Eventually the craving becomes too intense, and rather than eat one or two brownies, they’ll pillage and devour an entire village and then turn around and vomit them all up.” Colum looked to Redmond.
“Spot on so far.”
“But it makes no sense.”
From the back right of the room, a group of cliquish brownies mumbled and nodded their green-capped heads.
“It does if you understand both the history of the disorder and the psyche of larger creatures. It ultimately comes down to the grass is always greener. Very large creatures wonder what it might be like to be small and slender. A thousand years ago this disorder was unheard of. Quite possibly it did not exist.” He looked over the classroom. All eyes were on him. This was a hot topic. “So tell me what is different between then and now.”
From her usual seat in the front row just in front of his podium, Luluba shot up her hand. “The culture has changed.”
“Say more.”
She stood and without trepidation launched into a thoughtful analysis. “A thousand years ago, the fey concept of beauty was broad. Ogre, troll, and such were merely one’s species and did not carry added connotations. You could be a lovely troll or a graceful ogre. That changed.” She lowered her voice.
“Say it. These walls are safe.”
Luluba’s composure wavered as she launched into what could be considered treason. “Queen May began to define beauty and used herself, her sisters, and her species to define it. If you weren’t from one of the four-season families, such as you, Dr. Fall, you were outside her standard.”
“Well done, Luluba. Let’s hear from others. Explain how the standard of beauty occurred, and for ten thousand gold stars, relate that to Brownie Eating Disorder.”
Around the room hands and related appendages shot up. He called on a student with the limbs of a praying mantis, the pointy ears of a pixie, and a humanoid face. “Yes, Flikka.”
She rose up on acutely angled limbs. “I think I have this.”
“Let’s hear it.”
She paused and gathered her thoughts. “I’ll work backward from the ogre puking up the brownies.” She gave an apologetic nod to the green hats in the back. “Creatures with BED describe intense remorse, guilt, and shame after they purge. And yet they get pulled back over and over, sometimes destroying the same village multiple times a day. So it carries elements of both compulsive behavior and obsessive thought. They spend hours ruminating on either giving in to the urge or resisting it.”
Redmond’s breath caught. This is close to the bone. He nodded, dreading what she’d say next.
“So yes, it’s an addiction. It has strong
similarities with certain anxiety disorders, but the piece that’s missing is, for lack of a better term, a kind of psychosis… a beauty psychosis. On some level, the afflicted ogre or troll believes that they can be other than they are. When you’re doing therapy with them, a common theme is the belief that by resisting the urge they could magically transform into a four-season fairy. To my knowledge that spell does not exist.”
“Correct,” Redmond stated and then added, “There are certainly ways—not pleasant ones—where we shift, but starvation is not one of them. And then they give in to the urge and feel both physically sick and disgusted with themselves on numerous levels, but because the behavior gives them that giddy in-the-moment relief as they’re engaging in it, they go back to it over and over again.”
Flikka’s eyes sparkled. “It is a type of psychosis. It’s thinking something impossible might work, even though you know it won’t. I think that’s true of all addictions. That maybe this time the hit of dust might make you feel good forever, even though you know for a fact it won’t.”
Shit! Keep it together. Flikka’s observations were too sharp. “You know, I think I’ve just taken you from ten thousand gold starts to twenty-five. Well done, Flikka.” He glanced at the wag-on-the-wall clock. There were ten minutes left to go. Normally he loved to teach, but now… It’s just one slip. You don’t have to follow this path. Today is a new day. You don’t have to use. But in his gut, like an ogre trapped in the cycle of BED, he knew. Once a dusthead, always a dusthead.
Flikka, emboldened by praise and imaginary gold stars, quipped in her impression of a human voice, “It’s just so unfair.”
The hundred-plus students burst into laughter at the ancient joke about one of the obvious differences between humans and fey.
Redmond smiled. Though he’d never met a human, it was widely known that they had a ludicrous belief that the world should operate with a sense of fairness. A concept which, when placed against the cruelty and beauty of nature, made zero sense.