Where the Veil Is Thin

by Alana Joli Abbott

Will you fight me? she wanted to demand. You ask if I will hurt you, but what will you do to me if I lay down my weapon? You’ll make it so I can’t see the spring ever, because you’ll kill my tree, which will kill me.

  Datura’s fate was to make the soil rich. It was her destiny to ensure a good harvest. There wasn’t a choice. But she couldn’t stop envisioning a summer morning, the two of them running through the tall grass, the scent of petrichor on the air, maybe just on the edge of autumn when the leaves had veins of orange and red, and it was something that she could never ever have because it always happened the same.

  “Have you tasted an apple?” Tibb said, quiet and tired.

  “You know I haven’t,” Datura said. “Look around you. The apples are all dead and full of worms or mold.”

  “Do you want to know what they taste like?”

  Apple was one of the first words, Datura thought. You could call anything an apple that was gifted from the earth. Tomatoes and cucumbers and potatoes—they all were once apples. Datura grasped the peace offering. A story for shelter. “Tell me.”

  “It’s crisp and good, but once you bite—even just a nibble—you have to eat the whole thing.” Tibb sat up, propped up on her hand in the mud. She stared at Datura and Datura wanted to smile, to reach out and fix Tibb’s crooked crown, to smooth the red mark of her shoulder pressed into Tibb’s cheek, but it seemed important to Tibb that she listen.

  “The fruit browns right away,” Tibb continued. “It starts to go bad from the start. So you have to know, when you take a bite, that you have to eat the whole thing. You can’t save it.”

  Datura’s root-chains shuddered, as if to speak, but she shushed them. Her mouth opened, imagining what it would be to crunch, to know the meaning of crisp.

  “I could bring you one,” Tibb hedged. “Not from a grove here, but somewhere else. Somewhere down below. Someplace I came from. Past the roots.”

  “No,” Datura said and shook her head, sending her own headdress falling. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Coward,” Tibb said fondly, and if Datura hadn’t been looking for it, she would’ve missed the ghost of relief crossing Tibb’s face.

  The orchard trembled. Above, the moon shone as a silver coin. Datura closed her eyes against its light and placed a wish on it. Around her, the winter air of Old Twelvey Night panted for the waeshaeil to begin, eager for a different kind of metal: one of bloodshed and war, one of flashing guardian swords and slavering catastrophe. Tonight, Datura would fight. She would defend. And she would die.

  The first omen of waeshaeil began: the apple god wandered the grove with wide steps that left a gentle thunder running under Datura’s feet. He passed her spindly tree, and she looked up, up, up—he towered as tall as the sky, and she wondered if he heard the song of the sun, if he could glimpse a bit of blue beyond the night’s cover of dark. The apple god never spoke to his apple-children, his orchard defenders, but Datura mouthed the old tale of genesis under her breath: that he’d been borne in the bag of a utopian-infatuated monk, that he carried bloodlines of tree-gods past when he’d been planted, inert within the small husk of his seed.

  A scream followed by an aria of manic laughter. The second omen of waeshaeil. The small mischief-things overran the grounds, wild with the joy of destroying. Their shadows elongated from their bodies, a grotesque glimpse of what twisted and sought release underneath. Waeshaeil was a thing of evolution, progression, and soon those tiny mischief-things would become atrocious giants, given the chance. Now, they taunted the guardians. They climbed the apple-god’s legs, chopping at his bark with weapons made of debris: slices of steel, branches whittled to stakes, plucked brown grass braided into whips.

  Datura looked for Tibb.

  She shooed other nasty mischief-things away that teased her and ran around the radius of her roots with grinding teeth. As her enemies transformed—scales emerging from flesh, sharp nails becoming talons—Datura responded in kind. The shift began slowly, but brought with it a welcome breath of familiarity. Roots slithered around her legs and became the foundation of her bones. Her weak hands broadened into ones with strength. She grew beyond the scope of her apple-tree, felt her thistle crown become a helmet of thorns, molding with her long curls to present her with a stiff headdress of battle glory.

  The third omen arose with a gaggle of humans, a song of Old Twelvey Night boisterous on their lips, the greetings of waeshaeil echoing around them. Gunshots filled the air, followed by the sulphuric reek of gunpower being poured and mashed and lit with flint. Strong boys lifted the waeshaeil queen and she sliced her fingertips, let small beads of blood coat the rim of the large wooden cup that passed between their hands.

  They would frolic and celebrate and pretend to chase away the evil. They would send up prayers for a good harvest. They would be blind to the true fight happening all around them.

  Datura’s eyes curved and widened, the realms of reality shifting while the humans played. She reached for her sword, eager for its heft, but found the sheath empty. Her ancient form stilled, the song to protect reaching a ringing conclusion. Her worthy blade—gone. Stolen.

  “No,” she breathed, her voice deep and rich, and she thought back to Tibb, absent Tibb, always so interested in her, curious to watch her sharpen the blade, getting closer and closer until Datura placed a wish on the moon for her: keep Tibb safe this night.

  She spun, saw her fellow apple-guardians mighty and entrenched in war to keep the weak orchard safe, and she looked at her wrists. Her chains should have slipped to free her by now, but they’d become black and swollen, ooze sticky against her skin. “No,” she said.

  Her talons dug into her skin as she tried to peel back the blackened roots. An unknown scent rose from her flesh: a bad decay, one that promised desecration, not resurrection.

  A screech of agony stopped her from gouging her wrist, and she saw a towering mischief-thing standing before the apple-god. Armored plates stacked across her shoulders and down her arms. A flashing grin revealed endless rows of fangs. A crown of woven hay lay on her head. Datura’s sword was gripped in her hands.

  “Tibb, no,” Datura yelled, as Tibb swung the sword, wild with inexperience. The blade hacked into the apple-god’s shoulder. The god bellowed—Datura should’ve listened to the rules of the grove, to the wisdom of her peers: mischief-things are good for nothing but hurt.

  Datura yanked on her chains, but the decay had spread, seeping to the trunk of her tree and quickly making it blacken. Datura stifled a retch, feeling sick, feeling her insides churn as she fell to her knees. The decay weakened her, sapped her strength. Tibb wrenched the sword from the apple-god and readied to strike again.

  “Tibb,” she called out. Hoarseness ruined her alto voice. “Please.”

  The moonlight remained steadfast. Datura turned her eyes to it and wished Tibb had never betrayed her. She wished she’d had the sense to forget a far, unattainable future. She wished the ballooning hurt in her chest would pop under pressure. But she had no more coins to pay for these wants.

  Once you bite—even just a nibble—you have to eat the whole thing.

  And Datura had devoured the companionship Tibb offered, hadn’t she? This was just the last few bites she had to swallow. The branches of her tree curled, as if the robust hardiness of the wood had atrophied. The other mischief-things circled her. Watching. Waiting.

  As the decay crept deeper, she knew there would not be another awakening. This time, when the poison took her, it would be for keeps.

  Tibb swung again, a clumsy attempt, and threw an uneasy glance at Datura. Datura gasped in pain as the root-circle began to dry up around her, her life bleeding out into a decomposition that couldn’t be pruned.

  The mischief-things crossed her threshold. The final bite loomed before her. Humans danced around her. Datura rose as best she could, ready to fight with what little strength remained. One of the mischief-things lunged, slashed her across the cheek, grabbed her throat. Datura scram
bled for purchase, fighting back, all the while hoping her fellow apple-protectors would come to her rescue.

  Why should they, though? Why protect a guardian who couldn’t protect herself?

  The pressure around her neck disappeared. The mischief thing was thrown from her and Datura gasped. Her hands clung to the dirt, her head hanging low, and she waited for the final blow of another creature, but it never came, it never came—

  Squeals and shrieks echoed around her and she looked up, her eyes misty from the ooze, to see Tibb circling her like a panther, batting away the mischief-things, tightening her circle as the apple-guardians chased the other foes from the grove. Her thin face filled Datura’s vision—the gold of her eyes molten with worry, with regret.

  “Datura,” she said, her voice wrenched, “I can show you the spring. I can show you the summer. I’m sorry for what I did, but you’re the first bite, do you see? You’re the first bite that kills the grove. I hate the grove. I had one once, and it threw me out. Cast me out.”

  The cry of denial shivered in Datura’s spine and rose into her lungs, something too awful to think on. It starts to go bad from the start. You can’t save it.

  “But you can survive,” Tibb said, her voice high with want, bright with the hope Datura used to tend and grow and croon over in her own heart. Tibb held out a pomegranate, another apple of blood-red origin. “Eat my apple and you can live. We can go down to the hot core of the world or to the tips of the sky full of thunder. We can be free of this orchard. It’s poisoned now, but you don’t have to rot with it. Once you bite, you can live.”

  Datura paused, her chest heaving, the pollution puddling in her mind. “I’m not supposed to,” she wrenched out, falling back on old turns of phrases, old policies.

  “This was from my grove,” Tibb said, breaking the red skin to show the pockmarks of crimson seeds inside. Offered it, cradled in her palm. “I wanted to see the summer, too. I let the mischief-things plunder my trees, let them poison my life, and it’s your turn now. See? The orchard already falls.”

  Datura looked around her, saw that the blood coating the roots came from the wounds of her fellow guardians. The apple-god toppled, his ancient soul bare before the hacking picks and daggers of the mischief-things. Datura had brought a blight to the copse with her wants and dreams and wishes. And she still felt like she hadn’t seen anything, still ached that she hadn’t done anything.

  “The orchard’s fate doesn’t have to be yours,” Tibb whispered, holding the temptation out with a steady hand. “Please, Datura. Choose this. Choose summer.”

  And Datura took the rind, placed her mouth along the ruby red seeds that looked like teeth in the white flaky pulp, and for the first time in her life, she tasted something that could be described as crisp.

  — THE SEAL-WOMAN’S TALE —

  A Tale of Arilland by Alethea Kontis

  Ah, humans. My guilty pleasure, my fatal flaw. They were always just so… fun.

  My first affair with a human started out harmlessly enough. A young man—Nikos—came by to say that his love potion had not worked. They usually didn’t. Love potion customers either found the confidence to step up and admit their feelings, or they admitted defeat. They rarely returned.

  “Ah,” I said, appearing to give his dilemma great thought. “This is a far more serious matter.” I hoped my expression did not betray the joy I felt instead.

  “I will do whatever it takes, Kyria. Ask me for anything. I will loot the Troll King’s treasure room; I will carve out a piece of the moon. I need Damara in my life.”

  “You must understand,” I told him. “The human heart is not mine to give. I can only persuade it.”

  But Nikos was relentless. His lust was like a drug that seeped through my thin skin. My heart leapt inside my tiny human-sized chest.

  “If you cannot promise me forever, promise me one night,” he pleaded. “Even one night with Damara would ease this ache that tortures me.”

  I doubted that. Humans were always bursting with one emotion or another. But a single night with his love… that, I could do.

  I leaned in to him, lowering my voice as if the gods might overhear. “Bring me what you can of her. An eyelash. A nail clipping. A lock of her hair. A scrap of her clothing. A tear on a handkerchief. You get the idea.”

  “Yes, Kyria.”

  He rushed out the door, and I retrieved my little trunk.

  He returned that night with a scarf full of items.

  “Wait here,” I bade. I went outside and lowered the bucket into the well, deep enough to bring back seawater. Into this I emptied the contents of the scarf. Then I opened my trunk, tore off a pinch of my true skin, and dropped it into the mixture. It did not take long to grow. The new skin had ample curves and long, dark hair and eyes as bottomless as the cenote. I slipped it on with incredible ease. Becoming Damara was almost as effortless as returning to seal form.

  Nikos did not stop to ask how his love had suddenly come to this door, or why her homespun dress looked so familiar. He simply took her—me—into his arms and kissed her—me—with all that passion. It was decadent.

  I gave that young man one deliciously carnal night with the woman he loved. In return, he gave me an exciting new world of possibilities.

  I do not remember how many people I became after that, or how many human lovers I took. Each time was as thrilling as the time before, and come morning, no party was ever unsatisfied.

  Until the last.

  I should have recognized danger when it walked through my door. Despite the cenote’s presence as a surefire escape route, I had not been raised to play safe. In truth I had not been raised at all—Love and Strife were my sires, not my parents.

  That he had come bearing a scarf of tidbits without having previously solicited a love potion should have been the first warning sign. But he was tall, with cheeks and hands the color of flawless sealskin and kind, dark eyes that reflected the moonlight. Black hair surrounded that handsome face in a halo of twisted locks. His shoulders looked as strong as his lips looked soft.

  And, unlike the rest of my custom, he was fey.

  I would have sworn that I had seen nothing in the world as beautiful as that man. I knew what pleasures could be gained from the touch of thin, mortal skin. My soul was drawn to him like a wave to the shore. I could not wait to possess him for my own. And because of that, I did not ask certain very important questions. I did not even stop to think. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kiss the life right out of him.

  He withdrew a small bag from his pocket and emptied the contents on my altar. Gold coins spilled out, displacing the rocks and shells and lines of salt drawn there. The troll king’s stamp scowled up at me a dozen times over.

  I should have asked a question then, but I did not care about the money. I wanted this man so badly, I would have done the spell for free.

  “I must tell you what I tell them all,” I said. “The human heart is not mine to give. I can only persuade it.”

  “She is a sorceress.” He indicated the scarf full of ingredients. His deep voice echoed in my bones and my knees went weak. “Not entirely human. Will that be a problem?”

  I would have this man and some magical ability? I could feel my human form flush from head to toe. “No problem,” I said. “Wait here.”

  I went out back and drew up the bucket of seawater. I tossed in the bits of his lover and a pinch of my true skin. The wait for that new skin to grow almost killed me. In that time, I should have noticed the clouds that rolled in to cover the stars. The absence of sound as the animals silenced. The acrid smell, like marshland. The reflection of the moon in the bucket as it turned red. The universe gave me every sign, and I ignored them all.

  I did not even bother to look at the skin before I stepped into it. I felt my face widen, my waist thicken. The skin of her—my—hands was now mottled, her—my—hair now coarse. Not that any of that mattered. I rushed back to my beautiful man without a care in the world. I
hoped he would be as passionate as all the lovers who had come before. I could not wait to see his face. I could not wait to taste him.

  But instead of delight, the sight of me made him scowl.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked in a voice that was not my own. “Am I not what you desired?”

  “You are perfect.” He lowered his eyes to the floor. “But you are not for me.”

  He opened my door, and two enormous men covered in leather armor swept in. Their stench filled the room. I fell to my knees, choking on the scent.

  Trolls.

  Each one took an arm and lifted me off the floor.

  “Well done, Jason,” grunted the one on the left.

  “The king will be pleased,” grunted the one on the right.

  They dragged me outside and threw me into a cage on the back of a wagon pulled by a pair of massive aurochs. The wagon creaked beneath the weight of the trolls as they mounted. Jason, that gorgeous traitor, sat in the back beside my prison.

  “What have you done?” I whispered.

  His scowl deepened. He still did not look at me. “What I had to.”

  The wagon crossed the plain and rose into the mountains, up and up, farther and farther away from the sea. I grew tired and listless. My ears felt strange. The chill air crept through my homespun dress and into my bones. I had never been this far from the sea, from my home, from my seal skin. The loss was like a bottomless sinkhole in my soul.

  The trolls’ castle was an ugly beast of a thing. Dead bodies were lashed to the iron gates: some fresh corpses, some nothing but bone. The gates smelled worse than the trolls.

  Is this what they did to foes? Friends? Not that it mattered. Any intelligent being was automatically an enemy of the troll kingdom. I noticed a half-rotted skull smiling at us as we passed by. I found it a fitting welcome.

  The trolls carried me through a back door and up a tower to a small chamber. My new prison. They dumped me onto the floor beside a pile of red cloth and then left. Their stench lingered.

  “Those are robes,” said my beautiful jailor. “Put them on.”