A hot wind snarled at Caladra, grabbing her hair, forcing it against her face, and breaking the trance she had been granted. Her eyes returned to their original state, though it was not sight that she first experienced, but sound instead. A strong, clear voice sounded before her; it filled the air, creeping into Caladra’s mind and shaking loose the deepest part of her fear.
Come with me, o human child
And live a life most gay
You’ll laugh and play and wile away
Within the land of Fae
Away with me, young mortal bairn
You’re meant for so much more
The sprites and sprogs and hidden bogs
The realms and myths of lore
Fly with me, fair newborn babe
Too cruel this curséd sun
To Danu, Mab, and Titania, I call
Thrice is sang and done
Caladra watched, bloody bare feet rooted to the forest floor, as Maeve, no longer stooped by age, danced around the clearing, holding Helena aloft. The old woman whirled her daughter around, feet tapping at the ring of stones that encircled the pair while her words, no longer spoken, echoed.
Maeve danced around the circle, once, twice, then three times. As she made the third pass, each stone lit up with verdant fire, casting a subtle glow on everything in the area.
Caladra raced forward, panic bleeding through her being, desperately attempting to stop the old woman from completing the summoning. Once the circle was bound…
She rallied, drawing on every dram of strength in her frame. She crossed the distance in five long strides, hands as claws ready to rend her daughter from the witch’s grasp.
Too late, the cold part of her whispered behind her eyes. Before her, the stone pulsed, loosing a miasma of color and light into the circle. Caladra was stopped fast, a barrier ensuring that none could pass.
The magic wove against itself, folding and twisting, separating into two patterns.
“What have you for us, mortal?” One of the beings spoke, unnatural tone scratching at her eardrums. Caladra scrapped at her memory, grasping for any sliver of knowledge gleaned from Diana’s titillated whispers.
Maeve curtsied, a grand sweep of her arms forewarning the descent of her head. “I have a most precious gift, lord. One that will finally pay my debt.”
“The bargain we struck was for the remaining years of your mortal life. There is no release for you. No succor. No aid.” Equally inhuman, the second voice sliced into Caladra’s mind, causing spikes of pain to burst behind her eyes.
“This girl is of the Old Blood, and untethered from the magics that shelter them. Surely, she is payment enough, Fae Queen.” Maeve cradled Caladra’s daughter to her breast, tucking her under her chin in the wrap of her arms.
The beings shot forward, traveling from one side of the faerie ring to the other in an instant.
“You lie.”
“No,” the first voice spoke. “She speaks truth. I can smell the stench of it in her flesh.”
The beings retreated from Maeve, flowing into one another. The combined energy spun around.
Caladra gathered herself, fingers scrambling against the barrier. She would not let them take her Helena.
One whole became two beings again, and Maeve stepped forward.
“We will grant your request but not your release.”
She watched Maeve retreat, a scowl darkening her face. Clutching Helena to her chest with one arm, she raised her other aloft, palm facing her, and took a deep breath,
“Instead we offer you a place at Court,” the Queen continued, floating forward. “The gift you offer is prized much higher than your original bargain. We must have the child now, but we cannot be indebted to a mortal. This must not stand. So you can no longer be mortal.”
“Come away with us and live forever on the shores of Tir Na Nog, beyond the reach of Death. The dwarrows will construct you a mighty castle, the wee folk will fulfill your every desire.”
Maeve smiled and stepped forward, meeting the queen in the center of the ring. As she held Helena aloft, the queen’s pattern became dull, losing some of the innate glow. Stealing her daughter from the mortal realm required balance, Caladra realized, the queen gaining physical substance as she attempted to draw a physical being with her to the other side.
Caladra struck then, lashing out with the magic that lay within her. Old magic, kindled by her ancestors on the plains of Africa.
“Daabobo ọmọbinrin mi. Ṣe abojuto ọmọbinrin mi.”
She called on the ancient words, structures of power and permanence embedded in her soul. Caladra chanted and prayed, eager to reach out and smother the queen, pour her power over the fae leader as water on a flame, for the health and protection of her daughter.
For that was the way. Their way. Preserve life and promote peace wherever they go.
Both patterns flinched away from her, causing her to grow bolder, words fleeing her quicker in response. Caldara’s mind took hold of the words, weaving them together, binding her will to the spoken word, allowing the rhythm and the cadence to support her, lift up her chant and give it teeth.
She felt exultant, triumphant as the old knowledge returned to her. Her reasons for leaving seemed small now and far away. The fear of inhuman horrors and ancient beings seeking her death had started her on her flight from family responsibility, but it had been the tendrils of pleasure she received that had caused her to flee.
In the deepest recesses of her being, Caladra loved the power she contained, the influence she wielded amongst the tribe, a giant stalking through her age group, revered by the tribes of both plains and mountains.
She finished the chant with a stomp of her feet and a clap of her hands, skin humming with gathered power, and set it free. Hungrily, the magic sprang forth, snapping and snarling at the fae. As it reached the boundary, the spell gained speed, crashing into the barrier. A bellow of sound rumbled through the clearing as the two forces struggled against one another.
Her spell lost strength. Caladra could feel it scrabbling at the fairy ring, searching for a purchase, a weakness to exploit. After a few moments, the magic faded, retreating into the soil at her feet, rooting its way from the clearing through the green life and beyond the sea, returning to the ancestral well.
Her spell failed. The fae remained. She had failed.
“Did you think it would be that easy, Caladra dear?” Maeve laughed. Shrill and harsh, the laughter leapt into the air and hung there, a cloud of mirth and dark satisfaction to Caladra’s gaze. “You, who abandoned her craft, rejected the gifts your ancestors cultivated, gave their lives preserving amidst their enslavement. You nary had a chance.”
Caladra barreled into the barrier, striking at it again and again with her body, battering herself each time but standing up to continue one more time still.
“You have the words to challenge us, yes, but you have not the will,” the first being thundered, voice crashing against her as stones falling to the earth. “You have denied your heritage, the power that resides within your blood, within the bowels of this mortal realm.”
“You are less than nothing,” the second spoke, words lashing at her like a horse master whipping his prize steed. “The blessings of wretched divinity sullied by the ignorance of death-riddled flesh. We will sweep over this world and all the worlds besides due to your incompetence, your hubris.”
The queen stepped forward and fully into the world. She was awful, bone white skin stretched over sharp features, wearing cloth that moved in contrast to her steps, as if rustled by unseen hands. She stretched out arms that were too long, ill-fitting the rest of her frame, and took hold of Helena.
Caladra watched as she drew her daughter’s gaze, trailing a lengthening nail across her cheek, slicing her blood free from her newly born flesh. Helena cried, Caladra screamed, and the queen laughed, lapping at the air with a purple tongue, drinking in the her daughter’s cries along with the tang of her blood.
“E
xquisite,” the fae cried, clutching the babe tight to her. “Bring the other through. We will honor our deal.”
As the queen turned, Caladra caught her gaze. She peered into the depths of the fae and flinched away, wiping at her eyes, desperate to rid herself of what she had witnessed. The truth that she had stolen from the fractured, monstrous thoughts.
She would not see her daughter again. Not in this life, nor in the next.
The knowledge rang in the vaults of her mind. She had asked for the strength to find her daughter and Eshu had granted it, protecting her and guiding her to her destination. No more would he aid her this night.
She knew it to be true, as much as she knew that none could have prevented her attempt, nor any future attempt to retrieve Helena, not the orisha of her home, nor the gods that lay claim to this land.
The other fae reached out to Maeve, to transport her to her new existence, and Caladra’s stomach rebelled. She watched as the furrows of time stamped onto Maeve’s skin bled away, and she choked on the swell of rage. The bile that danced at the base of her throat spilled into her mouth, causing her to choke before she expelled the contents of her stomach.
Caladra wiped at her mouth, staring into the pool of sick for a moment, gaze caught by a glimmer of red. The same glimmer she had followed to the glen.
Reaching down, she pinched the red between forefinger and thumb.
A tattered piece of flesh was held there, jagged and stained with her bile. Caladra stared at it, caught by the red she could see bleeding through the pink flesh. Her heart beat faster, and a small smile bled into her drawn features.
She could not rely on the lessons of her youth for this. She would have to draw on new sources of strength. Darker aspects and deadlier desires. Newer powers, ones tied to the land her daughter had called home for the brief moments of her life. Bending down, Caladra searched the earth for the perfect instrument, finding a sharp stone that fit into the palm of her hand, before turning back to the ring
She placed the piece of flesh between her lips, holding it as she ripped away her head cloth and lifted the rock to meet her skull. Scraping at her head, she sliced at her roots, sawing at her dark braided hair, twisted in remembrance of the people she had abandoned, until it came away, bloody and black under the light of fae skin.
“As you have sown chaos, so chaos will be sewn to you. As you have taken, now you will be taken.” She dropped her hair into the pool of bile and it caught flame, brightest blue against the cool earth.
The figures paused, feeling the rise of power behind them.
Caladra held the piece of Maeve’s arm in her hand, stained with both bile and blood. As they turned to spy her, she shoved that hand into the flame’s depths.
“With bile and blood and bond, I unmake you. By fire and flesh and forest, I unmake you. For pain and Patience and Pluto, I unmake you.”
This time, Caladra could feel the working take hold. The agony of losing her daughter. The anguish of the fire on her flesh. The anger that nestled within her. She gave them one and all to the casting, watching Maeve suffer the worst of all fates.
The old woman stumbled, unable to maintain her balance. As she fell to the earth, the flesh of her face began to bubble, sores and pocks bursting through her skin. The hair on her head burned, embers of fire lighting along her scalp and continued down her back.
Caladra reveled in the darkness she conjured, as Maeve reached out to her patrons for aid. The old woman managed to grasp the male’s trousers, even as her arm lost its color, a fetid stench resulting.
The fae glanced at one another before turning away. The male shook off her rotted hand and followed his queen.
Caladra could do naught to stop them from taking her child, but she could punish the one responsible. And punish she did. She watched as the fae shed their mortal forms and slid beyond the frame of the world, retreating to their land with her most prized possession. She watched, hand still engulfed in flame, as her curse stripped Maeve of her flesh, her blood, and her vital energy.
Until the fire grew cold and the day scattered the shadows, Caladra watched, kneeling. As the first rays of the sun caressed her, she regarded her charred flesh with a vacant stare, looking over it with disinterest before shoving it into the soil.
Pulling it back, she stroked over her healed skin, soft and brown and newly formed.
Caladra stood then and regarded the path before her. The woods separating her from her village, from her husband, from Diana, and her goodfather, stood at her back. Returning to the village would require an explanation. She would be looked upon with distrust and fear as the elders whispered about savage ceremonies held in the wild.
The plains beyond the faerie ring were vast. She could escape this, her pain and her path. No one would know her, and so her dark skin would be even more of a hindrance.
Past or future. Known or unknown. Caladra tried to weigh the decision dispassionately as she had been trained to by her tribe, but knew what she had decided before she could even begin.
Stepping forth, she walked through the scattered remains of Maeve and her summoning circle.
As she passed through the other side, the fairy ring crumbled, stones becoming pebbles becoming gravel becoming sand, before a dark breeze blew it all away.
THE END
About the Author
T.L. Thompson is a speculative fiction author born and raised in the D M V. He enjoys enchantments, extraterrestrials, and forcing his characters into impossible situations and then watching them squirm as they bend and twist under the weight of non-black and white realities. When he's not watching his writing deadlines fly by, you can find him daydreaming about overseas travel, cringing at housing prices on Zillow, and adjusting his glasses on his nose.
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The Host
by Cassidy Taylor
Chapter One
As the sun sank toward the horizon, the town of Aramore was quiet except for the tinkling of wind chimes on front porches. Nilsa pulled her coat tighter around her as she slipped out her front door. Next door, old Mrs. Flimean set a pail of milk on her stoop before shutting herself back inside, turning the iron lock without even a glance at Nilsa. The people who had lived in Aramore for as long as the old woman had didn't take risks with the fair folk, not anymore.
Nilsa was at that strange in-between age, old enough to know better but young enough to still dream about the world that was beyond the borders of her life. Young enough that the fae said to inhabit the woods beyond Aramore were still more fascinating than terrifying. She knew all the rules of dealing with the fair folk, and she was safe so long as she followed them. Even so, she felt a flutter of fear and anticipation in her chest as she thought about crossing into the forest after dark.
But it would not be said that Nilsa was a coward just because she was a rule-follower. She took the well-worn path to the edge of the trees just beyond the borders of the town and stopped to turn her coat inside out, glancing around her as she did. Nothing moved or stirred, not even a breath of wind through the branches.
The path to the clearing had been marked with yellow hair ribbons. They were tied to branches every few yards, and Nilsa touched one each time she passed, keeping her eyes straight ahead so as not to inadvertently summon anything that lay beyond the light of her dim lantern. Even when she heard what sounded like footsteps behind her, she did not dare to turn around. Usually, with the fair folk, avoidance and acceptance were better than denial and defiance. Anyone who grew up in Aramore knew that, though not everyone remembered it.
It was not long before the light of the clearing came into view, though it felt like an eternity in that darkened forest. She extinguished her lantern before stepping between the stones and onto the grassy hill.
Here, gathered inside the circle of stones, were the children wh
o were not quite children anymore, but still not adults. Numbering only a couple dozen, they lounged in the grass around small fires and passed around glasses of yellow wine. Though Nilsa did not know everyone, their faces were all familiar. It was seldom that anyone new came to Aramore, and even rarer for someone to leave, in spite of the dangers that came with living here. Nilsa was used to this small, strange, cautious life, but as soon as her little sister was old enough, the two of them were leaving. She was sure that there was more to this world than what Aramore offered, and she would do anything—anything—to make sure her sister was safe.
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