by T C Shelley
‘They’re distracted by a dancing hedge. That was you too?’
‘Oh, yes, you’d be surprised how much a bush will do for a “Would ye mind?” and a “Please, thank ’ee”. Fairies are all for a creature if it’s feathered or furred, but if ye grow fruit, they take ’ee for granted.’
‘You’ll be OK, won’t you?’ Sam asked. ‘If they find out you helped me …’
‘Is this what it means to be a friend?’ One asked. ‘Fearing for one another? What a wonderful thing. Don’ worry about me, Samuel Kavanagh. They don’t know much about me, an’ I intend keeping it that way. Let’s worry about what ye want first. Come on, your door’s this way.’
‘Hey?’ A yellow fairy buzzed up behind them. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Just for a nice walk,’ Sam answered. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘OK,’ said the fairy.
The fairy flitted back to the glade. Sam looked around, next to him sat a bundle of kindling. It jumped up and became One again. ‘Best we run, Samuel Kavanagh. They are quite dim, but that one will get to thinking soon and ye’ll need to be out when it does.’
One led Sam through the woods as fast as it could. Sam would have loved to have gone faster, but One’s stumpy right leg made it hard for it to run, and the twig person felt the need to greet each tree and bush it passed by raising its hat or bowing. The vegetation shivered and shuddered with delight.
‘I was thinkin’ as ye left,’ One said. Sam noticed the twig person didn’t pant, although it trotted. ‘About monsters and fairies, all about the “yes” and “no” – too much of neither is no good. An’ I’m wondering, although ye may think it a silly idea, but it do seem to me that a human is a mix of monster and fairy, don’ you agree?’
Sam put his arm around One’s waist and picked him up as he pondered the idea, but before he had an actual thought, he heard a bewildered scream coming from the glade.
‘Oh, I think we might need to move even faster, Samuel Kavanagh,’ One said. ‘The fairies may have discovered yer gone. Put me down, I’ll just slow ’ee.’ One pulled himself out of Sam’s arm and shooed him away.
Sam saw the blur of colour moving to the path, and trotted ahead. He turned to see an angry swarm of fairies, burring red and yellow, orange and green zipping towards them.
‘One?’ Sam reached back for the twig person’s arm.
‘Now ye’ll move quicker. I’ve got friends in high places. Give the boy a hand, please.’ A tree branch swept Sam further along the path. ‘Now, keep going, Sam,’ One yelled.
Sam was forced on by tree after tree. As he stumbled backwards, he watched the fairies heading straight for One-i’-the-Wood.
Poor One was not quick, but the trees, bushes and hedges moved over the path. Everything was a mess of wood and leaves. Trees leaned in, blocking the path of the fairies. Hedges reached up and filled many gaps. A few of the smaller fairies whizzed between the obstacles, but most were trapped behind the greenery.
‘One-i’-the-Wood!’ Sam yelled.
‘Don’ worry about me,’ One yelled back.
Sam couldn’t help it. The beech trees along the path and a few hedges pulled at him to keep him moving, forcing distance between him and his friend. He needed to see One was safe. A flight of fairies was on One-i’-the-Wood, and grabbed his arm. An oak tree leaned down and whipped the twig man away. The fairies stared at the dried-up stick in their hands.
‘One!’ Sam called.
One’s voice carried back to him. ‘Don’ worry, Samuel Kavanagh, it wasn’t my good arm. Keep running. Ye be heading in the right direction.’
The trees and hedges closed the path, and Sam could go in only one way. He turned and pelted towards a dark place formed by the shadow. The wood behind him was as kind to him as it had been to One. He heard branches swatting, and the angry ‘ouches’ of the few fairies still coming after him.
He could tell by the buzzing only two small fairies remained. They wouldn’t be able to carry him, but he didn’t want to give the others time to catch up.
‘Thank you, woods,’ Sam panted out. ‘Thank you, One.’
Then he saw the shadow at the end of the path wasn’t caused by trees. It was a space, a darkness that looked nothing like a forest. Sam gathered speed to jump.
‘Samuel Kavanagh,’ One’s voice sang out. ‘I hope we meet again.’
CHAPTER 21
Sam rolled into a dark room with Queen Titania and Edgar glaring at him.
The cellar.
Titania strode towards Sam, dogs whimpering in the background, and wrenched the boy’s head back. She studied his face. ‘You are clear-eyed I see. And away such a short time. Was nothing to your taste?’
‘I was told not to eat fairy food,’ Sam replied.
‘Well, the villain that told you, I shall tear limb from limb.’
After what Sam had just seen, he didn’t think that would stop One-i’-the-Wood very long.
‘You have interrupted our conjuring,’ Queen Titania said. ‘Watch, Samuel. We preferred you not see this; you have a soft heart, but you will see we are not evil. We take no lives. No lives are lost. Their lives are different, true, but they continue. When you see this, you will take the orb to the monsters’ dwelling for us. ’Tis true.’
Titania walked back to Edgar and the orb, their shadows echoing in its light. Eight miserable shapes huddled against the wall, tails limp and tired. Wilfred whimpered.
Hazel followed Sam with her dark eyes and he could smell her desperation. ‘She wants to take our souls, Sam.’
The orb churned, as if it anticipated the new arrivals. ‘No, please, don’t do this.’
Titania’s annoyed toes disturbed the thick blanket of fairy dust covering the floor.
Sam stepped between Titania and the shifters. ‘If you put their souls in the orb and make me take it to The Hole, I’ll be taking these shifters’ souls a world away. How will they ever find their way home?’
‘Traitor!’ Edgar sneered.
‘Without a taste of Faeryland, you will never understand,’ Titania said. ‘Truly, you must love Faery and all her children to know what we lose.’
‘It’s beautiful, but I can’t do this. What you’re doing is wrong,’ Sam said.
Edgar scowled. ‘More wrong than freeing the monsters from The Hole so they can drain all the magic from Faery? You are a monster, Samuel.’
‘We have to find some other way,’ Sam said. ‘You can’t steal people’s souls. You’ve got to let them go.’
The shifters whined.
‘Oh, but you’re all right with that witch stealing our magic? Monsters killing anyone they like, so long as they are not your friends?’ Edgar said.
‘Can we find another way? Please? There must be another way.’
Titania looked to Edgar, then turned away.
Edgar spoke for her. ‘This isn’t just about Faery. It’s about humans too. Aren’t they the ones you like best, Sam? It doesn’t seem you’re loyal to anyone.’
Sam flinched.
Edgar laughed. ‘It shows you just how monstrous you are, doesn’t it? Right now, we have a little time when Maggie doesn’t know how to build her army and the smaller monsters are too afraid to do too much damage, but read your human newspapers, Samuel, watch your news. Already, several humans have gone missing, some of the bigger beasts are gaining courage. Fairies are being hunted. This is your fault. Your FAULT!’
Titania stared at Sam in disappointment. Edgar patted her arm and her beautiful face was restored. ‘Reconsider, princeling. You will set this weapon for us, won’t you, Samuel?’ she asked. ‘Take it to The Hole, renew the safehold, bring the monsters to heel? Look to the hounds. They live, they breathe; shall be no different after.’
‘Without their souls?’ Sam pointed at the orb. ‘These belong to people in so much pain.’ Sam looked at their faces, Titania’s expression was the same, Edgar looked angrier. Sam wept, ‘Can’t you ask someone else?’ He covered his face with his hands. Sh
e was right, of course. Once the monsters got bigger so many more people would die. Then he looked at the shifters. Sam could hardly hear his own voice. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.
‘Ah,’ was all Queen Titania said.
Edgar touched the queen’s hand. ‘You should begin the drain, Majesty.’
Titania, beautiful and tall, threw up her arms. The black of her dress and wings deepened. The shifters drew back, whining and whimpering as the words from Titania’s throat came out rough and rugged. They were not English, but Sam understood them anyway, understood their intent. They were scrapings of blade against rock, the bubbling of magma seeking the least resistance, seeking a weakness in the soil, ready to explode into black sky. Dark words only darkness understood, simple and untranslatable; foul words.
He knew, regardless of the intention to save Earth and Faery, what Titania did was evil magic.
Her words called for loss, power, death and possession. They weren’t fairy words, they came from somewhere even darker than The Hole, even darker than the Hags’ Cave, somewhere out of which Sam could never find his way. The weapon maker would have used them when binding the souls inside the Vorpal Sword, but they were older than the weapon maker’s time.
D. I. Kintamani, Mrs Kintamani and Wilfred lifted into the air, their doggy bodies held by the swirling magic. They whined as their chests glowed, and howled when the glow shot across the room into the orb. The spell dropped them like rubbish. Wilfred hit the ground hard and scampered under a blanket. D.I. Kintamani looked exhausted, but his deep dog eyes focused on his wife and child, still not understanding what he saw. Mrs Kintamani chased her tail and howled; the other shifters backed away. Sam understood, she’d lost his stronger self and was mad with misery. Then the spell swirled towards the Kokonis. Dr Kokoni backed against the wall, but the venomous green glow of the spell pulled her out and lifted her too.
‘No, you have to stop. This is wrong. This is wrong,’ Sam yelled, waving his hands to distract the queen.
Titania dropped her arms. ‘’Tis a necessary evil, Samuel.’
Sam flung himself at the fairy, but Edgar, solid and short, shoved him backwards. Sam fell amongst the other prisoners. Amira’s mum softened his fall with her furry back.
Titania turned her attention to Amira and her mum.
‘No!’ Sam yelled. ‘No more!’
Titania regarded him. ‘You cannot stop this, Samuel. ‘’Tis necessary.’ She looked at Edgar. ‘How might the boy be brought to heel?’ Edgar pointed at the orb. Titania bowed her head and moaned. ‘Samuel, you are made of sigh and laugh. ’Tis thy soul that disrupts my plan.’
‘Yes, yes!’ Edgar said. The Christmas elf’s face flushed with glee. ‘Do it! Do it!’
‘Your soul is forfeit, Samuel,’ the queen said.
The floor vibrated like in an earthquake. The cellar roof threw down debris, which hit Sam in the face.
The dogs howled.
Titania swept her arm out to include Samuel in the spell.
She repeated the ancient incantation. The words, old and vile, twisted and powerful, drew Sam from himself. His soul pulled out of his body, the way water sucked out of a straw, heaving from his hands and toes, his ears emptying of himself through the thin hole opening inside his chest, and it hurt like death, and his heart broke to feel it.
Just before she lifted from the ground, caught in Titania’s spell, Amira yelled, ‘He’s single-souled. He’ll die.’
Titania’s face whitened at the shifter’s words. She looked to Edgar. ‘’Tis true?’
Edgar did not reply. His face was an eager green as he stared into the glow of the spell and the power of the incantation pulled at the queen’s arms, forcing her to continue as much as it forced out Sam’s soul.
With one last pus-like gush Sam’s soul pulled away from his body, and he saw his shape drop to the wooden floor, then he was flying towards the orb as it pulled him in.
CHAPTER 22
Sam’s soul slid over the glass of the globe before crashing inside the orb. The world became round and bright and spinning. Sam wanted to open his eyes to see and had no eyes to open. He had no form, he was light inside light and the world made no sense. A single high-pitched note continued in his mind, sounding sad and terrified.
Everything became still.
Sam tried to take a deep breath and had no body with which to breathe. He stopped and tried to make sense of the light.
I’m inside the orb, he thought.
Sam? Sam? a voice called.
Here, he replied. And while he understood a voice had called to him, he had not heard it in his ears but inside himself. The world became a little brighter as a luminescence moved towards him. Although even that was the sense of brightness, not an actual seeing, the way one can feel the change in light behind closed eyelids.
Sam, it’s me. Hazel.
Wilfred too. A beam bounced towards him.
Is Amira still out there? Sam asked.
A silent groan moved through the orb, and Sam sensed Amira’s entrance. Wilfred and Hazel turned their attention to the newly arrived soul, to comfort her and her mother.
Sam relaxed a little. At least he was with friends.
What in the world is he doing here? He’s not a shifter. A body won’t survive without at least one soul in it, Amira said. He’s gotta be dead.
Shush, Hazel said. He can hear your thoughts.
But he’s … Amira added.
Shush, I said. There’s worse things than being dead.
The souls around him generated misery.
Hazel told him, I can sense my other self out there. She’s so lonely.
Us too, Amira and Wilfred agreed.
Sam sighed. If he was dead, he would never see Michelle again, or Richard, or Beatrice or Nick. If he’d had eyes he would have cried.
Maybe … Hazel started, but no cheering words came after.
The environment was soothing. The souls with which he was trapped comforted each other. His worries were drowned out in the voices of the others. Parents humming for children. Children singing for their mothers. Such sad voices, wandering lost. Mates called for each other and cried with each other. Split from themselves, they sounded so helpless. Only Hazel, and the other recent collection of shifters whose souls were on the other side of the glass, felt any compulsion. They moved as close to their bodies as they could, the wall of glass and fairy dust getting in the way.
I just want to comfort her. Me, Amira said.
Beneath the pain, Sam felt a raw power. He was still sitting in the heart of a bomb.
Sam had to collect his thoughts. Collect his thoughts? Richard used that expression. Sam’d written it into his notepad. He’d say, ‘I need to collect my thoughts,’ then he’d go off and pace in his office. Sam would love to be there now, pacing and pacing and thinking. His feet lifting, setting down again.
He thought of the rhythm, the movement, and then he felt the steady rise and fall of … legs. Legs! He couldn’t see them, but he could feel himself moving.
His ‘legs’ paced.
It’s an illusion, an old voice said. I’ve been here a million years and dreamed of throwing a ball and it feels like I have an arm, but the feeling goes away.
No! Sam sent out his memory of the souls bursting from the Vorpal Sword, the way they’d called to him. He’d seen them too, looking human, the way they remembered themselves in life.
Sam thought about his legs.
I want to see them.
He felt a few souls around him brighten. They met his thought with their own. Things I want to see. Things I saw. Things I’ll never see again. Then, other than his friends, the souls drifted off into memories.
He looked down. Looked. Actually looked. Shapes formed in the light and there they were, his legs, rubbery and see-through, but his legs. Everything was a blur in the glow, and brighter than the sun had ever been. It hurt. He didn’t have eyes to hurt, so why did it hurt?
He thought about his hands. H
e’d had hands. He’d climbed walls with those hands. He could throw and unwrap and hold. In the scalding brightness, hands appeared, pulling out of the centre of himself. He was luminescent plasticine.
What are you doing, Sam? Wilfred said. Do it more! Do it more!
Sam remembered his body and his arms, his neck and his head. A nose, a mouth, a pair of ears and he gained dimension too. He was sure if he looked in a mirror he would see a body like Samuel Kavanagh’s had been. He would look human.
He blinked, driving back the light in the orb around him, and then wished for sunglasses to deal with the over-bright souls. He felt a weight on his incorporeal nose and the light dimmed.
Ha! he said, moving his ghost mouth.
Hazel, Wilfred and Amira laughed.
Sam looked at him. Around him beads of light were cycling in a living galaxy, orbiting and clustering. Seeing them now, he could not tell them apart. Some zipped past like shooting stars, some hung together in constellations, patches of light so thick they glowed milky white. He closed his eyes, listening to Wilfred, Amira and Hazel communing with their parents. Comforting thoughts. They meant well, but it was an incomplete life. He understood why the souls hadn’t minded being bound in the sword. They had only known slavery before; they were whole in the sword.
The souls in the sword could have left any time they liked, Daniel had said.
Sam tried to remember more about Daniel’s comment about souls as he walked to the curve of the orb and pushed against the glass with his see-through hands. Fairy magic sealed them in.
None of them could get through the glass. Sam shook his new head. What the fairy queen didn’t know about the sword that Sam did is that the souls could move freely. The souls in the sword had been held to it by a different kind of magic – obligation, duty, purpose. They had stayed because they believed they must, and they moved in and out of the sword at will. That had been their power, they slid free, followed the ogres and trolls who hurt humans and demanded justice.
