by Kelly Link
“Very astute,” said Lime. “Excellent guesswork.”
“All the times I’ve been caught by fairies in the past,” said Erskine, “I gave them something, and they let me go. So I assumed that’s how these sort of situations normally play out.”
“Well, you assumed wrong,” said Lime.
“It doesn’t have to be a complicated wish,” Erskine insisted. “Just reviving my convolvulus plant would be enough. Or, if you wanted, you could lend me a spell. Like an invisibility spell, something easy.”
“Do you ever, ever stop talking?” said Lime. “You’re interrupting my reading.” She opened her novel and turned her back.
Erskine remained quiet as Lime read: suspiciously quiet, in fact. After a certain point, Lime couldn’t stand it. She had to know what they were up to. She glanced over her shoulder.
Erskine had curled up with their paperback novel and was reading peacefully. They glanced over the top of the book and caught Lime’s eye. “Would you like to know what I’m reading?” they asked.
“I already know what you’re reading,” said Lime.
“Because you were peeping at me through the window?” said Erskine.
“N-no!” said Lime. Erskine smiled.
For the rest of the evening, the two read in silence. Eventually, Erskine said goodnight, asked Lime one last time if she would like something to eat (she refused), and went to bed.
Lime waited until she was certain the human had fallen asleep, then did what any reasonable fairy would do in her circumstances: she phased through the salt-shaker and explored her new surroundings. The Law forbid a rightful prisoner from escaping her bonds, but only if she were caught escaping. To slip one’s prison unnoticed, then return unnoticed: that much was permitted. Lime wouldn’t let the human to take her off-guard a second time.
She circled the darkened room, observing the well-worn sofa with its faded green cushions; the electric lamp; the rickety particleboard tables. A tall case housed neat rows of books, old and new, in every genre from novels to encyclopedias to do-it-yourself guides on lock-picking and astral travel. Most were ordinary human books, but not all. There were a few fairy histories among them, and a book of elfish folktales, and a runic dictionary. Among the books sat seashells, slivers of petrified wood, stones carved in strange languages, and similar trinkets. Lime could only assume they were mementos of adventures past.
Interested despite herself, Lime examined the rows of books, noting a few titles she had read already, and others she would like to read, given the chance. She fluttered down the hallway, peeking her head into a storage closet full of towels; into the bedroom where Erskine lay face-down in a pillow, fast asleep. At the foot of the bed sat a bulging, briny-smelling bundle wrapped in an old sheet: the hippocamp’s skin, presumably. An old chair supported a thriving colony of potted philodendrons; tiny bromeliads and cacti sprouted from jars of soil.
In the bedroom, there were even more books piled on shelves, stacked on the carpet, and wedged between plants. Lime felt a twinge of avarice. She saw the names of unfamiliar authors and titles of sequels she hadn’t known existed, fascinating covers and enticing summaries. She couldn’t restrain herself. She skimmed jacket flaps and rustled through pages. Surely, Erskine wouldn’t notice if one or two went missing?
There was a tap at the window, and Lime’s heart nearly popped. “Loner?” called a familiar voice. “Hey, Loner—is that you?”
Shaking the nervous sparks from her dress, Lime flew to the window and parted the blinds. A blue face beamed at her.
“It is you!” said Slugsy.
“Shut up,” hissed Lime. “The human is right there.” Slugsy nodded, and gestured for Lime to come outside. Lime phased partway through the glass, just far enough to stick her head through the window.
“What are you still doing here?” Slugsy whispered. “Did Erskine turn down your wish?”
“I’m not giving them a wish,” said Lime. “And you’ve got a lot of nerve, coming here.”
“Huh?” said Slugsy. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb,” said Lime. “You tricked me! You didn’t tell me the human could see us. You knew I’d get caught.”
“I figured Pipsqueak had told you,” said Slugsy. “I didn’t know he was playing a prank.”
“Liar!” said Lime. “What’s wrong with you? Why can’t anyone in these woods just leave me alone!” She was practically yelling. Her throat flashed green and golden as her venom glands flared. “Why did I ever, ever leave the Library? Why did I trust either of you? I—”
Erskine let out a soft, wordless cry. Fabric rustled. Lime clapped a hand over her mouth and froze, too terrified to even think.
“Come on, dummy—hide!” said Slugsy, grabbing hold of Lime’s wrist and dragging her through the window. The two fairies huddled in a rose bush, ears pricked and antennae twitching.
“Did they wake up?” said Lime.
“Go check,” said Slugsy.
“You check,” demanded Lime.
“I can’t go in there,” said Slugsy. “I wasn’t invited.”
Reluctantly, Lime phased through the window. Inside, the bed lay empty. Erskine had disappeared.
Lime sped down the hallway, cursing. She found Erskine in the living room, mere feet from the empty salt-shaker.
“I can explain!” said Lime, but Erskine ignored her and walked into the kitchen. Utterly bewildered, Lime flew after. She circled around to the human’s face. Their eyes were still closed, and their mouth was fixed in a dreamy smile.
Fumbling sightlessly through the cabinets, Erskine snatched a bottle of black vinegar, unscrewed the top, and upended the contents over their head. They grabbed handfuls of salt and brown sugar, rubbing it into their skin, smearing it onto their face. Lime realized this was more than mere sleepwalking. “Wake up!” she cried. “Snap out of it!” She tugged at Erskine’s hair and pinched their ears, to no avail. Erskine opened the front door and strode barefoot into the woods.
“What’s going on?” said Slugsy, darting to Lime’s side. “Is the human ensorcelled?”
“They must be,” said Lime. “I keep telling and telling them to stop, and they won’t listen.”
“But why are you following them?” said Slugsy.
“What do you mean, why am I following them?” said Lime. “I can’t just let them wander off and get killed by who-knows-what!”
“Why not?” said Slugsy. “If they die, you can go free, right?
“I’m not saying I want them to die,” she added quickly, seeing the look on Lime’s face. “Erskine’s pretty okay, as far as humans go. It’s just. . . .”
“Are you going to help, or are you going to leave?” snapped Lime.
“Help how?” said Slugsy. “What are either of us supposed to do?” All the same, she remained at Lime’s side.
The two followed Erskine through the woods, to the banks of a muddy river. Atop the water sat an exquisite white harp of curious design, its strings quivering soundlessly, strummed by some invisible force. As Erskine approached, the harp pitched upward and an immense body emerged from the mud: a serpent with the head of a mare, and a white harp for a mane.
The horse-serpent, the hippocamp, flowed onto the bank in a wave of sea-grey scales and encircled her great coils around Erskine, who stood there bespelled and helpless. Her mouth split open, gaping from ear to ear. White fangs unfurled.
“Stop!” screamed Lime. The hippocamp sheathed her fangs and turned one large, pale, unblinking eye to the trees.
“What are you doing?” hissed Slugsy. “She’ll kill us!” The hippocamp inclined her head, as though amused.
Lime didn’t know what she was doing, not really, but Erskine looked so small engulfed in the coils of the hippocamp, and she knew she couldn’t just fly away. “Let the human go,” she said, “or I’ll make y
ou sorry you ever crawled out from the ocean!” Sparks spat from her mouth. She balled her fists tight so her hands wouldn’t tremble. “I’ll turn you into an eel and roast you! I’ll shrivel you up like a salted slug!”
“She’s never going to believe that,” said Slugsy, retreating into the leaves. “You’re crazy, Loner!”
“Don’t you dare tempt a fairy’s wrath!” cried Lime, ignoring her. “I’ll boil up this river and cook you into stew! I’ll send this whole wood crashing down on top of your oversized head! Let the human go and never, ever come back here again!”
The hippocamp chuckled. “What sights one sees on land,” she said. “What oddities: a little damselfly who talks like a conquering queen. Why don’t you show me these fearsome powers of yours, my damsel? I’ve never seen a river boil, nor a whole forest felled in an instant.”
“Don’t mock me!” said Lime. “I’m deadly serious!”
“Really?” said the hippocamp. “Then would you like me to treat you as a serious threat?” An invisible power plucked at the strings of Lime’s heart, and she heard music, each note as clear as water, as sharp as salt, and unspeakably, painfully beautiful.
“Cover your ears!” said Slugsy, but the song of the hippocamp pierced through flesh and bone, seeping through the runnels of the brain. The music flooded the deepest recesses of Lime’s memory, dredging up visions of the past, nostalgic sensations. There she was only a few days ago, in her ragged clothes, traveling through the roots of the world. There she was in the Library, in an austere but comfortable room, engrossed in a quarter-century’s reading. And before that. . . .
The music grew languid and sweet, like nectar pooled in scented petals, like jewel-bright orchids dripping from the stalk. There was no more river, no more Woeful Woods. There was only golden sunlight rich as honey, and soft rain misting through evergreen leaves. Beneath the rainbow’s arc, the insects sang long-forgotten melodies, and branches swayed beneath the weight of flowers plump as grapes.
Lime curled in a nest of dried herbs and fragrant camphor, sheltered by the wings of her fellow fairies. All her clan were with her: the ones who had first found her when she was small and loved and petted her, the ones who had taught her all the secrets of speech and flight and magic. Bathed in the light of their bodies, enveloped in warmth and scent, she closed her eyes and sunk into their embrace.
“Sleep, little Lime,” the fairies cooed, in voices that were all one voice. “Sleep and forget those years of solitude. All is well, and all is as it was before.”
“Before what?” Lime muttered, sleepily.
“Before nothing,” the fairies said, rocking Lime in their arms, passing her from lap to lap. “There is no more before and no more after, only a perfect, golden now. Each day will flow into the next as sweetly as a stream of nectar, and the green things will grow, and the rains will fall gentle and nourishing.”
“The rain,” said Lime, her eyes fluttering open. “There was a storm.”
“Don’t think of the storm,” the fairies scolded, pinching her sides and tweaking her antennae. “Naughty child, coddled brat—don’t think of it!” Yet already the golden light of the sun had thinned to a sickly yellow. The rain fell fast and heavy.
“It can’t last,” said Lime. “It won’t last.”
“Don’t!” the fairies wailed. Lime broke from their arms and lurched upright.
“It won’t last,” she said, “because one day, a storm will come and tear me away from here, out to sea and out to the world’s farthest reaches. And I’ll wash ashore on that cold country where only the Origin Tree grows: where I’ll find a magnificent Library, but no more orchids, and no more family, and no more way back home—and I’ll be alone, alone forever!”
The clan of fairies dissolved in the pelting rain. The trees bowed low beneath typhoon winds, and the sea rose up to swallow everything. Lime floundered in the waves, gasping for breath and clawing at the water, but the ocean gripped her like the coils of a serpent.
Filling her fangs with venom, Lime buried her head beneath the hippocamp’s scales and bit down as hard as she could.
The honey-sweet music cut to a terrible screech. The hippocamp’s coils slackened. Lime tumbled onto the riverbank, and Erskine thudded beside her.
“Vile gnat!” spat the hippocamp. “Wicked little wasp!” The tip of her tail drooped uselessly in the mud, numbed by Lime’s venom. “I could have given you a peaceful death, but you’d rather struggle, would you, my damsel? I’ll crush you like the insect you are!”
Lime tried to fly, but the mud clung to her wings. The hippocamp lunged at her, a wall of grey bulk, inescapable as a tidal wave.
Before the hippocamp crashed to the ground, an enormous hand scooped Lime up and snatched her to safety. Erskine stumbled up the bank, clutching Lime protectively to their chest.
“What happened?” they said. “Why does everything smell like vinegar?”
“To cover up your thief-like stench,” snarled the hippocamp, rising from the mud. “You’ll pay for stealing my skin, adventurer!”
“Wait!” said Erskine, backing towards the trees. “I still have the skin. If you let me get it—”
“After it’s been defiled by your human hands?” said the hippocamp. “I think not!” She undulated closer, fangs bared and eyes gleaming menacingly.
Lime climbed out from Erskine’s fingers and perched on their wrist. “I thought I told you to slither back to the ocean!” she growled. “Or did you want another dose of venom?”
“Your fondness for this adventurer confounds me,” said the hippocamp. “What fairy would risk her life for a human? Do you have even the least grain of self-respect?”
“Fondness has nothing to do with it,” said Lime. “I just. . . .”
“Just what?” said the hippocamp. “Illuminate me.”
“I just—It’s just,” said Lime, “if anyone has the right to kill this human, it’s me!”
“What?” said Erskine.
“Oh?” said the hippocamp.
“The human took an old dried-up skin you weren’t even using anymore,” said Lime, “and you think that gives you the right to season them up like a roast and eat them alive?”
“It’s a matter of principle,” said the hippocamp. “If I let one adventurer steal my cast-offs and live, more are sure to follow, each one bolder and greedier than the last.”
“That’s nothing,” said Lime. “Nothing at all. You know what the human did to me? They put me in a salt-shaker!”
“That sounds bad,” said Erskine, “but it was a really big salt-shaker. Like the kind you would put shaved Parmesan in? I thought it would be more comfortable.”
“You hear that?” said Lime. “They even admit to it!”
“And there are air holes already in it,” said Erskine, “so I figured, compared to a jam jar—”
“Contemptible!” said Lime. “Just terrible! I’m the one this human has wronged the most, and I’m the one who’s going to kill them, no matter what any sea-beast has to say about it!” She grabbed Erskine’s index finger and bit down: a dry bite, without venom.
“Why?” cried Erskine, eyes brimming with tears of pain.
“Pretend to die, idiot,” hissed Lime in Vernacular Fey.
Erskine, to their credit, caught on quickly. They fell to the ground like a sack of rocks and lay there with their eyes closed, breathing softly. “There,” said Lime. “It’s done.”
“Really?” said the hippocamp. “They don’t smell dead.”
“With all that vinegar, how would you know?” said Lime.
“I think,” said the hippocamp, “I may still try to eat them. If you’ve had your revenge, you’ll raise no further objections, surely?”
“Go ahead,” said Lime. “If you’re not afraid of all the paralytic venom sloshing in their veins.”
The hippocamp retr
acted her fangs and stared at Lime, her scales glittering in the moonlight, her harp-strings still and gleaming. Lime stared back, defiant.
At last, the hippocamp gave a short, bitter laugh. “Grandmother was right,” she said. “As the sea is full of fishes, the land is full of fools. I’ve wasted my time here.” She lowered her great head and slipped gracefully into the river, a stream of salt-white and storm-grey.
As she swam oceanward, she called behind to Lime and Erskine. “Beware, my damsel! Beware, little thief! If I ever see a green fairy or a stinking red-headed adventurer on the shores of Crab’s Cairn again, no force on land or sea will stay my wrath!” With that, she plunged beneath the water; the white harp sunk into the depths.
“Is she gone?” asked Erskine.
“Gone enough,” said Lime. “Good job, by the way, almost getting gobbled up by a snake.”
“It was a shed skin,” said Erskine, rising to their feet. “I didn’t think anyone would miss it.” They brushed the dirt from their pajamas. Their eyes widened. “Oh, no! Is that Slugsy?”
A blue light flickered in the shallows. It was indeed Slugsy, laying stunned beneath the water. A few fish-like scales had blossomed on her forehead, and on her neck Lime could see the faint lines of developing gills.
Erskine lifted Slugsy from the riverbed and petted her gently on the back until she coughed up a gout of fluid. “No,” she gasped. “No, no, no! Have I turned into a water sprite?”
“It’s fine,” said Lime. “You’ve still got legs.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with being a water sprite,” said Erskine.
Slugsy peeled the scales from her forehead and leapt into the air. She glanced from Lime to Erskine and back. “Ah!” she said. “Listen, human. It might look like Loner escaped, but she didn’t. She was ensorcelled by the hippocamp, just like you.”
To Lime, she directed a not-so-subtle wink.
“Honestly,” said Erskine, “that was one of the last things on my mind. Are the two of you okay?”
