The Boy Who Was Mistaken for a Fairy King

by HL Fullerton

  Table of Contents

  The Boy Who Was Mistaken for a Fairy King

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Other Titles from Annorlunda Books

  Copyright

  The Boy Who Was Mistaken for a Fairy King

  HL Fullerton

  The day the King boy was born, crocuses popped from the wintry ground (it was late December in New York’s Catskills) and spread their purple petals wide. People remarked upon it, but no one—not even the nurse who snugged the tiny blue hat over the newborn’s bald egg of a head and was the first to startle at the raised ridges along his cranium (like two arched brows of bone above where the babe’s hairline would eventually be) thought one had anything to do with the other. And they might have had the right of it.

  In the language of flowers, the crocus is thought to signify friendship. Or maybe trust. Depending, of course, on what one is trying to say. When it comes to meaning, flowers are far more open to misinterpretation than words. Sometimes a crocus can indicate innocence. Those who don’t hold with Victoriana simply think they note the coming of spring.

  …something’s coming, all right…

  No one used the word trauma, but the boy’s mother understood that being born vaginally might leave its mark upon a child—journeys always do and canals (birth and otherwise) can be tricky things to navigate. Doctors, nurses, and internet alike assured her that the child’s head wouldn’t retain its conical shape, that he’d settle into himself soon enough. The ridges, which were clearly circling into nubs, were lumped in with the general head re-shaping. The OB/GYN in particular was relieved to hand off Mrs. King and her many questions to a pediatrician in her practice, and, in fact, left said practice soon after—about the time the doctor herself conceived—and never thought of the King boy again, except for the time she and her daughter watched Bambi and then immediately spotted a fawn in their back garden all tiny polka dots; round, soulful eyes; furry, elfin ears; and two tiny bumps where antlers one day would grow. Which was around the same time, the Kings’ once-upon-a-time gyno developed irrational fears about her daughter being stolen away (by fairies or pedophiles or bucks, oh, my). Not that one necessarily had anything to do with the other.

  In the iconology of animals, the deer symbolizes peace. And grace. And wisdom. Gentleness. Even fertility. Ubiquitous and meddlesome things, deer. In tales of old, deer serve as messengers or animalia psychopomps to speed the spirits of the dead upon their way. And if one believes in fairies and their creatures, then deer travel between worlds, sometimes even lead fairy armies. To those who don’t hold with folklore, deer are simply something to keep out of gardens and away from car bumpers and quarter panels—or to be hunted and eaten.

  …the hunt is a wild, glorious thing…

  By kindergarten, the King child’s hair—soft, wavy, brown—mostly hid the bony protuberances. Nobody called them horns; no one allowed themselves to think horns. Mrs. King brushed her fingers through her son’s hair and wondered if either her womb or birth canal was at fault—could it merely be a bad genetic matchup?—and whether she should insist the orthopedic surgeon shave the bumps before people started calling her dear boy devil or demon. But the…protuberances…seemed so sensitive, when she slid her fingers through her son’s hair (always, always trying to lessen the amount of skin showing) and rubbed the bumps he fell asleep: so fast, so deep. The pediatrician sounded certain that they weren’t cancerous nor likely to cause brain damage. Every mother had worries. Perhaps she should be grateful these not horns, never horns were the worst of hers. The father, Mr. King, worried not at all. He was long gone in the wind by then. He’d always been a breezy fellow—but one hundred percent human!—with the DNA to prove it.

  In Greek mythology, the four winds were known as the anemoi. Boreas, Eurus, Notus, and Zephyrus roughly corresponded to seasonal weather patterns and the four points of the compass: north, east, south and west. An east wind was considered an ill wind; a north wind, a cold one. To scatter to the four winds, is to send something—or someone—to the four corners of the Earth. To those who believe the planet is a globe, there are no corners to scatter toward, or Greek gods.

  …shall we not speak of fairy winds and the terrible things they carry?…

  King was a gentle, thoughtful boy. All his teachers said so and yes, his peers might have initially stared at him—a few were so brave as to ask to touch his scalp—but the occasional ball cap made most of them forget their classmate’s oddly shaped skull. It helped that he was good at sports and pretty, too.

  Kids flocked to the King house, appearing in its backyard with almost alarming frequency considering they bordered a state park with hills and forests deep and dark like those out of Grimm’s fairy tales. Mrs. King watched from her kitchen window, thankful that her son’s physical imperfections hadn’t turned him socially awkward. She kept a sharp eye out for any potential bullying, ready to nip such in the bud, but either it never happened or such things bounced off her son like water off an umbrella. Often Mrs. King took a moment to feel superior to those laissez-faire parents who allowed their sons and daughters to wander about so freely. Theirs was a small but sprawling town—and mostly safe—but still, children could get hurt. Or disappear and did so with frightening regularity. Especially into nearby forests. In this town, missing children were an epidemic (also endemic). Nature could not be trusted. Didn’t Mrs. King know that better than anyone? Trees, she opined (mostly to herself), were horrible babysitters.

  In the backyard, a little girl asked the little King, “Are you a demon?”

  “No.” He shook his head and the motion rearranged his hair. Circular bumps poked through the strands. He shook it again and the bumps disappeared from view.

  “My mommy says you’re a demon.”

  “I’m not. I’m a boy.” His eyes—sphagnum green—were kind; his lips solemn and pink.

  “The troll-man called you king. Is that hat supposed to be your crown?”

  “I don’t know the troll-man, but this is a cap, like for baseball playing. I’m not a crown-king. I’m a boy named King.”

  “Okay. Do you want to play hide and go seek with me? Evangeline says you’re really good at it.”

  King was a very good seeker. No matter how well his friends hid or how deep in the forest they went, the trees always gave up their secrets (despite Mrs. King’s misgivings about conifers, maples, and oaks acting nanny).

  By sixth grade, King’s nubs were old hat, and no one paid them much attention.

  Until they started to grow. Then neither ball cap nor hair could hide the truth that the King boy sprouted antlers.

  Of all trees, maples are the most fun. They’re quite sweet. And people say ‘strong as an oak’ for a reason. Oaks are solid, dependable sorts. Pines can be prickly, but inside, they’re softies and can be counted on not to fall apart. Aren’t they the ones invited inside each December? (It’s the birches one needs to be careful around. Close-knit and vain. Step into a ring of birch and you’ll wish you hadn’t. Not even deer will nibble upon them.)

  …A child is a precious gift and the thing about gifts is: they are meant to be opened…

  King’s antlers arced gracefully over his head in perfect symmetry—narrow beam, two tines on each branch—four points if one’s a hunter (and most families in town boasted at least one bow hunter, if not many). They most resembled deer antlers, and a few classmates took to calling King ‘King Deer,’ but, in fact, deer antlers are more like hugging spike-lined arms while King’s antlers embraced the heavens rather than engaged a foe.

  Mrs. King dragged him to doctors, insisting They. Cut. Them. Off. Befor
e her son got shot—or worse.

  “Do they hurt?” the doctors asked.

  “No,” the teen said. “Sometimes they itch.”

  “And what do you do when they itch?”

  “I scratch them.” Sometimes against door jambs, sometimes against tree trunks, but one couldn’t tell people that and still be viewed as a person. Antlers upon one’s head did not make one an animal per se. Neither did talking to trees make one crazy, but King kept quiet about that too. ‘King Deer’ was one thing. ‘Deer King’ was another.

  Doctors hmmmed. Pressed against the velvety protuberances, first delicately, then with more force, surprised to find them almost feverishly warm.

  “Don’t do that,” the King teen said and hands pulled back quickly at the quiet authority in his voice.

  They took x-rays, MRIs, offered possible surgical options. Mrs. King said yes, yes, yes. The teen said, “No,” and thanked them for their time.

  In the latest waiting room, a trollish man in thrift store cast-offs stopped the Kings on their way out. “Could I trouble you for a moment, Erlking?”

  His mother tried to pull him away, but King pulled free from her grasp—annoyed at her for trying to disfigure him—and jerked his head to indicate she should leave and he’d meet her in the car. She went but couldn’t stop from glancing back at the unlikely pair: her well-dressed son young, slender and clean; the homeless man wrinkled, stocky and filthy—though he smelled of gypsum dust rather than sweat and excrement.

  The King teen offered, “You can call me Carl.”

  The thickset man nodded, but kept his eyes on the ground. King noticed long oozing scratches on the man’s wrists—the kind fingernails or talons might make. “Did you receive the gifts I left, Carl?”

  “Did you leave me a gift?”

  “I did. Many. Under the tall pine in your backyard.”

  He meant the children who came to play sans parents. Carl remembered Scarletta and Evangeline talking about the scary troll-man who brought the girls over to play. Though Carl now suspected the children weren’t intended as playmates. He wondered about the scratches gracing the man’s arms (presumably they covered his forearms). At least they weren’t fresh. “Yes, I got them.”

  “Do you need more, my King?”

  “No. They were very nice gifts. Thank you.”

  The man looked relieved. “I thought you didn’t like ‘em. Or they ran away before you could eat them.”

  Carl startled at that. Even a Deer King wouldn’t eat children, he was almost certain of it. “I’m sure you meant well, sir, but you can’t give something that doesn’t belong to you. Nor can you tell someone what to do with a gift. Once it’s theirs, it’s theirs. How they use it is up to them. Do you understand?”

  The troll scratched his head. “No more gifts?”

  “No more gifts.”

  “But the bridge still be mine?”

  “Sure, if you’d like.” Was the man living under one? Like an actual troll? Carl eyed the man closely, thinking it was quite possible the man was an actual living-under-a-bridge troll who stole children for dinner. Carl knew middle schoolers and high schoolers hung out near the river—not together, obviously—but it seemed a tragedy waiting to happen to let a troll roam the same banks. And this troll didn’t look that healthy to begin with. Living outdoors was rough on both skin and lifespans. “Or, maybe, you could find an abandoned fishing shack near the river? A forgotten cabin in the woods? A cave. Something that might keep the winter out better than a bridge.”

  “I don’t get inside much. I might like a cave. That won’t make me an ogre, will it?”

  Carl guessed no and told the troll so. The troll then bent his knees and pulled at his hair in a strange sort of curtsy and walked backward to the exit. Clouds of dandruff flakes glittered as they fell to the carpet.

  “Aren’t you going to see the doctor first?” Carl King asked.

  The troll paused. “You think I should?”

  Carl nodded, and the troll gave his name, Brigham Trow, to the receptionist, then perched on a once rose-colored couch. Carl joined his mother in the car. The passenger seat where Carl sat lay near flat because otherwise there wasn’t enough headroom and he had to bend his neck at awkward angles to fit his antlers.

  “What was that about?” she said.

  “He liked my antlers.” Carl closed his eyes and shut out his mother.

  “It’s not that I don’t like them. All right, I don’t like them. But I do worry what could happen.”

  “You keep asking strangers to mutilate me. So far, you’re the worst thing to happen.”

  His words hurt as he intended. “I only want to keep you safe!” she said in her own defense, smacking the steering wheel. They didn’t speak for the remainder of the car ride. Mostly because they both agreed at that moment: she just might be the one he needed to be kept safe from.

  No one needs an explanation about puberty, do they? Suffice to say, it hits all children at different times and in unexpected ways. For some, acne abounds, voices break, blood flows. For others, bones on their head sprout.

  In cervids, antlers are a male secondary sexual characteristic. They’re also temporary—shedding each year only to grow back: larger. Size does matter. It determines dominance among reproductive males and signals good genetics to breeding females. It’s also a good way to attract hunters looking to get into record books.

  …bone and blood, it always comes back to bone and blood…

  Evangeline Chase pursued Carl King until she caught him, which was junior year just shy of the winter formal. She asked him to the movies and he said yes with an amused smile that left her wondering why if she’d run him to ground, she was the one most out of breath.

  The Chases were a family of hunters, always had been; it was in their blood, and Evangeline was an excellent tracker. She was pretty good with weapons too, yet never used them on another living thing—she didn’t have the heart for it. Not that she was a vegetarian by any means: she ate what her family brought home from their trips, but she knew better than to bring a boy with antlers to meet her parents. Her father and mother, as well as their many sisters and brothers, would imagine the poor kid’s head mounted within three seconds of “Hello” and be reaching for their bows one second later (New York State has laws about bullets and deer not mixing). But it wasn’t the thrill of the hunt that shivered through Evangeline when she looked at Carl. It was thrills of a different sort. The chase, yes, but also unnamed others.

  She almost wished it were spring so they could lie outside, Carl’s head in her lap. She’d brush apple blossoms from his face, watch them catch on his points. But she also liked the idea of chasing him through snowy woods, his laughter calling out to her as she stalked him. She wouldn’t mind dancing with him either. Bodies close, breaths mingling. His smile told her he might like that, too.

  Evangeline drove them to the movies because Carl didn’t have a license, not even a permit. There wasn’t a car with enough headroom to let him fit behind the wheel. Evangeline said maybe he could have one made special for him.

  “I think they only do that for people with special needs,” he said. It was clear he didn’t consider himself special or needful.

  “Maybe you just like people chauffeuring you around.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  Evangeline liked how she could joke around with Carl and he didn’t take it personally. Some boys got mad if you even hinted they might not be perfect. “What does it feel like?”

  “You want to touch them?” He inclined his head her way.

  “Yeah, I do. Just not while I’m driving.” She wanted time to explore Carl King, up close. She patted his arm as consolation. “But what I meant was, what do you feel like inside, you know, having them?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what not having them feels like.” He thought more about her question. She could tell by the serious set of his brow. “Maybe like having short hair and letting it grow longer. That the possibil
ity of it was with you all along and it needed only time to reach its full potential? Except, I guess, there are infinite possibilities with hair. Hair’s too changeable. Maybe it’s more like height. When you’re little, you know that one day you’ll be big. You keep growing till you reach how tall you’re meant to be and then that’s how tall you are.” Carl nodded as if finally satisfied with his theory. “I won’t always look like this,” he added. “I’m still growing. I’m still meant to be.”

  “They don’t make your head heavy?” She thought of sprouting breasts and gravity, her need for supportive bras. Then about the way she’d go to do something only to be surprised by her changing body. The adjustments she had to make when reaching for things or hugging relatives or using a rifle. How it sometimes changed the way other people saw her. Like how kids she’d known forever stared at her chest. Much the same, she now considered, as the way their eyes locked on Carl King’s rack. She was as guilty as the rest of them on that score. She didn’t think it mattered that she watched him with appreciation. She was sure there were some jerks who’d say the same of her rack.

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “So like a cat’s whiskers?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe like that.”

  “They suit your face. Is your mom home?”

  “Uh-huh. But we can go into the woods to be alone if you like. Or we could go to your house?”

  “The woods,” she whispered, remembering how when they were kindergartners, she used to hide and he used to find her by asking the trees for directions. “But this time, I’ll seek you. And I won’t need help.”

  There wasn’t snow on the ground but it was just as good as she’d imagined.

  “We probably shouldn’t do this again until after hunting season’s over,” she told him as her fingers lightly traced the curves of his antlers.

  He smiled that smile. “Not even if we wear neon orange?”