‘Give me back my son,’ I screamed. ‘Give him back or I’ll burn you all.’
The trees loomed around me, their branches a crazy patchwork of witch fingers, black on black. The lights shimmered. As I ran further into the woodland, so the lights retreated. I tripped on an exposed root and fell full-length, winding myself. Panting, I heard the back and forth yipping of wolves. My fear lasted just a moment. Let the pack devour me, I thought. It’ll save me a walk to the river.
‘Beatrice!’
The shout was faint, but I recognised Cecily’s voice. I lifted my head. The lights had gone. The moonbeams scarcely penetrated the canopy. My makeshift torch lay on the ground, smouldering.
‘Beatrice, come quickly!’
The urgency in Cecily’s voice galvanised me. Perhaps I had cowed the faeries into returning Adam. I stood up, grabbed my torch. The woodland looked exactly the same in every direction. I had run too far; now I would starve to death, or stumble into the bog and drown.
‘Beatrice!’
I turned and hurried in a straight line. If the trees didn’t thin out soon, it meant I was lost. The darkness went on and on. I kept going. Then I glimpsed orange-tinted windows, the houses of my village, shining with firelight. Relieved, I broke into the meadow and dashed to my home.
Climbing through the boards on my doorway, I found Cecily within. She had the baby wrapped in a blanket, clutched to her chest. I flung my torch into the fire.
‘Is it Adam?’ I said. ‘Did I save him?’
I grabbed him from her. Unexpectedly, his body was shaking. I placed him on the mattress and opened the blanket. To my horror, he was convulsing violently, as if shaken by invisible hands, his eyes rolled up into his head.
‘What’s going on?’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’
‘You’ve weakened the spell,’ Cecily said. ‘When you ran to the woodland, I feared the worst and came here straight away, but you’ve done it, Beatrice. Now there’s only one thing left to do. Throw the changeling into the fire.’
For a moment, the world stopped.
The fire?
‘Don’t hesitate,’ Cecily said. ‘Quickly, before it’s too late. The changeling will revert into sticks, and vanish. After that, we’ll hear a knock at the door. It will be a faerie, delivering Adam back to you, safe and sound.’
‘No, I can’t do it. I can’t put him in the fire. My other children...’
‘Forget your other children. They are damned. Think of Adam.’
I picked up the changeling. His shaking had passed. I hugged him against me, tight, sniffed the warmth of his skin, the scent of his sweet breath. Cecily pushed me through the crush of animals in the common room toward the fireplace.
‘After this, I’ll drown myself in the river,’ I said.
‘Don’t be afraid. There will indeed be a knock at the door.’
I gazed down at my baby. For the first time, he gazed back, his blue eyes focused, as if seeing me. Perhaps it was Adam after all.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘What about Gilbert? I need to make this decision with him.’
‘Do it,’ Cecily said, ‘before the faerie folk recast their spell.’
With a sob, I kissed Adam on the forehead, again and again, my beautiful child. My only living child. But no, it wasn’t Adam. This tiny precious thing, staring up at me with its blue eyes, was made from dirt, twigs and magic.
‘Put the changeling into the fire,’ Cecily said. ‘Do it, Beatrice. Do it now.’
And so, God help me, I did.
Author Biographies
Greg Chapman is a horror author from Rockhampton, Queensland. He is the author of the novellas, Torment, The Noctuary (Damnation Books, 2011), The Last Night of October (Bad Moon Books, 2013), and The Eschatologist (Voodoo Press, 2015). His collection, Vaudeville and Other Nightmares, was published by Black Beacon Books in 2014. He is also a horror artist and illustrated the Bram Stoker Award-winning graphic novel, Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times, written by Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton. His latest work is the one-shot comic, Bullet Ballerina, written by Tom Piccirilli, for SST Publications. www.darkscrybe.com
Duncan Richardson is a writer of fiction, history, poetry, and educational texts. His grandfather served on an isolated lighthouse off the Welsh coast during the First World War and this story is based on events in the history of that place.
Cameron Trost is a writer from Brisbane. His strange, mysterious, and creepy tales have been published in dozens of magazines and anthologies, including Midnight Echo, Morpheus Tales, and Crowded Quarantine’s Of Devils and Deviants. His collection, Hoffman’s Creeper and Other Disturbing Tales, is available from Black Beacon Books. He is the vice-president and Queensland community leader of the Australian Horror Writers’ Association. Whisky, rainforests, and thunderstorms are a few of his favourite things. www.trostlibrary.blogspot.com
Mark McAuliffe lives in Brisbane. Since the 1990s, he has had stories and poetry appear in several small press publications. Most recently, he has been published in the anthologies, An Eclectic Slice of Life (Dark Prints Press), Til Death Do Us Part (Burnt Offerings Books), and In Sunshine Bright and Darkness Deep (the Australian Horror Writers’ Association).
Danielle Birch’s school reports labelled her a daydreamer and she’s proud to say it’s still an accurate observation. When not delving into the tormented minds of her characters, burying her nose in a book, or exploring the landscape, she’s renovating her post-war home and building gardens. To pay the bills, she works as a paralegal in a law firm. She lives in bayside Brisbane with her husband and their kelpie.
www.daniellebirch.com
Matthew Wilson has had over a hundred and fifty appearances in Zimbell House Publishing, Horror Zine, Star*Line, Spellbound, Alban Lake, and many more. He is currently editing his first novel and can be contacted on twitter @matthew94544267
B. Michael Radburn lives with his family in the Southern Highlands of NSW. He has published more than a hundred short stores, articles, and reviews, and was most notably publishing editor of the iconic Australian Horror & Fantasy Magazine and founder of Dark Press Publications. Radburn has won several Melbourne University Literary Awards and more recently was short-listed for the Henry Lawson Festival Awards. The Crossing (2011) was his début novel, followed by Blackwater Moon in 2013. Both are available in paperback and ebook through Pantera Press. 2016 will see the release of his third novel, The Falls.
Linda Brucesmith is the principal of Aqua Public Relations, Brisbane. Her work has appeared in The Big Issue, Melbourne Books’ Award Winning Australian Writing 2014, The Review of Australian Fiction, the Margaret River Press 2014 The Trouble With Flying short story anthology, Ricochet magazine, Black Beacon Books’ Subtropical Suspense, Askance Publishing’s Homes, and The Fiction Desk’s 2013 New Ghost Stories, among others. She won the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Mornington Peninsula Prize 2013, was shortlisted for the 2013 KSP Speculative Fiction Awards and the 2013 Aeon Awards, and highly commended in the 2012 Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Awards.
www.lindabrucesmith.com.au
David Dolan enjoys writing short stories and is putting the finishing touches to his début novel. He is inspired by writers such as Paul Auster, Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami, Albert Camus, Jack Kerouac, and many others. He also enjoys competing in ocean swimming.
Alice Godwin was born in Van Diemen’s Land, a Grimm’s fairy tale sort of place. She has over thirty short stories published in magazines, anthologies, and literary journals in Australia and overseas. She has won numerous awards including the Australian Horror Writers’ Association’s short story of the year, Wyvern Publications UK YA short story competition, and has twice had stories shortlisted for the Aeon Award. She lives in the inner west of Sydney, has finished writing the first book of a three book series, and is looking for the right publisher. When she isn't tending her herb garden by moonlight, sipping absinthe, and trying to fix her time machine, she is feeding her six-foot-tall teenage
sons.
Sam Muller writes whenever he has a spare moment. He has been writing stories for the fun of it for as long as he can remember, and it brings him great joy to know that people can experience and enjoy them. He contributed a short story to the Black Beacon Books anthology, Subtropical Suspense, and hopes many more of his tales will hit the shelves.
Steve Cameron is a Scottish/Australian writer who currently resides in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. When not writing, he teaches English at a local secondary college. Steve maintains a website at www.stevecameron.com.au
B.T. Joy is a British horror writer whose short fiction has appeared in Static Movement, Surreal Grotesque, James Ward Kirk Fiction, Human Echoes, MircoHorror, Flashes in the Dark, SQ Magazine, and Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, among others. His poetry has also been published worldwide.
www.btj0005uk.wix.com/btjoypoet
Deborah Sheldon lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her short fiction has appeared in many well-regarded literary journals, such as Quadrant, Island, Midnight Echo, Pulp Modern, [untitled], Crime Factory, and Page Seventeen. Her latest works are the crime-noir novella, Dark Waters (Cohesion Press), and Mayhem: selected stories (Satalyte Publishing). Other writing credits include commercial television scripts (such as Neighbours, Australia’s Most Wanted, State Coroner), stage and radio plays, award-winning medical writing, magazine articles for national magazines, and non-fiction books for Reed Books and Random House. She has three novels scheduled for publication over the next two years.
www.deborahsheldon.wordpress.com
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