The Faerie King

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  He paused, sweetened his tea, broke his scone into crumbs, and finally let out a little sigh. “If you must know,” he said stiffly, “I’m living off the family trust until I can get the online shop up and running. I’m here for Auntie Eunice.”

  “Isn’t that sweet,” she mumbled into her teacup.

  Stuart gave Mrs. Cooper a patronizing smile, then turned his attention to his crumbs and jam. “I’m also doing some investigative work in my off-hours,” he continued. “Research for a book.”

  “Oh? On what?” I asked, and took a sip of tea.

  “Fairies.”

  I tried to laugh, but ended up choking and on the receiving end of a hearty thump between the shoulder blades from Mrs. Cooper. “Come again?” I wheezed once the worst of the fit had passed.

  “Fairies,” he repeated, seemingly unfazed by my brush with scalding death. “And I’m quite serious about this, so there’s no need to mock me.”

  “Not mocking,” I replied, cutting my eyes to Mrs. Cooper in time to catch her grimace, “just…curious.”

  Looking up from his pastry deconstruction, Stuart drummed his jammy fingers together and grinned across the table. “You’ve heard of the Cottingley Fairies, I hope?”

  The twinge of foreboding I’d felt on the announcement of Stuart’s research interest dissolved immediately, but I tried to play along. “Yeah, maybe…Victorian photos, right? Little girls, dancing fairies?”

  “Exactly,” he said with a satisfied nod. “Five photographs in total, taken in the first two decades of the twentieth century by a pair of cousins.”

  “Think I saw something on TV about those,” I said, and sipped with greater care. “All a hoax, yeah? The fairies were cutouts from a book or something—”

  “An unfortunate cover-up,” Stuart interrupted, looking pained.

  “No, didn’t the girls themselves admit—”

  “They were just village girls!” he exclaimed, banging the table. “Imagine the pressure on them! Believers on the one hand, skeptics on the other. Wouldn’t you have wanted it all to go away after a certain point?”

  His agitated slap had left two shiny red fingerprints on the tablecloth. “Okay, maybe,” I allowed. “But…you don’t honestly believe…”

  “I honestly do,” he said gravely.

  “Tiny winged humanoids? Really?”

  Stuart leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “I’ve seen them, Clark. At a distance, of course,” he added apologetically, “but they have the most beautiful aural glow, such…such vibrant colors…” He paused, blinked a few times as if clearing an image, then said, “You know, Ms. Horn’s seen them, too.”

  “Oh?” I managed, not trusting myself to hold it together through a longer response.

  His head bobbed. “She said she’d seen them out on the beach at night. They fly up to fifty yards off shore, apparently. Must like the breeze out there.”

  I thought of reminding Stuart of how quickly a glowing food source would be snapped up, then decided that some delusions weren’t worth addressing. “Well, happy hunting.”

  “You don’t believe me,” he replied, resting his chin in his hand. “I mean, I’m not surprised. Mundanes seldom believe in the supernatural, even when it’s right before their eyes.” He sighed deeply and patted his cheek with his supporting hand, oblivious to the jam smeared near his ear. “Those of us in the community talk, you know, share our findings. More stories circulate about this town than you’d think.”

  That piqued my interest, but I feigned polite disbelief. “Such as?”

  “Fairy activity, mostly. Up and down the coast, but there’s a hub of it near this place. If you ask me, I think there’s a ley line running through the Outer Banks and up toward Virginia Beach, but that’s all speculation, you understand. Work to be done.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to it,” I replied, and made a show of looking at the clock on the wall. “Mrs. Cooper, I’m so sorry, but I’ve got appointments to keep…”

  “I’ll show you out, dear,” she said, pushing back from the table. “Back shortly, Stuart,” she added, seeing him half-rise, and he plopped into his chair once more, where he resumed his assault on the scone plate after a muttered goodbye.

  I followed Mrs. Cooper through her shop and out into the morning, waited until she’d closed the front door, then shook my head and laughed. “I’m so sorry, but that’s—”

  “Embarrassing,” she interrupted. “Unbelievable. But my problem, I suppose.”

  I wiped a stray tear from my eye. “Try to keep him out of the shallows at dusk, yes?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe a shark would knock some sense into him. Of course, knowing Stuart, he’d probably blame a kelpie.” She folded her arms and squinted at the sun. “You’re not going to disabuse him of these notions, I take it?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  “Sound choice, Mr. Leffee. Sound choice.” With that, Mrs. Cooper patted my arm and pushed the front door open. “Don’t be a stranger, now,” she called over her shoulder, and then I was alone once more.

  Twilight had descended over the realm by the time I let myself back into my office, and I sprawled on one of my twin couches, trying to get my bearings once more. I needed to make the aborted date up to Meggy, and then there was the matter of Olive’s growing defiance…Vivian’s foolhardy exploits…Oberon…Aiden, what the hell was I to do with Aiden…

  Come to mention it, where was Aiden?

  I’d left him with Joey, Valerius, and a giant lizard, but that had been hours ago. There was no telling…

  I rose to find my brother, but before I took two steps, someone knocked on my office door. “Enter!” I called across the room, rubbing my head as weariness finally began to set in, and looked up as Valerius poked his head through the gap. “Captain,” I sighed. “Please tell me Aiden’s still alive and well.”

  “Asleep in the loft,” he replied, letting himself fully into the room. “Joey put him to work. Last I saw, the boy was grilling mutton shanks.”

  “What loft?”

  “In the barn.”

  “I didn’t build a loft—”

  “I did, my lord. I…” He paused, uncertain. “Lord Aiden was weary, and the dragon was not. I put him out of the way to avoid trampling.” He hesitated again, then said, “If I’ve erred, I’ll take it down…”

  “No, that…that actually sounds great. Thank you.” I leaned against the back of a couch, mentally checking one item off my list. “Grilled mutton, you said?”

  “The first attempts seemed a bit charred.”

  “Huh.” I folded my arms, stared at the rug for a moment, then met the captain’s eyes. “Think he’s grilling extra?”

  “There’s really no lack of sheep, my lord.” He closed the door quietly and crossed the room. “Grivam asks an audience as well,” he said, keeping his voice low. “He’s been made comfortable until you can hear him, but if you have more certain plans, I’ll see that he’s informed.”

  I frowned. “Grivam of the merrow?”

  “The same.”

  “Moon and stars,” I muttered, wishing I’d thought to spike my tea. “How long has he been waiting?”

  Valerius squinted at the ceiling. “Since midday, perhaps. Not particularly long.”

  “And you didn’t think I needed to know?”

  He stepped back, flummoxed. “My lord…the queen gave me permission to leave the realm only in time of severe emergency. I didn’t—”

  “New rule,” I replied, cutting him off. “If you think I might want to know about it, find me.” I ran that back, thinking it over, then added, “Except on date nights, in which case, use your best judgment.” With that, I changed my button-down and jeans for a slightly less ornamented version of the robe I’d discarded that morning and headed for the hallway, my captain on my heels. “When did she last let you out, anyway?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “She didn’t,” Valerius replied, easily keeping pace with my quick strides. �
�I’ve not been back since I first crossed the border. Except for hiding your brother, I mean, but that was a moment’s work.”

  I stopped in my tracks and stared at him. “You haven’t seen the mortal realm in all this time?”

  “I suppose not.” He shrugged and chuckled at my disbelief. “It can’t have changed that greatly, can it?”

  I tried to imagine a worldview in which history stopped well before the Middle Ages, but the exercise only made my headache worse. “Captain, uh…I’ll show you later. Where’ve you hidden Grivam, anyway, the pool? Come to think of it, do I have a pool?”

  The merrow are a curious race, natively aquatic but eager to make shore excursions when their nosiness gets the best of them. Said excursions naturally require a change of form—legs are far more practical than a tail for dry locomotion, after all—and once ashore, merrow are indistinguishable from humans but for their propensity to stagger about like sailors on shore leave. Bipedal balance is a tricky thing for those without constant practice, and I’ve seen two-year-olds totter around with far more grace and poise than a two-hundred-year-old merrow freshly risen from the sea like Venus after a hard night of clubbing.

  The merrow are, in my admittedly limited experience, much like magpies with a propensity for hoarding. Flash something shiny or even vaguely interesting in their direction, and they’re hooked—they’ll beg, cajole, and dicker their way to getting what they want. The kids are understandably ignorant of the value of human-made detritus—after a night with one adventurous lady, for instance, I was given no rest until I procured for her that most expensive of parting gifts, a pink paper-and-toothpick drink umbrella from the bar up the beach—but a merrow with a few years on him knows what the surface-dwellers prize, and he’ll inevitably drive a hard bargain if asked to part with something of use.

  Grivam was master of the lopsided trade when he was of a mood. Then again, he’d had ample practice—as far as I could tell, he considered me a child.

  I tried not to show Valerius, but the news that Grivam had come left me unsettled. The merrow moved out of Faerie millennia ago—they had never been thrown out, but they seemed to prefer their own company, far from the lot of us, with the exception of the occasional hunting trip through our waters. I couldn’t blame them, but that made finding one on my doorstep all the more worrying. Finding Grivam in the realm of his own accord made me want to double-check our defenses.

  Grivam didn’t just leave the sea. If you wanted a word with the merrow’s king, you went to him and waited—he didn’t give a damn whose court you claimed, and he didn’t care if you got sunburned while waiting for him to surface. One typically bartered with him from a boat, a precarious position at the best of times, which seemed to suit him nicely. On the few occasions on which I’d seen him, Grivam had been a smiler. This was an unfortunate circumstance, as Grivam’s smile did little to set anyone at ease. In fact, all his smile did was remind his companions that he had teeth to rival a shark’s, and that those dealing with him were quite out of their element.

  I had never seen Grivam shapeshift, and so my mental image of him was vaguely cetacean and toothy. Keeping my face neutral and unconcerned, I settled back on the throne and waited while Valerius fetched him, then took to pacing when the minutes stretched to half an hour, wondering what was delaying the audience. Surely Grivam hadn’t wandered off, I mused, sorting through the possibilities. Surely Georgie hadn’t developed a sudden taste for seafood.

  As I stalked back and forth, I tried to prepare myself for what was to come, but even still, it threw me for a loop when Valerius opened the ceremonial doors and led in a pale, white-haired old man. The creature clinging to the captain’s arm was sinewy, but his papery skin drooped in translucent folds, and he peered at me through deep-set eyes as he shuffled up the blue runner.

  I watched their slow progress, stunned. The merrow aged, yes, but slowly—I was with a five-hundred-year-old lady once who barely looked a day over twenty. Seeing the true mark of Grivam’s years startled me far more than did his eschewal, in typical merrow fashion, of the frivolity of clothing.

  He took another slow step and grimaced, and I shook off the paralysis. “Grivam,” I said, half-jogging down the blue runner to intercept him, “be welcome. I apologize for keeping you waiting, but I was away and didn’t hear of your coming.”

  The old merrow shifted his arm from the captain’s to mine and held on tightly as I led him toward a row of chairs. “I came unannounced, young Coileán,” he replied, squeezing my arm as he stepped off the thick rug. “I expected a longer wait, in truth. Things are calm here?”

  “Not exactly.” I helped him to a seat and took the chair beside him. “But I hate to inconvenience you. What, uh—”

  “My condolences to you as well,” he quietly interrupted, patting my hand. “The loss of a parent is never an easy thing.”

  “I…” I began, but paused, trying to discern the truth behind Grivam’s words. “Thank you. She is missed.”

  “Of course.” He locked and unlocked his long fingers—I could only suppose he found the lack of webbing a novel sensation—and pursed his thin lips. “And in this difficult time, I’m afraid I only add to your troubles. I come to ask a boon.”

  The expression in his dark eyes was difficult to read, though I thought I saw a trace of fear in the mix.

  “What sort of boon?” I asked warily.

  Grivam’s finger locking increased in tempo. “There is something in the shallows. It found us, it stalks us, and it’s taken sixteen. I ask that you give us refuge until it returns to the deeps.” His eyes bored into mine, and I tried not to focus on the skeletal contours of his unfamiliar second face. “Name your price.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The price for your protection. Name it.” He grabbed my wrists with surprising strength. “Anything you ask, up to my life, if you will help us.”

  Behind him, Valerius cocked an eyebrow, and I fought to keep my expression in check. Grivam never showed his hand, and only a fool would have been at ease seeing him so desperate.

  I took a slow breath, then nodded. “You have it.”

  His brows knit. “The price—”

  “A favor on a later date,” I interrupted. “A favor agreeable to you. Acceptable?”

  The suspicion in his look slowly turned to understanding. “I could reject your request for this favor as disagreeable, under these terms. Any request.”

  “And I trust you are a man of honor in your dealings,” I replied.

  “Indeed.” He released me and nodded in turn. “A deal, then. You will have your favor, should I find it agreeable to grant it, at a time to come.”

  Grivam pushed himself to his feet, wincing at the stress, and I produced a gold-topped cane. “The path back to the water is uneven,” I said, pressing it into his hand. “This should steady your steps.”

  He twisted the stick, watching the knob glint. “A gift, young Coileán?”

  “A token of my good faith.” I rose and waited while Valerius opened the door, then escorted Grivam back to the rug. “Bring your people as soon as you like. The gate will remain unlocked.”

  He glanced at me over his thin shoulder with a half-smile. “You barter poorly, you know.”

  “I let my guard slip on occasion.” Watching him slowly make his way toward the exit, I asked, “How did you come?”

  “On these useless things,” Grivam replied, leaning on his new cane.

  “You walked?”

  He nodded, not looking back. “From here, it is two days’ journey to the sea. And another day’s journey to the gate.”

  I caught his free arm to stop him, then opened a gate to the shore in the middle of the throne room. “Unless you have business between here and there…”

  His teeth flashed, and Grivam shuffled from the rug onto the pale brown sand, which had shifted toward black with nightfall. Valerius stepped around the gate and watched beside me as the merrow reached the lapping waves, then continued his sl
ow walk into the dark shallows. When the water reached his hips, his body shuddered, and a hairless form, sleek and gray, disappeared with barely a splash.

  I closed the gate and looked at Valerius. “Make it sound like I worked a fair deal, won’t you?”

  “My lord.” He hesitated, then awkwardly patted my back.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, and wandered off to find my brother.

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  I should have been proactive when Grivam announced there was a merrow-eating monster in the Keys. Had I caught it and traced its source then, I might have saved myself the trouble to come. But I was as yet inexperienced, and my thoughts that season vacillated between Meggy and Aiden, making forays toward the task of running the realm only when strictly necessary. Valerius quietly reminded me on occasion that the list of audience requests wasn’t going to disappear if I ignored it, but I simply hadn’t the time or inclination to deal with petty grievances. I had a relationship to salvage and a teenage brother to keep alive, and as far as I was concerned, the rest could sort itself out.

  Of my two tasks, the former was, surprisingly, simpler. I knew where Meggy lived, I had a decent sense of how not to provoke her, and I listened when she needed to unload about our daughter. That was a delicate area—Meggy was a single mother by choice, but that didn’t make her situation any easier, and she seemed to enjoy escaping while Olive was off at cheerleading practice or with her new friends, doing whatever it was that adolescent girls do when they’re alone together, which remains something of a mystery to me. Meggy explained that she’d never been a typical girl, and she could give only educated guesses as to Olive’s evening schedule. “But really, I’m not that concerned,” she told me one night over chow mein. “It’s Rigby. They’ll go to the pier, smoke something, maybe drink something vile, and feel grown-up.”

  “Nothing else?” I’d pressed.

  Meggy smirked and pointed her chopsticks at my chest. “We’ve had talks.”

  I wasn’t entirely convinced, but I reminded myself that Meggy knew this territory far better than I did. With the matter of Olive’s evening doings relegated to the back burner, Meggy and I were free to…well, date.