How to Fracture a Fairy Tale

by Jane Yolen

  Jiro looked up but there was no fox. Only Kitsune, beginning to weep, trembling at the sight of him, unable to move. And then he knew. She was a nogitsone, a were-fox, who could take the shape of a beautiful woman. But the nogitsone’s reflection in the water was always that of a beast.

  Suddenly Jiro’s anger, fueled by his terror, knew no bounds. “You are not human,” he cried. “Monster, wild thing, demon, beast. You will rip me or tear me if I let you stay. Some night you will gnaw upon my bones. Go away.”

  As he spoke, Kitsune fell to her hands and knees. She shook herself once, then twice. Her hair seemed to flow over her body, covering her completely. Then twitching her ears once, the vixen raced down the temple steps, across the meadow, and out of sight.

  Jiro stood and watched for a long, long time. He thought he could see the red flag of her tail many hours after she had gone.

  The snows came early that year, but the season was no colder than Jiro’s heart. Every day he thought he heard the barking of a fox in the woods beyond the meadow, but he would not call it in. Instead he stood on the steps and cried out, “Away. Go away.” At night he dreamed of a woman weeping close by his mat. In his sleep he called out, “Away. Go away.”

  Then when winter was full and the nights bitter cold, the sounds ceased. The island was deadly still. In his heart Jiro knew the fox was gone for good. Even his anger was gone, guttered in the cold like a candle. What had seemed so certain to him, in the heat of his rage, was certain no more.

  He wondered over and over which had been human and which had been beast. He even composed a haiku on it.

  Pointed ears, red tail.

  Wife covered in fox’s skin,

  The beast hides within.

  He said it over many times to himself but was never satisfied with it.

  Spring came suddenly, a tiny green blade pushing through the snow. And with it came a strange new sound. Jiro woke to it, out of a dream of snow. He followed the sound to the temple steps and saw prints in the dust of white. Sometimes they were fox, sometimes girl, as if the creature who made them could not make up its mind.

  “Kitsune,” Jiro called out impulsively. Perhaps she had not died after all.

  He looked out across the meadow and thought he saw again that flag of red. But the sound that had wakened him came once more, from behind. He turned, hoping to see Kitsune standing again by the mat with the bowl of camellias in her hands. Instead, by his books, he saw a tiny bundle of russet fur. He went over and knelt by it. Huddled together for warmth were two tiny kit foxes.

  For a moment Jiro could feel the anger starting inside him. He did not want these two helpless, mewling things. He wanted Kitsune. Then he remembered that he had driven her away. Away. And the memory of that long, cold winter without her put out the budding flames of his new rage.

  He reached out and put his hands on the foxlings. At his touch, they sprang apart on wobbly legs, staring up at him with dark, discerning eyes. They trembled so, he was afraid they might fall.

  “There, there,” he crooned to them. “This big, rough beast will not hurt you. Come. Come to me.” He let them sniff both his hands, and when their trembling ceased, he picked them up and cradled them against his body, letting them share his warmth. First one, then the other, licked his fingers. This so moved Jiro that, without meaning to, he began to cry.

  The tears dropped onto the muzzles of the foxlings and they looked as if they, too, were weeping. Then, as Jiro watched, the kits began to change. The features of a human child slowly superimposed themselves on each fox face. Sighing, they snuggled closer to Jiro, closed their eyes, put their thumbs in their mouths, and slept.

  Jiro smiled. Walking very carefully, as if afraid each step might jar the babies awake, he went down the temple steps. He walked across the clearing leaving man-prints in the unmarked snow. Slowly, calmly, all anger gone from him, he moved toward the woods where he knew Kitsune waited. He would find her before evening came again.

  The Faery Flag

  LONG AGO WHEN THE wind blew from one corner of Skye to another without ever encountering a house higher than a tree, the faery folk lived on the land and they were called the Daoine Sithe, the Men of Peace. They loved the land well and shepherded its flocks, and never a building did they build that could not be dismantled in a single night or put up again in a single day.

  But then human folk set foot upon the isles and scoured them with their rough shoeing. And before long both rock and tree were in the employ of men; the land filled with forts and houses, byres and pens. Boats plowed the seas and netted the fish. Stones were piled up for fences between neighbors.

  The Daoine Sithe were not pleased, not pleased at all. An edict went out from the faery chief: Have nothing to do with this humankind.

  And for year upon year it was so.

  Now one day, the young laird of the MacLeod clan—Jamie was his name—walked out beyond his manor seeking a brachet hound lost outside in the night. It was his favorite hound, as old as he, which—since he was just past fifteen years—was quite old indeed.

  He called its name. “Leoid. Leeeeeeoid.” The wind sent back the name against his face but the dog never answered.

  The day was chill, the wind was cold, and a white mist swirled about the young laird. But many days on Skye are thus, and he thought no more about the chill and cold than that he must find his old hound lest it die.

  Jamie paid no heed to where his feet led him, through the bogs and over the hummocks. This was his land, after all, and he knew it well. He could not see the towering crags of the Black Cuillins, though he knew they were there. He could not hear the seals calling from the bay. Leoid was all he cared about. A Macleod takes care of his own.

  So without knowing it, he crossed over a strange, low, stone drochit, a bridge the likes of which he would never have found on a sunny day, for it was the bridge into Faerie.

  No sooner had he crossed over than he heard his old dog barking. He would have known that sound were there a hundred howling hounds.

  “Leoid!” he called. And the dog ran up to him, its hind end wagging, eager as a pup, so happy it was to see him. It had been made young again in the land of Faerie.

  Jamie gathered the dog in his arms and was just turning to go home when he heard a girl calling from behind him.

  “Leoid. Leoid.” Her voice was as full of longing as his own had been just moments before.

  He turned back, the dog still in his arms, and the fog lifted. Running toward him was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her dark hair was wild with curls, her black eyes wide, her mouth generous and smiling.

  “Boy, you have found my dog. Give it to me.”

  Now that was surely no way to speak to the young laird of the Macleods, he who would someday be the chief. But the girl did not seem to know him. And surely he did not know the girl, though he knew everyone under his father’s rule.

  “This is my dog,” said Jamie.

  The girl came closer and put out her hand. She touched him on his bare arm. Where her hand touched, he felt such a shock, he thought he would die, but of love not of fear. Yet he did not.

  “It is my dog now, Jamie Macleod,” she said. “It has crossed over the bridge. It has eaten the food of the Daoine Sithe and drunk our honey wine. If you bring it back to your world it will die at once and crumble into dust.”

  The young laird set the dog down and it frolicked about his feet. He put his hand into the girl’s but was not shocked again.

  “I will give it back to you for your name—and a kiss,” he said.

  “Be warned,” answered the girl.

  “I know about faery kisses,” said Jamie, “but I am not afraid. And as you know my name, it is only fair that I should know yours.”

  “What we consider fair, you do not, young laird,” she said. But she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the brow. “Do not come back across the bridge, or you will break your parents’ hearts.”

  He handed her the sprig of junipe
r from his bonnet.

  She kissed the sprig as well and put it in her hair. “My name is Aizel and like the red hot cinder, I burn what I touch.” Then she whistled for the dog and they disappeared at once into the mist.

  Jamie put his hand to his brow where Aizel had kissed him, and indeed she had burned him, it was still warm and sweet to his touch.

  Depite the faery girl’s warning, Jamie MacLeod looked for the bridge not once but many times. He left off fishing to search for it, and interrupted his hunting to search for it; and often he left his bed when the mist was thick to seek it. But even in the mist and the rain and the fog he could not find it. Yet he never stopped longing for the bridge to the girl.

  His mother and father grew worried. They guessed by the mark on his brow what had occurred. So they gave great parties and threw magnificent balls that in this way the young laird might meet a human girl and forget the girl of the Daoine Sithe.

  But never was there a girl he danced with that he danced with again. Never a girl he held that he held for long. Never a girl he kissed that he did not remember Aizel at the bridge. As time went on, his mother and father grew so desperate for him to give the MacLeods an heir, that they would have let him marry any young woman at all, even a faery maid.

  On the eve of Jamie’s twenty-first birthday, there was a great gathering of the clan at Dunvegan Castle. All the lights were set out along the castle wall and they twinned themselves down in the bay below.

  Jamie walked the ramparts and stared out across the bogs and drums. “Oh Aizel,” he said with a great sigh, “if I could but see you one more time. One more time and I’d be content.”

  And then he thought he heard the barking of a dog.

  Now there were hounds in the castle and hounds in the town and hounds who ran every day under his horse’s hooves. But he knew that particular call.

  “Leoid!” he whispered to himself. He raced down the stairs and out the great doors with a torch in his hand, following the barking across the bog.

  It was a misty, moisty evening, but he seemed to know the way. And he came quite soon to the cobbled bridge that he had so long sought. For a moment he hesitated, then went on.

  There, in the middle, not looking a day older than when he had seen her six years before, stood Aizel in her green gown. Leoid was by her side.

  “Into your majority, young laird,” said Aizel. “I called to wish you the best.”

  “It is the best, now that I can see you,” Jamie said. He smiled. “And my old dog.”

  Aizel smiled back. “No older than when last you saw us.”

  “I have thought of you every day since you kissed me,” said Jamie. “And longed for you every night. Your brand still burns on my brow.”

  “I warned you of faery kisses,” said Aizel.

  He lifted his bonnet and pushed away his fair hair to show her the mark.

  “I have thought of you, too, young laird,” said Aizel. “And how the MacLeods have kept the peace in this unpeaceful land. My chief says I may bide with you for a while.”

  “How long a while?” asked Jamie.

  “A faery while,” replied Aizel “A year or an heir, whichever comes first.”

  “A year is such a short time,” Jamie said.

  “I can make it be forever,” Aizel answered.

  With that riddle Jamie was content. And they walked back to Dunvegan Castle hand in hand, though they left the dog behind.

  If Aizel seemed less fey in the starlight, Jamie did not mind. If he was only human, she did not seem to care. Nothing really mattered but his hand in hers, her hand in his, all the way back to his home.

  The chief of the MacLeods was not pleased and his wife was not happy with the match. But that Jamie smiled and was content made them hold their tongues. So the young laird and the faery maid were married that night and bedded before day.

  And in the evening Aizel came to them and said, “The MacLeods shall have their heir.”

  The days went fast and slow, warm and cold, and longer than a human it took for the faery girl to bear a child. But on the last day of the year she had lived with them, Aizel was brought to labor till with a great happy sigh she birthed a beautiful babe.

  “A boy!” the midwife cried out, standing on a chair and showing the child so that all the MacLeods might see.

  A great cheer ran around the castle then. ‘‘An heir. An heir to the MacLeods.”

  Jamie was happy for that, but happier still that his faery wife was well. He bent to kiss her brow.

  “A year or an heir, that was all I could promise. But I have given you forever,” she said. “The MacLeods shall prosper and Dunvegan will never fall.”

  Before he could say a word in return, she had vanished and the bed was bare, though her outline could be seen on the linens for a moment more.

  The cheer was still echoing along the stone passageways as the midwife carried the babe from room to room to show him to all the clan. But the young laird of the MacLeods put his head in his hands and wept.

  Later that night, when the fires were high in every hearth and blackberry wine filled every cup; when the harp and fiddle rang throughout Dunvegan with their runes; when the bards’ mouths swilled with whisky and swelled with the old songs; and even the nurse was dancing with her man, the young laird Jamie MacLeod walked the castle ramparts seven times round, mourning for his lost faery wife.

  The youngest laird of the MacLeods lay in his cradle all alone.

  So great was the celebration that no one was watching him. And in the deepest part of the night, he kicked off his blankets as babies often do and he cried out with the cold.

  But no one came to cover him. Not the nurse dancing with her man, nor his grandam listening to the runes, nor his grandfather drinking with his men, nor his father on the castle walk. No one heard the poor wee babe crying with the cold.

  It was a tiny cry, a thin bit of sound threaded out into the dark. It went over hillock and hill, over barrow and bog, crossed the cobbled drochit, and wound its way into Faerie itself.

  Now, they were celebrating in the faery world as well, not for the birth of the child but for the return of their own. There was feasting and dancing and the singing of runes. They drank honey wine, played on faery pipes, and all around was the high, sweet laughter of the Daoine Sithe.

  But in all that fine company, Aizel alone did not sing and dance. She sat in her great chair with her arms around her brachet hound. If there were tears in her eyes, you would not have known it, for the Daoine Sithe do not cry, and besides the hound had licked away every one. But she heard that tiny sound as any mother would. Distracted, she stood.

  “What is it, my daughter?” asked the great chief of the Daoine Sithe when he saw her stand, when he saw a single tear that Leoid had not had time to lick away. But before any of the fey could tell her no, Aizel ran from the faery hall, the dog at her heels. She raced across the bridge, herself as insubstantial as the mist.

  And behind her came the faery troops. And the dog.

  The company of fey stopped at the edge of the bridge and watched Aizel go. Leoid followed right after. But no sooner had the dog’s legs touched the earth on the other side than it crumbled into dust.

  Aizel hesitated not a moment, but followed that thread of sound, winding her back into the world of men. She walked over bog and barrow, over hill and hillock, through the great wooden doors and up the castle stairs.

  When she entered the baby’s room, he was between one breath and another.

  “There, there,” Aizel said, leaning over the cradle and covering him with her shawl, “thy mama’s here.” She rocked him till he fell back asleep, warm and content. Then she kissed him on the brow, leaving a tiny mark there for all to see, and vanished in the morning light.

  The nurse found the babe sleeping soundly well into the day. He was wrapped in a cloth of stranger’s weave. His thumb was in his mouth, along with a piece of the shawl. She did not know how the cloth got there, nor did his gran
dfather, the Great MacLeod. If his grandmother guessed, she did not say.

  But the young laird Jamie knew. He knew that Aizel had been drawn back across the bridge by her son’s crying, as surely as he had first been led to her by the barking of his hound.

  “Love calls to love,” he whispered softly to his infant son as he held him close. “And the fey, like the MacLeods, take care of their own.”

  The faery shawl still hangs on the wall at Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye. Only now it is called a Faery Flag and the MacLeods carry it foremost into battle. I have seen it there. Like this story, it is a tattered remnant of stranger’s weave and as true and warming as you let it be.

  One Old Man, With Seals

  THE DAY WAS CLEAR and sharp and fresh when I first heard the seals. They were crying, a symphony of calls. The bulls coughed a low bass. The pups had a mewing whimper, not unlike the cry of a human child. I heard them as I ran around the lighthouse, the slippery sands making my ritual laps more exercise than I needed, more than the doctor said a seventyfive-year-old woman should indulge in. Of course he didn’t say it quite like that. Doctors never do. He said: “A woman of your age . . .” and left it for me to fill in the blanks. It was a physician’s pathetically inept attempt at tact. Any lie told then would be mine, not his.

  However, as much as doctors know about blood and bones, they never do probe the secret recesses of the heart. And my heart told me that I was still twenty-five. Well, forty-five, anyway. And I had my own methods of gray liberation.

  I had bought a lighthouse, abandoned as unsafe and no longer viable by the Coast Guard. (Much as I had been by the county library system. One abandoned and no longer viable children’s librarian, greatly weathered and worth one gold watch, no more.) I spent a good part of my savings renovating, building bookcases, and having a phone line brought in. And making sure the electricity would run my refrigerator, freezer, hi-fi, and TV set. I am a solitary, not a primitive, and my passion is the news. With in-town cable, I could have watched twenty-four hours a day. But in my lighthouse, news magazines and books of history took up the slack.