*~*~*
Winter lost its grip on the land as spring clawed its way up from beneath the bitter snows. Anabiel's rose should have long since withered, but it didn't. It was still as fresh and soft as the day she found it. She knew it had to be a faerie flower, enspelled to stay lovely forever and thus dark magic, but she couldn't bring herself to part with it. It was all she had of Tamlin, and she intended to keep it.
Spring heralded the start of the courting season, and Anabiel soon found herself being pursued by the todds who had, just two winters before, berated her for her lack of a proper bosom. She spurned them, horrified and disgusted, and refused to go anywhere without one of her brothers to help her discourage them.
At length, her brothers tired of it, and Anabiel was forced to fend for herself.
"You can't refuse them all," her father grumbled over his morning ale.
"And why not?" Anabiel retorted. "Why shouldn't I wait? I don't like any of them enough to speak to them, let alone lay with them!"
"Because it isn't done!" her father snapped. His anger made his bloodshot eyes widen and his scarred nostrils flare. "You are a vixen of age, and you'll be betrothed to one of those todds by summer's end."
"Or what?" Anabiel dared.
"Or you won't be living under this roof!" he roared. "I won't have you tempting my sons!"
"I'd rather rut with an ass! At least an ass would behave, and as I hear it, be better built to boot!" Anabiel sobbed and fled to her room. She curled up on her bed with her rose and, no matter how her father roared and howled and pounded at the door, she didn't leave for three days. By the time she did, her brothers and father were all deep in their cups and the incident had been mercifully forgotten.
*~*~*
It was midsummer before she saw him a third time. The Thunder Moon was high in the sky, and the whole village turned its attention to celebrating the height of the vernal season. And while the village feasted and drank the night away, Anabiel waited until her father and brothers were good and drunk before slipping off into the Winterwood to search for her Tamlin.
But as she approached the spring, she heard raised voices. Anabiel hid in the bushes and strained her ears, listening.
"That wasn't part of the deal!" she heard Tamlin snarl.
"You broke the terms first, my Tamlin," another voice crooned.
"I broke nothing! I have kept my side of the bargain! I have not trod the mortal realm a full night, by faerie counting!" Tamlin cried.
"A technicality. It matters not, Tamlin. The sluagh demand their tithe, and I cannot let your defiance go unpunished. I am sorry, but you will be joining the Hunt come Hunter's Moon."
"If you send me," Tamlin said, "all the fey will know the Queen of Air and Darkness for an oathbreaker."
The Queen! Anabiel thought.
"They will know nothing of the sort!" the Queen retorted. "How long have you languished in our care? How long has it been since first that curse was twisted? You have had more than ample time to break it."
"Tis been naught but one night, by your reckoning," Tamlin replied.
There was a pause, then the Queen spoke again.
"You chose to live, my Tamlin, and those were the terms. It is not my fault if you are unable to meet them."
There was a flash, and before Anabiel could catch a glimpse of the dreaded Dark Queen, she had vanished and Tamlin was alone by the bank of the spring, his face in his paws. Before she could find the courage to step forward to console him, he strode into the forest and vanished as well.
It will not end like this, she vowed. She trembled at the thought of defying not only her father and brothers, but the Queen of Air and Darkness, but she would find a way to save Tamlin.
She raced back to the village to seek the old crone Vex.
It took Anabiel two weeks and a great deal of ale to concoct an opportunity to visit the old storyteller again. Once she was certain her father and brothers were asleep in a drunken stupor, she dashed across the village, her features hidden by a scarf, and knocked on the wise-fox's back door.
Vex opened the door just a sliver, her gold eyes widening when she saw Anabiel.
"Little one, what are you doing here all alone? Where is your father? Your brothers?" she asked.
"Please, may I come in?" Anabiel asked.
Vex hesitated for a moment, then nodded. The old crone locked the door soundly behind her.
"What troubles you so, my child? Your fur doesn't look as if it's been brushed in weeks! Are those thistle burrs on your hem?"
"Vex, please, I need to know how to save Tamlin from the Faerie Queen," Anabiel begged.
The old crone frowned. "It's a kit's tale, child. And if you took what I said as truth, perhaps your father was right in keeping you from listening to my stories—"
Anabiel made a growl of frustration, her tail lashing and her ears flat against her skull. But she calmed herself and tried again.
"It's for a bet, Vex," she lied. "My brothers claim that Tamlin can only be saved by seducing him away from the Queen, but though I don't remember the tale true, I know that to be false. We've bet a whole silver on this!"
"Betting is a sin, my child," Vex chastised, but smiled. "In this case, I'll let it slide. You are right, and your brothers are wrong. Tamlin's love needn't seduce him away from the Queen at all. If she is his true love, he will come willingly to her arms. And if she can hold him until the sun rises, he'll be a mortal fox once more."
"Thank you, Vex!" Anabiel said, and reached for the door. But the old crone was suddenly before Anabiel, blocking her way.
"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" Vex purred.
The crone's scratchy voice changed, and her grizzled fur melted away, revealing the strangest creature Anabiel had ever seen. She wore a long gown the color of pitch, studded here and there with shadowed pearls. Chips of jet and obsidian gleamed from between the folds, and along the bodice were sewn a thousand raven feathers, their oily sheen dull in the candlelight. It was her face and hands, though, that were truly alien to the vixen. Her skin was hairless and as pale as a fish's belly, her face flat and her eyes black with white irises. She gestured with one hand, the nails blackened as if she'd dipped them in ink, and smiled, bearing a mouth of wicked fangs.
"Queen Maeve," Anabiel gasped. "The Dark Queen of the Faerie."
"As you say," she said. "And you must be…Belle."
At the sound of that name, Anabiel froze. She felt some strange twinge, as if she ought to bow or kneel, and yet it had no power over her. She stood before the Queen, defiant, and didn't budge.
"Clever little vixen, to keep your true name from my Tamlin and thus from me. You aren't as foolish as you seem." The queen paced around Anabiel, the hem of her dress hissing across the wooden floor like dead leaves.
"You can't do this to him," Anabiel said.
"Do what, exactly?" the Queen asked. She plucked a cherry from the old crone's fruit dish and rolled it between her fingers. The cherry's skin burst and filmed over with white rime. Then, the Queen swallowed it, pit and all.
"Sacrifice Tamlin to the Wild Hunt. I won't let you!"
"Oh?" The Queen smiled, but it was more a baring of teeth. "And you mean to stop me, I suppose. Tell me, child, do you know what happens if the sluagh don't get their tithe? The Wild Hunt comes here to find their prey. My tithe keeps them from your door. You would sacrifice your village's safety for Tamlin?"
Anabiel bared her teeth. "I don't believe you," she said.
The Queen shrugged. "The fey never lie, Belle. We stretch the truth and tie it into pretty little bows, but we. Do. Not. LIE!" the Queen roared, and Anabiel was flattened against the wall by the force of it. The Queen composed herself and spoke again, this time more softly. "Believe it or no, it is what it is. The sluagh will hunt, and they will come here for prey if it is not given to them. But if you are willing to take that chance, I would be remiss in my duty if I did not inform you of the terms."
"Terms?" Anab
iel echoed.
"Of the curse," the Queen smiled cruelly. If winter could smile, Anabiel suspected it would look like the Queen's dreadful grimace. "Tamlin came to the fey as a result of falling from a horse, and can only return here by the same means. If you pull Tamlin from the convoy, if you can keep them from claiming Tamlin as their prey and hold him until the first light of dawn, the curse is broken and you two are free to live out the rest of your lives together. If you fail, Tamlin becomes a member of the Hunt forever."
Anabiel nodded.
"And you, my dear, will take Tamlin's place at my side."
Anabiel gulped.
The Queen of Air and Darkness grinned wider, the pale skin at the corner of her lips peeling back into a death's grimace. "Do we have a deal?"
Anabiel took a deep breath. She knew better than to agree to a deal with the fey, but if she didn't accept the bargain, Tamlin was doomed. Her tail lashed and her hackles rose, but Anabiel's voice stayed steady as she spoke.
"When is the convoy?" she asked.
"On the eve that you first met, by the light of the Hunter's Moon. Your lover will be the only one riding a white steed," Queen Maeve said.
"Simple enough," Anabiel replied. That gives me time. Time enough, I hope, to find a way to save him.
The Queen laughed. "So, do you agree?"
Anabiel swallowed and slowly nodded. "I agree to your terms, Queen Maeve."
The Queen of Air and Darkness cackled, and the sound was so cold that Anabiel doubled over, shivering. "Done, and done! I suggest you make peace with your gods while you can, little Belle."
The queen snapped her blackened fingers, and the candles in the room doused all at once. A moment later, they relit, revealing a slumbering Vex in a rocking chair by the fire.
Anabiel slipped out of the old crone's house on silent paws and returned home. She had only a few short months to plan, but she needed to be ready.
*~*~*
Later, Anabiel was never certain how she had been able to keep her plans secret from her father and brothers. None were uncivilized enough to break into her room while the door was shut, but they had to have known on their more sober days that something about their little sister had changed. While they dallied the day away, preoccupied with chasing skirts or drink, she ran across the fields and through the Winterwood as fast and as long as she could, until her lungs screamed for air and she could barely take another step. Every day, she ended her rigors at the bank of the spring.
And every night, she searched for a sign of Tamlin.
She never saw him, but each day there was another rose waiting beside the pond. They started white, like the one in her dresser, but over the weeks, the roses held a blush of pink, each one darker than the last.
Summer bled away, the green foliage giving way to gold until the Winterwood was ablaze with color. Anabiel had also changed. Her dark brown fur had brightened under the constant sun until it shone like burnished copper. The tip of her tail was as white as the first frost, and her paws the color of a fallow field. And while the village vixens twittered and giggled at the village todds, Anabiel found them boorish and tiring. She desired only Tamlin.
As the Harvest Moon filled, Anabiel began to dream of him. They were nebulous dreams she would forget upon waking, but as the moon waxed full, they became more and more vivid. The sensation of whiskers brushing her cheek, gentle nips behind her ear, the languid swirl of a tongue across her belly, between her legs. She would feel him behind her, his belly pressed to her back, feel as he began to mount her, whispering softly, the scent of petrichor all around her. But every dream ended the same: a howl in the dark, the sound of baying hounds and snapping brush. It would drive Anabiel from the dream and back into the waking world. She would startle, clutching Tamlin's rose so hard that the supple thorns would bite into her paw, drawing three drops of dark blood that stained the white petals until, like the roses she found at the spring, it was the color of blood upon fresh snow.
The dark moon came and went, taking with it another month of time and leaving Anabiel with the most vivid dreams yet. Soft fur under her palms, his lean body braced against hers, embracing her, loving her. The fur between her thighs would be slick with her desire for him as she woke each morning, her body aching for his touch, his scent, his voice.
The roses grew darker. No longer vivid red, they had begun to blacken at the edges. As the Hunter's Moon waxed brighter, the roses dimmed until the only red that remained was at the very heart of the bloom. Even the stems were as black as charred twigs.
Finally, the night of the Hunter's Moon arrived. Anabiel ran to the spring that morning before the dew had even dried and found one final rose, as black as a starless night, its edges touched my hoarfrost that refused to melt even in the light of the rising sun.
"Tonight," Anabiel murmured, holding the blackened rose. "Tonight, I'll hold you here, instead of in dreams."
Anabiel shivered and tucked the frosted rose into her tunic where it pressed close to her heart. The chill cut through her fur and strengthened her resolve. Tonight, I find my Tamlin, and no Dark Queen will be able to part us.
She hid in the Winterwood, thankful that village custom allowed for such a thing. Vixens often spent the day before the Hunter's Moon in seclusion, to think upon the todd they would choose. It was a day of celebration and anticipation, a day for idleness and feasting. Her father and brothers would be getting drunk along with every bachelor todd, boasting of their prowess to every vixen still unwed while gorging themselves on venison and sweetmeats. Anabiel had no intention of getting caught up in all that; the night's activities were too important. She'd stolen away with a single doe-skin pack filled with fresh bread, cheese, three boiled eggs and a pair of scones, and slipped into the Winterwood as subtle as a secret.
She settled down by the spring and waited for the moon to rise.
The day passed, and Anabiel ate through her purloined food, all except the scones. Those she saved for last, just as the sun set. The sky flared, clouds turning rose and orange with the light of the dying sun, and finally smoldering away to leave a violet, star-spattered sky.
And there, over the thinning canopy of the Winterwood, she saw the red orb of the Hunter's Moon begin to rise. Anabiel took a deep breath and shouldered her nearly empty pack. The convoy to the sluagh would be passing soon, and she needed to be ready.
Faintly at first, so distant she thought it was a trick of the spring, she heard the sound of silver bells jingling through the forest. She followed the sound, keeping low to the ground, and found the faerie convoy. A line of horses, coal-dark, strode down the path, their ebon manes adorned with silver bells. Each horse carried a fey in its saddle, flat faces grim and pale skin bright in the starlight, holding silver reins and wearing strange, eldritch clothes that seem made of spider silk, or starlight, or the shimmer of the moon upon water.
Gods, but they looked alien to her eyes. No sleek muzzles, no twitching ears or long tails. Just a nub of a nose each, eyes as hard and black as river rocks, and a grim set to their dark lips. Like blood on snow, she thought.
Anabiel waited patiently, looking for the white steed that would be carrying her love. There! A flash of white in the line of darkness! A horse as white as bone, astride which was her Tamlin. His fur had been brushed until it shone like burnished bronze in the moonlight, and he too wore strange adornments, including a silver collar round his throat linked to a silver chain twined around his wrists. His head was bowed, his ears flat, and his paws gripped the reins of his mount far too tightly. Anabiel flexed her long legs and curled her toes. She would only get one chance. If the Dark Queen was to be believed, if she let go of Tamlin for even a second, all would be lost.
She must not falter.
The white steed walked closer to where Anabiel lay in wait, and she slowed her breathing. Her fingers twitched, her tail began to fidget, and she willed herself to stay still, stay calm.
Closer. And closer still. The other fey gave no hint that
they knew she was there. They continued past her as steady as a river.
He was a few arm lengths away. She could see the lovely green of his eyes, the only other color in the monochrome landscape. Anabiel felt the muscles in her legs begin to quiver.
Closer. Closer.
Now!
She wanted to scream, to yip a battle cry as his ankle finally came within reach, but she swallowed it back just as she darted forward, snatching Tamlin's foot from the stirrup and yanking him away with all her strength.
He fell off the horse and into her arms just as the white stallion reared and whinnied. All the faeries—who had been still and silent until that moment—turned and faced the place where Tamlin had vanished, drawing bows and swords.
"Run!" she hissed, gripping Tamlin's paw. He sprinted behind her, silver chains chiming and giving them away with every step.
"Belle! Belle, wait!" Tamlin cried, crashing along behind her.
"Later!"
Tamlin growled but followed until Anabiel finally slowed. They were back at the spring, the Hunter's Moon shining bloodstained light upon them. She tried to break the chains, but the links were faerie-forged and strong as steel. She couldn't break them, but she could muffle them. But how to do it without losing her grip on him?
"Hang on, I have an idea," Tamlin said. He stepped behind her, never losing contact, and settled both paws on her hips. "Go ahead."
Relieved, Anabiel dumped out the scones in her pack and swiftly shredded it, wrapping the doeskin around the links.
"Belle, what are you doing here?" Tamlin asked as Anabiel worked.
"Rescuing you," she said, handing him one of the scones. He looked at it as if he'd never seen one before.
"I can see that," he replied. "Belle, there's something you should know. About the curse. There's a…there's a catch."
Anabiel turned in his arms and looked at him. "Of course there is," she sighed. "Eat this. You'll need your strength."
Fairytales Slashed: Volume 8 Page 2
