by Luna Lindsey
More, she wanted to see it with her own eyes. It would be difficult, but easier than seeing that faeborn fellow. This nykk, or wisp, or unborn, or whatever you wanted to call it, didn’t have a body to distract her. A nykk could be nearly any size or shape, depending on its basic nature, taking on the mold of human culture gave it over decades or even millennia, be it the gnome and knocker of the west, or djinn, deva, yōkai, rusalka, jengu, and Tsonoqua from all the other corners of the world. The stories changed the nykks and sightings of the nykks changed the stories.
Some were as small as mice – others as tall as houses. Sandy had been unable to take a proper scientific count, but a survey of the stories revealed that most were no larger than cars and no smaller than cats.
In some ways, nykks were easier to sense than faeborn, because there wasn’t some human body there to distract, to give her rational mind an easy out. Most people had some extra perception to pick up a certain something, like a movement out of the corner of the eye that could easily be passed off as a trick of the mind, a visual flaw, or a chill.
Those who saw more had a knack for believing. They opened their minds to allow an image to take form to explain the more they sensed. Like smoke blowing across the beam of a laser, the nykk would appear, partly seen, partly imagined.
The knack came more easily to children, dreamers, and the insane.
And therein lay Sandy’s problem. She was too grounded. She lacked imagination. How could she see the impossible?
Yet she laid this trap. She knew it held a faerie. She had the bleeding finger to prove it. Hadn’t she wished it too big for its confines? That would be a good start.
Holding the box aloft, she stared, and then she felt a tickle at the back of her mind, a little chill down her spine. What is it? she encouraged her brain. What is there?
That’s when she saw it, hunched, head curled in on its body, arms and legs sticking out from the holes in the cage as if they were a random assortment of broken body parts thrown into a box.
Smoke arose from its flesh as the cold iron burned into it like a grill. What an ugly pile of bones and hair. Red hair. And teeth, pointy, sharp, sticking out from its snout at all angles like its limbs. Its evil eyes pierced her as though it could kill her where she stood. Drool dripped down its chin. For a moment, she was back there, in that house, trapped by Haun, held against the wall, barely breathing, as a knife scraped along the wall towards her.
No! This time she had the power. This time, the monster was hers, like that jerk she’d just chased down the street. It might wish to do her harm, but this one, bound in iron, would never get free.
She took comfort in classifying it, giving her world order by naming it. A redcap, who dyed his hair in the blood of his victims. She held it in a cage. It was hers.
Sandy couldn’t carry it this way, hanging out in front of her on a stick. So she removed her jacket and shivered a little as she wrapped it around the cage and carried it home.
CHAPTER 3
*
JETT SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the couch with a plate piled high with Pad Thai. Between bites, she turned the pages of an art book with chopsticks, her straight black hair spilling over her elfin ears and into her lap.
It was a comfortable Friday evening at home, and a rare quiet one at that. She’d even changed into her pajamas: a wife beater, and sweat pants. Pete had made dinner, even though no one else was home to enjoy it. Fiz was allergic to peanuts, so he was up hiding in his room, and everyone else had gone their own way tonight.
To most humans, the living room of the BrughHaHaus would look like any other in a shared house in the University District, tossed together with two dumpy couches, a torn overstuffed chair, an ancient coffee table, mismatched end tables, and an assortment of houseplants and knickknacks collected from thrift stores and street fairs. The 42” LCD TV filled one wall as the only sign of advanced civilization, and it seemed only capable of showing anime. Beneath it were all the latest game consoles and a pile of games.
To Jett’s eyes, the knickknacks seemed almost alive, especially the stone face of the Green Man that hung over the main couch. The houseplants overgrew their containers, covering the walls and ceiling with vines. The chair seemed to have been grown out of living wood, while the couches sparkled slightly with iridescence, as if dipped in slug slime. The air smelled of lilacs.
Every once in a while something just at the edge of vision seemed to move.
The TV looked the same, and it still showed anime, which she watched intermittently while slurping noodles.
She heard the sound of the front door open. Ivy entered, taking off her jacket and shaking out the rain before hanging it on the coat rack. She wore one of her typical gothy outfits, today looking something like a schoolgirl who had lost her braids while fucking some guy in the bushes of the schoolyard. Her long, messy black hair hung over her eyes, hiding the permanent smudges that surrounded them like running mascara, and obfuscating the translucent pale skin tightly stretched over her skull. Her sweater stuck out half-tucked, and her skirt was a little lopsided. She made no attempt to straighten anything.
“Duine chlainne, you have returned. Tell me about the meeting,” Jett said.
“It was terrible. Just terrible.” Ivy’s voice crackled like wadded paper. “They have a psychic, an awful, cranky woman who knows what I am. And a leader, full of hate. And a third, a dreamer who sees, but I hid my face from him.”
“Your words tumble, little creature. Slow down and start over.” Jett muted the TV, set down her plate and listened carefully.
Ivy took a deep breath. “A vicious woman named Lynne leads the group. She means us ill. They seek those who have been vexed by fae, on thin pretenses of commiseration. Her second-in-command seems to be clairvoyant. She gazed upon me, so icy cold were her eyes, as if she could make me stop wanting to exist. It cut through to my heart, and I nearly vanished in that instant.”
“Ivy, you have a way with exaggeration.”
“So you say, but you were not there. It is possible that the fiagai have returned.”
The fiagai? Eternal foe of the fae, destroyers of dream, hunters of hope? Humans could barely muster faith in faeries anymore, much less hate. This fanciful support group sounded nothing like the Frumentarii Ferrumcrucians.
Still it would be wise to keep watch on them.
“Most of the other attendees were mad. Some were looking for tinkerbells. Some could be good sources of toradh, if we can find them. The one dreamer, who did not give his name, told an interesting tale.”
“Go on.”
“He has the faesight. In recent times, he saw a homeless fae boy, horned, possibly a faun or troll, dumpster diving behind his workplace at Trader Joe’s.”
Jett smiled. Rescuing the leanaí a cailleadh was her specialty. This brugh was full of lost and forgotten faeborn orphans she had saved from the dreary outside human world, though too few. She had room for a thousand more, an entire kingdom.
“We will find the poor thing,” Jett said.
“What about the dreamer?” Ivy asked, running her boney fingers through her hair, suddenly noticing how tangled it was.
“We can seek him, as well. At the very least he will be a fine morsel. If he has faesight, and he’s telling people about us, it might be wise to enchant him. How did he feel towards our kind?”
“Not hateful. Only confused and afraid to tell his story. I made sure he remains afraid. He left early…” Ivy snapped her fingers, “…because he incorrectly believed himself to be late for an appointment. He will remember being mocked for telling his tale.”
Ivy was so good at this, scouting, listening, incapacitating when needed. “Well done, Ivy. Is that all?”
“Yes, milady.” She curtsied.
The front door opened, and the noise-level shot up. The sweet scent of old clove smoke descended.
“Did you see the way that Corvette just flew right off the cliff?”
“And what about the bar fight? Spec
tacular.”
“I hate Star Trek, but that movie pwned.”
“Yeah, and thanks to you I got to see it a week early.”
The two entered the living room: Kenny with her extra-long pointy ears, pierced, and Fiz with his raccoon tail. Apparently he wasn’t holed up in his room after all.
“Is we interrupt?” Kenny asked, popping a Smartie into her mouth.
“Yes,” Ivy said at the same moment Jett said, “No.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kenny said, turning. “So here’s a bunny with a pancake on its head.” She spun on her heels and Fiz followed, asking if she wanted to play a video game.
Jett could have assigned tasks to them all – have Kenny break into the Community Center computer files to learn who had booked the room, and send Fiz out looking for dumpsters.
Or she could let the wind blow the leaves to her door. There is no guide for the thistle down, let the acorn fall where it may. When one controls what one cannot, nature hath gone astray.
“They meet next in two weeks,” Ivy said. “When I see Lynne again, she will join the shining hosts of the dead.”
“No.” Jett held up her hand. “If they are serious, it will be dangerous for you. I will send Ramón instead. They will never suspect a human. Hopefully this clairvoyant woman won’t see that he’s enchanted, and a little glamouring will assist that.”
Ivy balked. “She should be mine. I found her.”
Jett stood. “Not this time, Ivy. You are dismissed.”
She bowed deeply and fled.
Jett descended the stairs in the kitchen to the basement.
Human eyes would see the basement as a messy party room. To fae eyes, it was also a messy party room, but instead of a pool table and empty beer bottles, there was a bear skin rug, a long wooden table with overturned goblets, and the remains of a pig carcass. She’d have to make Fiz clean up, since it was his week for basement.
She walked past the washer and dryer – which to her looked just like a washer and dryer; faeries needed clean clothes too – and stared at a dark corner for a few minutes. With an outstretched hand, she pressed against the dirty concrete foundation, which crumbled away at her touch. Beyond it lay a tunnel and a stone ramp leading down. As she passed through, the wall returned to its former cobweb-covered glory.
At the bottom of the ramp, she found a torch, which lit at her glance. It did not give off the light of fire, but instead a bright white glow. She took it in her hand and continued on.
The air began to smell of moist soil. The stone floor and walls gave way to earth, and the tunnel opened into a natural cavern, as high as a mountain troll, and as big around as an English cottage. Jett sighed softly as the aura of the earth comforted her. Cloncahir, the fort of fertile ground. The black dirt glinted with sparkles, as if it were Folgers coffee. Tree roots grew down, and more tunnels led off in different directions.
The scrying pool shimmered from the floor against the north wall. A stalactite hung above it and dripped water steadily, causing ripples on the pool’s reflective surface. On the opposite wall sat a stone altar, carved by elves in the manner of the Celts over a millennium ago and moved here in the last century. Upon the altar lay various objects of equally ancient origin.
Against the wall to her right stood a regal statue of a nude woman. She held a crystal in both hands, which captured the light from Jett’s torch and cast it all about the room in little reflective glints. The woman had a look of reverence on her face, her eyes and chin tilted upward.
To the west lay nothing but earth, and beyond that, the Puget Sound far below and miles beyond the hillside. Jett saw clearly the watery surface as easily as if it lay spread in its serene beauty in the cavern with her.
She sunk the torch into the earth, then knelt to the woman and kissed her feet. Softly, she whispered, “Mother”. She stood and removed her clothing. Thus clad like the sky, she knelt at the altar, picked up the stone wand, and began the chant that would renew the house wards.
She hoped Ramón would be home soon. She was going to be hungry.
CHAPTER 4
*
A LOAF OF DAY-OLD BREAD flew towards Ezra’s head. Surprised, he ducked and tried to catch it at the same time. He fumbled, and it fell on the ground.
“Careful with God’s bounty there, Brother Ezra. Head’s up!”
Brother Benjamin held the next loaf aloft and threw it at Ezra as if it were a basketball and Ezra was the basket. Then he bent back down into the dumpster to grab another armful of castoff food.
“Yahweh has truly blessed us today! This will feed us all for a week. And you kids will love those donuts.” The metal dumpster walls both reverberated and muffled Benjamin’s voice.
Ezra quietly loaded the bread products – hamburger buns, bagels, and sourdough – into a duct-tape-patched cardboard box. Reduce, reuse and recycle, and do it for the Lord.
He silently turned back towards the dumpster to receive produce from Benjamin: cabbage, lettuce, apples, onions, potatoes, and more bread. It was almost enough to make him smile. They usually never found this much, since stores often gave their expired items to charity.
“The boxes are full, Brother,” Ezra softly called. He ran his hand nervously through his tousled light brown hair and over horns he felt but knew Ben couldn’t see.
“What’s that? Ah. Well we can’t take any more than that on our bikes anyway. Yahweh provides!” Brother Benjamin swung a leg over the side of the dumpster and hoisted himself out.
Their bicycles were in good working order, even though they looked as though they’d just been pulled out of the dumpster, too. Each had a small cargo platform mounted over the back wheel where they could strap the overflowing boxes. With a wobbly start, they peddled off towards Congregation. They had a long way to go, up and down hills, on and off connecting buses.
Most members of The Wanderers were adults. Ezra was the eldest, or at least the tallest, of the nine children rescued from the streets by Brother Isaiah’s ragtag group of nomads. He assumed his age was around sixteen, but he couldn’t be certain. The youngest, Eve, was possibly thirteen. Like him, they had once been as cast off as this food, runaways, homeless souls now saved from crime, prostitution, or worse.
Ezra didn’t say much and Benjamin was tired of carrying both sides of the conversation, so they mostly rode in silence except for Benjamin’s occasional quoting aloud of scripture. Ezra hadn’t learned much about the Bible before joining the group, so he listened and absorbed, grateful for any learning he could get. Elder Isaiah had called these words of God “pearls”, even though sometimes they didn’t make much sense to him.
The trappings of suburbia surrounded Cougar Mountain Regional Wildlands Park the way the evils of the world surrounded the Wanderers. Brothers Benjamin and Ezra walked their bikes down a well-maintained woodland trail, holding the handlebars with one hand and steadying their heavy payload with the other.
Not far into their journey, they paused where a small tree grew atop a crumbling stump. They turned sharply right, stepping over low-growing huckleberry bushes, and carefully wheeled their bikes between chest-high sword ferns, being careful not to trample a new path over the compacted pine needles. After the short distance of bushwhacking, they reached another trail, hidden and unmaintained. Park services had intentionally abandoned it years ago and planted foliage to block the entrances: an attempt to preserve this portion of the park for wildlife.
The Lord does provide.
They leaned their bikes against two tall pines, and returned to check for any sign that they had just rumbled through with bicycles.
The back path made bike-handling much more difficult, as it rose and fell more steeply. None of the trails had been made for bikes, especially not loaded with food, but Ezra, fortunately, was strong.
Benjamin walked with his head down. Ezra instead took every opportunity to notice the forest that everyone else overlooked in their pursuit of God. To Ezra, God wouldn’t be
found in scripture half as much as He proved himself through twig and vine, just as surely as God could be found in the crisp mountain air, just before rain.
God grew in that small tree that marked this path, in the way its roots spread over the mossy stump like a tablecloth over an end table. He bubbled in the distant creek. He was the sunshine that broke through the dense cover and played with the two-thousand shades of green and brown below. He crawled across the path in the form of a finger-length brown banana slug, leaving behind him a road of eldritch slime. He painted the moss over everything, as if he wanted to hide anything mundane or unpretty. And He pushed up mushrooms everywhere, on sides of trees, among roots, behind rocks, on fallen logs.
So tenacious is life, growing out of life, and living things feasting upon one another. This was scripture Ezra could read.
At last, they reached Congregation. A few dozen mismatched shelters nestled near a creek. The Elders occupied the large tents, while the newer members had lean-tos made of scrap wood, metal, mossy branches, or canvas. One ring of shelters encircled the majority of the fires where the cooking took place.
Everyone wore the simple, natural colors that God had intended: beiges, tans, off-whites. The men grew long beards, wore shirts of linen or muslin, and trousers. Most wore floppy hats, which served fairly well to protect them against the occasional spring drizzle. The women wore modest dresses or jumpers in faded earth colors. Some had their hair covered in plain-colored scarves or bonnets, though most just kept their hair in braids.
The people busied themselves with communal work – cutting wood, cooking, repairing bikes, or praying. This is where they made camp until Elder Isaiah could work out a deal with a property owner to get them proper housing in a vacant warehouse. Meanwhile, they had talked the park ranger into turning a blind eye. Ezra preferred the outdoor setting to the long string of abandoned buildings they’d squatted in from California through Oregon and now to here.
