A while back my pharmacist saw my deadname on my profile and accidentially called it out, he corrected and deleted my deadname from the system so only my preferred name shows up now. There was a crowd of people behind me, so as he hands over the pills he apologized, in equal tone and volume as when he called my deadname and lied saying it's been a long day and he didn't mean to call out -his own- name. I quietly told him it was fine and he didn't need to do that for my sake.
His response: "No, it's my name now."
I went to the pharmacist yesterday, his nametag is my deadname. He informed me he's immigrating and in the process he's changed his first name to my deadname to have an English sounding name. That's why he's now able to get a reprint of his nametag to be my deadname. And repeated, with the intense seriousness of someone who is going to die on this hill: "It's mine now. Not yours. I'm taking." His tone indicated that decision is final.
Bro literally deadnamed me once, and has committed to flat out stealing my deadname. It's his now. Legally. Officially. I over heard his co-workers call him by the name.
An ancient castle on top of a hill, within the sight of where your family lives. It calls to you, captures your imagination. What lies beyond your simple little life of chores and familial duties? Perhaps there are such things as fairy tales. perhaps there is even more than fairy tales.
Female Reader x Male Monster
There was a castle north of your village perched upon the rockiest cliff of the mountain. It had been there as long as you could remember, as long as anyone could remember really. It sat up there as a decaying statue. No one had been in or out in decades, only birds flew back and forth, and only thorns grew around it.
“Stop staring! We’ve got chores to do!” Your sister snapped at you.
“Right,” you gasped. You followed along after her, taking one last glance at the castle over your shoulder.
You couldn’t tell you had been bed ridden only a month ago. Sometimes your bones ached from the long rest, but it was a miracle you were moving at all. No one wanted to speak of what brought you there, they said it would be too traumatic for you. And yet, here you were, running errands for the family, doing your chores, and going about like nothing had happened. Which you understood is exactly what your family wanted.
“You would think you had enough of dreaming,” your sister scoffed as you picked out vegetables in the market.
“Who said anything about dreaming? I was looking. Don’t you look at things?” You snapped.
Your sister gave you the eye and went back to inspecting the cabbages. “That castle should be none of your concern. It’s not something us mortals need to worry about.”
“You don’t find it fascinating then?” You asked.
“No, I don’t. It’s a decaying house on a decaying hill.” She didn’t even look at you that time, instead she picked out a cabbage and moved on.
You sighed and shook your head. There were gaps in your memory, so you had to rely on your family, your sister especially, for a lot. Despite being the eldest child you were treated as the youngest now, almost like an invalid.
You were going towards the bakery on your sister’s command when you spotted a magpie upon the store sign. It was looking at you, not just in that ‘i’m a tiny animal inspecting the predator’ sort of way. But more like it was looking at you. This magpie had particularly bright, golden eyes and a very long tail that seemed to be missing a feather, or had a bald patch.
The magpie hopped across the sign, still looking at you.
“Good morning,” you said to it. “If I get a particularly crusty loaf, I’ll try to give you a piece.”
The magpie fluffed up then fluttered out it’s wings. “Wock, wock,” it called out.
You smiled, giggling to yourself. “I’ll be right back, I promise.” You started to go into the store when you think you hear someone calling your name. You turn around, but no one is there except the magpie.
When you leave the store, you see the magpie sitting in the window, watching you yet again. “How curious,” you murmured to yourself.
You walked outside and presented the magpie with a roll. “The shopkeep gave me this, so I can share a bit with you if you’d like.”
The magpie opened it’s beak and said your name.
You stared, perturbed now that it was looking and speaking at you.
“I beg your pardon?” You whispered to the bird. “Do you know me somehow?”
The magpie hopped across the windowsill. “My lady, we’ve been looking for you! Everywhere! Up and down! All over the mountain!”
You opened your mouth and shut it. You looked to the roll then back at that magpie. You knew you had somehow hit your head, but you didn’t realize how hard until a bird began speaking to you.
“I’m not sure what’s happening,” you said with an uncertain laugh.
“You don’t recognize me! I thought you did when you offered me a crust!” The magpie fluttered and rolled, acting dramatic for the sake of being dramatic.
“I don’t know any birds!” You hissed with a soft voice. “People are coming!”
The magpie flew at you and perched himself on your shoulder. “My lady, it is I, Penry! Do you really not remember me?”
The name rang a cheerful pleasant bell in the back of your mind, but it did not conjure up anything else. You looked around, ducking away when you saw your sister coming from down the street. You hid, going down a small alley where you sat in a doorway.
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid-”
Penry fluttered his feathers and jumped down from your shoulder to the cobblestones below where he began pacing. “Oh this can’t be happening! They really took your memory too! Cruel! Cruel!”
A painful flash of light coursed through your brain. It felt like a jab from a pin and twice as bright as the sun. You flinched and covered your face with your hands.
“We need you home! Your husband-” Penry said the word and no sooner than he did, did you feel sick and weak to your stomach. You doubled over, hugging your body tight in your arms. Your mind was fighting itself, fighting the rest of your body to prove itself and what it knew. There were glimmers of eyes and faces, voices that surrounded you. You sat up with a breath and stood, stumbling toward the end of the alley where you retched.
“My lady! Are you alright? Oh goodness what have they done to you?” He sat on your back, tapping comfortingly up and down your shoulders.
“Enough Penry,” you said in a strange voice. You then grew confused and shook your head. “I’ve been sick for a long time. I’m still recovering.”
“You’re sick because they made you sick!” Penry flew before you as you started walking along the backs of the shops.
“I fell and made myself sick,” you huffed.
“No! The Marbre did this to you! They found out about you and Kerwyn eloping and-”
You halted the bird by holding out your hand and he rested upon your finger. Your breath shuddered and came out white as if the air was cold. “I know that name,” you murmured.
“That’s the name of your husband! My lady!”
“Penry stop-” You had to lean against the wall again as a wave of nausea and pain took over again.
“The Mabre took you and the master apart,” Penry said, catching on to what was happening to you. “They chained him, forced him into hibernation. And you, oh, my poor lady, they tried to take everything the master had given.”
There was a hand before me, a grasping, clawing hand with a face in the center. You shook your head, looking back to Penry.
Penry’s golden eyes were filled with concern. “Me and the Conventicle have been looking all over the mountain for you!”
“This is my home, where else would I be?”
“No! It’s not!” Penry flew up further and pointed to the castle on the hill. “That is your home! The Mabre hid you here.”
You stared up towards the castle with tears flooding to your eyes. You shook your head and ducked it down low. “No! That castle has been empty for decades.”
Penry came back close to you and sat on your shoulder. “Months! And the master is inside! He needs you!” He bounced to give you a reassuring pat. “Think my lady, is this really your home? Is this really where you belong?”
The tears stung your eyes as you tried to think. “I’m not sure.”
Penry grew still and nuzzled up against you. His feathers were soft and slick, his small head against your cheek was a welcomed push. You smiled, leaning your cheek into him and taking a deep breath.
“Penry will be your closest confidant while you are here. He will guide you, send your letters, and help you tend to anything you desire. I trust you two will be the closest of friends.” The voice in your head was clear as a bell, deep, and you knew it well. But how?
“My lady, I know this must be a lot to take in. But I promise you, I speak the truth and only the truth to you. I wouldn’t want any more harm to befall you than it already has.” He shuffled along your shoulder then down your arm to the cobblestones again.
“I want to believe you, but it feels like there has been a battle in my brain since we met. I need to lie down.” You started walking, heading home with Penry close behind.
You went to bed as soon as you made it home, letting Penry in through the window before you laid to rest.
“The Mabre are trying to keep you two apart. If it was working you wouldn’t be going through any of this,” Penry said softly as he settled next to you on your pillow. “You love Kerwyn, that’s why you’re fighting it.”
Pain surged through your eyes and you closed them. “Ever since you spoke to me it’s felt like my mind is fighting my whole body.”
“That’s the Mabre curse.” Penry waved his wings to fan you. “I’m sorry my presence is causing you harm, my lady. Rest now, I’ll watch over you in case they come back to renew the curse.”
Your brow pinched and you peeked an eye open to look at him. “Renew it?”
Penry nodded. “That’s the only way they can keep you away. If you’re fighting it then you’re stronger than they are.”
You closed your eyes again. “My head is killing me. I’m not even sure I heard that correctly.”
“Then rest, my lady. I’ll keep guard like always.”
You drifted to sleep, waking to a soft touch upon your cheek. You smiled, taking hold of the thumb of the massive hand that touched you.
“Darling, I was sleeping,” you chuckled.
“I couldn’t help it,” a deep voice whispered. “You were so beautiful.”
“Did no one teach you that you could look and not touch?” You rolled over into the large body beside you, one that was easily three times your size.
He chuckled and held you close. “It is time to get up though.”
You kissed the center of that great palm. “I suppose you are correct, my dearest.” You then stood up from bed and were faced with a long hallway. The bedroom was gone, the warm sunlight had vanished. There was only candlelight now, a weak light at that.
You walked down the hallway, seeing signs of feathers and vines. The further you went, the more overgrown the hall became. A door opened and you wandered into a dining hall. The walls were covered by vines and thorns and magpies were trapped inside them. The vines crawled towards the center of the room where, laying upon the great table, was an even greater figure. Long white hair spilled down from the table, becoming tangled and coiled above the thorny vines.
Your breath came out in white puffs as the room grew colder and colder the closer you got to the table. The magpies began screaming, and you turned around to see the hand with a face coming towards you.
The screaming grew louder and you sat up in your bed, seeing Penry attacking your sister. She swatted and screamed at him, throwing her hand out where you saw a face upon it.
“Get out now, my lady!” Penry cried at you as he fought. “I’ll keep her at bay!”
You went to run, but instead you grabbed the heavy vase under the window and struck what you thought was your sister upside the head. When she fell you and Penry rushed from the room and you used a curtain rod to block the door.
“My lady, are you alright?” Penry asked.
“You’re the one who was fighting!” You rushed down the hall and slid down the banister of the stares, rushing from the house while there was yelling and shouting behind you. You ran and ran, heading into the woods where you followed a path hidden by leaves and overgrowth.
“My lady! Do you remember anything?” Penry cheered in excitement.
“I don’t know how to answer that Penry!” You slid down a hill, coming to a stop at the bottom where a rope bridge connected the village to the cliffs. You stared across, your heart racing wildly in your chest.
You then shook your head. “I can’t…I don’t know if I can cross this.”
Penry flew ahead and landed on the bridge. “You have to, my lady! They’ll be here soon.”
You took a deep breath, stepping onto the bridge and feeling needles in your feet. The pain was indescribable, but the further you went, the less it ached, the more the pain pulled away and finally it was gone. You raced the rest of the way across the bridge, breaking free of the invisible chains the Marbe put upon you.
“That is it, my lady!” Penry cheered in triumph.
More magpies were collecting along the mountain, and in the distance you could see them darkening the horizon as they returned home.
“What happened to the bridge he built?” You breathed in as the fight inside you began to dull.
Penry flew ahead of you while other magpies flew at your back. “They knocked it down, destroyed it like they did most of everything else. When they found you two together, they went mad.”
“I’m not surprised. He said they would. His family-” You felt dizzy and some magpies flew up to hold you aloft.
“We’re not far now, my lady!”
“You’ve got this, my lady!” The magpies spoke encouragingly to you.
You scaled the mountain, going up the rough terrain of the mountain with nothing more than your own cunning and a bunch of birds. It was night by the time you got to the front of the palace, and even then the entrances were covered with thorny vines.
You sat down outside to catch your breath. You were filthy and sore all over, your hands ached, your feet felt split, your hair was tangled and ratted. You sat there breathing, your mind still trying to fight your body at every turn.
Penry hopped towards you. “My lady, we can’t get inside.”
“I know. I know.” You sniffled and wiped at your face. “The vines.” You looked up at the castle wall and the vines seemed to be smiling at you with a smug assurance. You looked away and swallowed. “I need something to cut them down.”
“Scissors!” A magpie yelled. “Our lady needs her scissors!”
You furrowed your brow at Penry, looking up to the sky as magpies came down like rain from the horizon. One little magpie flew forward, carrying what looked like a sewing basket in their talons.
“Some of us were able to escape with your things and have been keeping them in hiding for you.” Penry said as the basket dropped into your hands.
Inside was a regular sewing kit, nothing worth noting until you saw the golden scissors inside. “But this is just sewing shears.” You said as you pulled out the tiny scissors. “I cannot cut anything with these but thread!”
“Kerwyn gave you those, my lady!” Penry assured you. “Use them, go ahead!”
You stood up walking towards the front of the castle with the golden shears in hand. You began taking the blades to the vines and sure enough, they snipped right through the woody tendrils. You cut and snipped and hacked through, finally finding the great doors which opened at your touch. The magpies flew inside ahead of you, knocking away the dust and debris from inside.
You stepped inside, feeling a warm embrace wrap around you.
“My darling! You’re home!” That deep voice said into your ear.
“I was just out picking berries!” A past version of you laughed as the giant man spun you into the air.
You raced down the hallway, following the magpies. The thorns had more magpies trapped inside them, all of them asleep and waiting to be woken.
The magpies stopped at the end of the hall, and Penry came to your shoulder. “We can go no further than this, my lady. Only you can go here.”
“I know.” You walked ahead, going down the hallway covered in vines. Doors opened at the end and you saw the great table stretched out in the center of the room. He laid there upon the table top, his long white hair tangled into the vines.
You breathed and white steam came from your lips. “Kerwyn,” you whispered. The vines recoiled and hissed at the name.
You walked in further, using a chair to climb upon the table. You stood over him for a moment, kneeling down to push away the feathers and leaves from his handsome, strong face. You touched his cheek and tears came to your eyes, splashing upon his pale skin.
“I haven’t seen those green eyes in so long,” you whispered. “But I have dreamed about them many times.” You sniffled and tried to catch your breath. “I look horrible, my love. I’ll be such a sight when you wake.” You bent down, kissing him softly, lovingly. The cold around you began to warm, and the vines pulled away. Magpies flew from the wall, flying around the room and circling above you.
Sunlight poured into the room and Kerwyn’s hand raised and cupped your cheek. His eyes opened, as bright and green as the forest outside. He smiled, revealing those golden fangs behind his lips.
“Darling, I was sleeping,” he laughed.
You laughed as tears streamed down your face. “I couldn’t help it. You were so beautiful.”
Keywyn sat up, cupping your face between his large hands. He looked at you with wonder as the magpies began to sing. “Did no one teach you that you could look and not touch?”
You shuddered, leaning into his embrace and holding your hands around his wrist. “It is time to get up though.”
Kerwyn grabbed you in a strong, hard embrace. The pain was gone, the fight was over inside you. As he held you the world melted away to what it was. No decay, no thorns, no ruin of any sort. The Mabre, Kerwyn’s family, and their influence was shaken from the dawn and the castle all at once.
“Master!” Penry flew into the room and perched upon Kerwyn’s shoulder. “Is it really you now? Are you truly back?”
Kerwyn would no sooner let go of you than anything. “Yes, I am here again, Penry.” He turned and smiled at the bird. “You found her! Good lad!”
Penry preened with pride. “Well, sir, she did most of the hard work.”
Kerwyn turned back to you, imposing figure that he was, he was as soft and helpless as a kitten in that moment. “I know.” He smoothed his thumb under your eye. “I knew she would come back.”
“I’m sorry it took so long,” you wept.
Kerwyn shook his head and kissed your forehead. “I know what they did to you, my love. I won’t let them do it again.” he picked you up from the table and carried you towards the open windows of the dining hall. The sky was bright pink and lilac as the sun rose over the mountain.
I’m sure someones already said this but I often see Tumblr described as a hellsite. This is fundamentally incorrect.
Tumblr is the faesite. Everybody is super confused and lost, you keep running into random places. Somehow you end up stuck there forever after interacting a couple of times. The people are all strange, everybody simultaneously seems to be from the future and the past as if time is meaningless.
I know deer are like 500 pounds of muscle but they LOOK like they're hollow. I should be able to knock on a deer and hear a metallic echo. that's what God intended but something went wrong
if you hit a deer with your car that deer should just fall apart gently at the seams and not leave a scratch. instead You die in an explosion. somethings not adding up.
A young fey creature just tricked you into giving them your name. They are now writhing on the ground in agony begging you to take it back. You have no idea what’s going on.
You can breathe. That’s the first thing you notice which seems ridiculous considering the transformation your friend just went through. The air is sweet and warm like the kitchen after your babysitter pulled your birthday cake out of the oven. Every inhale is smooth and your lungs don’t rattle on the exhale. For the first time, you can hear the pounding of your heart over your own breathing.
“You okay?” you ask. You shield your eyes from the noon sun to better see her up in the tree. “Are you part cat?”
“No,” Kai hisses. Her eyes are completely black and glittering like a stinkbug exoskeleton. The round face all of your classmates have is gone and she seems older with her high cheekbones and sharp nose. She’s shaking so hard that the plastic beads of the necklace you gave her chatter against the ones of the necklace she lied about giving to you. “I’m not a cat.”
You look doubtfully back at the swings. She seemed part cat with the way she yowled and leapt off them, twisting in the air as if her tail caught fire. You were too busy breathing to see her bounce into the tree, but it happened too fast to be human. The way she’s hugging her entire body to the big branch she’s on reminds you of a wet cat in particular.
Wheat fields are more mystical than fields of other crops. You are 7,000 times more likely to meet an old god or see a portent of doom in a wheat field than in a field of like… soybeans.
Cornfields are less mystical than wheat fields but more mystical than soybean fields. Two-bit monsters congregate in corn fields to eat people, but their power is nothing compared to the things that manifest in wheat fields.
I have a theory that this is because the notions most of us have of “old gods” are pretty intrinsically European, and wheat was (and is) the staple crop of European life. It is quite literally tied to the ancestral rituals and beliefs of most white people. Odin, the Morrigan, and even Zeus are actually linked to a set of peoples who cultivated wheat.
Meanwhile, corn (maize) is a crop native to the Americas. It features in the white cultural imagination in a very different way. Corn is a motif seen not in our ancestral myths, but in a much newer genre: the American Gothic. With its focus on the tensions between man and nature and—perhaps more importantly—the United States’s history of genocide against its indigenous population and trade in enslaved Africans, the American Gothic is VERY preoccupied with agriculture. Our monsters come out of corn fields because corn is a symbol for not only what we did to the Native Americans (who were the first to grow the crop), but of what we are doing to the very land itself. Corn is a monument to our cultural sins.
Meanwhile, I suspect that corn features very differently in the imaginations of people of color. If you asked a Native American person or a Latinx person what sort of mysticism they associate with corn fields, I imagine their answer would be very different than ours.
TLDR: White people associate wheat with our ancestors’ gods because our ancestors grew wheat. We associate corn with terrible monsters because it is a literal sign of our own monstrosity.
Native American here, can confirm that small plots of corn feel safe and homey; ideally they should be interplanted with other crops. You find turkeys and possums and raccoons in the corn. It might tell you important knowledge.
However.
Giant monocultures of corn, where the corn grows unbroken for miles and miles, not near human habitation, devoid of local wildlife, just corn on corn in the soft wind? Corn mega monocultures? Those sound like screaming.
It recently came up in conversation with my toddler that some birds can talk, and this has caused her great concern.
See, we were talking about how movies are pretend and how in real life, animals don’t talk. I mentioned that there are some birds who talk a little bit, but not like the animals in movies, and she just looked at me like “???”
So I informed her that some kinds of parrots can copy sounds that people make, and can learn how to say words. I thought this would give her a giggle, as fun new facts often do, but she was just deeply perplexed and a little worried about this.
“Birds can talk?” “Do they ask questions?” “What do they say?” Why do they talk?” “Do chickens talk?” “What about Blue Jays?” “Why do some birds talk?” “How do they talk?” “Birds TALK???”
We showed her a video of a parrot doing the “Hello, pretty bird, give a kiss” thing, and she was dead silent the whole time, hugging her comfort pillow with her knees to her chest. We asked if she wanted us to turn it off, and she shook her head. But we also asked if she wanted to see another one, and she shook her head even harder.
I don’t know why it has distressed her so greatly to learn that some birds can mimic human speech; but then again, I don’t know why it doesn’t distress the rest of us more to know that some birds can mimic human speech.
I keep thinking about that post that’s like “The first person to hear a parrot talk was probably Not Okay.” Because that’s exactly what happened. She had never been introduced to the concept, and her entire worldview got SHOOK.
Part of why Ravens are considered Spooky Bad Things We Associate With The Faeries is because they can and do mimic human speech - but much, much better than a parrot. With a parrot, you can tell something is off about the sound. You can tell it doesn’t belong to a human. Ravens don’t sound like that, no, cause they’re overacheivers. (And passerines). They sound EXACTLY like the voice of whoever they are mimicking.
But more importantly they love the sound of human laughter. No one knows why. But it is totally, 100% possible, and it happens to this day, to walk along the paths in the Black Forest and suddenly hear a strange kind of giggling sound, or maybe even a very clear, definitely human sounding “hello?” “Hiiiii!” Or “let’s go!”.
However, it takes a lot of practice for them to copy sounds as perfectly as they do, so you’re equally likely to hear something that definitely sounds human-like, but the words make no sense and the sound is unlike any language you know.
Ravens at the Tower of London do this all the time. Theyre pretty sociable with humans though, so they do it quite openly. I have seen videos of people, mostly Americans, look absolutely spooked out of their skins when a big ol’ raven (mind ye, these are birds that are 2 feet tall with a 5 foot wingspan) comes waltzing up on the deck and starts talking to them.
And ravens, especially the ones there that have been bred and raised by humans for centuries, don’t just imitate - they have one of the same language processing genes we do, and they understand the way a toddler might that things, places, and individuals have names, and can string together basic sentences much like an african grey.
I know because I used to work with one, Darlene, who knew, quite well, what she wanted and how to ask for it. If you were preparing her breakfast, she would hop on up and investigate. She used to be an illegal pet, and had been taught “manners”. That is to say, if she went for something and you told her, sternly, “mind your manners missy!” She would stop, look at you, perhaps for up to a minute, and then point with her beak to what she wanted. If that did not work, she would ask, in plain English, “grape?” Or “Darl have grape?” And lord help you if you gave her anything less than what she asked for. She would throw it at you, and try to bite you, sometimes while saying “No!” In the same tone as I imagine she was reprimanded in her home.
Ravens are probably behind an awful lot of cautionary ghost stories about not following strange voices in the forest when they call to you—monsters and fae and such that lure people off the path in human speech.
I mean you should still not go traipsing off into unfamiliar woods alone. There are dangers aplenty. You could snap an ankle or something. There could be bears. But that Scary Thing calling to you from the trees isn’t a wendigo or a lucrocotta waiting to eat you; it’s just a big, mischievous, terribly clever bird.
This story is actually a little old, I wrote it back when I first started doing my monsters a day and trying to make two of my old Harry Potter OCs and make them something new. So, let this serve as an intro to my babies Ari and Heloise.
Heloise took the key dangling in front of her face, her fingers slipping along the shimmering, purple ribbon attached to it. “What’s this for?” She craned her neck back to look up at Ari smiling down at her.
“It’s to my house,” he replied, purposefully vague.
A little frown crossed Heloise’s face. “You have a house?” She asked, turning around as Ari came to sit beside her.
“I do now,” He tucked a dark lock behind his ear, enjoying the expression that crossed her face as he spoke. She had freckles like stars in the sky, and Ari adored each and every one. Her big, dark brown eyes were always wide and alert, but he noticed when she looked at him they softened ever so slightly.
Heloise pressed her lips into a tight line. “Don’t tease me now, Prince,” she growled at him.
Oops, I never uploaded this one to Tumblr (which I only realized when someone else did, but then was kind enough to tag me, thank you)!
This is the comic that kickstarted my obsession with telling stories with as few panels as I could (usually 10-11 haha), so it’s got a soft spot in my heart.
Ebony and Tenebrous were aghast.
“Did you hear what those fairies gave her? Beauty, grace and willingness to please? Bast’s tits, that’s a terrible thing to do to a kitten.“
Ten got up on her hind legs. “Never trust a flying thing that gives you a mouthful of glitter when you catch it. Come on, Eb, let’s give her our gifts.”
“Like half a shrew? I tried giving her that, her dam shouted at me.“
“Quite right too,“ said Ten wisely, “it’s got be at least four weeks before she can manage the skulls. That’ll be my gift then. May you always be able to manage skulls. Big ones, small ones, beaky ones, mousey ones, any sort of skull.“
Ebony copied her sister’s pose. “And may you always catch the flying things. Then you’ll never be hungry, and that’s much better than fairy wishes.”
***
Thirty years later, Alba was everyone’s favourite keeper at the zoo. Not only could she cure her colleagues’ headaches just by telling their skulls to give over, but she was the only person they’d ever know who could work alone in the emu enclosure…
Two identical infants lay in the cradle. “One you bore, the other is a Changeling. Choose wisely,” the Fae’s voice echoed from the shadows. “I’m taking both my children,” the mother said defiantly.
Once upon a time there was a peasant woman who was unhappy because she had no children. She was happy in all other things – her husband was kind and loving, and they owned their farm and had food and money enough. But she longed for children.
She went to church and prayed for a child every Sunday, but no child came. She went to every midwife and wise woman for miles around, and followed all their advice, but no child came.
So at last, though she knew of the dangers, she drew her brown woolen shawl over her head and on Midsummer’s Eve she went out to the forest, to a certain clearing, and dropped a copper penny and a lock of her hair into the old well there, and she wished for a child.
“You know,” a voice said behind her, a low and cunning voice, a voice that had a coax and a wheedle and a sly laugh all mixed up in it together, “that there will be a price to pay later.”
She did not turn to look at the creature. She knew better. “I know it,” she said, still staring into the well. “And I also know that I may set conditions.”
“That is true,” the creature said, after a moment, and there was less laugh in its voice now. It wasn’t pleased that she knew that. “What condition do you set? A boy child? A lucky one?”
“That the child will come to no harm,” she said, lifting her head to stare into the woods. “Whether I succeed in paying your price, or passing your test, or not, the child will not suffer. It will not die, or be hurt, or cursed with ill luck or any other thing. No harm of any kind.”
“Ahhhhh.” The sound was long and low, between a sigh and a hum. “Yes. That is a fair condition. Whatever price there is, whatever test there is, it will be for you and you alone.” A long, slender hand extended into her sight, almost human save for the skin, as pale a green as a new leaf. The hand held a pear, ripe and sweet, though the pears were nowhere ripe yet. “Eat this,” the voice said, and she trembled with the effort of keeping her eyes straight ahead. “All of it, on your way home. Before you enter your own gate, plant the core of it beside the gate, where the ground is soft and rich. You will have what you ask for.”
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