The Realm of the Fey

“Hey, watch it, kid!”

The townsman dusted off his front as I pushed past him, shooting me a sneer of disgust. I didn’t falter and kept up my pace, shimmying through the packed streets of the village of Abdalla. I followed the curve of the cobbled stone path until we came upon the bakery, and I struggled out of the flow, irritating most in my path.

Ching! The bell of the bakery door rang as I entered. The lobby was empty, save the small wooden statue of a boy with a loaf of bread to my left. I gazed longingly at the showcase of pastries, cakes, and foreign bread and immersed myself in the aroma of melting icing.

A grunt came from behind the showcase, which blocked off the lobby from the kitchen. The baker’s head popped up above the case, a contorted expression of hurriedness and alarm written over his features. The faun’s bulging blue eyes settled on me as I cleared my throat, and a smile overwrote his prior craze.

He nodded to me. “Silas, the usual?”

“Y-Yes … is everything okay, Mr. Hogden?” I fiddled with my satchel’s latch as the half-man, half-goat disappeared into the kitchen, his hooves clucking along as my question blew over his head. Once I take this back to Jasper I should have time to trim samples off the thornberry bush. And tomorrow morning—.

“Silas, my boy?” Mr. Hogden’s call woke me from my trance, and I scurried to fish a silver coin from my satchel before taking the loaf of bread from his gruff, hairy hands.

I nodded my thanks and turned to leave, but as I opened the door I heard Mr. Hogden mutter behind me. “Oh, help the botanist boy.”

I opted for the back way to the Conservatory, avoiding the bustle and stench of the main road. The peak of summer was at its shining pedestal, the sun’s rays penetrating the thin brown shirt covering my back. The thriving trees of the Eastern Forest Glade hung branches over the trail, providing shade every once in a while. The dirt path was mostly grown over with dandelions and other weeds, but habit and ritual guided my feet accordingly.

And tomorrow … what was I to do tomorrow?

A rustle of leaves sounded somewhere to my left, and I froze. My brows furrowed as I tightened my knot of auburn hair, my eyes scanning the tree line before me. I shook my head and hesitantly continued on my way, only for the ruffling to come once more, even louder. Am I imagining things?

A large blackberry bush swayed as a streak of bright yellow hair wiped across my vision, and I stumbled back, gripping my belt pockets for the dagger I always kept at the ready. My hands shook as I felt around to no avail, my eyes never leaving the line of shrubbery.

A hand clamped on my shoulder and I let out a strangled yelp, lunging forward before springing around to look at my pursuer. She was a young woman, at most a decade older than me. She had long, flowing yellow-orange hair, and she wore a light sundress that was nearly transparent. A strange orange marking was painted between her eyebrows, and my stomach dropped.

It can’t be—.

She rushed to me before I could flinch, thrusting a rough bundle of cloth into my arms before dashing off behind me. I glanced down for a mere second as the blanket began to squirm, and a small head poked out from the folds. Sweet Cider.

I took off at a sprint after the faery, the first one spotted this close to Abdalla since before my time. “Wait, stop! You have the wrong person, I can’t do this for you!” Branches and thorns wiped back at me as I thundered after her, my face and arms riddled with cuts. I protected the infant as best I could, Master Botanist’s tale of the faeries rushing through my mind.

“So, what, the faeries can’t take care of their own offspring?” I had asked one day last summer, my interests peaked by a faery statue located in the upper wing of the Conservatory.

“They don’t have the chance to; as soon as their children reach a certain age, they return to their initial form to make way for the small child. You see, only one faery of each species can exist at a time. It is a natural law,” Master Botanist’s voice rung in my ears.

Sweat poured into my eyes as she came into sight, glancing back at me with piercing, yellowish eyes. “W-Wait! Maybe I have something—.” I clenched my jaw as I leapt forward, my fingertips grazing her back as we entered a small clearing.

A flare of blinding green light shot across my line of sight, and I held the infant close to my chest as I stumbled forward. As swiftly as it came, it vanished, my vision splotched with black as my eyes recovered.

Did she still have enough strength to throw me off her course for good? Attempting to catch up to her would be futile, and as I glanced down at the child in swaddling clothes, I noticed that the ground had turned lumpy and spongy.

Flowers of yellow and orange covered the once barren ground of the clearing, expanding out into the forest beyond like a tidal wave before my eyes. The surge stopped only after they had layered the surrounding forest with their vibrant colors, and I clutched the infant in my arms in an attempt to steady myself.

I was too late. She was gone, leaving me with a debt due to her that I was frightened I would fail to repay.

I crouched to the ground and plucked a short, yellow flower from its base, moving the cloth off the infant’s face and placing the flower next to it. “Marigold … it can’t get much simpler than that, could it?” I chuckled mirthlessly to myself, attempting to calm my already jumbled mind.

I set out for the Conservatory after gaining my bearings, holding to the outside path to avoid speculation from the townspeople. The large glass dome of the central quarter rose above the tree line as I treaded closer, rolling over the explanation I would most likely ramble to Master Botanist.

The entrance was a stout stone building with a wooden door, and I pushed through its creaking hinges as quietly as I could. The crowded entry hall—used as storage now that the flow of guests dwindled too nonexistent—branched off into two directions: the Conservatory and our living quarters.

I was Master Botanist’s only apprentice, so making my way past the mounds of books and scrolls unnoticed was not a challenge. He must be in the kitchen, waiting for—sweet cider, the bread! I shook my head at the thought. That should be the least of my worries. At least he shouldn’t be able to see me enter my chambers from there.

The squirming in my arms intensified by the moment, and small cries emitted from the infant. How do I console something that isn’t human if I can’t even console an actual human?

“Give it a nibble of that plant, would you? All this noise will agitate the dragon snares!” I flipped around to see Master Botanist grumbling up at me with his white bushy eyebrows and thin lips.

“I-I—What?” I asked, my feet seemingly glued to the ground. Of course … he must have known since I stepped foot near the Conservatory. His plants are too loyal not to report something so new and different passing into his territory.

“I said, take a marigold petal and feed it to the child. Do you wish to starve the poor thing?” Master Botanist shook his head and tutted something quietly to himself, pushing past me. He scanned one of the many dust-layered book piles of the main chambers, and his casual behavior nearly let off a spark in me. Although, from a dwarf as old as Master Botanist, I was hardly surprised.

I ripped a ruffled petal from the flower before holding it tenderly to its lips. Without opening its eyes, it opened its mouth, and I laid the petal on its tongue. I struggled not to flinch my hand back as the light caught on its razor-sharp teeth.

After what seemed like a millennium of feeding the baby petals that seemed to melt in its mouth, Master Botanist hobbled over and stared up at me over his wire-rimmed spectacles.

“I will explain the weeks’ coming journey after you rest; in the morning, I wish that you pack your things swiftly so that you can head out before dawn breaks.”

I can’t give up everything I’ve ever worked on … I can’t give up my life.

“Master Botanist, there must be another way—.”

I was silenced by the raise of his calloused hand. “You know good and well what the townspeople will do if they find a faery child living in their midst, and now that you have been chosen, you cannot reverse it. I thought I had taught you to reason more logically than this.” He began to hobble away once more, this time in the direction of my own chambers. “Come. I shall take the child while you rest.”

***

As I had been commanded, I laid in my cot for the better part of an hour before becoming restless in my own thoughts. Why must mortals take on the task of raising the rare faery young? It’s devious, the fact that a faery of a different plant cannot take on the task of nurturing. They nurture their own seedlings across dozens of kingdoms, yet they can’t handle a teething child?

By the time I emerged from my chambers, Master Botanist had taken the duty of packing my necessities—and by necessities, the dwarf meant food, water, a blanket, and a bag of marigold petals.

I nearly shed a tear when parting from my mentor, my Master since before I could walk. But as his grinning face bid goodbye to me as I trekked the first few steps of my journey, I couldn’t help but wonder if the old dwarf knew that this would happen all along.

***

Three days. Three days was how long it took for the sign to show up—the sign that Master Botanist said would show itself by the fifth dusk. As I should have assumed, the dwarf’s words complicated things more than necessary. For the three days of travel, I was on the constant lookout for anything remotely off balanced in the expanse of the forest. I scanned the tree bark, sniffed the air, and searched every small animal nest for any sort of clue.

After all, how was I supposed to know the sign was to be a faery finding me in the dead of night?

“Silas,” a voice called. I shot up as quickly as I could, holding Mari—the infant—close to my chest. I struggled backwards on my hands and feet, but as the tall, whimsical man with deep brown skin held a dim lantern to his face and revealed a mark on his forehead similar to that of Mari’s mother, a sigh of relief escaped me. “Follow me.”

His deep, smooth-as-syrup voice calmed Mari instantly, and I didn’t bother gathering my things in the dark before following quickly after the faery. We traveled silently through the undergrowth until we came to a large oak, which I hadn’t seen even in his lantern’s light. Humidity hung like a dark cloud, and I shushed my nerves and anxiety as I watched the faery place his hand on the bark.

My senses were overwhelmed as an extreme light overtook the clearing, and I looked away until my eyes adjusted. When I looked back, where once there had been tree bark was a window into an endless valley.

“Welcome, Silas, into the realm of the Fey.”