The Golden Queen

The Waifs - Black Dirt Track

Marcus breathed deeply.

Fresh ocean scents, air yet to be tainted by anyone else’s lungs, was his and his alone.

Because it was low tide, he’d easily climbed the sharp sandstone boulder half-swamped by the ocean's tide using the hand and toe holds taught to him throughout his childhood. The monolithic shard sat at the very base of the slowly crumbling yellow sandstone cliff aptly named ‘The Cathedral’. To Marcus’ mind, it was the perfect place to sit and think.

Apart from the soft kisses of baby waves to the shore, the only other noise was the deafening cicadas who hid away from the building heat under the spindly Paper Barks and Bottle Brush trees. The 1000-voiced choir sat assembled on the cliffside, clicking in unison to the world, announcing how hot it would be.

A sigh was taken as Marcus’s fishing line weaved uselessly backwards and forwards in the shallow water. Dejected frustration echoed softly against the cliff wall, “Pointless.” As the natural basilica’s emptiness grew, the feeling that it might have been a mistake coming up to the cliff alone without letting either of his brothers know began slowly clouding his morning.

Everyone knew you didn't come here by yourself. But today was different. Today was when Nana left. And, he just couldn't bring himself to stand with everybody else, pretending to be happy, whilst he smiled and waved her goodbye.

The blue ocean caught his green eyes and drew them to the Mother and Calf islands. It would be easier to catch fish out there, but to be truthful, Marcus didn't have the energy today. He simply wanted to sit alone and feel sorry for himself without anyone telling him to grow up and stop being selfish.

****

The old teacher knew it was time. She could feel it in her bones as she swept the worn 1970s floral red linoleum for the very last time! This was simply an exercise to delay what would come next, as all good housework usually is. Mrs Hope was acutely aware that all her people were outside waiting for her to change her mind, not to leave them unguarded and unloved. The bond was going to be hard to break, but the time had definitely come.

Shaking her grey bent head, Mrs. Hope continued to sweep industriously, ensuring all those annoying lost crumbs were found and viciously disposed of. Stepping back to assess the quality of her progress, she mumbled quietly, “Staying here with the others was a mistake; gotta clear out and let the new one take my place!”

The broom's head was pushed firmly under the table. If things were going to change, she had to let the school go. “No one likes change”, slipped from her pursed lips as she confirmed in her mind that change was, in fact, always a bitter pill.

Now, the bristle-headed broom was thrust under the two-seater floral lounge. It was clear to Mrs. Hope that even though her school disagreed with her, they had, for their own good, to focus on the new teacher. “Whoever that will be.” The head of the battered broom came off, tumbling under the low lounge and out of her reach. “Bloody hell,” she said, looking at the headless stick. “Damn it all to Hades… they can get a new one!”

The headless broom was shoved into its resting place with a feeling of betrayal. And it was then the old teacher realised she shouldn't have stopped to look out her kitchen window as her steely resolve itself was betrayed.

The neighbour’s wooden huts looked forlorn and lost.

It was a view she had grown up with.

It was part of her.

It had greeted her the very first morning she and Bobby had moved into their new home. She had stood here and drank in the view with new babies in her arms, with family growing up around her, and then finally, she had stood here dressed in black when she became a widow.

A little hidden world behind everyone's hut, full of barbecues, fishing tables, washing lines and drying towels. She knew it like she knew the back of her hand. Tears she had been fighting all morning finally crept into her eyes, forcing Mrs. Hope to, once more, bustle around her tiny old kitchen.

“What's best for the school! What's best for the school! What's best for the school!” Bounced around the kitchen as it grew to become her mantra, repeated until she moved with dry eyes and firm logic.

This is what good teachers do, and it was widely known that Mrs. Hope was one of the best.

…No matter how good anyone is, though, there always comes a point when it's time to pack it in. Plus, Mrs Hope knew she had to leave. If she didn't let the new teacher come in and take over on their own, what needed to happen wouldn’t happen, which would be the beginning of the end.

The bear broomstick was touched gently by her tracing worn fingers, sadly… for the last time. “Bloody old dusty hut anyway…” Was whispered before Mrs. Hope turned and left the broken broomstick in its lonely corner.

****

The morning's light was disgustingly bright. Its reflected heat on the cliff’s black dirt track made the discomfort from the ocean wind burn just that little bit deeper. Regardless of the painful sear, the well-trodden pathway, which led its winding way through the dunes, tugged at her like a shrinking string to the heart.

Yellow clumps of spindly dune grass and fat green ‘Pig Face’ gave way to the ragged cliff’s salted white sand, burning flat ocean and a gasp of delight. The boy who sat with his back to her pulled at her cold blue eyes like a magnet.

Showing how cruel she intended to be, a predator’s starving leer crossed her rub-red lips as her salivation matured with every moment.

Maybe Marcus should have paid more notice to what was going on behind him. But truthfully, what 14-year-old pays attention to anything other than what they're doing? He was innocently absorbed in his own thoughts.

“Iasg beag, iasg beag, whit dae ye see?”

His brother's expensive rubber-gripped carbon rod slipped from shocked fingers onto the rock, quickly slithering into the shallow waters below. From the first whispered sweet syllable, Marcus knew he was dead. A whimper of fear escaped as the young, lean, and now terrified teenager stood slowly, forcing himself to turn and face the floating nightmare.

A delicate woman half his size hung mid-air, smiling with pure unadulterated bloodlust. She may have been small in stature, but the terror she created was all-encompassing.

All the old stories were true. All the tales Marcus had thought at the time to be nothing more than folk law designed to make children behave came flooding back with heart-thumping terror.

From the disturbed air behind her back, it appeared the Sluagh Sidhe Queen had two bipedal pairs of translucent elongated swirling butterfly wings. The wide-eyed teen glanced at the silver blur behind her back, realising quickly this was why humans thought fairies had wings.

Marcus knew better.

It was… just an illusion; there was nothing butterfly-like about her.

Thin and iridescent blue filigree lines scrolled over her delicate face and snow-white body. Along their pathway, the contours of her skin pulsated from lustrous blue to shimmering silver. Long, tangled, neglected white hair floated Medusa-like, emulating underwater tentacles. Her eyes held the colour of blue icebergs where no warm tint could have existed. Little pink tongue moved in an invite, licking the edges of quivering blood-plump lips, wet and red. Her sheer clothing barely covered her unnaturally petite and skinny body, all torn and frayed by the ravages of time.

And the necklace.

Your eyes couldn't help but be drawn to the necklace.

Knotted silver threads as delicate as a spider’s web gracefully laced and entwined into gossamer strands. Tiny blue stones interwoven with frosted pearls hung suspended in the metal fishnet twine, melding with her throat flesh, digging in right from her collarbone up to the base of her chin.

She was exactly like the old fairy tales described her… terrifyingly beautiful.

Marcus had no other option but to stand still with shuddering legs as the razored boulder cut into his soft flesh. With more gusto than belief, “If you hurt me, Taj’ll get ya!” was bellowed at the creature before him.

As she crooned her reply, the Cathedral fell silent; even the tiny cicadas stopped announcing their presence.

“Iasg beag. Balach beag maighdeann-mhara bhòidheach. … Ye shuid nae be swimmin` sae far fae yer schuil… especially…”, she sniffed the air and smiled, “…smelling sae deliciouse! A’m hunger wee maighdean-mhara!”

The monster’s voice was tinted with an old, sweet Scottish lilt. But as her gaunt, pale face flicked from side to side, allowing her to breathe in Marcus’s very essence, it was abundantly clear to her impending victim …there was no sweet intent in her soul.

The angles of her bones and the sheen of her skin allowed her pitiless intent to be highlighted. Cruelty, lust, and starvation flowed from her unabated. And when her bony hands captured a girlish giggle, Marcus watched with overwhelming horror as a gleam of psychopathic murderous intent flourished in her eyes.

Fate dealt Marcus a card.

The small dark entrance to the old secret stash cave burrowed deep under the sandstone cliff showed itself. The wind must have moved the Dark Fairy Queen just enough for it to come back into view. If he could get past her and into the cave, there was no way she could follow him. As it was, she was taking a risk by hovering over the saltwater.

It was now or never. Desperately leaping from the boulder, Marcus gave no thought to the searing pain. Fear-induced dexterity landed his body lightly on the soft, wet beach sand before bolting for the dark cave’s entrance, just below the scrub line. In the loose sand, his legs pumped as hard as they could as he ignored the agonising sting from his shredded feet.

The Queen of the Sluagh Sidhe was surprised by her prey’s determination, not that it would do him any good. Her smirk widened as she watched the blood-red trail from his escaping wake, marking his progress from shore to beach.

‘Push through the pain,’ was the teen’s only grimacing thought. ‘This is life or death.’

****

Hair brushed neatly.

Cardigan buttoned up.

Shoes clean.

Mrs Hope now stood facing the back of her kitchen door.

The hut was as clean as it was ever going to get.

“Can’t make a silk purse from a gilt’s ear!”

And with that, she nodded goodbye to her home. To one of the greatest loves of her life and walked out through the rough, handmade white door. Turning the door handle and locking it with a heavy old key, which she then placed, with a little pat or two, onto the small white window frame next to the front of her kitchen door. Bobby had done an excellent job building this …home. He’d be proud.

Standing in the long portico come sunroom, she adjusted her handbag to a more tenacious grip, marched three paces past her overstuffed suitcases, which sat like lost children waiting forlornly on the little veranda and took one last look. Ocher and oil-stained Jarrah boards built to hip height, topped with the freshly painted white lattice that reached right up to the rafters.

Too many memories looked back at her as the old teacher opened her ill-fitting, heavy wooden front door with a well-practised strong tug. “Bye-bye” was whispered only loud enough for the hut to hear.

And there the school stood! Under the Peppy trees and beyond, all the way to the camping grounds. Her ancient heart ached. This was going to be very, very hard!

The intake of air gathered in strength, and a soft roar broke their still silence. Voices joined together in the sing-song rhythm, which all children possess, regardless of whether the child is four or ninety-four.

“Good morning, Mrs. Hope.”

Mrs Hope smiled.

****

With vicious glee, the intended death of Marcus pounced on the teen’s back just as he reached out for the cave's mouth. The soft white sand had slowed him a little, but she’d only needed a little to catch and seize her prize. The fairy’s heat wings beat hard as she pulled and pushed the terrified teen towards the cliff’s ragged side.

Marcus twisted and flexed his torso desperately, trying to peel her off one finger at a time; pushing her back towards the sea where she would burn seemed his only option.

His struggles did nothing more than excite the flying fiend, who squealed in delight.

Clenching his fist, a punch swung wildly towards the fairy’s face, making contact with a crunch.

The shock of being hit allowed burning hatred to burst upon her face, giving Marcus a moment to realise his peril. A small bead of dark blood was thoughtfully licked from her bottom lip before; in retribution, the nightmare’s heat wings pushed their bodies away from the cave until Marcus was pinned with his back against the cliff’s jagged rock wall.

A scream echoed up and out of the reverent cathedral as Marcus’ t-shirt ripped open, allowing the jagged sandstone to slice away at his back's flesh; searing agony enveloped his senses with every slow, forced drag along the base wall.

Payback had been met brutally, and enjoyment making ‘Her Majesty’… smile.

The desperate teen, stunned into painfilled stillness, accepted her surprising strength as she delicately wrapped her bony fingers slowly around his neck. Only tears and petrified whimpers greeted the predator as her legs entwined like a hungry lover over Marcus’s hips. The swirling hue of four silver eddy heat wings continued to levitate her petite body, preventing contact with the acidic beach sand.

“Ye’r bit a slimy wee fish! Tha thu nad mhaighdeann-mhara bheag dhona!”

Even though most of her words were unknown, her hatred and intent came through loud and clear as she brushed her cheek against his sweat-laden skin and intimately murmured into his ear. Turning her face to him, an exploring and rasping tongue ran up and along his jawline’s blush.

The personal invasion acted like a switch igniting Marcus to push hard at her stomach, desperate to remove the vicious leech from his body.

Panic swamped his coordination and mind.

“Jase…. Jason!” Marcus’ brother’s name escaped his mouth in a terrified shriek as the flying nightmare tilted her head to the hot blue sky. Her mouth extended as jaw bones jutted at odd angles. Teeth, like sea urchin spines, began their painful journey, pushing out above her ‘human’ teeth and through her gums, only just missing stretched and retracting red lips.

“Taj!” echoed out in a guttural squeal. Then, to Marcus’ own ears, a child’s terrified scream escaped in a panicked rush. Its horrified tone reverberated around the cathedral and in his mind as her face contorted before his eyes. Slick and sweaty hands kept slipping off her shoulders. Horror finally stole all his coordination as the young teen flayed rapidly in a last-ditch attempt to lever her off, screaming a simple denial as he did.

All was to no avail. The midnight fairy lowered her vicious mouth as her icy and heartless blue eyes sparkled with blood lust. Her skin, stretched taught to the point of splitting, allowed iridescent needle teeth in a triple circular row to protrude from her jutting top and bottom jaws.

The ‘beag maighdeann-mhara’ screaming like a puppy caught at the end of a kick did nothing but titillate. Pulling the terrified, thrashing child mercilessly into her hungry embrace, spine fangs plunged into his delicious and pulsating neck.

The agony of it was instantaneous!

Desperate fingers clawed for release. Neither brother came as the Sluagh induced her victim to shriek and scream his people’s names with every pull upon his veins.

Blood so blissful…

Beauty beat in his veins.

Delectable, heavenly and divine.

But far too much rich change energy to bear in one supping!

Far too much.

His lùth burned her mouth with its purity.

The Sluagh released her hold with a gasping orgasm, allowing rich ruby blood to drip from her gaping mouth onto her white chin as she floated upwards.

So sweet…

So delicious…

Lùth so clean, pure… so full of the future.

Burning a rush through her veins as she floated in the zephyrs, forgetting the prey, twisting, turning, unashamedly showing her fulfilment to the empty world.

Power always helped drown out the past.

Falling to his knees, scorching fire swam in the weeping wound. Clasping desperate hands over his ragged shoulder, Marcus screamed a bubbled cry, terror burning away all sense.

With basic self-preservation kicking in, he did what all his species had done before… turn to the ocean.

Floating above the burning salted sand, the Sluagh Queen giggled as she watched the boy pull himself up to a one-handed crawl. His light blue t-shirt stained black with blood from his wound-riddled back. Falling, stumbling, crawling to the withdrawing ocean as blood dripped through terrified fingers onto the white sand.

A hidden memory scraped at her soul for attention.

She spun above a familiar white beach, her memory returning intent on revenge. Monstrous features melted back from glee to misery as long-dead screams raced towards her from the sweeping shoreline.

White sand beach…

long ago…

little hands…

a smile from loved lips…

long dark brown wet hair…

ebbing life in her arms…

innocent blood on white sand.

Clenched and vicious fists flung themselves repeatedly at the Sluagh’s porcelain face as a banshee wail silenced the breeze. Pain like this did not belong in the world.

“Chan e! Chan e sin!”

Not that…

The boy…

…his lùth.

“Bidh iad an-còmhnaidh a ’ruith chun chuan.” She whispered out of her bloody mouth.

Marcus was lost and couldn’t work out where the ocean was; surely, he should be close by now! His world blurred and then became dark monochrome. The teen felt like he was on a twisted swing with the world spinning independently around him.

Her cold laugh echoed around the cathedral cliff. Better to laugh at his misery than to be drowned in her own.

The wee fishy bubbled out a long, drawn-out guttural shriek. “Jason…!”

But the boy wasn’t in the water; it was low tide, and they wouldn’t hear him! Pure, vicious delight entered the world through the door of her heartless mirth.

With self-determination, three rows of spindly teeth burst outwards quickly, protruding further from her mouth than ever before. Strained lips drew back, splitting painfully in her rush to smother the past with more blood.

A single tear born from the old pain ran down her contorted, disfigured face.

There was no other life than this.

No choice could be made.

Memories could only be washed away with madness; their searing weight could not be borne.

Eyes so wide with terror, they showed more white than pretty green. His beautiful, lush mouth bellowing like a wild animal caught in a trap. Feet tripping in squeaking white sand, head spinning with no idea of direction. As quickly as the boy’s rich blood dripped onto the iridescent sand, it was absorbed into its never-ending depths.

Her heat wings thrummed in his ears.

It was too late.

The boy stumbled under the Sluagh’s attack as she sank onto the little guppy’s back, latching onto fresh flesh for the second agonising time. It was easy to ignore the screams from the Maighdeann-Mhara as she sucked hard upon the new neck wound. With the child’s blood flowing without resistance into her supping mouth, the nightmare fairy wrapped herself around the melting child and sank willingly deeper into her madness.

All the ocean colours began to fade from Marcus’s sight as her needled mouth pulled hard at splitting flesh. Scraping at the Sluagh’s arms wrapped around his head and chest was futile but instinctual. A shiver racked Marcus’ body as his feet began to lose contact with the gritty beach sand: first heels, then ever so slowly, the toes on his left foot.

Maybe… the Sluagh Sidhe should have watched what was happening in front of her! But really… what killer, absorbed by the feed, watches anything else but the prey?

It was only a little tiny wave. One which barely reached the child’s toes as they precariously left the Earth’s touch. A little ripple on a new tide, wetting dry sand, embracing his skin… green eyes focused, it was just enough!

Hovering above his beloved ocean, with one toe left in his world, the beautiful meal pleaded… “Hope!”

****

A gut-wrenching scream rang out as Mrs Hope fell to the cold cement pavers laid years ago in front of her front doorstep. The wave of connection hit the old Teacher like a punch to the heart.

Once ‘The Teacher’, always ‘…The Teacher.’ The connection must never be broken. It was her fault.

“Shouldn’t have waited so long!” she cried out to her sixty-year-old nephew Johnny, who now cradled her in his arms. The replacement was too late. “She’s got my boy.”

Yells and screams echoed around the front of Mrs. Hope's hut, and even though he knew in the depths of his broken heart that it was too late, Jason ran to the beach with a hoard of others. Their skin’s shimmering in anticipation.

Looking up into the clear blue sky, a blinding white light sped far ahead, gaining momentum with every heartbeat, showing the school the direction they needed to aim for.

…Bad things happen when you lose hope!

Translations

“Iasg beag, iasg beag, whit dae ye see?”

“Little fish, little fish, what do you see?

*

“Iasg beag. Balach beag maighdeann-mhara bhòidheach. … Ye shuid nae be swimmin` sae far fae yer schuil… especially…”, she sniffed the air and smiled, “…smelling sae deliciouse! A’m hunger wee maighdean-mhara!”

Little fish. Beautiful little mermaid boy. You should not be swimming so far from your school… especially…” ---- “… smelling so delicious. I’m hungry little mermaid!”

*

“Ye’r bit a slimy wee fish! Tha thu nad mhaighdeann-mhara bheag dhona!”

“You’re but a slimy little fish. You are a naughty little mermaid!”

*

beag maighdeann-mhara’

little mermaid

*

lùth

energy

*

“Bidh iad an-còmhnaidh a ’ruith chun chuan.”

They always run to the ocean.

*

“Chan e! Chan e sin!”

No! Not that!

*

Many thanks to Google for translating English to Gaelic Scottish.

Many thanks to sco translate: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjCxdfY8a38AhXSTgGHTKnCSoQFnoECA0QAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scotranslate.com%2F&usg=AOvVaw1Y8dhmjAIe1Mwk8C0wwxTJ