by Alex Glebe

The dare was simple: make it through the swathe of bluebells to the other side of the woods and the boys would leave her brother alone. They’d shaken on it, Patrick’s hand rough in her own, but it was the snigger and the wicked look he’d given the others that made her flinch inside. They stood back from the woodland’s edge, dusk blurring the far trees. Overhead a blackbird sang, breaking the silence between them, and Aisling set off, shoes in hand, and only turned once to glance back at the four of them watching, making sure she didn’t slip away. When she was almost out of earshot they hollered red, red, you’ll soon be dead their laughter scaring wood pigeons into flight. She was always mocked for the color of her hair, for that and for Seamus. The thought of him made her grit her teeth and push on into the restless sea of blue.

People disappeared in this part of the bluebell woods and to enter it was to risk being snatched by faeries or “The Good Folk” as they were reverentially known as by villagers. Aisling’s teacher Mrs. Winter said it was just a rumor, a convenient excuse for villagers to run away from bad marriages, jilt someone or escape their debts. But at home no one was allowed to speak of the faeries, especially in front of her brother—and yet no one could grow up in the village without knowing some faerie lore. The most important being don’t be cutting any deals with them. Some of the older women even blamed her mother for not preparing her rowan sprig correctly as the source of her misfortune. She cut it with a knife, they’d tell each other incredulously and shake their heads. Aisling’s mother no longer tied the berries above their door to ward off faeries.

“What’s the point of the berries now anyway?” Patrick’s mother had said within earshot one day. “When the worst has happened already, a changeling for a son.”

Her mother had pulled Seamus away by the hand and Patrick had trailed after them shouting profanities to make their misery complete.

Aisling shivered; bluebells swayed in a gentle breeze around her and the woods appeared infinite like something conjured from a dream. Halting she tried to take her bearings but as soon as she did it was as if her gaze slid from the landmark to settle back on the dancing flowers. Taking a deep breath, she turned her coat inside out to ward off enchantment and kept to the animal tracks, stepping carefully to avoid crushing the bluebells. The flowers brushed against her ankles, the sensation like icy fingers tickling her skin. Dusk crept on deepening the bluebell-filled shadows between the trees until it seemed as if she were surrounded by rippling pools of darkest indigo, fathomless and belonging to another world. The music of rain pattered through the leaves and settled on her hair as a halo of raindrops. The sensation of being followed crept upon her slowly until it was unmistakable; soft, even breath and the rustle of something slipping through the sea of flowers behind her. Against her better instinct, she looked over her shoulder.

A white hound with red ears was tracking her, the bluebells parting in front of it to ease its path. Her chest tightened as she glimpsed more faerie hounds streaming towards her. With a cry, she stumbled off the track, dropping her shoes and crushing flowers underfoot. The sea of bluebells quivered as one and then swayed together, ringing with a silvery sound that made her skin tingle. It was an unearthly sound, high and painful for human ears. Aisling ran, blindly, unthinkingly, the hounds giving chase behind her, howling with glee. She plunged onwards cutting diagonally through the woods heading for the shelter of a clump of ash trees. Perhaps she could climb one and wait out the hounds that were now flowing alongside her. Beneath the trees the flowers were dew-damp making her feet slip and the lower branches that promised safety now seemed impossibly high to climb. With a cry of frustration she turned and slipped, glimpsing the faeries emerging from the shadows as she fell.

Long fingers snatched her coat and threw it away as they span her, pushing her from one to another with unnatural speed. She dared to look from the corners of her eyes as the world blurred and their laughter echoed through the woods. A tall twig-like man with a mane of ash tree leaves, a stooped wizened woman with twitching hare ears, the faeries pressing round her, some no bigger than a dragonfly and others towering over her with patterned moth wings that shed powder on her as they shoved her. The more Aisling kicked and bit the more they laughed and danced around her, as the bluebells rang so loudly it made the trees quiver.

Something heavy and wet was flung over her with such force that she stopped struggling. It reeked of honeysuckle, sap, wine, and a mucky scent she couldn’t place. It was her coat but as she tried to pull it off her it melded to her skin and as it did so the world as she knew it vanished.

At first she fell, unused to her deer legs but then she found her footing as she fled, leaping over fallen trees and streams. She glimpsed their faces in the trees, a boy with dark badger stripes down his face, a girl with the head of a pine marten, all throwing withered leaves on Aisling as she passed beneath. Faeries ran alongside her shrieking and yelling, urging on the hounds, some no bigger than shrews with their buzzing wings, some riding stoats, and carrying streaming banners, others far larger than human hunters. They chased her to the point of exhaustion. She sank to her knees somewhere at the farther end of the woods where the heads of the bluebells were clotted in darkness and the nightjar let out its mournful call. The scent of the hounds mingled with the dew-soaked shadows and the sharpness of sap. She flicked away the buzzing of the tiny faeries with her ears and tail, but her breathing came too fast and she closed her eyes, defeated.

“This is no way to treat a guest. Leave her be and bring her to me.” The voice was sarcastic but the faeries reluctantly obeyed.

Pinching fingers took hold of her and she was lifted out of the mud and grass back onto her human feet, her coat once more unenchanted. Aisling shook herself free of the faeries and stood before their king. She balled her hands up in her coat pockets to stop their shaking and held him with a fierce gaze. His bright red hair was garlanded with bluebells and he gave her a vulpine smile.

“Why do you trespass in my woods?”

Aisling barely heard the question, taken as she was by his face. The curve of her mother’s lips was echoed in his features as well as her distinctive upturned nose. The match of her father’s startling blue eyes looked back at her. It was as if they realized the truth at the same moment. She stared up at her blood brother, king, lord of the woods.

“People torment Seamus—my brother. They call him a filthy changeling,” the word lingered in the air between them as the faerie king narrowed his eyes. “They said if I made it across the woods they would leave him alone.”

“And you didn’t wonder if they lied?” His expression was the same as her father’s when he’d told a joke that he knew she hadn’t quite understood.

You don’t understand, she wanted to say. Memories of Seamus being trailed by the others after school flooded her. Rumors and whispers followed him wherever he went, his shadow has wings, he talks in riddles in his sleep, milk curdles at his touch. She squared her shoulders at her brother-now-king and thought of Seamus handed away by the faeries to be forgotten among the humans. Of how he comforted her when she was called names, his sharp features and gentle smile.

“It was worth the risk.”

The faerie king drew close and his breath was hot against her ear. “How about we strike a bargain then, sister, and you don’t return to these woods?”

Aisling backed away, her human instinct recoiling at the faerie-man before her, brother or not.

“Choose,” he said, “I won’t offer twice.”

✿

Aisling was careful to wash away any trace of the bluebells when she returned home at nightfall. Her mother met her with worried fury and her father was already asleep in his chair near the fire, Seamus watching the embers. When they were alone Seamus spoke without taking his gaze from the dying flames.

“You’ve been through the bluebell woods.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew. He turned, his unearthly eyes upon her.

“I was worried that you wouldn’t come back.” The heaviness in his voice took her by surprise.

That night Aisling dreamt of elderly Miss Walsh passing away in her farmhouse on the hill. She wandered through the house as if pulled by an invisible string until she found the woman lying dead, the air full of the silvery ringing of the bluebells. In the morning the village was abuzz with news of the old woman’s death.

A few weeks later Aisling dreamt of Sam Reilly falling from his horse and soon it became known that anyone she dreamt of was soon to be in death’s jaws. The taunting stopped, people kept their distance and whispered to each other that it was better not to attract her attention. Even Patrick and his friends gave her a wide berth. No one bothered Seamus anymore, instead they fell silent when brother and sister passed by arm in arm, the soft ringing of the bluebells still in her ears.

❀✿❀

Alex Glebe (she/her) loves all things gothic and the fantastical. Her fiction and poetry are featured in The Lit Nerds, 101 Words, Crow & Cross Keys, Eternal Haunted Summer, Spellbinder, Club Plum Literary Journal, Fiction On The Web, The Fantastic Other and is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine. Find her on Instagram @alex_book_treasure.