Walking through Twilight

As twilight overtook the painted sky, I moved across the fields away from home and towards somewhere that could prick the interest of my unquenchable curiosity. Behind me, the colors of the trees faded into a uniform haze of shadow, blending into a wall of jagged spires.

The flickering lights of candles began to glow from beneath thatch rooves, sparking the interest of fireflies in the late summer evening. They danced as the flames did, spinning lazily into the quickening night. In the gray of the twilight, my eyes were hard pressed to make out the shapes of crops against the dark earth beneath my feet. I leapt over heads of cabbage and the twisted vines of squash, my feet as light as my heart.

It didn’t matter that my limbs were weary, or that my skin was tender from a day out under the burning sun. It didn’t matter that I had worked sunup to nearly sundown, and that my back ached beneath this dying light. The only things that matter were the warm flames burning in the pubs hearth, a tall mug of mead tasting of apples and honey on my tongue, and the lingering touch of old stories on my mind.

I craved it, craved to be a name amongst the legends on the elder’s tongues, craved to be a part of something beyond myself. And so, my pace sped up until my feet were flying through the open fields, leaping nimbly over plants, dashing through the swaying barley.

In the blindness of twilight, I only noticed that the road was beneath my feet when the softness of the fields gave way to the hard-pack of the path. Striding past farmhouses, hunched and shadowed in the gloom, the sounds of dinner being prepared and the bright smells of cooking made hunger ache in my belly.

Laughter echoed from the warm light in the Cauthon’s place, but the sounds did not make me miss home, did not make me want to return to where my mother stirred a stew on the hearth, to where my sisters giggled around the rough hew of the kitchen table.

It spurred my boots forward, the broken heel of my left sole snapping sharply up against my foot as I began to run. The ends of the great road battered themselves uselessly against the towering forest behind me, ending as suddenly as autumn when the first snows of winter fell.

Squat shadows loomed in the distance, spilling firelight from beneath closed shutters and loose doorways. I jogged closer, loose change in my pockets clattering loudly with each footfall. Burning embers spun skyward from the harsh outlines of chimneys, sending a shiver of excitement into my bones.

The closer I grew to the buildings, the less the hazy the silhouettes of buildings became. I passed between two homes, smelling warm bread and sizzling meat on the air, and slowed to a walk. I didn’t want to be out of breath when I burst through the inns doors.

Few other souls chose to walk beneath the dark sky, and I gave those who sat on their porches, or locked up their stores for the night a wide berth. I knew all of these folk, down to their very bones, but the night was a time for me, it was a time for stories.

The night was when adventures burned in your gut, and forced your limbs into motion. It was where excitement tingled at your fingertips as you threw rocks at a pretty girl’s windows, and went skinny dipping in the river beneath the stars. Night was a time for whispers, it was a time for long walks, not for pleasantries.

If I wasn’t so poor and could afford new boots, I would have been a silent wraith walking through the night. It didn’t take me long to slip through town towards where the inn burned with firelight beside the great road.

Night had fully fallen when I set my worn boots upon the first step of the porch. Before I entered I turned back, looking up at the darkness of the sky. The first of the stars were beginning to burn through the blackness. Soon, their silver light would touch the world, coating the cool grass and tops of the trees in starlight.

The worn step creaked beneath me, and I turned back to face the front door. The green paint was in need of a fresh coat, but the windows were new, my mate Gil had put them in just last month to prepare for cooler seasons. The little sign hanging over my head said it all, The End of the Road.

It truly was.

This was a town that was the end of many things, the road being the least of them.

I pushed the door open, and the warmth of firelight and the sounds of laughter slapped me in the face. Blinking back dark spots in my eyes, I took a step in, my mouth stretching taut in a wild smile.

“Finally, the kid arrives! Pull up a stool,” Hoss called out to me, banging his tankard on the bar.

The small room kept the cool of the night back with a small fire burning in the hearth, and swept the darkness from the taproom with a tallow candles burning on every table. I stepped around the tight knit of tables in the inn to get to the bar where Judy stood waiting for me with a grin.

“Why, young Cody, I didn’t think you’d make it tonight. Usually you’re here before twilight,” she greeted me.

“I’m not as superstitious as you lot, I don’t mind walking during the grey,” I replied with an easy smile.

“Superstition comes from somewhere, and I’d rather not test my luck,” she replied, filling a mug for me with the mead that I liked.

I thanked her and turned to the side where a few of the regulars were already four pints into their night. Their breath reeked of ale, and their skin stilled smelled of loam, coal smoke, and sweat, but it tasted like home to me.

“I’ve been sitting on a story all week for you, boy. Why don’t you come more than just on Fridays?” Jake called out, patting me on the shoulder.

“You find whatever hole da’s drank himself into this time and I could. Or give me some coin to pay for an extra hand on the farm. The girls aren’t enough,” I replied.

They knew, but this was a ritual we played every week. It was a greeting to get the small talk out of the way before we got down to business.

“What’s your husband got on the menu tonight, Judy?” I asked, taking a sip of my mead.

“Mutton stew, but it’s Friday, so I had him make something special just for you,” she said, reaching across the bar to pat me on the cheek.

I twisted my head to kiss her hand and gave her a wink.

“You treat me too well, it’s a shame you’re already married,” I smiled impishly.

She blushed and swatted at me, withdrawing back to the kitchen. I was about to slide into a stool when the older men decided to make a move towards a table near the fire. I followed them with my drink and slid into a hard-back chair, staring across the candleflame and directly into the flames.

The warmth from the small blaze helped to loosen the aches throughout my body. As I settled in and waited for my meals, the men waited not so patiently to begin our usual night. They liked to wait until I had food in front of me, otherwise I asked too many questions.

“Any news up the king’s road today?” I asked.

“Aye, plenty when the merchants came to collect. Price of wood went bloody well straight up. My son made more today than he usually does in a month,” Germaine answered.

“Why don’t more people start cutting wood then? The forest is right there, but we don’t do shit about it,” I blurted out, bringing up old arguments I’ve never won.

If wood was that expensive now, the town could make some serious coin for the winter when trade died.

“Not this argument again…” Jake sighed.

“Boy,” Hoss snorted. “We only harvest what the forests willing to give. It’s not superstition, it’s balance.”

I choked on a laugh. They thought the forest was out to get them if they stepped out of line, that mischievous things walked the world at twilight to try and lead you astray, that music in the gray hours of the world attracted those Fae creatures that wanted to seduce you back to their lairs and then break your mind.

I’d like to see them try, I was as stubborn as they came.

“Have you ever seen one of the Fae, son?” Germaine asked.

I shook my head, taking a sip of my mead without taking my eyes from his. The corners of his old eyes wrinkled even more as he half-glared at me across the candlelight.

“No, I haven’t seen one in the week since we last fought about this,” I sighed. “And nor have you.”

Hoss and Jake chuckled, shaking their heads at me.

“Oh boy,” Jake guffawed. “You’ve just gotten yourself into it now.”

“I’ve seen things that would keep you from sneaking out at night, that would stop you from trying to walk deep into the forest, that would keep you from disrespecting their legends,” Germaine began, as if warming up some distant memory.

He did it with the calm, practiced air of someone who loved to tell tall tales after a few pints of ale, who did this every night to anyone who would listen. Honestly, I loved to hear what these geezers had to say, they sparked my curiosity, fueled my desire to know more, see more. I just couldn’t always take them seriously when they threw salt on their doorstep, or hung iron over their windows.

I would love to believe in the Fae, love to make a legend for myself and not just hear them, but they were nothing more than fables made by old men who feared the forest. People who didn’t know how to avoid the dangers, or thought the wildcats were some mythical fiends from fairy tales, they believed in this crap and spread it to their young.

I came here for these tales, to hear them, to glean the myth from the fact, to listen to how legends are born, but my belief in how much truth lay in the words was slim. They were entertainment to me, nothing more than fuel to help keep me from going insane working on my folk’s farm for the rest of my life. Wanting more, and being able to chase it were completely different things.

“When I was your age, I was cutting wood for me da up in the outskirts of the Fae. She wasn’t happy with me that day, and I twisted my ankle when I felled a tree. As I limped home I was caught out in twilight…”

“Sorry to interrupt, but here Cody,” Judy said cheerfully, setting a wooden platter in front of me. “Thought you might like something sweet tonight.”

It was a platter of French toast and hot cakes, smothered in maple syrup with a side of bacon and sausage. The heat of it caressed my chin and made my mouth water.

“Thank you, love,” I grinned, picking up my fork.

“You boys still arguing about the Fae again? I’ve seen one myself, Cody. On the edge of the wood when I was sneaking out to see my man when we were a score o’ years younger. Fae lights on the tree line, soft music so sweet I was nearly stepping into the wood before Mac stopped me.”

I watched her eyes grow wide as she dipped back into the memory, watched the darkness in her eyes expand to cover the blue as she remembered the music. The pulse quickened in her throat before she snapped out of it, and she shivered. I didn’t want to be rude to her, so I didn’t say anything. Fae lights my ass, but she believed it, that was for sure.

“I still hear them, sometimes, when I close up my shutters at night. I don’t leave the inn, I don’t step foot out until after the moon has risen,” she shivered.

“You see, boy,” Hoss said. “Everyone has their tales. It’s not just crap that us old men spin.”

I didn’t reply, instead I took a bite of my meal. Heaven on the tongue.

“Now are we ready?” Germaine asked. “Can I finish my story?”

I shrugged nonchalantly, but my eyes began to glow and my heart beat faster. Legends were born this way, when pretty words spun a tale powerful enough to cross miles and still hold its shape.

I walked to the inn during twilight because I loved the darkness of it, the hazy grey of the known becoming something terrifying and exciting. I loved how the night brought out the adrenaline in me, and I loved the loneliness of it. The night could swallow you up, shelter you from prying eyes, draw from you moments you’d never experience, feelings you never imagined.

But mostly I loved the night, because it was the perfect time for stories. Because in the darkness, legends were born.

Tales of the Fae

“The grey took over the forest, long before the sun had fully set over the horizon. The tops of the trees were still golden with the last breath of the day, holding onto the warmth for all they had. My heart was pumping, I’d never felt it like that before, that fear. I always followed the rules, always kept indoors during the twilight hours, and now I was weak. I had to use a branch to help keep me up, keep me moving. A puma howled somewhere in the forest nearby, and the wind shook the leaves, pushing my feet to move faster. Every time I tried to run, I fell to the earth, and the scents of loam and dead leaves filled my nose.

After the third time I fell, when I stood, the smell of earth faded, and the sharp scent of flowers drifted on the breeze. It was intoxicating, pulling at my every sense, lulling my mind from its fear. I couldn’t resist it. I even forgot the pain in my foot and stumbled deeper back into the forest. Darkness had spread fully through the trees, until I could barely see that the trunks of the maples and ash I was used to had faded into something new, something far older than anything I’d ever seen before. I’d stumbled into their land, drawn by one of their own.

I knew that I should be afraid, it lingered in the back of my head, a hard knot that poked at me to remember the rules, remember our words, but it was too strong of a call. My body wanted to see what was beyond that next tree, what lay in the next shadow, wanted to find the source of that lovely perfume. My mind was numb to what my body wanted, and drifted behind it, watching the drunken shambling of a man drunk on Fae magic.

The deeper I stumbled, the more I lost myself amongst the forest, the more I forgot who I was, until finally, my body nearly spent, I tripped against a tree, collapsing against the bark. The cool of it woke me up some, so when I looked deeper into the glade I’d almost stumbled into, I felt that fear again.

That didn’t mean what I saw didn’t draw at my bones. No, there was this glow in the air, like golden sunlight before it sets. It touched down in the glade despite it being night, despite stars scattered about all above the wood. She danced in the middle, skipping about the grass, the sunlight striking at her skin, tangling in her hair. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. As she danced, words fell from her lips, like water over rocks, like wind in the willows, soft as flower petals opening in the dawn.

She pulled at me, and I couldn’t escape her.

If I hadn’t been hanging onto the tree, I would have crawled into the glade to lay myself at her feet. The way she spun, glided across the meadow, leaping from rock to rock as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

She was one of Fae, and one of the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen in my life. I couldn’t tear my eyes from her, I barely noticed that forest creatures had come to her call until they were already there. A fawn nibbled on the grass at the edge of the wood, a few hedgehogs waddled up onto the rocks, racoons climbed from the trees.

And without stopping her dance, she spoke to me, the sweetness of her song instantly transforming into soft words filled with terrible power.

‘Why are you hiding, little human? Come join me,’ she called out sweetly.

I knew that if I let go from that tree I would never find my way home, I would be trapped in Fae forever, that she would devour the strength from me until she had taken my soul from me. Then she would let the forest swallow me up. So, I didn’t say a word, but I couldn’t close my eyes against that warm light, drifting through the dust. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the soft scar upon her cheek, of the rosy red of her lips, or the brilliant purple of her eyes.

‘Are you mute, silly human? Can you not speak?’

My body was beginning to catch up to my mind, and the power in her voice that drew me towards her set my body quivering. I was shaking so hard in my boots that my knees knocked together, that I couldn’t stand up straight. I never knew such fear in my life, not when I had been caught under the water of Danube beneath a log jam, not when me mam died of the pox.

There was something beyond that sweetness, beyond that simple beauty, that was terrifying. She was a creature far more powerful than any knight, than any king. She could draw the life from me with a single kiss, a single touch could set my body aflame. Giving her attention could think that I was prey to play games with.

She wrinkled her nose at me as if something I had said upset her, but the move was nearly enough to lift me off my feet and float me into the glade. I somehow managed to tear my gaze from her face, from being swallowed up by those purple eyes, flecked in magenta and lavender.

All of the animals in the glade were watching me, their black eyes haunting and attentive, as if I was the enemy, as if I had insulted their Fae queen.

My mouth was dry as tinder, and I couldn’t work my jaw for a while as she took a step towards me, her bare feet brown beneath the sheer sleekness of her shift.  She took another careless step forwards, mere feet from where I grasped at the tree.

‘Are you afraid of me, little human? What is there to fear?’

She spun around as if to show me her lack of weaponry, although by her tone she knew what she was doing, she knew that her words and her knowing gaze were weapons enough.

She reached out a hand as if to touch my face, caress my cheek, and although she was feet away from me still, I flinched back, falling onto the forest floor, into the shadow. From my back, I could see the stars, I could taste the cool of the night and not the overpowering warmth of the wonderful glade, of the scent of flowers and soft pine wafting from this Fae creature.

I scurried backwards onto my feet, forgetting the pain in my leg, and the dryness of my throat. I found my voice finally, and with my hands still shaking like trees in a gale, I pointed at her.

‘Stay back, Faelin woman. I am not some mere man to be taken into your realm,” I called out, my voice as weak as a newborn.

She smiled at me from the light of her little glade, and waggled a finger at me.

‘But that is exactly what I want. I’m so lonely here, I want you to stay a little while. I want to run through the trees with you until we both grow tired,” she called out.

‘No, begone, leave me be. I am not here to feed your pets. I have not taken what the forest has not granted to be given!”

She giggled, the sound pouring soft and carefree from her throat. It danced between the stones, and scampered up the trees all around me, drifting into the stars above the silken light.

‘I won’t try to eat you, that is for the other things that walk these woods. I only want to play, to swim in the pools beneath the sleeping trees, to lay in the boughs of tall pines on the hills until you fall asleep. The forest is always hungry, but I am not quite yet,’ she sang, her voice pitched low, sweet and thick as honey.

My eyes fluttered in my skull, but breathing in the truth of the woods, I could hold my ground.

‘Don’t try to ensnare me, you evil Faelin creature!’ I roared, finding my strength. ‘You are leading me into the forest to lose myself and be swallowed whole by it. Leave me be!’

Those brilliant eyes flashed bright in anger, the change in character as fast and dangerous as a summer storm. It swept into the forest around me, snuffing out the golden light that had once bathed her soft skin, deepening the shadows of the wood, pitching me in perfect darkness.

When finally, she spoke, the stars began to scorch the night sky above, and her eyes glowed out from the shadows before me, burning in purple fire. Never had I heard such wrath in a voice, never had I heard such scorn.

‘Fear me all you like, pitiful human, for I am one of the Fae, and I can kill you with a breath. But tonight, is a night for games, it is a night for dancing, for merry chases under the stars. Not now, you have ruined my mood and turned my glade back to darkness. Tonight is still a night for chases, and although I may not be hungry, my companions surely are. Bagheera!’

My heart thundered to a halt in my chest, now still after having nearly broken my ribs with its pounding. Soft paws landed on the forest floor not far before me, and the swish swish of something stirring in the darkness put movement back into my pulse.

Huge green eyes blinked to life before me, staring hungrily into my soul.

‘Play nice you two,’ the Fae creature cackled, her eyes melting into the shadow from whence she came.

I never ran so hard in my life, crashing into trees and stumbling through branches. Thorns tore at my legs and roots reached up to snare my feet. I could feel the wildcat behind me, hear the thunderous slap of its paws on the forest floor. It moved like a wraith in the night, swooping around me to cut me off from one way or another.

I somehow managed to escape it, and finally I stumbled out of the woods as dawn began to light the eastern horizon. My clothes were bloody and torn to shreds, and I was nearly mad with fear and whatever poisonous words the Faelin had sowed into my mind. I collapsed exhausted to the ground, where my family found me, not far from my da’s home.

It took me a whole week to recover from exhaustion, and many more days before I had the sanity to speak of what had happened to me…”

 ***

“What was her name?” I asked.

My plate was empty before me, so the distraction from asking questions was long gone. His eyes flashed in annoyance, and he took a deep pull from his mug to wet his lips.

“She never said the words to me, but I know it, clear as day. It was in the air all around us, weaved into the sunlight, folded into her song. She was one of the Fae, and Fela was her name…”

And with that his story fell asunder, and he lost the cadence of his words, but the legend was still fresh on my mind, and that name was like honey on my lips.

Fela…Fela.