Thresholds & Reflections: An Empty World Anthology

Maeve's Child

The child fell into a deep sleep as the faerie dust clouded his eyes and made the lids so heavy. He was a beautiful child, brown haired and violet eyed, with small soft lips that stayed moist with drool in a quaint way as he slept. Leanan wanted to drink his blood. Baobhan wanted to drown him. Beautiful golden-locked Maeve tied pink ribbons in his hair as he slept in her lap and forbade anyone else near him.

They could do nothing since Maeve was their Queen, so they went about their business, dreaming of the child's beauty. When later in the day, sitting near a lake, Leanan told Robin about the child her Queen was keeping the malevolent Pixie became excited. "Fresh meat!" he grinned.

"Oh no, Puck, you mustn't, not the child, Maeve has said so, maybe in your land across the channel they let you murder and maim but here Maeve is our Queen."

"WE ARE FAERIES!" Robin shouted, "Do you want those mortals, those fools, to have the idea we are kind and gentle folk? An insult to the name of Faerie! Are all the Sídhe mad as she Queen Maeve?"

"Dear Puck," said the coldly beautiful vampire to the psychopath, "We are descended from the Tuatha Dé Dannon. We have plenty folly here, our Rades...plenty fun befuddling mortals. Why half this island is Pixie Led. And every night I steal the blood of one, particularly the strong young men: the ones they rely on to work and build families. Maeve herself is a great prankster-"

"Leanan, tying pink bows in the horses' hair is no epic prank! You Sídhe forget the Pix are my ilk."

"Do not hurt that child, Goodfellow."

"Ah, you curse me with that name, you dare mock-"

"Hold your tongue, Phouka, or I'll hold it for you!"

A diminutive Faerie approached them. He was barefoot as them all and dressed in a fine red coat. "Hail, Fir Darrig," said the vampire.

"Those Leprechauns made off with my gold, just mined it," grumbled the wizened little man.

"Sounds like the leprechauns mined it," said Robin with a slanty sidewise glance to the raven-haired Faerie beside him.

"Finders keepers, Fir Darrig," laughed Leanan.

"Resorting to pulling pranks on enchanted beings instead of mortals!" Robin cried.

They beheld Leanan's sister Faerie, Baobhan, rise from the water. She sprinted toward them. "Make yourselves scarce, there's a mortal approaching," she said, "I'll lure him into the water and drown him, and we can all share the meat."

"There's a Faerie," said Robin with a wave toward Baobhan.

Baobhan's green eyes glittered.

"Go to it, Sister," said Leanan.

The Faeries concealed themselves in the grass at the edge of the lake and waited. The mortal was a young man. They peered out as Baobhan let her white dress fall to the ground. The mortal rubbed his eyes to make the vision leave him. But Baobhan stood, still naked, for a full minute. Her particularly hairy, curious eyebrows that stood away from her forehead and the bits of fur at her wrists and ankles were not visible from a distance, nor were her long claw-like fingernails or her dagger-sharp teeth. She smiled slightly to herself seeing that she had his attention. She turned then and made to wash her dress in the lake. She began crying, "O will I e'er be rid o' this stain, will I e'er be rid o' it?"

The young man approached and spellbound by her stood at the edge of the lake. Baobhan rose quickly. She turned to the young man and with supernatural strength lifted him, threw him into the water, then jumped in after him to drag him under. Robin watched with interest as the unfortunate lad struggled, and he licked his lips.

Baobhan threw the corpse onto the lake shore. "Come," she said.

The other three Faeries leapt forward and fell on the corpse. Leanan's black eyes flashed as she tore open his neck and sucked up his blood. Robin ripped the heart from his chest, breaking right through the ribs with his fist. He ate it whole. Baobhan nibbled at the shoulder delicately while Fir Darrig cut off the feet with a shovel and put them in a satchel to save for later.

When the feast was finished and Baobhan had tired of licking and kissing the corpse they dumped the remains in the lake for the nymphs.

"I want that violet-eyed boy!" Robin said drunkenly. He looked to Leanan and Baobhan who held each other then, their cheeks pressed together. "Do you want to help?"

"Children are so sweet," said Baobhan as she licked a finger.

Leanan kissed her sister Faerie's cheek. "Innocent blood," she said in a whisper, "tastes better."

They came upon Maeve in a faerie ring with her child. They had trouble getting through the tangle of branches she had left in her wake. Fir Darrig turned back alone. Bruised and scratched, they found Maeve with her child. He was awake and listening to her tell a story...

"And there were the faerie princes each aloft a faerie steed, all decked in forest green and shining gold, their helms jewelled, and made of gold like their gauntlets, and their faerie arms...and behind them came the faerie maidens and then the Queen, myself... ."

Robin sprung into the ring. Maeve screamed. The very trees moved to protect her. Robin was thrown down on the grass. Leanan and Baobhan scudded across the ground reaching for the child. He let them touch him, as he marveled at their loveliness. His violet eyes went wide.

"Oh, Sister," sighed Baobhan and cradled the boy to her bosom, "we should not kill this one, Maeve is right, he is so beautiful."

"Oh, truly," said Leanan, "he can grow to be one of us, what pranks he could pull on those foolish mortals, what lovely maidens he can bring us."

"What future kisses," said Baobhan.

"Oh yes," said Leanan, "Dear Maeve, share him with us."

"My Sister Faeries, my subjects, I will share my child if you keep him as I do," said Maeve.

"No munching," promised Leanan.

"No munching on the lovely one."

"You are mad!" Robin shouted from afar.

"And no drowning to preserve his beauty at the bottom of the lake, his beauty is for the sunset and the meadow," Maeve admonished her faeries.

"Oh, we promise."

"We promise, Queen Maeve," said Baobhan.

"I do not promise," spat Robin as the trees held him back in a tangle of branches.

"Send him into the great ocean at the west," said Maeve, and she laughed, "Let him try to find land there."

The trees dislocated Robin's limbs in the effort to move him. He cried out with a terrible scream. "I'll find land in the West, Maeve, The Tuatha Dé passed from the world that way, I'll find land, and I'll live to dance on your graves!"

The trees carried Robin to the ocean at the west of the land and abandoned him to it while the three Faeries lay in the ring with their foundling tasting of his sweet skin and speaking of the day when he would grow to be their Prince. And the child fell asleep.

the end