Harvest Moon, Part 14

She hobbled forward, continuing to call out her line as if she were some kind of broken record. Just skipping, waiting for a response. It was that, and the dark pink coloration that formed over all her eyes that told she was blind. Or at least possessing very bad eyesight. Instead, she acted like the Old Man turning her head from side to side hoping to hear something and sticking her nose in the air to catch a whiff.

I remained still, trying not to make a sound. Unfortunately, my clothes would most likely give me away. I had once been told that people feared lighting a match near me as my jacket alone would light up the night sky.

Though, it seemed their claim was mistaken as the old woman continued to prod around me unable to get any sort of sense to focus in on me.

“I know you’re there,” she said. “I heard you. Now you don’t move, but that is not what concerns me. You have no sent. Nothing animal. Nothing human. Nothing Fae.”

Her face contorted in a smile, one for radio. “Why have you come here Fetch? What is it you seek?”

I didn’t answer. And she didn’t continue. She simply waited. And waited. And waited. She didn’t move and neither did I. The shadows stretched out as light began to disappear in our small clearing. Time was running out.

And I was trapped in place by some old, blind lady. Was I really that helpless? I just fought a damn wolf man and come out with only a few gaping holes in my abdomen. Could she really do any worse to me? The forest that protected her had even shined away from my iron dagger. I was Elroy Fucking Reardon, the Fae don’t scare me. I scare them. I made the decision then and there to move, consequences be damned.

“Oh well, guess it was my old mind playing tricks on me,” she said just as I was about to take off. She laughed, suddenly a little more kindly in her jovial nature. “I shouldn’t waste time on such silly pursuits. Not when other matters are at hand.”

She clucked and shuffled around the side of the house, continuing the light chiding of her actions and foolishness. I stood poised, ready with the iron dagger. I was fully prepared to assault the rest home retiree. I took a deep breath and exhaled when she was gone, loosening up on the dagger slightly. Not fully tucking it away though, I still had to get through the forest again and was still going to need it.

A small path meandered around her home the other way and I began to follow, about ready to leave the when I heard the small whimper coming from inside the house. It was the noise of a younger person, a childe. Delicate. More feminine. A sound of distress.

I moved closer to the once sugar glass window, which had become tarnished with dirt and pollen after the glamour fell. With my sleeve, I wiped away a small circle to look inside.

She stood on a box because she could not reach all the way to the top of the stove. Various copper and ceramic pots and pans sat over the open wood fire beneath while inside a myriad dishes were being prepared. Her clothes had become tattered and dirty. She wore only one shoe. This Margret Dietrich looked quite different from the one I had seen two nights ago in her parents apartment. The little girl sobbed as she stirred a large wooden spoon inside one of the back burning pans. She looked as though she may topple into the fire herself.

The kindly old lady turned evil turned kindly was the Lady of the Harvest after all. Typical Earth Court, still calling themselves ladies when they had gone far past their prime. Though, vanity was the least of her crimes right now.

I twisted and turned, but Jacob was nowhere to be found inside. Margret may know where we can find him though, and with the old woman gone this was my best chance of getting her out. I checked once more around the general area, she was almost certainly gone. Then I snuck inside the house.

A buffet had been made and set upon the large table in the first room. That certainly said something if the old woman ate in the opening room. Then again, she was the Lady of the Harvest. Everything was laid out. From pies made of apple and blueberry, to sweet breads, at least four kinds of potatoes, greens of all types with vegetables of every letter of the alphabet. The table was strangely devoid of any meats, again she was the Lady of the Harvest. Only one Fae covered the Hunt and it certainly wasn’t a woman.

I hurried quickly through and tried not to let my hungry mind linger, the taste from the house had only wet my hunger. Much of the place was old wood, splintering and about ready to fall in on itself. It was strange with all the good foods around, I quickly noticed the smell of rot and decay. The house was dying. Not dead yet though, how appropriate.

Margret moved from one pot to the next when I stepped into the kitchen, she picked up the pace at the sound of footsteps. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m cooking.”

“Sssh,” I hissed and moved closer. “Keep it down, she’ll hear you.”

The little girl turned, and she blinked back to tears then leapt at me. It took me by surprise and I was quick enough to drop the dagger before she skewered herself upon it. She squeezed tight onto my waist, it hurt a little and I was afraid would bust the seams I had just sewn back in.

I tried to pry her off, but she’d have none of it. “She is going to eat my brother, you have to rescue him. She was making me fatten him up. I didn’t want to, but she hurt me when I wouldn’t. Jacob said to do it, it would be ok. He’d solve everything.”

She spoke like a tommy gun fired, I couldn’t keep up with every word of it. “Ok, ok. Where is your brother now?”

“The old lady keeps him outside. In a cage. You have to help him.”

“I will,” I promised. “But first, we need to get you to safety.” I stooped down and put a hand on her head while I reached for the knife with the other. “Now, where exactly-”

Margret shook her head as he mouth stretched wide to say something. It all played out slower than earlier. I didn’t even really feel the blow to the back of my head. The room all of a sudden just got a little to spinny, and I found myself falling to the floor. I think the girl was screaming, couldn’t tell really. Too much ringing in my ears.

Blackness was closing in around my eyes. I hadn’t heard her. She was too silent. I hadn’t smelt her. The house overpowered it. I had turned my back on my enemy and paid for it. The old woman stood over me with a rolling pin in her hand, no blood on it. No cotton. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to stitch back a hole in my head. Those never turn out right.

Harvest Moon, Part 13

Dozens of figures perched upon the upmost branches, and all of them stared at me as I followed their numbers deeper into the forest. Even stuffed with cotton I felt a bit like a cowardly scarecrow. I might be able to survive at attack from them, but I’d be strewn all about the place into many bits in pieces to ever get anything done. Unable to move.

I shuddered at the thought, birds are terrifying. It probably would have been less pathetic were they not all jays and robins, the kinds most people consider peaceful and beautiful. Nonetheless, a mass of any creature moving in silent unison is terrifying.

Through branch and burr, brush and stream, I moved keep a close eye on those birds. I couldn’t tell how far I had walked or even how long, I couldn’t track the sun in the dense foliage. I’d only be able to tell when it had begun to set and by then it’d be too late, moonrise would come with it. So, I moved as fast as I could, hoping the whole time that I had no guessed wrong and wasted time.

When the light began to die, I felt the worst of my fears set in. But it was only the forest growing even further. Even one step would take me minutes as I fought the twisting vines that entangled my feet. If I didn’t know better, I would think the forest was merely trying to slowly consume me. Like some sort of snake, wrapping around me slowly crushing the life from me.

Then, I thought I been wrong. The birds were a trap. They had said the Lady didn’t let any one in her forest she didn’t want. But had Iron John been on her side? Fae weren’t known for their loyalties, he wasn’t an exception, even if we had been friends at one point.

I tried to turn back. I had made a mistake. I should have gotten more information. I wrenched my foot, but it refused to move, wedged between two roots. The flutter of wings rose all around me. Were they attacking? Or was it potential prey fleeing at the sight of a predator?

I struggled as the world closed in around me, a trap of wood and plant. My arms became pinned to my torso, I could move them any longer. Vines crept up my legs, wrapping tight. I might not die here, but I certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Then it hit more, or more precisely, cut me. The knife underneath my jacket had pressed against the flesh in my arm. The iron knife.

Plants in Faery are like any other organism in Faery, their bane is iron. I wedged and twisted with the little room I had available to me and tried to work a hand up into my jacket. The space was tight, I squeezed out a final breath, even without lungs it still gave me the room I needed to slip the knife out.

Some already knew it was coming, they escaped at least the faster moving ones. The vines freed me, but the branches took a great time. I stabbed at them, just enough to teach them a lesson.

A forest is like any other living creature. It howled and retracted, angry but scared. As quickly as it had descended upon me, I was free. It cleared a path, obviously wishing to protect itself more than the Lady of the Harvest.

Hell, it gave me a straight shot. There in the distance, a small cabin sat at the center of a clearing. Light shone down from the sky, with the angle and degree I still had time.

I kept a slow and steady pace through the rest of the path though, keeping the knife out and at the ready. The forest was begrudgingly letting me through, if I gave it the chance it would be on me again. And it was doubtful I’d get away as easily the second time.

Buttery aromas drifted from the clearing towards me as I approached. There was no one to stop salivating, it had been awhile since I had smelt food like that, decadently sweet and aromatic you just couldn’t find in Notion City. I thought for a moment the Lady might be baking, and a moment of dread set in when I thought further on what she could be baking, but when I drew closer to the cottage I realized that it was the home itself giving off the smell.

The house was constructed from sweet cakes, candies and other sugary confections. How it survived the elements such as rain, I couldn’t guess. But then things never work right in Faery anyway. There was something about it though, the smell and the sight of all that food. My gut rumbled and I couldn’t help myself, I reached up to touch the wall. It felt like stone, but easily broke away in my hand and slowly its texture change. Hard and brittle, became soft and gooey. The perfect kind of cake, the kind I always dreamed of eating when I was a kid. Before I knew what I was doing, the piece was already in my mouth.

I spit it out quickly, and shook my head, knocking some cobwebs loose. I knew the magics behind the house, it was the same stuff that made me look human. Glamour. It could only really affect senses, just because the house looked and tasted like cake didn’t mean it was cake. Just as on the inside, I’m only cotton posing as a man this house was posing as a cake. The cake was a lie.

The house should itself as it was, beaten and rundown. Ugly and old. The kind of house you’d want to hide under any means necessary.

A creaking of wood send a chill down my spine, the knob at the door had begun to turn and slowly open. With a shuffling step, the old woman slowly exited her home. She was a stout old thing, supporting herself far more with her cane than her legs. Probably nothing but frail bones under her dress. Her ears twitched under the boils of her skin, and hawkish nose crinkled as she got a whiff in the air.

If I was still under the spell of Glamour, she might look like the house, a sweet and innocent old lady. A Lady. Was this the Lady of the Harvest?

Almost as I thought it, her head cocked upward as though she heard something and her mouth creaked just as the door did when it opened, “nibble, nibble, gnaw. Who is nibbling at my little house?’