Man Nor Beast

By Rose Q. Addams

“Help!”

The voice is desperate. Wild. It cuts through the screaming winds and lashing sheets of rain that pound you and the earth. You lift your lantern, peering into the blackness as you attempt to steady your pounding heart.

You see naught but the driven rain at first; even the ground is murky and indistinct everywhere but beneath your feet. The moors are friend to no one, not even on days when the weather is peaceable. But this hellish madness is, as they say, fit for neither man nor beast, and you pity whoever cries out on a night like this with no one else to hear. As you squint, you make out a boulder up ahead, with what appears to be a figure cowering in the meager shelter it provides.

Being lost together is surely better than lost alone.

“Dunnae fear!” you cry, lifting the lantern higher. “I’m comin’!”

Despite the biting wind and stinging sleet, you make your way there in good time. The figure shifts at your approach, and you catch sight of a pale face as the wind throws back her hood.

“It’s all right,” you say, huddling beside her. The wind subsides enough that you can speak in a civil tone. “It’ll die down soon. Ye’ve picked a good spot fer shelter. Surely there’s none other fer miles.”

“Are ye lost, too?” She pulls her sodden hood back up, though her tangled red curls are already soaked.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” you hedge, looking her over. “How’d ye come to be out here on yer own, lassie?”

She looks down at her mud-caked boots. “Ye’ll laugh.”

“I could use a good laugh.” You venture a wry smile.

“I’d come out here to find a Fae,” she confesses. She pushes the plastered curls off her face, then looks back up, jaw set. “Ma ain’t doing well. She fell sick, and… The cough jest dinnae go away. Gran al’ays says the Fae can cure whatever they’ve a mind to. I was hopin’ to find one and strike a bargain.”

“Fae dinnae take bargains lightly, child. They take what’s dearest to ye.” The lass’s hope is moving, if foolish. Many who’ve made a deal do so to their own sorrow—you, of course, know that more than most—and she should know what’s in store.

She shakes her head. “I know. But… She hasn’t much time left. I asked Father McHurley if there was anything I could do besides prayer. He said God has ways of working things out using even the despised and little things o’ the world. So I came to find a faery-ring and go through to their land. I won’t go back ’til Mama’s made well again, else there’s no point.” She clenches a fist. “Please, will you help me?”

The winds have slowed, although she shivers in the pouring rain. You don’t really care that the ground beneath you is wet; it hasn’t bothered you for years.

Is this really what your deliverance looks like?

“Are ye sure, lass?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes. Ye know something. Help me.” She puts a hand over your own, and a ghost of warmth penetrates your skin. With it, a flicker of memory.

You, too, sought with desperation, though of another kind.

You were once a king. One who sought a way to live forever; and you were unfortunate enough to not only find what you sought but to make the bargain you’d longed for—though no one in your stead would be fool enough to call this existence “life.”

You are neither man, nor beast, nor Fae. You are merely a wanderer. The only glimmer of hope, the only touch of humanity you keep is that you guide others through the moors. Whether to their doom at Titania’s hands or to their safety is for you to decide. You choose with the uncanny vision that comes with your task—but to be their judge is a weight that none were made for except the Lord, and it’s breaking you.

“Lassie…”

Her eyes alight with a fire you haven’t seen in decades. And with that fire comes another wave of memory, this one from mere days ago.

“End me!” You kneel before the gilded, empty creature that you now call “mistress.” “I beg o’ ye, if you have an ounce of mercy in yer heart…”

“Let it not be said that Titania was without mercy,” purrs the Fae queen. “If the next traveler ye find is willing to take yer place, ye are released to live out your remaining days in comfort.” Her face splits unnaturally wide in a grin. “After all, I only require a life freely gi’en, and that I shall sustain. Until then”—she rises, eyes narrowing to slits—“back to your work.” The audience ends as the will-o’-wisps about you snuff out as one, thrusting you back into the mists.

At the cost of this young life, to pass your burden to one who deserves it no more than you… A voice long silent, your conscience awakens. Your bargain was made in selfishness. If she is offered this choice—her service for her mother’s life—she’ll take it, and it will destroy her.

You are not Titania. You are not Man, Beast, or Fae… but you were once a man. And for that, you speak.

“Go home, lassie. I’ll see about yer Ma.” Your powers, though weaker outside the moors, should be enough to draw an ailing woman towards healing… Especially if you redouble your service.

The girl’s brows draw together in puzzlement, and you tip your head. She follows your gaze toward the arrow-straight path the sudden moonlight’s silvered, the one that leads wherever her home lies.

“Run, lass. Run and don’t look back!”

Her eyes widen, and she stumbles to her feet. Her staggering steps break into a full run, and the mists close behind her in silence.

The Fae queen might have your life; but your soul, she’ll ne’er have.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rose Q. Addams loves cheesecake, hats, and her family, who she blames for her love of reading. Some of her best memories are hearing tales of Heidi, Winnie the Pooh, Beauty and The Beast, and the prophet Ehud—which explains how her taste runs wildly throughout genres. She can be found scribbling madly on any paper she gets, and praising her Savior for the weird and wonderful things in her life.

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