Category: Grimmon Darkly

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – part 10

Flakes of stinging snow lashed against my beak and coated my feathers. I half-closed my eyes and squinted at the landscape surrounding Castle Silverhill. The world the castle had moved to creaked under a mantle of snow and ice. Glaciers, like giant frost-scaled snakes, slithered from distant mountains. Threads of wind-whipped ice crystals streamed from their peaks like the wispy hair of geriatric witches.

I shivered, but I didn’t want to retreat into the warmth of the kitchen just yet. There was something I needed to know. I ventured to the edge of the courtyard and, with a flap of my stubby wings, hopped onto the wall overlooking the moat.

Already, ice was forming along the banks of the moat. The sluggish water stirred and a thick, sucker-studded tentacle emerged from the depths. It waved, as though tasting the air, then sank back beneath the ice-flecked surface.

I couldn’t see Trewla.

Had she found some way to cross the moat before the castle had moved?

But how? The fairies wouldn’t have carried her, seeing as she had angered the queen and she was too large for them to carry, anyway. We have a rowing boat, but it’s locked in the boathouse. And hadn’t she said she didn’t swim?

So, where was she?

The thudding of heavy footsteps came from my left.

“This is all your fault!” Trewla’s face was like thunder. Her boots stamped on the paving stones, which were already crusting over with frost.

I’ve come to know Trewla much better since that day, and if I’d known then what I know about her now, I’d have been a lot more frightened.

The transmogrification spell, which had turned me into a chicken, chose that moment to flip. You might be wondering about that, because like I explained earlier, it’s a bit difficult to say a spell backwards when all you have is beak, or whatever. Luckily for all of us who make a habit of casting spells, to get around that problem, a thousand years ago a wizard called Drucher invented a way to make transmogrification spells reverse themselves after a few hours or so. By sheer good fortune, the one that had lodged in my memory had Drucher’s modification built in.

Which is why, with a sharp snap and a puff of mauve smoke, I morphed back into a three-inch tall human.

My bare feet, which had been quite hardy when they’d been bird’s feet, burned with cold as they sank into the coating of snow on top of the wall. The wind pierced the thin dressing gown that abruptly replaced my warm coat of feathers.

For a second, Trewla hesitated, then lunged towards me.

“I can explain!” I yelled as her hand wrapped around my tiny body and lifted me to her face.

For a moment, I thought she was going to eat me, but all she did was subject me to a full glare. Which, I have to say, was not a pleasant experience. I mean, think about it. A pair of scowling, inhuman eyes bigger than your head, staring at you with murderous intent, would be enough to turn anyone’s bowels to jelly.

“Good,” she said. “Now you can talk again.” Her eyes hardened. “You’re going to tell me how I’m going to get home. You’re the lord of this castle, and I believe what Queen Amabilis said, it’s your fault it moves between worlds. You owe it to me to get me back to my world!”

“I do?”

“Yes! I saved your life.”

At my quizzical look, she added, “Your cook would have chopped off your head if I hadn’t grabbed you.”

“Oh… Right. Look, I’m happy to help, but first, why don’t we go inside?” I gasped when her grip tightened a fraction. “It’s freezing out here, and there’s a lot to explain.”

Her eyes narrowed, then she nodded and carried me back into the kitchen.

When Cook saw me, her eyebrows went up. “Oh. You’re human again. Well, sort of.”

Trewla frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Humans aren’t usually that small. He certainly isn’t.”

“He shrank himself with a spell,” said Grimmon. He was sitting on a table by the fireplace. “It was supposed to shrink me too, but it didn’t. If it had, I could have kept him out of trouble.”

“What?” My blood boiled. “Rubbish! You wouldn’t have-”

“Be quiet!” snarled Trewla.

My jaws snapped shut.

“We came inside so you can explain how you’re going to get me out of this mess,” she continued. “You’d better get on with it before I lose my temper.”

I furrowed my forehead. “Can I speak now?”

“Yes. But don’t try to be clever, or I’ll…” With her free hand, she made a twisting motion in the air an inch above me. I had no hesitation believing she’d wrench off my head if I didn’t do as she asked.

I squeaked. “All right!” With her hand wrapped around my body, she didn’t see me cross my fingers. “I’ll only be able to help you when I’m my normal size again.”

“No. I like you how you are right now. Much easier to control.”

Damn. I hadn’t expected her to argue.

Grimmon grunted. “Well, he can’t do anything here in the kitchen to help you. His book of spells is in his studio.”

“Yes,” I said. “Grimmon’s right. If you put me down, I’ll go there straight away and find a spell to help you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to let you go. I’ll carry you to your studio to make sure you don’t get up to any nonsense.”

“Oh… Um…” My mind raced, and I hatched an audacious plan: I could guide her into the maze of passages in the abandoned parts of the castle, and pretend we were lost. Then, when she tired and put me down, I could-

“I’ll show you the way,” said Grimmon, interrupting my thoughts.

I won’t bore you with the details about us setting off, Trewla complaining about the cold, and Grimmon detouring to pick up a cloak for her from an ancient trunk in the dusty room where a certain ancestor of mine had once lived. He told the elf he was sure the lady whose room it was wouldn’t mind, but the demise of a cobweb-laced oil lamp which lifted off a table all by itself, hung in the air for a second, then dashed itself against the wall, put paid to that notion. Poltergeists, eh?

The rest of the journey was uneventful apart from having to explain to Trewla that, though we were walking down the stairs winding around the core of the central tower, we were actually climbing to the top of the tower where my studio was located. I’m not sure she believed us, but once we got there, she raised an eyebrow when she looked out of the window and saw the bird’s eye view of the snow-covered lands around the castle.

While she was distracted by the view, I glanced at my desk. My heart thumped, and I stifled a gasp of relief. My spell book was still lying where I’d dropped it.

And it was open. Hopefully on the page inscribed with the spell I’d cast to shrink myself.

“Put me on the desk and I’ll look through the book for a spell to sort things out,” I said with as much nonchalance as I could muster.

“Not only is that a bad idea because you’re too small to turn the pages yourself, but also, I don’t trust you.” said Trewla. “I’ll hold you over the book so you can see it while I do the page turning.”

“No,” I squeaked, but I was too late. Trewla was already at the desk, holding me over the book.

Her spare hand reached towards the book. I needed to see that spell before she turned the page.

Fighting the panic rising from my gut, I twisted in her grasp, and leaned out as far as I could.

With my neck stretched as far as it could go, I ran my eyes over the spell. I didn’t recognise it, but then, spells are written in a dead language that nobody understands anyway.

It must be the spell of shrinking. It had to be.

Gibbering with haste, I read it out loud backwards. My heart hammered as I spat out each arcane word.

There was a flash and a swirl of orange smoke. Trewla yelled and dropped me.

When the smoke cleared, I was lying on the floor. I felt big again.

“Thatsssssss bether,” I said.

Odd… My voice had a nasty hiss to it. I lifted my head and looked down my body.

It was scaly, long, and completely without limbs.

Grimmon shuffled closer, bent down and prodded my back with a taloned finger.

“Python,” he said. “Or maybe a boa constrictor. Must be at least twelve feet long.” He straightened his back and wrinkled his bulbous nose. “I think I liked you better as a chicken.”

Trewla stalked towards me. Her eyes were diamond hard and her face was like thunder.

With an urgent flick of my tail, I slithered under the desk.

***

The End

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Episode 9

When you want to reverse a spell, you say it backwards. Simple.

But the problem with transmogrification spells is that it’s a little tricky to say anything at all, never mind backwards, when the creature you’ve turned yourself into isn’t capable of speaking.

That was exactly the problem I had at that moment, cornered by a knife-wielding cook, a large fairy who’d wring my neck if she got to me before the cook did, and an enraged bunch of nasty fairies buzzing towards me.

And, despite for once actually remembering the words of the transmogrification spell, all I had was a damned, non-vocalising beak.

I know you’re thinking parrot have beaks and they’re pretty good at talking, but I can tell you from personal experience, that while a chicken’s beak is great for picking up worms, it isn’t worth a pinch of salt when it comes to casting spells, or telling a ferocious, cleaver-waving kitchen worker you aren’t who they think you are.

Maybe turning myself into a wordless potential dinner hadn’t been such a great idea.

“Caaaaaaaaaaaaaar!” I shrieked, paralysed, unsure which way to dodge.

The airborne fairies reached me first, but I’d pecked one of them earlier and they were wary of me. They buzzed around my head, but kept their distance.

A glint caught my eye. I screeched, dropped flat on my front, my head whacking on the table in a most un-chicken-like way. Cook’s cleaver skimmed through the feathers sticking up on my back.

With my heart hammering, I lifted my head to see Trewla’s hands swooping in. My beak clamped shut, my eyes bulged, and my legs, torso and wings refused to move.

Cook yelled, “Get out of the way!” She whipped her cleaver around for another blow.

An instant before the blade fell, Trewla’s hands gripped my body and my breath whooshed out as she yanked me up and held me against her chest.

At that moment, two things happened.

The cleaver thudded into the tabletop.

Trewla’s wings fell off.

Apart from Cook’s grunts a she wrestled to free her cleaver embedded in the table, the kitchen fell silent. All but one of the fairies shot up to the ceiling. Queen Amabilis hovered in front of Trewla’s face.

“Who are you?”

“Er… A fairy?” said Trewla. I could feel her heart thudding, pressed as I was by her hands against her body. “Um, Trewla Thistledown. Remember?”

“You told me your name was Trewla Buttercup.” The queen folded her arms and glanced at the wings lying on the floor at Trewla’s feet. “Fairy’s wings don’t tend to fall off. So, who are you?”

Grimmon chose that moment to wander up, wiping grease from his face. He bent down and picked up one of the fallen wings. Broken strings dangled from the ends.

“It’s cardboard,” he said, bending the wing and flicking it with a talon-like fingernail.

“All right! I admit it. I’m not a fairy,” said Trewla. She held her head high, and tightened her grip on my feathered form. “I’m an elf.”

“An elf?” Queen Amabilis glared at Trewla. “Why were you pretending to be a fairy?”

“It’s a complicated story.”

“Try me.”

“Well… The thing is, we elves were curious about this castle. I mean, it appeared out of nowhere one night, but looks like it’s always been there. We wanted to find out why it was here, and where it had come from, so I volunteered to check it out. The trouble is, there’s no bridge across the moat, and I don’t swim, and elves aren’t keen on boats, so the most logical thing was to shrink me to the size of a fairy, and persuade you to go to the castle and carry me with you. I didn’t expect you to turn me back to my normal height and force me to hunt an annoying miniature human.”

“Outrageous!” said Queen Amabilis. “If you think because you’re an elf I’ll treat you kindly, think again. You deceived us! On top of that, impersonating a fairy is a capital offence.” She held her arms out from her sides. Red, pulsating orbs formed in each of her outstretched hands. “It’s not just that pathetic toadstool-destroyer you’re holding who will die. You are going to perish with him!”

“Awk!” I clucked. I closed my eyes, and buried my head in Trewla’s armpit.

“Wait!” shouted Cook.

I opened one eye.

The burning orbs dimmed, and the queen turned her head to look at Cook. “What?”

“Before you blast the elf, give me the chicken. It’ll make a fine supper for the lord of the castle.”

Grimmon shook his head. “The chicken is the lord of the castle. I reckon you’ll have a hard time feeding him to himself.”

Cook frowned. “Eh?”

“Magic. He transmogrified himself into a Polish rooster.”

“Tsk.” Cook shook her head, then waved her hand at Queen Amabilis. “Fair enough. Carry on.”

The queen faced us. The burning orbs reappeared in her hands. I screwed my eye shut, and trembled.

A roar, like a thousand distant waterfalls, erupted from the castle’s stones. The atmosphere vibrated with the sensation you get when you step into a field and see an enraged bull thundering towards you.

I dared to open my eye.

Queen Amabilis’ eyebrows leaped to the top of her head, and her arms dropped. More importantly, from my point of view, her hands were devoid of fireballs. The rest of the fairies muttered and hissed, fluttering around near the ceiling, their necks twisting as their gazes darted nervously around the kitchen.

Grimmon sniffed, sidled closer, and peered through half-closed eyes at the fairy queen. “If I were you, I’d make a dash back across the moat right now. That sound you just heard happens when the castle is about to move. You’ve got a minute to get away before you get trapped here with us forever.”

“No!” Amabilis thrust her arm out towards me and spread out her fingers. A bright red spot formed in her palm. “If I kill the rooster quickly, the castle will stay where it is.”

“Too late, Your Majesty.” Grimmon gave her a wry smile. “Once you hear that sound, the castle’s started the process. It won’t stop until it’s moved to a new world, no matter what you do.”

The roaring from the stones grew louder.

“Less than a minute to go, now,” added Grimmon. “You’d better get going.”

I could see the queen’s face going from puzzlement, to suspicion, to panic. She yelled, and the fairy host streaked out of the window, shrieking their heads off. With a snarl, Amabilis flew after them, yelling at them to slow down so she could catch up.

Trewla let out the breath she’d been holding, dropped me and I flapped my wings to stop myself crashing into the floor. With a snarl, she sprang away, wrenched open the door that led into the kitchen’s courtyard, and hurtled outside.

Grimmon scratched his head. “How does she think she’s going to get across the moat in time?”

Then the walls, floor, ceiling, tables, people and all warped, twisted, shimmered, and blurred. It was like being inside a cosmic washing machine’s spin cycle.

When everything became solid once more, I jumped to my feet and went out into the courtyard.

A frozen landscape under seething grey skies greeted my eyes.

I couldn’t see the fairies. They must have got away safely.

But Trewla hadn’t. She was stalking towards me, her hands clenched into fists, her face twisted in a dark scowl.

***

Continued in Part 10 – How to Deal with a Furious Elf

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Episode 8

Like I said, spells are treacherous beasts.

The thing is, unless you speak the long dead language they’re written in, you don’t stand a marshmallow’s chance against a flamethrower of knowing exactly what’s going to happen when you cast one your subconscious drags from your memory and shoves into your mind.

What I’d hoped, as the words had tumbled from my lips, was that the spell was the backwards version of the one I’d used to shrink myself.

It wasn’t. The cloud of feathers gave that much away.

I dropped my gaze to my feet.

They were three-toed, red, and gnarled like clawed twigs.

“Squawk!” I yelled.

With a sinking feeling, I raised my arms, pretty sure what I was going to see.

I was right.

Wings.

But not the elegant, slim, great-for-soaring-out-of-the-window sort. No, mine were short and broad like a couple of stumpy feathered fans.

I’d turned myself into a chicken.

Grimmon told me later, in his less than endearing pedantic way, he reckons I’d turned myself into a Polish rooster. I’m not sure how he knew because he wasn’t there at the time. At any rate, at that moment I had more important things to worry about than working out what breed I’d transmogrified into.

My first thought, once I’d got over my shock, was to take advantage of what remained of those precious seconds of stupor affecting everyone else at my abrupt change, and dash to the crack in the wall I’d been heading for earlier.

Filled with hope, I flicked my gaze away from Trewla and at the gap I hoped to escape through.

My stomach sank to my knobbly toes. The crack was too narrow for my new fowl body.

A movement caught my eye and the feathers on my neck lifted. Trewla, noticing my distraction, had crouched and was creeping towards me with her arms spread.

I realised in an instant what was going on. I was no longer small enough to be stomped on. She was going to catch me and wring my scrawny neck.

With another squawk, I leaped into the air, spun around, and ran. A bunch of fairies blocking my way went tumbling like ninepins as I thundered into them.

I clucked in glee at their outraged yells. Maybe being a chicken had some advantages after all. Also, now that my legs were longer than they’d been only a minute ago, I might be able to outrun Trewla.

The corridor took a sharp turn to the left, and I shot around it, my feet scrabbling for purchase on the hard stone floor. Fairies buzzed and whizzed overhead, screeching in rage and swooping at my head to put me off my stride. A quick stab from my beak sent one of them spinning away, clutching his arm. The others backed off, wary of my wild eyes and slashing bill.

“Take that, you nasty little twerps!”, I shouted. Or at least, I tried to, but all that came out of my throat was a series of maddened cackles.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t hurl abuse at the fairies. In my opinion, things had take a turn for the better. Sure, it would have been preferable if my spell had turned me into an eagle, a hawk, or even a starling, but at that moment I wasn’t complaining.

The hammering of Trewla’s feet, and the rasping of her breath was still uncomfortably close behind me. Another bend, this one to the right, took me into a corridor slightly less dusty than the last.

My heart lifted. With a flash of clarity, I knew where I was. I wasn’t heading to my studio, where my spell book lay, but to the kitchen. Although that was disappointing, on the other hand Cook would be in the kitchen. And quite likely Grimmon would be there too. The moment the moss had disappeared, that’s where he would have gone, greedy goblin that he is.

They would protect me from the fairies.

The kitchen door grew closer. I crowed in delight when I saw it was open.

I put on a spurt of speed and, wailing like a feathered banshee, burst into the kitchen.

As I’d expected, Grimmon was there. He was sitting by the window, stuffing his face with what appeared to be a roasted rat. His fingers were dripping in grease, and he was so engrossed in his meal, he didn’t notice me.

He’d be no help, then.

I swung my head around.

Cook? Where’s Cook?

There was no sign of her, but she isn’t always visible, so I wasn’t too worried at that point. I mean, she hardly ever left the kitchen as far as I knew. Even slept there, I think.

Not being able to see her wasn’t unusual. Between you and me, it was due to the unintended consequences of a spell I cast some years ago when I’d been searching for a lost magic spoon. I never found the spoon, but a side effect of the spell was that Cook ended up being two dimensional. A bit like a paper doll.

Front on, she looked like a normal person who spends all their time preparing food, what with her floury hands, apron, black hair tucked under a cap, sharp nose and chin. But sideways on she was really thin. I mean, like nonexistent thin. So thin she was invisible.

I knew I’d see her when she turned around.

What I hadn’t expected, though, was that when she did, she’d have a meat-cleaver in her hand.

“I’d been wondering what to make his lordship for dinner, and look what the fates sent me!” she yelled as she swung the cleaver at my neck.

I screamed, jumped out of the way, and flapped my stubby little wings.

When the dust cleared, I was standing on a table in the corner of the room. Cook was pacing towards me from my right. Trewla was stomping closer from my left, and swarm of angry fairies were zooming straight at me in front.

I was doomed.

***

Continued in Part 9 – Things Don’t Always Work Out How You Expect

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Episode 7

Like a two-legged spider on steroids, I scuttled down the corridor away from the chamber where the fairy queen had sentenced me to death. A bit harsh, in my opinion, to be hunted by a giant and flattened to pulp under her heel.

I swallowed my outrage and looked around as I ran.

Where was I? I couldn’t get my bearings. So many parts of the castle looked identical to one another. It was easy enough to get lost even when not being chased by an oversized, murderous fairy.

When Bangles had captured me and taken me to see the fairy queen, the castle’s corridors and passages had been clogged with moss. The weird little tunnels through the dense vegetation had hidden the walls and had made it impossible to see where we’d been going. The only time I’d had some kind of idea was when Bangles and I had half stumbled, half slid down the sloping tunnel through the moss which had covered the stairs from my studio to the ground floor. After that… nothing. To my little sore feet, it had felt like miles. The trouble was, we might have walked in circles for all I knew.

The ancient, crumbling pile of stones that was Castle Silverhill was a maze of passageways, corridors, halls, walkways, and gangways. Some meandered from one end of the sprawling half-ruined castle to the other, but more than a few came to a dead end where a centuries-old building alteration cut it off, or the roof had collapsed.

I came to a junction and skidded to a halt. Three corridors led off in different directions. I twisted my neck from one side to the other, chose a corridor at random, then set off down a different one. You know, just in case the queen had secretly cast a spell which had made me choose that first corridor. At that thought, my eyes grew wide and I stopped where I was. What if it had been her spell that had made me change my mind and choose the one I was currently running down?

I dashed back to the intersection and started down the third corridor, the worst lit, grimiest one of the three.

But what if that was the one she wanted me to take?

I pushed the suspicion away. Thinking like that led to madness.

My heart raced. My legs flew. How much longer did I have before Trewla – huge, monstrous Trewla with boots eager to crush my tender body – set out after me?

That question was answered by a distant bloodthirsty chorus of yells erupting from the fairy host behind me.

The hunt had begun.

A huntress, a dozen times bigger than me, was in hot pursuit.

With my dressing gown flapping around my naked knees, my bare feet slapping on the stone floor, I ran like the hounds of hell were after me, which I suppose, in a way they were. Though, instead of red-eyed dogs with huge teeth, I was being chased by a giant fairy who rejoiced in the name Trewla Buttercup. But still.

If I’d been thinking straight, I would have found somewhere to hide. And in a ramshackle, time-worn castle like mine, there are thousands of nooks and crannies a three-inch-tall person could secrete themself in. But all I could think about was to get to my spell book before Trewla smashed me to a pulp.

What frustrated me more than anything was how long it was taking me to run down the dingy corridor. I was like an ant crawling along the floor of a cathedral. If Trewla chose the corridor I was in, with her huge legs she’d be on me in seconds.

Hopefully, my clever technique for choosing which way to go, would save me.

But that hope was dashed when an insect-like buzzing filled the air. Half a dozen fairies flew past me, circled back, and hovered over my head.

“Coooooooeeeee! This way! He’s over here!” they screeched.

“Bugger off!” I yelled, waving my arms threateningly at them. “You’re not playing fair!”

They shrieked with laughter. One flew off back the way I’d come, presumably to lead Trewla to me.

I ran on, panting and stumbling, forcing as much speed out of my toothpick legs as they could bear. My tongue was a layer of dry carpet, my feet were on fire, my legs were wobbly strands of spaghetti, and I still didn’t know where I was. All the while, the little group of fairies stayed with me, calling out and taunting me.

Then, in a rush of wings and chattering of voices, they were joined by the rest of the host.

What was the point of running any longer? With a cloud of fairies flitting about overhead, I slid to a stop.

And, at the sound of thudding feet, I turned to look down the corridor.

My blood chilled.

Trewla was coming. Her legs were pumping like pistons. The floor shook as she thundered ever nearer.

Sweat poured down my brow. It was no good running away down the corridor. Her stride was so much longer than mine, she’d be on me before I’d gone more than a few feet. I trembled, pulse pounding, and looked around. There was a window not far away, but too high for me to reach. Like most throughout the castle, it was unglazed, giving me a clear view of a slice of blue sky.

If only I could fly. I could zoom away to safety like a bird.

“Go away!” I shouted. “Leave me alone!”

Trewla slowed as she drew closer. One pace away from me, she lifted her leg high.

I threw myself sideways, landing on my chest, as her huge boot crashed into the floor.

I scrambled to my feet, and spotted a crack at floor level in the nearest wall. It looked big enough for me to wriggle into. I stumbled towards it.

A cloud of dust blasted up in front of me as a group of fairies shot down and stood blocking my way.

“Don’t be a coward!” shouted one. “Stay and fight!”

“Fight? Are you insane?” I shouted back.

A shadow passed over us. Their faces lifted, their eyes grew wide, and they hurried backwards.

I looked up. Trewla’s foot was on its way down again.

I hurled myself away, and slid a few inches. Dust filled the air and the flagstone I lay on juddered under the force of Trewla’s heel. With my head spinning, I clambered upright, wiped my eyes, and ran for the crack again.

Fairies landed in a ring around me.

“Poc! Poc! Poc!” they said, circling me on strutting legs, jerking their heads back and forth, and flapping their elbows up and down.

A scraping of a giant boot on the floor sent me lurching away. I ran, zigzagging like a manic ant. Each time I headed for the wall, fairies appeared and blocked my way.

“Fight!” They screeched in one voice. “Poc! Poc! Poc! Chicken!”

My heart sank and I stopped running. What was the point? I was doomed.

My gaze turned to the sky beyond the window. It was hopeless, but I yearned to fly.

For the first time in my life, a spell popped unbidden into my head. Despite what had happened to Uncle Oswald, I cast it.

The air surrounding me erupted in feathers.

***

Continued in Part 8 – The Magic of Chickens

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – part 6

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the years, it’s that dealing with royalty can be tricky. On the one hand, you want to make them listen to you, but on the other, you really don’t want to do it in a way that riles them.

Too late. Queen Amabilis’ eyes were like stones. “You have only yourself to blame for what happens next.”

“Look,” I croaked, my throat suddenly dry. “Can’t we can talk about this like reasonable adults?”

“The time for being reasonable has passed. You saw to that.”

She made a sweeping gesture with one arm, raised her other arm above her head, and snapped her fingers. With a sigh as soft as melting snow, the moss filling the room faded away, revealing we were in one of the castle’s many empty reception rooms. Tattered threads of decaying tapestries drew attention to the arrangements of rusty swords and maces nailed to the stone wall between them. Far across the dusty floor, I saw through the doorway, gaping like a dead man’s mouth, that the corridor was clear of moss too.

My spirits lifted. It seemed the queen had got rid of all the moss that had been choking the castle. So far, things weren’t going badly.

I shouldn’t have been so naive.

The queen smiled in a way that wasn’t comforting in the slightest. “Now there’s nothing blocking our view. We’ll all be able to watch you as you die.”

The crowd of fairies laughed. I was sure there were more of them lining the walls now than when I’d been frogmarched into the room.

“Where are you, new fairy?” said Amabilis, looking across the open floor at the sea of faces around us.

A hand went up in the crowd, and a fairy stepped forward. She was a little taller than those nearby. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in light brown waves. Her outfit of ankle boots, dark grey trousers, and a green leather jerkin over a white shirt were neater and cleaner than anyone else’s in the room, including mine. As she approached I thought her ears seemed small for a fairy, and her eyes larger. There was something odd about her wings, like they’d been cut out of cardboard. The tip was missing from one of them.

“At your service, Your Majesty,” she said, bowing.

“What is your name, child?” said the queen.

“Trewla, Your Majesty.”

“Trewla who?”

“Oh, er, Buttercup. Trewla Buttercup.”

“I see. Well, Trewla Buttercup, you haven’t been in my court long. It’s time to prove your loyalty.”

Trewla’s eyebrows shot up, then she composed her features and said, “Of course, Your Majesty. Nothing could please me more.”

“You are going to teach this miscreant a lesson. I’m going to cast a spell that will make you human-sized, then I’ll release him. Seeing as he shrunk himself to the same size as us, it is fitting that he will learn what it’s like to be harassed by an enormous brute. And to be sorry once he’s been crushed under your foot.”

I raised my hand. “Could I point out that I have to be alive to be sorry.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll be sorry. Even if it’s only for the last few seconds of your pitiful life.” Queen Amabilis glared at me. “Enough chitchat. It’s time for the fun to begin.”

“Fun?” I said.

A thin-lipped smiled twisted her face again. “Well, for you, perhaps not so much. You’re going to be the prey in a hunt. And, to make it even more fun, I’ll give you a head start.”

She snapped out a stream of words, and waved her fingers at Trewla.

There was a burst of light. Ribbons of smoke filled the air, then cleared, revealing a giant fairy standing next to me. The queen and I only came up to her ankle.

“Run, little man,” said the queen. She grinned at me. “You’ve got a minute before I send Trewla after you.”

“Are you sure we can’t talk about this?” I glanced at Trewla towering above me, then turned back to the queen. “We could be friends, you know.”

“You’re wasting time. You’d better start running.”

I could see by the glint in her eyes there was no point arguing.

Once again, I cursed my poor memory for spells. If I could only remember the spell I’d cast to shrink myself, I could end this nightmare by saying it backwards and return to my usual size.

But cursing didn’t help. My only hope was to return to my study and read the spell in reverse from my spell book.

And avoid getting stomped on by an oversized fairy along the way.

I ran as fast as my tiny legs could carry me.

***

Continued in Part 7 – The Abominable Hunt

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Episode 5

People nowadays have a sugar-coated idea of what fairies are like. You know, all those images of pretty little fairy folk in skimpy outfits skipping and laughing, sipping morning-mist-tea from acorn cups and so on. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but fairies aren’t like that. Not one little bit.

For example, take the one prodding me in the back with her spear as she ushered me along a maze of tunnels through the moss. Her auburn hair was a spiky tangle of split-ends, her face, beneath its layers of grime, would have sent shivers down an ogre’s spine, her blue-green dress had an unwashed-since-time-began look, her ankle-high boots might once have belonged to a boggart with a yeast infection, and her wings had all the appeal of a bluebottle’s. Even her bangles and the fancy beadwork on her belt, were stained with reddish dirt. At least, I hoped it was dirt.

I’d like to say that beneath her unsavoury exterior there beat a heart of gold, but that would be stretching the truth. She hadn’t even had the decency to introduce herself. I decided to call her Bangles because of the thick bundle of them decorating her arm.

“Where are you taking me?” I said, arching my back to avoid the worst of the jabbing.

“Shut up and keep walking.”

I clenched my jaw. Clearly, Bangles wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

Trudging along the eerily lit mossy tunnels, I wished I’d made more of an effort to memorise my spell book. Whenever I’m in a fix, half remembered spells pop into my head and I’m tempted to cast them – or the fragments I remember – but I never do. What happened to dear old uncle Oswald when he miscast, makes me bite my tongue every time. It took us weeks to scrape the greasy stains, which were all that remained of him, off of the castle’s walls.

In my haste to get away from Grimmon, I hadn’t thought to bring something I could use to defend myself with. I patted my dressing gown’s pockets, hoping to find a dagger I’d forgotten about, or even a butter knife I’d absentmindedly dropped in there, but all I had was a stale, half-eaten crumpet.

To make matters worse, my bare feet were complaining. To a full-sized human, moss is soft and comfortable to walk on. But if you’re only three inches tall, it’s coarse and scratchy on the soles. I was limping when the tunnel opened out into a grotto.

“We’re here,” snapped Bangles. “Straighten your shoulders. Try not to look so pathetic. And be on your best behaviour. You’re about to meet Queen Amabilis.”

“Who?” I said, gazing around the grotto. Dozens of fairies stood around the sides, some with expectant expressions on their grubby faces, others frowning, and more than a few glaring at me with undisguised hatred. I guessed about half their number were female, the rest male, and most were in grubby clothes like Bangles’, though there were one or two who seemed to have access to a washtub. But it was the figure in the centre of the floor that grabbed my attention.

Beneath a flower-covered bower, stood a fairy like no other. Tall and regal in a neck to toe spider-silk gown, her midnight-black tresses topped by a tiara of gold, she stared down her nose at me from hard, tawny eyes. Her crimson lips cut a straight line across her waxen face. Rainbows rippled across the delicate membranes of her wings when she moved.

As Bangles pushed me over to her, I lifted my chin as though speaking to royalty was something I did every day, all the while trying to brush the stains and week-old crumbs from my dressing gown. Without being asked, I fell to my knees at her feet. In my experience, it pays to grovel in situations like this.

But not this time.

“It’s a bit late for humility, don’t you think?” said the queen.

“What do you mean?”

“You attempted to destroy my new realm. Fawning won’t help you.”

I was quite taken aback. “Destroy?” I clambered to my feet. “All I did was pull down a few strands of moss.”

Her eyes flashed. “Yes. And you tore apart my fairy ring! Smashed my beautiful toadstools into tiny pieces! Scattered their shredded corpses to the wind!”

I thought that was an exaggeration, and told her so. Then, as her face darkened, I added, “Anyway, I’m the lord of this castle, and it’s mine! Not your ‘new realm’! How dare you? I must say, I’m rather put out.”

If I’d thought she was angry before, it was nothing to what followed. After a minute of arm waving and ranting on her part, I raised my hand, palm towards her.

She sputtered to a stop, her mouth open and her tawny eyes wide in disbelief.

“The thing is,” I said, casually brushing a speck of dirt off of my sleeve. “You’re in danger of being stranded. You see, the castle will soon leave your world and go to another.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a curse over this castle and everyone in it. It keeps moving from one world to the next, and we never know when it will move, or where it will go.” I let that sink in, then added, “It could move tomorrow, or next week, but when it does, you’ll never see your land again.”

“Lies! You’re trying to trick me!”

“No. You must have noticed this castle appear out of nowhere a couple of days ago? Surely?”

That got to her. She narrowed her eyes and stared at me while she considered my words.

“I admit we thought it odd we hadn’t noticed this castle before,” she said, eventually. “We decided it must have been there all along, but hidden by a magic hedge of thorns that must have faded away…” She trailed to stop.

I raised my eyebrows. “I see. Do you remember there being a magic hedge here? And that it suddenly vanished? No, of course you don’t.”

I could see she didn’t like it, but the evidence I had pointed out was as plain as day.

She thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up. “You mentioned a curse.” She put a finger under my chin and lifted my face so I was looking straight into her eyes. “You claim to be the lord of this castle, so is the curse on you, or the castle itself?”

“Oh… um, I… Look, it started centuries ago when one of my ancestors accidentally cast the spell that moves the castle about. Every single one of his descendants has been affected, so technically, I suppose it’s me who’s cursed. But that doesn’t change anything. If you don’t leave soon, you’ll be carried along with the castle to wherever its going next.”

I smiled triumphantly.

“It seems to me it won’t go anywhere if you’re dead.” Queen Amabilis stroked a long, red fingernail over my cheek.“

My throat thickened, and I swallowed hard.

***

Continued in Part 6 – The Punishment Begins

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Episode 4

The moment the last word of power left my lips, I dropped the spell book back on the desk and darkness clamped around me, squeezing and twisting my body like an ogre wringing every last drop of water out of the washing.

Then the light rushed back, and I opened my eyes.

I was standing next to an enormous buckled shoe stuffed with an oversized stockinged foot attached to an elephant-sized leg. My desk was the size of a double-storey house. The whole studio was vast, like a cathedral for giants.

I always experience a rush of giddy pleasure when my spells work, and I felt it this time too, but it quickly vanished when I looked around. Although I was about three inches tall, as intended, I realised the enormous buckled shoe and stockinged leg belonged to Grimmon, who hadn’t shrunk at all.

“Grimmon?” I said.

The shoe shifted, scraping along the floor and banging into me. I jumped aside to avoid being squashed.

“Where are you? And why is your voice so squeaky?” said Grimmon.

I tipped back my head and shouted, “I’m down here!”

Grimmon bent and peered at me. “Ah, there you are. Why are you so tiny? I thought you were going to cast a spell to take us out of here.”

“I did cast a spell! That’s why I’m tiny! Why haven’t you shrunk as well?”

“Another one of your spells misfired, eh?” The goblin went down on his haunches, wheezing like a deflating balloon. “Hang on… Are you saying this isn’t an accident? That you meant to make yourself that small?”

“Yes! But the spell was supposed to shrink both of us.”

“Let me get this straight.” Grimmon rubbed his forehead. “Instead of casting a spell to, let’s say, produce a magic sword we can use to cut our way out, you cast one that reduced you to the size of a mouse. And, you imply, it was supposed to do the same to me.” He huffed and a great waft of his rancid breath washed over me. “I’m rather glad it didn’t. What possessed you to think being tiny is a good idea?”

I tried to keep my face from showing my annoyance – and, yes, my embarrassment – that a magic sword hadn’t even occurred to me.

But there was no way I was going to give Grimmon ammunition for future arguments. I puffed out my chest and put my hands on my hips. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? At this size, I can walk through the gaps in the moss. The fairies must have left them there so they can do the same thing.”

“I see. So, once you’re in those gaps of yours, where do you suppose you’ll go? How are you going to get out of the castle? You’re way too small to open the doors.”

He had me again. I cursed under my breath, then pulled myself together and stood as tall as my three inches allowed. “I have no intention of leaving the castle,” I lied. “My plan all along has been to go to the kitchen and have breakfast. I’m starving.”

“What about me?”

“Oh, I’ll bring something back for you to eat.”

“How do you propose to do that? You’re too titchy to carry more than a crumb! You really didn’t think this through, did you?”

I didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken, and I’m not fond of being on the defensive. There was only one thing I could do.

“Goodbye! See you later!” I yelled and scurried away across the floor. Before he could stop me, I dodged out of the door and dived through a gap in the moss.

It didn’t stop him yelling after me, though. “It will take you half a day to walk to the kitchen on those matchstick legs!”

Another thing I hadn’t thought of.

“That’s even if you manage to get down the stairs! It’ll be like climbing down a mountain!”

Ignoring him, I pelted along a mossy tunnel, which I hoped would lead to the stairs. He shouted some other things too, but they were too rude for me to pay attention to. In any case, I had far more important things to deal with.

Like the fairy who stepped out of a side tunnel and pointed her spear at me.

I skidded to a halt and her face split in a mean smile, revealing teeth like a row of yellow needles.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she said.

***

Continued in Part 5 – The Fairy Queen and Me

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Episode 2

That night, I locked the door to my sleeping chamber. Not that it would have made any difference as far as the fairies were concerned, but it made me feel better.

I’d spent the afternoon looking over my shoulder, while walking the castle’s battlements, which, Grimmon Darkly had assured me, was safer than being indoors. As long as I kept moving, he’d said, the fairies would leave me alone.

(I should briefly interject to clarify that Darkly is Grimmon’s last name, and not that I’m implying he’d spoken in a sombre tone. He insists Darkly is a common name amongst goblins).

He’d also told me it would be better to sleep out in the open, which was a bit rich seeing as he’d gone inside as soon as the rain had started, saying it wasn’t him who’d upset the fairies, so he had nothing to fear.

Standing alone in the dark, miserable and soaked, I’d decided enough was enough and stalked to my bedroom shortly after he’d left.

I’d fallen asleep unmolested by fairies, secure in my four-poster bed. Or, at least, feeling secure because, as I said, I’d locked the door.

It seemed like only minutes had passed when I was woken by the vigorous shaking of a small, bony hand on my shoulder.

“Get up,” said Grimmon.

“What?” I tried to sound fresh and alert, while, in reality, my brain was as active as a boiled turnip. Sleep swam away, and I reluctantly raised my head and glared at the goblin who’d so rudely interrupted my slumber. He’d already opened the curtains and bright morning sunlight was pouring in through the window.

“It’s bad,” he said.

“Why? No toast for breakfast? Have we run out of bread again?” I said, sitting up and turning my face away so he wouldn’t see me wiping the drool off my cheek.

“No. It’s the fairies.” The tip of one pointed ear wobbled as he wiggled a finger in its recesses. “We need to do something, quickly.”

I was in no mood to be hurried. He shuffled his feet impatiently while I pulled a dressing gown over my pyjamas, and groaned like Great Aunt Clarence’s settee when I couldn’t find my slippers.

I can’t remember how many years ago Grimmon came to live in Castle Silverhill, but I do recall it took months for him to get used to navigating around the ancient pile. You see, some places in the castle aren’t where you’d expect them to be. Take my studio, for instance. If you’re outside, you’ll see it perched at the very top of the tallest tower. If you stand inside it and gaze out of the windows, you’ll have a bird’s-eye view of the slate roofs of the castle’s other buildings, and the walkways and battlements of the curtain wall.

Despite that, to get to my studio from some parts of the castle, you have to go downstairs.

Which is the way Grimmon led me upon leaving my sleeping chamber.

By the time we got there, my stomach was rumbling and I wondered aloud whether we couldn’t go to the dining room instead, but Grimmon grabbed my arm, pulled me into my studio, and pointed.

Loops and coils of dark, stringy moss dangled from the rafters, some nearly touching the floor. The air reeked of the earthy scent of a forest.

“The fairies did this?” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“Of course they did! Who else?”

“It might have been you… or the cook.”

A loud snort escaped the goblin’s nostrils. “You forgot to mention the ghost.”

Apart from me and Grimmon, the only other occupants of Castle Silverhill are a person who claims she used to be a chef for some royal or other, and a poltergeist. As far as I’m aware, anyway.

“There’s no need to be sarcastic.” I folded my arms. Then a thought entered my sleep-befuddled brain. “How did you get into my room? The door was locked.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Grimmon’s pupils slid to the side. “We’re wasting time. You need to sort this out.”

“All right.” I yanked on a strand of moss. It fell to the floor. 

“Well, it’s a start. But what about all that?” The goblin pointed at the open door behind us.

I turned around. Curtains of moss choked the stairway we had used only minutes earlier.

We were trapped.

***

Continued in Part 3 – Unintended Consequences of Magic

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Episode 1

Grimmon and I stared at the circle of toadstools sprouting from the centre of my desk.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” he said. The tips of his pointed ears drooped, and he shook his head slowly like a plumber about to give an estimate.

“That we have a mould problem?” I said.

“It’s a bit more than that. Look at them. Red-capped with white spots… Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

“Yes. Precisely…” I nodded wisely, not wanting him to know I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. Then it dawned on me and I smiled. “Ah. They’re poisonous. Which means we won’t be having them for supper.”

Grimmon sighed. “We wouldn’t be having them for supper even if they weren’t poisonous. No, it means the castle has been invaded by fairies.”

“Oh. Is that bad?”

“You are joking, aren’t you?” The goblin did that plumber’s head shake thing again. “We’ll be overrun before long. You won’t be able to sit down without checking your chair for bluebells, rose hips, or more poxy toadstools.”

I glanced around my studio, scanning the bookcases, the tops of the cupboards, the little table bearing a curiously carved bone candlestick I’d picked up from a bazaar in the last world we’d visited, and the stuffed basilisk hanging from a rafter.

“Everything looks normal,” I said. “Surely there would be other signs besides toadstools if there were fairies about? They’d be buzzing around like flies, wouldn’t they?”

“I can’t believe someone as ignorant as you has survived this long.” Grimmon rolled his eyes. “If fairies don’t want to be seen, then you don’t see them. Period.”

Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow shifted. I turned my head to look. A painted bamboo fan dangling from a nail in the wall swung from side to side, then settled to a stop.

Grimmon snorted. “You see? That’s what I’m talking about. They wanted to you to see that.”

“I suppose they came from there,” I said, nodding at the landscape beyond the studio window to conceal my disquiet.

One morning a week ago, I had woken to find the castle had moved again. The land on the other side of the moat was all dramatic snow-topped mountains, mist-filled valleys and dense forests. Quite pretty.

The thing that was adding to my unease was the fact that the viaduct hadn’t reappeared when the castle moved. That, more than any of Grimmon’s dire warnings, was a sign things out there might not be as nice as they looked.

Unlike regular castles with drawbridges that spanned their moats at ground level, my ancestors had seen fit to put the main gate at the top of the wall and connect it to the mainland with a high stone bridge. If the seven tall arches of the viaduct reappeared after the castle relocated, then the chances were the land we’d arrived in was safe to visit. Well, as long as one didn’t do anything stupid.

All that emptiness where the viaduct should be, the mysterious ring of toadstools, Grimmon’s gloomy predictions… I didn’t have a good feeling about it at all.

It was time for me to seize the initiative.

“We need to take action immediately. Nip the problem in the bud,” I said.

I stepped closer to my desk and swept my arm across it, sending toadstools flying. A strange chittering sound filled the air as I stood back and brushed fragments of fungus from my sleeve.

Grimmon’s eyes were wide.

“Oh dear. You shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

***

Continued in Part 2 – A Malignancy of Moss

Unpleasant Encounters with Fairies – Index of Episodes