Don't Let the Fairies Eat You (27 page)

“You’re simply well-armed without a nick in a single weapon,” said a sterner voice. “You expected a challenge in finding us, but actually, many people want our help and the way is often clear.”

“Don’t worry,” said the sweeter voice. “We might find something for you to do.”

Two identical-looking women appeared at the mouth of the lowest cave, along with three grim-faced men. Zazan had expected the sisters to be old and wizened, but they appeared so young and beautiful that the hunter would’ve been tempted to impress them if he wasn’t married.

“I’m Dansi,” said the one with the harsher voice.

“And I’m Lyri,” said the sweeter twin. “What did you need?”

Zazan briefly retold what Listor had, about the brothers’ envy, their fairy trap, and the fairy’s trap for them.

“What did the giant look like?” Dansi asked.

“Thin, pale, wild-haired,” Zazan said, not mentioning Lality’s unfortunate face.

“Dornics,” Lyri said. “Giants with fairy blood.”

“How do giants and fairies have children?” Zazan asked.

“The less you visualize, the happier you’ll be,” Dansi said.

Now that he’d been watching the two for a few minutes, Zazan found the twins easy to tell apart—Dansi appeared as grim as the witches’ men, while Lyri smiled prettily, like his own wife, so much so that he began to doubt he had the right place. “Are you really the witch sisters Listor wanted, who could help my friends?”

“We’re older than we look,” Dansi said. “And we know more than all your people together. We know the secret paths that all forests hide.”

“We know the pacts between the heavens and the giants,” Lyri said.

“We know the names of the giant-kin, that the peoples fear as if speaking them might summon giants to dinner—burls, frost giants, ogres, dornics, danes, trolls, and stroms.”

“We know the names of the fairy-kin, that the peoples mistake for curses—pixies, glums, goblins, brownies, whistlers, and dryads.”

“You’re in the right place,” Dansi assured the hunter. “Do you really want our help though? Everyone we help is indebted to us.”

“I’m certain your friends are important to you,” Lyri said. “But the favors we ask in return come in all sizes.”

Doubt tugged at Zazan’s heart, but he’d already given his word to Listor and his loyalty burned stronger than his fear. “I want your help. I can’t pretend the giants won’t kill or eat them.”

“Or worse things,” Dansi said, giggling.

The sisters were ready to travel within moments. They tossed supply bags made of deer skin onto their backs and stood at the cave entrance. Then their three men, who may have been husbands or servants or the last of their clan, each took a wooden shaft in his hands and held a triangle of mammoth skin over the witches' heads. When they left the cave, Dansi and Lyri walked under the skin’s shadow, never touching the vanishing sunlight or straying out into the coming moonlight.

They traveled through the night, resting momentarily here and there, and resting longer as the day came and they reached Zazan’s people. The witch sisters slept beneath their mammoth skin, its poles stuck in the ground to form a tent, and their silent men slept in the shade with them away from the clan. Near evening, Zazan left Teli once more. He and the sisters and their men moved onward, around the cliff where Mor, Elor, and Listor had called the fairy, through a meadow, and up a hillside leading to a wooded plateau. All the way, Dansi and Lyri never left the shadow of their hairy tarp.

“I’ve seen those who fear the night and heard of creatures that fear the day,” Zazan said. “Yet you two fear both.”

“We have a misunderstanding with the sun and the moon,” Lyri said.

“You’ll see why soon enough,” Dansi said. “It’s best to sneak up on those you’re going to make use of unwillingly—and here we are.”

A short distance from where the group stood, in a clearing carved out of the woods, the three dornic giants sat on a fallen tree while their husbands-to-be bustled desperately to appease them.

“All I asked was that you brush away the ashes from the fire,” Melemity said to Mor, holding a tree branch and standing in the center of a smoking stone circle as large as the giant’s foot.

“All I demanded was you find enough food for our supper,” Esty growled to Elor, holding up a sheep that could’ve fed the brothers for two days, but was barely a bite for a giant.

No one knew what Lality wanted, clutching Listor in her hands, but she went on clacking her teeth and whipping him with her long tongue while he cried and begged not to be eaten.

Zazan stared in horror, but the witch sisters giggled together. “They aren’t very good at pleasing their lovers,” Dansi said.

“We’ll have to advise them,” Lyri said, and the sisters ushered their men forward.

The twins called up to the giants, catching their attention first, and with a few kind words about their complexion and a promise to teach proper behavior to the three husbands-to-be, the witches soon caught the three sisters’ trust.

“You,” Dansi said to Mor. “Forget the ashes for now and rebuild the fire. Melemity is clearly cold.”

“You,” Lyri said to Elor. “Climb to the top of the black tree we passed at the bottom of this hill and swing on its highest branch to shake its apples onto the plateau. The apples are plentiful, larger than sheep, and Esty is clearly hungry.

The sisters weren’t sure about Lality, but guessed she wanted some attention. “You,” they said to Listor in unison. “Take Mor’s branch, stand on Lality’s teeth, and scratch her tongue. She clearly feels it’s dirty.”

The three dornic giants looked pleased as the brothers performed their duties, and as the sun set, they each fell into peaceful, heavy sleep. Mor, Elor, and Listor hurried to Zazan and the witches, or as close as allowed by the mammoth hair ropes binding their ankles to their future brides.

“Quick, witch sisters,” Listor called. “Undo the fairy’s magic and cut us free!”

Dansi clicked her tongue. “Only your betrothed can undo the ropes,” she said. “Not to worry—we have a plan.”

“Step close to the fire,” Lyri said. “And stand up straight.”

The brothers moved as close as they could to the fire without getting burned and stood high on their toes, stretching their backs.

“Zazan, ready your axe,” Dansi said. “You’ll have a fight on your hands momentarily.”

“Is Zazan going to fight the giants?” Mor asked.

“Yes, force them to set us free,” Elor chimed in as Zazan lifted his axe.

The witch twins ignored the brothers’ foolishness and ushered their men close to the brothers’ feet. They muttered a few words while plucking up soft blades of grass, and then began waving them in the brothers’ long shadows. Within moments, the shadows began to writhe on their own, waving their arms wildly and slapping at their torsos, though the brothers remained still. Then Mor felt a tug at his ankles as shadow hands grasped his legs. The same happened to Elor and Listor, and a chill ran through their bodies.

“What’s happening to them?” Zazan asked.

“They’re being pulled into a grim world of shadows,” Dansi laughed. “It’s one path of escape from their giant fate.”

“Oh, quit teasing,” Lyri said. “Hurry, Zazan. The tickled shadows will only live so long before stealing your friends away. Cut them loose.”

Zazan hefted his axe and stepped over the shadows. The same chill ran through his body as the shadows grasped and pulled at his legs and arms, but Zazan was stronger than his friends. He stamped at the shadows’ heads and kicked at their bodies. It felt like fighting the ground itself, except for one kick which felt like fighting one of the brothers, and then Zazan brought his axe down on the shadows’ feet, close to the flesh feet standing near the fire.

Mor’s shadow was chopped loose first. It hesitated, as if it didn’t know what to do with freedom, and in that moment Dansi and Lyri caught and tied it to the shadow of their mammoth skin. They did the same to Elor’s shadow once freed, and though Listor’s shadow thought itself cunning and bolted right away, the witches’ men moved the mammoth skin, and thus its shadow, into Listor’s shadow’s path, where the witches caught it.

“Plenty of time for running at daybreak,” Dansi said, binding the shadow.

“You did well, Zazan,” Lyri said. “What a lucky bride you have at home. Were you not of a people who only wed one-to-one, we would have you for ourselves.”

“What of us?” asked Mor, but no one answered.

Dawn came sooner than anyone expected and the sisters seemed to feel it. For a few minutes, they left their tarp, basking in the pre-dawn when neither the sun nor the moon ruled. Then the first beam of sunlight shot from the eastern horizon. The witch sisters snatched it in their hands, bending it toward the shadow of their mammoth skin, and they swiftly tied the shadows to dawn’s earliest ray of light.

“Quick, wake the dornics!” Dansi cried.

Zazan hollered loudly, pounded rocks, and kicked at the giants’ feet until the pale sisters awoke together. The first things they saw were three men’s shadows, stretching longer than their own shadows.

“Look at those three!” Lyri cried excitedly. “Girls, you shouldn’t settle for these mortal fools. Go, get yourselves those men instead. See them running? See their height and speed? Catch them before they get away. You deserve better!”

The sun began its slow gait across the sky, dragged by some unseen giant in the heavens, and the shadows moved with it. The dornic sisters looked to each other like they shared a single thought, and then each reached down, ripped the rope from their ankles, and took off down the hillside, chasing long shadows into the west.

The freed brothers whooped and laughed, shaking the nooses from their legs. They gathered close to Zazan and the witches, bowing and clapping and thanking them over and over.

“Thanks will not be enough,” Dansi said.

“Zazan only fetched us for your sake and has proven himself a loyal friend,” Lyri said. “You three owe us a debt.”

“I propose you take two of us as husbands,” Listor said. “We’ll treat you as well as we would’ve treated the fairy wives we wanted.”

Dansi laughed. “You think we’d have you?”

“Poor boys,” Lyri said. “If you’re so intent to wed beautiful women, there is a valley of sand half a day’s journey to the east. The women there are beautiful and will give you many sons.”

Filled with hope once more, the brothers thanked the witches again, wished Zazan farewell and happiness with his wife, and set off for the small desert.

“Those women will whip them silly,” Dansi said.

“But they could use the discipline,” Lyri stated. “They’ll make fine husbands yet.”

“Then they’ll be trapped again,” Zazan said. “What have we saved them from then?”

“From being eaten?” Dansi suggested. “I suppose we could’ve left them with the giants to learn a lesson.”

“No, no, we had to save those lovelorn dornic girls from having such terrible husbands,” Lyri said, laughing. “You’re a good one, Zazan. Head home to your wife.”

The witch sisters followed him briefly, and then parted ways before reaching his people. Zazan told everyone that Mor, Elor, and Listor wouldn’t be returning, but were safe, wherever they were, and the clan made to pack up and leave the area. The twins set off for their caves with their men, where they could go on hiding properly from the sun and the moon.

The brothers Mor, Elor, and Listor soon found themselves in the capture of the desert women, where their laziness vanished and discipline formed, as the witches predicted. And not one of the brothers ever mentioned Teli again, or what kind of fairy wives they might’ve wanted instead.