The Wild Hunt
by David Newkirk
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
Rebecca ran the short distance to the door, not even bothering to close it as she entered the shop. “Daddy!” she yelled, “I saw the fairies! They’re real! They’re real!”
“What?” Sampson Philpot asked.
“I saw them! They’re real! I saw them in the yard!” Rebecca answered.
“But Rebecca, I don’t know what you mean. There are no such things as fairies,” Sampson said. “They are only in books. And close the door this instant! This instant, I say!”
Rebecca stamped her feet. She had seen them, and he wasn’t going to believe her. She stared sullenly at her father. Her lower lip protruded petulantly above her pouting jaw, and her brow wrinkled. She screamed “I saw them! I saw them!” and stamped her feet again and again. “You never listen to me! You think I’m still a baby! I hate you! I wish you weren’t my father!”
That tantrum was quite enough for Sampson. “Rebecca Anne Philpot! I will not brook this bad behavior! Go to your room. There will be no supper and certainly no story tonight. You have had too much in the way of stories, it would appear.”
“I hate you!” she yelled again, stomping off.
Sampson returned to his sewing as the door to Rebecca’s room slammed shut. It had been a difficult day so far. There was the pressure of finishing all three dresses for the rush order from Penelope Pemberton, a task he had yet to finish. There had been coal to bring in and food to cook. Then, this tantrum.
And the book from the night before had been unsatisfying. The author, he thought, would surely approve of his daughter’s claim that she had seen the fairies. The book didn’t really contain any stories. Just a bunch of nonsense written as though it told a history. A history of the good fairies of the Seelie court and the bad ones of the Unseelie court. Who ruled first, who ruled next, who fought whom, and how they came to interact with men.
It reminded him of some of the more tedious parts of the Old Testament, minus maybe some of the “begats.” Although like the children’s book he’d read to Rebecca, this book often rhymed as well, and a couple of more cleverly crafted couplets stuck with him. He’d have to tell Mrs. Hawkins about it the next time he saw her. She was the only other one who ever seemed to have an interest in books. Still, all in all, it hadn’t been a great trade for mending the shirt.
Oh well, he thought as he paused and peered at a plentiful pile of paperbacks whose prose he had yet to peruse. There were always more books.
* * *
Several hours later, he was finished and on his way to the Pemberton’s house. The snow and sky were bride and groom in the pale and paltry light, and the wind was picking up. He shouldn’t have agreed to deliver the dresses tonight, he thought. He shouldn’t be here, in the dark, delivering dainty damask dresses for a decadent dinner party that he was not invited to. But they had paid him well, as they always did. He didn’t want to lose their business to some shoddy sweatshop in South Yorkshire, and the thought of that possibility had put him here in the whipping wind.
The Pemberton house was grandiose. The light of a flaming fireplace glowed through the glass of a snow-frosted bay window. The father — old lady Priscilla’s son — was a ranking military man, and his pension from peacekeeping in Punjab had positioned the family well. Penelope answered Sampson’s knock on the opulent oaken door.
“Good evening!” he said. “I have all three of the dresses.”
“Mr. Philpot! You are a life-saver,” she answered. “We wanted something special for tomorrow night’s soiree. There will be gentlemen callers.” She paused. “You were able to use the damask fabric that you showed me?”
“Indeed,” he answered, “they have been carefully made to your size, as well as Patricia’s and Prudence’s. Do you wish to try them on?”
“It is not necessary,” she answered. “We trust you, and none of our measurements have changed since the dresses last month. But you must be freezing! Please come in.”
“I am sorry, but I must decline your kind offer. Rebecca is home alone, and I fear that I was a bit too cross with her, earlier.” Then he remembered the books. “Say,” he said, “might I ask this? I have come into possession of two books, books about fairies that belonged to your grandmother. Dr. Donaldson traded them to me for a shirt. What do you know about them?”
Penelope frowned. “Grandma Penelope? Her books? Well, I remember my father saying that some of them should be burned when she passed away. That they were not Christian and that we were forbidden to read them or say words from them. She was a strange woman. I don’t know about fairy books, though. Perhaps my father traded them to Doctor Donaldson, just as he did to you. He is coming from London for the dinner tomorrow; I could ask him.”
“No need to ask. I’m not sure that they are ungodly so much as silly,” Sampson answered. “It’s just old superstitions. But perhaps I will follow his advice and burn my two. One seems to have encouraged Rebecca to misbehave. They’d be cheaper than coal,” he chuckled.
Sampson bowed slightly, said farewell, and began the ride home. The wind was bitterly cold, howling as it passed through the trees. A regular blizzard, he thought. They’d need a fierce fire flaming in the furnace tonight. Maybe he would burn those stupid books.
Although, he thought, perhaps he would keep the old one after all. Some of the words had stuck with him. As his teeth chattered, he remembered one couplet in particular that had somehow stuck in his mind, one that seemed appropriate for the weather.
“How about it, old sport? A rhyme?” he said as Henry neighed. “Here’s one for you:
If winter wind doth whip and wail
and blizzard cast a snow-blind pale
the fairies of Unseelie Court
the wild hunt launch for their dark sport.”
Then he heard it. Monstrous murmurs mixing with the melancholy moonlight. Sinister shrieks that split the silent snow. Cackling cries that cleaved the cloudy canopy. Ghastly gargoyle-like creatures, grim and grotesque, grew to fill his vision, seeming to swoop down from the sky. He felt like he was floating up from the buggy.
The world spun, and he fainted as a red flash filled his eyes.
* * *
When he woke, Sampson Philpot was terrified. He was bound by invisible chains that felt like soft spider-web silk that squeezed as he struggled against them. A small creature, perhaps half of Sampson’s size, sat before him, dwarfed by the chair that the creature confidently crouched in. The chair looked like a twisted throne, made from broken branches braided into bulky legs, with a bent seat, and broad, blackened back.
The creature wore ragged, ripped clothing, but the rumpled rags were topped by a resplendent ruby-rimmed red cap that dangled to one side. The right side of his face was withered, while the left side could have been that of an infant. His red teeth were sharp and crooked and matched his radiant red eyes. Kelpies, leprechauns, and nuckelavees milled behind him.
The creature spoke, his words a snarling sneer of sound. “I am Rupert the Redcap, King of the Unseelie Court,” he said. “Your words summoned the wild hunt. And you, human, now belong to me.”
Sampson’s panic rose. He felt like he might faint again. This couldn’t be real; he had to be dreaming. Wake up, he thought, Wake up! He closed his eyes, hoping that it would all go away.
“Ahh,” the creature said. “Do you think you are dreaming? Having a tiny nightmare? Many who are captured by the wild hunt believe this. Let me convince you otherwise.”
The creature slowly raised his hand, and flames shot up before Sampson. He could feel the heat on his face. It got hotter and closer until the creature snapped his fingers. “Not yet,” it said. “Not yet. Punishment comes when you disobey or fail to do your tasks. We are only just beginning, you and I.”
He could feel his heart pound. Rebecca had not been lying. The fairies were real, and not all good. Just like the book had said. Now, it might be the end of him. He had to get away. “You must let me go!” he said. “I have a daughter that needs me!”
A skewed smile, somehow impossibly large, seemed to split the creature’s face. “I care not,” it said. Your former tasks in the territories of men were but temporary trifles. You shall now serve as a simple slave. You shall have new tasks, serving me and my court; many, many new tasks.”
Never to see Rebecca again. There had to be something that Sampson could do. “But surely,” he said, “there must be something that you want.” He lied: “I am wealthy. Release me and take my gold. All of it. I will gladly give it to return to my daughter.”
The thing on the odd throne cackled again, this time joined by the creatures around him. “Yes,” it said, “it is quite true that I have been known at times to trade. Quite true. But you rode behind a modest horse, in a modest carriage, towards a modest house, in a modest town. So I think you lie. There is no gold. But there is no shame in this lie; many men lie when first brought before me. They all learn, with proper punishment.”
He left the throne and began walking toward Sampson, his glowering gaze moving from head to foot. “Your lie and your desperation do amuse me, though. For that amusement, I might — might — agree to free you. But for a bargain, something must be traded. If not gold, what could you offer me? You must deliver something that is deeply dear.”
“Anything,” Sampson said. “I would give anything just to be with my daughter. Just to see her again.”
“Anything?” the Unseelie King said, a smile again twisting his foul, fractured face, “just to see her? Just to be with her, in her presence? Just that, and nothing — nothing at all — more?”
“I would give anything for that,” Sampson said.
“Very well,” Rupert answered. Then our bargain is complete. Here is the price, which I exact this very moment:
Not gone from sight, but gone from mind
Your thoughts of her will now turn blind
Your daughter shall a stranger be
your past with her you shall not see.
Wait, Sampson thought. Rebecca, a stranger? “No!” he screamed. But the room spun and, with a red flash, the Unseelie Court disappeared.
* * *
Copyright © 2024 by David Newkirk
