Stolen Child

Chapter Five

The forest seemed so quiet and still. Gentle breezes blew right through me. Inside my stomach was churning like I was about to throw up.

"Am I dreaming?" I asked breathlessly. The Faerie shook her head.

"Fifteen years fell on ye the second we brought ye back. I'm sorry. It was the others." Sure, she apologized, but it sounded as if she was happy about that fact.

"What -? W-what are you? Are you a Faerie?"

She tilted her head looking puzzled but said nothing.

"If this is real, then my sister was really taken?" Still she stood with her head cocked to one side and a strand of red hair hanging over her pale forehead. But her eyes took on a kind of sadness that made my heart drop.

"This isn't real," I said and turned my back to her, walking the gravel path down the hill that my sister and my cousins ran down last night. Not fifteen years ago. Last night. And Lucy had to be safe at home with Aunt Maggie. That's where I intended to go. The Faerie drifted up beside me like she herself was a breeze, scattering leaves as her bare feet treaded lightly, painlessly across the sharp rocks.

"Go away!" I demanded.

"And where am I to go? I haven't got the strength to go back to my home," she said.

I paused and looked over my shoulder at her deep green eyes and face that was mild. I stood unmoving, captured by her beauty. "Well, if ye're gonna look like that ye may as well snog me!" she giggled.

"This isn't funny!" I shouted. "If you're going to be here, you may as well tell me what the hell is happening!"

"The veil between the Mortal world and the Otherworld thins on Samhain and frees us to come through. We meant to take ye as a means of amusement only. Ye took our food so we put pishrogues on ye - Glamour, I mean. Influence that lets ye see all o' the Otherworld that exists here in yer Mortal land. The veil has thickened now, and I'm not strong enough to go back through."

"So you are a Faerie?"

"We're the Aes Sidhe." Her voice lowered as she said the words, the first syllable like ace; the second like a drawn out hush on her tongue: shee. "Descendants of the Tuath Dé." 

None of it made any sense to me. I furrowed my brow in confusion and pushed her on the most important question. "Where is my sister?"

"I don't understand."

"My sister!" I yelled. "Lucy, she's got brown hair. She's this high." I held my hand up to where she came up on me, roughly. When I realized I was much taller now I put both hands over my eyes instead.

"This is insane," I muttered. "There is no such thing as Faeries!"

"How can ye deny what is right in front of your own eyes?" She asked. "Don't tell me ye're that dense."

"What am I talking about? I must be crazy. Lucy is with Mom and Aunt Maggie." If I got started I could be at Aunt Maggie's within an hour. As I went to step forward on the path, a rustling among the trees to my left caught my eye. The goat-man that I saw last night emerged from the withered brush. I started to shake in its presence, getting ready to run, but the Faerie placed her smooth hand reassuringly on my shoulder.

Black smoke concealed the lower half of his body as he stepped in front of me and held out the moss-covered stone in his weathered hand as an offering it to me.

"What is that?" I choked on the words, barely able to breathe let alone speak.

"It's a púca. Only today, November first, is he required to behave respectfully," the faerie said quietly in my ear.