Blood

There’s a calf balling somewhere on dark, rain soaked Faer, likely one that belongs to my father.

I turn over, covering my head with my comforter and trying to ignore the cries of my charges.

The other calves and their mothers start in, too. Just making sure my father will hear them and send me out into the storm to see what’s wrong.

It’s a conspiracy, one that forces Mallory–Mallory being myself–to head outside into the storm where I will be soaked and continue to be soaked for the rest of the night.

The rain goes pat-pat-pat-pat on my window.

My father calls my name from another room, likely the kitchen.

I groan and reach for the lamp I know is on the floor next to my bed, trying to turn it on without having to move more than a couple inches.

A few seconds later, though, I’m lying on the floor on my back, a sharp pain in my left side.

So much for my lamp, I think.

I inch away, holding back a cry of pain, to try and better see the wound in the light from the hallway. Of course, this would be a better plan if my door was actually open. As is, I can’t really see anything other than my own outline.

Once I’m sure I’ve cleared the lamp, I sit up, cringing in pain. I reach the fingers of my left hand to the source of pain and feel first the wet warmth of my own blood, and then the smooth coolness of glass. Teeth clenched, I tug on the glass, feeling the flood of relief when it comes free willingly. I throw it towards the far wall and hear it smash.

“Mallory!” calls my father in an angry way.

Ignoring my father isn’t a very safe practice.

“A minute!” I call back.

“Mallory, now!”

I back into the wall and use it for support standing up. Pain shoots through my left leg. The cut must have been longer than I thought.

I try to ignore the pain as best I can, which is honestly pretty well, and walk over to the door with only a hint of a limp, maybe a whisper.

Once the door is open I can see my shirt lying crumpled on the floor at my feet.

How in hell did my shirt get over here?

All the while the rain goes pat-pat-pat-pat and the calves ball.

After pulling on my grey t-shirt, I emerge into the main room’s blinding light, even though it is probably duller than the natural daylight would be.

Because of my eye’s pale pigment, light bothers me, and that’s a bit of an understatement. Sunglasses aren’t a rare addition to my attire, which makes me feel stupid and like that singer—you know who he is, the rock singer with the sunglasses. Bono? Yeah, Bono, that’s it.

“Mallory Fionn!” yells my father.

“I’m going!”

I trudge down the grey hall, feeling the cold of the chilled stone floor on my bare feet. The front door slams, so I look up.

“Hey, Mal. Why’re you up?” says my elder brother, Justin, as he takes off his jacket.

Justin looks a lot like I do, or I guess I look a lot like him, being the younger brother. We have the same narrow eyes, though his are a darker grey, the same dirt-coloured hair and the same thin lips. We’re about the same height, although he’s got three years on me, and have the same long hands, albeit his have been around more girls’ waists than I think mine could ever be.

“Cattle,” I grumble.

He nods and puts his jacket back on. “I’ll come with you.”

I nod my thanks and walk past him to my jacket and work boots.

“What’s wrong with your leg?”

I shake my head and say, “Nothing.”

Justin grabs my arm, forcing me to look up at him. His normal care-free grin is gone, replaced with concern.

It annoys me that he thinks he needs to worry about a little limp, nothing really. “I fell getting out of bed.”

He doesn’t look so sure.

“Honest. Now, let me go,” I say.

Justin drops my arm, somewhat reluctantly.

I shake my head and watch as he heads outside, grabbing the shotgun from beside the door as he goes–you can never be too sure about what lurks on Faer in a storm. The front door slams shut behind him.

I sigh and pull on my jacket; half put on my boots and head for the door. I wonder if Justin had seen the half-truth in my words, realizing it really doesn’t matter since he’ll see the shattered lamp in our shared bedroom anyway.

I grab the warm doorknob and pull it inwards, feeling the wind hit me like a brick wall. Our house faces west, which is the direction the prevailing winds come from. Thank the spirits the barn is behind the house.

The rain spits at me, trying to reach me across the porch as I step outside and pull the door shut behind me, it is reluctant against the wind.

Justin stands watching the rain and wind tear at Wanderers’ Wood. The dark trees twist and flail in the wind, barely staying rooted. The forest brings the smell of leaves and rot, the ocean brings the smell of fish. No matter how far inland you are, you can’t escape the smell of fish in a storm.

I walk past him to the steps without saying a word, bracing myself for the cold rain.

I’m not one for words, never have been. It’s not that I’m good at the whole ‘strong and silent’ thing–I don’t think any guy named Mallory could be. I’ve just never been able to form words like other people, like Justin. He’s the one everyone likes. Not me, never me. I’ve always been Justin Fionn’s little brother with the weird eyes, never the one to be remembered. And I’m okay with that. I’d rather the animals to people anyway.

The rain is a warm one, which is rare and completely welcome. I’d rather be soaked by warm water than cold. The wind, however, is somehow worse off the porch, maybe it’s because it’s beating rain into my face.At least we have the light from the house, unless the power goes out.

“Grab a light, please.” I say to Justin without looking at him.

He passes me the shotgun and grabs a flashlight for himself. Justin has a lot of trouble killing things.

I don’t.

A thin beam guides my way behind the house, where the main barn lies. It’s a hell of a night to be out after calves, but in the event something has gotten into the barn, it is well worth it.

I can hear the cows’ (as in the calves’ mothers, not just a cow in general) cries growing more frantic at our approach. If one of them is already dead my father will have my head before the night is out.

At the small side door I motion for Justin to pass me his light in exchange for the shotgun. He seems reluctant.

I close my eyes for a moment before motioning for him to go in first. I feel the beginning of a headache setting in and don’t have time to wait for Justin to decide if he can carry a loaded shotgun with the intent to use it. “Don’t go near the calves.”

He nods before opening the door.

Justin takes a few cautious steps forward before disappearing from my sight.

I follow without hesitation, although the sounds of terrified cattle is almost deafening.

Our barn has been on the island for almost as long as man itself, which is to say a few centuries. The rafters are a good dozen feet above my head, making the building around 20-feet tall. The bottom fifth is solid stone walls, partly built into the hills around it, just like the house. In the corner we have just entered, there is a pen, about ten by fifteen, for the calves.

The entire thing, other than the foundation, has been rebuilt dozens of times, three of which have been while my father’s owned it. For some reason we’ve never felt the need to replace it.

The cows are, as per normal, pressed against the side of the pen, trying to watch their weaning calves, same as every November. The yearlings are normally mixed in among the back, not as attached to the young.

Normally, the calves would be pressed against me already, trying to find comfort in my familiar presence, also trying to assess whether I’ve come to feed them or not, but not tonight.

Instead, I can hear them cowering against the back wall.

But that’s not where the narrow beam of the flashlight leads.

Justin stands frozen a couple feet in front of me, the thin light shaking. I follow it with my eyes to see it reflecting off beady eyes, blacker than a moonless night.

The face they belong to is hideous, brown and shrivelled. There’s a grinning mouth of teeth like a shark’s, dripping with blood. It is the face of one of Them, a faerie without its glamour.

Unlike Justin, I don’t feel terror’s claws grasping for me, instead, I calmly look down the length of its small body, less than three feet, to see the silhouettes’ of at least two of my calves.

The faerie’s grin widens. “Hello, Mr. Fionn.”

It cackles a gurgling laugh. Blood spills over its teeth, dripping down its already bloody chin.

The flashlight beam drops to ground level.

Before I can say so much as his name, Justin is gone through the still-open barn door.

I shake my head slowly and pump a shell into the chamber of the shotgun.

Unlike most shells from the Mainland–Canada and the States, that is–that have either a lead slug or pellets, ours are filled with small, pure iron balls or a pure iron slug. Why? The fey don’t take very well to iron, meaning better protection.

I bring the 12 gauge to my shoulder and aim where I know the creature’s head is before speaking. My voice comes even and cold as I knew it would, even over the crying cattle. “Get out. Now.”

The faerie cackles again. It sounds more like something choking on its drink than a human’s laughter. “Are you gonna hurt me, Mally?”

Its voice is more beautiful than it has the right to be. Like a summer wind whispering through fresh leaves. That voice could ensnare many people’s senses. Justin or my father would be helpless against it.

I am…not.

I click off the safety. “I will if you don’t leave.”

I can hear the faerie’s hesitation. I can feel it.

I continue, “They’ll never find you, I’ll make sure of it. Maybe give you a nice little necklace before putting you in the ground.”

We both know I mean iron.

The faerie hisses at me. “Your mother would be so disappointed.”

I shrug, though I’m not sure if the faerie can see it. “You would know.”

The creature takes a step forward, the gun barrel follows. Another step.

I move back from the door and watch the sidhe closely.

It turns slightly and bolts for me.

The whole world seems to stop for me, I don’t know why, but it does.

It’s that moment before you kill.

Murderer, whispers a voice in the back of my head.

Everything is in perfect focus, every nick in the timber walls, the whites of all the unhidden cattle’s eyes, the faerie frozen in mid step, glaring at me with an all-consuming rage.

I can hear every calf’s frightened heartbeat and hunger for them.

The muscles in my left index finger tighten and the slug explodes from the barrel, slamming into the sidhe’s face. The faerie’s whole head explodes, black blood spraying everywhere.

Murderer, whispers the voice, this time more insistently.

My sight weakens and I can’t hear anything but the raging wind.

The blast has silenced the cows momentarily.

What had been the beginning of a headache is now a migraine, not a rarity.

Murrrderer, snarls the voice.

That doesn’t help any with my head.

I take a step forward and then another. What’s left of the faerie is twitching on the blood-soaked straw, as if the body hasn’t yet realised I blew out the creature’s brains and is still trying to follow some command half sent.

Part of me wonder’s what her name was, for she was obviously that: a she. Her voice made it obvious.

I reprimand myself for being so thoughtless. It would be the worst kind of cruelty to have that much power over the wretch. I had simply meant what she went by.

She is wearing a thin tunic, covered in both her own blood and blood from my calves.

I’m sure anyone else on Faer could stare for hours at her blood splattered tunic and never know which blood belonged to which party.

I can tell you what blood came specifically from each of the three calves, and which order they died in.

For that’s how many I now know she killed. I wouldn’t have been able to tell that if I had of just looked at the carcasses. Well, actually, I could, but that’s only because I can see the difference in the blood.

If my father, who has raised cattle since he was younger than I am, were to come in here and judge, he may say two.

Murderer! screams the voice.

I rub my temple before starting the gruesome job of cleaning up this mess.

If I were to just walk up to the house and ask, my father would do it. Not because he would normally do my job for me because I asked, but because of the blood.

So much temptation isn’t exactly good for me. It’s like sticking an alcoholic in the liquor store. No, more like sitting him, or, me I suppose, at a free bar.

I don’t really care though, so I do it myself.

It takes about three quarters of the hour to get all the gore in the burn barrel, put down new straw, put the calves with their mother’s and calm the cows enough so that they are eating again, which may not seem like a good thing, since hay costs time to cut, but you really don’t want to leave your herd so terrified they won’t even eat.

I stand in the rain for a long while, not really doing anything, just letting the rain hit me. Because I know there is still something bothering me.

The voice continues to scream at me, but I don’t think that’s my problem. But it is a problem. It hurts like a knife to the gut.

I’ve often wondered who the voice belongs to. Spirits, that sounds awful. I worded that wrong, I guess. That makes it seem like I hear voices, but I don’t really, just that one and my own. I’m not crazy. At least I don’t think I am. Other people would likely disagree with me.

Crazy or not, that voice has always been there, from the first time I picked up a weapon. Not something like a steak knife, though I’m sure I could kill one of Them with a steak knife if I had to, but a weapon with no other purpose, like a shotgun or the cold steel knife I carry in my back pocket.

Maybe I am a little crazy.

I try to ignore whatever it is gnawing at me, with little effectiveness, and head back towards the house.

But I think I know what is. I wish I didn’t, but I do.

“Well?” asks my father as soon as I’m through the door.

I kick off my boots and take off my jacket without answering. I’m not sure if I can bring myself to open my mouth for fear of what my own teeth will look like.

My father’s voice is soft when he asks the second time. “What was it, Mallory?”

I look at him for a long moment without words, right into his eyes.

He nods. “How many?”

“Three,” I say in a flat voice, and then to myself, “always three.”

I shove the shotgun at him and let the flashlight drop to the floor.

He doesn’t ask what it is, he knows. Sometimes I wished Justin did, too, and then I remember nights like tonight and can see the disgust, the fear, that would eternally replace the love he has shown me since we were young. I couldn’t bear to have Justin hate me like that. At least I don’t think I could.

I walk back towards Justin and my bedroom, pausing outside the door like I had every time something like this had happened, too often.

I open the door and turn on the light without thinking. I am alone, which is a small relief.

I look down at my left hip and see that my cut hadn’t stopped bleeding when it should have, since my shirt is soaked through.

Pulling off my shirt reveals nothing that would prevent the wound from closing. Then I realize that there’s a piece of glass sticking out of my thigh. I pull on it a little and it comes loose as easily as the first had. The cut scabs over almost immediately. I guess there are a couple advantages to having faerie blood.

I wonder how much blood I’ve lost, it had to have been a fair amount, which likely isn’t good. I feel exhausted, though I’m not sure if that’s from blood loss or actual sleep deprivation. I would assume the latter.

I start walking towards my bed and stop when I see the blood coating my fingertips. My blood.

My first finger is in my mouth before I can even think about stopping myself.

What may just be blood to you is pure rapture for me.

“What are you doing?” asks Justin’s voice from behind me.

I stop and pull my finger from my mouth, slowly, making it seem as though I was just testing something. It is agonizing but necessary. I don’t turn around when I speak, Justin would see the lie. “Testing to see how fresh the blood was.”

“What blood?”

His voice is still shaky.

I jerk my head towards the lamp holding the smashed light bulb.

“What did you do?”

I shrug and step over the lamp to crawl back into my cold bed. “Fell on a lamp.”

“And you’re still bleeding?”

He has slipped into his concerned brother voice.

I get ready to tell part of a lie, just as my father has taught me to. “No. I wasn’t sure when it stopped, though. I’m fine. I just want to sleep.”

“Mallory,” he says as a warning to tell him the truth.

“Honest,” I say into my pillow. “Can you turn off that light?”

He does. I can hear him breathing in the doorway before he turns and closes the door. I hear his shoes smack against the stone floors as he walks back down the hall, towards the kitchen, away from the front door.

His heart beats quickly, yet steadily.

I roll over onto my back and stare at the ceiling, disgusted with myself. It always seems like I’m doing well, and then one of Them shows up and screws me up again. I should have been able to stop myself. It was my own stupid blood. You shouldn’t want your own blood. But I did, and I will again.

I silently curse my mother with every curse I’d ever heard and every one I can make up with minimal effort before slipping into an uneasy sleep filled with twisted and tormenting dreams. Dreams filled with lilies and forests and hollow hills filled with golden halls.