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Prologue
“And the troll said, ‘Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum—’”
“MaryAnne, that’s not how it goes. The ogre from Jack and the Beanstalk says that, not trolls,” Andy pointed out, scrunching up his nose.
MaryAnne paused and frowned down at the smallest member of her audience. “I’m quite sure that trolls say it too. Right?” she asked, looking for support from the other children sitting in a circle around her.
They shrieked with laughter in a chorus of “no,” and she huffed with exasperation. “Well, how many trolls do you know? I met one once, and he most certainly said it.”
“Oh yeah? When?” Christa challenged with the sort of cocky raise of her eyebrows that only a ten-year-old can successfully pull off.
“Never mind when. You all know that there are fae villages and outposts dotted all over by now. But that’s beside the point. Do you want to hear this story or not?” MaryAnne asked, her arms folding over her chest. “Or did you just want to go straight to sleep? I may volunteer at our little orphanage, but I’m quite happy to put you all to bed without a story.”
“No-o-o-o-o,” the children sang together as they nudged each other and glared at the rabblerousers.
MaryAnne sucked her lips into a thin line so as not to betray her amusement, and she grimly eyed them until they settled in quietly once more. The children, wrapped in their patchwork blankets, leaned forward eagerly to catch her every word as she spun a tale of a maiden captured by a wicked troll and the valiant hero who rescued her. There was more than one wrinkled nose and tongue sticking out in disgust in counterpoint to every happy sigh at even a hint of romance. When all was said and done, however, her audience was full of pleased smiles when the hero dispatched the evil troll and won his fair maiden.
“Time for bed now,” she murmured, and this time the protest was weaker as their little hands rubbed at their eyes while they hurried to their bunks.
A tired smile pulled at her lips as she watched them curl beneath their blankets and lay their heads on the down-filled pillows that she spent a good part of the late summer helping the children’s home make. Wrapping her wool cardigan tighter around her body against the autumn chill, she crossed her arms over her chest, giving them a brief rub as the children slowly settled and snuggled into their bedding. She gave the room one last sweep before turning the knob on the lamp and extinguishing its flame. The entire room was doused in darkness, and she stepped out, closing the door behind her.
She stifled a yawn behind her hand. Fuck, she was tired. She wanted nothing more than to seek out her own bed and drop into it, face first. But not yet. She still had to do the bed checks in the teen dorms. Of all the children in the home, they were the ones who gave her the most trouble. On more than one occasion, she had to leave the comfort and safety of the home to seek a missing teenager who decided to sneak out and get a thrill from wandering the open road outside the protective walls of the children’s home.
MaryAnne shook her head. Suicidal was what it was. They did it for a cheap thrill, knowing that they had a safe place to hurry back to when they became too scared to go farther. Most were too young to remember what it was like trying to survive out there with the threat of an unknown world crashing into theirs. When one could barely sleep even when barricaded inside a seemingly secure shelter with the fear of something coming through and the scratching sounds of unnatural creatures hunting them.
She embellished the terrors of life beyond the walls for the little ones, dulling the edges of what had become their reality. But never once she did hesitate to remind them that those monsters out there were their enemy. She had seen what they had done to her family and many others since the Ravening. The monsters were not their friends. That was something that she would never forget.
She carried the memory in her heart and engraved in her skin where claws had tried to flay the skin from her bones. Probably would have been successful too if she hadn’t been small enough as a fourteen-year-old to squeeze into a small hollow where the creature couldn’t quite reach her. For ten years she had scraped to survive out there before she was taken in and offered employment at the home. For the first time she had found peace, but not even the high walls kept the nightmares at bay. That promise of safety was enough, however, to ensure that she would never step outside the walls unless she had to.
A few more steps carried her down the hall to the dorm for the older girls. She crept through like a wraith, inspecting each bed, tucking a blanket around one and then another before at last turning out the lantern on the communal table at the completion of her trek. Girls all accounted for. Good. Closing the door behind her, she steeled herself as she continued down the hall to the dorm housing the older boys.
Her lips thinned as she cracked open the door, wariness stiffening her back. There were two boys in particular she would need to watch for. Keeping her footsteps light, she entered the room and made her sweep, checking each and every bed to make sure that it contained the proper child. A tiny sigh of relief escaped her as she passed the last bed and noted the dark, curly mop of hair and the end of a pale, freckled nose peeking from above the covers. They were all there. One less worry for the night.
Nodding in satisfaction, she headed to the communal table against the wall just past the last bed where the lantern sat, the low light burning just enough for her inspection. MaryAnne leaned down, her fingers brushing the key on the lantern’s side, when a bright paper caught her eye tucked under a book just behind it. Frowning, she carefully moved the lamp aside and tugged the paper free. It slid out with a whisper, the brilliant colors brightening as it was brought closer to the flame.
Bold images appeared to leap forward from the shimmering background in a chaos of fauns, goblins, and all manner of creatures caught in a scene of revelry. Above them stretched several words in an elegant silver script. MaryAnne’s mouth moved slowly as she quietly read the words.
Leave your world behind for a day
Explore delights and join in our play
Step into the world of the fae…
The Carnival of Monsters
(food, metal bits, and material donations welcome)
A sickness crawled up her throat as she stared down at it, the sound of the scritch and the howls of the night creeping insidiously into the room all around her. The sharp, cruel laugh of a fairy on the hunt. The snarls and growling language of monsters prowling all around.
A carnival of them… Here? Where? Somewhere outside the walls. Perhaps beyond the fields near the edge of the woods. And the children brought the flyer here? What madness. Had all of her stories been for nothing that they would even truly think of going to such a place?
Not her children! They would never have her children.
Working quickly, she removed the glass shade from the lantern and plunged the paper within it, something within her leaping with relief and satisfaction when it quickly caught and the flame dancing over its edge brightened with its fuel. She held it aloft, letting it burn until the flames crawled too close to her fingers. Only then did she drop it onto the floor and smother the flame beneath her boot as she took a quick look around. Not one boy stirred. Good. There would be moans of disappointment, she was sure, but good riddance.
No good came from the fae, much less a fairy carnival of monsters.
ChapterOne
