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In the end, you might say that it was the books that betrayed Sampson Philpot. They, those tempters and temptresses, those sirens who sang from the shelves of his simple shop. They, who were copiously consigned to corners in each of his crowded rooms, even that of his daughter. The blue ones, the new ones, the gold ones, the old ones.
Especially the old ones.
They made him long for the world outside his village of Ruehaven. They made him dream of a life that involved more than caring for his daughter and mending the clothes of the people who really got to see the world, people who led large, loud lives that were – at least sometimes – exciting.
Be cautious, it is said, about what you wish for. Be cautious indeed.
It was a book that he brought home for his daughter Rebecca that began the Philpot family’s flirtation with the fairies. At ten years old, Rebecca’s taste in the stories Sampson read her every night was changing. The nightly stories that made her life without a mother easier for her. The nightly chore, just one of oh so very many that he endured for the sake of raising her alone.
“Daddy,” she said one night, “I don’t like Timmy the Talking Train anymore. That’s for babies.”
“But my dear,” he said, “Timmy is toot-toot-toot terrrrrrrific!”
“Stop it," she said, giggling in a gentle glissando. “You’re not Timmy. And I’m toot-tootin’ tired of him. I’m tired of Henrietta the Hog, and Cyril the Circus-boy, and Sally the Spider. They’re all for babies. I’ve heard them a hundred times. I’m ten now. I want different stories.”
“Then you are in luck tonight, my dear,” he answered. “Dr. Donaldson came in asking if he could trade me two old books for a small mending job. They’re all about the fairy folk. When I saw that one of them was especially for children, I said yes.”
“Ooohhhh!” Rebecca answered. “Can you read me that one? Please? Please? Please?”
“I can, my dear, and so I shall,” Sampson said. He reached down and picked up a slim volume. The book had been modestly manufactured; its pulpy parchment pages placed between crumbling clapboards. Its cover bore an inscription, haltingly penned in pencil by a child’s hand, reading “Property of Priscilla Pemberton.” It’s a miracle, Sampson thought, that old lady Pemberton’s childhood book still held together all these years. Poor Miss Pemberton had been nearly eighty when she passed away the year before.
Still, if he read this one to her, she would go to sleep. That meant that, free from the day’s difficult demands, he could read his book. He smiled at Rebecca. “This one is called Field of the Fairies. It’s about a girl named Fiona Featherington, and the fairies who grant her wish!”
He began to read:
“In fairy-realm doth Queen Mab rule
her court of summer-bright.
Her castle is a shining jewel
that glows with inner light.
Her subjects slip from world to world
aloft on fairy wings
that glitter in the sun unfurled
like dew to flowers clings.
A crafted circle of small stone
will soon their presence draw.
The Queen may even leave her throne
to fill young eyes with awe . . .”
Rebecca listened raptly as he read on, barely moving under her copper-colored cotton covers. But soon, her eyelids drooped drowsily downward. Sampson closed the cover of the book. “It is late. It is time for you to sleep,” he said softly. He kissed her forehead, then caressed the cascading curls of her chestnut hair. He did love her. If only she were easier to care for. If only her mother were still here.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “There will be more stories tomorrow.” And feeding, and cleaning, and cooking, and coal to stoke, and paying for Rebecca to go to that friendly Mrs. Hawkins’ house school, and caring for Henry the horse. And work. So much work.
Sampson blew out the candle and went back downstairs. Now that Rebecca was asleep, he was finally free to finish his own reading. The desert sands of Araby awaited him, courtesy of a penny dreadful called Knight’s Honor that he had begun the night before. It told a story of nimble knights battling nefarious Nubian nomads. Knights whose hands swung swift swords, not darning needles. Knights who bested burly brigands, not buttonholes. Knights who fought in places far, far from the frosty rain that fell forlornly outside, flowing down his window like tears.
He walked over to the fitting mirror and held the shirt that he had made for Dr. Donaldson in front of himself. His figure failed to fill the flowing fabric, for Dr. Donaldson was a fit man, as thick and muscular as Sampson was slender and soft. And he had seen the world. He and Mrs. Donaldson had ridden a steamer from Liverpool to all the way to Egypt. It had, by all accounts, been a grand and carefree adventure. They had supped in the shadows of the silent Sphynx, overnighted at opulent oases, haggled with high-handed hucksters at Heliopolis, and felt the sunbaked sands of Araby sift between their fingers. The real sands, not just black and white words in a book.
The same sands, he thought, that a widower with a young daughter to care for and a simple shop could only read about. The same world outside of Ruehaven that seemed to say to him, "Not for you, Sampson Philpot, not for you.” The kinds of adventures that he had talked about with his wife before consumption took her during the woeful winter of 1848. He sighed and put the shirt down. Maybe someday, he thought. When Rebecca was older, more self-sufficient, and when he had saved more money. If that was even possible.
Until then, there were the books. Sampson put the shirt down and picked up the penny dreadful. He looked at the cover but then put it back on a teetering tower of books behind a black Bradbury & Co. sewing machine. He could finish that one later, he thought. Tonight, he wanted to look at the other book Dr. Donaldson had traded to him. The adult one. The one that, he hoped, held legends long lost, tales tossed aside, fictions forgotten as the turning tides of time toppled even the memories of them. He picked up the light-brown colored volume, a book whose loose cover fell off as he attempted to open it. The title page read “The Fae: Seelie and Unseelie. Oxford, Mage &C., MDCLV.” Interesting, he thought, working out the Roman numeral. Published in 1655. The book was almost two hundred years old. What stories it must tell!
Indeed, that timeworn, tattered, tawny tome was the oldest of all his books.
And, as he would later find out, decidedly the most dangerous.
––––––––
Rebecca Philpot was bored.
Again.
Mrs. Hortense Hawkins’ house school was small, with only ten students - four girls and six boys. Her house – an inheritance from her late husband – was sizable. She did not need to teach, but the children reminded her of the family that she never had. And the income came in handy at times. But Mrs. Hawkins taught alone. That meant that when there were topics deemed appropriate for only the boys – like rhetoric, business, and Latin - the girls were dismissed early. When that happened, Rebecca had no playmates that were her age. Samantha and Sabrina Shea were six and seven summers old, respectively, and Amanda Atherton had almost achieved the age of sixteen, so Rebecca often had to entertain herself.
She had taken Field of the Fairies with her and finished the book in Mrs. Hawkins’ living room after the girls were dismissed. It was cold enough, she thought, that she probably didn’t want to play outside. She opened the tiny tin tote box that held the leftovers from her light lunch and picked at the leftovers. She quickly lost interest in the food and sighed. She could always go home. There was always coloring. She put on her coat, returned to the supper room, and silently waved goodbye to Mrs. Hawkins, trying not to disturb her and the boys.
Mrs. Hawkins stopped the lesson anyway. “Goodbye, Rebecca,” she said. “Tell your father hello. He is such a nice man, and I think of him often, all by himself with no wife. And you, poor thing, without a mother." She paused and then said, "Well then. Enjoy the weekend, and we will see you Monday.”
With her weighty white woolen wrap and matching muffler and mittens, the walk home hadn’t been that cold. But grey clouds had blocked the sun, and the sky spat small specks of sifting snow on her. Maybe, she thought, she’d get to play in the snow tomorrow. Maybe there’d even be a blizzard with enough snow to build a fort.
“I’m home!” she said as she opened the door to the shop.
Alone with his rolls of fabric, spools of thread, and half-finished garments, Sampson sat hunched over an ornate black sewing machine. The Wheeler and Wilson machine in front of him was newer and quieter than the old Bradbury that sat in the corner. But far from silent, the Wheeler still filled the room with noise, making a whistling whir as white thread wobbled from the whirling bobbin, accompanied by the quick click of the needle as it repeatedly pierced the fabric.
“Rebecca!” Sampson said, pausing. “Is school over already?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she answered and took off her coat. “Mrs. Hawkins said that the rest of the afternoon was for boys only. She told me to say hello to you like she always does. Could you take a break and play with me? Just for a bit?”
“I’m afraid not, my dear," he answered. Penelope Pemberton ordered three dresses for her and her sisters this morning. It’s a rush. They need them for a fancy dinner tomorrow, and I promised them tonight. I'd like to finish and deliver them before the snow gets too bad.”
“But . . .” Rebecca protested.
“Perhaps you could play in your room? Or go outside if it isn’t too cold?” he suggested with mild annoyance. “Maybe Henry the horse would like some company. His water might be frozen . . . you could always pump him a new bucket, you know.”
Rebecca frowned. Hauling a big bucket from the well didn’t sound like fun at all. But then an idea came to her. She could play fairies. She could pretend that she was Fiona Featherington from her book. Some of the gravel from Lower Larkspur Lane in front of their house would do just fine to make a stone circle, just like Fiona had. Maybe she could use it for marbles or jacks in the spring. Even if not, it would be a fun way to pass the time. Better than stupid coloring. It wasn’t that cold yet. She put her coat back on, grabbed the book, and went outside.
It took her two trips, her pockets filled with gravel, to lay the stones for the small circle. The snow was now falling more intensely, and she was finally beginning to get cold. I won’t even be able to see the rocks soon, she thought. Still, she wanted to finish what she started. She found the page of the book with Fiona's chant. Some words were adult, but they were all ones she knew. She began to read out loud:
“Encircled do the stones now stand
placed here by purest hand.
They call out to the land of Fae
come join, come dance, come play.”
Nothing. It was stupid, she thought. The fairies weren’t real. She should get out of the cold. She could always go to the Shea sisters’ house to see if they wanted to play with their dingy denim dolls. Ugh, she thought. It would be better than nothing. But, looking down, she realized she hadn't finished the page. Just a bit more. Why not? She continued:
“Kind fairies, please, I summon thee
to aid me with my plight.
A wish I ask you grant to me
to make my world be right.”
It started then. A scintillating shimmer in the sky. A balmy breeze that blew away the wet winter air, softly swirling against her skin and melting the snow that partially hid the rocks. A smell that suggested cinnamon and spun sugar straight from the oven. The tinkling timbre of tiny chimes.
And then, with a bright blue flash, they were there.
Dozens of fairies. They floated around her, levitating with luminous wings lit with lush colors. Smaller ones and taller ones, sir ones and her ones. Garlands topped their gossamer gowns, and their dewdrop eyes peered at her. One, no more than a foot tall, who wore a crown above her delicate face, floated toward her.
“I am Queen Mab, ruler of the Seelie,” the fairy said. “and you have called us here with rhyme and stone. We have answered. But I must ask you, child, to what end have you called us this day?”
Rebecca pointed at her and squealed, “You’re real!”
“As real as rainbows after rain,” Queen Mab answered, smiling. “As real as the silent suffering so many of the shattered children of mankind endure. As real as joy and laughter. As real as the healing that my court and I can often offer.”
Queen Mab landed on her outstretched arm. “Now, child,” she asked, “what is your wish?”
Rebecca thought a moment and then answered, “I need someone to play with. My father is always, always busy, except at my bedtime. Always. The children my age are either at boarding school or working. I get lonely.”
“But child,” Queen Mab said, “that is not a truly serious wish. Your aura shows us the way of your world. Your mother is gone, but your father is a kind man. Though he is overwhelmed and sometimes feels burdened, his love for you hugs both your hearts. In time, new friends will come. This is not for us to change. Wishes are for more serious matters.”
“But . . .” Rebecca began.
Queen Mab smiled. “Remember, child,” she said, “that you are loved. Not all children are. Remember that the very thought of you has the power to light your father’s heart.”
And then, with the same blue flash, they were suddenly gone. The warmth fled like a fleeting dream, felt, then forgotten, replaced by the damp embrace of the chill winter air. The smell lingered for the briefest moment and then disappeared. The chime sound was replaced with the keen of the whipping wind as the snow, now thicker, fell in earnest.
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 that 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 who, 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 decedent 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 fulsome 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. Donalson 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."
To never see Rebecca again. There had to be something that he could do. “But surely,” Sampson said, “there must be something that you want. I am wealthy,” he lied. “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 that you lie. There is no gold. 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.
––––––––
Rebecca Philpot was worried. She had gone to sleep, still waiting for her father to return from the Pemberton’s house. And now, as the rays of the morning sun sparkled on the still snow that serenely sat upon their simple yard, he was nowhere to be found. Henry the horse, still sporting his now soggy saddle, wandered outside of his fence. The only footprints in the snow were Henry’s heavy hooves.
Where was he? Why had he not put Henry away?
She searched the house, calling for him again and again, then put on her coat and searched the yard. He was not there, either. Not by the yew stump, not by the well pump. Not by the fence line, not in the dense pine. Nowhere. She needed help. She climbed aboard Henry and hastily headed for Mrs. Hawkins’ house, goading the horse to swiftly speed down the snowy lanes. When she arrived, she leaped off and pounded on the door.
Mrs. Hawkins, wearing a bright blue brocade bedgown, answered the door. “Rebecca Philpot! What on earth is this! The sun has barely come up!” she said.
“My father! He didn’t come home last night, but our horse did, without him!” she answered.
“Oh my,” she said. “Let me dress and I will help you look. He’s a dear, sweet man. I hope no harm has befallen him.”
They rode quickly to the house, both on Henry’s back, but to no avail. “I fear,” Mrs. Hawkins said, “that he may be in trouble. He would not simply leave you. I know him and his gentle spirit. He would not do this. Something has happened.” She paused. “I will ride your horse into town and fetch the constables. They can start a search. You must stay here in case he returns.”
Rebecca searched again after she left. Nowhere. He was gone. She sat down, crying. Then, with the suddenness of a dreamer awakening from a doleful dream, there was a red flash. Her father stood before her.
She looked up and ran to him. As she tried to hug him, he looked at her, confused.
“Who are you, child,” Sampson said, “and what are you doing in my house?”
“Daddy!” she said. “It’s me! Rebecca! Your daughter! Don’t you remember me?”
Sampson looked puzzled. “But . . .” he said, “I have no daughter. My wife, she died, and I was . . somewhere . . . somewhere like a nightmare . . . They took me, I remember that . . . Now, I am home.” He looked at her sternly. “And I do not know you. Why are you in my house? You must leave, you do not belong here.”
“Daddy! It . . . it’s . . me!” she said, choking back tears.
“I will say it again.” he answered. “I do not know the nature of this . . this . . . prank, but you must leave. Go back to your home, wherever that may be.”
Rebecca ran from the room. He doesn’t know me, she thought in a panic. He doesn't know who I am! Something was wrong with him, something that she didn't know how to fix.
But maybe, she thought, I do know how to fix this. She ran outside without even bothering to put on her coat or gloves. She cried as she brushed off the snow that covered the stone circle, her hands fastly freezing and her breath condensing in the crisp cold air. She stood and recited the words again, this time saying them in the most earnest manner of any words that she had ever spoken:
“kind fairies, please, I summon thee
to aid me with my plight.
A wish I ask you grant to me
to make my world be right.”
The cold gave way to the warm breeze. The cinnamon and sugar smell. The gentle sounds. Yes, she thought, come! I need your help! And with a blue flash, they were back. Dozens, smoothly swirling around the snowy circle. Rebecca sobbed sorrowfully as she saw the spinning swarm.
“Child,” Queen Mab said, floating toward her. “You are deeply troubled! Your aura is disturbed and dark! What has happened?”
“It’s my father,” she said, still crying. “Something happened. He was gone all night, then there was a red flash, and he was back. B-b-but . . ." She looked at the fairy . . . "HE DOESN'T KNOW ME NOW!”
"Oh, child," Queen Mab said, “I am sorry. But a red flash, you say? I believe I might know what has happened. Did your father have other books about fairies besides the one you used to summon us?"
“The house is FULL of books,” Rebecca answered. “But there was an old one he got at the same time.”
“And a red flash when he returned?” the Queen asked. “The color is quite important.”
“Yes,” she answered. “Red.”
"He was taken, captured by the wild hunt, and taken to the Court of the Unseelies,” the fairy said. His escape must have come at an awful price.”
“Taken? He was taken . . . to where?” Rebecca asked.
“‘Where’ is not quite the right question, child,” she answered. “As it is with us, the Winter Court is indeed a place, yet not as your kind might think of one. It is difficult to explain. It is true, the Unseelies are also of our realm. But not all who dwell in Fae are like us. We seek only to do what is most needed and most right. We charge no price when we choose to grant a wish to a child. But there are others of our realm . . the Unseelies . . . creatures who hunt men. By the great treaty, we cannot stop them. But sometimes, afterwards . . .”
Queen Mab paused. “I speak too much of arcane aspects of things that you need not know. Child, what is your wish?”
"I. WANT. HIM. BACK," Rebecca said firmly. "I love him! I lost my temper with him yesterday. I was acting like a baby. I want him back! I want him to remember me!”
“Now that, child,” she answered, smiling, “is a serious wish. Yes. Yes, I will grant your wish.”
The fairies around the circle began to spin faster and faster. There was a whispering sound of many voices, but mainly those of her and her father. Images flowed out of the circle toward the house: her father stroking her hair, her father holding her as a baby, her father hovering over her bed as he read.
And suddenly, with a silver sparkle, it stopped. “It is done,” Queen Mab said. “What was wrong is now right. What was dark is now light. Run to him, child. He remembers his love.”
And with a blue flash, they were gone.
Rebecca ran to Sampson’s arms. They hugged tightly, both crying.
“I remember,” he said, gently holding her face. “I remember it all. I never want to leave you again. I never want to go anywhere that isn’t by your side. I have had enough adventures for a lifetime. You, darling daughter, are my adventure.”
###
When Mrs. Hawkins returned, they were still in a tender embrace. “Mr. Philpot! Sampson . . . You gave us quite a fright! You gave me quite a fright! The constables are coming. I thought that highway men might have . . . might have . . . .murdered you! Where in the name of heaven were you!”
“I was . . . taken,” he answered. “Taken to a place that I did not believe existed. That I did not believe could exist. You will think I am quite insane, but I was taken by fairies! Evil ones!”
Mrs. Hawkins looked at him. “I do not think you insane, dear man. When I was a young girl, I saw them once, I think. Somehow, I knew that they were good ones. Ones that seemed as kind as the kindness that I see in you. What is it that Mr. Shakespeare’s play said? ‘There are more things in heaven and earth . . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy?’ I believe that. Why would God make just one world? Why would good and evil not battle in many places?”
“I swear to you,” he said, “it happened. I thought that I would never see Rebecca again. And I almost did not, not in the same way, anyway.”
“You poor, sweet man. The important thing is that you are here, now. You have been given a new beginning.” She paused and smiled.
Mrs. Hawkins set her jaw and stared at Sampson. “Sampson Philpot,” she said. “You are seven years without a wife, and I, ten without a husband. I know your loneliness, your longing and love lost, for I feel it too. Tomorrow . . . now that the storm is over . . . you and Rebecca must come to my house for dinner. I have a fine chicken that I can stew, and maybe even a bit of wine. You can tell me all about what happened, and we can talk.”
“We can talk ,” she said, “of many things.”
“Yes,” Sampson Philpot said. “I would like that. I would like that very much.”
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In the end, you might say that the books betrayed Sampson Philpot. But that would not be entirely true. Perhaps, instead of a betrayal, you might say that they, those teachers of the truth of the tender togetherness of family, took him through a tribulation that taught him that a father’s love is its own adventure. Perhaps they were his path to the realization that the familiar joys of hearth and home, actually lived, can hand one a happiness higher than words on paper, merely read. Perhaps they led him from loneliness to love - one love now newly remembered and appreciated, and another love freshly found.
And, if it is right to say that, then it is not always true that you must be cautious about what you wish for.
Just ask the Philpot family.
CONTRIBUTORS
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Elsa Loftis is an emerging horror writer. She is a librarian at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon where she is the liaison to the College of Art + Design, Film Studies, and World Languages and Literatures.
Glenn Dungan is currently based in Brooklyn, NYC. He exists within a Venn-diagram of urban design, sociology, and good stories. When not obsessing about one of those three, he can be found at a park drinking black coffee and listening to podcasts about murder.
Hugh A.D. Spencer’s short fiction has been published in magazines and anthologies such as Descant, Interzone, On Spec and the Tesseracts series. Most of these stories have been reprinted in Why I Hunt Flying Saucers and The Progressive Apparatus from Brain Lag Publishing. His novel Extreme Dentistry, also from Brain Lag, was released in 2014. He has also adapted much of his work into audio dramas which have been performed by Shoestring Radio Theatre for the Public Radio Network. He has been twice nominated for the Aurora Award in Canada and his story “(Coping with) Norm Deviation” received an honorable mention in The Year’s Best Science Fiction (2007). In May 2019, his play “The Triage Conference“ was performed at the Scripted Toronto Theatre Festival. His second novel, The Hard Side of the Moon, was released in hardback in 2021 and in paperback last July. A collection of his radio plays, The Fabulist Cycle, was published in early 2024.
Community leader. Particle physicist. International Assassin. Mark J Schultis is none of these. He wrote his first story in elementary school and has spent a lifetime keeping that childhood passion of storytelling alive, studying theatre and filmmaking before eventually earning his writing degree from the University of Pittsburgh. A perpetual night owl and pizza connoisseur, Mark was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Wayne Kyle Spitzer is an American writer, illustrator, and filmmaker. He is the author of countless books, stories and other works, including a film (Shadows in the Garden), a screenplay (Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows), and a memoir (X-Ray Rider). His work has appeared in MetaStellar—Speculative fiction and beyond, subTerrain Magazine: Strong Words for a Polite Nation and Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History, among others. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Eastern Washington University, a B.A. from Gonzaga University, and an A.A.S. from Spokane Falls Community College. His recent fiction includes The Man/Woman War cycle of stories as well as the Dinosaur Apocalypse Saga. He lives with his sweetheart Ngoc Trinh Ho in the Spokane Valley.
Olivier Faivre is a French expatriate living in the Netherlands. A physicist by training, he is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at the Open University.
Rick M. Clausen is a Bob Seger fan, and before he became a writer, he had a business career in International Marketing, where his B.S degree let him practice in the renowned Silicon Valley, and had the distinction of being included in Marquis Who’s Who in America. He has authored and published four books; one a narrative of his time in the US Marines with his experiences in Vietnam, and the latest edition a collection of supernatural short stories titled The Unnatural Order of Things. His fictional stories of the supernatural have appeared in the publications of Hobb’s End Press, in addition to online in The Creativity Webzine. He is a well-traveled strap-hanger, struggles to keep his score below a hundred on the golf course, and lives in California.
Sarah Wilson Gregory (she/her) writes from the foothills of Appalachia in her beloved state of Kentucky. She has three feral children and one mostly domesticated husband and spends all her free time writing, reading, and dreaming.
Lawrence Dagstine is a native New Yorker and speculative fiction writer of close to 30 years. He has placed around 500 short stories in online and print periodicals during that period of time. He has been published by houses such as Damnation Books, Steampunk Tales, Left Hand Publishers, Wicked Shadow Press, Calliope Interactive, and Dark Owl Publishing (of which he has a new book out called The Nightmare Cycle). Visit his website, for publication history past and present, at: www.lawrencedagstine.com
David Newkirk is a retired attorney living in Kansas City, Missouri. His work has appeared in Amazing Stories, New Letters, Flash Fiction Magazine, Fiction on the Web, the anthology Myths Subverted, and other journals. In his spare time, David enjoys falling down rabbit holes and writing about what he finds.
[1] A.’s taste in science fiction was inexplicable to the Observation Team.
[2] We need to check to determine if this is physiologically possible.