Far, far away from the dam, in a tiny, forgotten corner of reality that was totally inaccessible unless it did not wish to be, Ofelia and the rest of the fairy host slouched in their chairs in her feasting hall, stupefied with drink and food. As always, many of the host were already sleeping. Nowadays they found it difficult to sleep at all if their appetites were not sated by the taste of the unusual.
It had been, Ofelia thought, a fairly good dinner. But as she cleaned her teeth with a small ivory pick, she reflected that she was not completely satisfied. She realized she’d been thinking for years that she would not truly be pleased until she’d checked off this last achievement on her list, but one of the dangers of such thinking is that the event one hopes for never quite lives up to the expectation.
She took out her anger on her seneschal, demanding to know what he thought of the meal. He agreed that yes, my lady, the chef’s preparation was most ingenious, infusing the flesh with wine and tobacco, as it’d doubtlessly seen much of both in life. And yes, my lady, pairing it with the Arcadian vintage (aged with the bitterest of memento mori) was nothing less than an oenophilic triumph. And no, my lady, the event had not been marred by the slightest of hangovers left by the uisce beatha. “Although, I do admit, my lady,” he said, “that I have a small irritation in my stomach at the moment, though that has only started just recently.”
“That’s odd,” she said. “I think I may feel the same discomfort. Perhaps the chef used too much spicing. He has overdone himself before, when pressured.”
The seneschal put a hand to his stomach, and winced. “Somehow I do not think so, my lady. This is a very cold sensation, rather than a hot one. And it is very—” But the seneschal never finished his description, for he abruptly started coughing. Ofelia watched impatiently as the man tried his hardest to articulate his meaning in between his coughs. But she could not make out what he said, as another member of the host started coughing nearby as well, followed shortly by two more.
“What is wrong with all of you?” asked the lady. “Have you honestly gotten so sensitive?”
The seneschal tried to shake his head, but after one tremendous hack he looked up with terrified eyes. With outstretched hands he showed he’d just coughed up an enormous amount of blood. To their terror, several other fairies began coughing, and more and more until the entire host was hacking and choking.
“What is this?” said the lady. “What could be—” But then Ofelia began coughing as well. She stared around for aid as she coughed, but none came. She coughed so hard that, to her shame, her mask slipped off and clattered to the floor.
They did not all cough up the blood, but all of them bled; for most of them it came from the eyes and skin, as if they wept or sweated blood itself, slipping from the edges of their white masks. They slapped at the bleeding parts of their bodies, trying to stanch the flow, but in their agitated states they could do nothing to stop it. The blood built up around their feet at the feasting table, collecting into a large pool, and even though the lady was bent double with her coughs she still managed to see that the pool of blood seemed to defy the slope of the floor: rather than lying at the far end of the room from her, the pool somehow stayed directly at her feet.
There was a quiver in the pool. And then, as if the blood filled a large hole in the ground, a single trembling hand pierced the surface of the puddle and felt around the wooden floor for support. Finding a table leg, the hand grasped it and hauled the remainder of its owner up out of the pool in a very violent, sanguine birth. Yet this was no child: even though the lady and the rest of the host were now very weak from the coughing and the loss of blood, they could see that the person who’d just climbed out of their floor through the pool of blood was none other than a nude, blinking, crimson Heironomo Silenus.
He gagged and sniffed and wiped his eyes. Then he looked around at the expiring host of fairies. “Jesus,” he said. “You know, I wasn’t entirely sure that would work…” He turned toward the end of the table to the lady, seated in her chair and wheezing. “Goodness, Ofelia. I can see why you keep that mask on.”
“You!” whispered Ofelia furiously. “You were dead… you’re supposed to be dead!”
Silenus stood up, dripping, and took a lit cigar from one of the ashtrays at the table. He took a drag and said, “You should have listened to your mother more. If you had, you’d’ve known that dying is one thing I’ve made sure to be very bad at.”
“What!” said the lady. “But how…”
“Maenad’s honey,” said Silenus. “Gathered from the thyrsus itself, and hidden in the cork. It has such unusual properties when ingested, you know. For the maenads themselves, its regenerative properties allowed them to survive the bacchanalia. When diluted with wine, however, it takes a while to act. And it will act, even if there are”—he glanced around at the dying fairies—“obstacles in the way.”
“You bastard,” she whispered. “I should have never granted your last request. Will you never give me any peace?”
Silenus shrugged. “I may make things quicker for you, if you answer my question. Now—what have you done with the others?”