Halloween I.F. – “Going Dark” – Day 19

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The beer had been intended as an offering—and while Fern didn’t remember too many specifics, they knew that people were cautioned from accepting food and drink from the fairy folk. While Fern didn’t know for sure that’s what Aris was, they sure seemed like it.

On the other hand, Aris had already given their word not to harm or imprison Fern during this visit, and had specifically invited Fern to share their hospitality. Rejecting that hospitality itself then might undo the other terms of their agreement. 

Also… Fern really wanted a beer right about now.

“Well?” Aris asked, wiggling the can between two fingertips.

“Sure,” Fern blurted. “Sure, I’d love a drink, in the name of hospitality and a shared experience.” 

Aris’s eyes glittered at them as a glass appeared in front of them; they poured, slowly. 

“Sorry for getting lost in thought,” Fern added in a near-stammer. “You’re more beautiful than I’d expected.”

It wasn’t exactly what they’d intended to express, but it was true. Every time they looked Aris over, their heart squeezed inside their chest. It was half like seeing a perfect sunrise or fog through the trees, a sight so beautiful that it couldn’t help but move you, and half erotic, because that experience was condensed into a creature that resembled a human and moved with a dangerous, too-sharp, too-languid energy. 

Aris beckoned, and Fern came closer, sitting on the stump next to Aris as the spirit handed a glass of beer over. Closer to them, it was even harder to focus, the chime of their hair matching every movement. They could really understand Bannick’s desire for them, even if they didn’t fully know the history there.

That was a possible question, though not the best one to start with, probably. Fern took a sip of beer in the hopes that would clear their head. Somehow, it tasted way better than a cheap beer ought to. It was something about the air in the place, the reflection of Aris’s eyes on the surface. Their lips tingled.

As if reading their mind, Aris prompted, “You may begin with your questions as you’re able.”

This was not the condition they wanted to be asking questions in. They shifted awkwardly and closed their eyes, thinking back over everything that Aris had recently said.

“You’ve mentioned being bound,” they said slowly, careful not to make that one a question. “And that Bannick is also bound. What are the details of the binding, including how and who did it?”

“A large question, several in one, but bound up tight enough to count as a bundle instead of each separate,” Aris noted. “Very well, I shall answer, though I fear that my answer may be unsatisfactory. Our master, the lord of this house, has control over us as summoner and binder; I do not know precisely in what ways Bannick has been bound, though given Bannick’s nature, it may be his name or a contracted assignment he has been unable to fulfill. I, myself, have had my freedom itself extracted from me, and put in a bud that has been hidden away somewhere beneath the house. Both he and I were punished as the master aged, and have thus been imprisoned. If we can please that man, we may earn our freedom back. If I have my freedom, I will be free—as I’m sure you can see.”

They leaned over, brushing fingertips against Fern’s jaw. Fern shivered hard, trying not to react too overtly. “I see,” Fern croaked. “There is another spirit upstairs in the wardrobe. You didn’t mention if she is bound. Who is she, both in general and in terms of the overall situation here?”

Aris laughed, that sharp little sound. “She’s a different case. The master’s beloved daughter, Miranda Kemp, who followed him so loyally into his exile into the woods, killed as a sacrifice to the spirits of air and darkness to bind them more tightly and provide the power to do his bidding and get his revenge on those who ran him out of town. She was stabbed and locked in the wardrobe to bleed to death, or, if she outlasted her wound, to die of thirst and hunger instead. A terrible death to bear. Truly, she was double locked, in a wardrobe and in a room kept much as she remembered it to keep her in the past, because should she realize her vengeance she may be dangerous to all, himself included. Poor creature.”

There Fern hesitated. What they wanted to ask next and what they should ask next felt like they were vastly different questions. 

The master, that man—Fern felt like they were beginning to get an image. A would-be sorcerer, exiled from a nearby town, who wanted revenge, who summoned Bannick and Aris and then later empowered them by sacrificing his daughter… presumably. He was keeping Aris’s feedom under the house, and therefore, he was the threat under the house, since that’d be his domain. The first threat, who had been active from the start. He would have built this cottage originally. Was he renting it out for a purpose? No, given the appearance of his daughter’s room, he would be long past a natural death. Unless it had kept him alive? Hard to imagine an ancient sorcerer renting the cottage out on online vacation sites. Another ghost? Or something else? 

What Fern wanted to ask, though, was more about Aris and Bannick. Who they were, who they were to each other. That too they felt they had an idea of. But they wanted to know more. Couldn’t help it.

They were feeling drunk off less than half a beer. Impossibly heady. Dizzy. They swallowed the last gulp of their drink and decided, recklessly, to just say that. “You know, I know I should be asking more about this sorcerer. If he’s even still alive or whatever. But I want to know more about you, Aris. You’re so beautiful, and so desirable. And I want to know more about Bannick, who I’ve been talking with all this time. And the history you two have shared, I want to know.”

Aris’s blade-sharp laugh felt like it was going to cut right through Fern’s chest, and they were fairly sure they’d lean into it if it did. “No questions asked there, I see,” they cooed, putting a full hand against Fern’s cheek this time. “Little human, you have a choice, then. You can ask what you think is the smart, safe thing to ask. Or you can throw away safety and ask what your heart wants most.”

Fern leaned into the touch, which stung their cheek. “Or I can try to find a way to ask both at once.”

“O! Do you think that’s possible?”

It was so hard to think. They bit their lower lip almost too-hard to feel something past the burning, stinging sensation. “If I found a way to ask both,” they said slowly, “how would you answer me?”

Nails curled briefly, but retracted before drawing blood, Aris’s promise clearly holding them. “O, what a monster you could become, if you were inclined to be a monster,” Aris said. “I would tell you, then, that the sorcerer died but it hasn’t stopped him, that he is waiting for someone to let him be alive again, and that he would order his servants to cause that if he had the chance. I would tell you of decades of my own airy self being trapped alone with no company but a beast of the earth and of the realms beneath it. And even that company could only happen briefly, on the air, a long distance communication through proxies, after being punished with our own prisons for the crime of not keeping that man alive. I would tell you of the bond that formed, the love and the hate, the deep resentment and the need, the desire to see the other worse off, the desire to not be left alone. I would tell you that the man is dead, but he had a granddaughter through Bannick before he killed his own daughter. That that child had a son, and that son owns the cottage, and enacts the will left to him with no additional thought to it. That the sorcerer needs someone sensitive enough to have heard his spirits for him to be able to act. That this cottage has been rented out to nobody able to hear or listen for far too long, but now you are here.”

That was so much information. Head swimming, Fern could hardly sort through it. “Oh,” they said.

“As for an alliance, think on everything I’ve told you, and in the meantime, we can simply help each other kindly as we can,” Aris said lightly. “And you have finished your drink before I have finished mine and we cannot allow that.” They took a swig of beer, and then, still holding Fern’s cheek, turned Fern’s head and kissed them.

Fern felt like they could die in this kiss, and then that they very nearly might, as beer poured from Aris’s mouth into their own. They swallowed frantically, head swimming, and for a long moment, everything grew dark.

When they managed to move, groaning, head throbbing, they opened their eyes to find themself in the dirt outside the cottage, lying next to the pine tree. The stake lay where they’d left it.

It felt like an absolute miserable hangover, given that they’d only had the one beer, but they supposed that itself wasn’t harm, and so Aris had kept their word.  

Slowly, carefully, they pushed themself upright. Ugh. Now what?

[Comment below with a suggestion for Fern.

oh i’m on page 69 of my writing doc. nice.]

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