Blood

By the time we reach the town, whatever had started the fires is long gone, replaced by men and women throwing snow and water at their burning homes, trying to save what they can. It looks like that won’t be much.

I feel delirious. On the ride to town, I realised that half of my cuts and scrapes are filled with salt, meaning they won’t close until it’s washed out. I think my insides are healing from whatever ordeal they went through, though, so that’s good. The sooner I can stand the sooner I can go to the Wood. Assuming it isn’t already too late.

Cynthia had rushed me to Richard Hawthorne’s practice, one that was luckily spared from the fires set to other parts of the town. I’ve never seen so many people inside the building. There’s not a spot I can see without a person in it, whether it be a chair or a spot on the floor. I have one of the later, Cynthia the former.

There are people with burns and people with broken limbs and people that look like they’ve been stabbed or clouted.

From what I’ve gathered, it was the fey that set fire to the place, just as expected. What I didn’t expect to find was that almost every child between the ages of 4 and 12 is missing. People are at the point of hoping their children have burnt in the fires over the alternative, which is that the fires were set both to appeal to the fey’s love of mayhem and to cover a theft unlike any I have ever heard of.

I think back to my time in the Wood, and worry what a sea god would demand upon being woken from its sleep.

“Cynthia, we should go,” I mutter. She’s sitting beside me, watching that I don’t pass out or summat before the doctor can get to me.

She scowls down at me, likely because it’s near the twentieth time I’ve made the statement.

“No.”

I frown and go back to eavesdropping what I can from the people around me.

The door to the clinic opens, bringing in the cold and the oppressive smell of fire.

“They were in the Cove as well,” says a man I only vaguely recognise.

The injured let out cries of outrage and questions, too many for anyone to begin to understand.

The man hesitates. “And their children are gone as well.”

A man cries out in grief, louder than the rest. I’m not sure who it was, but it’s clear that he is among the many parents missing beloved children.

“We have to go to the Wood,” I say, as loudly as I can without yelling. It’s lost amongst the overwhelming grief within the room.

I put as much effort as I can into standing, but that does little to increase my visibility over such a crowd. Many people have risen to their feet before me, and some do after.

“The fey have them.”

A hush falls upon the room at such a word being used. Hell, at least I have their attention, even if it was with a statement they already knew to be true.

My head spins with both dizziness and the amount of people around me, but I speak anyway. “We already know that, so why don’t we do something about it. I’ve been in the Wood before—”

With that the room falls into a kind of chaos. Even to save their children, people are hesitant to consider such an unthinkable thing as entering the Wood. I know I’ve lost their attention entirely. All I can do is wait and see what they decide, trying to think of some kind of plan as they do.

People will have iron of course, but their fucking houses are on fire so who knows how hard it would be to find anything of use.

Even if there are viable weapons available, I fear that the Islanders’ natural terror at even the mere idea of the fey will keep them from making their way into the Wood, even if it is to save their very futures.

I glance down at Cynthia. She looks mortified.

It had to be said, I think. Hell, if they’ll side with me then they may even be able to get their children back.

More importantly I’ll be able to get to Lorna.

I feel ill, both because of my car crash and because of what I’d just thought. How could I put the value of Lorna above that of almost every child on the Island?

Because you love her, says the voice in the back of my head. The faerie within me.

I feel eyes on me and realise that the room has quieted to nothing more than a rumble where before it had been a storm.

I realise that the room has someone as a whole decided that I should continue speaking. What had I been saying?

My head aches, making it difficult to think. I have to speak anyway. “If we go now with whatever iron, holy water—anything that the f…” I begin to say, “Good Folk dislike—we may be able to save the children.”

“And how d’ya say we do that?” Asks John O’Patrick, a middle-aged man I believe is childless. He’s cradling his arm and is covered in soot.

I want to say something crude but I don’t.

“Well, I don’t exactly have a plan or nothing, but the general idea would be to go into the Wood and come back with your children,” I say, realising almost immediately that it wasn’t the right way to reply. My head hurts.

To my surprise no one immediately scoffs. Maybe they’re too afraid to.

There’s discussion, though. Maybe planning, maybe mourning, maybe about how that Fionn asshole is off his head.

After a moment a few men leave, which I figure is a bad sign. Another moves deeper into the clinic, likely to speak to the doctor.

Another few people with non-severe looking injuries leave as well until a crowd of maybe a dozen have left.

I look around, and find that a lot of people’s eyes are on me.

“Mallory, this ain’t gonna end well,” Cynthia says angrily. I realise then that the people are leaving to get supplies. That’s why everyone’s looking at me. They need me to show them how to get to where the fey will be. At least I have a fairly decent idea about that. Less so what to do when we get there. I don’t even know if these people have a chance against the fey. I don’t even know if their children are still alive.

Fuck, my head hurts.

After ten—maybe twenty—minutes the door to the clinic swings open with a jingle of a bell and Eddie Hannagan sticks his head in.

“Mallory,” he says, looking around for me.

“I’m here,” I say, getting to my feet with some effort.

“We’ll be heading out now. Any of you that’re able should follow the young Fionn here.”

I feel like I’m in a novel, marching to a final battle with the odds stacked a thousand to one. Here’s to hoping it ends like a novel, too.