Blood

I can’t help but scream from the pain. Everything goes spotty and I can barely keep my head about me.

Maeve sits back, holding the wicked knife as though it were a living creature. For all I know it fucking is.

She’s been carving me. Lines and circles across everywhere, and it hurts. It hurts worse than being strangled. It hurts more than fucking anything.

The worst part is it don’t even bleed, it just leaves lines. Lines and swirls and curves that mean God-knows-what.

Actually, fuck that. I bet God has no fucking clue what this witch is doing. If he does he certainly doesn’t give a shit.

“Oh come on now, love. It’s not that bad.”

I can’t stop the tears running down my face. I ain’t even paralysed anymore and I still can’t do anything. It hurts so bad.

Maeve turns to a faerie behind her. “You can get another child now.”

I scream again. Maeve had explained to me that the only reason they were talking in English was so we would know what was going on. She said the more afraid the children were, the happier it would make the well. They’ve already killed three. I wish they’d just let me die instead.

“Which one would you like?” asks the Wood Dweller.

“Oh, I say we might as well get her brother now. The little one that looks like our bitch.”

“Pleeeeaasse,” I cry. “Please no.”

Maeve comes closer, wiping at my tears. “Hush now, love. It’ll be over soon enough.”

Except it won’t be ever, it’ll never be over if what she told me was true.

The world is spinning.

I want to die.

“Daaaaadddddyyyy!” I hear Sean cry.

“Please, Maeve,” I plead, trying to sit up and reach her, but I can’t. The pain is just too much.

Maeve idly runs the flat of her terrible blade along my ankle, then drops it, rising in a cloud of silver and accepting a red-stained knife from the water faerie, blade first. She doesn’t seem to notice as it cuts into her perfect skin.

“No,” I whimper. She can’t have Seanie. My Seanie. My baby.

The faerie named Domhnall carries my baby brother up to the great well, covered in blood from those that had been there before him. Other faeries dance throughout the clearing, laughing and singing as though this were a great celebration instead of a slaughter, as though the children were nothing more than hogs.

Maeve stops with one foot on the great well. “There are Sakrot in our home. My son has lead them here.”

The fey stop dancing. Those that had been beautiful but a second ago are now as hideous as anything I’ve seen. They’re all grinning as well.

Maeve scoffs. “No, no. Not all of you,” she waves a hand towards a section. She says something beautiful and vile that I don’t understand. It hurts my ears just to hear it.

The fires roar and the fey go back to their dancing.

Go, I think. Go away from Sean, which is what they’ll do, isn’t it? They’ll go and fight the Islanders. The Islanders can die for all I care, so long as Sean is safe.

But they won’t.

A little flying creature that looks like a flower comes and picks up the knife resting on my ankle, flying it back towards the well.

No, no, no, nonononono. Please God, this little boy loves you. He does. You have to love him as well.

I try to get up, but I can’t. I just can’t.

I can’t stop Maeve from opening Sean’s throat over the well, stopping his crying for good.

I feel my heart break in my chest. It hurts.

I scream, but it doesn’t change the blood dripping from my baby’s throat into the well. It doesn’t stop Maeve from taking the wicked knife from the little flower creature and covering it in my brother’s blood.

One of the circles of faeries approaches the well hungrily, smiling and licking their lips.

“No, please!” I scream but Domhnall still throws them my brother’s limp body.

The entire world shakes as it has each time a child has died here and a terrible light comes from the well.

Maeve turns to me, smiling like the Devil himself.

There’s a bang like a gun going off and her head explodes.