By Clarissa Janeen
(TW: blood, violence against children)
There once was a woman whose son was sickly. She took him to the fae so that he could be healed and found a faerie who was willing to help her, but in exchange, she had to make a deal to serve the faerie for ten years. The woman agreed and the faerie bound her wrist with the mark of a begonia as a symbol of her commitment to him.
“Beware,” the faerie warned, “for if you break your vow to me, I will mark your entire bloodline and hunt you all down.”
He took a flower that grew in the garden of the faes’ castle hidden deep in the forest. He crushed up the flower and fed it to the woman’s son, curing him. The woman rejoiced and thanked the faerie. Then, the faerie led her to a shrine at the edge of the forest with a tiny ritual bowl.
“In service to me, you will fill this bowl with blood from your veins. For now, you will fill this bowl every six months. It must be yours, and it must be fresh from your veins.”
The woman agreed and went home, rejoicing that her son was healthy. Every six months, she returned to sacrifice her blood to the ritual bowl, then went home to hug her little boy.
After the first two years, the faerie approached her. “You will now fill the bowl with your blood every four months in service to me.” The woman did as the faerie instructed for another two years until the faerie appeared again.
“You will now fill the bowl with your blood every two months in service to me.”
So the woman returned to the bowl every other month and filled it with her blood before going home to hug her little boy.
But the faerie’s greed only increased. Two years later, he demanded the woman spill her blood every month. She began to grow weak and tired. But still, she did as she was told. And slowly, she would walk back home to hug her son.
But the faerie’s greed for her blood would not be satiated. In the eighth year of her servitude, he appeared before her once again.
“You will now fill the bowl with your blood every other week in service to me.”
The woman did not want to break her vow to the faerie so her son would remain safe. But the next time she spilled her blood, she found herself crawling back to her son and could hardly hold him when she reached him.
“I cannot fulfill my service to the faerie,” she told her son. “His greed will only increase, and you will be motherless before I can reach the end of my ten years of service.”
So the woman and her son packed their belongings and stole away into the night, hiding from the faerie. Two weeks later, her son discovered the same begonia mark on his wrist that his mother bore.
“We must remain in hiding,” his mother told him. “Or the faerie will take us both away.”
The mother and her son managed to hide for many years. The son grew up, married, and had a young girl who bore the same begonia mark as her father and grandmother. Eventually, the grandmother died, but her son, his wife, and their child remained in hiding.
No one was quite sure what happened to those stolen by the fae, so when a boy ran into the village shouting that he had spotted the fae nearby, the young girl ran and hid in a stack of hay. She stayed very quiet and listened to the screams outside. But a faerie had seen her and pulled her out of the hay. He placed a knife to her throat. Then another faerie pulled up her sleeve to reveal the mark on her arm.
“Please, don’t take me,” the young girl begged. “I’m sorry my grandmother ran away. It’s not my fault.”
“Your grandmother forfeited your freedom when she ran,” was all the faerie said before he transported the young girl with a snap of his fingers to the faeries’ castle hidden in the depths of the forest. The young girl found herself in a cage with many other people, who also had many kinds of fae marks on their bodies, and she began to cry. The girl’s father, who had also been taken, heard her cries and found her.
“Sweet girl, I’m here,” he said. “Don’t worry. I will keep you safe.”
But the faeries pulled her father off her and searched his pockets, taking whatever they could find.
“No! Don’t take him away, please!” the girl begged as they dragged him off. She cried some more, but the fae showed no pity. They brought her down to the mines with the other children.
“You will work here, harvesting iron for our weapons,” they told her. “If you misbehave, we will whip you. And if you do not work, we will cut you down with our swords.”
The young girl was afraid, but two large faeries in armor stood watch at the top of the mines with a whip in one hand and a sword in the other. So the young girl took up a pickaxe and began to mine.
The mines were dark and frightening, but the young girl feared the faes’ weapons more and worked hard every day. By the time the children were allowed to go to bed in their cage, with only a bit of bread and water for supper, she was exhausted. Meanwhile, the fae enjoyed long evenings drinking tea and singing songs.
“I miss my father,” the young girl said sadly.
An older girl who slept beside the young girl was ill and spoke in a raspy voice, “I’ve heard the fae make our parents forge the iron we mine into weapons. But they cursed the mortals to keep them from hurting the fae with any weapons forged by mortal hand.”
With each passing day, the young girl grew more tired. Many of the children had grown sick and weak. The young girl watched the guards when she thought they weren’t looking to see if there might be some way to get around them. As she studied them, she realized the guards never got too close to any of the children. If a child was injured, they sent another child to drag them out. And if a child misbehaved, they would whip the child from several yards away. The young girl also noticed that the fae never touched any iron the children mined. The children put all the iron into carts, which a few of them would transport out at the end of the day.
One evening, when the carts were being sent out, a wheel on one of the carts hit a rock, and a bit of iron flew out of the cart, hitting one of the guards in the face. Though he wore full armor, some of the dust from the iron slipped through his helmet, and he began to scream as it burned his skin. The guard ran out, clutching his face, and the young girl realized that the iron must harm the fae in some way. So, she began to devise a plan. Just before the children slept in their cage, the young girl whispered to them, “Tomorrow, we must all sneak as much iron into our pockets as we can.”
The next day, the children took turns stuffing iron into their pockets when the guards weren’t looking. By the time they lined up for dismissal at the end of the day, their pockets were full.
The young girl had instructed everyone to surround the guards and throw iron at them. The guards became frightened when the children approached and whipped a couple of them, but they could not get them all, and the children threw iron at them, causing the guards to scream and fall to their knees.
While they were distracted, the young girl asked the children who pushed the carts, “Do you know where the kitchens are?”
“Yes,” a boy said. “We pass by them every day on our way to the armory.”
“Quick,” said the young girl, “help me hide in one of these carts and take me to the kitchens on your way to the armory.”
So the young girl and a few other children hid in the carts full of iron and were wheeled to the kitchens. Being so small, they snuck inside and hid in the cabinets, where they found a bag of tea, which the fae had with every meal, made from the herbs in their garden. The children mixed the remaining iron from their pockets into the herbs, then put the bag onto the counter for the fae to find. The children stayed very quiet in the cabinets and hid behind the food reserves while the fae chefs prepared supper. They made the tea and brought it out for the rest of the fae. The children waited patiently until the fae were all poisoned by the iron, which burned their insides, making them cry out in anguish.
The children then grabbed the keys to their cage, which were kept on a hook on the wall, and freed the other children. Then they all ran to find their parents, locked away in another cage, and freed them.
“My child, you’ve returned to me. O blessed day!” the young girl’s father rejoiced when they reunited.
“I never wish to be parted from you again,” said the young girl.
“The faerie who cursed your grandmother must be dead. Look, our marks are gone,” he said.
The girl checked her wrist and it was indeed clear of markings as the faerie who had bestowed it had been killed and his enchantments had been broken. So, too, did everyone else find they had been freed from their marks.
The mortals took all the riches they could find in the treasury, weapons from their armory, food from the kitchens, and supplies from the storeroom and loaded them all into the mine carts. They also harvested the magical healing flowers that grew in the castle garden and used them to cure their sick and injured. Then, they took the remaining flowers with them as they navigated through the forest. The forest was deep and filled with magic, and it tried to make the people lose their way and put wild animals in their path.
“What will we do?” they asked one another.
“Papa,” said the young girl. “I found this in the treasury. Could it help us?” She handed her father an enchanted compass, which could point the way out of the forest.
“Yes,” her father said. “And we will use the fae weapons to protect ourselves from wild animals.” So they all traveled in a tight circle, keeping the children in the center to protect them from wild animals. Meanwhile, the children helped push the carts and watched the compass, telling the adults which way to go. And because the people worked together, they escaped the faes’ cruel deals and returned safely home. The returning mortals were unselfish with their treasure and used it to turn their village into a thriving city, and the people there lived happily for many ages.
Author Bio
Clarissa Janeen is an author, illustrator, and editor from San Diego, CA. She has a BFA in Creative Writing with a minor in Illustration from California Baptist University. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Popular Fiction Writing and Publishing at Emerson College. Her writing and illustration have been published across a handful of journals and magazines in addition to PTM, including Alethia and multiple issues of The Dazed Starling. She is the illustrator of the picture book The Squirrel and the Moon (2023). You can find her online at clarissajaneen.com.
