The Stories Fairy-Tales Don't Tell

The Changeling

Once upon a time, in a land not here nor there, a changeling child lay still and silent, in place of the Queen's only daughter. Ugly and headstrong, with wide eyes and a snub nose, she was quite unlike the porcelain creature of society she had replaced.

The King didn't notice- what use had he for a daughter? The Queen had no place for a plain and wayward child in her court. The prince would laugh and call her names, her maids all ran away.

Written off as a lost cause by the age of three, Avery grew up half-feral, lost in the woods days at a time unnoticed, stealing milk from the cats and honey from the markets, sleeping with the horses when her parents forgot to let her back into the palace.

She tried to be polite, normal. Avery would smile so widely at strangers they'd forget their own name, she'd stand up so straight one might think she was a statue. Ask for a stranger's name and they would be at her beck and call, but a maid's cast iron pan would make her hiss and shy away.

The people called her demon, warding her away with the evil eye as she stirred up so much trouble her mother wished she'd drowned her. Children would throw stones as she danced through the streets, but they'd find snakes in their beds the next morning.

Eight years old, and the Queen wouldn't recognise Avery. The people did, though. The peasants and the soldiers, the farmers and the fishers. They learned to fear her, more than they had feared the weak old grey-haired man on the throne who didn't bother to look past his gold.

Nine, and superstitious peasants were warning their children not to go out at night lest the demon princess snatch them away. Avery would perch on their windowsills, just out of sight, and cackle to herself, chewing on her fingernails and her wild dark hair.

Ten. Milk and bread was left on doorsteps for the fairy-child, and they'd ask for her to spare their crops, their herd. The poor foolish peasants didn't know how powerful they were making her, how strong.

Eleven. Avery would rage in the forests, fire blooming in her wake as nymphs and sprites cowered away from her wrath. They said she was too powerful, too strong. The Seelie courts told them Avery was just a child, what harm could come? 'Just a fairy child,' the nymphs would reply, 'just a fairy child with the powers of a mortal princess and the blood of our queen in her veins. Oh I wonder,' they would say, 'whatever harm could come of that?'

Twelve years of age, still a child by most standards but even the nobles were trembling, stationing extra guards around their houses and leaving candles on late in the night. Avery would slip inside just to spite them, watch the fearful and stupid sleep. As the tales about her grew, so did she.

Thirteen, but her anger was growing too, bit by bit. Avery was drunk on her power, deaf to those weak human emotions.

Fourteen, and Avery began to dance, letting out through her feet that which could not be contained inside her head. Mushrooms would grow where her toes touched the dirt, the beginnings of a spell she did not yet know.

Avery danced and she danced and she danced. Out the palace and the hunting grounds, past the village where the people turned to watch, dropping their trowels and their laundy to skip their feet and clap their hands, an irresistible pull tugging them towards her fairy trail.

The children came first to join her wild dance, those who had not yet learned to shut up and sit still, those who still had free hearts and pure minds.

But they all came, eventually, even the oldest with hearts locked up in stone, even the ones who'd locked their souls in their tankard of ale. They joined her fairy song, and the mushrooms grew and grew behind them, higher than the tallest head.

They forgot all exhaustion, exhilarated by her wild spirit, that laugh that carried over hills and valleys, into the ears and hearts of all who heard it.

Avery came to a wall, the kingdom's wall, a wall of stone and soldiers. They readied their spears and swords, but even the strongest couldn't resist her call. So they shed their armour, that hateful iron and joined Avery in ecstasy.

The mortals trod the fairy path, on and on and on. Feet stirring up the dirt, drunk in her song.

No one but the fairies, trembling in their trees, noticed how she wrapped her mushroom road around the kingdom's walls, how this fairy circle would ensnare their whole world. And Avery could only laugh, laugh and laugh and laugh as fear itself was undone, as the threads wrapping those mortal minds began to fray and come apart.

For her circle was complete, and the kingdom was the king's no longer.