short stories

the tooth fairy

"She took one extra this time"

One could hardly call her a fairy.

She possessed the complexion of that of a goblin, with coarse, black hair and leathery green skin.  She had eyes the color of ink, sharp yellow fingernails, and wore a black cloak over her brown tunic.  Her hands were wrinkled and scarred, deep permanent cuts formed after years of incising and extracting.  Sheathed at her belt was a jagged, silver dagger, and tied to a string around her neck, a glittering emerald the size of a walnut.  There was a hole big enough for one's fist to fit through in the side of her face, revealing the inside of her mouth, and many sharp, sporadically placed teeth lining her gums.

She lived under ground in the heart of the forest, beneath a tall, twisted tree.  There, she had her collection; a monstrous pile of baby teeth gathered over thousands of years.  And inside each was a piece of its previous owner's soul.

Each night, she crawled out from her home underneath the tree, and vanished into the darkness.

At midnight on the night before last, she appeared in the bedroom of Cierra Parker, a six year old with a baby tooth on the verge of falling out.  The fairy silently made her way to the side of her bed, and peered down at her with curiosity.  What pretty teeth, she thought, her hand wrapped around the hilt of the dagger.  She grinned demonically, bearing two rows of crooked, pointy fangs for teeth.

The girl was spread-eagle on her mattress under her covers, her mouth already dangling open, in a deep, relaxing slumber.  The fairy's beetle-black eyes stayed fixed on the child, while with one hand, she pulled the emerald out from under her cloak.  Upon its appearance, the jewel let out a low, ominous hiss, and the girl's head fell to its side.

Now there's no chance of her waking up, the fairy said to herself.  The emerald cast long, eerie shadows along the walls of the girl's bedroom, and the nightlight went out with a flicker.  With a blur of silver, the fairy unsheathed her dagger and held it under her nose.  She then lowered it to the girl's open mouth, and with her other hand, she turned the girl's cheek to face her own.

She brought down the blade on Cierra, and blood splattered the sheets.  The fairy cut deep into the girl's gums, ripping out the tooth, and licking her lips at the sight of her blood.  With her long, pointed nails, she scraped out the canine, and held it delightedly between her fingers.

Yet she craved more.  So she took one extra this time.

So with a powerful swipe, the fairy dug her knife into the girl's gums once more, spraying her own face with sticky crimson.  She yanked out another tooth, not yet ready to be pulled, and more blood streamed down Cierra's chin.  The inside of her mouth had been hacked at, cut, slaughtered, and ripped apart, but she didn't wake up.

The fairy placed both teeth inside her cloak pocket, and stuffed the emerald back under her robes.  The dismal green light evacuated the room at once, and the nightlight twinkled back on.  The blood stains seemed to vanish, and the cuts and scars in the girl's mouth disappeared as well.  The only visible changes were that two of her teeth were gone.

Cierra squirmed under the covers but did not awake.  With one last devilish smile, the fairy turned on her heel, and with a crack like a whip, she was gone.