Lessoc Fountain - a fairy-creature tale

Ch. 26 Forgetful

She turned the handle and stepped inside.

Everything was fine inside the chalet. She'd forgotten to lock the door—that was like forgetting to put your fingers in your mouth when you burned them.

Cocot tiptoed to the table to light her candle. Her hands were trembling and she had to strike the match three times before the flame leapt to life. She touched the match to the candlewick, waiting for it to catch and for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior.

Everything was fine. Inspecting the room again, she realized that the vines growing up the inner door were dried up. Bright green leaves had faded grey-white and withered, littering the floor. One of the field fairy nests was hanging loose.

A soft creak sounded. The front door was still open, letting in the cold, moist air from the mountains. Cocot turned to close it. Something moved across the floor. It made a faint rustling noise, wind blowing one of the leaves or a mouse whisking away to hide in the dark corner.

"Daniel," she mouthed, no sound coming from her throat. She wanted to yell for him. The pale light from the candle created curtained shadows everywhere.

She inched one foot forward to shine the flame on the darkness, but froze when another thin creak came from the darkness.

A white hand emerged from the darkness and wrapped slowly around the door's edge.

"Daniel!" Cocot screamed. The hand pushed the door, a sharp crack cutting off her shout as it slammed shut.

A cloaked figure lunged forward and Cocot threw the candle at it. The girl dropped to roll under the table. The thing in the chalet hissed and batted the candle away, extinguishing the flame.

Cocot crawled between the chair and table legs and made a dash for the front door. She reached the handle, but the creature jerked her backwards by her braid. Pain flared through her scalp. She buckled her knees to take the pressure off her head. The creature yanked her sideways, holding on tight. Cocot was forced to kneel, her throat exposed.

"I've waited long enough," the creature spat.

A woman. The old woman from the pharmacy? The passage keeper?

"I don't have anything of yours or that you would want," Cocot gasped. "I'm poor, I have nothing. I don't know—"

"But you do know, don't you? Part poppy, part fairy; a monstrosity like me. We know a great many things you and I."

"I don't know what you want, I don't!" Cocot cried.

"Try to remember for me, little Coquelicot. I would hate to have to ask my darling Jean-Baptist to come and make you remember," the woman whispered, so close that her fetid breath stirred Cocot's hair.

She choked back a gag and started to cry. "Please, let me go."

"The bottles from the fountain of Lessoc. Where are they?"

"Bottles?" asked Cocot, stalling for time. She only knew of one. "Mother never told me anything about them!"

"Sweet Coquelicot." The old woman grabbed Cocot's jaw, her nails digging into the girl's cheeks and neck. "You could have been my daughter—our daughter, walking the world in a human body but all the power of the fairy realm in your veins. Instead you're a useless doll, a puppet. You were her play thing when she grew lonely in her widow-hood. Whose fault was it when he grew sick? Who watched him, sitting idly by his deathbed? Who left you here alone? I have watched over you. I have protected you in the forest and the fields and now it is time for you to give back what should have been mine all these years! Where are the bottles?"