CHAPTER 31

The Woodcutter turned quickly to the right, and the bone cut his upper arm. He cried out in pain. The girl ripped the jagged shard from his body and readied herself to bring it down again. He knew she would not miss this time.

But her eyes.

There was such pleading in her eyes.

“Please,” she begged.

He fell to the ground, and the knife penetrated his chair. He watched as she fought her very own hands, watched as her hands tried to rip the knife from the cushioned back.

He tried to stand, but the room kept swimming.

She was focused solely upon the blade. Her hands bled blue, cut upon the edge of the knife as she fought herself. “Please run. Please. I cannot hold much longer.”

The Woodcutter stumbled behind her and pinned her arms to her sides. He held her as she sobbed, as she strained toward the knife. He held her as she screamed with rage.

The door opened.

The innkeeper pounded out of the other room, a mother grizzly protecting her cub.

“What are you doing to my child?” she roared.

The Woodcutter shouted as he struggled with her daughter, “She is bewitched.”

The mother grabbed onto the Woodcutter’s arm and dug her sharp nails into his wound.

He cried out as he let go of the redheaded girl. The child dashed to the knife. This time she was able to free it. She turned and raised it to bring it down again.

The Woodcutter grabbed the girl up again as the mother shrank back in fear.

“What have you done to her?” she wept.

“The blade!” he shouted. “Free her of the blade!”

And then the young girl screamed, “Believe him!”

The mother grabbed a broom from the corner. As she got closer to her daughter, the young girl lunged. The mother pulled back, but the girl screamed at her, “Help me!”

This time her mother did not hesitate.

She struck her daughter’s wrist with such force the knife flew across the room and landed upon the floor.

And then the knife began to draw back toward the girl.

The girl’s right hand hung broken, but her left hand reached.

“Help me!” she cried.

The mother tried to grab the knife, but it spun away and scurried faster toward the girl.

“Mother!”

And then the Woodcutter felt something stir within his jacket.

Something wriggled and forced its way out. The pixie, injured and unwell, flew weakly into the air. It eyed the dancing blade, and the blade slowed its progress, almost warily.

Skittering across the floor, the knife circled the fae, and then the two magical beings threw themselves at one another.

The blade twitched as it rose into the air, and blue blood fell from the faerie.

But the pixie held on.

It held on as the knife bit into it. It held on as its blood wept from the tip. It held on until the blade stopped jerking, and the redheaded girl stilled and the wildness left her eyes.

Finally the pixie let the blade drop. The knife clanged upon the floor and remained motionless.

The pixie hovered as the Woodcutter released the girl and she slumped to the floor.

The pixie looked at the Woodcutter.

And the Woodcutter knew.

He knew.

The pixie’s eyes became dark as night and they began to close.

The pixie fell so quietly as the whole world screamed.

The Woodcutter ran, dodging the innkeeper, who rushed to her daughter’s side, whose red blood could not hear the pixie’s fall toward the earth.

The Woodcutter ran and he held out his hand.

He held out his hand, and as the pixie dropped, the Woodcutter felt time stop.

And then.

He felt the pixie, felt it heavy upon his palm, heavy with the sadness of the whole world, bleeding blue blood upon his hand.

The Woodcutter turned to the innkeeper. “I need your tree.”

She shook her head. “We have no trees here.”

He felt the pixie fading.

It was beyond his power.

“Do you have any dust?”

She shook her head. “We don’t use such…” Her eyes shifted nervously with the lies that would rather destroy than admit the truth of her shame.

“Your dust,” he demanded. “It’s dying…”

The mother looked at the pixie and looked at the Woodcutter.

She was silent as she struggled. Silent as she fought truth with pride, as the forces waged battle within her head.

“In the back of the cupboard.”

The Woodcutter ran as if the pixie’s wings were attached to his feet. He ripped open the cupboard, and there in the back was a small tin.

He fumbled with the cover, his fingers slippery with the blue blood, but he was able to open the tin. He bathed the pixie in the sparkling powder.

The faerie’s light pulsed, slow as a sleeping heartbeat.

Pulsing.

Pulsing.

The pixie opened its eyes and swallowed.

Its small mouth gasped.

The light did not fade, but the pixie just barely shone and all the dust was gone.

The mother sat, her daughter cradled within her arms. She rocked back and forth as she begged, “Forgive me…forgive me…I did not mean…”

The Woodcutter stared at her, the pieces fitting together.

The Woodcutter took the pixie and placed it upon her daughter’s heart. The pixie snuggled within the divot of the girl’s neck, the nook in between her clavicles where the pulse of her heart gently beat.

“What are you doing to her?” the mother gasped.

The pixie’s glow began to beat in rhythm to the girl’s heart.

The Woodcutter said nothing and just smoothed the girl’s red hair.

Her legs were the first to straighten. They stretched out like caterpillars and smoothed out her clawed feet. Her back uncurled.

As the pixie’s light became brighter, the girl’s neck aligned, holding her head tall. The blue blood upon her hands turned red.

Iron was everywhere in this land, ingested in the food, ingested in the water. The girl stooped because the iron in her body fought with the dust, fought with her blood as it ran artificially blue.

The Woodcutter looked at the mother, understanding to what length she had gone to have her child spin gold from straw, to what length she had gone to make a duchess of her child.

To what length she had hungered for the power of the fae.

She had fed her own child dust.

The mother’s eyes were full of tears. “Please, don’t tell anyone. I promise…I just wanted her to have a better life…”

But the words rang hollow.

The Woodcutter took the tiny pixie and tucked it gently within his breast pocket.

He turned to the mother as she held her daughter tight, and he whispered, “No more.”

But he knew she did not understand.