Fair Folk and Foul Folk, Part 3
The final chapter of “Fair Folk and Foul Folk of Deerwood Arboretum”
Chapter 1, in which the reader is introduced to Lacey, an adventurous, mischievous pixie.
Chapter 2, in which Lacey is captured by the troll princess.
Chapter 3, or how Lacey escaped durance vile.
“Look what I caught, Daddy,” Brown-Recluse bragged. She poked Lacey with her spear to force him forward, then slammed the spear-butt on the floor in salute.
Lacey doffed his acorn-cap cap. “Howdy, Mr. King.”
Cockroach, the king of the Deerwood Park trolls, nodded approvingly at his daughter. “Joshua, would you tend to this creature?”
Joshua, a ghoul, came up behind Brown-Recluse. He was just under five feet tall, a good two feet taller than she was, with skin so pale it looked as if he never been exposed to the light of the sun. Like the princess and her father, his mouth was full of dirty, jagged fangs. Unlike them, he wore a khaki uniform, stolen from a murdered groundskeeper, and cut down to fit his misshapen form.
He came up behind her and grabbed her prisoner in one hand. Although he hadn’t cried out nor wept when Brown-Recluse had poked him with a spear with a Cold Iron spearpoint, Lacey couldn’t help but yelp when Joshua squeezed him enough to crush his innards. A battered birdcage sat on the counter next to a sink that hadn’t worked in decades. Joshua opened the cage door with one hand and shoved Lacey in with the other hand.
Lacey wept unashamed, from the pain and the humiliation and the sheer frustration. He wasn’t quite 99, and he’d had a very rough day. He howled in pain as he collapsed against the bars. The bars were made of powder-coated steel, and the last resident of the cage had gnawed away the paint in that spot.
Joshua sniffed ostentatiously. “I smell a ghost.”
Lacey relaxed slightly, knowing Sweet William was close by, even if he couldn’t see Will.
“Did I eat you? It’s always better when I eat both body and soul, complete the collection.”
Will materialized for a second, rattled by the ghoul’s comment. Then he turned invisible again.
“You can eat the ghost,” Brown-Recluse allowed graciously. “Daddy and I will eat the pixie.”
Lacey shuddered.
Joshua got a paper packet of salt from a fast food restaurant, left over from some tourist’s picnic. He tore the packet open and sprinkled salt around the cage.
“Wait until we cook him before you season him,” Brown-Recluse said.
“This is to keep the ghost out,” Joshua explained.
Between the ghoul squashing him and being scraped against the cagedoor, Lacey was half-naked. His pants were made of blades of glass, sewn together with spider’s silk. His shirt was from a maple leaf. It didn’t take much effort to scrape them off. Lacey pulled what was left of his shirt all the way off. He waved it like a bullfighter’s cape to blow away the salt outside the cage door.
“Thanks, bro,” Will whispered. Truthfully, the salt didn’t bother him very much, but the gesture pleased him, that Lacey was willing to resist this captor for his sake.
“You look cold, Lacey,” Brown-Recluse said. She walked away and came back a few minutes later with some doll clothes. “This might be a little big, but it will keep you warm until you go in the soup pot.”
The clothing was dusty and ragged. Green camouflage that had once belonged to a G. I. Joe action figure. The clothes were big on Lacey. While he was big for a pixie — eight inches, the G. I. Joe action figure of the ’60s and ’70s was 12 inches. But … it was better than standing in the altogether in a birdcage.
“Turn around.” Lacey gestured, making a circular motion with his hand.
“What’s the big deal?” Brown-Recluse asked. Nevertheless, she turned around and walked off to the corner where her father and the ghoul were talking quietly.
Once she was three feet away, Will opened the cage door. Lacey wasted no time in scurrying out of the cage. He felt an ectoplasmic hand gently lift him down to the floor.
“I’m gonna go through the door and open it from the other side. Be ready to run,” Will whispered.
Lacey nodded. He felt a chill as Will went through him.
As soon as the door opened, King Cockroach turned his head. “Yes, Cigarette, what is it?”
Lacey sprinted as fast as he could with too big pants falling down his legs.
“My pixie is escaping!” Brown-Recluse shrieked. She hurried after him.
Sweet William shut the door in Brown-Recluse’s face. By the time she got it open, Will and Lacey were hurrying out of the former sewage treatment center.
Once they escaped, Lacey shed the uniform pants and hastily fashioned a toga out of a poplar leaf for decency’s sake. Then they hurried home as quickly as they could. Brown-Recluse started to follow them out into the park, but shrieked in pain from the sunlight burning her eyes and skin.
When they got home, Lacey’s mother made a big, noisy fuss over both of them. Alyssum plied Lacey with mead and honey-dipped blackberries and loudly lamented that she couldn’t do the same for Sweet William.
- *** ***
A week later, on the first night of the full month, the pixies and elves of Deerwood Arboretum gathered at the amphitheater.
“Let all gather to hear the will of King Anrí,” a royal herald announced. “Let all gather and come nigh, who seek the king’s justice.”
“I demand justice from the so-called King of Deerwood,” a feminine voice called out.
“So-called?” The adjective was repeated in offended tones by numerous elves and pixies.
“Who seeks justice?” Anrí asked as he strode proudly out onto the amphitheater.
“I am Brown-Recluse, princess of the trolls, daughter of Cockroach, the true king of Deerwood,” she announced.
“Welcome, my lady. All who come to my monthly court are welcomed under truce,” Anrí told the troll. “What is your complaint?” He glanced over at Lacey’s grandmother, having a fair idea what Brown-Recluse’s complaint was.
“I want my pixie back,” Brown-Recluse demanded. “I caught him fair and square and I want him back.”
“There are many pixies in my realm. Which one in particular do you claim as yours?”
“His name was Lacey.”
“There are no pixies named Lacey in Deerwood,” Anrí stated honestly. All the pixies under his command had botanical names.
“He said his name was Lacey, brother of Sweet William, son of Alyssum, grandson of Black-Eyed Susan,” Brown-Recluse recited.
“Black-Eyed Susan, you are a clan chief among your people. I yield this matter to your jurisdiction,” Anrí allowed.
The king’s other advisors heard Black-Eyed Susan mutter “Gee, thanks,” under her breath. “What has that scamp of my grandson gotten himself into now?” She asked aloud as if she didn’t know perfectly well.
“I caught a pixie who said his name was Lacey; maybe he lied. I caught him fair and square. I gave him clothes.”
“My daughter Alyssum has a son named Queen Anne’s Lace. You young Jackanapes, did she give you clothes of her choosing and of her gift?”
Lacey nodded, not daring to say anything.
“He is not yet a century. He is too young to marry by our laws. As clan-chief, I declare this match null and void.”
“I didn’t want to marry him. I was planning to eat him,” Brown-Recluse protested.
“Once you’re married, what you do is your own business. What you were attempting is called marriage by Rite of Capture and Conquest. In order to do that properly, you need to wait until the moon has risen on his 100th birthday. Capture him, strip him naked. Keep him prisoner for two hours, during which time you defend him against any other females who may think they have a claim on him.” Black-Eyed Susan lowered her voice. “Given the knack the jackanapes has of being where he doesn’t belong, you might want to hog-tie him to be on the safe side. After two hours, dress him in clothes of your choice and your gift . Then he’s yours to do with as you please.
“Granny,” Lacey moaned in protest. Every clan’s marriage rites were slightly different, and she had just told not only Princess Brown-Recluse but every pixie maiden present how to take him as her husband. And husbands wed through the Rite of Capture and Conquest had no right of divorce.
“For now, he is too young. You may not have the boy.” Black-Eyed Susan declared.
“Black-Eyed Susan, daughter of Pink Dogwood, when was the last time any Tennessee pixie was married by Rite of Conquest?” Cockroach called out fro the edge of the amphitheater. “A Tennessee pixie, not an ancestress in the Old Country.”
“Not since before the humans started building Nashville,” Black-Eyed Susan admitted.
“But you think my daughter will be the first bride to do so in over two hundred years?”
“That’s assuming I accept a troll princess as a fit bride for my grandson. His wife and daughter will be clan chiefs after me, Cockroach, son of Horse-Turd.”
“My daughter’s husband will be troll-king of Deerwood.”
“Do you consider that a sufficient dowry for a clan chief’s heir?”
“I don’t want to be chief of a pixie clan. I just want my prisoner back. He’s mine. I caught him fair and square,” Brown-Recluse insisted.
“You can’t him, troll-lass. He’s too young.”
Anrí stood and announced, “The pixie’s clan chief has denied your claim on him, Princess Brown-Recluse. The truce is ended, now that your claim has been heard. You and your father have our leave to depart in peace.”
Brown-Recluse stomped away. Her father slunk out quietly.
“Let my court join in feasting and dancing, save for those who keep guard against the trolls. Let them be extra vigilant,” Anrí commanded, “lest the pretender and his daughter return.”
Lacey went up to his grandmother. “What do you think you were doing? Telling her how she could claim me?”
“Does she know when your birthday is?”
“Um, no, I don’t think so.
“I told how you could be wed against your will for two hours a year and a half from now. Do you really think she’s clever enough to manage that?”
“No, she didn’t strike me as especially clever.”
“You didn’t strike me as clever, letting her dress you in clothes of her choice and gift, you jackanapes.” After a gentle hug, she reminded him, “the easiest way not to get married after moonrise on your birthday is to recite your vows at noon on your birthday. Plenty of pixie maidens. Start spending some time courting the girls.”
“Think she’s saying the easiest way not to marry the troll princess is to marry a nice pixie girl first.”
“Thank you, Sweet William, I think he understood that, but it was kind of you to translate just in case.”
“Er, yes’m, Miz Susan.”
*** ****
Will couldn’t help but notice that when the dancing started, Lacey took his place in the circle between two very pretty pixie maidens, Magnolia and Wisteria, rather than just finding a spot at random as he normally did.
“That was clever of your grandmother,” Magnolia said,” as she took Lacey’s hand. “If that nasty troll comes back, every girl here knows how to rescue you now.”
Lacey nodded. It hadn’t sunk through his thick skull that in giving the conditions for his clan’s Rite of Capture and Conquest, Black-Eyed Susan had made it possible for any pixie-wench of Deerwood to rescue (re-capture) him from Brown-Recluse. And while the odds were against the troll guessing his birthday, it would be easy for Magnolia to find out, if she were curious.
He admitted to himself, he would look handsome in a magnolia-petal tunic. Pixies traditionally wore clothing made from their spouse’s namesake plant as wedding garb. Not that how handsome he’d look in his wedding tunic was a good reason to get married, but it was better than going in the soup pot. Besides husbands and wives who exchanged vows, could seek divorce later, if necessary.
(Magnolia blossom, image via Google Images)
The dance circle sped up, and Lacey had to pay attention to his footwork. No self-respecting pixie maiden would condescend to marry a lad who couldn’t dance.
The next morning, there was a twenty-foot round mushroom ring, where the pixies had danced. Magnolia and a few other girls had gone to sleep thinking that Lacey’s wife and firstborn daughter would be Black-Eyed Susan’s heir as clan chief, after Alyssum.
Author’s Note: I do not say that there are pixies and Seelie Court lords in Deerwood Arboretum & Nature Center, just that it’s the sort of place they would enjoy. Nor do I know that ghosts from the Battle of Franklin haunt the park.
