Maeve and the Monster

The mouth of the cave was silent, and covered in moss. A little stream trickled into the darkness, and birds could be heard chirping in the redwoods overhead.

Maeve held a spear tightly in her hands, looking at the cave. It was bigger than she expected. A foul stench hit her nostrils, and she looked around to see the rotting remains of several animals around the entrance. Goats, sheep, pigs. Even a cow.

What am I doing? she thought. Am I up to this?

Maeve set the spear down and crouched near a goat carcass, prying free a large thigh bone. Pulling an oily cloth from her satchel, she wrapped it around the bone to make a torch, then lit it with a piece of flint.

Maeve held the torch in the air, staring into the darkness. Then she took a deep breath, and exhaled.

Here we go.

It all started a few months ago.

Peotr Falrik lost a few chickens by the Whispering Wood. Nobody paid much attention to it. Peotr was scatterbrained, and he should have known better than to build his coop so close to the timberline. They could have wandered off at night, or been taken by a bandersnipe or a rogue coyote.

But a few weeks after that, Hendric Creel lost a goat. She was tied up, Hendric was certain of that. And from there, things just started to get stranger and stranger. A missing sheep here, a disappearing goat there.

Three months after Peotr’s chicken disappeared, Quinley Aethon saw something in the Whispering Wood. Quinley was Maeve’s adoptive father, and had taken care of her ever since her parents passed away. She was just a baby when he took her in, an orphan of the plague. Quinley had raised Maeve as his own, teaching her how to hunt, fish, and fend for herself. Without him, Maeve wouldn’t be alive today. He had saved her, and she owed him her life.

Quinley was out in the woods collecting honeyberries when he heard something moving in the bushes. Fearing it could be a bear or bull moose, he lay low and out of sight. And what he witnessed was stranger and more frightening than anything he could imagine. A beast as big as a house, with fur like a bear, hooves like a bull, and the great tusks of a boar lumbered past him in the woods. And most shocking of all, the beast was carrying a cow in its jaws. A cow.

Everybody was quick to dismiss Quinley when told the tale of this fantastical beast, but when Reverend Senchen said one of his cows was missing the town sprang into action. They quickly organized a raiding party, and prepared to enter the Whispering Wood to deal with the unwanted invader.

Maeve wanted to join the party, but Quinley said she couldn’t. He said she was too young, and the task too dangerous. She tried to protest, but he was firm.

“One step at a time, little one,” he said to her. “One step at a time.”

So she stayed back, watching helplessly as Quinley and the others disappeared past the timberline.

Six men went into the woods that day. Only one came back. Hendric Creel.

He told a harrowing tale of a vicious beast that ripped the men apart, then dragged their bodies into its cave.

“It was horrible…absolutely horrible…” Hendric said, then looked at Maeve, and held out the spear in his hands.

“Quinley,” he said. “He wanted me to give this to you.”

Maeve gingerly took the spear from Hendric. It was Quinley’s spear. The one he had used to hunt countless deer and wild boar in the forest. She had been in awe of this spear her whole life, but had never actually held it in her hands. Quinley wouldn’t let her. He made her a smaller spear of her own to teach her with, but said that one day she would inherit this spear, just as he had inherited it from his own father.

Maeve wrapped her fingers around the haft of the spear. This wasn’t about the town anymore, or the missing animals. This was personal.

While the townsfolk decided what to do next, Maeve returned home, packed her things, and entered the woods, alone.

And now she was all by herself in a cave, questioning her own judgement. She looked at the spear in her hands. For Quinley.

Yeah, right, Maeve thought to herself. For Quinley I’m going to get myself killed. For Quinley I’m going to walk straight into the lair of a monster, like a lamb to slaughter.

The tunnel forked suddenly, and Maeve paused. Should she go left, or right? Both directions looked equally foreboding.

Peering down the right tunnel, she saw something golden shining lightly on the walls. A smear. Honeyberries. Quinley had been here.

Maeve followed the path, wondering if Quinley was still alive somewhere in this network of tunnels. Her heartbeat quickened and she picked up her pace, following the corridor down several twists, turns, and forking passages. Before long, Maeve was lost, her only guide being the smear of berries here or a piece of torn fabric there. She may not have known where she was or how to get out of here, but she knew she was heading in the right direction. Towards Quinley.

As she moved deeper into the cave, a distinct smell began to grow stronger as well. The smell of death, and rot. And then she heard a clittering, clattering sound overhead.

What was that?

The noise went silent, and Maeve spun around to see a little tree-like creature staring at her.

“Bandersnipe!” Maeve cried as the creature shrieked, leaping towards her. She planted the spear in the ground and caught the villain in the jaw, removing its head from its body as another shriek sounded beside her. Maeve looked right as another little tree-creature dove out of the shadows, tackling her to the ground and throwing her torch wide. They splashed in the water, the torch fizzled and died, and the creature bit at Maeve’s face in the darkness. Holding the snapping face back with one hand, she grabbed hold of a knife at her side and skewered the little monster in the chest, feeling it shudder and fall to the ground, lifeless.

Maeve sat up in the water. Great. Now it’s pitch black.

She looked around in the darkness, and saw something. A gleaming on the walls. It was dim at first, but gradually began to glow more brightly, in a light lavender hue. The stones in the cave were glowing. It was beautiful.

Maeve rose to her feet, pulled her spear out of the wooden head and looked around. The rocks were glowing more brightly further down the tunnel. There was only one way to go. Deeper.

So Maeve descended further into the cave, holding the spear tightly in both hands. After a few more minutes, she rounded a bend to see a bright chamber up ahead, and a figure lying against the cave wall in front of her. Maeve gasped as she realized who it was.

“Quinley!” she cried, running towards him.

“Maeve,” Quinley said, looking up as she fell to her knees beside him. He was wounded, and bleeding badly. “You came.”

“Of course I did.”
 “I told you not to come.”

“I know you did, and I’m sorry. But I just had to do something. I had to help.”

Quinley nodded, then cringed as he touched his stomach. “Maeve…I’m not going to make it.”

“Yes you are. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Maeve leaned over to help Quinley up, and he groaned as he pushed her away.

“No!” he cried. “Maeve, you need to know…it’s…it’s not what you think.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“The beast. The monster. There’s a b……it’s not…”

“Quinley? Quinley!”

Quinley looked up at Maeve, his eyes wide.

“Maeve, please….show mercy.”

Maeve stared at Quinley as his head went limp, his breathing slowed and stopped.

“Quinley?…Quinley!”

He didn’t respond.

Maeve leaned forward, took him in her arms and held him as she wept.

After a few minutes she leaned his body against the wall, then rose to her feet and looked towards the bright chamber down the passage.

“They’ll pay…for that.”

Maeve sniffed, clutching the spear tightly as she walked deeper into the tunnel.

Eventually the cave opened up, revealing something truly strange. Glowing rocks formed a circle on the ceiling, illuminating the entire chamber. Maeve looked down. There was no floor, only darkness. Maeve wondered how far down it went, and what lay at the bottom. The walls around her were decorated with roots, branches, and leaves. Then Maeve looked more closely. No, those weren’t roots and branches. They were bones. Bones of the dead, hundreds of them.

Maeve took a careful step forward, reaching up to grab a shield hanging from a lifeless limb. Suddenly the limb snapped, and the ground gave way beneath Maeve’s feet.

She slipped, fell, and tumbled into darkness, landing on the ground below with a whump. Groaning, Maeve raised her head. The air was thick and murky, heavy with the smell of soil and wet fur. And in the shadows, she heard something.

Breathing.

Maeve looked up. A faint light shone down from the glowing stones overhead, enough to illuminate a figure in the darkness. It was enormous, bigger than any creature Maeve had ever seen before. A mound of fur rose up before her, framing a face of leathery skin, and two massive tusks fanning out from a great snout.

This must be one of the Giant Boars of old, Maeve thought to herself.

She clutched the spear in her hand as the monster stood up to face her. Its foul breath made her quiver, but she held firm as the beast took a step forward. It roared and fell, shaking the earth and letting out a low groan.

Maeve frowned. What was happening? She peered around the beast, and saw several spears sticking out of the monster’s side, like porcupine quills. It was injured. It was dying.

Then Maeve heard another sound. A high-pitched whine. It was coming from beyond the monster.

What’s that?

Maeve gazed past the monster and saw a little ball of white fur on the ground, with two tiny tusks. It looked just like the great beast, only in miniature.

A baby, Maeve thought. A monster baby.

She realized the monster was just a mother trying to protect her young. She also knew that the monster was dying. And furthermore, she knew that the baby would one day grow to be as destructive a beast as the one in front of her.

A destructive beast, just like her mother. Like the one who had killed Quinley.

Not today. Not on my watch.

Maeve looked at the monster. Its breath was haggard. It gasped, sputtering blood as it stared at her with one wide eye.

“You know why I’m here, don’t you? I’m here to end this,” Maeve said, snarling at the beast.

The monster made a guttural sound, almost like a plea.

“And there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing.”

The monster gurgled and roared, and Maeve took a step back as the beast exhaled its last breath, then fell silent.

The little creature whined, nuzzling up against the lifeless behemoth.

Maeve clutched the spear in her hands. This little monster would one day grow up to be a killer. A beast. She couldn’t let it live.

It looked up at her. That baby. In the glow of the light overhead, it almost had a lavender hue. It chortled at her. It was so lost. So confused. If Maeve left right now, the baby monster would surely die. She didn’t need to do anything, she just had to leave.

Maeve locked eyes with the little creature. They were so wide. So earnest. Maeve had been a baby like this once. Lost. Alone. Left to die. And she would be dead today, had it not been for one man.

Quinley had saved her. Rescued her from a terrible fate. She remembered the last word he had spoken to her.

Mercy.

Maeve stared down at the little monster. Her eyes began to well with tears. If she couldn’t kill it, then she would just leave it to die.

Maeve turned away from the creature, taking a step towards the ramp leading upwards. A quiet cooing sound caused her to stop in her tracks.

Mercy.

Maeve shook her head. No! This was a monster! A beast! It deserved to die! She needed to end it, now!

She turned to the creature and looked at it once more. Those wide eyes. Asking for help. Maeve bit her lip, and she closed her eyes.

Mercy.

Maeve sighed. Then she sniffed, and wiped her tears away. No good would come of this. None at all.

The mouth of the cave was silent, and covered in moss. A little stream trickled into the darkness, and birds could be heard chirping in the redwoods overhead.

And out of the darkness Maeve emerged, carrying a little ball of white fur with two tiny tusks.

“One step at a time, little one,” Maeve said to the little creature. “One step at a time.”