Sanctuary

The air was warm when the human child arrived at the Sanctuary.

It was early in the morning, the air crisp and new, carrying the scent of dew and fading nightmares. He arrived moments after the pegasus with torn and broken wings had limped to the castle deep within the forest. Puk went out to the pegasus, the poor tattered and beaten creature, and escorted it to the safety of the Sanctuary’s many rooms.

I sat in the kitchen, preparing fish for the mermaids residing in the pool. My knife cut and diced as the tree branches above my head bent and stretched to hand me the spices that I required from the cabinets. When my Sisters and I had first built the Sanctuary, it had been nothing more than a cottage, only a few rooms for a few who needed refuge, but as the years passed and the scourge called ‘humanity’ had grown, the requirement for more rooms had also grown. And so we had built them until the Sanctuary had become a castle of solidified moonbeam bricks and crystallized sunset windows, of walls and ceilings formed by the trees who had volunteered to use their trunks and branches to give the Sanctuary its current shape.

We Five Sisters maintained the Sanctuary. It was our self-imposed punishment for our days of darkness, though most days it was not a burden at all. There were many who needed us, and we were glad to provide a haven for them. Mermaids whose tailfins had been hacked off by fishermen hoping to sell them as a delicacy. Gryphons whose talons had been ripped out by human knights who then gave them to their husbands and wives as necklace trophies. Selkie women fleeing their cruel husbands who still held their seal-skin pelts captive, barring them from ever being able to retake their animal forms and return to their homes in the sea. Unicorns whose horns had been sawed off, pixies whose wings had been stomped, phoenixes whose heart-embers had been ripped out so that they could never again be reborn. Each new refugee broke my heart further and further, each burning like a hot coal in my belly, filling me with pain. The worst had been a great evergreen-scaled dragon who limped to our front lawn, her wings torn off and her scales falling away in patches to expose the raw bloody flesh beneath. She had now recovered much of her strength, though I doubted she still had a home to which she could return.

“I have escorted the pegasus inside,” Puk reported as she entered the kitchen. “His wings are in very bad shape. I do not think he will be able to fly again without our magic.”

“Poor creature,” Vir muttered as she shook her head. She stood on the other side of the kitchen, pruning the overgrown branches above our heads and preparing the leaves for our tea.

“There is something else,” Puk continued.

“What is it?” Vir did not bother to turn around as she continued trimming.

Puk paused. “There is a human child,” she finally said.

Vir paused mid-prune. I too, halted my seasoning of the fish, and slowly let the nearest branch carry the spices back to the cabinet. “And you sent him on his way?” I asked her.

She stared down at me with pursed lips.

“You sent him on his way,” I repeated. It was no longer a question.

“He is in the garden.”

“Puk,” Vir finally turned around, “what were you-”

I held up my hand, commanding Vir’s silence. “Why,” I asked Puk, “did you not send him away?” The branches above our heads had frozen, no doubt sensing the new tension in the air.

Puk bit her rosebud lips. “Syf, he is a child. He will do no harm.”

“A human child,” I corrected her. “If you will not send him away, I will do it for you.” I rose from my toadstool chair, my long silver dress trailing after me, my bare feet padding on the moonbeam brick.

“He came asking for sanctuary,” Puk called after me. “Is that not what we are here for?”

*

The human child sat in the garden, his legs crossed under him as he poked at the tulips and daisies with pale fingers. The crumple-winged pixies had hidden themselves between the blades of grass and behind the leaves of the bushes and flowers, their tiny eyes staring at him in terror. He no doubt reminded them of the other human children who had stomped on their wings with their cruel boots as they laughed.

“How do the flowers bloom?” The human child turned to me as I approached. “It is late autumn now. Is it magic?” Round mud-brown eyes and mud-brown hair, the most plain of all the human children I had seen, though I had not seen any others in many years.

“You are not welcome here,” I said instead. “You must leave.”

“Are you Syf?” The human child ignored my words completely. His fingers closed around the stem of the nearest tulip, and I winced, waiting for him to pluck it from the ground and kill the flower. But instead his fingers stroked the stem and then released it, bringing no harm to the plant. “Puk said you were the mean one,” he continued.

“Puk is correct,” I said. I would have scolded Puk for this, had she not been Puk. She was far too sweet for anyone to be cruel to. There were five of us Sisters. Puk of the rosebud lips was the youngest. Vir of the moonlight hair, Lin of the ebony nails, and Ket of the milk-cream skin fell in the middle. And then there was me, the eldest, Syf of the sunset eyes.

“And Puk said I could stay here,” the human child added, glancing up at me again.

“Puk is not in charge. She is the youngest. And I, Syf, am the eldest.”

“Are you fae?” the human child asked. “A fairy?” His eyes stayed fixed on me, unwavering, showing no trace of the fear the other humans had of us.

“That is what some humans believe,” I answered slowly.

“And if a fae learns your name, you become their slave and have to serve them forever?”

“That is also what some humans believe,” I said, “so be careful, human child, lest you-”

“My name is Oswald,” he interrupted me. “So now I have to stay here forever, right?”

I glared down at the human child, who simply grinned up at me. “That is what some humans believe,” I repeated, “but not everything that humans believe is true.” His smile faded.

“They say you are witches, too,” he continued again, his fingers examining the tulip’s petals. “Is that true?”

My arms folded over my chest, wrinkling the silver fabric of my sleeves. “The humans have called us many names. Fairies. Sorceresses. Druids. We were once witches, yes, but we are not any longer. We have denounced the black magic, and now we heal the land and its creatures in our Sanctuary. Which,” I added, raising my chin, “you have violated.”

“I have not,” he said. “I am here for sanctuary, too.”

“From whom?”

The human child did not answer.

I paused as one of the harpies flew overhead, her wings still bent at odd angles and barely able to hold her aloft. It was Ket’s magic that kept the harpy from plummeting to the ground, an exercise that Ket performed with all of them once a day to help them maintain their sanity and will to continue living, though they would never be able to live outside of the Sanctuary.

“I can help,” the human child started again. “I can prepare food. I can collect firewood. I have already helped some of the creatures here. I set three gryphons and a dragon free from their cages in my father’s collection, and the pegasus that I followed here today.”

“You freed the dragon?” I had grown weary of the human child and his ever-chittering tongue, but now intrigue had taken hold.

He nodded. “My father hunted the animals in her forest and drove away the rest when he had the trees cut down. He starved her, and then when she turned to our flocks to look for food, he called her a menace and captured her.” His gaze dropped to the blades of grass beneath him. “He showed her off at dinner parties. And he beat her. So I let her out. Is she here?” He looked back up at me, the mud-brown eyes wide and eager.

“Yes, she is here,” I answered slowly, as the plan bloomed in my mind. “I will speak with my Sisters about your stay. Wait in the front lawn. You will have your answer soon.”

*

“Why are you even entertaining this foolishness?” Vir shook her head. She still sat in the kitchen, her hands working the mortar and pestle to grind the tea-leaves. “Tell him he must leave, or make him a meal for the werewolves.”

“They do not eat human meat,” Puk corrected her. “You said you have a plan, Syf?”

“I do,” I nodded. “A test. He claims that he has freed the dragon.” One of the branches above bent down to hand me an apple that it had just grown. I gave a small bow in thanks and took it, sinking my pointed teeth into the soft red skin as I spoke. “A dragon does not forget a face. If he has freed her, she will remember. And if he is lying and has hurt her, she will remember that as well. I think it is time that we let our dragon have some fresh air in the front lawn.” I looked directly at Puk as I took another bite.

“Very well,” Puk smiled. “I believe him. I will fetch the dragon.” With that she trailed down the hallway, soon disappearing from sight.

“This is foolishness,” Vir muttered again. “Pure folly.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “We shall soon see.” The juices of the apple drizzled onto my chin, but I did not bother to wipe them away.

*

The human child did not scream. I delivered the prepared fish to the mermaids waiting for me in the pond, expecting to soon hear the anguished cries of the human child as he was torn apart by the dragon who had been abused by his kind, but the only sounds that greeted my ears were the laugher of the mermaids conversing with the selkies who sat on the rocks, reminiscing about their former homes in the sea, and the occasional joyous squawk of a harpy who finally flew again with the aid of Ket’s magic. Once the fish had all been eaten, I took the dishes away and decided to join Puk in the front lawn to witness what had become of the human intruder.

Puk and the human child sat in the dew-coated grass, polishing the dragon’s evergreen scales. “Hello, Syf,” he called to me as I approached, though he continued to brush the scales on the dragon’s snout. He sat only inches from her teeth, yet she did not bite him, instead electing to lay in the grass, gazing sleepily at him like a shewolf looking upon her pups.

“You are not devoured,” I observed. “This is surprising.”

“Are you disappointed?” He smiled at me, his mud-brown eyes sparkling like Lin’s had when she had first learned magic. We had been young then, foolish and trusting of humans. We knew better now. Though this particular human child had earned the affections of even a dragon.

“It seems Oswald was speaking the truth after all,” Puk said, her chin raised in triumph. “So he can stay now, can he not?”

I glared down at the human child, who still stroked the dragon’s head. The dragon, meanwhile, had closed her eyes and begun to hum, a deep thrumming that traveled through the ground into my bones. “This is a Sanctuary,” I responded slowly, “from humans, not for humans.”

“And he seeks sanctuary from humans as well,” Puk said.

I raised an eyebrow. “He has told you this? Sanctuary from whom?” I turned to the human child, directing the question towards him. He lowered his head but remained silent, the sparkle draining from his eyes.

“His father,” Puk answered for him.

“This is a lie.” I shook my head. “Even a human would not harm their own child. There is no benefit.”

“Show her,” Puk whispered to the human child. He nodded, his eyes still on the ground, and rolled back the long fabric of his tunic and his braies, exposing skin that bloomed with the inky black and blue of bruises, flesh marred with a hundred ropy scars. My breath caught as my instinct to rush and mend the injuries of a brutalized creature took hold. But I held myself back. My magic was for unicorns and gryphons and mermaids, not humans.

“Why,” I finally asked slowly, “would a human do this to their own child?”

“He gets drunk,” the human child whispered. “He says I am weak because I do not wish to put an arrow through the eyes of a deer nor tear the feathers off of a pegasus for sport.”

“And this is meant to make you stronger?”

“I believe so.” His voice broke as he spoke.

“And where is your mother?”

“Gone.”

There was silence. Puk stared at me, biting her rosebud lips, begging me with her eyes to let the human child stay.

“I knew there was somewhere safe,” he continued. “Somewhere the gryphons went. Somewhere she went,” he patted the dragon’s snout, and she thrummed louder in return, “or else father would have found and captured her again. So I hoped that, maybe, there was somewhere safe for me too. She is much healthier now than she was when my father captured her,” he added as the dragon blew a soft cloud into the air from her nostrils.

“Puk,” I nodded for her to join me, away from the human child and the dragon. “He can not stay,” I whispered to her once we stood alone. “He is a human.”

“He is a child, Syf,” she protested, “and he has been hurt by humans, just like her,” she gestured towards the dragon. “Just like all of them.”

“And do we know that with certainty?” I asked. “It could be a lie. He could have made those bruises and scars himself.”

“Do you truly believe that?”

“I know that humans can be cunning and cruel,” I answered, “and I am not eager to permanently welcome one into our midst. You remember their fire. Their torches. Their angry, hate-filled words.”

“Because we hurt them!” Puk’s eyes flashed, something they had not done in a long time. Not since the black magic.

“And they hurt us first!” I hissed back. “Even before the black magic. It was the only defense we had.”

“We deserved their torches,” Puk muttered, and looked away.

“The human child may stay until sundown,” I continued, “but then he must depart.”

“Oswald,” she corrected me. “His name is Oswald.”

“The human child,” I repeated, a growl in my throat. I could feel the remnants of the black magic bubbling with my anger, but I held it back.

“And you would have him return home in the dark, alone?”

“It is not my concern.” With that I turned on my heel and strode back towards the Sanctuary’s many rooms, leaving Puk with the dragon and the human child that she insisted on calling by name.

*

The air was cold when the human man arrived at the Sanctuary.

The sun was sinking into evening, the wind carrying the scent of dying autumn leaves and nightmares beginning to again stir. The golden light spilling through the kitchen’s crystal-sunset windows indicated that it would soon be time for the human child to be sent home. He sat in the kitchen beside Puk, the two of them observing Vir prepare the last of the leaves. Vir herself sat hunched with her shoulders drawn close to her work, eyeing the human child with unease, but still allowing him to sit near without protest. I, meanwhile, had begun gathering the ingredients to make the evening cakes for the pixies from the kitchen’s branches and cabinets. That was when I caught sight of the human man from the window.

He rode in only minutes behind a basilisk that stumbled across the front lawn at an unnaturally slow pace. Judging by its gait and my experience, it likely had its eyes cut out, rendering it blind and unable to petrify its predators, now completely defenseless. The human man and his three followers trailed the maimed basilisk on horseback, riding through the front lawn and stopping in front of the Sanctuary a few paces from the creature they had tortured.

“Who is it?” Puk asked, noticing my stare out the window.

“A human man,” I responded, “and three others.” I turned back to Puk and the human child. “Your father?”

“Probably,” he whispered, his face shifting an even whiter shade of pale.

“Would you like me to send them off?” Vir swung around, mortar and pestle suspended in her hands.

“No,” I said. “I am the eldest. I will speak with them. Is Ket with the mermaids?”

“She should be,” Puk answered.

“I will have her tend to the basilisk,” I said as I strode out of the kitchen.

The human man and his three followers watched us intently as we exited the Sanctuary. Ket stroked the basilisk’s head and coaxed it inside while I approached them, my dark hair flowing behind my shoulders and my dress trailing after me along the grass.

“You have injured the basilisk?” I asked them as I approached. The three humans behind the human man flinched at my voice, but he sat rigid atop his horse, glaring down at me with the same mud-brown eyes as the human child. The heavy armor he wore glinted in the lawn trees’ glow-blooms, encasing his body completely like the shell of an enormous grey beetle.

“I have come for my son,” he spoke, ignoring my question altogether. “I know that he is here. You will bring him to me.”

“And who are you, to make such demands?”

“I am,” he paused, his eyes darting away. “I am an ealdorman of Aetyran. And I demand to have my son returned to me.” He raised his chin as he glared down upon me. But he was afraid, I could see it on his lips, in the way his tongue shook as he carefully selected each word he spoke.

“Are you the one who hurt the dragon?” I asked instead.

He did not answer.

“Are you?” I repeated. “Are you the one who hurt the gryphons? The pegasus that arrived this morning-”

“Witch!” His snarling shout cut me off. “You will return my son, or I will have your head! I am an ealdorman of Aetyran! You will listen to me!”

His fear was gone, replaced by the burning anger. It was in his eyes, in his scowl, his snarl, the furious knuckles that gripped the reigns of his horse too tightly and his heels that dug too far into his horse’s sides. His human followers flinched at his shout far more than they had at the approach of a former witch, his horse instinctively lowered its head, its eyes wide with fear. There was no doubt in my mind that the hands that dug into the reigns were the same hands that had caused the bruises and scars to bloom on the arms and legs of the human child.

“My name,” I responded slowly, raising my chin like he had done, “is Syf, eldest of the Five Sisters. And this is not Aetyran.”

At this his lips curled, and his heels dug further into his horse, which suppressed a whinny of pain. My stomach clenched at the horse’s muted cry, and the images of the human child’s bruises lingering in my memory. My decision had been made.

“You are too late,” I continued. “We have already learned Oswald’s name. He belongs to us now, for that is the way of our magic. If you want him back, you will have to kill all five of us Sisters. Tell me, human man, is your son worth your life?”

“No,” he snarled, “you listen to me. I do not care how long it takes for me to have my son returned.” He leaned forward in his saddle as he spoke, spitting out the words. “You care for the wounded monsters, do you not?” His voice lowered into a dangerous whisper-growl. “I care not how many maimed basilisks and pegasi I send to your door. I will send one each day, until your rooms are overflowing, if that is what it takes, until I have my son returned to me.”

The black magic. I could feel it in me again, roiling deep within, begging to be unleashed by my fury. The grass at my feet wilted. It would be easy. Raise my finger, let my hate form the word that would bubble to my lips, send the human man crumpling to the ground. No, I told myself, forcing the black magic back down. That was behind us now. We were the Five Sisters of the Sanctuary who brought life and healing. And, after all, this human man had not hurt me. His life was not mine to take.

That judgement belonged to someone else.

Instead I simply glared back, Syf of the sunset eyes, unwavering and unflinching. “Very well,” I spoke. “Wait here, in the front lawn. I will fetch Oswald for you.”

I returned to the Sanctuary’s rooms, my feet warm against the moonbeam brick.

“Is it my father?” the human child asked as I entered the kitchen.

“It is,” I replied. I glanced at Vir, who now leaned over the human child, showing him how to use the mortar and pestle. “He has come to bring you home.”

“Will you send me with him, then?” His mud-brown eyes were wide and shook as he spoke.

“I think,” I responded slowly, “I need your help making cakes for the pixies, Oswald. And if you do a good job, we will save some for you as well.”

The sparkle returned to his mud-brown eyes immediately as he leapt up and began to gather the rest of the ingredients from the branches. Eyes that were bright and eager, just like Lin’s had once been. And Vir’s and Ket’s, and Puk’s. And mine.

“Puk,” I said slowly as I stared out the window at the human man waiting in his crude beetle armor, “I believe our dragon could use some more fresh air in the front lawn.”

Puk joined me at the window and stared down at the human man. Her rosebud lips set in a grim line, but then she glanced back at the human child whose sleeves had pulled back as he reached above his head, revealing the ugly bruises and scars upon his skin once again. “Yes, Sister,” she nodded. “The dragon could use some fresh air indeed.” With that, she left the kitchen.

The screams of the human man could be heard even from within the moonbeam and treebranch walls of the Sanctuary, but Oswald paid them no mind.