Be careful who you mess with!
Leon Birch sat inside his rented room, listening to the
Senate committee hearings. Eating his cold supper, wishing he could afford to
get married. Since getting his degree, he’d only been able to pick up a few
substitute teaching jobs.
Listening to the government root out subversives usually
gave him hope for the future, but now it all seemed far away. The hearings were
all taking place back east, and he was in San Francisco, which seemed to be
ground zero for everything that was going wrong these days.
It really wasn’t fair that he was living alone, paycheck to
paycheck. He had all the skills and all the credentials. He certainly had the
necessary moral convictions, yet the good jobs all seemed to be taken by
determined spinsters and others of questionable politics and even more
questionable “lifestyles.” No wonder the public schools were turning out
delinquents.
And worse, like that Carstairs boy in the fifth-grade class
he’d taught today. To Leon’s great annoyance, the school he’d graced with his
services was one of those careless places that allowed the students to wear
costumes on Halloween. Leon wasn’t having that nonsense and required his class
to remove their dime store covers and masks. All would have been well but for
the Carstairs boy.
Instead of a cheap costume thrown over his school clothes,
Patrick Carstairs was dressed in green and brown, with some sort of ivy twined
around his tattered sweater. The same stuff was also tangled in his black hair,
which Leon thought badly needed cutting. Instead of a mask, the boy wore
makeup. Not only eyeliner but glitter, for heaven’s sake.
“What are you supposed to be, young man?”
“Robin Goodfellow, sir,” was the grinning imp’s answer.
Leon glanced down to scan the attendance chart. The class
tittered, so he changed his gaze to the seating chart and found the impertinent
brat’s name. “I don’t know how you got out of the house dressed like that,
Carstairs, but it won’t do. Go to the restroom, wash that filth from your face,
get rid of that shrubbery, and comb your hair.”
The whole class stared in dumbfounded silence. “What are you
waiting for, Carstairs? Get on, and don’t be all day about it!”
As the boy slunk toward the door, something else caught Leon’s
eye. “What on earth is this?” He yanked at the boy’s ear, and a pointed
rubber tip came off in his hand. “Fairy ears?” Leon pulled the other ear
tip off and threw them in the wastebasket. “Your parents shall hear of this.
Now get going.”
The class kept their heads right down after that, working
away on the assignment he gave them. Should have been a simple task to fill
their day, writing a family history. But again, the Carstairs boy proved a
problem.
“We come from an Elder Race. My grandfather, Jonathan
Hamilton Carstairs, came to San Francisco in 1912. He established Carstairs
House on top of Shipwreck Hill because the hill is full of faerie magic, just
like the place he came from, the Hamilton estate in England, called Oakwood.
Oakwood is named for its ancient oak groves. Some of the trees are harvested,
but some are left untouched so our Faerie ancestors can continue their revels,
and the Carstairs family retains the blessing of the Fair Folk. Carstairs House
doesn’t have oak trees, but Uncle Nigel planted a holly hedge all around the
property to contain the magic. So, our house has the blessing of our High King
Oberon and our High Queen Titania, and the Fair Folk are free to hold their
revels in our secret garden at the center of the holly maze.
“Halloween is a special night for the Fair Folk. They often
reveal themselves to mortals during the hours when the veil between the faerie
and mortal realms is thinnest. Especially the Huntsman. He is King Oberon’s
enforcer. Unlike the courtly knights who are defenders of the faerie realm, the
Huntsman is a monster. Darker than night, but for his eyes, which shine red
with lust for the blood the Wild Hunt demands. He leads a pack of damned souls
in pursuit of other damned souls, who will, in turn, join his Wild Hunt. Unless
the High King has decreed they be hunted to death, in which case, the Wild Hunt
shows no mercy. Even their horses will join the hounds in rending the prey till
nothing remains.”
Leon smiled, recalling his enjoyment of the shock on the boy’s
face when he handed back the paper at the end of the day with a large red F in
the upper margin.
Continue reading the story in the anthology:
https://books2read.com/u/mq5qNO
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