The Back Door

The Back Door

Stephen Brooke ©2020

 

“You’re an elf?” James asked. “Where are your pointy ears?”

“That is a bit of misinformation,” replied the slender and pale man perched on his garden wall. His paleness was all the more noticeable due to his nudity. “Blame Victorian artists and people who confused us with the fauns of Roman myth.”

“And you’re not myths?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. But we are certainly not ones of any Mediterranean variety.” He paused a moment before adding, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends are nymphs.”

“I’ll take your word for it. So what brings you by, Mister, ah, I didn’t catch your name.”

“That’s because we don’t give them out to mortals. Not that they could pronounce them if we did. Anyway, this just happens to be an enchanted hill. You know, an entrance to Faerie and all of that. You really shouldn’t be digging into it.”

“The man who sold me the place said there’s been a garden here for centuries.”

“But everyone knew not to dig in this exact spot.” He cocked his head at James. “An American, aren’t you? I guess that’s a pretty good excuse for your ignorance.”

James had to laugh at that. “And what do you know of Americans?”

“That they don’t know where not to dig!”

He shook his head and turned over another shovelful of soil and then he was no longer in his new garden, with its neat rows of earth ready for planting. “Now you’ve done it, my boy.”

Green fields lay all about him, on rolling rounded hills. Weathered gray rocks thrust upward from the tops of some of those hills, toward a hazy, silvery sky. James could not make out where the sun was; the light seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“Welcome to Faerie.”

“How?” How had he suddenly come to be—wherever he was?

“You went and dug right into the front door.” The elf—the self-proclaimed elf—was seated on the grass now. “And you’ll be stuck unless you can find the back door. Not that this is a bad place to be. I rather like it myself.”

“It might be more interesting than digging a garden,” mused James.

“And somewhat more perilous. By the way, don’t ask me where the door is. It’s different for everyone.”

James decided not to go into that right then. Instead he asked, “Do you elves always go around naked?”

“The king doesn’t. He wears a crown. Hmm, when he remembers. We tend to be a forgetful bunch. Being immortal and all, there’s always later to do things we don’t do now.” He gave the human a sudden serious look. “Don’t let that rub off on you or you will while away your time and die here. Or be returned to your world as an old man.”

James looked about. “Where’s the way I came in?”

The elf swept his arms to the sky. “Everywhere.”

“But the way out is somewhere?”

“Usually.”

James kept himself from making a rude noise. “So how do elves pass their time?”

“Feasting is good. Sex. We have all had it too many times with each other over the millennia, though. Oh, would you like to have sex? No? Very well. You are bound to have lots of offers, being someone new. We hunt sometimes. Sometimes we are hunted! I enjoyed making music for a thousand years or so but got bored eventually. Maybe I’ll take it up again sometime. I think more than anything else we simply wander, looking for amusement. Looking for anything new and different to relieve our boredom for a time.”

“In our world? The, um, mortal world?”

“The king frowns on it but, yes, sometimes. Not in a long time—” The elf seemed to lose himself in memories for a few seconds. “Well, let’s get you inside somewhere. This isn’t the safest place to dawdle, not that I would mind the exhilaration of a little danger. And are you sure about the sex?”

“Pretty sure.” But visions of elf women found their way into his mind. That might be interesting.

“Ho, Elf!” someone called, in a rather high squeaky voice. “What have you there? Is it good to eat?” A bearded little man about half the height of the elf but somewhat larger around came bouncing toward them. “A mortal! Mmm, yummy!”

“He’s not for you, Leprechaun,” chided the elf. “I’m taking him to the faerie court.”

“To grace the king’s table? Better to let us have him. Or maybe we’ll take both of you, eh?” He whistled shrilly and more little round heads bobbed up out of the grass. As they wore no more clothing than the elf it was easy to see that both genders were present. Children too. They looked particularly hungry.

“I hope you can run swiftly, Mortal James,” said the elf, “for you are on your own.” With that he took off at a sprint. James took off too but did not sprint. Not surprisingly—to him—he caught up with the fay shortly. “You only need to run faster than those little guys,” he told him as he slowed down to run at his side. “You’ve worn yourself out already.”

“I only needed to run faster than you, James,” came the reply, between gasps for breath. “And only for a little while. I assumed they’d pull you down and I’d be far enough away to be safe.”

James glanced back over his shoulder. The leprechauns were far behind and, one by one, falling out of the pursuit. He dropped to a walk. “If it happens again you’d do better to give me a shove in their direction. Except that now I would give you a shove first.”

The elf slowed to a walk also. “I would greatly appreciate it if you mentioned none of this to the king. He would deem it a breech of hospitality. I, ah, would be indebted to you.”

What that might entail, James had no idea but it sounded like a desirable thing. “Not a word,” he promised. “Do those leprechauns often give you trouble?”

“Only when we meet them.”

James was unsure how long they traveled. The sky always remained the same, the shadows ever diffuse, the soft silver light filling everything. “There isn’t any night here, is there?”

“None at all. Nor noon. No dawn nor dusk.”

“Nothing changes?”

“There are storms. Then we have darkness. The lightning! The Wild Hunt rides in those storms. Do not be out when they ride, Mortal James!”

“Worse than leprechauns?”

“Leprechauns would only kill you and eat you. You might end up running forever before the Hunt, blind with fear and panic.”

Forever? “I’ve heard of them. Don’t they ride into the mortal world?”

“So it is said.”

James might not be able to tell time in this world of Faerie but his stomach did tell him it was past dinner time. In fact, it audibly reminded him. “We’ll have you feasting with the king shortly,” promised the elf. “That is his castle right ahead of us.”

It looked like another of the hills with its crown of upright stones but he was willing to take the elf’s word for it. Yet as they approached it began to shift, transform, and soon they found themselves standing at the gates of a sprawling, haphazard array of towers and turrets. Which was the illusion? wondered James.

Maybe both. Or on second thought, maybe neither. This was Faerie, after all, and had its eccentricities. Illusion could be its reality and its reality could all be illusion. Maybe he wasn’t even really here.

But even if he wasn’t he was still stuck here! James followed his personal elf through the arched gateway into what looked more like a cavern than the interior of a structure. Elves had stood guard, somewhat laxly, at the entrance, though the novelty of a mortal entering their domain seemed to spark a certain languid interest. More were inside, most doing nothing much. Those not too busy doing nothing looked him over too.

And he looked them over. They were all rather attractive people, all quite naked, all quite pale though hair color varied to every imaginable hue. And not a pointy ear in sight. A lithe and slightly built woman emerged from the crowd. “The queen,” murmured his elf guide. He did not sound at all pleased.

Her head was crowned with what seemed nothing more than a haphazard weaving of a few sticks. Otherwise, she wore no more clothes than the other elves, which is to say none.

“You didn’t mention a queen,” James whispered to his guide.

“It seemed safer not to. I thought we might get away with dealing only with the king, or at least dealing with him first.”

The elf woman sauntered up to him and gave him quite a long looking-over. “I haven’t tasted a mortal in some time,” she mused, softly, seductively, and then told those gathered in tones suddenly as harsh as the cawing of a crow, “He’s mine. You may have him when I’m done and not before!”

There were unhappy faces but not one elf raised an objection. She turned back to James. “We shall see you at the king’s feast. And why don’t you lose those clothes?”

As she walked away, every movement unmistakably intended to rouse his interest—which it also unmistakably did—James asked, “I shouldn’t be fooling with the king’s wife, should I?”

The elf snickered rather like his least favorite cousin and he had just as much urge to slap him. As ever, he resisted the urge. “Oh, they aren’t married. They are respectively the most powerful elves of their genders. Let us find an unoccupied room for you.”

They went down a high-arched hall, peering into one room and then another. The elf felt none were acceptable. “We don’t really bother with rooms of our own and take whatever one is available at the moment. Assuming it has been cleaned.”

“And who does that?” James could not quite picture these lackadaisical beings cleaning up after themselves.

“There are invisible minions who take care of the menial tasks. You needn’t concern yourself with them. Ah, this one looks suitable.”

A sparely furnished, stone walled chamber. Roomy enough. And there was a bed. “I could use a nap after this day. A meal too! The feast is tonight?”

The elf only laughed. Oh. “There is no night here. I forgot.”

“We sleep when we wish and the king feasts when he wishes. You will be sent for. Or you can wander where you will. None will stay you.” He smirked. “Except maybe the queen if she catches sight of you.”

Safer to stay put for now. There was one tall window in the room with a view of nothing but rolling green hills and endless silvery sky. The elf had already slipped out the door and James did not care much when he might come back. He had but laid down when something came flitting through the window and began to dart about the room.

It seemed to be some sort of little winged fairy, but those wings were not the gossamer sort James might have expected. Black and bat-like they were. “What are you?” he asked.

“I’m a sprite! I flyyyy!” With that she circled the room several times at what was surely an unsafe speed. “Woaaaah! I’m dizzy!”

James suspected the little fairy might be unsafe at any speed. “So what do you want of me, sprite?”

“I’m waiting for you to fall asleep so I can feed. I’m a vampire sprite!”

“Oh.” He considered this fact. “I don’t suppose you can drain much blood.”

“Only a wee drop, Mortal. Even if I visited every time you slept, you’d barely notice.” She giggled. “Like a big mosquito!”

But a swarm of mosquitoes could be another matter. James imagined a sprite swarm and did not like it. “And that’s enough to sustain you?”

“We don’t live on it, silly. It’s just for extra nutrition. Vitamins!” She darted gleefully back and forth a couple times. “And we do like the taste. Almost as much as—” She didn’t say what but hovered, looking pointedly toward his crotch. “That’s full of vitamins too!”

“But your sharp little teeth can’t get at that.” James hoped not, anyway.

“Oh, no. You’d have to get it for me. But I can help!”

She perched at the end of his bed, looking just a little too eager. James’s guardian elf entered. “Shoo, pest,” he muttered, taking a lazy backhand swing at the sprite. She avoided the blow effortlessly and flitted out the window.

“Someone should invent sprite netting,” remarked James.

“I’ll get you some repellent. Garlic can work but only because of the stink.”

He searched his memories. “Isn’t iron anathema for all you of Faerie?

“Another tale. Our little vampire could hardly drink your iron-rich human blood were it true. It probably smells very enticing to her after the tired fay blood she usually gets.” The elf’s eyes went suddenly to a corner of the room. “You! Come here.”

James could see nothing. Or was there a sort of shimmer in the air, like dust particles floating in a shaft of light? “Keep an eye on the window and don’t let anything in.” He turned back to his guest. “You should be able to sleep in peace—unless maybe you’ve changed your mind about having sex.”

“Wouldn’t the queen object?”

“She wouldn’t have to know. And it would make it more exciting. I miss exciting things.”

After nearly being eaten by leprechauns? Maybe even that was no longer enough for this jaded fay. “I’d better get my nap.”

“As you will.” With that, the elf slipped out again.

James, tired but maybe too wound up at the moment to sleep, lay down on the bed. It was amazingly comfortable. He might be able to sleep after all. “What are you?” he asked the room.

The answer came as a whisper. “An elemental, mortal man.”

It was a feminine voice but nothing else could be determined. “We are this world and it is we, existing ever. You would like to see me, wouldn’t you? I remember the ways of mortals.”

The shimmering became more solid, though still transparent. It was indeed a woman. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen, decided James. “And you—serve the elves?”

“They are our children. So to speak. And though they think themselves immortal we know they will fade away as all things do. All things but us. So we enjoy watching them while we may, serving them in little ways, filling the corners of our time. They do not really understand what we are. They simply make use of us. We don’t mind.”

“Your children can be rather willful,” stated James. He might as well be blunt.

“So they can. They are bored and self-indulgent these days. Ah, the fay were so good and beautiful once.”

“Not so beautiful as you.”

A silver laugh came from the elemental. “You think so, mortal man? You are good to look upon yourself and I am not forgetful of the ways of love. But it is not a good idea to leave—ah, part of yourself in Faerie. It will not bind you here, not exactly, but it might make it harder to leave. And too, you might find yourself easily drawn back.”

“So, um, no sex?” She shook her head, perhaps with some sadness. What about shitting, he wondered? But no, that wasn’t really a part of him. Nail clippings? Hair? He’d read of such things being used for magic but had found much he thought he knew of magic to be wrong. And they were no longer a part of a living human either.

“I am not melancholy,” she said. “I continue. Once I danced across the void as all was created and someday I shall do so again. Scat, you!” The disappointed sprite darted back out the window. “I will remain,” spoke the elemental and faded again to invisibility.

No sex. The way things had been going James had expected it would happen sooner or later and he hadn’t really minded the idea. But he had been tired and hadn’t felt any great desire for the elf women he’d encountered. Definitely not any elf man. The elemental was another matter. No woman could compare with her, he realized. No woman could be as desirable. No woman he had ever known. No woman he ever would know.

Not that it mattered. Women were still women. Mortal women. Elf women. He had found those here attractive, but now he had been warned to avoid them. He fell into a sleep of weariness and dreamed no dreams.

He woke to see his own elf sitting perched in the window opening. “I don’t suppose you have clocks,” he said. “I think I slept a rather long time.”

The elf shrugged. “The short times here are the same as the long ones. They begin and they end.” He hopped down. “Now the king’s feast begins and I must escort you. Hmm, I think you need a bath first. It’s a good thing you didn’t need to use garlic to keep pesky sprites away!”

The bath more resembled a swimming pool. For the first time, James doffed his clothes, standing as naked as the several elves sharing it. Two or three of them seemed moderately interested in looking him over. His clothes were gone when he climbed out of the water.

“Queen’s orders,” his companion informed him. “It was best to comply.”

“What if the king ordered otherwise?” he asked.

“I would absent myself from court for a while. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“So the two are often at odds with each other?” asked James as the elf led him down another hall. None of the halls looked the same in this place, as if each had been designed by a different architect.

“At times, they have thoroughly hated each other. I don’t think either feels it’s worth the effort now.”

The dining hall was an immense room. Again, James wondered how such spaces could fit into the castle—or was it a hill?—he had entered. “Most of us are here,” whispered his elf. “They’re curious about you and more curious about what the king and queen might do.”

These two sat at opposite ends of a long black marble table, crowns of untidily woven twigs on their heads. The table was laden with foods familiar and not. Meat predominated, much of it animals roasted whole and generally recognizable. One of these had a disquieting resemblance to a leprechaun. James felt he might do best to stick to vegetables. Turnips were surely safe.

Even safer were he back in his garden, planting rows of them.

“Middle of the table,” whispered his guide, steering him by one arm. “So neither seems to have a claim on you.”

James felt something pulling him away from his comrade’s grasp. “What’s going on?” He was alarmed, but only a little. There had been enough strange goings on he had become somewhat used to them.

“None of that!” shrieked the queen, rising from her place. “I can cast spells as well as you any day.”

Whatever pulled on James released him. He glimpsed the smirk on the king’s face. Magic? He was glad it hadn’t turned into a tug-of-war between the two monarchs. That might not have ended well for him.

Damn, that marble bench was chilly on his bare bottom. This whole realm of Faerie was a little too cool for his taste. The elves seemed to like it, though. They were cold too; he had noticed that when his guide touched him. A lower body temperature than his own, almost certainly.

His eyes went back and forth between king and queen, taking care not to stare at either nor even show too much interest. They did stare at him for rather long periods, when they weren’t staring at each other. The king, as the other elf folk, was slender and slight, very pale. His hair was as black as any ever he had seen and lay long down his back. Black as raven wings, too, were his eyebrows. He was actually rather striking.

As was the queen, to be sure. No one here could be described as at all unattractive. Unless one said they were all unattractive. There was some truth to that too. James did not think he could live among such faces, weary yet consumed with their hungers, for long.

It was she who first addressed him. “What can we do for you, mortal?” the queen asked, words sweet and solicitous. James could sense the undertones of a wild desire beneath them.

“I need to find the back door to my world.”

She considered this a moment before informing him, with seeming innocence, “I do not know where your door lies but you can use your key to unlock my door. Back or front.”

The king scowled from his end of the table. “All doors are open in our kingdom, Mortal.”

Save the one he sought. These elves were not going to help him find it.

“But I want him to enter mine first,” said the queen, her voice rising. “I want him!”

“Maybe I want him!” shouted the king. James suspected the king would want anything the queen wanted, and vice-versa. He noticed some of the elves edging their chairs away from the table.

“Mine!”

“We’ll see about that.” The king turned to glare at James.

“Duck,” warned the elf at his elbow.

Barely in time. Something blue and burning flew over his head. He felt its heat before it crashed into a wall with a burst of flame.

“I believe he does not want the queen to have me,” whispered James, crouching beneath the table. Elves everywhere were evacuating the room while the faerie monarchs stood facing each other.

“Wait,” said the elf. “Wait—now!” Both bolted for the nearest door while the king and queen began casting lethal spells in each other’s direction. Lethal to James, he was sure. The fay monarchs seemed to brush them off and throw a magical bolt of some other variety in response.

“Are they going to kill each other?” wondered James.

“Unlikely. They go after each other this way every now and again, and neither can come out on top or even do much damage. Let’s get you back to your room.”

“Will I be, um, safe?”

“They’re too busy with each other. Maybe one of them will remember you in time but for now they forget you and think only of their own quarrel.” The elf halted at the doorway to what was probably his room. Or some other unoccupied room? “That, too, they will soon forget. So it is with us. I would not be surprised if the king and queen wound up in bed with each other in the aftermath. If they’re not already on the floor in the dining hall. Later, they will go back to disliking each other.”

“A dangerous sort of foreplay.”

“But you should be somewhat safer once they have most of the lust and jealousy out of their systems. You can be with either—or anyone else, for that matter—without fear.” He reconsidered. “Well, without much fear. A mortal will never be truly safe here.”

“Then help me leave.”

“I would, James, if I knew how. Only you can find your door out of Faerie.” They both found themselves standing at the window, gazing out over the green hills. James thought he saw a distant darkness against the silver sky.

“Are we going to get night after all?” he asked.

The elf peered at the dark horizon. “A storm gathers. It can not harm us here.”

They watched it approach, the slate-hued clouds climbing the sky, and all below shrouded in black. Were there forms in that murk of storm, huge forms of horses and riders, the lightning crashing about them, the drum of hooves adding to the din of thunder?

“The Wild Hunt rides this way.”

But distant yet. James had time to act, if he dared. “I think the Hunt might be my way home.”

The elf nodded slowly, his eyes still fixed on the approaching tempest. “So it might. It might also be a way to be killed. Or worse. I have warned you of that.”

“I will guide him,” came a whispered voice.

The elf looked most skeptical of this. “I would trust her,” said James.

“Then I shall accompany you. But only so far—a little distance from the castle and no further.”

“I thank you for any help. You need give me none.”

“I owe you,” said his companion, and nothing more.

It surprised none of them to find the main gate shut and barred. “Battened down,” murmured James. “Is there another way out?”

“We have our back doors too.” The elf sighed. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to come back in the same way.”

“One of the portals,” came whispered.

“Yes. And there are others to get back in, if I can find them in the midst of a storm. But mind that not. Here.” He had led them to what seemed but another door to another room. “Remember you, too, will not be able to come back in here if you find the need,” he warned and opened it. Green hills, lying now in deepening shadow, spread before them.

They stepped through and the castle behind them disappeared; only hills lay all about. Might that one over there be the place they had just left? James could not be certain. “I need a place to conceal myself,” he stated. That was about as far as his plan actually went. He must need improvise anything else.

And the Hunt was riding hard toward them. He could see fear in his elf companion’s eye, yet the fay remained with him. “There,” the elf pointed. “The stones and high heather are going to do as well as you can manage right now.”

Bushes or trees would have been far preferable. James could glimpse a wood at some distance. He would never make it, nor would he want to be caught running across open ground toward it when the riders arrived. “It should do,” the elemental whispered.

“Then farewell, Mortal James,” spoke the elf. “It is time for me to get out of here. And I shall take your advice and not sprint! Good fortune be with you.” With that, he turned and jogged away, presumably toward his hidden doorway. In a minute, James was himself hidden amid the standing stones atop one of the hills, the tall blossoming heather all about him, swaying in the growing wind.

“I can remain,” came the elemental’s whispered voice. “The hunters can do me no harm.” She became visible. Less transparent than before? James was uncertain in this ghostly light. “I don’t dare show my true form to the fay. A glimpse would eat at them through their nigh-immortal lives, bringing naught but misery. A mortal as you can cherish such things and rush on to other things. Ah, so little time you have!”

“I am hoping to have a little more.” The thunder grew deafening. The thunder of huge hooves across the hills, he realized. Or across the sky? He couldn’t make things out clearly enough to tell. They might not be in this world at all, but running through some other.

He might learn soon. Or he might be trampled or he might miss his opportunity somehow and be stuck in Faerie a while longer.

“Above all,” his companion told him, “do not panic. That is the Hunt’s great power, to make men and beasts fly in terror before them. Be ready; now all is up to you.” With that, she leaned in and kissed him, before waning to invisibility.

It truly was all up to him. And soon—almost was the Hunt upon him. Not directly over him, he hoped, but close enough for his plan to work. Surely they would veer around these stones. The horses towered but perhaps they were not quite so huge as they had at first seemed. Another illusion of this place, maybe. In the darkness, their eyes were like coals, burning with a fire never seen in any mortal steed.

Don’t let that rattle you, he told himself. They’re just big horses. They’d look good in front of a hay wagon back home. Picturing that helped calm him.

One of the gigantic horses thundered by, its black-cloaked rider intent on whatever prey they pursued. Not close enough. Was he fated to fail? Another, coming directly toward his hiding place. The rider, a great bearded man, urged his mount to leap over the stones. And as it passed, James leaped up himself and caught hold of its tail.

Neither rider nor steed seemed to take any notice. He bounced along, crashing and careening. Ouch, he’d scraped his leg on something, maybe one of the stones. It might be bleeding but he didn’t care to glance down and see. James pulled himself up some, intertwined arms and legs in the coarse hair, and held on. He was part of the Wild Hunt, bounding through the night from world to world, seeking what prey might run before it.

Yes, night. The storm yet raged but now beneath black skies, and here and there stars shone through rents in the clouds. They coursed through a thick forest. A horn sounded somewhere ahead, rising above the howling of the wind. He could see little of woods or hunters; indeed, he could see little more than a horse’s ass. He bounced against a tree trunk and felt his grip loosening. As if in a dream, James slowly fell earthward, and the Wild Hunt thundered on.

James turned over another shovelful of earth. What had happened just now? And why in the world was he naked?