The Woodcutter (2 page)

Woodcutter,
they whispered.

He could not tear himself away.

Woodcutter,
the enchanted emeralds seemed to say.
Think of the comforts that just one of our stones could buy
.
Look at this silver. Think how it could be melted down and made into a necklace for your wife.
Oh, how her eyes would sparkle, oh how her face would light with joy.

But his wife was plain and ordinary, he thought, she would laugh at him if he should even try to present her with such a gift.

Woodcutter,
the emeralds enticed.

He thrust aside their call with a violent presence of will, “I am sorry, I am afraid that is not my ax.”

The River God’s face broke into a disappointed frown, “Are you quite sure?”

The Woodcutter shook his head, wearily, “Indeed, that one is too fine for me.”

The River God dove back down to the bottom of the water.

The Woodcutter wiped a cold sweat from his upper lip.

The River God came to the surface again. In his hand was an Ax of Gleaming Gold studded in Rubies.

“This is the only other Ax I have found.”

The Woodcutter swallowed. The rubies were the color of passion.
Such passion
, they promised,
and such love they could bring him
.
Red is yours wife’s favorite color
.
A golden comb with red rubies to pull back her hair.
If you were a loving husband
, the rubies hissed,
you would seek out pretty pleasantries for a wife as good as yours
.

But he thought of his wife with rubies in her hair, as she kneaded the bread and tended the fire. He clung to that image. His wife was simple and pure, he thought, and silenced the rubies’ call.

He shook his head, “I am sorry, kind sir. But that, too, is not my ax.”

The River God’s teeth ground together, the sound of jagged bone against bone was loud enough to be heard over the current. “Are you quite sure?” he asked.

The Woodcutter nodded.

The River God said nothing, but dove once more beneath the surface.

The River God returned, this time with an Ax of Pure Platinum encrusted in Diamonds.

“Here you are. I have brought you your Ax.”

Woodcutter,
the diamonds sang and their song felt like drowning.
Woodcutter, think
of our strength, of our use. We can cut through any material.
The diamonds glinted in the sun.
Wouldn’t your dear, sweet wife like a gift she could use?

They pointed at their platinum. The Woodcutter could not breathe gazing upon the beauty.

Look, we shall never tarnish. How happy your wife would be for this gift.

He could feel his wife throw her arms around him, feel her hands in his hair and her breath warm up his neck. She gazed into his eyes and whispered in the diamond’s voice,
With just one diamond, I
would never have to slave in the cottage one more day. With just one diamond, I could live like a queen.

The Woodcutter drew in a ragged gasp and tried to gather thoughts of his wife, of her smiling face in the garden, grinning up at the sunflowers towering overhead. He thought of her in the deepest night, curled beside the fire to feed a young kitten that had been left by its mother too soon. She was humble and wise and knew how the world worked as it was. She would not wish to live like a queen. And though the diamonds called
Woodcutter…,
he shook his head a third time and said, “I am sorry, I am afraid that ax is not my own.”

The River God’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“Are you quite sure?”

“Indeed, you are most kind, but this Ax is not my own.”

The River God disappeared once more.

The Woodcutter swallowed, his breath tight in his ribs.

The River God returned and in his hand was the humble ax the Woodcutter had dropped.

“Oh kind sir! You have found my ax!” the Woodcutter exclaimed.

A rumble of thunder sounded overhead. The River God roared in anger, “Since you are so honest and were guided by truth and not greed, all three Axes shall be yours.”

The Woodcutter stood.

Many times, river gods would quietly hand over such gifts, but this god seemed to have played the game before.

The Woodcutter ducked as the plain ax spun towards his heart. He moved again as the Platinum Ax whizzed by his head. He leapt as the Gold Ax narrowly missed his shoulder and the Silver Ax sped at his knees.

The River God disappeared beneath the water, steam marking his exit as the surface boiled with his fury.

The Woodcutter picked up his father’s ax and held it tightly for just a moment before he placed it safely in his pack.

His hands trembled.

The ax was his birthright. Its humble iron head and plain oak handle held more power than any crown. Without his father’s ax, there would be no more gifts from river gods. Without his father’s ax, no son would ever find him. Without his father’s ax, the Woods would claim him.

He tied the Gold and Platinum Axes together and stowed them away. He strapped the Silver Ax to his side and continued on in a direction far from the river’s bank.

Chapter 6

He saw a flash of blonde between the trees and then her cape.

Red. Red as dark cherries.

He knew she should not be in the Woods. The child crouched in the clearing, gathering flowers in her arms.

“Small One?”

She turned, startled by his voice.

“Small One, you should not be here in the Woods all alone.”

The Woodcutter had played his role in this story more than once. Sometimes he had been able to save the small one in the red cape. Sometimes he had not.

The faces of those children still haunted his dreams.

His senses prickled and he inhaled deeply, trying to catch the smell of whatever was watching. He knew the creature in this re-enactment might be quite different than the others.

Glass slippers upon the blue-veined feet…

He looked at the sky. The creatures he knew most mortals should fear only came out at night and there were still nine hours until darkness fell.

“You must leave the Woods,” he said.

The little girl looked up at him with such wide blue eyes, “But my grandmother is sick and I am bringing her food to make her well.”

Her gaze felt like an afternoon sunbeam. This was no ordinary child. He could see the touch of the fae in the glow of her skin and the twinkle of her eyes. She seemed somehow more interesting than other people. It was the faerie glamour. Its royal blue blood beat within her human veins.

He tried to smile with reassurance, “You must hurry to her side then. Stop to talk to no one.”

She nodded at him in serious understanding and dropped a curtsy.

Not yet seven years old, he thought as he watched her dance away. Some of the older ones could fight off the wolves that seemed so drawn to young flesh.

His heart seemed to die with each tripping footstep she made farther and farther away from him.

He had to wait until she was out of sight before he followed. Such were the laws when mixed mortals wandered into his Wood. He could guide and protect, but not interfere. If the spirit of the fae beat within a mortal’s veins, occasionally one of those people was merely a foolish soul who had mistakenly wandered into the Wood. He hoped it was such with the Small One in the red cloak.

Unfortunately, sometimes, they had been called home for a reason.

Chapter 7

The Woodcutter arrived at the house. The door was ajar.

As it always was.

His heart pounded. He knew what would face him when he entered the house and braced himself for the wolf. He did not smell the foul reek of canine beast nor the metallic tang of spilled blood. He hoped it meant that the battle had not yet begun.

Ordinary widows, the red-blooded elderly women of the Twelve Kingdoms, they were drawn to the Woods in a way he could not understand. They built homes beneath the trees, seemingly anxious to take advantage of the forest’s bounty. The truth was, they came to the Woods to die. It was as if they were playing out a part in a story and the Woods had an insatiable appetite for that particular book. As soon as one grandmother perished, another moved into the home not days after the first disappeared.

It was his duty, as had been his father’s duty and his father’s duty before that, to slay the wolves that preyed upon them and their grandchildren, but even so, the Woodcutter cursed silently as he loosed the Silver Ax from his side. Usually, he could have used his father’s ax, but this child was special and the rules were different. This child was part fae with blue blood in her veins. She was the stock of royalty and only a River God’s Ax would do.

He had three opportunities to dispatch whatever evil had left the redheaded girl dead in the forest, three opportunities before he would have to return to the River God for more Axes. Now, one chance would be wasted because a mother sent her child into the Woods all alone and a grandmother did not fear child-eating wolves.

He crept up the stairs.

And then stopped.

The Small One was sprawled unnaturally upon the ground, her tumble of blonde curls spilled upon the wooden floor. Her tiny hand barely clutched her bouquet. The flowers that had escaped scattered across the slats as if in flight.

The grandmother sat in her bed, her face startled.

They were both most decidedly dead.

The air was thick with the tainted smell of fear, but there was not a wolf to slay in sight.

Chapter 8

He shut the door to the cottage quietly behind him.

There had been no wolf.

And a child was dead.

It was his duty to find the Small One’s mother and tell her the news, find her so that she could lay both her mother and child to rest.

But he had failed in his most sacred duty, his duty, as had been his father’s duty and his father’s before that. In broad daylight, he had failed.

There had been no wolf and the half-fae child was dead...
His feet seemed to walk to the rhythm of his failure.

He arrived in the village before dusk. There was only one place the type of mother who would send a half-fae child out to the woods in a red cloak would live, a mother too busy eating toadstools or snorting pixie dust to care about the dangers found amidst the trees. The children of such mothers were forced to be adults long before their time.

He stepped into the brothel and a hush fell over the crowd. He made his way to a barkeeper, a burly man with one eye, and placed a wooden coin upon the counter.

“I am looking for a woman in this town who has a daughter, perhaps seven years in age. Blonde haired. Curls.”

The barkeeper pushed the coin back towards him, “Woodcutter, your money is no good here.” He called out to the backside of a stout woman, “Help this man.”

The Madam turned. Her worn dress dipped dangerously in the front, revealing her aged and wrinkled breasts. She sashayed across the floor, faded burgundy skirts swaying from side to side, “Happy to.”

She swallowed a large mouthful from her tankard and stepped close, fingering the Woodcutter’s hooded Silver Ax, “And what can I do for a fine gentleman such as yourself?”

He looked into her blurry eyes, “I’m looking for a woman with a daughter about seven.”

She swayed and leered at him, “So you like the young ones, do you? Sick bastard.”

He took a deep breath and risked waving his hand.

The wind from the Woods whispered,
Hush
.

But the small bit of magic was enough to raise the veil of the Madam’s intoxication…just enough….

“I am looking for a woman with a daughter about seven, a woman who has a mother out in the Woods.”

She stiffened, “The Woods?”

He nodded.

Her eyes nervously fell upon the silver handle at his waist, “Is that an Ax?”

He nodded once again.

She placed her cup upon the counter gently, “Follow me.”

Chapter 9

The mother lay dressed in purple, sprawled out across the pillows. Her face was clouded with too much magic and her body rolled in the seduction of faerie dust.

“Come for a tumble, love?”

The Woodcutter closed the door behind him.

The tainted magic, cut with charms to stretch the product for maximum profit, stung his eyes.

“Your daughter is dead,” he said.