You Let Me In - Camilla Bruce Page 0,12

at me from a wrinkled face, brown as a nut. A roughly woven scarf hid her hair. Her stubby hands held out the wreath to Pepper-Man.

“A crown for our maid,” said the woman, and smiled.

I rose my gaze, looked at them: a half circle of beings I had never seen the likes of before: tall and small, hairy and bald. Some of them were antlered and others had tails. A few of them were like Pepper-Man, gnarled and tall, some were small, much smaller than I was. All of them looked at me expectantly; animal eyes and human eyes, birds’ eyes and blind eyes.

Pepper-Man planted the roses on my head. “Eat,” he said. “Drink.”

He lifted the wooden bowl to my lips. The milk was sweet and thick.

He picked a cake from the tray and laid it on my tongue; it melted like sugar when I bit into it, tasted like honey and blueberry jam.

“Now you can enter the mound.” My Pepper-Man laced his hand in mine.

They parted for us when we approached. Smiling faces, glimmering eyes. Hands that patted and touched.

Inviting me into their nest.

Into the dark, dark earth.

Inside, the mound was hollow, as such things are. There was a circular hall with smoking hearths; white stones paved the floor. Torches set in sconces in the dirt wall emitted circles of dirty light. There was a woman there with glowing eyes, playing a wild rhythm on a drum of hide. Birds’ feathers stuck out of the ragged clusters of brown hair that hung around her face. She was completely naked and her breasts were milky white. My cheeks reddened, and I looked away, unaccustomed as I was to things like that. Her golden gaze followed me as I stepped into the hall, clinging to Pepper-Man’s hand. A man in a wig like a French duke spun out in front of my vision; in his hand was a flute of yellowing bone. He lifted it to his lips and played a shrill tune, falling in with the drum. I watched him as he danced away, the frayed brocade of his waistcoat, the faded blue silk of his trousers.

“Dance with me, Cassandra,” said Pepper-Man, grabbing my free hand with his, spinning me slowly around. “Later we will have more cake but for now, let us be merry.”

The rest of the party was pooling in behind us, to that dank, hot cave in the earth. One by one, they fell into the dance, moving their bodies in swirls and steps. Swaying and turning, tossing and shaking.

We danced too, spun and flowed across the crowded room, and wherever we went, the others parted for us. Pepper-Man led me with sure steps, lips curled into a lopsided smile. Danced, until there was nothing but the dance. Nothing but the night and the heat, the rhythm and the flesh. Pepper-Man lifted me high up in the air, spun me around, above the crowd. I looked down at the writhing mass of bodies, the horned and the antlered, the feathered and the furred, and I lifted my hands to the cavern’s dark roof and let the music take me.

* * *

I certainly didn’t know then that by drinking that milk and eating that cake, I had allowed them all into my life. Not a day went by after that without a faerie peeking its head from the bushes or staring back at me from the mirror when I tried to untangle the knots in my hair. It wasn’t just Pepper-Man anymore—although I certainly belonged to him; there were others, too, meddling and distracting. Some I liked, others not. Most were just there at the edge of my vision, dancing, laughing, snarling, and snapping.

“They wish they had a girl like you for themselves,” said Pepper-Man when I complained about the latter. “Who would not want such a sweet princess with such long, thick hair perched on their knee?”

“I think they look angry, not wishful at all.”

“Trust me, Cassandra—they only want you for themselves. They want to suck you dry as it is, all that golden light right down their throats. That is why the woods are so dangerous for girls such as yourself, you never know what creature of ill intent is lurking. Some of my brothers keep girls’ braids in their belts for show.”

“Not you, though.”

“Not I—I only need my Cassandra, and I will protect you, always, from the dangers of the woods. They may snarl and they may snap, but they will never taste my princess.”

Only