Moonchild, A Faerie's Tale

Episode 2: Fire! We learned that Faerie Moonchild loves Eleanor but dislikes Joseph and pixies. She battles for her Faerie life along with the humans when something else she dislikes erupts: a fire!

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled across Wyoming County’s rolling hills. For some time, Moonchild had heard the far-off rumbles of thunder and smelled the rain approaching, but she had remained well protected and dry tucked inside her burrow to wait out the inevitable storm. The farm animals too had been quietly sensing the storm’s approach, crowding inside the barn or under the lean-to, and the white farmhouse was still�"quiet and dark.

The storm swiftly approached the farmstead with an assailing lightning bolt ripping the sky’s curtain open and stabbing the earth. After a few tentative moments, the chest-throbbing thunder sounded: Crrriiiiicckkk-keraaackkk-BOOM with rumbling echoes reverberating off into the surrounding countryside. The thunder trembled Moonchild’s earthen burrow as her pale glow gleamed outside, forming a long triangle of warm radiance on the dark ground and grass.

Plop. Plop�"plop. Plop, plop, plop, pitter-plop�"pitter-patter-pitter-plop: The huge initial drops of cold rain increased tempo, quickly becoming a torrential shower. Moonchild couldn’t say she disliked the rain for itself, but most of her friends, the animals, insects, birds, and humans specifically disliked getting wet in the rain, so not much play was to beheld this morning when daylight finally arrived. She heard a series of faraway kettledrum thunder rolls.

Moonchild lay back on her dry grass bed to rest and think with nothing else to do anyway. Moonchild and Eleanor recently had some wonderful times playing and exploring, but Moonchild just couldn’t pinpoint what worry she felt for Eleanor; she just had an unsure, anxious feeling for her little human friend’s health and vitality.

A brilliant flare of lightning flickered into her burrow. Moonchild waited for the thunder. Waited a bit longer. Then, craaack-ck�"boom-BOOM. The stones above her tickled one another with a slight rattle and a trickle of dust fell from between the stones. The storm grew close.  The rain fell in heavy curtains like bedskirts.

Moonchild recalled when Elizabeth had seen her under the bed. Perhaps one day, she speculated, the older of the two girls may believe to join her and Eleanor in friendship and games. Then again, Moonchild remembered that after a recent visit by her older cousins, Elizabeth’s little girl attitude and giddy childish cheerfulness had suddenly disappeared. Moonchild thought she had become a grownup human overnight. She debated if she should willingly give up on Elizabeth believing in faeries quite yet.

A lightning flash and a thunder blast occurred nearly at the same time; the storm was very close now. Moonchild continued to ponder. Humans are perplexing, unpredictable creatures unlike fairies, gnomes, or even pixies. You always know what to expect from them, but then again, loving, believing humans like little Eleanor were the fancy of each and every faerie.

Brilliant lightning flashed with a CRRRAAAACK�"BOOOOOMMMM! The lightning and thunder occurred simultaneously, striking somewhere very close. Moonchild hoped it didn’t strike her favorite willow tree. The overhead stones quivered, shifting a bit and a piece of dirt fell to the burrow’s floor, pulling down a drape of roots near Moonchild’s bed. Another faraway flash with a delayed boom. Moonchild replaced the loosened roots by putting them back up into the wedges of dirt between the stones. Another bolt of lightning, but the thunder was delayed�"crrraaaacckk�"Booooommm. Going away, thank goodness Moonchild thought, remembering another storm this spring when the sky cleared by sunrise. Maybe this won’t turn out to be such a bad day after all, she surmised. The rain’s heavy hammering was already tapering off.

In the growing quiet, Moonchild heard the animals: the cows were bawling; the horses were stomping. She decided to check on them. Perhaps a coyote or fox was in the barn seeking shelter from the thunderstorm and now bothered the animals. Her glow emerged from her burrow with the warm glowing triangle flipping open like a lady’s fan across the muddy ground to become the familiar floating faerie glow-orb, spotlighting about in the dismal damp, dark night. The barn was shut tight, and so she turned and squeezed in between a gap in the barn’s rough-sawn siding.

Making her rounds through the barn, her glow suddenly weakened, feeble because of what she saw in the far end of the barn. A fire! Flames were climbing up the corner from behind the cow stalls and licking at the log rafters. She saw black soot and embers where whitewash used to cover the wall. Moonchild hated fire for it existed only to consume. She knew humans used it, but to her, fire was a nemesis.

The cows and heifers bawled, backing into the corner away from the fast growing fire in the straw and hay bedding. Thick smoke billowed up and hung above in the rafters. Moonchild tried to move the heavy iron door latch to let the animals out, but she had insufficient strength and mass, and there was nothing for a feather light faerie to lean against.

Help! She must tell the family master! Against her will concerning grownups, she steeled herself. Master must be told and quickly! She flew through the barn as fast as she could, past the stomping horses in their stalls, past the chickens undisturbed in their roosts. The pigs were outside. They would be all right, and the geese, they’re outside too. She recalled the other animals in the handful of seconds she flew through the barn: Orangecat and kittens, the mice, the swallows, and the pigeons. The bats should be out for the night but with the bad weather, maybe not. She shook out all the confusing thoughts, for she must concentrate on her dire mission.

Moonchild headed toward the barn’s siding gap at full speed, twisting sideways to squeeze through as she did entering, but she misjudged her speed and maneuver. Halfway through, she caught in the gap and her left wingtip tore off. Like a dying ember, the wingtip fluttered onto the wet grass outside the barn and the greenish glow flickered out.

She flew crookedly and slower until she compensated. She regained almost full speed heading straight toward the quiet, dark house. The rain pummeled her as she zoomed to the porch and up to the second floor. The master’s window was closed. She went around the corner. The girls’ window was also closed. What to do? Her portal in the downstairs. Why didn’t she think of that first? She dropped like a rock to the porch deck and slowed, twisting through the portal slowly, carefully not to damage herself further and flew upstairs to the master’s bedroom. He was snoring loudly. Moonchild took a deep breath. Don’t delay! She fluttered in his face. She tickled at his ears. She ruffled his mussy hair. In his sleep, he swatted at her, almost striking her down. Mother! She fluttered at mother, and Mother awoke.

 “Moth, go away,” mother said, and pulled the sheet over her head.

Moonchild’s glow was gone. Dark with fright and uncertainty, she hovered. Think! She wasted time. Think! Eleanor! She speeded into the girl’s room and fluttered at Eleanor.

Eleanor groaned, still half-asleep, “Moonchild, I can’t play now. It is dark and raining. Hear it on the roof.”

“NO, NO, Eleanor!” Moonchild pleaded and tugged at the little girl’s sleepgown’s collar. “Please wake up, now! A fire in the barn!”

“A fire? No, Moonchild no fire.” She sat up quickly, breathing in deeply. She coughed. “Smoke? Elizabeth, wake up! Smoke!” Eleanor shook Elizabeth. “Ahhhhh, Elizabethhhhh! WAKE UP!”

“What? Smoke?” Elizabeth said, groggily. “It’s just the cook stove chimney getting wet.”

Eleanor was already getting out of bed pulling on her shoes; then she lurched, falling across the bed and pushing Elizabeth out of bed with a loud thud and a groan.

“Wake up NOW! Smell the smoke? It is hay burning. FATHER, MOTHER, FIRE!” Eleanor shouted.

“No! The house? The barn? Oh, the animals!” Elizabeth cried, sitting on the floor, pulling on her shoes.

Lacking any discernible glow, Moonchild watched the humans. She didn’t know what to do. She heard master.

“Girls, Joseph! Out of bed,” he yelled. “See where the fire is.”

Moonchild heard master’s heavy feet hammering down the wooden stairs, followed by mother, Eleanor, Elizabeth, and Joseph. Moonchild heard master shout to mother to take the milk pails and start drawing water.

Moonchild followed the girls out and looked up at the barn roof. She saw her favorite east-facing lightning rod was broken, the top half bent over on itself, and her favorite glass orb was gone. The smoke rolled out of the hayloft door’s gaps, and she could see the nemesis dancing a contented destruction dance through the cracks of the board’s siding, hungrily consuming wood, straw, hay and… Moonchild never felt so alone, so powerless in her entire existence; a faerie is capable of little in the course of such terrible human tribulation.

 Moonchild watched the human ordeal unfold. The master heaved the barn doors open, and the evil thick smoke poured out, flowing over and engulfing him. Unprepared, he choked and coughed before backing away. He trotted around the barn’s side and to the back, out of sight. Joseph ran into the open front doors and disappeared into the roiling smoke. Elizabeth stood on the wet grass next to Eleanor who was bent over, out of breath, coughing and wheezing.

The wind-driven rain whipped at the girl’s long sleep gowns and their wet, unbound hair flew in their faces. Eleanor stood up and the two girls stared transfixed�"indecisive, so confused. Elizabeth suddenly ran toward the barn’s open door.

 “Bessie!” She cried.

Moonchild knew she meant the prize calf she had been grooming for the livestock fair.

“Elizabeth! Don’t go inside,” Mother shouted, running with difficulty carrying water in the two shiny milk pails, but Elizabeth ran inside with total disregard to the warning. Moonchild heard master, Joseph, and Elizabeth coughing inside; she hovered, then she flew full velocity toward the smoke, too.

Eleanor shouted, “No, Moonchild no!”

She turned to look at her mother and cringed. Despite the look of panic, mother shook her head, turned, and they watched the rocketing faerie disappear into the burning barn.

Inside with all the smoke, Moonchild had difficulty making anything out, and she slowed to a halt. She remembered the way through the doors and passages, but it was still confusing in the smoky murkiness. She swerved this way and that, bumping into walls and corners, listening for the humans over the snapping, popping fire, the bawling cows and whinnying, stomping horses.

Moonchild first heard master slapping and yelling at the cows to go outside, so she hoped Elizabeth was near him with Bessie in the pen near the cows. She went to that end of the barn and saw the master using the handle of a pitchfork to bump the cows on the backsides to coax them out the door. Master was coughing and hacking, almost doubling over in the smoke. Only a few of the cows went out and at least half of them turned around and came back inside.

Suddenly, when Moonchild’s focus had turned aside to spy for Elizabeth, master yelled in pain. She quickly deduced what had happened. A reentering cow had rammed the pitchfork, driving the pitchfork’s tines through master’s leg. Master dropped to his other knee, and then he was pushed down to the ground by another cow. Lying on the mucky ground, he yanked the fork out of his leg with a groan. Moonchild felt his pain and anguish. She saw the gush of lifeblood. What could a faerie do?

Moonchild heard Joseph and the stomping horses. She watched master. He got up and faltered toward the door, pushing out between the milling confused cows. She flew around the corner, down a short aisle, and in between the separating boards. The fire wasn’t as bad, oozing like a quivering yellow gel from between the boards, just beginning to rise up inside and spreading. The straw bedding lay only a little ways below.

Joseph had halters with leads on both horses, but the huge terrified animals were confused in the noise, smoke and the unusual motions of the panicky young boy fitful with coughs and hacks. One horse reared up and struck an overhead beam. The lead slipped through Joseph’s fingers. He let that one go.

“Come on you!” He shouted. “Let’s go!”  

Moonchild calmed herself. She flew up to the horse Joseph had and grabbed onto its ear and hung on with all her faerie might. She whispered slowly and intently into its ear.

“Come with him, come girl. Walk. Let’s go,” she said.

Its whinnying lessened and slowed its rearing and struggling so. Moonchild looked at Joseph. His face was smeared in smoky tears, and he squinted intently into the smoke to find the way out. A board fell to the floor behind them. With the horse behind him on dancing hooves following a skewed path, he slowly felt along the walls and made it through the aisle and out. Moonchild hung on to the horse’s ear until they made it to mother and Eleanor.

“Joseph!” Eleanor shouted, as mother took the lead. “Elizabeth went to get Bessie, and father is with the cows.”

Moonchild, covered in soot, flew to Eleanor and whispered to her, “Master is hurt! I think he went out the back from the cow pens, but I don’t know where Elizabeth is!”

Eleanor looked at her mother who was staring at the hovering, sooty Moonchild. 

“What about master hurt�"and Elizabeth?” Mother asked.

“I’ll find her,” Joseph said, turning back while wiping his eyes.   

“Here,” Mother said, handing him a pail of water. “In case…”

Moonchild waved at Eleanor, “Don’t let him go, I can find her,” and she flew off toward the barn.

“But she won’t know you�"she won’t see you,” Eleanor shouted at her, but both of them were already gone.

Mother tied the horse to a fence rail and ran around to the back of the barn. The horse struggled at the tie, dancing back and forth, blowing and whinnying. The horse inside hollered loudly over the fire’s racket.

“Stay in front of the barn,” Mother shouted back as she ran.

Moonchild slowly moved through the barn, first going to the small pen beside the cows’ box stall where Elizabeth kept Bessie. Neither the girl nor the calf was there. She followed the wall around the box stall to where Elizabeth would normally lead the calf outside. Moonchild heard master and mother shouting outside�"a relief. She wondered where Elizabeth went. The smoke thickened and the heat built as she flew closer to where the fire roared.

Behind the box stalls, Moonchild heard something creak-crack, break and fall. Wait, something else, she heard crying around back by the horse stalls. The horse was whinnying and stomping in the next stall. She felt around a wall and found a moving hand; Joseph was working his way toward the crying. Moonchild flittered past, dropped toward the floor, and squinted into the smoke. She continued back and found Elizabeth inside the granary where she had confusingly led the calf. The door was jammed partially closed and the panicked calf banged about, knocking tools and supplies askew. Elizabeth lay on the floor holding her leg. Moonchild smelled lifeblood despite the smoke. The calf panicky shuffled around and stepped on Elizabeth’s damaged leg. She screamed.

From the main barn floor, Joseph yelled in return, “Where�"are�"you?”
 “Granary,” she coughed. “Joseph, I’m hurt.”

In a few moments he said, “I’m here.”

 He emerged through the smoke, and he took the pail of water and splashed it on the flames sprouting along the wall, dropping the pail with a metallic rattle. He kicked the provisions away from blocking the door and pushed it open.

“Bessie, we must get her out,” Elizabeth cried.

“No, leave the calf,” Joseph said, and hacked, picking Elizabeth up from behind and hoisted her up to her feet.

“No! Bessie will die in here,” Elizabeth said, turning back to the confused calf.

Moonchild tried helping again by gripping the calf’s ear, but the antagonized beast spun around, flinging Moonchild against the wall. She tumbled to the floor in a flickering heap. Her already weak glow sputtered and dimmed.  

“Come on, let’s go,” Joseph said, gripping his sister around the waist to pick her up. He dragged her out, both them coughing continuously, leaving the bawling calf and motionless Moonchild behind.

In a couple moments, Moonchild straightened herself out, rose up, and shook the stunned feeling off. She flew outside and saw Eleanor pacing back and forth, first running toward the door, then backing away when a blast of heat and smoke fumed out of the open doors.

The horse behind her was thrashing to and fro, tearing the damp sod up with its huge hooves, sending the mud flying. The horse inside screamed in pain, and the horse behind Eleanor answered and reacted. Moonchild saw what was to happen before it occurred, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

She shouted as loud as her tiny faerie voice could project to the one who believed, “Eleanor, look out!”

The huge horse reared and spun on its rear legs, twisting deep in the muddy ground. It slid sideways and stumbled, then it got up and charged, tearing the rail loose its’ lead was tied to. Eleanor turned to Moonchild, then heard the horse, and turned to look over her shoulder.

The horse’s hooves drove deep into the soft sod and jumped into a hard charge, tugging the loose fence rail behind. The rail bounced up as one end struck the ground, making it cartwheel over on end. The rail then hit the ground flat, flipped again and went up as Eleanor ducked aside and down as the huge horse thundered by. The rail edge fell again, striking Eleanor on the head and flipping her over backwards in a splash of mud. The horse disappeared with a stumbling clatter into the smoke; the rail broke at the door, tumbling to the ground in splinters.

Moonchild flew to Eleanor. The little girl was like a rag doll lying in the mud, her gown soaking muddy-wet, her hair in straggles across her face and the muddy ground. Lifeblood oozed from her head.

Joseph and Elizabeth barely missed being knocked down by the skidding and floundering horse, but they were close enough to the door to see and move aside in time. They saw Eleanor lying inert on the ground. Joseph let Elizabeth down, pointed at Eleanor and turned to go inside again. Elizabeth ran limping and pulled Eleanor up to examine her.

Moonchild, despite Elizabeth holding Eleanor, flew up and fluttered to the bleeding girl’s face. Eleanor didn’t open her eyes or move, but Moonchild could feel a wheezing, steady breath. Moonchild pressed both tiny glowing hands, one after another on Eleanor’s split forehead. The cut immediately stopped bleeding and the wound closed. Elizabeth smiled a grim smile at the fluttering grimy Moonchild. Moonchild bowed her head and smiled back.

Moonchild decided to try to help Joseph with the horses and streaked away right into the smoke. A terrible racket sounded, ending in a hard thump reverberating from the ground. Moonchild thought Joseph must be lost in what she thought was the rear of the barn collapsing, but she found him in the intact, though now burning horse stalls. Fire drizzled down from above, falling upon Joseph’s head and shoulders. Several small fires were igniting in the bedding.

The horse that had remained inside had a horrible singe across one shoulder where a burning board must have fallen on her. Part of her mane and her tail were burned short. Both horses were wild-eyed and ignoring Joseph’s attempt to get their attention and their leads. Moonchild remembered her impact with the wall, but she flew up to the closest horse’s ear, wrapped her arms around it tightly and held it down flat. She could sense the horse’s attention shift from panic to partial sensibility for her ear. Moonchild squeezed the ear tight as she could. She spoke into the horse’s ear over the fire’s crackling and snapping.

“Easy girl, easy, easy, easy,” she said.

Moonchild hung on while Joseph fumbled for the lead while coughing and wiping his eyes with his sleeve. The other horse stopped rearing and Joseph cautiously swung his arm searchingly until he snatched the whipping lead. With the rafters completely on fire, creaking, popping, and snapping, they started out.

Moonchild clung to the horse’s ear for dear life and kept encouraging the horse while staying alert for walls and ceilings in case the horses balked. With Joseph pulling hard and alternately shouting in anger or voicing encouragement, the four of them made it out the front door. Father limped over and took one horse’s lead.

Joseph stared at his father’s blood-coated leg that now had mother’s sleep gown sleeve wrapped around it. Moonchild hung to the horse’s ear as Joseph led his horse farther from the burning barn. The family turned to see flames begin leaping out the hayloft and front doors as the rear hayloft crashed with a crunching racket to the ground. Moonchild fluttered down to Eleanor, now awake. The tired girl smiled grimly as the tired faerie crawled into her pocket.

Several neighbors came running with pails of water and ran past the suffering family. The neighbors shouted, asking if everyone was out and master confirmed they were. He told them some cows were still inside, but thought it was too late to save them. Joseph handed off his and master’s horses to a couple fresh neighbor boys. Elizabeth openly sobbed; Eleanor coughed several times, and she and mother silently looked at each other with tears streaking down their muddy and sooty faces. Peeking up out of the pocket at Eleanor, Moonchild gave her friend a pat; she didn’t have any discernible glow because of her own fatigue and over what she now realized about Eleanor. The waning blue moon was not treating them well at all.                                                                                     

       

Reviews

[wondering]

Entertaining, eager to read on, suspensful, believable. good second chapter