IGHWAY 256 WAS A COLD gray line that stretched through the night splitting the blackness of the woods in two An hour before dawn the hungry world was waking A swarm of insects hummed along the paved shoulder A pheasant ruffled from sleep turned a beady eye across the highway and toward the sound The bird started across the blacktop Whaaaap In a spray of blood and feathers the pheasant was hurled to the side of the road The man behind the wheel of the passing truck glanced in his rearview mirror Next to him sat his daughter hunched down in her seat She yawned and rubbed her eyes What was that Daddy Hunting her father answered We’re going hunting But Daddy it’s posted No hunting We can’t Dumb bird he sighed Pheasant I guess Never knew what hit it Jim McCormack was tired His son Charlie was sick and had spent most of the night throwing up in the bathroom So Jim had endured the long hours stretched out on the living room couch with a blanket while his wife tended to the boy In the dim light Jim had watched the time on the wall clock crawl by and at 5 AM he sat up stalked to his daughter’s bed and gave her a shake Get up Anna he said you and me are going hunting Anna was not a hunter She didn’t even have a license and her experience with a shotgun was limited to one botched session at the skeet-shooting range The gun’s recoil had slammed the stock into her chin and sent her crying into her mother’s arms But Jim wanted to go hunting and he hated to hunt alone So Anna would have to do Daddy why are we stopping here murmured Anna when five minutes later her father pulled the pickup onto a dirt road next to a POSTED NO HUNTING OR TRESPASSING sign
We can do whatever we want here Jim explained This is our land I bought this property yesterday at auction Twelve hundred acres Your mother’s mad at me She thinks we can’t afford it But now it’s McCormack land free and clear Twelve hundred acres of woods hills streams and all the critters that live there This is the one place on earth we can do whatever we want So don’t mind the sign From now on that’s for everybody else but us Jim cut the motor turned off the headlights and lifted two shotguns from behind the seat Zip up your jacket he said stepping out of the truck He pulled some shells from his pocket and slipped them into the trigger mounts of each Remington Then he handed his daughter a shotgun and led the way into the woods This is your brother’s gun he said Treat it like it was your own The forest was much darker than the highway had been Entering the dense undergrowth as vines low-hanging branches and cobwebs brushed their cheeks Anna and her father moved slowly into the woods They made their way by instinct more than sight by chance more than vision the girl staying close to her father’s side Their breath came out in puffs of vapor instantly swallowed by darkness Daddy it’s too dark the girl whispered Where are we going I can’t The sky’s getting brighter her father interrupted Look up past the trees over the hill you’ll see Anna looked but remained unconvinced Oh she cried stumbling on a fallen branch and grabbing her dad’s sleeve The pair wandered on for perhaps a quarter of a mile The sky was brightening just as Jim said it would and a fiery splinter of sun edged up over the horizon They trudged a little farther into the uninviting heart of the forest But neither Jim nor Anna recognized the moment when they stepped across the boundary of their own world and entered another It was a place where few human feet had ever trod Even in daylight the rupture looked like little more than a blur at the edge of sight But now it was growing shape-shifting a gaping hole in the rugged density of the forest It was a gash in the face of time and space and everything that was real The trees on the other side of the opening might have appeared somehow taller the air might have had a sweeter smell but it was at first too subtle a difference to tell Anna and her father would never realize that as they stepped across the void they had left the world they knew completely behind Anna heard the sound first It was like singing The voice was thin and high
but it was a real voice Not a bird not the whisper of the wind And through sweet seasons spreads our joy o’er meadow copse and hedge for thee and this our Woodland Home undying love I pledge Daddy did you hear that Anna murmured Ssssh hissed her father I think I see something up ahead There was a dim flickering of light It was like the glow of distant candles or fireflies untold scores of them Hold up Jim whispered and reached an arm out to stop his daughter Suddenly the deer were visible At first they were no more than ghosts dreamy mounds of vapor and a heartbeat later they were solid and real There was an entire herd of them albinos with gleaming white coats facing away into a clearing Beyond them was a tower nearly twenty feet high Tiny creatures of flame danced on the spreading tips of antlers which stretched out from the skeleton of the structure The tower was wreathed in flowers Little figures stood at the tower’s apex and descended stairs along its side joining a vast crowd Not one of the beings would have reached higher than a human knee Jim McCormack held his breath and stared yet all he saw were the deer who were there to witness the Faerie wedding of Alfheim Blind to the alien world and the ceremony taking place he nudged his daughter’s elbow I’m going to get the big one he hissed Jim slid the barrel forward closing the action and squeezed the trigger With a loud bang and a burst of sulfur the twelve-gauge shotgun loosed its fury Anna startled dropped her own gun and pressed her hands to her ears The mighty Deer King turned his head as death sped through an open space between his antlers At the top of the wedding tower the Elfin groom stepped forward to sweep his beloved out of harm’s way and the slug tore him in half His emerald-colored Blood gushed out and his body toppled from the back of the tower Pandemonium erupted as the Faerie Folk snatched up their young and ran from the scene of horror The deer leapt and scattered in every direction The hunter raced forward He pumped the shotgun ejecting the shell and dropped another into the slot Get your gun Anna come on Jim shouted Let’s bring home a trophy Nobody’s going to believe what we saw today When Jim reached the center of the clearing he bumped into something and fell As he got to his feet he caught a brief glimpse of a toppled tower Fire Sprites were leaping from the carved ramparts and disappearing in the air Jim
shook the vision from his head and charged after the buck Daddy Anna called with tears in her eyes stumbling after him Wait Suddenly something small swift and silvery made its way around Anna’s legs The creature was muttering words in a language Anna had never heard before With her next breath her eyes rolled up in her head and she slipped to the ground Though still conscious the girl lay paralyzed unable to move Anna’s father was in hot pursuit of the deer He was completely unaware of the Faerie Folk scurrying toward a slight bulge in a ravine just ahead Down a short flight of moss-covered steps the skin of a translucent tube five or six feet in diameter lay exposed It resembled a root or the ribbed back of a gigantic white earthworm The Faerie Folk called it the Cord Invisible to Human eyes the Cord was part of a network that spread along the surface of the earth It wove in and out of the soil binding their world together like arteries that pulse blood through a living body The Faerie Folk knew how to enter the Cords where they rose out of the ground and travel on the winds that blew inside them Now the Cord was their means of escape As the first Elves Trolls Pixies Gnomes and Brownies appeared they used their fingernails to slice through the Cord’s thin rubbery surface Widening the slit they bent into the opening to see if the path was clear and slipped inside Their bodies hurtled like storm-tossed leaves through the tunnel The Cord would give them passage to a safer place somewhere anywhere far away Ladies-in-waiting guided the Elfin Princess Asra down the green carpet With her gown torn and a shoe missing from her bruised foot Asra knelt at the entrance where guards held the slit open for the royal family to enter Her parents hovered at her side ready for the journey to the kingdom of Ljosalfar This was the homeland of the dead Prince and where the Elves of Alfheim would stay until it was safe to return Where’s your other shoe the Queen cried I I don’t know answered Asra The Queen moaned Alfheim brides have worn the diamond shoes for centuries Without them a curse will fall upon our house We can’t leave here without the pair N-n-nonsense stammered King Thorgier Asra’s father We’ll send scouts to find the shoe and b-b-bring it home A distant cousin of the groom Prince Macta scurried from behind Wait he cried clutching at the broken feathers of Asra’s bridal train Princess you needn’t be afraid I’m here to protect you
