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Faerie Ring
by A.F. Stewart

My Mam, God rest her soul, believed in faeries. Told my brother and I all the stories and laid on us all the warnings. Never cross the faeries, she said. Never make a deal with a faerie, never give them your name, and never ever go to the stone circles on the hill at sunset.

That’s when the faeries come out to dance. More than once she told us they’d snatch us clean away and we’d never see this world again. I attended to every word, soaking in her wisdom, but of course, my brother didn’t heed. 

A wild one, was my brother.

He thought Mam was more than daft for believing and made fun of the old beliefs when out of her earshot. Laughed at her, he did, called her warnings superstitions, and flaunted her teachings behind her back. I followed him sometimes, when he and his friends went to the stone circles at night. I watched them drink whisky and beer, and carouse with fool girls into the wee hours. And sometimes, I wasn’t the only one watching. Some nights the hilltop filled with lurking shadows, all eager eyes and greedy smiles.  

Not that my brother saw them. 

Yet he courted trouble, going there regularly until the day he left our village. When he left me alone to take care of our Mam. Not that I minded, but it made me realize how much I disliked my brother. 

I guess that animosity is why I didn’t listen to Mam, either.

It happened after she passed, the day after her funeral. My brother came home, back to the house all swagger and piss, saying the place was his now, never mind that I had as much right to it, even more seeing I stayed. Tried to kick me out, he did.

But I’m stubborn. And a damn sight more clever. I remembered those days at the stone circles, those other eyes watching him with hunger. I made my plan. After a week, I told him I would sign over my claim, but only if he would raise a glass to Mam at the stone circles. He laughed, scoffed at my sentimentality, but agreed.

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Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

 

More from A.F. Stewart:

Visions and Nightmares

Tragedy spares no one… and takes no prisoners.
In the twilight shadows, secrets are revealed past the whispers of madness.

Wander into the realm of the old gods with Elenora, where humanity and marriage are a prison.
Step through a looking glass of dark horrors with an Alice you never knew.
Join with Zenna to seek the truth as her death by magic grows closer.
Journey with Olivia as she crosses paths with a monster of the forest and runs for her life.
Watch Isobel summon the faerie to solve her problem of an unwanted husband.
Shiver as Doctor Killbride experiments with corpses to create life from death.
All that and more await within the pages.

Ten stories. Ten women.
Who will survive? Who will fall? And who will succumb to their inner evil?
Find out in Visions and Nightmares.

Warning: This book contains disturbing scenes that may be upsetting to some readers.

Available on Amazon!