Grams told me bedtime stories about the fey. Not about princess and pumpkin carriages like other kids got. The fairies around here—they have teeth.
That’s why Grams raised me. Mom and Pop, they used to live here, too. Not much besides the farmhouse and lots of trees.
There was a storm coming. Mom and Pop brought the cows in early, but one was missing. Pop went to go find it. When he didn’t come back, Mom went looking.
Grams says they would’ve come home if they could’ve. But the fey around here are hungry things.
My Grams, she wasn’t about to let me make the same mistake. She fashioned an iron necklace, just like she wears, and I never take it off. Mom and Pop, they thought it was just superstition. But they’re gone now.
Grams is getting old. Some days, she can’t leave her bed. So, it’s up to me to keep the farm running. Up to me to check the traps.
Up to me to go hunting.
We don’t have cows anymore—not as many, anyway. Just a few, for fresh milk. The rest, we had to sacrifice. The fey were getting too close to the farmhouse, and Grams—she’s done her best to hold the line, but it’s taking its toll on her. That’s why we rely on iron, now. Iron and blood to keep the perimeter.
The way’s so familiar, I can walk it with my eyes closed. A hundred-foot boundary around the farm fashioned from bear traps and sacred rites.
There used to be other farms. More people. Lots of animals. They wouldn’t have tried a boundary like this, back then. But things got rough. Most of the old families sold off their livestock and moved. Suddenly, there weren’t enough warm-blooded creatures to feed the fey. They got hungrier and hungrier.
Thing about being immortal is, no matter how hungry you get, you can’t die.
First trap I check is triggered, but empty. They do that—they’re clever things, some of them. Still can’t cross the boundary—just makes more work for me.
I reset the trap and keep going. I don’t like leaving Grams too close to dark.
The second trap holds something thin and spindly. I can count its ribs. Its yellow eyes go wide at the sight of me. It spits and furiously gnaws at its leg. I stand and watch.
I’ve been waiting for this.
The snap! of bone is my only warning before the fey streaks off, faster than any mortal despite its bleeding stump.
But I have my own surprises.
The snarl that rips through the woods sends the fey skittering, looking back over its shoulder in disbelief. They always do—not used to being prey, they always fall victim to stupid mistakes. The error gives me time to catch up. Its body is brittle under my hands, its throat bitter under my teeth. Copper warmth washes into my mouth as I bite and rip. The creature goes limp in my grasp.
My work is not yet finished.
I carry the dead fey to a ritual site—the one that’s gone unquenched the longest. The thing’s blood coats me as I sling its corpse onto the ground, arranging its limbs inside the carved sigil. The iron medallion dangles from my throat, growing warm in approval as I disembowel and dismember the body. Inscribed on the coin’s surface is a goat’s head with curving horns and three eyes. His image—at least, the one He chose to wear when my Grams summoned Him, all those years ago.
He will keep us safe, she’d said as she slipped the medallion around my neck. So long as we keep Him fed. He keeps his own.
I certainly hope so.
Wiping my hands on my stained pants, I survey my work one last time, then head back to the farm.