Episode 1 - Heck

1801 | Late summer | Falmouth Forest, Cornwall

“I don’t think this is such a good idea, uncle,” I said, holding my hands above my head for the fourth time since this morning. My stomach started to grumble with hunger and my face was already covered in dirt.

“Just be still. It’s not working because you keep moving,” uncle Shayde snapped back, glancing over his notes, also for the fourth time. For as long as he’s been my guardian, uncle Shayde has been tinkering on some invention. And I must admit, some of them are quite exciting or even dangerous. Then there are those that make very little sense to me. But as everyone seems to find my uncle to be on the strange side, I’m all he’s got when it comes to testing out his experiments.

My arms started to get tired from holding them up when, “I think I’ve got it!” He thrust both his hands towards me and spoke words I couldn’t quite understand. The ground beneath my feet quaked slightly. Was this it? Was his experiment working? He would never tell me what was supposed to happen until after it happened. He wants to see my honest reaction.

My stomach grumbling seemed to get louder until it resulted in a belch that echoed in his study. Almost immediately the ground stopped quaking and everything became still. It clearly didn’t work…again…

Uncle Shayde plopped himself down onto his chair that creaked beneath his weight and slammed a fist down on the table, scattering his papers. There was something about this particular experiment that seemed to worry him more than the others. I could tell.

“I’m sorry, uncle. I’m just really hungry.” I put my arms down, thankful for the release, but he didn’t bother to look up at me. “Uncle?”

As if in a trance he looked over at me like I was a stranger. “I need this to work. Time is running out, dear boy.”

He shuffled papers around until he found his half empty bottle of liquor. Faeries don’t easily get drunk but for some reason my uncle always seemed to go someplace else whenever he drank. I didn’t realize just how much he’d had before I woke up this morning. If I had I probably wouldn’t have let him talk me into helping him. None of his experiments work when he’s drunk.

But when he’s drunk is the only time I have to ask him questions about my mother and father. The kind he always avoided answering when he first arrived and freed me from my cage.

“Why is time running out? What’s happening?” Ever since I’ve known him, in his drunken stupor, he’s mentioned an evil that was on its way. But after several years of this and no danger in sight, I’ve taken to believing him less and less. As far as I could tell, we are all safe here.

“I didn’t mean to tell him about the tree. It’s not my fault, Tara.” That’s my mother’s name. His sister. He’s always talking to her like she’s here beside him. I hate that he does that. He knows as well as I do that she’s gone forever and never coming back. “But I’ll make it right. You’ll see. The boy is the key.”

“I’m going to get us some breakfast uncle. You need to sober up and I have plans to—never mind.” I know my uncle is never fully drunk. I need to be careful that he isn’t tricking me to find out what I might be up to. Getting into trouble is the only thing that keeps me here. The home where no one wants me. No one, that is, except my friend, Stiggers.

I leave my uncle to mumble out loud to himself and make my way, on foot, through the tunnels till I reach the outside. My favorite place to be is above ground. Ever since I was set free, I like to spend as much time as I can out in the open air.

Where Stiggers lives is near the water, away from where the other faeries might find her. As I approach I can hear her loud snoring. “Unbelievable,” I murmur under my breath. I find her hidden away, tucked under some leaves and branches. The mound rises and falls with her every breath. I get as close to her as possible, preparing myself to shout and fly away as quickly as possible—

“Who goes there?!” Stiggers pops her head up suddenly, sending me flying through the air, head over feet, till I collide with a tree a few feet away and fall to the ground rather ungracefully. From my position on the ground I can see Stiggers has rolled over onto her back and is laughing hysterically at me. “Thought you were going to sneak up on me, did you?”

“No fare. You’ve got a better sense of smell than I have and you knew I was here already.”

“Yes, but you can fly.” Stiggers always tries to use the fact that I’m a faeries as reason enough for why it’s okay for her to scare me every chance she gets. “Why are you here so early and in a rather dirty state, if you don’t mind my saying?”

“I do mind you saying. But it’s uncle again. Going about some danger. I’m far too hungry this early in the morning for that.”