Of the Wild

OF THE WILD

E. Wambheim

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, or actual locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © E. Wambheim, 2021

Cover design and illustration by Hannah Culbert

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews or articles.

First paperback edition June 2021

ISBN 978-1-7357532-0-1 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-7357532-1-8 (ebook)

For Hannah C.

This one was yours from the beginning.

OF THE WILD

E. Wambheim

I

Q

uiet now, his earlier wailing no more than an echo, the infant cradled in Aeris’s arms gazed up, unblinking, at the myriad of faces peering down at him.

What will he look like? one of the other children asked. Her tail curled around Aeris's wrist. I bet he'll get feathers.

Horns, hissed another, and Big, big scales, came from a third. The bets flew fast, then—a gathering susurration of excitement over their newest sibling. Those who couldn't fly or climb tugged at the sweeping hem of Aeris's night-black cloak and begged to see.

At the rising noise, the baby's face crumpled, and Aeris could hear, just at the edge of sound, the high, high whine that proceeded a proper howl. The infant's cheeks, already rosy, turned tomato-red.

I hear you, sweetling, Aeris whispered, soft and smooth, as the baby’s mouth screwed into a puckered frown. Tiny hands emerged from the cocoon of blankets, equally tiny fingers curling and uncurling into weak, waving fists.

What's he doing?

I can't see him--

What's he doing?

Aeris cradled the new baby against his chest and seated himself cross-legged to give the watchers on the floor a better view. Those perched on his arms and shoulders shifted to keep their balance. The rest of his family clambered over his gleaming black boots to settle in and around his lap. Small claws and talons caught in the velvet of his breeches, but he whisked away the damage with a thought.

The noise startled him. He swept a half-serious frown over those he could see, but all eyes were on the baby. The infant blinked, newly-quiet, and Aeris had been so unable to stop smiling that he fell easily into doing so again. We have to speak softly until he is used to us.

One of the small, fat-fingered hands patted against the thick grey fur of the child nearest, and though someone gasped in excitement, no one squealed or shouted. A three-fingered hand returned the contact and nestled into the baby's wispy brown hair. The baby gurgled, and Aeris's smile wavered.

They left him crying, he began, and another silence fell, this one tight and anxious. They left him crying tonight—and for too many before. They left him hungry and frightened.

None of the children spoke. Aeris lifted his dark, dark eyes from the new baby to take in the children clustered around him. Mira, once half-drowned, now grey but alive, the dark slits of gills stark against the pale curve of her neck. Orion, covered in the thick, rough-edged scales that had grown over his cuts and bruises. June, her hands bent and broken beyond what magic could fix, her knuckles soft with moss and a fuzz of white flowers. Eris, sprouting pale blue mushrooms on his bare shoulders and down his back, their clustered caps glowing enough to shed a weak, watery light in the black depths of midnight.

In total, his children numbered twenty-three, now twenty-four, each one plucked from rain-swept doorways or fished out of old sacks or lifted from cold and careless houses. The forgotten, the unwanted, the unloved. So many of them smaller than they had been in life, their bodies compressed and twisted into whatever shape they thought would keep them safe. Too many with beaks and claws and fangs. Too many with shells and scales and ridges of bone.

They wanted a baby who did not cry, who did not fuss. They wanted a baby who would not wake them in the night. So, Aeris continued, spinning his voice back into levity, I left them a stone. They shall see it as their child and never know the difference.

That sent a shimmer of laughter through those gathered. In his lap, the baby squirmed, and Aeris nestled him on the floor between two of his fluffier siblings.

"He may be terrifying, he went on, to another, stronger spate of giggles. With great, gleaming eyes for seeing in the dark. Or horns—here and here. He pressed his fingertips against Orion's forehead—and Orion squirmed away with a bubbling laugh. Aeris rocked forward, scooped up Mira, and swung her into the air. Or rabbit legs, he announced over her sudden peal of laughter, for bounding over your head."

As he set her back down, tiny, crooked hands and claws reached up, each owner begging for their turn to be tossed, but Aeris swept over them with a finger to his lips. Or fluffy ears, he whispered, tugging gently at the tips of his own, to hear everything. Those might grow in first. So rest now and keep quiet, so he does not fret again.

Did anyone see you? This from Aimee, who crouched nearly behind him, so that Aeris had to lift his arm and peer around the edge of his cloak to see her properly. Her tall, tufted ears lay flat against her skull, and she kept her paws tucked in her lap, hidden from sight. Is anyone going to come looking for him?

Between his new siblings, still in his nest of blankets, the baby had closed both huge, bright eyes. Aeris brushed a thumb through the mused brown hair.

If either of his parents come to claim him, he began, quiet and serious and storm-cloud dangerous, "they will have a steep price to pay for what they have done, and very, very few find they want to bargain with a creature of the Wild Woods."

II

The parents did not come.

The Tall Ones did.

Aeris smelled them before he saw them, their scent a wash of spearmint sharp and stinging. His children smelled them, too: all around the glen, they froze and dropped into the grass with ears flat or fur on end or eyes wide and yellow. Those with wings or sturdy claws retreated to the high, spidering branches of the Home Tree. Only the baby, cooing in the fallen leaves at his knee, remained oblivious.

They did not so much appear as drift into focus between the autumn trees. One looked much like the other: stretched tall, of course, and twig-thin with pale purple skin and dragonfly wings. They clustered on the far side of Aeris's border, and Aeris could feel, like an itch beneath his skin, their testing of his magic.

In a single motion, he rose and sprang for the border, twisting into bat—badger—panther—then something all raised hackles and wicked claws. Go away, he growled. "Go away."

They laughed. The nearest one, his eyes eggshell-white, favored Aeris's wild shape with a smooth and perfect smile. Aeris, he began, and the charm dripped off his words like honey, we came to see your newest little one.

He could feel them testing the boundary still, and he bared his teeth, sent a new flood of pass-not pass-not pass-not into the border.

Aeris. Another smile, another laugh, this one still full of a bell-like sweetness. If you steal them so, you cannot be upset when others think of doing the same.

He is not for the taking, he managed, speaking with a mouth increasingly ill-equipped for speech. He wanted to spin into a storm, into thunder and lightning and thrashing rain. "None of them are for the taking."

And your claim? They are not your kin. You have no ties.

Their home is here. Their home is with me.

If you wanted halflings of your own, you needed only a willing mortal.

Aeris gave no answer but a growl, the crack and rumble of it tearing through his chest and throat. Pass-not pass-not pass-not, he insisted again, this time with force enough to send the nearest stumbling back. Behind him, safely distant, one of his children blew a raspberry.

The Tall Ones laughed again, and this time the sound was harsh and grating. Keep them for now, one said, as the foremost, mocking, tapped a finger to his chest. We all measure your time, Aeris, and it shortens.

They faded, then, drifting out and out and out of focus until they vanished altogether. An autumn breeze pulled scarlet leaves from the canopy and sent them twirling like wild sparks into the moss and undergrowth.

Aeris remained stiff-legged at the border. Their scent faded until he could smell nothing beyond earth and encroaching rain and decomposing leaves.

A rustle in the air above him, then in the grass beside, snapped his attention away from the trees. Bess crouched beside him, her white-and-black feathers flared in a ruff around her neck and all down her back. She tugged, uneasy, at the grass underfoot.

Are they gone? she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper. She turned midnight-blue eyes to his. Did you win?

Aeris swept back into the shape most welcome: human but for the ears, his dark hair loose around his shoulders. He opened his arms, and Bess flew up at once, crashed into his chest, and dug her claws into the fabric of his coat. He wrapped her in a hug, as tight as he dared given the hollow fragility of her bones, and carried her away from the tree line.

They have gone, he promised, fierce still, simmering still. Slowly, slowly, he let go, let go, and properly softened. He touched his nose to the ruff of her feathers. They have gone.

Did they want the baby?

Yes.

Well, they can’t have him.

The infant in question squirmed his pile of leaves and batted at the brightest, crumbled them between inelegant fingers. Aeris settled beside him once again, Bess still in his arms and nuzzled close against the curve of his neck. They have gone, he said again. They shall not get him, sweetling. Not him nor any of you.

Around him, gradually, his children eased back into motion. He could hear the scratch of talons on tree bark as climbers made their way down from the Home Tree; a few, from the sound of muffled laughter and the thump of feet on the earth, simply jumped down instead. A game of catch-me-if-you-can rekindled, drew its players back up into a whirl of giggles and giddy abandon.

Some, however, darted across the grass to sit with Aeris instead, to shelter under the fall of his coat or to wedge themselves into the shelter of his arms and each other. Amaya, with a tiny growl, crouched down beside the new baby; Pel resettled his wings beneath his carapace and pulled the edge of Aeris's coat around his iridescent shoulders. The rest jumbled in his lap or as close as they could manage, and Aeris murmured over and again, They are gone. They are gone. They are gone.

III

We all measure your time, Aeris.

He traced the grooves of the Tree’s rough bark, the edges catching at his fingertips. The nighttime orchestra of crickets and the deep, soft breathing of his sleeping children filled the hollow Tree with a peaceful music. Each of them lay curled within their alcoves, wrapped in blankets or sleeping warm without. Drifting wild-lights lit the inverted bowl of the ceiling with a warm and flickering glow.

Outside, the Tree towered above Aeris like a jagged black shadow against the sky, old and twisted, with bark so weathered it seemed more stone than wood. Wind stirred its bare branches, and with the breeze came the first whisper of winter.

Aeris could feel against his palm the Tree's sluggish crawl of life. The churning river of magic once pulsing beneath the bark had slowed to a trickle, and life wavered with it.

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the Tree's stony bark. Please, he begged—not as a spell, not as a magic, just as a prayer. Please, not yet.

IV

Hori woke him the next morning with claws on his coat and a whispered, Dani! Dani! There's something outside.

He sat up in the darkness, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "What