Dragons in the Woods
A Fantasy Story
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” – G.K. Chesterton
As the last light of the day trembled and began to fail, Reuel put down his axe and stared out over the valley below. He liked to finish his weeks chopping firewood, because he could look out from the woodhouse and down over the trees beyond the edge of his property which dropped to the little stream below. He liked to gaze out at the red trees in the golden-yellow November light and watch the fires on the opposite side of the valley which marked other farms.
Reuel stacked the wood he’d chopped and put away his axe in the shed. As the late November light faded around him, he made his way back to the cottage where his wife would be finishing up a warm stew. As the sun fell below the horizon, the air chilled quickly. It felt as though something of substance had gone out of the air, which had become emptier. Reuel shivered.
When he walked inside the cottage, his daughter Marian gave a shout and ran to meet him. He lifted her up in his arms and she laughed and tugged at his beard.
“Papa,” she said, “Mama took us down to the village and we found a new book.”
As one of the few men in the village who could read and write, Reuel was proud that his six-year-old daughter already read books on her own. As soon as she had shown a knack for it, when his wife had tried teaching her a year ago, they had done everything they could to encourage it. Their son, Marc, could read, but showed little interest in it. Reuel had put him to work on the farm. He looked around now to see if his son was around.
Marc was in the kitchen helping his mother. “I heard you went into the village today,” Reuel said to the two of them.
“Mama and Marian did,” replied Marc. “I stayed to fix the roof you asked me about.”
At eleven, Marc still looked like a boy. Reuel wished his son could have more time as a child. He felt a stab every time he heard his son speak. The boy did everything his father asked him. But Reuel wondered whether he worked Marc too hard. Marc never wanted to play with his sister anymore and he was already taking it upon himself to walk around the farm looking for jobs to do. Reuel needed the help, but the boy was too young to spend all his days working.
“Papa,” said Marian. “Let me show you the book.”
She had followed her father into the kitchen. She held up a bound volume which was the size of her chest. Reuel squatted down to take it from her. In greying letters on a brown cover, it read, “Magickal Creatures of the Fairie Woode.”
“That’s very nice, dear,” said Reuel, patting his daughter on the head. He straightened up and looked at his wife.
“Papa, have you ever seen an elf?” asked Marian, still holding up her book for her father to see.
Reuel looked down and smiled. “No, of course not,” he said. “Marian, elves are just in storybooks.” He gave his wife a knowing look to make sure she knew he was right about books filling their daughter’s head with ideas. He wished his wife would find books on astronomy or natural philosophy for Marian. Something useful. Something educated people understood.
“No, they’re not,” said Marian. “They come at night and steal people’s souls. They’re all dark and grey and have twisted faces and they’re wrinkled and they wear hoods and they take your soul if you…”
“That’s enough, Marian,” said Reuel. “Go and put your book away and get ready for supper.”
Marian still wanted to talk about elves while they were sitting over their meat and potatoes. Reuel sighed and went back to the kitchen to refill his mug of beer. When he came back, he saw that his wife had lighted an extra candle. Marc had taken the hint and was quiet, for he knew his mother only wanted more light when she was bothered by something, but Marian was too young to notice.
“In the story,” Marian said with her mouth full of potato, “the elves come at night into the village and they burn the houses and anyone who isn’t burned they take their souls.”
“Good thing we don’t live in that village,” said Marian’s mother.
“Did you hear that over in Gruourk a man created a light which needs no fire and comes on with a switch?” asked Reuel, trying to change the subject. “Katerina, what do you say I go and see what it costs to buy one from him one of these days. We have a little money saved up and we’d be the first house in all of Kandasheir to have one.”
“A candle with no flame?” his wife asked.
“Isidor said in the village that it has something to do with lightning.”
“From the sky?” asked Marian.
“Yes. Think of that. A man took lightning from the sky and made a light that doesn’t go out.” To his daughter he added. “This is not your grandparents’ world.”
Marian said that the elves could make light without fire, too, but they did it by casting a spell. Reuel told her that spells were also just in books and added, “Marian, the rest of us are finished eating. I want you to sit there and finish your potatoes quietly and let someone else talk.”
Later that night, Reuel told his wife that maybe Marian needed to be given more chores around the homestead.
“Why can’t you let her be a child, Reuel?” his wife replied, watching him lay his clothes out for the next morning. “At least give her more time than you gave Marc.”
“I need Marc’s help,” said Reuel. “We can’t afford to let…”
She interrupted him. “If we can afford light made of static electricity, we can afford to let our children have a little more time before they have to grow up. You’re just troubled by this talk of elves.”
“It’s silly,” said Reuel. “What will the other families think? This is a modern world. This isn’t our parents’ world. Marian will have us jumping at shadows telling stories of elves stealing souls in the woods. Old magic and fairie tales. It was all well to believe in that sort of thing when everywhere was lit by candlelight, but not when men can make light without fire and turn it on with a switch. Hah, fairie stories and elves.”
“What’s the harm in it?” asked his wife. “She’s only six. Why does it bother you to have her imagining elves in the woods?”
“It’s the sort of thing people used to believe in, but not now in the clear light of day. The world is different Katerina. It moves more quickly. We can’t raise her for the old world. She won’t be prepared for life in this world if she spends more time on fairie stories and magical creatures than she does on the sound principles of natural philosophy. People don’t believe in turning lead into gold anymore. They’re making new metals by blending them together.”
“There will be time enough for all that,” said Katerina.
“When, when she’s all grown up?”
“I meant in the morning.”
A few days later, Reuel took his daughter with him into the woods to hunt deer. He would have taken his son, because he knew how much Marc liked to hunt, but someone needed to stay and tend to the animals and besides he wanted to show Marian that there weren’t any elves in the woods. She had talked of nothing else for days, and no matter how many times Reuel tried to explain to her that he knew these woods like the back of his hand, and that neither his father nor his grandfather had ever seen an elf, nor had anyone he had ever known, she wouldn’t stop talking about them. He threatened to take away her book, and finally that made her quiet, but Katerina objected to this.
“What’s the harm in it, Reuel?” she had asked.
“This is what happens when we raise them out here in Kandasheir, away from the civilized world. We’re disadvantaging her and Marc for the coming modern economy. We should take them to one of the cities. There they could teach them about the principles of natural philosophy and how to navigate in the new industries. Marc could get a job in manufacturing. It would be better than keeping him out here to work in the woods on a farm.”
Reuel hadn’t won the argument, but now he was taking Marian hunting, to show her that even these backwater woods were still governed by the same ordinary principles of natural philosophy as operated in the cities.
It was as they were rounding a tree to come up out of a hollow that Marian said she saw an elf.
“Don’t be silly,” replied her father. “There’s no such thing.”
“It was, too. It looked just how the book said it would look. It went to hide behind a tree.”
She pointed off to their left, where a dark oak with twisted branches stood as though waiting for them to look behind it.
“How convenient,” said Reuel. “A big tree to hide behind in the middle of the woods as soon as you see an elf. Marian, there aren’t any elves out here. You see things behind every large trunk.”
“No, I don’t,” said the girl indignantly. “Go and look, Papa.”
To show her that there wasn’t an elf, Reuel trudged over to the oak. He thought about unslinging his bow and notching an arrow just in case a deer happened to be hiding behind the tree instead, but thought better of it. That would be too convenient.
“See there isn’t any…” Reuel was saying as he stepped around the tree, when he saw it. He gave a yell and drew his knife. A small, dark creature with leathery skin and pointed ears stood watching him. It wore a dark cloak with the hood thrown back. Its three fingers grasped the haft of a spear. When it saw him, it bared its black teeth and hissed.
“Marian, run away,” Reuel called as the elf lunged at him with its spear. He caught the haft just below the head and swung his knife at the elf, which let go of the spear and scampered away into the woods. It moved quickly for a creature four feet high. Reuel dropped the spear as though it were scalding him. He turned to find his daughter still watching him. He dashed over to scoop her up in his arms. She hugged his neck, but she didn’t seem nearly as frightened as he did.
“You scared it, Papa,” she said.
“Yes, I did, Marian. We’re going home now. Climb up on my shoulders so I can carry you.”
They were barely inside the front door when Marian blurted out, “We saw an elf in the woods.”
Marc happened to be in the kitchen at that time and he came out, followed by his mother. They looked at Reuel. He nodded. “There was some sort of creature,” he said. “Hiding behind a tree. It… did indeed look like the elves in Marian’s storybook. We didn’t imagine it. It tried to stab me with a spear. I got the spear away and it ran off. We came back immediately.”
“So they’re real?” asked Marc.
“No one has seen an elf in hundreds of years,” said Katerina. “We thought our ancestors were imagining them.”
Reuel realized they were all looking at him about what to do. “I don’t know if there are more,” he said. “But this one was dangerous. If Marian is right, they mean us harm. All of us need to be on our guards.”
“We should warn the other villagers,” said Katerina.
“No,” said Reuel. “Not yet.” He looked at Marian. “I don’t want you talking about this to the neighbors. Do you hear that? You are to say nothing to them about elves. They will think we are jumping at shadows.”
“But if there are more then our neighbors will need to know,” said Katerina. “They might be in danger.”
“We don’t know that there are more. We should wait, first. Perhaps there is only one. It wouldn’t do to go frightening the village for nothing.”
None of them saw any elves for days, and Reuel began to relax. In private, he told Katerina more about the elf. The worst part, he told her, was the eyes. For such a revolting creature, it had intelligent eyes. Boring out of a misshapen head and studying him. He told her that he saw those eyes when he slept.
Reuel set up bars on the windows and took to putting a heavy chest in front of the door at night. He started sleeping on a mat on the floor at the foot of the stairs to be between Katerina and the children and anything which came in the door. When everyone had gone to bed, he would go into Marian’s room and take out her new book. He read through it as quickly as he could.
It wasn’t a book for children. He realized that as soon as he finished the first chapter. As far as he could tell, the author didn’t believe it to be a work of fiction. He was worried that maybe it wasn’t. It was very old, older than he had realized when Marian first showed it to him.
Reuel bought another lock for the door in the village. He bought a sword, too. At Katerina’s urging, he began to talk quietly with some of the other men. He tried to explain to them that he hadn’t wanted to believe any of this, but that he couldn’t come up with any explanation other than that it was true – there were elves in the world. And they intended harm for human beings.
To his surprise, most of them didn’t seem to need much convincing. Reuel had always fancied himself a man not prone to superstition and he was glad to see that most of the other villagers believed he was telling the truth. A few said they weren’t sure they believed it, but they didn’t seem to think he was crazy either. Katerina had been telling the women and she said most of them believed in elves already. Reuel wasn’t sure whether that was a sign of credulousness or evidence of wisdom. After all, they were right.
No other villagers saw any elves, and after two weeks had passed Reuel was beginning to relax.
But then Marian came to tell him that she’d seen elves down in the forest. He followed her out to the woodpile.
As he looked out over the valley, Reuel's skin grew cold and his stomach clenched. Now, he could see dark forms moving in the trees, and the longer he watched the more they seemed to swarm over the entire valley. They wore hoods and some carried torches and they roamed in small bands. The forest floor itself seemed to move and as he watched he saw a great column of them coming from the head of the valley, streaming in rows of eight, hoods thrown back now, the last light of the sun glinting off their teeth and their spears. The advance parties began peeling off into the foothills and climbing up the sides of the mountain.
One by one, the fires began to go out on the other side of the valley.
"What's happening Papa?" came the small voice of his daughter.
"It's okay, Marian." Reuel turned around and knelt down. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly so that she couldn't see his face.
"Is it the elves?"
"Yes,” he said very quietly. “Yes, it's the elves."
"Are they here to take our souls?"
"Yes, Marian, but your mother and I won't let them." Reuel rubbed his hands up and down his daughter's back and kept holding her close against his chest.
"Papa, I'm scared," she said.
"That's okay, Marian."