Into The Glen: Into The Light: Into The Glen, #1

Copyright © 2021 by Fae Corps Inc

All Rights Reserved.

Al l rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Patricia Harris

Micheal Gillen

To my editors: Josh, Lise, Angie, Bennett, and Laura

Patricia Harris

Dedicated to those I call home. (Cyndi,  Gabrielle, Nick, Nate, Joe)

Serena Mossgraves

Dedicated to the dark places in the human imagination

B.F. Vega

dedicated from H.Q. to Agents: The Kid, Migs, The Man, V, Spam, Hobbe, Chicken, Minya, and Frank-a-Roni, and Agent Lily the ginger T-rex.

Contents

Across the Southeastern Country – Sergio Palumbo

Berwick Law – Kate Meyer

Holly Fairy by Vonnie Winslow Crist

Faerie – Mark Jabaut

Faery Falls  - Patricia Harris

She Seeks- Jericho Hockett

The Monks' Fosterling – Vonnie Winslow Crist

The Fae Places – Serena Mossgraves

In a Wood – Vonnie Winslow Crist

The Honorable Quest – Justine Johnston Hemmestad

Weavers of Words and Worlds – Raz T. Slasher

A Fay’s Playful Dance – Kristin Roahrig

Under The Mystic Moon  - Kristin Roahrig

The Banshee Temple – B.F.  Vega

Crocus – Vonnie Winslow Crist

Walk With Me, Will-o-the Wisp – Fred Gerhard

Teine Sith – Fred Gerhard

Maple Wings – Fred Gerhard

Dandelion Fairy – Fred Gerhard

Slow Silver – Fred Gerhard

Forest Cemetery – Vonnie Winslow Crist

Real Happiness – Micheal Gillen

The Blue Fairy  - Allene Nichols

The Garden Shop – Vonnie Winslow Crist

The Faerie Shelter -  Ivor Steven

The Banshee – Patricia Harris

Finding Faeries– Vonnie Winslow Crist

Ocean Lure – Vonnie Winslow Crist

Land of Play – Kathleen Murphey

Pruning the Orchard – Buffy Aakaash

Paradise – Buffy Aakaash

Common Ancestors – Buffy Aakaash

Walk in the canyon – Buffy Aakaash

The Goat Boutique – Buffy Aakaash

Contents Continued

The Fabulous, Interconnected Living Root Bridges of the Fairies  - Katherine Quevedo

The Harbor Master – Andrew McDowell

On the Edge – Vonnie Winslow Crist

Skinny-Dipping – Vonnie Winslow Crist

About the Authors

About the Publisher

Across the Southeastern Country

by Sergio ‘ente per ente’ PALUMBO

Do you know of that tale, the one about the caves situated under Nullarbor Plain?

Our species, the Little people or Lucharacháin, was not native to this land, to this country, but some of our ancestors boarded a wooden sailing ship in 1840 that transported convicts to Western Australia. It came from Great Britain to what is now modern Sidney, and here we have stayed since then, living in lush areas like Kings Park in Perth or Manea Park in Bunbury, hidden among the shrubs. The small trees and the local vegetation are very different of course from the territories our grandparents inhabited in Europe. Australia was a new home far away from their homeland, undoubtedly!

And now, sitting on one of the tallest branches of a cold-tolerant broad-leaved tree next to a tall Moreton Bay Pine and the rounded, flat crown of a Kauri I just can’t help but remember what happened at that time to one of our next of kin, Dhearg. In those earliest of times he accompanied, though unbeknownst to that man, the sheep farmer known as Edward John Eyre who was the first European to cross the area called the Nullarbor Plain. At that time Australia was largely unexplored, a difficult country.

It seems that, in December 1837, Edward John Eyre himself, originally born in England, started driving 1,000 sheep and 600 cattle overland from Monaro, New South Wales, to Adelaide, South Australia. Eyre, with his livestock and eight stock men, arrived in Adelaide in July 1838 and there he sold the animals for a large profit. Soon thereafter, with the money from the sale, Eyre himself set out to explore the unknown areas of South Australia. By 1839, he had already gone on two separate expeditions: north to the Flinders Ranges and west to beyond Ceduna. The northern-most point of the first expedition was Mount Eyre; it was named that way by Governor Gawler on 11 July 1839, if I well remember…                 Afterwards, in 1840, Eyre went on a third expedition, reaching a lake that was later named, by the humans, Lake Eyre in his honor. But I certainly wouldn’t like to go into a detailed description about these facts…

Then, the same Eyre was the first European to traverse the Nullarbor Plain overland in 1840, on an almost 2,000 mile trip to Albany, Western Australia.

It is known that the party was composed of six white men, together with his Aboriginal friend Wylie, and Baxter, his station manager. They took with them 13 horses, 40 sheep and enough supplies to last three months. But there was also somebody else, unbeknownst to all of them…

Would you like to hear the full story of Edward John Eyre and his unknown companion, my ancestor? If you have a few moments, we can sit here and I will tell you the story.

*****

Dhearg was neither tall nor showy, and he could not have ever been so, after all. Being a Lucharachán, he was about one foot tall, more or less – which was not much even among his own species, which resembled diminutive elves but with long legs. He was two-hundred-years-old, which was also not too much for one of his kind.

A large nose, long hair, an old jacket, some worn trousers full of holes – that was all the clothing he had. That was him.

After he disembarked, the Lucharachán had joined that bearded sheep farmer who wanted to get to the interior of the territory, exploring and discovering what might be there. Actually, Edward John Eyre had not noticed him yet as this member of the Little People was hiding, but Dhearg had not followed him to be of help, of course. Instead, he wanted to feast upon the many food provisions he had spotted in the possession of that human, food meant to be eaten during his long journey. All that had the appeal of great riches to a small and hungry Lucharachán like him. This was especially true in those lands where food was scarce at that time, and travelers didn’t have many chances to eat anything delicious in those arid places, or in the few small villages that one might pass by.

It seemed that many of the humans had crossed the oceans like him, hoping to become wealthy farmers, but the different soil and the lack of rain was not what they had expected, and their dreams of great abundance soon turned into disappointment.                 This wasn’t true for everyone, but it certainly was what had happened to several among those seeking a better life. As for him himself, this member of the Little People had left his homeland as it was quickly changing for the worse, with men destroying the ancient forests and building new factories everywhere that took the place of the previous rivers and lakes, turning their ancestral lands into something completely different from what they once were.

Dhearg could never have imagined, however, that all the food provisions the bearded man had with him wouldn’t last for long and that the desert he was going through, with the small Lucharachán in his knapsack, was so fatally arid and so without life. During the trip, there would be no way to find anything to eat or even water to drink! How could anyone have known that things would become so desperate that three of the human’s horses would die of dehydration? The little creature should have thought better than to follow these humans, as they didn’t seem to be very lucky, nor did they have a clear plan about how to survive on their way to Fowler’s Bay.

‘Damn’, damn’, damn’!’, Dhearg thought.

He should have decided against going with Eyre when the party started traveling westward across what is now known as Eyre Peninsula. As it turned out, along the coast the arid conditions and lack of water or rain would force Edward John Eyre, eventually, to send all of the members of his party back to Adelaide.

The Nullarbor Plain was an area of completely flat, almost treeless, arid country. It was a featureless terrain that looked like the largest single exposure of limestone bedrock the Lucharachán had ever seen. He could not have imagined that such an empty place might exist, until now. Occupying thousands of square leagues, within that sort of area one only saw in nightmares there were no fertile lands to entice humans to settle in. The only vegetation was the low salt-bush and Blue-bush scrub. The Nullarbor represented the boundary between eastern and western Australia and, covering the whole distance of it, which was situated in ‘the middle of nowhere’, would apparently be a significant achievement, if it could be done. Who knows, maybe Eyre thought that a smaller party would have a better chance, and he wanted to have the possibility to become the first man to cross that hard plain. But the desolate country wasn’t what those four men with 11 pack horses and 6 sheep expected to find along the way.

At a certain point, the Aborigines showed them how to break off the organs of the plants that typically lay below the surface of the soil and suck those to relieve their thirst. Eventually there was no relief because the Nullarbor Plain had no trees, so there was no shade from the fierce heat of the sun during most of the day. Besides, there were almost no ways to reach the sea because of the huge cliffs.

The pack horses found it difficult to travel through the sand so Eyre was forced to leave the party’s firearms behind. He also left horseshoes, spare water bags, and even clothing. One by one the animals had to be left behind as well. Soon their water was gone. Food became scarce so they killed a sick horse for food, but that meat made Eyre and Baxter very ill.

The Aborigines tried to go on alone, but returned after a couple of days almost starving. They were now about halfway to the West Australian coast and it was winter in this strange southern part of the world. Because those humans had been forced to leave their clothes behind, they suffered from the cold at night. The Lucharachán, at least, was more used to it, thanks to his inhuman physique, anyway.

There was not much hope left, at that moment, or so Dhearg thought. At first, he had even considered that he might try to bite, and eat, a portion of a finger of one of those bearded men when they slept and dreamt at night, but he had soon removed that image from his mind as the difference in size was all in favor of those humans and against him. It might provoke those men into eating him when they saw him! Other than that, he had never been very gifted at using the crude tricks that came from the sorcerous strength all of his species were endowed with, so he knew he’d better not try anything funny. That was one