...or at least the person who made her desk so shiny and reflective.
Weird shit happens, man. That's really all I can say outside of I was watching TV (and do thank me for putting that Roger Waters song in your head there... you're welcome. you will enjoy that) in the background, MSNBC 'cause, well, at that hour, there is no more informative voice if you really want a deep rundown on something while lamenting that you're in for at least 26 minutes before a commercial will allow you to lose that 7 or so pressing ounces of excess weight. I cannot recall what the topic of that show was but it was in April of 2018 and the discussion was such that I abandoned all other activity to focus entirely on the winding narrative she puts together. What I do know for sure is that the word "tremendous" was displayed behind her and upon her shiny, reflective desk, five of those words were reflected upside down. That's all I'm going to say outside of that I was also, most likely, somewhat stoned, maybe... but knowing me, it just might have been my ability to activate the now latent THC which has become a part of my genetic structure. A few of you know what I'm talking about...
There is a disclaimer that I've grown used to seeing in almost every submission call I've encountered. The words are always to some degree discouraging children or animals as victims in stories. Thing is, if the story is about a bullied boy hiding from his tormentors, well, that is the story. If it is necessary that a horse be put out of its misery from a leg shattering fall and the only thing handy is a hatchet, what needs to be done needs to be done. Extending beyond my own sins here hinted, this often must be the case for is IT not true that childhood fears extending to adulthood start in childhood and even Atticus Finch was not above putting down a rabid dog.
There is some sick shit in this world. That cannot be denied. It as well should be stomped out whenever found in the natures so abhorrent. That's my opinion and I'll hold to it. By sick shit, I'm not going to disguise my meaning here. In the northernmost parts of Arizona and the southern most parts of Utah, there are a couple little towns that are basically the epitome of religious horror. What I am speaking of the long broken away perversion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints which has gone for generations of unpaid sin, a fundamentalist cult not affiliated with the major American religion heavy in presence in this corner of the nation. This is the "Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", the incestuous, rapist cult ran by Cult Leader Warren S. Jeffs, someone who hopefully will never leave prison. Here in Arizona, dark stories from this secretive cult have always slipped down to the civilized parts of the state, still and even with Jeffs incarcerated.
These perversions of faith, extremes of fundamentalism grasping on to a few specific notations of verse in whatever inspired text they be, exist throughout all families of the Abrahamic traditions. Usually they hide in the shadows, at times though they break forth with hellish ends. It is in the shadows where the true sicknesses are spread, where perversions become holy writ through generations bred. Whether the temple is of the people or it is but a branch divided, they exist in this reality of horrors. They serve as inspiration to those fictitious as well, object lessons that prove the creative mind is always behind the fanatic in terms of contemplation of possible horrors. The best any peddler of tall tales could ever produce is but a shadow distinct only in abstracts. Thus is the nature of the church started by Jonathon Kearns, former Sultan and part owner of the Mortenson Mine in Baird's Holler, Arizona.
Robert A. Heinlein famously never wrote the story of Nehemiah Scudder, the evangelical leader of an extreme fundamentalist perversion of the Christian faith which gains traction for some time in his Future History. While the effects of Scudder's horror reign is felt throughout Heinlein's universe, it was his revulsion at such a character that he could not bring himself to pen the tale of such a man direct. Thankfully, since I am specifically delving into the weird, that becomes fodder for what I can let play out. What I needed were a few verses I could focus on, ones appropriate to the besieged and which would be perfect fodder for some non-thing so damned to twist. Then hint the worst... don't dwell on it but let it be known the specter is there. Only the crude exploit such.
The story of little Esmeralda Kearns is one of a child knowledgeable of her future and what waits. She is terrified of everyone in her family but one of her mothers. She fears her grandfather most of all and the little fairy she plays with when no one is looking, knows this. She doesn't mention this fairy anymore, not after she was prayed over by the whole family. She does not whisper the quiet double-cough anymore but she's afraid because when she turns six, she has to give away her doll, the one she is not supposed to draw eyes on. She knows that when she turns six, the fairies won't want to play with her anymore. She doesn't want to turn six. She wants to meet the Fairy King under the mountain, just like her friend promised her. She wants to, but because of Mama Death out there in the night, all the doors are always locked.
Pitt's Junction, where the Kearns Family arrived in 1885, was renamed Bezer, a fortress in the wilderness where the Kearns' stand guard against the Beast, That Which Damned this valley as a portal to Hell. While I have hinted before in "The Witch of Pitt's Junction" and ever so vaguely in other stories, this was my first real visit since they ran, to the curse of their home, the last of the Unclean from Pitt's Junction and found Bezer. It is here the Kearns' make their stand, besieged at these gates, the tunnel through the mountain to that perfidious town, Baird's Holler where the Patriarch, Jonathon Kearns was once himself among the most wicked of Sinners, a man of mighty pride and wealth before he was saved and commanded to hold from the world this evil at bay, to suffer the sins of torment to protect this world of sin. It was duty, and it demanded sacrifice.
"The Fairies of Esmy" is a hard Tale, but then again, I am not writing comedy. I am not writing romance. I am not attempting the Great American Novel. I am Pulp and proud of it. I am Weird. If I am Horror, than so be it. This is a dark Tale, but also one which I feel qualifies as one of my better, at least to the point of writing I was at. I know I'll say such a lot, but we grow and that is something I am trying to constantly push at so when I speak such, it is because elements of the Tale in question, be it for whatever reason, I remember in their crafting. It was a natural path and it took me to someone completely unexpected at the end. I honestly did not think that encounter was going to be who it was when I was writing this. Don't ask me how, but that's kind of how this is all happening. Happy accidents.
Speaking of happy accidents, a child speaking that which cannot be spoken, which the mind may not form past the skepticism of age allows this writer to sneak past a self-imposed prohibition. I have returned since both to Bezer and to a child's voice and this particular happy accident has even played beyond now those bounds.
"The Fairies of Esmy" is 4,984 words long. It appears in The Monsters We Forgot, Part II by Soteira Press. This was my first acceptance with this particular press, one which has played a much more interesting role in the distribution of the myths within these Tales than I suspect they realize. The next story which they accept of mine, "Tears in Green Satin", delighted me deeply due to the strangest of all connections. "The Fairies of Esmy", was written in June of 2018. I mention this just because, well, sometime in April, not really sure exactly when, I had been watching Rachel Maddow's show and though I do not remember what the subject was that night, there were these five letters reflected upside down...
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