Margaret Rogerson

Finally, Gadfly ate the cake. I didn’t see him chew before he swallowed.

“We’re just about finished for the day,” I told him. I wiped my brush on a rag, then dropped it into the jar of linseed oil beside my easel. “Would you like to take a look?”

“Need you even ask? Isobel, you know I’d never pass up the opportunity to admire your Craft.”

Before I knew it Gadfly stood leaning over my shoulder. He kept a courteous space between us, but his inhuman scent enveloped me: a ferny green fragrance of spring leaves, the sweet perfume of wildflowers. Beneath that, something wild—something that had roamed the forest for millennia, and had long spidery fingers that could crush a human’s throat while its owner wore a cordial smile.

My heart skipped a beat. I am safe in this house, I reminded myself.

“I believe I do like this cravat best after all,” he said. “Exquisite work, as always. Now, what am I paying you, again?”

“So practical.” He sighed at the tragedy. “You are the most admired Crafter of this age. Imagine all the things I could give you! I could make pearls drop from your eyes in place of tears. I could lend you a smile that enslaves men’s hearts, or a dress that once beheld is never forgotten. And yet you request eggs.”

“I quite like eggs,” I replied firmly, well aware that the enchantments he described would all turn strange and sour, even deadly, in the end. Besides, what on earth would I do with men’s hearts? I couldn’t make an omelette out of them.

A painting hung on the wall beside the entry. Faded with age, it depicted a man standing on a knoll surrounded by oddly colored trees. His face was obscured, but he held a sword that glinted brightly even in the gray light. Pale hounds swarmed up the knoll toward him, suspended in midleap. The hair stood up on my arms. I knew this figure. He was a popular subject of paintings done over three hundred years ago, when he stopped visiting Whimsy without explanation. In every remaining work he was always standing in the distance, always battling the Wild Hunt.

Tomorrow, he’d be sitting in my parlor.