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Story spotlight: “Family Fair and True” by Dayle A. Dermatis, in Stolen by the Fae

“Family Fair and True,” by Dayle A. Dermatis, appears in Stolen by the Fae, the 6th volume in the anthology series A Procession of Faeries.

Excerpt

My feet crunched over tiny snail shells as I descended, the air growing more moist and cold, and the darkness more complete. The weak moonlight couldn’t extend this far into the earth. I reached the bottom, breathing in the earthy scent of loam, and stopped.

I thought about why I was here, and what I wished for. I couldn’t go on if I had any doubts, any hesitation.

But this was what I had yearned for since I was old enough to understand what I was.

A plentyn cael . A changeling child.

My “parents,” Cerys and John (I couldn’t really call them my adoptive parents, as they’d had no choice in the matter), had brought home from the hospital a sweet, fair-haired baby and then found, shortly thereafter, a temperamental, black-haired thing in the crib. (The latter would be me.)

If they had tried any of the folk remedies to banish a changeling, they refused to tell me, but I couldn’t imagine that they didn’t make an attempt to get their real child back. Why wouldn’t they? Cerys was a professor of folklore and mythology at uni, and John was a renowned fantasy artist; they knew what had happened.

—from “Family Fair and True,” by Dayle A. Dermatis, in Stolen by the Fae

About Dayle

Dayle A. Dermatis is the author or coauthor of many novels (including snarky urban fantasy Ghosted and YA lesbian romance Beautiful Beast) and more than a hundred short stories in multiple genres, appearing in such venues as Fiction River, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and DAW Books.

Called the mastermind behind the Uncollected Anthology project, she also edits anthologies, and her own short fiction has been lauded in many year’s best anthologies in erotica, mystery, and horror.

She lives in a historic English-style cottage with a tangled and fae back garden, in the wild greenscapes of the Pacific Northwest. In her spare time she follows Styx around the country and travels the world, which inspires her writing.

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A Procession of Faeries

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Story spotlight: “Problem Child” by Tami Veldura, in Stolen by the Fae

“Problem Child,” by Tami Veldura, appears in Stolen by the Fae, the 6th volume in the anthology series A Procession of Faeries.

Excerpt

Pane nudged Kipt with one bony elbow. “You’re sure about this? It’s bigger than normal.”

“Big enough to count for two infants, I bet,” said Kipt. “And probably old enough that its head won’t flop around. Humans babies are oddly fragile.”

Pane glanced at the bed, then back to Kipt. “Well?”

“Quiet, I’m thinking.” Kipt had been drawn to stealing this child because of its size, but now that he was here, he had doubts. Faeries could draw the veil aside with a thought, but humans couldn’t even sense it, let alone move it. Infants could be brought across because they were small, like carrying a bag, but this child—a toddler, the humans called it—might be large enough to cause problems.

But he was behind on children and was sure this one would count for two, at least. It was worth trying, anyway.

Pane crept forward and lay the changeling down on the bed beside the human. It was smaller than the human, more bone and less fat. The changeling had grayish-green skin, Kipt had been told once, while humans ranged from pink to darkest black. To his eyes, this one was a medium brown. Like an opal. The two didn’t match, even in Kipt’s limited color vision.

The changeling wiggled to face the sleeping child and touched its face with long, thin fingers. All at once, its natural glamor took over, and suddenly there were twin human children on the bed.

“Ok,” Kipt said. “You grab the arms. I’ll grab the legs. Then we both draw the veil at the same time so we can bring it through.”

“I’m not sure—”

The human child’s face scrunched as it fussed in its sleep. The changeling mimicked it.

“Too late, grab the arms!”

—from “Problem Child,” by Tami Veldura, in Stolen by the Fae

About Tami

Tami Veldura is an enby/aro/ace author of queer fiction. They have published short stories in anthologies Fresh Starts, Hauntings, Love Among The Thorns, Love Is Like A Box Of Chocolates, Street Magic (a Diamond Quill Book Of The Year winner), the magazine Galaxy’s Edge, and they are a contributing member of the scifi magazine Boundary Shock Quarterly. They publish new work every month, crossing every genre, but always featuring queer characters and found families.

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A Procession of Faeries

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Story spotlight: “Hybrid Vigor” by Olivia Wylie, in Stolen by the Fae

“Hybrid Vigor,” by Olivia Wylie, appears in Stolen by the Fae, the 6th volume in the anthology series A Procession of Faeries.

Excerpt

The examining room smells of chemicals and cold meat. Sometimes I wish my sense of smell was more Human.

The metal drawer slides open on its rollers. It’s designed to hold a full-grown man; the little body on it seems dwarfed by the expanse of metal.

Pulling on gloves, I lean in, studying the child. Patricia coughs nervously. “So, what do you think?”

“I think that a wrong’s been done here,” I murmur, “but I imagine you mean do I know who did it…”

Gently, I lift one eyelid. Eyes completely dilated. I was afraid of that.

“Let me guess, these children didn’t die from drowning.”

“True. We can’t figure out what actually was the cause of death, we’ve listed it as massive systemic failure.”

“Close enough.” I agree, surprised at the sound of my own voice. It’s gone cold.

Straightening, I glance up at Patricia. “And why didn’t you tell the police your suspicions?”

The coroner shrugs guiltily. “Well, the last time something weird came up…you were a hell of a lot more use, to be honest.”

I nod, but I don’t drop my gaze from hers. “You need to tell them about these. They need to learn to keep records on murderers who are not Human.”

Patricia nods, her eyes gone wide. She swallows hard.

“Um…if this is a murder, we might have a bigger problem.”

That pulls me up and no mistake. “Explain?”

Patricia taps her forms.

“Yolanda had a best friend, Monika. She’s still missing.”

—from “Hybrid Vigor,” by Olivia Wylie, in Stolen by the Fae

About Olivia

Olivia Wylie is a professional horticulturist, business owner, and bard who specializes in the restoration of neglected gardens. When the weather keeps her indoors, she enjoys exploring the plant world and the complexities of being human in writing. Under her shared pen-name of O.E. Tearmann, she writes the hopeful queer cyberpunk series Aces High, Jokers Wild. Her solo work focuses on illustrated works of ethnobotany, intended to make the intersection of human history, storytelling, and plant evolution accessible to a wider audience. She lives in Colorado with a very patient husband and a rather impatient cat.

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Story spotlight: The Replacement by Ron Collins, in Stolen by the Fae

“The Replacement,” by Ron Collins, appears in Stolen by the Fae, the 6th volume in the anthology series A Procession of Faeries.

Excerpt

“Hello,” I say as I head toward the front. “You doing all right, ma’am?” I don’t get many put-together businesswomen in the store at 1:54 a.m. On their own, my eyes glance out the window to see if her car is parked at a bay, but there’s nothing there.

She turns then.

Her amethyst eyes make starlight of their own, but a starlight that cuts as much as it illuminates.

“Bron,” she says.

I stop, broom dangling from my hand, knowing things will never be the same again.

No one has called me by that name for a long time.

“Who are you?” I reply.

She smiles and I see heartache and pain as deep as anything I’ve ever felt.

A wind blows outside.

A discarded plastic bag tumbles past in the barren scape of the asphalt veldt.

“Adelaide,” she replies as if that says it all. “My name is Adelaide.”

Her voice is smooth and deep for a woman.

That’s when I notice the green breeches that finish off her outfit. They fit tight to her body, dropping just below the knee where they fall into a pair of dark boots laced on their outside with equally dark rawhide. The pants are the color of pine trees in winter, embroidered with a silky pattern of swirls and leafy outlines that seem to squirm and shift under the store’s stark light. Her scent arrives then, rich with woodsmoke and the outdoors.

“Welcome to Pick-Pack, Adelaide,” I say.

—from “The Replacement,” by Ron Collins, in Stolen by the Fae

About Ron

Ron Collins is a best-selling Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy author who writes across the spectrum of speculative fiction. With his daughter, Brigid, he edited the anthology Face the Strange.

His short fiction has received a Writers of the Future prize. His short story “The White Game” was nominated for the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s 2016 Derringer Award.

He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and has worked to develop avionics systems, electronics, and information technology before chucking it all to write full-time.

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Stolen by the Fae – A Procession of Faeries #6

Steal away to the wild world of the Fae!

In the darkest dark of night
The faeries come to see the sight

A sleeping child, sweet as can be
Its cheeks red as stolen cherries

They whisper, then sing the child a song
It stirs, and smiles, and slumbers along

Faster than the eye can see
They swap it with a sickly Fae baby

In the morn, the parents find the sight
Of a babe who looks like their own…but not quite

Stolen by the Fae, the 6th volume in the anthology series A Procession of Faeries, contains sixteen stories based on the mythology of the changeling, in which the Fae steal a human and replace it with one of their own kind. Sometimes their motivations are good…and sometimes they are not good at all.

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The Stories

A man in “The Replacement,” by Ron Collins, has always felt different. He finally discovers the truth about his past, and it is not at all what he expected.

An elderly resident disappeared from the care home in “Honeysuckle and Blue,” by Karen L. Abrahamson. But how did he manage to get out through the locked doors? And are the wanderings of Posey, a dementia patient who’s over ninety years old, related?

In “The Bonds of, Like, Sisterhood or Whatever,” by Brigid Collins, Alyssa has the best big sister ever. So sure, Alyssa is a fairy changeling and Linn is human and isn’t really her sister, but whatever! The only real problem they’re facing is that they need a singer for their band, otherwise they won’t be able to compete in the high school Battle of the Bands. But maybe they could bust their other sister—the one Alyssa was swapped for—out of Faerie and she could join the band…

Poppy, a sixteen-year-old changeling, enters the Faerie realm in search of her real parents in “Family Fair and True,” by Dayle A. Dermatis. But in Faerie, the adage “Be careful what you wish for” takes on a whole new meaning.

Over twenty kids have been found dead in Olivia Wylie’s “Hybrid Vigor.” It looks almost like they drowned, but not quite. Can the Ard Ri of the Good Folk, who is part Dratsie and part Human, find the murderer before the latest missing child is killed?

In Leah R. Cutter’s “Fairy Traps,” Old Fairy Smithers is a terrible gardener, and not at all fun. But worse than that, she’s stolen a human baby! Terrence’s parents don’t believe him when he tells them about the baby, but can’t allow Smithers to put the human-fairy pact at risk, so he’s going to have to take care of things all on his own.

Someone has replaced the faerie ambassador’s baby with a human child in “Bait and Switch: A Crossroad City Tale,” by Rebecca M. Senese. Faerie Maeve Hemlock, lead detective in the Spells and Misdemeanours Bureau of Crossroad City, is called in to investigate, and finds there is a lot more going on than it appears.

Bug is stolen from his home and taken to the Dark Court on orders from the Queen of Faerie in Anthea Sharp’s “The Bug in the Dark Court.” Will his older brother realize he’s been replaced by a changeling and save him, or will Bug spend the rest of his days trapped in the Faerie Realm?

In “Hunter by Night,” by Annie Reed, Colton’s happy life shattered into a million pieces when a changeling kidnapped his pregnant wife. The police never caught the kidnapper—difficult to do when a changeling can shift their appearance to look like anyone—so now Colton scours the city at night, hunting for that one creature who robbed him of everything that made life worth living. But what he hunts down this night will change his life forever.

A feral cat is given the chance to spend 24 hours in another form in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s “The Destroyer.” Can he use this opportunity to vanquish the destroyer?

Behind on his quota of stolen human children, Kipt decides to take a toddler instead of a baby in “Problem Child,” by Tami Veldura. To his horror, he learns why faeries only steal babies.

Carol and her husband tried and tried to have a child in “Two Pies out of One Pan,” by Thea Hutcheson, but she remained barren. Finally she asked Brigid, the Tuatha Dé Danaan goddess of the hearth, for a miracle. But miracles do not come for free.

Deb Logan’s “Flutterbies and French Toast” takes us to a world where when children born to survivors of a pandemic reach the age of five, they develop strange and inexplicable powers which they cannot control. To protect their populations, governments around the world are locking up children. Rick and Jennifer decide to go into hiding to protect their daughter…but at what cost?

A haunting magical melody draws Queen Simone out of the Faery Realm and into the human world she once was a part of in “Street Song,” by Leslie Claire Walker. The song triggers violence in the streets, endangering innocents—including humans she loves. Can Simone find the source and stop the music before it kills?

Butler buys some old books from a woman who claims her husband made her daughter disappear years ago in DeAnna Knippling’s “Estimated Value.” There’s no way of knowing what really happened to the girl, of course…or is there?

In Jamie Ferguson’s “The Wishing Thorn,” Leah never believed in her Irish grandmother’s stories about trees granting wishes, but after having her life turned upside-down, she decided to see if the stories were real after all. She chose to make her wish of a blackthorn: the tree of warfare and ill omens, and the keeper of dark secrets…

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A Procession of Faeries

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