The Ancient Magus' Bride: The Silver Yarn, page 1
Table of Contents
Credits and Copyright
Title Page
Table of Contents Page
War at the Walshes’
Natural Colors
Children of the Battlefield
Beneath the Stairs at Wald Abbey
Love is a Troublesome Tail
Agnella’s Song
Jack the Flash and the Rainbow Egg (Part 2)
Flightless Stars
Author Biographies
Newsletter
War at the Walshes’
Yuichiro Higashide
“A home is a place to which people return, and a place they protect.”
As always, Elias was giving the girl an impromptu lecture.
“That’s true,” Chise said, nodding. “Home” had meant a place where she could feel safe at one time. But she could no longer return to that place.
That was a long time ago.
Now she had a place where she belonged, a place to protect. People there waited for her return, people to whom she could say, “I’m home.”
Then again, while she knew she could return, she wasn’t sure how much protection it could offer her.
“The line between home and the outside world is a type of barrier. Humans cannot live on their own, yet they desire a place where they can be alone. Isn’t that right?”
Chise nodded. This made sense to her. Being alone all the time was quite lonely. Humans craved connections with others. But at the same time, it was human nature to seek private spaces where they wouldn’t need to interact with anyone.
A room of your own. A place where you could be by yourself.
“So, in a broad sense, the rules inside your home are different from the rules outside it. And if the rules are different, the beings born and raised there are also different.”
Elias took a small bottle of water and poured it out, tracing a line.
“There was a home here once,” he said.
“There was?”
Chise blinked and looked around. Indeed, now that she was paying attention, she noticed remnants of a stone wall; patches where the grass grew differently; signs that something large had once rested here in this field.
But unless you were actively looking for it, you’d see only grass.
“So, did…?” she began.
Did the people who lived here fall prey to something uncanny? Elias guessed her thoughts. “No, nothing like that. The people who lived here simply moved away in the usual fashion.”
Hypothetically, a family of six might have lived there. A grandfather and a grandmother; a mother and a father; a brother and a sister. The grandparents had made up their minds to live out their lives in this house, and their children had done the same. But the youngest generation longed to see more of the world and left for greener pastures.
The grandparents vanished, and the parents followed in time. No one remained in this place. The brother and sister talked it over, divided up the belongings, and tried selling the house. But the remote location and awkward design dissuaded anyone from buying it. Gradually, the house deteriorated—and neither of the children really cared.
Under those conditions, a home could fall apart in no time at all.
“But can a house fall to pieces so easily just because nobody lives there?” Chise asked.
“It depends on the house. This one had a house faerie—a Brownie, you see.”
“Like the Silver Lady?”
“That is the house faerie in our home. Like I said, each house has different rules and different beings living within.”
“Right.”
Chise didn’t really get it. Silky was the only house faerie she knew. Other kinds probably existed, but Chise knew nothing specific.
“They do not haunt the people, just the house. They delight in mischief but also help with the housework. However…”
Elias picked up a pebble from the remains of the house and held it to his brow.
“If people abandon the house, there’s no point in mischief or housework. And if a faerie’s actions no longer carry meaning, they cease to be themselves.”
The water mingled with the dirt, forming mud. The mud was like a boundary line, seemingly marking a front door.
“So this home’s faerie…transformed into something else?” Chise asked.
“It did.”
Elias stood, brushing the dirt off his clothes.
“As I was saying, there are different rules for every house. Another person’s home is like another world, albeit a very small one.”
Chise had visited any number of these other worlds, so she had an idea of what that meant.
“So you must always be careful when stepping into someone else’s home. We hold no sway over the rules of that house, for those who live there decide the rules.”
“R-right.”
“That said, this should settle things. Now they can build a new home here in time.”
“Was it cursed?” she asked.
“Not exactly, but I suppose it was something like a curse. The remnants of failure lay here. The voice of a former Brownie, rejecting all but the ones who had once lived here.”
Nobody can come in.
No one can set foot here.
This is our domain.
“Remnants…”
“Curious?” he asked.
Elias’s question caught her off guard. “Maybe a little.”
There was a Brownie living in Elias’s home, one who waited patiently for their return. So what were house faeries in other homes like? What type of house faerie imprinted itself on the ground like a curse?
Chise had to admit she was interested.
“Fair enough. Perhaps it would do you good to get a taste for how terrifying it can be to enter someone else’s home.”
Elias placed his finger on Chise’s forehead.
“Don’t worry. I’m simply sending your mind into the past, allowing you to view the memories held within this place,” he said.
“Understood.”
Chise closed her eyes. Immediately, she felt like she was falling. It was surprising but not enough of a shock to make her cry out. Elias had said not to worry, and Chise always trusted him.
These were far and distant memories.
The story of two Brownies, imprinted on the land.
***
Brownies have no names. However, as a Brownie develops a personality of its own, it becomes more than just a house faerie. It must be called something.
The Walsh family Brownie was often called Gray Walls on account of the house’s imposing walls of gray stone. But people rarely used that name in a positive sense. If he was referred to by name, it was only when he’d played a particularly awful prank on a human, injuring them so badly the other Brownies were gossiping about it.
“Gray Walls did it again!” they’d say.
Humans and faeries were different creatures with entirely different goals and reasons for living. When they met, good or bad things could happen. Sometimes they lived together in harmony, and sometimes they didn’t.
Brownies were a harmonious type. They helped with the housework and pulled pranks. Without both of these qualities, they would no longer be Brownies. So, to the other Brownies, Gray Walls was downright bizarre.
He didn’t hate humans. He didn’t hate them, but his “pranks” were cruel. He didn’t spill things on the floor or break plates; nothing that tame. He left nails sticking out of the floor. He weakened planks on the stairs. He made the bathroom floor slippery. These tricks were less mischievous than malicious, tormenting the residents of his home.
Above all, Gray Walls’ pranks could be fatal to those who lived there.
This house is haunted.
The head of the Walsh family said those words before he disappeared, leaving no sole heir. Normally the house would be sold and another family would move in, but the Walshes refused to sell.
Perhaps that was their way of getting revenge on the Brownie.
If you hate humans that much…
We’ll destroy the reason you exist.
Who knew what the Walshes were thinking? They merely left the house to rot.
They departed one day without warning, leaving all the furniture, clothing, even their food, behind. At first, Gray Walls believed they’d simply gone out, that they’d come back eventually. He considered this a great opportunity to ready his next prank.
One week passed. Gray Walls thought it was a long vacation.
One month passed. Gray Walls wondered if they’d gotten sick.
One year passed. He knew the other faeries were laughing at him now.
Oh, poor, poor Gray Walls. A Brownie whose people ran away!
Gray Walls shook his head.
They hadn’t run away.
They would never do that. They couldn’t have. They’d left all their furniture behind. Humans would never go away without taking all their belongings!
Ten years passed.
The house’s neighbors forgot anyone had ever lived there.
The walls deteriorated so badly that the name Gray Walls no longer made sense.
But Gray Walls waited patiently.
In time, someone new would live here. When they did, he could pull pranks on them again. This idea had passed from conviction to obsession.
The other faeries feared what he’d become and no longer gossiped about him. No one spoke to him, no one even saw him. All exce
***
That Brownie was called Rust Eyes.
Faeries cared little for physical attractiveness, but a human would have considered him much less appealing than an ariel or a vodyanoi. His appearance was sinister enough to send a chill down anyone’s spine.
He had eyes the color of rusted iron, making it impossible to tell from the outside if he could even see. One arm was long and gnarled, making him look like a faerie who worked with wrought iron rather than one who did housework.
In fact, he’d earned the nickname Rust Eyes because the family he lived with, the Elgars, were blacksmiths.
With the exception of dwarves, faeries hated iron as a rule. Only the strangest Brownies would ever choose to live with a smith. But Rust Eyes was a very strange Brownie. Brownies had many personality types, but “diligent” was the best word to describe Rust Eyes.
Now, “diligent” was the last word anyone would use to describe your average faerie, but this Brownie was quite unique. He did so much housework, but his pranks were scarcely ever mischievous. The only prank he ever pulled was to carefully turn the stacks of china upside down.
This amused the Elgars. To Rust Eyes, it was his signature prank.
Children born in the Elgar family, especially those who could see faeries, thought all Brownies were diligent, kind, and helpful. Rust Eyes never considered trying to change that impression. He simply couldn’t abide seeing anything out of place and acted accordingly.
Whether the Elgar family fortunes took a good turn or a bad one was of no importance to him. When the Elgar family baby died of pneumonia, Rust Eyes turned the plates upside down. When their daughter was married, he turned the plates upside-down.
He had no interest in human affairs, and that disinterest showed itself in the piles of upside-down china.
Time passed, each day the same as the one before. As the times changed, so did the routines of those around him. But Rust Eyes refused to change. If tomorrow wasn’t the same as yesterday, he couldn’t bear it.
Thanks for your help!
The letter left on the pile of upside-down plates did nothing to change his mind. The clumsy handwriting indicated that the Elgars’ only daughter had written it.
Humans had begun seeing Brownies as creatures of legend rather than close neighbors. Rust Eyes learned this from the daughter’s letter. As the house became modernized, people forgot about faeries. Drunk on their own arrogance, the cities changed around them.
So she’d wanted to thank the faerie that helped keep the house clean as if nothing had changed.
The letter explained all this. Rust Eyes slipped it into the box of treasures he’d hidden in the eaves. The letter didn’t make him work any more or less diligently.
To him, rules were essential. If he had cleaned a room, then he would turn all the plates over. That was the rule Rust Eyes had made for himself, and sticking to that rule gave him all the pleasure he needed.
As such, receiving the letter didn’t change his actions. Further letters awaited him on the stacks of china, letters which gave updates on the family or on life at school, but Rust Eyes’ behavior didn’t change at all.
But he read the letters.
She’d meant them for him, so he felt it was his duty to read them. The letters weren’t terribly interesting, mostly making a big deal out of ordinary events—how she’d managed to write twenty lines describing a boy throwing up at school, he could not say—but Rust Eyes wouldn’t treat any gifts poorly.
Rust Eyes ignored other faeries as studiously as he ignored the humans around him. Since the house dealt with iron, other faeries rarely came anywhere near the Elgar home, or anywhere near Rust Eyes.
If they thought of him at all, they thought of him as that strange faerie who didn’t hesitate to work with iron. Nothing more.
So Rust Eyes paid little attention to anything outside his territory.
But he knew that a Brownie named Gray Walls lived next door, in the house the Walshes had let fall into utter ruin.
He knew the Brownie’s extreme pranks had brought about tragedy and broken the heart of the home’s owner.
And he knew the Brownie was still waiting for the owner to return.
This wasn’t normal behavior. Rust Eyes may have been a strange Brownie, but he still dwelt within the acceptable range of faerie behavior. But Gray Walls’ obsession went beyond that.
Just as there were limits on the pranks a Brownie could pull, there were limits on how long a Brownie should wait. No contract bounded the Brownie; he hadn’t been summoned and shackled. Gray Walls was just waiting for his masters to return. Despite all the awful pranks he’d pulled, he was certain of their homecoming. It felt almost sinister.
Rust Eyes caught a glimpse of him two or three times a year.
He wanted nothing to do with Gray Walls, and Rust Eyes assumed Gray Walls was the same. So he ignored him.
In hindsight, the very fact that he ever caught a glimpse of him at all was odd.
As Rust Eyes went through his daily routine, something unexpected happened…
Petra, the Elgar girl who had sent him all those letters, went missing.
***
Petra Elgar’s mother had told her there was a Brownie in their house when she was only five years old.
It had been meant as a warning: Don’t let the faerie surprise you. Don’t try to talk to it. It might be dangerous. And so on.
He lived in the same world as them but followed different rules. She had to think of dealing with faeries like staying over at a stranger’s house. Petra wouldn’t want anyone jumping on her bed covered in mud, would she? Well, that was her mother’s explanation for how to deal with faeries.
Outside the house, Petra did just as she was told. Even if she saw faeries, she ignored them, not even listening to their whisperings. But no child could be satisfied with just that, not when a real Brownie lived in their own house.
He (or perhaps she) didn’t like showing himself to people, but he helped with the housework. Petra often found rooms clean when she knew for a fact nobody had cleaned them. Things she believed she’d lost would show up on her desk.
Every time this happened, her mother would put some warm milk on the mantle.
“This is how you show gratitude. Make sure you don’t drink it, okay?” Her mother laughed, happily.
Once, the milk had looked so good that Petra snuck a sip of it. The next day, someone had dumped all the garbage in the house out on her bed. After that, she never drank any of the Brownie’s milk again. Of course, even though it had been her punishment, the garbage was all dry dust and bits of paper. He hadn’t dumped anything smelly there, so Petra was sure this Brownie was nice.
When had she first heard about the Brownie next door?
The house next door had been a ruin as long as she could remember. She’d somehow known something haunted it. Her grandmother, grandfather, father, and mother had all warned her never to go there, over and over.
At ten, Petra’s mind balanced uneasily between discretion, curiosity, and common sense.
Discretion—don’t go into someone else’s house without permission.
Curiosity—something she had never seen before lived in the ruined house.
Common sense—faeries might not really exist.
Petra’s curiosity and common sense teamed up to defeat her discretion. If the house’s gray walls had still existed, discretion would have won out. But that barrier was long since gone. Two thirds of the walls had collapsed, and Petra easily stepped over them onto the house’s grounds.
She was sure there was nothing there, but this would satisfy her curiosity.
She secretly filled a backpack with chocolate, cookies, jerky, a leather canteen filled with water, a candle, and some matches. She was totally prepared, and her parents had no idea.
As had been already said, Rust Eyes was disinterested in the world outside. He took pleasure in his routine, as always.
But because of his very monotonous nature, he alone noticed Petra’s odd behavior. Petra wasn’t doing what she always did. Human behavior had some random elements, but it was unlike her to fill a backpack with chocolate and jerky while humming happily to herself.
