The Faceless Woman by Emma Hamm (i love reading .txt) 📕

a white plume from her side, and set it in front of the raven. “Make your wish,” she said.

“I wish for you to be human and to never leave my side.”

Magic shimmered, and the swan became a beautiful woman with hair the color of midnight. She held out an arm for the raven, but gasped when he, too, became a man.

“I am a prince of the Fae,” he said, “and I have come to take you as my wife.”

The Witch And The Raven

Children clustered around the cauldron, their eyes round and chests still as they held their breath in anticipation of magic. They were curious little things. Some faces Aisling recognized, others she did not. They always ended up at her door as the sun set, and she always filled their empty bellies.

She pulled out a radish with a flourish and held it in front of her. “What is this?”

“A radish,” a girl with pumpkin-colored hair observed.

“No.” She held it against her chest as if the child had insulted the root vegetable. “It is not something so mundane as a radish. Who else has a guess?”

The children paused, looked at each other, and a little girl whispered, “Is it a giant’s eye?”

Aisling snapped her fingers and pointed at the girl. “Precisely. It's a giant’s eye, and I hunted the thing myself.”

“You did not!” one of the boys shouted, wiping a dirt-smudged hand under his runny nose.

“I did. I followed it back to its cave by smell.” She touched her nose. “Giants never take baths, so they’re easy to find.”

The boy scowled. “But what about his footprints?”

“Well, those are exceedingly large, but he knew I was following him. He walked through the rivers so I would lose track of his steps. The waters flowed over the deep grooves he left in the earth and made them disappear.”

He scratched his cheek, narrowed his eyes, and tried to find a flaw in her story. “What do you need his eye for?”

“Why, my potion of course!” She gestured at the cauldron and let the radish plop into the heated water. “It’s an elixir of immortality.”

Ten sets of eyes blinked at her.

The words were too large. She berated herself. “A potion that will make us live forever.”

Cheers lifted to the ceiling and smothered Aisling in excitement. The children had no families to provide for them, or if they did, they weren’t families who had regular food or a safe place to spend the night.

It took a witch to feed the poor, and she certainly didn’t mind.

Aisling adjusted the many layers of clothing that obscured her body from view. She’d learned early in life that a lovely woman alone was bound to attract trouble. And though she had wished for ugliness, she was not an ugly woman.

Once the long sleeves covered her hands, she cleared her throat. “Now, the elixir will need to set until the moon has risen. Shall we gather around the fire?”

The shyest girl of the bunch bit her lip and quietly asked, “For a story?”

“If that is what you wish.”

Tiny bodies fell over each other as the children rushed toward the hearth. Aisling held her breath, hoping none of them tripped or hurt themselves.

The hut she lived in was hardly a home. The rotted thatch roof revealed glimpses of the moon peeking through as it listened to her tales. Dirt smeared the floor from wall to wall, the sturdy planks long since ripped up for firewood, and the hearth itself was cracked from floor to ceiling. But it was home, and no one in town remembered it existed.

That was enough.

She settled onto a small stool as the children gathered around her. Once they were in a dirty pile, they stared at her expectantly.

“What do you want to hear tonight?”

“Everything!” the most freckled little girl shouted.

“Not everything,” Aisling chuckled. “We won’t be able to eat our elixir.”

“Fine”—she sighed—“then tell us a love story.”

One boy lifted his head, outraged. “Not a love story!”

Aisling shook her head as the children argued. It was the same every night. The girls wanted to hear a romance, the boys wanted to listen to an adventure, and no matter how much she tried to accommodate them both, someone always ended up disappointed.

She glanced toward the sky in exasperation and watched a dark shadow cross over the moon. Wings spread wide, the raven hovered above them for only a moment then disappeared. It was unusual for a raven to fly at night, and it inspired an old tale.

“I’ll tell you a story from my childhood,” she began. “Back when I lived on the streets, just like you.”

“You lived on the streets?” a boy asked, a drop of something gooey stuck to his forehead. “But you’re a witch!”

“Even witches have simple beginnings. Perhaps someday I shall teach you how to be a witch as well.”

He wiggled in excitement.

Aisling grinned and tugged her sleeves over her hands again. “There was a legend, long ago, of a faerie who looked after children like us. We called him Fiach Dubh Ri, the Raven King.

“He was a monstrous being and King of the Underfolk, those whose names we never utter for fear they will take our souls in the night.” She held a hand to her mouth and whispered the Underfolk’s true name, “Sluagh.”

The children gasped, their eyes widened, and they flinched back in fear of the word.

Playing into her tale, she leaned forward while shaking her head. “And I would not risk your journey home, children, so I would never say the word.” Aisling winked, then continued her story “He rules their ranks with an iron fist, but let them play whenever they wish.

“Such creatures will suck the soul from your chest before you are given last rites. They listen for those who have lost all hope so they might coerce them into the shadows. They’ll steal you back to Underhill with them, deep inside the earth, beneath the faerie mounds.”

A hand touched her foot. “Is the king a bad