Faerie Market

Evening came, and the women heard the faeries cry. Not from carts with scales and coin, but from the dark of the trees—as though the shadows themselves learned to sing—where voices threaded through the branches.

“Mead sweet as blood,” they called.

“Grapes that never sour.

Milk that keeps youth in the bone forever.

Bread that never hardens, never grows mold.”

Éilis clutched her cloak. “Do not answer,” she whispered. But Labhraín slowed, her ear bent to the voices. They turned the bend, and the market lay bare. Fruit piled high; peaches glowing as if with their own fire, clusters of berries glistening like wet jewels, ribbons writhed in bowls as though alive, and glass jars brimmed with honey that pulsed like a heart.

And the sellers—not goblins, not men, but faces too fine, teeth too sharp, eyes bright with stars no sailor knew. They saw Labhraín pause and they leaned forward. “You,” one hissed sweetly. “You are hungry.”

Éilis caught her wrist. “Come away.” But Labhraín shook her off. Her throat burned, her eyes dazzled. Always she had wanted more—more than bread, more than water, more than the narrow days that bound them.

One of the sellers held out a pale fruit, round as the moon. “Only taste,” he said. “No coin, no silver. Only your name.”

Éilis gasped. “Do not.” For names are doors, and once opened, hard to close.

But Labhraín’s lips parted. She gave her name. The market roared with it. “Labhraín! Labhraín!” they cried and pressed the fruit into her hands. She bit.

Sweetness, sharper than honey, hotter than wine—and then ash. It crumbled on her tongue like burned paper. Her eyes glazed, her breath hitched. The sellers laughed, circling. “You belong now,” they said. “Sing with us, stay with us, hunger with us.”

Éilis caught her, but her weight was strange, as though half of her had already slipped into shadow.

Éilis dragged her away, but the path bent strange beneath their feet. Labhraín stumbled, her body heavy, her eyes lit with unnatural stars. The trees leaned close, whispering, and when they reached the edge of the grove Éilis saw it: a ring of mushrooms pale as bone, circled like a crown laid upon the earth.

Labhraín collapsed within it. Éilis seized her arms, pulled with all her strength, but her body snagged as if invisible cords bound her dear one’s limbs. Her heels dug deep furrows, yet would not pass the line.

“Come out!” Éilis cried, panic rising.

Labhraín only smiled faintly. Her lips moved in rhythm with some unheard music. A tremor ran through the ground. From the shadows the sellers came, drifting like smoke, their teeth catching what little light the moon shed. They laughed to see Éilis strain.

“She cannot cross,” one whispered. “The circle is ours.”

They clapped their hands, and music spilled—pipes and drums, wild and sweet. Labhraín rose as if tugged by strings. She began to sway, her body frail yet her feet light, carried by compulsion. The sellers joined, whirling, their hair streaming, their laughter sharp.

Éilis pounded the earth with her fists. “Leave her!”

“Or dance with her,” they said, reaching long fingers through the night. “Join the revel, mortal. Give us your name, and we will make you our queen.”

But Éilis bit her tongue until she tasted blood. She would not give it.

That night, she kept vigil at the ring’s edge. She laid her bread on the ground, but when Labhraín’s hand brushed the crust it withered, blackened, vanished into dust. She scattered salt, but the grains melted into the soil like snow in fire. The fae only laughed, whirling faster, pulling her sister round and round until her breath came ragged and her eyes filmed over with shadow.

At dawn, they vanished. The circle lay still, mushrooms damp with dew. Labhraín collapsed in the center, trembling, her hair tangled with leaves.

Éilis crawled to her knees. “Dear one—”

But when she touched her, her fingers burned cold. Half her weight seemed gone, as though the earth itself was drinking her away.

Days passed. Each dusk the sellers returned, and each dusk Labhraín rose again to dance. Éilis tried to wrench her free, but her arms slipped as though pulling smoke. She tried to block her ears, but the music seeped through the marrow of her bones. She tried to hold her down, but the fae spun her up regardless, dragging her into the wild circle of their joy.

Éilis’s strength waned. She wept. She raged. She begged. Still Labhraín wasted, her face hollowing, her breath fluttering like a dying moth’s wings.

At last Éilis fell to her knees and whispered: “Tell me how to save you.”

Labhraín’s eyes flickered through the shadow, dim but still hers. “Win me back,” she mouthed. “Win me clever.”

The words chilled Éilis, for she knew the old tales: the fae could be fought, not with steel, not with fire, but only with wit and nerve. She saw in Labhraín’s gaze the last flicker of mortal plea and knew she must.

So Éilis rose, cloak tight about her shoulders, and waited for nightfall. When the sellers came and their music laced the air, she stepped across the mushrooms.

The circle shuddered, closed.

The fae cried out, their laughter ringing. “Ah—the careful one dares! Welcome, welcome! Will you dance, will you sing, will you pay?”

Éilis lifted her chin, though her heart trembled. “Not dance. Not sing. But I will play a game.”

They leaned close, eyes gleaming. “A game?”

“Yes,” she said, voice steady now. “Your rules are binding. If I win, she is mine again. If I lose then take me too.”

“A game, she says! A mortal with games for the timeless folk!”

But rules bound them. Always rules. They leaned forward, teeth shining. “Name it, then.”

The circle sealed, thick as honey. Éilis stood though her heart pounded. “A riddle. But mark me—if you speak the answer, you must speak it plain, for riddles are no use without names. Silence is forfeit. Evasion is forfeit. Answer, or yield.”

The fae hissed, but they could not refuse. “Ask, ask.”

Éilis’s voice did not waver: “It belongs to you, yet your friends use it more. What is it?”

The sellers stilled. Some frowned, some smirked. They muttered of cloaks, of gifts, of trinkets. One shouted “voice,” another “face.” They quarreled, shrill as crows.

At last one, sharper than the rest, stepped forward, lips curling. “The answer is—my name.”

The air cracked like ice. The syllables hung heavy, binding.

Another spat, furious. “No—your name!” And so it spilled again, truer and truer, names slipping from them like blood from a cut.

Éilis’s smile was small but sure. “So you have given me what I sought. Your names are mine now, and by your own words, you are bound. You have lost.”

The circle shuddered. The fae reeled back, their laughter unraveling into shrieks. Some clutched their throats, some clawed at the air, but the names could not be gathered back. They were stripped, diminished, powerless.

The pull of the ring weakened. Labhraín faltered, her dance breaking, her breath ragged. Éilis darted to her side, pressing into her hand the crust of mortal bread she had saved. “Eat,” she urged.

Labhraín bit, choking, and the fae wailed as the mortal taste burned their music away. With one step, then another, Éilis pulled her across the line of mushrooms. The ring tore open. The sellers scattered like smoke, names trailing after them like chains.

At dawn, the pair lay in the grass. They were home, but not unchanged. Labhraín’s hair bore a silver streak, her eyes too bright, her laugh always carried an echo. Éilis’s voice never rang the same; her tongue felt heavier, for she carried the weight of names not her own.

They did not speak of it often. But when the village girls whispered of the market at dusk, Éilis told them this: “There are hungers that fill and hungers that hollow. Beware which you feed. The world will tempt you with sweetness, with promises that burn on your tongue, but what matters is who sits beside you at the end, and whether you hold fast to each other.”

And Labhraín, who had once longed for more than bread and water, more than narrow days, would smile, and add: “I was nearly lost for want of too much. My dear one taught me that enough is a feast, when shared in love.”

The girls listened, wide-eyed and whether they believed or not, when they passed the edge of the woods at night, they hurried, and they held their names close to their hearts.