Bogleech.com's 2016 Horror Write-off:
Chalken Fairies
Submitted by
Cassie Heath
NSFW! TW: rape, assault, gore.
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When I was a young girl, walking
Underneath a grinning moon,
I would think of chalken fairies
Dancing to an ancient tune
Spirals on their vulpine faces
Pale as mother's washing-soap
Wine-dark warpaint come from someone
Did they die well? So we'd hope
Taller than a tower of acorns
Shorter than a summer snow
Lighter than a brimstone preacher
Heavier than what I know
Chalken fairies used to sing of
Ancient ways in ancient verse
Sounding like a saint's own sleigh bells
Even when they'd spit and curse
Though each face was pinched and hollow-
-Cheeked, not one could be more fair,
Though their eyes were bright as marshlights
I could see the darkness there
Coming out from deep within the
Earthen cliffs of sea-worn chalk
Bone-white fairies working witchcraft
As beside the edge I'd walk
Eager little voices saying
As the clifftop I'd pass by,
"Join with us and dance forever,
Step once to your left and fly!"
There was handsome Johnny Bailey
Walking too far from my reach
I called out, he could not hear me,
Rushing wind drowned out my speech
I looked down when they would let me
At what pale light could show
At the chalken fairies dancing
On the bloody mess below
They would dance and paint their faces
Chant and squeal in pure delight
Laughs like sweetest, purest music
Cutting through the darkling night
They would drink a fairy-potion
For their magic would make plain;
As they rutted on his organs
Johnny Bailey rose again
This time Johnny reached his hand out
Bones already losing meat,
As he climbed the chalken clifftop,
Saying in a voice rot-sweet,
"Won't you join the chalken fairies
In their little parlour game?
Won't you let them have your body?
Won't you let us be the same?"
Chalken fairies rose and flanked him
Leering at my heaving chest
Sizes twisting, shrinking, growing,
As they told me what was best,
And their best was ripping, tearing,
Bathing in a woman's blood,
Sweat enough to salt an ocean,
Tears enough to call a flood
I ran fast but they were faster
Bending space and bending time
More and more white hands upon me
Chalken flesh assailing mine
Chalken fairies stood to guard me,
Laid me down beneath young John,
Johnny's flesh was nearly jelly
But not all of it was gone
He was like a circus-bruin
Dancing, grinding, doing tricks
Chalken fairies pulled flesh off him
Some beat him and I with sticks
Torn from heart and hearth and kinfolk
Torn from life lived short but free
Torn to pieces by the chalken
Fairies that did this to me
As he and they writhed upon me
Some fell force holding me there
All I had was tears and screaming
Not for such as me is prayer
The moon set after an aeon
Chalken fairies fled the sun,
Johnny Bailey lay upon me
Looking now as he had done
When last I had looked upon him
As he lay upon the shore
Cold, dead mass that once was handsome,
Barely human any more.
Shaking like a leaf in autumn
Or a lamb whose wool is thin,
Was I when, a few months later,
Johnny's babe I found within
Every pill and each procedure
Couldn't force the babe from me
Every failure a reminder
Of chalk flesh defiling me
Nine months on from Johnny Bailey's
Murder by a chalken hand,
Out was born a pair of children
One of whom I could not stand
One was pinch-faced, hollow-cheekboned,
Eyes as cold as midnight dew,
One had flesh so pale, 'twas chalken,
And the other bairn was you
Every goodly thing in humans
Rested in your little heart
Everything about the chalken
Fairies was your counterpart
I knew that she looked upon you
Not just with a sister's eyes
I knew that she was a fairy
Eager to bring your demise
I would have cast out the creature
As I cast her from my womb,
But if I could not control her,
She'd be free to plot your doom,
And this year, now that you're twenty,
Has she not been seen since May,
And even before, our neighbours
Never saw her in the day
So I beg you, when you're walking
Underneath a grinning moon,
Walk far from the chalken fairies,
Or they'll come for us,
And soon.