Lily Rose's Journal: Part Four

There are worse than what I've written here, and worse things done. This is what they call the humans tricked into their families.

The Blessed: Mortal families chosen in any place the Fatas have nested. They are fortunate in wealth and health, and, after the age of seventeen, don't remember the pact they've made with the Fatas -- but, subconsciously, protect and aid them in the true world -- while the next generation is contacted and drawn into their world.

Changelings and Aislings: The ones stolen away. A fake body is left in the changeling's place, a thing made to look human, which usually dies, unless one of them is made to look like the stolen person. Aislings are humans frozen in place, made immortal, taken from their eras by any Fata powerful enough to accomplish this time-travel kidnapping.





Jacks and Jills: The Sluagh. The dead. Teenagers changed by the Fatas with a sort of alchemy of flower petals. They're assassins, keepsakes, hostages. The Fatas, the monsters, call this Stitchery. I call it Frankensteining.

Lily Rose's Journal: Part Three

The Fatas have their strange people, too, the ones that can't really be grouped as families.

The Grindylow: I've only seen one, and I don't know what makes them. They're life-sized, ball-jointed dolls. They're beautiful and they kill, not nicely either. They're like the golems from Jewish folklore, like clockwork spirit things. Fatas usually can't kill humans -- that's what they use us for...and the Grindylow.

The Monasty: The collective name for the solitary Fatas. Some are outlaws or criminals...most just prefer not to be ruled. They have many different forms.

The Strigormes: The Owls. They're solitary and make their homes in abandoned places, in large forests. Most are crazy. If you ever see a girl or a boy in white, near an old barn or in the woods...run.

Lily Rose's Journal: Part Two

Then there are the Fatas from the water element:

The Uisce are old royalty and they're remorseless as sharks. They'll drown anyone in their lakes and ponds. Silvery-haired and lovely, they live in decrepit, sprawling houses near bodies of water.



The Fuath live near lakes, in houses that seem warm, inviting, and old-fashioned. They also pose as an extended family. They are dangerous in that they charm strangers to their deaths.

The Vodyanoi live mostly in Eastern Europe, usually in abandoned mills. They're the ones who eat people. Don't ever go near any creepy mills, even here.

The Afanc are wanderers and most often pose as bikers, sleek, wild, and tattooed. They were once known as Kelpies, Horseheads, who drag unsuspecting people to their deaths in water. Most of them don't do this anymore.

Lily Rose's Journal: Sketchbook One

THE DARK FAERIES, THE FATAS, who call us things with teeth, have teeth of their own. In the Wolf's house, I've learned a lot of things. Here are some of them:

THE REDCAPS are distant children of the Dragon. They can cast hekas (spells) that change a person's shape. They have red hair and tattoos. They are solitary, and they're mercenaries.

THE TIAMATS are the children of the Dragon. Related to the Djinn, the Fatas of the Middle East, they, too, are always red-haired. They'll pose as a parentless family of old money. If you're ever invited to a cocktail party in a grand house and everyone there is young and punk-antique...watch out.

THE MOCKINGBIRDS are a tribe of vampire-like Fatas. White skin and white hair and lovely, like most poisonous things. They seem polite and friendly -- that's a mask. They can be found as families in old, abandoned resorts.

Lily's Note:

THEY DON'T LIKE BEING CALLED FAERIES. But that's what they are, whatever name they give themselves, or are given, whether it's fairies, skinwalkers, djinn, dybbuks, asikaku, or just spirits. And I am here now, in this cold place, by my own choice, even if it was a Trick.
    Sometimes, I see what will be, because the house I'm in, the Wolf's House, is never in one place for very long. Maybe I'm allowed to see stuff, like they're telling me "This is what will happpen to those you think will save you." But I can warn you, out there, and keep you from making the same mistake I made, and that others have made.
    They made a mistake when they let me see what will become of a girl named Annie Weaver.

                                                                        ***

Lily's Note:

You see where this is going, don't you?
    They prey on the vulnerable and the lost. The water tribes are the worst because they do more than seduce and ruin. They are savage, the outlaws of the sea. They're the voice that whispers Come into the water so that you drown. They're the light on the ocean that leads you away. They're what hide in the dark pools, waiting to drag you down.
    They come ashore, sometimes, when they are hungry, or when they are exiled by their own people.
    In 1986, Leander Cyrus met the Gorgon and her family of Jacks and Jills.
    How do you think this will end?


Missing Boy Feared Dead

Owen Thyme, a young athlete from the Noe Valley neighborhood, missing since yesterday, is now believed dead. Police authorities have found evidence of his drowning in an abandoned well behind his house, although a body has not yet been found. Rescue teams have discovered that the well was built above an underground water source that may, oddly enough, lead to the ocean and, unfortunately, hamper their ability to locate Owen Thyme. Bloody footprints were discovered leading to the well and a jacket belonging to the victim was found nearby.

                                            San Francisco Chronicle 1971
                                                                           ***

(Illustration: Warwick Goble)

Jack and Jill: Lily's Story

I WON'T USE YOUR NAME, BRAVE, fierce sister, because there is power in a name. (I'm even beginning to sound like them now). You've probably found my journal, so this isn't for you alone, but for others who've stumbled across Their path.
    And you know who you are, don't you?
    It began, for me, with a walk in the woods, on the day our mother died, only I hadn't known she would die. It was winter. I saw the two dead children at an old well. Their velvet clothes looked motheaten and old. They were so white, it was like they hadn't any blood. When they looked at me, their eyes were like polished silver. And they were barefoot, in the snow. They were so serious about the dolls they were playing with. The dolls were just sticks wrapped in gauze, with small, porcelain faces glued on top. I don't know what made me recite the nursery rhyme. It wasn't anything dad had taught us, though you'd think, with him being an expert in folklore, he'd have known about Them and warned us.
    "Jack and Jill went up a hill, to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill--"
    One of the kids stood up and looked at me. He was my age -- I was thirteen -- and he wore a red velvet suit patched with mold. He was holding an old Halloween mask, a plastic rabbit face. His skin wasn't an albino's white...it was like snow. I wanted to run when he said, "You shouldn't talk about them like that."
    I said, rude, because I was scared, "Talk about who?"
    "Jacks and Jills." The girl frowned. She wore green velvet and a necklace of beetles made of tarnished pewter. "Dead people stuffed with flowers."
    The sun faded then, and their eyes glowed. I could see the veins in their skin -- it was like looking at our mom's creepy, ball-jointed dolls come to life. And it suddenly got colder than winter, a chill you find in basements, in stone places. I backed away, whispered, "What are you?"
    "We could have been Jacks and Jills. We're only dead things now."
    And I heard you calling me. And I ran. I ran away from them. I ran out of that dark place.
    And a couple of years later, in a different city, I stumbled back into it.
    Do you remember Leander? The boy I loved? He isn't what we thought he was...

(Illustration: Arthur Rackham)