The Ugly Man

Once upon a time, in a small but happy kingdom, a sweet and rosy-cheeked girl was born as Princess to the King and Queen of that land. While the Queen was still heavy wth child, the village seer paid a visit to the royal couple and, for the fee of a two buttons, laid hands on her belly to read the child’s fate. It was proclaimed that the babe would be blessed: she would know nothing of the ugliness in the world and would never have cause to cry. Pleased at this prophesy, the King declared that her birth would mark the day as a grand holiday to celebrate beauty and splendor.

When the day finally arrived, however, the sweet apprehension yielded mixed reward. For while the babe was as precious as foretold, as plump and as vibrant, she bore the strangeness of having no eyes. She was not merely blind; her face was smooth from her cheeks to her brow. In all other ways, however, she was perfect and delightful. She was born smiling, and throughout her youth laughter was never far from her lips. That she was blind never troubled her and though she was the daughter of the King and Queen all those who saw her felt moved to look after her as if she were their own. With age, she grew blessed with charm and grace, soft speaking and a delicate manner.

Each year, as the day of her birth came around, the holiday in her honor became a celebration that spun much revelry. And as she grew and blossomed, so did this carnival. By the time the blessed girl was obliged to wear the painted mark of her ripeness upon her smooth and untroubled brow, the day of joy had become a week-long festival. Yearly, pilgrims from nearby villages arrived in gaily costumed masses. Parades were held in a healthy spirit of competition to see which local troupe could outdo the others for the lavishness of their dress, the spirit of their piping, or the zest of their dance.

As always, the Princess was at the center of it all. It was she who decided the champions of the festival, a coveted reward that brought much honor to the village represented. With this in mind, costumes were designed not to please the eye but moreso the skin, so that she might touch them and find favor in their construction. Gold thread and fancy purples gave way to velvets and burlaps. One year the winning troupe paraded in elaborate vestments of raw wool and birchbark, winning out over fine silks and snakeskins. Gemstones were moot, for black pearls and paste baubles held equal regard.

And so, once a year, often the valuable became worthless and the worthless became prized beyond measure. Smooth gleaming gold gave way to precious rough rust. Brilliant scarves dipped in glitter yielded to cloaks of dried and crackling leaves. And puffed dandelions held dominion over all the fine crimson in the world.

In the same village of the King, Queen and their darling blind angel, lived a poor dirt farmer and his wife. Unlike the royals who had been without child for so long and later rejoyced in their strange and wonderful daughter, the farmer was beset on all sides by his brood. With more mouths to feed than hands to feed them with he was dismayed to learn that his wife was expecting, yet again. Each day as she grew more and more swollen with their fresh burden, the two counted heads at supper and wrung their hands with worry. Their hovel was collapsing, their children were sickly; they were as poor and wretched as could be and the lean market for dirt was thinning.

It came to pass that the farmer’s wife and the King’s Queen fell to labor at the same hour on the same day, each sweating and clawing into their bedsheets. Yet while the court doctor was present to ease the introduction of the Princess, none but the village midwife attended the poor family; with sleeves rolled up, squatting between red thighs. Amid the cries of the other infants and the yowling of mangy dogs circling the house, the old crone eventually wrestled out the newborn.

“My god, you have spawned a beast!” she exclaimed, and dropped the wriggling wet lump in horror. And it was true, for as they gathered around - the dirty-faced siblings, the exhausted and delirious mother and the farmer - they could see plainly that what lay squirming on the dusty floor, licked clean by their dogs, was less like an infant than a foul, brutish whelp.

It was lumpy, gnarled and covered with hair thick as fur. The thing twisted its limbs into the air and freed a horrible shrieking wail, pathetic and terrifying at the same time. It had swollen red eyes and many soft teeth. It rocked and arched and thrashed about under wet canine noses and curious licks. Its cries gained strength, broken by sputtered fits of choking.

“Take it away!” begged the farmer, panicked and desperate. For the fee of two buttons, the midwife scooped up the wet thing. She dropped the abomination into a sack and promised to dispose of it. Then the burly crone slipped away into the night, leaving the farmer to tend to his sobbing children and his broken and feverish wife.

It may not suprise you to learn that the seer and the midwife were one and the same; a clever witch, powerful in her way but not supremely so. When in need she called upon those more powerful to assist her, and those she appealed to would only help at great cost. In particular, the Witch owed a favor to the great beast of the Forest; an ancient, magical boar. The sow had once been human herself, long ago beyond memory when she was witch as well. Whether she changed into a beast to hide from her debts or whether the transformation was perhaps a price extracted could not be known, but she lived on to become the terror of the land. She never left the sprawling Forest, and those that strayed too deeply into its gloom would perish, devoured.

The Witch that was both Seer and Midwife owed this beast a debt that she intended to fulfill with the horrid babe now in her possession.

“Bring me a human child, and I will let you live to use what I’ve taught you,” the Boar had then cackled, grinding her hoof onto the crone’s chest, and marking her with the wound.

For her life, the Witch swore that she would deliver and the time had now come.

Pickng her way through the woods, with the babe in the sack on her back, she waited for the sow to reveal herself. She felt the eyes already upon her and knew the beast was there in the shadows, watching.

“I have come with your morsel, O Great Boar, O Sow of Sorrow,” she paused, panting, feeling her age in the ache of her bones, “I am here to pay what is due!”

“Where is my fee, wily hag?” Came the reply, “And play no tricks for I shall delight in trampling your flesh to jelly!” The boar shudderd hungrily, shaking the trees. It moved closer, quaking the ground with each step. There stood the Sow; large as a hill, covered with sod and boulders, with great curving stone tusks and eyes like hollow stumps brimming with foul water. The boar snorted proudly, her warm breath dank and sulfurous. It circled the Witch and snuffled at the sack impatiently.

“How delicious it smells, give it to me quickly before I gnaw off your thumbs.”

The Witch emptied the bag and cowered. Out tumbled the ugly babe into the muck of the Forest floor. It’s face was red and wet with tears. It cried blindly, soiled and miserable, cold and bruised. The Sow stepped back in surprise. The Witch feared for her life.

“What is this? This is no child!” She bellowed angrily. She grunted and snorted. At the flow of her hot breath the babe quieted, warmed for the first time in its short life. The Sow knelt and nudged about with her broad snout, smudging clay onto the child, marking it even as she sought to learn its nature.

“This is no child, it is some trick,” repeated the boar, more gently, forgetting the Witch and their bargain, forgetting her own hunger. “Some sad and ugly trick.”

Finding herself still intact, the Witch recovered her wits; presented with the strange sight of the Sow of Sorrows nestled into the mud and fawning like a nursemaid. She knew not what change had come over the Sow and she cared even less. She scrambled to her feet.

“Are we square?” the Witch asked, rolling her shoulders and standing straight. She fought to keep her voice level, to face the Sow as now an equal.

The boar looked up from her dotage with a deep rumble that shook the trees,

“We are square, Joga. Please leave us.” She then nosed the babe against her mossy side to suckle from honeyed teats. The Great Boar cooed with a dreamy melancholy; lost in nostalgia.

PART II

By the window they sat so that the sun fell warmly on them both. The Queen sat with her ever-smiling daughter as any mother would, and with wet happy eyes she placed the ripe mark upon that young, untroubled brow. The years had been kind to them all: the kingdom prospered, peace reigned, and though she and her husband were not futher blessed with children, their sole daughter filled every corner of their lives with joy. Blind she was, but keen of perception and of such optimism that she often saw the good in things unnoticed by others. And so she was beautiful.

Today was the start of her festival; down in the village the pennants were already flying high. There would be dancing in the streets and gifts exchanged, poetry and music to fill the air. The Princess, not yet a score in years, twittered eagerly.

“Be still, dear, or I shall ruin it.” The Queen finished quickly for the mark was simple, but still she held the girl’s face and studied it with a mix of emotions.

“Hurry mother, I can already hear the bands practicing in the fields. Are you almost finished?” She grinned, her rosy face upturned, her hands in her lap, endlessly touching and toying with all they could (her gown was festooned with ribbons and bits of string).

The Queen leaned close to kiss her.

“Yes, quite done. It is my duty to place it first, but I suppose I will have to teach you how to do it yourself.” The girl sprang to her feet and they embraced.

“Later, if you please. I don’t want to miss a thing.” She turned to the open window as if she could see through it.

“Come, Moriam let us go and fly our fingers.” Addressed, the Princess’ handmaiden and closest friend took the clever hand into her own and together they skipped out into the village. Guards followed at a respectable distance, under royal instruction to chaperone without detection. The Princess of course always knew of this but she never wanted to cause trouble for the guardsmen, nor give her parents reason to worry.

Today was different however. The Princess wanted to frolic a little more freely; she was a young woman now! She felt even moreso with the weight of the mark upon her, though it really was quite small. Arm in arm, Moriam led them through the forming crowds, describing the sights, particularly any boys. The Princess walked with her free hand outstretched, just letting her fingers trail over whatever they may. Being cooped in the castle for much of her life, she learned to savor these excursions and would often stop to feel the horns of a tethered goat or fresh laundry hung up to dry.

The girls turned into the Market where there was always something interesting to touch. The festival brought exotic goods as well as people and so they lingered over mounds of pineapple and giggled at green bananas.

They paused before a firebreather and the Princess had Moriam give him a coin for his most dazzling displays. He went to work, spitting his flames near the their heads so she could feel and smell it. A crowd gathered. The performer moved among them for tips and offerings and he was mobbed by good cheer and tossed coins. Moriam drew a sign into her palm with her finger when she saw that the guards were distracted. The girls ducked low and stumbled down an alley.

The village was one thing, old and familiar, but the yearly gathering of so many outsiders meant that around this core formed a shifting and ephemeral layer of tents and wagons. They could not get truly lost because the Castle was always in sight, however the local maze soon swallowed them up, confounding the gaurds' attempts to regain their quarry. The girls thrilled at this escape and they wandered through the outskirt tent city, marvelling at arriving caravans, and drifting further and further from the village itself. The Princess overheard stray remarks about her face and she instructed Moriam to purchase a veil. The vendor was a kindly old matron who sold them a soft simple veil for the price of two buttons and then invited the girls into her tent with an offer to paint their faces. Moriam hesitated, but the Princess was delighted by this and soon both were transformed, almost unrecognizable. Moriam had peacock feathers painted in paisley swirls along her arms and face, while the Princess was decorated in butterflies, the largest done in such a way that it she appeared to have beautiful yellow eyes behind her veil.

They passed the day enjoying the carnival and each other’s company, and their dizzy fun was made even more sweet by its illicit nature. Day soon slipped into night, naturally unnoticed by the Princess, but by Moriam as well who had succumbed to both wine and the charms of a masked harlequin youth. In fact, both girls had found beaus of high spirit by the time torches were lit. It was then that the first night of the festival took its true shape in the streets: dancing and music was everywhere, ever-changing, ever-spinning. They held hands, paired as paper dolls, and together the two maids tumbled through the arms of many fantastic admirers. Eventually, Moriam found herself as purpled plumage to a lithe man garbed as a crow, and the Princess spun through gypsy tents, blind and giddy at the hand of a fancifully scruffy burlap orangutang. Through the call and response of their laughter they remained connected and shared in all things that evening, oblivious to the hour and the frantic cries of desperate guardsmen.

By the dead of night these merry four - crow, ape, handmaiden and ripe, blind, blessed child - collapsed entangled before a crackling bonfire. The blaze was one of many lit around the rim of the tent village. The usual shape of the village was this: at its heart loomed tall the spires of the castle and court, then the grand moat, spanned by a series of draw bridges on islands. Along the edge of this moat thrived the village, and beyond that a vast span of field between it and the surrounding Forest. This ringed clearing was farmed for the most part but it also served as a buffer against the woods; dark, thick woods that were terrorized by the Boar and other unknown dangers.

However, now with the yearly swelling of its populace and the settlement of this ringed clearing by revelers and other pilgrims, the margin of safety against the Forest was narrow indeed. Visitors were warned to avoid the woods, and at night during the festivities, the occasional growl and crash would sound over the merrymaking. Sometimes eyes could be seen gleaming through the leaves. It was risky to linger and camp so close to the woods, but there was little room elsewhere and frankly such close danger made the revelry all the more delicious. The ring of bonfires marked the line of absolute safety, beyond which both the King and common sense had decreed wanderers would be taking their lives into their own hands.

It was into this woody night that Moriam occasionally glanced, seeing only the firelight reflected off damp crusty bark. Time and again, however, her attention fell back to the antics of her paramour. She took her turns at the passing flask.The Crow looped his arm around Moriam’s waist, his mask raised to his brow, his black feathers bronzed by the blaze which warmed them all.

“M’ladies fair,” he began, holding the clay jug of wine aloft, “On this first night of Festival, by the famed grace and strange beauty of the local princess, I, Lord Jollyrook McInkybeak of the Cozycrow clan do declare you two maids to be the finest examples of your fair sex, and proof of God’s good mercy upon this sorry world of men and madness he has wrought.”

“Hear, hear!” Roared the Orangutang, reaching for the bottle and drawing a deep swig of its contents. He sopped his face with the back of his rough red paw and leaned over to kiss the Princess on her cheek. For her part, she giggled and clapped at the toast.

“Bravo, dear bird! But tell me, what do you know of this princess, so strange as you say? My friend and I are newcomers to this event and have yet to see her, though we know it is held in her honor.”

Moriam reached over and squeezed her leg, and the Princess patted her hand, grinning impishly.

“I’m glad you asked, Lady Butterfly,” started the Crow, pulling down his mak and bending low, “For there’s nothing I enjoy more than to proclaim the virtues of-”

“Bugger that!” said the Orangutang, interruppting and swatting at the his friend,

“Don’t you listen to his squawkings, my pretties. This year is our first here as well. My cousin and I hail from upriver in the mountains beyond the Forest. We’re on our way to the southern port, to seek our fortunes upon the high seas. Stopping here along our way has been”, and here he nuzzled roughly at the Princess, “A rather fortunate decision made on the spur of the moment.

“It was my idea, truth be told,” said the Crow, flopping down beside Moriam and pushing his mask aside again to gain a kiss. She melted into his dark feathers, feeling them lightly brush a thousand such kisses against her bare arms.

Moriam closed her eyes and extended a lean leg, pressing her toes to her friend. She spoke to continue their game,

“Well, the Princess has been known to mingle in the village during these days. You boys may get your chance to meet her yet. I hear she travels with excellent company.”The Princess giggled. She slouched against the shaggy, ragged chest of base cloth and fingered at it idly, “Mmm, indeed you may. I’ve yet to see her myself, but I’ve heard that she never misses a festival.”

“We were told that she’s fair beyond all others,” spoke the ape, “though I can now see that there’s no accounting for taste.” He curled his arms around her from behind and pressed coarse lips against her neck. His beard scratched at her throat and the Princess turned her head aside, to bare herself even more. The man was rough and warm, every part of him crudely fashioned, textured and a joy to behold beneath her fingers. She yielded to his kisses and his embrace, his wide hands moving about her clothed body. She settled her palms to them, holding them fast for a moment,

“I may have heard somewhere that she’s a monster.”

At this both men startled, then looked to each other and laughed roundly.

“Oh aye, my lady, without a doubt she must be,” remarked one with a wink. The other added,

“And with envious green eyes, I’ll wager; knowing what beauties abound here under her very nose.”

“And were she truly hideous to behold? If her beauty was of the heart and not to the eye, how would you then compare us? We two maidens you’ve only come to known with your senses.”

She asked this soberly and the men fell to puzzled silence, even Moriam’s smile dropped. The handmaiden sat up and took her friend by the hand,

“Come sister, these two gallants can hardly be wise in the way of truth and beauty given the rather obvious nature of their chosen skins. Accompany me only a little ways into the woods for I feel I need to be away from this fire and wine for a pace or two. Come with me and when we return perhaps our kindly beasts will have found an answer to your curious question.”

She put an arm around the Princess and led her away with a smile back to the men, who even now were handing the wine between them and chuckling in low tones by the fire.

.

“Are you well?” Moriam asked, after they passed through the damp grass to just within the outer line of trees, trees with trunks like twisting bodies. The princess reached out to place herself against a tree, fingering along the gnarls and furrows in its bark. She shook her head with a small frown.

“I don’t know, Moriam,”

“Perhaps we should return to the castle; it is quite late, and we are surely missed.”

The Princess seemed not to hear her,

“I don’t feel sick, but strange all the same. One moment hot and panting,” she faced out to the shaggy figures, black against the fire from this vantage. She could not see them but she felt the warmth from the bonfire and could hear the crackling roar mingle with their easy laughter. She felt Moriam’s fingers on her face, passing softly over the smooth span where eyes should be, now painted. Her lips trembled,

“And the next moment, I feel so cold and forelorn.”

“The boys?” Moriam asked, pulling her friend close and embracing, whispering intimately. The princess shrugged and shook her head as though it were heavy.

“They are boys. Boys at play. When the clear light of day comes, when all this artifice comes undone, we will all be shabby and tired and the fire will have burnt itself out.”

Moriam kissed her friend’s cheek.

“Perhaps. But they are alive and ruddy right now and they find us both beautiful this night.”

The Princess felt something wet and warm,

“Moriam are you crying?”

“Yes, for you cannot. Here, let me stop or I’ll ruin your eyes.”

.

From behind came the two young men, tromping through the rising brush and into the woods to join them.

“What’s this, lovelies? Having a chat? I thought it was the night air you were needing, a walk to stretch your limbs,” it was the orangutang and he reached up to sway from a ponderous branch, creaking the tree. It groaned under his weight and rustled, sending a ripple through the canopy into the night.

“Aye, cousin, I told you they were talking about us. Come back to the fire, angels. It’s not safe here for tight or loose limbs.”

The ape dropped back to the ground with a thump and ambled further into the woods, facing away from them.

“The wine is finished, I’m afraid. Unless you know how to make more.” He laughed heartily and rustled within his costume to relieve himself, bellowing a howling grunt into the murk of the woods.

“Stop that!” Cried Moriam, trying to keep her voice low though insistant, “These woods are not safe, it’s true. You should not have come after us. We were about to return.”

The ape looked over his shoulder at her and then back down to his business. The crow embraced Moriam from behind, nudging his smooth beak against her jaw.

“We thought from the way you two were talking and watching us, that you wished for us to follow. Away from the civilizing fire and into earnest, honest, animal nature.”

“Aye,” said the ape, now finished and turning back to them, “for when nature calls, who can but heed without question?”

The men winked to each other and chortled. Moriam felt feathers touching her delicately. She tore free from his arms and took up the Princess’ hand.

“Good sirs, we will take our leave of you. We can see now that-”

“No,” Said the Princess, reaching down to unclasp her hand and then stepping awkwardly to where she heard and knew the ape to be. He recieved her into his arms with a curious look on his face, but smiling and toothy all the same.

“I think I will stay a little longer, if it pleases you. Go home and I will see you tomorrow.”

“Oh! But sister, you-” She looked to the others, distress on her face, “I cannot return without you!”

The crow hopped closer to her and took her arm, “Do not fear, my dove. I shall accompany you and my cousin will stay with her - through the night if need be, I assure you.”

Moriam looked pained, “But it is so dark, there is no moon...” She said, trailing off meekly.

“I will be fine Moriam, I can feel my way if need be.”

“And I’ll help with that,” said the ape with a lusty grunt.

The couples turned from each other then. The crow led a plaintive and resisting Moriam out of the woods while the ape walked with the Princess further into it, arm in arm.

PART III

“Can you see the flames,” the Great Sow asked, “That circle of fire the humans have built along the edge of our world?”

She sat as immovable as a hillside, her spine nearly cresting the canopy. In the passing years she had grown in size and matter, more and more like a thing of the earth itself. She smelled of rotting wood and clay.

Large and sqatting on her broad neck, her adopted child took his familiar post, holding onto her ears and telling her what he saw. She had long since gone blind. Perhaps with age, perhaps from termites and other burrowing things. She was incalculably old, but only since taking in the ugly whelp had it started to show. She could no longer clearly see the flames, but she heard them, and the human noises beyond them. The heat reached her through the trees, and the trees themselves whispered in terror at the display of such wanton, hungry fire.

He nodded and dug his thick toes into the earth of her scalp, “Yes, Mama. The fire is dancing.” It made his hairs stand up in fright to watch and yet the light was mesmerizing. He could not look far aside before feeling the need to stare back into the play of heat.

“And the humans, do you see them?”

“Yes, Mama. They are dancing, as well.”

She blew a low snort, nodding, “Then you see how they are one and the same. Both would devour the earth, given the chance.” A wind passed through the woods and all around them leaves moaned and rustled in sympathy.

“The fire,” he whispered, his eyes drawn back from the coupling, heedless figures into the flames, “is beautiful.”

She prodded her foot into the ground and shook violently, “It is vile! It burns. It is a flickering, fleeting, mindless beauty. Were you to touch it, were you to embrace it, it would eat you alive and without remorse. Your fat would sizzle in its maw while it still hungered for more. There is no beauty in fire. Only a sad and endless hunger. Lust!” She growled the sound of roots ripping, “They even burn each other when the mood strikes. For being different, for being the same, for being too weak or too strong. It is sickness and insanity.”

She rose with a shuddering effort and turned, “Come. You are older now, and you have watched this long enough. This evil seduces.” He said nothing but looked back still, and dreamed.

.

It was not long before the Great Sow slept. And when she did, she crumbled just a little more. He sprawled on her back and looked up at the stars through the leaves. How much longer until she simply melted away into the ground, leaving a oddly shaped hillock - leaving him alone. She told him often enough that the trees would keep him company, that the Forest was eternal and would provide. He believed her and did not worry for his fate, but as she snored like boulders grinding, as the wind whispered of more beyond the trees, he felt himself restless.

.

He sat up at the sound of an approach. He crouched in the tall grasses of his mother’s mane and felt for a stone as a weapon.

“Relax, piggy. It’s just your Aunt Joga, come to pay a visit.” The hag shuffled out of the gloomy brush, waving and bowing. He relaxed. He grinned, teeth flashing in the night. He dropped down to the ground and scrambled over quickly to embrace her. Joga pushed her knobby fingers over his broad, furred face and pinched his cheeks, examining him.

“My, piglet, you do sprout like a weed.” She clasped his shoulders and thick arms, feeling for meat over bone under skin. She licked her lips, “And more man than boy, I’ll say!” She cackled and he blushed hotly under his hide, looking back at the sleeping mass of his mother. She would never have slept so soundly in the past.

Joga followed his gaze, “I see that I’m too late to come calling. Your mother now sleeps like a stone. I will come another night.” She moved as if to shuffle away and he stopped her.

“Please stay, it is always good to see you.”

The witch sucked her gums and fixed him with an eye, “You have something on your mind.” She whispered roughly, pulling at his arm to walk into forest, “Come and tell me your troubles.”

“We saw the fires tonight. The humans,” he trailed off.

“Quite a show, ne? They can party like moths ablaze!” She jiggled and clapped her hands.

“Are they really so dangerous?”

She spun to a stop and leaned against a tree, wincing and grabbing her aching hip. She caught her breath, “Deadly.”

They shared a somber moment before she licked her lips, “But right fine in a pie!” She slapped her thigh and laughed. He chuckled nervously, Aunt Joga was sometimes quite odd.

She calmed down and pulled at her thin beard, “Now I know what you’re thinking. You got blood in you, much as I do. Your mother might do well to remember that, and what it was like. You see them bodies twisting and fitting together by the fire and you wonder, hmm?”

He nodded, it wasn’t exactly right, but she seemed to be working up to something.

“Well let me tell you, it’s flash and sparks, piggy. It’s Heaven! It can hurt if you do it right but it still feels good when you don’t. More’s the pity to them that don’t want it but must. And thin comfort to those that do and can’t have it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Bah! Of course you don’t,” she licked her lips, “And I’m too old to show you, frankly. There’s more to it than what I’ve said, but in the end it’s as simple and plain as falling down.”

“Mama says that humans and fire are the same and to stay away from both.”

“Well that’s poetry for you.”

“But do you agree?”

“Your mother is older than humans and fire. Her wisdom is worth remembering.”

“You won’t answer.”

“I am not afraid of being burned,” she stood up to her full height briefly, flaring her nostrils, “I am a witch.” With a sly wink she took his furred hand and, hobbling vigorously, pulled him in the direction of the village, “And right now, I’m feeling an itch in places I thought were long dead. C’mon, piglet, let’s go sightseeing.”

.

The Sow of Sorrows seeped tears like pine sap, her ears full of mulch and dreams. She struggled to rise from her slumber.

Aunt Joga mumbled as they went, muttering under her breath and signing in the air. She was not talking to him directly so it took some time for him to realize that she was casting a spell. As they drew closer to the edge of the trees he could see her more clearly by firelight. She looked younger - well, not exactly younger, but youthful. She still had all her moles and warts, but they dotted her face like beauty marks and playful freckles on rosy cheeks. She still had her thin bearding whiskers, but they wore like peach fuzz and velvet. Her spine was true and her limbs long and lean. She flared at the hips and even her tattered robes seemed fresh as petals. Her grey hair was a dazzling thick silver, festooned with beads and clever braids. She held a finger to her lips and flashed him a sultry wink. They paused in a shadow and she pointed.

There on the ground tangled two creatures that he first did not recognize as humans. The female was beautiful and appeared to be fae, but he soon saw it was all just paint and costume. The male looked - of all things - like himself! In their struggle the female managed to topple off the male’s head, revealing a second one underneath! It had only been a mask. They were humans playing at being something more, something magical. Why now did they wrestle in the dirt, in the shadows? He was about to speak when Aunt Joga touched her lips to his and shook her head. Her voice entered into him.

Quiet, child. Here is my birthday gift to you.

She released his hand and gave him a last lingering look. Her skin tight and bronzed and smooth. She smiled, turning away in scarves and bells as a gypsy and a dancer.

.

“What’s this? What’s this?” Joga laughed, affecting a stagger. The ugly man crouched in the brush to watch quietly, his hairs raised all over his body.

Joga reached down to the orangutan and pulled him off the Princess. She stood tall and drank from a bottle of wine.

“I come out to commune with nature and find beasts and babes entangled like pups over scraps.” She laughed richly and the man in the costume blushed, standing up quickly. He dusted his chest and snatched up his mask. Joga seemed to match his height with ease.

“Oh, off with ya, wench!”

The Princess rolled away, hugging herself and curling onto her side. Her dress was torn to the waist, her hair had come undone. She sobbed without crying.

“Tsk, there there, pigeon.” Joga crouched and helped the Princess to her feet. She looked her over and then to the man. He seemed agitated and avoided her gaze, holding his grotesque head in his hands.

“Such a girl on such a night? A big strong man like you?” Joga stepped to him and her glamour bloomed about them both. He faced her and blushed.

“Surely you’d prefer a full woman your own size, than this... child.” She traded him the mask for the jug of wine. He could not resist and already his eyes were travelling over Joga’s body, the Princess long forgotten. The witch placed the mask over her own head and her eyes sparkled through the holes. She leaned closer to him and groped for his crotch.

“For these two buttons,” she squeezed, “I’ll be your beast.”

She kissed the lips of the mask to his jaw and neck. They moved as though alive and her own and she bit him visibly. He grunted, but was otherwise blind to the oddness of this transformation. He reached a wide paw to her waist, nodding wordlessly and she led him away without a backwards glance.

.

The ugly man waited in the dark. The Princess had slouched against a tree and was sniffling to herself, curling her toes in the earth and rocking. After a while she seemed to calm down, turning her face this way and that as if searching. He saw that her eyes were wide open however, a strange expression on her decorated face. She was beautiful. Not in the dusky way of Joga’s fleshy magic, but attractive like dew on spidersilk, the sound of snowmelt trickling. He crawled closer and she turned to face his hiding place.

“Who’s there?”

Her open eyes stared directly into his own and he held his breath. She did not blink. She asked again, stepping briefly towards him, then stumbling back.

“Who approaches! Moriam!”

She seemed on the verge of panic and he felt his pulse quicken. She would surely fall, flailing like that.

“Be careful! It is only I.” He said it without thinking, seeing only tripping roots and sharp rocks. She tilted her head, looking away but showing her ear.

“Only I? Have you returned then? Was she too much for you? Leave me alone!” And then, meekly, after a hesitation, “Do you know who I am?”

“No,” he sat in front of her. “And that man is gone. I suspect he will be eaten - in a pie, perhaps.”

She snorted, abruptly startled.

“Why do you pretend to be a fairy?”

She raised her eyebrows, then touched her clothes, her face.

“It’s festival; we’re all something we’re not.” She backed into a tree and felt along its bark to sit against it, facing him. Her hands crawled like spiders around her, one finding a stone, the other a loose stick. She drew both nearer.

“Is that really what I look like?”

“Well, at first. But I can see that it’s not real.”

“And you, what are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“For the festival.”

“It is no holiday to me.”

She shook her head. “But that’s silly, everyone knows-”

“You have no eyes!” He rolled onto his hands and knees, closer to see the truth of it. It was strange how she never blinked, but then, just then, by the distant light, he saw her smooth face beneath the paint. She pulled the stone into her lap, it too was smooth.

“Yes. I am the princess.” Her title was meaningless to him. He crouched closer, curious. She left the stone in her lap and tore a length from her ruined dress. She wiped at her face and smirked.

“Usually that elicits some response.” But still he was quiet, marvelling at her. She pushed the hair from her brow and used the rag to tie it back.

“Who are you?” She asked. She sensed his presence, his heat closer now, his scent much like the man in the costume but with a peculiar edge to it that she could not place.

“My mother never named me, but my Aunt calls me ‘Piglet’ or ‘Piggy’.”

“Well that’s just awful.”

Closer still and the Princess could only picture her father’s hounds after a hunt, heated and rangy. How strange this fellow should make her think that.

“You tease me. You are in costume,” she reached for him, abruptly fumbling her fingers into his chest and spreading them upon his fur.

“You-”

He tensed beneath her touch. Her fingers hot like embers pushing through his hide. She followed one hand with the other, combing her fingers along his broad shape. He thought of humans and fire and leaned away from her. She tugged at him.

“But... this is beautiful. You must tell me how you made this.” Her fingers found snarls and matted patches, burrs and twigs, and swooping passages of plush velvet along his sides. He was facinatingly textured; here it was coarse, and there thin and fine. And under it all, beat a delicious warmth and mass. She thought of horse flanks and raw dough from the kitchen, cottowool and crackling dry leaves. Her hands found the shapes and colors she had always imagined.

It was real - he was real. She had enjoyed the rough artifice of the orangutan costume, but that was mere shadow to this living substance, smoke to this blaze. She pushed her face into his neck and breathed deeply. His hair mingled with her own.

.

The Great Sow crumbled more and more with each heavy step. Her eyes were gummy with sap and she blundered into treetrunks, splintering them aside. Her child was gone. Joga had bewitched him. Or the fires. She snorted out vermin and drooled stumpwater, shedding her flesh in clods from old granite bones. The trees in her path screamed silently, the others wailing in her ears. They told her where to go, they guided her so she would not blindly rampage among them.

There is your bastard seed! Spare us!

She thundered upon them, finding them entwined; some filthy human thing marking her cherished. Her eyes blurred over, her nostrils ran, she gnashed her terrible teeth and reared above the treetops, blotting out the sky.

She howled for him to move aside so that she might trample the human to jelly. But he could not, paralyzed by fright, unable to understand her earthy cries as her throat fell to rubble. She now frightened him. Together the two cowered before her and she wailed as she found she could not tell them apart.

“You betray me, my child! My wretched, dear child.” She collapsed, falling upon them both and feeling their soft hands clawing at the clay of her belly. Inside, the Sow’s stone heart broke sharply in two and she trembled into a smothering heap, like a fresh grave mound.

PART IV

Guards and villagers with torches and shovels, axes and spears, surged into the woods beyond the fires. Moriam was with them, as was the King himself. Gawkers came with them still in costume.

“Here! I left her here.” Moriam flew to the hillock and dug into dirt with her bare hands. She sobbed and was joined quickly by others. Even the King was soon up to his elbows in roots and grime.

Digging together, it was not long before the limp bodies of the two were uncovered, and then they both were hauled free.

The King knelt to embrace his daughter. Soldiers held the shaggy beast that was with her. Both were bare and soiled, unconscious but alive. Moriam pointed to the slumped bulk of the ugly man, “Sire! This is the one! He was with her when I left!”

Moriam had to be restrained. She was wild with rage and struggled as thought to tear the ugly man to pieces. The King gave his instructions to those around him.

“I will return to the castle with my daughter. You, run ahead and fetch the doctor.” He gestured at Moriam, “And take her to the nunnery, I will tend to her punishment.” He held a torch low to the slack face of the ugly man, now mired with dirt and worms. “Weight him with stones. I want him in the moat.”

“Who is it?” Cried one from the crowd.

“Yes, take off his mask! Who did this to the Princess!” The crowd gathered in outrage, torches bobbed about and the trees watched in silence, aghast.

The King surveyed the hateful, twisted faces flickering in shadow and light. He spoke,

“No! This one wears the disguise of a monstrous beast and he will suffer likewise! For that skin fits him better than his own bare flesh. I want no name from him! I’ll have no name follow my child like a spectre past this night!” And then to his guard, “Give him to the mob, but see that he drowns.”

.

They wrested a stone rib from the earthen pile and carried it with the ugly man from the woods, through the village to the castle moat. He lolled like a carcass above their heads, passed roughly from hand to hand, prodded with rakes and pikes until his fur slopped red with blood. He moaned pitiously and gagged out clots of dirt from his lungs, delerious.

The throes of the festival turned easily to outrage as the mob swelled in size and spirit. Many joined the procession with no understanding of what was going on, merely eager to partake in the drunken spectacle.

“Burn him!” “Hang him!” “Who is it?”

But the soldiers were resolute, “Any who unmask this man will share his fate!”

Somewhere among the crowd, with the eyes of a coward, the Crow watched the torture and drowning of his presumed kin. He sobbed within his mask.

.

“Well now, Joga,” She asked herself, licking her lips clean, “What will you do to make this right?”

She exited from the tent, an old and bent woman. She went unnoticed amid the tumult of the night. She heard the uproar and walked away from it. Soon the Princess would wake and streak from the castle in some lovestruck effort to save her new, friendly beloved. Soon but not soon enough. He would be dead and below the water. Were this all fate, she would shrug and shamble on. But this was not fate. This was by her meddling hand. And to do nothing invited trouble, for such was justice in this world. Some how, some way, she would suffer in balance. This she knew; she and the silent trees. She clutched her sack of buttons, her jostling horde, each one-half of a pair, like the eyes of a simple doll.

“What can I do? I am an old-”

“Nonsense, you are Joga the Witch, terrible and cunning. With heartbreak you have killed the Great Sow of Sorrow when knights with swords and priests with fire have failed. What do you fear from mortal rabble?”

“I did not want to kill her.”

“You used to want her power.”

“Her power? Her dominion? Over what, the Forest?” She shook her head, “No, no. We had become friends. Anyway, it is too late. He will die and she will follow in a young lover’s suicide or some such. This story is the same. Perhaps in memorial I could transform her into a willow tree by the water’s edge.”

“That is small thinking. You are still guilty and you know it.”

“I can silence you.”

“I would like to see you try.”

.

She was not the only one shunning the torchlit scene by the water’s edge. She saw the crow staggering, heard his cries and sensed in him a kindred conscience.

“Oh poor cousin! My blood and kin, I am a coward!” He trailed black feathers and tears, dropping an empty bottle, drunk.

“You there, black bird.” She rapped on his beak, “What’s this about?”

“They are killing my cousin, I left him to his doom, the poor fool.”

“So you did, so you did. I can hear even now how they ready the weight about his belly. Such jeering madness!” She patted his black ruff, sucking her gums thoughtfully.

“I would give anything to save him and flee this horrid place.”

“Your cousin has earned his reward, but give me two buttons and I will help you save the one they mean to kill.”

.

Soldiers kept the crowd off the bridge across the moat. The ugly man lay in a stain of his own blood, his body matted with it, cut and broken and bruised. The stone rib had been tied to his waist by a length of sturdy rope and several men struggled to pick them both up. They began to heave, slowly swaying him and he looked up through bruised, swollen eyes to see past their dark faces. A black angel circled closer to carry him away.

His vision swam before him and he was falling through the air, touching the water, feeling it swallowing him in a cold, luxuriously numbing, wet embrace.

It lasted only an instant before he was wrenched out, the silence of the moat emerging into the roar of the crowd and the rush of great wings. He swung, twisting from the rope, and the world fell away from him. All those astonished upturned faces, those small torches growing smaller still.

Aunt Joga was cackling, riding a great black bird, her grey hair whipping in the wind. He passed out, streaming blood from his lips into the night sky.