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Serena banged on the door of Primrose Cottage in loud, sharp knocks as the rain poured angrily from the sky. A minute later, the door opened and Aunt Maeve stood there, looking at her in shock.

“Serena? Child, what on earth are you doing out here?”

“Can I come in please?” asked Serena in a cracked voice.

“Of course! Come in, Come in.”

Sweeping a quick glance at her bedraggled appearance, and the two bags clutched in her hands, her aunt rushed her inside. Gently detaching her clenched fists from her baggage, she steered Serena toward the stairs.

“There are still a few dresses you left here the last time you stayed. Why don’t you change first?”

Half an hour later, Serena sat in front of the fire in the living room.

Her aunt pressed a cup of tea into her hands. “It’ll warm you up and make you feel better.”

They sipped their tea in silence, until Serena’s emotions simmered to the surface. “They will never understand me! Ever! I would rather die than live the plain boring life they’ve constructed for me. I just can’t, Aunt Maeve. There is so much more I want to do!”

“I know,” said her aunt simply.

Nothing more had needed to be said; from that day on, Serena became a permanent inhabitant of Primrose Cottage.

Eighteen Months Ago

“You know,” said Serena from her place on the study floor, “for people who don’t believe in fairytales, the people of Glenn sure are superstitious.”

Aunt Maeve looked up from the document she was transcribing and frowned. “Who was it this time?”

“Old Agatha was going around whispering loudly about Titania’s blush-haired nymphs.”

“If you want me to say something…”

“There’s no use, and we both know it.”

Sighing, her aunt took off her spectacles and rubbed her forehead.

It had been two months since Serena took up residence in Glenn, and rumours of Maeve Clarke’s half-Fae ward were already flying around.

Not that she was half-Fae, of course. That was just a rumor that had spread when her aunt, who had no husband of her own, had suddenly showed up in town with a girl whose hair was the color of cherry blossoms in bloom.

No matter how many times Maeve told people Serena was her niece, the villagers still cast her wary glances every time she ventured into the village .

Two things were behind this unfortunate series of events.

The first was that, before she had ever moved to Glenn officially, a few lads from the nearby farms had spotted a young girl with pink hair frolicking in their fields, flowers in her hair and pockets, as she spun and danced through the stalks of wheat.

And so began the legend of the Rose Witch who haunted the village and was rumored to lure unsuspecting children into the woods for the dark Faeries to snatch up and take to the Otherworld.

Unfortunately, the subject of the ‘legend’ was just young Serena,visiting for the summer, perpetually sneaking out much to her beleaguered aunt’s dismay.

The legend had grown exponentially in size, and by the time she had shown up to the village in person in all her pink-haired glory, it had been too late for her aunt to convince anyone that she was wholly human.

The second reason was much simpler. The villagers lived slow, uneventful lives, and it was so much more interesting to believe that Serena was a Fae being rather than Lorena Larke’s eccentric daughter who had come to live with her aunt in her seventeenth year.

The whispers didn’t bother her overmuch, but she hated how they seemed to upset her aunt.

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Serena brightly, wanting to take Aunt Maeve’s mind off of the issue. “Why all the fae superstitions?”

“Did you know, it is said that the village of Glenn used to be part of Elphame, or Faery as it became more commonly known, and many of its inhabitants are actually descendants of the Fae?”

“The people of Glenn?” repeated Serena in disbelief. “The only one of them I can believe that about is old Agatha. I swear she’s part hag.”

Chuckling, Aunt Maeve continued, “I know it seems hard to believe, but Glenn used to have a rich culture of folklore, before the religious revolution spilled into our part of the kingdom as well. That was when all the beautiful and wondrous stories became bitter, cautionary tales and superstitions. The once beloved tales of maidens going on adventures and falling in love became tales of young women being led astray by vanity, the stories of princes fighting dragons turned into allegories for young men who kept their head down and fought against life’s ills by working hard and praying.

Talking birds and mice were metaphors for the many sins that distracted you from religion. ”

Serena frowned. “If the new belief discourages fairytales, why not get rid of them altogether? Why change them into something else?”

Her aunt went silent for a minute before answering.

“That is a good question,” she said at last. “The belief the robed men brought to our shores was one not native to our lands. It is said that the kings of Lumina did their best to encourage the holy men, for belief in king and god was something that they knew would challenge Faery’s influence on Lumina. An influence they had long resented.

“However, here’s the thing about humans.

We are not rational creatures, and belief is something that can only be taught so far.

You can teach people something is evil, but you cannot completely rid them of traditions that have been around since time immemorial.

When it became hard to rid the citizens of their knowledge of Faery, the preachers settled for calling Faery a sinful place and faeries, demons.

The tales of magic became superstitions against the Fae, against wonder, and beauty.

“The adage of mirrors shattering has its roots in stories like the Poisoned Apple and The Ice Queen. Black cats crossing your path is simply the twisting of a folktale regarding an ancient Fairy Queen who sometimes would take the form of a black feline to roam the human world. Places like Glenn still believe, only their faith has turned into mistrust and suspicion. ”

“Oh.” An odd melancholy swelled inside Serena over the tale. “Why are the Larkes different?”

“Come here.” Her aunt motioned her toward the desk. “I want to show you something I am working on.”

Serena looked at the journal in front of Aunt Maeve. There were a few rough drawings drawn on the pages that had been crossed out, followed by a couple names she couldn’t quite make out—both of which had arrows that pointed to a name written in bold letters.

ARCANA FORTUNE

“ Arcana Fortune ?” she read aloud.

“Like you, I have long been curious about the Larke family history. Why we safeguard these tomes, why our duty is important, and why, of all people, we remain the only ones who believe in Faery. The answer to most of these questions is Arcana Fortune, our ancestor.

“Arcana became a renowned storyteller at the mere age of eighteen, and it is said that she had the favor of the Faery Court itself. Her tales were wondrous and magical; fae touched, they used to call her. It wasn’t long before her fame spread far and wide, and many fell in love with her at first sight, both for the words she weaved and for her stunning beauty.

Around that time, the belief in Faery had already started to wane, but Arcana’s story reawakened faith in Lumina, and the people remembered the faeries once more.

Unfortunately, her time was short lived—she vanished when she was only twenty-six. ”

“What happened to her?”

“No one knows. It was shortly after that, that the then king declared that, for religious reasons, tales of the faeries—of any sort of magic—be strongly discouraged in the kingdom. An edict that the later kings upheld.”

“How does that connect to the Larke family?” Serena tried to wrap her head around all this.

“After Arcana vanished, her things went to her sister Larke. Larke was not a storyteller, but she had dearly loved her sister and wanted to protect what she had cherished the most. Which were her stories. So, she set about collecting and compiling all of Arcana’s works as well as preserving the books her sister had so carefully collected.

Shortly after, when there was talk of fairy tales being banned, she enlisted some of her family and friends and began to record many tales that she had heard or learned.

“Our family surname comes from her first name: Larke. I guess her successors wanted to preserve her legacy in some way. We have been collecting tales since then and safeguarding the ones that we already have.”

“So you could almost say we’re one of the last bastions of the Old Faith.”

Her aunt inclined her head. “It’s a heavy burden but one our family has carried proudly for generations.”

“Suddenly, I don’t feel very confident about taking over from you,” said Serena, feeling a little queasy at the enormity of what her aunt was describing.

Aunt Maeve laughed quietly at that. “Don’t you worry about that, Rosie. I’m here for a while yet.”

Six Months Ago

Serena sat on the floor of the study—in the same spot she had on those evenings with Aunt Maeve, drinking tea together and talking for hours. The same room in which her happiest memories had taken place .

The study looked the same as it always had, not even one piece of paper out of place. Except for one key difference.

Aunt Maeve was gone.