I.
In her hand, the
Tooth Faerie held a single human tooth. She lifted it to the moonlight slanting
through the window. “Remarkable,” she thought, “that they should possess such
power and not know it.” The Tooth Faerie stood next to the night stand of a
five year old girl who had just lost her first tooth. The innocent girl believed
that the Tooth Faerie was a benevolent soul whose only concern was trading
teeth for change. She would soon find out how wrong she was.
The Tooth Faerie
was a malign creature with a heart rotten to the core. She was the last of her
kind, and older than the oldest man alive. Though her memory stretched back
decades, and she was the wisest creature in existence, she was dying. Not from
sickness, or injury, or hunger, but from the strangling, gnawing thing that is
old age. She blamed humanity for the impending extinction of her race, and so
hatched a plan to induce as much harm as possible before she died. The Faerie knew from the lore of her people
that within the first teeth of all creatures is a seed from which would hatch a
living skeleton of some lesser beast.
After careful
thought, she spread the myth of the Tooth Faerie, using the last of her magic
to fix the rumor in the minds of men. Every night she roamed with speed only
the faeries are capable of, creeping effortlessly into houses and pocketing the
instrument of her revenge, given by credulous innocents. Until tonight. Because
tonight, she had finally achieved her goal.
The tooth in her
hand was the last she would ever collect. With care she placed it into a rough
satchel that hung by her side and slid a quarter beneath the soft pillow of the
girl. She went back to her home, an abandoned warehouse on the edge of Buckner,
a small town in Arkansas. The children in town supposed it to be haunted, though
the Tooth Faerie herself was responsible for that rumor.
She reached the
door, which hung crazily off one of its hinges and slipped inside. With a flick
of a switch, she dispelled the darkness and sent the shadows fleeing into the
corners. The floor was concrete and the walls were wooden. The small windows
had long since been boarded up and it was completely empty of the rubble one
would expect. After hours of work, the Faerie had completely cleared the floor
of debris. The one thing in the building other than the lights was an enormous
mound of teeth. There were thousands. The pearly heap gleamed in the fluorescent
light, the product of years of work. Tomorrow she would sow. The day after, she would reap.
II.
“To pull, or not
to pull, that is the question.” So sighed Dr. Mick Winslow, the sole dentist in
Buckner. He had set up his practice in his own modest home. Though he was a
kind man, he was dreaded and loathed by children in town, who had fallen victim
to the universal fear of the dentist. He was, for lack of a better term,
misunderstood.
Now, at the end
of the workday, he was trying to decide whether to pull a man’s wisdom teeth.
He was taking a two week leave starting the next day, and if he left them in,
Mick felt they might crowd Mr. Thimble’s molars. “Ah well,” he muttered to
himself, “As Shakespeare so aptly put it: ‘Better three hours too soon then a
minute too late.’”
“Sir!” he
revealed abruptly to the anxious patient, making him jump, “I am sorry to sorry
say I am going to pull your
wisdom teeth!” His statement was received with a cry of anguish.
“Oh, cheer up,
Mr. Thimble, it isn’t the end of the world. If you really want I can put you to
sleep while I do it.”
Some short
minutes late, the job was done, Mr. Thimble given instructions, and the office
was closed. Mick sighed, relieved. The thought of two glorious weeks of freedom
was alleviating.
“Dentistry,” he
declared dramatically, “I dote on thy very absence.” With that, he fixed his
dinner, and sat down happily to his favorite pastime: Shakespeare.
III.
The next day,
the Tooth Faerie rose promptly. She had acquired numerous plant pots early in
the planning process and hidden them behind the warehouse. Now, she brought
them inside and spent the morning filling them with dirt. The mound of teeth
became soon encircled with pots. When the job was done, the Faerie looked
around at the result of her labor with satisfaction.
“Now, what will
they grow?” she asked herself. “Will it be some kind of bird? Crocodiles
perhaps? Apes would be useful. Or maybe bears!” The suspense was tantalizing.
Slowly the Faerie walked to the mass of teeth and selected three, two molars
and one canine. She pushed them deep into the first pot with fingers trembling
with anticipation. Eternal minutes seeped away.
Then, there was
a soft creaking, like the hinges of a rusty door. A single pale paw pushed its
way slowly through the dirt, flexing and clawing at the air. Then another. Soon
the pot was a churning stewpot with paws trying to escape confining soil.
Suddenly, one of the skeletal creatures was free, followed quickly by the
others. Their bony bodies were clogged with dirt, and as it trickled out their
shape became clear.
“Cats?” the Faerie whispered incredulously,
“Cats?” She said louder. As she spoke, one of them began to rub blissfully against
her leg. “Stop that!” she cried angrily, kicking at it. To her great joy and
amazement, it obeyed her. “Sit?” she said hesitantly. All three of them
immediately sat in a neat row, watching her. “Stay.” She ordered, and so they
did.
She spent the rest
of the day and all that night planting teeth. Cats of all sizes rose from the
pots, some small as kittens, others big as dogs. By the time she was done she
was so tired she could barely stand. “Stay here.” She murmured to her army, and
quickly fell into deep slumber, watched by empty eyes. The cats farthest from
her could not hear, and so did not obey her command. That proved to be her
undoing.
Cats are curious
creatures, always have been, always will be. As the few cats who had not heard
the Faerie’s last order began to get restless, they started pacing and
searching for a way out of the warehouse. The door had been chained shut by the
Tooth Faerie. Frantically they pried at the boards over the windows with
unnatural strength. Wooden panels were torn to shreds by skeletal claws. They
were free.
They would, of
course, return to the Faerie - she was the one who had woken them and they were
bound to her command. But for now, with no restraint on them, they could wander
as they chose until she bid them return.
“What’s that?”
one thought as the smell of catnip wafted through its empty nostrils, “What a
heavenly odor!” The scent led it toward Buckner. As it walked around houses and
climbed over fences it knew it was getting close.
“There!” A
rumbling purr erupted from its throat as it began to chew blissfully on the
intoxicating shrub. It was soon joined by the others who had made their way out
of the warehouse. By the time dawn came, there was not a single patch of catnip
left in Buckner, and the skeletal cats were so inebriated they could barely
walk back to the warehouse. They managed it, but they were just a bit too slow.
As they were
making their way back to the warehouse, Mick Winslow was out getting the papers
when he caught a glimpse of a skeletal tail and hind quarters vanish around the
corner of his house. He was so astonished he nearly fell over. When he
recovered he jogged to the corner of his house. There was nothing.
“Ah well, it’s
early and I haven’t had my coffee yet.” he muttered, trying to reason with
himself. Just then, he noticed that where his catnip plants had been there was
nothing. Every last stalk and leaf had been completely shredded. There was
nothing left.
IV.
As the
Tooth Faerie woke she was watched steadily by her army. The harsh lights glared
into her eyes, making her squint. Waking quickly, she rose and unchained the
door, while rubbing the wisps of sleep from her eyes. She looked out onto
Buckner, ready to unleash her army on the world.
“Destroy
the town.” She commanded them coldly, “I want there to be nothing but rubble by
midday. Subdue the humans, killing when necessary.”
As her
legions streamed out of the warehouse, she noticed there was a group of perhaps
twenty cats straggling behind. They were purring excessively for no reason at
all, and they seemed to find great hilarity in the simplest of things. “You are
not worthy of being in my service.” she spat, and commanded them to dispatch
themselves. The group of cats attacked each other as passionately as they could
at her demand, until there were only bones scattered on the ground. Then, as
the Faerie looked on, the bones began to merge together like water. They got
smaller and smaller until only a minute pile of teeth was left. She was
enjoying her absolute power immensely. Then she walked to the town where her
armies were making havoc among the citizens of Buckner.
The town
was in chaos. With little to no opposition, the cats ran rampant, tearing
through houses and shredding car tires with alarming ease. Suddenly, there was
a gunshot. It was Drew Thimble, the man that had his wisdom teeth pulled the
day before. He had fetched his shotgun from his basement and was defending his
house from his porch to the best of his ability, bellowing obscenities all the
while. Bang! One of the Faerie’s minions was blasted into shards of bone and
marrow. After managing to destroy one more of the fiendish things, a cat jumped
from the roof and knocked the shotgun from his hands. He was soon covered with
hissing, spitting creatures.
V.
Mick
Winslow was terrified. Previously, the most frightening he had experienced was
a zip-line when he was twelve, but compared to the cats, that was like a stroll
through the park.
As Mick ran from house to house, trying to
keep out of sight, he saw a woman standing calmly among the cats. Not only
that, she seemed to order them. He went to get a closer look. There she was,
among the yowling, screaming demon cats that appeared to be under her command.
She was the tallest woman Mick had ever seen, standing at least six foot. It
was bafflingly impossible to determine what she was wearing. It seemed she was
wearing everything, and her clothes blended and warped into new shapes with
every passing second. Her features were average, yet after he looked away, he
could not recall what she looked like.
Then, as
he thought about what to do in such circumstances, he remembered what had taken
place that morning. The catnip. He knew of a nursery nearby that specialized in
catnip. After grabbing handfuls of plastic bags from his house, he sprang onto
his bike and sped to the nursery. When he arrived, he entered the greenhouse
and crammed the bags full to bursting.
“Hey
now! What are you doing?” The owner cried.
“There’s
no time to explain now!” Mick replied, pressing some bills into his hands,
“Take this, it should cover it.” The owner looked on in shock as Mick slung the
bags over the handle bars and rode away.
“There’s
a story behind this and no mistake,” he muttered, “one day I’ll learn it.”
As Mick
rode on, the adrenaline that had been rushing in his veins faded away and his
legs began to tire. Already he could dimly hear the screams as the invasion
progressed. “Come on now Mick,” he told himself, “this is the home stretch.”
Legs burning with fatigue, he pressed on until he reached Buckner. Most of the
houses were demolished, and as he watched, a cat swarmed up a telephone pole
and chewed the wires to bits. He snuck to where the tall woman stood,
overseeing the destruction of Buckner. The cats had all congregating around
her.
“Well
done, my friends,” he heard her say, “You have exceeded my expectations.”
Mick
slipped into a nearby house with the catnip and climbed up to the second level.
From his vantage point he could see that a few last cats were making their way
to the woman. “Wisely and slowly,” he whispered, “they stumble that run fast.”
He took a deep breath. “One.” He swung the bags forward. “Two.” They rocked
back. “Three!” he shouted, and flung them into the pack of skeletal beasts.
Within a
moment the cats had flung themselves eagerly at the bags, tearing at them viciously.
Mick and the Tooth Faerie covered their ears tightly as hundreds of cats began
to purr in a bone-rattling chorus. “Stop!” screamed the Faerie in desperation,
but the cats were so loud that her plea went unheard. They were so frantic to
get to the catnip that they began to tear themselves apart with uncanny
strength. Pale bones jangled and clattered together. Ribs became intertwined
and snapped. Teeth cracked on pallid skulls. Soon, the ever diminishing number
of cats was fighting in a pool of gleaming pearly liquid. It gathered and
separated from itself into tiny white objects. As Mick looked on in horrified
fascination, the pile of teeth grew and grew and the number of cats shrank.
Finally, there were only a few left. They chewed contentedly on the catnip.
“Still.”
hissed the Faerie, shaking with rage. The cats obeyed, and the Tooth Faerie
walked towards them wrathfully. One after another, she ground her feet into
their bodies, turning them to dust before they thawed into liquid. Then, she
sank to the ground and wept, banging her fists against the ground.
As Mick
sat in silence, he began to feel sleepy. Not knowing what he should do next, he
felt that there was certainly nothing wrong with resting for a while. Police
soon arrived and found the Tooth Faerie. Nobody knew anything about her, and
she died later that day, though the coroner could find no cause. She had simply
given up. After the disaster of the teeth, the Faerie had lost the will to
live.
VI.
Mick
woke to a peculiar sight. He was lying on a legless table on the second floor
wrecked house. Some of the roof was missing, and the sun was taking a bath in a
splash of evening sky. However, the strange part was the heap of bones on his
chest.
“Ugh!”
he muttered, pushing them off, “Who would do such a thing?” Then, to his
surprise, the bones began to move. One of the Faerie’s cats had escaped the
carnage, and with no orders, it had done what most cats would do. It found a
warm lap to sleep on. As it rubbed its head against Mick’s leg, Mick began to
feel sorry for the thing.
“Huh,”
he said, “I think I’ll name it Bubba.”
“Meow.”
Said Bubba.
The End
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