Witch, Beast, Saint: An Erotic Fairy Tale

Witch, Beast, Saint: An Erotic Fairy Tale

By C.S.E.Cooney

Once upon a time I found a monster in the woods.

In the manner of most witches, I had a knack for discovering lost things. He was crawling with vermin, so wasted he barely flinched when I tested his nose and tongue, checking texture, temperature, moisture.

He was half an inch and kissing close to dying.

“Beast,” said I, in the language all beasts knew. “Look at me. Do you wish to die like this?”

He undeerstood. Opening his eyes, he looked at me. I felt his answer thrum in my bones, barely vocalized, a rattling sigh that was a clearer cry for help than if he had spoken the words in a human tongue.

« Come with me then, » I said, laying a compulsion on him to rise, since he could not do it for himself. « I suppose you can be my familiar. »

I put him in the cellar and fed him up until he was able to move about on his own. Then I began the arduous task of coaxing him outside to the whishing well and washing him, which took many days and a great deal of patience. Already the potatoes and last year’s apples and the onions greening in their barrels had begun to take on his dank and desolate stench. And really, he was so grateful for the attention.

Witch, Beast, Saint: An Erotic Fairy Tale. Photo by Elena

Like many beasts, he found the sound of my voice soothing. So I told him the story of how he came to be.

« This cottage passes from witch to witch, » I said. « My predecessor was ancient by the time she mistook an oak tree for an open passage and drove her mortar and pestle right into it. They say mortar and pestles are safer that brooms. I don’t know about that, I prefer to walk everywhere, or maybe hitch a ride on a wagon. You have nice broad shoulders. Perhaps I’ll teach you to piggyback me, by and by. There’s a bit of a pig in you. Well, boar. It’s the tusks. Your nose is more stag. Soft and broad from bridge to tip. Those gently flaring nostrils. But your horns are definitely bull. Anyway. What was I saying? »

The monster made a gesture like a pestle grinding something in a mortar.

« Right! » I cried. « My predecessor. Apparently in the last few decades before her terminal flying accident, she’d developed this habit of turning local boys to beasts every time they slighted her – or she imagined they did. The most famous case was that of our soveregin prince himself. He lives in a local hedge-witch – much like myself – to break the spell. They say she was so beautiful she could shatter strong sorceries with a kiss. »

I shrugged. My hands were wrist-deep in his sudsy fur, the soap black with his murk.

Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2015.