A Dreadful Fairy Book by Jon Etter

Author:Jon Etter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Published: 2019-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

In which there are questions,

qualms, and a Questing Beast . . .

Once Sir Justinian was gone (sigh), and Shade, Ginch, and the Professor were quite certain they were alone, Shade unclasped the thin valise and whispered, “You can come out now. The coast is clear.”

“Must I?” a faraway voice called. “It’s so lovely in here. The sun, the sand . . .”

“Come on out,” Shade insisted. “I want to ask you a few questions.”

“Very well,” the voice sighed.

Shade opened the briefcase wide, and a gigantic serpent’s head, all emerald scales and slitted purple eyes at the end of long, snakey neck, rose slowly out of it. In its mouth was a thin bamboo stalk that led down to a half coconut balanced on top of a cloven ox hoof. “I hope you’ve tried these,” the serpent said, taking a sip, “because they are deli—”

Shade let out a sharp cry and dropped the valise. When it hit the ground, all thirty snakey, leopardy feet of the creature, perfectly matching the description given by the perfectly wonderful Sir Justinian, bounced out. “My drink!” it moaned, looking sadly at its now empty coconut shell rolling in the dirt.

The Professor jumped into Ginch’s arms and started pointing and whistling sharply. “That’s-a the knight’s creature!” Ginch gasped. “’Ey, Justinian! We got-a you—”

“Shh! Shh! Shh!” the creature shushed and clasped its front hooves together. “Please, please, please don’t tell him I’m here! I’m so tired of running, I might just let him slay me and be done with it if he comes!”

Shade held up a hand to silence Ginch and the Professor. “What happened to the little white fox?” she demanded.

“I am the little white fox,” the beast explained in the same soft, lovely voice that she had as a fox. “Of my two forms, that’s the one that best suited the Wild Hunt’s quest to kill something beautiful and rare. While I was enjoying a nice drink by the ocean in that case—which I love by the way!— all that fur made me hot, so I switched over to this form, which is the one I was trapped in whenever Sir Justinian was nearby. I only get to choose how I look when I’m alone, I’m around people who are already occupied with specific quests, or I’m around people who don’t want to quest at all.”

“What are you?” Shade asked.

“I prefer ‘who,’” the beast said, sounding a little hurt. “My name is Glatisant—Glatis to my friends, of which I count you since you saved my life—and I am a Questing Beast.”

“And what’s-a that?” Ginch asked. The Professor tapped him and put his hand at waist level and then hugged himself. “And the Professor, he wants-a to know if you could-a be the fox again—he thinks-a you cuter that way.”

“Well, thank you. I should be able to change,” Glatis said, the scales on her cheeks blushing slightly. She closed her eyes, her jaws clenched, and then . . . Well, you know when you reach into

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