The Fae’s Broken Promise
Between pecks at a sparrow’s morsel,
my mother sips air from a china thimble.
With thistledown hair and forget-me-not eyes,
she’s revealed as a changeling girl
withered by this human realm.
And those spiteful Fae are lately come
to claim her as their own.
Their mice teeth nibble at her sleep,
they pinch her belly and hobble her feet
with too-big children’s shoes.
Their trickster spells shrink her daily
and when she is a husk of herself,
a bird-bone left-over thing,
they will snatch away the bright
imp they planted years ago.
She’ll drink honey then from harebell cups
and chatter with the bees.
Her fox hair crackling, she will dance
such giddy reels in moonlit glades
and never be still again.
But she will be gone from us,
gone utterly. And I
cannot forgive those wicked Fae.
Queen Maebh Takes the Helm
We are summoned by peahens
to an audience with the old queen.
In the throne room’s watery sunlight,
she paces with her rune-carved stick.
Slipping into Privy Council seats, we beg
Her Majesty to partake of hedge rose tea
but she waves the cup aside.
Folding back her frayed wings
like a tattered dragonfly,
she perches on the walnut throne,
conjures a scroll from swollen fingers
and lets it roll down the emerald brocade
of her skirt. In the hush, she unspools
the reedy thread of her voice:
‘I mean to sail,’ she says,
and points the talon of her nail. ‘Here.’
We shuffle. Peer at the map;
beyond the islands, beyond the inscribed
creatures that nobody names, her finger
jabs at the page’s ragged rim.
Alarmed, we chirrup like a confusion
of guinea fowl: ‘Your majesty, we are not
a naval people…’ ‘But so far West?’
‘A fleet of ships, why that would take -’
She cuts us off with a snap
of her lacquered fan. ‘No time. I have
so little time.’ Letting the map fall,
she announces, ‘I sail today.’
And eyes closed, she raises two bony fists.
We gasp at the shudder of the floorboards
under us. A wailing wrench of oak
and stone and marble. A Whoomph
as a vertical sheet appears, flapping
outside the mullioned window.
‘Your Eminence, you must know
we will follow you anywhere –‘
Another butts in; ‘- pledge our fealty -‘.
A third insists, ‘to the ends of the world,
or wherever you intend.’ We doff
feathered hats, bow deeply
and choke back our fears.
‘Together then,’ she nods.
Emotion ripples across her face
like the wind tugging her new mainsail.
‘West, all the way.’ Then a long sigh,
and sinking back into her throne,
she tilts her head and sleeps.
We, her closest few, gaze in silence.
Even as age wizens her, she grows
more luminous. Our unassailable
sovereign, our waning moon.
We tiptoe out to belatedly pack
for the Faerie Queen’s last expedition.
Queen Maebh and the Seadragons
For days she stands at the prow
like a sea-bleached wooden figurehead.
We cannot persuade her below.
The dolphins have left us behind
and the waters have darkened when we spy
an oily ripple of scales, a slither
of reptilian muscle through the deep.
Three serpents stalking our vessel.
The queen gives no orders, stiffens
at her post. When the beasts shoulder
the keel and clatter against the hull
we call for harpoons to be loosed.
As the first is fired, a snarling head
rears above the surf; smacks
the waves, diving so hard and fast
we miss the whip-crack of its tail
flicking over the ship’s bow.
A cry from the crow’s nest.
She is gone! Our queen, swept overboard
into the seething waters.
We hang over the edge with a frayed net
of hope, hollering her name against the wind.
Pull hard on the hours till night unfurls
and no sign yet of beast or fae.
Becalmed, we hold our position for days. Taunted
by coiled shapes in the depths, a writhing
tussle of lizard scales and shipwrecked limbs.
No one can swear she lives.
Then a clear sighting yards below
of the queen’s chalky face, bedraggled ruff,
her hands splayed. Glassy-eyed, unblinking, she’s
a drowned doll towed by monsters.
Her open mouth trails bubbles. We roar,
jab at the cursed waters. A green spasm
of mottled skin, and the snakes snatch her away.
But a splash portside
has us wheeling about. A balloon of velvet
and soggy lace on the foam. She rises,
drenched in weed, trailing flotsam,
her wide bejewelled skirt bobbing
like a ship’s buoy. Fists in the air.
The crew rush to haul her in,
hoist her aboard. ‘Anchors aweigh!’
goes the call. ‘Quick as you can!’ The boatswain
sinks to her knees on deck, prays aloud
that the dragons have had their fill, or the queen
has settled a score. That we endure
no more of these seesaw drownings.
‘Amen!’ chants every sailor.
Queen Maebh Bequeaths Her Favours
Motes dancing in the sunlight
from the latticed casement do not deceive
anyone’s heart. All who gather
around the oaken table know that this
will be our last Privy Council,
the last time she shows herself at court.
Three of the realm’s wise women
have been called to witness
her enactments. Under a pall of gloom,
we fidget and avoid their gaze.
Only the arrival of the Faerie Queen
escorted by a handmaid on either side, rallies
our spirits. She is too weak by now
for corsets but her gown of red damask
sweeps over a farthingale hoop. Her millstone
ruff is freshly starched. And when she signals
a greeting, her swollen fingers flash
the familiar spark of garnets.
She smiles wanly. Those
who have not seen her for months
are hardly prepared for the bonelight
she casts. One counsellor dabs her eyes.
A hush falls as the Lady Chamberlain unfurls
the rolls of parchment. The queen squints
at every vellum sheet and nods. All is done
as she instructed. A bow of relief
from the attendant scribe.
The Chamberlain reads the text aloud:
a divestment of sundry chattels, royal domains,
the gift of her filigree carriage. Two pages
more. The queen stifles a yawn.
Conjures a feather of peregrine falcon
for quill. Laboriously inscribes a tiny scrawl
of iron gall ink. Her indelible mark.
Her candle flares again as she calls
for a tray of subtleties to be brought: marzipan
ladybirds, sugar paste kittens and gingerbread frogs.
She presses her three guests to choose. Bestows
a little chatter on each woman, and at her voice
the sweetmeats come to life. Scratch
and purr and burp, till each is set
in a box of caramel glass.
Amidst the happy babble, she fattens
like a beeswax lantern. Only falters when
the physician hovers in the doorway.
An acrid whiff of vinegar.
With seemly haste, her three
loyal subjects are ushered out; each
clutching their treasure and a stolen
glance at Her Majesty.
A maid draws the curtain.
Queen Maebh’s Lying In
Cocooned in crisp cotton sheets,
hidden from us, the queen’s body
undoes itself. Yet her beakish face
throws a tallow light to draw us close;
all night we flutter around its lantern.
Beneath, her lungs drag
coiled chains over the sea-floor.
Such heaviness to hold down
a shell of bone and hair.
The third watch is all but done
and we’re busy with medics and potions
when she stirs. Elbows aside
the opium curtain to flash her eyes open;
fastens each of us with that gaze,
her fiery immanence.
We fumble to seize her hands
as she hunches down, draws deep
from her belly a guttural roar,
a wailing membrane of sound, a vowel
stretched taut and purple to unfurl
its cauled announcement.
She sinks back.
We cradle the hush. Somewhere
beyond this ruptured world
she has slipped through. Tumbled
loose from us. We are left to guess
at wings, a wet translucence,
a shimmering nothingness
of all that she was.
While the crew press around,
her sound waves resonate
through the ship’s wooden ribs,
out across the empty ocean, changing
whatever they touch. All her creatures.
We sway and crumple
around her echo, fold it within.
The thrum of her spell.
Siobhan Logan is a poet and storyteller whose work has been performed at the Ledbury Poetry Festival, British Science Museum and National Space Centre. Alongside magazine and anthology contributions, she’s published two books of poetry and non-fiction with Original Plus Press and two with Space Cat Press. Previous books explored arctic landscapes, the Northern Lights, polar expeditions and the Space Race. More recent work navigates personal loss and remembrance through fairy tales or fantasy. Logan formerly lectured in Creative Writing at De Montfort University and co-directed Space Cat Press as an indie publisher. She is Vice-President of Leicester Writers’ Club, a community of writers working across genres.
https://spacecatpress.co.uk/authors/siobhan-logan/ @siobhanloganwriter.bsky.social
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