Michael’s Aunt Aislene is doubtlessly one of the most beautiful of the fairy women. Probably the only one who can hold a candle to my mother. But I could be prejudiced because I have a great big crush on Mrs. Dullahan.
Older folk tell me they used to call her the Demon Bride, for she was always declaring she had at last found the man she would marry and then taking it back seconds before the wedding.
After breaking hordes of hearts she finally did find Mr. Right and is happily married with four children and jilting is no longer her vocation. But even today when her sooty-lashed emerald green eyes smile upon a man he is hopelessly lost.
Aislene’s husband is The Dullahan, a massive, frightening man who can wind his head on and off his neck and usually prefers to carry it in his hand.When provoked, he hurls it at his foe and it chomps the enemy´s own head off and crunches it most gorily.I have never seen him do this because he is a quiet, friendly man when at home and only is fierce when at work. Mortals call him Death’s Coachman, for that is his job and it is his business to carry them off when their time on Mortal Earth is over. But to Michael he is Uncle Ernest, and to me, one more good neighbour.
Death’s Coachman and his Demon Bride have two sons and two daughters.
The eldest is Michael’s cousin Darcy. People call him Handsome Darcy because, like his mother, he is very nice to look at. They also call him the Dark Man because there is something slightly sinister about him.
I know he is not bad at all because I am well acquainted with him. You see, he is my mother’s coachman. He taught me to ride horses, on the ground and up in the air and even on and under water, and to drive all sorts of phaetons and chariots and carriages and buggies and carts. He is part of my earliest memories.
As a messenger of the Fairy Queen Darcy has to be compelling and imposing, especially when she orders him to fetch someone she would like to have a word with and who would rather not have that word with her. He has to make summoned people come, whether they would or not. This is not difficult for him to do at all because Darcy has a wonderful gift Nobody can say no to him. Ever. This is very nice for him, but makes him a little scary to be around. Even my mum says so. His peculiar gift has earned him a third nickname, No no Darcy.
Next in line are Michael’s lovely twin cousins, golden-haired Fiona and raven-haired Branna. These girls were all sweetness and light when they were born, but changed when their mother had her youngest, the boy Alpin.
Alpin is known throughout Fayland as the Unchangedling. He isn’t a changeling, but he should have been one.
When a fairy has a baby it isn’t easy to like, she may change it for a likeable human baby. It’s a very simple matter if you haven’t got a conscience. You just pluck a nice human child it from its cradle and put your own disgusting baby there instead. By the time the human child has grown up to make a perfectly good fairy, the abandoned child has utterly ruined the unfortunate human family with its selfish needs and demands.
Everyone says Alpin was born to be changed. But his mother decided to keep him. My mother says it won’t be for long, because sooner or later he will grow so unbearable he will have to be exiled from Fairyland. For the timebeing fairies regard him as an experiment. He is the first unbearably annoying fairy child not to have been given the boot and people are waiting to see if he will mellow with age and mature into a normal fairy with acceptable defects or have to be handed over to the ogres. Ogres know how to deal with unbearable people, mortal or fay. Those you get to see again have usually developed into perfectly ordinary ogres themselves.
Alpin’s biggest defect is that he is far too selfish. He not only wants everything he sees for himself he wants ten or a hundred of what he sees and orders you to go find this for him. As regards toys and such it is probably a mental problem he has. But where food is concerned I think it has to be physical, because where can he possibly put so much of it if he doesn’t really digest it? Alpin is very thin and looks rather bilious and sickly. But his hunger is as ravenous as to have deserved the respect of the Harpies. He will eat anything edible put before him, and has been known to ingest large quantities of paper and sawdust. And he will scream for more. “More!” is Alpin’s motto, and he wears it like a logo on his caps and T-shirts the way knights have their mottos on their sheilds.
No matter how much food Alpin’s mum fed him, he also wanted and got everybody else’s. Fiona and Branna were not as loud as he was, so when they asked for something to eat, it was easier to tell them to wait than to control Alpin. Tired of waiting for what might never come, the neglected twins began to learn how to fend for themselves. While Alpin was eating his and their dinner, they would wander outside to see what they could find to feed on on their own. One night they descended into a cemetery and emerged from it vampires.
After all I have said, it will surprise you to hear that Alpin and I are close friends. But we are. I think I am the only friend he really has. You see, Mrs. Dullahan thought her child should have a friend, and she asked her elder son to find one for him. No no Darcy asked me to be his brother’s best friend. How could I refuse?
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