Kali felt a sharp pain at the back of her head. Spots appeared before her eyes and everything started to fade to black. Just before she lost consciousness she heard the tinkling sound she associated with the fairy kin. Soothing warmth spread through her body and the pain disappeared to the sound of chanting as she faded away.
In stone you’ll be
What all should see
Let the inner light
Show ever bright
***
Kali jerked awake at the sound of upset voices. She tried to open her eyes, but the light sent a stabbing pain through her head. She closed her eyes again and concentrated on what she could hear. Someone was crying uncontrollably.
Slowly she opened her eyes in slits to keep the pain from spreading through her skull again. She was lying on her back on a wooden bench set on the edge of the village square. Every able villager was standing around something set in the middle of the square. Grandma Aimes’s voice was audible every now and then as she responded to a question or statement while the sobbing continued unabated.
Nothing made sense to Kali. Why was she lying on a bench in the square? Grandma Aimes depended on her to help with all the sick people in the village. Lifting her hand to her forehead she felt a bandage around her head with padding at the back. She gingerly touched the lump and felt the pain radiating from there to the front of her head.
“Why would they do this?” the wailing voice asked. Kali realised that it was Anle, Sime’s mother. Gently Kali sat up and looked around. Through the gathered crowd she saw a grotesque statue in the middle of the square. A parody of Jay with a gruesome fixed expression on his face was standing with a simpering Sime looking up at Jay with vacant adoration in his eyes. What made it truly horrible was that the stone statue was so lifelike that it seemed as if Jay and Sime were captured with their vilest emotions on display to the whole village.
“First we have to make sure what exactly happened. Denner have you found Jay or Sime yet?” Grandma Aimes spoke. Denner shifted his feet in the dirt as he answered. “No Grandma Aimes. I followed their footsteps to the chicken coop, but from then they disappeared.”
“It’s Jay’s fault.” Anle’s wail had turned into a sulky whine. “Everyone knows that Jay led Sime astray with all his wicked ways.”
The general response was that she let Sime consort with Jay no matter what trouble the boys got into. They only dissenting voice was Jay’s father, Braun, who told her to stop blaming his son for all the problems in the village.
The villagers subsided in mutters as everyone spread out to search the village for Jay and Sime.
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