The Others - Alicia Gaines

 It was midwinter, just after the sun had set when I saw her.

One of my mother’s friends, Caoimhe, was walking up the steps to the front door. I was always curious as a child, and we never really got a lot of visitors. So I set down my doll, hopped off of the windowsill, and raced down the creaky stairs.

I heard her yell to my mother in greeting before I reached the hallway leading to the door.

My mother was already there, reaching for the handle.

Ever curious as I was, I went up to her.

“Mommy, why’s Caoimhe coming here?”

No reply.

I tugged at her pants and tried again.

“Mommy, why’s she here?”

Still no reply. Now my tiny nine-year-old self was starting to get annoyed. Mother was opening the first wooden door and Caoimhe was directly on the other side. Despite my ignorance of polite gestures in most social situations, I was aware enough to know that interrupting adults when they were talking was not nice. 

Which was why I was convinced that I needed to sate my curiosity before mother opened the second glass door. 

Logically, I did what any annoyed and annoying kid would do. 

I pinched her. Really hard in the leg. And then tugged on her arm for good measure.

She finally snapped out of whatever daze she had been in and startled. Her hand was frozen on the lock of the glass door. She looked down at me first, then at Caoimhe, and some flash of emotion flew across her face. She pushed me back behind her, ripped her hand off of the lock as if she were burned, and cradled her hand to her chest. 

As young as I was, I was also aware enough to know that something happened and that my mother was not happy. 

“Darling, stay behind Mommy, okay?” Her voice wavered and her hands trembled, and I was hit with the realization that she wasn’t just unhappy. She was scared. Then, she said something that froze me to my seven-year-old core. Her voice dropped to a whisper, but it rang like a funeral bell across the still house.

“Line.”

And suddenly I knew. I knew that whoever—whatever—was standing behind that glass door, it wasn’t Caoimhe.

Because Caoimhe wouldn’t have to worry about the thin line of salt that fell in a semi-circle around the front door.

She also wouldn’t have yelled from the porch. She would have used the knocker.

The iron knocker.

These were all warning signs that were drilled into my head from the moment I was old enough to understand them. 

They were all warning signs that pointed to the Caoimhe being one of them. 

My mother, when I was younger, called them visitors. I think it was because it was easier for me to understand. They had other names of course, but none that did the thing standing before us any justice.

The visitor wearing Caoimhe’s face smiled.

Its teeth were too sharp.

Then, it spoke.

And it sounded just like Caoimhe.

“Hi! I know this is short notice, but I thought it would be nice to visit. I have some wonderful news! Can I come in?” The thing with the too-sharp teeth was requesting entrance. I felt like crying, even though I knew my mother would deny it.

“Actually, I was wondering about your husband William. How has he been doing?” My mother somehow managed to smile.

The thing was getting impatient, hands twitching and eyes darting about, but it answered in an off-sounding lilt.

“Oh, you know how he is. I was just with him at the market, actually.” For a moment, the thing looked triumphant, before my mother’s smile fell and her hands started to quake.

“Caoimhe’s husband’s name is John, and he left a week ago for Wexford. You are not Caoimhe, and your kind is not welcome here.” My mother stared at the thing as its smile contorted and a scream of rage tore from its throat. 

“You are not welcome here.” My mother stood there shaking and repeating that over and over again as the screams increased in volume and the doorframe started to shake.

With a final growl, the thing turned around. I blinked once and it was at the end of the walkway. I blinked again, and it was gone. 

I craned my neck to look around my mom, trying to find the thing, but it was long gone. 

Even the snow on the ground was undisturbed—not a single footprint or indent anywhere along the walkway.

It was as if it were never there.

After a few minutes of frozen silence, my mother shakily sighed and went to shut and lock the wooden door. Then she turned to me, grabbed my hand, led me to the kitchen, and sat me down at the table.

“I think you’re old enough to know the full story.” She looked resigned.

“The full story of the visitors?”

She hummed. “Well, they go by many different names. The Others, the Gentry, the Kindly Ones, the Hill Folk. Here though—here, we call them Fae.”