FABLE

Chapter Thirty Two

As the years passed by on that lonely isle and the girl grew to be more maiden than child, the sea witch feared that her daughter would be stolen away by some human man or even a sea spirit or a warlock.

You see, the old witch had come to truly love the girl, and could not bear to be parted from her.

So she forbade the girl from ever leaving the cave. She kept her hidden away in the darkness, far from the eyes of any passersby.

Only once a month when the moon was full was the girl able to leave her prison – on these nights the old sea hag swam far out into the moonlit ocean looking for ingredients for her potions. Unattended, the girl would venture out on to the beach, or sit at the cave's entrance bathed in moonbeams. She was always careful to return to the cave's shadows before daybreak and the return of her foster mother.

On one such moonlit night, when the old sea witch was far out at sea, a young man happened upon the cave. He'd become separated from his comrades and -

"Was he a prince?" I interrupt the story.

"A prince?" Gran looks thoughtful. "Well, this is a very old story my sweet. There are many, many versions, depending on who tells it. Some people do say he was a prince. Others tell it that he was a wandering knight in service to some ancient king, or else an elvish noble of the Fairy Court, lost and far from home. Some people even say he had wings like a bird, and he'd fallen down from a country above the clouds just to meet the girl.

"An angel?"

"Yes, you could call it that. It's just one of so many tellings. I've even heard one version where he's a shipwrecked pirate with a heart of gold, saved from the tides by the old witch out of pity."

"That's silly. Pirates are the bad guys. He can't be a pirate."

"You think a pirate is bad? That's nothing, my bairn. There's a dark telling of the tale that has it he wasn't a man at all, but a creature of pure darkness. The prince of the Kingdom of Night, riding a pitch black steed."

"Why was he riding around on the beach?"

"There were many fishing villages along the coast of that land. Most likely, he was looking for a meal," she says, her eyes going dark. "His kind didn't eat regular food like you and me. He was out for blood."

"A vampire?"

She nods.

I shake my head, confused now, and more than a little flustered. "But which one's true? Was he a vampire? Or a knight or a pirate?"

"I suppose it's whichever version of the story you want to be the truth."

"But-"

She presses her finger to my lips and carries on.

The young man – or angel or elf or prince or whatever you will – saw the maiden as she sat at the entrance of the sea cave combing her long silvery locks that night, singing a song so forlorn his heart broke at the sound of it.

At that moment he completely forgot why he'd been traveling so close to the sea in the first place, all thoughts of his travels totally blown away in the winds of her sad song. He knew then that every path he'd ever walked, every step, had led him to her.

He stood entranced at the sound of her song for so long that eventually the first rays of morning light crept over the sands, and the girl began to move back into the cave's shadows. Broken out of his enchantment, he ran across the beach to the cave's entrance, calling for the girl to wait. No sooner had he reached the entrance than the old woman swooped up out of the waves and into the cave, pulling the girl far back into the darkness with her.