Evie steered her car from the paved road onto the rutted service path that snaked into the heart of the old forest. From the backseat, her offering of a platter of deviled eggs emitted a faintly sulfuric scent.
Even when she was a teenager and there was nothing else to do in Barre, she hadn’t been brave enough to tailgate at the Wild Hunt, to veer that close to danger, but now she had to take the risk. Tonight, the Wild Hunt would begin its three-night ride through the forest, and then would vanish until next October.
She tapped her steering wheel impatiently – she couldn’t wait another year. Her daughter couldn’t wait another year. No matter the cost, she would ask the master of the hunt, the Erlking, to rescue her daughter from that awful cult.
The fallen leaves rustled under the slow roll of her tires, and even though the sun was already low in the pale Vermont sky, the day had been warm, and she rolled down her windows, the air swirling in eddies of dying summer.
Her mobile phone’s signal flickered out as she drove deeper into the woods. At last, she saw a dozen or so tailgaters clustered in a clearing. The gathering already was festive, with the Subarus’ hatches lifted up and the pickup trucks’ liftgates pushed down, revealing spreads of mezze and craft beers. A Phish song played from someone’s car stereo.
She recalled what her brother had told her, back when they were teenagers and he used to tailgate every year: “You gotta personally hand an offering to the Wild Hunt. If you don’t, they’ll take your soul instead.”
As Evie slotted her car amid the circle of parked vehicles, she recognized the couple dancing in the center, Fred and Sherry, who ran the crystal shop and sometimes cornered people in the co-op’s bulk section to talk about the flow of the universe.
Fred called to Evie, “Hey, music teach! What are you gonna ask for? A boon? A curse on your enemies?”
“Something like that,” Evie lied. Her skin flushed as heat prickled across her body, like a reactor core inside her had just been switched on. Her doctor said it was normal, the start of perimenopause; to Evie, it felt like she was about to crackle into a bonfire.
“What about you?” Evie asked. “You asking for a ticket out of this town?” It’s what Evie would wish for if she had come to bargain just for herself.
Sherry laughed and shrugged. “We came for the cosmic vibes.”
The sun dropped behind the horizon, the wind picked up, and the clouds drifted across the moon. Hunting horns sounded in the distance, and the skin on Evie’s arms goosefleshed. Echoing, tender, rhythmic, insistent — the music of the hunt was the most beautiful and the most horrific she’d ever heard. It reminded her of when she’d first listened to “The Rite of Spring” — eerie and awful and gorgeous, with death crouched at the heart of it.
The Wild Hunt followed moments later, overwhelming Evie’s senses. There was just so much of it: riders cloaked in shadows, fog, frost and the scent of damp earth and rotting leaves with a hint of snow on the wind. Its creatures flowed around their tailgate party, sniffing at their offerings. No, Evie realized, not just at the food, but at their souls as well.
Fred and Sherry swayed in the middle of the clearing, still slow-dancing to some old song. Too late, they realized they were caught in the open without an offering in hand. Their food—cheese dip inside a hollowed-out bread bowl—was sitting in the open trunk of their Volvo electric SUV on the other side of the clearing. Too far for them to reach quickly.
A black-garbed rider kicked her mount closer to the couple. With a sudden movement, she leaned down and pushed her gauntleted hands into each of their chests.
Evie wanted to scream as the rider pulled out her hands, now holding two small white objects, one in each palm, as harmless and horrifying as those rabbit feet Evie used to put on her keychain for good luck when she was a kid. Fred and Sherry collapsed like dolls. The rider, a glint of satisfaction crossing her face, hitched the white objects to her saddle, where they joined a long fringe of collected souls that jangled as she kicked her horse and rode off.
A wave of nausea washed over Evie. This wasn’t what she had expected. Nothing so brutal as this. But she forced herself to refocus. She was doing this for her daughter. She had to get the attention of the master of the hunt. The Erlking.
A commotion at her feet briefly distracted her. Hellhounds, red eyes gleaming, had surrounded her platter and were snapping at the deviled eggs. She closed her eyes, her knuckles white as she squeezed to keep a grip on the plate, until at last the hellhounds had their fill and ran off.
And then the Erlking rode by, a crown of mist upon his head and a cloak of rotting leaves across his shoulders, his horse a black mount with eyes of fire. He didn’t glance at Evie’s platter, now gleaming with hellhound spit and a scattering of leftover deviled eggs.
Instead, his eyes flicked to her with an assessing gaze, cool and calm, just as he rode out of the clearing.
The fire crackled under Evie’s skin.
The next day, Evie called her brother on her mobile while driving to check on Ruby.
“So,” she said, “Have any tips about tailgating?”
“Are you freaking crazy, Evie?” He was on speaker and shouting. “That shit is for people with a death wish.”
Evie shuddered at the memory of the rider with the soul-bangles fished from the bodies of the crystal shop owners. But, of course, not everyone who went to the Wild Hunt ended up that way.
“You did it and came out okay,” Evie prompted.
Her brother fell uncharacteristically silent. He lowered his voice. “Is this some sort of midlife crisis, Evie? I mean, I beg you, do something else; anything else.”
“Give me more credit than that,” Evie said.
She could practically hear the gears in his head turning. “Shit, this is about Ruby. The Wild Hunt can’t help with that crap. That’s even beyond them.”
“That Travis and his cult have a hold on her soul. I’m going to ask the Erlking to free her from his grip.” Even as she spoke, she heard that she sounded unhinged, but she pressed on. “The Hunt will only be in Barre for two more nights; then it will move to wherever it goes next —Quebec? Ireland? I brought deviled eggs but they weren’t enough.”
“Where’s Brent?”
“Probably with his third wife. In Florida. I don’t hear from him now that Ruby’s 18 and he doesn’t have to pay child support.”
Her brother sighed. “Look, I know you feel alone. But the Wild Hunt isn’t going to fix your problems. I’m worried about Ruby too, but the Hunt is only about one thing: stealing souls. It doesn’t fix them. Remember my friend Jasper?”
“He ran away in high school.” Evie remembered something about Jasper leaving Vermont for a flashier life. He was a big-boned kid from a dairy farm and had to get up at 5 a.m. to milk before going to school. He always dressed well—not fashionable, but like a Wall Street-wannabe, with big-lapeled suits bought at Goodwill, complete with ties and pocket squares.
“Uh no, Evie. He got swept into the Wild Hunt, that’s what happened. That’s why I stopped going. For all I know, he’s still there.”
“Just tell me how to get the Erlking’s attention.”
“Jesus, Evie, you’re going to do this even though I’m telling you not to, aren’t you?” Her brother sighed, capitulating. “Bring something for his horse. But not deviled eggs.”
She pulled up to the house where Ruby was living, out in the country where the survivalists and cultists lived side-by-side with farmers. Evie would be the chill mom, the happy mom, the mom who wouldn’t let it show she was afraid her daughter was throwing her life away. Or worse.
The house was one of those old clapboard homes that hadn’t been maintained in decades, with peeling paint (probably full of lead!) and sagging front steps. The doorbell was busted, so Evie knocked on the door.
“Oh. You.” Travis answered the door. He was close to thirty, but could have been forty or even older, with a thick beard obscuring most of his face. His shirt read, “Rooted in Christ.” It was the name of their cult, a mix of Christianity with some sort of back-to-the-earth lifestyle. Evie couldn’t understand their religion, although she never could understand any religion, or what her daughter saw in this guy. “Yeah?”
“Thought I’d stop by with some extra party food from last night.” Evie smiled brightly. She held out a plate with the few deviled eggs that hadn’t been gobbled up by the hellhounds.
“Okay.” Travis called. He popped one of the eggs in his mouth but didn’t take the plate. “Rubes, your mom is here.”
Evie stepped into the house. A group of men lounged around the kitchen table, talking about the blessings God bestowed upon modest women. Women fluttered throughout the kitchen, serving beer and working on the communal dinner. Evie pointedly ignored the shotgun propped against the side of the fridge.
This was how Ruby choose to live — for now. But the Erlking would soon help her get her daughter back.
Ruby was leaning against the counter, frowning. Evie hadn’t seen Ruby in a month, and she was shocked at how thin she’d become. Her daughter’s hair, usually blond and thick, had thinned, and the color had paled, like she was a cave-creature bleached of life and vibrancy from a lack of sun. It didn’t help that she wore one of those prairie-homesteader dresses, cinched tightly around her waist, emphasizing her gauntness. Her eyes were shadowed by blue crescents, and she gave a rattling cough that caused her to hunch over.
“I was just driving by and I had these left over from a party last night,” Evie said.
Ruby took the deviled eggs and placed them on the counter. “Thanks, mom.”
“You should get that cough checked out,” Evie said. “Maybe get some antibiotics. There are some bad bugs going around the high school this fall.”
Travis snorted. “Don’t believe what doctors tell you. Antibiotics are killers. Destroy your gut biome. No need to worry about Rubes — she’s on a diet of kombucha and kimchi. Full of probiotics. And we’re praying for her, of course.”
Another guy at the table looked up. “Let me ask you this: If modern medicine worked, why do we have so many sick people?”
“Damn straight, dude,” Travis seconded.
“We’d have many more sick people without modern medicine.” Evie felt the heat building under her skin. She couldn’t understand why Ruby had turned down scholarships at good colleges to do … this? She wasn’t even sure what Ruby was doing with these people. They had to have placed some sort of supernatural grip on her soul.
“Mom, there’s so much going on beyond your limited world view,” Ruby said. “All those drug companies are part of a conspiracy to keep us hooked on their medications. And we don’t need them. People never used to get the diseases we have today.”
“Because their life expectancy was 50!” The heat raced across Evie’s arms, up her neck, threatening a conflagration.
“Better to live well until 50 than live in an un-Christlike way,” Ruby said. “You’re just giving your soul to the corporations that want to feed on it.”
Evie was floundering, and she made a desperate clutch to come out ahead. “If you’re so worried about your health, Ruby, why are you living in a home with an unsecured shotgun? And in a house covered with leaded paint and no central heating?”
“Okay, Karen,” Travis snorted.
Evie opened her mouth and found she had no defense against his insult. A doubt hissed at her: Perhaps she was weaponizing her privilege? Was she really, at heart, an awful Karen? Although another thought smoldered at the edge of her awareness: maybe it was Travis and his cult that were reaping the benefits of years of patriarchal privilege, while using this put-down as linguistic duct tape to shut up the lone woman who had dared to confront them.
A bonfire roared inside Evie, and burned even hotter when she caught Ruby smiling at Travis’s insult.
Evie fled the house before she torched the place to the ground.
The next night, Evie loaded her platter with sliced fruit—strawberries and apples — and scattered rum-soaked raisins around its edge.
The tailgating party was about half as big as the night before.
When the horns sounded in the distance, Evie pulled out her plastic candle lighter and touched the lighted tip to the raisins. In a moment, her platter was dancing with blue flames.
The Wild Hunt swirled around them, the goblins and hellhounds trampling the leaves underfoot, hooting and howling at the shrouded moon. Evie could make out more of the Hunt than the night before: Witches in black flowing robes, their hair long and twisting and their graceful hands shaking tambourines and coaxing melodies from carved bone violins, followed on steeds made of household items — brooms, but also Dyson vacuums and LED floor lamps and Roombas— that bucked in the air like they were living things. The ghouls and phantoms flowed between them, pale and chill as fog, blowing on horns of autumn frost. Evie squinted: Was that her brother’s friend Jasper, with a folded pocket-square in his suit, at the front of the pack?
But just then, the Erlking, his expression distant, rode into the clearing, and Evie realized he was listening for some quarry deep in the forest. Maybe a solo hiker on the Long Trail.
She had to get his horse’s attention.
Evie lifted the platter and waved it toward the steed. She clicked her tongue, like she did when she called her cat.
The horse turned its head and its nostrils flared as it caught scent of the fruit and flaming raisins.
The Erlking snapped his fingers, ordering a stop from the Wild Hunt. The hellhounds circled the horse, whining for leftovers, while the goblins rummaged through the dry leaves. Probably looking for dropped food, Evie thought.
“I have a boon to ask, Erlking,” Evie said. “A man named Travis has a hold on my daughter’s soul. Maybe he has stolen it. I ask that you free her soul from his grip.”
The king of the hunt stared down at her, his lips twitched in a smile. He looked like that painting of the young Franz Liszt, brooding eyes and full lips, Evie thought.
“There is a price.”
Evie waited. She didn’t want to appear too eager.
“My services aren’t free,” the Erlking prodded.
“Deviled eggs for you, fruit platters for your steed.” Evie hoped that would be enough.
“Tempting.” Did Evie see a flicker of humor in his eyes? “But a soul is worth more than party snacks.”
“Fine. What is the payment in such a case?”
The Erlking pursed his lips and studied her. “I have never freed a soul possessed by another. I prefer to steal unwary souls and keep them in my service for eternity. This could be a novel challenge, and so I’ll give you a novel exchange. I must have another soul in payment for helping your daughter, but you may choose which one. Indeed, I insist you must pick it for me.”
Evie could think of plenty of souls that deserved to be dangling from a saddle, starting with Travis. She smiled at the Erlking and nodded.
“Meet me back here tomorrow, and we will complete the deal.” The Erlking snapped his fingers again.
The Wild Hunt reassembled and thrashed through the forest as Evie put the platter, licked clean, in the back of her car. For the first time in months, she felt hope that everything would soon be fixed.
The next day, Evie was in the high school music room, conducting her students in a wobbly version of Pachelbel’s Canon, when the intercom flared to life. “Evie, there’s someone named Travis here to see you. Should I let him in?”
She put her baton on the music stand, the students trailing off with their parts, and rushed to the intercom. “Go ahead, send him in.”
Had the Erlking already freed Ruby’s soul? Evie wasn’t sure how long it would take, or if it would be obvious to Travis he had lost this battle.
Evie checked the classroom clock—there were only a few minutes left in the period. She took up her baton again just as Travis banged open the door and stood by the first violins, staring at her with hostility. She wasn’t going to let him unnerve her; she finished the piece at a leisurely tempo.
As Evie dismissed her students, she told Travis, “That was always Ruby’s favorite piece.”
“So?”
“Is she playing the violin at all these days?”
Travis frowned. “She doesn’t believe in spending time on things that don’t help our community.”
Evie’s stomach knotted. “You mean you don’t believe in her spending time on things that don’t benefit you.”
“She understands true goodness means respecting the hierarchies created by God. Ruby isn’t allowed to leave our commune until she repents for the dream she had last night, a very un-Christ-like dream.” Travis folded his arms. “She told me she dreamed of The Wild Hunt. She said a man on a horse with eyes of flame came to her in her dream, and he said you had sent him. He said he was going to free her soul from my control.”
Evie bit her lip. So it really happened; the Erlking had listened and had directed his hunt to her daughter’s house. She hoped to hear that Ruby had finally broken from Travis, that she told him to fuck off, but her certainty wavered: Travis looked too pleased with himself for this to have been the outcome.
“Ruby told the man her soul belonged to no one but herself, and then the dream ended. Of course, it was just a dream, although I blame your visit yesterday for inviting the Devil into Ruby’s dreams.” Travis’ expression had turned to one of gloating. “Ruby asked me to tell you she is an adult, and this is her life. She said she doesn’t want you telling her how she should live, and that she can make her own decisions.”
He exhaled ponderously, as if he were about to get to the important part of his message. “And I came to tell you that you are not welcome in our home, bringing your demon-plagued dreams and your fake, ‘Here are some deviled eggs, bless your heart’ routine.”
This wasn’t going the way Evie had hoped. Clearly, Ruby’s soul hadn’t been restored by the Erlking.
“I only wanted to check in on her.” It sounded pathetic even to Evie’s ears.
Travis didn’t respond, other than to push the music room door open with a shove and stalk out.
The heat of shame and anger threatened to overwhelm Edie. She recalled her daughter as a spark, a bright flame illuminating everyone and everything around her. Had she been too rigid when Ruby was growing up? Had she been too narrow in her views? Was she really some sort of Karen?
No, she was only trying to protect her daughter, Evie decided. Travis was draining Ruby’s life away, and no one was helping fix the situation. Not the Erlking, not her ex-husband. Ruby wasn’t even helping herself.
The flames licked at Evie’s collarbones, down her arms and spread to her fingers. She had another tailgate party to prepare for.
Her phone rang on the way to the Wild Hunt. Her brother. She hit speakerphone as she answered.
“Tell me you aren’t going back to the forest, Evie.”
“Well, nothing happened. And tonight’s the last night.”
“What do you mean?” “I asked the Erlking to break the hold that douchebag has on Ruby, but he didn’t do it. Travis visited me today and told me to leave her alone.”
Her brother sighed. “You’ll still have to pay the Erlking.” “What? I’m going there now to tell him he gave me a bad deal.”
“Remember I mentioned my friend Jasper, back in high school? He always bragged he was going to strike it rich.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“The last time I tailgated, Jasper made a deal with the Erlking. Asked to make it big.”
“And?” “He didn’t specify to the Erlking about when or where he wanted to make it big, or what he even meant by it.”
Evie felt chill. What had the Erlking said? Something about how he’d take another soul instead of her daughter’s for payment. He said she could choose which one. But if he hadn’t actually freed her daughter’s soul, there was no deal. Would the Erlking still take Travis’ soul, or would he want something else? But how could he expect anything from her, if he wasn’t able to complete his side of the deal?
“So what happened?”
“Dunno. He made his stupid-ass deal and … joined the Hunt. The last I saw of him, he tried to grab my soul. I stopped going to the tailgate parties after that.”
Evie hadn’t had time to make anything special. No deviled eggs, no flaming raisins tonight. All she could manage was to run into the grocery store and pick up a bag of pumpkin-spice Oreos.
There weren’t any other tailgaters at the oak that night.
The horns echoed as the horde swarmed around her, the hellhounds and goblins sniffing disappointedly at her offerings. The more time she spent with the hunt, the more she could discern its shadowy figures— hunters of all types on horses and stags shifting like dark clouds. A rider in a suit with a pocket square, a proud expression on his face, led the pack. Jasper had made it big after all.
The witches flew about her, dipping down to grab pumpkin-spice Oreos, and giving Evie thumbs up from their LED lamps and Roombas.
At last, the Erlking brought up the rear, slowing his steed.
“Your daughter’s soul had not been possessed,” he said. “She remains in ownership of it. As a result, I could not do what you asked.”
“Then the deal is off,” Evie said.
“When you ask a doctor to examine a patient, and it turns out the patient is healthy, you still must pay the doctor for his time.” The Erlking slid off his horse.
“I can bring you deviled eggs —”
“The deal was a soul. Your choice.” The Erlking gave her a steady gaze. “I understand your distress, Evie. That fellow Travis is … not good for your daughter. She may have possession of her own soul, but I could see her body is growing weak. The winter will be hard on her. But our deal is that you, Evie, must claim a soul for my hunt.”
Her core was warming, shifting inside her. Evie couldn’t give up on Ruby. Her daughter was still a child, really, even though Ruby had told Travis to tell Evie to respect her life as an adult.
Of course, she would respect Ruby’s wishes to make her own choices. But it didn’t mean Evie couldn’t interfere with Travis. And she understood, now, that the Erlking expected her to claim the soul herself, with her own hands.
“Yes, of course.” She gave the Erlking a nod, and she thought she had never seen a man with such kind eyes, or who had such a deep understanding of the pain and struggle of a parent who wished to protect their child.
The Erlking’s lips were touched with a smile as led her to the pack. A horse stepped forward, sleek and smoldering black, its body shifting like dark smoke from a raging fire.
“For you, my Evie, a steed to match your fire.”
As Evie stroked the creature, its smoky mane swirled and danced.
She flicked away the thought that the Erlking was getting two souls out of this deal; that maybe her own soul had been lost the moment he told her there would be a price for her request. Evie knew exactly whose soul she would hunt. A man who believed prayer and kombucha could cure disease, that women must be demure and modest and obey their man.
The flames sprinted across Evie’s limbs, darted to her fingers and spread across her crown. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in her car window—a woman wearing a diadem of dancing fire, her body an inferno.
Evie understood. There had always been death at the center of the Hunt’s music, and now she was playing its melody.
She had a soul to hunt, and she would ride it down until a small pale bangle swung from her saddle. That would be just the start; there were so many souls she could pluck with her fiery touch. She was getting out of this town, and she didn’t have to keep her fire tamed any more, her reactor core at half-power. She could let it all burn.
Evie took a pumpkin-spice Oreo for herself and gave another to her steed. She ate the cookie in two bites. She pushed her heels against the horse’s flanks and charged ahead, a sweet and satisfying taste lingering on her lips.
Aimee Picchi is a journalist by day and Nebula-nominated science fiction and fantasy writer by night. Her short fiction has been published in Lightspeed, Nightmare, Apex, The Deadlands, and Podcastle, among other fine publications. She’s a former classical musician who graduated from Juilliard Pre-College and the Eastman School of Music. She lives in Burlington, Vermont with her family. You can find her online at aimeepicchi.com.
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