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he called it? The gift of seeing . Yes, that was it: the ability to view the world as he might view it. Actually to live within the faerie glow I had dreamed of as a child. It is no ordinary gift, believe me. It brought a real joy into my daily life, which more than made up for my damaged face.
    As peculiar as it may sound, I felt grateful to him.

    I didn’t see him again for some time after that, nor any of his people. Months must have passed before our paths crossed again. Fittingly, given our first meeting, it was at the market, where he and his clan were busy trading horses.
    He spotted me within moments, and I can only assume that he read the happiness in my face because he soon came striding over, a great golden creature passing unnoticed through the gathered farmers and their families.
    â€˜I see you have kept your part of the bargain,’ he said.
    â€˜It was a good trade,’ I replied, and laughed.
    He laughed too, a booming sound, also unnoticed, that rang out across the market. Only the singing birds in their cages seemed aware of it, beating their wings against the bars and trilling loudly.
    â€˜You have more than a little of Gretel in you,’ he observed.
    I dropped him another curtsey, but in a playful, half-mocking way. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I said.
    And so we fell into conversation – of the kind that takes place between old friends whose paths have diverged, but who once went through testing times together.
    Right at the end I asked: ‘So what am I to call your people? You must surely have a name I could use. Between ourselves, I mean, not out there.’ I gestured towards the rest of the market.
    He considered the question, and while he did so, one of the women sidled up and eased herself into the crook of his arm. She too was a wondrous creature, more fabulous than real, and yet something about her reminded me of the gap-toothed woman I had attended at the hovel.
    â€˜We are an ancient people,’ he said at last, ‘and have answered to many names, but mostly we’ve been referred to as the Faerie. It’s a magical word, special to us.’
    â€˜Ah, the Faerie,’ the woman crooned in delight. ‘I love the sound of it.’
    So did I, for it put me in mind of my grandmother’s stories and somehow stitched together the two separate parts of my life – bound them far more tightly than the ragged edges of this wound of mine.
    â€˜Yes, I like it too,’ I said. ‘The Faerie.’ I paused to savour the word. ‘That’s how I’ll think of you from this point on.’
    He gave me his hand in a burning grip. ‘Let it seal our pact,’ he said.
    â€˜Gladly,’ I said, and glanced down at my flesh-and-blood hand locked in his golden fist – an unlikely link between alien worlds, severed the moment we drew apart.
    We have met frequently since then: sometimes at the market, sometimes on the open road, occasionally at the far end of the valley, when he sends for me. I still find those visits to the hovel hard to endure, and so I’m sure do the women involved. There is no altering the way things are, however; I’ve learned that much. Whether I approve or not, the faerie women will go on reaching across the gulf that divides us, and our young men will return their passionate embrace; but like our brief handshake – his and mine – the bond can never hold. Always and for ever, it dissolves in the dawn light and leaves behind only the monstrous offspring of a mutual yearning.

AFTERWORD
    In its original form, ‘Birthing’ is not one of those widely known and popular fairytales – perhaps because of its unexpectedly savage ending; perhaps, too, because nineteenth-century popularisers found it an impossible story to sentimentalise. Yet for all that, it has endured, and even the briefest of internet searches soon reveals multiple versions