Haley Thistle
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Demon Girlfriend: Demeter (rough draft)
🕑 Added 2021-01-05 21:00:02 +0000 UTCSheep have been going missing all over this land. Considering that most of my village makes their money off of livestock and their produce, it’s a very big deal. Even if it wasn’t, missing sheep is usually a sign of something worse, something evil lurking in the woods. For years now, my family has been to blame for this evil. The stress of it killed my mother, and my father is barely hanging on as it is. I’ve been taking care of things as much as possible, but even I suffer from debilitating anguish.
The Peep Farm has been in my family for generations, and before all the ugliness occurred, we had once been known far and wide as having the best sheep and goats in the world. Our sheep had the whitest and fluffiest pelts, our goats produced sublime cheeses and milks. Our lambs and kids were the cutest in the world, and would sell faster than chicks during Spring Festival. Then, it all came crashing down around us when my brother- No. I refuse to talk about it.
In any case, since then, our family’s reputation has fallen to the wayside. We no longer are known for our product, but rather malicious rumors and hatred. People have come wanting to buy our farm from us, but my father refuses. This is all we know, it’s all we have, and even if we did sell, we would get pennies compared to what this farm is worth.
I try my hardest to keep things going, to keep even the meager money we get flowing. I take care of our sheep, but due to everything, the flock is small and few. People keep stealing them from us, even before sheep started vanishing en masse around the whole countryside. Even still, we were the ones to blame for it. But I swear, our family has nothing to do with this. The Peeps’ good name is innocent, this time.
I was making yarn these days, it was about all I could do, and the only thing that seemed to sell from us. The only reason I think it sells, is because I’ve taken the time to dye it, and I have been able to create unique colors. This keeps the farm running, and father and I fed, at least. Even if it stains my hands and arms, and makes my fingers feel brittle, at least we have that.
I take the sheep out first thing, so they can stretch and run and eat until they are content. I’ve had to take them out farther and between the rocky slopes of the mountains as of late. Around lunch I’ll take them back home, hoping I do not pass anyone along the way. On this day, though, something odd occurred. I had left with my twenty sheep, but when we returned, there were twenty-one, and the extra was one I know was not mine. This extra ewe was pitch black and completely overgrown, her coat looked as though it hadn’t been sheered in ages. I had no idea where she came from or when she might have joined my sheep. It seemed as though she had just appeared out of nowhere.
I wasn’t sure what to do; if she belonged to one of the neighboring farms and they found out, it could spell even more trouble for us. But the poor thing looked abandoned, so I decided to give her a sheer and a wash, and feed her some oats. The black wool she gave would make excellent yarn. I had not been able to find anything to dye the yarn this exquisite of a black, and the color had been requested. The poor ewe was quite small without all that wool, so I gave her the oats to eat while I washed her.
“That one won’t bring us any luck,” my father tells me. “I never wanted black sheep here, nor black goats. They’re a sign of wickedness.”
“Who says?” I scold. “We never had black sheep before and look what has become of us! Sin doesn’t come in through color or breed, Father. Sin exists despite it.” I was going to keep that sheep unless I found out it belonged to somebody. In fact, I was becoming quite attached to her already. She followed me around the farm happily, trotting right beside me as I went about my chores. Even when I took the other sheep out to graze, she stayed close to me.
It takes a long time to prepare the wool to make yarn. The skirting of it is my least favorite part as it takes so long. Once I have the black wool skirted, I begin the process of cleaning it, which ever since the press broke, has been quite arduous. I’ve been washing it twice and hanging it out to drip dry to get it as clean as I like it. And since this new wool is so black, I don’t have to dye it at all, and I can move straight to the carding.
It’s during this step I am noticing something a little strange with the black wool. As I am combing it out, I notice that some of the fluffier strands are becoming almost shiny, even metallic, they glimmer in the sunlight. While it does feel like a trick of the eye sometimes, I do notice it more and more as the carding process goes on.
My comb breaks one day while working, which rents my gut apart. I have no other combs to use aside from my hairbrush, and it is not good enough for the wool. I will have to go into town, which frightens me. It means I will also have to use some of the money that my father and I have been trying to save so we can repair some of the broken equipment on the farm like the press and others.
My gut is heavy as I take money from the box, all I need is a comb, and I need it to be able to make yarn. I just hate going into town, people stare and say things under their breath. They also say things out loud, but they don’t bother me as much as the whispers and snarls I cannot hear.
Leaving the farm, the little black sheep trots along beside me, happy as could be. Standing at the gate, I give her a few more pets. “Stay here, alright? I will be right back to finish spinning the wool you gave me.” I rub her face, and whenever I try to pull back, she keeps shoving herself into my palms. “Don’t be silly! I will come back!” I stand up but she keeps chasing after me. “Stay, girl, stay!” I manage to slip out of the gate without her, even then she follows along beside me on the other side of the fence. When she no longer can, she begins to bleat and cry.
In town, I am grateful to not see too many people around, although there are some children playing in the street. I walk by them, feeling unseen and I let my guard down just a little.
“Blow it down! Blow it down!” The children begin to chant.
I take a shaky breath and walk faster away.
“Blow it down! Blow it down!” The children continue to yell behind me.
I trip and fall in my haste and the coins in my pocket scatter. I try to grab them but the children rush out ahead of me and begin picking them up.
“No! Stop! Give that back!” I sit up but one of the little boys pulls my hood down over my face and the others shove me as they run by. “Give it back!” I cry. I pull the hood away and, to my surprise, I see the black sheep standing before the kids. The children try to walk around her, but the sheep moves to block them again.
“Move!” The boy who pushed me charges to hit the sheep, but she opens her mouth, and it is a horror. Her mouth slips open, revealing fangs and sharp teeth, blood red tongues that slither out like slimey tendrils. The children scream, dropping the coins they took from me and sprinting around me to get away.
The sheep closes her mouth and mudges her nose at the coins. She then lifts her head, wagging her little black tail as she waits for me to pick them up.
I start to weep, clutching my hands around my eyes. “I can’t do this again!” I sob. “Not again!”
The black sheep pushes at my hands, sniffing at me and bleating gently.
“Why do these monsters keep finding me?” I sob.
“Get off the ground, Bo.”
A cold chill goes down from my scalp and to my neck. I look up through tears at the black sheep as she stares at me. “What?”
“Get off the ground, stand straight,” she says in a calm, yet demanding voice. “Do not let the sheep of the town trample you under their hooves. Get up.”
I stare in fear and awe. Already I have seen her gaping maw appear as a gateway to some hellish vision. Now she speaks to me, perfectly human! “What is this?” I whisper. “What are you?”
She nudges me, pushing until I stand on my feet again. “I am yours, of course.”
I stare down at her in disbelief and fear. I almost want to run, but my feet are frozen in place. “I do not want this. Not again. Once those children get home and tell their families what they saw-”
“Then let them come, and let them see I am nothing but an ordinary ewe. I have nothing to hide from them, nor do you. Children are known to make up stories and be cruel.”
I scowl down upon her. “But their parents can be crueler, and they can ruin our farm all over again. We barely survived last time!”
She lifts her chin. “This time will be different, I promise you that, Bo. Now go, buy your comb, and I will return to the farm. No one will be any the wiser, I promise you. I am yours, and yours alone.”
I shake my head. “I can’t trust this.”
“I know I must earn it, Bo, and I intend to. I am not your brother.”
My chest shudders at the mention. “What do you know?” I grab the coins off the ground and stomp away from her. I expect to be attacked at any moment while I go into the shop. I buy what I need and, as I leave, I fear who will be waiting on me.
I make it home without another incident, so I sit and wait for the hammer to fall. I go into the barn to continue carding the black wool. The more I pull the comb through it, the more I see the shiny metallic strands inside.
I feel eyes upon me and I look up to see the black ewe watching me. My hands still and I settle back upon my seat. I’m not sure what to feel, I’m far too tired after all these years.
“I mean you no harm, Bo.” The ewe walks into the barn. “I came to care for you.”
“I am done with monsters,” I hiss. “I am done with the harm they inflict and the nightmares that follow them. My family has had enough of it. We cannot survive you and what you bring.”
She tilts her head to the side. “What makes you believe that I am a monster, Bo?”
Tears flood to my eyes. “Just tell me what you are! You say you are mine then obey me like you are!”
The barn doors suddenly close behind her, causing my bones to flinch from my muscle. My breath shakes as I force myself to breathe. The black ewe then rises, standing on hind legs. Fingers sprout and grow around the hooves of her front legs, spreading out until the hard hoof becomes the center of her palm. Her arms grow out, pulling from the body until she reaches up, and pulls at the ears on top of her head, pulling away her face and skin like a hood. Her face underneath is skeletal, with her teeth shiny gold, and the incisors jutting out longer than the rest. The shape of her face is very much, still sheep-like, but the eyes are larger, and strangely human. She stands tall before me, breathing fog from her nostrils.
“My name is Demeter,” she says cooly. “I have existed in these hills longer than humans. Before the Goddess Alice came and took on mortal life, I was here.”
“You’re a god?”
“In one sense, and in another no.” She tilts her head to the side. “I don’t like to be associated with the divine, and they certainly don’t want to be associated with me.” She lays her hand over her chest. “I prefer the land and the creatures that tread it. That is who I exist for.”
My vision is going dark, fading to tiny bright pinpoints before I lose consciousness all together. It is all too much for me who has had to take too much already. In my unconsciousness, I always go to the same scene. I am standing before the big, red barn doors, having just put the sheep and goats away for the night. I turn away from the red to see something running between the bails of hay. The dark shadow darts between them, coming closer and closer. I turn to head home and I am grabbed and shoved against the barn doors. Massive, clawed hands pin my shoulders back and I see the bleeding gaping jaws of a wolf before me. I scream, and as always, I wake up from my horrible nightmare.
I sit up from my bed and see Demeter watching over me. “Please, let this still be a dream,” I begin to weep.
Demeter sits down on the side of my bed and strokes her long, strange fingers through my hair. “Little Bo Peep,” she whispers to me. “You need to sleep.”
“I can’t,” I whisper. “I have nightmares all the time. I cannot face them. So I will not sleep.”
“Your nightmares lie in the waking world,” she says. “What you face in slumber is nothing compared to what you suffer through daily, is it not?”
I sniffle and look up at her. “Why are you here? What do you want from me?”
Demeter slips her fingers under my chin. “I have grown weak over the centuries. I have been sleeping far too much. I wish to be taken care of, loved even.”
I stare at her and frown. “Then you should have remained a sheep.”
Demeter’s chuckle is soft. “Were I better at controlling myself, I would have. I would have been your doting pet, but I am afraid I have never been one to let things go by easily.” Her wide blinking eyes appear soft in a way. She breathes a thick fog into the room. “The cult that worshipped me before the Court of Chess wiped them out was all women. They gave me strength to make the land fertile, and their livestock strong. Since they were chased from this land, I have let myself and the land fall into a sort of slumber. My power comes from emotion and affection. I have seen many beautiful women in my life, Bo, I have loved and pleasured countless. My one weakness, and my strength, is that.”
I swallow hard and try to keep from laughing. “Excuse me?”
Demeter strokes my face between her palms, raking her fingers through my hair. “Beautiful Bo,” she whispers. “I am very fond of you. You tender hands, your sad soul, I want to lavish affection on it all.”
I lose my breath for a second. “What for? Why me?”
“I will continue to play the doting pet, if that is what you so require. I will also be your friend, you confidant, and your protector. I just ask you to let me stay by your side. My strength will grow, and I will earn what you have lost.”
I look away from her briefly, staring back into her eyes. “I can’t give much. I do not know why you think I can. You would be better to go and find affection for someone who has not had their mind and soul weakened like mine.”
Demeter brushes my hair away from my face. “I want to help you as you have helped me. You believe you only sheered wool from me and fed me, but what you did is a kindness no one else would offer, not since I was forgotten.” She pulls her hands away from me. “Get some sleep.” She turns into the black ewe again, her limbs pulling back inside the body bit by bit until she stands on all fours. “I will guard you while you do.”
“You cannot guard me from what is inside my head.”
Using her teeth she pulls my blanket up around me. “I am a sheep, count on me.”
I lay my head upon the pillow, knowing I will not get any sleep that night, like usual. I close my eyes to pretend, but then, something strange happens. I wake up. I had fallen asleep! I have not just fallen asleep since my brother had- I look up from my pillow to see Demeter resting under the window. She lifts her head and meets my gaze.
“Sleep well, Bo?” She asks as she stands.
“It’s been so long,” I whisper.
Demeter walks over to the bed and lays her head upon the edge. “I am glad you did. Come now, let's go take the sheep out this lovely morning.”
I get up from bed and prepare for the day. I put on my clothes and tuck my hair under my bonnet. As I make breakfast, I can hear my father in his bedroom. I leave before he wakes, going out and gathering the other sheep to take them out.
“Do you know why sheep have been going missing?” I ask her.
“There is something out there,” Demeter tells me. She looks out at my sheep as they take to the grass. “But it is something familiar.”
I sit down upon a rock and Demeter rests beside it. “So, it’s human?”
“I believe so.”
I sigh heavily and cup my face between my hands.
She turns her head up towards me. “Did you think it was your brother again, Bo?”
I rub my eyes then gaze up, looking over my sheep and doing a quick count. “What do you know of it?”
“More than you think.”
I tighten my jaw and shake my head. “It isn’t something I like to think about. I try to ignore it and hope it goes away.”
Demeter stands and faces me directly. “That is why you cannot sleep and why you are having the nightmares that you do. You’re forcing down all these things that need to be faced. You cannot bury it, it is not dead yet.”
“Once again; what do you know?” I snap at her. “If you have been slumbering, how do you know? What could you possibly understand about what happened to my family?”
Her eyes take on the human guise again. “I know that you still love him, or else the things that have happened would not wound you so much.”
I scowl at her and turn myself away. I look out over the hills and grass, watching it go up the base of the mountains which became rocky and jagged. I pull my knees up and rest my head upon them.
“Can I show you something?” Demeter whispers.
“Like what?” I snarl.
“Follow me.”
I look up and see her standing before a path which the sheep have already begun to follow. I stand up and scoff. “I don’t have time for this. Where are they going?” I follow after the sheep with Demeter following along beside me. The path was old, I hadn’t thought much about it. Since it led along a rocky path, I had never taken my sheep along it. The path twists around rocks and under cliffs. Eventually things became lush and earthy with thick patches of moist moss. The path faded, coming upon just a sea of moss and mushrooms. At the back, under a beam of light, there was a small shack of a house. Along the side there is a big fence where three pigs are snorting and watching us.
I frown as the sheep spread out, sniffing the moss and nibbling at the mushrooms. “What is this?” I gasp in alarm as one of the sheep is engulfed in a cloud of spores and grows twice its normal size.
“Get out of here!” A voice shouts from the house. Someone comes out the door, shooing away a sheep from the porch. “Get out of here!” The man stops cold. “Bo?”
I stare in alarm. My body flashes between cold and hot. My heart races then slows to a dead stop. My stomach knots up and churns, causing my knees to go weak. Tears flood to my eyes and I almost want to scream. Instead, my voice comes out weak and chopped. “Henry?”
He steps off the porch with a strange look upon his face. His body is shaggy and he looks extremely thin. His long muzzle has hints of white to it. Before he vanished, he had not shifted completely into the wolf yet. He had been a jigsaw puzzle of human and wolf.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he breathes.
Demeter nudges her head against my legs and I move forward. “Why are you?”
“Look at me,” he snarls. “I’m the big bad wolf.”
