Page 18 of Basket Case

“Not you.”

Gran went quiet. The strand stopped moving, although its tip remained pressed against my leg. Creel had no face, but I knew he was listening.

“What exactly did you do with him?” Gran asked.

“You just said you didn’t want the details.”

“I mean before he woke.”

“I put a kale stalk in the basket. Moira made me pull it from the field. Never heard of that tradition before.”

“I'm sure you have. You've celebrated Samhain with me before. Although maybe you were too young for that particular tradition. And what happened then?”

“And then the basket ate it and grew a... cock.”

Creel gave an offended creak. I regretted my vocabulary choices - this was my grandmother I was talking to. Not that she was prude. Whenever I called her, she told me of her exploits with whatever man she'd been able to seduce, usually men much younger than her. She wore pearls, but she definitely did not clutch them.

You make it sound crude.

“You made a cock out of a vegetable.”

Gran cleared her throat. “Can you have this argument after I’ve explained a few things?”

“He started it.” I shifted against the pillows, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear while I pulled the sheet higher. “How did you know he might wake?”

“I didn’t know. I hoped.”

That answer removed the last traces of pleasant tiredness from my body. “You hoped your basket would come alive after I fed it a phallic vegetable?”

“When you put it like that, it sounds strange. And I didn't know that a vegetable was required. I'd just hoped he would wake for you.”

Creel’s strand resumed its journey. The soft tip brushed the back of my knee, careful enough that Gran couldn’t hear anything in my voice. I caught it before it went higher and wrapped it around my fist.

Gran lowered her voice. “Has he told you what he is?”

“He says he’s fae. Urgh. When I say it out loud, it sounds even more ridiculous. Please tell me this isn't a dream. Tell me he is real.”

“He is. He's the Gille Dubh.”

The name sounded familiar, although I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it. Perhaps Gran had used it in one of the stories she’d told me when I was a child. Her stories had featured enough faeries to explain why I’d spent several years leaving biscuits beneath my bed and had refused to ever pluck a flower.

“What does that mean?”

“Dark-haired lad, roughly. The Gille Dubh lived alone in the birch woods. He dressed in leaves and moss and hid from humans, although he was said to be gentle with children. One night, a little girl became lost in the forest. He found her crying beneath a tree and kept her warm until morning.”

I wanted to interrupt and ask her to stop with the fairytales, but I'd just been fucked by a wicker basket, so I should probably suspend my disbelief for a little while longer. There clearly were things in this world that couldn't be explained by science.

"The girl was one of our ancestors," Gran continued. "Jessie Macrae."

I looked down at the fresh leaves covering Creel’s handle. They trembled even though the bedroom was warm and still. He hadn't said anything in a while.

There were countless stories about Scottish families discovering that their great-great-grandmother had met a faerie or married a selkie. Most of them had been invented by tour guides to sell a romantic side of Scotland that no longer existed. This one was different.

“What happened to the Gille Dubh?” I asked.

“The men of the village heard Jessie talking about the dark-haired fae who had watched over her. They decided anything living alone in the woods had to be dangerous, so they formed a hunting party.”

“That seems a little ungrateful.”