Tolga Bilgen: Evidently, by doing away with free in-flight snacks and meals, the airlines save millions of dollars per year. Good for them. Imagine how much they'll save when they replace real seats with beanbag cushions. I live and work in Seattle, by the way. My fiction has been published in, among other places, Aoife's Kiss, Full Unit Hookup, Tales of the Unanticipated, and nanobison.

Tolga is the author of Mom's Heart of Fire, which appeared in the October 2005 issue of Byzarium.

She had only vague memories of her mother--rhyming songs, tickles, a loving face. Her father and the townsfolk said her mother had died trying to bring her a baby brother. Fate had its ways.

Her father, an innkeeper, never remarried. A good man, he was proud of his daughter, and of his work. Over the years he’d painted scenes on the walls of the inn--travelers, idylls and animals--and she learned to make brushes and to mix pigments. She loved her father.

As she grew into womanhood, she took on greater tasks. She butchered goats and pigs as easily as she prepared savory meals of their meat. Most of the inn’s furniture was of her own making. She was an able roof-mender, and she had reinforced the garden wall using heavy stones from the river. Her hands were calloused and confident.

She sometimes dreamed of her brother; he had survived his birth, had been raised in a foreign land, had learned magic. In her dream he returned to the inn, and made dolls and toys appear from nowhere. Her room filled with them.

Many men in town declared their love, or at least their desire, for her. One in particular was the oaf, a big fellow, prone to poor work and bad habits: “M’a good man,” he’d always say. “You need a good man.”

She didn’t love him.

Among the inn’s regular guests was a young man, not handsome, but not ugly; he was a junior member of the Messenger Guild, and frequently passed through town, carrying missives, epistles and contracts, the crucial and the banal.

The innkeeper’s daughter had fallen in love with him. She would spend nights with him in his room. Her father knew nothing of this.

On a cool April afternoon the messenger stopped at the inn again, this time with a little monster in tow: about the size of a large cat, the creature was covered with sleek fur, had tiny tri-cloven hooves, and its eyes were large. Its gaze seemed thoughtful. Its snout, long like a snake, had at its tip a pale, grasping hand.

The messenger told her he’d acquired the strange little creature from a foreigner, a magician, who had wanted nothing more than to rid himself of it.

“Please,” the creature said, in a small, child-like voice; it made her jump.

“The only word it knows,” the messenger said. “I don’t think it understands what it means.”

The resittes came to town later that day, three of them, stooped and sweating beneath their cloaks. They carried no luggage, for resittes were penniless, homeless, and humble.

As they made their way through the winding streets, the townsfolk gave them a wide berth. This was not only due to their horrid stench, but according to tradition, to see a resitte’s face was an invitation to misfortune. On the other hand, it was considered good luck to have them as guests.

The innkeeper, dismayed and elated when the resittes plodded through his front door, greeted them with reverence, turning away as he did so.

His daughter held her nose and escorted them to their rooms, the worst the inn had to offer, for the resittes would accept nothing else: two small chambers on the ground floor, on the building’s north side, closest to the stables and dung heaps.

Despite their fame, little was known for certain about the resittes. Rumors multiplied desperately; they were a once-great family, who lived as mendicants but guarded a vast treasure. They subsisted on the flesh of children, but only those born during the ninth day of the rainy season. They were sorcerers of terrible power, but had vowed never to use that power, lest they destroy the world.

Each resitte kept but a single worldly possession, a glass phial, also a source of frantic speculation: the phials contained the last shreds of their very souls, the essence of their consuming magics, or an abyssal glimpse into future times.

She knew it was only her impatience that made the rest of the day drag on so long, that made her evening chores so unfair; she knew it was only because she longed to join her lover in his room.

Finally, at midnight, she crept out of her bedroom.

In the dark, she knew the feel and squeak of every floorboard, the texture of every plastered wall. Someday, she would blindfold herself and spend a week working in perpetual darkness; but when would she find time, where would her father find the patience, for that?

In the kitchen, she prepared a plate of hasty-meats and cheese, her eyes adjusting to the blue-grey of night.

In the ground floor corridor, she nearly drowned in the pungent smell of resitte. Her lover had the room nearest theirs; a junior messenger’s account could afford little more.

Then she heard a shuffle and the soft groan of the floor up ahead.

She froze in place. Involuntarily, she craned her neck forward and squinted into the gloom.

It was her father.

She held her breath, wished she could stop her heart from thumping so loud; surely he would hear.

“Daughter?” he whispered.

What to tell him? Father, I’ve been carrying on with the messenger, and here I am bringing him a snack of hasty-meats and cheese?

He approached, warily. His face was wet, his breathing short and quick, as though he’d just run an errand to market and back. He kept his hands behind his back.

“Daughter,” he whispered, “I thought I heard a noise. Here.”

She offered the same excuse, embarrassed, knowing how thin it sounded, and she scrabbled to think of some way to explain the plate of food--

But he didn’t ask about it. He seemed more concerned with getting away. “We must have heard each other,” he said, and they both pretended satisfaction.

They murmured their goodnights and retreated.

Still hefting the plate of food, she stole after her father. He went to the inn’s back door; she assumed he’d check to make sure it was locked.

Instead he unlocked it and swung it wide open. Cool night air spilled into the room, replacing the resitte-smell with the fragrance of cherry blossoms. Crickets sang outside, and someone waited there among them.

They spoke in whispers, her father and this stranger. Her father sounded angry. The other voice, gruff and mocking, seemed familiar.

Edging in closer, she heard:

“What did they look like? Without their robes?”

“I didn’t bring a lantern. I’ve never been so frightened. Look, what happens now? Everyone will think my inn is a place of thieves . . . they might think I rob my guests--“

“Mmm, they might. But chin up, now. There’s always someone else to blame.”

They spoke a while longer, then her father closed the door, secured the bolt and skulked off to bed.

She made her way back to the messenger’s room. They ate the hasty-meats and cheese, feeding some to his strange little pet.

In the darkness, it said, “Please.”

The morning saw a tempest at the inn, though she wasn’t there to see it. She’d awakened before dawn, left the messenger asleep in his room, and had gone to market.

When she returned, with goose eggs, a pot of honey, and a box of iron nails, a neighbor rushed up to tell her:

Soon after sunrise, the resittes had raised the alarm; their phials had been stolen during the night. Town guardsmen arrived; armored men with crooked noses and thick necks. They clanked in, their spear points chipping the ceiling. They barked a lot of questions, then the messenger found himself under arrest. After searching his room, they led him away in irons. They laughed and said the warder would figure out some way of making him confess.

Hearing this, she wept. The messenger truly loved her. He’d proven it. Rather than call on her to provide an alibi and reveal their secret, he had kept quiet, had allowed himself to be imprisoned.

She entered his room. It was a wreck. Despite herself, she noted the damage to the bed and the chair; easily fixed, but it would have to wait.

She heard a voice mutter, “Please.”

The strange little pet. It huddled in the dust and shadows beneath the bed, shivering as if near-frozen. She coaxed it out with a plate of cold porridge; it scooped food up into its mouth with its one hand.

She patted it; its small, hard head was so warm, almost feverish. It looked up at her with wet eyes.

After that it clip-clopped after her, wherever she went.

She went looking for her father, and found him alone in the stable, absently brushing their old pony. His face sagged, his movements were listless.

When she told him all that she’d seen and heard last night, he placed his hands on top of his head, and sat down heavily on a squat wooden stool. He looked defeated.

“Daughter,” he said, “I had to help him. He said the inn would be burned down. He said terrible things would happen to you. If I didn’t help. If I didn’t go along.”

She asked who he’d given the phials to.

“Please,” said the strange little pet, at her heels.

The stranger at the back door last night had been the oaf. No wonder she’d recognized the voice.

He tended to lay low during the daylight hours, she knew. And there was a tavern in the southern quarter, boiling with drunkards and gamblers and people for sale; she knew he’d be there after dark.

Despite herself she was glad to find him, slumped at the bar; the leers and threats of the other patrons made her uneasy, and his was a familiar face, at least.

His wide, thick-lipped mouth pulled into a smile when he saw her. He smelled of sweat and spiced ale.

“Finally come to get yerself a good man, eh?” he said.

He followed her outside, into the alley between the tavern and a gambling house.

She told him what she knew, that he had the phials. She would go to the warder, she said, she would bear witness,and guardsmen would--

His frogmouth stretched into another smile.

“Who do you think the guardsmen obey in this town?

“Who do you think the warder works for?

“If your messenger-boy gets off, who gets the blame in his stead? Me? Or your father?”

Now he laughed, stinking of ale and garlic and raw meat.

She took an involuntary step backwards, into a puddle of slimy water.

The strange little pet scurried to avoid getting stepped on.

Teasing her, the oaf showed off the phials, three of them, made of clear, thick glass, palm-sized. They were sealed, having no stoppers or corks. A fluid swirled inside them, oily and amber colored, with a suspension of sandy grains; even in the gloom of the alley they twinkled.

Plain and scratched, they had elegance enough to seem out of place there in his hands.

And they captivated her. She felt they belonged to her.

“Please,” said the strange little pet.

“I want to help you, dear,” the oaf said, “I really do.” He ran a thumb along his chin. “Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal.”

And his face split into a greedy smile.

Right there in the alley, he fell to one knee and howled an infantile song, avowing his love for her. He didn’t care if anyone heard or saw, or even if they lined up to watch.

After he finished singing, he asked her to be his wife.

She couldn’t answer. There was a heat in her face, in her head, an unbearable fever.

Her hands burned.

She had to see the phials. She had to have them.

“You can change this,” said a voice.

The strange little pet. It looked up at her, its one hand rapping the dirt.

“You know how to carve animal flesh,” it said, in a matter-of-fact way, as if suggesting a new recipe for pork.

It was then that she knew that this little creature was her brother, finally returned. She didn’t know how, she didn’t question.

A knife, the one she always used for woodcarving, was in her hand. How it came to be there, she didn’t question. The blade was slick. Her arms were splashed with slippery warmth. Her fingers plunged into a gushing well, through folds of shabby cloth--the oaf’s soaked clothing.

He lay on his back in the alley, his limbs splayed.

The three phials clinked together in her hands and she felt weak with relief.

The strange little creature climbed onto the oaf’s chest and stood, as if on guard.

She backed away into the alley just as someone happened upon the scene.

There was a cry for help, and soon a crowd formed, gasping, cursing, surrounding the corpse and the creature. Guardsmen appeared and tried to chase the creature away, but it hunkered down, as if protecting a kill. They ran it through with their spears. It yelped out one word as it died: “Sister!”

She ran off, the humors within the phials making a glop-glop sound, three tiny hearts beating in her hands.

The inn was asleep and silent. Once in her room, she carefully stood the phials on her little table, a table she’d made herself. She lit a candle, and the four phials, lined up in a row, sparkled. The humors inside them swirled, welcoming, friendly.

How three phials had become four, she didn’t question. She thought of them as glass dolls, her secret confidantes, hers alone.

Then she thought of the messenger, the oaf, and the strange little creature.

She brought a basin of well water and washed her hands, the knife, and the phials. The water turned rosy. She wiped down the tabletop, and its pine wood smell sprang to life.

She wrapped the phials in cloth, placed the bundle in a sack, put the sack under her pillow.

Morning. The light in her window woke her: she’d overslept. Normally she’d have been awake before dawn, she would have gone to market and back, and by now she would be in the kitchen tending to the fire, the bread, the tea.

Her father didn’t chide her for sleeping in, he was too anxious with the news. By turns shocked and heady, he spoke like a seasoned gossip.

Last night, the oaf had been killed by a wild beast, half-goat, half-serpent. Horrible. The monster had shredded the man like so much butcher’s meat. Blood everywhere. Terrible. The whole town was abuzz.

She handed him the sack, and inside he found the four phials.

Her father whispered, “Daughter, weren’t there three?”

She didn’t question.

With the return of their property, the resittes demanded the messenger’s release from prison.

Set free and no worse for wear, the messenger tried to embrace her, but found her distant. She missed the phials like they were long lost family.

She told her father everything; about the messenger and their nights together--her father bristled, the messenger cringed--about the oaf’s death, about the strange little creature. Then she announced that she had to leave.

Her father reeled and pointed at the messenger. “With him?”

“No,” she said.

The messenger pleaded with her. “Please,” he said.

On the outskirts of town, past the old bridge and the haunted copse, she met the three resittes. They welcomed her, and called her ‘sister.’