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Bread and Milk and Salt
Not all things are built to obey�
Tor reprint of “Bread and Milk and Salt,� originally published in Robots vs. Fairies (edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe, published by Saga Press, 2018).
Tor reprint of “Bread and Milk and Salt,� originally published in Robots vs. Fairies (edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe, published by Saga Press, 2018).
25 pages, ebook
First published January 9, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
November 28, 2018
“Come with me,� I said.
“Show me what you’re really like,� he said.
I shoved my wet black deer-nose into his palm. He hesitated, then ran his hand across my head. My fur was as soft as butter that night. He caressed my face, brushed the underside of my chin. I turned my face into his hand and breathed in the smell of his skin, his pulse. I closed my teeth around the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb and sank them in, biting down deep and hard and fast.
“What the fuck—� he cried out, but before he could pull his hand away, I flicked my tongue out and tasted his blood.
“That’s what I’m really like,� I said, my voice low and rough.
i’m glad that i expanded my weekly free tor short reading to include “reprints� as well as “original fiction� this week. i haven’t been choosing well from the originals lately, but this one i really enjoyed. it is reprinted from the anthology , which i own and have yet to read,* because that’s what i do.
i’m going to try to stick to my pledge of keeping the length of my reviews commensurate with the length of the text in order to save myself the grief of making my backlog of pending reviews any bigger than it needs to be, because along with buying anthologies and never getting around to reading them, i also have a tendency to spend far more time reviewing a short story than it took me to read the damn thing and maybe this is why i never get around to reading any of these books i have lying around.
this story bears some thinking about, though.
it’s the story of a fairy and a man, although they meet when he is a little boy, and it is narrated through the first person POV of the fairy.
the fairy sees the boy and wants him, for reasons undisclosed, but it tracks him throughout the boy’s life, appearing to him as different animals with devious intentions.
I waddled over to him, picked up a piece of bread in my beak, and did a dance. I was considering luring him away and replacing his heart with a mushroom, and then sending him back to his parents so they could see the rot blossom in him. He laughed at my duck-dance, and I did an improbable cartwheel for him, hoping he would toddle toward me. If I got him close enough to the edge of the duck pond, I could pull him under the water and drown him and weave mosses into his hair.
all of you bird lovers should know that this is pretty much what all ducks are thinking all of the time.
it also appears to him as a cat:
I leapt onto his windowsill next to the precariously-balanced, brimming bowl, and I lapped at the milk while he watched. His eyes were bright and curious, and I considered filling his eye sockets with gold so that his parents would have to chisel through his skull in order to pay off their house.
all of you cat lovers already know that this is pretty much what all cats are thinking all of the time. and it doesn’t stop us from doting on them.
in any case - in between its visits to the boy, the fairy does what fairies do, which is mischief and occasionally fatal mayhem against humans before it finally comes back to the boy again, and that first part i quoted occurs, leading to this:
…I licked his blood from my muzzle. It burned going down—iron—but it was enough to bind us. He would run from me, but he would never be able to escape me altogether. Not now.
and this is where the story starts worming in. because, just like in another book i recently read, , the supernatural assailant realizes that this binding cuts both ways, and the power dynamic is not necessarily in their favor.
I was bound. And I am what I am. So I followed.
for me, the most interesting part of it is from the perspective of readerly sympathies. the first person voice tends to draw the reader in, aligning them with the narrator, even if they aren’t human (the narrators - i don’t have any data on non-human readers), even if they are predatorial against humans (again - the narrators), which this one certainly is. and when things start getting precarious for the fairy, you (i) find (found) yourself (myself) siding with the fairy against the human, even though what he’s doing is truly no more reprehensible than what the fairy was doing in its day-to-day, with the vivisection-encouragement and all that.
but i do believe we are to read the ending of this story as triumphant. the fairy certainly does, but why is the reader drawn to the fairy over peter - applauding one monster’s defeat of another? is it simply because of the aligning power of POV? is it because a fairy is exempt from the social ethics of humans; that wanting to drown little kids is just what fairies do? is it because, for most of the second half of the story, the fairy is in the shape of a human woman, and it becomes a domestic abuse parallel in which we naturally root for the victim?
for such a short story, it’s trickier than it appears on the surface, and i think it’s worth digging into a little more.
what does all this mean? well, basically it means i have failed in my mission to keep these short and sweet and not overthink them, so hooray - SWEET SWEET FAILURE ALL FOR ME!
read it for yourself here:
* also true of the first anthology - zombies v unicorns
November 29, 2018
This creepy short story, free online , originally came from an anthology called Robots vs. Fairies. It does, in fact, contain both robots and (a) fairy. The fairy, who narrates this story, is of the whimsically cruel type who will kill you just for the fun of it. But just possibly this fairy has met their match in Peter, a human that the fairy has taken a deep, long-term interest in.
The fairy first sets eyes on Peter at a lake, when Peter is a toddler and the fairy is in the form of a duck. (Why? Who knows?) Peter's parents are arguing - clearly in the process of divorce - and not paying as much attention to Peter as they should. The fairy contemplates what they'd like to do to Peter (replace his heart with a mushroom) but it doesn't work out.
The next time they meet, the fairy is a cat ....
This story really didn't go in the direction I thought it would, but I recommend it if you don't mind a horror type of tale and dealing with two extremely unpleasant main characters. Kudos to Sarah Gailey for setting up the shift in sympathies and perceptions so well!
The fairy first sets eyes on Peter at a lake, when Peter is a toddler and the fairy is in the form of a duck. (Why? Who knows?) Peter's parents are arguing - clearly in the process of divorce - and not paying as much attention to Peter as they should. The fairy contemplates what they'd like to do to Peter (replace his heart with a mushroom) but it doesn't work out.
When I poked my head out from under a lily pad, the proper ducks were shoving their beaks into the grass to get the last of the bread, and the man and the boy were gone, and the woman was sitting in the grass with her arms wrapped around her knees and a hollowed-out kind of face. I would have taken her, but there wouldn’t have been any sport in it. She was desperate to be taken, to vanish under the water and breathe deeply until silt settled in the bottoms of her lungs.Chills!
Besides. I wanted the boy.
The next time they meet, the fairy is a cat ....
This story really didn't go in the direction I thought it would, but I recommend it if you don't mind a horror type of tale and dealing with two extremely unpleasant main characters. Kudos to Sarah Gailey for setting up the shift in sympathies and perceptions so well!
September 8, 2021
A small kid, Peter is at the lake throwing bread crumbs to the ducks when the fairy disguised as a duck takes an interest in him. The fairy keeps coming back to see Peter disguised as different things as he grows older and slowly Peter learns that he didn't make the fairy up. He starts to leave bread and milk and salt for the fairy and the fairy keeps coming back until one day things take a creepy turn and the fairy can't leave.
“What do you really look like?� he asked.
I love fairies and their world. I was expecting it to be set deep in the fairy world but I was surprised to see the change in course of the story and felt chills as I kept on reading. Wow! what a turn of events and then another turn of events. Creeptastic, I loved it.
5 stars
“What do you really look like?� he asked.
I love fairies and their world. I was expecting it to be set deep in the fairy world but I was surprised to see the change in course of the story and felt chills as I kept on reading. Wow! what a turn of events and then another turn of events. Creeptastic, I loved it.
5 stars
March 23, 2020
“If I got him close enough to the edge of the duck pond, I could pull him under the water and drown him and weave mosses into his hair.
But he didn’t follow. He stood there, near the still-shouting man and the silent, shivering woman, and he watched me, and he kept throwing bread even as I slid under the surface of the water. I waited, but no little face appeared at the edge of the pond to see where I had gone; no chubby fingers broke the surface tension.
When I poked my head out from under a lily pad, the proper ducks were shoving their beaks into the grass to get the last of the bread, and the man and the boy were gone, and the woman was sitting in the grass with her arms wrapped around her knees and a hollowed-out kind of face. I would have taken her, but there wouldn’t have been any sport in it. She was desperate to be taken, to vanish under the water and breathe deeply until silt settled in the bottoms of her lungs.
Besides. I wanted the boy.
The next time I met the boy, I was a cat.
To say that I “met� him is perhaps misleading, as it implies that I was not waiting outside of his window. It implies that I had not followed his hollowed-out mother home and waited outside of his window every night for a year. It is perhaps dishonest to say that I “met� the boy that night.
I am perhaps dishonest.�
As any good short-story writer, Gailey doesn’t delay giving us tension and action. We are dealing here with a mischevious or malevolent fairy and her obsession with a boy. In this retrospective of a relationship there are many twists and surprises to be unveiled.
This is not your common fairytale. You get both the boy’s and the fairy’s perspective and you might find each makes you uncomfortable. Once read, can you get them out of YOUR head? Time will tell.
3.5*
But he didn’t follow. He stood there, near the still-shouting man and the silent, shivering woman, and he watched me, and he kept throwing bread even as I slid under the surface of the water. I waited, but no little face appeared at the edge of the pond to see where I had gone; no chubby fingers broke the surface tension.
When I poked my head out from under a lily pad, the proper ducks were shoving their beaks into the grass to get the last of the bread, and the man and the boy were gone, and the woman was sitting in the grass with her arms wrapped around her knees and a hollowed-out kind of face. I would have taken her, but there wouldn’t have been any sport in it. She was desperate to be taken, to vanish under the water and breathe deeply until silt settled in the bottoms of her lungs.
Besides. I wanted the boy.
The next time I met the boy, I was a cat.
To say that I “met� him is perhaps misleading, as it implies that I was not waiting outside of his window. It implies that I had not followed his hollowed-out mother home and waited outside of his window every night for a year. It is perhaps dishonest to say that I “met� the boy that night.
I am perhaps dishonest.�
As any good short-story writer, Gailey doesn’t delay giving us tension and action. We are dealing here with a mischevious or malevolent fairy and her obsession with a boy. In this retrospective of a relationship there are many twists and surprises to be unveiled.
This is not your common fairytale. You get both the boy’s and the fairy’s perspective and you might find each makes you uncomfortable. Once read, can you get them out of YOUR head? Time will tell.
3.5*
November 27, 2018
I am perhaps dishonest.
Needless cruelty takes so many forms.
December 9, 2018
I'm just not sure if I really like stories about fairies. This one was simply okay for me. It was really more about two horrible people getting what they deserve. From the beginning, we know our fairy narrator is hoping to steal the little boy named Peter. She (?) talks about all the horrible things she'd like to do to him, like a sadistic serial killer taking pleasure in their own gruesome creativity. But as Peter ages, he wises up to what this creature really is, and the tables get turned. Actually, this story is just a turntable, with the abuse flowing back and forth... because Peter isn't such a great guy, either. The ending wasn't really a surprise; it was mildly interesting, but that's really about all I can say.
The writing was just mediocre for me. Aside from a few technical errors, I didn't really like the way I couldn't place the time period. When the story began, I thought it must've been set long in the past. But when Peter grows up to engage in really high-tech pursuits (like implanting interfaces into cockroach brains so he can control them wirelessly), I had to reevaluate my initial assessment. I guess it's supposed to take place in the present day... but that just makes the emphasis on all the old folklore about fairies kind of odd. (How many children of the last few decades grew up with their parents basically giving them lessons on how to outwit the fairies?)
This wasn't my favourite short story, but it wasn't terrible. It was just average. I can't really feel much about it one way or the other.
Quotable moment:
The writing was just mediocre for me. Aside from a few technical errors, I didn't really like the way I couldn't place the time period. When the story began, I thought it must've been set long in the past. But when Peter grows up to engage in really high-tech pursuits (like implanting interfaces into cockroach brains so he can control them wirelessly), I had to reevaluate my initial assessment. I guess it's supposed to take place in the present day... but that just makes the emphasis on all the old folklore about fairies kind of odd. (How many children of the last few decades grew up with their parents basically giving them lessons on how to outwit the fairies?)
This wasn't my favourite short story, but it wasn't terrible. It was just average. I can't really feel much about it one way or the other.
Quotable moment:
He walked out the door without a backwards glance, and I screamed into his pillows. Every time I inhaled, I breathed in the smell of his hair, and I had to scream again to rid myself of it.
December 28, 2024
Horrifying novella about fairies and monsters and the many faces they wear. This took a turn that lurked in the first few pages and grew into something a lot more sinister.
November 29, 2018
Oooh yes give me that dark dark fantasy! This was a smart wicked story of unlikeable characters finding each other.
And the ending was perfection!
December 13, 2018
both of them are equally horrible and deserve each other, I like that.
January 5, 2019
I will turn your face to alabaster
When you'll find your servant is your master
You'll be wrapped around my finger . . .*
A tricky little fairy longs to possess a boy, and goes to great lengths to finagle her (his?) way into the child's life. But . . . regret soon follows when the fairy discovers the youth is not as innocent, and gullible, as he had seemed.
*Gordon Sumner
When you'll find your servant is your master
You'll be wrapped around my finger . . .*
A tricky little fairy longs to possess a boy, and goes to great lengths to finagle her (his?) way into the child's life. But . . . regret soon follows when the fairy discovers the youth is not as innocent, and gullible, as he had seemed.
*Gordon Sumner
July 28, 2020
This was intense and I had no clue what to expect going in. Except, ya know. Fairies. Real, disturbing but kinda awesome bad a** fairies. Y'all. 5 🌟.
November 29, 2018
This is a lovely short story that is deceptively deep. Be careful where you wade, the abyss lurks below the surface and is not easy to see.
I absolutely love the characters, as it comes down to some really subtle word play as to who is the actual villain. A sort of "Sympathy for the Devil" moment.
Thanks @Karen for the prompting review.
Here is how you get to read this:
A very enjoyable 4 Stars.
I absolutely love the characters, as it comes down to some really subtle word play as to who is the actual villain. A sort of "Sympathy for the Devil" moment.
Thanks @Karen for the prompting review.
Here is how you get to read this:
A very enjoyable 4 Stars.
January 10, 2019
Reminded me of a childhood crush turned marriage gone bad.
September 13, 2020
CW: Death of an animal, relationship abuse, self-harm/gore
Sometimes an author just calls to you and every time you read a description of one of their book, you desperately want to read it.
I've been feeling what way for a while now about Sarah Gailey, but for some reason or another, I haven't managed to get my hands on any of their books yet.
I was really excited when I saw they'd published a Tor short, so I immediately jumped on it.
Boy what a ride.
This story is beautifully written, with such a strong narrative voice. It had several twists and turns that I could not have foreseen, playing with both fantasy and sci-fi elements to create this weird, beautifully ugly little story.
Highly recommend this one.
Sometimes an author just calls to you and every time you read a description of one of their book, you desperately want to read it.
I've been feeling what way for a while now about Sarah Gailey, but for some reason or another, I haven't managed to get my hands on any of their books yet.
I was really excited when I saw they'd published a Tor short, so I immediately jumped on it.
Boy what a ride.
This story is beautifully written, with such a strong narrative voice. It had several twists and turns that I could not have foreseen, playing with both fantasy and sci-fi elements to create this weird, beautifully ugly little story.
Highly recommend this one.
November 27, 2018
damn, this is good. a story of a violent fae and her prey turned on its head, with all the requisite violence and horror. read it for free.
January 27, 2019
WOW
My favotite kind of short. One that packs so much deeper meaning, but is dark and leaves you a bit breathless in the end.
My favotite kind of short. One that packs so much deeper meaning, but is dark and leaves you a bit breathless in the end.
November 30, 2018
Well, I certainly didn't expect that. I liked it a lot though. It's written from the point of view of a fairy, and not a very nice one on top of that. More like very cruel and at the same time innocent. And at times so clever.
Said fairy meets a young boy and wants him; thus the story begins.
Said fairy meets a young boy and wants him; thus the story begins.
March 17, 2022
YEAH FUCKED UP SHORT STORY FAIRY TALE WHERE NONE OF THE CHARACTERS ARE SYMPATHETIC AND BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO EVERYONE
This was so good and the ending was absolutely not where I was expecting the story to go but it was incredible regardless
This was so good and the ending was absolutely not where I was expecting the story to go but it was incredible regardless
"“You don’t have to live there,� I said. “You could come with me. I know a place in the forest where there’s a bed made from soft mosses and a bower made from dew. You could come with me and live there and eat berries that will make you immortal.� His vertebrae would hang from the tree branches like wind chimes, and the caterpillars would string their cocoons from his ribs in the summertime. “Come with me.�"
November 29, 2018
It's been a while since I read a good short story and I forgot how much I enjoyed them.
If you, like me, were an avid fairytale fan as a child (I think I have read most of Enid Blyton's short story compilations about a dozen times each) then this is a great grownup throwback. Its quite dark, but plays well on the old trope of fairy creatures being quite a different sort of race to ours, with different motivations and goals that seem quite foreign, and having the perspective set from the fairy's point of view adds to that alien feeling.
read here:
If you, like me, were an avid fairytale fan as a child (I think I have read most of Enid Blyton's short story compilations about a dozen times each) then this is a great grownup throwback. Its quite dark, but plays well on the old trope of fairy creatures being quite a different sort of race to ours, with different motivations and goals that seem quite foreign, and having the perspective set from the fairy's point of view adds to that alien feeling.
read here:
November 8, 2018
I read this powerful short story on my commute to work, on a bus surrounded by the noises and smells of other people. And still the atmosphere grabbed me. It would have been so much more suited to solitude on a dark and stormy evening, with candles flickering and a gusting wind against the window.
I loved it. Even on the bus.
Please, whatever you do, don’t take this one to book club or ask your 15 year old students to dissect it in class. You will kill the spirit. Just immerse yourself and enjoy the cruelty.
I loved it. Even on the bus.
Please, whatever you do, don’t take this one to book club or ask your 15 year old students to dissect it in class. You will kill the spirit. Just immerse yourself and enjoy the cruelty.
December 18, 2021
Free on Tor.com is this delightfully cruel short story, a reprint from . It pairs two cruel creatures, one human, one fairy, in a lifetime game of cat and mouse. I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
October 1, 2024
(3.5 Stars) I like how Gailey writes, I think they give life to their stories in a way a true writer can. I've only read two short stories by them now, but I've liked enough of what I've seen to want to read a full-length novel. This one is a dark fantasy and it honestly hurts my heart to read about the animal testing and what Peter does to our protagonist mid-way through the story. Those things have always been close to me emotionally and led me to want to witch-hunt Peter.
- What animal would you change into if you could?
- What animal would you change into if you could?
January 9, 2019
"...Humans who are used to being in charge forget quickly that not all things are built to obey."
Reading this was such a sea of shifing sympathies. I'm not sure if it's right to call Bread and Milk and Salt a psychological horror, but I want to. Empathy for the fairy and the human become brilliantly muddied in the arena of power and control.
I found Sarah Gailey's writing here really impressive because they managed to convey the fairy's mind so vividly yet mysteriously. Their imagery is so vibrant and visceral and I loved it
Reading this was such a sea of shifing sympathies. I'm not sure if it's right to call Bread and Milk and Salt a psychological horror, but I want to. Empathy for the fairy and the human become brilliantly muddied in the arena of power and control.
I found Sarah Gailey's writing here really impressive because they managed to convey the fairy's mind so vividly yet mysteriously. Their imagery is so vibrant and visceral and I loved it
February 23, 2019
I enjoyed the American Hippo series by this author and I was curious to read more of her work. Bread and Milk and Salt is a very different story that uses some of the fairy tales mythos while exploring violence and abuse. It is a great story, and I am looking forward reading more by .
This is the story of a fairy that meets a young boy, and try to kill him as good fairies do. Or so she says. Her actions seems to suggest otherwise: she keep following the boy as he grows up. I am left wondering if she is infatuated... But the young men turns out to be the real monster at the end.
This is the story of a fairy that meets a young boy, and try to kill him as good fairies do. Or so she says. Her actions seems to suggest otherwise: she keep following the boy as he grows up. I am left wondering if she is infatuated... But the young men turns out to be the real monster at the end.
January 4, 2024
Not my cup of tea. I only pushed through it because it was so short. I really don't like this type of graphic violence, at least some of it seemed very pointless to me. However, the story was inventive and stylistically well done, so that's where the second star comes from. I also love fairies and robots and the way Sarah Gailey integrated both into a really short work is great.
November 12, 2018
[Bread and Milk and Salt]() by *Sarah Gailey* is a delightfully creepy and scary fairytale short story. It's online, so there's no excuse for not reading it � it's definitely worth it.
March 31, 2019
A deceptively simple story that at first makes you think it might be bittersweet and fuzzy, until you read closely and realize the fuzzy is a parasitic growth slowly eating a body away. Nicely dark. Humanity is just as cruel as many of the fae, often more so. An appropriately ironic end.
February 4, 2020
A very dark tale of magic and technology mixed together and abused to inflict so much damage. And yet, for all the science fiction and fantasy elements, it is a horribly relatable tale of how people hurt each other.
September 30, 2021
I find I kinda like Gailey's amazing talent of making me glance in a mirror and scream at the sight of my flaws of personality. I just wish my emotional equilibrium weren't so badly upended each time. I can only stand to do it every so often but it is a wonder.
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