Short story in Rambling sane thoughts of the terminally me

So, this has been written for my local LARP game. It's going to be a bit of plot to tell people about a naughty fae who makes people greedy but I thought I'd put it here and you can make what you will of it. Suggestions on how to make it even more disturbing are greatly appreciated.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there was a lad called Jack. Jack was a poor lad, the son of a wood cutter and his wife. His life growing up was neither a happy one, nor an unhappy one. It was devoid of a purpose but, never having known one, Jack had little to miss. He was beloved by his parents and it could be assumed, for the most part, that he loved them back, though he never said words to this effect.

When he was but a child of three his father died. His mother came to tell him that an accident had happened. That his father had be careless and a tree had fallen upon him and had broken his skull in two.

Jack cried, as all small children do. Inside though, there was only a hot hollow. He had no purpose and so did not feel loss. His mother wept enough for them both and a whole town as well, though. Her purpose had been to love her husband and now that purpose was gone.

Jacks mother tried to find a new reason to be in the love and upbringing of her son but it was difficult. They had little money and many debts. Jacks mother put him to work as soon as he was old enough, doing tasks around the village for fruit and vegetables that they might eat. Jack completed each task he was given but with no love or joy in his heart. So it was that his mother became hardened to him and the love for her child dried up in her heart.

Years past and Jack continued to work, eventually becoming a wood cutter like his father before him. His mother cried the day she handed Jack his fathers axe but Jack did not. It was but another task to him.

Then, one day, Jack was beside the main road when he saw a grand parade of men coming up from the distance. In the middle of the parade was an ornate coach which was gilded in gold and steel. As the coach went past Jack saw a young man, no older than himself, sat within. Two ladies with skin as pale as milk and hair as dark as coal were draped across him, holding and pressed up to him. The coach was but there a second and then continued up the path but in the moment Jack felt something for the first time, though he could not put word to it.

That evening at home, he spoke to his mother “Mother” he asked “why do we not have a coach in which to ride?” His mother laughed at him “Why Jack, we are not rich enough nor famous enough to have such a thing”. “And what manner of man would be so?” “It would be a baron, or baronet, I should think.”

Jack went to be that night and dreamed of a glowing coach which rode on silver wheels that left sparks in the cobbled ground whereever it rode. He saw it rolling down the road towards him. As the coach reached him it stopped and the door swung open. From inside stepped a maid; skin of milk and hair of coal but her eyes were of a bright green and struck Jack as the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, as though they were leaves in dappled sunlight.

“Hello Jack” said the Maiden. Jack bowed, feeling clumsy and foolish before such beauty. “Do you know why I came here, Jack?” the Maiden spoke, her voice like warm fragrances. Jack shook his head. “You brought me here. To be your passion. To be your purpose. I am yours, make of me what you will”. And his in dream Jack did.

The next morning, Jack woke up and knew his purpose. He set out for the road with his fathers axe in hand and found the coach trails from the previous day. He walked the road, following the sun west as the afternoon began to draw on. As he crossed the river near his home the water flooded to the east, seeming to push back against him and urging him to return home but Jack knew now that he would never again be satisfied until his passion had be claimed.

Come the evening he had left the woods and saw that the road now followed to the south west but the coach had followed an old cart road towards the coast. Jack steeled himself against the coming shadows and pressed on into the night.

’Twas darkness itself when he came to the Barons castle except where a single ray of moonlight fell on the gilded gold and steel of a beautiful coach. Jack walked past it and to the main keep doors where a guard stood.

“Halt, who goes there?” said the guard but said no more as Jack buried his fathers axe in the mans neck. Pulling his weapon free, Jack went forward to his terrible purpose.

By dawn none lived in the keep save Jack. He sat on the stone chair of the Baron and looked around whilst his right hand twirled the coal black hair of the maidens head in his lap.

“All this is now mine” thought Jack. And his eyes were the colour of leaves in dappled sunlight.

When the tax men came to the keep a month later they found the bodies of all fly buzzed and rotten and, sat in the great stone chair, the body of a woodsman who had, as it seemed, sat and starved to death rather than leave his new home.

The end.