The following version of this story was used to create this guide: Adrian, Chris. "A Tiny Feast." The New Yorker (2009). https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/04/20/a-tiny-feast.

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the page number on which the quotation appears.

The story begins with a married couple, Titania and Oberon, finding out that their son has been diagnosed with leukemia. Neither of them believes it despite being in front of the doctors who are explaining the course of treatment for the young boy. The narrator explains that the child is a changeling, stolen from his mortal mother by Oberon as a gift for Titania. Oberon and Titania are king and queen of the fairies.

Oberon had brought the boy to Titania as a gift to rectify a fight they had had. At first, Titania was indifferent to the boy, unsure of how to interact with him. Back at the hospital, a social worker comes to explain logistics to Titania, but she ends up witnessing an argument between Titania and Oberon. The social worker, like everyone else, does not see Titania and Oberon for who they really are. Instead, they have cast spells of "glamor" that make them appear as two mortals named Trudy and Bob. One of the things that nobody sees is Beastie, an unspecified headless animal who comforts the boy in his hospital bed.

The doctors begin the boy's treatment of chemotherapy, and it appears to work wonders. The boy starts to feel much better, and even wakes up one day asking for a cheese sandwich. Titania and Oberon instruct all of the fairies to bring him cheese and bread, but he chooses to eat the sandwich from the hospital cafeteria. The narrator explains that Oberon and Titania had had many arguments over the boy as he grew up. Oberon had become jealous that Titania dedicated so much time to him, and he accused her of spoiling the boy.

The boy's treatment continues, and he oscillates between good days and bad days. Titania grows to hate the hospital ward full of sick children and their parents. When the boy suffers from an incessant fever, they change his course of treatment, but the change makes him very hungry. He keeps begging Titania and Oberon for food, or what he calls "a tiny feast," but the doctors say he is not allowed to eat (15). Oberon and Titania give in to the boy and have the fairies help them cook an elaborate meal that they keep secret from the hospital staff.

One day, the boy's doctor tells Titania and Oberon that there is not much left for them to do. Titania and Oberon are confused at first, but soon realize what the doctor is trying to say. Soon after, the boy dies. Titania, Oberon, and the fairies march through the hospital, undisguised, much to the bewilderment of onlookers in the hospital. They bring him to the hill under which they live, not sure of what else to do as they have never mourned someone's death before. At the end of the story, Oberon announces that Beastie has died from his grief.