The Fairies
The sleek, graceful dancer on the box, turned as the boy watched, enchanted. It reminded him of the past. It reminded him of the fairies.
The boy kept staring at the girl. Her face as pale as snow. Her eyes as blue as the sea. But she just kept turning and turning on the spot. The boy couldn’t look away. He tried, but couldn’t. The past. It was the past. Those haunted memories that he tried to suppress, but couldn’t.
Water began to fall outside, just as it began to fall from his eyes.
DRIP
DROP
It wasn’t his fault. It was the fairies’. They were the ones responsible. Their angelic
voices throbbed in his ears.
“No,” he thought. “Don’t listen to them.” But the music only got louder and louder and
louder...
“STOP!!! I can’t take it!”
The boy collapsed. For a minute, all was still, except for the girl on the box. The music went on. And the boy lay on the ground. Waiting...dreaming...wondering.
***
It was a bright summer’s day. The blueberries were ripe, the trees were green, and the
Sun was shining. Nothing to suggest a catastrophe.
The boy opened his eyes. No, he mustn’t get lost in his own thoughts. He mustn’t succumb. The fairies were responsible. That was it.
Fairies, 6-8 1
Fairies, 6-8 2
***
Laughter. Shouts of joy. Children playing on a swing set. One a boy, one a girl. The girl
being pushed by the boy.
***
“Don’t think about it.” The boy stood up and looked at the girl. She reminded him of her.
But she’s gone. Gone. GONE!
***
The swing goes high into the air. Too high. High as heaven. For what may have lasted 1
second or 1 year, the girl was suspended in midair as the boy gaped at her. She seemed to fly. And then the illusion ended. The boy ran across the grass, to where her body lay. Her red shirt was even redder than normal. Her cheek was pale and her eyes were closed. The boy nervously held up his hand and put it onto her heart. Nothing.
The Sun disappeared. Dark rain clouds came in its place and the air grew cold. Rain began to fall and thunder sounded. She was gone. And there was nothing he could do about it.
***
The boy continued to stare at the dancing figurine. And the music kept playing and
playing and playing...
And then it stopped. For one second, the boy stood completely still. And then, he slowly
raised his hand, picked up the box, and threw it against the wall. CRASH
The box shattered into a million pieces. And the boy fell. He fell down. Down, down, down...
Fairies, 6-8 3
***
The boy was in shock. What was he to do? He had loved her. And now she was gone.
And it was his entire fault.
He looked down at her right hand. On her ring finger, was a ring. In it was a ruby that
shined like her beautiful red lips. It also looked like the blood running down her body. The ring was supposed to have been a gift from the fairies; a good luck charm. Some luck it had brought her.
The boy slid the ring off her finger and held it up in front of his eyes. He stared at it for a couple seconds. The inside of it seemed to glow with a red fire that engulfed everything. The fire began to spread and travel across the land as it left devastation in its path. Homes burned, children cried, mothers screamed, fathers yelled, dogs whimpered, etc. No one escaped its horrendous path. Not even the boy. The fire consumed all, but it just kept going and going and going...
The boy threw the ring away by a tree. The fairies had done this; it was they who had given her the ring. They deserved to be engulfed by the fire too.
But then he began to wonder, was it really their fault? Had the ring really done all this? No, he must get it back. He walked over to the tree where it was. He was about to pick it up, when a squirrel ran over, grabbed the ring, and rushed away with it.
“NO!! Come back here you thief!”
The boy ran after the squirrel. He ran on the bridge over the river, through the woods, and he was just almost at his grandma’s house, when the squirrel jumped through a small hole in the tree, and disappeared.
“NO! Please, I beg of you. Please!!”
Now the fairies would curse him. What had he done? What had he done? ***
The boy opened his eyes. He was lying on a soft mattress, his head resting on a pillow. Where was he?
And then he saw it.
Those eyes. Those blue sapphire eyes. They had to belong to her. They could only belong to her. And they did! He saw her pale-as-milk face, smiling above him.
The boy sat up. He looked around him. He seemed to be on some sort of bed. The bed and the girl were on a kind of path leading up to a marble gate. Surrounding the path was luscious greenery. But it was odd. Everything seemed to have a kind of glow to it. An aura of magic, would you say.
“Is this real, or is—”
The girl pressed her finger to lip to silence him. She held out her hand. The boy gasped. In it was the ring. Except now the fire inside of it didn’t scorch the land as it did before. Instead it just sat there, quiet and content.
“How on—”
She held up her finger again. He fell silent. She took the ring and put it on the ring finger of his right hand. The fire went out.
The two looked up and smiled at each other. The boy looked around again, but this time, he felt as if he’d never been here before, but had seen it before. He had never lived here, but he always knew it was there.
“I’m sorry” he said in his mind.
“It’s all right. At least now we’re together.”
Fairies, 6-8 4
Fairies, 6-8 5
“I don’t think we’re going to be home for supper.”
“Neither do I.” The girl laughed.
“What about Mother and Father.”
The girl’s smile fell. “They’ll come join us, eventually.”
For a couple seconds, there was complete silence. Even the birds and crickets, who had
been buzzing a minute before, stopped. The whole world seemed to hold its breath. And then it ended.
“I love you” said the boy.
“Me too.” The girl held out her hand and he grabbed it. “Come with me.”
The girl began leading the boy towards the marble gate. They began to climb the steps
that would lead them to the gate. There were seven steps in all. As they climbed them, the boy realized what he was wearing. A white tunic with a white robe over it. On his feet were sandals. It made him feel like an Ancient Roman.
Finally they reached the top. The gate magically opened to admit them into the threshold of their new home. The boy had never felt so euphoric in his (let me refrain from using the word,) “life.”
“Come on” whispered the girl. “Follow me.”
The boy turned around to catch one last glimpse of the world he once knew. He could just see his backyard. And the swing set, with no one playing on it. It looked lonely. Maybe it could one day make some other children happy or fill them with joy.
The girl led the boy through the gate. He smiled. He was finally at peace with the world. He was finally at peace with the fairies.