Fairy Stories & Other Tales

 The screaming was more than anyone could bear. The crying as bad. The wails like splinters burying in limbs.  On and on, as though it would never end. The chaos of humble clinging. Pain shot through with desperation, guilt, longing. All at once, silence. A magic spell cast suddenly. And almost relief. But, that their mouths upturned at the corners while their feet danced below the quilt, said that somewhere, in their dreams, they partied with fairies. As children are wont to do while they sleep.  It was not quite peace. But close enough. Enough for a mother to sleep. Her feet danced under the quilt, too.   

 The mother screamed. This surprised exactly no one. It was a thing mothers did, from time to time. As long as it was at the sky, particularly if the sky was midnight black, there was no harm done.      'Oh God,' she cried.      This was acceptable, too. Who else was there to cry to? Who else might listen?       She shouted at the sky. There was nothing shrill about it; the sound was dark and deep and haunting.      Nothing unexpected there. It was the kind of call that was built on trials of the soul. What else did a mother have? It was an offering people could relate to.      Then she laid down on the ground and stared at the stars. Sometimes she traced them with her finger. Sometimes she sat in silence. Sometimes her eyes were opened as wide as they could go. Sometimes her eyes were closed. Always, her heartbeat slowed. Always, her body rooted in the deep ground. Always, her mind rested.   ...

 The knife twists slowly. She sees beautiful things under it's pain. She doesn't stop it. And she is not surprised; it twists because it must.      She knows that to stop it would be a fool's errand.      To hurry it up would be to miss its beauty.      It is a knife, nothing more and nothing less. The twist is what makes it interesting.      She is interested. Absorbingly so. Yet, from time to time, she stops, takes a moment to watch. Those moments are agony — unbearable and wretched. Best to ignore; best to take the pain and live.      All too soon the twist halts. The pain is over. And so, she thinks, is the beauty.       But she has had beauty enough; she can give it up.     Save,  something beautiful comes. That is indeed a surprise. She smiles.      She goes on then, as though she never was.       Except... except, the scar show...

 The girl was fickle. All full of desires she didn't want. Plans in which she had no interest. Thoughts that had nothing to do with what she was thinking. And a heart that kept a beat akin to a gallop.      It was enough to make anyone want to move to the middle of a wood alone.      But a hermitage does not a calmer heart make. It does not, necessarily, change the pattern of the mind. It can, however, from time to time, result in magic. The magic of the not-so-carefully contained. The kind of magic that draws attention.      When the sparks flew, and the forest began to flicker with flames, and the inhabitants were smoked out into the open, the girl stilled.       She knew what she wanted, a true plan, clear thoughts.      She didn't want the forest to burn.      So she saved it.      Not so fickle, after all.