Fairy Stories & Other Tales

The night revealed no moon.   The rustle of the wind blew through the tall boughs of trees that hid the stars.   And down on the ground a girl sat waiting for the world to right itself.             For that was what she did every night, since the day she had been chained to the thickest trunk of the tallest tree in the forest.   She was in tune to the earth’s turning, and it was what kept the monotony of her imprisonment at bay.   By keeping tap to the rotating rhythm, she could wait for day, when her chains would melt, and she was free to do as she wished, until once again, night would fall, and she would come, bidden by some unknown spell, and let the chains wrap around her wrists. How came she to be chained, she knew not, but concocted a story of some loving parents who, for want of a fire in their hearth, had felled a young tree to the great forest’s displeasure.   She repeated this story to herself night after night, until she almost believed that it was true. The truth, h

There came a dream one night.   Great bursts of gleaming light shot from every direction like a thousand rays of sun. A moment more, and it was gone. Then came the dark—where I stayed. It took me time to get used to the dim.   An eon.   By then, I had no memory of light. And so, when I came upon it, I could not make heads or tales of the ball of gold that hid in the corner of the dream.   I had to reach for it, take it in my hands.   Yet as I did so, it slipped and dripped through my fingers. On and on it went—this trying to hold it fast.   But it would only move gently between the cracks and out the sides until all that was left was the dark, unsubtle as between twilight and the dawn. And I was cold. Not knowing how else to hold the light, I dripped it into my mouth.   It tasted of honey.   Warmth flooded me. I doubled over, clutching at my belly in horror. The ache would be the end of me. All at once I cascaded to the ground, held my body curled tight, as the

In the high country of forest-hidden land—the one that passes as a portal between the realms of mortal and immortal—a royal faerie sat upon a throne of Fae glass, and through a tiny lens that spoke of stayed destiny and inflicted grief, she surveyed the worlds.             Cold she had been in demeanor and in body for time beyond memory, but that was mere water to the ice that pierced her when through her lens memory broke and she saw a man she had known of old. Surprise came as it should, for the Fae queen was used to permanence when death was rendered by her hand. Cold fingers tightened around the arms of her glass throne, then pushed off, only to have her body caught by wings.   She would meet him and find out his aims. ‘Tell me, Laodius,’ the queen began when she stood before him, ‘how came you back to the realm of the living?’ At the question the man looked up, and a small smile played upon his lips. ‘My queen,’ he said, and inclined his head, ‘Though, perhaps the bo

The bees made honey that morning, but that was not unusual, for that was what they always did.   The rabbits ate their greens and dug new paths to their warrens, as they always did.   The birds gathered worms and chirped, and this too was according to the usual state of things.             And then there was Ellis.             Ellis was a wanderer.   And she never did anything always; there was, she thought, far too much time for always.             Each morning was something new and different.   There were new things to eat (and even when there wasn’t, there were new ways to eat them), new paths to take, and time to walk or run or scratch or holler or stare at the changing colors of the sky.   To say hello to old friends and make new ones—all this was difference.   For to Ellis, there was far too much time for always. Each afternoon, Ellis saw a different warmth and a different life.   Sometimes there were naps.   Sometimes there was work.   Sometimes the rain poured and tur

A warm breeze blew.   Hot.   Lazy.   And then, quite suddenly: angry.   A dull anger, at first, as if a languishing heat.   But anger is such that it gives way to vent, and air to heat begins to burn.   And as the breeze became a wind, it roared and with it came the flames.             Why had it come to this, the trees, the brush, the fields, and all who had once taken shelter in their summer-dry cover wanted to know.   And the breeze itself could hardly construct an answer, save that to drift gently by had seemed too great a bore, a torment not to be born.   And so it was for want of some excitement that it had begun to rage.   To burst, taking down all within its path, to see the breakdown, to witness and relish destruction.             And so it burned.             Until it came upon a bank that met water flowing as lazily as the breeze had once done.             Try as the breeze might, as feverish as its torrential flames licked, the water would not burn.