The Fae Wood

There are those haunted woods. You know them. The ones you walked through that night when the mists lit up with an eerie luminosity and you knew you’d regret it if you didn’t follow the light to its source.

            The source was moonlight, of course. There was no surprise in that.

            But the twilit pond did surprise you.

            Not because it was a pond, but because of the Fae creatures that danced about it with their tiny bodies gliding about on shining wings, all gossamer and glow.

            When you stripped off your jacket and dove into the pond, that surprised you, too.

            Not as much as the Fae creatures on the other side who pulled you up as you gasped your breaths and told you that you would be there for the next hundred years.

            You didn’t mind.

            It had always been a dream of yours, a fancy of wonder and fairy tales. It was a fine way to spend a hundred years.

            But when you came back, the world was not much changed.

            So you had to do your normal living anyway.

            And when you had written a thousand stories, and found yourself gasping for air just because you were old, looking back you wouldn’t have changed a thing.

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