The Fae Wood

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

     The source was the moon, 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 faerie 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.

     Which was fine, you decided in an instant.

      You didn’t mind.

      It had always been a dream of yours, a fancy of wonder. It was a grand, enticing way to spend a hundred years.

      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 faerie stories, and found yourself gasping for air just because you were old, you knew you wouldn’t have changed a thing.

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