Fairy Springs II

“Watch this,” he said. He disappeared and the next minute was sitting across the fire from me. The others burst into laughter at my expression.

“He didn’t do anything special,” the man sitting next to me told me, slapping me on the back. “He only disappeared like I did and then ran around the fire. You have to watch him, he’s a tricky one.”

“That, coming from you Robin, is indeed an honor,” Al said, giving a courtly bow. I looked around the fire again. The people who surrounded me couldn’t be human; my mind was starting to accept that, though with some difficulty. Humans couldn’t pop out of sight like that, not even trickery could explain something like this.

“So, uh, the little flying ones are your babies,” I said, trying to grasp at the straws of my sanity.

“That’s right, here, follow me,” said the man, or should I say fairy, called Robin. He led me down to the water edge and pointed. At first I didn’t even see what I was supposed to be looking at and then I noticed an old two litter soda bottle floating on the water. A part of the bottle’s side had been cut away and a lot of very tiny people were using it as a boat. As soon as they saw us they all took off in flight, to hover around us.

“Who’s this?” asked a chorus of voices. I had expected them to have high pitched voices but instead their voices were just as mature as an adult’s, just quieter. Introductions were made and we all sat on the bank. I was scared to move; in the dark the tiny figures around me in the grass couldn’t be seen. I couldn’t imagine what the repercussions would be if I accidently sat on one of them.

“I almost wish the kids did glow like they do in the pictures,” I commented. Robin smiled and snapped his fingers; suddenly every single one of the children had a glowing spot on their forehead.

“I thought all you could do was disappear and reappear,” I exclaimed.

“Well I never said that,” Robin said shrugging. He was clearly amused by my reaction. “I said we got better at magic as we got older. I can go around the world in half an hour and you’re impressed by a little light,” he chuckled but it wasn’t a mocking laugh. He was truly amused, as if I had just told a good joke. A small fairy flitted up to his shoulder and perched there, hugging his cheek.

“Yours?” I asked. Her tiny features showed some family resemblance to my cheerful guide’s.

“My niece, my sister’s daughter, her parents are dead though so I am raising her. Cute huh?” he asked and his face broke into paternal pride. The girl sat on his should, her feet swinging, and laughed.

“You’re bragging again Uncle,” she said in the soft voice of a child.

“I thought that fairies were immortal,” I commented.

“I wish,” the girl said. Her uncle put a finger on top of her head.

“You only wish that now, my girl, because you are young,” Robin told her. “Fairies are not immortal, just long living. We are born and instantly can speak like an adult but we are so small we can’t mix with humans for a long time. The same go for as we get older, only then it’s because we are too large. Fairies don’t age like you humans do; you can tell how old we are by our height. Back when I sat in the Globe Theater everyone thought that I was some nobleman’s child, that’s how big I was. I’ve grown.”

“So how long will it take until she can be around humans, I mean at a size that won’t cause alarm?” I asked. I was taken aback by how matter of fact I was becoming about all of this. I was a man of science, or at least science was what I believed in. It was my wife who believed in fairies and everything and I had always thought her a little silly for it. Now here I was asking about the relative aging of humans and fairies.

“Your great-grandchildren might think she’s about two,” Robin told me, shooing the little girl off of his shoulder. “By the time you humans have started living on mars she might be too tall to be around humans anymore. You ever heard of giants?”

“In fairytales,” I said.

“Exactly, stories about fairies, of course not many of us reach that age. Only about one in ten, our bodies stop working, just like humans, and it’s harder on our bodies as we get bigger.” It had been a long time since I had heard such calm description of death. Then I remembered Robin telling his niece that people sometimes wished for death and found myself wondering if all fairies were morbid or if it was just Robin.

“So you’ve seen a lot over the years huh?” I asked, trying to chance the subject. Robin was no long the laughing, easygoing man I had seen while he was around the others. The children were now gone, off in their boat again, and he had become more serious. He was like a court jester; now that his audience was gone he no longer made the attempt to pretend he was always happy.

“I was born in the middle ages. Fairies can’t catch human diseases, or any diseases for that matter, but I watched the Black Death. Back in those days we still lured off human children to play with us. Do you know, if a human stays with us they also can’t get sick, nor do they grow up, they die at the same age they would normally, but never having got past the age we stole them at. They are perfect playmates for the children but it got too much attention from the humans, and they die far too soon. The children still bring back one or two every once in a while, but it’s not so common.”

“Really, so all of those stories about people being spirited away by the fairy folk are true?”

“Usually only children, very few exceptions, once a human is around fairy folk for long enough you see, they can never leave them,” Robin told me. “If you would like I suppose you could stick around. The others seem to like you as well. You wouldn’t have to deal with getting old. I know you humans worry about that. Very uncomfortable I understand.”

I stood with that, Robin continued to sit there on the bank, he was smiling again but it was no longer a pleasant smile. It was threatening and I wondered if he was really threatening or if it was just how I saw him. You don’t want immortality, I told myself, you only think that you do because you are young. No, it’s because I’m old and scared by it, and he knows it. Now Robin was actually laughing.

“I knew that you were smarter then most of the other humans I’ve met. You know to listen to your fear and go with it, most people ignore it when offered youth. You want to leave now, I can tell. I’ve scared you; get going before you aren’t able to leave anymore.”

I fled, a glow showing me the way, a parting gesture from Robin I was sure. Then I was back in the motel room, covered with mud from when I had slipped on dew covered grass in my head long dash. My wife was still asleep peacefully and I thought about waking her and telling her what happened. Then I realized it wasn’t the sort of thing you told anyone, not even people who claimed to believe in fairies. Human belief was a very shallow thing, the day before I would have believed that I didn’t want to age.