Fairy Springs

“Welcome to Fairy Springs, we hope to make your stay most enjoyable,” the tour guide announced. I somehow doubted that I would enjoy my stay but it made my wife happy so I would have to at least pretend. I considered this trip a way of paying her back for dragging her to all of the train museums when I was writing my thesis.

One look at our motel room had put me in a bad mood. In my opinion a grown man shouldn’t sleep in a room that is decorated to look like it belongs to a five year old girl. It was a pink a purple monstrosity, with pictures of frolicking faeries hanging on the walls. My wife loved it though; she loved anything that had to do with faeries. She had already gone down to the hotel gift shop and purchased a bottle of what she was assured was fairy dust. It looked an awful lot like craft glitter to me.

Now we were on the Fairy Springs official tour. The happy look on my wife’s face was only making me feel a little better about the whole thing. The guide was wearing gauze wings and a little tiara. I felt embarrassed for her. Not as embarrassed as when I saw what they had their male employees wearing. Once again I was thankful that my father had insisted that I go to college.

“Early settlers to this area, a couple hundred years ago, wrote about fairies being seen on these very waters, boating and fishing. There have been no sightings in the recent past but is it no wonder,” the guide motioned to a rather polluted creek. “As much as we try to keep the water clean people from up river are always throwing things in it. We can only imagine what the fairies would say if they could see it now.”

I couldn’t help thinking what a waste of money this whole thing was at that. We had paid five dollars for a tour of a polluted creek? That was a bit much. It wasn’t much improved by the fairy circle that my wife insisted we pose it to have the guide take our pictures.

Around one o’clock in the morning I found myself still awake in our unmasculine motel room. My wife was soundly snoring beside me, greatly aided by a couple of sleeping pills. I refuse to take them, messing with my body with pills has never been my thing. Instead I decided to go out and have a cigarette with the hope that the night air would make me sleepy. Staring at the dancing fairies on the wall definitely wasn’t working.

This late at night the whole complex was empty. I finished my cigarette in the shelter of the motel awning but I still didn’t feel sleepy and it was a nice night. A walk would do me good I decided. I could see the stars, far above me I knew, but they looked closer here then they did at our home in the city. Without telling myself where I was going, I found myself along the creek our guide had shown us that morning. It was more pleasant after dark, you couldn’t see the garbage, and the grass was soft beneath my feet.

I had walked for maybe ten minuets when I saw a flicker of firelight; it was coming from underneath a decorative bridge over the creek. Vandals, partying teenagers, or homeless, no matter what the explanation I wasn’t very interested in getting closer. I started to walk around the bridge when a man suddenly appeared out of the darkness. I think we both saw each other around the same time and I think we both jumped. He recovered from his surprise faster then I did however.

“Well, not normal for a human to be wandering around here this time of night,” he exclaimed. This didn’t assure me of his sanity by any means.

“Who’re you talking to Al?” asked a voice from the direction of the bridge.

“This fellow here,” the one called Al motioned. I turned to look behind me to see who had spoken but I didn’t see anyone. Even as I looked I heard a voice close to my ear speak again.

“Well bring him over to the fire then, what are you waiting for Al? It’s been a long time since we had a guest. Welcome,” I could feel a light touch on my shoulder and then it was gone. Al motioned for me to follow but to be honest I felt more like running. I don’t believe in ghosts but I was pretty sure I had just encountered one. I didn’t have the chance to run however, the man grabbed my arm and pulled me along. He was strong and I am not, I didn’t have my choice but to go.

The group sitting around the fire was an odd one. There were adults and children both, all dressed in what looked to be castoffs. One girl, she looked about three, ran up to the man called Al as he led me into the firelight. She was dressed in a worn looking buckskin dress.

“Father, look at what mother gave me. She says it’s the dress she was wearing when she met you,” the girl said. I was shocked by how adult her voice was even though her face and height were so youthful.

“Women save anything huh?” Al said. “I can’t believe those dresses were so fashionable then. Well have a seat,” he added. I sat down and I could feel the eyes of everyone around fire on me. I knew they expected me to say something but I wasn’t sure what.

“Hi,” I finally said lamely. The staring continued. “So, uh, do you guys live here?”

“For the last thousand years,” said a woman who was about a head taller then I am. “My parents brought me here when I was only a baby and we’ve lived her ever since.”

“So you’re saying you’re a thousand years old. What exactly do you think you are?” I wanted to know. I am sure I sounded rude but the others didn’t seem to mind, actually they seemed amused.

“This is called Fairy Springs isn’t it?” Al asked me. “Who do you think live here?”

“You’re trying to say you’re those glittery little flying people who can do magic?” I asked skeptically. Clearly these people were even more insane then I had thought, though they didn’t seem as dangerous as I had been afraid of. Al was a big man; he looked kind of like the pictures of lumberjacks, hearing him claim to be a fairy was very, very, odd.

“You’re thinking of the babies,” a man sitting next to me informed me. “I don’t know about the glittering but the babies are little and they can fly. As we get older we lose our wings, it’s a survival thing you see. The babies need wings to fly because they can’t do magic very well yet. As we get older and better at magic we don’t need the wings anymore.” The man suddenly disappeared right before my eyes and then reappeared. “See, the babies can’t do that yet so of course they need some way to get away from danger.” I didn’t respond at first, I was too busy trying to tell my head that there was no way that I had just seen that. Al saw my face and decided to show off a little as well.

To be continued...