Fairy Circle (10 page)

Saffron felt dirty. “Okay.” She studied her fingernails. “Li, I’ve seen him before, you know, in my dreams….” Saffron fidgeted with the drawstring on her tank top. She felt so weird, as if she was having the “Birds and Bees” talk with her mother. Still, she decided to press on. It was time. She had to talk to
someone
about the dreams. She felt like she might be some kind of freak, a pervert, and she surely would never talk to her mother about it. She had the innate feeling that her mother couldn’t handle any more of her weirdness. So why not talk to a fairy - you couldn’t get any more weird or freaky than that.

“
He’s always with these women…” Saffron stopped. She looked around.
Those women
were probably close by, her with her big mouth. Now she was having second thoughts about telling a sister about the sexual acts of her brother, even if it was only a dream.

Li was looking away from Saffron. She had sat on a tree stump when Saffron began and was absently running the silken cords of her dress through her thin fingers. Li’s face was strained. “It is most curious that you would have such dreams. Are you sure about them? Are you sure you saw Ny? His good looks are so generic after all.”

Saffron hunched. She only really remembered the essence of him in the dream. Like when you dream about something that is yours, and you know in the dream that it’s yours, but you’ve never owned it in your waking life. “Maybe it wasn’t him.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

In each dream, Ny looked slightly different. His skin shades varied. His features were always a little different, but somehow he managed to have a look somewhat the same each time. Maybe his blue eyes had more green in one dream, more hazel in the next. His hair was always dark and wavy or curly. His lips, always the same. His attitude - arrogance coated with a faint attempt at pleasantness, was steadfast from time to time. In each dream, Saffron recognized him instantly not by his looks, but by his presence.

Li smiled. “Sometimes, dreams are just dreams, human child.” But now her wings hung low as if they were made of paper and someone had dumped a bucket of water on them.

Just thinking of the dreams made Saffron feel slick and oily. She sighed. She swatted a fly that had come buzzing around her ear.

Whether or not the fairy noticed the girl’s discontent, she made no mention - but instead took Saffron’s hand and once again led her down the lane, her white hair flowing out like a glittering flag behind her. She pointed here and there and explained those things that Saffron found curious. They didn’t talk about the dreams again. The subject hung in the air as if it was smog, quiet and poisonous. With each breath, they drew it deep inside of them.

A fairy with golden hair and iridescent copper skin hung freshly laundered sheets on a line. A boy with flaming red curls, pert nose, and freckled cheeks mended his roof. A group of girls ran to Li and Saffron with cakes, buttered rolls, and sweet meats that they had just pulled from an outdoor oven. Some boys and girls sat fishing on the bank of a creek. Their wings glinted in the slanted fairy world light. Saffron looked again - maybe they were adults.

The skin, eye, and hair colors differed, but each fairy shimmered - their insides pulsed under their clear skin. Saffron barely thought of their see-through skin now - she didn’t think it was so repulsive anymore. She saw beings she would describe as white, black, Asian, Mediterranean, Hispanic, and Indian – even alien with pitch-black eyes shaped like almonds.

Then there were the others. Sky-blue-skinned fairies with pink hair, and golden fairies with white hair, and ocean-green-skinned fairies with silver hair. She gawked at them openly. Some even had patterns on their skin.

Like the male she stared at now as he leaned against a tree, casting a devilish smile. He wore a woven hat that he tipped in greeting. The pattern on his skin was autumn leaves, striking reds and oranges, yellows and bronze. His skin glistened as if it had been rubbed with oil. His hair was jet-black, tied back with a piece of grass. The wings folded behind him were clear silver run through with many fine silver veins.

Another fairy popped out at him from behind the tree. The popper startled him and he tripped on his feet. He lifted off for a minute, wings pumping fast before he settled down again. They laughed together as he lunged at his playmate. She had striped skin, like a zebra. He took her hand and they walked off down the lane. Saffron turned to Li with a look of shock on her face.

“
They choose such beautiful colors, don’t they? They would love to live this way for their human existence, like proud peacocks. They are called
Vivids
.” Li tilted her head. “Can you imagine if they were born on earth displaying skins of such hues and patterns? They would be annihilated, wouldn’t they? The human race still has trouble with the few skin colors it has. What if that was walking among you?”

Li pointed to a being that was quickly making her way toward them on the path. Her skin was the pale aqua of the Caribbean Sea as it fringes the coast, glinting and reflecting the morning sun. Through her skin…fluids ran like waves from the roots of her hair down to her seaweed-green toes. Her eyes were electric violet and her hair was turquoise blue shot through with tendrils of lime green. She flexed her silvery wings and bared her teeth at Saffron. Saffron waggled her fingers, bewildered. Did she bare her teeth in greeting or in hunger? The fairy retracted her wings, stepped off the path, and disappeared into the wood.

“
Come. Sit.” Li showed Saffron a tire swing inside the thick greens of the forest. Her pupils bore into Saffron. Saffron hurried forward and sat quickly, never wondering why she rushed.

“
Maybe,” Li whispered, “you should stay close to home for awhile.” And although she spoke softly, Saffron received the true message from Li’s unblinking eyes and from the way the translucent skin of her face seemed to tighten up and pull back. It was a command.

A puzzled line creased Saffron’s forehead. That was what she had always wanted to do - stay at home within the bubble of her family’s yard. No one before had ever encouraged Saffron to hide. They were always telling her to
get out. Get out in the world! Stop hiding at home!
It was nice to finally meet someone who agreed staying at home was actually good for her. But why was Li saying this? Why was she
ordering
this?

For a second, Saffron felt all wrong. She felt like she was betraying her mother by listening to Li, and betraying her mother by just being in this fairy world. But then she narrowed her eyes as she remembered her anger toward her mother. Audrey was always push, push, pushing and nag, nag, nagging. Saffron was absolutely terrified when she had to leave her home. Why couldn’t her mother see that and give her a break? What was wrong with staying at home? Society didn’t agree; was that it? She was always outdoors, rain or shine, so she was physically healthier than most people. She read every book under the sun - history and sci-fi, biography and fantasy, memoir and how-to. Non-fiction, from animal husbandry to the start of the cosmos. So, her mind wasn’t rotting. She cleaned the house from top to bottom - she was pulling her weight. Saffron couldn’t see what the problem was. Not everyone needed a social agenda to exist. She knew there were still tribes in the Amazon that never left their confines. Yet they were born, they lived, they died, no problem. Saffron kick-started the tire swing again.

Here was Li, comforting her and telling her it was okay to stay at home. Agreeing with what Saffron had always wanted in the first place - to be cocooned within her space, to be left alone.

Li put her hands on her hips. “Your mother is a lovely woman, but she does not understand you as I understand you.”

Saffron flinched. She wanted to argue that. A weak bit of defiance floated up her spine and fizzled out. The squeezing in her chest demanded she defend her mother. But Saffron only hung her head and waited for the moment to pass. When it did, she was left with nothing but shame. “Too bad I couldn’t just stay here…” Saffron had no idea why she’d said that. She thought maybe it was because it was what Li would want to hear. She thought maybe she meant it. Why not stay and live in the fairy realm?

Li’s eyes flashed. What Saffron saw there startled and unnerved her. It was greed in Li’s black eyes, desperate greed. Then, just as suddenly, Li’s eyes cleared and the big, black pupils were like that of a kitten begging for cream. “You cannot stay here after sunrise, my friend. Your mother will rise soon, reach to wake you, and think you dead.”

Saffron gave a low gasp. “What do you mean,
dead
?”

“
It is only your soul that visits us when you come - your flesh stays behind. That is why we had to hurry you back the last time. Your mother was up and about the house. Had she gone to check on you, she would have seen her child lifeless before her. Your body, right now, has no life. Its functions have ceased. Your body is suspended in time until you return. Were you to stay here for too long, your loved ones would think you most certainly dead. They would mourn you and bury you. Your soul would have no house in which to return to except for that body, trapped deep below the ground, available to worms.

“
Listen, child. Your body has not let go of its soul. We took your soul. Your body is even now waiting for it to return. Should your people bury your body, your body will forevermore wait for your soul to return. Of course, you could stay here and live with us. But over the years, all joy would seep from you, as over the centuries you would watch others go off on human adventures. That would be a sport you would never again be able to partake of. Your body, sadly decayed, would be of no use to you, but since it hadn’t properly released your soul - you can have no new body. You would not be able to be born again.

“
You must go and quickly.”

“
So, I would be like that woman, wouldn’t I, that woman from the woods who throws herself off my cliff every night.” Saffron hoped the fairy would disagree with her statement. She wanted to be nothing like that woman.

Li frowned, and around them, the leaves shivered. “What woman?”

Saffron blanched, leaned away from Li, and though she was quite certain she had done nothing wrong, her body caved in on itself like a kicked dog with rounded back and tucked tail. “I dunno.”

Li’s voice changed. She growled and garbled like a demon, “What…” Then she clamped her teeth. Her nostrils spread for air and she said too softly, “woman?”

Saffron stuttered and stammered for a minute. “I don’t know. I just saw her in the woods one day with this bashed-in head, the day I almost went over the cliff…”

Li squinted and shook her head ‘no,’ every vein red and raised like a map of welts on her fine porcelain skin.

“
She just stood there, said, ‘why,’ then jumped off the cliff.” Saffron watched confusion twist Li’s face. She could tell the fairy was trying hard to figure something out, but couldn’t come up with the answer. Saffron looked away, embarrassed, as if she were seeing the fairy fully exposed before her. “Now, she’s out there every night, like, most nights. She just jumps off the cliff!” Saffron shivered. “Every night, just, ‘Aaaaaahhhhh!’ and jumps…”

Li seemed to be taking Saffron’s measure. Finally, the fairy sighed. “She is nothing. A ghost. They are everywhere. You know this. She does not exist in such a bad way. Only, she does not know it. When she was alive and chose death for herself, her soul was released before her body was broken. Her body is not waiting for her soul to come back. She is not earthbound. She can be born again whenever she chooses….”

Li’s eyes narrowed. “It is all a game, Saffron. If you lose your place, you must start at the beginning.” She looked down at her pretty fist, where her nails dug in and sliced the thin skin of her palms.

Saffron was zoning out and didn’t see.

“
Has she asked you anything else, anything more than ‘why?’ Has she tried to speak to you again?”

Saffron shook her head no.

Li smiled, more satisfied than a fed cat. “What is happening to you is very different from her. Your body has not released your soul. You tricked your body while it lay sleeping. It does not know you have gone. So if your body is discovered and thought dead, your people will bury it. Then we will have to go through the trouble of retrieving it so you can get inside and walk away. But where would you go then?”

“
Why are you worried about my ghost?” Saffron whispered.

“
I am familiar with her kind. I want to be sure she is not frightening you; I know you scare easily.” Li’s wings hung still. Even the rivers of silver in the wiry veins were sluggish.

Saffron rested her head on the tire swing and let it slow to a stop.

Li walked over and kissed Saffron on the top of her head. The instant her smooth lips touched Saffron’s hair, Saffron felt a tingling rush that shot straight from her head down to her fingertips and toes. Her whole body sparked.

“
This kiss will remind you of our times together. It cannot protect you from harm but will serve to stay your confidence. Now stand so we can help you away.”

Saffron stood, feeling that horrible lethargic sedation. She couldn’t stop the images that swam in her mind like creatures in a swamp.

Chapter 7

L
ate the next afternoon, Saffron put on her black apron and black-winged hat. She was so exhausted her arms felt like noodles. She was getting paler too, as if that was possible. She turned from her mirror and didn’t think about it. She thought only of the fairies. She couldn’t tear her mind from them long enough to walk a straight line or to keep from stumbling down the farmhouse stairs and smacking her forehead on the newel post.