Chapter 2 #2
“Pip, no wonder you barely have any friends when you introduce yourself like this to our new guest,” Fayette admonished him, giving him an annoyed look before her eyes went back at me. “How did you find us? Normally our village never gets visited, since we live in the deep forest.”
“I actually have no idea. I just fell into a hedge of roses.”
All the faeries looked very confused. Some might think I was crazy and, well, since I talked with faeries, I might be.
“Oh, that’s strange. I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” Elvina commented, and then her gaze wandered over to Pip. “You’re the only person who ever left our faerie village before. Have you ever heard of a magical rose hedge?”
“The only thing I know is that our world is filled with magical beings able to follow dreams and wishes. Maybe someone wanted you to be here and found a way,” he explained as he took a bite of his cake.
I think I had to finally acknowledge that this was not a dream. What dream felt this real? But then who wanted me to see all this? Was I really special enough to be here and receive the privilege of witnessing a world of magic and faeries, like the kind I read about in books?
“Where is your home?” Pip asked.
“The place I come from is... very different from here,” I stammered, struggling to find the right words. I was unsure how to explain to Pip and the others about a world without this kind of magic.
“But what is the feeling of your home? I have never heard of this word, really,” Pip stated, strangely bewildered.
Was the word home really not familiar to them?
“Well, home is normally the place where you feel safe, secure and loved… where your family is.” I wasn’t sure if I had explained it correctly, because somehow the place with my mother never made me feel such emotions. It was rather the opposite.
“You want to go back there? Is it better than here?” Pip asked. He really seemed to be a curious soul.
The ‘Faerie Village’ really made me feel welcomed, but what would happen to my mother if I didn’t marry Alexander?
How would she be able to survive financially and also socially?
The rejection alone she would be experiencing in our neighborhood…
then I thought about Alexander, and how horribly he treated me.
I knew I couldn’t go back and marry him.
“You are welcome to stay with us,” Fayette offered warmly. “Our beds might be a little bit small for someone your size, but we could push two of them together.”
Before I could answer, Pip’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Your necklace… it is so beautiful.” My gaze wandered to the golden compass hanging around my neck, the only remnant of the other world and the only thread still tying me to everything I once knew.
“Thank you,” I whispered, realizing that even in such a strange world, I was carrying something within me that really felt like home.
“It is so beautiful and shimmers just like the beautiful things from the market hall we just went to yesterday,” he added.
A market hall? Why did it sound like some creatures like goblins or witches were standing on a roadside decorated with lights with their wares and offering you a trade in exchange for a name or a strand of hair?
“Where is this place?” I asked, hoping to get more insight into their world and a possible chance of meeting people that might know why I ended up here.
“The market hall is where some merchants sell fruits like lemons and cherries and beautiful things like this little mirror,” a white-dressed faerie replied. Her puffy hat reminded me of a dandelion flower. She showed me her golden mirror that had butterflies and wings engraved around it.
“A witch sold it to me and said it would bring luck.” Witches.
So, I hadn’t been entirely wrong in my assumptions.
Magic was everywhere, and even in a realm already steeped in enchantment, people sought after it like water, as if they could never have enough.
And yet, despite that yearning, faeries had been forgotten souls, twisted by human fear into something demonized until their names became warnings instead of blessings.
“Yes, Tualy, because you believe everything anyone says to you,” Pip remarked.
She rolled her eyes at him and then looked at me, asking, “Would you have believed her?”
“Probably.” Because just as much as Tualy, I seemed to be enchanted by the idea of someone blessing a piece of jewelry. It felt the same for me when I was holding the golden compass in my hand.
“See, I’m not the only one,” Tualy responded, sticking out her tongue at him and putting the mirror back in her bag.
I smiled, feeling a lightness in my chest I hadn’t known in what felt like forever. There was something so warm and joyful about spending time with them. It made me forget I was ever meant to leave.
But as soon as the sun began to disappear from the sky, a quiet unease settled over me. Almost like an instinct telling me it was now time to go.
“Thank you for your invitation.” I rose from the smallest chair I’d ever been on. “You were the kindest company, my dear faeries.”
Fayette and the others rose with me, each of them embracing me in a gentle hug, their wings fluttering softly against my arms. I think I’d give anything to feel what it would be like to have wings myself.
“I don’t know where your home is, but if you try to leave our realm, the only way is on the path through the Enchanted Forest—the place where we pray to our forest deities. They might know how to help you. They always help us with every concern. Maybe they will bring you to the place you belong.”
The place I belong… I wondered if the place with my mother was really where I belonged. Nevertheless, I wanted to find out if they knew why I was even here.
“Fayette, the forest deities are our goddesses. They are no substitute for our mother,” a boy in dark blue clothes said.
I hadn’t noticed him before; he must have been watching the fest from within his home, like many others.
His wings and his hat shimmered in silver, catching the twinkling lantern light like frost and ice.
“A mother?” I asked. I had read a lot about fairies, but had never asked myself where they came from. However, Pip hadn’t understood the feeling of home and now it made me sad that they might have parents who can no longer see them.
“Yes,” Fayette said, her tone longing. “Long ago, there had been a mother of all faeries. She created us through light, magic, and love. But she fell in love with a powerful wizard and left this land behind. Ever since, we’ve been… alone.”
“She abandoned us… and therefore we couldn’t ever really grow older,” Pip added, his smile faltering slightly.
“You mean faeries don’t stay like this forever?” I was surprised, as most of the faeries in books had always been described as small and childish.
“Not if things would have gone the way they were meant to,” Fayette explained as she took another bite of one of the pastries. “We were also meant to age, to learn, to get older, to fall in love… but without our mother, we’re staying small and childish. As she left, we stopped growing up.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” I said, the surprise in my voice evident. Their life sounded like a beautiful tragedy and fairytale all in one. Almost like the life of Peter Pan, but as he willingly refused to grow up, the faeries weren’t able to.
“Yes, but we have made peace with it. All that matters are the faeries here and the wishes which the forest goddesses grant us. If anyone can help you, it’s them. I believe in you. Good luck, my beautiful friend,” Fayette said, smiling.
One by one, the faeries raised their hands and waved at me, their bright eyes full of hope and warmth, and their glittering wings flowing like jewels in the garden.
As I stepped away from the ‘Faerie Village’ and into the edges of the forest, a lump formed in my throat. Because it felt like leaving my home once again.
Farewell, little faeries.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a land, somewhere over the clouds and the stars and the moon, that was meant to be my home.
Or perhaps all of this was still nothing more than a dream, and I was simply wandering through different paths of my own illusions.