In the Glade

Night fairies are voyeurs; it is a compulsion with them. Being such frail, tiny beings who mate as they fly – delicately, flittingly, coupling in mid-air then coming apart with no more passion than dragonflies – they find the amorous exertions of the big people deeply fascinating. From their vantage, human lovemaking seems an endless, stupefying, thunderous spectacle, like redwoods clashing in a storm. They spare no chance to watch the act.

This worked much to his advantage. He had but to guide a woman to the glade and be certain that the glimmering creatures would glide in from all points of the forest (so well did they know him), trailing incandescent dust, to circle around slowly or alight upon branch or fern and set it aglow. The woman, already primed for wonder, would be entranced by the floating sparks. Then he simply had to draw her close, gaze into her green or blue or brown or gray eyes, and lean in for the first, lingering kiss.

He actually remembered the name of the latest one: Angelica. She had floated in from the sky, as they all did. They were all sorts who came to the island, not just boys and girls; people who in their longing for enchantment had decrypted the secret of magical transport – but it was only the women in their first true bloom that aroused his interest. Angelica was such. She had landed in an indecorous heap, having misjudged her speed. Laughing, he had come to her, brought her to her feet, taken her to the singing brooks to feast on muscadine berries and watch the waterfalls of the fire cliffs change shades (now blood-orange, now crimson) as the afternoon waned. And, of course, when evening fell, he led her to the glade.

Her name had stayed with him only because when she spoke it, the laughing look about her eyes reminded him of the other one, the one who left – though Angelica’s hair was dark and hers had been fair. He thought there was some resemblance. But it was so long ago, by now her face had shimmered into obscurity in his mind – how could he tell?

When she returned to her unmagical world, he had let her go with what he thought was a light heart. But in time he found himself pulled to her world, peering into her window at night to see her laughing with her sisters – a young woman now. He visited her window again and again – to watch her knit a cap, write in her journal, sleep quietly under downy covers. He saw her hold her man, dandle her children, and, last, sit in her armchair and read, her deep-lined face quiet and serene.

When he returned to the island after that final visit, the strain with which he landed made him suddenly aware of how heavier he was, how changed. He realized that in his visits to her world of passing seasons, his body had ticked forward – in spurts, but accruing growth, so that when he went to a pool of still water and looked in, it was not a boy but a young man who peered back. He never again left his island.

The more fiercely curious of the fairies hovered even closer as he and Angelica cleaved and writhed together, drifting between the trees. He leaned back to watch in the play of elfin light the grimaces working her face. Maybe she looked a little like her. How could he know? She was earthbound now, in the earth, turned to earth. He gripped Angelica closer and surrendered to oblivion.

(September 2011)