An Ordinary Fairy (9 page)

I wanted to be your friend. Now, I’ll never see you again.

Noah walked to the door, pulled on his boots and retrieved his hat and poncho. Willow didn’t move.

“Please don’t make any hasty decisions,” he said. “You must trust me. I’ll keep your secret.”

Doubt clouded Willow’s eyes.

Open the closet door, Noah.

“Let me show you something.” Noah pulled a pendant on a chain from under his shirt, and held up a silver five-point star surrounded by a circle. “Do you know what this is?”

She shook her head. “A pentagram?”

“It’s a pentacle. It’s the symbol of my belief. I’m a Wiccan, the same as those crazy people in town who own the witch school. But we’re not crazy. We know many things, obscure things, and forgotten things, and we keep secrets well. We’re good people. We are true to our word. Our most honored rule is two little words. Harm none.” He dropped the pentacle back under his shirt.

“Ms. Brown, I mean you no harm.” He pulled the door open and stepped out into the rain.

Five

N
oah spent a miserable, rainy afternoon in his room. He worked for a short time, finished some photos and emailed them to the home office. He paced. He zapped through television channels. He tried to read a book, all to no avail. Willow invaded his thoughts whatever he did. His gaze returned often to the article taped to the wall.

He replayed the visit in his mind, going over every word said, every sight, every sound. Should he have said this thing a different way, or made that point more gently.

I didn’t mean to upset her so. Maybe I should have dropped it and moved on, never spoken to her.

The rain let up around six o’clock when thick fog came in. Noah prepared a frugal supper of soup and reheated biscuits. He sat on the bed to watch the news and check the weather forecast. The sky would be clear by mid-morning tomorrow. He could start working southwest of Hoopeston in the Potomac area.

The phone rang, nearly jarring Noah off the bed. Everyone he knew called his cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Mister Phelps? This is Tommy at the front desk. You have a visitor at the office, a Ms. Brown. Should I send her up?” Tommy’s voice betrayed curiosity.

Willow? Here?

“Uh, yes, send her right up.” After he put the phone down, Noah grabbed papers and stuffed them in drawers, picked up the banana peel from the table, grabbed the beer bottle from the bedside stand … jeez, the bathroom! He settled for pulling the door shut and hoping she wouldn’t ask to use it. Before he closed the door, he swiped some water across his face, ran a comb through his hair and looked in the mirror. Soup on his shirt yelled “Slob!” He grabbed a sweater from a drawer and smelled it. Good enough. He pulled it over his head and put his hair in place a second time just as a knock sounded on the door.

Noah walked calmly to the door. From the corner of his eye, he saw a pair of underwear on the floor. He kicked them under the bed, returned to the door and opened it.

There stood Willow, dressed in jeans and a dark blue pea coat. She wore blue high top tennis shoes with white soles and shoestrings and a black stocking cap pulled over her ears. Her expression was tentative, shy.

How adorable.

A smile stole over Noah’s face. Willow smiled back.

“Hi,” she said. Her voice was like a familiar tune whose words he’d forgotten.

“Hi. That was a quick trip from the office.”

“Oh, yeah, I just flew.” She grinned and raised her eyebrows. “May I come in? It’s a little rainy out here.”

“Sure,” Noah said. “Good grief, you’re soaked! Give me your hat and coat. I’ll set them by the ventilator.” She handed him her things and stepped over to the mirror to run a hand through her hair. She wore the same sweatshirt as this morning.

Noah laid her hat on the heater vent. He could smell wood smoke and potpourri and Willow’s scent as he put the coat on a hanger and hung it on the floor lamp.

The details of arriving covered, they faced each other. Words needed saying. Willow slid her hands into her back pockets. Noah stuck his hands in his front pockets. They stood silent for a moment before Noah spoke.

“So, did you walk all the way here?”

“Yes,” she said and flashed her mischievous grin. “All the available flights were grounded due to fog.”

Noah laughed and shook his head. “Fairy humor.”

“And look,” she said, extending a leg toward him. “I put on long pants.”

“Good for you.”

Glad to see your spunkiness is back.

Another awkward silence ensued. Willow glanced around the room, but Noah’s eyes stuck to her. She turned back to him, but her gaze skipped past Noah and focused on something behind him. She leaned to one side and looked around him.

Her picture!

Noah sidestepped to block her view. His face grew hot. Willow’s eyes flicked back to his, and began to twinkle. He abruptly spun around and ripped the article off the wall, laid it face down on the table. Willow snickered behind him. When Noah turned back, her face was as red as his felt.

More silence.

They both started to speak. Noah motioned for Willow to go ahead.

“I need to apologize for how I acted this morning,” she said. “I was rude to throw you out like I did.” Noah waited for the barb, but it didn’t come.

I like that. No “I just” or “but.”

“No problem,” he said. “I owe you an apology, too. I shouldn’t have been so pushy.”

Willow smiled and tilted her head to one side. “Apology accepted.”

They stood through another long silence.

What was I about to say?

Willow’s expression changed to exasperation. She threw her hands in the air, then slapped her legs.

“This is driving me crazy!” she said. “What is this between us? Every time I’m around you I can’t think straight!” She returned her hands to her pockets and paced the room, agitated.

You just said exactly what I was thinking. Your words, not mine, but my thought.

A shiver coursed down his spine.

Almost on cue, Willow pulled her hands from her pockets and rubbed her arms as if cold. “That’s weird,” she said. “I never feel cold.”

Noah wanted to burst out laughing but restrained showing any reaction. Willow stopped walking and looked at him, an amused look on her face. He couldn’t restrain himself any longer and broke into a hearty laugh. She looked puzzled, but joined in his mirth.

After a few seconds, when Noah regained some control, he managed to speak again. “Do you know what we’re laughing about?”

“I have no idea,” gasped Willow.

“Well, I’m laughing because you felt a chill right after I did. And you’re laughing because I’m laughing.” He lost control again and descended into a long painful laugh. Willow followed suit for a few moments, then became quite sober and fixed a concerned stare on Noah. His amusement snapped off like a light. Even the usual aftershocks of a good laugh weren’t apparent.

“I guess it works both ways,” he said.

“Are you telling me … you think we’re … picking up on each others thoughts?”

“Not thoughts, exactly. Moods or feelings maybe. No, not maybe, for sure. Think about the times we’ve been together. I think our feelings have been mirroring or something. Remember Monday, at the pond, when I told you I was making a second trip around to shoot the pictures? How did you feel?”

“Well, pissed off, to be precise.”

“Me, too, but I had no reason to be. This morning at the cottage, your mood changes were crazy.”

“You’re right about that,” she said, nodding. “I felt strange. I’m never so unsettled.”

“I could see that, but I could also
feel
it. Even stranger, we kept getting into synch. When you got angry with me, I became angry, too, but I couldn’t figure out why at the time. When you were sad, so was I. And you seemed embarrassed a couple of times, right after I was.” Willow nodded her agreement. “Is this a fairy thing? Do you do this with everyone?”

“No. Fairies can sense human feelings, but not this thing you and I are doing.” She paused and blushed. “I mean other people’s feelings. Sorry, that
is
a fairy thing, saying ‘human’. We can sense feelings and emotions. That’s why we’re uncomfortable around groups of people. It can be quite confusing and unnerving when you sense every emotion in the room. With one or two persons, we can block it out, but more can be nasty. But we never emulate emotions from someone else. No, what you and I seem to be doing is new. I’ve never heard of anything like it.” Her brow furrowed.

If you can feel what I’m feeling, I need to be careful.

Willow’s thought seemed to break and she looked up. “What were you just thinking?”

“Nothing. Not to change the subject,” Noah said, “but I’m surprised you’re telling me this fairy lore.”

“Well, I decided before I came over to do a stupid thing. I’m going to trust you.”

“What changed since this morning?”

“Call it fairy intuition, if you like.” She grinned. “And maybe it
is
stupid since now I know you can influence my emotions. You could plant trusting thoughts in my head, but I don’t think you will. I know we just met two days ago, but ever since you first came to the cottage I’ve had the feeling … that I already know you somehow.”

“I have the same sensation. Like—
deja knew
.”

Willow giggled. “Yes, that’s it exactly! Do you think this emulating is both of us or is one of us projecting our feelings on the other?”

“Is it one projecting or the other one detecting?”

“Ouch! My head is starting to hurt,” Willow said. They laughed.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Noah said, “as long as you trust me.”

“I do, and that’s a big step for a fairy. Much is at stake. You asked me this morning and I didn’t answer. There are other fairies, many fairies, all around the world. Every country has some. Not as many as long ago, but we’re still around. We stick to rural and remote areas now. I know a few urban fairies, but it’s a difficult environment for us. It’s safer for us to stay spread out and alone.” She looked Noah in the eyes. “By trusting you I put all of my kind in jeopardy. Secrecy is our strength.”

“You
can
trust me, but what’s the need for the secrecy? Wouldn’t it be easier to just come out of the fairy closet, so to speak?”

“We’ve discussed the idea for many years. Centuries. Our special powers are the issue. Fairies can do many things you haven’t seen yet. Like this, for example.”

She vanished. One instant there, gone the next. Noah’s eyes felt odd until they refocused on the wall behind where she had stood.

“How…” he began. He stood with his mouth open, looking in all directions to see if she was anywhere else in the room. She snickered and a blurred image of her face floated in the air for a moment. Her voice came from where she had stood.

“I wish you could see your face.” Her lips became visible as she spoke.

“I wish I could see yours, too.” An instant later, she reappeared before him, grinning broadly.

Noah shook his head. “Was that fairy magic?”

“I don’t know if it’s magic or not. It’s a thing we do. We call it winking.”

Noah laughed. “Winking?”

Willow frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know. Winking just sounds, I guess, juvenile or—”

Willow’s expression went cold. “Juvenile?”

Lady, you’ve got a short fuse.

Noah held his hands up. “Sorry. Just learning fairy lore.”

Willow took a breath and let it out. “We call it winking because it’s so fast. If you winked, you would miss it.”

“But wouldn’t that make it blinking?”

“No, because winking is intentional and blinking isn’t. I asked a fairy physicist once how it works. He says we bend light. Imagine you’re looking at a big movie screen made up of the ends of thousands of optic fibers. When a fairy disappears, it’s as if we slip between the fibers so you can see what’s behind us. It works for our body and anything within an inch or so, better if the light isn’t bright. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. Imagine an army of extra-strong soldiers able to fly and disappear and withstand heat and cold. What would that be worth to most countries? Just letting the general population know we existed would make our lives miserable. We wouldn’t have any privacy in today’s society. So we’ve cultivated the myth that we’re—a myth.”

“Is all the stuff I read on the Internet misinformation, like the fact iron is deadly for fairies? It doesn’t affect you, obviously.”

“No, it doesn’t or I wouldn’t have an iron gate on the cottage. That’s an old idea we planted centuries ago. Stick an iron nail in a dead cow carcass and roll it down a hill. That will keep us nasty fairies away. Actually, the smell of the dead cow is what keeps us away. To answer your broader question, yes, most of what you read is a cover story. It’s safer for us. Noah, there’s nothing mystical about us or how we live. We just hide in the open among society. We’re just ordinary people. We get married and have kids, we live, we die—”