Soft golden rays of sunshine melt through the tall overhanging branches of the trees above and light the forest floor aflame. Birdsong floats on the summer breeze like the sound of wind chimes, the only other sound to disturb the silence, save for a child's footsteps.
"It's such a beautiful day outside," Dylan's mother had said as she ushered all her children out the door. "Why don't you all go and play?" Her siblings had scattered almost instantly, fading into their hollowness.
They're in town now, or with the neighbor boys, all heedless of their sister melting into the forest like sunshine. All except for John, that is, who never really takes his eyes off his twin, but he's caught up in an unwilling encounter with one of the neighbor girls, and his personal sense of honor demands that he remain until he can politely excuse himself.
So Dylan pads almost silently into the forest alone and wonders if she's really the only one who can hear the weeping.
Perhaps she's merely the only one who recognizes it as weeping, since really it sounds almost like the wind rustling through the trees or the water trickling through the creek. But the sound is saturated with mourning and pain, so deeply forlorn that it seems impossible that any could be oblivious to the tears.
A twig snaps beneath her foot and for the length of a heartbeat the forest grows utterly still in the wake of the disturbance. Then a bird calls from somewhere far away, and the music of the forest begins again. Dylan smiles and inhales deeply, breathing in the taste of the earth. Her father has always marveled over the advances in technology that humans have made. "A thousand years ago, we thought we were the center of the universe," he would always say. "And now we're walking on the moon. It's almost magical, if you think about it." Amazing technology nowadays, certainly, Dylan thinks, but as she gazes at the beautiful forest around her and the cigarette butts dotting the bottom of the creek, she concludes two things: one, humans would be hard-pressed to create anything truly magical, and two, they still believe they're the center of the universe.
"Now," she muses, searching for whatever distressed creature there was here. "Where are you?"
She follows the sound of tears, down the creek, following long the bank as it winds further and further away from her home. Her parents would be angry if they knew she wandered so far, but for some reason the thought gives her no pause as she continues her search, growing more certain with each step that it is no mortal creature who weeps so.
At last, she sees it. Lying slumped across the bank of the creek, there sits the small fey creature. Dylan stops short, heart pounding in her chest as she takes in the sight. It's rather like a mermaid, she thinks. In fact, she almost looks like a very small human, save for the fish tail sprouting from her torso. Long, delicate tendrils of hair poke out from beneath a small red cap. Cohuleen druith, Dylan realizes with a smile. A demi-merrow!
Her smile fades as the diminutive faery continues to weep, looking up at her with wide eyes. "Don't cry anymore," she whispers. "I won't hurt you."
"Dylan." She starts and spins around at the sound of her name, then relaxes when she sees it is only John.
"John, you have to help me," she exclaims, turning back towards the water faery. "There's a demi-merrow in the water. I think she's sick!" John remains silent, eerily so, and Dylan turns back to him slowly.
"John?" she repeats. "We have to help her. She might be dying." He shakes his head.
"There's nothing there, Dylan," he says, his eyes troubled. He holds out his hand. "Come, take my hand and let's go. It's time to go home." Dylan backs away from him, shaking her head.
"John, we don't have time for this," she protests. What does he mean, 'There's nothing there'? He's always supposed to believe her. But he is still shaking his head and still walking towards her and this isn't how it happened, not like this.
"There's no fairy there, Dylan," John says again. "There's no such thing." Dylan flinches and shakes her head desperately, turning back to the creek to find… the fairy is gone.
"No," she whispers brokenly, trying in vain to blink back the tears. "No, it was there, I saw it." John's words are still pounding in her head, 'There's no such thing.' Again and again, negating the creature she was sure had been there. Why did he say that? This isn't how it happened, she wants to scream.
This isn't what happened.
"John, we saved her!" she screams, smacking away his outstretched hand. "Don't you remember? We cleaned up the creek. We fed her and gave her baths." The tears are falling freely now, streaking down her face like scars.
This isn't what happened.
"You thought she was beautiful," she cries, drowning in the doubt and pity she sees in John's eyes and struggling for dry ground. "We saved her, John? Why don't you remember?" John sighs heavily and the grief in his eyes has to mirror her own, because it aches to the very core.
"You need help, Dylan," he whispers and the words land like a knife to her heart. He closes his eyes and twists the blade. "There's no such thing as fairies."
I do believe in fairies. I do. I do. A mantra and a promise.
With every repetition, it hurts a little more.
I do believe in fairies. I do. I do.
There's the sharp prick of a needle and then the muscles relax as the succinylcholine flows through the IV. It's like the calm before a storm.
There's no such thing as fairies, Dylan.
Something hard and square is shoved into the mouth, which is then covered by a mask.
I do believe in fairies.
They rub something on the temples before they attach the electrodes.
I do. I do.
After the pain, there is only darkness. Darkness and trembling. A grand mal seizure, they call it, but it's really just punishment.
I do believe in fairies. I do. I do.
"Dylan?" She blinks slowly and looks up at the nurse above her. "Can you hear me, Dylan?" She nods, taking in the whitewashed walls and flickering fluorescents above her. No fairies here.
She closes her eyes and plunges back into darkness where John waits with a message.
There's no such thing as fairies.
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