The place you call home? What did she mean by that?

Harley figured it was polite talk with no real meaning. After all, her Mom and Taylor’s Mom said they should get together all the time, but they never did.

There wasn’t much time for thought anyway. Harley followed the dragonfly riders into the fairy village—Auria, its name as pretty as the flora. The afternoon sun warmed her skin as she stepped around whiteberry ferns and bee-kissed flowers. The forest was rich with activity and the air smelled as sweet as a butter cake in a baker’s kitchen.

Harley paused at a cluster of mushrooms with white stems and purple caps. Tiny wood doors were built into the mushroom stems, almost like houses. As she knelt among the mushrooms to look closer, dozens of miniature women wearing elegant petal dresses, their hair a blend of red and gold, their features perfectly proportioned, rushed from the doors to greet her. They called to her in excited voices.

“A lost girl found by the spring!”

“How beautiful you are!”

“How brave you are!”

“How lovely you are!

A chorus of voices praised her.

Their attention focused on Harley and she embraced it. It felt nice. Harley spoke of the cold and they shivered. She spoke of the monster and they gasped. The fairies cried with sorrow as Harley spoke of her brothers and how much she missed them.

Then came the topic of names. The fairies went first of course, for sharing a name is a personal thing, and by sharing first then the other party may feel comfortable to share as well. In fact, this was necessary in fairy culture, for their magic worked best when paired with a name, and if they did not know what something was called, how could they control it? Harley did not know any of this—it wasn’t something they taught to children in Risanburg, and so as the fairies recited their names, she happily listened.

After many minutes of introductions and the number of names totaled dozens, Harley began to lose track. There were far too many names to remember, but there were a few that stuck out.

Nova was the youngest.

Lyra played the best.

Vega flew the highest.

Ophelia always helped.

Aurora was the earliest to rise.

Zara was the wisest.

And Bella was the prettiest as her golden hair was the longest. She was also the first fairy she met, the one from the spring, the one that rode a green dragonfly with black wings.

It was time for Harley to share her name with the crowd gathered before her. Harley was her name of course, but it was also her grandfather’s name, and she worried the fairies wouldn’t like it. Doubts crept into her head. The girls on varsity swim called her Ley, and those girls were popular—that was the validation she needed. Harley twirled her hair, pulling the black strands tight around her finger.

“My name is Ley,” said Harley timidly as she looked to the fairies for approval.

The fairies rejoiced, shouting out with excitement.

“You are as bountiful as the meadow!”

“You are rich like the pasture!”

“You are as resilient as the bunny-tail grass!”

Harley beamed a smile as the fairy named Lyra started to play her tiny silk harp. Next, the fairies changed the conversation topic to dinner and they began to set out a feast on tables of beech leaves and twigs. There was acorn bread and fairy cake, leaf medley and seeds, honey for drizzling and nectar for drinking.

The fairy cake was the best, for it delighted the mouth and warmed the belly, and Harley devoured it like a bear eating honey. Her appetite felt endless. The fairies kept her plate full and whispered with hushed voices.

Bella sat near Harley and entertained her with stories, at one point saying, “Eat till you are full, and then eat more, for the wind has carried you to us, and you are no longer lost.”

Harley was talking and eating and laughing, and not doing much thinking. She was taken by the fairy trick of glamor. The fairies were wonderful and she would do anything to please them. So as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, she happily laid among the fairies in a bed of fern and moss. The fairies gently stroked her hair, removing all the mud and debris and untying the knots.

“Goodnight Ley,” whispered Bella into Harley’s ear. “Sleep till you are rested, and then sleep more, for the wind has carried you to us, and you will wake as one of us.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Harley smiled, her eyes closing as the fairies whispered in hushed voices.

A fairy trick is ancient magic and powerful to any human who may experience it. But the fairies did not know her real name, so the trick was shallow and without root. Still, Harley fell into a restful sleep.

Darkness arrived with a cold wind, and when the moon was high in the sky and the night chill was greatest, the fairies retreated to their mushroom houses. The mournful howl of a wolf sang to the night as the wind stirred the trees of the grove, lifting the leaves and bending the branches.

Harley shivered. She reached for a blanket to warm her, but there was none, so she curled into a ball with her arms tucked close to her chest. Her mind was groggy and blank. She lacked details or memories. The wind sent a chill to her bones and she woke from her sleep in a moonlit grove.

Where am I?

The trees were hollow and twisted, wilted flowers slouched beside grotesque mushrooms, and the ferns grayed with mold. Harley couldn’t remember where she was, but she stood and stretched as the moon shone brightly above her. The leaves crunched beneath her bare feet as she walked to the edge of the grove. She saw a meadow, and further yet was a mountain spring.

Her hand hurt. There was a cut on her palm, scabbed over, itchy, tender to touch. She pressed around the cut, gently at first, then firm. The tips of her fingers straddled the scab like a pair of tweezers, and the wound burst with a disgusting ooze. A few squeezes and she let it be, but her hand was throbbing and she needed water to soothe it.

As she walked away from the grove, her mind felt more awake. She remembered the familiar roar of the spring and the sway of the bunny-tail grass. Harley traversed the mud and onto the flat stones of the river, finally stopping beside a shallow pool. The moon reflected on the still surface of the water and Harley knelt down with her hands out to wash them. The hair on the back of her neck stood up—something was wrong.

Get away from the water!

A blur of motion moved in the water. It swam toward her quickly.

It’s going to kill you!

The dull plop of a trout breached the surface. Harley clutched her chest as the fish darted away, the feeling of dread still present. Something else was strange. As the ripples faded and the water calmed, the moon’s image did not reappear on the surface. Instead she saw a girl's face.

The face was young, pretty, fair-skinned with black hair. It was her face. She knew it to be so, and suddenly all her memories rushed back into her head. Then her image morphed—her face aging by years, hair fading from black to white, youthful eyes tiring to hollow sockets.

The shallow pool began to glow. A magnificent circle of purple light emerged from the water like the halo of an angel, and white light radiated from the center outward like rays of the sun. A fairy emerged from the light riding a black dragonfly.

“This is what you’ll become if you leave us,” said the tiny fairy. The light obscured her face.

“But I miss my home,” said Harley, cowering as the feeling of dread grew stronger.

“Auria is your home now, Ley,” declared the fairy.

“Please stop….”

“You belong with us, Ley. Can’t you see?”

“Please! I’m begging you!”

“Ley, you will die if you leave us.”

“Stop saying that!” Harley barked.

“What’s wrong, Ley?” said the fairy.

“THAT’S NOT MY NAME!” Harley shouted, releasing the anger she held inside.

The glowing lights vanished. Only the moon cast its light in the night sky, its image reflected in the shallow pool. The fairy trick of deception failed and with no spell to take its place, Harley’s mind was free.

“Little brat,” seethed the fairy. “What is your name then? Speak up!”

“Go to hell you pig-faced freak!” Harley taunted, picking up a river stone and throwing it at the fairy.

The fairy atop its dragonfly mount easily evaded the stone with a quick upward zoom and then it flew down to Harley. The buzzing menace circled her with sudden speed as swirling purple magic materialized as strands of rope. The trick of entanglement bound Harley’s legs, her arms trapped by her sides, and the bind squeezed her chest. She struggled, trying to escape, but with every defiance, the rope tightened more.

The fairy cackled. “One way or another, you will learn. No one leaves Auria.”

Harley choked on gasping breaths as the fairy and her buzzing dragonfly came into view. The fairy guided her mount closer, frowning with anger in her eyes. The magical rope loosened to allow Harley a breath.

“Say your name,” the fairy scolded.

“I can’t breathe…” whined Harley as she struggled to lift her arms. “Please… the rope…”

The fairy guided the dragonfly lower and forward, coming close enough to Harley to tug at the rope that squeezed her chest. But she did not tighten the magical rope any further.

“Liar!” said the fairy. “I’ve barely any tension on it.”

At close distance in the light of the moon, Harley recognized the fairy, and not only her face—she knew her name. No longer was the enemy some anonymous renegade fairy, it was one of the fairies that she considered a friend, and the betrayal ignited an anger in Harley—and more than that, a fury, a murderous rage. Harley inhaled through clenched teeth until no more air could enter her lungs, the whole time tensioning the rope with her arms, stretching it ever so slightly. Again, she muttered her plea.

“I can’t breathe…”

“You can breathe just fine,” said the fairy. “Now, speak up girl, and tell me your real name.”

Enraged, Harley shouted, “Aurora!”

The fairy Aurora froze upon hearing her own name, and in the split-second confusion, Harley reached forward, clapping her hands together in a bug-killing splat. The buzzing stopped and Harley recoiled, the squish in her hands a disgusting feeling. Dropping, Aurora landed face down in mud, motionless beside the carcass of the dragonfly. The magical rope frayed, the purple light dimming, and the strands unraveled and disappeared.

Harley felt horror, the anger rushing out of her like air from an open balloon, and suddenly an adrenaline-fueled panic had taken its place. She had no good feelings about the whole thing—she had never killed anything before, but this wasn’t the time for self reflection. All her instincts told her one thing.

She needed to run.