Fairy Circle
Johanna Frappier
Edited by Donna L. Bobbs
Copyright 2011
Smashwords Edition
To Leo with love.
You are magic.
And awfully patient.
To Carrie, who always encouraged me.
To Laura, who accepts me and my demons.
Chapter 1
“Saffron, are you okay?”
Saffron tasted dirt and grass. She could smell the ocean and hear the waves. It was too much of an effort to answer her mother. Her eyelids were so heavy she didn’t want to open them to take a look around and see where she had landed herself this time.
“Here,” Derek’s voice, “give me a hand getting her up. She’s all right. We saved her again, like a couple of fricken heroes.” He pointed up to the night-bright sky. “How come you didn’t lock her door?”
Audrey looked up at the almost-full moon as she pulled Saffron to her feet. “I thought you locked the door.” She said this softly, accepting the blame as they guided Saffron through the field and past the curious alpacas. Saffron was quiet on the walk back to the farmhouse. When her mother tucked her into bed, she felt like she had just graduated kindergarten, not high school. She was asleep before the bolt slid home on the outside of her bedroom door.
***
“And here he is.” Derek leaned on the kitchen counter for a long look out the window over the sink.
Saffron stayed in her seat at the table. She looked down at her omelet when the heat rushed up the back of her neck.
“Awfully loud, what’s wrong with his car? Is that a motorcycle?” Audrey gave the home-fries a scrape in the iron skillet and went to lean on the counter by Derek.
Derek snorted. “Yeah, it’s a motorcycle. Saffron, come look at the yummy man-boy.”
Saffron dropped her fork in her plate and rubbed the heel of her hand over her forehead. “I know what Markis looks like. He was only a year behind me in school. So stop staring at him Derek; that’s gross.”
Derek smiled. “You need to show the new lawn boy where the mower is, Saffron. And make sure he weedwacks around the fence.”
“I’m not going out there. You do it.”
Derek pushed off the counter. “Gladly.”
“Don’t scare him, dirty old man.” Audrey whipped Derek with a dish towel, then went back to the home fries. “Aren’t you going to go say ‘Hi,’ to him, Saffron?”
Saffron swallowed. “Never talked to him before.”
“Speaking of school, if you’re really not going to go to college, why don’t you get a job to keep busy this summer? I saw a sign when I got the Half & Half at the Black Chicken. They’re hiring.”
Saffron sucked her next breath in through her teeth. “Mom, we weren’t ‘speaking of school’.”
“It’s not a bad idea.” Audrey sniffed.
Saffron rolled her eyes over her cup of juice as Audrey came to the table with the home fries.
“And when’s the last time you combed your hair? It looks like a pile of plop propped with chopsticks. Like red tide. I can tell you haven’t combed it.” Audrey pushed some potatoes onto Saffron’s plate, and then some onto Grandmother’s plate. Grandmother sat staring. She didn’t seem to be in the room with them. The screen door slapped closed behind Derek just as the mower started up out back.
“Derek, you owe me rent.” Audrey sat at the table, placed a wrinkled linen napkin on her lap, and buttered her toast.
“Put it on my tab, luv.” He stared at Saffron. “Let me tell you something, honey.” He went at his plate of mounded food like a bear dining at a toy table. When he started to talk, food went flying into the air, on the table, on his shirt, in his beard. “Listen to your mother. It’s not like you hafta be queen of the fricken world right away. Just go do something. You hear what I’m sayin’?”
“How do you even know what we’re talking about? You just came in the door.” Saffron folded her arms across her chest.
“Well, let me see….” Derek shoveled in another load. “You’ve got a puss on your face. The sun’s out. It’s Tuesday morning. We’re eating breakfast. And what else do you people hiss about day after day?”
Saffron stuck her tongue out at him.
He smiled and smacked his lips.
At least they weren’t going to talk about her sleepwalking. They all treated it like bedwetting - she did it, they didn’t talk about it, and they were all waiting for it to go away.
Grandmother’s voice came muttering across the table. “Someone was here last night.”
Grandmother always thought someone had come on the nights Saffron went on her nocturnal jaunts. Saffron assumed Grandmother was just hearing them all walking around during the hullabaloo.
Derek stopped mid-bite. “Well, Jesus H, Grandmother, you don’t say.” He shifted around without turning his neck to give Audrey a look.
“Derek…” Audrey’s voice was soft. She had never quite perfected admonishment.
Derek picked up his coffee and slurped, avoiding eye contact with the old lady. Grandmother suddenly focused on Saffron. Saffron looked away, hoping her mother would handle it. Audrey’s chair creaked as she leaned back. She grabbed her coffee mug. “What about the job, Saffron?”
Saffron made a disgruntled ‘pfft’ sound. “Why, Mom? What I’m doing’s not enough? You want me to start paying rent too?”
Audrey winced. “What?”
“I mean, why do I have to get a job? You need some money or something? Why do I have to get a job? I have a job. I clean the house! I do the dishes. I wash the laundry and everything else. I dust till I gag, Mom. C’mon, since I graduated I pretty much do all of the menial chores. Inside and out. I do all the barn stuff, too. I feed the alpacas, I shovel their poop. I get the chicken eggs. I take the goats on their poison ivy binges.”
“No, I don’t need money, Saffron. And no, you don’t do all of the work. And it’s good for you to do work. Derek and I are working. A regular job would be good for you. I want you to feel good about yourself, about something you create or accomplish.”
Saffron threw up her arms. “Oh, now we have arrived at our destination, folks.”
“…and you never talk about your future. Nothing. Not even plans for this weekend.” Audrey’s voice crackled like a live wire skipping around in a puddle.
“Here we go round the mulberry bush on a hot and sticky morning.” Derek bellowed, using his best Puccini.
“Saffron,” Audrey gasped, “why do we have to keep doing this?”
Saffron looked down and wagged her head back and forth. “This isn’t right, Mom. You’re not being fair.” Her mother was always the one to start this, and at least once a week since graduation. “Why do you always have to start this? I can’t believe you just told me to go become a clerk.” Saffron spat clerk’ like clog from her throat.
“I didn’t start anything. I only suggested you become a clerk.” Audrey dropped her knife and the loud clatter made everyone jump. “I just mean you should find something, anything, to keep you occupied while you think things through. I just thought of the convenience store as an idea. Go become a brain surgeon. Go collect trash - whatever.”
Saffron had to yell as the mower passed close by the window. “I am occupied.”
“Doing what?” Audrey yelled back, even though the mower had moved on.
“Think what through?” Saffron gave the open window a dirty look when the mower doubled back.
“Oh, gee, look at the time.” Derek hardly glanced at his watch, a shocking piece of jewelry graced with the Vitruvian Man, Davinci’s famous anatomical. One rigid arm and one rigid leg kept time, sometimes at grotesque angles; his family jewel was a centered diamond. Derek used the table to push himself out of his seat. He patted Saffron on the head, and then went to peck Audrey’s cheek. He rubbed her shoulders with his big paws, loosening her like a boxer between rounds. “Need help getting those canvases to my shop, honey?”
Audrey shook her head no, and dragged her eyes from Saffron to look up at him. She huffed. “No, but I need you to check Han Solo before you go. I think he only has one testicle.” She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t think I’ll be able to show him at the Invitational.” She reached up. “Derek, look at all the marmalade in your beard.” She raked his beard with her short nails as he jutted his chin out.
“Yes, my love, I’ll grope your alpaca. I’ll call you. Then I’m going to go open up my shop. Because, you know, it’s my J-O-B. I take great pride in clerking and so forth.”
Saffron made the forced air out of her throat sound of disgust that women do so spectacularly. “You are not a clerk! You’re the shop owner, the boss!”
“Oh, please, honey, don’t start that bickering with me. You don’t know who you’re messing with. Now, I’m off to stand behind my store counter, aka, ‘to clerk.’ I need to know when my shipment arrives if somebody named Saffron could give me a call when UPS shows up. You owe me. I saved you again last night…”
Audrey rubbed her hands all over her face. “I know. I know, Derek. I’m sorry. Don’t salt the wound. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, honey. Anyway, Grouchyrella, do you think you can do this for me today?” He was already grabbing his keys off the counter and checking his teeth with his tongue.
Saffron rested her forehead in her palm and waved him off with the other hand. “Yessss.”
“Good. Ciao!” The screen door smashed behind him.
“I never said there was anything wrong with being a clerk!”
“Can’t hear you.” He yelled from the gravel drive.
“I never said there was anything wrong with being a clerk.” She muttered.
“Then why don’t you go try it?” Audrey studied Saffron while Saffron hunched over her cold breakfast dregs.
Grandmother was considering the blue veins on the back of her hand. The lawnmower moved around to the side of the house. Saffron and her mother listened as Derek slammed the door of his yellow bug and started the engine.
Audrey jumped. “And he already forgot to check Han Solo.” She was out the screen door in two seconds.
Saffron perked up. Her mother was a brilliant painter but the worst actress in the world. Han Solo’s testicles didn’t warrant a two-second sprint. Saffron got up and hurried to the window over the kitchen sink. She couldn’t hear what her mother was saying over the grind of the lawnmower. She saw Audrey yapping and flapping away like a jay bird and going on for way too long.
Saffron stretched her neck and flattened her cheek to the window, but Markis was out of sight. She took a step back and frowned at Derek and Audrey, then moped to her seat, her red hair slipping out of the chop sticks and streaming down her face.
***
That afternoon, Saffron straddled her mountain bike. Somber-eyed, she looked down the long line of the driveway to the country road at its base. She breathed deep for five seconds, held it for five seconds, and exhaled for five. Then did it again. It didn’t help. Her teeth stayed clamped, her hands still shook, and the freight train still roared in her ears. She narrowed her eyes and scanned the farmhouse to see if anyone was watching. Her mother was probably still in the sunroom out back, working on her canvas. Saffron looked front and shuddered. Tears welled in her eyes as she held her breath.
In high school, the breathing technique had worked well. Used on a daily basis, the urge to chain herself to the quarry-stone foundation wasn’t as strong as it was today when she hadn’t left the farmhouse in weeks.
She got off the bike and let it drop to the ground. She lay down, and immediately got up, brushing the gravel off her back and butt. She got on the bike. Tears of rage welled up as she rammed her pedals around and around and forced herself forward.
She was at the bottom of the drive when she slowed to a stop and frowned at the line of mushrooms that marched across her path. Mushrooms that grew in gravel? The hot, sunny gravel? They had always been there, marching out of the field on one side of the driveway and disappearing into the tall grasses on the other side. Her paranoia piqued as she kicked and ground at them with both feet, then quickly got on her bike and pushed her way across the broken line.
You’re nineteen and you don’t have your license. Her eyes were narrow slits. This was all her mother’s fault, making her do this. Freakin’ convenience store clerk. She moved on in a daze, ignoring the cow-filled pastures and the rocky shoreline. The mountain bike had never been out of her yard.
After about two miles, she reached the business part of town. She passed the Happy Grocer, Gary’s Old Thyme Wieners, which was in a pretty Victorian house with brightly-colored, scalloped edging, passed the post office and Frank’s Diner, and rode around the corner of main street where the brick pharmacy stood. The Black Chicken was in the next little brick building. She pedaled into the parking lot and peeked out from behind her hair. She parked her bike behind a keeling evergreen decorated with faded candy wrappers.
Her lips started to get twitchy as she slunk past the sale signs that hung in the store windows. When she opened the glass entry door, a small man in a big plaid shirt and polyester slacks came charging forward, waving a lottery ticket in her face. She started swatting without thinking, as much as to get the lottery ticket away as to dispel the smell of cabbage and smoky skin.
“This is it! The winner!” he let her know, then ran to the hood of his big, red Road Master to scratch it.
“Sweetie, you can’t stand there all day, got the flies to think about. Food in here, you know.” A sallow-skinned woman, fortyish, fake-smiled at Saffron from behind the register counter. Her brown teeth were not included in the ads of the good times you can have with Marlboros. She tilted her Michael-Jackson nose up. Clearly, she was queen of all she surveyed.
Saffron scurried across the threshold and presented herself at the counter like a terrified recruit.
“What can I getcha?” The woman smacked her gum.
“Do you need help?” White lights danced into Saffron’s vision and blurred the image of the lady’s cigarette teeth.
The woman reached under the counter, laughing. “Of course I need help! Who doesn’t need help? I gotta kid at home that I need ta feed and keep in Wii games and music downloads. Now he wants a Kindle.” The woman looked Saffron up and down, her lips still pulled in a thin smile.
The woman was at least three inches shorter than Saffron, but Saffron automatically gave her the upper hand by letting her own body shrink into a more pronounced hunch. She tried to fake-smile back at the woman, but just managed to look like she had shut her finger in a door. “I’m looking for a job.” I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, she thought. Ruh-row dumb ass; me need job. She longed for the rough, brick outside of the building to rub her forehead on. Then she smiled wider, her bottom lip shaking as the woman smirked at her.
“Yeah, I get it.” The woman presented Saffron with the one page form she had pulled out from under the counter. “Just fill this out. I’ll give it to tha ownas as soon as they get back. They’ll call ya.”
Saffron’s smile dropped and she stood up straight without realizing it. Her nostrils flared. This queen wasn’t even the owner. Not the boss! Saffron could hardly believe she wasted her best mumbling kiss-ass routine on this woman. She snatched at the application and took it over to the lottery ticket station. There, amongst the shavings of a million ‘winining’ tickets she white-knuckled a half-chewed pen and quickly filled out some of the application, fretting over the other empty rest of it because she had done nothing in her life. Nothing.
Saffron walked the application back to Bea, the woman’s nametag read, and handed the paper over with a grimace she was convinced, this time, was a nice smile. Bea squinted at Saffron, studied her like a moldy roll, and proclaimed, “Ya know, this job’s not easy.” Now she was sounding downright vicious. “It’s not like you’re gonna get hired, then come sit around here all day.”
Saffron had no idea what to do with this information. “O…kaaay.” She jerked her head around to look at the door. “You know, I gotta.…” She sighed heavy. “I’ll be right back.” Then she took off through the door, jumped on her bike, and pedaled like the Wicked Witch of the West was after her all the way home.
Chapter 2
Several watchers came that night, always up for a game, just before two in the morning. They settled in the willow on the edge of the woods beyond her front lawn. But, they were too late - Saffron was already dreaming. They hung from the gnarled limbs until they became bored, and then scattered like a murder of crows.
Saffron dreamt of a rough woman who lived in a thatched hut on the shore of a different grey and raging sea.
The woman took care of everything - herself, her home, and some petty livestock. Everything but her own children who, in five years of marriage, had never come into existence. Her coarse, orange hair was windblown, its kinks dull and colorless from lack of attention. The skin on her hands was chapped and scarred from hard seaside labor. Yet, she was strong, and often when she rose with the sun, she possessed a warm light that marked her pretty to those who cared to search.
She was waiting for her husband to return from a holy war, a crusade she had never understood but supported blindly as his passions were her passions. She longed for the day when she could strip him of his mail to cast it to the white and foaming jaws of the sea. She cared not for war and the other vices of men, but thought only of her home, a family, and the sun on her garden, the moon on the water.
She had waited months for his return, then over a year. When two years had passed, she was one day out hanging clothes to dry in the briny air. The glare of the sun reflected off the white, salted grass, setting her eyes in a perpetual wince of which she was hardly aware. The rider was obscured, wavering in the haze and dust of the path as his horse clopped toward her. She wiped her hands on her patched apron, breathed deep the wild-rose-scented air, and bit her bottom lip as she waited to greet the man she finally recognized as her husband’s best mate. She let out a cry at seeing him back, and ran to receive him with hugs and babbled prayers of thanks. After several moments, he held her from him and looked sadly into her eyes. She asked harshly, “Is he dead, then?”
“No,” the rider replied softly. “If only that he was.”
She gaped at him, and stepped back, unsure of his meaning and stricken by the horrific statement spoken with such bland indifference.
He was brief - her love had found union with another and he would never be coming back. He, the revered friend, came only to tell her out of conscience. He knew she would otherwise wait for that Devil’s whelp - that it would kill her to learn the truth. He hoped she could start anew, and with someone better deserving of her adoration.
He left her crumpled and crying under the dripping laundry. After a time, she sat up, her eyes as vacant as a doll’s as she stared out to sea. She only half heard the crash of the waves, the cry of the gulls, and the wind that furled the clothes on the line. When the sun reached its zenith, she used the washpole to pull herself up and began to walk.
Her head was hot. She walked toward the pounding surf, to its heavy coolness, wishing it to surround her, to feel it chilling her toes, caressing her calves and crawling up between her legs, to her navel, to cover her breasts. She needed it to lap at her neck and, most exquisitely of all, she needed it to take her head in its arms and muffle the noise in her ears.
When Saffron woke up, there was a copper sting in her nose. It was the tang of snorting water, the taste of the sea, and of her tears. An abrupt sob bubbled up and out of her throat as she lay cloaked in the anguish of the dream. He had deserted her. It was a pain so raw, so real, that even now her shoulders ached from the strain.
Saffron realized she was huddled against her bedroom door. She had tried to escape again. Twice in one month. What was happening? Tears spilled as she crawled back to bed.
***
Later, Saffron heard her mother unbolting her door. Audrey knocked, then came in. When Saffron didn’t answer, she chirped, “Yoohoo. It’s a new day. Rise and shine.”
Saffron wanted to scream. Why was her mother bothering her? Didn’t she have anything else to do? A painting to finish? Derek to play house with? High school “friends” of Saffron’s that she hadn’t spoken to since fourth grade to hire? So those “friends” could come over and wonder why Saffron stayed up in her room all day… Saffron turned over and squeezed her eyes shut.
Audrey frowned at the back of Saffron’s head, “What’s the matter?”
Saffron would have to say something. Her mother could be persistent. She rolled over and yawned. “What do you mean, Mom? I’m fine.” Then she stretched, tussled her red waves with the fingers of both hands, and scratched her scalp. Pretending nonchalance was almost unbearable. But it wasn’t like Audrey to give up in the first few seconds.
And soon enough, Audrey spoke. “Did you look into that job?”
Oh, so Audrey was going to come around from the back, right? A little sneak attack, huh? Yeah, foiling with another subject ought to do the trick. As if Audrey didn’t know Saffron had pedaled out of the yard yesterday. Saffron knew the whole world knew she had pedaled out of her yard yesterday. A thriving metropolis this town was not.
Saffron slapped the bed. “Mom! Yes! Now do we really need to talk about that? I’m waiting to hear back from them.”
Audrey’s eyes flashed, then she used her very low voice. “Saffron, what is wrong?”
As if. If she ever told her mother what was really going on at night, Saffron knew her mother would commit her somewhere. If she told her mother the truth, the years and years of truly disgusting truth, Audrey would have her straight on the bus bound for Club Wily Wackos for Wanton Ladies before another full moon grew. Or, maybe her mother would make her go to Sexaholics Anonymous class. Were you a sexaholic when you kept on having those kinds of dreams even when you didn’t want to? Sweat pooled on Saffron’s forehead, ready to trickle. It was already so humid out.
Jesus Christ, she would. She’d make me sit in a roomful of those people. That would be worse than a hospital. Saffron hated hospitals - the disinfectant stink of them, the wandering inmates of them, and the sickly green-painted concrete blocks of them. Hell no, no hospital. Saffron had never fessed up to Audrey and she wasn’t about to give in this morning. Audrey would know nothing about the dreams, the little bits Saffron had remembered in vivid detail and the murky millions she could have guessed at.
The dreams had started when she was young. Without a single book, without a sneak preview of a stolen dirty movie with friends, without a school bus education, and before she really understood what the farm animals were doing, Saffron Keller knew about sex in detail. She couldn’t fathom how you could learn so much from a dream, about a subject you had never researched or experienced. Saffron also learned about hunger, lust, betrayal, and how love can cripple you. It was all right there at night, played out like a movie.
She told no one. How could she explain such a thing? It was the one subject even Oprah hadn’t covered, and Googling, which had provided help on every other subject known to man, was a big fat zero. Trying to Google for scientific evidence of the origins of your sex dreams always resulted in disturbing side roads. So, she didn’t Google about that anymore. You couldn’t Google ‘Swiss cheese’ without some perv taking you down a disturbing side road.
Over the years, she learned to deal with her dilemma much as most people dealt with theirs. She denied it. She ignored it. Time passed.
Audrey tried again. “You seem so different lately. Derek said you demanded the radio be left on all night, and the lights…” She reached for a lock of Saffron’s hair, twirled it around her finger.
Saffron’s face erupted red as she squeaked out, “Well, Mom, you were up all night too. Should we be concerned?”
Silence. Audrey wouldn’t rise to the bait.
Saffron mumbled, “I want to get up, take a shower…”
After a moment, Saffron felt Audrey move off the mattress, heard the shuffle of her Minnetonkas and the clunk-clicking of her amber bracelets as she walked toward the door. She sighed from the doorway. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”
***
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Why is it so important to you that I go to the school? I mean, why can’t I go to school online? You’ve done online courses and look at you; you’re a pretty smart chick. I’ll get a degree online and you can get off me. Hell, I’ll get three degrees. This is the cyber future. We can even get groceries delivered, along with everything else. No one leaves the house anymore.” Saffron smirked and dug into her blueberry pancakes.
Audrey folded her arms across her misshapen hemp t-shirt. “Saffron…” it was the warning tone.
Still, Saffron pressed on. “I mean, what’s the point of going to the college if you really don’t feel like it. I really don’t feel like it, Mom. I can get my doctorate even, over the Internet. Then I won’t have to work that stupid job. I can do schoolwork all day.” She blinked twice and waited for Audrey to answer.
Audrey manhandled the dish she was drying. “Saffron, I earned some online credits because I’m not afraid to go get them from anywhere. You are terrified of going everywhere, so that’s where you need to go, anywhere and everywhere, until you see that it’s okay, you’re not going to get hurt, you’re not going to lose your mind or whatever it is you think is going to happen.”
“Oh, yeah. I won’t get hurt. I’ll get someone to lock me in my room wherever I go so I’ll feel all cozy and secure. Who will be that someone? You? Everywhere I go? Or will we train some of my new college buddies to lock me in when the moon is full?” Now the pancakes felt heavy in her gut. They had never covered this angle out loud before - how she was going to become a world traveler when she needed to be in lockdown on nights approaching and during a full moon.
Audrey’s usually-straight back curved. She didn’t look at Saffron when she murmured her reply. “You can commute to the university from home.” She cleared her throat. “Just come home at night.”
Saffron dropped her spoon into her bowl with a clank, pushed herself up from the table, and brushed past her mother. She stomped upstairs and into the bathroom, slammed the door, dragged a comb through the rusty tangle that was her hair, and snatched her toothbrush from the holder.
The phone rang.
Terror sluiced up and down Saffron’s limbs. Nobody ever called this early in the morning. It couldn’t be good.
A few moments later, her mother knocked on the bathroom door, then opened it a crack until she was staring at Saffron in the mirror. “That was the Black Chicken. They said you can go in to train today.”
Saffron held the toothbrush suspended in her mouth. She stared at her mother while the fear bore down and squeezed her chest. What kind of mother was she? Not helping your kid when she was obviously traumatized. Why did she keep pushing this?
Saffron shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t want to go.”
Audrey watched a drooley toothpaste string stretch down from Saffron’s lips as she not so much as brushed her teeth but began scrubbing her gums raw. “What are you afraid off?”
Saffron spit hard, smeared her mouth with a facecloth, then chucked the cloth at the back of the sink. “I’m not afraid of anything! Okay? God!”
Audrey sucked in a deep breath and looked with bulging eyes at the ceiling. She blinked several times before she again leveled her gaze on Saffron.
“Just tell me, Saffron. If you tell me, you’ll get it out and you’ll be able to start to help yourself. I don’t care if you tell me you’re afraid of a holocaust, the dirt under your feet, or fat women’s panty lines. Just tell me. I promise I won’t laugh or lecture you or anything. I just want to help you. Tell me.” Audrey huffed. Now she was whining.
A vision popped into Saffron’s mind - squirming bodies, bruise-sucked skin, a leer that made her groin ache. She crossed her arms across her chest and blinked back hot, angry tears. She wanted to get past her mother but the woman was standing there in the doorway. Saffron didn’t have it in her to push past, so she stood before her mother and grew angrier by the second. Get out of my way. Why can’t I just shove past her? I should shove past her. Why can’t I tell her to get the hell out of the way? I can’t stand here all day!
Audrey sighed into the loud silence of the tiny bathroom.
Saffron pressed her lips. Why the hell was her mother always sighing? She was going to hyperventilate.
Audrey moved aside. Saffron scuttled past her mother with her if-looks-could-kill eyes cast down. Audrey followed Saffron to her room. “They said to bring a lunch, unless you want to buy something from the store. You can train six hours today and eight tomorrow with some woman named Bea. I spoke to her on the phone. She seemed very nice.”
Saffron looked around for something sharp to poke the headache from her eye. She grabbed her bag from the closet. It was a gift from her mother - a caramel leather courier bag with antiqued buckles and dark red roses on the strap. A bag meant for people who were going places. It was three years old, clean and shiny. The leather was so stiff that it squeaked when she raised the flap to throw in a sweatshirt, some loose change and a couple of ones, some ChapStick so she wouldn’t have flaky lips, some tissues so she wouldn’t be caught with any hangers-on, and hand sanitizer to protect against getting a cold, which would cause flaky lips and hangers on. She ran down the sloping treads of the old farmhouse stairs and grumbled, “Fine, I’ll go get my lunch for my glamorous new job.”
She stomped to the kitchen, almost yanked the door off the Lazy Susan, grabbed a can of Spaghettios and threw it into her talking bag, the smell of leather wafting up when she ripped at the flap. Then she was out the front door, letting it slam behind her, and onto the farmer’s porch, where she jerked to a halt.
She couldn’t step off the porch.
She couldn’t mount her bike and ride to that job. She couldn’t. After two agonizing moments, she practically threw herself down the porch stairs and marched to her bike.
Her feet and lower back ached as she forced her way past the mushrooms that had grown back at the base of the driveway. She didn’t slow down the whole first mile. When she did slow, she was so exhausted the bike started to wobble. Toward the end of the trek, she had to get off the bike, her legs so rubbery with fatigue, and walk the rest of the way down Main Street.
When Saffron arrived at the store, Bea informed her that after her training days, she would work second shift with a girl named Coco. Then Bea continued to talk, nonstop, for the next two days.
After the second day of training, Saffron was exhausted. It was hard learning how to dust the shelves (the proper way), stock the cooler, and learn the register program, while not being allowed to sit, ever. Saffron ripped the black winged baseball cap off her head and whipped it into the corner of her bedroom. Her jeans and t-shirt smelled like deli, so, even though it was early evening, she changed into a wife beater tank top and pink cotton pajama bottoms. She tipped, face-first, onto the bed. Somewhere around six pm she fell asleep.
Chapter 3
Saffron woke up nauseous and heavy-limbed. Above her, a wooden butterfly hung suspended from the ceiling, each of its brightly painted parts strung with fishing line. The wet night air that seeped in from the window moved it now. Saffron meant to stare at it until the grogginess cleared so she could get up and go to the bathroom.
Why was the window open? She had kept it shut the last few nights because the humidity was so bad. It felt better just to have the fan running. The fan was still.
There was a beat of vacuumed silence, followed by the loud tearing of a branch in the apple tree outside her window. She seized up and held her breath.
The air around her began to thicken as if it was gathering itself. It pushed on her neck, arms and chest. It felt like a heavy gas as she carefully took a few short breaths and exhaled frigid puffs.
Another resounding crack, then quiet except for the blood that pounded in her ears. After several moments of stillness, she sat up and grabbed the edge of the mattress. The waffle blanket slipped to the floor, leaving her shaking in her pajamas. She hunched down, drawing her shoulders forward. Her eyes reflected the waning moon as she stared out the window.
Beyond the window frame, in the black night, chaos started. The screeching of an owl joined the burp-croak of a bullfrog. The screams of small prey floated out of the woods. Dogs from near and far howled, and bats began darting in and out of her shutters, causing the weakly-bolted wood to clack, clack against the wall of the house.
She stood up, tiptoed toward the window, and gnawed on her fingernails. As she moved closer, more of the apple tree came into view - the top of the tree, the next branches down. She was halfway across the wooden floor when she heard a thump on the grass outside. She stopped and stood poised, the heel of her back foot off the ground.
Then she leaned back, putting all of her weight on that foot. She pulled her other foot back too, and in this way, did a shuffling return to her bedside, both eyes still locked on the empty window. She eased back into bed and curled into the fetal position as she pulled the blanket from the floor and up over her head.
The animals bleated and hooted, screamed and croaked. The crashing of the ocean amplified, smashing at the rocks. She began to whisper to herself, a habit she’d had since she was a child.
And then, there was a voice.
Go to sleep.
The words were an edict which burst forth in her head like fireworks in a black sky. The voice seemed alien - not machine, and not human. It was commanding, and oddly enough, it was soothing.
Her senses dulled as she studied the blanket tented by her nose. Her lips went slack, her breathing slowed. She stared without seeing till finally, her lids closed completely and she lay still.
As quickly as the ruckus had started, it stopped, as if the animals had been cheering the start of a performance and now the show was to begin. A cloud drifted across the moon, leaving the house in momentary shadow.
In the undulating nebula of her mind, that dark place you pass through before you dream and never recall when you wake, she heard the far-off beating of many tiny wings. Then someone called her name, high and mellifluous, like a note puffed through a glass bird whistle. The wings came closer until the vibration was there, in the room with her.
Suddenly, both of her legs lifted and moved over, her torso rising and moving like a marionette. Her eyes remained shut as the blanket fell away.
A warm churning began in her stomach. It grew steadily, until it consumed her entire midriff, surrounded her hips and lower back. Invisible fingers of pressure rolled up her spine, over her shoulders and around her neck. As the heat moved past her ears, her head fell back. Her scalp tingled; she could feel every follicle hum as if each generated its own electrical current. The current lifted and separated the lengths of her hair and supported the roiling, red mass of it while it hung in empty space. She looked like a mermaid sitting under water, her hair waving in a ghostly tide.
From her belly she felt a tug, like an invisible elastic, pulling forward. It made her stomach spasm, and her entire body vibrate like a twanging metal rod. Then, three more pulls in rhythm with the pulsing of her hair. She dipped one toe forward, toward the floorboards, but quickly retracted. This was not the way. She responded on the fifth summons - the strongest pull yet - just floated up, a drowning victim whose body has expelled all air and makes its unconscious way to the top of the sea.
Behind her, her body slumped on the mattress.
Her entire soul levitated to the ceiling, moving as she rose so that she no longer was in a seated position, but hovered belly-down above the bed, seeing her stuffed panda in the rocking chair below her.
All of the windows in her room flew open without the usual moan of forced wood. Saffron coursed along the ceiling, then down and out into the waiting night. A gust of wind shrieked past her ears. She hung suspended above the crooked apple tree just for a moment before the pull in her gut strengthened, and soon she found herself coasting at high speed above the earth. Up ahead she saw a herd of deer leaping for the cover of the trees.
The voices that surrounded her told her to relax, to enjoy the ride, but not to be concerned with milestones or markers. She wasn’t meant to know where she was going and therefore would never know. She flew across forests and lakes, mountains and oceans. She drifted in and out of semi-consciousness. Sometimes she rode the wave on her stomach and sometimes she spiraled slowly through space, her hair wrapping about her shoulders.
After an indeterminable amount of time - it could’ve been moments or hours - small hands grabbed at her fingers. She started to descend. Her feet drifted down until she was standing upright in the air, her hair snapping around her like crimson ribbons.
She touched down on a bed of brown needles surrounded by towering pines that crowded like stanchions. Lights swirled and bobbled in front of her, in back of her. All around her the trees sighed and grunted, moaned and snored. She blinked once, then looked sidelong at the massive tree to her immediate right. She took two steps away from it.
One of the phosphorescent globes stopped to hang in front of her face. Saffron heard a giggle, then the light zigzagged away. Some of the other orbs lowered to the forest floor. Their glow was soft, like tiny, solar-powered bulbs. Then the lights began to pop in showers. In the place of each little explosion stood a magnificent person - a fairy - with iridescent skin. Their glow came from the inside, and twinkled out from every pore. They were all taller than she was.
The one closest to Saffron turned to smile back at a friend. The being had great silvery wings, mottled as rice paper and veined with the same fuzzy radiance. The wings arched high over her head, curved down above her buttocks, then molded with the skin on her back.
Saffron couldn’t decide if they were boys and girls or men and women. Their ages seemed to swim and change as she watched them. When they giggled at her, they seemed no more than five years old; but when they smiled at her, it was the proud grin of a parent looking down upon a cherished child.
Their lips were plump and red, pert as cupids, but their murmuring was sophisticated; their fathomless, bright eyes seemed at once silly, wise, and ancient. They each had different colored eyes, every hue, and shine. Some like jewels, some like metal. But the line of color was slim; it roped around the great black holes that were their pupils. Pupils so large they looked owlish.
The skin was completely transparent on some, while others had skin like the underbelly of a frog, milky-white and thin, so that in all of them you could see the network of veins and the lines of bones pulsing and working. Some had amber-bottle glass skin, some wild blue, and others, sea green. One even had licorice-black skin with golden veins vibrating in her wings, in her arms, across her chest and down her legs. The material that covered them wasn’t like any material Saffron had ever seen. She couldn’t figure what it was, but would later be told it was a weave of millions of tiny, impossibly-stretched filament taken from a “glass spider” that lived only within their boundaries.
More tall fairies came out of the woods, holding lanterns, radiating the gathering group in a cave of fluttering light. And everywhere Saffron looked, she made eye contact with the creatures. She felt a jolt and a ping each time. A flash of recognition. A nostalgic longing. Emotions that clutched at her throat and brought tears. In her life, she had never felt like this. She wanted to touch them, all of them, and be held by them.
She turned around, and in that moment there was no time, no air, no sound - only the man that stood ten feet away from her. He never spoke and never moved; yet Saffron felt her entire body react to him a swell of fury, a tightening of lust, an aching of loss. She became completely flustered, unable to think; and lacking a better reaction, she turned her back on him. When words finally fell from her lips, they came dry and hushed as if she’d been wandering the desert without water for a million years.
“What?” She addressed no one in particular. A woman in white walked forward. Or rather, a woman that was white, all white, walked forward. Saffron gasped. The fairy smiled. Long, white hair drifted like a cloud around her small, white shoulders, while glass lips held in check many small pearly teeth. Her voice was low and warm.
“Saffron. You are here because you have asked us to bring you here.” She reached forward with a thin, bleached hand to pinch one of Saffron’s fiery, banana curls. Her eyes were dominated by pupils so large, and so black that Saffron felt her consciousness start to slip as she stared into the creature’s eyes.
“Shouldn’t I remember that?” Saffron murmured. “I think I’d remember asking to come here. Where am I? And why are you all so tall?”
The white fairy offered her graceful hand to hold. “Come along, my friend. We will explain at the feast.”
The crowd moved together through the trees. Saffron looked back over her shoulder just in time to see a fairy with gold hair and flecks of white and silver flashing around in her body as if she were a snow globe. The fairy shot her forked tongue out of her mouth to entwine a fat beetle that was scurrying up the side of a pine. Some sap stuck to the hairy leg she couldn’t quite fit in her mouth and for a moment it formed a golden bridge between the beetle and the tree before it bowed and broke. She helped the still-moving leg into her mouth with one long finger, then changed size and became a small ball of light and moved off.
Saffron stumbled on a tree root and looked with wide-eyes at the white fairy, who steadied her. “That girl back there just ate something off the tree. A bug or something, I think.”
The white fairy smiled down at Saffron and reached to pet her hair.
Saffron hunched while she walked and thought, ‘whatever.’ Humans ate bugs, big bugs. So it wouldn’t have mattered if that fairy did eat that bug, which she probably didn’t. It was dark on this path and it wouldn’t have been the first time that Saffron imagined something so outrageous. She bit the inside of her cheek and kept her eyes averted from the movement in the shadows that they passed on either side.
They emerged into a wide glade. At its center was a bonfire. Full-sized fairies danced around the inferno and drank from golden goblets. They called to Saffron to join them. They flew into the trees and called from the boughs - their wings fluttering and drink sloshing from their cups. Flute players and horn players sat high in the boughs, playing in bursts and squeals. Throughout the trees and down the paths that disappeared from the center of the glade were strung hollowed-out gourds. They had been punched with tiny holes and inside, fireflies blinked on and off.
“Come dance with us!” the fairies cried.
She took a step forward, then saw the male fairy with the black, wavy hair coming straight toward her. He came quick and sure, alarming her and causing her to back away from him until she bumped into a tree. She pressed as far away from him as she could, but he moved right into her space and stood breathing down on her. He reached forward and grazed the back of his hand down the side of her breast. Her eyes flitted around. Thankfully, nobody seemed to be watching them. He pulled back from her but less than an inch.
“Do you know who I am?” He tilted his head, stared at her and she knew it wasn’t long before he would reach forward, bite her face, and eat her while she screamed. She blinked in staccato bursts and looked away.
He murmured, “Ah, you do know. You know something.” His voice was husky as if he was having her right then, in the middle of the party, up against the tree. He moaned, then spoke.
“I have known you as Rosemary and Iris. I have known you as Daisy and Lily, as Hyacinth and Violet. As Lotus. Sharon. Olive. I have known you as Suchamina and Locsunti - one an ancient flower and one an ancient spice - both long extinct. I have always known you.” He fisted some of her hair and pulled, slowly, until her head tilted completely to one side.
She started breathing hard, snorting air through her nostrils as if she were a foaling mare. She looked at the other fairies - they were oblivious. She looked at the surrounding trees - they ignored her. She looked to the sky but couldn’t see it beyond the black canopy of the trees. She wanted someone to help her, and at the same time, prayed no one was witness to her extreme humiliation.
He continued to stare down at her, to breathe on her. She thought about moving toward him. It seemed to be what he wanted. Panic bloomed and swelled her throat. She wanted to be away from him and quick, before he touched her again. She bit into her lip, her eyetooth almost slicing into her skin. She mustered every ounce of energy she could and took one step to the right. He didn’t reach out to stop her, so she took one more step muttering, “No, thank you,” as she stumbled away over the roots of the tree.
When she was five feet away, she stopped sidling and turned toward the fire. She saw something on the spit there. A small form, fat, with thick limbs and a big head. She looked away quickly, and back again. There was no spit. She hunched and clutched her arms over her breasts, her head feeling like a barely-tethered balloon.
Fairies grabbed at her hands, bringing her into their dance. She high-stepped and tripped and was totally unaware of herself. They laughed at her funny dance and tried to imitate her. Soon the whole crowd of them was high-stepping, bobbing and weaving to the music. She didn’t even realize it. Once, she dared to look back at the tree where he had pinned her. He was gone.
The dancers joined hands and ringed round and round the fire. Then without preamble, the ring broke. One fairy became the leader of a long dancing line filled with glowing and winged creatures, and one human with wild red hair. The leader took them around the trees, in and out of shadows, by the inferno and circled back. They held fast to Saffron’s hand, pulling her closer and closer to the fire as one by one they walked right through the flames. Saffron’s haze lifted when she finally realized that they meant for her to traipse through the flames as well. In seconds, she found herself before the fire as it spit and roared.
“No!” she screamed. The flute playing ceased, as did the gay chatting of the fairies. After two drawn-out seconds of silence, murmuring started among the fairies, then some giggling. The white fairy came forward, took Saffron out of the line, and spoke to her gently, flames reflected in the shiny, black pools of her eyes.
“The flames will not hurt you, Saffron. You can dance with the rest.”
Saffron pulled her chin into her chest. “No, thank you,” she mumbled.
The white fairy rubbed Saffron’s back, smiled as she looked down. “Saffron, I care for you deeply. I would never put you in the way of harm. I tell you; the flames will not hurt you. See here.”
Saffron looked down at her stomach and screamed. Again, every single fairy in the glade stopped to stare. What she saw was the wiggling fingers of the white fairy as they poked out from her midriff. “Wha…” Saffron couldn’t tear her eyes from the moving fingers.
The white fairy snapped her thumb and middle finger, then pulled her hand back. Saffron never felt a thing.
“You did not know I was going to do that. Therefore, you felt nothing.”
“Great,” Saffron muttered as she absently caressed her belly. “Great.”
“It is like this. Your physical body is not here with us. Your physical body is safe in bed. You are here only in spirit. However, the memory of your body is still very strong within you. If you fear pain, you will feel pain. You will only as long as you want to.”
“What do you mean, ‘want to,’ who ‘wants to’ feel pain?” Saffron sighed.
“Humans are defined by the pain they suffer,” the white fairy whispered, and then she reached for Saffron’s cheek and stroked it. “Do not fear the pain. Expect nothing, you will feel nothing.
Saffron blinked to clear her eyes. She murmured to the pine needles around her feet. “I think I understand. My uncle lost his leg, a long time ago, and sometimes he complains that he can still feel pain in his foot. ‘Phantom pain,’ he calls it. Is it the same for me?”
The white fairy inclined her head, “It could be. Yes, think of it that way.”
“Huh. But I don’t want to go through that fire.” Saffron took another step back.
“No, of course not, sweet lamb.”
Saffron smiled gratefully at the fairy and took her hand. They strode away from the flames.
“What’s your name?” Saffron smiled at the fairy, could feel the puppy love starting, like the time she was absolutely in love with her first grade teacher, Mrs. Mulberry. The perfect woman who encouraged her, brought in homemade cookies for the class on Fridays, and always gave Saffron the biggest hugs.
The fairy’s smile was brief. “I am Li.” She didn’t look at Saffron when she spoke but kept her eyes firmly on the path before her.
“You know what’s weird? I feel like I should’ve known that, like I should know you.” Saffron shook her head. “But I don’t.”
“And you were talking to my brother, Ny, over by the tree.”
Saffron felt heat sear the back of her neck, felt her nostrils flare. She kept her eyes on the ground and said nothing. Her brother? No, that wasn’t right either.
A large gong sounded and voices shouted, “Eat, eat! This human child cannot dance all night without a feast to fuel her!” There were hearty laughs and playful squeals. A banquet table appeared, covered by long swaths of silvery, billowing fabric. Two more tables followed and simple wooden benches. They accommodated everyone who swooped in, walked forward, and emerged from the trees. The tables set themselves with golden forks, spoons, and knives. Delicate plates clinked carefully into place. Great rustic vases filled with wild, dark roses, pine boughs, and twigs with red berries were placed every couple of feet across the tabletops.
Roasted turkeys appeared, brown and sizzling. Tender sides of beef and braised rabbits garnished with mint. Rosemary herbed potatoes and freshly baked bread followed brightly colored vegetables and fruit. The fairies were filling their plates, artfully too, arranging the brightness of the vegetables and the textures of the meats in beautiful display, but eating nothing. She noticed also that at any moment several fairies were missing from their places only to come back minutes later. Then another handful disappeared into the trees, like the kids who snuck away from class to smoke pot and slunk back in, quiet and glassy-eyed. Saffron frowned and looked down at her plate.
After the meal, some of the fairy girls gathered about Saffron, taking up lengths of her fiery hair, winding it and securing it with tiny, golden combs at the base of her neck. “Did you enjoy the food? The meat, was it cooked perfectly?”
“I couldn’t really taste it.” The fairy who questioned Saffron was freaking her out with her large, black pupils ringed in viscous gold. Before Saffron could say anything else….
“And, how was it on your tongue? Tell me how it felt - how all of it felt. Tell Li you want to come here in body.”
Saffron sucked in a breath and quickly turned away from the odd request and the girl with the gold eyes who’d made it.
A gilded mirror was brought so she could watch them work on her hair. After, they tore apart roses from the closest vase and fit the petals on Saffron’s scalp like a cap, her curled and pinned tresses flowing out behind. They kissed the top of her head and congratulated themselves on a job well done.
The gold-eyed girl moved close to Saffron’s ear. “I will have what you have.” Saffron frowned and shrunk away.
Li appeared behind Saffron, smiling wide. “Come with me.”
They walked away from the dancers over to a dark chestnut tree with great, low limbs. It was difficult for Saffron to hop on the limb, so Li took her in her arms, flew her up to the widest branch, and held on while Saffron adjusted her balance. Then Li sat beside Saffron and stroked her cheek.
“You can feel this, can you not?”
Saffron nodded.
“It is the memories within your soul. You want to feel my hand against your cheek.”
Saffron closed her eyes.
The white fairy continued to talk, hushed and sweet, in a foreign language whose sounds curled and rang. It was a language that sang like the wind in the treetops and was warm as the sun on a green spring afternoon. Saffron didn’t understand any of it but the tone soothed her.
“I like being here,” Saffron admitted. “But it’s totally weird too.”
The big, black pupils roped in purple settled on Saffron’s lips. The fairy frowned for a fleeting second. “That does not exist here, that idea - weird. It is a human concept, invented to shame others. Why do you feel this shame?”