The Faire Folk of the Forest

Outlandish music and mystical lights filled the glade. Wagner shook his head and rubbed his eyes, attempting to make sense of the scene unfolding before him. From his hiding spot in the bushes, Wagner saw a group of short beings dancing around what he assumed at first was a campfire but upon closer inspection turned out to be inexplicable floating swirling lights, glowing with alternating pastel hues. Some of the beings in the small clearing in the forest were quite humanoid and could have been mistaken for children upon first glance, though most had some strange quirk that made them impossibly ‘other.’ Some of them were not human-like in the least, with varying numbers of appendages, antennae, wings, and various incredible skin tones.

One of the beings stood out to Wagner, one that could have been a young blond human boy, playing dress up as a king. He wore a long, velvety red robe and wore a crown, but even from this distance Wagner could see that the boy’s eyes shone green, all iris except for the long vertical black slits in the middle. The boy spoke a language Wagner couldn’t recognize in the slightest, but Wagner understood his meaning quite clearly. The strange boy-king spoke to rally the others into a frenzy. He shouted a few words or phrases, gestured with a fist, or a tap on his chest, and the others cheered. Then, the boy-king said a few more alien words and his subjects responded to him with raucous applause.

This continued for a few more rounds, and then the invisible orchestra got louder and played a song with a breakneck beat and all the strange beings in the forest danced again, in a fever pitch around the strange swirling lights.

When Wagner’s grandmother told him of the Faire Folk of the Forest, he assumed it was a fairy tale, and nothing more. He came for the forest’s peace – quiet, cool, and still. He also wanted to placate his grandmother’s desire to leave gifts for the Faire Folk. Wagner saw no harm in appeasing the old woman’s wishes, though he thought them born more of superstition and tradition than objective reality. He now stood crouched down in the bushes between the cedar trees and watched an impossible scenario with shock in his mind and awe in his heart.

His awe quickly gave way to a new emotion, fear. He didn’t know what these strange beings were capable of, and he grew up near this small forest believing that the most dangerous thing in it was the occasional chainsaw, since there were no known predators in this area. What if these beings could hurt him? What if they wanted to take him? Suddenly, deciding to leave the Faire Folk to their dancing, Wagner slunk back deeper into the bushes when – CRACK!

When the stick snapped, he scrunched his eyes closed, hoping the beings hadn’t heard it above their music and chanting. Silence. Wagner opened his eyes. They all stared at him. All was still for a moment, then the boy dressed as a king screeched something and the other beings in unison leapt, slumped, and bolted at Wagner. He fled. Branches tore at his arms. The forest floor blurred beneath his feet.

Wagner purposely ran roughly in the direction of his grandmother’s house, but he could register no more complex thought than that due to the panic that overtook his brain. Wagner could only run, could only think, “Run!” He didn’t feel the need to breathe, nor the lactic acid pain in his legs. He only felt the fear, washing from his brain through his body. Fear. Deeper than thought, Wagner realized these Faire Folk meant danger.

After what felt like miles of running, Wagner’s chest burned with the pain of the night air and his legs burned with the pain of exhaustion. He slowed, seeking familiar landmarks (he saw none) and stopped, standing hunched over and panting.

He listened, but heard no sounds of pursuit, no screeches or snarls, nothing but the slight breeze dashing through the tree trunks. His fear began to subside. That is, until he straightened his back and stared straight into the strange green cat eyes of the boy king. The boy with the strange eyes stood in front of him and said, “Please, don’t run.” The boy’s voice was calm—but not quite kind.

Wagner fell hard, heart pounding. He scooted across the ground. The boy raised his hand. A soft blue light glowed from his palm, and Wagner’s panic drained like water down a drain. Warmth settled in his chest.

“There we go,” the boy said gently, but his slitted eyes didn’t smile. “We felt startled by your presence in the glade, I’m sorry we frightened you.”

“Yes,” Wagner mumbled. “Startled… sorry….” Wagner’s voice came out with heavy breath and a sleepy, silly quality to the tone.

“Wagner,” the boy said. Wagner didn’t care how he knew his name. “Your grandmother is a dear friend of mine.”

“Yes… dear friend….” Wagner muttered.

“I should very much like to see her again, Wagner. Do you think she would come to the forest to find you, if you stayed here with me for a while?”

Wagner didn’t think his grandmother would be able to navigate the forest very well, she was frail and rarely went any further from her cottage than her small garden. “Mmmm… not shurr…” was what he told the boy, still calm and sort of sleepy now.

“I bet she would, if I sent someone to guide her. I bet she would miss her little Wagner Muffin,” the boy said. The tone was almost sharp enough to be a joke.

“Mmm, guide… yes…. Hmm heh… Wagner Muffin…. Me…”

“Yes, she could come stay with me, in my Side of the forest, and you can be my guest at least until she arrives. You would like that, Wagner, right?” The boy asked, trying to make his feline eyes look more like a puppy’s pleading ones. He just seemed silly to Wagner, who laughed, sighed, and nodded.

Wagner exhaled a soft, dreamy laugh. “Wagner Muffin,” he murmured. The forest leaned in. The boy-king whispered something no human ears could hold. As the lights danced above them once more, Wagner let an army of tiny hands lift him into the trees.