Answering the Call

Answering the Call

“Nope!”

Samuel slammed the door shut and narrowed his eyes at it. It had only been open for seconds, yet a dusting of snow glistened on the stone floor of the small entryway. He turned toward the fire, blazing in the hearth, as the flakes morphed into small puddles. Samuel considered the overstuffed chair before the fireplace. He could curl up with his book. The fairies would be there after the storm. There was no need to rush.

               It only took one step toward the little sitting area for the call to come again. A pain lanced behind Samuel’s eyes, causing him to close them. This was followed by the same vision of an arrow appearing from over his shoulder and lodging itself into a tree; the white fletching holding his attention. A feeling dread crept over Samuel’s skin and caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end.

               Samuel squeezed his eyes tighter. This time, it wasn’t pain that caused the reaction. Both the discomfort and the vision were gone. It was frustration causing Samuel to shut his eyes against reality. Having fairy friends was exasperating. They always call at the most inopportune times and it seems as if the situation is always dire. It would be nice, just once, to get a pleasant invitation for tea or coffee.

               Turning back to the door, Samuel pulled off his gloves so he could fasten the topmost button of his wool coat and then shoved his hands back into the gloves. With a final glance back at the crackling fire, Samuel swung the door on its hinges and stepped out into the storm. He sunk into the drift just outside the doorway and pushed the door closed behind him. Walking took effort. The snow covered his knees and the temperature was conspiring with the moisture to create perspiration that felt more like sand on the exposed skin of his cheeks than gentle flakes.

               He was barely twenty feet from his cabin and already contemplating returning to its warmth. His boots did well to keep his feet dry, but his pants were already beginning to feel cold and damp.

               “That winged princess better know I must really like her if I’m leaving home in weather like this,” Samuel grumbled under his breath. “She had better be pinned to that vision tree by that arrow to be calling on me right now.”

               This was the problem with fairy godmothers. They have a multitude of godchildren, as well as their own children and grandchildren. It is impossible for one of those godchildren to avoid meeting other young people under the fairy godmother’s care. Those children then become friendly, and inevitably, they make oaths to always be there for each other. Now that Samuel was old enough to understand the fairy godmother farce, he felt a little cheated. He had expected that one winged old woman would be his eternal protector. He had been blind to the obvious. Samuel’s fairy godmother existed only to create a web of close friends that would perform the job of the fabled fairy godmother throughout one’s life.

               Some might say there was no such thing as a fairy godmother, but they would not be entirely correct. The woman existed. She was there at the beginning of everyone’s life, pushing and prodding fate to create a support system for each newly born child, weaving a web of friends from among her charges, until the system stood on its own and she could fade off into the background. By chance, or by design, Samuel’s support system had been constructed, almost exclusively, from actual fairies. Most human children had the support of a score of other humans, but not Samuel. With no father to speak of, and a sickly mother, it was as if Samuel’s fairy godmother had opted for the strongest support network possible when creating Samuel’s plan for surviving life.

He was not wholly ungrateful for that decision. There had been a few times in Samuel’s life where he knew he would not have come through on this side of Valhalla if his network had not included so many fairies. The issue with the fairy-friend network in Samuel’s life was the reciprocation clause. Just as his fairy friends were capable of handling disasters of monumental size in Samuel’s life, the fairies were more prone than humans to be involved in their own troubles of magnitude. Other humans might find themselves lending a friend in their support network a few dollars for rent or helping them move from one apartment to another, but Samuel had never had those kinds of calls from his support network. Samuel’s network members found themselves in the kind of trouble that required two pairs of socks, waterproof boots, thick gloves and trudging through a foot of snow on a blustery night. Even more importantly, returning favors to Samuel’s network members usually required the bow and quiver slung over his shoulder and a trip through the Mirror.

This deep into Bøkeskogen, there were few humans. Most only came to see the Iron Age burial grounds, or to enjoy the view Farris Lake in the west. Samuel’s cabin was in the forest because of its proximity to the Mirror, the place where the realms blurred. If you are unaware of the mirror’s presence, you will pass through it with no change to your surroundings. If, like Samuel, you have been shown the Mirror, you will pass through it into a realm of magic and beauty, unparalleled in our human realm. Of course, as in all realms, there must be balance. All that beauty is often overshadowed by great danger.

               Samuel saw the shimmer of the Mirror as the icy flakes fell through its surface. He stopped before it and unslung his bow from his back. Samuel mournfully stuffed his warm gloves into his pack and pulled out a pair of thin, leather gloves that allowed him to feel his fingers as he strung his bow. He managed to complete the task and pull an arrow from his quiver before losing the gained dexterity to the numbness of his cold fingers. Samuel stepped through the Mirror into carnage.

               He ducked a lunge from a hairy creature that resembled a wolf but commanded the bulk and size of a lion. The creature hit the ground behind Samuel and lithely turned for a second attack. The weariness Samuel had experienced from his trek through the snow was quickly replaced by the adrenaline surging through him and he rewarded the hunderspor with an arrow between its eyes. The creature fell to the ground and the snow was sprinkled with crimson. The white feathers of the arrow were all that protruded from the front of the hundespor’s head.

               Samuel scanned the mêlée for Blythe. The pull of her call had not ceased during his march to get here so Samuel knew she was still alive. He saw her on the opposite side of the field ferociously fending off one of the wolf-like beasts with her longsword. Behind Blythe, a small figure watched from behind the trunk of a large birch tree. Samuel’s long strides ate up the distance between him and Blythe. She had not been wrong to call for him. She was slow when sweeping her sword. Her strikes were not inflicting the damage they should.

               Slowing his approach, Samuel pulled an arrow from over his shoulder and nocked it loosely.  The angle of his approach eliminated the chance of a clear shot without risk of hitting Blythe. With barely twenty paces between Blythe and himself, Samuel saw blood sluicing from a gash in Blythe’s shoulder. She was nearer to defeat than he had realized. Samuel allowed his bow to drop to the ground and he drew the sword from the scabbard at his waist. He continued the motion, swinging the sword high into the air, and brought its blade down between the shoulders of the hundespor.

               The creatures front legs failed to fully support the bulk of the animal for a moment, but it recovered quickly and spun to face the new threat. Samuel was waiting. He thrust the sword deep into the hundespor’s chest before the monster leaped at him. There was a faint wine from the creature’s throat, and then it fell to the ground.

               Blythe sagged in relief and exhaustion. She let her sword arm fall to her side. The tip of the blade stuck into the snow and Blythe used the weapon to support her weight. She rested for a minute before drawing a deep breath and lifting her eyes to meet Samuel’s gaze. There was fire there.

               “It took you long enough to get here!” Blythe said breathlessly. “What could have been more important than answering my call?”

               Samuel watched the light flakes of snow fall onto the bridge of Blythe’s nose and immediately begin to melt. There was no raging storm here, just a peaceful winter snowfall. No amount of explaining in the realms would help Blythe understand how difficult it had been for Samuel to pull himself from the warmth of his cabin to come out to help her. That was how a support network worked, though. You called when you were in need and your friends respond. The good friends don’t offer excuses, even if there are many.

               “I’m sorry,” Samuel said. “I came as soon as I could. It looks as if I was just in time.” He gestured to the blood, now coming at a trickle from Blythe’s shoulder.

               “Don’t worry about that,” Blythe said. “I’ll head back home and patch myself up.”

               “I could come with you,” Samuel said hopefully. “Maybe we could grab a cup of coffee?”

               “Don’t be silly. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

               Samuel was considering answering to the contrary when a small figure stepped into view from behind a tree. She was elven and looked to be about fourteen. Samuel did not know many elves, but he was aware that this girl was likely older than him, despite appearances.

               “So, are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

               Blythe sighed. “Right. Meet the newest member of our support system. This is Riva. Based on her propensity for seeking out trouble, we’ll be seeing a lot of her. I just hope she remembers to return the favors.”

               Blythe turned and walked away, offering a simple wave over her shoulder as she went. Riva smiled sheepishly at Samuel, then ducked her head and headed off in the other direction. It was Samuel’s turn to sigh. He was happy to have been of help to his friend, but felt empty inside.

               Stepping through the Mirror and back into his own realm, Samuel was blasted by wind and ice. He trudged through the snow feeling defeated. Maybe next time. One day, one of these calls would come as a friendly gesture instead of from need. There might still come a time where one of his web friends called him out of a desire for simple companionship. Until then, he would hole up in his cabin and keep the storm at bay.