The Disguise of a Human

Do what you must to survive. Ilana repeated her usual morning mantra in her head as she prepared for a trip to the market. Despite her attempts at optimism, however, she found herself frowning at the clay that had been moulded into the shape of fairy ears, curved to a point, elegant in their design, painted to the exact shade of Ilana’s skin, a warm brown, which had taken a significant amount of time for her mother to perfect. She reached to the shelf next to her which held the glue that she had bought from the market, the men had explained to her that they’d made it from the air bladders of fish, although Ilana didn’t like to think about that too much as she lathered it freely onto her ear. Once it was tacky to the touch, she held the thin clay against it, positioning it perfectly, securing the illusion, her tongue slightly poking out in concentration. Pulling a stray black curl from the glue before it dried, she repeated the process, sighing frustratedly as she attempted to create the perfect illusion.

Do what you must to survive. It is what her mother had repeated when she would create the façade for Ilana when was a young child, stroking a hand through her tight curls as the younger and more energetic Ilana fidgeted in her lap. 

“I don’t understand, mama. What’s wrong with my ears?” She had enquired once, as her mother prepared the new set of clay ears to last her the next few months until they too looked too worn to be real. Her mother reached out, a gentle touch caressing her curved ears, without the elegant point that the clay ones had. 

“Dearest Ilana, you must never show these ears to anyone, they are for you only to see. They don’t like those ears out there.” 

“Why? Why are my ears like this? Why don’t they like them?” She’d asked with childhood innocence, an untouched smile with no taint of any darkness. 

“You’re not like them, the fairies. You’re different,” her mother held a finger up to her lips, “but that’s our secret, my love. They cannot know.” Ilana had nodded, mirroring her mother’s finger on her lips before skipping off to sit in front of the fire. 

That innocence was short lived, however, as at the age of twelve, Ilana watched as a boy was dragged brutally from his home, half dressed, screaming. She heard that screaming for years after. Human. The whispers said. How did he live for so long? How didn’t they find him sooner? The fairies around Ilana jeered, heckled the young man for his ears, his lack of the gold at the tips of his fingers to signify his magic, kicked him as he was dragged. Although Ilana didn’t want to, every bone in her body screaming at her to go home, she followed the boy to where they were taking him. They dragged him along the stone path and tied his hands behind him on a wooden stake, as he kicked and yelled to no avail. One of the fairies lit a fire on the wood beneath him, the stench of smoke giving Ilana a headache as she watched him burn, finally understanding what her mother had been saying all of those years. His screams pierced her ears, into her very soul. That could be her. She could be consumed by those flames, heckled and jeered at with fairies cheering in glee as her body was ripped apart by the blazes. 

When she’d returned home, she’d stared at herself in the mirror for hours, tears trickling down her cheeks, when she brushed them away with her fingers, the gold stain transferred onto her face, a reminder of her false identity, that she was on her own.

“Ilana!” the shout broke her out of her thought process, and she jolted, her first thought always being that maybe someone’s here for her. She quickly dipped her glue covered fingertips in the gold dust in case there was someone there and hurried downstairs. Her mother was in front of the fire, humming to herself as she sewed together a dress that she had torn last week,

“I have a request for your trip to the market, my love,” her mother’s dark brown eyes flicked up at her for only a moment before she went back to her task, “I’m hoping to make fish stew later, would you go and get some fish from the docks?” Ilana nodded, smiling brightly as she watched her mother lean forward and reignite the fire as it dwindled. Her fingertips glowed as she did so which always enchanted Ilana, but only when her mother did it, when the glow of her fingertips would create what looked like stardust on her cheeks and everything that she touched with her magic would be manipulated perfectly, as her mother wished. Ilana wished she was like that, like the others, it felt as though she was watching from the outside and through a tiny window, with only small glimpses of the true intricacies of magic that she would never be able to achieve due to whatever had happened to her as she grew in her mother’s womb. 

Ilana waved a goodbye to her mother, not knowing it would be the last one. 

Do what you must to survive. Ilana held the parasol her mother had made above her head, there were clouds out today, and she didn’t want to risk a downpour today or last night's rain drops rolling off of the saturated thatched roofs of the cottages dissolving the glue when she had only just left the house. The gentle breeze from the ocean tousled her curls as Ilana headed to the docks, smiling a hello at the baker, with his burly figure but gentle personality, the fortune teller, who had once told Ilana that water was her worst enemy, though she knew that already, and the art supplier who sold her the gold dust she put on the ends of her fingertips. Ilana thought he would catch her a few times, asking her what her need was for the high volume of gold dust she bought, to which she’d replied that she’s making a series of portraits of fairies in the village, using the gold dust in order to represent their overflowing magic that they hold. He’d liked the idea, saying that he used to model when he went to college, a hint, most definitely. Little did he know, there was nothing for him to truly model for. 

The fishermen at the docks welcomed her with wide smiles, the youngest, lanky one, hauling over a pot of the glue which Ilana waved off,

“Oh, no thank you, I’m here for fish today. Whatever you’ve got, even if it’s just scraps at this time of day.” She could taste the salt on her lips from the sea, the tide was high today, close to the top of the dock and Ilana noted that the wood was wet so she mustn’t slip. While she was considering that, however, she didn’t notice the children that had come down the dock chasing each other,

“Daddy, daddy! Tell her to stop chasing me!” In their child-like chaos, one of them ran directly into the side of Ilana’s legs. For a fairy, this would not have been a problem, they were strong, unlike humans and would have laughed at the children, probably chasing them around further. Ilana, however, was petite, small, relatively weak. 

So she fell. 

The sharp cold of the water didn’t cross her mind as she tried to grasp onto her ears, swim to somewhere that she could run home with no one noticing her. She pushed herself further down into the water, not wanting to resurface any sooner than she had to. Ilana’s eyes stung as she tried to open them to search for an escape, any escape, but as she watched the gold dust rise to the surface of the salt water in front of her, catching glimpses of the gold that was caught in her hair from her useless attempts at holding her ears down, she knew she had to surrender. There was no escape, and any attempt would be futile, a pure waste of time. She knew the men at the dock well, they would crowd around her, offer her herbal tea and something to eat, apologising profusely before they let her leave. She had to give in. 

And so, Ilana pushed herself above the surface, spluttering out salt water as she climbed the wooden ladder onto the dock, gold stains being left behind by her fingers. The men watched her in horror as the gold streaks across her face and the ear half hanging off of her own one caught their attention. An outsider. A human. 

Do what you must to survive.

“I’m sorry mother.” She whispered as rough hands dragged Ilana away.