Deepest Desires

The faerie appeared at my kitchen table one bright summer morning.

I barely looked up from my bowl of cereal. Not because I expected a faerie to appear, nor because I really believed faerie existed, but because it had never served me to get worked up about the unexpected. And besides, there were worse creatures to appear at your table than a faerie.

The fairy cocked one perfectly shaped eyebrow and shook his huge wings, painting glitter or other nonsense from the floor to the ceiling. I hoped that would come out, or I wouldn’t get my security deposit back.

I reached for my mug and took a slow sip of coffee, studying the creature before me. I may not have believed in faerie, but the tales couldn’t all be wrong, and I refused to be the first to speak.

The fairy smiled, showing sharply pointed teeth. “Are you not frightened, mortal?”

I shrugged.

The fairy nodded to himself. “At least my observations were not wrong.”

I took another spoonful of cereal. The faerie had been watching me? No one had ever noticed me. And I was much too old. Didn’t faeries usually go for the young and beautiful?

“What if I could grant you your deepest desire?”

I couldn’t help but snort. “Isn’t that more the realm of genies?”

His laugh was the tinkling of small bells. “I did not say wish, your deepest desire. There is a difference.”

“And what if I don’t know ‘my deepest desire?’”

“That is why I came to you.”

I rolled my eyes. It was much too early for riddles. “Nothing is free. What do you want, faerie?”

His lips curled up, revealing too many teeth. “One without fear, or excitement, is a rare find. What if I simply wish to spend time with you?”

I got up and put my dirty bowl in the sink. “You don’t want to spend time with me.”

The faerie wore a deep frown when I turned back to him.

I threw up my hands. “I don’t have opinions, or interests, or anything. Unless you have something you want to do, spending time with me will be boring.” I shook my head. “I spent half the day yesterday staring into the distance.”

The fairy stood, knocking over the chair with a loud bang.

I sighed. The neighbors would love that this early in the morning.

“Is that your desire? To be interesting?” The faerie righted the chair and swiped the glitter from the table onto the floor.

I shook my head. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

His eyebrows rose to nearly touch his perfect mop of dark hair. “I cannot put words—”

I waved him off. “You can’t just make people interesting. It doesn’t work that way. And besides, what does interesting even mean? Interesting to who? Me? You? Hollywood?”

He hummed. “All true. Interesting is not specific enough.”

I emptied the coffee grounds from the filter. “Maybe you should go find someone who knows their deepest desire. Something easy, like having a baby or getting a job.”

The faerie’s wings fluttered. “Those are wishes.”

I snorted again. “Then explain the difference.”

“Wishes are temporary things. Once you have one, you hunger for the next. Babies grow, material comforts come and go.”

“Capitalism,” I muttered under my breath.

“It is true.” He nodded. “The current age has a strange focus on the immediate and temporary.”

“So, what are desires, then?”

“The parts that are missing from your being,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Being? Like my soul?”

He nodded. “If that is what you would prefer to call it.”

I shook my head and opened the refrigerator, fishing out the water pitcher. “But how can I know what my soul is missing?”

He stepped closer, his wings nearly brushing my shoulder, but I refused to be intimidated by him and didn’t move. “What do you dream of at night?”

A startled giggle escaped my throat. “Dream of? My dreams are super weird. Last night I dreamed I was giving a lecture in my underwear. The night before I dreamed there was a giant whale in my bathtub.”

He made a noise like two branches rubbing together and fluttered his wings. “No. What is the thing you ask for when your being, your soul, is laid bare, when there seems to be no hope?”

I closed my eyes and willed the sudden tears away. “I want to be normal.”

Fingers dug into my shoulder with more strength than I expected from an ethereal creature.

“No,” he cried. “That is too vague.”

I pulled myself free. “What do you want me to say? That I desire to be straight, to want to have sex and babies, and to have a relationship?”

He crossed his arms. “That is not your deepest desire.”

“So, you know what my desire is?” I scoffed.

“You don’t want to be this ‘normal.’ You want something deeper than that.”

I brushed past him and returned to the table. I opened the pill bottle and shook one out into my hand. “You know, this is a really messed up situation. I’m going to take my medicine and then you’re going to disappear.”

His hand landed on my wrist. “I am here. The medicine will do nothing for you.”

“That’s exactly what a hallucination would say.” I swallowed the pill and half the glass of water.

The faerie was still standing in my kitchen.

“It probably just takes a while to work.” I flopped into the chair and pulled my knees up under my chin.

The faerie walked around the table to fill my view. “What did you want the most as a child?”

I tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling. My voice dropped to a whisper. “I didn't want to be a burden. I wanted to be recognized and praised and noticed. I didn't want to have to think about what everyone else said I should be or do or want. I didn't want to be traumatized for having my own opinions.”

The faerie smiled. “No. What did you want?”

“Not to be here anymore.” But whatever ‘here’ meant, I had no idea. It was always a vague thing, just not where I was, suffering the way I was.

The faerie held out a hand. “Would you like to leave here?”

“What? I can’t leave. I have a job, and rent to pay, and …”

His hand never wavered. “Will you miss any of that?”

I shrank back. “But I need those. I happen to like eating and sleeping somewhere safe.”

“Will you miss any of that?” he repeated.

“What else is there?”

He came closer. “What if I could take you where you are accepted, where you are noticed, where no one tried to hurt you?”

“I’d still be me. I’d still have a hard time trusting people, even talking to people, or sharing things about myself.” I shook my head. Was I actually considering his offer? “Just because you want to take me somewhere else doesn’t mean it’s going to be any different from what I have now.”

The fairy frowned and looked around my small apartment.

“It’s not much, but at least it’s mine,” I muttered.

“What if I promised it would be different? That you could have all of those things, and I could take away the parts stopping you from believing that?”

“The pills aren’t doing that. I’m supposed to believe some faerie can—” I bit my tongue. Of course, if faeries existed, and one stood in my kitchen, then maybe they can … or maybe this was me finally cracking.

“Feel it for yourself.” He held out his hand again.

“Why should I trust you? Won’t you just whisk me away and—”

He wiggled his fingers. “Nothing in the faerie realm is done without consent.”

I blinked. The myths might be wrong, or maybe the stories were just about bad faeries.

“You were not frightened of me before. Do not be frightened of this.”

This was all probably just a hallucination or a side effect of the pills, anyway. I reached out and put my hand in his.

At first, I only noticed the warmth of his hand. I didn’t think I had ever held anyone’s hand as an adult. It was kind of nice.

Then, the warmth spread up my arm, into my shoulder, and settled into my chest. I felt strange, almost a lightness, and that voice, the one always in the back of my head telling me how silly and dumb I was, seemed to disappear. In its place was not silence, but a glow that said, ‘You are worthy of sharing. You are interesting. You deserve care.’

I wrenched my hand free and almost cried. The voice was immediately back. ‘Stupid girl, do you really think the faerie can make everything go away?’ 

The faerie shook his head. “Which one will you listen to?”

I curled my hands into fists, looking around at all I might leave behind. “What happens if I go with you?”

“What would you like to happen?”

My gaze darted around the apartment. Who would even notice if I went missing? If I was murdered? My co-workers, but they probably wouldn’t get worried for at least a week. My family would take months before they even tried to contact me. “If I go, would I be able to come back?”

The faerie shrugged. “All things are possible, but why would you want to come back?”

“I won’t end up eating dirt or selling my body or being an experiment, am I?”

His face blanched. “You mortals do such horrible things to each other.”

“What would it be like if I were to go with you?”

He held out his hand. “Only way to know is to come with me.”

I looked around again. What did I have to look forward to here? But if I didn’t go, would I lose my only chance at happiness?

The faerie raised an eyebrow.

My heart beat against my ribs.

I put my hand in his.