“Shilien.”
I honestly doubted my senses didn’t trick me, that night. When the wolves passed me by, I felt like I would both fall after them, joining them and exposing myself to their fangs… and run until the town disappeared after me, run until my feet bleed.
I was a headstrong, resolute woman, with a mind unpoisoned by dreams. My world was simple, steady and safe, with my baked goods, with those who liked to call me a friend (and who I liked to call as such too). My world was set in stone, that’s why I never – not really – dreamed of enchantments and faked glamour.
This was a fairy touch and I didn’t know if to see it as a blessing or a vicious curse.
“Shili.”
If my father knew, he would definitely not allow me to meet the fair folk prince this season… or whatever season he chooses to arrive. He would even shackle me in chains in the stables, if that was to keep me safe. But I was aware that he was right. The summer prince may not care about me, not in a way all maidens in the town would dream of. But the same girls, with the help of their brothers and friends, would make me an ungrateful wench, someone who doesn’t want to fit. Someone who possibly walks hand in hand with the winter court even if the tongues get loosened too much. Gossip to gossip, I would become a pariah, and my father with me.
This would be terrible, I knew it. So I decided to stay silent and act like nothing happened.
I took the birch twig from the kitchen table. I brought this one with me that evening, supple and lean. The silvery, a little shining bark looked enchanted in the sunlit room.
“Where are you from?” I whispered, touching the coarse texture. Perhaps it could be a dream. The fairy dream, something not many people experienced. But that always ended badly for the chosen ones.
Twenty years ago, a fairy dream-touched woman swore that a moon leaned to her and took the shape of a handsome man, who took her into the moon kingdom. She longed for another meeting, so much that she lost her mind. Searching for the moon, she drowned in the lake nearby, at night. The moon of course didn’t descend to help her.
But that kind of dream usually affected people who used magic of the fair folk. She never even wanted to be offered a glimpse of magic. Sometimes, yes, a tiny fantasy, but nothing serious, which could lead to such disaster.
“Shilien!”
This time I heard it. My best friend, Arula, was sitting near me, by the same table and looking at me with certain amusement in her gaze. Obviously, she was sure that I already planned my time spent with the summer prince… or mentally noted a new recipe for peach buns. Either that or another.
“Your gaze was so absent, that I thought you petrified” Arula patted my hand with fake but absolutely disarming affection. Her long, blonde hair was falling in cascades, reaching far above her hips. She was known from the, like I was known from my baking skills. The hair of a sorceress, a magical waterfall.
“If only that” I sighed, putting the twig back on the table. Sometimes I wonder if I don’t search for troubles, not purposefully, but unconsciously. Fair folk curse or dream, it all would end the same way – my demise.
Or worse.
“You never beam with joy, but it has been a long time since I saw you so lost” joking aside, Arula easily could see past anything, especially, if someone was not putting on any masks, like me.
“I am worried, Ara” I decided to tell her the truth. Not about wolves, goddess forbids. But about everything that ate my entrails in the last few weeks. “I don’t want to look like an ungrateful old lady…”
Arula shook her head, but before she could protest, I continued.
“… but I am not feeling well near fair folk. I know the whole town loves them. They give us relief from the mundane. But I feel that they want something and I don’t really want to give that to them, whatever it is.”
She looked into my eyes, deep, like she wanted to capture any worry, or lie in them, Of course, worries I had dozens, lies even more.
“No, Shili. I thought about it too.”
“Ah yes?”
“They never ask for anything aside from hospitality. But someone who possesses such powers, who can change us into magical creatures and take only good food and enjoyment from it, must be either immensely selfless… or plans something.”
I huffed with a strange relief. What have I thought!
“Some say that they search for an army against the winter lord,” added Arula.
“Enchanted army of humans against cold-hearted beasts who can freeze us with mere sight? Good one, Ara.”
“We don’t know anything about the winter court” continued Arula. “What if they want to sell us to them, to seal a pact of sorts?”
“Yes” I suddenly reminded myself of the distorted images of summer, spring and autumn court members, when they thought their glamour keeps them safe before our eyes. Beast indeed. Creatures of old, clad in gauze and leaves… how many horrors the winter court held, if they were possibly much more dangerous that other fae? “I assume first they would want us for themselves.”
“Shili” Arula shook her head with a feigned concern. “You even imagine a summer prince wanting to pact with the winter lord? Yes, you are right, he would first steal us for himself. So we could admire him in awe.”
“My father says he is useless layabout” I agreed with a light smile.
“But a talented one, handsome one. We all should fall on our faces and worship.”
I couldn’t not surrender to her light sense of humor. We talked more, reassuring each other, making darkness beam with light.
The birch twig still reminded me of last night and the wolves and their dangerous beauty.
Was I enchanted already?
And if yes… by whom?