Glimmer of Moonlight

I thought it was…

Amusing.

Cute, in a way.

She stood with her shoulders back, braced for anything. Ready to get hit with rejection, to get hit by a gust of wind, to get hit with a tree that I conjured from the ground.

In that moment, she was ready for anything.

Except:

Acceptance.

“For now,” I say, leaning over my boulder, elbow resting against the rock as my palm props up my face. “You may be my apprentice.”

And so it began.

Our spiraling stars.

Sputtering, glowing.

Burning out.

Giving all that it can give.

Giving all that I can give. An exhale in the dark. A whisper that tapers into echoes. A single word given.

And it’s all that I am.

…

What a glorious night.

Cold Comes the Lie

It was a leaf.

One singular leaf.

And it fell.

Speaking only in a whisper as it went. Its last cry carried on the wind that took it from its place, its home. It was just the one leaf, falling through the breeze. Calling to me, warning me, as it did.

He is not the same.

That’s what the leaf said.

He is not who you think him to be. 

Was the echo the wind gave. Words that spoke of fall, of seasons changing. Words that carried truth to them. A resounding, hollow ring.

I will tell you something that few know:

A forest on the verge of death can only speak truth. It has been that way since always. Since forever. An ancient law, as old and bright as the sun. Which is how I knew:

He was not who I thought he was.

Beware the Trees

There are rules to dark forests.

Rule number one: never take directions from an owl. Trust me, just… don’t.

Rule number two: never stoop to pick up anything shiny. If it’s not a trap, then the shiny thing is almost certainly cursed. Either way, it doesn’t end well for you.

And, rule number three:

Never turn your back to a dead tree.

Beneath the Snow

The thing I liked about snow was:

It was tricky.

Very, very tricky.

It cascades over the landscapes. Washes it to look clean. Gives it a sparkling, new feeling those first few days that it sits. For as long as it remains untainted by dirt, it looks pure. White.

Like the world has been given a fresh start.

But…

If you step in the snow, you find that that’s not true.

It’s not true at all.

Sleeping Wishes

It wasn’t easy to get here.

The path is narrow, full of holes. Every step was marred—echoed, really—by the steps of the jungle beasts. By the creatures of this magical forest. I could hear their cries at night, and feel their eyes watching in the day. At some point, the trees gave up on me, gave in. Began reaching for me, choking up on the path ahead. Trying to prevent me from going forward.

Yes, it wasn’t easy getting here.

Not in the slightest.

But.

When the sleeper wakes…

It will be worth it.

Won’t it?

Hopeful Lights

I was not interested in the humans at first. Not at all.

Thousands of years—or, perhaps, it was the blink of an eye, I can’t be sure—passed before I finally found out why my kind were so enamored by them. Why they found them amusing. Entertaining. Why they risked their lives, and our secrets, in order to interact with them.

After a good long while, I figured it out.

Such small, delicate creatures. So powerless. And yet:

So hopeful.

The beauty of humanity was locked into that fact. Showcased in their faces as the sky lit with stars in the chasm of the night. How enamored they were with the world. How wondrous they found life, even in the darkest of nights.

Such helpless creatures. Unable to grasp their circumstances, unable to withhold the hand of death, and yet:

Still hopeful.

Always hopeful.

At least:

The strong ones were, anyway.

Wishing Well

I watched him.

For years, I watched him.

Wandering into the forest, the boy with rags. Holes in his soles. He’d wander in, following the old rocks. Leap the fallen logs. Meander through the fallen leaves until, at last, he’d find it.

The well.

And, that poor boy—do you know what he’d do?

Toss a copper.

Make a wish.

Throw offerings into the well.

Hope that his prayers said before the stones were heard. That his wish would rise off the water, echo into the heavens.

Tossing his living into the well.

Lost, But Not Found

“Did you see it?! Did you see?!”

“Yeah—”

“I knew it! I was right, wasn’t I? It’s a ghost, right? Right?”

Looking back at the house—the empty mansion that sat in between the clearing and the woods—I saw the eyes again. In the upper floor’s window, I saw the yellow eyes. The lingering feeling of something lost. Of something in need of being found.

I could not say what it was.

However:

“I don’t think it’s a ghost,” I said, crushing my friend’s hopes and dreams, quite coincidentally, really. “It doesn’t feel like a ghost.”

Ghosts don’t have that feeling of needing to be found, do they? When a ghost lingers, they linger for a reason. They aren’t lost, they don’t need to be found. They simply wish to be left to their own purposes. Left to fulfill their perceived duty.

They don’t look lost.

They don’t need to be found.

And they don’t look scared out of their whits.

Do they?

Kindly Magic: Part II

Magic is, inherently, selfish.

Taking the world and twisting it to make something of your own—twisting reality to make a thing you find more appealing—that is the nature of magic. The nature of fiends.

The nature of faeries.

Selfish.

And what an overwhelming, overpowering, magic it is.

That was what he’d told me. How he’d explained himself. And I told him something else. Something different.

Faeries are not the only ones with magic.

Kindly Magic

The first night I saw him, I thought he was a possum, staring through my window. With his shiny eyes, and his malicious grin, I thought he was a possum under the porch. Staring through my basement window because he was curious.

I was not entirely wrong.

He was no possum. On that account, I was definitely wrong.

But.

He is infinitely curious.