The Fairy Thief

I opened my eyes to my shrouded ceiling. Closing them briefly, I sucked a few deep breaths into my aching chest and silenced their harsh sounds to listen for what had awoken me. A chill seeped under my blanket at my feet and snaked up my legs until it suffused my body. I shivered and sat up, scanning the darkness.

“Betrayer!”

Bell!

I’d heard him before, nights upon nights of nightmares which usually faded once I blinked the dregs of sleep away. I searched my room, scanning the darkest corners like I usually did. In an hour, I’d be able to return to sleep. The last corner didn’t fade. The darkness there hung thick and huge. I saw an outline, a hulking figure lurking in the dark recesses of that corner. Shards glittered on the floor around large blocky feet. He took a single step towards me, pale light from the gaping window dispelling the inky darkness that he’d been clothed in.

“How - how did you f-find me?” I asked as I shrank away from him.

His normally verdant skin was an inky black. His luminescent emerald eyes were instead hard and muted. His mouth, usually curved in a smile, was turned down and hid his large white teeth. He took another step forward - his gait more laboured than I remembered. His head almost brushed my ceiling. My stomach sank as more light skimmed across his murky skin. I would receive no mercy if I didn’t escape.

“Give me back my ring, thief.” He ground out. His words were slow, like each word took effort to pronounce.

Creeping vines spread out from where he stood. They sprang from his feet, steadily climbing along the walls and floor. I watched as they crawled along the ground towards my sky blue carpet. They crept up the legs of my desk and chair and crawled over my laptop. They knocked picture frames off the walls, and displaced perfume bottles and make-up cases littered on my desk and dresser.

I scanned his large floppy ears, but I couldn’t see any emblems that would allow him to move between the planes.

“How are you doing this? How are you here?” I asked, not able to mask the shaking in my voice. I snuck a hand behind me, under my pillow, reaching for the bracelet.

“Ever curious, Gail.” His gaze softened briefly, and then hardened again, “You will get no more information from me, sight-friend.”

My skin, though dark, would be flushed if unveiled to daylight. I had named us "sight-friends" because we shared the gift of being able to see into each other's planes. I had befriended him almost two years ago, after I’d glimpsed him out of the corner of my eyes, watching me from behind a tree.

But he was no longer hiding or walking on his own plane. He took another step forward, his hands coming into focus, and I glimpsed the telltale glitter of a gold band on the knuckle of a finger. Its light flickered weakly.

“You befriended me!" He ground out. "I showed you my world! I introduced you to my friends!”

He swallowed sharply as he took another step towards me. I sensed the feeling again that he was struggling forward. The ring he had for crossing must not be as powerful as the one I had under my pillow.

Grabbing the bracelet, I rolled off my bed to the floor just as the vines reached me.

"Gail!" Bell roared, and the vines shot out to grab me.

I scrambled away, but they grabbed my legs, climbing up even as I tried to evade them. They moved sluggishly but were persistent. Going to the fairy plane was my only hope of gaining a little breathing room.

I tore at the vines that clung to my left hand, and I put the bracelet on my wrist. The vines, and my room as it was, disappeared as I slipped into the fairy plane.

I tensed my back as I scrambled to my feet, and my wings shot out from between my shoulder blades. I beat them frantically as I took to the air, distancing myself from the tower that existed on this plane instead of the dorm room in mine. I glanced behind me at the silver tower with gold filigree adorning it - it was beautiful.

I couldn't even enjoy the beauty of the fairy plane and its iridescent colours. I hadn’t seen it for many months. The green and pink sky surrounded me, the colours were sharp as if they had edges that I could touch.

"I'm a thief. I'm a betrayer." The words slipped out, and I bit my lips to force them back.

The wind buffeted my beautiful violet and gold wings, and I soared higher and farther away. Bell had grown my wings and then taught me to fly. And then I had flown away from him after giving in to a moment of weakness that now yawned before me like a dark chasm. And for what? Fear of being caught had kept me from spending any great amount of time on the fairy plane to begin with - but I had no choice but to press on. They would never forgive me. They would take my wings and take my sight - and those, I couldn't risk.

A roar reverberated through the air, and I beat my wings faster. I just needed a little distance, and then I would return to my plane and figure out what to do next.

A blast of wind buffeted me, and I spun in a circle. I righted myself quickly; my wings ached from snapping them to beat against the tumult, but there was no hope of taking a break until I had distanced myself from where Bell could reach me.

Another blast of wind spun me around again. My stomach dropped and rose, and I wanted to vomit. I righted myself again, only to be blasted by wind a third time. I looked around but couldn’t see any creature responsible for the wind. Bell didn't have control of the wind - at least, he hadn't the last time I had seen him. A fourth blast knocked me, and my vision shimmered as I tried to right myself again. I glimpsed a copse of trees far below and dove for them. Wind knocked me off-course twice more before I made it to the shelter of the trees.

Scampering along a snaking branch towards the wide trunk of a vined tree, I tucked my wings to my sides. My breath came out in loud pants. My heart was racing, and I searched around the area for any signs of Bell.

I jerked at the cold wetness on my foot and almost lost my balance. I tried to pull my foot away, but it was trapped. I gasped as pressure increased on my foot. Slithering at my hand made me jerk it away. All at once, vines shot out at me, and I screamed as they wound around me. These were not slow like the ones in my room. No sooner had I bitten through one or tore through another than another vine replaced it. Pain lanced through my right wing as vines wrapped around it, pinning it to my side. I cried out as my left wing was wrapped even tighter to my back. I heard and felt the snapping of the bones along the ridge at my back. The vines continued to tighten, and I struggled for breath. I struggled, but they soon wrapped around my neck and mouth, and head.

Dizziness and pain engulfed me, and I gave in to the encroaching darkness.

***

“Wake up, Gail, sight-friend.”

His voice was close - too close for escape. I opened my eyes and saw that my head was no longer covered by vines. My stomach pitched. I tried to lift my head, but pain suffused my body. I vomited right where I lay.

“Raise her,” Bell ordered.

A whimper escaped me as the vines pulled me upright! I barely managed to struggle. I was in too much pain to do much of anything. I raised my head, though the action hurt.

Bell stood in front of me. I looked around and saw that we were in a small clearing surrounded by tall, forbidding trees. Within the clearing were all sorts of fairy woodland creatures - in a vast array of colours. Sprites, trolls, griffins, and others stared back at me angrily. The one unifying feature was that all of their colours were dark - almost black. This was not a forgiving bunch. My formerly harlequin green giant’s skin had not lightened at all. His colour had rarely changed in all the months I had known him, regardless of the season or fairies' naturally temperamental attitudes. Beside him was another giant, a female with dark blue skin who was almost as tall as he was. She must have been the one who had sent the wind.

Tears leaked out of my eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.” I whimpered. Regret bloomed brightly in my chest - regret and fear. My breaths came harsher and I felt constricted, but there was no escape for me anywhere.

“I only wanted to be one of you.” I panted out.

I looked around at them all, pleading with my eyes, but what could I say in my defense?

“We do not believe you,” Bell said. He never used to be hard on me. “If you had felt any true remorse, you would not have fled. You apologize only because you were caught.”

Tears continued to fall, “Please don’t kill me. I will give it back……and I won’t steal again.”

The giant frowned at me and cocked his head to the side like he used to when we were friends. Whenever he used to show me something magical on his plane or tell a story about his people, he would cock his head to the side as if listening to a voice I couldn’t hear. He nodded and crouched until he could look directly into my eyes. I lowered my head.

“Do you know how I found you, Gail?”

I shook my head.

“I spoke to your aunt and your mother.”

I snapped up, “What! M-my aunt? My m-mother? They know?”

He nodded as he removed the ring I had glimpsed earlier from his finger. “They told me where to find you, Gail, when I explained your crimes against us. They pleaded for your life. I told them you would be spared if you gave back my birthright.”

I gulped even as I stared at the smaller ring that was weaker than the one I wore as a bracelet.

“But I didn’t give it back", I croaked. I had fled with it.

He frowned even deeper as he handed the ring over to the blue giant. “No, you did not. I will have to take it from you. But your aunt and mother have always been true friends of the fairy, and they will be spared the grief of losing you."

Low grumblings swept through the gathering of fairy creatures. He held up a hand, and they quieted.

"Those gathered here think I am being too lenient with you, but,” he paused and looked me over. He stared into my eyes. I could not bear his gaze and looked away. “But, you are not wholly corrupted - redemption may yet find you.”

I slumped.

“However, you will be punished and marked as an exile. Though we cannot remove your gift of fairy sight, no one will aid you in crossing to our world - and if any find you here, you will be destroyed.”

"Thief!" A creature growled.

"Betrayer!" Cried another.

"Exile forever!" A third shouted.

I felt a brush on my forehead and then a sharp heat flared brightly at the centre. I whimpered at the pain.

“Remove her wings.” Bell continued, but I didn’t bother to raise my head.

I cried out as white hot pain lanced my back, and then sweet blackness engulfed me again.

Redness and warmth trickled into my awareness, followed by murmuring voices, a car horn, footsteps on floorboards, and crunching gravel below purposeful steps. I turned onto my left side, and pain flared up all over my body. Opening my eyes, I sat up and groaned. More pain pulsed through me, and I grabbed my head as my vision shimmered and swirled.

After a few moments, the dizziness cleared. My room was in disarray, but there were no vines. I groaned as I shimmied to the end of my bed. The frames were on the ground, and wherever the vines had been, there was now a sticky green residue.

So it had all been real.

I twisted my spine and felt tugging at the skin where my wings had been. I stood up quickly, ignoring my protesting muscles, and pulled my T-shirt off over my head. I hobbled over to my mirror and gasped at the mark on my forehead. It was a symbol that I wouldn’t have understood if Bell hadn’t already told me. A horizontal stylized looking ‘S’, encircled by what looked like a thorny vine. It was about two inches in diameter at the centre of my forehead. It had the sharp edges, which meant it was only visible in the fairy plane. My fairy sight remained.

Tears spilled over, but I held my grief back for the moment. Spinning around, I looked back at the mirror to see my back. Two scarring strips of flesh, red and inflamed, were all that was left of my beautiful wings. They had torn off my wings, and even in my plane of existence, the scars were there.

I slumped to the ground and gave in to my grief. I could never go back, and it was all my fault. It was what I deserved.

Thief! Betrayer! Exile forever!

I closed my eyes and let the words repeat in my head like a cadence, and it calmed me until I was just quietly shivering on the floor.

I didn't know how long I lay there, huddled on the ground. All at once, I saw Bell’s face. I squeezed my eyes tighter to expel his image, but his forbidding face remained. I groaned but looked at him in my mind’s eye, and his grim expression softened with a smile. Shock cramped my aching muscles, but relief eased me slightly at the gentle expression that I had missed when I had stolen and fled from him. His eyes were emerald and bright, and he winked, dispelling his image.

Redemption may find you yet.