Fairy Tale

ON A SPRING DAY SO MAGNIFICENT the cankerworms were bungee-jumping from the tops of the elms out of pure glee, Alexander Parker found a fairy.

He wouldn’t have seen it at all if he hadn’t decided that morning (for the umpteenth time) that he really should get more exercise. So, after he got home from dropping Mary off at work, he crossed the street, intending to walk around the park a couple of times before settling down at the computer for another thrilling day of writing technical manuals.

The leaves hung limp in the windless air, so the sight of a mosquito trap swinging wildly from its thin wire hanger brought him up short. Intrigued, Alex walked over to the trap and peered inside.

The trap looked like two small pizza boxes stapled together at the corners. A sticky substance covered a blue grid on the bottom, and trapped in it, along with innumerable dead mosquitoes, a feebly squirming wasp, and a couple of shiny black beetles, was something large and flapping.

At first Alex thought it must be one of the giant moths that had appeared from nowhere that year. Mary had glimpsed one fluttering around the porch light the night before and had let out a yelp that brought Alex running. Alex grinned at the memory. Mary, a city girl, hated moths, mice, spiders, grasshoppers, and most other things that crawled, scurried, hopped or just hung there. Although Alex had grown up on a farm, he found her squeamishness endearing. It gave him a chance to play Fearless Outdoorsman, and the look of gratitude in her eyes when he’d chased the Moth from Hell into the night had sent pleasurable chills down his spine.

The creature’s wings fluttered again, and it squeaked. Alex frowned. Moths didn’t squeak. A bat?

Too small. He moved in closer. Its wings glistened like...a dragonfly’s, maybe? Still cautious, Alex picked up a twig, reached into the trap’s dim interior, and gave the thing a poke.

“Ouch!” it squeaked, and Alex jumped back, tripped over his own feet and fell on his rear in the grass.

Feeling silly, he scrambled to his feet and brushed off his butt, hoping no one had seen him. Imagination, that’s all it was. Nevertheless, his heart pounded as, holding his twig like a tiny sword, he advanced on the trap once more.

“Poke me with that thing again and I’ll poke it back where the sun don’t shine!” a tiny voice screeched.

Alex’s heart went into triple time, but this time he stood his ground. It’s a trick, he thought. A publicity stunt...there’s a camera somewhere...

“No, nobody’s videoing this,” the voice snapped. “And you aren’t crazy, and since I can tell just by looking you’ve always been a major nerd, I think you can also rule out a drug flashback.”

“Bu—bu—but—” Alex didn’t normally stammer, but this occasion seemed to call for it. “Who—what—”

The voice sighed. “It’s easier to show you than explain. Stick your big ugly nose in here and take a good look. I don’t sting.”

Expecting at any minute to hear the theme music from The Twilight Zone, Alex did as he was told. What he saw made him wonder if someone had slipped PCP into his morning coffee at the Human Bean.

The creature had spread its glistening wings and now sat glaring at him. Its eyes were huge and blue, Japanese anime eyes, way out of proportion to its face. Aside from that, and pointed, Spock-like ears and eyebrows, it looked like a tiny man. A tiny man in a tiny green kilt.

“Satisfied?” it—he—said.

“You’re a—a—” The word wouldn’t come. Alex cleared his throat. “Fairy.” He felt ridiculous just saying the word. But what else could you call a tiny man with wings?

“Well, these days the King would prefer that we be called ‘people of magical heritage,’ but, yeah, I’m a fairy. So how about helping me out of this roach motel? Despite what you may have heard, we fairies don’t hang out with bugs on a social basis. Especially dead ones.”

This is insane, Alex thought. Or maybe I am. He looked around again. Halfway across the park, a woman in a halter top walked a panting Afghan hound. A magpie scolded them both. A ’74 Camaro rumbled by, bass pounding from the stereo. The sun burned Alex’s face. Everything seemed perfectly normal...except for the fairy caught in the city mosquito trap.

The fairy sighed. “Look, buddy, what’s your name?”

“Alex,” Alex said, then immediately wondered if he should have. Weren’t fairies supposed to be able to work magic on you if they knew your true name?

But the fairy didn’t seem interested in casting a spell. He was massaging his tiny calf. “Cramp,” he muttered. “So, your name is Alex. Great. Wonderful. You know what my name is, Alex? Dandelion. Don’t ask me what my parents were thinking. But, hey, call me Dan. In fact, I insist on it.” He grinned, and for the first time Alex saw he had long, sharp incisors, like a vampire’s.

The grin vanished. “Look, Alex,” Dan went on in the exact same tone of faux bonhomie a used car salesman might use to close a deal, “I don’t care if you don’t believe in me. But even if I’m just a figment of your imagination, so what? What’ve you got to lose by helping me out of here? And if I’m real, well, hey, you know the rule about helping out a fairy.”

No, Alex didn’t. But all the same, he had to admit the fairy had a point. Even if Dan were just the product of too much cell-phone radiation, or the milk two days past its best-before date he’d used on his cereal that morning, Alex couldn’t walk away and leave him stuck in a mosquito trap. It wouldn’t be right. “What do you want me to do?”

Dan shrugged his shoulders and winced. “It’s these bloody wings. I was trying to barrel-roll through the trap—I know, I know, bad fairy, stupid fairy—and I got both tips stuck. If just one was stuck I could probably pull free, but I’m afraid if I try to pull too hard the way they are now I’ll tear a wing, and nothing is sadder than a fairy with a torn wing—sitting on a damp spiderweb all day, begging for honeysuckle juice from passersby, you know how it is—so if you could just kind of gently peel up the tip of each wing...”

Feeling foolish, Alex reached in. The wings felt soft, even a little furry, not at all like dragonfly wings. “Watch it! Careful now, careful...” Dan’s words ended in a squeak as Alex pried up his right wing tip.

Alex froze. “Are you OK?”

“Great, great, couldn’t be better...” Dan waved one hand airily, but his tiny chest heaved. “Carry on, carry on...”

The second wing was stuck tighter, but with a fingernail, Alex finally peeled up one corner, and a moment later had the whole thing free, just like peeling a Post-It note from its pad.

Dan’s kept his oversized eyes scrunched closed until Alex let go. “You did it?”

“I did it.”

Dan opened his eyes, then spread his wings and looked from one to the other. He flapped them once, twice, whooped with delight—and vanished, with a sound like a finger snap.

Alex stared at the mosquito trap. Nothing moved inside it. Even the wasp had quit struggling.

“I’ve gone crazy,” he said out loud.

Overhead a jet traced a white line, dragging its engine-roar behind it. A block away, a child laughed. In the park, an old man in a ragged coat picked slowly through a garbage can.

A perfectly ordinary day.

Alex crossed the street, went into his office, and stared at his computer for the rest of the day without writing a word.

That night, lying in bed, Alex debated telling Mary. The moment seemed inopportune: she’d become engrossed in Martha Stewart’s Living. “So,” he envisioned himself asking, “Martha have any suggestions on how to keep fairies out of mosquito traps?”

He’d already missed his best opening, Mary’s usual “Anything interesting happen today?” as she came through the door. Through supper and an evening of TV, he hadn’t managed to summon up the courage to broach the subject. And now...

Well, really, what was there to tell? He’d obviously been working too hard. Technical writing deadlines were always ridiculous, two or three weeks for an entire manual, if he was lucky. Recently, it had been more like two or three days.

He glanced at Mary again. Her long red hair hid her face, but he could envision her expression, intent, focused, the tip of her tongue just showing between her lips. He pictured her eyes widening, her smile melting into worry, and he knew he couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t bear to make her unhappy.

It wouldn’t happen again, anyway. In two weeks they were off to Banff. He’d relax. No more seeing things...

The lamp by the bed abruptly dimmed. The clock beside it stopped ticking. A sudden chill made Alex shiver.

“The power’s gone off—” Alex began, then his heart skipped a beat. Mary wasn’t breathing! “Mary!” He grabbed her arm, but she might have been made of oiled marble: his fingers slipped away. “Mary!”

“She’s fine,” said a tiny voice in his ear, accompanied by a strange hum. “You’re the one something has happened to.”

Goosebumps raced over Alex’s arms. He turned to see Dan hovering just off his left shoulder, his wings humming and blurring like a hummingbird’s. “But...but you weren’t real!”

Dan sighed. “Jeez, not again! Personally, I blame the education system, filling all your head with scientific claptrap...back in the eleventh century we never had this problem...well.” He perched on Alex’s shoulder. “There. Feel that? I’m real.” And indeed, Alex could feel Dan’s tiny buttocks resting on his shoulder, like two hot peas. “Sorry I was gone so long, but I had to report to the King, and you know how it is in Faerie—you can never be sure how time is passing outside. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s not sometime next week.”

“What have you done to Mary?”

“Weren’t you listening? Nothing! I’ve done it to you, so we could talk in private. I’ve pulled you into the Borderspace between your world and Faerie. We can stay as long as we like, and when you go back, no time will have gone by at all.” He grinned. “Cool, huh?”

Alex was pretty sure Einstein would have called it impossible, but Einstein never had never met a seven-centimetre-tall person of magical ancestry, either. “Why?”

“To give you your reward, of course.”

“Reward?”

“You saved my life. The law is clear. I’ve got to give you a boon.”

“A wish?”

“Do I look like a leprechaun? Not a wish. A boon—a favour. But my boon is just as good as a wish!” Dan looked smug. “I can give you what you’ve always wanted!”

“How would you know what I’ve always wanted?” Alex felt unnaturally calm. Shock, probably. Well, it beat screaming.

“I did some research. Time is pretty fluid for us. I can’t go into the future, but I can observe the past. So I did.” Dan shook his head. “You were a real loser in school, Alex. Never fit in, no friends, always reading those fantasy and science fiction novels, playing Dungeons and Dragons, always wishing you could have magic and adventure in your life instead of algebra and phys-ed. Well, guess what?” He spread his hands. “Ta-da! It’s yours!”

“What’s mine?”

“Magic. Adventure. Don’t you get it, Alex? I can take you to Faerie.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Think of it. No more computer manuals. No more deadlines. No more noise, pollution, crime, poverty. Faerie is paradise, Alex. Just close your eyes. Close your eyes, and I’ll show you...”

Alex’s eyelids drooped, fell shut...but instead of darkness he saw fantastic images: endless forests, snow-capped mountains, crystalline lakes...cities of golden marble, scarlet flags snapping from the top of every tower...laughing people gathering for games, for dances, for feasts where the tables groaned under the weight of food...knights in glittering armour…

No sickness.

No death.

No children.

His eyes flew open. He snapped his head around so suddenly the fairy squeaked and shot halfway across the room. “Don’t do that!” he scolded, zooming back.

But Alex’s eyes weren’t on Dan but on Mary, cold and still, her hand frozen in the moment of turning from “Twelve perfect paint shades for the nursery” to “Celebrate summer with light-hearted asparagus soufflé!”

The images of Faerie faded from Alex’s mind like a dream. Dan zipped around in front of him. “But it’s all you ever wanted! Alex, think of the adventure! The beauty! The wonder!”

Alex reached out and tried vainly once more to touch his wife. “I’ve already got adventure, and beauty, and wonder,” he said softly. “You’re too late, Dan.”

Dan made tiny retching noises. “What is this, a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation? Alex, Faerie is full of beautiful women. Willing women, if you get my drift.”

“But no children.”

“Children? Alex, people live forever, there’d be a horrendous population problem if every Tom, Dick and Fairy could have kids whenever...” His voice trailed off. “Oh.” He studied Alex closely. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Alex nodded.

“Well, that’s all very well for you, pal, but it leaves me up the proverbial creek.” Dan flew in close and leaned on Alex’s nose, forcing Alex to go cross-eyed. “First, I don’t like leaving myself in your debt. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ as that old scoundrel Robin Goodfellow dictated to Shakespeare. Good advice all around. But that’s not the half of it. It’s the King who worries me.”

Alex felt confused. “What’s the King got to do with me?”

“Well...” Dan looked uncomfortable. “Uh...he sort of—uh, ordered me to get you into Faerie. See, he’d just as soon not have any humans running around who know about us, not in this century.”

“So your offer was just a trick!”

“No!” Dan sounded genuinely offended. “Faerie is everything you want...or used to want, anyway. That’s why I thought getting you there would be a piece of cake. But...” He circled around to Alex’s right side to whisper into that ear. “There’s some in the King’s court could be calling for an abduction scenario, if I come back without you. The Changeling Guard could be activated again—they used to steal children during that whole ‘we need some kids around this place’ phase the Queen went through a few centuries back—women! Anyway, they could take you against your will.” He suddenly stopped and slapped his hand against his forehead. “Idiot! I’ve got it! That’s what I can give you!”

“What?”

“Listen closely.” Dan cleared his throat, then spoke loudly and formally. “Alexander Parker of Regina, I thank thee for thy kindness, and in gratitude for thy service, I, Dandelion Thistlehair of Faerie, do grant thee this boon: to live out thine appointed days within this world, to have children and grandchildren, to grow old and die. By the granting of this boon I pay my debt to thee in full. Dost thou agree?”

“But the Changeling Guard...” Alex said, confused.

“If I give this promise as my boon to you, there’s nothing they can do,” Dan said fiercely. “A fairy’s word is sacred. Faerie itself would come crashing down if they took you after this. Of course, exactly how I’m going to explain myself to the King...well, I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.” He flew in close and stared intently into Alex’s eyes. “But be sure, buddy,” he whispered. “Be very sure.”

Alex’s eyelids closed again. Faerie once more spread itself before him, full of music and laughter, of beauty and wonder and peace...but the image faded even as he tried to focus on it, replaced by another, more beautiful to him than anything else on Earth or off it: Mary, smiling at him.

He opened his eyes and found he was smiling, too. “I’m sure.”

“Then it is done.” The fairy stared at Alex a long time. “You know, in movies when something like this happens, the fairy or wizard or whatever usually tells the hero he won’t remember any of it.”

“Is that what you’re going to tell me?”

“Sorry, buddy. This is real life. Can’t do it. What I’m saying is, you’d better hope you made the right decision, ’cause for the rest of your life you’re going to remember what might have been.” Dan glanced at Mary. “She’d better be worth it.”

“She is.”

Dan shrugged. “Can’t see it myself, but maybe I’ll check back in a month or so—that’ll probably be about thirty years, your time—and see if you still feel that way. Good-bye, buddy. And thanks again.” With the sound of a finger-snap, he vanished.

The lights brightened. The clock ticked. And Mary, Alex saw with relief, finished turning the page...not away from the nursery story, but toward it. She brushed her hair back with one hand, and gazed at the pictures of cribs and toy boxes for a long time with a slight smile. Finally she seemed to feel his eyes on her, and looked up. “What?” she said, the smile widening into a grin.

“Just...thinking.” Alex stroked her arm, the arm he hadn’t been able to touch before. “Thinking how much I love you...more than all the world. Any world.”

Mary laughed, tossed the magazine onto the floor, clicked off the lamp, and snuggled up to him, resting her head on his shoulder, her fiery hair cascading across his bare chest. “It’s a good thing I love you too, then.”

“It is,” said Alex. “It’s a very good thing.”

He smiled in the dark, hugged her close, and slept.