Fairy Circle

by Johanna Frappier

  “No,” the rider replied softly. “If only that he was.”

  She gaped at him, and stepped back, unsure of his meaning and stricken by the horrific statement spoken with such bland indifference.

  He was brief - her love had found union with another and he would never be coming back. He, the revered friend, came only to tell her out of conscience. He knew she would otherwise wait for that Devil’s whelp - that it would kill her to learn the truth. He hoped she could start anew, and with someone better deserving of her adoration.

  He left her crumpled and crying under the dripping laundry. After a time, she sat up, her eyes as vacant as a doll’s as she stared out to sea. She only half heard the crash of the waves, the cry of the gulls, and the wind that furled the clothes on the line. When the sun reached its zenith, she used the washpole to pull herself up and began to walk.

  Her head was hot. She walked toward the pounding surf, to its heavy coolness, wishing it to surround her, to feel it chilling her toes, caressing her calves and crawling up between her legs, to her navel, to cover her breasts. She needed it to lap at her neck and, most exquisitely of all, she needed it to take her head in its arms and muffle the noise in her ears.

  When Saffron woke up, there was a copper sting in her nose. It was the tang of snorting water, the taste of the sea, and of her tears. An abrupt sob bubbled up and out of her throat as she lay cloaked in the anguish of the dream. He had deserted her. It was a pain so raw, so real, that even now her shoulders ached from the strain.

  Saffron realized she was huddled against her bedroom door. She had tried to escape again. Twice in one month. What was happening? Tears spilled as she crawled back to bed.

  ***

  Later, Saffron heard her mother unbolting her door. Audrey knocked, then came in. When Saffron didn’t answer, she chirped, “Yoohoo. It’s a new day. Rise and shine.”

  Saffron wanted to scream. Why was her mother bothering her? Didn’t she have anything else to do? A painting to finish? Derek to play house with? High school “friends” of Saffron’s that she hadn’t spoken to since fourth grade to hire? So those “friends” could come over and wonder why Saffron stayed up in her room all day… Saffron turned over and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Audrey frowned at the back of Saffron’s head, “What’s the matter?”

  Saffron would have to say something. Her mother could be persistent. She rolled over and yawned. “What do you mean, Mom? I’m fine.” Then she stretched, tussled her red waves with the fingers of both hands, and scratched her scalp. Pretending nonchalance was almost unbearable. But it wasn’t like Audrey to give up in the first few seconds.

  And soon enough, Audrey spoke. “Did you look into that job?”

  Oh, so Audrey was going to come around from the back, right? A little sneak attack, huh? Yeah, foiling with another subject ought to do the trick. As if Audrey didn’t know Saffron had pedaled out of the yard yesterday. Saffron knew the whole world knew she had pedaled out of her yard yesterday. A thriving metropolis this town was not.

  Saffron slapped the bed. “Mom! Yes! Now do we really need to talk about that? I’m waiting to hear back from them.”

  Audrey’s eyes flashed, then she used her very low voice. “Saffron, what is wrong?”

  As if. If she ever told her mother what was really going on at night, Saffron knew her mother would commit her somewhere. If she told her mother the truth, the years and years of truly disgusting truth, Audrey would have her straight on the bus bound for Club Wily Wackos for Wanton Ladies before another full moon grew. Or, maybe her mother would make her go to Sexaholics Anonymous class. Were you a sexaholic when you kept on having those kinds of dreams even when you didn’t want to? Sweat pooled on Saffron’s forehead, ready to trickle. It was already so humid out.

  Jesus Christ, she would. She’d make me sit in a roomful of those people. That would be worse than a hospital. Saffron hated hospitals - the disinfectant stink of them, the wandering inmates of them, and the sickly green-painted concrete blocks of them. Hell no, no hospital. Saffron had never fessed up to Audrey and she wasn’t about to give in this morning. Audrey would know nothing about the dreams, the little bits Saffron had remembered in vivid detail and the murky millions she could have guessed at.

  The dreams had started when she was young. Without a single book, without a sneak preview of a stolen dirty movie with friends, without a school bus education, and before she really understood what the farm animals were doing, Saffron Keller knew about sex in detail. She couldn’t fathom how you could learn so much from a dream, about a subject you had never researched or experienced. Saffron also learned about hunger, lust, betrayal, and how love can cripple you. It was all right there at night, played out like a movie.

  She told no one. How could she explain such a thing? It was the one subject even Oprah hadn’t covered, and Googling, which had provided help on every other subject known to man, was a big fat zero. Trying to Google for scientific evidence of the origins of your sex dreams always resulted in disturbing side roads. So, she didn’t Google about that anymore. You couldn’t Google ‘Swiss cheese’ without some perv taking you down a disturbing side road.

  Over the years, she learned to deal with her dilemma much as most people dealt with theirs. She denied it. She ignored it. Time passed.

  Audrey tried again. “You seem so different lately. Derek said you demanded the radio be left on all night, and the lights…” She reached for a lock of Saffron’s hair, twirled it around her finger.

  Saffron’s face erupted red as she squeaked out, “Well, Mom, you were up all night too. Should we be concerned?”

  Silence. Audrey wouldn’t rise to the bait.

  Saffron mumbled, “I want to get up, take a shower…”

  After a moment, Saffron felt Audrey move off the mattress, heard the shuffle of her Minnetonkas and the clunk-clicking of her amber bracelets as she walked toward the door. She sighed from the doorway. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”

  ***

  “Mom?”

  “What?”

  “Why is it so important to you that I go to the school? I mean, why can’t I go to school online? You’ve done online courses and look at you; you’re a pretty smart chick. I’ll get a degree online and you can get off me. Hell, I’ll get three degrees. This is the cyber future. We can even get groceries delivered, along with everything else. No one leaves the house anymore.” Saffron smirked and dug into her blueberry pancakes.

  Audrey folded her arms across her misshapen hemp t-shirt. “Saffron…” it was the warning tone.

  Still, Saffron pressed on. “I mean, what’s the point of going to the college if you really don’t feel like it. I really don’t feel like it, Mom. I can get my doctorate even, over the Internet. Then I won’t have to work that stupid job. I can do schoolwork all day.” She blinked twice and waited for Audrey to answer.

  Audrey manhandled the dish she was drying. “Saffron, I earned some online credits because I’m not afraid to go get them from anywhere. You are terrified of going everywhere, so that’s where you need to go, anywhere and everywhere, until you see that it’s okay, you’re not going to get hurt, you’re not going to lose your mind or whatever it is you think is going to happen.”

  “Oh, yeah. I won’t get hurt. I’ll get someone to lock me in my room wherever I go so I’ll feel all cozy and secure. Who will be that someone? You? Everywhere I go? Or will we train some of my new college buddies to lock me in when the moon is full?” Now the pancakes felt heavy in her gut. They had never covered this angle out loud before - how she was going to become a world traveler when she needed to be in lockdown on nights approaching and during a full moon.

  Audrey’s usually-straight back curved. She didn’t look at Saffron when she murmured her reply. “You can commute to the university from home.” She cleared her throat. “Just come home at night.”

  Saffron dropped her spoon into her bowl with a clank, pushed herself up from the table, and brushed past her m
other. She stomped upstairs and into the bathroom, slammed the door, dragged a comb through the rusty tangle that was her hair, and snatched her toothbrush from the holder.

  The phone rang.

  Terror sluiced up and down Saffron’s limbs. Nobody ever called this early in the morning. It couldn’t be good.

  A few moments later, her mother knocked on the bathroom door, then opened it a crack until she was staring at Saffron in the mirror. “That was the Black Chicken. They said you can go in to train today.”

  Saffron held the toothbrush suspended in her mouth. She stared at her mother while the fear bore down and squeezed her chest. What kind of mother was she? Not helping your kid when she was obviously traumatized. Why did she keep pushing this?

  Saffron shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t want to go.”

  Audrey watched a drooley toothpaste string stretch down from Saffron’s lips as she not so much as brushed her teeth but began scrubbing her gums raw. “What are you afraid off?”

  Saffron spit hard, smeared her mouth with a facecloth, then chucked the cloth at the back of the sink. “I’m not afraid of anything! Okay? God!”

  Audrey sucked in a deep breath and looked with bulging eyes at the ceiling. She blinked several times before she again leveled her gaze on Saffron.

  “Just tell me, Saffron. If you tell me, you’ll get it out and you’ll be able to start to help yourself. I don’t care if you tell me you’re afraid of a holocaust, the dirt under your feet, or fat women’s panty lines. Just tell me. I promise I won’t laugh or lecture you or anything. I just want to help you. Tell me.” Audrey huffed. Now she was whining.

  A vision popped into Saffron’s mind - squirming bodies, bruise-sucked skin, a leer that made her groin ache. She crossed her arms across her chest and blinked back hot, angry tears. She wanted to get past her mother but the woman was standing there in the doorway. Saffron didn’t have it in her to push past, so she stood before her mother and grew angrier by the second. Get out of my way. Why can’t I just shove past her? I should shove past her. Why can’t I tell her to get the hell out of the way? I can’t stand here all day!

  Audrey sighed into the loud silence of the tiny bathroom.

  Saffron pressed her lips. Why the hell was her mother always sighing? She was going to hyperventilate.

  Audrey moved aside. Saffron scuttled past her mother with her if-looks-could-kill eyes cast down. Audrey followed Saffron to her room. “They said to bring a lunch, unless you want to buy something from the store. You can train six hours today and eight tomorrow with some woman named Bea. I spoke to her on the phone. She seemed very nice.”

  Saffron looked around for something sharp to poke the headache from her eye. She grabbed her bag from the closet. It was a gift from her mother - a caramel leather courier bag with antiqued buckles and dark red roses on the strap. A bag meant for people who were going places. It was three years old, clean and shiny. The leather was so stiff that it squeaked when she raised the flap to throw in a sweatshirt, some loose change and a couple of ones, some ChapStick so she wouldn’t have flaky lips, some tissues so she wouldn’t be caught with any hangers-on, and hand sanitizer to protect against getting a cold, which would cause flaky lips and hangers on. She ran down the sloping treads of the old farmhouse stairs and grumbled, “Fine, I’ll go get my lunch for my glamorous new job.”

  She stomped to the kitchen, almost yanked the door off the Lazy Susan, grabbed a can of Spaghettios and threw it into her talking bag, the smell of leather wafting up when she ripped at the flap. Then she was out the front door, letting it slam behind her, and onto the farmer’s porch, where she jerked to a halt.

  She couldn’t step off the porch.

  She couldn’t mount her bike and ride to that job. She couldn’t. After two agonizing moments, she practically threw herself down the porch stairs and marched to her bike.

  Her feet and lower back ached as she forced her way past the mushrooms that had grown back at the base of the driveway. She didn’t slow down the whole first mile. When she did slow, she was so exhausted the bike started to wobble. Toward the end of the trek, she had to get off the bike, her legs so rubbery with fatigue, and walk the rest of the way down Main Street.

  When Saffron arrived at the store, Bea informed her that after her training days, she would work second shift with a girl named Coco. Then Bea continued to talk, nonstop, for the next two days.

  After the second day of training, Saffron was exhausted. It was hard learning how to dust the shelves (the proper way), stock the cooler, and learn the register program, while not being allowed to sit, ever. Saffron ripped the black winged baseball cap off her head and whipped it into the corner of her bedroom. Her jeans and t-shirt smelled like deli, so, even though it was early evening, she changed into a wife beater tank top and pink cotton pajama bottoms. She tipped, face-first, onto the bed. Somewhere around six pm she fell asleep.

  Chapter 3

  Saffron woke up nauseous and heavy-limbed. Above her, a wooden butterfly hung suspended from the ceiling, each of its brightly painted parts strung with fishing line. The wet night air that seeped in from the window moved it now. Saffron meant to stare at it until the grogginess cleared so she could get up and go to the bathroom.

  Why was the window open? She had kept it shut the last few nights because the humidity was so bad. It felt better just to have the fan running. The fan was still.

  There was a beat of vacuumed silence, followed by the loud tearing of a branch in the apple tree outside her window. She seized up and held her breath.

  The air around her began to thicken as if it was gathering itself. It pushed on her neck, arms and chest. It felt like a heavy gas as she carefully took a few short breaths and exhaled frigid puffs.

  Another resounding crack, then quiet except for the blood that pounded in her ears. After several moments of stillness, she sat up and grabbed the edge of the mattress. The waffle blanket slipped to the floor, leaving her shaking in her pajamas. She hunched down, drawing her shoulders forward. Her eyes reflected the waning moon as she stared out the window.

  Beyond the window frame, in the black night, chaos started. The screeching of an owl joined the burp-croak of a bullfrog. The screams of small prey floated out of the woods. Dogs from near and far howled, and bats began darting in and out of her shutters, causing the weakly-bolted wood to clack, clack against the wall of the house.

  She stood up, tiptoed toward the window, and gnawed on her fingernails. As she moved closer, more of the apple tree came into view - the top of the tree, the next branches down. She was halfway across the wooden floor when she heard a thump on the grass outside. She stopped and stood poised, the heel of her back foot off the ground.

  Then she leaned back, putting all of her weight on that foot. She pulled her other foot back too, and in this way, did a shuffling return to her bedside, both eyes still locked on the empty window. She eased back into bed and curled into the fetal position as she pulled the blanket from the floor and up over her head.

  The animals bleated and hooted, screamed and croaked. The crashing of the ocean amplified, smashing at the rocks. She began to whisper to herself, a habit she’d had since she was a child.

  And then, there was a voice.

  Go to sleep.

  The words were an edict which burst forth in her head like fireworks in a black sky. The voice seemed alien - not machine, and not human. It was commanding, and oddly enough, it was soothing.

  Her senses dulled as she studied the blanket tented by her nose. Her lips went slack, her breathing slowed. She stared without seeing till finally, her lids closed completely and she lay still.

  As quickly as the ruckus had started, it stopped, as if the animals had been cheering the start of a performance and now the show was to begin. A cloud drifted across the moon, leaving the house in momentary shadow.

  In the undulating nebula of her mind, that dark place you pass through before you dream and never recall when you wake, she heard the far
-off beating of many tiny wings. Then someone called her name, high and mellifluous, like a note puffed through a glass bird whistle. The wings came closer until the vibration was there, in the room with her.

  Suddenly, both of her legs lifted and moved over, her torso rising and moving like a marionette. Her eyes remained shut as the blanket fell away.

  A warm churning began in her stomach. It grew steadily, until it consumed her entire midriff, surrounded her hips and lower back. Invisible fingers of pressure rolled up her spine, over her shoulders and around her neck. As the heat moved past her ears, her head fell back. Her scalp tingled; she could feel every follicle hum as if each generated its own electrical current. The current lifted and separated the lengths of her hair and supported the roiling, red mass of it while it hung in empty space. She looked like a mermaid sitting under water, her hair waving in a ghostly tide.

  From her belly she felt a tug, like an invisible elastic, pulling forward. It made her stomach spasm, and her entire body vibrate like a twanging metal rod. Then, three more pulls in rhythm with the pulsing of her hair. She dipped one toe forward, toward the floorboards, but quickly retracted. This was not the way. She responded on the fifth summons - the strongest pull yet - just floated up, a drowning victim whose body has expelled all air and makes its unconscious way to the top of the sea.