Fairy Circle

by Johanna Frappier

  The baby was crying and her pupils were dilated as she stared into the darkest part of the wood.

  Saffron came upon a puddle. Even though she didn’t want to, she couldn’t stop herself from bending over the water. She wanted to see her reflection. A raven screeched. Saffron looked up, then down again, as a hand shot out of the puddle, all slimy and gray. It snatched the baby from Saffron’s weak grasp.

  “No!” Saffron screamed as her knees buckled and forced her to the forest floor. She sat there crying while her mind told her to get up and do something about it. But, she would not get up. She was too afraid to move. She sat there and cried until the dream turned into another horrible scene.

  This time she was at school. As usual, the kids were laughing at her. The school was dark and eerie, and the other kids didn’t look quite human. Her cousin Mindy had some scales on her neck. One of Mindy’s minions gimped oddly as she walked, as if she had talons. Her eyeballs were completely white. Another girl had tiny horns that were trying to break through her scalp; the skin there stretched white, waiting for the growth to split it. Blood ran down one side of her face.

  The school looked ancient, decrepit. The cheap flooring was brown, cracked, and lifting. The floor itself was missing in some areas, and the holes led to complete black oblivion. The lockers looked punched and dented, and the doors were missing or hanging half off their hinges. There was dust, so much dust everywhere that Saffron began to choke on it. And there was dirt; she could feel the slime of it on her neck, see it brown and clinging to the walls and floor.

  “Saffron!” It was Markis. He was at one end of the hall motioning for Saffron to come to him. “Run, Saffron! Run! I can help you!” She could hardly see him in the dim light of her dream. She started toward him, but the sludge of the dream bogged her down. All of her steps were in extreme slow motion. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she cried out, “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “C’mon Saffron. Hurry!”

  She tried and tried, but she felt so tired. Then all at once, she was by Markis’s side and he was hugging her and comforting her. He cradled the base of her skull in his palm and told her it would be all right. He was going to kiss her. She could tell. He closed his eyes and slowly moved toward her slightly-parted, waiting lips. But there was no kiss. He savagely grabbed her neck. With his head, he shoved her head aside so he could get at her artery. He bit down into her flesh. To Saffron, it felt like two needles were piercing her skin and sliding into the muscles of her neck. She began to scream and scream and scream. Markis threw his head back, laughed, and then howled as blood dripped off his fangs and chin.

  The vision began to dim and blur. Colors melded together like hot wax in a kettle. She heard Ny calling her. He seemed to be very far away. No matter which direction Saffron looked, all was pitch black. She held her hand in front of her eyes and could not see it.

  “Ny?” In her dream, she suddenly realized she was dreaming. She told herself she had nothing to fear. She told herself this wasn’t real. Ny’s calls sounded closer. Saffron felt her heart swell and she thought it might burst. She loved Ny. With every ounce of her soul, she loved Ny. With complete clarity, she realized she always had. She could feel him around her, could sense him in her heart, mind, and body. She could smell him now, fresh water and sweat, his freshly-washed hair. She didn’t remember the women from her dreams. She didn’t remember herself. “Ny?”

  “I am here, Saffron. Come to me. Come to me over here.”

  Through a shimmering haze, she saw him. He was leaning on a cherry tree. It was in full bloom and in the middle of a meticulous Japanese garden. A fountain bubbled behind him; the water ran down to a clear pool. Small birds flitted in and out of the tree. Baby rabbits cropped grass at his feet. His smile was sultry, wicked. He winked at her and waved her over. He disappeared behind the tree.

  She ran to him, as fast as she could. When she arrived, she was breathless. He wasn’t there. She frowned and went to the other side of the tree. He wasn’t there. “Ny?”

  “I am here, Saffron. Do not keep me waiting! I want you with me."

  He was several yards away, sitting in a field of daisies. The field grew to the edge of the sea where the sun hung like a white ball. His black, wavy hair glistened and his blue eyes shone. He had no shirt. The muscles in his neck and shoulders and chest were taut and gleaming as he sat straight and strong like a yogi.

  “Please Saffron, come to me.” He lay back among the flowers and vanished.

  She ran so fast that her feet left the ground. She began to fly over the field. He was nowhere to be found, but below her she saw a woman with long hair. The world turned gray. She didn’t know if she was the woman below or if it was someone else; the big hair matched.

  “Saffron, I need you. I am waiting. It hurts.” But where was he?

  Saffron floated down into the middle of a desert. It was night. The moon was full. Except for the towering, night-blooming cactus on her right, she was completely alone. She knew there was no one around, not for thousands of miles. He had left her.

  “Ny!” she screamed so loud her voice cracked. A gust of wind blasted past, followed by stillness so complete Saffron felt the entire world would shatter were she to expel her breath.

  She woke up sobbing. Indistinct impressions of the dream lay in her mind like dirty rags. She lay sprawled against her locked bedroom door. She started to whisper, “Don’t come back for me. I don’t like this. I can’t take it. Don’t come back for me. I don’t like this. I can’t take it.” She whispered those words over and over again, wringing her hands like a frightened child, her eyes darting and searching the dark room without seeing.

  Outside, there were the strangled screams of the woman as she bounced off the cliff on her way to the sea.

  Chapter 9

  The dreams increased in number and in intensity throughout the rest of the summer. She didn’t have to wait for the full moon anymore to dread the pain of them. They were with her every night, locked in her room with her. Saffron was okay with the bolt lock. She wanted the lock to keep her in, but begged her mother and Derek to respect her privacy and sleep in their rooms. When the moon wasn’t full, they acquiesced. But when the moon was full, and her nights were a full-out rampage where she went raging about her room, screaming and tearing at the drapes, they insisted someone stay with her to keep her from hurting herself.

  The dreams left her weak during the day. Sometimes, she was so tired the next morning she’d slur her words just to force out a sentence. She tried not to talk to anyone.

  She fell asleep one afternoon, intending to take just a little nap before her shift. Another dream slithered into her mind like a snake into a hole. Ny was teasing her. She was watching him with wide eyes, actually salivating in her dream as if he was some kind of roast and she was a starving creature. With the dream came the pressing emotions she never experienced in daylight, the unearthly need and indescribable want. The intensity of the visions woke her twice but she never fully came to. She just sat up and cried a little, then fell back into a dead sleep, too far gone for the dreams to touch her. She woke up hours later, late for work.

  She didn’t eat and didn’t shower. When her mother dropped her off at work, she showed up with dark circles under her eyes and frizzy unkempt hair. For reasons unknown, Bea was still at the store, nosing into some paperwork while Coco fumed, arms across her chest, in the back by the coffee pots. Bea lowered her brow at Saffron. Saffron stared back, unresponsive to Marlboro-Teeth’s hostility.

  On the ride over, Audrey had produced names and addresses of more doctors for Saffron to meet. With her eyes locked on the yellow line, Audrey missed how Saffron clawed at her temples and ground her teeth. Saffron had “considered” hundreds of doctors since she was twelve and had met seven, complaining to her mother after the torturous hour with each one. She was adamant; those doctors with their fish-eyed stares and monotone voices wouldn’t help her at all. The other doctors, the overexuberant ones who pat
ted you repeatedly and held you in a bug-eyed grip, and said things like, “let’s talk about our truths,” were even worse. Saffron thought that a doctor who couldn’t have a conversation with a perspective patient without staccato blinking and stopping for breath every time she spoke in her high-pitched voice, then the doctor should get a doctor.

  Audrey thought it was important that Saffron feel comfortable with the therapist she was to splay out her inner most feelings to. So, Audrey didn’t push any one of the professionals on her daughter, but hoped that soon, Saffron would find someone with whom she felt comfortable.

  Saffron suddenly realized there was a little blue thing on her shoulder, like a hairless squirrel. It wanted to dig its paw in her ear. She slapped at it feebly, but could never connect with its clingy little body. It used her shirt and jeans as a cat uses a scratching post to scurry down her body and lope away across the dirty linoleum.

  “What is wrong with you?” Bea stopped fiddling with her papers. They were the lottery totals, and they probably weren’t working out, or Bea, as head clerk, wouldn’t have been called in. Now, because someone on first shift couldn’t add, Bea was fast becoming Coco and Saffron’s problem. Bea’s right hand was caught in midair, holding a pen above the clipboard.

  “Okay.” Saffron waved her hand in dismissal. One of her knees was trying to give out so she lifted her leg to give it a good shake. She had no idea what Bea just said. “I…” And here she swayed, just a little, like a snake in a charmer’s basket. “I gotta do the coffee.” Saffron pointed one twitchy finger at the condom aisle, her lips as slack as a stroke victim’s.

  Bea watched Saffron swaying, had watched her slap at her ear for no good reason, and watched her shake her leg like a peeing dog. Her lips pursed over her Marlboro teeth. “If you’re on drugs or somethin’ you can just go home. Now!”

  “Hey!” Coco raced forward on her stick legs and homemade boots. “What the frick, Bea? You can’t send her home. You don’t own this place. Just finish doing whatever you’re doing and go home so we can do our jobs.”

  “You can’t talk to me like that! I’m senior clerk!”

  Coco’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes blazed with ‘you got it coming.’ “Yeah, Bea, well, that’s a title he only yells out when he’s orgazmasizing. His wife hasn’t officially given you that title, now, has she? Or are you screwing her too?”

  Bea sucked in a strangled breath and her splayed fingers slapped her chest, causing her nametag to pop off.

  Saffron watched the exchange without flinching, without ducking down to straighten the perfectly piled brown paper bags. A bit of drool formed under her tongue and with sloth-like reflexes, she finally remembered to shut her lips and swallow just before it spilled out.

  Bea’s eyes filled with tears. She grabbed her home party knock-off purse and ran out of the store, the lottery papers first flying up, then floating down to the floor, twirling and lilting like white leaves. Coco stalked to the cooler. Saffron loitered behind the registers.

  When Saffron’s cousin Mindy came into the store, Coco and Saffron were both leaning on the counter between the dual registers. The cereal shelf was dusty and the coffee thermoses were running low or empty.

  “You look like a freak.” Mindy always knew just what to say.

  Coco’s eyes slid down Mindy’s fitted cashmere coat which was opened to show a leather miniskirt and thigh-high Italian boots. Mindy wouldn’t even look at Coco. Saffron crushed her face in her hands. “Hi, Mindy. What’s up?”

  “Do you want to go to the movies with us tomorrow night or what?”

  Saffron winced as she felt Coco’s stiletto heel dig not so lightly into the toe of her Chinese slippers. To Mindy, on the other side of the counter, it appeared that Coco had never moved. Saffron felt a long-distance relief that Coco wasn’t mouthing off for once.

  “I mean, like, you haven’t even seen your friends since you graduated.”

  Coco snorted. “Yeah, okay. Who are your friends, Saffron, hmmm?”

  And here we go. Saffron thought about crouching down to stack the brown paper bags. Instead, she stared at the dirty Black Chicken floor and dreamed of curling up on it, covering herself with the lottery papers that they hadn’t picked up.

  Mindy leveled eyes on Coco for the first time. She spoke to Coco’s flat chest, “Ah, I don’t think you know them.”

  Coco stood up straight and tall, thanks to her stilettos. “Ah, yeah, Mindy, I think I do. We went to the same hick school remember? Remember there was like, ten people in each graduating class?”

  Mindy expelled a short, forced breath, almost a cough, and refused to look at Coco again.

  A level of discomfort started to course through Saffron’s sluggish blood, just enough to wake her. She wanted Mindy out. “Mindy, can you just call me tomorrow? I’ll go. Okay?”

  Mindy turned on her heel, “Whatever,” and strutted out.

  “Do you really still hang around with them, Saffron?” Coco looked down at Saffron as if contemplating a sun-sat banana peel.

  “No. I haven’t seen any of her friends since we graduated and I haven’t seen Mindy since a family Fourth of July party.”

  Coco snapped her gum. “She wants something from you.”

  “Nah, she’s just like that. Sometimes she wants to do something together. She might seem snobby but it’s just an act. She likes me.”

  Coco looked straight ahead, arched one brow. Her lips pouted way out into a feigned, “Oooooh.” She patted Saffron’s back. “C’mon, come with me, you’re killing me standing there like that.” They went into the back where the loud machines and boxes of surplus goods were kept. Coco took an X-acto blade and sliced at the tape on the seams of some large, empty boxes so she could lift their flaps and press the cardboard flat. Saffron stood swaying, watching her, until Coco took Saffron by her elbows and made her sit down on an overturned bucket. Then Coco took Saffron’s sweater, rolled it up, and placed it on one end of the flat boxes that she had stacked. She left, then came back with her own long sweater jacket. “Here,” she guided Saffron by the elbow one more time, helped Saffron lower herself to the makeshift bed. “I’ve never in my life seen anyone need sleep like you do. What’s going on with you?”

  Saffron smiled with her eyes closed as Coco covered her with her sweater. “I’m watching a fairy have hot, sweaty sex every night. Well, only most nights. He’s making me insane.”

  “What do you mean a fairy? You mean, like, a gay guy? That guy that lives in your house? Oh, man, what are you talking about? You need someone to take care of him? What else is he makin’ you do?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t make me do anything. It’s all me. It’s all me.” She wagged her head with her eyes still closed.

  Coco crooked one finger and removed a chunk of oily hair from across Saffron’s eyelids. “Well, tell him to go do it somewhere else; you’re starting to look like a zombie.”

  “…He still has time for me…can you imagine?” Saffron was quiet after that and soon started to snore.

  Coco tucked the sweater in around Saffron’s shoulders. “I could have sworn you were a virgin, in body and mind,” she muttered as she got up and quickly made her way to the front of the store as the bell ting-a-linged.

  It was Markis. He was smiling, expectant, and looking around. Coco came to the register counter and drummed her long nails on the laminate. Markis’s eyes kept searching.

  He made Coco smile too. “She’s in the back, sleeping.”

  “What?” he laughed.

  “It’s not funny. She’s so tired she’s a little mental.”

  Markis looked toward the back of the store. “Can I see her?”

  “I’m not her dang keeper; do whatever the hell you want,” the smile still in her eyes.

  Markis waited for the rotating camera to scan the other corner of the store, then slipped behind the counter and trotted toward the back.

  Coco didn’t follow. As he strolled past, she let him know, “She’s goin’ to the
movies tomorrow with her bitch cousin and her bitch cousin’s friends.”

  Markis saluted her. “Good work. I’ll see you Saturday, right?”

  “Yup.”

  He jerked his head toward the back of the store. “She workin’ Saturday?”

  “Nope, I make sure we work all our shifts together. She’s a good worker, a good person. I’ll make sure she shows up Saturday night, too, even if I have to put her in my trunk.”

  “Oh, Coco, you’d do that? For me?” He fast-blinked his eyes. “Shucks, you’re like, wicked sweet, and groovy, and awesome.”

  She slapped his shoulder. “Will you go already?” She frowned toward the back of the store. Having sex with a fairy. She wondered if she should tell Markis. He was her friend. She didn’t really know Saffron, not really, just had the feeling she was cool. But this, watching the gay guy have sex thing, shouldn’t Markis know about it? What if they both got into something they didn’t want to with this girl? Maybe none of it was a big deal. Then again, Saffron was a whole lotta weird. Did it matter?

  Markis was already in back. He tiptoed to the edge of Saffron’s cardboard bed and smiled down at all of the red hair haloed around her head. He reached out, stopped, and brought his hand back by his side. He squatted down beside her. He looked at her long and hard, from her hair and the fading bruise on her forehead, to her collarbone just under the stretched neck of her floral tank. He rolled his eyes over her breasts, down the line of her thighs, to her painted toes. Her roughed-up Chinese slippers had been kicked off to the side. He reached out again, his fingertips almost to her hair, then shook his head, retracted his itchy fingers and smiled. “Pretty soon.” he whispered. Then he got up and left.

  The next morning, in her own bed, Saffron blinked her dry eyes several times. She turned her stiff neck to look out the window and realized by the way the sun hung over the pines that it was already around noon.

  A bureau drawer slid wood against wood and immediately the hairs on the back of her neck spiked to attention. What in the world was in her room now? Saffron dreaded looking over the top of her blanket. To her great relief and annoyance, she found her mother was in her room, putting away laundry. Saffron reminded herself that she really needed to take over that chore completely to keep her mother out of her room.