The Golden Winged Horse

by Maggie Joan

  Panic took hold of me instantly. I bolted for Dad’s desk and scooped up Tristan, waking him abruptly from his sleep. He propped himself up on one shoulder and glared at me through dazed honey brown eyes.

  “Faye…” he murmured. “I don’t appreciate being awakened so rudely.”

  I ignored him and careered out into the hall, all but shoving him in Macie’s face. “This is Tristan,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Dad has kidnapped him from the fairies, and this is why your brother can’t sleep.”

  Macie stared at me for a few seconds then flickered her gaze down to Tristan. He stretched out his front legs and hopped to his feet. He shook himself, tiny specks of golden dust sprinkling all around him like mini confetti, then he looked up at Macie and said, “Hi, I’m Tristan.”

  I held my breath, unsure of her reaction. Her eyes widened and her face paled. For a brief moment I thought she was either going to scream or pass out. Then, totally surprising me, she stepped forward and leaned down to examine Tristan.

  “He’s mechanical, right?” she said, looking up at me.

  “I can assure you I am not,” Tristan said, snorting in disgust.

  Standing up square again, she scratched her head, sighed, and then said, “Ok. Tell me everything.”

  ***

  An hour later, Macie was up to full speed, and thankfully very understanding about why I’d lied to her the other night.

  “Right,” Macie said. “Let’s break this down bit by bit to figure out what we can do. So the children can’t sleep because your dad has Tristan here. Nothing we can do about that. Not like we can fly around at night sprinkling them with fairy dust. Getting Tristan home. That’s another no go because your dad put some magical spell on his little glass dome to trap him in there. Only thing we can do there is get a fairy to come and release him? That’s a point,” she said, thoughtfully placing her index finger on her chin. “Why can’t they just come and get you themselves?”

  Tristan sighed. “Because they can’t. Not only is it extremely dangerous for them to show themselves in daylight, but to enter a human’s home is impossible without their permission and also pretty much a guaranteed way of getting captured.”

  I giggled. “They can’t enter someone’s house without permission? What are they, vampires?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Tristan said. “It’s a spell that the Queens cast after The Great Hunts ended. It was designed to protect our kind from being led into entrapment. Fairies love sugary treats, as you well know, and they become sort of hypnotised by the lure of it. This is what made it easy in The Great Hunts to capture so many of us. By binding all fairies with the same spell, the fact they would be halted at the door would break them out of their trance long enough to make them realise what was happening.”

  “But I don’t want to catch and keep any of them,” I said. “I would happily invite them in so they can release you themselves.”

  “They won’t take that chance. Not even for me.”

  “These hunts were really bad then?” Macie asked.

  “Awful,” Tristan said. “The worst our folk has ever seen. Even our wars with the pixies haven’t done the damage that your kind has.”

  I fished my phone out of my pocket and brought up my internet. Quickly typing into Google ‘great fairy hunts’ I felt severely disappointed when the only information offered was myths and legends of fairies and jumbled newspaper reports of various animal hunting.

  “It won’t be recorded in your history, not for the masses to see,” Tristan said. “Your governments were the only ones who knew about The Great Hunts. The general population were not informed of that.”

  “So what is my dad going on about then with wanting Gran’s name cleared of being called a liar?”

  “Ah,” Tristan said, stretching his legs out one by one. “That the world does know about. I believe if you look up ‘Williamson Trail Fairies’ you may well get some results.”

  I typed that into my search engine and within seconds, my screen was flooded with black and white images of my gran and her sisters and what appeared to be beautiful fairies. Macie peered over my shoulder as I began to read.

  The Williamson Trail Fairies appear in a series of nine photographs taken by Elsie Bradford, Ada Bradford, and Flora Bradford, three sisters who lived near the Williamson Trail in Liberty, Pennsylvania. The first two pictures, taken in 1917, when the sisters were 9, 12, and 15 respectively, caught the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He used these pictures for an article he had been commissioned to write for The Strand Magazine. A spiritualist himself, Conan Doyle considered these pictures clear and visible evidence that psychic phenomena existed.

  I read the article at speed, soaking in every detail like a greedy pig. Near the end, it stated how the girls had come out, some years later, and declared that the photographs were faked. The public interest dropped immediately.

  “Wow,” Macie said, pointing her finger at a picture of my gran sat on a neatly mown lawn with a fairy dancing at her feet. “She looks so young and pretty.”

  I nodded, tears welling in my eyes. “I get why Dad is doing this but it’s still wrong.”

  We studied all of the pictures intently, looking for signs of hairpins and strings like some people claimed could be seen, but we could see nothing.

  “Are these genuine pictures?” I asked Tristan.

  He nodded. “They are.”

  “So what happened after they were released to the press?”

  “Well, as with everything, some people believed, some people didn’t. Children went on their own little quests to find their own fairies. Adults conducted their own searches too. Sometimes they got lucky and joined the voices declaring fairies were real. The governments interrogated your gran and her sisters, fishing out every last detail about fairies. That’s when The Great Hunts started, and we began to realise that humans knowing about us could only be detrimental to our existence.”

  “Why did they want you so much?” Macie asked.

  “Because of our magic. We never get sick. Before The Great Hunts, we healed people of disease and sickness with just a spoonful of our home remedies. It didn’t take long for the governments to realise we could cure anything. They hunted us for our blood and our magic.”

  My head started spinning. This was huge. No wonder the fairies were so mistrusting. “At what point did my gran and her sisters declare it all a hoax?”

  “When a fairy queen was captured and her kingdom collapsed as a result. By then, the governments knew it wasn’t a hoax, of course, but it stopped the every day citizen looking for us. We learned to hide better and created stronger spells to protect our boundaries. We taught new generations that humans were dangerous and not to be entertained in any manner for any reason whatsoever. Your governments haven’t gotten hold of a fairy since the mid-fifties. I dare say they have all but given up.”

  “Wow,” I breathed. “I’m guessing that the fairies exposing themselves to prove my gran isn’t a liar is out of the question then?”

  “Absolutely,” Tristan said. “It would be like history repeating itself otherwise and we can’t afford to go through that again. It would devastate our numbers.”

  “Is it not even worth asking the question?”

  Tristan swished his tail. “You can ask but I can assure you I already know the answer.”

  I glanced at Macie and sighed. “Back to the drawing board then.”

  Chapter 6

  After several heart wrenching stories from Tristan about how terrible humans were to his kind, both me and Macie realised that under no circumstances were the fairies going to pay the ransom my father so insisted upon.

  “Can I ask,” I said to Tristan. “Did the fairies know that they were being photographed?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “Cameras back in those days weren’t exactly small and delicate.”

  “If they knew they were being photographed, then they must have known that there was a risk of them being shown to other
s?”

  “Fairies had been seen by others before this. What made this different was that it was the first instance in which proof had been provided. It’s one thing for children to say they’d seen a fairy but it’s quite another to actually say they have evidence.”

  “I understand,” I said. “No one expected the outcome to be what it was just because of a few photos.”

  Tristan nodded. “Exactly. But that one thing has caused us to entirely change our way of living and our views on interacting with humans.”

  I sighed. My stomach grumbled, reminding me I still needed to eat. Picking Tristan up, I carried him back into Dad’s office and placed him back exactly where he’d been.

  “I’m going to get something to eat with Macie and think things over, see if we can find a way around this.”

  Tristan bent his front legs and slowly lowered himself back down onto his side. “Good luck. I would appreciate being left to sleep until dusk comes.”

  I smiled at him. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

  Walking out of the office, I closed the door behind me and went back to Macie in the living room. I flopped down onto the sofa and sighed.

  “Quite a pickle you’ve got yourself in here, Princess Pan,” Macie said.

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I replied, laughing. “Come on, let’s go get some food. Maybe we’ll have a brainwave or something after we’ve eaten.”

  “Arby’s?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows up and down.

  “Of course. I never expected to eat anywhere else.”

  Squealing with excitement, she ran for the front door, almost falling down the steps from the porch to the drive. Some small part of me really wanted Ben not to be working today but I knew that Macie had his shifts memorised more than her own.

  All the way there, we could do nothing but talk about the current situation. For me it was kind of old news, but I’d had a couple of days to take it all in. For Macie, however, it was the talk of the century.

  “Who knew fairies were real. Like, actually real,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. “This is just c-r-a-z-y. Can you believe it? Like, really?”

  I laughed at her. “Every time I doubt it, I remember there is a magical golden horse sat in my dad’s office that speaks. That kind of makes it real.”

  “Can you imagine if he was a life-sized horse? He’d be totally amazing. I bet he’d be amazing to ride.”

  “Actually, outside of his glass dome prison, he is life-sized. That was kinda the first thing he warned me about, not to take the glass off.”

  “Wow,” she breathed. “I would love to see that. Imagine riding a Pegasus, that would just be…I can’t even think of a word.” Her green eyes glazed over as she wandered off into her own daydreams.

  I giggled. “Now who’s Princess Pan?”

  She widened her eyes, looked across at me, and gasped. “What if there were two Pegasus, then Ben could ride the other one and we could fly off into the sunset together.”

  I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that. “That is quite some imagination you’ve got there.”

  “Never say never,” Macie said, smirking to herself.

  “I’m thinking,” I said, bringing the tone back to serious. “That I need to go see the fairy I spoke to the other night.”

  “Oh, the handsome one you wished was human?”

  My cheeks instantly burned with heat. “He might be slightly attractive, yes.”

  “With him being fairy and all, you could actually fly off into the sunset, maybe on his back,” she giggled, winking.

  “Oh yes, how romantic. Me clinging onto him like a baby chimp hangs onto its mom.”

  We both laughed.

  “And other than a budding romance, what are you hoping to gain from seeing this handsome fairy?”

  “Maybe there is some sort of compromise we can come to that we haven’t thought of yet. That and I need to apologise for breaking my promise last night. I’ll never forgive Dad for that. I always keep my word.”

  “Sometimes things are out of your control and I think, unfortunately, this is one of those instances. Never in a million years would I have expected your dad to know some fairy spell. I mean, what the hell? That’s something you couldn’t have foreseen. I’m sure the handsome fairy will understand that.”

  “I don’t think he will. You didn’t see how hostile he was. They really really hate humans, Mace. I think me breaking my word would probably be the last straw as far as they’re concerned.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Go tonight and summon him or whatever you did before and see what happens. If you don’t go, you won’t know.”

  I sighed and stared out of the window. She had a point. I had to at least try. As we approached Arby’s, the subject quickly changed to that of the delicious Ben. When we pulled into the parking lot and his truck wasn’t there, I had to bite my tongue not to laugh at the sheer horror written all over Macie’s face.

  “But, but, but he always works Monday’s,” she said, her bottom lip sticking out. “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe he called in sick or something?”

  She threw me a disgusted look and said, “He’s far too fit and healthy to be sick, Faye.”

  I chuckled to myself and got out of the car. “Well maybe we’ll find out why he isn’t here if we actually go inside.”

  With a rather exaggerated sigh, Macie climbed out of the car and headed for the door, her shoulders slumped and no smile in sight. We sat down at our usual booth in Ben’s section and waited for someone to come over. When Arlene came sauntering over, her dyed red hair all twisted up into a fancy bun on top of her head, Macie immediately jumped on her with questions about Ben.

  “No Ben today?” Macie asked.

  Arlene’s plump red lips tweaked up into a sly smile. “Afraid not, sweetie. He’s staying home to help his mom with his little sister. Whatever this is going on, she’s not been sleeping either, poor little girl.”

  Macie put a hand over her heart and looked over at me. “Awww, that is so sweet.”

  “Isn’t it?” Arlene said. “He’s just the nicest boy.”

  Macie nodded. “He really is.”

  I cleared my throat and smiled up at Arlene. “Can I get the buttermilk buffalo chicken sandwich please and a plate of loaded curly fries?”

  Arlene jotted down my order and then took Macie’s roast turkey ranch and bacon wrap order before disappearing back into the kitchen.

  Thankfully, Macie didn’t bring Ben up anymore which was a blessing in itself. Within an hour, we’d eaten and were on our way back to my house. It was a record breaker for sure and definitely not a coincidence that Ben hadn’t been working.

  Pulling up on my drive, Macie sighed and said, “I’ve got work at two. What’s your plans? Do you want me to come round after I finish to help you summon them or something?”

  I giggled. “They’re not demons that need latin chanting and circles of candles. I’ll be fine. You just carry on as normal and leave this with me.”

  “Carry on as normal? How can I possibly do that knowing all of this?” Her voice turned all high pitched and shrieky.

  “You’ve got to,” I said. “I’m going out there now to speak to them, I’m not waiting until it’s dark. If I’m not back by the time you finish work, I need you to tell my dad I’m staying with you, ok? Well, if he even bothers to ask where I am.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean ‘not back by the time I finish work’? You can’t possibly stay in the woods for the next ten hours chatting to a fairy.”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m going to demand to speak to one of their Queens. In their realm.”

  “No,” she replied, her eyes widening. “Is that even possible? Crossing into their world?”

  “From what I remember of my gran’s stories, I’m certain she went over there.”

  Macie grabbed my arms and held on tightly. “What if something happens to you?”

  “I’ll be fine. Trus
t me.”

  “Let me come with you.”

  “Macie, I can’t. One, I need you here to lie for me and make sure Dad does nothing with Tristan. Two, I broke my promise last night, they’re not going to trust me, let alone another human. Three, this is my mess to sort. I’m not putting you in danger.”

  “Ah ha!” she declared, in a triumphant tone. “So you’re admitting that it will be dangerous.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course there’s going to be an element of danger to it.”

  “Faye—”

  “Macie, please. My mind is made up, this is what’s happening. Can you please just do as I’ve asked?”

  We stared at each other for a moment or two before she sighed and said, “Fine. Go on a magical adventure with a hunky fairy and leave me here.”

  I leaned over and gave her a quick hug. “I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I can.”

  “Be careful, Faye.”

  Chapter 7

  Part of me really wanted to do this with Macie. We’d have such an adventure to reminisce about together forever but the rational side of me had actually kicked in for once and I knew her staying here was the right thing for everyone.

  I remembered Tristan saying he wanted to be left alone until evening and I battled an internal war not to wake him and tell him of my plan. Figuring he needed the rest, I let him be. Instead, I raided the kitchen cupboards for jam, bread, and sugar.

  An unopened jar of blackcurrant jam, half a bag of sugar, and a loaf of bread became my bait for tempting one of them, hopefully Calico, out in the middle of the day. I switched my phone off and dropped it inside one of my boots near the back door.

  With my stack of goodies, I power walked out of the house and to the woods. Now I knew the area they were most likely to be found, I headed straight to the huge oak tree, my heart pounding harder with every step.

  How would this go? Would they forgive me for breaking my word last night? Could there be a peaceful solution at all?

  I approached the tree and set my offerings down on the ground. Feeling a little lost, I waited for several minutes, not sure whether to stand or sit. When I remembered how uncomfortable the ground had been before, I decided to stay standing for a little while.