Beyond the Wild Wood

by E. M. Fitch

  “They’re more advanced now,” Aidan murmured, looking from Gaia’s marred arm to his feet. “They’re not the angry villagers with pitchforks you remember.”

  “Their weapons are more advanced, too, Aidan,” Lucas said. He stood and walked off into the forest, turning his back on the boy he had yet to call king.

  “I’ve already spoken with the pixies,” Aidan called at his retreating back, half defiant and half pleading. Lucas waved a dismissive hand over his head, and the forest responded. The path he walked closed behind him, swallowing him. He didn’t stop walking. “Silly old fool,” Aidan muttered under his breath.

  The rest of the Fae sat at Aidan’s feet—Laney, Gaia, Jude, Paola, and the three still-silent Fae, Ruari, Moira, and Grady.

  “When will the pixies descend?” Gaia asked Aidan.

  “Dusk.”

  “Why call on them?” Laney asked, standing at the edge of the woods, looking down on the twinkling lights of the town below. It was a tiny little town—a twisted web of light in the forest, really.

  Main Street wound through the center of town and dipped into a long streak of a hill; all the local businesses were either directly on the street or close by. At the bottom of the hill, the pizza place stood directly across from the bank. The bank was next to the karate studio and near The Liquor Lady. Moving up the hill, you’d pass the Town Green where the flagpole stood; even in darkness, the flag could be seen snapping in the evening wind. Every year the Memorial Day parade stopped there, and the town gathered all its soldiers to celebrate them. On top of the hill, right at the bend, a Revolutionary War-era cemetery lay in pristine condition, surrounded by an old iron fence. Directly across the road, up a tiny drive, you could park your car and enter the park where Laney had once waited for Cassie, sitting on a bench with Corey, holding hands and pretending to be an old married couple. And right beyond the park lay a road that ventured a little further into the woods before opening to the town center. The town hall was there, with the state police barracks attached. The library stood across the drive, along with a playground, the gazebo, and the Little League fields.

  From where she and Aidan were perched, Laney could also see her old neighborhood. The lights of the houses were orange jewels in a purple night. She frowned. Her parents’ house stood in darkness, alone on a street lined with glowing homes.

  Aidan shrugged beside her. “They were excited when I mentioned it. And they’ve helped me wonderfully over the past year. Think of it as a reward.”

  Laney thought of the tiny creatures perched on the elongated bodies of the delicate butterflies, whispering in the ears of goats as they grasped their tiny hands in a strangle-like hold in the coarse hair. They were the faeries she always dreamed existed, the ones who punctuated her wildest childhood dreams. Pixies. Tiny bodies who took winged flight, sprinkling golden dust in their wake.

  She had never imagined the sharp teeth, the eyes that resembled tiny pinpricks of deepest black, the mouths that opened like tar pits. Up close, that’s exactly what these creatures looked like: miniature demons.

  “But why, Aidan?” Laney whispered. She sensed the brush of a thousand tiny wings disturbing the air behind her. “I thought you didn’t want to scare her anymore.”

  “I don’t!” he answered, turning to Laney in surprise. “That’s not why I called on them. Besides, you know she doesn’t even see them on the beasts they ride. They’re so small.” As he spoke, a butterfly flitted about his face, landing delicately on his nose. Aidan’s eyes crossed as he looked to the tiny pixie stretched along the lithe body of the butterfly she rode. With a tinkling laugh Laney could only just hear, the pixie took off and was joined by a thousand more, all fluttering together in the twilight hours.

  “No, I don’t want to scare her anymore,” Aidan said, his voice soft. “I want to show her. Look how beautiful they are.”

  Laney looked at the flutter of brilliant colors, subdued in the darkness. Almost as though it was on Aidan’s command, a swirl of light flowed through and around the butterflies. Fireflies, like tiny lanterns, twisted up and around the swarm, lighting the delicate wings like jewels in the night. Even Laney couldn’t contain her gasp of delight.

  “They’re beautiful, aren’t they? So much of what we have to offer is just so beautiful,” Aidan whispered. “Nature, in all its glory, is ours to play with. The trees bow at our command, water springs from earth, nature provides our music and food, and yes, even our entertainment. For an eternity, it could be hers. I want to show her what she’s saying no to.”

  “You want to offer her the world,” Laney murmured.

  “Not just myself, but everything,” Aidan confirmed.

  As the golden-lit swarm got closer to town, Aidan and Laney followed, melding with the trees and skipping their way over a brook that seemed to be falling down a hillside in the dark. Just above the whisper of the forest, Laney could hear Aidan’s last furtive words, a desperate quality clinging to each syllable. “It’s going to work. It has to.”

  “Tell me why we’re here again?” Jon’s whine carried a little too far in the hushed stillness of the soccer field. Several moms turned their heads and eyed him, lips pursed. One went as far as to shake her head at him before turning back to the four children munching popcorn at her feet.

  “Because it’s romantic and sweet,” Samantha whispered, swatting lightly at her boyfriend’s chest, “and because it’s the last outdoor movie of the summer, and because I wanted to, so shut it.”

  Jon, Samantha, Ryan, Cassie, and Rebecca all lounged on an old quilt in the middle of a dewy soccer field, watching the movie that was projected onto the inflatable big screen tethered to the grass in front of the soccer goals. Half the town was there, most with young children in tow. It was the last of the summer movies. The town did it every year—rented the screen and hired the projectionist to play some classic kiddie movie in the middle of the soccer field next to town hall. Cassie had come many times before, blanket and picnic basket in hand, though she had come more consistently when she was a little kid. Her mother would insist, and her father would join begrudgingly and then smack at his skin every few minutes as though he was being eaten alive by mosquitos.

  The night was balmy, but a decent breeze kept the bugs away and the moviegoers cool.

  “We could have gone to the movie theater, sat in real chairs, watched—”

  “I’m not watching that stupid movie with you again,” Samantha grumbled, probably referring the action movie Cassie and Ryan had sat through the other day. “Nothing but guns, explosions, and huge boobs.”

  Cassie laughed.

  “Well, yeah,” Jon agreed with a roguish grin on his face. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Willy Wonka is a classic,” Samantha sniffed.

  “And it’s free,” Rebecca added from Cassie’s left. She lifted a handful of popcorn to her mouth and crunched, grinning over at Samantha.

  Cassie smiled, and she could feel Ryan’s low chuckle rumble from him. She snuggled back against his chest, and he squeezed her tightly. One of his hands slipped beneath the blanket that covered them both, his fingertips working gentle circles into the soft flesh that dipped just above Cassie’s hip. She leaned into his embrace, relishing the warmth. The breeze felt lovely, but already the summer nights, in contrast to the days, were starting to cool. Moisture clung to the grass blades of the soccer field, caressing Cassie’s bare skin whenever her leg shifted from the worn quilt and accidentally stroked the edge of grass that crept over the woven plaid.

  The inflatable big screen in front of her wavered slightly in the breeze, distorting the image projected onto its surface. Gene Wilder’s face contorted, his look of contemplation wavering before the film scanned over an entire candy garden growing from the bowels of a filthy factory. Rebecca offered popcorn to Cassie, and she took a handful with a murmur of thanks. Her friend would be leaving soon. Next weekend she’d be away, one last camping trip with her parents a
nd brother; her mom had insisted on it. Cassie looked over to Rebecca now, wondering.

  They had grown closer in the past year, mostly because they were the two girls who lost their best friends. Cassie leaned on Rebecca, and Rebecca leaned back. She wondered how it would be when college separated them by a hundred miles. She wondered at the wide, open future that stretched before Rebecca, and how that future could have stretched for her, too, if only she wasn’t able to see the creatures that stalked through the forest. Cassie looked to Samantha, happily settled in Jon’s lap, though her eyes roved toward the drifting branches that sung behind the soccer field. Rebecca was free, freer than either Samantha or Cassie. And though Rebecca had earned truth from Cassie, just as Samantha had, Cassie wondered at the cruelty of it. Because whatever else her truths would bring, it would undoubtedly bring the end to Rebecca’s Fae-free future.

  It was kinder, Cassie thought, to let her go.

  A burst of laughter from the library carried in the air to the darkened soccer field, and the mom in front of them scowled again, looking over to the light spilling from the open library door onto the cold pavement of the parking lot. The boy at her feet squinted in that direction, too, and wondered out loud if the library had anymore brownies. His mother shushed him and turned his face back toward the screen. Vaguely, Cassie wondered about the brownies as well.

  The library sat directly across the road from the town hall, and it was holding another semi-annual bake and book sale. It happened every few months, and Cassie’s father went every time. The library, recreation fields, town hall, state police barracks, and gazebo all occupied this little patch of open land. The forests of her hometown embraced them on all sides, but the twinkling lights here, at what was really the town’s center, made the trees feel less menacing. Street lamps hung over the parking lots near the library and town hall. The road that stretched between the two buildings was quiet, with groups of people regularly walking across. The gazebo was lit with white Christmas lights and, though empty, stood comfortingly stoic in the middle of a small stretch of grass that separated the two lanes of the road.

  Cassie turned from her quietly-breathing community and looked back to the wavering screen. Ryan’s lips hovered by the shell of her ear, his warm breath caressing her neck. She shivered when he pressed an innocent kiss to her cheek.

  She knew what was coming and what she had to do. Ryan’s embrace would be a haven only for a little while longer, and then she would have to abandon it. She hoped he’d never know why.

  It had come to her that morning—just what she would have to do. She and Laney had discussed killing Aidan, and she knew that was right, but they hadn’t ever discussed how Cassie would do it. With iron, this she knew, but how was she supposed to get that close to him without the trees ripping from the earth and smashing her into the soil? How was she to get close enough to kill him without the branches whipping around her body, the roots shooting through the earth and ensnaring her feet, the faery boys who caught blood in their hats pouncing with high-pitched giggles, forcing her body away from her prey and feasting on her flesh themselves?

  She knew how; it had come to her in the lavender-scented twilight of dawn, when her limbs were still warm and drowsy under her covers, and the hopeful, sleep-filled moments stretched before her, uninterrupted by any threat of a school-day alarm clock. She had been thinking of Ryan, and of how the mere thought of him warmed her body and stirred something familiar and yet altogether new in her soul. She thought of his hands skimming her outline, and the vulnerability it took to allow it. She thought about how safe he made her feel, even when their snatches of breath against each other’s lips felt anything but safe. And then she knew.

  To get close to Aidan, close enough to kill, she’d have to make him believe he had finally seduced her. She’d have to allow his hands to travel the path that Ryan’s already had, and gasp and tremble under a different set of lips; lips that were firm and hungry, lips that had already tasted her, lips that were still waiting for her.

  “What’s wrong?” Ryan whispered into her ear. She shivered at the warm rush of air, snuggling back into his chest.

  “Nothing,” Cassie lied, twisting back to press soft lips to his stubbled chin. He bent lower and caught her mouth with his own, tasting her briefly, before Jon made an over-exaggerated retching sound and broke them apart with pointed looks. Samantha shoved him off the blanket and onto the dewy grass. Jon reached out and caught hold of his girlfriend’s ankle, giving a tug until she landed beside him in the cool grass, laughing and slapping at him. It would have progressed to an all-out wrestling match right there on the soccer field, despite the angry hisses of disgruntled mothers, if it hadn’t been for the unnatural glow that Samantha saw swirling over the library.

  “What’s that?” she wondered aloud, coming to her knees next to the blanket. Cassie twisted in Ryan’s arms, craning her neck to see behind them.

  “Fireflies?” Jon asked, his head cocked. He scrambled up. The angry mother turned in her seat, scowling, only to be stopped at the sight behind them.

  It was a host of fireflies, more than Cassie had ever seen before. These didn’t hover playfully at the edge of a wood, they spiraled and spun together, creating mini twists and tornados of golden light. They swirled over the roof of the library, causing some of the patrons leaving to look up and scurry quickly to their cars.

  “Can’t just be fireflies,” Ryan whispered. “Look at the colors.”

  As he said the words, Cassie saw it. The light flickered between colors, like a whirling tornado of Christmas lights, all twinkling in the heavy, summer air. Blue and purple and pink and red and vivid yellow, as though something was holding up fragments of colored glass for the fireflies to flit around and shine through.

  “It’s butterflies,” Samantha murmured. “Thousands of them.”

  Cassie shivered, and in Samantha’s tone, she knew that same fear was racing through her veins. They’re here.

  “I have never seen a grouping like that,” Rebecca said in awe, standing with Jon. They weren’t the only ones; dozens of people were standing now. Someone must have seen from inside the library, because people poked their heads out the door before moving cautiously out into the parking lot.

  “Mommy, look!” a kid called out. “I wanna go see!” another cried. A general murmur started up and swept through the soccer field. The soundtrack of the movie playing on the big screen in front of them could no longer be heard. Someone cried out as the whirling tunnel of fireflies and butterflies dispersed, hovering like a cloud over the entire library and moving ever closer to the soccer fields.

  The people standing outside the library—Cassie was sure her father would be one of them—seemed unsure. Many had their hands up over their heads, as though waiting for something foul to drop. Others positioned themselves close to doorways and nearby ornamental trees, as though wanting to be close to cover should the insects above decide to swoop down on the crowd.

  Cassie glanced at Samantha and saw the same trepidation she felt. What did they want? What was this about? She wasn’t sure. Two sensations fought for dominance over her heart: awe and dread.

  The dread she understood. It was the awe that took Cassie aback. In truth, the display was breathtaking. The butterflies flitted like glowing gems, each paired with a couple of fireflies. It was a gentle fireworks show, a noiseless explosion of color in a dark sky. It was undeniably beautiful.

  And maybe that was the point. Laney had said that Aidan felt Cassie would come to him, in the end. Perhaps this was why. There was some part of Cassie, some deeply buried corner of her soul, that felt stirred and drawn to the beauty of the nature unfolding around her, and she knew this was its purpose. Aidan designed this for her, to show her the beauty of the world she denied. And even that action, though she knew it was sick, touched her.

  That was good, she thought, watching as the swirl of lights and color dispersed over the soccer field. Many of the families laid
back on their blankets, the movie forgotten, watching the show that mimicked the motions of the stars, celestial beings come to earth. She could use this fascination; it would make what she was about to do seem all the more real.

  “Oh my goodness, the screen!” Samantha cried out. Heads snapped in the direction of the gigantic blowup screen. Cassie heard one of the lines tethering it to the earth snap with a whip-like crack through the air. The cord lashed out, catching the movie operator in the leg. His scream punctuated the otherwise hushed night air.

  It was like a starting gun. Every person seemed to become aware that something wasn’t right. The mental fog that had descended lifted. The man who had been lashed fell to the ground, and in the flickering, distorted light of the still-running Willy Wonka, Cassie saw his hand come away from his calf, red with blood. Jon got to his feet, swatting at the sky with the sweatshirt he had brought with him. People by the library started shouting and clapping at the sky, as though looking to disperse the infestation. The other line holding the screen snapped, and the inflatable jerked before a corner lifted in the air.

  A series of shouts and outstretched arms seemed to follow in the wake of the screen. The man on the ground struggled to his feet, only to be pulled into a nearby chair by a concerned mother. Two children clung to the chair legs, and Cassie was reminded obscenely of that scene from A Christmas Carol, where the children clung, dirty and forgotten, to the Spirit’s feet.

  “Oh, Jon!” Samantha screamed, jumping to her feet. The last line that tethered the screen snapped with a screech. She pointed first and then ran, leaping midair to catch the corner and pull it down. The wind gusted out of nowhere, and Samantha was dragged several feet before other hands could catch hold. Jon and Ryan, Rebecca and half a dozen other townsfolk grabbed hold of the giant screen and tried to pull it back to the earth, but the swirl of butterflies and fireflies had begun to spiral above it, and it was like a mini-tornado, fierce and determined.