I have been writing stories for years, and I thought it might be a cool idea to post some of my short stories to my blog, for anyone that wants to see more of my writing outside of my novel series, The Ebonwick Chronicles!
The first short story I wanted to share is called You Can't Cheat The Fairy Ring.
You Can’t Cheat a Fairy Ring
The second week in October, that’s when the mushrooms arrived. Every year, just before the weather began to turn. The mushrooms would grow overnight and would stay for three nights before they disappeared again.
At this time all the children in the town, myself included, would go hunting for the fairy rings. They were always around the forest, though not many of us were allowed to go there, and those of us that could were always disappointed by the size of them. The fairy rings at the forest were small and didn’t intrigue us much.
The best fairy ring was the one inside the yard of Miss Viola. She and her two sisters, Miss Rose, and Ms Daisy, lived in the cottage at the edge of the forest. We were not meant to be playing in the cottage garden, but this fairy ring was too exciting to miss. It was, in fact, two fairy rings that overlapped in the middle to create a Venn diagram of mushrooms. One of us had heard a few years ago that if you jumped through the middle of this ring, in the place the rings overlapped, you would be safe from the fairies and wouldn’t disappear into their world.
We all would take turns hopping through the fairy ring. Cyril lost his balance once and almost fell into the rings, but Laura caught him before he hit the ground. It was a shame he got so angry with her, his face went red, and he stormed off back to his house. Laura was only trying to help. Cyril would calm down in a day or two though, after all, he didn’t fall into a ring.
I wasn’t brave enough to jump with the rest of them. I snuck out of my bedroom window that night though and planned to jump through the fairy rings for my own pride. I snuck up to the fence of the cottage and found a spot so I could jump the fence without the sisters catching me through the kitchen window.
Just as I meant to jump through, I had to crouch in one of the hedges that lined the fence. The hedge was prickly against my skin, but I didn’t dare move and make a sound. Miss Rose, Miss Viola, and Ms Daisy had come into the garden, in the strangest cloaks I had ever seen. Miss Rose’s cloak was striped and brown, and seemed to creak when she walked. Ms Daisy’s cloak was softer and completely white and fluttered behind her like she was floating. Miss Viola’s was the most magnificent. The whole cloak, Miss Viola’s was hooded, was covered in butterflies stitched so delicately onto the fabric so that the wings wouldn’t tear. It was amazing how the butterflies were arranged, a mosaic like the stained-glass of church windows.
I watched all three of them walk towards the double fairy ring and stand around it, arms outstretched towards each other. I wondered what they were about to do, for a moment I thought they might jump over the fairy rings like I had intended to do. Instead, they each began to hum a tune that I’d never heard before. They began to sing and dance around the fairy rings.
I was worried at any moment they would misstep and land in the fairy ring, but they just started to dance wilder and wilder as their singing grew louder and more passionate. Suddenly Miss Viola jumped and spun in the air. I gasped at the sight, knowing she would land straight into the fairy ring. All three of the sisters stopped and looked in my direction. I wanted to run away, but I’d been caught snooping, and my legs refused to move.
Then the three women walked towards me together. They could see me in the hedge, behind my emergency camouflage. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t run away, I couldn’t blink. I worried for a moment that I wasn’t even breathing anymore. I was just staring at the three women slowly gliding towards me. I forced my gaze down and watched as their bare feet moved slowly but never touched the ground.
“Child,” They said as one. Their voices were a whisper but together they sounded like there were hundreds more of them.
I found myself standing up and revealing myself from the hedge without realising I was doing it. They looked at me with an air of satisfaction and beckoned me closer. I moved forward and jumped the fence while I was thinking the whole time I should just run away. I didn’t have control over my own body, I was being pulled by them.
“Jump for us child,” the three of them said. I moved towards the fairy rings, and my feet started to tingle. My body knew what they meant, even though my brain kept persisting. My feet stepped forward, planting my left foot in one of the rings, and my right in the other. I felt a strange sensation, of my body buzzing all over and a pulling in my heart like it was trying to break out of my chest.
I wanted to get out but I couldn’t, I was being torn apart. My body stayed where it was but my soul was pulling away. The three women laughed loudly though the rest of the world seemed to go silent. I could see them jumping in excitement and they started dancing again, chanting rather than humming their strange tune.
Then, all of a sudden, my body was gone. It had disappeared I did not know where, and a bundle left in its place. The women stopped their dancing and saw this bundle. Miss Viola scooped it up with a gleeful smile, and with a tone I’d never heard before she called to her sisters.
“She is here! She is here!”
Miss Rose and Ms Daisy both hugged Miss Viola, and she unwrapped part of the bundle to show the face of a baby. A baby with pointed hairy ears and a nose that was almost like a cows.
“She’s beautiful,” Miss Rose said.
“And her name?” Ms Daisy asked, “You know a changeling cannot appear fully human until she is given a name.”
“I remember Daisy,” Miss Viola said, “I remember from when I was called forth.”
“Then what?” Miss Rose giggled, a tinkling laugh that I had heard often but always mistook for my imagination.
“I’ll call her Marigold,” Miss Viola smiled, rocking the baby so hard she was almost swinging her from side to side.
“I fine choice,” Ms Daisy smiled, “She’ll grow the brightest red hair I’m sure.”
“Oh, we can only hope,” Miss Viola smiled.
I watched as Ms Daisy took the baby and Miss Rose followed her back inside the cottage. Miss Viola stood a moment before she turned on me, or rather, where my soul was now floating in the air.
“And you,” she snapped. “You can never cheat a fairy ring child, and you were the stupidest of your friends. You must jump over the rings, to ensure you cannot be sacrificed to them.”
I hope you enjoyed this story!
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