Silas stood a few feet from the treeline and squinted into the forest. The scents of wildflowers and oaks mingled in the breeze, carried by a distant blue jay’s cry. Lights and shadows squirmed on the forest floor and beckoned Silas in.
He shifted his eyes away from the forest and turned to his classmate. “You’re serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Phillip didn’t even glance up from his datapad. He absentmindedly tugged at his tangled hair as he flicked his eyes over his old lecture notes. He had always been a curious fellow (though some other than Silas would prefer “nosy”), but his antics had never gotten the two of them into any real trouble. Before. Now Phillip wanted to go into the woods. He wanted to study the Fair Folk.
So there they stood: alone, reckless, and, in all likelihood, unprepared. No one else had successfully explored the woods, but Phillip seemed convinced two third-year university students would be just fine. They both brought datapads, but other than that, they’d be devoid of any modern technology that would accompany a real expedition.
“You aren’t looking too good. Nervous?” Phillip fidgeted with his glasses as he glanced at Silas.
“You scare me.” Silas looked back into the woods. “You realize what we’re doing, right?”
“Come on, we’ve dealt with weird stuff before. It’ll be just like Raven’s Rock.”
Silas frowned. “This will be nothing like Raven’s Rock.”
Phillip had already crossed into the forest, and Silas reluctantly followed. Ferns and flowers lazily brushed their ankles, and the morning sun managed to find its way through the dense canopy above them. While Phillip flitted about, taking notes on whatever flora struck his fancy, Silas kept a weary eye on the distant shadows and the shrouded branches. He swore he felt the ferns grabbing him, and he hopped from side to side to avoid touching any of them for very long. His skin prickled. They were being watched. Phillip didn’t seem to notice, and he just kept typing his notes. Silas jerked his head around at every rustling leaf or chirping insect, and he could feel something flee from his vision every time. He heard a twig snap, and he twisted around, and he locked eyes with their silent companion.
The fae sat for a moment, then slowly lowered himself from the tree branch to the forest floor. He wore a dark cloak of feathers and leaves, his long brown hair fell past his shoulders, and his green eyes seemed to glow faintly in the dim light. His skin was one uniform, blemishless color, as though he were wearing a porcelain mask. He circled Silas, inspecting him like a biologist would inspect a rat. Silas’s chest tightened, and he struggled to draw shaky breaths. His skin writhed under the fae’s eyes, and Silas half-expected to look down and see a horde of beetles swarming up his legs.
He nearly fell when Phillip pushed him aside to look at the fae. Phillip’s fingers danced over his datapad as he assaulted the creature with questions. “Are you a faerie? Are you from the forest? Do faeries live alone, or do you live in communities? What kinds of powers do you have?”
The fae pulled away from Phillip and made a few gestures.
Phillip frowned. “You can’t talk?”
The fae smiled and nodded.
“Can you take us to someone who can?”
The fae nodded again and beckoned them to follow.
Silas caught Phillip by the shoulder before he could follow the fae into the woods. “Listen to me. We need to be extremely careful. I don’t mean your usual ‘careful’. I mean actually careful.”
Phillip brushed Silas’s hand from his shoulder. “Oh, come on. Don’t you trust me?” After a moment of silence, Phillip continued. “Fair. Look, we don’t have much to worry about, but just for you, I promise to be extra careful. Now hurry up, we’re losing him.”
They walked farther, and the trees became denser. The ground turned from soft soil to knotted roots. The branches of the trees, once so high in the canopy, swung down to claw at their hair and packs. The sun’s light started to fade, but the flowers were brighter than ever. The greens, blues, purples, and yellows strained Silas’s eyes as though he were staring at a computer screen. Phillip and Silas had to struggle against the thickening ferns and bushes, but the fae never slowed or faltered.
They emptied from the thicket into a clearing carpeted with creeping vines and orange flowers. The sky above was darkening from afternoon to evening, and the full moon cast a pale purple light over the scene. The fae gestured for the two of them to stay put, then slipped away. Phillip shrugged and lay on his back, but Silas remained standing.
“Can we go home?” Silas asked.
Phillip languidly turned towards him. “Why?”
“It’s late. I don’t want to spend the night here. Haven’t you gotten anything to work with?”
Phillip looked away and nodded. “Okay.” He sat up and swiped through his datapad. After a pause, he frowned. “Is your GPS working?”
Silas tried to steady his trembling hand as he grabbed his datapad from his pack. He swiped to the GPS application, said a quick prayer, and opened it.
Twisting, writhing static.
They were lost. Silas didn’t move; where would he go? He stowed his datapad back in his bag and looked up at the sky. Maybe he could pretend he was in his apartment, dreaming through a late-night melancholy.
Phillip rose and walked over to him. “I’m sorry. But in my defense, how was I supposed to know this would happen?”
“Maybe when people give you advice, you take it.”
“But no one told me.”
“Forget it.”
“Why are you here, then?” Phillip fiddled with the hem of his shirt while he fumbled for his words. “I mean, you clearly think there’s value in this project.”
Silas sighed and closed his eyes. “I couldn’t talk you out of it. Was I supposed to let you go alone?”
The students stood in silence for a while. Phillip tried to think of something to say, but eventually just sat and gestured to the ground. Silas dropped, cross-legged, and Phillip nodded. “We’ll just wait.”
So they waited. Phillip intently worked on his datapad, but Silas couldn’t imagine he was making progress. They should never have come in the first place, and now there was no way out. Eventually, Phillip’s datapad ran out of battery. So they waited. The purple moon hovered overhead, perpetually at its zenith. Silas wasn’t sure how long it had been, but shouldn’t it have moved by now? Nothing moved—not even a breeze disturbed the mat of tiny orange flowers.
Silas wasn’t waiting anymore. He pulled himself to his feet, tugged a few vines from his shoes, and looked down at Phillip.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the faerie to come back?” Phillip asked.
Silas shouldered his pack. “It’s not coming back. Tell me you remember the way home.”
Phillip pointed back into the woods, and the two of them set off.
As the students fought through the increasingly dense foliage, the trees crowded closer than ever before. The flowers lost their unnatural brightness, and at first the two grabbed onto that bit of hope. But then the flowers’ colors muted. Then the color faded from the vines and flowers completely, leaving only a ghastly white. The trees and dirt followed: natural, muted, white. The mask of vibrancy the forest had desperately held to its face was starting to fall, and all that surrounded Phillip and Silas were distorted sketches of things that were meant to be plants.
They didn’t even feel like plants anymore; pushing through the underbrush felt like moving damp papier-mâché. Silas touched a particularly low branch, and his hand came away glistening and wet. He tried to wipe it off but only succeeded in coating his pants in the stuff. The trees sloughed off onto his pack as he tried to avoid them. Maybe he could push through to the other side. He pushed through, he held his breath, and he pushed through.
Phillip toppled over as he and Silas spilled out into another clearing. He squirmed on the ground and frantically wiped away the slimy white flakes that had clung to him. Silas crouched next to his friend and carefully wiped his own refuse onto the grass. The green grass. The trees which ringed the clearing were white and incomplete, but the clearing itself was oversaturated with color. In the exact center of the perfect circle, atop a small hill, waited a small cottage.
Cobblestones a bit too square, fences a bit too brown… Silas expected that at this point. He looked up the hill to the cottage and stared at the silent fae sitting atop the roof. It distorted its mask of a face into a grin and waved, its green eyes seeming to glow in the moonlight.
“I’ll go,” Phillip said. “I’m sorry about before, and I don’t want you to get into any more trouble than you already are.”
Silas gestured at the fae. “What makes you think I have a choice?”
The fae’s smile never shifted as he watched them walk up the hill path and knock on the cottage’s front door. He leaned over the edge of the roof to watch them wait, and he didn’t stop watching until the door closed behind the two of them.
Another fae had ushered them inside. This one was clad similarly to the mute fae and had the same strange eyes, but her expressions were more fluid and her gestures more natural. Though it was an improvement, every smile, every word, every twitch of her mouth or brow was mirrored exactly across her face with unerring symmetry. As she leaned forward to gesture at the chair across from her, her arm jerked as though pulled by an invisible marionette string.
“Please, sit,” she said. Her voice was of the fake, sing-song quality a particularly lousy first-year composer might devise.
“No,” Phillip said.
The fae took on a hurt expression and shook her head. “I was trying to be hospitable.”
Silas didn’t like this woman. “What do you want?”
“I want to help!” she said with malice-tinged glee.
“And how are you exactly planning to help?” Silas asked.
“Well, I’ll send you back home, of course!”
Of course. The fae just wanted to help fix the problem her friend had created. For a price, Silas was sure.
“You can do that?” Phillip asked softly.
“There are plenty of things that I can do. Though, there is a rule that requires a payment. I’m unfortunately going to need the thing you value most.”
There it was. “And what would that be exactly?” Silas asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It varies from person to person. But I promise it will be taken from whoever decides to pay. I just need your name.”
Silas shook his head. “We’re not stupid.”
The fae’s smiled widened. “It’s an expression! I promise I won’t literally take your name from you. I just need its power. If it makes you feel better, I’ll rephrase: tell me your name.”
“This is a blank check,” Silas said.
The fae sat completely motionless. Silas gritted his teeth, ready to wait.
“I’ll do it,” Phillip said to Silas. “I really am sorry.”
The fae rubbed her hands together. “And what is your name?”
Phillip ignored her. “I promise I’ll be better.”
“Your name.”
“Phillip.” He turned to her. “My name is Phillip Carlton.”
Everything went black.
***
Phillip was first aware of the buzzing of insects. He blinked open his eyes and sat up. Blades of grass caressed him as a cool breeze blew over the moonlit meadow. He braced himself against the moist soil, rose to his feet, and looked to the pale white moon.
So he had gotten out. He had paid whatever toll the faerie decided to extract, and he was free. He started to think to his datapad and his notes, but he shook those thoughts from his head. It was time to go home.
He scanned the grass, and his gaze fell on a young man sitting a few meters away from him. The man was slumped against two backpacks, and he slept with a grimace on his face. He lurched awake as Phillip approached.
“Phillip! You’re okay!” The man leapt to his feet and reached out his arms, but lowered them when Phillip didn’t respond. “Phillip?”
Phillip gave a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, have we met?”
“It’s me. It’s Silas.”
This was embarrassing; Phillip never had been good with names or faces. “Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. Do we have Dr. Enescu’s class together?”
Silas took a few moments before choking out, “I’m here to get you home safe.”
Phillip looked him up and down, then nodded to himself. “I really think we have class together. I swear, I’m pretty sure we’ve met before.”
“Yeah… So am I.”
Phillip wanted to introduce himself, but Silas had already grabbed a bag and started walking towards the city’s glass and lights. Phillip called out and ran to catch up with him, a ramble about the faeries already formed on his lips. He chattered the whole way, but Silas didn’t breathe a word. They reached the edge of the city, and Phillip pointed to the left.
“I go this way,” he said.
Silas tried to reply, but his voice broke. He nodded.
Like any two strangers who had never met before and never would again, the students turned and walked their separate ways.