“Merissa?”

“Mm hmm?”

“You said they’d be children.”

Merissa grimaced.

That was what she’d seen when she scouted the place out a few weeks prior. Nothing but young children, not a single one of them over the age of 12 years old. They’d been more or less in a single group, corralled by a teacher of some kind, playing games, giggling, and having light-hearted, G-rated fun. This fun was further sequestered by a chain-link gate that enclosed the vast swath of grassy plain, a playground in one corner, a track field in another, a tennis court in another, and a smaller gate that led to a mossy trail lined by trees, some fertile, some half-rotted and providing obstacles, easily overcome by the Fey folk.

In fact, it was atop the branches of one such pine that Merissa was now perched, bare feet easily gripping the hard, rough, knotted bark. As the tree would’ve been an ordeal for any human to attempt to scale, it absolutely dwarfed Merissa, no larger than a bee hummingbird. Nevertheless, her currently-sheathed, translucent wings made ascending this high quite literally a breeze. In fact, the wings of her and all her friends – a cadre that included the three fairies crouching slightly behind Merissa – made traversing nearly every obstacle they’d ever encounter trivial, at least on a case-by-case basis. It was getting to these far-off lands that would raise problems; an hour’s flight minimum from their cohort, and that was only one way. It would take another hour to get back, and in the autumn months of waning daylight, that was ample time for the creatures of the night to pluck them off, one by one, silent, lethal. Owls, bats, raccoons if they were especially unlucky. Merissa’s mother still tried to scare her and her friends with stories of one of them being ripped apart by a deceptively chubby grey squirrel. It was mostly just a scary tale, but the kernels of truth within were artifacts of the Fey’s apprehension of venturing outside their cohorts. And it was for that reason that Merissa had tried her best, her damndest to ensure that the children would be here, now, at this time.

They were not.

As it turned out, Allendale Church Park was currently occupied by teenagers.

Filthy, disgusting teenagers.

“I could’ve sworn…” Merissa said to herself, sitting down to rest after the long flight.

“You could’ve sworn what?” Serena replied, glaring at her associate with venom. “Are you telling us you didn’t check, repeatedly? To make sure that it’d be free and clear?”

“I did!” Merissa spat, feeling frustration and anger well up. “I did…” she repeated a bit more quietly.

“Well, now we’re out here. We flew all the way out here. And now we’re going to have to tell the chief that – ”

“The lock of a youth boasts properties unmatched in the concoction of serums.”

Merissa and Serena turned. Octavian stepped forward, between the two of them, likely in an attempt to quell any further burgeonings of violence. He was holding a small book, constructed folds of a dead leaf sewn together by a single thread of a bird’s feather.

“What?” Serena asked.

“In Quinn’s Guide to Potions and Brews. He states just that,” Octavian explained, didactic and impersonal as always. “The lock of a youth. A piece of hair from a youth. He never said a child.”

Merissa, latching onto the opportunity, nodded aggressively. “Mm hmm! Yes, yeah! That’s true! And if you aren’t aware, human teenagers are considered youths.”

Their quest could still yield fruit. The three young fey folk glanced at each other, then back down to their quarry.

They were teenagers indeed. The warmth of daylight was still fresh even as the sun now dipped beneath the artificial horizon of trees, and the clear air was a perfect invitation for the more athletically-inclined students of St. Allendale Catholic School for Girls to get an extra hour or two of training in, with the added benefit of being able to hang out with their friends. The playground portion had scant visitors, but the tennis court happened to be hosting an intense one-versus-one match, with perhaps half a dozen other students on the sidelines cheering their friends on. The wide-open track ring spanned roughly a quarter of a mile, and several members of the cross-country team were getting a few laps in, attended to by their own club members waiting in the wings, taking a breather after completing a grueling workout. A few other pedestrians were drifting in and out of the forest proper; Merissa and co could look down on them even now. Some of them were indeed adults and other general citizens of the municipality, but some of them were also teenagers.

From behind the trio, a tinny voice squeaked up. “B-b-b-b-b-but… teenagers… adults…” Luna’s painfully shy voice pierced the nervously-assured agreement between Serena, Octavian, and Merissa herself. Her wings fluttered uncontrollably, a nervous habit, and she practically float-walked as she trotted to join her friends. “We… that’s dangerous!” This outburst was accompanied by an aggressive flap of her wings that lifted Luna off the ground for a sheer moment. Finding her footing, Luna cleared her throat and attempted to explain:

“The elders have made it very clear! Being seen by humans is punishable by…” At this point, Luna faltered, looking from left to right furtively as though they might be overheard by a wayward squirrel. Then, she dragged one finger across her throat, making a scratchy gargling sound from the depths of her larynx.

“That’s why we aren’t going to get seen,” Merissa said reassuringly, summoning a smile she didn’t know she had loaded. “We go in, get the hair, get out. There are four of us; even one strand would be enough to support the cohort for decades.”

It was true. The unique properties of the hair of human youths made them immensely sought after within the cohort. Merissa had gotten the opportunity to hold a clipping once; a single piece of strand, no longer than a millimeter in human units, barely enough to fill Merissa’s palm, and yet when she smelled it, she could feel the soul of the Aether enter her body and elicit a natural yet safe high, burning hot yet frighteningly cool, and it caused no pain. Not to mention its use for the workings of powerful magics, invaluable for fairykind.

These thoughts made Merissa practically salivate as she looked down at those bounteous heads of hair. These teenagers… aside from their differences in sizes, Merissa thought, they really didn’t look so different from her or any of her friends.

Still, there was a reason it wasn’t the custom to seek the hair of teenagers. To begin, seeking human hair from a human head was itself a crime, but more importantly, human children were fundamentally different from their adolescents. Children were soft, kind hearted, and sweet. Their rosy cheeks and cherubic eyes brought their own pacifying joy to any fairies that witnessed them, their laughs enough to lull them to sleep. Teenagers on the other hand were rude and crass, smelly and moist. They were lumpy and vulgar, violent and vindictive. And fairies were self-evidently quite small. If one of them must be found by a human, a teenager would be the worst possible option, at least in Merissa’s purview. She shook herself off, hoping that the teen she retrieved the hair from was still a virgin; that would break the power of any spells entirely.

“It’s just… it’s too dangerous!” Luna reiterated. “We’re fairies, they’re humans. We get our power from nature, not man.”

“Humans are a part of nature, no matter how much you dislike it,” Octavian replied, patient and measured. He clapped his book closed. “I personally am for it. I would love to utilize a strand of human hair for a very particular formula I’ve been mulling over these past few months.”

Merissa was beginning to get excited again. She nodded, “Yeah, yeah! I’m still down. Serena?”

Serena looked down, then she looked to Luna. Luna was shaking her head no with breakneck speed. Serena opened her mouth, then looked down at the bark floor. She looked back up to Luna again, and said, “Maybe… it would be immensely useful for the cohort.”

“Serena?!” Luna screamed indignantly, hands on her hips now.

The three fairies all glared at Luna, their minds made up. A majority had been reached.

Luna’s breaths sped up even faster, and with a dusty sigh, she stepped to the group to join them.

“If this goes south… I’m out of here.”

And they all surveyed the park, together this time.

“We should split up,” Serena said, flapping her wings a bit. “Maybe we each take a corner?”

“Mm mm!” Luna squeaked, grabbing hold of Serena’s arm. “I’m going with you!”

Serena turned to Luna and smiled at her touch. “Fine. Try and keep up!” Shaking away, she hopped into the air, grabbing a wayward breeze that carried her gracefully below into the park gates. Luna leapt after her, squabbling a bit in the air before finally finding her groove and trailing behind Serena with expert flying.

Octavian turned to Merissa. “I’ll see you at the end of this. If you can get there.” Cracking one of his rare half smiles, Octavian took a single step off, diving into the sky before unfurling his wings and jetting to his mark.

Merissa was now alone. Her heart was beating with excitement and dread. She was ecstatic that her expedition with her friends hadn’t ended in a bust… but this was still far more dangerous than anticipated.

Still though… perhaps making it into a game would be the boost they needed.

So Merissa took a running start and hopped into the air, gliding on the draft as she angled downward, searching for the perfect little head to pluck a strand of hair from.

***

“H’YAH!”

SLAAAM!!!

Christina lunged to the side, her sneakers skidding on the freshly-tarred asphalt, delivering to the tennis ball a mighty backhand blow with the racket that ripped it through the air before impacting the other side of the net with a bouncing bumble.

Jenae was quick to receive, seamlessly morphing her most recent return, pivoting her feet on the black-green court with a rough sliding sound, zipping to the other side and swinging the racket from beneath.

THWACK!!!

Christina’s heart raced and pumped. She didn’t even have the time to catch her breath from the last reprisal! Nevertheless, she had to try. Christina wavered, her momentum carrying her a tenth of a pace farther than she wanted to, and in trying to make up for that lost time she pushed herself to the limit, sprinting again to the opposite end of the court, but –

Whooosh!

Her racket hit nothing but air.

“Thirty-love!” said Ronnie from the sidelines, and she led the rest of the girls in a round of applause.

Christina leaned on her knees for a few moments, gulping down as many mouthfuls of air as she could take, and then some. Sweat was dripping off her face into a puddle, and when she stood to height again, the same sweat snuck into her corneas, stinging and blurring her vision.

“Agh… god-fucking dammit.”

Jenae had crossed the net at this point, offering a metal bottle of water to Christina. “You’re lucky Sister Eve isn’t here. She’d string you up for saying that.”

Christina smiled and took the bottle, raising it above her open and inviting mouth for a waterfall. Wiping her lips, she handed it back to Jenae. “Yeah… I’ve been trying not to curse so much.”

Jenae laughed, taking a swig of her canteen while twisting her racket in the other hand. Sighing from the drink, Jenae said, “Alright, good luck!”

“You too!” Christina waved, mentally preparing herself for the next round. Then, twisting her face in discomfort, she slapped the back of her head once.

Removing her hand, she glanced at the palm, seeing it bare.

“Damn… darn mosquitoes,” she said under her breath, once again gripping her racket with both hands.

***

Fairy hearts are unique for many reasons, not least of which being the speed at which they beat. While resting it tends to be roughly 500 beats per minute give or take, immediately upon taking to the air the heartbeat speeds up to close to 900. However, once airborne, fairies’ heartbeats can temporarily accelerate especially fast during times of duress and extreme stress, so much so that had one’s chest been ripped open Bloody-Eagle style, it would look like nothing more than a reddish-purple blur, beating hundreds of times per second, an important boost when the need to evade dangerous predators arises.

Serena wasn’t certain, but she was at least 80% sure this was the only reason she was still alive, and not a gory collection of limbs soaking into the back of this human’s brown, neck-length hair. The material that makes up the strands is actually surprisingly tough, and though not impossible to retrieve barehanded, it would’ve been much easier to do so with a knife.

The effects of the rush of air compressed beneath the slap were still felt in the air currents Serena floated on, pixie wings fluttering with rapid transparency as she lifted up into the breeze. Serena’s frustration mounted, but her plan still felt doable; the bystanders were too undistracted, and pixies were too big not to be noticed for what they were. But if she managed to pluck the hair from the focused players at just the right moment… they were off to the races.

Serena sighed, thankful to be out of reach of the odd martial contest the two human girls were participating in. It seemed they were… using large paddles to hit a ball across the coliseum to one another? Intriguing.

“Luna… what do you think they’re doing?” Serena asked, turning around to confirm her mate was still within reach.

“Luna?”

Her heartbeat again. Anxiety filled every pore of Serena’s body, and she zipped in a square above the field, screaming out, “Luna? Luna?!”

“Here!”

Serena saw it. There, clutching the middle of the net’s apex, was Luna. Her wings were flapping wildly, threatening to rip her off, but she remained in place, holding on for dear life as the yellow ball was exchanged back and forth between the two young women.

“I’m coming!”

Serena angled her wings and steeled her nerves. A gifted flyer from birth, Serena had no trouble weaving through all manner of dangers, both natural and unnatural. The exchange of the tennis ball was easily predictable, and as long as she stayed calm, Serena was more than capable of traversing the gauntlet.

But guiding Luna out would be another matter entirely.

Serena landed next to Luna, standing up straight while her mate still had her arms wrapped around the thick leather-plastic rope that held up the net.

“How’d you get here?!” Serena chastised. “I told you to follow me!”

“I tried!” Luna promised, nearly slipping off the net by her uncontrollable wings’ request. “I-I-I really wanted to! But my wings… and then… I saw her… and she looked so pretty… her hair smelled so good!”

Luna now was beginning to cry, and she jerked her head in the other direction. One of the combatants – she was tall, athletic, with dark skin and curly black hair.

“I just wanted to get a closer peek! I knew you had it covered with her over there. I just… I wanted to help!”

Luna scrabbled her arms around the rope, trying her best to hold on.

Serena’s heart melted as she watched Luna like this. Drawing from her knowledge of their friendship, Serena reached her hand out and stroked Luna’s own misty turquoise hair. “You are helping. Don’t worry… I’ll guide you out of here. Just follow me, okay?”

Luna peeked her eyes open, the warmth of her mate’s touch a salve that glaciated the speed of her wings gradually, until Luna was finally perched, still, on the rope. Serena retracted her hand as Luna struggled to her feet, reaching her own hand out to grab Serena’s in her fingertips.

“Okay,” Luna said.

“Alright. Stay close.”

Serena gripped Luna’s hand tight as Luna nodded. Then, she unfurled her wings. Luna did the same, following procedure for combined flight.

Serena steeled herself, then leapt off, stretching into a dive. Luna was in sync, following while remaining attached.

The pair fell, flapping their wings in tandem as they stabilized. Serena took the lead, Luna following closely behind, ensuring to only flap up when Serena flapped down for an even flight.

Serena clocked up ahead: the girl was getting ready to throw the ball once again.

We can make it. Serena held on tight, glancing behind. Luna was squinting, barely opening her eyes but following along with elegance and poise.

Serena sighed and focused again, trying to veer to the side before the court became a battleground. They lifted up several feet; Luna’s added weight made steering functionally difficult, but her extra lift from her wings could make up for it the more they were able to act in tandem.

WHOOSH!!!

“Whoa!” Serena screamed, swerving to avoid the meteoric ball barely whizzing past them, clipping the barrier before landing balefully on the other side of the net.

“Sorry, sorry!” Christina called out. “Can we… uh, redo that one?”

“No worries, I’ll serve,” Jenae replied, trotting to grab the ball.

Serena and Luna, meanwhile, had been carried on the updraft the wayward ball created, spinning erratically.

“What was that?!” Luna shrieked, holding Serena’s hand in an iron grip as her wings began to frantically buzz.

“Luna, no! You need to calm down!” Serena chastised, trying her best to again turn the pair out of the court, but to no avail.

“Sorry, I’m sorry!” Luna replied, still providing random bursts of thrust in every which way that terminally crippled Serena’s flight path.

“Luna!” Serena yelled out, turning to her as she stopped focusing on direction, only now trying to predict Luna’s path and equalize their collective wing power so they could more or less hover in place.

Of course, Serena could simply let go… Her heart raced at the thought. Jenae was already bouncing the ball, ready to serve. Soon the projectile would be in play, and if they couldn’t get away…

But no. Luna, squealing and squirming, was still Serena’s mate. She couldn’t abandon her.

“Serena, help me! I… I-I-I can’t control it! My wings, they’re – ”

“Don’t worry, I’m trying!” Serena said, heart out of control, trying to just overpower any drag Luna induced by pure overwhelming wing power. But the minuscule spurts of wind that Luna unleashed had multiplying effects, effects that prevented Serena from getting any fathomable distance out of the court’s airspace.

“We’re going to need to land!” Serena said, tightening her grip on Luna’s hand.

“What?! No! Not the ground!” Luna screamed.

“We have to! Or else – ”

Serena clocked it before it came.

The ball was heading straight toward them.

Serena took in a breath, and with one mighty kick, knocked Luna off her hand, sending her careening into the airspace moments before the massive fuzzy ball slammed into Serena’s body, the two barreling through the sky, force and inertia combining them into a single, 70 mile per hour combination of fur and flesh, until –

TWHACK!!!

Christina knew before she even saw the results of her hit that it was going to be a point. There was just something in the air, the cards had fallen in her favor.

“Thirty-fifteen!” called the scorekeeper.

“Yes!” Christina pumped her fist, tossing her racket in the air and catching it. “Hell yeah… Heck yeah!”

“Nice one!” Jenae called out. “But… I think… I think you hit something?” She picked up the ball, holding it out where the violent red splotch was clearly visible.

“Hm?” Christina examined her racket. It was difficult to make out on the black spokes, but soon she could see it: blood was coating the anterior side. Roughly four clusters were affected.

Taking a look behind her, Christina gasped, noticing the streak of blood that had sprayed like buckshot at an angle on the greentop. It was itself divided into four segments, evidence that whatever she had hit was sliced to pieces by the garrote wire of her racket in addition to being utterly destroyed from the force of the blow.

“Eh heh, sorry,” Christina said, saying a short silent prayer for the creature whose life she’d inadvertently ended.

“Was that some sort of bird?” Jenae asked.

“I don’t…” Christina glanced over her racket again, noticing something she hadn’t noticed before: a silvery wing, not unlike that of a dragonfly, caught in the spoke. Its translucence made it nearly invisible. “I don’t think so?” She picked it up with her thumb and forefinger and eyed through its shimmery veil before flicking it away, where it spun in rapid circles on a wayward current to the greenery of the park.

***

Octavian hovered with near-robotic efficiency and stillness, watching as Merissa descended to a backpack that was currently unattended a little ways from the playground. A fair strategy, and one that by necessity she’d have to take alone. A single fairy could be overlooked. Two in the same place was asking for trouble.

No matter. Octavian had his own mark on the track itself. It was a wide circle, and the girls were in the middle of a lap. The pace was a medium trot rather than a vicious sprint, but it should still be enough; Octavian would float above, waiting for the right moment before swooping down to pluck a strand from the top of the head of the one in last place. Currently, that was a shorter girl running her little heart out with red hair and freckles. Easy.

Octavian waited. And waited. They were rounding the bend. Octavian's wings increased in speed, becoming silvery blurs on his back as he prepared for the maneuver.

Going… going… now.

Octavian zipped downward just as the procession began to pass from beneath. It was a quick journey, but he still had to carefully control his descent to avoid getting swept up in the currents created by their shifting bodies. That said, Octavian was an expert flier, and he had no trouble at all navigating the rapids before alighting safely on the head of the caboose. He slipped slightly, waves of follicles cascading like water, the sweat seeping through her scalp and slickening an already unstable place to stand upon, but he managed to grab onto the threads of hair just in time. The ropes were comparatively thick to Octavian’s diminutive hand, and he might’ve had a bit of trouble tearing them out barehanded.

Luckily, Octavian came prepared.

He reached into a fold in his jerkin, retrieving a knife with a handle hewn from birch wood and a blade carved from an eagle’s talon, all wrapped together expertly with spider’s silk.

Still being pulled along by the girl’s gait, Octavian tucked the knife handle between his thumb and his palm, and used both hands to pull himself until he could plant both feet somewhat firmly on the back scalp of this young lady.

Then… motion ceased.

Octavian felt it. She wasn’t running. Rather than streaming behind her in ribbons, the girl’s hair fell down in hanging strips.

Octavian took a few deep breaths, finally able to relax -- if only for a moment. Complacency would kill you.

Gripping the thumb in one hand, his rappel in another, Octavian sawed through. Like butter, the eagle talon knife slipped through the layered slices of keratin, and the rope-like strand of hair was at his mercy.

Immediately, the effects of hair, dislocated from its head, began to affect Octavian. The buttery smooth scent drifted into his nose, and he allowed momentary satisfaction to grace his expression before becoming full-on euphoria. His grip became lax and his mind became addled, shielding him from external sounds. Hair was as intoxicating as it was beneficial, and any who hoped to harvest it needed to heed these warnings. But Octavian was… well, he was Octavian. Not only the smartest fairy of this generation’s cohort, but also the third fastest, and the second best enchanter. He’d been taught since spawning everything there would ever be to know about anything that could possibly relate to fairy and human ecology. Nobody was more prepared than he was, nor more content with their preparedness.

The girl let out a rapturous, exhausted sigh: “Ooosh!”

And she threw her head forward.

***

Oksana had already been running on fumes for a while. Every pump of her hands, every rotation of her arms, every cycle of her legs, every step she took, it was all on borrowed time. Even as her pace slowed from a jog to a trot, before simply stopping in the middle of the track. Her ears blurred and her eyes rang. She simply could not run any longer.

“Hey, Oksana! What’re ya doin’, we’re missing ya!” The voice came from the other side of the oval-shaped track. The team captain had cupped her hands to get her attention.

Oksana wiped some sweat off her forehead, then lip. She swallowed, reclaiming some of the water she’d lost in practice, then violently let her torso drop forward, unable to maintain her balance standing upright for any longer. Her hair swung like a scythe, landing in front of her eyes and adhering to the contours of her face in moist strips as Oksana panted and panted, fighting to get back the oxygen she so desperately needed.

Oksana clenched her fist. She will fight on.

She will continue.

“I will fight on,” she whispered foolhardily, wasting the precious air she had just recovered. “I’ll… I can do this.”

Angling one foot back, as though at the starting position, Oksana crouched before…

Zooooom!

She took off, skidding on the pavement, vaguely hearing a twiggy crunch on the first step before her mind became focused on nothing except maintaining her pace, keeping her balance, and not passing out.

***

As soon as the movement began, Octavian tightened his grip on the hair he hung from, digging his feet into the stringy descendance of the back of this girl’s head, but even he was not prepared for what happened next.

The head he was upon dropped down, and the inertia from the hair carried him up.

For a moment at the apex, holding onto the strands, Octavian was floating. The gravity pulling him down and the force whipping him up were equivalent, and he felt as though he could do anything. Limitless potential. A paralyzing infinity of possibilities. Octavian wanted to flap his wings, he wanted to let go, he wanted to plant his face in the rope of hair.

But he couldn’t do anything.

Octavian’s heart raced into the low one hundreds, its max cap lowered as a lingering effect of sniffing the hair. And he began to truly feel fear for the first time in his life as he realized that book smarts weren’t the most important things in life.

The hair whipped back down in front of her face, taking Octavian with it.

CRACK!

Octavian tried too late to flap his wings. His hand slipped from the slick grapple he had latched upon. Wings distended, Octavian’s body landed, irreversibly snapping one of the silvery glassy films.

Octavian screamed, eyes shut as a lightning-bolt pain spread from his back and into his stomach, coming out as a tortured cry. A fairy’s wings were their life. Without them, you were nothing.

As Octavian squirmed, he forced himself to fight through the pain and the tears long enough to get his bearings. Wrenching his eyes apart, he fiercely looked up, only to see the rough-hewn underside of a rubber tread bearing down on him with impossible force.

CCCRUNNNCH!!!

What was left of Octavian would be pleased to know that throughout the ordeal, the hair strand he retrieved remained tied to the messy red imprint of what used to be his hand.

***

It probably wasn’t the most honorable solution, but Merissa’s reconnaissance did lead her to a discarded backpack. It was at the edge of the playground, nestled in a small crevice of mulch to lower its profile. Typically when they could, fairies would try to harvest hair from places less dangerous, more mundane, than straight from the child’s head. Sure, that would earn any would-be scouts more prestige, but a lock is a lock. And considering the leotarded teen was currently performing a complex acrobatic routine in the green field nearby, Merissa felt that this to be a wonderful opportunity.

She alighted on the ground, landing on a thick twig that had found itself buried and locked in the ground during a rainier time, and she looked to the bag. It was only a few paces away, but was practically the size of a small house to the young fey. There were plenty of zippers to try out too, and it wasn’t a sure thing which -- if any -- would contain her mark. Still though, considering how long these human females tend to grow their hair out, if this bag housed any amount of clothes, containing at least one strand was nearly a guarantee. She’d just have to hope it was more akin to locating a piece of hay in a needlestack.

So, Merissa hopped to the top of the bag, aiming for the biggest pocket. It was closed up tight by two zippers, which was no problem. She grabbed one with both hands and pulled it aside with force, creating an aperture just wide enough for her to wiggle into the darkness, which she did, somersaulting into the unknown of this Adidas duffel.

Merissa landed on something soft. She unfurled her wings slightly, their natural bioluminescence doing a poor job of revealing to her exactly what she was standing inside; a cavern within the larger still cavern of the bag proper. It was a tunnel with a hole in the top, path slightly tapered at one end. It smelled… somewhat rank, and Merissa had to cough as the scent hit her. She walked along this unstable path, searching for any sign of what might be a lock of hair. Up above, she could see a weave of very thick strands of… something. But whatever it was, it was too large and too processed to be human hair. A fairy would know from distances like this.

Merissa sighed, at first dejected, then with renewed vigor; the cavern wasn’t terribly big. She prepared to cut her losses and hop out the tunnel when a mighty shake overtook her, sending her to the damp, sweat-infused ground of the interior of the sneaker.

“Ugh!” Merissa groaned, then clutched the ground to keep steady. “What is -- ”

The faint twilight that still reached her grew brighter, then darker. And Merissa’s eyes widened.

“No.”

Indeed. A foot was entering the cavern. It was big, moist, pale, bare, and flexible, as its wiggling toes seemed to suggest. Merissa gulped. Then, flapping her wings, she made a break for the shrinking inlet before the entire shoe was saturated by the presence of this girl’s sole, but it was not enough. She tried to dig outward, crawling through, up, scrawling her nails across her sweat-slickened skin, breath getting quicker and coarser as air became scarce, but was only pushed back, farther and farther, steamrolled and compressed flatter and flatter until…

It was over. Merissa was sprawled eagle-style beneath an all-encompassing foot.

***

Juliet took a nice, long stretch before grabbing her bag, unzipping it to retrieve her tennis shoes. “Nice workout today,” she mused to herself between pants, equipping one shoe on one foot. “If I can keep this up, I’ll win the regional gymnastics cup for sure!”

Juliet took the laces of her right shoe in-hand, deftly tying them together in a butterfly knot, securely locking the footwear in place. She flexed her ankle, scrunching her toes inside, before smiling and working on the other shoe.

“Man,” she thought. “The insides of these could probably use a wash. Still though… if I can handle doing these routines barefoot, the balance beam oughta be a cinch when the time comes.”

Once she tied both shoes, Juliet grabbed her jacket and put it on. Juliet looked across the field to the tennis court, where some of her classmates had picked up on her impending exit. She grinned, waving goodbye to the other girls who cheered at her departure. “Later!” “Good luck!” “Kick their butts tomorrow!”

As she left the gated park complex, she thought to herself…

A jog might do me good.

***

Merissa tried to take a breath, but she simply could not. Each thump and bump interfered with the rhythm of her lungs; any breaths she took were chopped up and disparate, filled with inhaled sweat and hacked up saliva and every manner of particulate shavings that were deposited from the bottom of this girl's rough, grimy bare foot. It was a hellish endeavor, each slow, meandering step flinging Merissa into the air, filling her with dread, before crashing down on the ground and once again burying her beneath so many hundreds, thousands of proverbial tons.

“HELP!!! HEEE--” Merissa’s pleas were cut short by this invasive gait. She could not form a sentence, even opening her mouth the tiniest bit was an invitation for the bodily fluids to enter in force. Her nose too was an aperture point, but she needed to breathe something.

Oh gods, oh gods oh gods oh gods.

Merissa was pained on every side, her wings were being violently crinkled with each passing moment, she ached, she feared, she was being smashed on a momentary basis, and she had no idea where she was. The pain had so addled her sense of time, seconds felt like hours. Minutes, eons. When it was a struggle just to stay alive, every stolen moment feels like it could be the rest of your life.

Luna, Serena, Octavian… Rubella, Ayesha… Dradian, Morian, Calypsa… Merissa’s thoughts grew less coherent by the second. Her closed eyes had long since given way from the abstract colors and shapes and were now coalescing into visions of those she held dear, her close friends, one of her many sisters… She hadn’t yet even found the opportunity to acquire a mate. Merissa had always been jealous of what Luna and Serena shared… She was sure that the both of them had already retrieved the hair; when they were in sync, there seemed to be nothing they could not do.

Then --

Gasp.

Merissa could gasp.

Her fear-poisoned brain had blinded her to the fact that she had been still for a whole several seconds now.

Was it over? What was she going to…

Then, Merissa felt something shift. This capsule was pushing on something, and where there was a push, there was usually…

***

Huff.

Huff.

Huff.

Juliet pumped her arms, training herself to lengthen her strides. She straightened her back, ensuring that every step flattened her foot completely, from the heel strike to the toe-off. Her efficiency and greater endurance demanded it. The sweat was beginning to leak from merely the places one would expect it to -- armpits, feet, neck, head -- and truly excrete from everywhere. Dripping off every pore, saturating every modicum of fabric that adorned her body. Every streetlight she passed would momentarily illuminate her, a glistening, immaculate specimen of a stellar athlete, her perspiration flinging off in twinkling droplets as though they sought to replace the stars in the evening sky. Juliet’s flow state was achieved, and her focus had ascended.

So devoted was she to this final dash that she failed even now to notice the gradual crumbling, and then crunching, of the odd item that seemed to have found its way inside her shoe.

When she did finally get home, the poor thing’s mangled body would be so destroyed and disfigured beneath Juliet’s gymnast soles that proper identification of precisely what it was would eternally elude her. The only evidence of its true nature was the papery, silverwing that was caught between Juliet’s big and second toes, implying perhaps it was some sort of odd dragonfly. But considering her incredible performance at the regional gymnastics meet that soon followed, a part of Juliet could not help but wonder if that odd little thing that snuck into her shoe was some sort of lucky charm.

***

Just.

A little.

Further.

Luna trudged, one leafy moccasin after another. She tried to push aside a wayward dandelion, but it whacked her in the face in retaliation.

Luna sniffed.

Idiot, she thought.

Serena.

Such an idiot.

Luna ripped apart a blade of grass that was in her way, tossing the leaf aside.

Idiot.

Luna grit her teeth, clenching her fists.

“Why?” she whispered to herself.

“Why did you leave me?”

Luna sniffed.

She continued walking.

Her wings were still, silent. Stuck in a position between being folded and unfolded, they clipped vegetation and got stuck on twigs alike. For once, after having been slammed into a tree and landing incorrectly from the blow, Luna was completely grounded. This felt alien. The sounds were so different when one was on the ground. The floor was so goopy, she could almost sink into it. It was easy to forget how small you were when you could fly high above everything that could potentially eat you or grind you to bits or stick needles into you between glass display sheets. The ground was the enemy. Fairies spent their lives staying away from it.

Now… miles away from the enclave, lost and alone… Luna’s tears flowed from her eyes as the reality of this situation continued its hour-long eternity of demoralization. Night had fallen. An owl cooed. The other girls’ grunts and exhalations of physicality were audible, but only barely. Luna felt truly, deeply alone, as she took one weighted step after another. The mounting border of the playground proper provided a barrier, a short plastic ridge to keep the mulch in. It was easily overcome with a clambering climb, landing her in a rough patch of the woodchips. Playground equipment loomed high above Luna, blurred by her tears into indistinct colossuses.

She needed a sanctuary.

***

Bronwyn’s breaths became slower, less thoughtful, and fuller. But she did not fall asleep. Not truly, anyway. She could not. Both of the fifth-grader’s elbows were locked, tense, and the grip on the bar upon which she sat was tenser. The playground ladder towered twelve feet into the sky, and she sat upon its peak, a lonely queen in a decrepit kingdom.

“C’mon…” she whispered through lithe, unadorned lips. “C’mon… come…”

Her grip loosened. Her eyes flickered. Bronwyn began to lean and wobble, left to right, side to side, front to back, unable to achieve rhythm. Her narrow seat became less of a seat, and she slipped until --

“Ach!”

Deep breaths.

Bronwyn’s legs became iron hooks. Her heart raced, the instinctive urge to live a much appreciated boost. She had fallen backwards, completely disoriented, but stable. The mulchbed filled her topsy-turvy vision, dirt she would’ve hit face-first had she drifted into a true slumber.

“The spirits of sleep thought they could best me! But my strategy is… foolproof…”

Uh-oh.

Her uber-expensive glasses were slipping off.

“Okay… Let’s take it slow, Bronwyn…”

Bronwyn hung there, half-upside down, arms dangling. She turned her head side to side. The older girls were still playing their sports ball. Of course they wouldn’t help or even be interested in playing with a loser like Bronwyn, why would they? She would once again need to get out of this situation herself.

“Nice and easy…” Bronwyn wanted to maneuver her arm to grab her glasses, but she was never the most athletic girl to begin with. And here, with blood rushing to the top of her head, her arm movements interacting with gravity all weird, her shifting body creating more and more unbalance with each twitch… Some might say the conclusion was foregone.

“No!” The specs slid, and Bronwyn was momentarily struck into a world of melding blue brown blurriness. Bronwyn screeched, lunging out for the pair. Her fingers slipped into the spindly temples, successfully, but she was not lanky enough. She had to reach out further than she should’ve to make up the distance, but it was too late to turn back. Her legs were loose. Too loose. Falling, tumbling, she could only let out one final yelp until --

CRASH!

“Owwwwwwww…!”

Crumpled on the ground, Bronwyn felt the pain spread out from her chest into her limbs like tea seeping into the seams of a tastefully-cracked boiled egg. The pain was dull and throbbing rather than sharp, an indication that nothing serious had been damaged. But still… way to put a damper on the mood of a stakeout.

In her sleep-deprived, pain-sharpened state, the image of a miniscule human just at the edge of her vision wasn’t even worth a second look, for the moment at least. The world was a blur right now anyway. But when she dug her glasses out from underneath her sprawled body, Bronwyn cringed, feeling their in-pieces broken form before witnessing them. The left temple was hanging on by a thread, and one lens was half-jammed out the socket.

“Oh c’mon…” Bronwyn sat up, tinkering with the bifocals for a few moments. The dangling temple was a lost cause, but she was able to somehow reinsert the lens properly. “Thank God,” she breathed, putting them on and glancing around.

At once, the world became legible once again. It would likely be rather difficult walking back home while having to use one hand to hold the glasses up, but she would manage. But then…

She saw it.

It wasn’t a delusion.

There, in front of the black plastic border of the play area.

Was one of them.

It… she… was looking right at her. At Bronwyn. And she was stock-still. An action figure, perhaps? No; Bronwyn was close enough that she could see it twitch. It was shivering in fear. If Bronwyn really paid attention…

Gasp.

It blinked!

Bronwyn shifted slightly in the direction of the miniscule human, maintaining her crisscross applesauce pose as she scooched. The tiny human’s shaking got more and more violent, but otherwise she did not move. Bronwyn's big, brown eyes eked closer as she leaned down, focusing, searching for discrepancies, errors, any reason that what she now beheld was not what she wanted it to be. This girl, scarcely an inch and a half tall, garbed in clothing made from leaves and feathers. Her silvery translucent wings were partially spread, like a cloak. And though it shook, she couldn’t help but notice an expression of… contentment.

***

Luna’s heart was a spinning sphere of unadulterated energy, injecting the rest of her tiny little body with the adrenaline that would’ve been necessary to soar from here to the next continent and then some.

Luna hadn’t even been aware of the human’s presence until it came tumbling down in a pile practically in front of her. Her arrival sparked an untold fear in Luna, a fear that told her to fly far, far away from this place. But with her broken wings, that seemed to be impossible. And running might attract even more attention. So Luna stopped, stock still, awaiting the blackish mass of clothing to arise from its slumber until --

Gasp.

A child.

Luna couldn’t contain her shock, her amazement, her elation. The one thing that could’ve made this entire, horrid night okay was right here, rubbing her eyes of any dirt they might’ve collected.

She had middling brown skin, amber eyes, and was of slight build, which was to be expected. Her hair... her glorious frizzy hair... was tied into a pair of mirrored puff-balls. Her clothes were professional and scholarly, white-button up and a blazer. Her shoes, however, were sparkly rainbow colored, and encrusted with sequins that caught the low light of the coming night.

And she was looking at Luna.

As Luna was drinking in everything she could about this new individual, she turned her attention to Luna. They were looking at each other. Oh gods, her face really was as cherubic as the legends said! Those massive shiny windows on her eyes that humans sometimes wore were broken, but this did nothing to detract from Luna’s veneration.

“W… what are you?”

She spoke. The child’s breath carried with it all manner of scents, each hinting at stories and snacks Luna had only the faintest knowledge of. She looked at Luna with a curious if apprehensive inquisitiveness, and Luna had to do everything she could to ease this child’s consciousness. Luna cleared her throat of its phlegm and knots. She tried her best to dispel her being of anything approaching fear and nervousness. She needed to be cordial; if she could convince this hugeling to part with a strand of her hair, the medicinal properties it offered would be more than enough to repair Luna's wings, and then some. She called out with strong, honorable words: “Have no fear! I mean you no harm, for I am Luna Nightingale, second heir to the Nightingale Clan of the Cohort Fey Crescent. I am pleased to meet you.” Luna curtsied, and continued, “And what is your title, Great One?”

“Gr… great one?” Bronwyn stammered before shaking her head, “Wait, you said what? You’re… a fairy? Like, a real fairy? Like in the stories?” She stopped to readjust the hold she had on her newly-formed lorgnette glasses.

Luna nodded. “Yes, yes! I’m a real fairy! Now, quick, I need your help. If you could just give me--”

“Hold it!”

Bronwyn summoned such authority, it stopped Luna’s pleas in their tracks. Luna had never interacted with humans of any kind before, but she was… surprised, to say the least, that this one was so quick and eager to raise her voice in the presence of someone smaller. Luna replied, “What is it?”

“I’ve been searching for you for soooooo long,” Bronwyn said, spreading her arms outwards for emphasis. Her brief period of authority seemed to be draining away, replaced by a more didactic, manic manner. She narrated, “Everybody at school made fun of me for it. They all thought I was crazy. But I wasn’t! Bronwyn is not crazy! Not crazy anymore!”

Bronwyn, thought Luna. Then: “You’ve been… you’ve been searching for fairies?” Luna shuddered.

“Well, not just fairies.” Bronwyn began counting on her fingers. “Let’s see… I’ve been searching for ghosts, werewolves, vampires, witches, there was a brief period where I was searching for dinosaurs but I gave up on that a year back. Bigfoots, chupacabras, Jersey Devils, I used to search for mermaids but that’s been hard ever since we moved inland. But hey, now that you’re here, you can tell me everything you know about all of them!” Bronwyn smiled a metallic brace-encrusted smile. Luna took several tentative steps back.

“But wait,” Bronwyn took a break from her who's who of cryptozoology. “I need to know… how can I know you’re really a reeeeeal fairy?”

“Real fairy?” Luna inquired.

“Yeah! You don’t look anything like the movies.”

Luna’s heart sank. “M… movies?”

Bronwyn wasted no time before beginning the interview. “Show me how you secrete pixie dust!”

Bronwyn’s grip on her glasses and her knowing peer down at Luna made her feel increasingly small and smaller. “I… I… what does that mean?”

“It’s… you don’t know about pixie dust?” Bronwyn reached into her blazer pocket, retrieving a pen and sticky-note pad. She wrote something illegible down and tossed it to the side with a sigh, “Okay, that’s fine I guess. How about this? I want you to… shapeshift! Change into someone, like… my brother! Go ahead, turn into him right now! Well, no, wait, that’s too hard. Turn into someone you know! Just be different!”

Luna’s wavering smile was regressing into neutrality as she put her hands up and said, “I… I can’t do that.” Fairy magic did allow for shapeshifting, but it was only possible through the combined effort of many fairies or, barring that, a weeks-long ritual by one.

“You can’t shapeshift?” Bronwyn’s eager demeanor was itself becoming confused. “But all fairies can shapeshift!”

“I mean…” Luna stopped short at explaining the precise reason why she could or could not, lest this curious girl begin a new odyssey in searching for Luna’s home. “I just can’t… right now. Here.”

“Okay…” Bronwyn grabbed her sticky note pad, thumbing through it. She stopped on an entry, read it, then slightly raised her gaze to lock eyes with Luna. Bronwyn said, “Then, can you… grant wishes? How about this one? I wish for a hundred dollars, a new bike, and all boys in the world to turn into girls! Ha, ha! Go ahead!”

Luna’s stomach began to churn as this jovial child rattled off her list of demands. Her stance began to wobble, both from hunger and from her burgeoning confusion as well as the slowly surfacing bubbles of fear, leaving Luna as a wet burp from opening her mouth before she forced herself to dash this girl’s hopes yet again. “B-Bronwyn… I can’t grant wishes.”

Bronwyn sniffed, writing another entry on the pack of sticky notes. It was a small writing surface, and without the benefit of a clipboard the pen slipped out of her hands from the awkward force she applied to get results. Bronwyn said a word that Luna didn’t know children were capable of saying, before she grabbed the pen again and finished. “So, you can’t shapeshift, you have no pixie dust, and you can’t grant wishes.” Bronwyn chuckled forcefully. “And I guess you’re gonna tell me you can’t turn lead into gold too, aren’t you! Hahahahaha!”

Luna’s wobbles became too much for her, and she was compelled by the churning in her gut to sit down as she mumbled, “Well…”

“HUH?” Bronwyn cupped her ear and reached her head down lower, her interjection shaking Luna’s bones to their core.

Their discrepancy in power was becoming more and more evident.

“Well…” Luna started again. “I-I-I… I can’t turn… lead into… gold.”

Bronwyn glanced from Luna to her collection of sticky notes. Then back to Luna, then she looked discreetly to her left and right before returning her gaze to Luna. “Okaaaaay…” Bronwyn said awkwardly. “Fine, then. Here’s an easy one. Of course you can fly, can’t you?”

“Yes!” Luna couldn’t contain her outburst, finally, something she could do to demonstrate her ability, her magic! Her supernatural nature! Luna squatted, then flexed, then… nothing.

Of course not, idiot, Luna thought. Your wings are still busted.

“I can fly… see?” Luna gestured vaguely to her translucent wings, one bent at an angle. “It’s just… n-not… right… now?”

“So what can you do?” Bronwyn tossed her sticky notes in the air, her frustration mounting.

“I can… well… N-n-not… much. Here, at least. But if you c-c-c-can…” Luna’s voice shrank. She needed help if she ever wanted any chance of getting back to her cohort alive. But whether this child would be her savior was being cast into further doubt. “Take me to my… my…”

“Your?” Bronwyn was expectant, glaring down at Luna much like a mother awaiting her child’s poorly-thought out explanation of why she forgot to do her chores.

Luna broke internally.

She could not tell this girl the location of their cohort.

That would be a worse crime than coveting hair from the head of a child. Than being seen by a human. That could spell the end of their little pocket of society.

Luna shut up.

Bronwyn waited several long seconds in Luna’s silence, until her eyes fell, dark. She glowered at Luna, and growled, “I’ve wasted years of my life searching for you.”

Bronwyn sniffed, rubbing her nose clean on her sleeve. She continued, “For all of you, for this? And you’re not even magic?”

Now that, Luna took offense at.

“I am too!” Luna shot back.

Her own rage, frustration, preconceived notions about human youths being dashed, it was too much to bear, too much to take. Luna clenched her fists, size forgotten, and spat out, “I thought children were supposed to be, to be, purer than this! They were supposed to know that real magic is on the inside! And I am really magic!”

Bronwyn was shocked by the outburst of this little human. But… it did get her thinking…

“So, you’re magic?”

“Mm hmm!” Luna nodded indignantly.

“And there’s magic in you? That gives you powers? Because it’s in you?”

“Mm hmm!”

“So if that’s the case… if you were to be inside me… would I be magic?”

Luna felt as though her head were made of glass and had just shattered. She tilted her head upward at Bronwyn’s genuinely inquisitive face. “W…what?”

“Ya know, like, eating you? Or something. Think that would work?”

“Wh-what?! What?! No, gods, no!”

“But you just said that the real magic is inside you!” Bronwyn pointed out. “You just wanna keep all your magic for yourself! Just like a fairy, huh. You’re a greedy, lying little monster who wants to keep all the magic!” Then her hand began to reach for Luna.

“N-n-n-no! No! That’s not it!” Bronwyn’s long fingers were getting closer, and Luna had nowhere to go. No way out. Her wings were broken, she was tired, she was hungry, magicless, Serena was gone…

Luna turned tail, and she ran.

“You’re not getting away!”

Luna had only run for a few moments, making it less than six inches before Bronwyn wrapped her hand around Luna’s body.

“ACH!”

Not only did this knock the wind out of her, Luna’s disjointed wings in this in-between stage of open and closed were wrongly aligned, breaking even more painfully at the root. They now dangled by mere strands. “W-why are you doing this?! Stop this! Stop!”

Luna was lifted up, and she was turned to face Bronwyn. From here, her freckles and messy, nappy hair were still just as adorable as they were when Luna first laid eyes on them. Her twin puffs still appeared as worlds of their own.

But her expression.

Her mouth was slightly ajar, eyes laser-focused. She sniffed expectantly, and long strips of drool were dangling between top and bottom jaws. Within the cherubic vessel… a merciless predator...

Nay.

A demon.

Crouched in wait.

Bronwyn plucked Luna's leg, and she now dangled between Bronwyn's forefinger and thumb, above a grinning phalanx of perfectly pearly teeth.

"B...B... Bronwyn..." Luna could barely get the words out for the fear she felt. Her world was upside down. Could... could it be possible for a child to be capable of such... inhumanity?

"Bronwyn, p-p-p-p-please. If you c-c-c-c-c-c-could give me... just a piece of your --"

“I’m going to get your magic, one way or another,” Bronwyn whispered, opening her mouth to full gape. She dragged her slithering, slimy tongue across her stony gnashing fangs, cleaning them in preparation for this meal.

“Bronwyn, Bronwyn! Wait! Bronwyn! BRON--”

"Ahhhhhhhhhh..."

Gulp!

Bronwyn swished the thrashing form around in her jowls, letting her tongue tastefully test every texture of the lying fairy’s skin and body. She playfully munched on Luna, though never so hard as to actually chew, merely pinning her body still so she could indulge in the savory caramel taste of fairy flesh without fear of her meal thrashing about.

“It’sh shweet!” Bronwyn’s exultation was accompanied by panicked shrieks and renewed attempts for escape, attempts that were just as soon cut off when Bronwyn angled her head upwards, moved this meal to the back of her mouth, and swallowed.

Down, down, down she went, screams cut off as the air became more and more rancid. The sugary taste of the fairy's flesh lingered on Bronwyn's tongue for a few moments even after Luna's descent into her gullet.

“Ahhhh…” Bronwyn reached down, untucking her button-up shirt to get to her pale stomach beneath. She rubbed it graciously, before --

As Luna fell further and further into her final earthly hell, her shrieks and impassioned pleas grew softer and softer, and she simply listened.

Rushing liquid. Thick. Bronwyn's blood, coursing through her veins. A methodical, rapid ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump. Her heartbeat. The glorps, plorps, and gurgles of the acidic soup of snack foods, mashed chips, and fizzy drinks Bronwyn lived off of, that was currently eating away at Luna's meager clothes just before it set to work on her skin.

As Luna's face -- twisted in morbid disgust, indescribable pain, and torturous sorrow -- leaked out all manner of teary fluids, each dissolved into the misty puddles of this hot-spring stomach as Luna simply mouthed, airy and solemn into this inner void...

"Why..."

"Wh - hic - why...?"

Then...

BRAAAPPP!

Bronwyn covered her mouth in response to the burp, giggling. “Guess I’m back to square one. Maybe the next fairy I catch will be more agreeable.”

Bronwyn picked up her sticky note sketchpad and dusted herself off as she stood up.

“And if not… maybe it’ll be tastier too.”

Luna heard her predator's jovial declaration, muffled but intelligible from within this prison. And she wept.

Epilogue

“Broooonwyn! Bronwyn?”

“Ugh…”

Ms. Waybright stepped into the room of her daughter. All around it, posters of legendary creatures, kelpie, pixies, and a few Yu-Gi-Oh monsters, hung around the room. Articulated figures fought for space on her dresser and end tables with dozens of small sticky note pads, which Bronwyn preferred to actual notebooks on account of being easier to fit into her blazer’s tiny pockets.

Ms. Waybright sighed. Three snoozed alarms was long enough; her mother decided to take matters into her own hands, shaking the sleeping girl gently but firmly on her shoulder.

“Bronwyn Waybright! It’s time for school! You know how much I hate you staying up all night like you do!”

“Urghhh…” Bronwyn stirred, the morning air now hanging low with the scent of chicken sausage and scrambled eggs, providing a bit of relief from her musty dusty room. Breakfast was already had, and Bronwyn was late.

“I’m coming,” Bronwyn groaned, finally sitting up. She rubbed the crust from her eyes, blinking a bit to clear them and fully take in the world around her.

In this cleared vision, Bronwyn’s mother was standing above her, displeased as she stared down at her child. “And would you care to explain this, young lady?” She held her hand out.

Bronwyn sharply inhaled. In her mother’s hands were the remaining pieces of her glasses, removed from the place on her nightstand that Bronwyn planted them. “Mom, I --”

“No buts, you’re grounded. You know how much these things cost. And the money for new ones is coming out of your pocket.”

Bronwyn was never one to argue with her mom, so she shut her mouth before squeaking, “Yes ma’am…”

“That’s right,” her mom said, tussling Bronwyn’s bedhead. “Now go get yourself washed up, sweetie. I’m out in twenty minutes.”

***

Bronwyn trudged to the bathroom, the grumbling in her colon impossible to ignore. She washed her hands, reached for the box of contacts, then had a heart attack.

“What…?”

The medicine cabinet was full of myriad concoctions and prescriptions, each bottle enshrined with thousands and thousands of words worth of ingredients, warnings, and unintelligible titles. Typically, they congealed into a dark mushy jumble of word salad without her glasses.

But now? She could read them as clearly as any day of the week. Every single one word.

“I…” Bronwyn clutched a box of pills her mom took. She raised it up to her face, reading the list of side effects. Then she held it at arms length.

“Nausea, headaches, bloatedness… mood swings… weight… gain…”

Plop.

Bronwyn’s shock made her lose her clutch, and the pills fell into the toilet.

“Oh geez!”

She fished the bottle out and began drying it off with a clump of tissue paper. As she wiped it down over the sink, another realization shot through her, and she dropped the mushy paper and bottle into the reservoir. This realization was accompanied by a chuckle, then a giggle, and finally, a victorious laugh that would've been unexplainable to any household eavesdroppers. Fortunately, nobody heard. Or if they did, they merely considered it yet another of Bronwyn's quirks.

To nobody in particular, Bronwyn said, “Guess you weren’t kidding. The magic was inside you after all.”

As Bronwyn took a seat on the toilet, preparing to pass whatever had been stewing through her digestive tract for the past 7 hours, she afforded herself a giggle as she finished, “Emphasis on ‘was’.”

Whatever this was… this wasn’t over. Bronwyn had evidence. And if a single fairy’s magic could do this?

A whole hive could be…

World-changing.