The Truth About Fairies (Story, part 1)

[HowHal3]

THE TRUTH ABOUT FAIRIES (part 1) by HalHow3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stepping from the carriage, Edwin was immediately struck by the quaintness
of the old English town. London was also old of course, but there was an
almost primeval air about this lost little hamlet at the edge of the
forest. It was if by stepping out of the carriage, Edwin had stepped
into a different Time and Place. Certainly the look of the town could
little be different than it was when Henry was chosing his fourth wife.

Here the building were more wood than stone, their exterior's weathered by
countless summer days and bitter, English, winters. The streets, cobbled in
natural stones, were both narrow and winding, twisting through and among
the buildings like some native forest trail. It was a strange place to come
looking for a book dealer, but then Henry Exceter was no ordinary seller of
books.

Born of a noble, if some improverished family, Henry had served a short
term in the Queen's army, worked a few years at the import/export business,
and then vanished completely, only to appear again years later, as a dealer
in antique books.

What he sold now, interested Edwin very little, but his past interested
Edwin a great deal. During his merchant days in London, Henry Exceter had
developed quite a reputation as a student of the occult. He was a member
of several, nameless societies, obtaining obscure tomes on witchcraft and
black magic from distant places. Participated in unhallowed rituals and
in general, delved deeper, and longer, and harder, into the Darker
mysteries of the Unknown than was considered proper for an English
gentlemen.

Edwin didn't believe in gods or demons, consigning them all into a neat bin
he referred to as "Poppycock and Utter Rubbish", but he did believe in one
thing, one thing he shared with only a Trusted few. To put it simply,
Edwin believed in Fairies. Edwin had come all the way from London to this
quaint little town, but with a single purpose, to find the only man in
England, who could help him prove it!

Wandering through the town, he eventually found his way to Henry's shop. It
was located in a genteel if delapidated old building off an unobtrusive
side street. Passing through the doorway, Edwin could hear the tiny
belling ringing above his head as he closed the old, oak, door behind him.
Henry was an average looking man, of roughly middling height and with
steel, grey hair. He looked much older than his fifty odd years, the tiny
glasses he wore, perched on the end of his nose, giving him a decidely
scholarly air. This air vanished IMMEDIATELY when Edwin told him of his
purpose.

His aura of panic and distraction only grew as Edwin told him about the
cameras and phonographs he had brought with him to help record
scientifically, the true nature of Fairy life. Finding a moment to burst
into the conversation, Henry shook his head and replied in a shaky voice,
"My advice to you young Sir is go home. You don't honestly know anything
about what you are asking for. Some things in this world are better left
unseen and unknown. I beg you to consider leaving the matter to the fancies
of Men. Have you asked yourself in all this, what good it will do to prove
this thing you are seeking?"

Turning away from him, Henry continued, "I looked in many dark corners in
my Youth and ultimately the Price of the Asking was most high. I would
spare you the pain of my mistakes, go now and forget every thing you even
think you know about Fairies, the Truth is too bitter a pill for even the
strongest of men to swallow."

Edwin pleaded with him then, and threatened, and conjoled. The old man was
firm at first, but finally under Edwin's unwavering resolve, his defenses
crumbled and he said, "Come back tonight then, come back just before dark
and I will tell you the price of what you ask, and then if you Dare It,
let the blame fall only on yourself."

Assuring him that he would return, Edwin left then and secured rooms for
himself at a country inn, not too far from the the obscure little book
shop.

(....that evening....)

That evening Edwin returned to find the book shop closed and dark. After he
had rapped on the door several times, the old man came and let him in.
Shutting and locking the door behind him. Leading him back into a small
kitchen, they sat at a ricky old table for a time in complete silence, then
after a long pause, the old man began to speak.

"What you are looking for is out there boy, in the forest. You can find it
late at night, and only in the most remote and isolated parts of the woods,
but even you if find such a place you can't see Them. You see boy, Fairies
live half way between this World and the Next. I saw themself for the
first time as a boy. I had taken a nasty fall from the branches of a tall
tree and struck my head on a rock besides. I lay there through out the
afternoon and into the night. I had suffered a concussion and was have
probably died if my uncle hadn't found when he came wandering back through
the woods after a late night rendevous with his current lover. It was that
night though that I saw Them, and it waslater, as a man, that I sought Them
out again and it was then that I learned the Truth, the truth about Fairies
anway."

"The Truth", Edwin asked?

The old man shook his head and said, "It doesn't matter what I tell you now,
and in fact I can see it would be a waste of my time. If you want to know
the Truth about Fairies, you will have to go and seek it out yourself. Then
and only then, perhaps we can talk."

Reaching into his pocket, the old man pulled out a bottle and placed it on
the table. It was composed of a thick, amber colored glass and stoppered
with a wine stained cork.

"What's this", Edwin asked?

"Its poison...the esscense of deadly nightshade. If you want to see fairies
boy, you have to walk the thin line between Life and Death. Go into the
forest tonight and find an isolated clearing, then open this bottle and take
two drops on the end of your tongue and NO more! After that, all you have to
do is settle down and wait. Maybe you will live and maybe you will die.
Maybe you'll see fairies or perhaps not. I can't know for sure, but its the
only way I know to Bridge the gulf between our world and Theirs. In the end
of course the decision must be your own. You can go out that door and into
the forest or back out the front door and down the street to your rooms. No
matter what you do, remember, you asked me for this and not the other way
around."

Edwin looked at him for a while then, waiting for him to say something
further, anything really, but he did not. His expression was as unreadable
as one of his musty, old, closed, books. Edwin then looked inward, into his
own soul and knew he could never rest, if he didn't at least try and
discover the truth to this hidden secret. Taking the bottle in one hand, he
rose silently and walked out the kitchen door and into the night.

(...several hours later in the forest...)

Quietly, Edwin wandered through the nighted forest, finding his way down dim
pathways guided only by the twinkle of starlight and the thin illumination
of a half cresent moon. How long he walked, he later could not recall, but
in time his footsteps led him to a small, remote clearing.

A great tree had stood here once long ago. When it fell, its great trunk was
soon swallowed up by the earth and covered by native vines. Where it once
ruled there now existed a small grassy, meadow, no more than 50 paces wide,
covered in knee deep grass and wild flowers. Surrounded by the dark and
brooding forest, the meadow seemed a place apart, a place that was old when
the world was young, with a timeless,lost, feeling to it. In his heart Edwin
knew this was just the sort of place the old man back at the shop had spoken
of to him of. Looking around, he walked over to the stump of an old tree and
set down on the ground, nestled between its roots,resting his back against it.
Reaching into his vest pocket, he removed the bottle the old man had given
him. Despite being under his great coat, the bottom had a chill feel too
it and in the dark seemed to almost glow under the light of the faint moon.

Steeling his courage, Edwin, uncorked the bottle and with trembling hannds,
dipped one finger in the bottle and then squeezed two drops onto his tongue.
The liquid had an arid taste and burned as he quickly swallowed it. He then
carefully he capped the bottle once more and leaned back against the stump to
await the potions effects. He didn't wait for long. As he rested against the
coarse old bark, he could feel a numbing coldness begin to steal over his
body, slowly at first but gaining speed quicker and quicker until at last he
was afraid to even try and move, for fear he would find that he could not.
Even as this change came over his body though, his senses seem to take on new
and keen preception. The night which at first he has though almost silent
seemed to come alive with the humming of insects, the murmur of the wind
among the trees and the quiet, distance russle of small animals rooting out
in the undergrowth. The darkness which had seemed so complete, became more
like a greyish haze, more translucent than opaque and every tree, root,
branch and twig seemed to shimmer in a subtle greenish light, such as he had
never noticed before.

The plants where not the only lights in the forest that night though for as
Edwin looked out among the distance trees, he thought he saw other, brighter,
illuminations. They seemed to almost ... float ... among the dark trucks,
moving sometimes slowly and sometimes in a blinking flash. They came in
two different shades, some a soft warm pink, others a cool pale blue. As he
continued to stare, he couldn't be sure anymore if he were awake or asleep,
for he had the feelings of both inside of him, but awake or asleep he was
sure of one things, the lights were coming closer.


(continued in part2)

[Ted Mark]

Fairy Fight by CrazyVictor on DeviantArt