Challenge: The Fey's Gate

This next story is one I wrote a long time ago, but it's always been one of my favorites. To be honest, I've been struggling a lot with my writing lately. When I sit down to create my mind goes blank and I start to wonder if I've been wrong all these years because I can't always find the passion anymore.

For now, I present this page of the past. As for this blog and where I take it next, I'll let you know when I do.

Enjoy,

The Fey's Gate 

            When the moon slumbers and only stars light the sky, there’s a magic you can feel in every leaf and dewdrop. From beneath the ground to the tips of the highest trees it dances and swirls at your fingertips. The air is filled with the smell of this magic- fresh like the end of a rainstorm in a mossy forest.

The rich soil gives under your bare toes and in every reflective surface, colorful flashes of light dart and weave around you.

            You dance and swirl through the star-spangled night, drunk on the sweetness of the earth and the songs they sing in your ears. There are others hidden where you do not notice, their lips peeled back in too wide smiles because it’s there, away from the false light, where they lead you.

            On you dance, arms outstretched. Not on any path you know but can hardly care because there’s music calling you more beautiful and joyful than the first warm day of spring. The tree trunks thicken. The canopy overhead weaves a net so tight the stars have been replaced with flashes of color.  You start to think, maybe I should turn back.  But the music quickens. They pull your clothes and hair as they fly further down the path.

            “No,” they say. “A little further. Come see, come play.”

            And, their lights draw your eyes away from the ivory bones rolled under the bushes.

            Brambles and thickets pull your clothes, “don’t go, turn back.”

            But your guides- the winged creatures and green, pointed eared men- pull harder and laugh louder.

            You stumble through a thicket of trees into a small clearing. The canopy is woven into a dome that holds the darkness close. But the glowing beings dart about. They sit in trees and dance on toadstools. They fly above and twinkle like blue and gold stars in the leaves.

            The music pulses through your veins and trickles down your arms. The dancing endless, the perfume of the air dizzying and intoxicating. In the center of it all grows a towering tree. The roots are twisted into a bowl to catch the rainfall. It calls to you.

            “Peer into the waters,” they say.

            The pool is smooth as glass and clear like a window to another world; beautiful and timeless. You draw in closer to the gold dust that glitters on the edges. Your fingers hang over the pool, afraid to disturb the reflection. A cold mist caresses your skin like timid vines. Closer, you lean and, suddenly, you realize how thirsty you are.

            The water ripples. The wind rushes. One by one the beings flicker and vanish, leaving nothing but the echo of their haunting laughter. The woods grow silent and still.  The wind blows cold and wet off the mossy earth.

            “Hello?” you ask, but the creatures of magic don’t answer you.

            The wind rustles through the canopy, “Too late. You should have turned back.”

            The thicket had grown tighter between the trees while you danced. You tear at the throne brambles, the prickling bushes, the webbed ivy. No matter how hard you tear, it shoves you back until all you can do is rip at the branches and scream.

            Something laughs at your back. By the roots of the tree is a tiny fluttering light. You rush it but in a flash the tiny light leaps beneath the water. It glows within, then fades in a ripple. For the first time you see yourself in the water; the sticks in your hair, the rips in your clothes and the hollows in your cheeks.

            Hunger is a consuming pain that gnaws your body and thirst, its agonizing companion.

            “Come here,” the pool calls.

            Water trickles through the roots. You can hear music in the ripples and the laughter of the party that left you. You lean closer. A warm hand, made from the mist reaches out from the water. It caresses your cheek and draws you into the magic that once glittered in the darkened forest. 

             Left behind rests your dressed bones, slumped in the shadows of those gnarled tree roots.

            The thicket loosens its fingers between the trees. The pool stills and darkens. Far off the music laughs, and another leaps and bounds in timeless glee to the fairies’ open gate.

Thank you all for reading. Keep writing even though I know it's tough out there sometimes. If you liked this piece you might also enjoy, 'Creven of the Crossroads', and 'Hell Inside'. So, please be sure to check those out.

Till next time.