More lights winked into life, a swarm of rainbow orbs. They rose into the air, flitting and diving around my head. I didn’t know where to look first. I held out my hand, and the blue fairy perched on a patch of intact skin on my outstretched finger. She weighed nothing at all, which made sense, as she didn’t really exist. Would I remember this after I’d been rescued and treated? Part of me hoped so. This entire camping trip had been awful. Meeting fairies didn’t exactly make the experience worthwhile, but it didn’t make it worse either. Blue took flight again, joining her friends as they continued to whirl around me. I couldn’t say how long I watched them, entranced, but I eventually noticed that their lights shone brighter, because night was falling in earnest.
No sooner had I noticed, than the buzzing of tiny wings grew frantic. A fairy shot at me, seizing a tiny handful of my ponytail, and tugged. She was immediately joined by several of her companions, all dragging ineffectively at my hair. It didn’t hurt, but it was quite rude.
“Oi!” I flapped a hand at them. “Stop it!”
They ignored my protests, their little voices rising into shrill shrieks. Annoyed, I gave my head a shake, dislodging a few fairies from the ends of my hair, but my small victory seemed to rile them. More and more swooped down, enough that I began to feel a slight tugging sensation at the roots of my hair.
Enough was enough. I’d changed my mind. They were making my holiday worse. Lurching to my feet, I tossed my head and slapped the air. I made contact with a tiny body, which sailed through the air and burst into a shower of red sparks as it collided with a tree trunk. My heart lurched, but the fairy only fluttered angrily, and shot straight up into the canopy of leaves above, where her light was promptly extinguished. The others followed, their lights sputtering out, leaving me in semi-darkness, the attack over as quickly as it had begun.
Weird. The absolute weirdest thing to happen to anyone, ever. I didn’t know I’d had it in me to dream up such madness. I touched my fingers to the bump at the back of my head again. Was it really that bad? With one last glance up into the dark branches, I wandered back to the riverbank.
Faint silver light painted every edge and plane before me. The thick grass rippled slightly, the moonlight moving with it, making it look like a gently shifting sea. I found my backpack and began to stow away my useless possessions. Everything was still wet, but I couldn’t stop a bubble of hope from rising in my chest as I tested my phone.
Nothing.
With a resigned sigh, I slid it into a side pocket of my bag. Maybe it would dry out. Apart from desperately needing to make a call, I wanted my photos. I should have backed them up. I’d meant to do it, but it was one of those things that I was always going to do later. When I had time. Well, time had run out at last.
Shivering in my knickers and t-shirt, I wrapped my arms around myself in a pathetic attempt to chase away the chill. What I’d give for an annoying, rustling tent and a restrictive sleeping bag. When this was over, I would never, ever complain about my life, ever again. Nothing could be as bad as this.
I stared out over the river, watching the silver ribbon slide by. The search would definitely have been called off for the night. I was on my own, cold and hungry and sore everywhere, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Shoulders sagging, I poked a bare toe at the grass, hoping to unearth a stick. Finding firewood in the dark seemed a sure way to meet a spider.
Slowly, a sense of unease crept over me, making my goosebumps stand out further. The skin on the back of my neck prickled. Something or someone was watching me.
Hesitantly, afraid of what I might hallucinate next, I looked over my shoulder. The scene was as peaceful as ever, completely devoid of manic fairies. For a long moment, I stared into the dense shadow of the trees, but nothing stirred. My battered brain didn’t invent any monstrous shapes from the silhouettes, as it had done when I was a little girl, alone in my dark bedroom. Everything was still and tranquil. Even the singing birds had fallen silent, settling down for the night.
Comforted that I wasn’t alone, even if my only companions were sleeping birds, I turned back to the river. I’d have to find a place to rest for the night. Somewhere offering even the slightest hint of shelter. Maybe a little hollow between the tree roots, or—
Movement caught my eye.
A shadow flitted along the riverbank, furling and unravelling like ribbons of smoke. A shadow in the vague shape of a person. A person with glowing, white eyes.
3Weirdos Grow On Trees, Apparently
Time stopped. It was as simple as that. The world had stopped turning, clocks had stopped ticking, and even my heart had stopped beating. I knew that wasn’t possible, but I was quickly learning that, here in wherever the hell I was, the lines between possible and impossible were less blurred, more completely erased. I could do nothing but stare, open-mouthed and frozen, suspended in time, as a flitting, humanoid shadow drifted along the riverbank.
Another hallucination. That was all it was. Nothing to be overly concerned about at this stage. Perfectly unsurprising for a person who’d taken a crack to the skull. As long as I was found in the morning, treated for apparent injury, and given a strong dose of antibiotics, I had absolutely nothing at all to worry about. But… it was creepy. More sinister by far than the swarm of fairies. So creepy that the tiny hairs all over my body rose in silent protest, and my muscles went rigid, primed to run. I wanted to run. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to do so. But it was stupid. It wasn’t real. Whatever that thing was, it simply didn’t exist.
Despite its clear lack of justification for being anywhere at all, the shadow continued to waft closer, oblivious to my presence. For now. My body screamed at me to do something about the for now part before it was too late, but I only stood stock still, clutching my backpack, which dripped steadily onto the grass.
A hideous, unearthly howl rent the peaceful night, echoing between trees and mountain tops. I jumped, barely managing to stifle my scream. At the same moment, the shadow snapped its smoky, billowing head towards the trees, emitting a bone-chilling hiss as it did so.
Fuck this.
Real or not, I was done with this shit. Wolves were long extinct in the United Kingdom, but I wasn’t about to take any more chances. Being eaten alive was not on my bucket list. Dragging my backpack haphazardly onto my shoulders, I hurtled to the fairy tree and began to climb.
Or, at least, I began to try.
The great outdoors wasn’t really my thing, and I hadn’t attempted to climb anything but the stairs since primary school. As it turned out, I wasn’t very good at it. I scrambled clumsily against the trunk, rough bark skinning my already battered shins as I fought to reach the lowest branch. For once in my life, I was exceptionally glad of my height as, wedging the toe of my boot into a knot in the trunk, my outstretched fingers closed around a branch. If I’d been as petite and dainty as the friends I’d always envied, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. Arms quivering, I braced my legs against the trunk and hauled myself up, slumping gracelessly over the broad tree limb. God, I was out of shape. I really did need to join a gym once this was all over. But I was up, even if I was panting like a winded pug. The ground looked a lot further away than I’d anticipated. Clinging to the trunk, I forced myself to climb a little higher, refusing to so much as consider the possibility of a spider living amongst the twigs and leaves. Faced with the prospect of becoming supper for a wolf and… whatever the hell that shadow was, I’d just have to pretend that spiders didn’t exist. Maybe they didn’t. This was my hallucination, after all.
Once I’d climbed high enough that the lower boughs hid me from view, I straddled the widest branch I could find, letting my legs dangle, and leaned back against the trunk. Bark bit into my bare thighs and almost naked arse, but my eyes drifted shut with exhaustion. This was the worst day of my life, ever. Worse even than the New Year’s night out that had resulted in standing in the freezing rain for three hours, waiting for a taxi, without a coat. I shivered, tonight’s damp clothes and ample bare skin making the memory all the more vivid.
“Enchantée, ma belle.”
I really did scream then.
My eyes snapped open as my hand slapped to my mouth, muffling my cry.
The owner of the velvet smooth, amused voice looked right back from his vantage point in the nearest tree, where he balanced atop a branch with unnatural ease. Smooth, pale skin stretched tight over too-prominent cheekbones. His eyes looked over-large in his malnourished face.
His eyes.
Once again, I could do nothing but stare. It was too dark to guess at the shade of those pale orbs, but even so, they seemed to gleam. To burn through the night.
The man smiled, smooth and self-assured, revealing too many teeth, then he pressed a long, thin finger to his lips. My eyes snagged on the talon-like fingernail, painted in a layer of chipped, black polish.
Gross.
But yeah, I knew. Be quiet. That was what I’d been doing before he showed up and nearly made me fall off my perch.
He pointed down between the leaves, and, like a fool, I looked. The shadowy figure seeped silently around the trunk of my tree, a darker shade of night to its surroundings, its dark tendrils wrapping around the bark I’d so recently clung to. Was it looking for me? What might have happened if I’d been a little slower?
Nothing, I wanted to scream at myself. Nothing would have happened, because it wasn’t real.
Even so, my stomach flipped at the thought.
After a few tense minutes, the shadow seemed to grow bored and drifted away, fading into the woods.
My attention snapped back to the man opposite. He was already watching me with his strange, bright eyes and faint smile. Of all the things to happen today, he was somehow the most unnerving. A proud, defiant part of me wanted to be unafraid, but I liked to think I wasn’t a fool, not all the time, at least. I was lost, injured and vulnerable, not to mention half-naked, and he was a man. Men could be the worst predators of all.
