AUTHOR'S NOTE: The cover art is by Startistdoodles on tumblr, who also did the RP with me that inspired this drabble. There also won't be more than this chapter.
Joey Drew lived far, far away. Past main street where the people walked and where candles lit the road overhead at midnight for the very few who found moonlight more fitting than that of the sun. Down alongside the sidewalk as it grew more and more scruffy with weeds in cracks, a gradual shift from society with touches of nature to nature with touches of society. Beyond the courthouse, the playground, and into the deepest depths of the woodlands- somewhere where once you step in, it feels like you broke through earth's veil.
That's where the fae lived, other kids whispered, and that's where Joey lived too.
A young boy of maybe ten years old trotted down back towards home. It was a long walk- far too long without the luxury of school buses in the time he lived in- but it didn't halt the spring in his step, the perk in his stride, nor his hands outstretched down by his sides in a slight swing. He loved the way air felt as it passed through the space between his fingers if he moved them fast enough, and so the ginger lad with a red, freckled face must have been quite the sight to see- almost like the smallest, daintiest airplane in the world was trying to catch the wind under its arm-shaped wings to soar up and away, breaking past the ceiling of leaves.
And so he became smaller and smaller as he flew into his forest, trees towering and curving overhead until it looked like a portal into someplace unintended to be seen by human eyes. Indeed, it even eventually took the noise from his steps from the perspective of anyone watching him go, as if he truly was whisked off his feet and picked up into the mothering arms of branches, there to sleep amid the birds and bugs until schooltime came to snatch him again.
Joey did have a mother, though. And she was one worth coming home to.
"Ack, ack, ack, ack!" he echoed back to a crow he spotted in an old oak, somehow finding the energy in aching legs to hop up and down as if the biggest creature down the middle of the dirt road needed any help to be seen. The bird slicked with black saw but was suddenly struck with silence, cocking a feathered head to the thing that had none yet cawed to it all the same. It returned with one final cry- an informal goodbye, before flapping its wings and flying into the crowds of green.
This made the boy fold his arms in front of his chest, a slight "hmph!" and then taking a second to lean and let one foot give a quiet but firm stomp of disapproval. And then, hope:
"Tomorrow then!" he called into the forest as he stood on the tip of his toes, answered only by the sound of a breeze rustling leaves as he continued to run back along his worn path.
A sudden, distant "caw!" somewhere behind him several seconds later inevitably put him in a fit of giggles, throwing his hands to his face and feeling his own laughter bounce back at him. But he couldn't stay to harass an old bird like you would a grouchy next-door neighbor sitting on a rocking chair outside- he had to go home!
Joey had something he really wanted to do once he got there, and daylight was only so long.
And if you had blinked at just the wrong moment, it would have seemed just like as you had just daydreamed it could be when he first entered the woods, like it really did just eat him up; he was gone from the road, nothing there but a cabbage butterfly fluttering from rock to rock in the gravel of the path once traveled. Little boys are rarely masters of stealth, however, so the sound of snickers and old shoes kicking up dirt easily lead us back to a spec in a dusty long sleeved shirt and suspenders haphazardly trotting his way back home. Young Joey's rosy hands were outstretched at his sides yet again but with a different purpose, feelings the leaves and flowers and twigs pat his palms as he rushed past, like an audience of supportive friends watching him go on his way to someplace great to do something greater.
So he kept on this way, a trail almost lost in the forest that already can make you feel like you're wandering away into places unknown. But what was uncharted for Joey was home- not just where he lived but where the state of his heart forever would remain- twisting and turning into every crevasse until darkness became light and fear became magic.
Because everything we don't understand is just magic, isn't it?
And eventually a passage made for whimsy carried Joey to the gate that kept his dreams fenced in place. You could see traces of it leak out like gusts, becoming dimmer and lighter as it reaches towards the rest of the woods, but the source was undeniable as Joey saw morning glories crawl up the sides of a short, stilted gate and hollyhocks taller than he stood guard by each side, suspicious of whomever wished to go beyond what they had known.
The spritely boy gave each a respectful regard, a knowing look peeking up from a polite waist-deep bow for each, and they let him pass on into his boyish kingdom to reign one evening more.
And up ahead- even if one would never envy the long, isolated walk from here to there he had to make every day- each and every child and adult alive would see that maybe he was much less cursed with the solitude of nature than he was blessed.
Bit by bit up until where he briefly stood still, the trees had made space for a clearing, and in that clearing up on a hill was a quaint brick cottage, sitting about at the near horizon of one's sight ahead. The sky was blue but beginning to make way for orange's turn, which Joey knew would soon generously give most of its time away to its good friend indigo, and eventually all would go to bed but the father in black and glittered robes who would keep watch over those who wished for safety traveling when others only dared to sleep.
And that meant it was dinner, so the little Drew wasn't so surprised to hear another call out such, using his name to beckon her son inside.
The light of sundown's beginnings began to sharpen over his smooth face, yellow slicking the surface of his hair and head until it streamed down his side like a waterfall until it touched the earth underfoot-…and his expression began to sharpen too.
…Just enough time before the sun went down, he decided in a snap.
Now, another thing little boys tend to have a strange habit of- among their lack of poise for the occupation of sneaking- is giving in to the inexplicable necessity of making their name known.
And one of the kids over in the downtown must have shown Joey just hours before a particularly popular way to make your mark on the world: that is- literally.
And that's why just as he began to get close to his house and the mother patiently waiting inside, he took a 90-degree angle onto yet another path even more wild than the last, the trees gone but tall grass ticking his hips as if it wasn't the forest that changed but he into a giant. Dragonflies and butterflies scrambled and scraped by from one side of his to the other, like bustling traffic busy to make their way to the food they wouldn't let go cold unlike someone else.
Joey shook his head to fling this thought from his mind, hair in need of a wash bristling a bit into his eyes before he smoothed it back once more. No, he'd be alright. This was important, somehow. She'd understand.
The thin road that barely existed at all still kept going to places he loved to be, but it was quite soon that his destination had come. And as was his regular welcome without a single thought, he hopped up the "steps" of an unevenly cut stump of a tree with jacked edges and stood atop to look over his family's domain.
A hand stretched across his brow to shadow against the bleeding warm colors of the descending sun as he peered all around. It was deceiving how fantastic of a view he had; you wouldn't have guessed just a few feet backward but here he was, on top of the world! Even a boy in need of glasses but didn't wear them could see how amazing this was, even catching a blur of the stream northwest of where he stood- a wonderful place to play.
A great place to make friends, too. Not with people, no- not people like him.
After all, the flowers at his ankles were proof that love lived in things besides that which had voices.
And then he remembered what he came here to do. The space straight overhead was quickly turning from blue to purple, gently warning him it was about time he got moving.
In a single jump, the redhead was back to the ground, a knife in his hand from the cover of his pocket. You could certainly tell he hadn't used it before- likely wasn't even his to keep and simply borrowed- from the way he looked it over with both awe and caution before slowly unsheathing it and staring at the vague reflection in the blade's metal.
Then he began.
"Joey!"
The boy by that name quickly put the knife away and rose from his knees, feeling the grass under his palms before picking himself up and running inside to the woman who waited for him.
The very same word carved into the bark of the stump where he believed magic dwelled, claiming it as his own.
And through the darkness growing over the surface of the tall stump like moss, Joey came back. His first arrival was one of joy but this second one? Something else.
He was grave.
The boy kept retelling what had happened in his head, trying to memorize it- trying to remember so he wouldn't make this mistake again:
So proudly telling his mother what he had done. Why was he proud? He didn't have words for it- whatever rush there was. He just knew he regretted it now.
"But isn't that the same stump where you told me there were fae?" she had asked.
"Yes," he had answered. And maybe that's why he had picked the old piece of wood. Because it seemed important. Because it grabbed his heart and wouldn't let go- not only in its gift of a wonderful view of scenery but for the glimpse he caught of something utterly out of reality. He saw it- he swore- he saw a fairy in the starlight one night when he couldn't go to sleep. He saw it sit on the stump, turn its head to him, and disappear with the shadow of a cloud passing over the moon.
It may have been out of sight, but Joey knew better than to know it was surely gone. His mother had taught him such. And that's why she said to him:
"Then why did you put your name on what's not yours?"
And then he felt oh, so guilty, because she was right.
Now, it's an amazing thing what faith can be. Spirituality takes many forms, belief seeking one or many of something both tangible and never to be felt, seen, or heard. And Joey- Joey learned from his mother to believe not just in love but to see love wherever it be found.
And when you do, that's when magic shows itself to you.
So mother and son Drew truly believed in magic in every sense of the word, and so continued a legacy to respect that which you do not understand, flowing on forever like the blood through their veins.
As such, this is why Joey asked her desperately how to make things right.
"'An offering,'" echoed through his mind, "'Give them an offering. Show them you know better now. Promises are empty- actions take root, and they will see this within you.'"
The madam Drew told her child to give something that was greatly important to him- maybe the most important of all.
She probably would be unsurprised to see him now, crouching down at the earth and reaching his hands into the bugs and grass, his tiny form silhouetted against the endless field of dark blue and starlight past the trees fuzzing into one another in the distance. One could barely see the colors in his hands collecting and multiplying with each reach, alongside each teeter from spot to spot along that little hill until something in his soul felt satisfied, and he hoped those from whom he took would feel the same.
And from the ground he took he had taken again…but this time to give away.
The petals fell from his fingers, each flower he had picked placed at the back of the stump where he carved his name. No, he couldn't heal it- he couldn't fill back up the engraving in the rotting bark as good as new…but that's why love required a sacrifice.
So a little boy sacrificed to the fae outside his door what he loved- the things he stared at every day and dared to call his friends.
After all, as said before, he knew what lived in them.
And that's where they lay, up until the moon fell and the sun sat upon its throne again, and after a few more uprisings- both glowing orbs taking turns over who was in charge of the light- the offerings to reflect his heart either by coincidence or by the greatest act of forgiveness imaginable blossomed into the most beautiful thing Joey would ever see in his many, many years.
Just as Joey intended to show the roots that planted in his heart, so had the flowers once again where he had placed them. Right there, and now they crawled up his own name- bright, proud, and gentle just like the boy that became the man that stood before it now.
A mister Drew even older than the woman who raised him when that day had passed looked through round glasses, for once uncaring if the dirt beneath him would stain his pristine cream suit. A hand with fingers still rosy but somehow less so unbent to touch the underneath of a daisy that had planted itself-…that…was planted just in front of his name. After so many years…decades even…the blooms had not faded.
A smile curved his lightly wrinkled cheeks.
Indeed, he was witnessing now that they had only grown brighter.
The underneath of his fingertip moved to caress his damage, the violence in the wood that scarred it with his name forever and found that even if it didn't go back to the way it was…he had been wrong. It had healed. It made him huff a laugh, feeling the texture of moss patch in pieces of the wounds- especially where it cut especially deep. A slow blink- one warm, one knowing something he had never known before, nothing words could describe.
Yet another, and he allowed his honey eyes- as golden and vivid with life as he was at the age of ten- fall upon to his home. …It had moss too, covering the roof, and vines climbing through and over the weathering, faded brick as it weaved through its cracks.
His mother had been long absent of this cottage and then later absent from his life…but maybe thanks to what he sacrificed, the nature of this place knew what he…she would have wanted.
"It's magic's house now," the same Joey spoke for both Drews that used to live here, whispering what came from his heart into the wind that tugged his hair, not only praying but believing that someone unseen was still there to listen. "It would never let it go uncared for."