Slothy, the Student and the Faeries

Chapter 2

"How dare you take her away from me?" Dr Sloth bellowed at the gelert from beneath his mask and blonde wig, falsetto voice forgotten. He could see the little kyrii being bundled into the back of a white van rocking back and forth. "You can't do this! I am Taren's guardian!"

"I'm afraid we can, sir," Dr Lerti replied. He spoke very slowly to the seething Sloth as if he was another mental patient. "Your kyrii is mentally unstable and she has come with us voluntarily."

When Taren awoke, her surroundings came into much better focus. Someone must have given her a new pair of glasses, though not of a prescription as high as she required. She felt as if she had passed out for days, although evidently not as she was still in the back of the van. The van? Then all her memories came rushing back: the voice – the faeries – Dr Lerti – no more faeries! Taren felt so alive and free! There was the kindly gelert doctor at the door of the van, beckoning her to follow him into a clinically clean white building. "Wow this is so cool do I get a straitjacket and everything?" Taren asked, now her nervous, yet incredibly talkative self again.

Dr Lerti chuckled almost evilly as he replied, "Oh no, that's only in the movies." With that, he shoved the helpless kyrii into a completely empty room, then shut the door. Taren struggled up from her knees, shaken and extremely indignant. The lock had clicked in the door. She ambled over to the one window to gaze at the overcast, darkening sky. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad – pretty soon Dr Sloth will come and persuade them to let her out and they'd all see that she wasn't insane and do as he asked so she could continue to live with him and study astrophysics. Taren yelped, jumping back as a flash of lightning illuminated the heavens above. The phenomenon, which had fascinated her so profoundly as a child, seemed now to hurl her back into a panicked frenzy. She rubbed her paws, quivering, agitated as she muttered and spluttered to herself, "No faeries here no faerie's gonna haunt Taren here not where Taren's safe a-and warm and-" Another flash streaked across the sky followed by a mighty growling rumble, causing the diminutive kyrii to duck and cover her face and ears, squeaking in fear.

Presently, Taren gained enough courage to open one eye, then the other. She fancied she could hear music, a languid melody tinkling from the furthest recesses of her imagination. She looked up. The faeries! For the first time, she could clearly see these creatures of transcendent beauty with their softly fluttering wings. There were four of them doing the most curious thing: they were standing facing each other, two on each side, their arms outstretched and touching to form an arch. They were singing, too. A sweet, merry tune that Taren could remember her mother singing when she was very young, a song from the human world as old Mrs Saxton always said. However, at the lethargic pace the faeries were singing, each beat carried the toll of a death bell. Their rather dead, hollow, staring eyes didn't help much. Before she knew it, Taren felt an inexorable urge to approach the faeries. She complied, skipping in slow motion in a figure-eight, in and out of the arch, her bloodshot orbs bulging yet unseeing while the faeries sang.

"'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St Clement's,

'Lend me five farthings,' say the bells of St Martin's,

'When will you pay me?' say the bells of Old Bailey,

'When I grow rich,' say the bells of Shoreditch,

'And when will that be?' say the bells of Stepney,

'I do not know,' says the great bell of Bow.

Here comes the candle to light you to bed,

And here come the faeries to make you ill in the head."

That certainly wasn't how Taren remembered the song ending. She stared, momentarily broken from her trance, as the faeries drifted and spiralled into each corner of the room, disappearing in four glittering clouds of smoke and a shrill chorus of insane cackling. Then silence. Taren sank slowly to the floor, hugging her knees tightly as if afraid of losing her body as well as her mind, her eyes bloodshot and bulging once again. She rocked back…and forth…back…and forth…

The End