This one is set in England in the 1920's—think one of the calm country estates in an early Agatha Christie novel (except free of murder). We're taking a dip into the fantastical, with Peggy as the little girl who lives on the estate who meets a certain skinny little blond-haired, blue-eyed fairy under the willow tree in her garden one day…
When Peggy Carter was five years old, she was allowed to play in the garden on her own. The garden was full of beautiful flowers, bushes to hide in and trees to climb, and there were little stone paths and a gazebo off to one side. Peggy's favorite part of the garden, though, was the large willow tree in the back. It marked the edge of where she was allowed to play, since it was where the garden stopped and the woods beyond began. It was a hard rule to follow, though—the willow tree was so inviting. Its long branches swept the ground and made a little canopy, cool and shaded inside, with butterflies flitting about and sunlight flickering through the gaps in the leaves in a way that felt sort of magical. Peggy loved it, and she often ventured inside, reasoning that the tree was on the edge of the yard, but still in it, so she wasn't breaking any rules.
Sometimes she would bring her dolls and play there, and sometimes she would climb up in the tree and play imaginary games. It felt sometimes like something was watching her when she was there, but not in a frightening way. It felt safe. Maybe the tree was looking after her.
It wasn't long after she turned six that she learned she wasn't the only one who played by the willow tree. A faint rustling noise that sounded different from the wind in the branches caught her ears, and she looked up. A pair of the bluest eyes she'd ever seen were staring back at her. They widened in alarm as they met hers, and the little boy they belonged to jumped down from the branch he'd been sitting on and disappeared between the willow branches into the forest.
"Wait!" Peggy called, jumping up and hurrying after him. She made it several steps before she realized she was in the woods beyond the garden, where she wasn't supposed to be. "Hello?" she called. She looked around. The trees here were tall and stately, though the quiet between them didn't feel as solemn as it looked from the outside. There were birds singing in the trees, and Peggy thought she could hear the rippling of a stream. There was no one around.
"Little boy?" she called, feeling a bit silly, but she didn't know his name. "It's alright," she assured him, wherever he was. "I shan't get you into trouble." Perhaps that was why he'd run away—she knew her mother and father didn't like the local village boys messing about on the estate. "You can stay and play with me," she said. It would be rather nice, she thought, not to play on her own.
The little boy neither replied nor came out from where he was hiding, and after a few minutes, Peggy sighed and returned to the willow tree.
It was a couple of days later that he came back. Peggy spotted those blue eyes on the other side of the canopy of leaves and she smiled at them. "Hello," she said brightly. "Please don't run away," she added quickly. He didn't, but he didn't get any closer. Peggy smiled, trying to look friendly. Perhaps he was shy. "My name is Peggy," she said. "Would you like to come and play with me?"
He hesitated for a long moment, then the hanging leaves parted enough for him to poke his head inside. His face was thin, and his skin so pale as to be nearly white. Blond hair that looked quite soft but could use a trim framed his face.
Peggy smiled encouragingly. "You can come in," she said. "I don't bite." A faint smile tugged up the corners of his lips. "Come on," she coaxed, waving him inside.
His smile disappeared and he bit his lower lip, as though thinking hard about something. Then he drew a breath and stepped the rest of the way into the canopy.
"Oh," Peggy breathed. He was very small—shorter than her by about half a head, and he was very thin. There was something graceful in the way he moved, however, and though the bones of his face and hands looked sharp, Peggy got the distinct impression of softness from him. He was wearing a loose-fitting greyish-green shirt and brown pants, and his feet were bare. He didn't look like anyone Peggy had seen before, but it wasn't his odd clothes or waifish appearance that caught her attention. No, that would be the wings coming out of his back.
They were nearly as tall as he was, and though they were shaped like the wings of a butterfly, they were transparent, like a bumblebee. Faint veins ran through them, dividing them up into segments, and the light played through them and caught in places in bright sparkles. They were fluttering slightly, nervously almost, like they were preparing to take flight.
"Are you a fairy?" Peggy asked curiously. She'd read about fairies in books, but had never known they were real.
The little boy nodded.
Peggy stood up and took a few steps closer to him, and though his wings fluttered a little faster, he didn't run away. "I would have thought fairies were smaller," she said. "In books, you know, fairies are always small enough to hide inside a tulip, or something like that." There was another little smile. Peggy smiled back encouragingly. "Can you talk?" she wondered. He hadn't said anything yet.
"Yes," he said softly.
Peggy smiled wider. "What's your name?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it, seeming surprised that she'd asked the question. "I haven't got one," he replied.
Peggy's eyebrows furrowed, puzzled. "Really?" He shook his head. "What do the other fairies call you, then?"
"They don't. Fairies just…" He shrugged. "We just sort of know who each other are. Only the really important fairies get names, like queens or generals or something. You have to earn a name."
"Oh." Well, that was odd, but Peggy suspected it would be rude to say so. "Alright. Well, then, what shall I call you?" He looked confused and she smiled. "If we're going to be friends, I shall have to call you something."
He smiled widely, the first real smile Peggy had seen. It was a nice one. "You want to be my friend?" he asked.
"Of course," Peggy replied. She couldn't think of a name that seemed to fit him. "Should I just call you 'Fairy'?"
He smiled. "You can. Unless you know any other fairies to mix me up with."
"Just you," Peggy confirmed. She nodded. "Alright, then, Fairy. What would you like to play?"
They played until Peggy's mother called her for dinner. Peggy was hesitant to leave, but he assured her that he would come back when she wanted to play again. They played together a lot after that—sometimes he was waiting for her when she came out to the willow tree, and sometimes she would have to call him and wait a bit, but he always came. They would climb the tree or play games, and sometimes they would just sit and talk. He would tell her what it was like in the fairy world, and she thought it was funny that he was so interested in hearing from her about things like tea kettles and gas stoves and the post office.
"Well, I think it's funny that you're so interested in summer songs and river magic and my pointy ears," he told her. "They're just as normal for me as afternoon tea is for you."
As time went on, sometimes they would venture into the forest to play, and they would climb the bigger trees and splash in the stream and pick berries. He never wanted to go up into the garden, though, in case anyone besides her saw him.
"Are you afraid of people?" Peggy wondered.
"A little," he said. "Most people don't believe in fairies anyway, but…" He sighed. "We're not really supposed to let people see us."
"What about me?" she wondered.
He smiled. "I'm not really supposed to be playing with you either. But you…Well, I thought you were interesting. I used to watch you, you know, when you would play by yourself under the tree. And I would think that you might be nice to get to know."
Peggy smiled. "Well, I'm glad you finally let me see you. I like you. I'm glad we're friends."
He smiled back warmly. "I'm glad we're friends too."
When Peggy turned seven, she had to start going to school. She could only play in the afternoons now, and there was more to do, but she still found time almost every day to go and play with her fairy. She didn't tell anyone else about him, though. She didn't want to get him in trouble, since people weren't supposed to know about him, and she realized that he was right, and most people didn't believe in fairies anyway. They would have just teased her about it.
"I was wondering," she said one day while they were sitting by the stream. She had taken her shoes off to cool her feet in the water. "Can I come and see where you live?"
He looked up, surprised, his wings fluttering nervously behind him. She'd learned that his wings moved in different ways depending on how he was feeling—when he was happy, they moved open and closed slowly, like a butterfly sunning itself on a flower petal; they snapped open all the way when he was startled; and when something was funny, the tops of them quivered back and forth. They didn't open very far when he was nervous or worried, but they vibrated quickly, fluttering close together like they were now.
"No!" he said sharply. "No, you can't do that!"
"Alright," Peggy said, taken aback by his sudden vehemence.
His cheeks flushed and he hung his head a little. "I'm sorry," he replied.
"It's alright," Peggy said. "I suppose it's not allowed?"
"No, it's allowed." The way he smiled when he said that said he found the statement anything but amusing. "But it's not…it's not safe. I know you like all the stories I tell about it, but…" He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, then reached over and took her hand. Peggy was surprised at the conviction in his eyes when he looked up at her. "Peggy, promise me you won't try to go there. Please," he added urgently when she didn't respond right away.
"Alright," she said. "I promise."
Relief swam across his face and his wings relaxed and opened up a little more. "Thank you," he said.
They sat there in silence for a few minutes, Peggy mulling over what he'd said. "Um, is it alright if I ask," she began, not wanting to upset him again. "But, do you like it there?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just, how you said it wasn't safe and everything. Are you okay there?" Maybe that was why he came to see her so often—to get away from it.
He smiled warmly, touched by her concern. "I'm okay," he said. "It's nice there, it just…It's not a good place for humans to be."
"Okay," Peggy said. She wanted to ask for more details, her curiosity piqued, but she could tell he didn't want to elaborate. "Well, just as long as you're alright there. Shall we see if we can find any blackberries?"
It didn't come up again, and Peggy didn't feel she should ask. She did start reading books about fairies—she'd stopped reading fairy tales when she met him, because what were stories compared to a real live fairy? But now she delved back into the books on her shelves with a more scholarly approach, wondering how much of it was true. It was hard to say, really. Stories about fairies were so varied, painting them as anything from helpful forest dwellers to mischievous pranksters to dangerous predators. Well, her fairy certainly wasn't anything like that. Maybe it was just something having to do with people not having magic, and needing to have magic to live in the fairy world.
Speaking of magic, he showed her some of his every now and then. He wasn't really supposed to do that either, but since he'd gone as far as making friends with a human, well, what was one more little rule to break? He did explain that he wasn't very good at magic yet—he was still a young fairy, after all—but Peggy was in awe of the way he could make the ice on the stream frost over with beautiful patterns, or make flowers bloom out of reluctant buds, or call birds down from the trees to talk to him. Every once in a while, he would even take her to one of the clearings in the forest, hold on to her tightly, and fly with her up into the air.
"You know," Peggy told him after one such trip. "You're stronger than you look." She was nine now, and had gotten taller. He was growing too, but not quite keeping up with her—he was still almost a head shorter than her. "The first time we did that, I was worried you were going to drop me."
He laughed, the tips of his wings quivering. "Fairies are smaller than people—though not as small as your books say we are." Peggy had brought one of her books out one time to show him an illustration of what people thought fairies might look like, and he had laughed at the tiny people dressed in flower petals so hard that he'd fallen off his tree branch. "But that doesn't mean we're not strong," he continued. "I have magic, remember? I could pick up a person even bigger than you if I wanted."
"How old are you?" she wondered suddenly. She'd never asked before, just assuming he was a child like her. He'd said he was a young fairy, and he was growing more or less along with her, so it seemed like he should be close to her age, but she didn't know how fairies worked. Maybe he was hundreds of years old.
He twisted a blade of grass thoughtfully between his long, thin fingers. "I don't know how to say it so you'd understand," he said at last. "Time moves different in the fairy world. I'm still a kid, if that's what you're asking. I was born in the last hatching, so…less than a hundred?"
Peggy let out an amused huff of air. "Well, that doesn't narrow it down, much. I'm less than a hundred, too, you know."
He smiled. "I know. We just count our ages different than you do. Fairies are only hatched during the summer solstice every one hundred years, and we count our ages in hatching cycles instead of years. So, when the next one happens, then I'll be one." He gave a little embarrassed smile. "I don't know how much where I am right now is in human years."
Peggy pondered this. "So, do you get old, then?" She waved a hand at him, taking in his appearance. "Are you always going to look like a little boy, or will you get old someday?"
"No, I'll get older," he said. "I'll look more like a grownup when I get a little older. But fairies don't get so old that they die. Other things besides old age can kill fairies, but if you can avoid those, you could live forever."
"Wow. What do you do with forever?" she wondered. That seemed like a terribly long time.
He smiled at her. "I don't know. I haven't gotten there yet."
Peggy enjoyed playing with her friend, but she also enjoyed the times when they just sat and talked. She would tell him about school and the friends she had there, and though he didn't know an awful lot about how humans worked, he would listen when she had problems and try to help her fix them. She would do the same for him when he talked about his life in the fairy world. They helped each other, and they made one another laugh. Peggy had plenty of human friends, but the time she spent in the woods with her fairy was very special to her.
The summer after she turned eleven, he was waiting for her under the willow tree one day, and he seemed anxious. "Is everything alright?" she asked him. His wings were fluttering so quickly they were lifting him off the ground a little bit.
"It's alright," he said, making a visible effort to control their fluttering and bring himself back down to earth. He smiled at her, but there was something wrong in it.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"I can't…It's just fairy things," he sighed. He looked very much like he wanted to tell her what those things were. But he didn't. "I brought you something," he said instead. "Hold out your hand."
Still puzzled, she did so. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out, dropping it quickly into her outstretched hand. It was a delicate chain with a little silver pendant on the end, carved to look like a tree. She held it up to look at it more closely and was amazed at the level of detail carved into the little charm. "It's lovely," she said. "Thank you." She held it up and examined it a moment longer, then slid the chain around her neck.
The nervous fluttering in his wings stopped, and he smiled. "Do you really like it?"
"I do," she said. "Where did you get it?" she wondered. Was this a special piece of fairy jewelry?
"Oh, it's something I had," he said, a bit vaguely. "But you'll keep it, won't you?" he asked.
"Of course," she said, placing a hand over it. "Always."
He smiled wider. "Good. I hoped you would like it." Whatever seemed to be troubling him was gone. Maybe he had just been nervous she wouldn't like the gift.
She didn't see him again after that for a long time. She didn't always see him every day anyway, but now she would go out to the willow tree, calling for him and receiving no answer. She ventured farther into the forest as well, but saw no sign of him. She didn't know what else to do to try to find him, so she just kept going out to the tree when she could. It was almost a month later when he came back.
"Peggy?" she heard a voice whisper, and she dropped the book she'd been reading and spun around.
"You're back!" she exclaimed, jumping up eagerly. "Where have you been? I've missed you! I—"
She stopped short as she got a look at him. He looked dreadful. At first she thought maybe he'd been ill—his skin was so pale it was nearly translucent, and if he'd been thin before, he was positively gaunt now. But then she saw the mottled bruising on the left side of his face, a vibrant shade of violet against the white of his skin. She saw the bandage around his right hand and the way he cradled it against his chest. She saw the gash on his neck and the stitches holding together the tear in one of his wings.
"What happened?" she breathed.
"It—I—I'm fine," he said. "I came to make sure you were alright. Are you okay?"
"What? I'm fine," she said.
"You're sure?" he pressed. He looked so worried that tears were pooling in his eyes. "Nothing's happened? I—"
"Yes, nothing's happened, and I'm completely fine," she said, walking over to him. "But you're not. Tell me what happened."
She took his uninjured hand and led him over to sit down against the tree. He followed willingly enough, though he moved like he was in pain, and he said nothing for several minutes after he sat down.
"Fairy?" she prodded gently, wishing she had a proper name to call him. "What's wrong?"
He sighed. "I got in trouble," he said softly. "With the other fairies."
Fire flared up in Peggy's chest. "The other fairies did this to you?"
He nodded.
"Why?!" she demanded. What could he have possibly done to— A sudden, painful knot caught in her throat. He wasn't supposed to be seen by humans. Had he been caught out spending time with her? Was this what happened to a fairy who broke the rules? "Did…Did they hurt you because of me?"
He was quiet for a long minute before nodding minutely.
"Oh," she breathed, her voice catching in her throat. "Oh. I'm so sorry!"
"It's not your fault," he said. "And it's not for the reason you think."
"What happened?" she asked again.
He sighed deeply. "Remember…Remember when you asked how old I was, and I told you about fairy hatchings?"
She nodded. "You said fairies are only born every one hundred years."
He nodded. "Uh huh. But that's a long time in between. And a long time ago, somebody figured out another way to make more fairies." He shifted uncomfortably. "Another way to get new fairies is for…For fairies to, to kidnap humans and take them to the fairy realm. There's magic there that can turn humans into fairies. They forget all about who they were before and where they came from, and they become fairies like the rest of us."
He stopped speaking, and Peggy stared at him for a long moment before it clicked. "You mean I…That was supposed to happen to me?"
He nodded sadly, his wings drooping in shame.
Anger flared up in her chest and she leapt to her feet. "You were going to do that to me?!" she demanded. Pain was lancing through the anger, bringing furious tears to her eyes. "How could you?" she whispered. "I thought we were friends." Suddenly unable to look at him any longer, Peggy spun on her heel and marched back into the garden.
"Peggy, wait!" she heard him call.
She marched on.
"Wait!" he begged. "Please!"
Anger and betrayal were still burning sharp in her heart, but she stopped, spinning slowly around. The pain in his bright blue eyes drove a chip through that angry wall, as did the way he held himself as though it had hurt to run after her. She would give him a chance to explain himself.
"We are friends, Peggy," he said sadly. "I…You're the only friend I have."
"Funny way to treat your friend," she said coolly.
"I…" He looked around nervously, and it sank in that he'd followed her into her garden, closer to the house and other humans, where he'd never been before. He looked back at her. "I wasn't going to do that to you," he said. "I promise." He took an uncertain step closer.
"I was never supposed to be friends with you," he said in a small voice. "But I saw you, and you, you seemed nice. I became your friend because you asked me to, and because I liked you. Not because I was trying to be sneaky and get you to trust me. I made sure none of the other fairies ever knew about you. To keep myself out of trouble, partly, but also to keep you safe. I knew they would think it would be easier to kidnap you if you already knew about fairies and liked them. So I made sure they never knew about you. I was never going to kidnap you," he said sadly. "Never. Please believe me."
There was such conviction in his eyes that Peggy found all the anger and hurt had already drained out of her chest. "I do," she said softly. "I'm sorry," she added, suddenly feeling guilty. "I was just…I know that you wouldn't ever do something like that. I was just surprised, and, and angry. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he said, and the relieved smile that spread across his face was so beautiful, Peggy couldn't help smiling back.
She looked around the open garden, her house visible beyond the hedge, then nodded back to the willow tree. "Would you like to get back out of the open?"
"Yes, please," he said softly, and it was only as she took his hand to lead him back that she realized how frightened he'd been coming out here. His hand was shaking, and Peggy squeezed it warmly.
"So, you were telling me what happened," she prompted when they sat back down inside the canopy of leaves.
He nodded. "I'm not sure how they found out about you, but somehow, a few weeks ago, they did. They told me since I was already friends with you, I should offer to bring you to see where we lived." He blinked up at her sadly. "That's why it's not safe for humans to be in the fairy world. The magic there works fast, and if I'd brought you, you wouldn't've ever come home. I didn't want to do that to you." He nodded at her chest, where the little tree pendant he'd given her was hanging. "I told them I would come and get you, but instead I stole that and gave it to you. It'll keep you safe."
"It will?" she asked, looking down at the little tree.
He nodded. "There's magic in it that will keep fairy magic from affecting you. It'll even burn them if they touch it."
"You touched it," she pointed out.
"Not for long," he said with a little smile, and she remembered how quickly he'd pulled it out of his pocket and dropped it into her hand.
"It burned you," she said sadly.
He nodded. "But not too bad, and it was worth it, because you're safe now." He smiled. "They can't ever get you as long as you have that."
"So they got angry when you got back without me?" she guessed.
He nodded. "I was in trouble for that, but not too much, since they figured I just didn't know how to kidnap someone. But then they said they'd just send someone else after you. So then I told them what I did, and that they'd never get you." He swallowed hard, and moisture pooled up in his eyes. "I got in a lot of trouble for that," he whispered.
Peggy felt her heart clenching in her chest, and she slid an arm over his shoulders. "What did they do to you?" she asked softly.
"They locked me up," he said quietly. He lifted up his good hand, and as his sleeve fell down, Peggy could see the marks around his wrist where it had been rubbed raw under a cuff. "They left me there for a while, and then…Then Sebille came in. She's one of the fairies who has a name," he said quietly.
"Did she hurt you?" Peggy asked, already knowing the answer.
He nodded. "She's the Queen's Enforcer, and she deals with traitors." He huffed a watery laugh. "That's what I am now." Very carefully, he pulled his right hand away from where it was tucked against his chest. He loosened the bandage wrapped around his palm and tugged it down. Peggy gasped. A strange mark was burned into the skin of his hand, angry and raw and blistered. "She marked me," he whispered. "So everyone would know."
"How did you get away?" Peggy wondered.
He shook his head, smiling sadly. "They let me go. After I completed my punishment, there wasn't any need to keep me locked up anymore. But it will be a long, long time before they trust me again."
Peggy's heart ached as she looked him over. He looked so small and sad and beaten. "When you gave me the necklace, did you know they would do that to you?" He nodded, and tears sprang to Peggy's eyes. "Why would you do that for me?"
He smiled at her like the answer should have been obvious. "Because you're my friend." He smiled sadly. "Fairies can live forever, remember? That's a long time to have to live with myself if I ever let them hurt you."
"But, I suppose, if they had taken me, it isn't as though I would remember it," Peggy reasoned. It wasn't something she would have wanted to happen, but it was a point to consider.
"I would," he whispered. He reached out with his good hand and carefully picked up her hand, squeezing her fingers warmly. "This was worth it to me, Peggy. You're worth keeping safe."
One of the tears pooling in Peggy's eyes escaped and trickled down her cheek. "Thank you," she whispered. She leaned over and kissed his cheek softly. "Thank you for doing that for me."
He smiled up at her, the water in his blue eyes making them sparkle like sapphires. "You're welcome."
They just sat there for a bit, but eventually, Peggy got him to tell her what all Sebille had done to him. It was more than it looked like from the outside, and he needed looking after. Another part of his punishment was that even though he was free now, he would have to fend for himself until he was better—no other fairies were allowed to help him.
"I'll help you, then," Peggy promised. "You took care of me. So now I'm going to take care of you."
It took a lot of work, but Peggy finally convinced him to come into the house—the prospect terrified him, but there was very little she could do for him outside, and she promised that she would keep him away from any other people. He nodded and said he trusted her, and he clung tightly to her side as they snuck into the house. Right now was the perfect time to do it—her father was in town for a meeting, her mother had gone to a neighbour's for afternoon tea, and Mrs. Graham would be in the kitchen working on dinner. They made it to her room unnoticed, and she made a pile of blankets and pillows in the bottom of the wardrobe where he could lie down and hide. Then she put together a basket of cloths and ointments and got a kettle of warm water.
Carefully, she washed his cuts and bound them up, rubbed ointments into his bruises, and treated the burn on his hand before putting clean bandages over it. "There," she said, tucking a blanket around his shoulders as he folded his wings down. "That should do for now. Now we should see about getting you something to eat. They didn't feed you much while you were locked up, did they?"
"No."
"Well, you shall have plenty to eat now. What sort of things do fairies like to eat?"
He smiled. "The same sorts of things people do, I think. Fruit and bread and cheese."
"I can get that," Peggy said. "Anything else? Go on, you can ask," she said when he looked as though he were debating saying something.
"Would it…" he began hesitantly. "Do you think maybe I could have just a little bit of milk?" he asked tentatively, as though it might be too big a favor.
"Of course," she said, surprised at the simple request. "You can have all the milk you want. I'll just go and fetch it."
She went downstairs and into the kitchen, where Mrs. Graham happily put together a little basket of strawberries, bread and cheese for her, though Peggy did say it was because she wanted to have a little picnic in the garden. She tucked a jug of milk into the basket and headed outside, then looped around and hurried back up to her room.
Her fairy was waiting for her, curled up nervously in the little nest in the wardrobe she'd made him. He relaxed when she reappeared and took the food gratefully, though his eyes widened at the sight of the jug of milk. "You brought all of that for me?" he asked. "Won't you get in trouble for taking so much?"
"No," she said. "We've got loads of milk." She smiled curiously. "Is there something special about milk?" she wondered.
He shrugged one shoulder. "It's quite a treat where I'm from. It helps me sleep, and I thought with as much as everything hurts right now, maybe a little bit would help. I never thought you would have so much."
Peggy smiled. "The milkman brings lots of it fresh every morning. Have all the milk you like."
"Wow. Thank you."
Peggy had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the awed way he kept staring at the milk jug, focusing instead on helping him tear the bread and cheese into manageable chunks since he only had one working hand. He ate everything she'd brought, and she was glad she was able to help him get what he needed. She hated to think of him locked up in a little room, hurt and hungry and alone.
He saved the milk for last, and he certainly hadn't been kidding about it helping him sleep. His eyes were starting to droop before he was halfway through the glass, and by the time he'd drank it to the bottom, he was listing over sideways and Peggy had to shoot out a hand to catch his shoulder and stop him knocking his head against the side of the wardrobe. He was smiling dreamily as she helped him lie down and tucked the blanket back up around him. "Thanks, Peggy," he whispered, and he was out.
She smiled, reaching out a hand to brush his hair back out of his face. She stroked her fingers gently through the soft blond locks, then tucked them back behind the point of his ear. "Sleep well, my little fairy," she said softly. "You're safe here."
He was still sleeping soundly when she came up from dinner for bed, so she turned off the lights and crawled into bed. When she woke up the next morning, he was sitting in her windowsill wrapped up in one of the blankets, watching the sun rise over the estate. He was still shaky and a little weak, and did not object to being coaxed back into his little nest to rest while she went and had breakfast, promising to bring some up for him.
Over the next few days, he started getting better. Peggy did worry about him while she was away at school in the mornings, but no one had any reason to go in her wardrobe, and he was always fine when she came back, occasionally even still asleep after the glass of milk she would bring him for breakfast. In the afternoons, she would treat the burn on his hand, then sit there and read to him. It was through that that she learned he didn't know how to read, and so she offered to teach him once he was feeling better.
After a week, he was getting out of the wardrobe and moving around without any pain. "Are you sure you're ready to go back?" Peggy asked. "After what they did to you…"
"They won't hurt me anymore," he said. "I did my time. They may not like me much for a while, but I can handle that. And I can still come and see you."
"You won't get in trouble again?" she asked. She didn't want to lose him, but she didn't want him to suffer any more on her behalf.
He shook his head. "Coming and seeing you wasn't what got me hurt. And unless I try to protect you even more, it isn't worth punishing me for. I'll make sure to be careful." He smiled. "Besides, I can't keep living in your closet forever."
"I'd let you if it would keep you safe," she said.
His smile softened. "I know. But I'll be alright."
"Stay for one more night?" she coaxed. "One more glass of milk?"
He grinned. "Well, if you're gonna twist my arm…"
He left the next morning, and Peggy rushed out to see him that afternoon after school and again on each of the following days, and it would seem he was right—he may be living as a social outcast among the fairies, but none of them seemed to feel any need to hurt him any further.
She began their reading lessons, and he was a quick study. He mastered the alphabet in a matter of days, and it wasn't long before she was bringing out the books she was reading in school and he was reading them aloud to her, occasionally stumbling over a difficult word.
"Are you sure you've never had reading lessons?" she asked him one day. "Maybe a long time ago? You're an awfully quick study."
She said it teasingly, but he didn't smile back.
"Sorry," she said. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No," he replied, shaking his head. "I was just thinking."
He had been doing that more since his stay at her house. "About what?" she wondered.
"I'm not sure," he sighed. "Ever since I stayed at your house, I've felt…Something's not right."
"What do you mean?"
"Here," he said, tapping a finger to the side of his head. "I keep thinking these things that…I just don't feel like my head's on straight anymore."
"I'm sorry," she said, not sure what she was apologizing for, but it had been her house that had thrown things off-kilter.
"No, don't be," he said. "I just…" He sighed again, then looked over at her. "I think…You know how I told you about how fairies kidnap people?"
She nodded.
He drew in a deep breath. "I think maybe that's what happened to me."
Peggy took a moment to process that. "You mean you think that's how you…But I thought you said you were born at the last hatching?"
"Well, I thought I was, but that's just because they told me that. I never had any reason not to believe them, but then I was in your house…I've never been in a house before, but I keep getting these pictures in my mind…Like that first morning, when I was looking out your window? I was just watching the sunrise, but something in my mind kept thinking of all these little changes, like a fence, and a dog, and a baby crying…Like I should have been looking out a different window in a different house. I would see your bedroom, and get this image of a room with a bed and toys and books and things, but different from yours. Little things like that. And it hasn't stopped since I've left your house. I keep seeing things that I shouldn't know, and…Peggy, I think I used to be a human."
Peggy sat there in silence for a long moment, absorbing all of that. "Right," she said at last. "So how do we fix it?"
"What?"
"To make you human again. How do we do it?"
He blinked, surprised, as if he hadn't been thinking that at all. "I…I don't think we can."
"Of course we can."
He smiled fondly. "Peggy, you don't even know how fairy magic works."
"That doesn't mean we can't try."
"We can look, I guess, but I've never heard of this kind of magic being undone."
"There's a first time for everything," she declared.
Peggy wasn't sure what she could do from her end, but she was going to look more deeply into her books and see if she could find more stories about fairies. Maybe old country legends and things. He was going to look around back in his realm, and see if he could find any stories of things like this happening before.
It was nearly a week before she saw him again, and she was worried, but kept telling herself that maybe they were just missing each other and going out on different days, or that there were too many fairies around where he was and it wasn't safe to sneak away. And that seemed to be what happened, as he was unharmed when she finally did see him.
"Did you find anything?" she asked. Her search had been maddeningly unfruitful, but maybe if he found even a little clue, it would help point her in the right direction.
"Anything for what?" he asked.
"For what we talked about last time," she reminded him. "Magic to turn fairies who used to be humans back into humans again," she added when he seemed to need a clue.
"Oh," he said. "Was I supposed to be looking for that?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Why?" she repeated. "To help you!" He looked utterly confused now, and she stepped forward and looked him carefully in the eye. "Did they do something to you again?" she asked.
"What? No, they didn't. I told you they didn't have any reason to hurt me again."
"Then why don't you remember this?"
"Remember what?"
"You told me you thought you used to be human," she said.
"I did?"
She nodded. "Remember? You said while you were staying at my house, it kept reminding you of another house. Looking out over the yard, and seeing a dog and a fence and hearing a baby cry?" She wished he'd given her something more concrete to go on.
He looked confused a moment longer, then a furrow of concentration appeared across his brow. "I do remember that," he said, half to himself. "Why did I…"
He drifted off into his own head for a moment, and Peggy gave him a minute to collect his thoughts. "Do you remember now?" she asked at last, when she couldn't take the silence any longer.
He nodded. "I do." He looked back at her. "I just…forgot."
"How?"
He chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "If I really was a human before…The fairy magic makes you forget. Something in your house must have woken up a memory or something, and that was the longest I've ever been away from the fairy world, so it stayed. Then I kept seeing you and it kept it going, but then being home for a week…The magic must have taken back over and I lost it."
"Well, then, you can't go back there," she declared.
He smiled. "Peggy, I can't stay away. They'd come looking for me."
"So, what do we do?"
"I still don't think there's a way to undo it," he said. "But I think if I'm careful to come and see you more often, I won't lose these memories. I can keep them that way."
Peggy felt bad for asking the next question, but she felt like she had to. "If there's no way to undo it, do you want to keep them?" Wouldn't it just hurt, remembering what he couldn't have?
"I do," he said. "Even if it hurts to know I lost something, it's still part of me. I want to keep that."
"Alright," she said. She smiled at him. "But I'm going to keep looking for a way to fix it."
He smiled back at that.
They made sure to meet more often after that. He seemed able to hold on to the memory that he'd realized he was once a human, but memories of those times as a human were dim, if they could be found at all. A smell here, an image there, a noise there… Nothing to identify who he used to be, or even when he'd come from. They might have stolen him away centuries ago. Peggy hadn't had much luck in finding anything to help him, nothing but an old poem that told a story of a woman rescued from the Fairy King. It was so old and embellished that there was nothing useful in it—certainly not how it happened—but it did end with the woman starting over, having forgotten her old life. He seemed to take that to mean that his old memories were gone for good, and she had to agree that that seemed the most likely interpretation. He seemed far less troubled by that than she was.
"It's hard to be upset over what you don't remember losing," he'd pointed out. "And I'm okay," he assured her. "I really am. Being a fairy, it's not so bad. Most of the time," he corrected with a quick glance down at the burn scar on his hand.
They'd stopped talking about it so much when they spent time together—he wasn't remembering anything more, and there didn't seem to be anything they could do about it. Peggy still kept her eye out for new books and stories about fairies, though.
As the fall rolled around, an unexpected and unwanted fork appeared in Peggy's path—she was being sent away to school. Apparently, now that she was twelve, she required proper education and more finishing than a country school could provide. Her parents, knowing she would fight this decision, had chosen not to inform her of it until the night before she left.
She put up a royal fuss, but this was a battle she could not win. She went to bed in a huff of furious tears, then, as soon as the house was asleep, she snuck out and ran to the garden. She couldn't stay, but she could at least tell him she was going, and assure him she would be back.
"Fairy?" she called hopefully. She sort of hated calling him that now, like she was rubbing in that he wasn't a human anymore, but he assured her he didn't mind.
"Are you here?" she called. "I need to talk to you. It's important." She'd never come out to meet him at night before, and though she waited for a long time, it seemed she wasn't going to meet him tonight either. It was with a very heavy heart that she climbed into the car with her father the next morning and drove away.
It was two months before she got to come home. The first few weeks were torture, worrying about her fairy, imagining him waiting there by the tree and wondering where she'd gone. Would he think something had happened to her? Would he think she'd gotten angry with him and didn't want to see him anymore? It was made all the worse by the kindly teachers and older students who assured her that everyone got homesick and tried to make her feel better.
She eventually made some friends, and she spent a lot of time waffling back and forth between enjoying herself with her new friends and feeling guilty for doing so when her oldest friend was missing her back at home. When term was finally over, she fairly ran out to the garden from the car.
"Fairy?" she called. "It's me! I'm back!" She spun around inside the willow's canopy eagerly, trying to spot those blue eyes peering out between the leaves.
"Peggy?" came a surprised voice from behind her. She turned around and there he was. "Mmf!" he grunted as she flung herself at him and hugged him. "You're back!" he exclaimed when she let him go.
"I am," she agreed. "I'm so sorry! I tried to tell you, but I didn't know until it was too late. I didn't mean to leave you here all alone." The relief in his eyes as he stared at her just about broke her heart, and she wondered how worried he'd been.
"No, no, it's alright," he assured her. "I'm just glad you're okay. What happened?"
She told him everything about being sent away to school and how she'd tried to come and find him to let him know. As she'd feared, he'd forgotten everything about remembering he used to be human. She spent some time reminding him of what they'd discovered. She thought it odd that that seemed to be the only part of his memory that was affected—he remembered everything else they did together and talked about. That was rather clever on the part of the fairy magic, she supposed. If he could only remember things about being human when he was around her, and fairies weren't supposed to spend so much time with humans, it was a good way to keep the people they'd kidnapped from ever working things out.
Over the next few days, she tried with renewed vigor to get him to remember more about his old life, but then he asked her to stop. Being around her, his memories of working things out had returned fairly quickly, but that meant that he remembered that he'd never been able to come up with any new memories. He remained convinced that there was no undoing this, and while he insisted that he was glad that he knew and was grateful she reminded him, he hated seeing her beat herself up over it. He wanted to enjoy the time they had together, not keep running in fruitless circles. Peggy agreed, though she resolved to keep investigating on her own.
Though he missed her while she was away, now that he knew she was alright, he was fascinated to hear stories from her time at boarding school. He was always interested in school stories anyway, since fairies didn't go to school, but he found this new element of it even more compelling. He wanted descriptions of every little detail she could give him of the dormitory and the dining hall, and for some reason he found the game of tennis very funny and asked to hear about it again and again.
They would meet under the willow tree and sit in the branches and talk or read together, or walk together in the snow through the forest. He was getting better at his magic, and could make more intricate patterns in the ice now, or make little flurries of snowflakes dance in swirls around them. Peggy would sometimes bring a little basket with snacks, and she discovered that he absolutely adored Christmas cookies. She always made sure to bring him some, and she brought hot chocolate in a thermos as well, though she learned to start saving it for the end of the day, as the milk in it made him sleepy.
"Is something wrong?" he asked her one day after Christmas. They were sitting along the rocks above the frozen stream. He was drawing crystal patterns in the ice, and she realized she'd been very quiet.
"I have to go back to school next week," she said. "A new term is starting."
"Oh," he said. "Well," he said with a little smile. "At least now I know where you'll be. I won't be so worried this time. And you'll come back, right?"
"Right," she assured him. She smiled sadly. "I do miss you when I'm away. You're the best friend I've got."
"I'll always be here," he assured her. "Every time you come back."
On her last day at home, she went to say goodbye under the willow tree. "I'll be back in March," she promised. "Maybe even before that, if I can get a weekend away."
"Just call me, and I'll hear you," he said.
She hugged him tightly, but he held on to her hand as she moved away.
"Peggy?"
"Yes?"
"I remembered something, a couple of weeks ago. Something from before." Faint color rose in his cheeks. "I haven't brought it up before now because, well, I don't know what it means. I've been trying to figure it out, but I can't."
"Perhaps I can help," she said. "What did you remember?"
"It was just a word," he said, looking a little embarrassed that it was something so small. "But it felt like it should mean something."
"What word was it?" she prompted when he didn't go on.
"Steve," he said.
Peggy gaped at him.
"What?" he asked. "Do you know what it means? Is it something wrong?"
"No!" Peggy said, getting her throat working again. "No, it's not wrong, it's wonderful."
"Really?" he asked. "What is it?"
She smiled. "Steve isn't a word," she told him. "It's a name."
"A name?" he asked. His eyes slowly grew wide. "Do you…Do you think it was my name?"
Peggy nodded. "It must be. Why would you remember someone else's name?"
He considered this, then a slow smile spread across his lips. "Steve," he said softly, like he was testing it out. He nodded. "Steve," he said again. He looked back up at her. "I'm going to keep it," he said with a smile. He huffed a laugh as though he couldn't believe what he was saying. "I have a name."
"It's a lovely name," Peggy told him. "And I'm glad that I finally know what it is. Is it alright if I call you that from now on?" It was much better than 'Fairy'.
He smiled. "I'd like that." His smile fell away. "I…I'm probably going to forget it after you go, though," he said ruefully. "The fairies didn't give it to me, so after you're gone for a while…"
Peggy smiled encouragingly and moved forward and hugged him again. "I'll remember it," she promised him. "And if you forget it, I'll tell it to you."
His smile returned, and he hugged her back. "Thank you," he said.
Peggy returned to school for the spring term, and it was easier this time, knowing that her fairy—Steve. He had a proper name at last, and it was Steve.—wasn't going to be worried about her. She still missed him awfully, and she hated to think of him losing his name again while she was gone, but she consoled herself with the fact that she could help him remember when she got back, and she busied herself with school and friends and thought of all the stories she could tell him when she got home.
She also remembered her promise to herself that she wasn't going to stop looking for a way to fix him. The library at school had far more books than she'd been able to find at home, and she began the lengthy journey of working her way through the mythology section. There were stories of fairies from the British Isles and the Continent, Russia, Asia, Africa and America. It was a lot to work through, but she was undaunted. And even though it was part of a mission to help her friend, the stories were terribly interesting.
They soon fell into a pattern, her and Steve. Every time she returned from school, she would remind him of his name and anything else he'd forgotten. They would spend most of the days of her holiday together, reading and talking and walking together and laughing as they always did. Steve would do his best to offer advice on the troubles she had with friends and schoolwork, and she tried to help him find ways to clear his name with the other fairies. (She still felt bad about all he had suffered for her, but he kept assuring her that he was alright, and getting by, even starting to be forgiven again.) She would return to school, to her other friends and her classes and books on fairy lore in the library, and he would return to the fairy realm and they would pick up where they left off when she came back.
When she was fifteen, the girls in her year got to start having social gatherings with the boys' school across the way. The boys were charming and handsome, and Peggy had to admit that she did enjoy the dances and picnics and tennis matches. It was fun, and there was something a bit thrilling about the quick kisses and touches of hands and flirtatious glances. But fun was all it was, just fun and games. Some of her dorm mates started pairing off with boys they fancied (and the pairs changed rather frequently) and teasing her about not doing the same. But there just wasn't…It was fun, but there weren't any of them who seemed able to hold her interest for very long.
She did find she was a bit embarrassed to tell Steve about all of it, though she wasn't sure why. Surely fairies held dances and things.
"Sure, we do," Steve said. "It's coming up on the summer song season—that's my favorite. The days get long and the stars shine so bright when they come out so late, and we dance under the moon and sing, and there's music and food, and stories…" He sighed happily, his wings lazily fanning open and closed in that way they did when he was content. "It's great. I wish you could come."
"I wish I could too," she said. "It sounds like a lovely time. But I suppose it's still not a good idea?"
"No," he agreed, deflating a bit. He smiled again. "But I'll tell you all about it afterwards."
"I'd like that," she replied.
It was only when she went home that night that she realized Steve had answered the question she'd asked, but not the one she'd meant. When she'd asked about dances, she meant, well, the other sorts of things that went on for people at events like that. Did Steve dance with fairy girls, whispering in their ears, and holding hands in the moonlight, and admiring the shine of the stars reflecting in their wings? She suddenly very much wanted to know, but felt a bit ashamed to ask. It was hardly fair to ask him something so personal when she was reluctant to share that about herself. And she was a bit afraid the answer might not be the one she wanted.
She was coming up on her O-Levels now, and working very hard at school. Most of her classmates intended to finish with school after that, moving on into society and traveling and things. Peggy meant to go on with her studies. If she went home, her mother would just want her to marry some local county squire or something and become a proper country lady. Beyond that, she actually quite enjoyed her studies. She meant to go on to her A-Levels, and maybe even university after that. All the research she'd done over the years on fairies had given her a great interest in cultures around the world. The different things people valued and the things that seemed to stay the same across cultures fascinated her. She rather fancied a career in anthropology, or maybe even archaeology, learning more about the people of the past who'd come up with the stories she'd read.
She did hesitate, though, wondering what might become of Steve if she went galivanting off all over the world. On the one hand, it felt incredibly foolish to confine herself to a small country life for the sake of childhood memories. But Steve wasn't just a memory, or an imaginary friend. He was a real person. (Or, a real fairy. But he was real, that was the point.) He'd said he would always be there when she came back, but after she was grown up, how often would she be back?
"Can I ask you something, Steve?" she asked one spring evening. She was dragging her feet about going to get ready for what was probably going to be a dreadfully dull dinner party that she should have started dressing for half an hour ago. There was a young lawyer named Fred her mother was keen to introduce her to.
"Sure," he said. "Is something bothering you?"
His left wing was twitching in that inquisitive way it did sometimes, and she smiled. He always seemed to know what she was thinking. "Sort of," she said. "The trouble is, it's not a very…concrete problem," she sighed. "I can't quite nail it down, and so I'm not sure what to do about it."
"Maybe I can help," he offered.
"Well, you know how at the end of next term, I'm graduating?"
He nodded.
"Well, and I'm…I'm meant to do something with myself then."
"Like what?"
"Like marrying someone my mother approves of, or going off to university, or something like that. One of my professors was really impressed with the last essay I wrote on cross-cultural mythological commonalities, and he actually offered me a spot as an apprentice on his next archaeological expedition in the fall."
"That sounds exciting," Steve said. "I think you should do that."
She blinked, surprised that he had answered so quickly. "You do?"
"Sure. I know how much you like to learn new things, and travelling off to some new exciting place to do it sounds like a great adventure." He tilted his head a bit to study her, then he smiled, like he knew what she was thinking. "You can't stay here forever. I always figured you'd grow up and go off somewhere someday."
"And you're alright with that?"
"Well, I mean, I'll miss you, but I want you to be happy. I'll be happy if you are, and I can hear about all your great adventures when you come back." He held up a hand, knowing what she was going to say. "I know it will be a lot less often. But it's not like you'll never come home."
That was terribly unselfish of him. Was it odd that it made her want to leave even less?
"Wouldn't it be something if you could come with me?" she said.
"That would be amazing," he agreed. "I'd love to see more of your world beyond this forest. But you know there's only a few places in the human world I can go."
"I know," she sighed. They'd talked before about how vast the fairy world was, and how he could go anywhere there, but how fairies were limited by spells and ancient boundary lines of where in the human world they could go. That was why he'd never come to see her at school.
He reached over and took one of her hands in both of his. "Peggy," he said. "Don't make your choice based on me." He smiled, and something in his eyes made Peggy's breath catch in her throat. "No matter what you choose, I am always going to be your fairy," he told her warmly. "You do what's best for you, and I'll be alright."
He squeezed her hands and let go, still smiling. "You should go to dinner before your mother comes looking for you."
She huffed a quick laugh and nodded. "Will you…" She slid down from the tree branch she was sitting on. "Can I come back and talk to you tonight? I think I'm going to need to."
"Okay," he nodded. "I'll see you in a little while."
He was waiting when she snuck out of the house later that night, and she wondered briefly if he'd left at all.
"How's the new boyfriend?" he teased.
"Shut up," she said, smacking him in the shoulder. She sighed and sat down, her back against the tree trunk. "Fred is polite, well-mannered, well-read, but a bit dull. Not particularly keen on archaeological dig sites in Persia, but few men are. He's perfectly lovely, he's just not…"
"Not what you're after, huh?" Steve finished for her. He held out a bowl of blackberries he'd gotten from somewhere, and she popped one in her mouth.
"No," she agreed. Actually, she'd almost said, 'he's just not you'. There had been several men, actually, who'd fallen shy of that mark. She'd never said it aloud—what was the point? They were from two different worlds, the two of them. There was no way to make it work. She sighed again. "Mother's going to be pushing him on me," she went on. "He's rich, well-connected, good family. Just the sort of match she's after for me."
"Good thing you're going to Persia, then," Steve said with a smile. He laughed when she shot him a curious eyebrow. "Okay, I know you haven't actually decided that yet, but that's what you're going to do, isn't it?"
It was. How did he know her so well?
"What do fairies do when they grow up?" she asked, changing the subject abruptly. She looked him up and down. He'd kept up enough to remain near to her height, though he was still short enough to have to look up into her eyes, still thin and delicate-looking with that graceful elfin bone structure, but he was undeniably growing up. "You're an adult fairy now, aren't you?"
He chuckled. "Just about, yeah. Officially, not until the beginning of summer." He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Just like you'll be officially an adult when you graduate."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I don't really know," he said. "They haven't told me."
"You don't get to choose?"
"No," he shook his head. "We sort of…get assigned roles based on what we're good at."
"What do you think you'll do?"
His smile fell away. "To be honest, I…I think there's going to be a war. If there is, I'll be a soldier. Won't matter what I'm good at."
"Oh," she said. "A war with who?"
"There are some trolls in the Shadow Realm that…" He shook his head and sighed again. "There will probably be a war."
"Were you going to tell me you were going to be a soldier?" She wasn't angry, just curious.
He nodded. "I was going to wait until it was for sure. I didn't want you to worry otherwise."
"Are you frightened?"
He nodded again. "The trolls are…There are stories of, of bloodbaths and massacres. It won't be pretty. Not all the fairies who go are going to come back."
"Is there any way for you to get out of it?" she wondered. She didn't know what the reasons or the stakes were, so she didn't know if dodging would be considered cowardice, but she did know she didn't want him to go off and be killed by a troll.
He shook his head. "All the fairies will have to fight."
"So you wouldn't have to if you were human?"
He looked over at her sadly. "Peggy…We both know that's never going to happen."
"But if it could?"
"It can't."
"If it could?" she pressed, sitting up a little straighter. "If it could, would you want it?"
He answered faster than she thought he would. "Yes." He smiled sadly. "But not because it would get me out of the war. I don't want to go to war, but I'll do it if I have to. But if I could be human, I could stay with you. And I would want that."
Peggy's breath caught in her throat again. "You're sure?"
"Of course."
"You'd lose everything," she pointed out. "Your magic, and your wings, and your immortality."
He huffed a small laugh. "I could lose that fighting trolls. But, yeah, if I could be a human with you, then I would do it."
She smiled warmly and reached up to put a hand to the side of his face. "Then I'll do it," she said. "If you're sure you want it, I'll find a way."
"Peggy," he began.
"I will," she said firmly. "You saved me from the fairies, now it's my turn to do the same. Trust me."
He looked at her for a long moment, then smiled, and he was the only person who smiled at her like that, and she could look at it forever. "Okay," he said softly.
When Peggy got back to school, she dove into her research. She'd been reading up on the subject for years, of course, but she was coming at it now with an eye of experience. She was able to understand more complicated concepts than when she was younger, able to pick up contexts and similarities she'd missed the first time around now that she'd studied more, and had access to a wider range of resources—as a final-year student, she could interview university professors, have long discussions with her Literature teacher, and was permitted to read books thought too valuable or complicated for the younger students.
Different options started to present themselves to her. One of the things she considered was a binding spell—a fairy could be summoned, trapped and bound to a human for the duration of the human's life. The goal was to make the fairy a servant, which Peggy had no intention of doing to Steve, but binding him to her would pull him away from the fairy realm and keep him safe from the war. She discarded the idea, however. No matter how good her intentions, Steve would be a prisoner, and she was trying to set him free, not enchant him even further.
She found a couple of mentions of people being freed from fairies' clutches in some old poetry that took a good deal of rereading and interpretation of Scots dialect to work out. One of them, she discarded because it ended with the death of the person being freed—their soul was free, but not their body, and she didn't want to kill Steve. That's what she was trying to avoid.
There was one she kept coming back to, though. It worked in the story, but she couldn't find any way to accomplish it without going into the fairy realm to do it. And no matter how much Steve might want to be a human, she knew he would never agree to take her there. So she would just have to figure out a way to get there on her own.
Now that she had a plan, she spent some time gathering the supplies she would need. Not knowing how fine she would be cutting it to Steve's war if she waited until her graduation, which was still three weeks away, she decided she'd best do it now. Her friend, Angie, was quite good with a forged signature, and so Peggy told her she was sneaking off for the weekend to meet a boy in London. Angie was delighted that Peggy was finally engaging in some scandalous behaviour, and gleefully wrote a letter purporting to be from her mother, intending to take her away for the weekend to visit her ailing grandmother. Her cover in place, Peggy then packed a rucksack, rang herself a taxi, and departed.
She had the taxi drop her in town, picked up the last of her supplies, then she changed into something more suitable for the country and hiked across the fields to her garden. She stood under the willow tree waiting, running through all her preparations in her mind and making sure she had everything ready. She did wonder if Steve might appear while she waited there, but he didn't. He wasn't expecting her home for a few more weeks, anyway. She patted her chest once, resting a hand on the protective necklace he'd given her, then drew in a deep breath and stepped into the woods.
Holding clear in her mind the arrangement of tree, toadstools and flowers she was looking for, she began her search. She knew right away that there weren't any such circles anywhere that she and Steve had walked, and now that she knew they worked as a gateway to the fairy world, she wondered if he'd been steering her away from them. Therefore, she headed immediately for unfamiliar parts of the forest.
It didn't take her long to find it—an oak tree with a little ring of red toadstools in front of it, with feverfew growing in a circle around the toadstools. She stepped inside, took a deep breath, and chanted the lines she'd memorized from the poem. A shiver passed through her, and when she opened her eyes, she was in a clearing in an evergreen wood.
"Lost is she now?" came a little voice from her feet. She looked down to see a little golden lizard, and though it seemed harmless enough, she recognized it from her reading as a common shape of a trickster spirit, familiars of the fairies. It seemed as though her plan was working so far.
"No, not lost," she said. "I've come looking for a favor."
"Mm," the lizard said, nodding its little head. Trickster spirits enjoyed working with fairies to trick humans, but had no true loyalty to them and could be easily bought. "Favors cost, they do."
"Will this do?" Peggy asked, crouching down on one knee and pulling a jar from her pack. "Fresh honey."
"Oh," the lizard breathed, its eyes widening comically. Trickster spirits had a weakness for sweet things.
"Quite a lot of it, too," she said. The lizard moved forward and she pulled the jar back out of reach. "Do we have a deal?"
"Indeed," the lizard nodded. "What does Miss request?"
"I would like you to take me to where the fairies live by the elm grove," she said. Steve had told her once that that was where he lived. "Without letting them know I'm here."
"Right away," the lizard said with a little bow. She followed it through the clearing and into the evergreens, and they walked for a bit before the trees broke. It led her across a field and up to the top of a hill, then pointed down. "There it is, Miss," it said.
"Thank you," she said. "Here's your honey."
It took the jar gleefully and scampered back toward the bushes, but stopped before it disappeared. "Miss should be careful," it said. Evidently, it was inclined to be helpful after her generous gift. "Fairies likes pretty young girls, they do. If Miss wishes to go home again, Miss mustn't eat anything they offers her."
Steve had never said anything about that—and if it was part of the magic keeping him here, it would make sense he didn't know it—but she'd seen a line or two in some Welsh poems about the dangers of fairy food. It was good to have a more concrete warning. "Thank you," she said. The lizard nodded and disappeared.
The sun was setting, so she waited in the bushes until it was dark, then slunk down the hill in the direction of the elm grove. Closer to, she could hear voices, and music beginning to play. Fires were lighting up as night fell. She took a few moments to transfer some things from her rucksack into the pouches on her belt for easier access, then moved closer.
Between the fires and the brightness of the moon and stars—brighter than Peggy was used to seeing at home—the night was well lit, though huts and trees cast sharp shadows she could hide in. She found a spot where two trees grew close together and sat down between them, settling into the shadows. She watched for a while, noting where fairies came and went. There were an awful lot dressed like soldiers about, and Peggy wondered how near the war was.
The soldiers were moving to one side of the village, and after a while, Peggy decided to follow them. They seemed to be gearing up for some sort of training exercise, and if Steve was soon to be a soldier, perhaps that was where he'd be. She stayed hidden in the bushes, studying the faces of the gathering soldiers, and there he was.
She knew that fairies were smaller in stature than humans, but Steve being the only one she knew, she still tended to think of him as being unusually small. Among the rest of his kind though, she realized he really wasn't—they were all small and thin, with delicate bones and graceful hands, but massed together in an army like this, they looked no less lethal for it.
Steve was standing off to one side, wearing his usual clothes, but contemplating some armor he was evidently meant to be putting on. Peggy picked up a pebble and tossed it in his direction. He looked up in surprise when it pinged off the helmet in his hands. His eyes scanned the direction it had come from, and Peggy poked her head up a little higher out of the bushes. His eyes nearly bugged right out of their sockets when he saw her, and it would have been funny if he hadn't looked so horrified.
Looking around uneasily, he made his way over to where she was hiding, clearly much slower than he would have liked to in an attempt not to draw any attention. She grabbed his arm and yanked him back into the cover of the trees.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" he hissed.
"I came to find you," she said.
"You promised me you would never try to come here," he said angrily.
"I did," she said. "But I also promised that I was going to save you." He looked confused, as she had known he would, and she took one of his hands in hers. "Remember," she prompted. She wondered worriedly if he could remember at all here, or if he had to be in her world, but there was nothing for it now. She squeezed his hand. "Your name is Steve. Do you remember that?"
For a long moment, he looked torn between being angry and confused, but then she saw the spark catch in his eyes. "Yes," he said slowly. "I remember."
"And remember how you said that if I could find a way to do it, that you wanted to be human again?"
He took longer to think over that one, but then he nodded.
"I found out how," she said. "That's why I'm here."
"You couldn't have waited for me by the tree?"
She shook her head. "This world is where you became a fairy, so this world is where I have to change you back." She smiled warmly. "I've come to bring you home, Steve."
The last of the anger and confusion fell away from his face. "Really?" he asked softly, sounding, in that moment, very much like the child he must have been when they took him away.
"Really," she said. She tugged on his hands. "Come on."
He followed her deeper into the trees, looking around anxiously, his wings fluttering with nervous tension, but asking no questions. If she could get him away somewhere safer before stopping to change him back…
"Stop!" came a voice from behind them.
Peggy spun around to see seven of the fairy soldiers. Steve jumped in front of her to shield her. "You're not going to touch her," he warned them.
Touched by his bravery, but determined to do this properly, she stepped out from behind him to stand beside him. "They won't," she told him quietly. "I still have the necklace you gave me." She turned her attention to the soldiers, pulling out an iron fire poker that had been strapped to her rucksack and brandishing it like a sword. "Don't come any closer," she warned. She felt a bit silly threatening them with a poker, but it was iron, which fairies hated, and she hadn't known where to find a sword.
They stopped. "How did you come here, human?" one of them asked.
"That's Sebille," Steve leaned in and whispered, putting a hand on her shoulder. "The Queen's Enforcer."
Peggy growled. She was the one who'd hurt Steve seven years ago.
Sebille took a step forward. "Such a brave little girl," she said. "Coming into our world." She looked over at Steve. "Come to fetch the traitor?"
"I've come to take him home," Peggy said. "He doesn't belong here."
Sebille smiled wickedly. "He does now. And he will forever. He's going to have to be punished, of course, for continuing to associate with you, but he's always going to belong to us."
Steve swallowed nervously, and Peggy shifted a bit so she was in front of him. "You're not going to touch him," she said.
"I think I am," Sebille laughed. "I'm going to take him. Then I'm going to take you. Then I'm going to make him watch while we turn you."
She took another step forward, and Peggy lifted the poker up higher. "Stop," she warned her. "This is iron."
"Well, I should hope so," Sebille said. "You couldn't have been so foolish as to come without that. But there's only one of you, and there's seven of us. And," she added with an evil grin. "I can do this." She snapped her eyes over to Steve and held out a hand. "Come here, Traitor," she ordered, in a voice that shook the air and Peggy knew had magic in it.
Steve reached out the hand with the burn scar on it and took a few faltering steps forward.
"Steve, no!" Peggy hissed. "Stop!"
"I'm trying," he said shakily. "I…I can't."
Peggy looped an arm around his chest and yanked him back, thankful that he was small enough for her to do that. She shoved him back against a tree and backed against him, pinning him there. "Stop that now," Peggy warned the Queen's Enforcer.
"No," Sebille said, stepping forward again, her soldiers moving behind her.
"Alright," Peggy said, reaching down into one of the pouches on her belt. "Steve, close your eyes," she said quietly.
"What?" he asked, still struggling against his will to get out from behind her.
"Do it!" she snapped.
He did and she turned her eyes back to Sebille. "Try this, then," Peggy said, flinging out her hand and releasing the salt she'd scooped out of her pouch. The crystals sparkled in the moonlight before scattering across the forest floor.
Sebille and the soldiers stopped in their tracks, and if looks could kill, the icy glare the Enforcer was shooting at Peggy would have dropped her stone dead. "Oh, you're going to pay for that," she hissed.
"I don't think I will," Peggy said sweetly. "Because we'll be long gone by the time you're done. Better start counting." She stepped forward, releasing Steve, who was no longer trying to get away. "Keep your eyes closed, Steve," she warned, knowing that if he saw the salt, he would be compelled to stay and count the grains, just like the others. She unhooked the pouch from her belt, stepped over until she was right in front of Sebille, then upended it, dumping the rest of the salt to the ground. "Oops."
"I'm going to kill you," Sebille hissed, even as she knelt down to start counting.
"No you won't," Peggy said calmly. She pulled her necklace out from underneath her shirt. "You'll never touch me. And you're never going to touch him again." She knelt down to look Sebille in the eye, then snatched up her hand from where she had begun to count, slapped the poker into her palm, and clamped her own fingers closed around the fairy's, trapping the metal in her hand where it began to sizzle and burn almost at once. "But I think the scar I leave you with should match the one you gave him, don't you?" she hissed. She held on for a few seconds more, then stood, yanked the poker away and spun on her heel, not looking back.
"Come on, Steve," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder and steering him away. "Let's go." When they were far enough away, she squeezed his shoulder warmly. "You can open your eyes now," she said.
He did, blinking at her in awe. "You made them count salt?" he asked, smiling in amazement. "How did you know to do that?"
She smiled back. "I told you I was going to get you out of here. I did my homework."
He laughed. "Wow."
"Let's keep going," she said. "We should get a bit farther away." They were neither literally nor figuratively out of the woods yet.
They hurried out of the elm grove and across the open country, back in the direction of the evergreens where Peggy had arrived. Steve kept looking behind them worriedly.
"Is everything alright?" Peggy asked.
"Sebille is a fast counter," he said. "I just keep expecting to hear them behind us."
"I've got more salt if we need it," Peggy said. He looked somewhat reassured by that.
"Alright," Peggy said, stopping just inside the evergreens. It was shadowed enough to give them some cover, but there was still enough moonlight for her to see what she was doing. "Are you ready for this?"
Steve nodded, still breathing hard after running. His wings were still fluttering anxiously.
"This is totally and completely going to upend your entire life," she reminded him.
He chuckled. "I think you've already done that."
She smiled at that, then knelt down to pull the rest of her gear out of her rucksack. "Now," she said a bit uncertainly. "I'm afraid I can't tell you what to expect. What I mean is, all the things I read were written from a human's point of view. I don't know if this is going to hurt or not."
He nodded. "Okay. What do I need to do?"
"To start with, just stand there," she said. "And when things start to get a bit mad, just hang on to me."
"Okay."
She laid everything out in front of her, checking and re-checking that it was all there.
"I think they're coming," Steve said quietly.
Peggy stilled. "I don't hear anything."
Steve gave her a small smile and tapped a finger to one of his pointed ears. "These hear better than yours do. They'll be here in a few minutes."
She nodded, had Steve turn his back to her, and scattered more salt across the forest floor. Then she picked up her things and moved around in front of him. "Alright," she said. "Here we go."
She unfurled the long green cloak she'd brought and flung it over his shoulders. She wasn't sure what the significance of it was to the spell, but every account she'd read included a hand-woven green cloak, so she'd made sure to bring one. He tucked his wings in so she could settle it more securely over his shoulders.
Next came the ashes of a cherry tree, symbolizing rebirth, which she sprinkled liberally in a circle around where the two of them were standing.
Then she pulled out a small but very heavy iron crucifix on a thin iron chain, blessed by a priest that very morning, and put it around her own neck. She adjusted it so it hung where it wouldn't touch Steve's skin when she touched him, then stepped forward until she was mere inches away from him.
She drew in a deep breath, preparing for the incantation. She'd had to write it herself—they had varied from story to story, depending on the situation, it seemed, and she had read and reread until her eyes crossed to make sure she understood what the common themes in each were and what it was that really needed to be said.
"The dark powers that stole this human are commanded to release him," she began. "He who was stolen is returned. He who was lost is found. He who was enchanted shall be free once more, for he. Is. Claimed. I claim him. I claim him as the captive set free. I claim him as a human returned to his own." She swallowed hard and looked deep into his eyes. "I claim him as the one I love," she said, a bit softer, but no less resolute.
Steve's eyes widened in awe, and she swallowed hard and steadied her breath and carried on. "I love you, Steve," she said. Though it seemed like a piece of a childish fairy tale, everything she had read showed the bond of true love to be the surest way to break a fairy's curse. And she did love him. She had for a long time.
"I love you," she said again. She could hear the distant shouting now of Sebille and her soldiers that Steve had heard, and she smiled, fire in her eyes, because they were going to be too late to stop her. She lifted the gold pin shaped like a phoenix and jabbed it through the lapel of the green cloak, fastening it to the clip on the other side and securing the cloak around him. "And you're coming back with me." Then she grabbed the pin and yanked him forward and kissed him.
She felt magic swirl up around them almost as soon as her lips touched his. He started to shake, violent tremors running through his delicate frame, and she threw her arms around him and held on tightly. The tremors increased, then turned into waves as he started to change. No matter how much she had read and prepared for this part, it was the part that scared her most.
Steve stared at her with frightened eyes as he started to take on the first of several shapes she knew were coming. "I've got you," she assured him. "I won't let go." He still looked frightened, but there was trust in his eyes before they changed completely, and then she was no longer holding on to Steve, but a salamander. She clutched the tiny, wriggling lizard against her chest, and it wasn't long before it started to grow, changing again, and now she was holding a thrashing fox in her arms. The fox snapped at her hand, but she just moved her arm to pin his head against her chest and avoid the teeth and clung on even tighter. She had to keep holding on until Steve came back, or he would be stuck forever in his animal shape.
His shapes kept changing, and she kept clinging on, holding tight to the owl, the wolfhound and the rabbit. Then the rabbit began to change, the fur becoming coarser as the body in her arms grew larger and larger. She swallowed down a nervous knot in her throat and closed her eyes. The bear was the last one. If she could just hold on…
As tight as she was holding on, she could feel the roar building in its chest before the bear let loose a noise that sounded like furious thunder. It echoed through the trees and the forest went still, and Peggy locked her legs around the animal to help her keep her grip. "Almost there, Steve, we're almost there," she soothed, trying to calm the beast as it stood up on its hind legs and tried to shake her off. "It's me; I'm here. It's alright."
The next sound the bear made was closer to that of a sad dog than a fearsome forest predator, and Peggy lifted one hand to stroke the fur of his shoulder. "That's right, it's Peggy. I'm here. Hush now, my darling. We're nearly through."
The bear moaned and staggered, and the force of it stumbling back down onto all fours nearly knocked Peggy loose, but she hung on. The bear rolled over onto its side with another moan, then shivered as it started to change again. The fur disappeared as the beast shrunk down, and soon he was Steve again.
He lay there gasping on the forest floor, curled up and shivering under the green cloak with Peggy pressed against his back, her arms around his chest. For a moment, she worried that all of that had been for nothing, because she could still feel the wings on his back where she was pressed up against him, could still see the tips of his pointed ears. But then he started to change one more time.
She felt his wings shrinking away beneath her, not just folding down, but disappearing. The tops of his ears were shortening, rounding and smoothing out. He was growing too, getting taller and stretching out as his delicate fairy bones were replaced with larger, sturdier human ones, fleshed out with more powerful muscles. Everything was suddenly still and silent, and Peggy slowly let go of him
"Steve?" she asked.
His eyes fluttered open. Those same intensely blue eyes stared back up at her, then he was smiling at her the way he always did. "You did it," he breathed.
"I did it," she whispered, hardly believing it herself. "You're human."
"I'm human," he agreed, still smiling. He sat up carefully, his cheeks reddening as he pulled the cloak tighter around himself. "I'm naked," he added.
Peggy huffed a laugh. "That's how it always happened in the other stories." She reached for her rucksack. "I did bring some clothes for you. I hope they fit—I wasn't expecting you to get taller."
She handed him the clothes and turned away, packing up the things she'd gotten out of her sack. The light of torches appeared in the trees, and Peggy grinned as Sebille and her soldiers emerged from the darkness. "Too late," Peggy said, nodding back behind her.
Sebille growled.
"Oh, and look," Peggy added, pointing at the forest floor where she'd strewn the extra salt earlier. "Best get to work."
She turned away, outwardly smug but knowing they'd best not press their luck. Steve had pulled on the trousers she'd brought, which were rather short and snug, but fit well enough to be decent, and he was pulling on his shirt. Peggy just managed to stop herself making a very appreciative noise at the sight of the very well-muscled chest he was now in possession of. This wasn't exactly the time.
"Not quite out of the woods yet, darling," she said, slinging her rucksack over one shoulder and taking his hand. "Ready to run?"
He grinned, looking back over his shoulder at Sebille and her soldiers and the salt and laughed. "Let's go."
They hurried through the thickening evergreens, and it was dark now, but Peggy remembered the way, and Steve seemed to know where he was going. The doorway on this side was much more obvious—an opening between two intertwined trees—and they hurried through. Peggy quickly let go of Steve's hand and reached into her rucksack for a jar of blessed oil and a pack of matches. She poured the oil over the toadstools and the trunk of the tree, then tossed a lit match onto it.
The fire caught immediately, brilliant blue flames shooting up to tower above them, then, just as quickly as they'd flared up, they burnt out, leaving behind a smoldering stump and charred patch of earth.
"In case they felt like following us," Peggy said, answering Steve's curious eyebrow. She reached back into the bag, pulling out the last item, and the one that had been the hardest to find. It was a tree pendant on a chain, just like the one Steve had given her, and she went up on her toes and placed it around his neck. "There," she said happily. "Now they can never get you back."
Steve touched the pendant gingerly, like he was expecting it to burn, then stared at it in wonder when it didn't. He seemed at a complete loss for words, so Peggy simply took his hand in hers and started walking, leading him out of the forest.
Time really did seem to work differently in the fairy world, because it was afternoon again—the same afternoon she'd left, it looked like, if the half-finished bird's nest she'd walked under earlier was any indication. They reached the willow tree and stopped inside the canopy, looking up at the light filtering through the leaves and the little butterflies flitting about. Steve looked down at her and smiled. "You saved me," he said.
"I did," she said proudly, suddenly wanting to cry and not sure why. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, resting her head on his chest. "I almost can't believe it."
He hugged her back. "Thank you," he breathed. They just stood there like that for a little while, holding one another.
"Can I ask you something?" he said after a moment.
She pulled her head back to look up at him.
"What you said back there, about me being the one that you…Did you mean that?"
"I did," she said. The magic wouldn't have worked if she hadn't.
"You really love me?"
"I do. Ever since I was a little girl."
If she'd thought his smile was lovely before, it was positively glowing now. He reached up one hand to the side of her face, and she sighed happily and leaned into the touch. "I love you too," he breathed. Moisture sprang up and sparkled in his eyes. "I could never say it before. I wanted to, for such a long time, but the magic wouldn't let me. But I love you, Peggy. I love you so much." He leaned down and kissed her, and Peggy wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.
When they stopped, he straightened up, lifting Peggy up off her feet before she loosened her arms from around his neck and slid back to the ground. "It's going to take a bit of getting used to, looking up at you," she said with a grin. "I'm used to being the tall one."
He laughed. "I'm not really sure where this came from," he said, looking down at his feet and taking in his new stature. "Maybe I came from a tall family."
"Do you want to try to find them?" Peggy asked. She wondered how much he remembered now.
Steve smiled down at her fondly. "You've been trying to get me to remember things for, what seven years? If you hadn't, I never would have come this far, but…" He shook his head. "I don't remember. Not where or when I'm from. No last name…" He huffed a laugh. "I don't even know how old I am."
"Well, seeing as you've seemed to grow up around the same speed as me, I would guess you're about eighteen, but…" Her smile fell away. "Steve, I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," he said, taking her hands. "Whatever that life was, I lost it a long time ago. Where I'm from…" He shook his head. "I don't need to know that. All I need is to know where I belong now. And that's with you."
Peggy smiled and kissed him again. "That is where you belong, my darling. And you always will."
Steve grinned. "You've never called me darling before today, have you?"
"No," she said. "It just seemed…appropriate, somehow."
"I thought it was new. I like it," he said. "You call me that all you want."
"I shall," she replied. "So long as you tell me you love me as often as you want, now that you can."
"I won't ever stop," Steve promised. He cupped her face gently in his hands and kissed her again. "I love you so much."
"And I love you, my darling," she replied.
They stepped out from under the willow tree, surveying the garden beyond. "I can really go out there, now," Steve said in amazement.
"You can go anywhere," Peggy said. A thought occurred to her, and she chuckled.
"What?"
"Oh, I'm just thinking of the look on my mother's face when I tell her I shan't be letting her have Fred over anymore, as I'm going to be marrying the man I found out in the woods."
Steve laughed.
Peggy grinned. "I don't think she'll take it well. We may just have to elope and then run away to the dig in Persia after my exams."
Steve smiled broadly. "I'm coming with you to Persia?"
"You're coming with me everywhere," Peggy told him. "For the rest of our lives."
That's it for Fairy Steve and Peggy!
Next up, a bodyguard AU, with secret agents and conspiracies and mysteries, as well as a couple of familiar faces.
