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awoken-fear · 7 years ago

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A Girl is Bound to Wonder

I haven’t written poetry in quite some time. And that trend doesn’t stop here. But under the cut is a little short story that I really enjoyed writing. I’ve only revised it and edited once, so it is by no means a finished project.

Maisy let herself lie in bed until the third caw of the rooster. Her father wouldn’t be happy, but he wasn’t the one milking the cows. Patterson joined her on her way down the stairs. His round body weaved in between her legs. She always worried she would step on him, but the overweight cat was surprisingly nimble. He jumped down the last four steps and landed gracefully, sunlight shining from the metal windchimes onto his black fur and emphasizing the tan leather collar tightened around his neck. Maisy followed that light and it led her to the kitchen. Her dad had already laid out a few eggs for her. She ate them along with a side of toast. All the while, Patterson sat a few feet away at his bowl, refusing to eat unless he could see Maisy doing the same. She always got a good chuckle by changing the pace of her chewing and watching the tom follow suit. Maisy finished her breakfast and stood up from the table, placing her dish in the sink and rinsing her utensils. Patterson stole a few moments with the faucet even though he had plenty of water spread around the house. Maisy picked him up and turned the faucet off before walking outside to say good morning.

She could hear the windchimes more clearly after she stepped through the door, and she could hear the birds as well. Maisy set Patterson down and yelled towards the horse shelter, “Good morning, Dad! Thanks for the breakfast. Sorry I was a little late. I’ll tell the cows you said hello.” Patterson darted towards the horse shelter, his tail high. Maisy wondered what had him so curious. He never chose to spend his time with her father unless there was some variety of fish in the foreseeable future. For this reason, she turned away from the barn and made her way over to the horse shelter to see how her father was doing. She saw Merry pressed against the back of her stall, whinnying in fear. Maisy ran towards the horse, slowing down when she got close. She didn’t want to spook Merry or Grace. Grace, the other horse, was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Maisy’s father. She walked around the shed and checked the barn as well, but she couldn’t find her father anywhere.

Maisy returned to the shed to calm Merry. She found Patterson sitting on the horses back, cleaning her like one of his own litter. She loved the way his sandpaper tongue felt. Patterson comforted her whenever she had a hard day. Maisy sat in the stall with both animals and tears began to roll down her cheeks. Where did her father go?

The sun drifted across the sky until there were almost no shadows on the farm and no one could tell east from west. Maisy woke up with straw in her long brown hair. Merry was laying next to her in the stall, clearly recovered from whatever had scared her earlier. Maisy stood up and stretched before looking for Patterson. She knew that he would likely be safe, lazing somewhere in the abundance of sunlight. She found him lying in Grace’s stall surrounding by a ring of mushrooms. Maisy looked at Patterson and shook her head. He always found something interesting. She walked over to him and stroked his cheeks, letting his head press against her palm. She felt his purrs, and they made her calm enough to consider what had happened to her father.

It was possible that he left with Grace. He took his favorite horse, and he loaded her with some clothes and food, and he let her out of the stall, and he urged her into a canter, not wanting to wake his daughter by galloping away from their home. He figured that between the crops and the animals, Maisy could survive on her own. He left her breakfast as a final way of saying thank you, and bribed Patterson with fish before bed so that the fat cat wouldn’t claw at the door incessantly until Maisy awoke, confused and drowsy, only to see her father carefully leading Grace along the road in the dim morning light. He wouldn’t have to see her sadness this way. He wouldn’t have to see her shame as she wondered what she did wrong. He wouldn’t have to remember all the happiness he was leaving behind. He wouldn’t have to hold her in his arms one last time, brushing her wild hair past her ears and holding her small, rough hands while she shook against his chest.

Maisy looked down at Patterson as he rolled onto his back with his paws in the air. Her father would never have left her. And he wouldn’t have left this little stinker, either. Her father claimed to hate the cat, but she could tell that they both had a wary respect for each other due to their mutual love for her. Her father was her provider, and Patterson her faithful protector. She scratched behind his ears while he stretched, and he mewled his approval. She straightened his collar and rolled him onto his feet. He pawed at the mushrooms in the stall, disrupting their near perfect circle, before he scampered back towards the house. Maisy picked up a mushroom to determine its nature before deciding it wasn’t edible. Her brow furrowed with curiosity. She bent to the ground and felt the ground for moisture. After feeling the dry dirt floor, she noticed the light beaming gently onto her hand – her hand and the ground. What kind of mushroom grew without damp and shade?

Maisy dropped the mushroom and followed Patterson into the house. It wouldn’t do her any good to sit around and sulk about her father’s absence, but she thought that she could work on the roof instead of milking the cows. She wanted to impress her father whenever he returned. He knew she was capable, but she had always been better with animals than wood or crops. She passed from the porch into the living room, turning left and descending the staircase there to grab her father’s tools. Stepping back up slowly, her left hand hefting the heavy box and her right hand sliding along the railing, she had to swing her head to clear her eyes of hair. She grabbed two hair ties from the living room table and deftly placed them on her wrist. Patterson followed her back through the porch as she walked towards the outhouse, still carrying the box of tools. Maisy would usually bring a ladder from the side of the house, but she had gotten taller recently, and if she stood on the toolbox she barely had to extend her reach. Her nose wrinkled as she approached the worn structure, but she forgot about the smell when something small and fast darted across her peripheral vision, heading towards the horse shed. Nothing that small could bother Merry so Maisy decided to let the creature be. However, Patterson had other plans. The sable cat dashed away from Maisy with his claws extended and his ears pressed flat against his head.

Maisy had no intentions of getting in the way of nature, but she didn’t want Patterson to get sick by gorging himself on some poor animal. She stepped off the tool box and resigned herself to leaving the meagre shade the outhouse provided. She thought to herself, I am no stranger to sweat. Maisy chuckled when she reached the horse shed and found Patterson lounging once more in the circle of odd mushrooms. Now, his ears were straight up, and his tail moved back and forth slowly, brushing the tips of the toadstools. Maisy looked down at Patterson and teased him, “What’s wrong, fella? Couldn’t find your prey?” She giggled and walked back to the outhouse so she could work. She worked until the sunset made her fear for her thumbs, and she looked at her progress and smiled. She took the toolbox inside, taking one short rest on the way since her arms had become mildly fatigued. Her father still wasn’t home. After returning his tools to their proper place, Maisy stepped carefully through the dark living room and the porch and opened the cat door. She stepped groggily up the stairs and crawled into bed after undressing. Her stomach growled, but she ignored her hunger in favor of much-needed rest. She was both emotionally and physically exhausted, and doing anything without her father would be difficult.

Maisy stretched herself awake with a large yawn.

Where was Patterson? Maisy checked her hamper full of dirty clothes. Patterson had always enjoyed creating a sort of nest within the clothes, but he learned quickly that he did not belong on all clothing. She threw two shirts over her shoulder and pushed a few dirty pairs of pants into the corner of the wicker basket. Patterson did not emerge like Maisy thought he might. She checked under her bed just to ensure that he wasn’t in her room. She had missed his presence, nestled near her legs, last night, but she had figured that he was simply too hot to sleep next to her as per his habit. Maisy slid on some clothes and walked down the staircase, more awake than the day before. She saw that her father’s door was open, just a crack, and she pushed it open with one hand not knowing what to expect. Momentarily excited, Maisy took three steps into the room before realizing the black figure curled into a snug ball on her father’s pillow was none other than his favorite blanket, and not the large, friendly cat named Patterson. Nonetheless, she completed her journey to the side of her father’s bed and picked up his blanket. Her legs became weak, and she collapsed onto the hard wood floor, her back resting against the nightstand, her head on the side of the mattress. She wrapped herself in the blanket and covered her face with the soft, smooth fabric. She didn’t worry about getting the blanket dirty. She could always wash it by hand when her father returned. She would treat it delicately; she never wanted to disappoint her father.

Maisy finally lifted the blanket off herself and tied it around her neck. It was hot, but the familiar smell that occasionally drifted off the blanket comforted Maisy. She slowly made her way to Patterson’s food bowls in the discouraged manner of a hopeful child scorned. She had spread them around the house when she was young; she had heard that cats, even fat, domestic cats like Patterson, preferred to hunt for their food. It made them less lethargic and offered a chance to follow their predatory instincts. This made her search even more demoralizing when each new location that she checked resulted in disappointment. Maisy finally gave up on searching the house and went outside to check on Merry. She could see the timid horse from the doorway and hurried towards her. Maisy may have lost her closest friends, but she could still care for the others. Maisy soothed the horse before taking a brush off the wall and untangling her mane. The thick bristles would have hurt Maisy, but Grace and Merry always seemed to enjoy the process. Maisy finished and brought her horse an apple as an extra reward. As she fed Merry the granny smith, she noticed something small and fast in her peripheral vision. It looked as if it had entered Grace’s stall.

“Hello?” said Maisy, tentatively. “You can come out. I won’t hurt you.”

No response. Maisy shook her head. She chastised herself for even attempting to talk to something that she probably imagined in the first place. Her mouth tightened, and her eyes narrowed. Stupid. Her father had told her never to think about herself or anyone else that way.

“Your father told you a lot of things.”

The hair on Maisy’s arms and neck raised, and her muscles tensed. “Who are you? How do you know my father? Do you know where he went?”

“Yes, I know where he went. Why don’t you join us?”

“I don’t know where you are.” Maisy cocked her ear towards where she thought the voice was originating and waited for a response.

“You shouldn’t have to listen to my voice to determine our location. It is neither hidden nor secretive. You’ve been toeing the line for days.”

Maisy took a step back. How had the voice known her plan? Regardless, she thought that the light, sophisticated voice came from Grace’s stall. Before she unlatched the gate and looked inside, Maisy grabbed a pitchfork from the wall of the shed. Her hands were trembling, and the nervous sweat on her palms loosened her grip.

“We both know you won’t stab me if it comes to that.” the voice said drawing its vowels into long, lazy and sweeping sounds, floating through the shed. The lengthened vowels gave the voice a comfortable tone, like it found humor in its conversation with Maisy. She found nothing humorous about a mysterious voice which did not need to hear Maisy speak to know her thoughts – especially when that voice had never spoken to her until after her father and her cat disappeared.

Maisy’s shoulders tensed as she undid the latch on the door to Grace’s stall. She pushed gently, appreciating her long hair for the semblance of separation it provided between her and whoever spoke to her. Inside the stall, she saw nothing. Grace was still gone. The circular formation of mushrooms still occupied the center of the stall. She was certain that even something small could not be hidden anywhere inside the largely barren stall. She set down her pitchfork and took a closer look at the ring of mushrooms. For a moment, she thought she noticed a faint shimmer emanating from the spores beneath their caps, but suddenly Maisy felt a slight pressure on her back which caused her to lose her balance and land in the center of the mushrooms.

She brushed the dirt off her hands and legs and spun to see who had pushed her so rudely. Instinctively, she had grabbed her pitchfork and pointed it towards her suspected assailant who she could know see was… a small man, no taller than half of a foot, his long black hair plaited and interwoven with small blooming flowers. He was dressed in a sharp onyx suit, and his tiny pupils reminded Maisy of black diamonds. “Welcome,” he said, “to the Faerie Realm.”

Maisy’s eyes glazed over as she was struck with a wave of recollections. Her mother had told her about the fay. Her mother had told her of their love of song and dance, and of their wicked deeds against those who had wronged them. Her mother had told her of the sprites and the sylphs and the goblins and gnomes and even the elves. Her mother had told her never to give a faerie her name, and that they preferred to be called the wee folk. Her mother had told her of their aversion to iron – that it singed their skin and caused a cool burning. Her mother had told her never to step in a faerie circle, at risk of entering the faerie realm, where she would be no guest. Her mother had told her many stories, stories which she had forgotten so quickly. How could I be so stupid?

The voice of the wee man sounded like bells. “I think you’re a very bright girl, actually. Don’t sell yourself short. You’re here now, aren’t you?”

Maisy’s lips turned up and her nose wrinkled slightly, bending her face into a bleak smile. “That’s why I’m stupid, actually. Mother used to say that the wee folk would make any who entered their realm dance until their hearts stopped in their chests. What are you going to do to me?”

“Well, I won’t make you dance.”

Maisy’s eyes narrowed. “That isn’t very reassuring. Why did you bring me here?”

The faerie smiled coyly. “I apologize. I suppose I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to meet you after all these years, and I wanted you to meet me. My name is Willow Darkdew, and it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The dapper faerie bowed low, and Maisy realized that he was floating several inches off the ground. “Do not worry. I will not request your name,” he said with a wink.

Maisy managed to relax a small amount, but she maintained her grip on the iron pitchfork in case she needed it. Her mother had told her how mischievous the fay could be. “Thank you, Mr. Willow. Please, now that we have met, can I return to my home? I need to find my father.”

“Do not worry, young one,” the faerie assured her. “Your father will arrive at your house soon enough. He has a great fear for the Faerie Realm, and he didn’t bother to listen to me. I’m afraid he found another exit instead of using the portal inside of your horse shed. He emerged in your realm some miles away from your home, and he has been walking back for almost a day now. And your cat… well, animals have a natural affinity with the fay as they are more attuned to the nature of both realms while humans are limited to their own. I’m sure he will do well for himself here until he can no longer stand to be absent of you.”

“My father,” Maisy whispered. “He knows of the fay? He believes? I always thought that mother told our stories in private because father found them juvenile.”

“Much the opposite, my friend. Your father avoided those stories because they frightened him. He believed in the fay just as much as your mother did. I am truly sorry that your father even entered the Faerie Realm. I opened this portal to meet you, and I had hoped that your curiosity would bring you to me before attracting any others. I’m sure your father would have destroyed my portal had he noticed, but he stepped inside before ever observing the mycelium wall I placed under the earth or the tell-tale sporocarps.” Willow Darkdew floated through the air as if by magic, dancing with an unseen partner. He placed a four-petaled flower in her hair. The flower was white but tinted lavender, and purple stalks sprouted from the center tipped by golden yellow. “A pearl flower, for the one named Maisy. You know, you have your mother’s hair.” Before Maisy could speak, the faerie had gently pushed her once more into his faerie circle.

Maisy found herself on the floor of Grace’s stall. The ring of mushrooms had disappeared, and the light outside the shed grew ever dimmer even though she had entered the Faerie Realm in the morning. Maisy did not care. She ran into her home and discovered her father, waiting on the porch. “Father!” she yelled. “I love you so much. Please don’t leave me again.”

“Of course, Maisy. Never.” He helped Maisy to bed after a large meal to celebrate his return. He told her the story of his journey through the faerie realm and the goblins which had chased him. He told her the story of how Grace had transformed into a winged creature of beauty, and he had ridden her to safety. He told her of the moment when he had left the Faerie Realm – when he had left Grace behind after witnessing her happiness and freedom. He told her of the voice he was certain sounded like the horse, even though she had never spoken outside of the Faerie Realm, and that the voice had told him that Maisy would be safe and to wait for her return. They hugged, and Maisy’s father kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep, Maisy. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As Maisy lay in bed, allowing her mind to relax and drift into a state of slumber, Patterson snuck through her doorway, which had been cracked open to banish the complete darkness. He jumped onto her bed and twisted his body into the fold of her legs. Maisy pet the fat, black cat several times and appreciated his familiar purrs which resonated against her legs. “Goodnight Patterson,” she said. As Maisy’s eyes became heavy, and her breathing became more regular, she couldn’t help but look at Patterson’s leather collar. She had always thought it was strange that he didn’t have a metal tag like most cats.

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