Come near

“So, this,” I rap my knuckles on the gnarled bark of the willow, “is you? Lady, how many drugs did you do?” The green chick dances around behind a tree and appears from behind a different one. “Silly human, doesn’t believe in the fae folk.” I roll my eyes.

“No, I don’t believe in fairies. I know when I’m being punked, ok?” She just laughs. Right behind me. Maybe if I turn around fast enough I can see how she’s… gone. Great. I knew I never should have taken those pills from that guy who said he was a wizard. But the music festival was like two months ago; this shouldn’t be fucking happening.

“Name, human?” She’s above me somewhere, her voice coming from in between the long stringy “hair” she had claimed as her own. The light comes through the leaves just right to make her tattoos look almost three dimensional, her dyed hair hanging in strands that intermingle with the willow’s.

“Look, babe, I like being high as much as the next bitter, rebellious teenager, but you are not gonna make me believe that you are a tree.” If she really was a fairy or a fae or whatever the fuck she wants me to think, her laugh would be tinkly, musical. Not low and rough and mocking. Fairies wear tutus and wave wands and all that stuff.

“Don’t have to make the human believe anything.” She’s behind me again, but some way off, and I’m not giving her the satisfaction of making me whirl around if she’s going to be gone anyway. “Look, I’m gonna go. Goodbye, tree lady.” I set off back the way I came, and I don’t see her anyway but, then again, I can’t really see anything that tells me I’m going the right way. It’s not like I come up here often. Only those weird nature freaks come hiking up this old trail. This is probably some kind of publicity stunt or…

Why am I? Fuck. I followed the trail. “Lend your ear, human. Don’t be a fool.” Why is this crazy bitch always fucking behind me? I’m getting sick of this crap, too angry to care that I fly around like an idiot and, what’d ya know, she isn’t fucking there. Call me Nostra-fucking-damus.

“Keep looking, human. You only see me when I want,” she’s hanging off a tree branch upside down like a child, “you,” she’s off on my left sprawled on a pile of tangled roots, “to.” She’s two inches from my face and I’m flying backwards onto my ass like an asshole. I land on something hard and for a second I can’t fucking breath, it hurts so bad.

“Learn the forest, human, learn its secrets.” She smiles and for the first time a notice she’s beautiful in the way some of the hippies in faded pictures are, dirty and tangled and naked. How did I never notice she was naked? How did I never notice she was pretty?

Her eyes are green. Not emerald green and not bluey green and not green flecked with brown. Moss green. It makes the white of her eyes look green too. Or maybe they really are? She was green and brown and earthy everywhere else. She was so beautiful.

She smiles again, pretty pointed teeth, and takes a couple of steps back into the clearing, over the trail. The trail I tried to follow out of here. I must have missed a turn and followed the trail as it circled back around. Funny a trail should do that. I kick a couple of the stones absently as I cross over it.

“Want to learn?” Her hands are spread open, at her sides, passive and inviting and her big green eyes look close to pleading, her feet moving her back and back towards the trailing branches of her tree. “Yeah, yes, absolutely.”

“Come near.”  Her voice sounds like home. Not a two bed yellow detached in the suburbs, where the houses are a different colour so we don’t shoot our neighbours for trespassing when they try to go home to the wrong house. Actual home. Sky as far as you can see and the smell of moss staining your skin.

“Come near.” I’m smiling like a fucking jackass, stumbling towards the tree, not seeing anything but those eyes, that smile, those open arms inviting, calling. “Promise not to hurt you, human.” I just nod, I trust her. She’s leaning against her tree now, and I fall into her into her arms, her eyes, into her wide pointy smile.

That raw, cruel laugh echoes around inside my head as, in the last second, the panic sets in.