A Law is Broken

In silence I was led out the door of the cottage and guided out of the empty faerie village. Ciaran was walking in front of me, now wearing a loose white shirt with the spell book tucked under his arm. I fastened my cloak around my shoulders, even though it was a warm morning.

“So why is there no one else here but you?” I ventured to ask him.

“This village was abandoned a long time ago. It was too close to the gate.”

“The doorway into the gardens?”

“Yes. No one wanted to be near it anymore, so they left.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, why did you stay behind, all alone?”

“Oh, this was abandoned long before I was born.”

“Did you come here just to live by yourself?”

Ciaran sighed. “No, but I’d rather not talk about why I’ve been living alone.”

I didn’t want to think about him being alone, either. Nor did I want to think about leaving him. So, as we slowly walked back down the trail in the woods, I got him to tell me the long story of why the village was abandoned.

There are some things that cannot be forgotten. The loss of a child is one of them. Long, long ago, there was a faery who lost his child soon after it was born. This used to happen often in the Faery World: many infants would die within hours of birth. Human blood and genes have stabilized this problem since, which is why faeries have often taken human mates and stolen human children. The faery who lost his child crept through the gate by  night into the human village nearby (at the time, the gate opened to another part of the world), and exchanged the living human child for his own: a changeling.

But the parents of the human child could not accept this loss of their son. They became obsessed with the thought of finding him. An elder in their village knew of the gate to the Faery World, and soon the entire village was at the gate, armed and ready to take back what was theirs. The faeries also armed themselves, for they were already so attached to the boy.

Before the battle could begin, however, the King of the Faeries appeared and stopped both sides. He told the human parents that if they could identify their own child among the other faery children, then they could take him home. The parents looked among the children for a baby, but it had already been years since he had been snatched. The human mother recognized the boy’s green eyes and nose as her own, and they made ready to take him home. The boy had already grown old enough to speak, and said he didn’t want to leave.

“You are too young to know that.” his parents told him. But still he resisted while his faery parents wept. Soon the parents were angry with their ungrateful son, and, blaming the culprits that took him, began lashing out at the faeries. In order to stop the ensuing bloodshed, the Faery King stepped in once again, dimming the memories of the entire human village, and sending them through the gate again, along with their son.

The Faery King changed the gate so it would open elsewhere, far away.  He didn’t dim the faeries’ memories. He told them they would have to live with their loss. Soon, the faeries left the village. They no longer wanted to keep the painful memories with them, and they knew that even if he remembered them, the little human boy would not be able to find his way back to the gate. They could not bear to sit at home and wait for him to come walking through the door.

“This is where the battle nearly took place.” Ciaran finished, indicating the clearing surrounding the gate and bordered by trees. “Originally I came here just to see where the spot of history happened, but then I found the gate, too. On the other side was a beautiful garden, full of interesting, and unobservant people, and I knew that it was a part of the human world that I wanted to explore. So I decided to stay. Ashlyn? Are you crying?”

“That was so sad!” I wailed, rubbing the tears out of my eyes. “Why do you tell me such things?”

“You practically begged me to!” Ciaran dried the tears from my cheeks with his sleeve. “Don’t cry.” He hugged me and stroked my head.

We stood like that for a while. Our bond was a strange one, I have to say. It was almost ridiculous to think that it’d be painful to say goodbye after so short a time. We hardly knew each other. Maybe it was the two near-death experiences, along with the fact that we would never, ever meet again.

“Why couldn’t the Faery King have let him come back?”

“Would his parents have let him go? That was the only way to have peace.”

“He should have been allowed to visit. He should have been allowed to remember.”

Ciaran pulled back and looked at me. “You’re not just talking about the little boy’s rights, are you?”

“I just... Why does it have to be one world or the other?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question for years. It doesn’t matter in the end, Ashlyn. We either live with it, or move on and forget. Now stand there, I’ll find the spell and purge you from your experience with smelly faeries.”

Ciaran took a few steps back from me and held his book open with one hand. “Okay.” he said after a bit. “I’m ready.” He lifted his hand up, and then swept it downward. I felt an odd, strong breeze, like I’d been through a vacuum cleaner.

“How about you come and check on me later?” I asked him, as we walked closer to the gate. “There have to be ways around this. If I can’t come back here, you can still come and see me.”

He laughed. “Ashlyn...”

“Why not? Or you can come and try to abduct me again!”

Ciaran looked at me seriously. “Wouldn’t it be better to leave it at this?”

“No.” I disagreed vehemently. “Not at all.”

Ciaran narrowed his eyes at me, trying not to smile at my stubbornness. "I can't promise anything," he began, when he stopped and turned his head sharply. I thought I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves for a second. “Get down!” he hissed.

I ducked next to the bushes, and Ciaran stood in front of me.

“Who’s that you’re with, Ciaran? I heard you talking to someone.” A stranger’s voice called.

“No one.” Ciaran answered him smoothly. “You know how I talk to myself. What are you doing out here? Sent to spy on me?”

“Not at all, not at all.” the voice protested. “Your uncle was concerned about you.”

“You can tell him I’m fine.” Ciaran was waving his hand at me behind his back, telling me to go through the gate quickly. Maybe this newcomer was dangerous?

I brushed his hand with my fingers before leaving. Soon I was on the other side of the hedges. From here, it looked like there was nothing on his side. No voices, no village, no faeries.

“Goodbye.” I said. Then I realized: he had let me go without erasing my memories! I wondered if he would get into trouble. At the very least, he would have to see me again. Should I have felt bad? Maybe so. I was a little scared. But I still ended up smiling on my way home.

When I got back, Rachel was still asleep on the loveseat in my apartment, but woke up as I entered. I looked at the clock. It was only 10:08 AM.

“Oh, hi, Ashlyn!” Rachel stretched cheerfully. “I had the craziest dream!”