Faerie Tales by Alex Jane Scala

The Girl Who Used to Dream by Meisje R.

...And the Door Will Open by Thia Odiorne

Evolution by Kenna Kettrick

Review: Pan's Labyrinth by Frances Nicole Rogers

Horizon by Taline Boghosian

--I'll take you to my fairie castle, he'd say as she tried to resist the dreamland, where adventures were less exciting than in his stories, nightmares weren't as frightening as his whispers of what hid in the darkness of caves, and love wasn't nearly as real as it was right here.
-And will you be my prince? she'd answer every night.
--I will, he'd say, his voice a promise. And I will never leave your side. Everyone will treat you as a queen. And late at night, we can go outside under a moon that's always full, and I'll hold you in my arms...
She always fell asleep right then.

Funnily enough, she always believed him.
He'd tell her the most fantastic things -- I'll take you away, I think you're a fairie, you're beautiful, I love you -- and she believed every word.
She hadn't been a believer until she met him. She hadn't been a cynic until after him, either.

The day they met, she told him, quietly, seriously, I can't imagine living to see twenty-two.
--I've got three years to change your mind, he'd answered.
She turned twenty-four the day before he left.

Forever, he'd said, but now forever was a memory of a dream, a promise broken on the day she was born.

ii.
He used to run his fingers down her sides and tell her about the fae.
She could never remember all of it, and she recalls thinking it was part of his magic, but now she knows she simply forgot what didn't make sense. Although none of it makes sense, really; no tale told about a world where the moon is always full and everyone has wings and death is celebrated can be real.

He used to tell her so many stories, to promise so many lies, but now all she can remember are snatches of technicolor, so unlike her blackandwhite life: dancing under the moonlight, making love under an open window with the rain rushing in, sunlight every weekend as long as he was around, crying on a Monday when he left, laughing on a Friday when he tickled her, a maybe on a Tuesday that became a yes on a Wednesday.

She thinks about it, now, staring out the window in the middle of work until twenty minutes have gone by with nothing done, unable to sleep at night and watching the moon (wondering if it's full where he is). Wondering if any of it was true. Wondering if maybe he's in that faerie castle tonight, missing her.
She's a silly girl for even dreaming it, now that she knows the truth. She remembers the woman (the beautiful young woman, more gorgeous than she could ever aspire to become), telling her in that harsh, cold voice that it's over. She remembers the shock of hearing that the beautiful woman was his wife, of hearing about his children, about his home.
She remembers how he pleaded with her that night not to believe it, to listen when he swore it was a faerie's trick, but it was one lie she couldn't believe.

And maybe he really believes in that faerie castle, she thinks sometimes, and her heart reaches out in pity (only pity, nothing more) at the thought. Maybe the man's been living the lie for so long he's actually come to believe it, and maybe that accounts for the light in his eyes when he talked about "home". Maybe he's not a good actor so much as an overactive dreamer.
But which would be worse? The shattered promises and dreams of being taken away, or knowing that they were true at the time?

Maybe he believes in his faerie castle, but if that's the case, shouldn't she just pity him all the more? She lies awake night after night pondering that, now, turning that thought over in her mind as she tossed and turned in her sleep without him next to her in bed. She runs her thoughts all over the idea, examining every wrinkle and every crack, the way he ran his hands over her body as he memorized it.
She can't decide, so she stay awake all night trying, until the night someone comes knocking -- no, rapping (like in her favorite poem) -- rapping at her window (rapping at her chamber door). Like the rapping of a faerie in all his tales.
She turns over. Ignores it. It's the wind, she tries to convince herself -- nothing but the wind (only this and nothing more).

iii.
--Are you an angel, or a faerie? he'd asked the day they met.
She'd laughed, she'd been charmed, she'd had no idea of the wonders (the horrors) and the heartaches (the beauty) she was starting.

He used to call her so many things -- his angel, his princess, his beauty -- but from the start he called her his Lady, his Lady of Shalott. He said she brought the poem to mind -- even had her pose for a painting once as the Lady of Shalott in her tower -- but he never explained why.
-I am half sick of shadows, she murmured to herself every morning for a week after he'd left. As if it was a prayer. As if it would bring him back. As if it was the spell that would bring her to his castle.

iv.
He left her on a Monday, and she broke down on a Tuesday.

-Why did you lie to me? she demanded of the silent air.
-Why did you say you loved me? she asked the still-lingering memory of his hands on her body.
-Why did you say you'd take me away? she yelled to the books he'd left on the shelves and the clothes he left in the closet, making certain she'd never drive his ghost out of this place they'd shared.

Finally, feeling like a tragic heroine in the types of novels she'd always hated, she asked her memories of him and the wild stom outside her window, Didn't you mean any of it?
She thought she heard his voice whisper a confused and tired maybe in her ear.

v.
For a week, she hears the knocking-rapping-tapping at her window, whether it was raining or windy or perfectly still all night. And then after a week she hears the rapping and a voice whispering in her ear, and she thinks she's gone mad and it's about time, too.

-I won't hear you tonight, she mutters to the silence the next night. I won't listen to figments of my imagination.
And there's the knocking-rapping-tapping, rapping at her chamber door, tapping at her window, insistant and real. She's trying, honest to god she's trying not to listen, but it's impossible, and after an hour of the tapping driving her mad she finally allows herself to whisper his name for the first time since he left.
She's rewarded by hearing his voice in her ear again as she falls asleep.

vi.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.

vii.
Many people promised her maybes. Her entire life had been a string of ifs and maybes and ask-me-laters.
Maybe (would she ever escape that damn word?) that was why she believed him when he promised whens and forevers and you-can-tell-me-anythings.

Maybe that was why she still dreamed of (believed in) that castle on a cloud, that city on a hill, that faerie tale he'd told her was real, three years later. Maybe that was why she listened to a nightly voice that any sanity she had left said was imagined.

viii.
--I didn't want to leave you, but I wasn't ready to ask you to make that sacrifice.
-What sacrifice? And she doesn't say it, doesn't even think it, but she knows he knows she'd do anything to be with him again.
--The one that would get you here with me.
-Where's here?
--I told you.
-Don't give me your lies again.
--Would I ever lie to you?
-Yes.
--Do you really believe that?
-No.

Days go by so slowly, and the nights fly by, and it takes almost a week, from Thursday to Tuesday, until she gets the courage to ask.

-What's the sacrifice?
--Are you sure you want to know?
-Yes.
--I'm not sure if you're ready.
-Please? It's hell without you.
--All right... all right. You can't exist in this world and ours at the same time.
-What do you mean?
--Nothing. Nevermind.
-No... I get it. Okay.
--Okay?
-Okay.
And she's a little scared and a little excited, but most of all she's numb as she cleanses her body, like a ritual, and prays to something not quite God to cleanse her soul.
(-And you're sure I'll end up there?
--I told you. You've got faerie blood, princess.)
She doesn't look back as she walks out into the water, until it's up to her waist, her chest, her chin, and farther out still. She doesn't care what she's leaving behind her, just what she's walking towards, and she hums as she walks deeper in, until her hums disappear into the ocean.

ix.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right --
The leaves upon her falling light --
Thro' the noises of the night,
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

x.
His smile is the first thing she sees when she walks up out of the water on the other side.
--I told you you had faerie blood, he says as he pulls her in to kiss her. He starts to lead her up to the castle in the distance, promising to get her fitted for her wings before tonight is over, and she smiles.

She's home now, and she'll leave the heartbreak for the Mondays of the past and the maybes for the Tuesdays in the supposedly real world, because it's the first Wednesday of the rest of her life, and she's finally seen that no one broke the promise of forever after all.