EPILOGUE   

Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, is a glass coffin. It rests right on the ground, and in it sleeps an elf with a golden circlet on his head and ears as pointed as knives.

The townsfolk know there was once a different boy resting there. One with horns and brown curls, one whom they adored and whom they have begun to forget. What matters is that they have a new faerie, one who won’t wake up during the long summers when girls and boys stretch out the full length of the coffin, staring down through the panes and fogging them up with their breath. Who won’t wake when tourists come and gape or debunkers insist he isn’t real, but want to take photographs with him anyway. Who won’t open his poison-green eyes on autumn weekends while girls dance right on top of him, lifting bottles high over their heads, as if they’re saluting the whole haunted forest.

And elsewhere in the woods, there is another party, one taking place inside a hollow hill, full of night-blooming flowers. There, a pale boy plays a fiddle with newly mended fingers while his sister dances with his best friend. There, a monster whirls about, branches waving in time with the music. There, a prince of the Folk takes up the mantle of king, embracing a changeling like a brother, and, with a human boy at his side, names a girl his champion.

 

 

 

 

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