Screaming for Faeries

Ellen Steiber

Oh, great. I’ve pissed off the faeries.

It all started when I baby-sat for Annalise and her friend Hillary, who was sleeping over. Annalise is my little cousin, and she got it in her head that there were faeries in the branches of the big oak tree right outside her bedroom window. Although she just turned four, Annalise is a very passionate person. She is not lukewarm about anything. She can’t just talk to faeries or even call for them. She has to scream for them and then they appear.

Anyway, I was sitting for them on a Saturday night and, okay, I admit I was not paying such close attention to the girls. They were playing in Annalise’s bedroom, and I was in the living room, watching a video and talking on the phone with Robbie Yarnell. Robbie and I had been seeing each other for exactly twenty-one days.

“So what time is good?” he asked, and I felt a little thrill go through me.

We had this plan. As soon as the girls were asleep, Robbie would come over. “How about ten-fifteen?” I said. “The girls usually conk out by ten.”

An eardrum-piercing scream rang through the house. “Gotta go,” I told Robbie. Heart hammering, I dropped the phone and raced into Annalise’s room, sure that one of them was mortally wounded. And all because I’d been the neglectful baby-sitter.

The two girls were standing in front of Annalise’s open window, looking perfectly fine, screaming their little lungs out. “Hey!” I had to clap my hands to get their attention. “What is going on? Are you two okay?”

“We’re fine,” Annalise assured me. She was wearing a pale pink leopard-print top with a hot-pink plaid skirt. It was a typical Annalise outfit. The pieces totally clashed yet somehow looked completely adorable. “We’re screaming for faeries,” she explained.

“You can’t be here,” Hillary said, twisting a strand of her white-blond hair. Hillary is another enthusiastic four year old, but she’s also angry as hell. If she doesn’t get what she wants when she wants it, Hillary makes everyone miserable. “They won’t come if they see you. You’re too old.”

“Gee, thanks, Hill.” I wasn’t sure whether or not to be insulted. I’m sixteen and have spent practically my entire life wishing I looked older.

I could see both kids were itching for me to leave the room. I glanced at my watch. It was barely nine, and I knew they’d have to be tired out if they were going to be asleep when Robbie showed. Besides, Annalise lives in a fairly secluded house in the Berkeley Hills. It’s set a good ways back from the street, and there’s garden on either side so you can’t even see her neighbors’ houses. Who was going to hear them? “Scream on,” I said, and went to call Robbie back and tell him everyone was still alive.

They stopped screaming about two minutes after I got off the phone, and asked me to read them a story. Annalise handed me her favorite picture book, which is about a little pink girl pig who saves the circus. When we were done reading we talked about pigs and circuses. “Have you ever gone to the circus?” I asked them.

“No, but that’s okay because I see faeries,” Annalise answered. “And Hillary got boy faeries.”

It occurred to me that maybe I should have looked out the window when I went into her room. “What do you mean, got boy faeries?”

“When I screamed girl faeries came. And they had wings and were wearing sparkly pink dresses. But Hillary screamed and got boy faeries and they were dressed in black leather,” Annalise reported breathlessly.

It figured Annalise would deck them out in appropriate bad-boy apparel. I have never known a little kid who was so clothes-conscious. Even though she’ll only wear pink, Annalise changes her clothes at least eight times a day and keeps tabs on what everyone else wears.

“And they’re stinky,” Hillary added. “Because they sleep under stinky mushrooms.”

That’s when I realized there was smell in the house, kind of like old Camembert cheese. This didn’t upset me. Annalise’s mother, my aunt Kate, works in the food business. She sells gourmet cheeses to restaurants, and her fridge is always stocked with the stuff. So I figured some of the cheese had gotten left out.

I checked my watch. Less than an hour till Robbie showed. I had to get them to bed. Still, I organized the girls into a quick game of Find the Cheese, and we checked between the sheets and under the bunk bed and couch, and even in the toy chest, but there was no cheese.

“It’s the stinky boy faeries,” said Annalise. “They came inside, but not the girl faeries because the girl faeries are shy.”

“Is that what it is?” I asked Hillary. Based on nothing other than her charming personality, I was suspicious of Hillary.

“Yes,” said Hillary. “And you better watch out.”

“Why?” I asked.

Hillary looked at me like I was an imbecile. “Because the stinky boy faeries are mean.”

It seemed to take forever but by ten the girls were both asleep. Robbie showed up right on time. He’s amazingly prompt for someone who doesn’t own a watch. He had his guitar slung across his back and was wearing his black leather jacket. The jacket startled me, because of Annalise’s story, but I reminded myself that Robbie has had his jacket a lot longer than Annalise has been seeing faeries.

We sat outside on the back deck, which looks out over San Francisco Bay, and drank some beer and Robbie picked out a tune on his guitar. And though the song sounded familiar, as if I’d known it all my life, I knew I’d never heard it before. The music started out soft and lilting, like a ballad from hundreds of years ago, and then the tempo sped up and became tense and insistent. It ended with a soft refrain full of longing.

The last chord faded into the night air. “That was amazing,” I said. “What’s it called?”

Robbie shrugged. “I don’t know. I just made it up.” He put down the guitar and gazed out at the view. “It’s nice here. I like it when darkness covers all the buildings, and all you see are the lights going down to the water. It’s about the only time the city seems peaceful.”

“Mmmm,” I agreed. We were one week into September, and it was one of those autumn nights without fog, and the lights of the city were like golden stars flung down from the sky, glittering against the soft black night.

The air still held the last of summer’s warmth, and I was wearing a crop top. Robbie slid one arm around me. He drew me close and we started kissing. He smelled warm, like he’d been dusted with cinnamon and chicory.

He stroked the bare skin over my ribcage. Maybe because he plays lead guitar, Robbie has very sensitive hands. When I felt his fingertips stroking my skin I knew how a cat must feel when it arches under your hand. Everything in me just wanted to arch against Robbie, to keep his touch on me.

But then Annalise said loudly, “I can’t sleep,” and we bolted apart.

Annalise had come out onto the deck. She was wearing a white nightgown with pink stars on it and tiny pink satin slippers with wispy pink feathers and silver glitter on the toes.

“Hi, Robbie,” she said, and climbed up onto his lap.

The weekend before, when my uncle was out of town, Robbie and I helped Kate move a dresser into Annalise’s room. He and Annalise got on fine. Robbie has two younger brothers and three younger sisters, so he’s used to little kids.

“Why can’t you sleep?” he asked Annalise.

“Because the bad boy faeries came into my room and gave Hillary a nightmare. And they’re making a mess.”

Robbie grinned. “Don’t give me that. Your room is always a mess.”

This is true. Annalise loves to take things out of wherever they’ve been put away and leave them in little mounds all over the house. Her father, my uncle Eric, says she is chaos incarnate, but actually she’s very organized. She knows exactly where everything is.

“Hillary is crying,” Annalise said.

I sprang up, feeling another attack of the guilts. Even though Hillary is not my favorite person, I couldn’t bear the idea of a four year old crying and me not noticing because I was busy making out with Robbie Yarnell.

Annalise had generously given Hillary the bottom bunk. I found Hillary huddled under the covers, sniffing loudly. I sat down on the bed beside her.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I had a bad dream.” She sounded absolutely pitiful.

“Do you want to get up for a bit? I bet there’s some cookies or ice cream in the fridge, and we could all have them out on the deck.”

“I’m not allowed to eat sugar.”

“Well, then how about a glass of milk?”

“I’m lactose intolerant,” she informed me. “And I’m allergic to soy. I can only have rice milk or sugar-free sorbet. And no peanuts and my mother says nightshades give me mucus.”

In Berkeley four year olds are very specific about their diets.

I kept my voice patient. “Do you want to see what we can find, or would you rather stay in bed?”

“Read me a story.”

I debated a minute and decided that reading a book to her was probably easier than finding something she’d actually eat.

“Okay.” I turned on the bedside lamp. Annalise was right. The room was a mess, a whirlwind of pink clothing, scattered toys, and little-kid jewelry. I picked up a rhinestone tiara with a striped sock hanging off its end, sure that the room hadn’t looked like this when I put the girls to bed.

It took me a couple of minutes before I could find any of Annalise’s books. Finally, I located one underneath an alphabet poster that had fallen to the floor. It was one of the Cicely Mary Barker books—beautiful little flower fairies, each with a rhyming poem. Very British, very sweet.

The moment I opened it Hillary screamed, “No, I don’t want that one!”

“Well, what do you want?”

“No faeries!” she said.

I found a book about a little boy and his dinosaur, and Hillary settled down. When we about halfway through, Robbie came in. Annalise was riding on his shoulders, giggling. “Robbie’s going to take me to where the faeries dance at night,” she sang.

Robbie rolled his eyes. “I said I’d take her in here and tuck her in.”

Hillary took one look at Robbie and stiffened. “Make him leave,” she said.

“Now wait a minute—” I’d taken about all the Hillary orders I could stomach. “Robbie is a friend—”

“He looks like them!” she shrieked.

Robbie set Annalise on the top bunk. “Who’s them?” he asked.

“The stinky boy faeries,” Annalise explained matter-of-factly. “They’re gone now. It just stinks a little.”

I sniffed. There was still a cheesy tang in the room but it was very faint.

“Make him go away!” Hillary yelled.

Robbie raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m going.” He was backing out of the room when I realized something.

“Wait.” I nodded toward the open window. “Remember when we were moving stuff last weekend, and it was so hot in here, and we all tried to open that window—”

“Go!” Hillary shouted, holding her arm straight and pointing her finger. “You have to leave now!”

“Shut up, Hill,” I said. “I need to ask Robbie about this.”

Hillary’s blue eyes went wide with outrage. “You can’t talk to me that way!”

“I remember,” Robbie said. “None of us could get it open because the paint around the edges was stuck.”

I looked at Annalise. “Did your mom or dad open that window?”

“No,” Annalise said. “It got opened tonight. By the faeries.”

By now Hillary was working herself into a major meltdown, so Robbie left the room and I worked on closing the window. It stuck every two inches. If the faeries had opened it, at least they could have greased the slides, I thought grumpily. Finally, I shoved it closed and read the girls another book, during which they both fell asleep.

Robbie was waiting for me in the dining room. He slung an arm around my shoulders and we went back out to the deck. The sound of traffic seemed hushed and distant. I could hear the chittering sound of a young screech owl.

“So, Cherr, when are your aunt and uncle coming home?”

I glanced at my watch. “About an hour.”

The air was cooler now than it had been before, and I felt goose bumps rising on my bare skin. Robbie felt them too. He stood behind me, holding me against his chest, his arms warm around me. “Better?”

I nodded, staring out at the night as he rested his chin on the top of my head. Crickets were chirping in the yard below us, and a cat gave an outraged yowl.

I felt Robbie smiling. “I’ve been trying to get that sound—angry cat—with my guitar, and I come close but something’s always missing.”

“Is that for a song?”

“Not really. Just messing around.” He kissed the side of my neck, giving me chills. “You’re cold,” he said. “Maybe we should go inside and take advantage of our hour.”

We went in, and Robbie sat down on the couch and reached out a hand to me. I put my hand in his and let him draw me down beside him. I know holding hands isn’t supposed to be a big deal. But it is. It’s an act of trust to give someone your hand. When Robbie took my hand a ripple of warmth went through me, as if there were a sun hidden inside him that only I could touch.

I concentrated on that warmth and we started to kiss again. Some guys are predictable kissers. They start with your lips then want to move down your body. Or they start feather light then become intense and demanding. It’s as if they follow some play book for kissing. Robbie was never predictable. Robbie was a really talented kisser who somehow keyed into whatever it was I wanted. Hard, fast, slow, teasing—we were always perfectly, amazingly in sync.

So there we were on Aunt Kate’s couch, stretched out against each other, kissing madly and completely lost in it. All I was aware of was the length of his body against mine, his hands sliding along my bare waist, his mouth hot on the side of my neck. My body arched away from him just so he’d pull me closer. His hand slid up under my top and I let my hand explore the smooth skin beneath his shirt. He felt so good. We felt so good. Every cell in my body was deliriously happy.

“I think we need to take this to another level,” he said with a soft laugh.

And I felt my body tense because we were suddenly on the border between exciting and dangerous, and there was the clear possibility that we’d go somewhere we’d never been before.

“What level?” I heard my voice catch.

I have a secret from Robbie. He thinks I’ve done it and I never have. Everyone in my school thinks I’m—experienced. This is because Maura McGuire, the biggest gossip in the Bay Area, spread the story that I did it with a college guy in San Diego. And I didn’t deny it. (Okay, maybe it’s sick but because I’m generally such a “good girl,” it was kind of a thrill to have everyone thinking I’m “fast” or at least semi-knowledgeable.)

I’m pretty sure this is at least part of why Robbie asked me out last month, that he thinks I’m open to a lot more than I really am. So far, though, he hadn’t tried to push me or rush me. He’d been really nice, taking me out for pizza or a movie, giving me comps when his band played, even helping Aunt Kate move furniture.

And with his family and mine, his band, and school, we’d never had much time alone. At least not in the presence of a bedlike object.

“What level?” I asked again, this time attempting to sound cool and nonchalant.

He pulled back, his dark eyes amused. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Actually, I don’t, I wanted to say.

He pushed a shock of black hair out of his eyes. “Why don’t you want to be together?”

“We are together,” I said, knowing how lame it sounded even before the words came out.

“You know what I mean. Not like this. Like being lovers, when you’re as close as you can possibly get to another person.”

“Are you?” I asked, thinking of what I’d heard a girl in my class say. “Because sometimes sex just leaves you feeling sad and used and lonely.”

His lips brushed mine. “That could never happen with us. You and me, we’ve got this connection. I think with you it would be really amazing.”

Other times we’d been together there’d always been “limiting circumstances.” It was like playing a game and knowing that the ref would step in or the clock would run out and no matter what, things couldn’t get completely out of hand.

That night, though, we’d somehow left the safe confines of the game. I knew as well as he did that the rules were gone. Sometime during that last hour all the normal boundaries had dissolved, and it wasn’t simply that the adults were gone and the girls were asleep.

Robbie’s finger slid beneath my bra strap. “Will you let me look at you?”

Part of me desperately wanted to say yes, to find out just how amazing we’d be. The rest of me, the scared-out-of-her-mind virgin, blurted out, “No!”

Robbie sat up, putting some space between us but keeping a hand on my thigh. “What’s wrong?” he asked gently. “I thought you liked—”

“I did.”

“Then—”

“But I’m not ready,” I said honestly.

He gently squeezed my kneecap. “Why not?”

“I-I don’t know,” I lied. “I just know I’m not ready. Yet.”

The closeness between us was suddenly gone. “You’re not going to turn into a tease, are you?” he asked, his voice still soft but now with something wary in it.

“Wait a minute. Can’t I say I’m not ready without being accused of being a tease? Maybe I’m just not at the same levelas you.”

He drew back and shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t believe that. You were right there with me, and you know it. It’s something else. Maybe … something that scares you?”

That was the kernel of it but I couldn’t admit it. Couldn’t own up to what a total, immature, inexperienced virgin I was. How I wasn’t even ready for him to touch my breasts because I was afraid that would lead to sex and I didn’t really know what sex was or where it would take me, and how I wasn’t at all sure I could handle that place. How I was afraid something inside me would change forever.

Robbie cleared his throat. “I have condoms if that’s what you’re worried—”

“I-I just can’t do this tonight.”

He sat back against the couch, blew out a breath, and studied my aunt’s ceiling. “You’re not making this easy, you know.”

“I know,” I said, suddenly filled with dread. This was it. Robbie wasn’t going to want to see me anymore.

“Okay.” He reached out a finger and ran it along the groove between my forefinger and thumb. “Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal.”

“It is.” I was mortified to realize I was blinking back tears.

He leaned over and kissed my cheek then got up, put on his leather jacket, slung his guitar over his back, and started for the door. I followed him, feeling sick. “See you,” I said.

At the door he turned and put his arms around me, folding me into a hug. Again, I felt that sun inside him. I don’t want to lose this, I thought miserably.

“Listen,” he said into my hair. “Being lovers … you should want it a hundred percent. It’s not the kind of thing anyone should be pressured into.”

“What if I’m never a hundred percent?” I mumbled into his chest.

Holding my shoulders, he pushed me away from him and kissed me gently on the lips. “You will be,” he promised. “Wait and see.”

Ever since I turned fifteen I’ve had this thing I do every night. Before I go to sleep I turn off the overhead light in my room and I light candles—one on my dresser, one on my night table, and one on the windowsill. Not to get witchy or summon spirits or anything. I just like the life in the flames, the way they flicker and dance. With the overhead on, everything in my room is the same, bathed in seventy-five watts of hard, bright light. With the candles, there’s light and dark, and my room becomes a softer shadow-place, with mysteries and secrets.

That night, after my uncle dropped me off at my house, I lit the candles and stared into the mirror before getting undressed. The low-rise jeans and short top showed the long line of my waist, the flat plane of my stomach. What was it guys were always saying? A girl shouldn’t dress hot if she won’t put out. Was my crop top hot? Was I sending the wrong signals, being a tease?

Okay, maybe it was a little hot, at least hotter than the loose T-shirts I usually wore. Yes, I wanted Robbie to be attracted to me and I’d dressed for it. But that wasn’t the same as saying I was ready to go all the way. Was it?

With a shrug I changed into my nightshirt, the one Annalise picked out for my last birthday. It was pink, of course, with a large, goofy bunny rabbit down the front. I pictured Robbie in the room with me then: I wouldn’t have to worry about sex. He’d be doubled over, laughing.

And then in the lower left-hand corner of the mirror, I caught a glimpse of something moving. My mom had seen a mouse in the kitchen that spring, so at first I thought it was The Return of the Mouse. But no mouse stands on two slender legs, has punked-out blond hair, and wears black leather boots, pants, and a black leather jacket.

I gawked in the mirror for a moment, knowing that candlelight can play tricks with your eyes, then I turned around slowly, expecting the hallucination to vanish.

He didn’t. The little leather-clad figure leaned against my bedroom wall, arms folded across his chest, a sullen expression on his perfect, handsome face. Although he couldn’t have been more than four inches tall, there was something—well, teenage about him. He wore tiny silver hoops in each ear and silver bands around his wrists. And I could smell him. It wasn’t the stinky cheese smell from Annalise’s house. He smelled both muskier and greener, as if he’d brought in the scent of redwoods and eucalyptus and loam.

“You can’t be,” I breathed, making no sense at all. “You—you’re one of Annalise’s faeries, aren’t you?”

“Hungry,” he stated flatly.

“You’re hungry?”

He rolled his eyes. “Food.”

“How long have you been in here?” I could feel my face going red with embarrassment. Had he been there when I was staring into the mirror contemplating my hotness? Had he watched me change? Had he seen me naked? I sat down on the bed and drew my bunny nightshirt over my knees.

“Modesty? Now?” he sniggered. I was getting the distinct impression that he’d decided I was only worth one-word sentences. His expression became serious again. “Food.”

At least food was a safer topic than my modesty. “Well, what do you eat?”

I know, I know. I was having a conversation with something impossible, and yet he was so real, so demanding, that what would have felt truly crazy would be doing anything otherthan talking to him.

“Cakes,” he said. “And ale.”

“Oh, man, did you come to the wrong house. My mom’s a twelve-stepper.” At his blank expression I explained, “We can’t have any alcohol in the house. And she’s on another diet, so we don’t have any cake either. How about … a granola bar?”

He wrinkled his little nose then looked hopeful. “Venison?”

I tried to remember what was in our fridge. Even when she’s not dieting, my mom is a pretty devout vegetarian. “Uh … tofu burgers?”

“Ale,” he insisted, and I had a vision of dawn breaking and me still going round and round with this tiny, stubborn creature.

“Apple cider,” I countered, and he nodded grudgingly.

Closing the door to my room, I made my way into the kitchen. The house was completely dark. Since my mom is a sound sleeper and my dad hasn’t lived with us since I was six, I didn’t worry much about anyone hearing me.

I turned on the light over the stove and glanced at the clock. It was nearly one-thirty in the morning. No wonder everything seemed slightly surreal. What, I wondered, was I supposed to pour the cider into? All our glasses were at least twice the size of the faery. I settled on a bottle cap, dripped a few drops of cider into it, and brought it to him.

He didn’t say thank you. He held the plastic bottle cap as if it were a great bowl and downed the cider. He was an extremely noisy drinker for such a little creature.

I waited until he put the cap down before asking, “Were you in Annalise’s room?”

He just grinned at me, revealing sharp, white teeth.

I once had a cat who could leap so effortlessly that I never once saw him push off from the floor. One second he’d be down on the ground, the next up on top of the fridge. That’s how the faery moved. From the carpeting to the top of my dresser, and I never even saw him bend his skinny little knees.

I think the faery jumped—or flew?— onto my dresser so we’d be eye level. Because when he stood on top of it and still had to raise his chin to look at me, he scowled and stomped across the smooth oak top and kicked a bracelet I’d left there.

“Hey, stop that,” I said. “If you’re going to get all temperamental, don’t take it out on my jewelry.”

He whirled around. His face was livid and one finger pointed straight at me. I took a step back, feeling a prickle of fear. I wished I’d paid more attention when I’d read Annalise her stories. What was it faeries could do? Somehow all I remembered was their putting hexes on cows so they couldn’t give milk.

At least we don’t have a cow, I thought, trying to reassure myself.

The faery’s glare faded as his eyes lit with malice. “Liar,” he said softly.

“What—”

“Virgin,” he went on.

I felt my throat tighten. “What the hell do you know about it?”

At this he smiled. “Watch,” he said.

Then he sang out in a voice like the wind in the reeds. And the sweet spring scent of Lily of the Valley wafted through my room. The flame on the windowsill candle danced higher, and in it I saw a faery girl.

She was exactly what Annalise described—dressed in a sparkly, gossamer dress. It didn’t really have a color; it was more like a prism with all the colors flashing through it. Unlike the boy faery, she had wings, and she fluttered them open, gently lifting herself out of the flame. She hovered over the dresser for a moment, delicate and exquisite, then landed in front of the boy faery.

To my surprise she turned to me first. “Lily,” she said, placing a slender hand over her heart.

“Cherry,” I replied. (I’m always self-conscious about telling people my name—especially guys who think they’re brilliant when they make crude jokes about it.)

“Cherry,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Cherry blossom?”

“Yes,” I said, though I didn’t tell her the story. Apparently, I arrived nine months after my parents did it under a tree filled with cherry blossoms.

“Cherry jam?” she asked.

“Cakes and jam,” said the boy faery, still looking belligerent.

I glared back at him. “How about a bran muffin and jam?”

He glanced at Lily who nodded and said, “Please.”

I returned to the kitchen, leaving the two faeries in my room and wondering only briefly if I was losing my mind. From the second I saw the boy faery I knew he was real. I didn’t know what it meant—that I was seeing faeries—or what to do about it.

Except feed them.

I spread some loganberry jam on a bran muffin, cut it into tiny pieces, and brought it to the faeries.

They ate like teenage boys, just about inhaling the food.

“When was the last time you ate?” I asked, curious.

“Mortals’ food? April, eighteen-ought-eight,” Lily said precisely.

I felt my jaw drop as I realized that meant she was nearly two hundred years old—or older. Then I remembered another faery fact from Annalise’s books. Time passed differently for faeries. They lived for centuries, and what might seem a long life for a human was only the equivalent of a few years for them.

The bran muffin demolished, they stood facing each other.

“Love,” he said, in a voice like the ocean whispering in at low tide. The faery girl stepped toward him, placing her hands so gracefully in his, it was like a scene from a miniature ballet.

She moved closer to him and his arms went around her. And he was holding her close, caressing her, and they were both nearly rippling with pleasure and I was horribly embarrassed to be watching it.

I turned to leave then caught myself. This was ridiculous. It was nearly two a.m. I was exhausted and I was leaving my room with my nice, cozy bed to give the faeries privacy.

I turned back. Now his hands cupped her face and they were kissing. I’d seen plenty of kissing—in school, on the streets, on screen. I’d even done some of it myself but never like this. These two went beyond intensity, maybe even beyond passion. They kissed as if the kiss were the thing keeping them alive, as if ending it would mean death. And I knew I shouldn’t be watching something so intimate but I couldn’t turn away.

After what seemed a long time they finally turned it down a notch. I cleared my throat. “Uh, excuse me.”

Gradually, reluctantly, they drew apart.

“Do you think you two could take this somewhere else? I really need to go to bed.”

The boy faery scowled again. “Sacred,” he said.

“Probably,” I said, trying to be agreeable. “Still, I’d like to sleep—”

“Gone,” Lily said, and as soon as she said it they were.

I felt a pang of regret. I’d had something extraordinary—magic—in my room, and I sent it away so I could do something as boring as sleep. No, that’s a lie. I sent them away because I couldn’t watch. It was too much, too intense, too much a vision of what I was so afraid of.

I snuffed the three candles and shut my eyes. And I wondered what it would be like if Robbie touched me the way the boy faery touched Lily.

The next morning I walked into the kitchen to find my mother, in her bathrobe, staring bleary-eyed into the open fridge. “I don’t understand it,” she was murmuring.

“What?” I asked.

“My yogurt’s gone bad and so has the milk, and I just bought them yesterday.”

Maybe what faeries did was turn milk sour, though yogurt was already pretty sour … I was going to have to take another look at Annalise’s faery books.

“And look!” My mom gestured to the kitchen counter, where half a dozen large, smelly, yellow mushrooms sat in a green ceramic bowl. “I could swear I bought criminis, not those!” She kissed me on the forehead. “Good morning. Your mother is losing her mind.”

“Maybe we should throw them out,” I suggested helpfully. I was sure they were left by the boy faery, which made them highly suspect.

“You can’t throw out good food.”

“Good, being the operative word,” I reminded her. “Those things smell like sh—”
“Cherry!” She shot me a disapproving look then turned to the coffee machine, her expression tragic. “I can’t drink my coffee without milk and I can’t face the day without coffee. Any chance you’d take pity on your mother and go get some milk?”

“Okay, I’ll get rid of the mushrooms when I go.”

A few minutes later I headed out to the local deli for milk. I stuffed the stinky mushrooms in a neighbor’s trashcan. It seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do. At the time.

I didn’t exactly forget about the faeries that day, as much as I told myself that they were gone. End of problem.

But maybe also the end of magic, a nagging voice inside me argued. Wasn’t it an ultra-amazing, a gift even, to be able to see and talk to faeries? Why was I shutting them out? Why couldn’t I be like Annalise and at least be excited about them? Because you’re not four, another voice inside me argued. I left it as a draw between the voices and concentrated on writing a history paper that was due the next day.

At about five that afternoon our doorbell rang. It was Robbie. Just seeing him standing on our porch made everything inside me light up. I’d been sure that after last night it was over.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Not much. I just finished Tressalino’s paper.”

“Oh, you’re good,” he said with a grin. “A girl who does all her homework on time.”

“You don’t do yours?”

“Just enough to get by. When our band gets signed, I’m going to leave school anyway.”

I felt my throat tighten a little. I was just getting to know Robbie and already he was planning to leave.

Robbie peered around my shoulder, glancing into the house. “So can I come in or is this a porch date?”

“You can come in. My mom’s at yoga class.”

We stopped in the kitchen where, due to the profound lack of beer, we each grabbed a sparkling water then, without discussing it, headed for my room.

I felt a stab of nervousness. Was it going to happen this time? Did letting Robbie into my room count as teasing or, worse, asking for it? Had I just waded into waters way over my head?

None of the answers to those dramatic questions were in the cards that day. Robbie stepped into my room, and said, “Jesus, Cherry, this looks like Annalise’s room.”

I stood in my doorway, unable to form words. Ten minutes earlier, when I’d gone to answer the bell, I left my room relatively neat. Okay, the clothes I wore the night before were heaped on the floor, but my computer was on my desk, my books on the bookshelves, my quilt on the bed.

Now it looked as if a large, angry bear had ripped through my room. My computer monitor had toppled to the floor, and the screen was blinking with a weird greenish light. The miniature Calder mobile that sat on my desk was upended and jammed halfway under the bed, which had had all the sheets and blankets ripped off. A tangle of necklaces lay on the rug; an earring glinted beneath the chair. Weirdest of all, leaves in brilliant autumnal reds and oranges and gold lay scattered on every surface.

It was early September, the end of summer in Berkeley. The leaves hadn’t begun to turn.

“What the hell happened in here?” Robbie asked.

“The paper I just wrote,” I said stupidly. “I didn’t back it up and now—”

Robbie gave me a long look. “I think that’s the least of your problems.” He glanced around. “Do you think anything was stolen?”

“I don’t know yet.”

So the two of us cleaned up. We didn’t talk much except for me telling him where things went.

“Nothing’s missing,” I concluded as I slid the last of the books onto my bookshelf. “Someone just trashed the hell out of my room.”

“You got any enemies?”

“Not the usual kind,” I said, glancing at his black leather jacket. What would he say if I told him about the faeries last night or the mushrooms in the kitchen this morning? Instead, I picked up a red maple leaf and said, “Where do you think these leaves came from?”

He took the leaf from my hand and shook his head. “Pretty friggin’ exotic. You think your vandal came down from the Sierras or flew in from Montana or something?”

“No. I think he—they—followed me back from Annalise’s house last night.”

Robbie’s dark eyes look startled. “They followed you, even with your uncle driving you home?”

I realized I had to tell him the truth, mostly because I was too shaken up to lie convincingly. “Robbie … you know how Annalise and Hillary said they saw faeries last night?”

He nodded.

“I think they were telling the truth. Because when I got back here last night, I saw them, too. Two of them.” I stopped, sure that sounded crazy enough. No need to get into details.

Something that wasn’t quite disbelief flickered in his eyes. “And you think they—the faeries—are the ones who trashed your room and left the leaves?”

“I wasn’t out of my room more than ten minutes when I went to answer the door. Who else could have gotten in and done so much damage without either one of us hearing a thing?” I hesitated. “I’m not sure how, but I think I pissed them off.”

Robbie didn’t say anything for a long while. He picked up one of the leaves and examined it intently, as if he might somehow read where it was from. At last he said, “I don’t know about faeries, not for sure, anyway. But I know a little about energy. I’ve seen weird things happen when we play, almost like the music conjures up stuff that wasn’t there before.”

“I didn’t have any music on.”

“Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to be music. Certain people … I think unusual energy—you could call it magic—tends to follow them around. I think your little cousin

Annalise is like that. And you may be, too.”

“So … you believe me?”

He grinned. “Let’s just say, I don’t disbelieve you.”

I felt wildly relieved and shaky all at once. It was good to know Robbie didn’t think I was nuts. But everything was also one step scarier if what he said was true.

“I’m not normally a magical person,” I assured us both.

“Aren’t you?” He drew me to him and kissed me softly. I touched the smooth skin on his neck, felt the pulse there speed up. “Aren’t you?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “What makes you so sure?”

My mom came home from her yoga class about two minutes after Robbie and I started kissing, so nothing went too far. We ordered in Chinese for dinner, and Robbie and my mom talked shop. She does publicity for a group of theaters in the Bay Area, so Robbie asked her questions about booking concert space.

“He seems very serious about his band,” she said when he left.

“He is. He’s pretty sure they’re going to get signed. And then he’s probably going to go off on tour.”

“And you’re afraid to care too much?” she guessed.

“Something like that.”

“Have you been lovers yet?”

“Mom!” I wailed, mortified. The truth is, my mom’s always been far more upfront about sex than I am. She thinks it’s something mothers and daughters should discuss openly. I think parents should make sure their kids get the facts straight—in fifth grade I firmly believed that women got babies by swimming with sperm whales—and then never be allowed to bring up the subject again.

“I like Robbie,” she said, undeterred. “But if you haven’t had sex yet, and I’m guessing you haven’t, remember what I told you about protecting yourself. Condoms, condoms, condoms!”

“I know,” I mumbled, wishing I could just say “Gone,” and disappear like Lily.

My mom touched my cheek, something she almost never does. “And make sure the first time is with someone who genuinely cares about you,” she said more gently. “There can’t be another first time, sweetie, so don’t be too casual about it. When you give yourself to someone—it’s sacred.”

I felt the hairs along the back of my neck rise. “Um, I have some homework I really have to finish,” I said, and beat a quick retreat to my room.

The boy faery was back, striding across the top of my dresser.

“Y-you,” I sputtered, my embarrassment morphing into instant fury. “You’re the one who trashed my room!”

He just stared back, his green gaze proud and unrepentant.

“What do you want?” I demanded. “What did I do to you? And why’d you follow me here?”

“Disrespected us.”

I blinked. The faery knew about dissing? “How?”

“Lied. Called us stinky. Closed the window. Tossed mushrooms.”

“Well, if you were so concerned about your mushrooms, why did you leave them in our kitchen?”

“Gifts,” he said.

“Gifts?”

“Gifts.” He folded his arms again, and I could almost feel the anger lasering out of his green eyes.

I sat down on the bed to think. Living in northern California, where the psychedelic experience has never completely gone out of style, my first thought was drugs. But I’d seen psilocybin mushrooms, and they didn’t look anything like the bright yellow ones I’d thrown out. I glanced at the boy faery. “What kind of gifts?”

“Gifts of the earth,” Lily answered. I have a teak box on my dresser where I keep my necklaces. Lily was standing in it, knee-deep in beads.

Seeing her made me smile. The boy faery was hostile and snarky. Lily was like a creature spun from diamonds, like a bit of Annalise’s imagination come to life.

“Betimes mortals dream what is true,” she said.

“And those mushrooms—”

Lily’s wings opened and she lifted herself out of the jewelry box and over to the boy faery. “They give dreams.” She set down in front of him, still facing me. “Betimes dreams open doors.”

“To what?” I asked uneasily.

The boy faery came up behind her, put his arms around her, and began to kiss the side of her neck. Lily’s eyes fluttered closed as she leaned back into him. His hands ran down the sides of her waist then moved to the front her body, sliding up her shimmery bodice and cupping her breasts.

The way he touched her—how could such an angry creature also be so tender? I watched as Lily’s eyes opened and she turned toward him. Desire flickered through her as though she had a flame inside her, dancing, moving toward then away from him, drawing him close to feel her heat. His green eyes grew emerald bright. In him it was like a wire, vibrating, resonating, everything in him taut and alert and connected to her.

Arms and legs, they wrapped themselves around each other with an expression so identical that for a split second they almost looked like twins. It was something I had no name for. But I understood: It was as if they were both at that moment part of a pulse older even than they were, something that’s flowed up from the earth since time beyond memory. And watching them, I felt something inside me almost breaking, I wanted it so bad.

The sound of the phone ringing in the kitchen snapped me out of it, made me realize that I was once again spying on their intimacy. This time it didn’t even occur to me to ask them to leave. “I’m sorry,” I said, and bolted from the room.

In the kitchen my mom held the receiver out to me. “Kate wants to know if you’ll sit for Annalise next Friday night, and Annalise wants to talk to you.”

I told my aunt that next Friday was fine, then she put Annalise on. Lately, Annalise has been very keen to talk on the phone. Her dad says she’s four going on fourteen.

“Hi, Cherry,” she said.

“Hey, Annalise. What’s up?”

“You know what? Last night, after I went to sleep, I saw the faeries dance,” she said.

I was getting a creepy feeling. “You mean, you dreamed about them?”

“No,” she insisted. “I went to where the faeries dance. And it was a beautiful garden with pink flowers and there were orange and red and yellow leaves falling all around….”

The week went by. Though I saw Robbie at school, we kept it casual. The faeries didn’t show again, and neither one of us brought them up. Mostly, we ate lunch together and did some discreet necking. And we made a date for Saturday night.

Then on Friday night I sat for Annalise again. Thankfully, Hillary was elsewhere.

“So, Annalise,” I said about two minutes after my aunt and uncle were gone. “I need to ask you about faeries.”

Annalise tugged on the cuff of her pink flowered sleeve, revealing a strand of pink beads and little silver hearts fastened around her wrist. “I’m going to be a faery when I grow up,” she told me solemnly.

A week ago I would have found that statement adorable. Now it seemed spooky. “Why do you think that?”

“Because I want to be. And the faeries like me.”

“Have you seen them since last weekend?”

“No. I didn’t scream for them,” she explained.

“Annalise, I think that last Saturday night two of the faeries in your room followed me home. They showed up in my room.”

She glanced out at the tree. “They don’t let most big people see them. Maybe they like you too.”

That was not my impression. I told her about Lily and the boy faery.

Annalise pulled off her top so she could put on another. “His name is Flax,” she informed me as she unearthed a pink fleece hooded sweatshirt from one of the mounds in her room. “He and Lily love each other. Flax sings to Lily, and then she comes to him and sometimes they hug and sometimes they dance.”

“You told me on the phone that you went to a garden where the faeries danced.” When I’d asked her more about it that night, she’d changed the subject.

She nodded, her small face serious.

“How did you get there?”

“The minivan.” That made me relax a little. Kate drives a minivan. Clearly, Annalise was making up at least some of this.

“It’s a pink pearl faery minivan,” she went on. “It doesn’t need gas. Two little white horses pull it, and it can hold six faeries plus me.”

“Do the faeries have to be strapped in to little faery car seats?” I asked sarcastically.

Sarcasm is lost on Annalise. “No, they don’t need them. The horses never have accidents,” she told me. “And it has a moon roof because faeries like the moon. Will you make me an omelet with cheese and strawberries?”

I thought it sounded gross but Annalise can get very fixated when she wants something, so I made her the omelet and she ate it. Then we built a faery fort with a blanket covering the dining room table, but the faeries didn’t show. Annalise concluded that they were probably in their “beautiful pink diamond castle,” and abandoned the fort to watch the Mary Poppinsvideo for the ninetieth time. Later, she picked out a book for me to read to her. It wasn’t a faery book. In fact, when I looked I couldn’t find any of Annalise’s faery books.

“What happened to all your faery books?” I asked.

She yawned. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re hiding.”

So I read her a story about a young cat who wanted to be a firefighter. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get any useful information but I couldn’t resist asking one more question before she fell asleep. “Since neither one of us has seen the faeries all week, do you think that means they’re gone?”

“No,” she said without a second’s hesitation. “They’re busy. But they’ll be back.”

# # #

By Saturday evening I was more nervous than ever about everything. I’d spent the morning at the library, reading up on faeries, and what I read was not encouraging. Some stories said faeries were the spirits of the dead. Others claimed they were fallen angels or a race of ancient gods. Sometimes faeries gave gifts, but mostly they seemed to drive humans mad or steal their babies. Faeries had a habit of luring mortals to their realm, and then the people would never be seen again. If the humans ever did make it back, hundreds of years would have passed and their whole world would be gone. The stories only seemed to agree on one thing: pissing off the faeries was not a good idea. And there was another pattern I noticed: Those mortals who survived their encounters with faeries seemed to spend the rest of their lives longing to see them again.

The other thing worrying me was, of course, Robbie. When he’d asked me out again, I realized that I was too curious to even think of saying no. What it came down to was that current, that alive thing between us that I couldn’t turn away from.

So I took a bath and washed my hair and tried on six different outfits. Obviously, Annalise was rubbing off on me. I finally settled on a short lilac slip-type skirt, a black camisole and black crocheted cardigan, with strappy platform sandals.

I was leaning toward the mirror, putting on earrings, when I saw his reflection. Flax stood on the windowsill, watching me intently. All I could think of were the stories I’d read that morning, the ones that warned that things rarely went well for humans when humans and faeries met up.

“Why do you keep coming here?” I asked, trying not to sound as scared as I was, and also trying not to offend him. “Please tell me.”

“Seasons change,” he said.

I was half-tempted to say, No shit. What does that have to do with anything?But something in his eyes stopped me. For once there was nothing mocking or angry or demanding in them.

“Seasons change,” he repeated. “Neither mortal nor fey may hold them back.” He held out a hand and three bright autumn leaves—one red, one orange, one gold—began to spiral through my room. It was if they were caught in a dance, never falling but whirling on and on, held by a spiral wind that only magic could summon.

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” I breathed.

“As it should be,” Flax said. “Always.”

Something about the way he was gazing at me made ashamed of what I’d done. “I’m sorry I threw out your mushrooms,” I said. Then a thought occurred to me. “If you gave them to me on purpose, was there some dream I was supposed to have?”

“That can’t be told now.” Lily had straddled the red circle on my mobile and was riding it as if it were an amusement park ride; it floated up and down beneath her as the mobile spun in a circle of bright primary colors. “Betimes dreams open doors,” she said. “Betimes they are lanterns to show you the way.”

“So now I’m going to be lost and stuck,” I concluded, feeling a sad kind of dread. I thought of the stories of mortals who crossed the faeries and wandered lost for eternity.

Lily tilted her delicate head to one side, her eyes as cold and silvery as frost. “Mayhap.”

I jumped as the doorbell rang then glanced at my watch. It had to be Robbie.

“Bring him to us,” Lily said.

I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “No. I know I made you angry, and I’m sorry, but it’s not fair to punish him for what I did.”

Robbie rang the bell again and I thanked my lucky stars that I was the only one home and so didn’t have to worry about my mom letting him in. I simply wouldn’t answer the bell and he would leave.

“Doors must open,” Flax said. Seconds later, I heard the front door open. Heard Robbie call my name. I didn’t answer. Just sent him a desperate psychic message: Don’t come any closer! Please, just turn around and run as fast and far as you can!

A lot of good psychic messages do when you’re dealing with faeries. Robbie walked straight up to my bedroom door and knocked.

“I’m not ready,” I called out desperately. “Actually, I don’t feel so well. Robbie, we need to cancel. I can’t go—”

“Liar!” Flax’s voice was pure contempt.

Lily was no longer riding the mobile. I have a stuffed cat toy named Kenny on my bed. She sat cross-legged between Kenny’s pointy ears. “Doors must open,” she said, and my bedroom door, which had been firmly shut, swung open.

Robbie stepped in. He was wearing black jeans and a black T, his guitar strapped across his back. “Cherry? Are you okay? I—” His eyes went from me to Lily to Flax and the color drained from his face and I saw that thing flicker in his eyes again, only this time I knew what it was. Recognition. “Oh,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

Moving very cautiously, Robbie unstrapped his guitar, leaned it against the wall, walked over to my bed and sat down. Both Lily and Flax came to light on the headboard, so they stood just above Robbie, almost as if they stood in judgment over him.

“I—” He drew a breath. “I’ve seen you before,” he said to them.

“You what?” I demanded.

“When I was four,” he said.

I felt betrayed, as if I’d found him with another girl. “You told me you didn’t know about faeries.”

“I was just about dying of pneumonia.” His dark eyes were still locked on them. “All these years … I thought you were a fever dream.”

“Betimes mortals dream what is true,” Lily said.

“Did you call them the way Annalise did?” I asked accusingly.

For the first time since entering my room, he looked at me. And when he spoke again his voice had a tremor in it that I’d never heard before. “When I was four my parents had a huge fight. My mother was so pissed she left the younger kids with my dad, grabbed me and drove straight to Yosemite. She’d grown up in the foothills, gone backpacking there all her life, so her first instinct was to take off for the backcountry, way off the trails. I don’t really remember much about it. Except that the third night we were out there, miles from any road or camp, I came down with this fever. I was burning up. And there was no way she’d leave me and hike out to get help, and I was too heavy to carry that far. Most of what I remember is her rocking me in her arms, sobbing, saying I was dying and it was all her fault, and praying to the trees and the mountains to help us.” He gave me a wry smile. “My dad’s family is strict Catholic. They pray to every saint you ever heard of, but my mom prays to trees and rocks.”

“And the faeries?” I asked.

Robbie took a breath, steadying his voice. “I must have fallen asleep in her arms. Because I woke up in the middle of the night and she was out cold and there was a full moon high over the mountains. I don’t know why but I climbed out of the sleeping bag. We were in a little clearing of evergreens, Douglas firs, I think, and the moon was so bright I could see everything. I saw all these animals that night. A coyote, a mink, a bobcat, a mountain lion, hawks and eagles and great horned owls, a whole family of bears. All the animals were out, all of them showed themselves to me, and none of them made me scared. And then I saw them,” he nodded toward the faeries. “There were these two, and others. Lots of them. I saw them, and I knew how sick I was and I thought—” He shut his eyes, but forced out the next words. “I was out of my head with fever. I thought they’d come to take me with them, but somehow they’d leave my body, and in the morning my mother would find me dead.”

“Betimes we have done so,” Lily said softly, “but not with you.”

“So you’ve come for him now?” I asked, completely terrified.

It was Robbie who answered. “They saved me, Cherr. They worked their—magic, I guess—and the fever broke and I’m still here.”

“We couldn’t let you die,” Lily told him. “We have need of your music.
You must play the songs of trees and the mountain, the songs of the wild ones who showed themselves to you.”

“I owe you,” he said to them, his voice steady but low.

“Don’t say that,” I pleaded with him. All the stories I’d read that morning were coming back to me in a panicked jumble. “That means they can collect. They’ll take you under the hill to play for them and you’ll feel like it’s a ten-minute gig, but when you come back here a century will have passed and we’ll all be dead and—”

“You’re disrespecting us again?” Flax demanded.

I shut up. I was making it all worse and it was already very bad. Robbie and the faeries—and maybe the faeries and Annalise—they had ties with each other. The faeries had been in Robbie’s life since he was a little boy, and it sounded as if they’d never really left. Would they always be with Annalise as well? And what I was I doing in the middle of it? Maybe, I thought, I was in it because I could change things

“Look,” I said. “I understand you saved Robbie and maybe he does owe you for that. But isn’t another deal possible? I mean, what if I give you—” I cast around wildly, searching for something to offer. “You can have anything in here,” I said, realizing how little I had to give. “My jewelry? Or my mobile? You liked riding it—”

“We haven’t come to take him,” Flax cut me off. “No payment is owed. Yet you each must give something.”

“You,” Lily was speaking to Robbie now, “must continue to make music.”

“I will,” Robbie said. “I mean, playing guitar is all I want to do.” He gave me a quick, shy smile. “Most of the time, anyway.”

Flax fixed me with me his green laser stare. “What of the girl?”

I tried to think of something to say in my defense. But they didn’t want my things and I didn’t know what else I had to give.

Without a word, Robbie got up and retrieved his guitar. He took it from its case then sat down on my desk chair. He began to play what he’d played the week before at Annalise’s house. I recognized the notes first gentle and lilting, the way they intensified. But then the song went farther than it had that night. He played the notes faster and harder until they rose and soared like something wild, then eased again to something so unashamedly tender I found myself blinking back tears. And all the while the leaves swirled to the music’s tempo and the two faeries danced. They moved as if the music was inside them, the notes making their bodies curve and sway. Robbie was playing desire, and it seemed that what he played flowed into and through us all; the music became breath and pulse and blood.

Robbie finished and the last chord lingered, aching with longing. Lily stood in the curve of Flax’s arms, resting against him, both of them looking completely blissed out.

“That song,” Robbie said, “I got it from Cherry.”

“What?” I asked. Was he lying to protect me?

“It’s you,” Robbie said simply. “Those chords are what I feel whenever I’m around you. That’s as close as I can come to playing what I see inside you.”

I felt myself trembling.

“That’swhat I think of the girl,” Robbie said, his dark eyes meeting Flax’s green ones. “She—” his voice had gone ragged—”she matters to me.”

“You see beauty in her,” Lily said.

Robbie nodded and drew a breath.

“And you see it in him?” she asked me.

“Sometimes I feel as if that’s all I see,” I confessed through a red haze of self-consciousness. To me Robbie was beauty and warmth and excitement and all I wanted was to always feel that sun inside him.

“That you can give,” Flax said. “And you must give him your truth.”

Robbie raised one black eyebrow. “What’s he talking about?”

I hesitated. This wasn’t a conversation I’d wanted to have in front of an audience but the faeries weren’t giving me much choice.

“There’s a reason I’ve been pulling away from you,” I told Robbie. “I haven’t been with anyone before.”

“But Maura —”

“It’s a lie. That I let her tell,” I added. “That college guy I met when I went to San Diego—we played miniature golf. Big date.”

“Really?” Robbie asked, a smile turning up one corner of his mouth.

I nodded. “I’m sorry I lied. And I’m sorry I don’t know anything about sex, and so I want you but I’m not sure—”

Flax and Lily took to the air, Flax riding the red leaf, Lily the gold. We stopped talking and watched them, graceful, perfect creatures arcing through the room.

“Seasons change,” Flax reminded us, his voice calling up the scent of eucalyptus. “Leaves fall. As they should, as they must. “

“Since time before memory,” Lily said as they spiraled toward the open window. “It’s all a gift. So take good care.”

We watched until they were out of sight. Robbie crossed the room to me and cupped my face with his hand. “It’s okay,” he said. “We can take it slow. Or not at all. Or—”

“I know,” I said, and I did.

— For Danielle Reed Lord, who screamed for faeries

When Ellen Steiberwas eight her Aunt Dolly gave her The Golden Book of Fairy Tales, translated from the French by Marie Ponsot and illustrated by Adrienne Ségur. It cast a spell that’s never been broken; she’s been in love with fairy tales, myths, and folklore ever since. To date, she’s published over thirty-five books for children and young adults, most of them drawing on myth and the supernatural. Her short fiction appears in various books in the Datlow/Windling adult fairy tale series as well as in The Essential Bordertown, edited by Terri Windling and Delia Sherman. She has won two Golden Kite Awards, and her young adult story “The Shape of Things” was reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She has recently completed her first adult fantasy novel, which is based on gemstone lore, and which Tor Books will be publishing.

For more information, visit her Website at www.ellensteiber.com.

Author’s Note

Shortly after Terri and Ellen asked me to write a story for this book I visited my sisters and their families in Berkeley, California, and found that all three of my three nieces were into faeries. Samantha, then six, loved the Cicely Mary Barker books and had a little Flower Fairy doll that she carried with her everywhere. Mari, then three, had taken to wearing a pair of gossamer faery wings. And Danielle, then four, told me that she and a friend (who is much nicer than Hillary) screamed for faeries in the oak tree outside her window, and Danielle got the girl faeries and her friend, the stinky boy faeries. And that, I realized, was the beginning of my story. I’m grateful to my sisters, their husbands, and my nieces for letting me freely borrow and adapt so many details from their lives.

As for the subject of the story, faeries have long been connected with the forbidden, which may be why so many of the old stories and ballads about them contain an element of seduction. In addition to being tricksters and baby-nappers, faeries are sexy. So when I saw that Cherry was stuck, afraid of her own sexuality and yet also feeling the power and the magic of it, I thought it would be interesting to see what the faeries might tell her.