Faerie

This story is © copyrighted to Adrienne Wolter in 2003 and onwards. It was written on Saturday, September 20th, 2003. Do not take this story.

I entered this story into the fantasy category of the 2004-5 Scholastic Writing Awards, having submitted it nowhere else. It won a silver key.

Faerie

A single faerie, small and frail in appearance, hovered over a rosebush. She touched the flowers and each glowed as it opened to the first light of dawn.
All around her were the first signs of movement; the first small birds awakening and greeting the day, the first beetles and insects crawling out of their hiding places to drink the dew that sparkled on the grass like tiny jewels.
She caressed the last rosebud and flitted to the next flower, bringing to it the morning light. She was unaware that a pair of eyes watched her, so engrossed in her work she was. Glittering in the light, she slid a hand over another rosebud.
There was peace all around her. The garden she tended still had very many flowers. A soft breeze softly shook the branches of trees and leaves of rosebushes, causing them to echo. The garden seemed to be expressing its gratitude towards her work.
But it was work to be left unfinished, as she was roughly shoved into a jar, large enough only for her to outstretch her wings halfway.
Her captor covered her jar with a dark satin cloth, and she felt the bumps and noise of movement. Who will tend my garden? she asked in a whisper. Who will greet the flowers? More bumping, and then stillness. She could hear nothing.
When will I go back?

Much later, she awoke to darkness. She banged on the glass of her cage. Looked up to see small holes above her. Looked out of the glass.
Where am I?
Her vision was obscured by the thick glass of the jar. Her sides ached from not being able to stretch her wings out fully, and the faerie sadly sunk to her knees, grieving for herself.
Which ended very quickly when she saw movement outside the jar.
It was a human. She did not like humans. Some of them could plant wonderful gardens, but most of them just dirtied the world around them, not a care for their future. Such inconsiderate beings.
“Make light,” demanded the human.
The faerie refused to glitter for the human. She only glittered for the flowers, the crickets, the hummingbirds.
“Make light,” it repeated.
Not for you.
The human looked very agitated, and it slammed its fist on whatever the jar was positioned on. Tossed against her glass without warning, part of a wing bent back, and she glowed so that the human would not dent her wings any more.
“Good faerie. You will make light whenever it is dark.”
And, so scared of the human, she shed a tear of self-pity and continued to glow a deep hue of green.

In the light she rested, in the dark she emitted a small stream of light. It was a cycle she grew used to, in a resigned way. Trapped in a cramped container, all alone, she longed to see the flowers or the stars again, to awaken the small rosebuds. How would she keep her garden green if she was not there?
One day she grew tired of the work, having forgotten the pain of the bent wing. She sat facing away from this human who used her for a decorative lamp.
“Make light,” the human said. “Make light. I want you to make light.”
She did not respond, and the human once again slammed its fist on the surface holding her jar.
Precariously the jar sat on the edge of a shelf, and she wished it would not fall. For if she fell, she would feel pain. How she hated pain.
So she twinkled in the darkness.

She had forgotten the fear she had held of falling before. She again refused to glow.
“Make light,” the human requested.
No.
Again a fist hit her shelf. The jar fell on its side and the human shook it before setting it back. “Make light.”
Her wings again bent and joints aching, she gave the smallest of beams for the human. The green was only enough for her sad face to be illuminated. Such a beautiful thing she was. The human smiled at its faerie.

Tired of her place as a decoration, she again refused to glow. The human gave its usual commands, but she did not respond.
The jar fell from the shelf. She wished it to shatter, to free her from this gloomy life.
It shattered. She flew. The window was open. She escaped.
The garden was on the hill past several trees. She could not see it yet. She flew faster still, so anxious to see her beloved was she.
When she came to rest on a low branch, however, her garden was in ruins.