by Kelly Link
Pipsqueak settled atop an oak leaf. “There’s one human who lives in the woods,” he said, “apart from all the others. And this is the one human’s house. They’ve got plenty of flowers here, but no pets and no kids like in town. You can steal from them, easy.”
“If there’s one human,” said Lime, “what ‘them’ are you talking about? Who else is there?”
“No one,” said Pipsqueak. “The one human is one human, they’re just one of those humans who isn’t a girl, or a boy either.”
“Huh,” said Lime. “Then what’s the catch? If this place is so great, why aren’t there any other fairies here?”
“We’ve got our community garden now,” said Pipsqueak with a shrug. “You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t,” said Lime. “I bet there’s a whole troop of children in that house, with nets and plastic jars. Or maybe this one human of yours is a witch, the kind who likes to trap fairies and cook them into potions. I bet you’re waiting for me to go flying over unawares, and when I’m caught, you’ll laugh and laugh. Am I wrong?”
“Now you’re just being silly,” said Pipsqueak. “Witches live in towers. Who’s ever heard of a witch in a house? If there were kids around, there’d be toys all in the garden, and as for cats and dogs: if there were any nearby, you’d smell ’em.
“Stake the place out for yourself and you’ll see,” he said. “The place is totally safe. Or don’t I guess. I can’t force you.” He dropped from his leafy perch and spiraled lazily to the ground. “All I wanted was to point a wandering loner in the right direction.”
With a wave goodbye, and an offer to “Look around the woods if you need me!” he slipped into the shadows of the undergrowth, leaving Lime alone.
Lime cast a wary eye at the house and its abundant, quiet garden. She still didn’t quite trust Pipsqueak, but the place seemed safe enough from a distance, and at the very least there were no more giggling fairies to harass her. Tucking herself into a fork between two branches, she watched and waited for any sign of danger.
In time, a human appeared in the window. The one human looked to be a younger adult, probably not far along in their twenties, but more than old enough to have outgrown the ability to see fairies: an ability most lost around the age of twelve. Their hair was short; they wore a T-shirt with a mended hole in the shoulder. As far as Lime could tell, they were utterly ordinary and entirely alone.
The one human made a pot of oolong and sat down to drink. Lime watched as they sipped tea, read a paperback book, picked at one of their fingernails, and eventually returned to the interior of the house, out of sight, having done nothing whatsoever suspicious or even interesting. Pipsqueak hadn’t lied. The human was no threat.
Reassured, Lime took wing and ventured closer. A most beguiling vine grew along the kitchen window. It was some species of morning glory, but strangely and richly colored, with flowers banded in pink and gold and pale, translucent green. Lime imagined the suit of clothes she could make from this vine: beautiful, colorful clothes that would be the envy of all fairy-kind. Plucking the stamen from a flower and transforming it into a glowing needle, she set to work.
All afternoon, Lime struggled to recall the tricks of weaving, sewing, and spell-casting involved in the making of clothes. She harvested flowers and leaves. She spun green fibers into glossy-smooth thread. By the time the sun had begun to sink beneath the horizon, she had sewn a fine hat of petals. She removed her old, wilting cap and placed the new one on her head, proud to have remembered the lessons of her childhood.
Lime held her old hat, the withered purple orchid, in her lap, and thought back to the warm and southern island where it had grown. Unpleasant, long-forgotten emotions swelled in her chest. She shred the orchid to bits, and cast it to the ground.
Night fell and the flowers closed and Lime could no longer work, so she passed the late hours in other ways. She spied on the human again, watching as they cooked and ate dinner. (Dinner, she noted with a little thrill of disgust, was roast chicken.) She re-enlarged one of her books and read by the pale green glow of her own body. She waited eagerly for morning.
At the first light of dawn, she sewed the bodice of her new dress, which she embroidered with a pattern of interwoven suns. She placed each stitch with utmost care, pouring all of her heart and thought and magic into that one little garment. She had almost completed the circle of suns when the sound of footsteps broke her concentration. The human had come outside and was stomping into the garden, right towards Lime’s window. Snatching up her bodice and thread, Lime flew into the trees.
The human lingered in the garden for a while, pulling weeds, pruning dead flowers, and humming an off-key tune. They ventured indoors and back several times, then at last returned inside for good. When Lime was certain all was clear, she flew back to her vine, where she found a scrap of notepaper scrawled in enormous handwriting.
“To the fairy who’s probably doing this,” read the note. “Please stop killing my Convolvulus magnifican vine. Thanks in advance—Erskine.” A more cautious fairy might have been afraid, but Lime was too close to finishing her dress, and wasn’t about to let a mere piece of paper scare her. She crumpled the note into a ball and picked up her sewing.
She had finished her bodice, and had just started piecing together a skirt, when a fairy—the same blue fairy from the community garden—twirled down from the sky and landed at her side, exclaiming “Ha! So you really are here!”
Lime edged away, scowling. “What do you want?” she said.
“I was just curious what happened to you,” said the blue fairy. “That’s a nice hat, by the way, and a nice dress—what’s done of it.”
Lime clutched the dress to her chest. “You can’t have it,” she said.
“I don’t want it!” said the blue fairy, laughing. “I was complementing you.”
“Oh,” said Lime.
“Have you decided to stick around the woods?” asked the blue fairy. “If you’re planning to settle down, you know, our clan will take you.”
“Your boss said the clan was full,” said Lime.
“Old-Timer says a lot of things,” said the blue fairy, “but she’s a pushover. If you hang around a few weeks, she’ll get sick of telling you to leave and let you in. Promise.”
“And why do you want me in your clan?” said Lime. “You were going to make me eat a bug!”
“Don’t be so sensitive,” said the blue fairy. “Like you’ve never eaten a bug on a dare before!”
“I haven’t,” said Lime.
“Really?” said the fairy. “I have—or a slug, at least. That’s why everyone calls me Slugsy now. Anyway, do you want to join the clan? You can tell us stories of all the places you’ve been.”
“I haven’t been any places,” said Lime. “And I don’t need a clan.”
“You have to have been some places,” said Slugsy. “Where’d you come from?”
Lime picked at her embroidery. She supposed, really, there was no harm in telling. “I came through the roots of the world,” she said, “from the Great Origin Tree Library.”
“And before that?” said Slugsy.
“Nothing before that matters,” snapped Lime.
“And why’d you let your old clothes get so raggedy?” asked Slugsy. “What happened?”
“I was reading,” said Lime, “and I lost track of time.”
Slugsy scratched at her head. “You were reading so long that your clothes went bad?”
“Right,” said Lime.
“And how long was that?”
Lime consulted her inner clock. “About twenty-five years.”
“I see,” said Slugsy. “You know, you’re kind of weird, Loner. But you’re also pretty brave, messing with Erskine the human.”
“Why?” said Lime. “They’re just one human, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“I’ll get you!” said Slugsy, hopping into the air. “Sorry, Loner. See you later.” She chased after Pipsqueak quick as a bat on the hunt, and the fairies’ twin lights, blue and amber, vanished into the distance. Relieved, Lime took up her needle.
In the low light of afternoon, she stitched a ruffled lining to her skirt, attached skirt to bodice, and enrobed the whole garment in sparkling, semi-visible strands of protective magic. Casting her old dress aside, she changed into her freshly-made clothes. The skirt billowed around her soft as dandelion fluff. The embroidered suns gleamed clear and bright as words on a page. The dress was perfect: colorful and comfortable and scented and clean.
Lime nestled into the coils of the morning glory vine—now bruised and nearly flower-less—and watched the sunset, aglow with contentment. She was so content, so peaceful, so snug in her new clothes, and so warm in the early autumn sun, she didn’t even hear the window open. She didn’t notice the gamy, chemical smell of human presence; she didn’t see the looming shadow. When she finally felt the rush of air, and heard the scrape of metal against glass, it was too late. She was no longer snug among the leaves. Glass walls closed around her and a metal lid, pricked through with holes, sealed her in. She had been trapped inside a great salt-shaker and holding the salt-shaker was the one human, Erskine.
Stifling a cry of panic, Lime dropped to the bottom of the salt-shaker and curled into a ball, pretending not to exist.
“I can see you, you know,” said Erskine. Lime glanced up. Her eyes met the human’s own. It was then she realized she had been deceived.
“You can’t,” sputtered Lime. “You can’t, you can’t, you’re too old to see me.”
“I can,” said Erskine. “Some people never grow out of it. Did you really not know? I figured all the fairies around here knew about me already.”
Lime caught a glimpse of amber light among the trees. She heard the trill of a fairy’s laugh. Her heart thudded in her chest. “If you don’t let me out,” she bluffed, “I’ll put a curse on you! I-I’ll turn you to stone! I’ll give you the pox and the palpitations and the red-hot feet! Let me go right now or you’ll pay, I swear!”
“I won’t,” said Erskine. “And you’re not going to curse anyone. You’ve done me wrong by killing my plant, and I’ve caught you, so you’re obligated to be my prisoner for sixty lunar cycles, AKA five years. I know the Law.”
Lime stared at Erskine, for the moment speechless with rage. “And how,” she said, finally, “do you, a human, know about the Law?”
“I have my ways,” said Erskine with a smirk. “But don’t worry. I’ll let you go right now if you grant me a wish.”
“I’d rather die!” spat Lime. “I’d rather stay in this salt-shaker for a hundred years! A million!”
“Really?” said Erskine. “Because I wasn’t going to ask for much.”
“Either let me go or don’t,” said Lime. “But I’m never going to grant you a wish. Never! Do your worst: torture me or snip my wings. I don’t care!”
“Geez, I’m not going to hurt you,” said Erskine. They drew Lime and the salt-shaker inside, and closed the window. “You’re really not going to grant me a wish?”
“Never and not for anything,” said Lime.
“Fine.” Erskine climbed down from the kitchen counter and sat Lime beside the sink. “Then I’ll just keep you here until you change your mind.”
“You’ll be keeping me for sixty months,” said Lime, “because I’m not changing my mind.”
“We’ll see,” said Erskine. “Anyway, who’s that yellow-orange fairy outside? Are they your friend?”
“He’s not my friend,” said Lime. “I have no friends.”
At the edge of the forest, Pipsqueak capered from branch to branch, squealing with laughter. “The other fairies haven’t been bullying you, have they?” said Erskine.
“Don’t patronize me, human!” said Lime. “I’m not some mewling little infant. No one bullies me!”
“Do you want me to run him off?” asked Erskine. “I can go throw a rock at him.”
“Just shut up, shut up, shut up!” wailed Lime. Sparks cascaded down her back. “I might be your prisoner, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen to you blather on and on!”
“It kind of does,” said Erskine, drawing the blinds, “but point taken. I’ll leave you alone for a while and make dinner, okay?”
Lime simply glared.
“Oh, but before I do,” said Erskine, “did you want anything to eat? I have honey and maple syrup and I think some leftover molasses.”
“I refuse,” said Lime. “Weren’t you going to leave me alone?”
“Alright,” said Erskine. “Just let me know if you change your mind. Not only about the wish, but about the food, I mean.” They busied themself in the kitchen, and for a little while at least, left Lime to her thoughts.
Lime huddled at the bottom of the salt-shaker, hating everything: humans and fairies and the whole world and, most of all, herself. She cursed herself for ever trusting Pipsqueak, for being slow enough—stupid enough—to be caught by a human.
Sparking like a firecracker and overwhelmed by anger, Lime felt she would explode if she couldn’t calm herself down. She tried breathing deeply, and when that didn’t work, she enlarged one of the books around her neck and began to read. At first, her eyes slid from the page. She would read the same sentence over and over, only for the words to jumble together and the meaning elude her. However, she pressed on, and began to make slow progress through the novel. The furious sparks dissipated from her body.
She didn’t know how long she had been reading when a shadow fell across the page. “Where’d you get that book?” asked Erskine.
“I’m allowed to have a book,” said Lime. “There’s no Law saying prisoners can’t have one.”
“No, I wasn’t going to take it away,” said Erskine. “I was just wondering if you had summoned it from somewhere, or what.”
“It’s none of your business,” said Lime. “Shouldn’t you be cooking?”
“I already cooked and already ate,” said Erskine. “You must have been really preoccupied not to notice. What book is it? Is it good?”
“That’s none of your business, either!” said Lime. “Why do you care?”
Erskine shrugged. “Just curious. Is it a fairy book? Is it a novel? Do fairies publish many novels? Because if they do, I’ve never had the chance to read one.”
“Fairy novels are written in Vernacular Fey,” said Lime. “You wouldn’t be able to read one even if you had it.”
“I can read Vernacular Fey and Classical Fey,” said Erskine. “They’re not that hard to learn: I mean, they’re both pretty regular, logical languages.”
“You’re a liar,” said Lime in Classical Fey, “and a despicable person.”
“I surely speak the truth,” said Erskine in the same language, “and assure you that my character is of the utmost quality.”
Lime studied the human closely. “Just who are you?” she said. “Some sort of recluse linguist? Why do you know the fairy tongues?”
“Well, I’ve always been interested in non-human peoples,” said Erskine, “and I come across a lot of fairies in my adventures.”
At that last word, Lime nearly dropped her book. “You’re an adventurer?” she yelped.
“Pretty much,” said Erskine.
In Lime’s childhood, her fellow fairies had taught her this lesson: “Humans on the whole are dull and sluggish, but there are three sorts of human you should avoid at all cost. The first are the children, who see and chase. The second are the witches, who grind our wings for potions. The third are the adventurers, who snatch our treasures and bring mayhem i
n their wake.” Yet how could Lime have known?
“What’s wrong with you?” Lime shrilled. “What are you doing here, acting like a normal person? Reading and pulling weeds and eating—” She glanced down at the pile of soiled dishes in the sink. “Eating whatever this is?”
“It was tofu and eggplant,” said Erskine. “I was thinking of having meat, but I know some fairies get squeamish around meat and didn’t want to offend.”
“I don’t care if you eat meat!” said Lime. “What kind of adventurer just hangs around the house all day?”
“I mean, I have off-days like anyone else,” said Erskine. “And I don’t see why ‘adventurer’ and ‘normal person’ have to be mutually-exclusive. I feel like I’m pretty normal.” They lathered a sponge with soap, releasing a pungent smell of chemicals. “Did you want to hear about my last adventure though? I just got back on Wednesday.”
Taking Lime’s angry silence as assent, they continued. “I took the train down to the semi-aquatic kingdom of Crab’s Cairn, where there’s this hidden shrine . . . .”
Erskine blathered on about their adventure, describing the forgotten shrine with its pillars of olivine and meteoric iron; the domed ceilings inlaid with the bones of fishes; the images of celestial serpents; and the half-submerged labyrinth, rumored to be the lair of hippocamps.
“I found this enormous shed skin, which I’m pretty sure is the skin of a hippocamp,” said Erskine, putting away the last of the clean dishes and carrying Lime to the living room. “If it is, I should be able to portion it out and sell it for a good price.”
“All those jewel-encrusted idols and pillars of rare pallasite, and you pass them up for a bit of snakeskin?” said Lime.
“I’m not going to loot a shrine,” said Erskine, looking a bit offended. “That’s disrespectful.” They plopped onto the sofa and sat Lime on an end table. “Have you decided to give me a wish?”
Lime made a rude gesture from her native island. “I don’t know what that means,” said Erskine. “Does that mean ‘No’?”
