Where the Veil Is Thin

by Alana Joli Abbott

  The next morning, a space had been cleared on the living room floor, like someone had made a dance floor. Everything else was exactly how I’d left it, except the snack bags and wine glasses were empty. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t let myself because I didn’t think I could explain it to my neighbors. Instead, I clapped my hand over my mouth so I could make muffled noises behind it. I felt invaded, violated. Someone, or something, had been in my house. It was like finding mouse droppings in the kitchen and knowing that meant something unseemly was happening in my home when I wasn’t looking. But what? “Okay, this is getting ridiculous,” I said, maybe to myself, and maybe to whatever intruder I had. I knew it wasn’t my imagination, but I had no idea what it was.

  It was a Friday, so I decided to stay up that night and see what happened. I settled on the sofa with a pillow and blanket and marathoned episodes of Star Trek, something nice and logical. I must have fallen asleep at some point, because when I woke during the night, things were different. The Christmas lights were on and the floor had been cleared. I could have sworn I heard music, but it sounded distant, like perhaps my neighbors were throwing a party. I could see my furniture clearly, but when I looked at the middle of the room, everything became blurry, as though there was something there, but I couldn’t bring it into focus. Or maybe it was a dream. As much as I’d thought about this problem, there was a pretty good chance it was seared into my subconscious. I’d be surprised if I didn’t dream about mysterious visitors moving things around. In the morning, the floor was still clear, and the tree was still lit, but all was quiet. The tree lights faded when the sun came up.

  That day, I went out and bought a security camera setup with night vision. I aimed all but one of the cameras at the middle of the living room, with the last camera pointing at the door, and then I arranged the living room with things on the floor and snacks on the coffee table. I was up at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning to watch the footage.

  The video showed that there was definitely something in my house. They came across like hot spots on the video, vaguely human-shaped and small, but too bright and blurry for me to see features. I recoiled, jumping away from the computer as though the bright spots might come through the screen at me. What were those things? I felt dizzy and realized I was hyperventilating. I sat down, put my head between my knees, and took slow, deep breaths until the dizziness passed.

  When I felt reasonably stable, I looked at the computer again, starting the video from the point where the bright spots appeared. They started out by clearing the floor, and then they danced. The more they danced, the brighter they grew, until the video was just one big bright spot.

  I shook my head as if to clear it, but it didn’t help. None of my rational explanations worked. The intruders definitely weren’t human-sized, so it wasn’t a burglar or someone from the office playing a prank. I didn’t think mice would bother clearing the floor or dancing. There was no way to deny that there were small creatures that didn’t show up well on camera dancing in my living room. If the rational explanations didn’t apply, that meant I had to broaden the possibilities I was willing to consider.

  So, aliens or ghosts? The images did look a lot like what was shown on ghost-hunting shows—not that I’d ever taken any of those seriously. But why would aliens or ghosts be having a party in my living room? Even I didn’t think of my home as party central. Maybe elves, but this didn’t match the behavior of any elves I’d read about. Then again, were fairy tales valid source material for this sort of thing? Was it absolutely insane to even consider that it might be elves?

  I felt like my brain was giving me the “does not compute” signal. I was fairly certain I wasn’t losing it, since I did have video evidence, but I needed a sanity check with another person. I didn’t exactly want to tell anyone that I thought some kind of magical creatures were having nightly raves in my living room, but I’d already told Beth something was odd, and she was the one who’d mentioned elves, so I caught her in the hallway Monday at work. “Hey, you got a minute?” I said, trying to sound casual even though my pulse was pounding.

  Her face lit up, like she was glad that I’d approached her. “Yeah. What’s up?”

  There was no way to say this casually. “You know that thing I mentioned about what was going on in my living room? Well, you’ve got to see this.” I didn’t wait for her to respond before I dragged her into my office. I pulled up the video that I’d uploaded to the internet and played it for her. I’d seen it before, so I watched her watching it. She frowned at first, then her eyes widened. She leaned forward, her mouth hanging open.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “This is what my security cameras caught.”

  She leaned her hip on the edge of my desk. “This isn’t a prank, is it? You’re not setting me up?”

  “I don’t have that level of technical ability. Or imagination. I don’t know what they are or where they came from, and I don’t know why they picked my living room, of all places.”

  “Where do they go in the morning?”

  “They just seem to fade away as they leave the dance floor. What are they? What do I do? How do I get rid of them?”

  “Are they causing any damage or disrupting your life?”

  “Well, no,” I admitted. “All they do is clear their dance floor and eat or drink anything I leave out.”

  “Then why are you so worried about them?”

  “Because there are creepy little things in my house!” I said, my voice going a bit shrill. Too late, I realized that the sound probably carried throughout the office.

  “In some cultures, you might be considered lucky.”

  “I haven’t exactly seen luck coming my way.”

  “Possibly because you’re so stressed. Maybe you should try keeping the floor clear, and then you won’t know they’re there.”

  “But I’ll know. I can’t un-know what I’ve seen. I have to deal with this if I want to ever feel comfortable in my home again.”

  “Do you mind if I come over? Seeing it in person might help me think of something.”

  “You’re an expert on elves?”

  She looked away, and her cheeks flushed slightly. “I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert, but we lived in England a few years when I was a kid—my dad was in the Air Force—and we lived in this really old house. I thought it was cool that our house was older than the United States. But strange things happened there. No matter how untidy I tried to be, my room was always clean in the morning. I had to start keeping things neat for myself or I’d lose anything I left lying around. The old lady who lived next door claimed that we had a brownie that had been with that house for centuries. I’ve been fascinated by that sort of thing ever since. And no, I never caught it, and I didn’t do anything to send it away.”

  “Why couldn’t I have got the thing that cleans your house for you in the night?”

  “Like I said, it wasn’t all that helpful, other than forcing me to clean for myself if I didn’t want to lose all my stuff.”

  She came over that evening after work and surveyed my living room, her arms folded across her chest. “Are you sure it’s not a brownie? Because this is pretty tidy.”

  I winced. “This is normal for me. I only noticed something was happening when I came in late and left my shoes out, and they moved them. And they turned the tree lights on—but without plugging them in. There’s no telling how long this was going on before I noticed. Brownies aren’t known to be party animals, are they?”

  “No, that’s a different class of creature. What we have here is something different.” She wandered around the room, pausing occasionally to look closer at something, and I felt a bit awkward at her scrutiny of my home. We’d worked together for years, but our relationship hadn’t extended beyond work. She was the one I hung out with at office parties, but we’d never done anything after hours one-on-one. Now she was in my home, looking at my photos and souvenirs from my travels. I wondered if she’d noticed that I didn�
��t have pictures of people, only places.

  Did that have something to do with my discomfort with my visitors? I didn’t really do people. I interacted with people at work when I had to, and then I went home to my sanctuary. I seldom had guests. And now I had a party raging in my house behind my back every night. It was unsettling. I wondered what my visitors would do if I had a party—hide for the night, or join in? Frankly, the thought of having people in was more unsettling than the invisible intruders.

  “Oh, this must be from your trip to Iceland this summer,” she said, leaning over to look at the series of photos on the fireplace mantel.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I was camping.”

  “By yourself? Wow, you’re really brave.”

  That wasn’t something I was often accused of. “There were people around. I wasn’t in the wilderness.” Well, except that one time when the official campground had been too full for my taste and I’d set up my tent nearby.

  “You know, Iceland has a very strong tradition of fairy-like creatures.” She inhaled sharply, as though being struck by a sudden idea, then she frowned in thought as she continued moving around the room. Stopping by the end table next to the sofa, she picked up the rock sitting there and said, “Is there a story here, or is this art?”

  “I got it in Iceland. It was on the edge of my campsite, and I thought it looked interesting—better than the kind of souvenir you get at a gift shop. I know, I probably shouldn’t have taken it—take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints, and all that—but it was just a rock.” I didn’t want to say that the rock spoke to me because that sounded odd, but something about it had captivated me. Even now, I didn’t think I could articulate why. It was sparkly and a funny shape, but not so strange or beautiful that it should have even caught my eye.

  “Okay, I think I know what you have going on here.” She got out her phone and pulled up a website. “See, this sounds similar,” she said, showing me the screen. “There are people in Iceland who believe in fairies, or ‘hidden folk,’ even today. There was a big controversy over whether a road should be rerouted to avoid interfering with the rocks where some people thought fairies lived.”

  “You think I brought a fairy house home with me in a rock?”

  “Maybe. These fairies are known for coming out at Christmas. Typically, it would be Christmas Eve, while the family’s at church, but since you already have the decorations up, they might think it’s Christmas.”

  “This is crazy!” I said, throwing up my hands.

  “Look!” she showed me her phone again.

  I took the phone from her and scrolled through the article. “They had machinery breakdowns?” I said, shuddering.

  “They must not be too mad at you for moving their home if you haven’t noticed anything breaking. They might even have made you want to take that rock so they could move. Let’s stay up and see what happens.”

  “I tried that, and I didn’t see anything.”

  “But did you believe in them then?”

  “I’m not sure I believe in them now.”

  She wagged a finger at me. “Oh, you believe. It’s the most logical explanation, really. It’s the only thing that fits the evidence. And I believe, so even if you don’t see anything, I will.” She plopped down on the sofa, making herself at home.

  It would have been far too awkward to try to get her to leave, so I asked, “So, uh, can I get you anything?” I wasn’t sure what I had to offer her. The fairies had eaten all my snacks, and I so seldom had guests that I didn’t keep party supplies on hand.

  “We can just order a pizza.” Which she proceeded to do.

  I wasn’t sure which was worse, tiny invisible invaders who only made their presence known while I slept, or a full-sized human making herself comfortable in my living room. Worse, a full-size human who wanted to make conversation that wasn’t about work. She asked me about my travels, my family, my relationships, and told me all about hers. When the Christmas tree lit up at midnight, it came as a massive relief.

  Now I could see them, little people wearing red and green outfits that looked like something out of the tourist brochures at historical sites, and they swarmed around my living room. I couldn’t help but pull my feet up onto the sofa, the way I would if I’d seen mice. “Oh my, they’re real!” I whispered.

  Beth’s eyes shone. “They are,” she breathed.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again, hoping maybe they’d go away. They didn’t. Elves were real. My brain gave me that “does not compute” message again, so I stared at the creatures until I had no choice but to accept that these things right out of a fairy tale were as real as I was. This entirely changed the way I saw the world. I’d always focused on concrete things, on science and reason. I’d never been all that keen on fairy tales. I’d questioned the existence of Santa Claus at a very early age and had never bought into the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. My idea of a flight of fancy was imagining a future with spaceships that could travel between stars. Now I had to face the fact that tiny elves were far more realistic than faster-than-light travel.

  “What else that’s supposed to be imaginary is actually real?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Ghosts? Magic? Is there really a Santa Claus?”

  Beth’s smile was enigmatic. “Maybe. We do have to consider the possibility.”

  “Are all these magical things all around us, all the time?”

  “There are tiny insects around us all the time that you don’t see. How often do you think about dust mites?”

  “More often than is probably healthy,” I admitted.

  “Still, you know they exist even if you can’t see them. You may see pictures of them under a microscope, and maybe that makes you want to keep a cleaner house, but it doesn’t change the world. It just changes your knowledge of the world. You’ve learned something.”

  That I could deal with. I’d learned something, which was good. I liked learning. And knowing this one new thing meant there were so many other things out there to learn. I could feel my mind expanding, my sense of the universe shifting as I adjusted my parameters.

  But that didn’t mean I wanted tiny elves in my house any more than I wanted dust mites. “What do I do about them? Should I just get rid of the rock?”

  She glanced at her phone, where she’d been researching the folklore about the hidden folk of Iceland. “Well, they often move to new places on New Year’s Eve.”

  “But that’s weeks away!”

  “I have an idea, but we should probably discuss it elsewhere because we don’t know how much English they understand. Do you want to come over for dinner at my place tomorrow night? I don’t think we want to talk about this sort of thing at work.”

  I reluctantly agreed, but this whole thing was starting to feel suspiciously social. Still, one dinner after work wasn’t nearly as bad as an Icelandic elf infestation. I could get through this, and then I could get back to normal.

  It looked like the fairies were going to party all night, so Beth went home, and I went to bed. I thought I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep, knowing what was going on elsewhere in my house, but I drifted off right away and woke more refreshed than I would have expected after staying up so late.

  If having someone in my house had felt odd, it was equally weird to visit someone when I only knew her from work. “I made soup,” Beth said when she greeted me at the door. “I hope that’s okay.”

  “Um, yeah, that’s great,” I said, fighting the urge to flee. I wondered if I should have brought something. It had been so long since I’d been to someone’s home that I’d forgotten the protocol. As I followed Beth to the kitchen, I noted that her home was far quirkier than I’d have expected before a few days ago. It didn’t at all fit the straitlaced persona she maintained at work. If I’d known she was the sort to go in for paintings of unicorns, I might not have made the connection I had with her. Now, though, it seemed her love of fantasy might be my saving grace—if it even was fantasy. What if she
had a clearer and more realistic view of the world than I had? A few days ago, I might have dismissed her as an airhead, but maybe she was really just wise and open-minded. I felt something click in my brain as my view of the world shifted yet again. Maybe my view of reality, as logical as it seemed to be, hadn’t ever been the most realistic one.

  “What was the idea you had?” I asked while she stirred the soup. Only after I’d spoken did I remember that small talk was generally expected before diving into the main topic.

  Beth didn’t seem to mind. “I was thinking maybe we could trick them. If you took down your Christmas stuff, they might think it was time to move on. Supposedly, leaving a pathway of candles from your door will guide them away. If they leave on their own, then they might not take it out on you the way they might if you just evicted them.”

  “No fairy revenge sounds good to me.”

  “But we need to think about where to guide them to.”

  “Anywhere outside my house.”

  “But I was thinking, we may be able to kill two birds with one stone here. Is there anything near you that you wouldn’t mind disrupting?”

  “You mean like that road they were building in Iceland? Put the fairies there, and if they like the place, they won’t let their home be destroyed?”

  “Yeah. Is there something you don’t want to have built?”

  I thought about my neighborhood. There was a vacant lot nearby, and I’d noticed the zoning change signs on it. I liked it the way it was, almost like a park. I didn’t want the office building they were proposing. “I have an idea. You think it would work?”

  She shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. We might as well have some fun with this. Worst-case scenario, you get rid of your invaders.”