WORK IN PROGRESS: Three Witches #1: Magnus and Magnolia

Chapter 13 (Magnus): Its Own Kind Of Trial

With each CRACK!, Noli somehow made three fairies appear in front of me. 

Fairies. With wings. Hovering in the air.

Maybe Magnolia was right and I was going insane because they looked real as hell.

Because...fairies?

"Noli, what the hell is this? Can you please just stop with the illusions so we can talk?"

That was followed by the fucking giggling in my ear and then something new: tiny voices in my head. No illusion, dickhead. No illusion.

I closed my eyes to try to banish the illusions, but when I opened them, I was standing inside Noli's living room. One second I'd been on her porch, and the next, I was inside her house. Out of reflex, I crouched down just a bit, hands held out defensively, my eyes darting around the room. I probably looked fucking crazy and even worse, I felt fucking crazy in total defense mode.

Could you defend against insanity, though? What the fuck was happening other than I was about to lose my shit? My mind seemed to have already taken a hike.

Magnolia walked over to me, and when she stopped moving, she was suddenly holding a puppy that hadn't been in her arms one second before.

"Pet him," she ordered me.

"What?"

"Has going insane robbed you of the ability to understand simple commands? I said to pet the puppy."

I reached out my hand to stroke his head, and my hand went right through the puppy, which then disappeared.

"You can't touch an illusion," she instructed me. "Now hold out your hand, palm up."

I did, and the three fairies each landed on my palm. I could feel them, feather-light touches and one of them made a motion with his hand like he was spiking a football, and a small bolt of...lightning?...cut across my palm leaving a burn. 

"Motherfucker!" I yelled, shaking my hand, and the three fairies shot up to again hover right in front of me.

And they were fucking giggling, so I glared at them.

"You could feel the fae on your palm. You could feel the energy bolt. Therefore, not an illusion," she said, continuing my instruction. "Do you understand the difference or do you need another lesson?"

"I've got it. So...fairies are fucking real somehow." 

Stab.

I'd have a meltdown over that later. "But I'd like to know what that has to do with me."

Stab.

"If you'd stay quiet long enough, we could explain," the yellow-winged fairy said.

Hearing his voice clearly in my head, I nodded.

They're real, Magnus. They're real. Focus now, lose shit later.

"You had Magnolia's heart in your safekeeping. Her love for you was true and pure, and it was the kind of love that is remembered through the ages for its strength and enduring beauty."

"Or, it would have been," the purple-winged fairy said, moving to the center of the three fairies, "had you not willfully betrayed it. Had you not chosen another to keep you company. Had you not decided to set aside your great love for Magnolia simply to have sex with someone meaningless."

I closed my eyes because every word they uttered was right. I had chosen to fuck Lamia and betray all of the love I had for Magnolia simply because I could. Could fairies send me back in time so I could treasure Magnolia?