The Winged and The Wingless

The girl with the long golden hair walks through the wrought iron gates. I hear the crunching of the leaves that have fallen from the oak trees with their browning Autumn leaves beneath her feet. The light afternoon sun that shines through the trees dapples her clothes and skin with patches of firey orange light as she takes a deep breath. I feel the distance between us; we are many lifetimes apart and not only the few metres that appear to be the distance between in our physical reality.

I know her name. I know everybody who lives here, both dead and alive. Willow comes to visit her Great Uncle Bertram every Tuesday when she is in town. She sits by his grave for an hour or so just talking to him. She must have loved him when he was alive. I wonder what it's like to be loved. I guess I'll never know. That is just one of the many differences between us, the powerful human and the fragile faery.

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not weak or helpless. I am a strong fighter and have immense strength but I know that I'm no real match for the humans. My diminutive size is too much of a disadvantage. That is why us faeries usually live in large groups and not alone like I do. Even groups are powerless against groups of humans and their destructive machines. Us faeries have been around far longer than humans and have survived many hardships but now our race is weakening and we are slowly dying out.

I don't live alone by choice. I was a part of the strongest faery group of all time before I was banished eons ago by the dictatorial king. After being banished from my forest home for getting home after curfew all I have been able to do is to watch the ever changing sets of humans around me by day while the graveyard is open. Many return to me years later, but are hidden from my sight by layers of wood and soil for all eternity.

At night the iron gates are shut with a squeak and a clang. They are not closed to keep people from visiting their loved ones, but to keep me in. Well, rather to keep what the humans think are the spirits of those buried here from escaping to the outside world. Most don't even know that I exist.

They belive that my pranks are the unhappy spirits of the dead and think that the few white flashes of my flying body that they have seen are ghosts haunting my graveyard home.

A few have guessed that it is just a very bored faery and formed the World Faery Society in an attempt to prove my existence and expose me to the public against my will. They will never catch me. I can't ever let them catch me.

I know how the humans would treat a "freak of nature" like me if they managed to catch me. They would perform all kinds of cruel experiments on me and trap me in an impenetrable glass tank till my death. I would spend the rest of my life wishing for death so that I could finally escape from the inevitable torturous pain. That is no life for a faery, the most majestic creature ever to exist.

Willow's grandfather is one of those who knows I exist which unfortunately makes Willow one of the enemy. I know that he has told her about me. I can't let her see me. She would tell him if she did. I know she would. Thankfully she is always absorbed in her own mind and her one-sided conversations with her great uncle whenever she visits.

Her grandfather, however, is a completely different case. He is always alert and is always watching.  I always make sure to hide carefully from his watchful eyes on the rare occasion he comes to the graveyard with Willow. He saw me when I was out after curfew when he was younger. He was only a little boy back then and unlike me has aged immensely since. He is desperate to prove my existence before he joins me in the confines of this graveyard forever. He seems to suspect that I have moved here after he saw me in the forest all those years ago. How he knows that will always remain a mystery to me.

I sit hidden on the greying marble of the arm of a large angel statue near the entrance of the graveyard and strain my powerful ears to hear what Willow has to say today. Usually I wouldn't eavesdrop on visitors, but she is one of the few exceptions. I know her grandfather knows about me and I want to make sure he won't rediscover and capture me. I need to know what he knows so that I can stay hidden for my own safety.