Blessed Curse

Never have I felt such rage at the world as I did that night.

I ran through the thick trees, the shouts of my family and the man they wished to marry me off to fading with the light. Small animals scattered before me, feeling an echo of the terror ripping through my breast touch their own as my heels sank into their homes. I paid no mind until one heel snapped, sending me flying into a clearing. After flinging what remained of my shoes off my feet, I looked up to see the light of the moon tinging thousands of tightly closed flowers silver.

Panting, I surveyed that secret garden from where I lay, noting that many of the plants brought no name to my mind as I gazed at them. In the center was a ring of mushrooms. That brought laughter bubbling to my lips, only slightly hysterical.

My nana would scream for me to run if she saw the ring before me, plead for me to run. She was terribly convinced faeries still walked the earth, if they ever did at all. Just as she was so convinced that I must be married to the wealthy man more than twice my age who, upon meeting me, had stuck his hand in my mouth as though I were a horse. Somehow worse, he was an Englishman of London. I had no wish to leave the country.

Yet no one wished to hear me.

I was not even of marrying age. How the man had even come to know of me I had no idea. He simply arrived and asked for my hand. At the sight of his expensive suit and number of footmen, my nana was quick to invite him inside. "How many Englishmen ask for the hand of one of us?" she had whispered to me. "You should be grateful." But I felt anything but.

Standing suddenly, I lunged at the mushrooms, showing no mercy as I sent shattered pieces flying across the meadow floor. When I was finally satisfied, I sat in what had been the center to catch my breath.

"How dare you?" hissed the wind in my hair.

My skin crawled as the sound of it. Though I tried to turn, something held me glued to the ground. Even my tongue was held down. All I could do was stare straight ahead as the owner of the voice slowly made its way from behind me.

"What have we here?" it rumbled, dancing on the edge of my vision.

Tears were building behind my eyes, but they could not fall. Finally, she stepped in front of me. I could not quite believe my eyes. Before me was a barn owl. Surely there was someone else here. Or perhaps the mushrooms had been poisoned, and I was beginning the trip to the next world.

If owls could smile, I swear to you that this one was. "Not much more than a mere child are you?"

Rage spit sparks into my eyes again and I fought with renewed ferocity against the force holding me.

"My, what fire," she chuckled, snapping her beak at me in amusement. "I am most surprised the tears of your pain have not quenched that yet."

The obscenities I was shouting at her in my mind surely had my mother rolling in her grave. The owl extended a wing to caress against my cheek. All I could manage was a choked snarl in retaliation.

"You wish for an escape don't you," she whispered, our faces nearly touching nose to beak. "Allow me to help you. Give me your name and in return I will grant you freedom to fly."

I suddenly found I could move again. With a gasp, I flung myself back as far as I could, scrambling to my feet. "What do you mean?" The words tumbled from my mouth without thought. "You can help me be free?"

"If you accept the role of guardian of this forest, you will not only be free. You will live forever."

I glanced back the way I had come. A moment of the slightest hesitation marred my vision. Could I really escape it all?

Taking a deep breath, I turned back to the owl. "My name is Aisling," I said clearly. "I agree to be a guardian of this forest."

"Excellent," she smiled.

With a start, I realized she really was smiling. Her beak dissolved into pink lips as her feathers melted away. Amber eyes darkened to a forest green dappled with sunlight, freckles sprayed across her freshly plucked skin. With a shake of her head, ruddy auburn hair cascaded down shoulders stretching out from where her wing joints once were. With a sigh, she stood up on two human legs and smiled down at me with my own face.

It took me a breath to notice just how much taller she was than I, despite her mirror image, and another, as she reached down for my dress, to see that I now stood only a few hands or so tall. Horrified, I opened my mouth to cry out but all that would come was an inhuman shriek.

"Now now," the girl who was me but not chided. "It really isn't all that bad. In time, you will learn to speak again. And now you will never have to marry that man." She grinned, a terrifying version of my own. "What mayhem can a Fair Folk stir in London, hm? I believe it is high time I returned some of the favor they have shown my kind over the years."

And with that she was gone. I have resided here ever since, keeping peace amongst the creatures and guarding them against the destruction of man.

Yes, young traveler, now you know the truth. So tread lightly in my forest, or I may extend a curse to you. And yours may not be so blessed as mine.