A Wish

Prologue: The crickets chirp their song to night, bouncing it off the moon and surround us with their quiet song, falling into the background with the whispering wind through the leaves of the willow and the bubbling and flowing river jumping of pebbles. Above us, the stars spread out for miles in the clear sky, hugging us in their blanket with simple pinpricks of light shining onto us. Some of them are fireflies, but most of them have gone to sleep now, waiting for another dusk to find a mate. This is my favorite time of the most perfect night. “Is this yours?” Isaac asks, breaking the beautiful night song and pushing it into the background. I turn my head and he turns his so I can see into his clear, ice blue eyes that tell me the whole story and allow me to swim through his memories. I laugh as the grass tickles my neck, though it is quiet and strangely muted. Isaac tells me it sounds like a whisper of butterfly wings mixed with the sound of ringing bells. I always tell him it’s a horse’s whinny. “Yeah,” I smile, referring to the place where I am not allowed to be, this beautiful heaven on earth, hidden away from humans and other fairies by the mass of wooded hill that it takes to get to this secret and wide clearing. “You’re the first one I’ve ever brought here.” He smiles and turns his head back to the stars, basking the light we fairies rarely get to see. We are lying next to each other, close enough to comfortably hold hands if we wanted to. But Isaac and I aren’t like that. Sometimes I like that and other times I feel something towards him that makes me think it would be better if we were more than friends after all. It’s probably we good that don’t hold hands though. I would burn his clean off as he froze mine into an ice block. I’m the fire fairy of the year, attracting fireflies where ever I go, and he is a water fairy. The most talented at the academy, I might add if in a conversation with anyone but those who think we should date. He’s been categorized into the specialty group of ice fairy. We fire fairies don’t have categories. We’re only good at one thing- destroying. “You know,” Isaac speaks, breaking the silence once again. “My dad was talking to me again last night about job options.” Isaac and I are only 51, which is barely 17 in human years. Our first really job, after the senior years in the academy, would hopefully be at maybe 68. We don’t even get to ‘chase our dreams’ by picking our own classes yet- if I had a dream that is. “What does he want you to be this time?” I ask sarcastically, smiling at the sky. “Jess, I know you think we have a lot of time, but it’s only 17 years away,” I hear Isaac turn his head from the rustle in the grass. “Maybe we should consider our options.” “Whatever, Sir Isaac Newton,” knowing it’ll make him blush, as he does whenever I use his full name, which comes from the human who discovered gravity. “Jobs are dreams, and dreams are almost never fulfilled.” “Unless you work at them,” Isaac says, finishing the quoted from his father. Something in his voice catches, and I turn my head to see a single tear sliding down his cheek. I run my thumb over the track before it freezes, which makes it insanely difficult to get off your face. My touch sends warm sparks into his cheek, almost always making him slap my hand away. But today, that is not the case. “What does he want you to be?” I ask him in a tone barely louder than a whisper. “A police man,” he says, shuddering in a way that makes most people think he’s going to howl, but I know him well enough to see that he’s done crying. “Isaac,” I say, removing my hand from his face. “Being a police man doesn’t always end the way it did, you know.” “Easy for you to say,” he says, catching my hand and spreading it so it opens, resting his forehead on my open palm. “Your mother isn’t dead.” “Which one?” I mumble, wishing we could talk about something other than mothers. “Not your biological one,” he says hastily, always thinking about me even when he’s breaking down, making me instantly regret bringing him onto the topic of my childhood when he is in so much obviously emotional pain. “You adopted parents.” We lay like that for a while, just staring into each other’s eyes. He lets my hand go, but I still hold his head, not wanting to let go. He is the one to eventually break away, turning to stare into the stars. “I want to.” “What?” I mumble, dropping my hand from his face. “I want to become a police man,” he says, than hastily adds “I have since I was a little boy, but my mother dying crushed that dream. My father saying he wanted me to become one was almost like breaking the unspoken rule that I wasn’t allowed to. You probably think that’s stupid.” I feel almost hurt that he said that, but as always I hide my emotions beneath the surface. “I think that is one of the best ideas our generation has come up with. I think it’s not about taking the job but honoring your mother as you do so.” For once, I am not sarcastic. “Really?” he asks, turning his head, and I nod in reply. He pauses and then says “Sorry.” I smile and turn away. “How did you know?” “We’ve know each other since we were in diapers. Every time some jerk insults you or throws chunks of pasta into your hair, you do the same thing.” I smile, glad that I’m a luck one who has a friend who knows them this well. “But I don’t want to die like she did,” he continues. “I don’t want to be in all that pain. She hurt so much. If only that bullet had hit her somewhere vital, she would’ve been dead so much quicker. “I want to be a police man, but you need to promise me two things.” I look at the side of his head. “One- we have to be in this together. Not just ‘I’m here for you’ junk. I want you to be in the police force too.” I pause before nodded. Being a police wouldn’t be bad. I could help people while seeing the service and having adventure. “Two- you have to promise me that you’ll kill me.” I stare at him in alarm. Isaac is never depressed. Never. He’s sad sometimes, serious too, but never depressed. Suddenly talk about suicide- or being a murder- is terrifying. “Not like that,” he says, sensing my distress. “Only if we know I’m going die slowly and painfully, like torture or bleeding to death.” I look at him, realizing I’m determining the future. I say two words as I nestle my head into my shoulder, not realizing the weight the hold. “I promise,” I say, not knowing that when I look back on this day I won’t remember the stars or the grass, or the wonder of being chilled by Isaac’s electric touch. Not knowing that I had just made the worst promise of my entire life. Chapter 1 I fly towards the clouds, sun glinting off my helmet. I wish I could feel the wind whipping through my hair, but police regulations say I have to keep it on at all times. Sometimes I think they’re just trying to keep me from having fun. Other times I think the police jock boys are stupid. The rest of the time I’m too angry to think (part of being a fire fairy means getting angry a lot, most of the time for no reason). I’m one of the most terrifying missions today- something all rookies whisper about and all professionals dread. I have to talk to the wind god. He’s always half insane and always angry. He takes it out on the world with hurricanes and tornadoes- that’s why we have so many in the world. I think the supreme god needs to fire him (you see what I did there, being a fire fairy and all?), but without any replacements, he can’t really do that. Plus, gods are immortal, and he is crazy enough to start a war. The scary thing is that he might actually win. My wings radiate heat as they are covered in fire. There are small branches of bones in wings, which are just flaps of skin tissue. When in use, they become covered in a substance given off by the fairies’ power. Mine, being fire, is a little more than solid flame. Isaac’s wings are covered in rippling water, at least when he flies. When we’re not flying, our wings are milky white. I push that thought to the back of my mind. The last thing I need to think about it Isaac on a mission as important as this one. He patrols a coast below my position in case I’m in trouble. He has a signal that’ll pick me up even if my tracker is gone. It’s nice to know if I fall 30,000 feet or more he might be able to save me. Maybe. Stribog’s palace looms into view. He lives on a giant cloud that is surprisingly solid, not at all wet or like cotton candy. It’s a little squishy and fun to bounce on. At the gate I am greeted by two weather fairies. The nod, realizing I’m an officer based on my jumpsuit (rather high ranking at that) and let me pass. They grin cockily, as though they are waiting to drag my dead body out of the palace. Even now, at age 94, I feel as jittery as a school girl on her first date. That almost makes me laugh. I’ve never been on a date before. I walk through looming halls with swirling floors. Another weather fairy leads me through vast passageways, some black as night and others sparkling, eye burning white. All swirl in circles around me, some like hurricanes, others on the most gentle winds. I feel so overwhelmed I almost forget why I’m here. We reach a large room, flanked by weather fairies. In the center floats a huge model of the world. ‘Stribog’s control system’ I think to myself, awed by everything. “I would say welcome,” a booming voice echoes from the clouds (literally). “But we both know you want to get this over with, and I want you out of here. So hurry up and I might let you go.” Stribog appears before me, clothed in swirling opaque gases. He glares at me, hatred apparent. His pupils are huge and he reeks of alcohol. He is in a bad mood. I hide my fear, something I’m good at doing and present my message. “The winds in Ireland have been so severe that trees have blown over and crop fields are been destroyed. Northern America is being hit by so many hurricanes and tornadoes that practically the entire continent is ripped to ruins.” I slow down my words, saying them in serious tone but without being threatening. I’m good at this too. “We understand that you are angry the humans for trying to harness to power of the wind with turbines, but destroying their world will destroy ours too. Everything is connected. By destroying them we destroy ourselves.” Stribog chuckles, drawing closer to me. He smiles and traces a finger down my cheek. “Whass your naame agaaain?” he slurs. I am choking on his stench, which I can tell is now mixture of sweat, cheap beer, and rotting animal. I don’t want to know. “Jess Marigold,” I say, taking a step backwards. His eyes narrow. “Wellllll,” he says. “Jessie Mac-a-Gold. Ain’t it a pleasure to meet you?” “Mr. Bog,” I say back. “We should get on with business.” “What business?” Stribog rumbles. “WHAT BUSINESS!!!!” He laughs as though this is the funniest joke ever, shooting lightning bolts from his fingers. Thunderstorms pop up all over the world, particularly in America and Ireland. Twisters and hurricanes begin to spread all over the world. “You can’t just do that!” I cry out, reaching towards the globe though I know it’s helpless. “Yes, I can,” Stribog replies. “YES I CAN!!! I can do whatever I want, and right now, what I want is to throw you off this cloud. I gasp as he plucks the tracking device from my wrist and throwing it into the eye of a hurricane in America. I’m actually over United Kingdom. They’re going to send the team to the wrong place. Stribog grabs me by the wing and begins to walk me to a dark circle in an otherwise milky white floor. We are lifted on a jet of wind straight through a cloud roof onto what feels like the top of the world. The view would be wonderful if it weren’t for the fact that I was being held by the wing with a creepy drunk guy. The drunk guy in question is obviously not impressed by the view. He twists my wing and as I give a yelp of pain, he brings his face only inches away from mine. “Remember, girly, we ain’t havin’ annnnnnny buuuuisnesss,” he snarls, spitting all over my face. He kisses me hard, and I can taste the alcohol on his lips. Vodka. It’s disgusting enough but when he sticks his dirty, sore covered tongue in my mouth I decide it’s time to vomit. I push away from him. “Your choice,” he says before twisting my wing so it snaps and pushes me off the top of his cloud palace. The wind blows me out of reach from Isaac’s signal. I try to flap my useless wing as I tumble through the air, Stribog’s laughter carrying on his own wind. I already know I’m dead. Around 20,000 feet I realize something as I causally glance towards the coordinates in my helmet- I’m only 100 feet out of Isaac’s signal. If I could only change the angle of my fall... I suddenly get an idea, a crazy and desperate idea, but this is a crazy and desperate time. I have to push off of something though. My helmet! That’ll work. I know I’m not suppose to take it off, but I’m not supposed to be falling at the mercy of a maniac pervert wind god either. I think this is an excuse that will stand up in council- if I survive this. I rip off the helmet and throw it directly below me as I send all my energy flowing into my feet. I bend my knees and once I’m concentrated on my feet entirely I slammed down on my helmet. Sparks fly as I push off from my helmet, which bursts into flames. I’ll hear some grief about that one, but I least it’s destroyed. I feel intense heat from my feet, but I figure it’s only after effects. Once I glance down at my feet because my boots are melting, I realize that they’re on fire. Whatever genius created fire fairies didn’t give them the ability to be fire proof. I found this out the night my stepfather branded my arm with hot coals. Sometimes if it’s the fairy’s own fire, they can put it out before it causes too much damage. My feet have already become consumed. I try to put it out with my mind, but only one foot goes out. The fire is already spreading up my leg, and it is out of my control. I think only of my angle until the fire spreads up into my arm and my unbroken wing. My amber hair that glints like fire in the right light actually is on fire, and I involuntarily flip so my back faces the ground, making me falling directly towards the world. I hope that I’m in Isaac’s signal’s reach as I scream to the heavens and earth alike, filling the world to the brim with my eerie high pitched scream that only a girl on fire could make. The pain is so intense words cannot describe it and fire streaks above me, making me look to all the world like a flaming meteorite. A blanket of ice cold water surrounds me, and I float gently to the bottom. I hear a faint splash and see something swim towards me, feeling strong hands on my back and knees. My head lolls to the side, into this strong figures chest, and I think one simple word before surrendering to the back spots of pain that cloudy my vision. ‘Isaac.’ I walk into a dark room with a marble dance floor. Tables with red table cloths set for two people skirt the edges of the dance floor. Trays covered with the juiciest fruit, tastiest cakes, and the best smelling vegan dishes are spaced at intervals around the room. I am one of only two people at this party, though I can hear the other people talking, but it is a quiet noise that is far away and resembles more of a buzzing noise than a whisper. The other figure stands examining one of the dishes. His tall, pointed ears are tanned, while his hair is the darkest shade of black. He wears a suit of navy blue silk, and simple brown loafers. When he turns towards me, I can see his eyes are the purest ice blue. “Would you like to dance?” Isaac asks, holding out his hand. He is college aged again, back when nothing mattered that much and when the bills were sent to our parents. We dance all the time, but something stops me from reaching my hand all the way. He chuckles. “What’s wrong? Am I not good enough to dance with now? We’ve been dancing together since we were teenagers. A full 45 years now.” “I- I’m not wea- wearing anything fancy,” I stammer, suddenly noticing I’m in jeans and t-shirt. Isaac laughs again and takes my awkwardly semi-stretched hand into his own. I am instantly in a light blue dress made of the finest silk that stops just above the knee. A blue and violet flower arrangement sits complicatedly on my hair, and my soft curls hang down my back, surprisingly not long enough so I can sit on it. Soft blue slippers cover my feet. “Anything else?” he asks, laughing pleasantly. “Why are you so young?” I blurt out. “Because you are,” he says with a small smile, and as he leads me to the dance floor I realized that I’m just as young as he is. Once we step on the cool marble, the other guests appear, most sitting, eating, and talking, only a couple of them dancing. I have never seen them in my life, yet they wave and smile at us. The noise level strays a little above the annoying buzzing. Suddenly music starts to play, and all noises stop, whether I cannot hear them because I’m caught in the moment or if they have stop talking I don’t know. I only know of the icy blue eyes staring into my soul in the best way imaginable. We dance to every kind of music- hip-hop, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, dub step. We dance for hours as all the songs I know come on, and Isaac and I dance everyone. All the people have faded from the dance floor, but continue their activities of eating and talking, though most are leaving or have already left. A different song comes on, and somehow I know it’s the last song of the night. It’s one I’m familiar with, but that I’m surprised to hear. Suddenly I realize Isaac had sung it. The words had not come out of his mouth but they were in his voice. “You know,” he speaks softly, so we can still hear the music. “You write beautiful music. Maybe you should sing it sometime.” My cheeks turn pink as he bends to kiss me. Then a hole opens beneath my feet and Isaac lets me go. I’m falling through a short hole that goes on for eternity, falling towards the light...