The Faerie Haunt

It is a faerie-portal. I know it, I’ve always known it.

The day I first saw it, sixteen years ago, when this area had nothing but this winding crystalline river and fields all around it, I had stopped in my tracks as my friends ran on ahead, calling out for me to run and finally yelling at me for ruining the game, as my eyes had alighted on that cursed thing – a boat half-sunken in the silvery waters, filled with it, but still floating, its simple, small edges visible as if moored by some invisible force. My feet had wandered to it of their own accord until my friends had dragged me back, breaking my trance.

For a long time, I thought nothing of it, until when the next year brought me to the same spot, at the edge of the river, my eyes fixed on the boat. It became a yearly ritual, to visit that place and be united with it for an evening. As time went by, the fields disappeared, and a dam was built around the river for it flooded quite often in the monsoons. But every year, regardless of the insurmountable workload at the stock market that was my career, I returned to sit at the steps of the river, and every year, the boat remained the same; a single patch of unchanging magic in the midst of a world in constant unchanging flux.

I formulated several theories to explain it over the years (no one I asked had any idea about it or cared about it, frankly). In the beginning, it was a yearly game to me more than a ritual, to come up with a new story behind it. It was much later, that it became a ritual, when I could come up with no more stories, because only one kept coming back to me and, remained in my mind.

That, it in fact, is a pathway into the faerie-world, full of magic and curious cruel wonders. And I would stare at it unblinking for hours, under its enchantment; sometimes I even thought I saw twinkling specks of light around it, flying and humming. Fleeting possessions of an active imagination, perhaps.

But now, I think, maybe not. I came here a bit early to my usual appointment at the Winter Solstice, three weeks ago to be precise, since I lost everything in a rash contract and my home was torn down by angry fanatics; and in the past week I am certain I saw those twinkling lights dancing around in the nights, the waters around the boat ripple out in warning without any wind –yes- even now I can hear the humming. The hum feels like a siren call, as in the past few nights.

Tonight is the night of my appointment, a small smile curved my lips and turned into a triumphant gleam, my heart sped up in a quick breath, as I thought about it. I sat at the steps of the waterbank until the twilight hour drew to a close, and then I let go.

My feet followed the humming, inviting me to come, and touched the ice cold waters of the river. I flinched a little but kept walking down the steps, closer and closer, until my knees knocked the sides of the boat. With a cry I stepped into the boat, the waters inside familiarly warm, and let them take me into the world that awaited me beyond. The last thing I saw of this world is the twinkling of the skies.

~x~

“Pass the shuttle, you moron!”

Rajiv steadied himself and took a deep breath, the shuttle poised over his racquet. It was a matter of pride; if he managed to hit it well, he would finally be included with the older boys.

“Come on, it’s not one of your exams, what the hell are you waiting for?!”

Rajiv swung his racquet up and served the shuttle as hard as he could, he saw it soaring in the sky, heard the gasps of the boys and his heart soared too-

“YOU MORON.”

The shuttle had fallen into the river.

The boy opposite him, Deep, was glaring at him, “Just you wait, pipsqueak, once I get the shuttle I will cork it up you where the sun don’t shine!” He growled and stalked off to climb down the steps of the dam.

 Rajiv’s heart sank and he desperately looked for a way out, but the narrow road they had been playing on was surrounded on both sides by boys, the river ran on one side and a sharp cliff fell away to a windmill plantation below. There was nowhere to run. Maybe the person he saw sitting on the waterbank might help if he heard his cries while being beaten to a pulp…

“HEY! HEY, NO!”

It was Deep, yelling, and then screaming.

All the boys ran to him, Rajiv too for he had never heard the mighty Deep scream like that, and saw him standing a few steps into the river, staring into the distance, white as sheet and shivering.

The boys pulled him near the top of the steps and circled him like hawks, “What is it?” “Why did you scream?” “Was it the cold water, you sissy?”

Deep choked out, “The man-or woman-I don’t know-”

“What on earth are you blathering about?” snapped one of the boys.

Deep’s colour seemed to come back at that, and he gave the boy a sharp look, at which he fell back in the crowd, “I-I went down to get the shuttle, and I heard a noise, I looked up and there it was, a figure in white, and it was going down in the water, about to step into that sunken boat that keeps lying there. That was when I shouted. But they didn’t listen, and the next thing I know is a flash of light and – and- ” he gulped, “and it’s gone. There was no one there. I thought I was going crazy…”

It was deathly silent, so quiet even Rajiv felt it. Felt the boys considering their leader’s  possible insanity. After a pause, Rajiv spoke, “We should tell someone.”

But no one believed them. Because the men had found no dead bodies in the river for weeks afterward, and when Deep described the figure, people thought he was mad. It was months later, when Rajiv described a man, similarly dressed in white, sitting in the banks, that they identified the man as a wealthy business tycoon who had reportedly gone bankrupt and missing months ago; people who knew him said he had gone crazy since.

But Rajiv never heard anyone say that they had seen him after that event. Neither did the boys. After that night, that place by the sunken boat, came to be known as the Faerie Haunt, because Deep kept insisting he saw a faerie disappear into the boat as time went on, and Rajiv and all the people of that area passed on the tale of that night on every Winter Solstice: the tale of the disappearance of a faerie.