The Gossamer Truth
In the rolling hills just beyond their backyard, brother and sister wandered daily into the woods. They knew every bend of the stream, each leaning tree, and the way the light sifted like powdered gold through the leaves at noon.
Their parents called it “playing outside.”
But to them, it was their world.
One afternoon, the air felt different, lighter more free. They followed the stream farther than they ever had, past the thorned briars and the hollow log where the fox sometimes slept.
Then, as if the woods parted just for them, they stepped into an iridescence bubble between trees and an old school desk appeared against a tree. Inviting them in as if they were new students to this enchanted forrest.
The grass was impossibly green, glowing like emeralds kissed by sun. Tiny orbs floated above it as soft as bubbles, radiant as rainbows. A waterfall spilled gently from a cliff of stone, but the sound it made was not water. It was music. Whispering, laughing, singing.
The children were silent.
They stepped softly, with wonder in their eyes. All around them, the air shimmered. Trees curved in graceful arches, and strange flowers leaned toward them as if to listen. The moss the softest they’ve ever seen.
What they didn’t see, what they couldn’t see were the fairies.
Delicate as wind and bright as moonlight, the fairies watched the children with wide, glistening eyes. They were creatures of old magic, invisible to all. They seen the children as whole
and lighhearted,still new to the world.
The fairies whispered, “Look how light they are. They walk without shadow.”
They danced silently above them, weaving ribbons of joy behind their wings. They didn’t need to be seen. The children’s laughter and light was enough.
After what felt like moments or maybe years they thought they may run into Rip Van Winkle. As they turned to leave the boy looked back once. The gateway was gone. Only trees remained. They brought their father back to show what they had discovered but upon arriving to this whimsical place they saw nothing but an ordinary woodland.
But something stayed with them.
In dreams.
In light and laughter.
In the feeling that the world, even when ordinary, fairies might still be watching.
They never found that place again.
But the fairies remember them still.
