Fairies, treason and plot: part 1.

She was having the dream again.

Ethereal, even by dream standards: a nebulous swirl of colours-blues and greens, and music- lutes maybe and harps, both so interwoven it was almost like synesthesia.

And always that feeling. Comfortable. Familiar. As though this cacophony of sound and light belonged to her. Or she to it. 

And always, that moment, right before it can claim her (or she it) her eyes open.

She wakes to light, muted, against a beige sky. The colours of this place are stagnant, dull. The sounds do not dance or inspire movement. It takes her but a moment to resolve them for what they are: the blinking 'fasten seatbelt' sign of the overhead, cold glass against her cheek black with night, the low rumble of engines and the slow snoring of a slightly obese lady next to her.

She feels the panic rise as she becomes fully awake. A plane. She was on a plane. But how? What was she doing here? How did she get here? And where was she going?

She takes a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. Calm yourself. Think.

Her purse lies at her feet, pushed under the seat in front of her. She picks it up, opens it and goes through the contents. Wallet, hairbrush, lip balm, Advil, passport, a book. She pulls the book out. It is new, paperback, likely recently purchased at the airport bookstore, romance from the cover and not at all the sort of thing she would read. But clearly she has been reading, almost to the halfway point, if the pen sticking out and possibly serving as a book mark was any indication. She opens it and sees words scrawled on the page.

 

DON'T PANIC

EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE

HEADED TO LONDON

ALL WILL BE REVEALED.

The words do not reassure her. The fact that it is her handwriting and she has no memory of writing it makes it worse. She turns a page and sees another note from herself to herself.

RELAX.

YOU TOOK YOUR MEDS.

The hysteria rises. She could feel it moving up her lungs, into her throat, threathening to burst out in a fit of manic giggles.

Breathe. She commands. Think. Remember. What do you remember?

The woman next to her stirs slightly. Her name is Maude, she thinks to herself. Widowed, three children, two grand. Lives in Glassgow. Back from holiday in St Lucia where she was visiting her daughter. 

Okay. Good. This was a start. She could remember a conversation with a chatty passenger. Now she just had to go further back a bit. 

Nothing comes. Except a headache. She hails a smiling stewardess and asks for water. When it comes she thanks her. Maude stirs again, startles awake and knocks the water out of her hand.

"Oh dear! I'm very sorry love," Maude says as she helps her mop up the spill.

"It's all right."

"I'm just a bit clumsy. Getting on in age you know. Me name's Maude by the way. Heading back to Glassgow. Visited my daughter in St Lucia for a spell. Are you from there? Your accent sounds a bit different."

.....

She is off the plane now, with her purse and her carry on. Another note, this time left under the luggage tag of her carry on, lets her know that this is all she has travelled with and the details of her stay.

Her responses to the immigration officer are mechanical. Conference. Physician. Park Royal Hotel. One week. His tired 'enjoy your stay' sounds every bit as rehersed as her answers.

Close to the exit a crowd has gathered. Travellers, mingled with hired drivers waiting with signs and relatives waiting with flowers or just expectations.

An old man, perhaps late 60s, stooped from age and scoliosis holds a sign with her name. His face droops slightly on the right side but his gait and movements are normal. Bell's palsy perhaps, she thinks, as she moves towards him. He looks up and their eyes meet. Briefly there is a sensation of strageness...wrongness... something otherworldly. The panic she has been fighting returns. She wants to turn and run. But run where? She had already checked her wallet. No credit card or cash. Clearly everything had been paid for before hand. It was either this or wander around the airport until some one made a report about a suspicious looking dark haired brown skinned maybe she's a terrorist female loitering in Gatwick International. God. She couldn't believe this was happening. Taking a deep breath she walks towards the waiting man.

....

Lying on her bed at the hotel, she runs through the events of the day in her mind. Despite the odd feeling, the taxi ride had been uneventful. Standard tourist-driver exchange and nothing more. Clearly the sensation she had on setting eyes on the man had just been paranoia. Understandable, given that she had found a bottle containing Risperdal, a prescription antipsychotic, with her name on it in her carry on.

There are memories of an argument with an emergency physcian about his poor management of a case, memories of walking out of the hospital. Bits of conversation with a psychiatrist, diagnoses like brief psychotic episode or bipolar but then nothing more. No friends or family or people she could call. 

Transient global amnesia brought on by stress? She wonders. There were also migraine medications and studies have shown a link between the two. But no. This seemed different. It wasn't so much an inability to form new memories but an inability to recall specific things. Such as information that could help get her back home. It was as though something was blocking that. Didn't want her to go back.

And now, we are back to paranoia again, she thinks. But paronoia, psychosis, amnesia none of those things could explain how she knew what that woman was going to say before she said it. 

You are being foolish, Dr. Persaud. Her rational brain argues. For some reason, it does so in the voice of her former cardiology consultant, a woman who was the epitome of intimidating. Think. Reason. That passenger was very gregarous. She must have told another person the same story as you were falling asleep. Your subconcious mind just mopped it up.

 

Logically, this made sense. But her insticts were arguing otherwise. A knock at the door disturbs her.

"Room service," a voice calls from the other side. She doesn't remember ordering anything. But in fairness, she didn't remember booking a trip to England either, and she was starving so she opens the door.

The smells that come from under silver covers on the tray are heavenly. She lifts them to reveal a feast: roasted chicken, vegetables, potatoes and for dessert, a sticky toffee pudding with custard. Heavier than what she would normally have for dinner, but she devours the meal heartily. When she is finished eating, she notices something under one of the trays. A small package, neatly wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. A small tag reads 'Open Me'. Inside is a copy of Alice in Wonderland, one of her childhood favourites. She also finds a train ticket and another note:

SOMETHING TO READ ON THE TRAIN RIDE TOMORROW.

SCOTLAND IS LOVELY THIS TIME OF YEAR.

Curioser and curioser. And deeper down the rabbit hole.

.....

Her train ride was long and tiring. She slept fitfully and woke with a headache. The coffee from the train does nothing in the way of a stimulant, in fact it seems to be having the opposite effect. She is relieved to find another taxi waiting for her when she stumbles out into the cold dark of the early autumn morning. A young man this time, tall and lanky, with red hair. If there is anything unnatural about him, she does not sense it. She is tired, annoyed and just ready for this adventure to be over. She gets into the car and is asleep within minutes.

She wakes to the sound of men arguing. Instead of the leather covered seat of the taxi, she is on the ground: hard roots and damp earth beneath her, branches and orange-yellow leaves above. Through the autumn canopy comes swaths of sunlight and the pale white of a dawn sky. More troubling is the fact that her hands are bound behind her back. Has she been kidnapped? Why? What do they want? Ransome? Or something more sinister? Rape? Sex trade? Organs? Her mind races and she tries desperately to focus on what they are arguing about, desperate for anything that could help her escape. Their words fly by in a flurry, too quick for her panicked mind. Before she could make sense of anything, they both turn and come towards her.

Instictively, she draws back, shuffling on her heels until she collides with a tree trunk. A scream threathens as they close the distance but is stopped by her sudden recognition of the other man: elderly, stooped and with a a palsied face. Though she was sure it had been the right side of his face that was twisted rather than his left.

"You!" She exclaims. "Your face..."

"You bloody Leprachaun! Why can't you ever put your damned face on right?" The younger man says with disgust.

"Who're calling Leprachaun, boy?" The older man replies. 

She watches in disbelief as the old man rubs his hand along his face, transforming it. The drooping eyelid, the slackened muscles and the twisted mouth vanish completely. Even a few wrinkles are smoothed away.

"Well," he says looking at her and nodding at her bound hands, "Begging your majesty's pardon for this welcome, but it's good to have ye home again!"

....

She sits at a wooden table in the kitchen of a small country cottage, an untouched cup of tea infront of her. Her captors or subjects or whatever they think themselves to be had untied her after she promised not to run. Not that running would be much use. She had no idea where she was, and from what she had seen of the place there was no one and nothing save miles and miles of wild country.

The old man sits across from her. The younger one is standing by the fireplace, poking it and occasionally adding another log to the flames. 

"Let me get this straight, you're fairies?"she says.

"Well I'm what you would call a Brag, Conner their is a right proper fairy...Autumn court."

"And I have a fairy, your fairy queen stuck inside my head?"

"Aye."

She wonders if this is another episode, another break from reality. One would have thought that delusions would at least be culturally congurent. But somehow, she knows this all to be real.

"How could this happen?" She says aloud. It is more of a rhetoric, but the old man answers anyway.

"Treason," he says bitterly. "When they pierced my Lady's body her spirit escaped. Fairies cannot die the way mortals can. What happens is the spirit can leave the body. The bastards tried to imprison it. But luck happens that you be passing and her highness escaped into you. A rare thing but possible."

"So I've been here before then?"

"Aye, holeedaye" he says the word slowly and with uncertainity. Maybe fairies did not have holidays.

"God" she mutters, "most tourist just pick up E.coli."

The younger man has turned from the fire place and is now looking at them.

"So what now? I'm guessing all of this was her majesty's elaborate plan to come back here. So why is she still in my head?"

"Well she needs to get back into her body"

"Okay..."

"But the iron swords prevents it."

"So take them out" she replies, exasperated. The headache from earlier is returning.

"It's not that simple...our folk cannot abide iron. Canno touch the damned thing.But I've come to understand that you are some sort of sturgeon?"

"Surgeon," she corrects, not liking where this was heading.

"Her majesty would be much obliged if you would be the one to do the...eh...oppoorayshan."

"No." She has a vague memory of a neighbour asking her to perform surgery on a cat once. This felt worse.

"No? But why ever not, lass?"

"Why?" She asks, rising to her feet. "Because this is crazy! You're crazy! Or I'm crazy! And you don't exist!"

"Well," says the young man, "if you are crazy, and we don't exist, then doing this surgery should not pose a problem should it? I mean, what harm can be done operating on someone who isn't real."

"I...this doesn't make sense," She says, sounding more frustrated.  The two men just look at her.

"I don't know anything about fairies." She says at last.

The young man's lips curl slightly.

"Oh, I promise, we are just like humans, though not nearly as fragile." 

"Lass," pipes up the old man. "You've got nothing to lose. Her majesty gets to go home. You get to go home. Everyone's happy."

She thinks for a moment and realizes that there is no way out. If this is real, then this is the only way to get rid of her unwanted passenger and return to her normal life. And if it wasn't, well she might as well let the delusion run it's course.

"Fine" she says.

"You will help us?" The old man asks.

"Yes."

"You are going to help us restore her majesty to her body?" The young man asks.

"This might be a terrible idea but yes."

"You will help us?" The young man repeats. 

"Jesus Christ on steroids! Are you deaf? Yes, I will help you!"

"Thrice the question asked and three times answered. So you are bound to us and to this task till death or done." The young man replies.

"A bit dramatic, this one," she says dryly. "Okay, take me to your leader or Queen or whatever and let's see what needs to be done."

"Well, there is just one other problem," the old man says. "We need to figure out how to get her body away from Queen Mab."

....

There is a small bedroom in the cottage with an ensuite attached. Someone (or something) had run a bath and left it waiting for her. Towels, robes, beauty products have all been laid out for her - a royal welcome. She undresses, sinks into the hot bubbly water and moans with delight. She closes her eyes, breathes in the sweet scents of lavender and vanilla, and momentarily tries to forget the two men who had just left and this whole business about fairy queens, treason and plots.

When she is finished with her bath, she decides to unpack her small suitcase -more thoroughly than she did in London. Clothing, sleepware, a small laptop,toilitries, medication and a case with contact lenses. Odd, because she knew she wasn't wearing any now and her vision was perfect. 

She takes the laptop out and opens it. Sitting on the bed with it, she explores the desktop, clicking on a folder labelled photos. It opens, revealing sub folders with various titles: Lisa's Wedding, Surgical Case File, Conference, Scotland. She clicks on Scotland and looks at the pictures, trying to recall her previous visit. She sees herself at various locations, castles, museums, an Iron works factory, restaurants but nothing jogs her memory. She had hoped that once she had agreed to help these creatures, her memories would all be returned instantly but it appeared that fairy magic did not work like that. Frustrated, she closes the lap top, and gets off the bed. She walks over to a small bookshelf in the corner of the room and scans the titles of the spartan library. 'A Midsummer's Night Dream', Celtic Myths and Folklore, Irish Fairy Tales, An Encyclopedia of Fairies. Wonderful.

She pulls the slender copy of Shakespheare from the shelf and thumbs through it, more to settle her nerves, than any interest in reading. The margins contain handwritten annotations, and at first she thinks they are simply notes that a student had made while studying. On closer inspection she realizes that names are circled. 

'Tatania' and then and arrow pointing to the word 'Me'. And 'Mab' pointing to the word 'Nemesis'. 

She pulls another volume from the shelf, flips it open and finds more notes. Passages are underlined and words scrawled in the margin near the text: true, false, highly unlikely. From the looks of things, Queen Tatania was trying to get her up to speed about fairies. Cliff notes on fairy culture, she thinks. Closing the book, she takes another from the shelf. This one is much smaller, the pages blank save for the first. At the top is written (in that familiar note leaving handwriting) 'Ask, and I will answer.'

A noise from outside startles her. Stuffing the journal in the back pocket of her jeans, she goes to the window and peers out. She sees nothing but trees decked in automnal colours. No movement aside from branches dancing in the wind, the swirling of fallen leaves and flitting of birds. Paronoid, she tells herself, and turns away.

Her mind barely has time to process the sound of something crashing through the window, it happens so swiftly: glass shattering, wood splintering, shards flying everywhere, and then she is grabbed from behind. Rough arms encircle her, inhuman in form and strength, lifting her off the ground. She tries to wriggle free, but the muscled arms that hold her are like a vice. Her legs flail uselessly, trying to find purchase or a target to hit. The creature, unperturbed by her struggle, whirls around, and jumps through the open window. 

She screams loudly as she is carried, her cries for help drifting into the the desolate woods with the dead leaves on the wind. No one is around to hear. No one is coming to save her. She screams anyway, desperate sounds of fear and frustration. The only answering sound is the cry of crows. She looks up and sees them, tiny black points circling in the sky, like a living tornado. Her mind thinks of the old Hitchcock movie, imagines the murder sweeping down, attacking. Attacking her assailaint. Helping her. Saving her.

There is a sensation of floating. Of flying. Of spinning. The world tilts in a vertiginous manner, sky becoming ground, ground becoming sky, and she is falling, plumetting down, down, down, screeching...

The birds descend, talons extented or beaks pointed. They scratch, claw, peck and assail her captor in a flurry of feathers and caws. For a moment she thinks it would not work, the beast was too strong, but all of a sudden it lets go of her. Swiftly it transforms into a great black stallion and charges away from her. She runs in the opposite direction, stopping only when she can no longer hear the sound of hoofbeats. She leans against a tree, trying to catch her breath, her body shaking with fright and exhaustion. With the immediate threat gone, she starts to think about her next problem: she is lost. She has never been much of an outdoors person. Direction beyond left and right were, in her book, best left to GPS. It was why people had smart phones. Of course, there was no app for being kidnapped by fairies. 

A caw comes from the branch above. She looks up and sees one of the crows. It appears to be watching her and she gets the feeling that it wants her to follow it. Given all that has happened, this idea does not strike her as crazy. Getting up, she looks at the bird and says "lead thr way."

 She follows the bird to the entrance of a cave. The bird flies down and perches on a fallen tree. It is holding something in its beak. She walks cauriously towards it, her hand extended. It drops the object into her palm and flies away. She looks at what she holds: an amulet of tarnished silver inscribed with a celtic horses head, attached to a worn leather cord. Curious. She places this gift into her pocket and turns to face the cave. It seems that this was going to be her shelter until she could figure out what to do next. 

"Hope there are no bears," she mutters and steps into the cavern.