A Moody Fairy by Karen Heslop

Hi, my name is Dennis and there’s a fairy in my room.

Now before you start a FreeTheFairies hashtag Twitter rant, just hear me out. I live pretty far from the town, which is great when I want to avoid bill collectors, but sucks balls when I’m bored. So tonight, being bored as hell, I thought I’d do something I hadn’t done since I was a kid: Catch fireflies in a jar, watch them for a while and then let them go. I got one of the mason jars I usually use for preserving fruits and stuff from my cupboard and went hunting in the darkness outside.

Before long, I saw the telltale zigs and zags of light hovering over some bushes. I ran after them until it hurt to breathe and I had to take a break. I watched my glowing prisoners bounce against the jar’s glass walls before removing the lid to start the process again. They all flew out except one.

I shook the jar but it still didn’t budge. I took a closer look and–I kid you not–there was a tiny person glowing all yellow-orange in the night, clinging to the jar’s edge. I carried the jar up to my room and used my magnifying glass to confirm the presence of a tiny girl in a sea-green frilly blouse and palazzo pants outfit. There were pointed bits of metal hanging from her belt. She took something out of her top and placed it to her lips.

“What the fesh are you staring at mortal?”

Her voice resounded through my room like a tornado and I dropped the magnifying glass. I took it up just in time to see the rolling of her eyes.

“I’ll leave in the morning. I shouldn’t have been flying around at night anyway. I got lost.”

“Jesus…what the hell? What are you?”

“A talking firefly. Fesh, I thought mortals were smart. I’m a fairy.”

I didn’t need the magnifying glass to see the eye roll that time.

“Um…Okay…um…do you need anything or…”

She flew out of the jar and perched on my windowsill.

“Is the church near here?”

“Yeah, just over that way. Is that…where you’re from?”

She looked in the direction I was pointing but didn’t reply. I was about to say something else when she took off for the top of my wardrobe.

“Near enough. We help the church find people possessed by true evil. They glow red under our magic so we tell the priests where to go. They deliver them…or kill them. Their call.”

It got a little hard to breathe when she said that but then a loud snort came from my wardrobe.

“Not you, you feshing moron. I said I was lost, remember?”

She nestled down and pointed to the belt I had spotted earlier.

“I’m going to slumber. Come near me and I’ll use these.”

Her glow dulled to a faint yellow after a little while which I figured meant she was ‘slumbering’. I snuck closer, stood on my tiptoes and peered through the magnifying glass. A sharp pain lanced through my forehead and I toppled backwards, slightly blinded by her bright orange light. I stumbled to the bathroom and a thin line of blood trickled from right below my hairline. I had a hell of a time prying the mini-weapon from my skin with a pair of tweezers.

She was still glowing orange when I was done so I lay on my bed in silence until she simmered to yellow again. I’m still curious but I’m scared she’ll aim for my eye next time. I’m getting a little tired myself so I figured I’d let someone know about the moody little fairy in my room.

So if some guy named Dennis turns up dead on some backwater farm tomorrow…Well, I probably looked at her again.

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Karen Heslop writes from Kingston, Jamaica. Her stories have been published or are upcoming in a Devolution Z anthology, 101 Words Magazine, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, The Flash Fiction Press, The Nine Tales Series, Speculative 66, Cemetery Moon, Phantaxis Magazine, Bloodbond Magazine, The Blotter Mag, Black Girl Lit Mag, Worlds Unknown, Yellow Mama and Bards and Sages Quarterly.