A Faery Tale - Finished

One Night With The Fae - Part One

- Cara -

Slightly drunk on the darkest night of the year, Cara was halfway down Conyngham road before she noticed the lights in the Phoenix Park. They hadn’t been there a minute ago, yet now beaming lights bounced and flashed in spectacular prisms of colour that echoed across the sky. She followed her friends, staring at the lights in wonder.

“What do you think those lights are for? A rave or something?” she said, half to herself.

Her best friend stopped shouting at her boyfriend long enough to look around quizzically. “What lights?”

Apparently unwilling to wait for an answer, Zoe turned her attention back to her boyfriend, continuing the shouting match as if there had been no interruption.

Cara gazed at the park, longing to go over and see. It didn’t matter that Zoe hadn’t noticed. Nobody ever noticed the same things as Cara.

Her group of friends were heading home together after a typical night out. Cara was already late, and when the others stopped into the nearest chipper for a few bags of hot chips doused in salt, vinegar and grease, she hesitated. Maybe she could cross the road and check out the strange lights. Just for a minute. She would be back before they even noticed her gone. Besides, Zoe was used to her wandering off on nights out; her friends would wait. She hoped.

Cara crossed over when the traffic lights turned red and the cars stopped, weaving in and out to cut across two roads before making her way straight through the entrance of the park.

She put one foot past the gate, heard the strangest music of all time, and made up her mind. She had to see. She followed the lights but they moved further and further away all the time, as if beckoning her forward.

At first, she had expected to go as far as the monument, but she found herself heading past the zoo and not stopping even though her high heels were making her hobble onward. The music called to her; she could feel it vibrating in her veins with every note.

She wanted to stop. So stupid. Always doing the impulsive thing without thinking about it. She needed to turn back and walk the rest of the way home with her friends. Back to normality and the wonder at what she might have left behind.

But her feet kept moving forward, faster and faster in time with the music that was building up into a frenzy.

The park was dangerous at night, so she had to be careful, but she didn’t feel in control of her own body. Her mind was there, her thoughts and wants were there, but nothing connected them with the rest of her body.

Each streetlight that lined the main road cutting through the park extinguished as she passed it by. A fleeting look behind her showed nothing but an empty expanding darkness, each light snuffed out as if by a giant invisible hand. She had to keep moving just to stay within the remaining light. There was no going back.

Avoid the dark. That’s the rule.

She shook her head. No. Those were children’s nightmares. The dreams that had once haunted her sleep had never been true.

And yet the dark crept behind her, forcing her to move further into the park.

She hadn’t seen or heard a soul since she left her friends. The park was usually full of life late at night. Between drug dealers and prostitutes, customers and gardaí, it had never been so lifeless. Somehow their absence screamed of wrongness, of something lurking in the dark.

If the lights were from some kind of party then surely there would be voices, shouts, laughter, anything. The only sound she could hear aside from the drumming of music was the wind rustling in and out of the undergrowth of the many overbearing trees. In the dark, they leaned towards her, as if threatening to snatch her up in their barren branches.