The Mushroom Circle

The Mushroom Circle

            It seemed a perfectly innocent mushroom circle, but it would prove our undoing.  I look back on that night now, and I see how foolish we were, thinking only of ourselves, blinded by our happiness at being together.  If we had been able to take our eyes off of each other for one minute, one of us might have noticed the little mushrooms that grew, small and neat, in a circle on the forest floor.  One of us might have thought twice about walking through the forest, so close to dusk…might have remembered the warnings we had been given about doing just that, time and time again, since we were children.  One of us might have realized how we, a young, innocent, self-absorbed couple in love might tempt the Fair Folk so.

            I still have that image in my mind, of our last moment together, before they came and took us away.  We were walking through the woods, later than we ought to be.  Dusk had almost fallen over the forest and our little village in the distance.  You were telling me a story, your green eyes shining with excitement, a wide smile lighting up your face, while I rested my head upon your shoulder.  I think you noticed something was wrong before I did, because you stopped, mid-sentence, and the light in your eyes quickly turned to fear.  Everything seemed to have stilled, and there was a heavy, unnatural silence around us.  We looked down at our feet at the exact same moment…we always did think alike…and it wasn’t yet so dark that we couldn’t see it there: the cursed mushroom circle that would tear us apart.  We might as well have called out to the Fair Folk, begging them to come and take us away.  

            At that moment, the eerie silence around us was replaced with haunting music, music such as no instrument wrought by human hands could ever make.  Faerie music.  And then there was the laughter, a light, airy laughter that nevertheless chilled me to the bone.  I remember you grabbed my hand then, and I could tell that you were as frightened as I was, every muscle in your body tensed.  Then, out of the growing darkness, they came, beings both beautiful and horrible, just a little too tall, just a little too fair, to be human.  They circled around us.  I suppose they thought to block us in, in case we tried to escape, but we were both so frozen with fear that it was unnecessary.  They came closer, the cheerful music and laughter growing louder with each step they took.  One of the fair strangers patted my shoulder as though to reassure me, and I made the mistake of looking up at his face, looking into his eyes. 

What I saw were not human eyes, but eyes of glowing light, so deep, so full of the magic and power of many ages, that it wasn’t long before I forgot myself, and became lost, every thought of escape gone from my mind in an instant.  In fact, I couldn’t quite remember why I had been so terrified mere seconds earlier.  I felt perfectly warm and safe, and when fair folk voices started coaxing, “Come, dance with us!  Come!”, I wanted nothing more than to do just that.  I do remember experiencing one brief instant of panic, when your grip on my hand loosened, and then was gone altogether.  In the next second, though, I had forgotten why this ought to panic me, and allowed one of the folk to take my hand and lead me away.  To where, I can’t tell you, because soon after that, everything went dark.

*                      *                      *

I awoke some time later, how long I cannot say.  There was no sign of any of the folk, and my mind was my own once more.  My first thought was of you, and I began frantically searching the strange field in which I had awoken for any sign of you.  There were others, a dozen or more, all looking as confused as I am sure I myself did.  I scanned the sea of faces, but yours was not among them.  I tried calling your name, but it was to no use, as you could scarce have heard me over the din of all the others around me, calling out for lost children, husbands, wives, friends.  All, like myself, trying to make sense of the world they now found themselves in, a world which we would soon learn existed quite outside of sense or reason.