Flash Fiction Anthology

Veronica

Her toes were still searching  for her slippers on the smooth wooden floor when she realised that this wasn't her bed. The simple wooden frame was now wrought iron, her pristine white sheets were dark blue, the man... the man sleeping on the bed next to her, whom she noticed as she finally stood up, abandoning the search for her slippers, wasn't Milan... and there was no sign of her three children anywhere...

Pressing her hand over her lips to prevent the gasp threatening to escape her, she walked backwards towards the window, getting tangled in the floor-length velvet curtains now blocking her view of the garden. She pulled them apart, feeling the panic rise within her, not even the voice whispering somewhere deep within her mind that this was only a dream could calm her.

But the view of the garden helped-- a weeping willow grew in its middle instead of the oak, a small pond glimmered like a piece of mirror underneath, rippling in the place where a rivulet of water falling from a shell held by a statue of a nymph broke its surface, the sound of water reaching her through the window.

Unable to resist its beauty, Veronica slid the floor-to-ceiling window open and walked outside, her bare feet marvelling at the feel of dew-covered grass on her skin. It had been so long since she had done something like this, something, anything out of the routine her life had become.

"Welcome, Veronica."

A soft, musical voice disturbed her train of thought, and she giggled at seeing its owner.

The Queen of Fairies was exactly how Veronica imagined her from Hannah's book, the book she had been asked to read every single night for weeks now. In that book, this winged lady fulfilled a secret wish of any obedient child who found her.

"Nice to meet you, Fairy Queen," Veronica said, smiling, convinced that she would wake up any minute now, her alarm would ring, bringing her back to reality.

"Your alarm won't ring today. You switched it off, remember?" the fairy asked, her butterfly wings thrumming softly behind and above her, making Veronica want to keep smiling even though she knew that this was hardly the moment.

"But I must wake up, I have things to do, children to look after, my husband..."

Even as she said that, she remembered that she hadn't seen any of them in the bedroom with her before she walked outside. "This... is only a dream, right?" she stammered, staring into the fairy's eerie, midnight black eyes, suddenly unsure. She had never had a dream so vivid.

"It is a dream, yes. But, as you like to repeat to your children, some dreams may come true," the fairy replied, an enigmatic smile playing on her lips.

"What... does it mean, what's happening? I must go back home, I'll be late..."

"Then go back. You are the only one who's keeping you here."

Veronica nodded, turning back towards the glass door, taking a step, stopping. This... didn't make sense. What was the point of bringing her here if she just could go back? And back... where? To the stranger sleeping in the bed next to her, or her children and husband?

"Who is he?" Veronica asked, nodding towards the house.

"Don't tell me you forgot about Adrian."

Of course she didn't. Adrian had been her best friend and her first love, but he had never seen the possibility of their friendship growing into something deeper. Not until she stopped thinking about him that way, too, and let herself fall in love with Milan. Then, when he danced with her on her wedding day, she refused to acknowledge the shadow of regret she saw flicker in his eyes. They had never met since, but Veronica had never stopped thinking about what may have been...

"What does it mean?" she whispered, entirely lost in the picture of a different life the fairy presented her with.

"It means exactly what you are hoping it means. I'm here to fulfil the wish so secret that you never really allowed yourself to formulate it. I'm offering you a different life."

"No..." Veronica muttered. "Please don't..."

The temptation was incredible. But her pull to go back to her children was equally strong. This wasn't fair.

"They would never happen, it's as simple as that. And Milan would be married to someone else. No harm done." The fairy shrugged, looking at her seriously as she replied to her questions before Veronica could ask them aloud. "But remember, the moment you walk through that door, there will be no way back.

The sun rose above the weeping willow just then, flooding the glass with a light so strong that it turned into a sheet of mirror, making it impossible to see what lay beyond.

Veronica took a few tentative steps towards the house and then turned around again.

"Where will the door lead me?" she asked the fairy who looked translucent in the sunshine, a figment of her imagination.

"Where your heart really longs to be," the Queen of the Fairies replied, vanishing entirely, leaving Veronica alone to take the last steps separating her from the door leading to her future.