Written by RowanCarver

A red Chevrolet truck pulled into the back of the cabin, stopping in the wheel-shaped notches etched permanently into the grass. She'd never been so excited to see someone who smelled so badly of chew and body odor.

"You know him?" Stephen asked.

Charlotte was already walking to the truck. "Yeah, he owns the place. Can I meet you at the restaurant? I just need to ask him something really quick."

"Sure thing. I'll order you a coffee, alright?'

She grunted something in reply and skipped over a log. Mike shut the car door, shrugging a backpack on his shoulder and shuffling an armful of hard-backed books. He had an ax swinging from his belt. "Can I help you?" he said, rather defensively.

Charlotte pulled the rat's nest wad of hair out of her face. "Hi, I was here the other day? Asked about the fairy crosses."

Mike shot a finger gun at her. "That you did! Did you want me to cut that cross you found?"

"Uh..." She couldn't remember where she'd put the little gray stone. "Well, no, actually. I..." She looked at the cabin. "I was wondering if I could ask a very weird question."

"What might that be?"

" I saw something by my house. These blue lights?" She checked over her shoulder to see if Stephen was still there, listening. Thankfully, the crunch of his tires against the gravel was echoing through the fake village. "Anyway, I wanted to know if anyone around here has ever seen...like, I know there are legends, but..." Her face grew hot, and she stammered, "Do people have fairy sightings here?"

Mike stared for a moment, his eyes wavering under the bushy white eyebrows, and then a slow smile split his beard. His gaze was kind. It was like he was looking at his daughter who just asked if unicorns were real. Well, Charlotte had basically just done something like that.

"These are some very old mountains," he said, "and some very strange things happen here."

He clomped to the cabin, scraped the mud off his boots on the rug, then dug his keys out of his pocket and began unlocking the library.

"You're just going to leave me with that?" Charlotte asked.

He shook his head. "Why don't you come inside and tell me what you saw while I set up."

Mike's definition of "setting up" was opening some blinds and putting some Folger's coffee grounds into a white coffee maker from the 90s. The machine hissed and gargled like it was possessed. What coffee it managed to spit out smelled the way her car did when she left coffee stains on the seats and rings in the cup holders, then it festered all day in the summer sun. She wasn't so hungry anymore.

She stood in the doorway while Mike sat by the display cases, pressing his fingertips into the dust on the counter. He pointed at an office chair that was missing its wheels. "Why don't you grab that over there and tell me about these fairies you saw."

"I never said I saw any fairies–"

He cocked his head to the chair again. "Sit. I'll get you a coffee."

Charlotte sat and searched for children with beetle wings in the walls.

"Gonna be a hot day," Mike said.

Charlotte wasn't sure why she was so nervous. "Guess so," she said, her throat tight. She kept looking around the room for potential dangers. That was a new habit she'd developed after Greyson left.

"People start seeing funny stuff this time of year because the heat gets to 'em," Mike said.

"Makes sense," Charlotte said, unsure of herself. The night was cool when she was home. The summer was starting to loosen its grip.

"You read that book you checked out?" Mike asked.

"Haven't gotten the chance," she said.

"One of those stories is about Chimney Rock. It's the third chapter or something...used to read it to my daughter."

"Daughter?"

His cheeks turned rosy and he sat up a little taller. "She's a biology professor at Georgia Tech. Has two sons, both of 'em firecrackers. They read that book, too." He stood. "Coffee?"

"Sure."

The coffee maker was fighting to fill the pot with plastic and arabica-flavored sludge. He poured it into two mugs painted to look like log cabins. When he dropped one between her palms, it warmed her heart. She never thought a cup of cheap coffee could be so comforting.

"Chimney Rock's up in North Carolina." He propped his feet on the display case. "It's a cliff with a tabletop shape. It's by a gorge where the Cherokee saw plenty of Yunwi Tsundsi–"

"Little People," Charlotte interrupted.

Mike nodded. "It's a spiritual place. The Cherokee described the little people like small nature spirits, usually with long black hair and clothes made out of leaves or flower petals. Sometimes you can hear them playing drums in the distance."

"I read a bit about that."

"Did you read about the angel fairies?"

She pursed her lips and shook her head.

"There was an English settlement by the rock...it's still there in remnants if you like historical sites, and we modeled a lot of this place based on those cabins."

"Oh. Cool." She tried to keep the disinterest out of her voice.

"Settlers there frequently reported sightings of fairies by the rock. Little children with yellow hair with insect wings. They wore white dresses, like angels." He took a sip of his coffee and smacked his lips. "Does that sound like your fairies?"

Charlotte's heart skipped. "How did you know about that?"

"Where'd you see them?"

"I..." She froze.

Mike took another sip of coffee and waited, eyebrows raised.

Charlotte gulped. "I just had a weird dream...maybe I saw fairies like that online or something when I was doing research. I dreamed about a valley behind my house way out in the middle of the mountains. There's this trail with weird trees on it."

"Trail markers?"

"Sorry?"

He made a football goal with his arms. "Branches look like this?"

Charlotte nodded.

"Trail markers," he said. "The Cherokee would bend saplings so they'd grow in odd shapes. They used them to mark their hunting trails."

"Yeah, they look like that exactly. And there were blue ghost fireflies."

"It's the best time to see them. Lots of visitors in town; been good for the park."

Charlotte glanced at the still-empty parking lot through the window.

Mike cleared his throat. "If you want to check to see if there were fairies in that valley, go see if there's a fairy circle."

"Fairy circle?"

"A circle of mushrooms. They always grow where fairies are dancing."

She couldn't tell if he was messing with her or if he was dead serious. The twinkle in his eye would suggest the former, but something about the way he told these stories made Charlotte unsure if they were just legends.

She wanted to ask if he had seen the fairies himself but didn't have the chance. He grabbed his keys again. "Well, I have to get the exhibits ready. Stay as long as you'd like."

Charlotte stomached another sip of coffee and focused on not wincing. "Thank you."

He was already leaving, waving over his shoulder as he went to his truck. "Come back anytime!" he said right before the door closed behind him.

Charlotte drove home in a daze. The Folgers cured her headache somewhat, but she battled a fog of exhaustion thicker than the mountain mist. Driving home on autopilot isn't the best idea on all those narrow mountain passages. She was surprised when she pulled into her driveway because she couldn't remember the commute between her house and the museum.

She sat in the driveway and watched the sun glint off Greyson's necklace dangling from the rearview mirror. The meadow wouldn't leave her thoughts. What if it really was back there? She wanted to try and find it again. Not because she hoped the fairies were real, but because for the first time in years, she was thinking about something other than Greyson.

That pair of boots by the front door had been clean for too long. A good hike would be beneficial anyway; forty hours a week at a desk paired with moping about the house in the afternoons hadn't been so great for her fitness.

She cracked the front door just enough to grab her shoes, then put them on and didn't bother with the laces. She walked around the house telling herself that the crooked-armed trees wouldn't be in the backyard. Even if they were, the valley wouldn't be behind them anyway.

She didn't have to walk very far into the woods before finding a great elm with its arms bent upward as if it were worshiping its own branches. There was another trail marker just a ways ahead, this one resembling the head of a dragon, its scales made of lacebark and moss.

That daze from the commute came back. It was like the forest had some spell over her, guiding her feet without her will. She touched the first trail marker and then trudged to the next, searching for a break in the foliage where the valley should be beyond the leaves. At some point, she wasn't sure how long she had been hiking, but her legs burned and the trail was getting steep. She looked behind her and found nothing but trees. The sun was sinking low. Night came early in the mountains because the peaks swallowed the sun before it finished setting. She knew she should turn around before it got too dark, but going back meant having to face all the people she was letting down.

A part of her was horrified that the trail mirrored what she saw in her dream. The rock face beside her, the cliff to her left. I am either having prophetic dreams, or I really came out here once and forgot about it. So many people lost their minds in the mountains, why would she be an exception? The break in the trees ahead wasn't reassuring, nor was the sweet scent of grass and flowers. She jogged to the top of the slope, then gaped at the oak tree reaching its branches for the pink sky.

The valley was just as lovely at sundown as it was in the middle of the night. She'd never seen flowers like that before. Red flame azaleas, bluets, goldenrods, trout lilies, and beebalms. The flowers filled the spaces between bushes and baby pine trees. The clouds above them were full of orange sunlight, and the mountain peaks rimmed in gold.

At least being crazy meant finding a place like this. She could breathe for the first time in weeks.

She walked through the grasses and brushed the flower tips with her palms, searching the ground for fairy circles until the sun disappeared completely. Despite the vastness of the meadow, she didn't find one mushroom other than a cluster of turkey tails growing over a tree stump. The fairies really were a dream and she wasn't going insane, right? Shouldn't that make her feel better? But she couldn't help that sinking pit of disappointment growing in her stomach. It was like learning Santa Claus wasn't real all over again, and that there's no magic in the world.

"Mike's a bastard," she muttered under her breath. "He knew I'd come out here if he told me that."

She tied her shoelaces and climbed back to the trail. The stars and fireflies led her home.