I almost forgot about the trash bag in the back of my closet.  A long time ago, (I think maybe fifteen years?) I tied it in a triple knot, sealed it so no air would come in, and left it in the back end of my closet. Over the years, it was buried beneath the permafrost of unwashed laundry, which piled up and took over the closet. 

I should say I’m not a hoarder. My room is a mess, but that’s mostly because I’m forgetful and have a hard time letting go of stupid things. It’s become a problem, recently, because I just can’t let people into my space. And every few months I try to make changes, but then, shortly after, my studio ends up looking the same. And because it is a studio, because there isn’t much in the way of pushing things out of sight, my closet ended up being a time capsule of dread, which I would rather not think about. Except I think it might be time.

As I went through shirts I used to love, and colors I no longer wear, and that specific scent of mildew that things get when they are gross and old, I found the bag, and I remembered, though I never really forgot. And I decided to open it, tear into it, because there is no real alternative to opening knotted plastic bags, I was shocked. Who ate from my old grandmother’s fur coat?

My old grandmother’s fur coat, which was sealed from the world by virtue of three or more defenses, had holes, chunks and pieces missing from it. It looked like someone had been eating from it.

I, of course, suspected it was the greedy wrath of moths. But how did they get there? And why have I never seen them? Because I never see anything like that in my apartment. I’m always afraid that there might be roaches or bugs, but they never come. And I am sure, if there was a moth problem, that I would’ve known about it, or would have seen something. My space had no windows, and I knew it inside and out. So where did they come from?

Unwisely, I began shaking the old, hole riddled coat, and released a cloud of dust and mummified dander into my poorly ventilated room. And through the thick screen of gray powder that spread all around me, I saw a shadow. A figure. A dark clump that floated with the grace of a juicy fly. The creature, which was not big but definitely not small, landed in front of me, coughed, and when the air finally cleared, took the extra measure to gurgle its throat before speaking. 

“Let go of my coat”, it said with a squeaky, unmistakably French voice.

“Excuse me?”, I said, inexplicably ready to pick a fight with the abomination before me.

The abomination was a bipedal, moth-like thing, that was almost fairy-like, except it wasn’t at all pretty.

“You are not excused. Unhand my garment before you stain it with your human filth” it said, turning away from me. It then put its moth-ish mouth to the fabric and cut out a perfect hole.

For some reason, that really upset me.

“But it is not yours, it is my grandma’s- I mean, it is mine!” I pulled the coat away from the creature, who stared at me blankly with its glossy eyes. 

I haven’t really thought of my grandma in a while. She was a hard person, sometimes. She started working in a sweater factory at a young age, and before she died, she told me about a strange creature she sometimes saw while working late nights. A creature with slim, sharp fingers that fit between the seams of clothes, and unfurled them just for fun, undoing weeks’ worth of work at a time.

“But you never wear it”, the not-fairy said patiently.

“That’s beside the point. When my grandmother passed, everyone went to her house, and picked something, except for my aunt and dad, who received custody of her old apartment. I didn’t really want anything, but I felt bad just leaving, so I took this coat, and nothing else. So, it is my only memory of her”. I crossed my arms. I was resolute in standing my ground.

Never mind the fact I was digging out my disaster of a closet to get rid of most of the things in it. Give to goodwill that which was salvageable and washable and throw away all that should no longer exist in the world. Before even seeing the coat and its many holes, I had already known it would be thrown to the trash. I didn’t want to give it. And though I hated the thought of my old rags in some landfill, adding to the endless mass of destruction that eats at the earth and oceans, I was okay with this specific coat floating across the Atlantic straight to trash island. It’s not personal, it’s just kind of an ugly coat.

“Well, for the past five years have been using this trimmed pelt to create a garment tapestry for her supreme majesty, Queen of all Moths, in her latest couture piece de resistance. I need this coat to finish my work, for as you can imagine, her Majesty does not take kindly to failures and disappointments, and she has the highest of expectations for my latest chef d'oeuvre!” the creature shrieked, going out of its way to use French words even when I could tell it didn’t need to. 

“A queen?” To counter the creature’s vocabulary, my voice turned a bit New Jersey, though I have never even been to the Garden State. 

“Yes, the moth queen. All moths report to the moth queen. Taking bits and pieces of clothes from human closets to create glorious outfits for her. Mostly, we take a few scraps from the edges, leaving just a hole or two. But when I first brought a small piece of this coat to her domain, nearly five years ago, the queen loved it so much she insisted that I- simple ashen drone that I am- become her personal atelier and use this coat to create a magnificent winter cape.” the creature declared, before dissipating into reverent sighs. “And oh, what a true honor it has been...”

Something about it unsettled me. I felt like it was trying to trick me. Making me believe that something was special when it was so clearly not. I pulled the coat closer and held it tighter. “Well, then I hope you’ve gotten everything you need out of it, because it’s mine, and I am not giving you more.” Fuck this moth. Moths think that all fabrics in the world belong to them, but they do not. And it’s none of its business what I plan on doing with this coat, so it should just give up and go home.

“Name your price” it insisted, hanging off the coat with its insect hands. “I have nothing to my name, but I will cut off my left hand and give it to you for this is my life’s work!” the creature screeched. “Not just my life, but my life’s work! And you should be so honored that anything of yours is coveted by the Queen, you-” the creature was losing its French accent, and something in me reveled in the confirmation that it was phony.

“You may not have my grandmother’s coat.” I repeated, meeting the hysterics with an unshakable calmness. I knew that if I just kept my calm for a bit longer, I could probably get away with it, the only thing is I had a hard time physically holding onto the coat. It had always unsettled me that my grandma felt comfortable in fur. That she was even proud to wear something that was once alive. A rabbit. Multiple rabbits. A rabbit that once skinned, was probably eaten by a human, who at some point died, and that skin is all that is left of them both. This coat is gross, but it was hers, and now it is mine, and I don’t like giving things away. 

“I told you to name your price, blundering idiot!” The creature persisted, and I decided to snatch the coat from its grasp completely and condemn the obnoxious harpy to its queen’s cruel death. This coat is dear to me.

But when I held the coat of many holes and looked through the gaping veil, I did not see to the other side of my yellowing closet. I did not see the furious creature rapped with me in a small room. Instead, I saw the faraway place from which all strange creatures come. A place where all missing scraps go. A place full of lint and pennies. A place where discarded string finds its use, stacking and weaving into something greater than the sum of its parts. A dimension of many colors.

And in the center of it, a little atelier workshop, and in the center of the workshop, a furious queen.

“Fluffy?! Fluffy?! Where is that skiving mothball, Fluffy?”  she demanded, flipping through Kraft paper patterns impatiently.

If I could, I would describe to you the Moth Queen’s face. Her, no doubt, regal and royal features. But I couldn’t really find her face because there were so many eyes on her clothing. Whenever I thought I identified a face, I realized it was just the strange pattern of her lapel, or a hand extending from her hat. I was mesmerized. 

She reminded me of the walls of some far away castle, with tapestries that commemorates a people and a past. Successful hunts, and jilted lovers. Family trees, and royal deaths. And all those figures, peaking between the layers of her coats, could also see me. And I wonder what they were made of. Other people’s coats? Old polyester? Silk? I thought I saw goat skin and marmot hair lining one of her skirts, but I couldn’t be sure. It made me wish my studio had windows, so I could get pretty curtains that also looked like this.  

Poor Fluffy looked terrified, and seemed torn between disobeying the queen, and facing her wrath. I saw Fluffy’s creation hanging on a mannequin in the corner of the room. Whereas the rest of the Queen’s clothes appeared to be all the colors combined, Fluffy’s piece was just simple brown and gray. I could clearly see the patches around the collar that were pieces of my grandmother's fur. I remembered her wearing a really red lipstick with this coat, before going to the department store to smell the perfumes. I think it’s because I knew The Moth Queen would probably not like Fluffy’s creation, that I was suddenly fine with giving the coat away.

Fluffy flew into a hole in the coat, taking the whole coat into itself, and more than anything, I was just kind of astonished to see a rabbit disappear.  

Trees move, and love, and exist the way humans do, but they do it very slowly. So many people every day pass by a war zone of trees, choking and breaking each other as they compete for sunlight in dense brushes. But humans see them unmoving, like statues, and assume they are simply standing by each other, entangled in a messy embrace, and do not see the action that preceded or that will follow. If humans would’ve lived like trees. Slow. They would’ve seen the clear movement of one tree killing the other in broad daylight. But they can’t, so they think it's an orchard of love.

Johnny Appleseed was a man like any other, except different and very odd. He was known for conquering land by planting trees. He had walked barefoot hundred thousand miles on a strange pilgrimage to make more apple trees, transforming the land and therefore owning it, and then leaving somewhere far away to do it again, and again, and again, and never stopping, just making more and more apple trees that he himself so rarely enjoyed. The guy was just really passionate about apple trees.

And of all the many trees he seeded, and the many apples he sowed, Johnny Appleseed was only married to one. 

It began in the early winter, when the land of Upstate New York turned cold and the apples hardened. Johnny Appleseed rarely returned to any of his old plots. He was a nomad with a mission, a wanderer in uncharted lands, armed only with fruit, and his three distinct hats.

The first one, which most people know about, was a pot that he wore over his head. This was to signal to the world that he was a fool. The second hat, beneath the pot, was a small, metal crown, which he had fashioned for himself. That was to remind himself that he is the king of all creation, and by nature, all trees bow to him. And the last hat, the most secret hat, elusive to even avid historians and dedicated folklorists, was a wig made of chipmunk hair, that hid his receding hairline. 

Johnny did not plan his return to Upstate New York. He had wanted to go to New Orleans, and bargain good times for more apples, but when he asked the devil at the crossroad which way to go, the devil laughed and pointed to New York. He led Johnny down the long path of his old orchard, where the trees grew plentiful, but not pretty. 

He was snowed into the orchid valley, and maybe that was why, for the first time, he couldn’t leave (or leaf, if you are into that sort of pun.) Appleseed did not like stopping. He did not like the quiet pause. And it was in the dark and quiet the Johnny heard one tree tell the other: “this is the winter, surly, in which we all die”

Johnny didn’t like hearing that.

“Why do you say that, little tree? Don’t apple trees love the winter? After all, you thrive in the cold.” The tree turned to Johnny, skeletal with red poison for eyes.

“No, for us trees sustain ourselves in death. We require humans to feed on, and you stranded us on this strange land, so far from home, with no farmers to eat.”

The branches of the tree cracked, waving in the wind. 

“We cannot sustain ourselves alone, Johnny. We require humans to exist. You remember back in Holland, right? You remember how slowly the trees moved at night, and how much closer they would get to the barn. You remember when the orchard became a forest, and the fruit fell rotten on the ground. And so you ran away, but you brought us here with you, and so you continue to run.”

Johnny didn’t like hearing that. He had always considered himself a religious man. A pilgrim in a wild land. And everybody loved him, for all he did was plant trees. He did not indulge, he did not take, he simply gave birth to trees, and then moved on.

“But you are a bounty of life! Your fruit, the very origin of all knowledge, shaped like a heart, and for some reason, a sin, but I never really got that part.”

The vicious tree, that had since moved closer to him, spat more of its venom, “ It is a sin because humans once lived on trees. Humans once jumped between branches and feared the gaping maw of snakes. And all the while, they ate fruit, before learning how to hunt for meat. They depended on us, and now, we depend on them, because we too learned to hunt for meat.”

Johnny lost his sense of time. Did not realize he was surrounded by trees. Did not realize the trajectory of their movement even as he was surrounded and engulfed from all directions, their slow movement hugging him closer. 

And that’s how Johnny Appleseed got married to a tree!

“A shark!” Kyle called, and Polly squealed as she flailed around with her floaties.

“Over there! Over there!”, he continued, and pointed to something invisible below them, moving closer and closer to Polly. Like many older brothers, Kyle liked to lie when he thought it might be funny. Polly thrashed around, trying to get away from the invisible menace. 

“Stop it!” she cried, and sea water went up her nose, mixing with frustrated tears. Kyle knew he went too far, but really, why did his sister have to take everything so seriously?

“Hey, hey no, it’s okay. There isn’t a shark. See, no shark, there aren’t any sharks this shallow in the water. It’s okay Polly, it’s all okay…” and he tried to help her, but she was still upset at him. “You lied!” Her face got red and swollen, and Kyle knew that if she went to their parents looking this upset, he would get into serious trouble. 

“I didn’t lie- I was just um, mistaken. I saw, well, um, a really big fish almost touching your foot and-” Kyle paused, realizing that the idea of a giant fish, even a vegetarian one, would freak her out. “but then I saw it was a mermaid! Um, a purple, bluish, mermaid, and I freaked out! I just freaked out!” He said with a huge smile, hoping she would mirror his excitement and forget the invisible shark.   

Polly squinted her eyes skeptically and sniffled. “You didn’t see a mermaid…” 

But Kyle, an experienced older brother with almost ten years of wisdom on this green and blue earth, immediately sensed the strained hope behind Polly’s skepticism, and knew to tug at it. 

“I just like, saw her for a second. It was like, so fast, I freaked out! And I think she was like, looking at you, like maybe she wanted to tell you something?”Polly's eyes filled with wonder at the prospect of being chosen by a mermaid, and Kyle knew he had just nearly avoided his sister’s meltdown and his parent’s scolding.    

“Where is she now? Mermaid! Mermaid!” Polly stuck her face beneath the water, and Kyle had to remind her to put on her goggles so she doesn’t hurt her eyes.

“Maybe, we should just keep our eyes peeled out for any fish ladies that pass by?” Kyle tried, hoping that after a few minutes of nothing, Polly would forget about the mermaid as well, and they could go back to playing the games he wanted to play.  

“Fish lady…” Polly scanned the water as Kyle pretended to look. “Maybe we should ask that octopus woman over there?”

“What? Like The Little Mermaid? Like Ursula?” Kyle laughed and turned around, expecting to see more made up, invisible creatures of the sea. Instead, he saw a very real, very visible adult woman, with eight human limbs- four arms, which propelled her through the waves like a windmill, and four legs that kicked the water behind her.   

‘What?’ Kyle froze. 

Polly waved at her. “Hello, Octopus lady-” Kyle wanted to scream. Why was his sister speaking?! Why would she say something to an obvious monster?! “Have you seen a mermaid passing by? She was um, purple, and blue?”

Kyle suddenly realized how far away they were from the shore. When did that happen? Kyle had been so distracted, he failed to notice the tides pulling him and Polly into the deep end of the  sea.  

Octopus lady smiled, “I haven’t seen a mermaid pass by here, but if you are looking for one, you should try diving down. Mermaids prefer the darker parts of the sea.”

“Yeah, well I think we need to get back or mom and dad would get angry-” Kyle tried to cut in, getting in-between the two. 

“But it’s not fair! I didn’t even get to see the mermaid and she was just here-” Kyle pulled Polly away and began pedaling towards the shore. He watched the women swim away, and realized that she was a phenomenal swimmer, probably because she had eight limbs.

Kyle, on the other hand, was only a good swimmer for a ten years old. Thankfully, he could hold onto Polly and her floaties as he kicked and doggie peddled to the shore, but the tide was strong, and it didn’t seem like they were getting any closer. Polly, for her part, began splashing water around a little to try and help.

“Polly, stop it! You’re just making it harder! You’re splashing at me!”, Kyle said, tired and running out of breath. His goggles were getting all foggy and weird, and his arms were beginning to weaken and burn.

“No I’m not! I’m helping!” she kept splashing, accidentally splashing him in the face.

Kyle noticed the eight limbed women passing by again, nearly finishing another lap, moving like a steam boat against the tides. “Are you sure you don’t need help?”, she asked.

Kyle did not trust the creature before him. But then he thought about the time he and his friends watched a show called “Dumbest ways to die”, that mentioned, off hand, that drowning was by far one of the most painful ways to go, and changed his mind.

“Yes! Please!” his head kept falling under. “Please help us get back to shore!”

The women held onto Kyle’s shoulder, and Polly’s arm- and dove deep, deep under.

####

Polly slipped from the women’s grasp, her floaties keeping at the surface, but Kyle was taken under. The women swam so fast, and Kyle was stuck to her side, unable to let go. Thank god he had his goggles on.

Before he knew it greenish-blue had turned a darker shade, and the endless, clear sea had turned strange. “Let go of me! Let go!” he tried to call, but all that came out were bubbles.

Then, he saw the giant shape of it. He mistook it for a big shadow, or a dark discoloration at the bottom of the sea. But then, he saw it move. Move in dimensions so impossibly large, it seemed impossible for it to be real.  

The octopede woman moved to the side, as if trying to maneuver around the colossal shape of the fish, but accidentally touched its side, causing it to kick its tail and turn. They were thrown to the side, and Kyle slipped from her grip and fell into the ocean darkness. 

When he opened his eyes, he felt something rough touching his skin. Corals. Corals that for some reason, looked like people. Had faces. Petrified stone faces. He watched the last of his air escape through his lips, translucent bubbles getting further away. He couldn’t move, and he felt sleepy, so he closed his eyes.  

Up above, Polly was still floating by herself. Large swells of the sea bobbed her up and down, as the tides sent her further from shore.

###

When Kyle returned to consciousness, he was in front of the giant fish’s eyes. A glass lamp, man made, hung from his forehead like a deep sea monster from a fairytale. It convulsed, and  thought the weight of its movements could cause earthquakes, Kyle was close enough to see the fish was in pain. 

“How am I breathing?”, he mumbled, but he was under water so his voice did not carry.

He realized it must’ve been something in the sea creature’s light.

He moved closer to it, and the monster opened its enormous fish mouth, and revealed a whole world inside. Between its giant teeth, stone corals with faces, some smiling, some scared, some alive and moving, and others white as bone. He saw the shapes of sea creatures that have been freed of their bodies. Gelatinous masses with eyes, somewhere between slug and squid. Spinning urchins, dancing sea worms, and puffer fish that are just puffer fish, which is still pretty weird. No mermaids though.

And one giant creature, a house with crab legs, walking to the edge of the fish’s long tongue. And out came an old woman, who seemed to be made mostly of seaweed, and smiled at him.

The eight-limbed lady appeared again by Kyle’s side, and said “Here, I have brought you to our shore.”

Kyle did not see land or sand, or his parents, or anything he had been hoping to see. “But this isn’t the beach! We’re still at sea!” This time, his voice did carry, and even echoed between walls of the fish’s mouth. He realized that something was slowly pulling him in, like the tide had earlier, but this time, he recognized it, and kept a safe distance from it.

The sea Witch responded “this is our shore. The point of separation and connection between your sea and our land.” She explained. “Normally, our ‘shore’ moves at the very bottom of the sea, far and across, never stopping, balancing the weight of your worlds and ours. When it stops moving, bad things happen. Earthquakes and droughts. As you can see, our fish world is in terrible pain, trying to hold back its mighty sneeze. I implore you, please, hurry into the fish’s mouth. You will be safe inside, safe from the sneeze!” Kyle looked at the fish’s face. Though the eyes of fish are hard to read, Kyle could see its face shaking in pain, if desperately trying to hold back a storm from erupting through its nose.

“What will happen if it sneezes?” Kyle asked.

“Earthquakes. Tsunami. What your kind might call ‘the big one’, which nobody will survive.” Kyle thought of Polly, all by herself on the surface. His parents, probably worried sick, looking for them back at the beach. What would happen to them if the fish sneezed? “Hurry!” the witch called, and the lady with eight limbs swam into the fish’s mouth. “No! He can’t sneeze here, my sister is right above us!”, he called. “He has to move away!”

The witch shook her head. “He can’t move! That’s what I’m trying to tell you kid, our fish world has been stuck here for years! Ensnared by a dark magic!” she pointed to his bottom fin, which Kyle noticed was tangled in some kind of net, which was attached to the ocean floor. “The bravest of our kind tried again and again to release him, but fae folk cannot touch certain things within the human world. We cannot touch forbidden things, unnatural things, and when we do, we lose our magic and transform into a permanent fixture of your world. The Witch said grimly. Kyle looked down and saw again petrified faces in the bone white coral, stuck mid scream. They must’ve been the fae who previously tried to untangle the poor fish.

Kyle swam to the net, and saw the fish’s form straining against it, again and again trying to break free. The same way Kyle was desperate to breathe air, this fish was desperate to sneeze.

Kyle touched the net, carefully. For a moment, he expected his finger to turn into stone, but of course, he was human, and thus immune to its effects. He tried to push the rope, and pull at it. He saw bits of metal and nylon fraying at the edge, woven together for maximum strength. It looked like a very serious fishing net. The kind that pulls metric tons of squirming, wet fish.  

He tried again, and again, putting his whole body against it. He thought about his family. He thought about his responsibilities as an older brother. He thought about when he won a swimming race in summer camp two years ago, and how he pushed himself beyond what he knew possible.

But nothing happened. After all, he was just a little kid. “Hurry up kid, this fish is about to blow!” the Witch screamed. Kyle swam back to the mouth, but did not enter. “Ask the fish to stop moving!”

“What?”

“It needs to stop pulling against the net! If the fish stops moving, and the rope loses some tension, I might be able to untangle it!”  

The Witch squawked. “Oh, no kid, we are way past that. This fish is sneezing, and we need to get in before the earthquake, NOW COME-“ and she tried to pull him with her cane “-IN!”

Kyle took a deep breath from the closing mouth of the sea monster and swam away. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” The witch screamed, as the fish’s giant teeth covered the entrance. Kyle looked back one more time and hoped the witch had listened to him.

He swam to the net, feeling his heart beating out of chest, and planted himself at the base of it. When he looked up, he saw the fish’s mouth was just slightly open, and the Sea Witch peaked her face between its teeth. He had petted the fish’s lips, and whispered softly to try and calm the poor thing down. Kyle held his breath. He could feel how difficult it was for him to calm down at that moment, without air, and could not imagine the fish relaxing when it was seconds from an explosion. Kyle looked at its giant eyes, and in them, saw just enough recognition. Suddenly, the fish’s tail went lax, and its body floated without motion.

Slowly, the strings of the net loosened, floating about like the soft hands of a jellyfish. But they were still tangled, knotted up into tight loops and soft mazes. Kyle knew it wouldn’t be that simple. And as quickly as he could, with his little hands that could fit between the tight knots and the seams of strings, he looked for a way out. He moved one bit, after the other, and prayed as best he knew that whatever amount of time he had was enough.

Kyle saw the lightning. The sudden spark in the fish’s eye right before the blow. Quicksilver scales moved with intention, as the fish’s muscles returned. Kyle had only removed a little bit of the net, but even that was enough, and the fish broke away from it, the force of it throwing Kyle far away as the fish swam in impossible speed someplace where he could peacefully sneeze. Thankfully, wherever that fish sneezed, it was far enough that Kyle did not feel its thundering force.

Kyle watched the last little bit of air escape his lips as he sank. He wondered for how long he would fall.

Before Kyle saw anything, he felt it. Something sharp and smooth touched his feet. He just barely opened his eyes to see the endless blue, before feeling himself being pulled forcibly onto the surface. Even without seeing, he knew exactly what it was that was pushing him from below. It was the invisible shark. Of course, it was the invisible shark, after all, he had pointed at it earlier that day.  

He broke through the surface; thrown into the air the way he had seen seals thrown by a hungry great white. Still, he was not afraid. The invisible shark had brought him back up because he was his friend. He landed gently between the waves and coughed out enough sea water to fill another ocean. He then looked around frantically.

“Polly!? Polly?!”  He looked back and forth but couldn’t see her. Then, he heard a delighted laugh.

“Polly!” He screamed. Polly popped her head from below the water, still securely bobbing around with her floaties, and splashing around playfully before noticing him.

“You’re back! They told me you’d be back! Look, Kyle’s back!”

she laughed. Confused, Kyle swam to her, and saw a school of mermaids swimming around her. They looked exactly how Kyle imagined mermaids to look, except they were the size of shrimps. A seagull tried to snag one from the sea, but Polly punched it in the face. The mermaids, who normally avoided the surface and the sun, made an exception when they saw Polly floating by herself. They comforted her, and entertained her while Kyle was away. The miniature sirens sang their farewell, and swam back to the deep, where no doubt they would return to the mouth of the mysterious fish.

Kyle hugged Polly, grateful for her floaties, and grateful for the calm sea that kept her safe even when the fish was about to blow. Then, he looked to the beach, and realized the two of them were still incredibly far away. But Kyle knew he was strong, and he knew that he could swim, even to a far away shore.  

Thanks to Kyle’s kicking legs, and Polly’s encouragement and floaties, they made it to shore just as the sun set. Kyle reached the soft sand, and collapsed, tired beyond belief. Their parents found them, and scolded them heavily for disappearing. Polly told them all about the adventure, and Kyle assumed they did not believe her, just as he wouldn’t have earlier that day. His mother interrogated him, reprimanded him, and hugged him deeply. When they returned home, Kyle showered, removing the salt and sand from his skin, and already, forgetting bits and pieces of his day. He sat on his bed, smelling like flowers and soap, and watched late summer turn to fall. Soon, Polly will start her first day at school. Kyle will grow up, and like all adults, forget about the fae. Still, maybe someday he’ll look back at that one summer day, for no reason at all, and remember feeling strong, and swimming against the waves of the sea.