Darkness in Summertime

By Django Wexler

I was fourteen the first summer the fairies didn't come back.

On the first day of summer, we went out to wait for them. We always had. Sylphie and I had wandered all over the little forest that backed up against our summer house, and right in the middle there was a huge old tree. The thing was half-dead, its insides mostly rotted away, but up near the top it was still strong, and every year it put out leaves. When I was six, we'd first discovered the tree, and Sylphie had poked her head into the hole near the bottom, before I could tell her not to. (I was the responsible one, even then.) She found the fairies inside.

There was a huge uproar at first, of course. The little things fluttered around so fast we could barely see them, talking in their high-pitched little voices. After a while, they sent a delegation of elders (I always thought the elders, with their silver wings, were the prettiest.) to look us over. Once they realized that it was just a couple of little kids, I think they were relieved. The braver ones came out to talk to us, and that was the start.

After that, we visited the fairies every day we could. Dad never came with us up to the summer house; he couldn't leave the city. And Mom spent most of her days in town, visiting friends. It was nice, in a way; she trusted us. After all, what was the harm? The woods were safe, the house was safe, there was never any traffic. We didn't mind, because it meant we spent most days with the fairies.

Those summers were wonderful. Playing hide-and-seek, we learned that forest from end to end. Sometimes we'd sit and listen to the fairies; they were always ready with tales of exotic places and adventures. Other times we'd just sit, together, and watch them dance overhead like so many colorful butterflies.

The summer of my fourteenth year promised to be a depressing one. The spring had been mostly rain, and cold besides. In fact, it was raining on the day Mom packed us into the car and started the long drive. Sylphie was whispering to me as I climbed in.

"I wonder what they do in the rain?" It never rained on the fairy tree, not that I could remember. I shrugged.

"Maybe they all stay inside the tree."

Sylphie's eyes lit up. "Maybe they have little beetles that hover over their heads like umbrellas!"

Mom caught the last part of that as she leaned into the car, bearing another load of luggage. She chuckled and turned to me.

"Make sure to watch out for your little sister. We don't want her getting hurt."

I rolled my eyes. Mom had given me the same ritual admonishment since I was eight. "Yes, Mom."

She smiled. "Good. This'll be fun." Glancing at the sky, she added, "Hopefully this darn rain will clear up."

The drive, as always, was long and boring. We arrived at the house with three days left in spring. Sylphie wanted to run right out to the fairy tree, but I held her back. Mom tended to watch us the first few days, and anyway, the fairies never showed up until the first day of summer. She reluctantly agreed to wait. So we lazed around the house, watched TV, played games. Satisfied once more, Mom started leaving us alone again.

The darn rain had never cleared up, in fact, and we had umbrellas the first day of summer. It didn't matter; Sylphie raced ahead of me, to the old tree in the center of the forest. By the time I got there, she was crying.

"It's okay. It's okay, Sylphie. It's probably just the rain. They don't want to come out today. They probably don't like getting their wings wet, you know."

I guided her back to the house, under my umbrella. She lay in bed the rest of the day, moping. I thought about telling Mom something was wrong with her, but that wouldn't be fair.

It rained and rained, and rained. To top it off, Sylphie caught a cold from being all wet. With sneezing and a fever, she was confined to bed by maternal order. The days dragged into a week, until finally the rain stopped.

"We have to go!"

I shook my head. "Sylphie, your fever is still a hundred and two. You can't go outside, especially not in the damp."

She shook her head, and her eyes threatened tears. I sighed.

"All right, all right. We'll go out and tell them you're sick, and to wait until you get better. Is that good enough?"

She nodded, suddenly bright eyed. We once again traced the winding path to the center of the forest, and the big old tree.

This time Sylphie was inconsolable as I gently walked her home. I couldn't get any coherent words out of her, much less slip any reassurance in. Once we got back, she locked herself in her room for the rest of the night.

It became our daily ritual from that point on. Every morning, she'd wake up and beg me to take her to the fairy tree, and every day she'd come home crying. Sylphie's fever got worse, and the rain clouds started to build up again, black thunderheads hanging ominously in the sky. Mom got worried, and sent for the doctor; he laughed a little and gave her a vial of pills that I was to give to Sylphie. "Perfectly normal," he said. "There's a lot of it going around."

The next day, just after Mom left, we went out to the tree again. I don't think even Sylphie expected to find any fairies this time, but she still burst into tears. I tried to console her on the walk home.

"Maybe we're just too old now, Sylphie. Maybe the fairies have found some other little girl who needs them more then we do." It didn't work; I didn't think it would.

That evening, I was downstairs watching television when Sylphie came into the room. Something was wrong; tears were still strong in her eyes.

"What…"

"I hate you!" Her voice was a high pitched shriek. "It's all your fault! I hate you!" In one hand, she held my jacket, an old brown windbreaker; she threw it at me and run up the stairs to her room. "I hate you!"

The jacket hurt; there was something heavy in one of the pockets. I rubbed my leg and sank back into the TV program. I wouldn't blame her, I decided. She's only twelve. She doesn't know any better.

A few hours later, I decided it was time to make peace. Old jacket in hand, I climbed up to her room and knocked on the door. While I waited for her to respond, I put the jacket on and felt in the pocket. My heart froze as I recognized the object, pulled it out.

A camera. My old ratty camera. I had wanted to take pictures of the summer house, maybe some of me. But I knew, suddenly, that it had been in my pocket all along…

I opened the door. Sylphie's room was empty, but one of the windows was wide open. The house was old, and there were plenty of tress and vines one could climb down; we used to do it for fun before Mom caught us and pronounced it unsafe. I ran to the window and looked down, futilely; she was long gone. As I did, though, I felt the first few drops of the next rainstorm.

Mom got home a few minutes later, and it took a few more before she could understand my babble. Once she did, though, she raced for the phone. When the police arrived, I told them to look for an old, dead tree in the middle of the forest.

In the morning, they found Sylphie. She was lying curled up at the base of the old tree; she hadn't even taken a jacket with her. The doctors shook their heads and said it was nonspecific heart failure, probably brought on by exposure; I was just old enough to know that meant they had found nothing at all. I wanted to go out to the old tree, but Mom, of course, wouldn't let me leave the house. She couldn't understand why I was so frantic, other then grief. She didn't understand I wanted to apologize.

I remember being sad, at the funeral. Mom and I were the only ones who really cared; Mom's friends showed up in black and muttered the appropriate condolences, Dad listened to the eulogy on his cell-phone. The priest was a generic one, the best the little town had to offer; he seemed caring enough. I knew none of it mattered. I remember being sad, but not because Sylphie was gone; I knew that wasn't true. Somewhere, in a land far off, she was still with the fairies. But it wasn't here.

The rest of that summer was rainy and cold. Something bright and beautiful had gone.

The End

Django Wexler is a writer, programmer, wargamer, and RPGer, among other things. He generally laments the fact that all his disposable income is tied up in his various hobbies. (Yes, I need that TNT2 for my, um, writing. That's it.) He is currently a student at Carnegie Mellon University, doing Computer Science. When not there, he lives in Westchester, New York, with two dogs and more computers than immediate family members.

E-mail: khaine@mindless.com

URL: http://mercury.tiedrich.com/~django/