(Credit: wben)

Clearcloud smiles at the cloudless blue sky. She is close to falling asleep when someone cries

‘Look!’ and she sits up. Four humans are walking up the garden path, looking at Clovertoes, and Quicktoes is flitting around in the bushes behind them. Her transparent wings shimmer in the sunlight, but the humans don’t notice; they never notice. A cloud passes over Clearcloud’s face, but it is quickly gone. It has been a long time since humans have lived here, it might be different this time, it might even be fun; playing tricks on other fairies never feels quite as exciting.

During the day, Quicktoes breaks several coffee cups and a miniature horse made of glass while Clearcloud swaps the clothes in the boy’s and the girl’s wardrobes, which begins a heated argument between the children, and casts a glamour which makes the whole house smell of chocolate cake, which confuses all the humans and greatly disappoints the adult male. Clearcloud meet with Quicktoes on the roof several times where they laugh their heads off and Clearcloud tells her friend that she is glad the humans came. When did they last have such fun? Quicktoes smiles as she answers that she does not recall, but her eyes are worried and is casts a shadow on Clearcloud’s spirits.

An hour after the children have gone to bed, Clearcloud is curled into a ball and shaking. It is their dreams, just like last time humans came, their dreams are so loud. The girl child dreams of a school yard and the shouting and laughter reaches Clearcloud as if through a megaphone, tinny and jarring. The boy dreams of a forest, and the shrill calls of dream birds cuts into Clearcloud’s ears, it cuts into her bones. She tries to sing, she tries to stuff her fists into her ears, but the noise just grows and grows. So she whizzes down into the girl’s bedroom and tears the covers off her, then onto the boy and pushes him out of bed with a well placed glamour. She sighs as the natural night noises replace the garish dreams. It will not last long, she knows, they will fall asleep again, but she has many more tricks up her sleeve. Maybe a nice violent thunderstorm could do the trick. Or if they’re heavy sleepers, she might have to throw them against a wall.

A week later, four battered and bleary eyed humans shuffle down the garden path with what they can carry. They clench their teeth against the sting of the fresh cuts on their fingers. When Clearcloud wakes up she will be sorry for hurting them, but right now she is enjoying the nothingness of fairy sleep.