A Faery Story

This was Elvenia’s first job. She’d been in Wish Parent training for years now, practicing listening to secrets, granting wishes—within reason—and setting boundaries. The last was the hardest thing of all.

“And the most important,” her teachers always said. “Sometimes humans ask for things that will hurt themselves or others too badly to repair. It is our job to guide them toward better choices.”

They made it sound like being a Faery Wish Parent was more like a security guard than a grantee of wishes. And what was the fun in that?

Elvenia wanted to have fun. She wanted Beatrice to have fun, too.

“Just look at the poor woman,” Elvenia said to herself. She watched Beatrice stumble around the tiny, yellow and white kitchen, struggling to make coffee in her stocking feet, drab brown skirt, and badly buttoned cream blouse. Beatrice’s brown hair was a tangle, and her dark eyes still held shadows that spoke of a restless night.

The woman dropped the bag of coffee, spilling fragrant grounds across the white linoleum floor.

“Dammit!”

Elvenia could have cleaned up the mess in two seconds, but held back, as per instructions, as Beatrice broke out a red broom and dustpan, sweeping the scattered grounds into a heap that went in the metal trash can hulking in the corner of the space.

Coffee finally in the old-fashioned metal percolator, Beatrice padded to the bathroom to fix her hair.

At least, Elvenia hoped so. That bed head was not street ready.

“Maybe today will be okay,” Beatrice had whispered in the dark. Such a paltry, sad, little wish. And one that clearly wasn’t going well so far.