All right, here's a short story that I.... actually haven't been working on that long (compared to another short story of mine). O___o;;; And here it is complete, if unpolished. I'm shocked. Please tell me what you think, and give me all the critical commentary you have to offer! I'm really trying hard to make it better. ^___^

*****

I saw him standing at the base of the hill, on the most glorious day of spring. The season was nearing its end, the customary caressing breezes about to be swung back like a silk shawl, laying the land bare to the blistering heat of summer. The grass was lush and seemingly never-ending, soft and cool to the touch, springing back up again to glory in the sunlight right after you’d trodden upon it. The trees of the forest were laden with leaves of a bright, fresh color you’ve only ever seen in your dreams, the supple branches bowing and swaying over the nearly overgrown dirt path.

He himself looked like he belonged in that enchanted tableau, his soft white beard ruffling in the wind, his worn clothes giving him an air of traveled competence. Thinking he might be able to help me find the proper road again, I dared to step into that hallowed spring glade and approach him.

“Excuse me, sir?” I began, as politely as I could.

He turned to face me, both slowly and abruptly at once, and I saw that he did not seem sure of himself at all. His pale green eyes focused on both myself, the trees and nothing at once, his beard drooping at the corners with childlike disappointment and confusion. This concerned me, prompting me to ask him:

“Old man, are you lost?”

Of course it occurred to me that I was lost, myself, but obviously this old man was as well. And since I was much younger and stronger than he was, it would be far better for him to come with me than to continue wandering in the wilderness all alone.

But he replied in a quavering voice, “Lost? No, no, I’m not lost….”

“You aren’t?” I asked, relieved. “Than you live around here? Could you direct me to the main road? You see, I seem to be lost, myself….”

“Afraid I can’t tell you where the road is,” he said rather apologetically, finally managing to focus his eyes on mine, though they remained as bleary as ever.

This took me aback somewhat. “Why not?”

“Because… because I don’t know where it is.”

“But you said you weren’t lost-”

“I’m not.” He repeated himself, as if to make sure of it. “I’m not.”

“Then do you know this place? Do you know where you are?” I was becoming more and more confused by the second.

His wizened face mirrored the confusion I felt. “No.”

“But you said you weren’t lost,” I insisted. I was starting to get fed up. Was he having fun with me?

Then a new thought struck me. Maybe he was senile. Maybe he lived somewhere nearby, had slipped the notice of his caretakers and wandered out here before coming back to himself. If that was the case, I had to get him back to his home as soon as possible.

“Here, old man, what’s your name? If you come with me, I’m sure we’ll find your home soon, and then-”

I broke off as he suddenly grew agitated, his eyes wide with alarm, his beard shaking and jumping as he protested, “No, no! You can’t take me from here!” He reached out and grasped my arm tightly with his wrinkled, stubby fingers, gazing up at me with pleading eyes. “I belong here! I need to find her! She’s waiting for me….”

His face was growing ever redder, and I quickly placed pacifying hands on his arms. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” I tried to soothe him. “If you don’t want to go right now, we won’t.”

The old man was obviously not in the possession of his own mind. I could hardly leave him by himself while I tried to find the road- what if he strayed off somewhere else before I returned to fetch him? And he was so adamant about remaining, I didn’t want to stress him by trying to further encourage him to leave.

When he had calmed down somewhat, I took him by the hand and guided him over to a rolling lump on the side of the hill that was the best seat available in this place, and for a man his age. After helping him to sit and making sure he wouldn’t lose his balance, I took a seat slightly below him. Then, patiently, as if speaking to a child, I asked his name, and where he was from. Both times he merely stared at me as if I had started spouting words in a foreign language.

The dark shadows cast by the trees had swung around in a small arc before I finally suggested that we go on our way. But once more I was rebuffed.

“I belong here,” the old man repeated, looking not at me but at the treetops. “She needs me. Can’t leave ‘til I find her….”

“Who?”

“I’ve been lonely.” He continued on as if I hadn’t even spoken. “It hasn’t been long, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen another face. I think I’ll tell you about this place while you’re resting here, before you leave. I think you’d like that.”

Not just me; we’d both be leaving, together. I found myself intrigued by his invitation, however, and also noticed that his voice and posture had grown stronger as he spoke. What harm could there be in listening to his story? It might even lend him some new strength.

“There are many names for this place; can’t remember them all. Oh, there’re ones like Fae’s Hill and the Faerie Hill and Spirit Hollow, and all these other odd names. But in the end, it’s just a hill. A whole bunch of superstition surrounding it, though. You don’t need me to tell you about it, though, do you? You know all about it by the names…. A-hah, see, you do. You know what the faeries are supposedly always up to.

“Well, the folk around here generally avoid this place. Say it’s cursed, or that they’d be punished by Otherfolk for trespassing. Load of bull. Stopped here to rest, myself, one afternoon, when I was returning from taking some milk to market in Lunn. You don’t see me being kidnapped by spirits, do you?”

He paused for a chuckle, his pale green eyes crinkled at the corners. The act of laughter, of any merry expression at all, looked foreign on him. He seemed to realize this, for he quickly switched out his smile for a distant, dreamy gaze.

“I was tired. You would be, too, traveling all that way, and pressed for time as it was. I thought I’d stop here and take a breather. It was a day just like this, only maybe a little better…. So I stretched out under a tree in the shade, but still able to feel the warmth of the sun, and it felt so good to be resting in the open air, with that cool breeze and the birds singing and the leaves rustling and it all smelling of fresh grass and blue sky and sunshine…. I didn’t mean to, but I guess I must have fallen asleep, because next thing I know, I was seeing her.

“Oh, I’d never seen anything like her before. Skin so smooth and clear, but…. But I don’t know if it was more like milk, or a daffodil, or a brown cow’s hide…. She had long, long hair, all flowing and running just like a river; green, it was, like pine-needles, and all dusted with flower petals like snow. And these big, big jay-blue eyes, looking right at me, full of tears.

“She didn’t say anything ‘cept: ‘Find me. Find me.’ And then she was gone. I was awake, feeling like I’d just been struck through by lightning. I knew it was all a dream, but it was so real…. I couldn’t get her out of my head, her nor her words. She was in a lot of trouble, I could tell, though I didn’t know what…. And she’d called to me. Out of all people, she needed me.

“So I went to find her. I’ve been looking for her, all this time. I haven’t found her yet, but I will, one of these days. Only a matter of time before I find her, and then we’ll get out of here, together.”
I found that I’d been leaning forward, caught up in his words. Drawing back, I asked him, “And did you ever dream about her again?”

The familiar distressed look re-crossed his features as he replied, “Nope, but I don’t need to. It’s not like I’m gonna forget what she looks like, or that she needs me….”

He looked up, squinting at the sky. “Look at that. Sun’s moved fast. You’d better get headed where you’re headed, hadn’t you?”

He stood as if to usher me back to the path, when I had had to assist him so carefully to his seat in the first place. It would have been enough to make me laugh inside, if there hadn’t been a pressing problem at hand.

“All right, but you should come with me, old man. You can’t stay out here by yourself.”

Immediately he sat back down. “No. No, I’m not leaving her. She needs me.”

“Please be sensible, old- Grandfather,” I pleaded, addressing him with a more respectful title. “It was just a dream. It was just a dream you had, that’s all! I mean, think about it- a woman with green hair? You know that such a thing is impossible. Unnatural!”

“Well, of course it’s unnatural! She’s Fae, that’s why.” He spoke as if he would say no more, would do nothing but sit there like stone until I left- then spoiled it by adding stubbornly, “And she needs me. She called-”

Just like that, my patience snapped. “All right, old man! I’ve tried to be reasonable, but you just absolutely refuse to listen to anything I say! She’s not real! Not real, do you hear me? That green-haired fantasy of yours doesn’t exist, and neither do the Fae, Otherworlders, whatever you country folk call them! You’ve got a family somewhere, don’t you? A home, a wife, children, grandchildren, perhaps? They need you much more than some afternoon dream!”

He recoiled from me like a child about to be switched. “No. No! She needs me! I have no home! I have no family! She needs me! She’s the only one I’m living for!”

But I’d had enough of his foolish, foolish words and his dreaming look and the adoration in his voice whenever he mentioned that accursed dream. I grabbed him by one arm and pulled him up from his seat, hard. “You’re coming with me, old man, even if I have to clout you over the head and drag you. And that’s that!”

“No, no!” He tried to pull my hand off. “No, I’m not coming! No! She-”

“Be quiet about her already!”

It was like my body had a mind of its own. Before I knew what I was doing, I had tackled him to the ground, desperately, ragingly trying to keep my hold on him, trying to stop him from resisting, to somehow make him admit defeat.

Needless to say, he began struggling more than ever. “No, no!” He continued to cry, flailing uselessly as I held his wrists in an unyielding grasp. “No, no, she needs me, no, no, no….”

Why wouldn’t he listen to me? Had he completely lost his mind? I released one wrist and struck him a resounding blow across the temple. My eyes were narrowed furiously, my mouth twisted up into a near snarl of rage and frustration.

His head lolled back, yet he still continued mumbling weak, incoherent words. Then his voice trickled away into silence.

I immediately leaped off of him, staring down at his prone form in horror. What had I just done? Struck a harmless, defenseless, witless old man? All because I had lost patience with him! Looking down at my shaking, upturned hands, I felt sick and disgusted with myself.

I looked back at the old man. “Grandfather, I promise, I will take you away from this place. I’ll take us both away, and neither of us will ever come back. Everyone is right, it is a place of evil… It puts you out of your mind….” My voice was shaking even worse than my hands.

I hefted and rolled him onto my back, as gently as possible- as gently as you could heft up a sack of grain that has grown four awkwardly flaccid limbs, that is. Taking a few staggering steps forward, my eye caught a barely discernable shape in the undergrowth surrounding the beautiful, cursed clearing. A niggling suspicion began to form in my mind. I went over and, setting the old man down on the ground, began to pull and tear at the foliage that held the object captive.

It was an old dairy-cart, one that could be pulled either by a horse hitched between the two beams at the front, or by a man standing between them, pulling with both hands. It was so aged and weathered that under other circumstances, I would not have dared to use it. But now, all I could do was to lay the unconscious man on the cart bed, position myself at the head, and begin to walk, praying that the ancient contraption would hold up until we reached civilization.

After what felt like many, many endless hours, I began to see far-off lights appearing through the gloom of twilight. They were stationary, large enough to be the lights from windows of houses. Even though I was exhausted, when I saw those lights I found the energy to speed up my pace, go even further. I had to reach that village- and judging by the amount of lights, a village was what it was.

I didn’t know when, or how, but I made it. As I collapsed, feeling numbness creeping along every muscle of my body, that was the only thought- no, feeling- I could register. My mind was far too weary to produce lucid thought.

A little while later, I remembered. I remembered that throughout my long trek, the old man in the back of the cart had not once awoken. He’d just lain there, limp as a rag doll, his head bobbling loosely from
side to side every time the cart wheels went over a bump or roll in the beaten dirt road. Every so often I’d stopped and checked on him, just to make sure he hadn’t died without my knowledge.

I rose awkwardly to my feet, half-stumbled and half-fell over to the nearest door. I leaned heavily against the wood, panting as I knocked.

“Help…” I croaked out feebly. “Help… old man… needs help…”

I was doubtful that anyone could have heard my pathetic attempts, but
after only a few moments the door opened. I would have fallen on my face, sprawled half-way across the threshold, if I hadn’t instead fallen across a large shoulder and bosom.

“Heavens!” The woman I’d so impolitely, inadvertently thrown myself on gasped. “What are
you- Child, what’s the matter? You’re half-dead! Lucile! Lucile, dear, come quick!”

“Old… man…” I mumbled as I was dragged off the woman, across the floor, and dropped onto a pallet lying near the fire in the hearth.

A tall young woman kneeled over me. A lock of her long, curly yellow hair just
barely avoiding brushing against my open eye. “Old man, yes? What is it, speak up!”

“Cart,” I heaved out. The pallet was soft. I gratefully let myself relax, releasing another weary sigh as I closed my eyes.

“Mother, there’s someone in a cart outside.”

“Heavens, not more! Hurry, what if they’re in the same state as….”

Her voice faded away, and the door slammed. I could feel myself drifting off already… but sleep was not to come immediately, as a piercing shriek soon rent the air. “Pa!!”

I shot upright, staring as the large woman I’d fallen on dragged the old man into the room, one
of his arms flung across her shoulders. Her face was streaked with tears as she looked at me.

“This is… my Pa,” she gasped. I could barely make out her words through her heaving sobs. “When I was not much younger than you… He left, to sell milk in Lunn… And he- he never came back.... Oh, how did you find him?” She burst out. "Where did you...."

The effort of speaking was too much for her, and her words dissolved into a
fresh bout of sobbing. The tall young woman gently took charge of the unconscious old man, taking him to a pallet not far from mine.

“Why now?” Her mother wept over and over. “Why now, why has he come home now? Oh, Pa….”

The world fell away.

****

He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life. He sat, garbed in many layers of elaborate silk robes, beneath a flourishing autumn maple tree…. His bright citrine eyes gazed out from beneath thick dark brows; locks of hair, the color of a soft, dark violet, fell untidily over his forehead.

He sat and gazed for a long, long while- centuries, or a second- with those golden eyes that seemed to melt and harden and soften and stir and rage and mourn all at once. Those mystifying eyes, staring so openly. There was no one but him alone.

He opened his mouth, his pale lips as smooth and firm as flower blossoms.

“Find me,” he whispered, a single tear tracing a path over, down, one angular cheek. “Find me,” he said.

He was gone.

****

Apologies for the double-post, but the whole thing was too big. ^__^;;

wow...beautiful, and intriguing.
I wish I could write stories...not that I've tried.
I really like how you described the forest in the opening paragraph and I love the mystery of it.

I always enjoy your stories, and this one's no exception. A very eerie hill ^_~