1I should never have seen what I saw that day.
I was all by myself in the subway station. I wish I'd never been there at all. It was Tuesday afternoon, maybe three o'clock. Outside it was dull and drizzly. No one wanted to be anywhere but home in bed. Having given up on an old and stubborn vending machine that would probably have only produced dusty chocolate anyway, I had gone to sit on the chipped cement bench by the wall.
I don't know how long I'd been sitting there when a small, elderly subway train chugged into the station. It wasn't the one I'd been waiting for. Actually, I hadn't known that anything that ancient still operated on these tracks. It looked wrong. The windows were dark, but it seemed to be packed full of odd silhouettes: they looked normal, I suppose, but something was slightly wrong about them. I couldn't tell what.
The sound the door made as it opened was less of a creak than a shriek. Two bent old figures hobbled out onto the platform. The door screamed in complaint as it pulled shut again, and the old subway train dragged itself away.
I watched the two figures on the platform. They hunched together, wrapped in filthy, tattered overcoats and patched clothes. They were quite a distance away, but I guessed an old woman and an even older man. Then one of them spoke – and though they kept their voices low, their words carried right across the empty station to my curious ears.
"We can't afford it," she pleaded. "We just can't afford it. We can't take this chance."
He gripped her arm. "It's not just a chance. We can't afford it, no. But we have no other choice."
"Please," she implored, and I could hear a sob breaking her voice. "Please, love. We can't."
"We must." He pulled her close and hugged her as her shoulders began to shake. Then something began to happen to them.
I don't remember what it was. It's like a dark curtain's been pulled close around the memory. But knowing now what I didn't then, I strongly suspect I would never have been able to describe the phenomenon even if I could remember it. I just know that the old pair noticed me only after it was done – and then there was a cry of despair, a wave of black, and I was falling through the bench.
When I woke, I was somewhere that rather alarmingly resembled the sewer. The strange old couple was huddled in a corner, crying in apparent terror. A young man was hanging nervously over me, waiting for me to stir. He gave a slight yelp and jumped back as I groaned and moved my head groggily. As I sat up, I realized that he was not only extraordinarily short, but in possession of a peculiar pair of long, pointed ears and a set of fangs poking his lower lip. His brows knitted in concern as I looked around the room, stunned: it was full of people – odd people. Some had strange features, others tails or an excess of hair, and others still merely seemed to be fabulously deformed.
"Where am I?" I croaked.
"You're in our place," the young, worried man stammered softly. "We had to bring you here."
"Who are you?" I managed, head still foggy. "Why?"
His eyebrows pulled even closer together, and he nibbled his lip nervously. "We're- we're the Faye. You were too close. You absorbed some of the magic. You'll notice us now. Always."
"What are you talking about?" I cast my eyes about the room, as if in search of someone who would step forward and apologize for playing this stupid joke. Every face I found was wrought in fear.
When I brought my gaze back to him, he looked like he was going to cry. "If you can see us, we're in even more danger. You can point us out to those who don't notice. They'll find us. The- the humans will find us." He was shaking all up and down.
I pushed and pulled my hands tightly across my face, forcing myself to entertain this idea for a moment. "Why should the Faye fear the humans?"
A little girl came toward me then; thin dark hair falling limply around a face occupied mostly by an enormous pair of eyes, body disappearing into a lump of purple cloth. I had never seen such terror as there was in her eyes at that moment.
"Why shouldn't we? We don't fit."
I stared at her. And then I understood.
I really don't know.
Really.
(c) Microsuede Mouse 2o1o