One Fairy Too Many (Patreon)

by Erin Halfelven

One Nightlight in the Window 

“This the right place?” asked Ferlihy. “1674 College Place Drive?” A large, three-story, faux-Victorian house sat in the middle of a wide lawn. Moonlight didn’t show colors well but the yellow house had white trim and the lawn was, of course, green.

“Must be,” said Moen. “Kid moved seven times since pre-school.” 

“Can we just do this and go? We’re already late,” complained Lonigan.

“Fourteen years late,” noted Ferlihy. “You think he will notice?”

Moen giggled, a sound like tiny bells.

“There’s a light on,” said Lonigan, snorting. She pointed at the second floor. “And the window is open.”

They flew up and into the house. The light turned out to be a small bulb burning in a large bathroom. The door to the hallway being open, the three fairies continued their journey. Five other doors lined a hall with a staircase at each end, one going up, one going down.

Ferlihy hovered in front of the last door on the left. “I hear someone breathing,” she said.

Moen confirmed it with a nod and Lonigan waved a hand to shrink all of them down small enough to fit through the narrow crack under the door. 

Very little light came through the window but fairies can see in the dark. Discolored rectangles on one wall showed where posters had hung. An open cardboard box next to a bookcase held books and a few odds and ends. A dufflebag and a suitcase near the door and another suitcase sitting open on a chair by the empty closet indicated that someone had just moved in or was just moving out. This being late May and an off-campus college dorm, it seemed a likely guess that whoever lay in the bed under the window was moving out in the morning. On a nightstand, a plane ticket folder lay open next to a smartphone.

The fairies flew to the head of the bed and looked down at their sleeping client.

“Strange wish for a four-year-old boy to make,” said Ferlihy.

Lonigan shrugged. “Going to be even stranger for an eighteen-year-old.”

“Let’s do it,” said Moen.

They swirled in mid-air in a complicated pattern, slapped six hands together simultaneously and shouted in their tiny fairy voices, “Lig sé a dhéanamh!”

The room flared with magical light, the sleeping body under the light blanket shrank a little – and it was done.

“Shall we give a little extra?” asked Ferlihy. “I mean, being so late with the granting and all?”

After a moment’s thought, Lonigan nodded. 

“Should we leave a note or something? To explain about being late on the birthday wish and all?” asked Moen.

“No,” said Lonigan with quick decision. “It’s bad to tell mortals too much, especially if they’ve once figured out how to make a true wish, they might do so again. And then we’d have another fourteen year journey to this world to grant it. Just a wee gift we can leave, and then let’s be off.”

The other two fairies nodded.

Moen went first, flying down to plant a teeny, tiny kiss on a sleeping forehead. “Health,” she said. 

Ferlihy followed, leaving her kiss on a cheek. “Fortune,” she offered. 

Lonigan paused, thinking again. Then she swooped to leave the print of fairy lips on the sleeper’s own. “Love,” she whispered. The sleeping figure stirred as if troubled by dreams.

Then the fairies were gone.

One Snooze Alarm Before Breakfast

Shawn David Maddox never had woke easily and the alarm on his phone that went off at six a.m. roused him only enough to reach out and tap the screen for ten more minutes of snoozing. He did that twice more before irritation at being constantly awakened roused him enough to yawn and reach for the phone to actually turn the alarm off.

He knew his own habits, though, and had purposely set the alarm half an hour earlier than necessary. He had plenty of time to eat something, get a taxi to the airport, get through security and catch his 11:15 flight to Los Angeles. He’d already put off going home till the very last minute; there would be no one left in the rooming house when he departed. Even Mrs. Thomas, the house mother, wouldn’t be back from visiting her sister until late in the day. He fumbled with the phone but managed to get it shut off. 

Image © goodluz / 123RF Stock Photo 

Long blond hair fell into his face as he stretched to put the phone back on the nightstand and he brushed it away before the oddness of that penetrated his consciousness. He took a lock of the wavy stuff and stared at it, then pulled. “Ouch,” he said in a voice that sounded strangely light and high.

He pushed both hands through the mass of hair and felt even more puzzled. “What the heck?” he asked no one.

Dressed in nothing but a white t-shirt and his boxers, Shawn plopped his feet on the floor, stood a little unsteadily, and reached for the switch on the bedside lamp. When the light came on, he looked across the room at his now empty dresser and a pretty blonde looked back at him with startled blue eyes.

He raised his hands to his face and the mirror image raised hers. He struggled to stand up, another cry on his lips but the blonde was trying to stand, too.

She fainted, fortunately falling backwards onto the bed again.

One Blonde, More or Less

Shawn woke the second time when her butt slipped off the bed and dragged her to the floor. “Oof,” she complained. Her hair having fallen into her face again she pushed it away then squealed as she realized what she was doing.

She grabbed one wrist with the other and stared at her hands. They were slim, delicate and pale, quite unlike the hands she remembered. She sat there on the floor beside the bed, a little lopsided from the way she had fallen. Her brain did not seem to be working at full efficiency and she kept rubbing her hands over each other and up her forearms.

Slowly she tilted more and more sideways, finally having to save herself from sprawling out on the floor by propping herself up with the arms and hands she didn’t recognize. Her too-big t-shirt sleeves flapped at her upper arms.

Pushing herself up onto her knees put her face barely high enough to look into the mirror again. Blue eyes below blond hair looked back. “Oh, my God!” she whimpered. “Am I dreaming?”

Using the bed and night table as support, she struggled to her feet, feeling oddly unbalanced and without the easy strength she expected. Her butt, in particular, seemed to weigh a ton. She felt behind her, a soft round cushiony bottom made her squeal in dismay.

“Am I dreaming?” she asked again, staring into the mirror. But the image there mimicked her every move and the room stayed solid and real. She pulled open the neck of the now baggy t-shirt and stared down at a pair of prominent breasts. “I’m not dreaming! Am I? What’s happened to me?”

Even as early morning sun nearly filled the room with golden rectangles and blue shadows, she stumbled across the bedroom to turn on more light and almost tripped over the duffelbag she had packed the night before. “Can’t be happening, can’t be real,” she told herself.

But it certainly felt real and now something else felt real. 

She really needed to go to the bathroom. She tried holding her hands over the part of her anatomy where such a thing would have to take place but… but that just felt too weird. She squealed again, a high-pitched distressed moan that went up and up and up.

“I’m going to have to go!” she wailed and bounced off the closed bedroom door in panic before managing to get it open.

Terrified but not sure why, she checked to make sure the hallway was empty before venturing out of her room. The three-story house remained deserted. She didn’t hear a sound except for her own gasping breath. She hurried down the hall to the bathroom, keeping her legs close together and not at all sure she would make it before having an accident.

She almost didn’t make it, fumbling in the opening of the boxers hanging off her thighs for something that wasn’t there before realizing she would have to pull them down and sit on the toilet seat. “Crap, crap, crap,” she complained. The sudden sound of rushing water startled her again and then she realized something else. “I’m all wet down there!”

Her teeth began to chatter as she dealt with dampness by using handfuls of toilet paper. “Why am I so cold?” she asked but no one could answer. Shock as an explanation did not occur to her. “Am I going crazy?” 

A sob caught in her throat and she sat on the toilet for several minutes. “I’m not crazy! Am I?” She stared sideways at the woman in the bathroom mirror. “Why am I asking you?” she wailed, bursting into tears.

Finally managing to get her weeping under control, she told herself, “This can’t be happening. I don’t believe it’s happened, because it just can’t happen!” She wiped her eyes, stood up, stepped out of the loose boxers, put the lid down and sat back down, and wrapped her arms around her body. She sat there for several minutes more, just staring at the tub.

“Wottamaigunnadoo?” she babbled, trying not to cry again. Standing up after a bit, she caught sight of her face in the mirror. “That’s not me!” she accused and ducked away from the mirror’s gaze.

Crouching on the floor to avoid seeing her reflection made her feel ridiculous. “I can’t think! I can’t think what to do!” she suddenly shouted and bolted out of the bathroom. Running produced odd sensations though, her breasts jiggled almost painfully and her hips seemed jointed wrong. Even her elbows seem to fly out from her body in an odd way. She staggered into a wall before managing to steer herself back into her room.

“Phone!” she yelped, spying the device lying where she had left it. She snatched it up and pushed the security code to open the contacts list. Doot, doot, da-doot. Her finger hovered over the button to call her mother but she hesitated. “What the h-heck would I say?” she stammered before canceling that call.

She flipped through the contacts, not daring to call anyone. Certainly not her father who she had hardly spoken to in six years except for calls on holidays and birthdays. Neither of her stepsisters would likely be willing to even listen because she felt sure she would not sound like herself. Or not like male Shawn at any rate. Maybe she could text someone….

Her glance fell on the airline tickets. Could she even use them? Didn’t the tickets have her name on them? His name…oh? Well, Shawn could be a girl’s name….

“Oh!” she squealed. “I’m a girl! How? How? I’m going crazy here….” She wrapped her arms around herself again, then quickly undid the self-embrace. “I’ve got tits!” she moaned.

“Calm down,” she said after a moment. She deliberately sat on the bed, one hand holding the phone in her lap, the other hand folded sedately over it. She could see her face in the mirror but not the rest of her. “I’m short, too,” she noticed.  “Damnit!”

Shawn seldom cursed or used bad language, he’d not been brought up in a household that used such words and he’d never quite gotten used to hearing them at school. But some situations just called out for strong language. “Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!” It wasn’t much but it was all he had.

She lifted herself up to get a better look in the mirror. She wasn’t really short; male Shawn had been several inches taller than average and so was female Shawn. It’s just that women are, usually, about six inches shorter than their male relatives. Shawn felt short. 

But the changes had just made new Shawn pretty much a translation of old Shawn. He’d had average length hair for a guy, maybe a bit shaggy, and now she had blond hair over her shoulders. Bright blue eyes, well, he’d been a blue-eyed blond before but he’d sure had more chin, nose and eyebrows…. “Oh, damnit, I’m cute! Ahduwanna be cute!” she wailed.

She sat back down, this time pulling the oversize t-shirt under her so she sat her naked butt on it and not the bed. She paused a moment to assess the size of her ass. “I’ve got a big round butt, too,” she said. “Big round butt,” she repeated. It seemed like one more indignity but this time instead of crying, she tried cursing again. 

It didn’t take long to run through her meager supply of bad words and curiously, after doing so, she felt a bit better. It had, at least, relieved some of the tension.

“Somebody did this to me,” she said. “I don’t know who and I don’t know how….” That stopped her. “How did this happen? How could this happen? How could anybody do this, even if they had a reason?”

She looked at the phone again then picked up the folder from the airline, looking for the check-in instructions. It was spelled out right there, in order to get through security, she would need a government-issued photo ID. 

“I am so screwed,” she said. The name on the tickets would not be a big problem but…. “Wait, if I changed, who’s to say my I.D. hasn’t changed?”

She fumbled a bit, trying to hold the phone and the airline folder, one in each hand while she looked for her wallet. But when she found it and opened it up to see the driver’s license, it clearly showed a young man with a long, bony face, a few zits, familiar bright blue eyes, and short blond hair. Also, beside the word Sex in the description, the form was clearly marked Male. “Phooey! That’s never going to work!”

But one part of her mind caused her to glance at the mirror again. At least, female Shawn did not have any zits.

One Sneeze Too Many

Maebh had arrived shortly before the other fairies left; she had planned it that way. She hadn’t known what they were up to but three high-ranking fairies heading for the mortal lands deserved investigation.

She had shrunk herself down to hand-height, about ten inches, and slipped sideways under the door where she watched the other fairies work their magic with increasing delight. Keeping herself unseen, she waited until the others had left after making their parting gifts. She couldn’t let them know about her presence or they would force her to return with them to Faerie.

‘Mad Maebh’ the other fairies called her but she didn’t mind. Because of previous transgressions against good order, Maebh was under a geas laid by the Queen of the Fay to work no magic on mortals that had not already been touched by the Faerie Realm. 

She stifled a giggle. Shawn represented a perfect opportunity for her. She could feel it, her magic would work on the new mortal girl. And what the others had already done appealed to her. What chance had happened long ago to cause a mortal to be granted a Fairy Wish?

And one that had gone wrong in such a delightful way. Maebh could hardly contain her anticipation of the fun she was going to have.

But how to make the most of it, she pondered, while Shawn rattled around the big empty house trying to find a way out of his, or rather, her predicament. It would be fun to increase Shawn’s embarrassment and befuddlement by taking the changes that had already been made to some sort of extreme. Just thinking about how a mortal would react to such magical transformations made her giggle.

Fairy laughter sounds like little tiny bells to mortals who can hear it.

Mischief came naturally to fairies and they did not have the same concept of cruelty that humanity had arrived at. But Maebh was not without empathy. She had enough, in fact, to find Shawn’s antics ridiculous and spent some time following her around and laughing uproariously whenever she did something really silly, like trying to make a deal with God.

And sure enough, Shawn was engaged in just such activity when the worst sort of thing that could happen, happened. 

Shawn had spent some time trying to pray her way back to sanity. Shawn’s family had not been particularly religious, lapsed Catholic on one side and the child of a Jewish grandmother who had married a Baptist on the other. But she knew the forms of religion; if from nothing else, popular culture had plenty of examples.

She knelt in front of a window and spoke in a respectful, quiet desperation. “Oh, God. Please help me. Whatever has happened, please change me back.” Her eyes were closed, her hands clasped but trembling. A cold hand seemed to hold Shawn’s heart in a grip and her voice broke as she repeated herself. “Please help me. I’ll do anything, God, if You help me out here.”

Fairies have a peculiar relationship with the Almighty. They know God exists and watches and hears everything but He seldom acts because usually to do so would interfere with human free will. And fairies find mortal incomprehension of this situation hilarious.

Maebh laughed so hard she fell off the top of the armoire in the crack against the wall into dust and cobwebs where her laughter turned into sneezing.

It’s not well known, but sneezing is very dangerous for the Fair Folk. They lose control of their magic for a moment every time the spasm takes them. The same thing happens when they make love but they seldom do that where someone might take advantage of their moment of weakness. Helpless, Maebh lay within reach of Shawn kneeling in front of the window, though still concealed. She sneezed again and again and again.

Shawn had been hearing the fairy laughter for some time, but faintly; her ears had not had experience enough to be prepared to hear it for what it was. But the new noise sounded like some tiny creature behind the armoire sneezing. Shawn had to investigate even in the middle of making an appeal to the Almighty.

With more effort needed than she had expected, she moved the tall, free-standing clothes closet out of the way. and Maebh the fairy fell out of her hiding place onto the carpet, still sneezing.

Amazed, Shawn could do little more than stare but she did reach a hand toward the tiny figure as if to pick the doll-like person up. 

Maebh waved her arms to ward off the approaching hand, but still did not have her sneezing under control.

“Ka-choo!” she lesnerized. “Ka-shoo! Ke-shaw! Ka-fooey!” Her magic tried to defend her by making her harder to catch and at the same time working a version of the changes she had been thinking about on Shawn.

And now each time she sneezed, Maebh shrank another quarter of her already diminutive height. And each sneeze shrank Shawn about an inch in height and made other changes in her shape, including growing and curling her hair!

“Kapow! Ka-whootie! Kazinga!” Maeve sneezed.

The increasingly-zaftig former boy staggered backward, dazed by magic and overreacting to the sudden increase in her frontside imbalance. She landed on her round little butt and grabbed her newly enhanced assets in both hands, possibly saving herself from a concussion. “For gosh sake,” she screamed, “stop it! Stop sneezing!”

Maebh buried her face in her hands and took drastic measures to keep herself from vanishing entirely – she wished her magic away!