HOW TO GET TO FAIRYLAND

Maddy wanted to show her something. Maddy’s house had a big old forest behind it. There were some really big trees out there. Her mom let her play in the woods. Her mom let her do whatever she wanted.

Maddy was a year older but she got held back so she was in the same grade as Felicity. Maddy called her “Fefe.” Fefe didn’t have any brothers or sisters, but she had Maddy. Maddy knew about a lot of stuff. Her mom let her watch R-rated movies. Fefe liked being a part of her secrets.

There was a big boulder in the woods. It was bigger than a grownup. Fefe hadn’t seen it before. They had played house and doctor and tag in the woods, but never here. It felt like the center of the world. It had stuff growing on it.

“Hey Jack!” Maddy screamed. “Jack! Come out!”

Nothing happened.

“He’s being mean.” Maddy said. “He wanted to meet you. I told him about my friend and he asked me to bring you.”

There was a terrible silence around the boulder. Fefe didn’t like it. They weren’t doing anything. “Let’s play house?” She asked.

“No.” Maddy sat down and pouted.

Fefe wandered. There was a pile of rocks on the other side of the boulder. The ground was covered in dead brown leaves. There were mushrooms growing underneath the leaves.

Then Maddy started shrieking and writhing. “Jack! Stop it! Don’t tickle me!”

Fefe thought this was part of the game, so she started laughing and dancing alongside. She didn’t see anyone. “Don’t tickle me! Don’t tickle me!” She said.

“Jack! Stop!” Maddy said between shrieks. “Stop! Cut it out! Stop it!” She kept asking, but it didn’t stop for a long time. When it did, they were both out of breath.

“Here he is.” Maddy said.

“Hi Jack,” Fefe said to nothing in particular.

“He wants your name.”

“My name is Felicity.” Fefe said.

Maddy talked about how much fun she always had with Jack and the games they played. Jack liked to play funny tricks on her, and to ask her to do things. One time he asked Maddy to bring him her mother’s hairbrush. Sometimes, Jack got her in trouble, like when he made it nighttime and Maddy got yelled at for staying out late. But mostly he was just funny, like when he made her blind for an hour, or made her legs freeze.

These sounded like very fun games, and Fefe wanted to play too. But Jack was already tired so they went away and played house in Maddy’s backyard. Fefe couldn’t wait to go back to Maddy’s house. Next time they went straight out through the yard into the woods and up to the boulder. “Jack! Jack!” They both screamed. “Come out and play!”

This time he came right away. That’s what Maddy said. He asked them to climb up on the boulder. Maddy knew which side had the best footholds and handholds, and she helped Fefe up. It was amazing at the top. So tall! Treetrunks all around them, the branches close by. They sang a song up there, a special song that Jack taught Maddy and now Maddy taught Fefe. The words were nonsense but it was fun to sing.

Then Maddy said that Jack wanted them to jump off the boulder. “It’s too high,” Fefe whined. “I want to climb down.”

“You can’t!” Maddy didn’t look happy. “You have to do what he says.”

“I don’t want to!”

“If you don’t jump I’ll push you.”

“No!” Fefe sat down and started crying. “Don’t push me. Please don’t push me. I don’t want to jump. It’s too high.”

Maddy sat down next to her and rubbed her back. “Shh, shh. It’s ok. It’s just a game, Fefe. It’s ok. You’re not gonna get hurt. Jack always makes sure we’re safe. It’s ok. Look. I’ll go first.”

“No! It’s too high!”

Maddy stood up and walked to the steep edge at the highest part of the boulder. “You better jump after me, Fefe.” Then she hopped over the edge.

Fefe crawled to the edge and looked over. Maddy was down there.

“Come on!” Maddy stamped her foot.

Fefe dangled her legs over the edge and then pushed off. It felt like she was in the air for a long time. The wind whistled around her, the same tune as their song. Maddy was down below waiting, but she couldn’t fall any faster. The sun was very bright.

Then she landed and the wind was knocked out of her. She scraped the back of her calves on the boulder, bruised her toe on a rock on the ground.

“See!” Maddy said. “That wasn’t so bad!”

That was the last of that day’s games.

Fefe kept thinking about Jack and kept going back to Maddy’s house. She got used to the funny games they played by the boulder. Jack was lots of fun and no one knew about him except her and Maddy. Sometimes Jack wanted her to bring things, like candy or jewelry or spoons. Fefe never saw him, but played along so well that Maddy didn’t know.

Then one day they arrived at the boulder and called out to Jack and he had something new. “He wants to show us his house!” Maddy said.

“Where is it, Jack?” Fefe asked.

“It’s over here! Come on!” Maddy raced around the boulder to the pile of stones on its far side. There were gaps between the stones. It was dark in the gaps.

“Jack says we have to move that one.” Maddy pointed to a smooth, long rock balanced partway up the pile. It was heavy. They pushed together and it rolled down out of the way. There was a big gap underneath. Bugs crawled away from the light.

They cleared away the spiderwebs. The hole was dark.

“He lives under the rocks?” Fefe asked.

“No, stupid. He lives in fairyland.”

“Oh.”

Maddy had a phone from her mom. She mostly used it to play games and take pictures, but it also had a flashlight. The hole kept going, way farther than Fefe expected. There wasn’t any ground where it should have been. It wasn’t big, but they would fit.

“Come on, let’s go!” Maddy wiggled in headfirst. Her legs kicked out like she was swimming as she squirmed in. Then Fefe followed.

She could see a little from Maddy’s phone. The cave was dry and dusty. It was a narrow little tube that wound back and forth like a snake. They became little snakes scooting along on their bellies. After a little while it got bigger and they could stand, sort of. Both girls still had to hunch a little, and the cave was so narrow that they were crab-walking, with one arm ahead and one arm behind.

Maddy held her phone with the light in her forward hand, and held Fefe’s hand with the other. So they went, as quick as they could, on towards fairyland. The tunnel had lots of branches but Jack always showed them the way. Sometimes it was left or right, sometimes it was up or down, usually it was a a combination. Sometimes it got so narrow that they could barely squeeze through. They scraped themselves on the dusty rocks. It was warm underground.

Fefe could still remember the route back when she started feeling tired. She stopped. “Can we go back now? I’m tired.”

Maddy turned around. “Fefe! We’re almost there! If we stop now Jack will hate us forever.”

But Fefe had a headache and she was scratched by the walls and kept stubbing her toes because Maddy had the light. “I don’t want to keep playing.” She whined. “I’m tired. I wanna go home.”

“We can’t go home.” Maddy said. “You’re gonna make Jack mad. We have to finish the game before we can go home. That’s the rules.”

“I don’t care! I wanna go home.” Fefe said.

“Jack wants us to keep going. Look how mad you’re making him!”

“There’s no one there!” Fefe said.

Maddy didn’t say anything.

“Let’s go home! This game is stupid.”

“You’re stupid!” Maddy said. She started to cry.

“I’m sorry Maddy. I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.” Fefe said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“You can’t see Jack? Even though he’s right there?”

Fefe shook her head. “Was I supposed to?”

“You jerk!” Maddy said. “Why didn’t you tell me? You are so mean!”

“I just wanted to play.”

“Well you did it wrong! Ugh. You suck. Now Jack is way ahead of us! Come on!” She fit herself through a narrow gap and then shined the light for Fefe to follow.

They had to go faster now. Jack was going very quick. Fefe thought he must be very excited. Or very small. A mouse could run through these tunnels with no problem.

“Jack wait!” Maddy yelled. “Slow down! Jack! You’re too fast! Come back!” But it was useless. He was gone.

“Can we go back now?” Fefe asked.

“No! We have to keep going. It’s ok, he’s just around the corner.”

But he wasn’t around that corner or the next. The tunnel was getting narrower. “We have to keep going.” Maddy said, as the walls pressed against her. If she could just get past this narrow spot, they could catch up to Jack. She pushed and wiggled against the unyielding cave, stretching and bending and reaching and pushing further and further in. Squeezed by the stone, her skin folded and filled in strange places. Her clothes ripped and her skin ripped. She went as far as she could.

“I’m stuck.” Maddy said. She was facing away from Fefe, her phone was in her other hand. The light vanished into the unreachable tunnels. Fefe heard Maddy’s voice echo back to her from the cave as if she were already far away. “We can’t get any further. Maybe we missed a turn.” She wiggled, but couldn’t move. “Can you pull me out?”

Fefe grabbed Maddy’s wrist and pulled. She pulled as hard as she could.

“Ow! Ow! Stop it!” Maddy said. “You’re gonna pull my arm off. The walls are squeezing me. I stepped in a hole.” There was no room in the cave. It felt hard to breathe the thick, warm air. There was no light but what came from the phone on the other side of Maddy. “What if I can’t get out? You’ll have to bring me food. You have to take care of me.”

“Can we call your mom?” Fefe said. “She can help. She’ll know what to do.”

Maddy looked at her phone. Fefe couldn’t see her face.

“There’s no signal.”

“What?”

“No signal. I can’t call. And the battery is low.”

“Oh no.” Said Fefe. “I’ll go get help. I’ll bring someone back.” She liked that idea very much, turning around and going back to fresh air. She was feeling light headed.

“No!” Maddy pleaded. Her body spasmed in the narrow gap, bulging and twisting desperately in the shadow of the light. Her free hand grabbed Fefe and held her and Fefe couldn’t get loose no matter how hard she pulled away. “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me Fefe don’t leave me alone in the dark please don’t please please don’t don’t leave me please Fefe please don’t leave don’t leave Fefe please…” Maddy was breathing funny and soon she let go. She seemed asleep, propped up by the walls, arm dangling. Then the light went out.

“Maddy?” Fefe asked. “Maddy are you ok?” No answer. “I’m going to get help, okay? I’m coming back.”

She started to crab walk back in the dark. She had to feel along the walls carefully to know where to go. But she didn’t remember how they got here. Maddy had made all the choices. She wished Maddy could lead her out. She wished she could see Jack.

“Jack, help!” She shouted. “I can’t see! Jack!”

The tunnels twisted back and forth. She stepped in a hole and slid for a little ways, scraping her legs. At the bottom, for a second she didn’t know which way was up. She kept going one way or another. It was hard to focus, or remember where she was going. She was trying to go up. Out. She was trying to get out. She thought about the sky. Her face was covered in dust. It was hard to breathe. Her stomach hurt. She kept stubbing her toe. Which way had they come from? Up? Maybe soon she would find the right way. Maybe Jack would come back and help. She fell over and scraped her knee. She laid down in a smooth place. She closed her eyes.

It didn’t take long for the search and rescue team to find the mossy boulder. Maddy’s mother didn’t know about it, but she knew that the kids liked to play in the woods. Around the boulder were a few stashes of odd things – some candy, dolls, a hairbrush. Others were still searching the woods when they found the mouth of the cave, with its signs of entry.

There was no one who could go into the cave: it was child-sized. Five hours after the children were reported missing, the right tool arrived, a tiny probe with a camera that could squeeze through the passages. It was like the camera a doctor sticks down a throat to look inside a stomach. There were so many twists and turns under the earth, but the probe inched along, following whatever traces it could. Twenty-seven hours after the children were reported missing, they found Maddy, wedged into the rock. Thirty-five hours after the children were reported missing, they found Fefe, curled up in the depths. There was no way to retrieve them. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning.

Their parents wept. The miasma of grief would never leave them. Even now Fefe’s mother stays up late every night with tears on her cheeks. But why does she cry? Doesn’t she know her daughter is in fairyland?