Water Fae

“Will, you are an idiot,” Simon says, matter-of-factly as he trudges down to the river bank. Will had convinced Simon that they should go down to the river and look for water fae. “Faeries aren’t real.”

“How do you know?” Will asks, peering out across the water. “You can’t prove that they’re not.”

Simon groans.

“Come on, just look. You never know.” Will finds a relatively dry tree root, and sits on it.

Simon chooses to keep standing, his height towering over Will. “You know, I looked this up on Google.”

“So?”

“So, it said they’re dangerous.” Simon’s tone doesn’t suggest that he’s worried, but the look on his face does. Will doesn’t notice this, he’s peering out onto the river.

“And that a lot of them look like naked women. Is that why you want to find one?” Simon grins.

Will snorts. “Yes. I want to go and find naked women with my boyfriend.”

“Well, you did say you were bi.”

“So? I don’t want to get with any faerie women.” Will turns his head and looks up at Simon, using a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

“They’re called Undine, apparently,” Simon tells him.

“For someone who doesn’t think they’re real, you know an awful lot about them.”

“Yes, well, shush.”

“Brilliant argument there. I don’t know how your team lost the debating tournament with you.” Will snorts with laughter and brings his gaze back to the river.

“Do you know what the element of sal means?” Simon asks, after a time, choosing to ignore Will’s teasing.

“What?”

“On the website I looked at. It said that the Undine were of the element of sal.”

“Oh.” Will pauses to think for a few moments. “Maybe like, saline?”

“Does that mean that we should be at the sea?” Simon asks. “Unless you brought along some salt, that is.”

Simon tries to find a dry patch of grass to sit down in, and fails. It had rained that morning, and although that was a few hours ago, it was still wet where the boys are sitting. “Do you have a blanket in that bag?”

Will pulls out a red picnic rug, and throws it in the general direction of Simon. “Are you hungry? I’ve got some food.” He pulls out a squished ham sandwich and offers it to Simon. The taller boy takes it once he’s sat down.

“Thanks.”

“I don’t think it means saline, actually. Because, you know the Lady of the Lake?” Will asks. “You know, she gave the sword to King Arthur or whatever.” Once Simon nods in acknowledgement, Will continues. “She didn’t live in the ocean. She lived in a lake.”

“Wow, really? I didn’t know that, her being the Lady of the Lake and all.” Simon grins cheekily.

“Fuck off. Anyway. Yeah. No salt.”

“How do you know it wasn’t a salt water lake?”

“Do they have salt water lakes in England?”

“Are you sure it was in England?”

“Yes.” Will pauses. “No. But it was somewhere in Britain at least.”

Simon laughs. “Wow, we’re incredibly informed, aren’t we?” He takes a bite of the sandwich, chewing slowly in thought. “Maybe we’ll have to get married to these ladies when we find them.”

“I can really see you getting married,” Will says, grinning.

“Maybe they’ll turn me straight. They do have magic, you know,” he says seriously.

Simon sees something disturb the surface of the water. “Did you see that?” he asks excitedly, pointing to where he saw the interruption.

“No. It was probably just a fish or something, Mister I-don’t-believe-in-faeries-yet-I-know-a-suspiscious-amount-about-them.”

“What a long last name I appear to have.”

“What large ears you have.”

“Oh, shut up.” Simon won’t look away from the spot in the water. “I saw something, I swear I did.” He narrows his eyes, trying to see more than he does.

“Maybe there aren’t any faeries in Australia,” Will wonders out loud.

“What about bunyips?”

“What about bunyips?”

“Well, Fitzwilliam, they’re supposed to be Aussie,” Simon says, using Will’s full first name, knowing that the shorter boy hates it.

Will ignores him.

Simon starts humming a tune Will doesn’t know, loudly and horribly. He tries to continue ignoring Simon, knowing that he’s only doing it to annoy him, but after a few seconds he has to tell him to stop.

“But they like music,” he protests.

Will stares at him as if he’s crazy. “Who likes music?”

“The fae, moron.” Simon rolls his eyes. “In books and stuff, they’re always dancing and stuff.”

“And stuff.”

“Fuck off.” Simon punches Will’s shoulder playfully.

Simon looks back at the river and gasps. “I saw it again!” he stands up this time, excited.
Will is sceptical. “I didn’t see it.”

“You were looking at me and my sexy body, that’s why you didn’t see it,” Simon pokes his tongue out at Will, who is still sitting down. “No no no, I saw it. I did. It was right there!”

“Sure you did.”

“Why don’t you believe me?” Simon pouts. “You’re the one who wanted to find a fae. And I found one, I swear.”

“I didn’t really, to tell the truth. I just thought it would be fun.”

Simon gasps theatrically. “My goodness. You should meet a kelpie for that.” He grins slyly at Will, knowing that he doesn’t know what a kelpie is.

“What the hell’s a kelpie?”

Simon stares at him. “Everyone knows what a kelpie is.”

“Well, obviously I don’t,” Will says irritably.

“It’s a thingy that takes the form of a horse. So the guy who finds it thinks, ‘Oh, yay. I’ve got meself a horse,’ and he gets on the thing. Then, the kelpie takes off and drowns the poor bugger.”

“That’s creepy.”

“You’re creepy.” Simon searches Will’s face with his brown eyes. “Do you really not believe in faeries?” he asks in a small voice.

“Yeah. Sorry.” Will has the sense to look ashamed.

“It’s alright.”

“Do you really believe in them?” Will asks curiously.

“Sort of, yeah. Mum does, and she used to tell me stories about them when I was little. Not the kind about the tooth fairy and stuff, but real faeries like kelpies and pixies who don’t really have wings but look like hedgehogs. None of the poncy crap in girls’ story books. Real faeries.”

“Why’d you call me an idiot for wanting to find some just before, then?”

“Because I thought you’d think I was an idiot, I guess.” Simon shrugs. “Come on,” He says suddenly, reaching out a hand to Will to help him stand up.

Will takes it and is pulled to his feet quickly. “Where are we going?” he asks as Simon takes off, disappearing through the trees.

“Come on,” Simon calls out. When Will reaches him, Simon says that the only real way to find fae is to go deeper, where people don’t really go.

“You know a place like that, then?” Will asks casually, trying to hide his interest.

“Sure I do.” Simon grins at him. “Come on.” He grasps Will’s hand and leads him further away from the river bank.

It takes about ten minutes to get there, and during the whole time Will is worrying about the bag of things they left behind near the river bank.

“Here it is,” Simon says proudly, waving an arm around as if to prove it’s real.

It’s a small clearing, walled in by trees and their low, wide branches, tree ferns and other plants the boys can’t identify. There’s a little trickle of water running through the space. Moss covers the whole site.

“So, so have you seen any faeries here?” Will whispers, not wanting to disturb the serene quiet around them.

“Not yet,” Simon whispers back. He doesn’t thank Will for whispering, but he’s secretly grateful. “But sometimes I get the feeling that they’re here, y’know?”

Will nods. Despite what he said earlier, he’s ready to believe in faeries. He wants to, and he’d very much like Simon to prove they’re real.

“So, what do we do? Just wait?” Will asks after a long time. He has no idea how much time has passed, it’s impossible to tell because everything around the boys is still, as if it’s frozen.

“Yeah. You can sit down if you don’t mind getting your bum wet,” Simon gestures to the ground, covered in a mixture of moss and dewy grass.

Will stays standing, only because he doesn’t want to move. He somehow feels that standing still is the right thing to do at this moment.

Simon squeezes Will’s hand slightly. Will is startled, he hadn’t realised they were still holding hands. He looks at Simon, who whispers, “Look!”

Will follows Simon’s gaze to where he can see something, but he’s not sure what the something is. It looks like a girl, but she can’t be three inches high and she’s got green skin.

When she sees that the boys are looking at her, she flits away like a little bird, only she has no wings.

Will laughs and laughs, because he doesn’t know what to think.

Simon grins. “See? They’re real. Although, that wasn’t a water fae.”

“That was brilliant,” Will says once he’s stopped laughing. He can’t get the grin off his face, which makes Simon laugh, which makes Will laugh even more.

As they turn to leave, a thought occurs to Will. “Did you really see something in the water, before?”

Simon laughs shortly. “No, that was just a fish. Like you said.”