Tooth Fairy

The fairy fussed inside the upturned wine glass. It looked like a shooting star scooped out of the black sky, and now it ricocheted from side to side pinging the glass and swaying it slightly.

“I need it back,” Jenna demanded, securing a hand around the glass’s stem. “You hear me, you little lightning rat?” She spoke with a slight lisp, barely recognising her own voice. She sounded like a child.

The curtains were drawn and a square of moonlight split the room in half. The bed, the imprisoned fairy, and Jenna, sat in the dark half. In the other corner, in the light, sat a wilting Peace Lilly. Patches of blood spattered and further darkened the cream sheets. She’d left the window open a crack last night— enough to grant a fairy easy access.

The fairy buzzed like a hornet. “No take-backs,” came its high pitched voice.

Jenna knew the sound of a fairy. Of the soft lulling lies they spouted. Of: “Everything’s going to be better, now.”

She’d caught fairies twice before. The first time in a mug, a tooth positioned beneath it in a child’s trap. She’d heard the rattling and woken, thrilled at her find. That day she hadn’t wanted anything more than to simply see a fairy. She’d been six and excited as she lifted the edge of the mug to glance at the creature inside. Gold light spilled out like she’d caught the sun itself.

”I’m sorry,” she’d said then, suddenly overwhelmed by guilt. Her lisp was more pronounced that day. Sorry became sowwy, words dressed up in a child’s innocence. “I didn’t meant to scare you.”

She’d let the fairy go. It flew to the window, huge tooth in its arms, then glanced back at her before leaving.

The second time had been different. She‘d been eleven and her innocence had been trampled. Even then, as she lay with her eyes shut, she could hear them screaming. Dad had done something bad a long time ago. Mom had said she forgave him but she hadn’t, and now each night they yelled and fought and threw. And the next day they’d come to her one at a time, tell them they were sorry about her other parent. They’d tell her how hard it was for them but they’d never ask how hard it was for her. And if she tried explain, they didn’t hear anyway.

A child’s pain becomes lost in the storm of adult complexities, as if the water only rocks them. As if only they can drown.

She lay awake that night, all those years ago, a tooth she’d kept secret for two years tucked under her pillow. If they traded teeth for a coin what else might they take?

When she’d finally heard the soft buzzing she‘d opened her eyes and whispered: ”Please. I want to make a deal.”

“I want it back,” she said now. “I need it back. Do you understand?”

She wiped dried blood away from her chin with spittle. At twenty-three teeth didn’t rattle out so readily. But how else do you lure a fairy?

The fairy stormed around the glass a last time, then finally it sat at the bottom, hands on chin. “I’ll suffocate. The air’s already thin in here.”

”You’re right, you will suffocate,” said Jenna.

The fairy glowed darkly, like the start of an explosion. Then it quieted again.

”We don‘t give teeth back,” said the fairy.

”Teeth? I’m not after teeth.”

The fairy’s sigh misted the glass.

”I made a deal with one of your kind some years ago. I traded my heart for a coin.” She held a single cent between her fingers. All she’d felt it was worth and all she’d requested for it. “But I can’t go on like this. Not anymore. So I want to trade it back.”

Back then the second fairy had considered her request. Had asked why she wanted to do such a thing? Jenna had told her. Had let it pour out of her. That Mom had left for good. Had taken Jenna’s older sister, waking only her in the night. They were both gone. Why‘d Mom chosen her? Why did she leave me?

It was the first time someone had truly listened to her, had been interested. The fairy had stroked her hair as she’d wept.

”Poor child,” that fairy had said. “Poor child.”

It had told her they never take hearts but as Jenna cried the fairy said it would make a secret exception. When Jenna fell asleep, the fairy would take her heart and then everything would be all right. No more pain.

It was the last time Jenna could remember crying. She woke the following morning with what felt like a hollow stone rattling in her chest.

*****

“We don’t take hearts,” said the latest fairy, after Jenna finished recounting her story. Its expression had changed now. Confusion? Sympathy?

”Yes, I know. But all the same that fairy did take it. She heard my story and thought me worth helping.”

The fairy spoke softly. “We don’t take hearts because we can‘t. It would kill you to lose your heart. Teeth leave you, your heart does not.”

”But…”

“Perhaps you were told what you needed to hear,” said the fairy. “Or perhaps, as you lay there with your eyes shut all night, you drifted off.”

”But…” she said again, feebly this time. Thought of being asked out at school and feeling nothing. Of being home on prom. Of an alley and a late drunken night and a very bad person. Thought of her mother’s death a few weeks prior and of being unable to find a single tear. Anyone with a heart would have felt something. Anything.

The fairy said, “We didn’t take it.”

”Then who did?”

”I have a feeling you buried it yourself,” said the fairy, sadly. “I have a feeling you buried it deep in the soil of your own chest. I’ve seen it before.”

Jenna was shaking. Maybe it was the cold air breezing in through the open window. The moon had moved now and she sat in light, the fairy’s glass glinting white.

”Then… How do I get it back?”

”You dig,” said the fairy. “You place your ear to the soil and listen for the beating. Then you dig deep, and if you‘re lucky, you find it.”

She could feel it now, the soil. Her chest was clogged by it. Could taste the loamy bitterness in her throat. How had she not noticed before? ”And, if I‘m unlucky?”

The fairy said nothing.

Jenna lifted the wine glass. Sat numb on the side of her bed.

Before the fairy left, it flew up to Jenna’s face, its glow warm on her cheek as it wiped a single tear away.

And then the fairy was gone.

On the bed lay her tooth and a shiny single cent.

She still didn’t know why her mother left her. Doubted she ever would. But perhaps she didn’t need to know to still feel the pain of the loss. Of all the losses. She was an adult — her pain no longer undeserving, no longer diminished by that of her parents’.

Jenna understood now she was entitled to hurt. That in truth, she always had been.

She picked up the coin and tooth and then, unmoving, listened very carefully for the missing beat of her heart.

*****

THE END