Phantasia

As the sun emerged over the forested hills in the east, Phantasia jumped down from the spire, touched down on the sloping roof below, and swung herself into the church rafters. The rats didn’t pay any attention as she flirted across the wooden beams and dropped down into the aisle below. The sunlight was already filtering through the eastern window, its stained glass filling the dusty chamber, its fallen columns and decaying benches, with a rainbow of vibrant light.

For a human, it would be a decrepit, unwelcoming place with no heating, no electricity and no bathroom, but to Phantasia it had become a home. Moss-covered cupboards salvaged from antechambers held her collection of human clothes, while a table formed from remains of benches made the perfect study desk. At least for a faerie.

As the birds began chirping, she slipped outside and began to tend a small garden, using water from the nearby stream to nourish the flowers and earth she’d gathered. Several small animals pottered their way through, some of them baring scars of corruption, such as a three-headed rat with identity issues and a colony of schizophrenic ants that’d been twisted into believing they were avengers of God. The power of Darkness – spiritual energy tarnished by emotion – had a weird effect on animals that humans were forever ignorant to. Millennia ago, the Seelie Court had dealt with such things behind humanity’s back, but in this era they were left to be – or at least until Phantasia had become involved. She’d taken it upon herself to rescue those tainted, mutated animals and help them recover from the corruption eating away at their simple, elemental spirits. It was better than letting them be because, not only were they likely to spread contamination themselves, few things were worse than an animal-turned-demon unleashed in the middle of a populated settlement. She heard the stories, from both faeries and her new human teachers.

A flock of birds flew overhead, their retreat a sign the human world was beginning to stir from its slumber. Phantasia often wondered what human sleep was like as she sat overlooking the town at night. What were dreams? And why did they happen? And did humans ever regret wasting so much of their lives sleeping?

After admiring her natural, ethereal clothing, she changed into some clean, human clothes. The human concept of ‘fashion’ was still alien to her, and although her friends had tried to help her find interesting clothes, all they really wanted was for her to copy their own fashions. Phantasia didn’t like copying other people. She pulled on some shorts, a t-shirt she’d borrowed from Joel that was marked ‘Death Bastard: Apostle Holocaust’, and a waistcoat that sparkled with purple sequins.

Finally she gathered together her school materials and the sealed tome in her bag.. While some her friends would still be dragging themselves through that dissolute, twilight world between sleep and school they always complained about, Phantasia skipped down the stony path from the chapel and down onto the road that ran alongside the hill.

Chapter 26
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