ELTHAM HIGH SCHOOL ANTHOLOGY   

• The wedding had been three years ago, the relationship started two more years before that. Our love had grown from long term friendship that started in our teenage years and continued through our adult life. Mia, she was my world, I’m not ashamed to admit. We had been fine, we had been perfect. Her body expanded with the life that we had created together and she glowed with it. We lived together in an unordinary house in an unordinary field. We rarely had visitors, we hadn’t kept contact with old friends. The only way we kept up with the outside world was through the eight o’clock news. We were isolated on our own little island surrounded by grass and weeds.

• Mia was six months pregnant when we first got a pamphlet in the letterbox (from a group called the black feather). ‘Are we really alone on this earth?’ it asked, ‘who are we really descended from?’ She was bewitched. She was fascinated. She insisted on attending the information night that was being advertised. I agreed, wary of her swollen belly, careful not to stress her beyond what was necessary. I hoped it wasn’t one of those new groups, they were appearing everywhere according to the news. There were all sorts of strange stories, mostly about children disappearing. Her happiness overwhelmed my concern. We agreed she could attend, as long as she didn’t overexert herself.

• I drove her there, I didn’t go in. I wasn’t in the least bit interested. I pasted a smile on my face when she talked about it, knowing that was the encouragement she needed to enjoy herself when she did go inside. I escorted her to the door, always protectively hovering around her awkward body as she uncoordinatedly attempted to adjust to the extra space her belly now took up. She looked slightly wary at the lights on inside the center, it had been a quite a while since either of us had been into town for any reason apart from baby checkups and ultrasounds.‘You don’t have to go’ I told her.‘I want to’ she replied, ‘It feels right’.

• One hour later I saw the doors open and people began to flood out, I felt uneasy at the sight of the crowd, so many people crammed into such a small place would have had me gasping for air in minutes. I was certain Mia would be uncomfortable, her pregnancy had made her more prone to claustrophobia than usual. I was ready to comfort her and assure her that she wouldn’t have to attend another of these ‘meetings’. That we could go home and focus on us. I would rub her back, her shoulders, her ankles, the way she liked it. The way she had been needing it this last month. As I prepared to get up and meet her at the door I saw her come out, surrounded by laughing people and laughing herself. She was emerged in deep conversation with at least ten people, men and women alike. I was shocked, and deep inside me jealousy started to grow. They escorted her to the car, opening the door for her and offering her assistance. Not one of them acknowledged my existence. I was about to remark about their rudeness when she turned to me and beamed, her whole face was lit up in a way that I had never seen it. She told me that she had been enlightened about the world and herself, that she knew things I would never believe. I told her that I was glad she was happy, then I switched my brain onto auto for the drive home, blocking out every crazy, delusional word that tumbled from her mouth.

• Two months had passed. Mia didn’t so much walk as roll, she rarely left her bed or a close by couch except to go to those damned meetings. Once a week for one hour. When it was time to leave the house for them she bounced, her fatigue and discomfort forgotten. After all the meetings that she had attended I still did not fully know what they were about. She had tried to explain a few times about the supernatural beings and something called an Unseelie Court(but it bounced off my brain like a fly off a window). One thing I did know was that her new friends felt like they were important enough to visit our little sanctuary. The first time one of them arrived at our door I was speechless.‘You must be the husband.’ A short stumpy woman with grey speckled hair barked.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ I asked with no idea why we were being attacked with this unannounced company.
‘A believer’ she replied and pushed right past me, finding Mia in our bed and closing the door behind her, building a wall between me and my wife in our own home for the first time in our love.

• Every meeting that Mia was at, I always waited in the car park. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone with these strangers that were her ‘friends’, but I also couldn’t go in with her. ‘Unwelcome’ screamed from all the doors, windows when I approached. I usually listened to the radio, the stories of the cults and killings in the name of fairies and ghouls. More reason to stay at home. It was one of these nights while she was eight months pregnant that she didn’t come back out after the hour. I waited an extra ten minutes in the car, thinking that maybe it was just a run over, though there had never been one run over so far. After that time I approached the screaming building, my body physically resisting, attempting to pull me back to the safety of my car. My concern overwhelmed my own fear, I opened the door and followed the corridor that I always watched Mia waddle down. I came to a room at the end, it was large; more like a hall than a room. There were hundreds of seats, all arranged in a giant circle. It was completely empty of people. The silence hung on the air like the dust on the floor.

• She rocked our baby girl at the end of our bed. Any time I tried to hold her, baby Lulu screamed. I sat on the bed feeling completely useless, unable to help my wife calm our baby no matter how much I tried. Mia insisted that she didn’t mind, that it gave her a chance to bond with our baby. She was two weeks old now, I wasn’t there for her birth. Labor had begun during the meeting, all of her ‘friends’ claimed that they rushed her to the hospital. I just accepted this story whenever it was repeated. I knew it was a lie. When I hadn’t found her in the hall of a room that day, I searched the building, every room, every cupboard. I realized that she couldn’t be there, so I’d gone back to my car and driven to the main part of town, I checked every doctor’s office, the hospital, and even reported it to the police. They had just laughed at me, insisting that the people of the Black feather were good people, always contributing to the community. I had driven home in a frenzy, I was desperately hoping that there was a note or something, anything that would suggest that she was okay. I found her in our room, in bed with baby Lulu in her arms, with fifty people that I’d never seen before. She beamed when she saw me, excited to show me the baby but I couldn’t focus on her. Fifty pairs of eyes were glaring at me, unfaltering and unkind.

• Lulu was 4 months old now. I still couldn’t hold her without her screaming, but I loved her completely. She was absolutely perfect, her little fingers, her scrunched up feet, her blue eyes and her rosy lips. She was as beautiful as her mother, with the same intense stare. Her hair was pitch black, though mine was mousy blonde and Mia’s was brown. Mia and I hadn’t talked in a while, barely saying a sentence to each other in a day. Now that her body was back to its original size and completely her own, she had taken to driving herself to her weekly meetings. Every day five or six of the black feather members wandered in, playing with Lulu and bringing her presents. I occasionally overheard them explaining to Mia that Lulu was special, chosen (whatever that meant.) All I cared about was that my family were being stolen from me. The door was constantly left unlocked for them. I spent a lot of my time outside, the fields had never looked better. There were no weeds and it was all mown. The potted plants around the house were all flowering and I arranged them in a way so that I could teach Lulu the colors that was if I could ever hold her without her screaming.

• 6 months old now. Lulu’s room was adjacent to ours. I couldn’t sleep at night. I went in and out of states of depression. My garden was ruined. I’d come home from the liquor shop one day and all my flowers were dead, turned shriveled and black in their pots. I received no answer when I inquired about their sudden demise. Mia ignored me, just as her friends had when they first saw me. We hadn’t talked since she tried to explain what happened during the meetings. She began her sentence with ‘Fairies are real’. After that I just couldn’t listen, she tried to explain that we were all descended from fairies, that we all had the ability to unlock our heritage as long as we believe. I screamed at her that she was insane, I begged her to see reason, if not for me then for our daughter. She continued insisting that they were real, and that she had evidence, that they had helped her give birth to Lulu. She told me that Lulu was a chosen child, to be protected by the fairies at all costs. I had stormed out of the house at that. I had wanted to take Lulu and leave, to get Mia the help she obviously needed. I wanted us to run away from the controlling cult and keep her safe. But I couldn’t even hold Lulu without her screaming, we would not get far.

• Mia and I were lying in bed together. We were both awake but we didn’t say anything. We just stared at the ceiling. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to do something. I sat up and looked directly at her. She mirrored my movements, staring intensely at me, wary, uncertain.‘This isn’t working Mia, you need help. I can’t live with you if you are going to insist on believing these delusional fantasies. I will not allow my daughter to be raised in a harmful environment. If you don’t leave, I will. And I’ll take Lulu with me.’‘You can’t take her, she’s chosen, you can’t!” Mia replied, panicking as she did.‘THEY’RE NOT REAL MIA! FAIRIES ARE NOT REAL!’ I screamed, willing her to see reason.Mia just stared at me, her eyes were wide and rounded and beginning to turn glassy. I watched as a single tear streamed down her cheek. Without warning she broke the stare and turned away from me, facing the window. I leant over to comfort her but before I could touch her back I pulled my hand away sharply. Dark red stains had appeared on the back of her white night gown, between her shoulder blades. I could see droplets of blood landing on the sheets where she sat. She stood up and the droplets ran down her legs onto the floor. Suddenly she screamed, high and piercing and growing in volume. Two enormous black feathered wings ripped through her skin, through the fabric, spraying the entire room with blood as they stretched out. Without turning to me, or acknowledging my existence in the room in anyway, she opened the window and stepped out, completely naked. I watched her fly across the sky, and it wasn’t long before her dark shadow was flying with other dark shadows. The Fairies continued their flight towards the full moon and I watched until I couldn’t see them anymore. I stood with my mouth open, tears streaming down my face. I felt like my entire life had been ripped to shreds with Mia’s nightgown, now in a bloody mess on the floor. While I stood there I suddenly panicked, oh god! I ran to the bedroom door and ripped it open. I ran into Lulu’s room, bashing the light switch on my way. The crib was empty. On the pillow was a black, bloodstained feather.