This is a short story inspired by the following verse of a poem by Robert Frost titled Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.
The Woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
I yawned and stretched out my arms and wings to shake off the feeling of sleep which had fallen over me. I looked up at the sun and realized how late I had slept. I got up in a hurry and hastily flew on my way. It was not easy being a fairy. Children seemed to grow up so much quicker these days and they stopped believing in our kind so much sooner. Every day our fairy woodland seemed to get smaller and smaller and we all trembled in fear at hearing the words, “I don’t believe in fairies.” We would wait to see in terror which one of us would drop to the ground and cease to exist. Long gone were the days of us living eleven or twelve years, now we were lucky to make it to eight or nine.
All this fear had caused our fairy woodland to come up with a solution. We managed to use our magic to make a new formula of fairy dust to help extend the time that children believed in us. However, it meant that we had to go house to house each day blowing fairy dust through the windows of all the children. As you can imagine this was a lot of work, and I was very late.
I flew across meadows, valleys and hills faster than I had ever flown before. The sun was beginning to set. I stopped at each and every cottage and farmhouse on my route. I paused briefly to perch on the windowsill of each and watched all the little children sat upright in bed in their pyjamas waiting for their bedtime stories. I gently blew a small amount of fairy dust into each of their rooms and watched as it swirled across the room and danced around their heads filling their imaginations with a little bit of magic. By the time I was done I was shattered. The air had grown colder and it had started to snow heavily. I headed for home and back to the comfort of the fairy tree.
I flew back across the hills, valleys and meadows which were now covered in a blanket of white. I thought about my cosy fairy bed. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, I remembered the little cottage next to the wood and I flew there directly. I perched on the windowsill and peered through the window. The boy was fast asleep. All of a sudden the boy started coughing and sat bolt upright in his bed and spat something into his hand. The boy held out his palm next to his nightlight and gave a big grin. My heart froze like ice. It was a tooth! I delved into my fairy dust bag in a panic only to realise that the bag was empty. I shook it out into my hand, there were a few grains remaining. I went to blow them into the room when a gust of wind breezed by and the grains were no more. I had to get back to the fairy tree to collect more dust before the boy had the ‘tooth fairy’ conversation with his grown-up. I left immediately, there was no time to lose.
I entered the woodland and was momentarily stunned by the beauty surrounding me. It was as if someone had dropped a handful of diamonds from the heavens and Scattered them all over the trees and the forest floor. The moonlight was filtering through the trees lighting up the magical world. A feeling of contentment washed over me and I stopped to rest on a snow-free branch. I gazed at a spider’s web coated in little beads of Crystal that shone in the moonlight and I felt my eyes becoming drowsy. Unexpectedly I heard a snow-laden branch snap which brought me out of my slumber and I remembered the boy. I couldn’t fall asleep now, I had taken an oath along with my community to protect the fairy woodland. I continued on. Finally I reached the fairy tree. I landed with a bump in my cubby hole and went to collect more dust. As I was about to fly off I started to feel odd and could feel a strange aura around me. I could hear the boy talking excitedly to his mother about the lost tooth and she was telling him to place it under his pillow and see what the Tooth Fairy would bring. The boy laughed and told his mother not to be silly and said “I don’t believe in fairies!” My blood ran cold and then I felt nothing.
So happy to have found another short story writer.. I love how you humanized a mythical creature, we all experience the sting of not getting the credit we deserve although we work hard.
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Thanks for taking the time to read it. I’m really pleased you enjoyed it!
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To be honest, you had me with your awesome background! I feel rewarded by staying and reading your story. Very nice work!
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Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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Amazing! Totally engrossing👏🏻
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Thank you!
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Really nice. Thank you! (And thanks for following my site–we writers have to stick together!) My boys don’t believe in the tooth fairy anymore, which always makes me a bit sad. Maybe I’ll have them read this!
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Ha ha, yes. My daughter is 7 and I have to do a bit of convincing every time a tooth falls out! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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This is a really good story! Thank you for following my site!
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I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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Beautifully written 🙂 I enjoyed reading it ❤
https://projectmusings9.com
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Thank you very much!
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I wanted to stop by and thank you for following my blog, and I’m glad I stumbled upon this piece. It has a lovely concept!
-Author S
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Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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Of course! Also, feel free to leave feedback on the blog anytime you like.
-Author S
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Haha..brilliant! took me back to my Enid Blyton days. Looking forward to more stories like these 🙂
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That’s high praise indeed! Thank you very much!
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Wow, that was so sweet and heartbreaking at once. Its true how fast we grow up more so now with all the gadgets and internet, it doesn’t seem fair sometimes. I still want to believe in magic and fairy sometimes but then…… still thanks for sharing such a beautiful story, I would like read more magical stories though plz… 🙂
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Yes, technology is certainly changing the world. Whether it’s for better or worse remains to be seen. Thank you for reading. I’m glad you enjoyed it.!
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Yeah it remains to be seen… My pleasure 🙂
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Beautifully written. I love this poem ❤
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Thanks. I also love the poem. It would of been to easy to do a story based on the original idea of the poem so I thought this would be a little different!
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Yes, I loved it.
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So sad and heart breaking :’) I love it 😀 and thank you for following me!
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Thank you very much!
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Well, I do believe in fairies 😊
Beautiful tale..Wish the fairies would be able to dust more and more people with positivity
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Thank you for reading!
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I absolutely love this!! I love writing short stories and I think it’s great you are posting them. You have inspired me to write some more so thank you so much and I can’t wait to read what else you write because this story was brilliant!
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Thank you very much. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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Well? What happened to the fairy?
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She ceased to exist!
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Aww ! I don’t like the ending😔
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Then I hope you believe in fairies! 😉
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Haha! I didn’t expect that answer !
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That was a good read! Nice and short, but I enjoyed it!
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Thank you very much!
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Wonderful piece! I very much enjoyed reading it. I am not much into writing short stories but I do enjoy writing poetry. I believe in fairies, there is magic everywhere.
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Exactly! Thanks for reading!
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Your welcome 🙂 I love reading stories of mythical creatures.
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I love it!
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Thanks!
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Awesome read, I love Robert Frost.
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Thank you!
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Nice one👌
Keep the Good work going
___SEE YOU AT THE TOP___
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Thank you!
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I love the way you write. It’s simple and involves the reader. You make me want to read more! Please keep going!
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Thank you so much, you’re very kind!
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short yet beautiful 🙂 I loved it ❤
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Thank you!
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That is so cuute. I loved the imagery. I could visualise the story.
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Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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Beautiful story!
I love fairies and can’t get enough of stories involving those gorgeous winged creatures. The story brings a great question to my mind though. What happens to the magic? I love working with children, and I believe that the main reason for my passion is that children still believe in magic. I’m not talking about pulling a rabbit out of a hat or doing card tricks. I’m talking about the real magic behind the scenes creating our every day experiences.
At some point in a child’s life adults feel the need to take their magic away. Somewhere along the way humans decided that when you get older you should start living a more boring existence free from the effects of magic. I’d like to know when this began and for what reasons. The manner in which children look at the world is beautiful and something to be cherished.
In order to see the world as it truly is, it is necessary to have some sort of belief in magic. Without it, you are living your life in black-and-white. There is just as much magic within a drop of rain or blade of grass as there is contained within the creation of the universe. If fairies can exist in our imagination why can’t they exist in “real-life”? Who’s to say that the world of imagination is any less real than the physical world we perceive with our basic senses?
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Thank you. I couldn’t agree with you more. I guess growing up comes with a sense of responsibility and thanks to the media we become more aware of all the negative things happening in the world (although I wonder why not the good stuff so much). Another factor these days is kids spent so much time on electronic devices and not out in nature.
As a mum myself, I plan to keep the magic in my kids lives (and my own) for as long as possible! In our house, nature is celebrated as a priority! Magic is all around us on a daily basis and it’s our job as adults to keep reminding them of it! I just wish more adults could see it.
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I love the way you write and at the same time I’m a little bit envious, because I have this wild imagination, I sometimes find myself making a whole story in my head, but when I sit down to write it…well I just can’t.
That being said, I really enjoyed reading this and keep up the amazing work. I love it!
T.
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Thank you for your lovely comment. Keep practising! My advice would be to just write without thinking too much. You can always go back to edit later. Just get those ideas down in paper in whatever way helps you!
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How could the boy not believe on the toothfairy?
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