Prologue
“Nooo!”
“Please?”
“NOOO!”
Sigh. If their mom had been the one asking, these two little munchkins would’ve brushed their teeth and tucked themselves in without so much as a peep.
Mom got the strict-parent gene.
Me?
I’d barely last an hour before caving.
Which is exactly why I now find myself chasing two giggling gremlins around the living room.
“Monster’s coming!” I roar right as I catch one beneath each arm and charge upstairs, making enough noise to wake the neighbors before kicking open their bedroom door and tossing them, one after the other, onto their oversized bed.
They bounce.
Laugh.
Then immediately remember they were supposed to be protesting.
“Bad Dong!” Munchkin #1 cries, shoving a curtain of hair from her face.
“You promised we could stay up another hour,” Munchkin #2 huffs, not realizing it's already been two.
Not that presenting evidence has ever won me an argument against six-year-olds.
“Yes, yes.” I throw my hands up. “I’m the worst Dong in history. But you two really need to sleep. Mom’s almost home and if she catches you awake...” I roll up my sleeve, revealing the long scar carved along my forearm. “...we’ll all be in trouble.”
The two exchange an all too familiar glance.
“But we won’t,” Munchkin #1 says.
“Yeah,” her brother agrees, poking my scar. “You were the one who let us stay up.”
“Soooo,” his sister finishes with a grin, “you’re the one getting in trouble.”
“...”
Wow. Turns out the kids I raised with love are all the more ready to turn on me at the slightest drop.
“Who taught you two to be this cunning?”
“You did.”
“...Right.” Damn it.
“How about a deal?” I try now that my questionable parenting has put me on the bench. “Skip brushing tonight...”
Their eyes light up.
“...and I’ll tell you a bedtime story.”
The excitement fades as fast as it came.
“But bedtime stories are supposed to be boring,” Munchkin #1 grumbles. “They’re supposed to make us sleepy.”
“Quiet, Smarty Tutu.”
Munchkin #2 scrunches his face and I can practically see the spinning wheel buffering right up his forehead. Before he can figure out the irony and join his sister, I reach over and switch off the lights. The room melts into darkness and a second later, the little galaxy projector whirs to life.
Stars drift across the ceiling.
Planets float lazily overhead.
Nebulas bloom in soft blues and violets.
And like always, both kids flop onto their backs, completely mesmerized.
Perfect.
While they trace imaginary constellations, I slip them into their jammies and tuck them beneath the blankets without ever blocking their view.
“Dong?”
“Hm?”
“Do we really come from up there?”
My gaze follows his finger toward one tiny star. For the briefest moment, I simply look. Then smile.
“Yeah,” I say, ruffling his fuzzy hair. “We do.” As a matter of fact, that reminds me of the perfect bedtime story.
“Do you remember the tale your uncle told you? The Heavenly Maiden and the Woodcutter?”
They both nod.
“Well,” I settle onto the edge of the bed, “I once heard another spin on it.”
“A different version?”
“Not exactly but kinda.”
“Is it better?”
I hum. “I guess that depends on whose side you’re listening to. You see... long before kingdoms rose and long before people forgot how to fear the gods, the world was divided into two. Below was the earth we know today. And above,” I point toward the starry ceiling, “the Heavens, where only the mightiest spirits and purest souls could dwell. They say Heaven held wonders no mortal tongue could truly describe. Forests where every leaf gleamed like gold. Rivers that flowed with milk and honey. Islands that drifted through the clouds as lightly as feathers. But above all else, there was a garden.”
“A garden?” Munchkin #2 whispers.
“The most beautiful in all creation. It bloomed with flowers so precious that should even a single petal fall, the Heavens themselves would weep golden blood.”
Both Munchkins blink. “Golden blood?”
“Mhm.”
“And thus nine Heavenly Maidens were entrusted to care for those flowers.” I pause. “Well, almost nine. The youngest sister lacked just enough divinity to be deemed worthy. So instead of tending Heaven’s garden, she was sent to Earth to watch over a sacred spring high upon a lofty mountain.”
“Was she sad?”
I boop #2’s nose. “No. But I do think she was lonely. You see every month her sisters descended to bathe in the spring. They’d laugh. They’d gossip. They’d tell stories of Heaven. And every month, they'd leave.”
The room falls still.
“The little fairy listened to tales of a home she no longer belonged to. Driven by that longing, she eventually tried making one of her own. She wandered down the mountain to the villages below. However, Heaven had made her too holy for mortals, and Earth had made her too mortal for Heaven. So neither side welcomed her.”
“That’s mean,” the munchkins frown.
“It was,” I agree. “For a long time, she believed she’d spend forever alone. But one day, strangers arrived. They came from lands beyond the sea that worshipped different gods, spoke different words, laughed differently. And among them, there was a boy. The fairy thought he was the most handsome being she’d ever seen and so every day she crept a little farther down the mountain. Sometimes she’d only catch a glimpse of him. Sometimes he’d catch a glimpse of her. Until one day, he smiled.”
The Munchkins smile too.
“They became friends as they spent years together. The boy grew. The fairy not as fast. He taught her about people. She showed him the forests, the changing seasons, the mountains, the stars. And somewhere in the unfolding of their days, she mistook feeling at home... for being in love.”
“When the boy became a big strong man, he told her he wished to marry. As a result, the fairy gathered every bit of courage she possessed and confessed her heart. The then grown boy obviously rejected her. Not cruelly though, simply honestly.”
“‘We were only children,’ he told her. ‘It is time I built a family of my own.’”
“Hearing that, the fairy ran. She cried until her tears became black. But amid the wilds between the mountain and the forest, her grief became something else.”
“What?”
“Purpose. She decided that if the world insisted on abandoning her, then she’d just have to make it such that nobody would ever leave her again
#1 leans forward. “Did she get what she wanted?”
“Well,” I fold my arms, “That again depends on which story you’re listening to.”
I continue, “The grown boy returned to his village and prepared for his coming-of-age hunt. As tradition demanded, he was to bring home the finest game he could find and present it before every unmarried maiden. Whichever accepted his offering would then become his bride. So when he caught sight of the most beautiful deer he’d ever laid eyes upon, he chased it. Up the mountain. Through the forest. Across streams. Until the deer vanished, leaving a woodcutter before him.”
“‘Did a deer pass this way?’ the hunter asked.”
“The woodcutter nodded before pointing farther up the mountain. Afterward, the hunter thanked him and hurried on. However, the moment he disappeared the deer stepped out from behind a woodpile where it’d been hiding.”
“‘You have spared my life,’ it said, bowing to the woodcutter. ‘Allow me to repay your kindness.’”
“And with that, it spoke of a sacred mountain pool where Heavenly Maidens descended beneath the moon.”
“‘Go there tonight,’ the deer said. ‘You shall find a maiden destined to become your wife.’”
“Thus, that night, the woodcutter climbed the mountain. But no Heavenly Maidens awaited him. Only the deer. Or rather its corpse that had turned the pool red. And before the woodcutter could flee, someone stepped from the mist. A woman so beautiful she couldn’t possibly belong to this world. A beauty who blinded him right up until his vision was split in two... by his own axe.”
I let the silence linger until the two can no longer stand it.
“And then what?” Munchkin #1 asks.
“That’s it,” I shrug. “That’s where the story ends.”
“No it doesn’t.”
I knowingly raise a brow. “It doesn’t?”
“The woodcutter doesn’t die.”
“He marries the Heavenly Maiden.”
“They have children.”
“Then she goes back to Heaven.”
“He climbs up to find her, following the deer’s advice.”
“He comes back for his mother.”
“And then,” she turns to her brother, "doesn’t he become a rooster?”
“He might,” I admit.
Both of them look at me as though I’ve lost my mind.
“But you said the fairy killed him.”
“And there was no Heavenly Maiden. Just the dead deer.”
“So... what happened?”
Questions tumble over one another until neither munchkin knows whose turn it is anymore.
In return, I can’t help but laugh before easing them back beneath their blankets.
“Our deal was one story.”
“But—”
“No arguments.” I gently push Munchkin #1 back down beneath the covers. “If you really want to understand everything, you’ll just have to sleep and wait until the end.”
That earns me two identical pouts. The sort only these two could produce melting me in all of four seconds.
“...Fine.”
Both heads immediately turn toward me.
“I’ll leave you with a little something.”
I glance back up at the constellations drifting slowly across their ceiling. “The rest of the tale unfolds exactly as your uncle told it. The Heavenly Maiden still loses her robe. The woodcutter still becomes her husband. They still have two children. And somewhere along the way, another life quietly slips between the pages of the tale history passed down.”
I turn back to them. “So instead of asking what changed, ask yourself this. If these two stories truly become one, who gained the most from the ending everyone already knows?”
“The kind, oblivious woodcutter, who may have been punished for an act of compassion?”
“The Heavenly Maiden, who found herself living out a scheme she never chose?”
“The hunter, who cast aside the only heart freely offered to him?”
“Or...”
My smile softens.
“...the lonely fairy, who only wanted somewhere she belonged, until her misplaced affection became a story far larger than herself…”
