Wen stepped calmly out of the office building and shut the door behind her. Head held high, she rounded the corner before she sighed and slumped her shoulders. Another useless interview was over with. She failed spectacularly at emitting any air of confidence, and that was where she always screwed up every interview.
She continued down the street, hands in her pockets, head lowered. There was no point looking in shop windows as she passed by; she had no money to be frivolous with, in fact, she’d had to take the afternoon off work for this interview.
The whole world seemed hopeless, Wen’s life seemed directionless, and she felt the weight of it all for the whole train journey home. Once she stepped out into the open air of the train station near home and the doors closed behind her, though, she decided that it wasn’t worth stressing over. Maybe the feeling she’d gotten had been wrong, and the interview wasn’t a miserable failure. Maybe it was, but there would always be other interviews, there'd always be other jobs.
Wen’s optimistic mood stayed with her as she walked through the hallway to her apartment, ready to get out of her stuffy interview clothes and relax. Wen paused on her approach when she noticed the woman leaning on the wall and reading a book beside her door. She was professionally dressed, too, and Wen wondered if this was something job-related that required a house call.
“Hi,” Wen ventured as she got closer. The woman snapped her book shut and met Wen’s gaze with a serious expression. “Can I help you with something?”
“Are … are you Wenona Brennan?” She seemed worried, despite the calm air she had while she’d been reading.
“I am …” Wen couldn’t help but catch her nervous mood.
The woman sighed in relief. She held out her hand. “My name is Idra. Do you think I could come inside to talk?”
Wen took her hand and shook it, somewhat confused at the interaction thus far. Idra seemed too eager to see her for this to be anything about a job, or even a sale or charity. “Um, okay.”
Idra held onto her hand for a moment, as though she sensed the reason for Wen’s hesitation. “It’s about your family.”
“My …” Wen pulled away in shock and fumbled for her keys and with her door lock, but her efforts to open the door faster only made it more difficult. As she finally got the key into the lock, Idra put a hand over hers.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to worry you. It’s not about your immediate family, so there’s nothing to be scared of.”
Wen let out a long, heavy sigh and turned the handle to let herself and Idra into the apartment. She didn’t need a scare like that today. Her grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousins were the only family she had, and she didn't know what she'd do if something happened to them. She led Idra into the front room and had her sit on the couch. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’d prefer to just get this over with, if you don’t mind. I’m not sure if you’ll want to throw me out after I say what I came to say.”
Wen sat in the seat next to Idra and frowned. “What part of my family is this about?”
“It’s about your family history on your mother's side, and I want to start at the complicated part: one of your ancestors was royalty, and so, Wenona, you’re the legitimate heir.”
Wen couldn’t help it, she laughed. At Idra’s horrified look, she stopped quickly, but there was no way this wasn’t a joke. “I’m a royal heir? Like, of a foreign country?”
“It's something like that, but it's far more complicated.”
“How do you know about this? I think it’s something my grandparents would have mentioned, or they'd have left some letter or something regarding it.”
“I work in the royal archives, and there’s a family tree that led me to you.”
“And you’re sure it’s me? Am I the only one? What about the rest of the family tree?”
“It’s … complicated again, sorry. Most of your family is impossible to find, so it’s just you. And as for whether I’m sure, I wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t done all the research, but there is a test we can do.”
“That makes sense.” Wen leaned back into the couch. “So why now?”
“We’ve actually been looking for the heir for a long time, we’ve been without our monarchy for many years, and we need our ruler back.”
“If you’ve run out of royal family members, isn’t it about time you maybe thought of another system — democracy, maybe, Or even choosing a new king or queen — rather than picking up a long-lost heir from a foreign country?”
“It’s … not exactly that simple, Wenona. You see …” Idra took a deep breath. “I know this isn’t something you can understand right now, but it has to do with magic.”
“Magic? Where is this kingdom, the fairy world?”
Idra jerked forward and grabbed Wen’s hand, a serious look on her face. “You knew already?”
Wen pulled her hand gently out of Idra’s grasp. “That was a joke,” she rushed out. “It was supposed to be a joke. Are you saying that you really think I’m a fairy princess?”
Idra sighed, letting Wen have her personal space back. “I was going to get to that after you were used to the idea of magic, but now we’ll have to skip the part where I ease you into the idea and tell you everything at once.
“First, since I know there’s no magic in the human world, and the only way I can convince you is for you to witness magic yourself …” Idra held her hand up and one of the coasters flew from the coffee table into her palm. She held it out to Wen.
“That … that was pretty cool, I have to admit. But magicians do a good job of making it look like they’re doing the same thing. You could have just tricked me into thinking the coaster actually …” Wen trailed off as the woman in front of her started shrinking. It was surreal, and even though she had called the last display a trick, she was sure now that she was going crazy. Two small, translucent, leaf shaped wings became more and more pronounced on Idra’s back as she shrunk, almost like she was shrinking into them. Wen was transfixed and couldn't look away.
When Idra was about the size of Wen’s hand, standing on the chair, she fluttered her wings to lift herself into the air and landed on Wen’s knee. Wen opened and closed her mouth a few times, but couldn’t say anything. The process hadn't taken long at all, but Wen felt like she'd just watched the woman shrink in slow motion.
“I’m sorry about shocking you this way,” the little fairy-Idra said in her tiny squeak of a voice. “But because of your lack of magic, I know that humans are hard to convince of its existence.”
Wen stared at Idra for a while longer before finally finding her voice. “So you think I’m a fairy, too?”
“Actually,” Idra flicked her wings again and rose into the air so that she was closer to Wen’s face and her words were clearer. She looked into Wen’s eyes as she spoke, “I’m a pixie, not a fairy. The fey kingdom that we come from has two types of fey: fairies and pixies, but you’re not really either. The royal family is a mix of pixie, fairy and human.”
“So you don’t think I’m not human, just not entirely human.” Wen wanted to slump backwards, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Idra’s tiny eyes. “What do you want me to do? What is the test to see if I’m … part fey or not?”
“I want you to come to the fey world with me. You don’t have to choose right away whether you want to be the princess or not, but I’d like for you to come see what our world is like and make up your own mind.”
Wen gave a short laugh. “You want me to just go with you? A woman who might just be a crazy person who thinks she’s a pixie and knows some magic tricks?”
Idra bowed her head. “I understand that it will take some time to get to know me and decide whether you’ll come or not, but I came here with the hope that you’d give me a chance and eventually believe me. So will you consider it?”
Wen stared intently at the pixie in front of her, trying to figure if there was any way it could be a trick. Her wings weren’t large enough to keep her aloft, but she supposed the answer would be magic. The tiny facial features were earnestly waiting for an answer, and Wen was taken in by her adorableness. Who wouldn’t want fairies to be real?
“Give me some time to get to know you, so I can see if magic is real or not. But I just couldn’t say no to visiting another world.”
Idra beamed, the giant smile making her tiny face all the more adorable. “That’s wonderful! I won’t take up any more of your time this evening, but perhaps we can meet up tomorrow morning?”
“That sounds fine.” Wen got up in a bit of a daze and followed Idra as she flew around the corner into the entryway.
In the doorway, Idra grew back to her human-sized self, and while Wen looked her over, trying to figure out if it was really a trick, she noticed a tiny bulge on Idra’s back under her clothes and reached out to touch it. Idra spun to face Wen and smiled.
“Wings are the only thing a fey can’t change about their appearance, so I can’t make them disappear when I’m trying to look like a human.” She gestured toward her back. “Thankfully, they’re not really obvious unless you’re looking for them, and they have the tendency to hide underneath human clothes, too.”
“Oh.” Wen was at a loss for what to say. She’d already accepted that all of this had the possibility of being true, but the small observation of Idra’s wings had somehow made it even more plausible. “I’ll … uh … I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Meet me here, but we won’t stay here, we’ll go out for coffee.”
“I’ll meet you here at nine, then.”
Idra’s smile as they said their goodbyes was so genuine and disarming, it left Wen confused. After she’d left, Wen stumbled back into the lounge room and flopped onto the couch. “What?” she asked the ceiling. “What, what, what, what, what?”
The door opened and closed, and Gwen appeared around the corner. Wen tilted her head to look at her upside-down flatmate. Gwen frowned.
“Wen, you look a bit worried,” she said, sitting in the chair opposite.
Wen sat up to face her. “Not worried, just … confused, I guess? I don’t even know what’s going on any more.”
“Bad interview?” Gwen gave her a sympathetic smile.
“No. Well, yes. But that’s not what …” Wen waved her hand. “Never mind.” She stood up. “Now you’re home, I’ll get dinner started. I couldn’t earlier because I had company.” Wen walked towards the kitchen.
“And this company is why you’re so out of it?” Gwen called from behind her.
Wen stopped and turned around, but she didn’t meet Gwen’s eyes, instead looking down at the floor. “It was someone who knew things about my family that I didn’t know.”
“And that’s what has you all worked up? What could be so bad?”
“Not bad, just confusing. I’ll work it out, it’s okay.” Wen shot Gwen what she hoped was a genuine smile. It seemed to work, because Gwen didn’t look concerned.
“As long as you know you can talk to me about anything, Wen.”
Wen gave a genuine grin in return. “Of course! Thanks!”
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