NOTE: All characters are 18+, and fictional. Any similarities to actual people (or Faeries) is purely coincidental.
ALSO NOTE: For those who like to follow my work, this is a departure from my usual material. I wanted to try something cute and fun, while keeping it erotic. It's nothing like my usual work, so please drop a comment if you'd like to see anything else in this genre.
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My wife and I bought a house way up a mountain in a small town upstate. The other houses around us were all of the same ilk; kind of old and run down with updates that stood out like a sore thumb. I seem to recall there were only about three dozen houses that clung to the side of the steep rise as ours did. It used to be a summer community where the residents would flee the city to come and enjoy the rural life a few weeks or months out of the rear. The rest of the time, it was usually too cold and snowy to be much fun.
We moved in that September, and found a few things that puzzled us. For one, literally every house in the community had a pickup. We thought we'd moved into hick-town USA, until the first snowfall. That evening when we got home from work, we had to leave our car at the bottom of the hill and walk up in the snow and ice. A week later, we joined the 4-wheel drive club.
The other thing I noticed was the iron horseshoes mounted over almost every front door, and almost as popular were wind chimes and dream catchers hung under the eaves or in front windows. My wife and I are both pretty academic, and we both had a fascination with medieval history. I, especially, learned a lot about old Norse and Celtic cultures. So one thing I recalled was that, after the Christification of the Celtic tribes, people often hung horseshoes over the door either U side up, or U side down depending on the intent.
U side up was to catch good luck in the bend, bringing fortune and blessings. U side down was a warding, to protect the house from evil spirits. I noticed that every single one had them were U side down. Even the house we bought had one. We also knew that Dream Catchers were used to catch bad spirits that tried to haunt your dreams at night, and wind chimes were used to drive away evil spirits in some cultures.
Again, we were more familiar with the Urban life than the rural, and it just seemed to fit the old-style homes and culture of the area. We hadn't really met anyone yet, so we didn't get any of the backstory... until Christmas.
Winter there often came with a ton of snow that made driving... pretty interesting. Try going down a road on a 30 degree angle in the show. We called it the 'Controlled Freefall'. So, when a big snow hit on Christmas Eve, we were sort of trapped and had to back out of plans to visit family.
We had just finished a late breakfast when we heard a knock at the front door. This was literally the first time anyone knocked on that door, so we sort of jumped with a little shock. Who would be out there in this weather?
It turned out to be our neighbor's kids. Timmy and Drew asked if they could shovel our walkway for five dollars. It was kind of awesome. The last time I heard those words, they were coming out of my mouth when I was their age. Here we were, actual home owners, with neighbors and everything!
"Sure." I said. "Be careful. It's slippery."
"And my dad wants us to ask if you want to come over for eggnog tonight." The younger one said.
"That's so nice!" My wife said. "We'd love to."
We paid the kids for their work, and tried to find something to bring to the neighbors. My folks always taught us never to show up empty handed to someone's house. The best we could do was a cheap bottle of wine, so I stuck a ribbon and bow on it, and at the appointed time, we went over.
Their names were Raul and Ginger. He was an EMT with the local hospital, and she was a nurse. They were about ten years older than us, and very friendly. We thanked them for the invitation, and retired to their beautifully decorated living room for eggnog and music while we talked and got acquainted.
During the conversation, I asked about the horseshoes and wind chimes. They looked at me like I had just said a dirty word in front of their kids.
"It's umm... a sort of tradition, I guess." Ginger said. "We were told they keep the fae folk away."
My wife shook her head like she wasn't sure she heard right. "Fae folk? You mean Faeries?"
Raul nodded. "I know, it sounds crazy." he laughed. "But I have to tell ya, we took ours down when we first moved in, and all sorts of weird shit happened."
"Like what?" I asked.
He took a long sip of his eggnog as if for courage, then sighed. "Okay, this is gonna sound stupid, but... the cat started acting really strange. It would go chasing around the house at all hours, like it was trying to catch something."
"Mice?" My wife suggested. "Out here, there must be a million of them."
"Not mice!" Ginger frowned. "She caught lots of mice, but she was jumping up on the furniture, up the walls, in the windows... like she was after a fly or something, but there was no fly."
"Then she jumped up on Timmy's bed in the middle of the night. Clawed his arm pretty bad." Raul added.
"Oh shit!" I gasped.
"Yeah. And that wasn't all." He went on. "Our fireplace flue just closed by itself. I started a fire, and it was burning fine for at least an hour, then all of a sudden, the whole house was full of smoke. That flue doesn't open or close easily. There's no way it just happened to fall closed like that."
"And the water heater." Ginger said.
"Right." Raul continued. "Stopped working for no apparent reason. Two days, no hot water. We got a plummer out here to look at it, and I swear to God, the minute he drove up, the damned thing turned on again like nothing was ever wrong with it."
"Well, that could have been the starter, or..."
"There were lots of other things." Ginger insisted. "Doors that opened or closed on their own, a window that cracked for no reason. All sorts of stuff."
Raul took over again. "Then our neighbor on the other side, Bob, that big dude in the old log house..."
I shrugged. We hadn't met him yet.
"Well, he said it was because we took down 'the warding' by removing the horseshoe. He said we should put it back, just like it was, and all the weird shit would stop."
"And did it?" I asked.
Raul sighed. "Yeah. It did. I put it back up, and we haven't had anything since."
"So... pixies?" My wife smirked.
"It's not funny!" Ginger barked. "There's something out there in the woods too. Something ancient and... it's real. I've seen it. Raul too."
Raul nodded. "Yeah. Up the trail about 5 miles is this huge boulder and it's got these... I don't know... weird symbols and stuff cut into it. Like pictures and lines and things."
"Look, can we talk about something else?" Ginger said nervously. "I don't like talking about this."
We let it go, but the minute my wife and I left the house, we brought it up. It seemed a bunch of superstitious nonsense, but like I said, we did study this stuff to some extent. There were lots of cultures all around the world that mentioned faeries or their equivalent. For peace of mind, we decided to leave the horseshoe right where it was.
When spring came, it was a huge relief, and everything just looked so gorgeous. The property had lots of trees, and since we literally bordered the Appalachian Trail, there was nothing but more mountain and wilderness out back. I have always loved the outdoors. I worked in the city, but was raised in the suburbs, and always loved open spaces to explore. My dad and I used to go canoeing down the Delaware River in the summer, which was a highlight of my youth. The seclusion and that mountain were one of the reasons we bought the place to begin with.
I got on some comfortable jeans, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, hiking boots, and took along a hunting knife, just in case. There were things to be wary of in the mountains, even if they weren't of the supernatural variety. Bobcats, black bears, and even the occasional rattlesnake did show up from time to time.
The climb up from the back yard was pretty steep, and the recently thawed snows left everything a little muddy and slippery. I had to take my time and proceed with care to avoid a tumble. By the time I reached the trail that was just barely noticeable with the occasional paint markings the stone, I needed a rest. I sat and just admired the view from 500 feet above the lake below. It was a very impressive sight. This was before smartphones, so I didn't have a camera to take a picture of it. I gave myself a mental reminder to bring a camera the next time.
I followed the trail to the north, enjoying the crisp air and budding trees. There was a little scare when I spooked an owl that swept over my head within arms reach. One small cardiac later, I took note that I'd been walking for about an hour, and turned back.
You know how a lot people seem to get lost while hiking? Well, I quickly learned why. From the trail, the mountain looks a lot alike. I remembered bare rock, and paint markings when I first hit the trail, but recalling exactly which rock and paint marking was the one behind my house was another matter. I walked back, and from that high up, you really can't see the houses through all the skeletal trees. When their leaves filled out, it would be damned near impossible. I kept having to go down the mountain a bit to see if there were houses, then back up to the trail in order to keep following it south.
My one hour north turned into two hours back, and I realized I must have missed my community, and started north again. It was getting late, and the sun would be setting soon, so it was starting to worry me. I definitely didn't want to be caught on the mountain after dark when all the fun predators come out.
The tail rises and falls, so every time I was at the top of a rise, I would try to see the lake and get my bearings that way. Then down to the next low, and I'd head downhill to see if I found houses or not. When I saw the sun set over the mountain, my heart sank. I had to be close, but unless I could find my way, I might as well be in the next county. It wouldn't make a difference.
Then, I climbed up the next rise, and stood a moment, trying to see the lake in the fading light... and I heard what, for the life of me, sounded like a little girl laughing. High pitched, a little squeaky. I thought it could have been an animal of some kind. A racoon or something maybe... then I heard it again behind me. I whirled around and... nothing.
Another giggle to my left, and still nothing. Then I heard a flutter, as if from a bird taking flight, and the giggle went with it. Still, I couldn't see anything.
