No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

By Deane Christopher

e-mail: DEANECHRIS@aol.com

Edited by Constance Grant

Copyright 2000

An urgent need to empty his bladder roused Frank Grey from a deep sleep. Still more asleep than awake, he pressed the black button on his Timex Indiglo so as to illuminate the dial and, though bleary eyed, managed to ascertain that it was just little after two in the morning.

'Shit!' he thought to himself. 'I knew it was a mistake to drink that last beer before calling it a night!'

Carefully, so as to not wake his wife, Frank un-zippered the sleeping bag and gingerly, moving one leg at a time, extricated himself form it. Then, with a little groping on his part, he located the pair of sweatpants he had prudently set out for himself for just such an eventuality. Pulling on a pair of watershoes and locating a Mini-Maglite, Frank moved to the tent's zippered doorway and, after a few futile attempts, finally managed to provide enough of an egress for his large framed body to squeeze through.

"Honey." his wife's voice laconically called after him, "What'ya doing?"

Turning about to face the tent and crouching down on one knee, Frank, with his voice set just above the decibel level of a conspiratorial whisper, gently intoned, "I've got to take a leak. So, I'm going to just run down to the bathroom. I'll be back in a few."

Then, as he began to clamor back to his feet, from inside the tent, his wife's voice softly called out to him again, "Hey, hon! If, I'm asleep when you get back, do me a favor. Try not to wake me. Okay?"

"Yes, dear..." Frank, in a husbandly like fashion that he had grown accustomed to over the last year and a half, resignedly returned as he stepped away from the tent.

'Well,' he thought to himself as he scanned the campsite, 'as bright as the moon is tonight, I shouldn't need to resort to using this flashlight.'

Another moment passed as he internally debated whether or not he should just walk over to the opposite side of the campsite and hose down a bush, or take a short hike down to the closest camp ground bathroom facility.

Had he been camping with a bunch of guys, like he had back in his days as a Boy Scout, Frank wouldn't have thought twice about it. He would have simply opted for the quick and easy approach. However, he was spending the week camping in Shenandoah National Park with his wife and, knowing her as he did, he knew that Gale would give him a royal fit if she caught even the slightest whiff of urine anywhere around the perimeter of their site.

A few minutes later, having startled both himself and a pair of Loft Mountain's herd of graceful white tail deer, he entered the closest of the two bathroom facilities that the 'C' and 'D' Loop campsites shared. Stepping to the urinal, Frank attended to what needed to be attended to. Then, after a quick rinse of his hands, he was out the door and about to head back to his campsite when he thought he heard someone calling out to him. Turning, first this-a-way and then, that-a- way, Frank, not really sure if his imagination was playing tricks on him or not, endeavored to ascertain where the infuriatingly elusive and delightfully tinkling intonations were coming from.

The bushes! The intonations were coming from the bushes that bordered the paved path that Frank had used to access the men's side of the bathroom facilities. Furthermore, Frank realized that though they bore an elusive similarity to the sound of wind chimes, the intonations conveyed both a sense of urgency and abject despair.

Moving to the bushes, Frank, curious as to what he would find, knelt down on one knee and gingerly moved a few of the hedgerow's concealing branches aside.

She was beautiful. Exquisitely beautiful. And, standing no taller that height of Frank's middle finger. A radiance, a glimmering, shimmering, silver-white ephemeral incandescence flickered, caressed and undulated all about the diminutive young feminine being's beatific form. Her compound, butterfly-like wings looked to Frank to be constructed out of a latticework of rainbow hued and intricately woven gossamer tendrils.

Her voice, though it conveyed a distraught and woefully sorrowful note, was crisp and clear, delicately echoing on the night air with a wondrous sense of the myriad of multi-facetted harmonics. "Please, human! I implore you! Help me!"

Though a thousand questions came to mind, an incredulously awe struck Frank Grey heard himself stammer, "Are you hurt?"

"Yes. Though I am not in pain. One of my primary wings was badly damaged in a collision with a leather-wing night roaming chiropter and therefore, I cannot take to flight until it has properly healed itself." the ever so tiny flaxen haired creature explained with noticeable dismay.

'Leather-wing night roaming chiropter!' Frank had to mull that one over in his mind before coming to the realization that the teeny tinny winged creature was referring to a bat.

"A bat! I take it that you're saying that a bat collided with you?"

"It's more like the chiropter and I collided with one another.

"You see, the leather-wing had targeted a moth and because I wasn't paying attention the way I should have been, I inadvertently got between it and its' prey."

"Oh!" Frank, at a loss as to what to say to the diminutive young woman next, meekly replied. "So what you're saying is: it wasn't the bat's fault?"

"No! It was clearly my fault! I was looking up at the moon when I should have been paying attention to what was going on about me! And, because I was: I zigged when I should have zagged and that's how I ended up with a busted up primary wing strut that will probably take at least a good fortnight to heal to the point where it will sustain a flight of any real duration!"

"So," Frank begged the question, "what can I do to help you?"

"Well, since I cannot fly, I require transport. I was on my way to a Lunar Gathering of the Stone Tear Clan which is being held on the apex of yonder Tor to celebrate the advent of Midsummer's Eve. There, I will find healers-elders to mended my wing and hasten my recovery.

"So, please! I beg of you, good sir! Can you find it in your heart to grant me the boon I ask of you? Can you please convey me there ere the dawn's blossoming."

Having read a good deal of the literature that related to the fauna, flora and local folklore of Shenandoah National Park, Frank knew that the Loft Mountain Camp Ground was not situated on Loft Mountain, but rather, on the broad knob of Big Flat Mountain that had, prior to the park's institution, once served as a farmer's rock strewn cow pasture. Loft Mountain was the craggy peak just to the north of Big Flat Mountain and Frank took it to be the one that the diminutive winged woman had just indicated.

Pointing in the general direction of where he thought Loft Mountain to be, Frank replied, "If you're referring to the next mountain north of here, I'd be more than happy to take you there."

"Thank you, kind sir. I will be forever in your debt."

"It would be my pleasure to help you, little lady.

"However, before we go, I've to stop off at my campsite for a few minutes to change into some clothes, put on my hiking boots and get a another light. Y'know, just to be on the safe side."

With Frank protectively cradling the tiny winged femme fatale in the palm of his right hand, he carefully began to make his way back to the campsite he and his wife were occupying.

"So, he began tentatively, "I guess introductions are in order.

"I'm Frank. Frank Grey."

"My name is Solarna Delwinkel (So-lar-na Del-wink-kel) of the Stone Tear Clan."

"Please to meet you, Solarna Delwinkel of the Stone Tear Clan.

"So, I take it that you're a fairy?"

"Yes." Solarna replied. "Though technically, I am of the fairy subgenus sylvan, or, as what you big folk might call a winged dryad or pixy."

"Oh!

"Well, I can tell you one thing! Gale is in for the biggest surprise of her life."

"Who - May I ask? - is this Gale person?" Solarna hastily, if not harshly, demanded.

"Gale's my wife. And, I can't wait to see her reaction when she gets an eyeful of you."

"I'm sorry. But, I cannot allow that to happen, Frank!"

"And why is that?"

"Because, the fewer big people who know of my kind's existence, the better!"

"But, Gale won't tell anyone if you ask her not to!"

"That maybe true, Frank! But nevertheless, I cannot condone or be a party to her finding out about me!"

"Well, if that's the case, then you have a problem in that regard."

"What do you mean, Frank? What kind of problem?"

"Well, Gale's bound to wake up when I'm getting dressed. Y'know, what with me fumbling around, trying to locate my stuff and all. And, if she wakes up, it's a given that she's going to want to know why I'm getting dressed in the middle of the night.

"And, when she asks, it's a cinch that I'm going to have to tell her something!"

"Not to worry, Frank. I can take care of your wife for you.

"I will simply enfold her in a cocoon of sleep."

"You can do that?"

"Yes."

"And, she'll stay asleep, even with me fussing about and all?"

"Yes, she will remain oblivious to what you are doing and will remain asleep until somewhere around mid-morning."

Solarna's spell worked like a charm. Even with all of Frank's rooting around inside the tent trying to locate a fresh pair of underwear, socks, T-shirt, jeans, hiking boots and one of their larger lights for himself, Gale remained dead to the world.

Then, having clamored out of the tent, Frank asked Solarna if she would mind him taking another look at her damaged wing strut; suggesting as he did so that he might have come up with a way to immobilizing it and there by, speed up the healing process. Though dubious, Solarna gave him permission. A minute later, with the two of them sitting inside of the Grey's Ford Explorer, Frank, having rummaged around in the SUV's glove-compartment, produced a cardboard backed blister pack containing a pair of spare brake light bulbs and a half spent roll of Scotch Tape. Opening the blister pack and folding the flat portion of the plastic blister over upon itself, Frank employed the scissors utensil of his Leatherman utility tool to cut out two small winged shaped pieces. These, he used as splints, placing one of the plastic strips on either side of Solarna's broken wing and affixing them in place with several pieces of Scotch Tape.

"There! That should do it!" Frank proclaimed when finished placing the makeshift splint about Solarna's damaged wing.

"How does that fell? I mean, is it going to be to heavy for you to handle? Or, do you think you'll be able to manage the extra weight?"

After taking a second or so to gauge the effect the plastic splint would have on her mobility, Solarna replied that while it did hampered her a bit, she thought that she'd be able to manage it okay once she got use to the restrictions it place upon her.

Having put some thought into the route he would take, Frank decided to keep to the campground's paved roadways for the initial part of his trek over to the craggy peak of Loft Mountain, there by, negating the need for a flashlight. The barbed wired framed sign warning the newly arrived campers and picnickers that this was bear country informed him that he had passed out of the camp grounds proper and was beginning the descent of the access road that lead to and fro the Skyline Drive below. Shortly thereafter, Frank turned off the access road and began to cut diagonally across the parking lot that served both the camp's store and the adjacent building where the camp ground's shower and laundry room facilities were situated. On the far side of the shower and laundry room building, Frank flicked on his flashlight and started north along the famed Appalachian Trail. Using the white trail blazes to insure that he kept to the trail, Frank, who was a fairly competent woodsman, made fairly good time as he began to the cross the saddle portion of the ridge that connect the peak of Big Flat Mountain to Loft's precipitous limestone apex.

As he walked, Frank, eager to learn all he could about the life of a winged sylvan in the all to brief time allotted him before he and Solarna parted company, put one question after another to his diminutive companion. Regrettable, long before he had even begun to satisfy the wealth of his overtly stimulated curiosity, Frank came upon the convergence of a side trail and the concrete marker who's metal bands declared the side trail to be none other than Shenandoah's National Park's blue blazed Deadending Nature Trail. Having hiked the self-guiding nature trail just that afternoon with his wife, Frank had refreshed his memory concerning the folklore surrounding how the Deadending Trail came by its' name. The mountain folk who had eked out a meager living up on the Blue Ridge had adopted a practice of lopping off the uppermost portion of a tree in order to keep it from growing any higher and blocking off a particular view they wished to maintain. Trouble was, while the process had the desired effect, the tree, more times than not, died as a result.

Shortly after passing the concrete trail marker, Frank began to catch fleeting glimpse of strange, firefly like incandescent flickerings through the tress off to his eleven o'clock. Before he could formulate the question, Solarna's supplied the answer, "Frank! We draw close to the gathering place of my clan. The twinkling dance of lights you can see through the foliage up ahead and a little off to the left of the trail mark their presence.

A second or so later, due to the fact that Frank was paying a good deal more attention to the luminous flickerings up ahead than to the trials irregularities, his left foot came down square upon a brittle twig, breaking it nearly in half as it did so. A crack - a fairly loud, harsh and resounding one - was the result. In the next instant, the incandescent flickerings vanished.

"Shit!" Frank fumed under his breath, before quickly adding the addendum, "I'm sorry, Solarna! I never - Ever! - meant to spook them like that!"

"Do not concern yourself, Frank. My clan has not fled, as I believe you fear. They have merely gone to ground and concealed themselves. Fear not. They will reemerge shortly after you have taken your leave of me."

Within in the minute, heeding Solarna's caution about his not venturing out and onto limestone outcrops and so, endangering himself by coming to close to the edge of the precipice, Frank, somewhat reluctant to part company with his diminutive new friend, carefully placed the shapely sylvan on the ground. Acting on the assumption that Solarna desired a speedy reunion with the members of her clan, though he was loathed to do so, Frank bid Solarna goodbye and having taken his leave of her, began his trek back to the Loft Mountain Campground.

Coming out of the woods near northeastern corner of the rustic wooden building that housed both the laundry room and shower facilities for Loft Mountain's Campground, Frank not only came to the stark realization that his nightly adventures were far from over. There, not ten feet in front of him stood the cutest little black bear cub he had ever seen.

Generally speaking, black bears do not present a clear and present danger to human beings.

However, there were two well-known exceptions. The enticing aroma of food was one. Getting between a club and its' mother was the other.

Frank, unable to readily discern the whereabouts of the club's mother, was well aware of the fact that he could be shit out of luck.

'What to do... What to do...

'Do I just stand here and hope that the little fellow's mama isn't behind me or do I turn around and head back up the trail?

'Shit!' Frank internally exclaimed, as the club turned and began to waddle its' way over the newly mowed lawn towards where he stood immobilized.

'Go away, little guy!' he mentally urged. 'Please, I beg you! Be a nice little bear cub and go find your mother before she finds me...'

Just then, just when the bear club was no more than an arm length from him, Frank heard a low, gruff and menacing guttural growl coming from, what he assumed to be, the empty parking lot off to his right and about twenty yards away.

Stepping out from behind the far side of one of the park's supposedly bear-proof trashcans, the lumbering and, for Frank's money, extremely intimidating Momma Bear showed herself.

'Please, God! I don't mean to be a pest, but I could really use a little of Your personal intervention right about now!'

Momma Bear bellowed again, this time a little louder than before. Baby Bear, acting in a most obstinate and contrary manner, blatant ignored her as he began to satisfy his curiosity by sniffing around Frank boots.

'Oh, shit! That tears it! I'm in for it now!' Frank thought as he saw Momma Bear begin to head straight towards him and her precious little baby.

Knowing that running was not a viable option, owing to the fact that an adult black bear could easily out run a human, Frank decided to try to back off slowly. Trouble was, Baby Bear was far to intrigued with his new play toy to let Frank out pace him. And, Momma Bear, snarling away to the beat the band, kept on a comin'.

Then, just when Momma Bear had closed half the distances, a gleeful squeal sounded off to his left. Concurrently, another small bundle of glistening black fur erupted out of the long grass of the field going to forest off to his left, catching and consuming the attention of both Momma and its' sibling as it did so.

Though Frank was beset with several more tense moments as Momma Bear's two little bundle of joys scampered about on the lawn before him, playfully buffeting one another with their heads, the crises was elevated. Momma Bear, with a grunt of dismissal, protectively interposed herself between Frank and those frolicking babies of hers.

Thanking the Good Lord as he did so, Frank slowly backed to the near by wall of the building that housed the combination laundry/shower room facilities and began to make his way around the other side. Coming to the roofed over areaway that connect the laundry/shower room building with the commercially operated camp store, Frank paused long enough to assure himself that the bears were still out on the lawn where he had seen last seen them. They were, prompting Frank to get going while the getting was good.

Though he scared the hell out of both himself and an ornery old raccoon that had been rooting through someone's unsecured plastic food tub, damn near necessitating another trip to the nearest latrine, Frank made it back to his campsite. There, without further adieu and without waking his wife, he entered their tent; stripped off his clothes; climbed into his sleeping bag and was soon fast asleep.

Within a few minutes of Frank's leave-taking, the host of Solarna's Stone Tear Clan began to divest themselves of the disguises they had assumed to guard themselves against a human's intrusion. In the twinkling of an instant, rocks, twigs, pinecones, small piles of leaves and other such woodland flora and fauna being to coalesced and there by, transmogrify themselves into the beatific forms of shapely winged sylvans

In an open expression of their heartfelt concern for Solarna's welfare, the members of the Stone Tear Clan gather in a tight throng about their injured wingmate. Where upon, The Kesslacarra (Kess-la-car-ra), the clan's hereditary matriarch asserted her authority. "Solarna, it would seem that you have an interesting tale to share with the sisterhood."

Knowing what was expected of her, Solarna dutifully enlightened her clan as to what had transpired.

Then, upon the completion of Solarna's tale, The Kesslacarra, with a sense of profound resignation conveyed clearly in those sparkling intonations of hers, proceeded on to say, "Well, it suffices to say that the deed's been done and I and your sisters are most delighted to rejoice in your safe return. Regrettably, your selfless benefactor must suffer the consequences of his most noble deed."

"You mean..." though she fully understood her Kesslacarra's implications, a newly distraught Solarna meekly felt impelled to seek clarification.

"Yes, child. I'm afraid the duration of the time that the human spent in your company has doomed him to the Fate of the Lasscar (Lass-car).

Seeking yet more clarification of the matter, Solarna put another question to her Kesslacarra. "Can we, with all the magic we possess, do nothing to prevent such?"

"Alas child, no. The fate of your human is sealed with the Circle of Life."

"Then mother, we must surely appraise him of what is to occur!" Solarna was emphatic.

"I, with the sage counsel of my attending handmaidens will decide what our clan will or will not do!

"But, come child. We have a much more immediate concern. Thy wing strut is badly damaged. 'Tis time now to take part of the freely given gift of thy mother's healing nectar."

As command, a despondently distraught and teary eyed Solarna took the intervening step and bent her lips to her Kesslacarra's left nipple and began to suckle.

Though it wasn't till a little after nine, Gale Grey was the first to rouse herself from a sound sleep. Realizing just how late it was, Gale none to gently nudge her husband. Having done so, she proceeded on to inform Frank that, given their plans for the day, they didn't have a lot of time to dilly-dally around. If they wanted to salvage what was left of the morning, Gale informed Frank they had both better shag ass and get a move on it.

A low pressure front had moved in an hour or so after Frank had returned from his trek over to Loft Mountain and the day promised to be one of those dreary, drizzly days that has a marked tendency to challenge both a campers resolve and creativity.

"Hey!" Frank called out to his wife as he returned to the campsite, having just completed his morning bathroom ritual. "Tell you what! Since the weather doesn't seem to want to cooperate, not to mention the fact that we've already been there a couple of times before, why don't we scrap our plans to run down to the Blue Ridge and have a look-see at that mountain farmstead they maintain down at the Humpback Rocks' Visitor Center."

"Sure. We can hold off doing that. But, tell me. What do you suggest we do instead?

"Well, I was thinking that we could always head down to the Shenandoah Valley and check out one the caverns that we keep promising ourselves to go see?

"Tell you what, instead of going through all the hassle of fixing breakfast, why don't we save some time and drive down to the roadside and eat breakfast there? My treat!"

Gale, who hating cooking along with damn near everything else that was even remotely domestic, readily agreed.

Fifteen minutes later, having just swallowed a fairly good-sized wedge of pancake soaked in maple syrup, Frank changed the subject as he said, "You aren't going to believe the crazy, whacked dream I had last night!"

"I'm not?"

"No."

"How come?"

"It was weird. Really, really weird..."

"So, are you going to leave me hanging? Or are you going to tell me about it?"

Solarna's inherent passive magic abilities had muted Frank's recollection of the events of the preceding night and, in so doing, had enveloped them within the disjointed fog of a surrealistic haze.

At the conclusion of recounting what Frank truly believe to have been nothing more than a rather strange and convoluted dream, Gale playfully chided, "You know something? It's a good thing that I'm not the jealous type!

"Were I, given the way you went on and on about how pretty that little sexpot of a fairy you befriended in that dream of yours was, let me tell you! There'd be hell to pay!"

Playing along with Gale's jest, Frank meekly replied, "Yeah... And, don't I know it..."

One of the goals Gale wished to achieve while on vacation was to pick up a few more T-shirts for Frank in order to replace some of his more rattier looking ones. To that end, before getting underway, they made a quick stop in the roadside's gift shop to look over their selection.

"Hey, hon! Frank intoned. "Can you do me a favor! My back itches and I really need you to scratch it for me."

"Sure." Gale casually replied, as she handed him the hanger upon which hung the T-shirt she had selected for him. "Just tell me where it itches and I'll be happy to attend to it?"

"Right in the center. A little lower. Oh, yeah, that's it!"

An hour or so later, while they waited for the next scheduled tour of the caverns to get underway, Frank had Gale repeat the service she had afforded him earlier.

"Maybe you've got a touch of poison ivy."

"On my back?

"I mean, while it's always possible that I may have carelessly leaned up against a tree that had a vine of the stuff wrapped around it, I've got to say that it's highly unlikely. You know, given the fact that I don't seem to have it anywhere else. And, if there's one thing I don't do! I don't run around the woods with my shirt off!

Conceding her husband's point, Gale asked, "Could it be an insect bite?"

"Could be. Possible several."

"Tell you what!" Gale returned. "When we get back to our campsite this afternoon, I'll take a look. You know, just to be on the safe side"

As they exited the cavern at the end of the tour, Gale made an observation. "Is it me, or are you limping a little?"

"I'm limping."

"How come?"

"My boots are loose and, if I don't do something soon, I'm going end up with blisters.

"That's blisters? As in more than one?"

"'Fraid so."

"Which foot?"

"Both. It feels like I've got the makings of two on right foot and another one on my left."

"Oh, so that's why you kept stopping to tie them when we were in the cavern?"

"Yeah! That's it precisely.

"Trouble is: I could never seem to tighten 'em up enough."

"Maybe you put on a pair of my socks instead of yours this morning."

"Don't think so."

"And, why's that?"

Hiking up the right leg of his jeans in order to expose the color of his sock, Frank pointed out the obvious. "See! They're black! And, if my memory serves me right, you only packed black ones for me and white ones for yourself. You know, so that we wouldn't get them mixed up."

"True. But, I could have made a mistake and packed one of the few black pairs I own."

"Do they look like yours?"

"No. No, they don't."

"Didn't think so."

"Well, if it's not the socks, do I take it that you're saying that it's your boots that don't fit you anymore?"

"That would seem to be the case, now wouldn't it"

"But, that's absurd!

"I mean, you had those boots since before we got married! And, up until today, they've fit you perfectly!"

"Puzzling isn't it?"

"It most certainly is!

"So, let me ask you another question. Are you going to be able to make it out to the car okay?"

"Sure... as long as we take it slow. But, as it stands now, I think I might let you drive. Because, as soon as we get to the car, I'm taking these lousy sons of a guns off!

"Sure! No problem! I'll be happy to drive. All I ask is that you give me a sec to check out the T-shirts they've got here!"

"Sure. As long as you don't mind it if I go over to that bench over there and take a load off of my feet while you're looking."

A few minutes later, with three different colored Tees draped over her arm, Gale approached the bench where her husband awaited her.

"They have these three I really like and I just wanted to get your opinion before I made my final selection."

Frank, whose taste pretty ran along the same lines that his wife's did, liked all three of them and told Gale as much.

"So which one do you want?"

"I'm not sure. You know, because I kind of like all three of 'em."

"So, since you need some new T-shirts, why don't we pick you up all three of them."

"Our budget can handle that?"

"Sure! But, we're going to have to cut our expenditures for the next several weeks after we get back."

"Don't we always?"

"Yeah, I guess we do, don't we!

"Frank! I hate to ask you to do this, you know, because of how those feet of yours are feeling, but can I get you to stand up so I can see if these extra larges I have here are going to fit you. If they don't, don't worry, I already checked and they do have the very same three shirts in a Double X.

"Whoa!" Gale exclaimed a moment later. "These extra larges are huge! Let's see if a large will suffice.

"You wait right here. I'll be back in a minute with one."

Sure enough, it appeared to Gale as if a large size would do the trick nicely. Trouble was, they only had two of the shirts that they both liked in stock.

"Hey, hon! Guess what! They have a whole bunch of moccasins - you know, the kind you like - on their clearance table and I was thinking that since we aren't buying a third T-shirt and those boots of yours are doing a real number on your feet, you might want to consider picking up a pair.

Slipping his foot into a pair he taken a shine to, Frank quipped, "Guess what, Gale? They same outfit that made those shirts must have made these shoes!"

"What makes you say that?"

"They're to big!"

"So, you're saying that you want to try a half size small?" Gale said as she began to scan the assortment of shoeboxes for the desired size and style.

"Better make that a whole size smaller."

"You're kidding..."

"How are those moccasins?" Gale inquired as they made their way down the paved incline on their way back to the parking lot.

Frank, carrying his boots in one hand and the plastic bag containing his new T-shirts in the other, replied, "They fell great!"

"So, do you want me to still drive?"

"No. That's okay. I don't mind driving at all now.

A few minutes later, Frank did something that struck his wife as odd. Having inserted his key in the Explorer's ignition, Frank had nonchalantly readjusted his seat, moving it forward by a notch. Then, even as he fiddled with adjusting the rearview mirror, a curious, to the verge of becoming alarming perplexed, Gale exclaimed, "Frank, what's with the seat business?

"I mean, you've been driving all week with the seat adjusted the way it was and it didn't seem to bother you!"

"I don't know. It just feels a whole more comfortable this way then it did before."

"How so?"

"Well, for starters my feet reach the pedals better..."

"You mean, better than they did before?"

"Yes! I guess so..."

"And, you don't find that odd?"

"Well..." Frank, who was shimming around in his seat in order to address that persnickety, re-occurring back itch, returned thoughtfully, "Now I do..."

Later that afternoon, as the two them of browsed around a souvenir shop in Rock Fish Gap as a means to extend their time away from their campsite, and there by, diminish the time they would have to endure the dreary weather, Gale declared, "Frank, I know what your problem is! You're getting shorter!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"That's ridiculous!"

"Ridiculous or not, take it from me! You are shorter than you were yesterday!"

"Come on, Gale! Get real! There's no way I'm getting shorter!"

"You are getting shorter and I can prove it!

A minute later, as the two of them stood before a handcrafted stand alone black walnut dressing mirror that the souvenir shop had on consignment, Frank grudgingly had to admit that his wife's assertion was right on the money. He was a good two inches shorter than he ought to be.

"You're not just shorter, Frank! The problem you had with those boots of yours proves that you've become smaller all over!"

Seeking clarification for something he had already realized, but had yet to accept, a badly shaken Frank replied, "What are you saying: that I'm some sort real live, walking, talking shrinking man that's going to dwindle away to nothing?"

"No!" Gale was emphatic. "That's not what I'm saying at all!

"What I am saying is that you are not as big as you use to be and that we need to get you to a doctor A.S.A.P. in order to find out what in the world's going on!"

Just then, as if in counterpoint to Gale's last statement and mirroring something that had occurred in the classic Sci-fi movie that her husband had just made mention of, Frank's wedding band slipped off of his finger and, with a resounding metal clink, impacted harshly with the shop's parquet flooring tiles.

Having arrived at the mutual decision to return to the campsite; break camp and head home that night, with the plan being for them to be at their primary care physician's office when it opened the next morning, the two of them were soon heading north along the famed Skyline Drive. Though they had only a little over thirty some odd miles to drive, a fog that was a thick as pea soup in some places had settled over the higher elevations of the Blue Ridge, making the going both slow and extremely treacherous. Though the Explorer's air conditioner was going full tilt, the hazardous road conditions, compounding in upon his unshakeable concern for his own physical well being, had Frank in a sweat.

Twice, Frank was forced to pull into an overlook to wait for the prevailing conditions to get better before proceeding any farther up the Drive. And once, adding insult to injury, a doe bounded out of the woods to his left and darted right across the road right in front of their SUV, scarring the beejesus out of both him and Gale in the process.

Though the delay irked the shit out of both them, Gale, made the prudent suggestion that since the fog seemed to be getting worse instead of better, that it might be advantageous for them to spend another night at Loft; adding that they would get up extra early and beat feet for home in the morning. Frank, though he hated like hell having to do so, had to agree, pessimistically suggesting that they'd be lucky to get back to Loft before nightfall.

Given that it was getting late, Gale suggested that they forego eating dinner at their campsite and grab quick something at the wayside where they had eaten breakfast. Frank, though he knew the food on the menu would strike him as being unappetizing at best, readily concurred

It was about half past six when a rather stressed out and road weary Frank finally managed to pull their Explorer into the Loft Mountain's fog bound and commercial run wayside. Acting on Gale's prudent suggestion to top of the tank, Frank, aware that he was paying an exorbitant price, gassed up first. Then, having parked their SUV in what he hoped would prove to be a safe spot, Frank acting on another of his wife's suggestions, began to change out of the sweet saturated shirt he was wearing and into one of the new ones Gale had just purchased for him.

"Holly shit!" Gale, who rarely if ever used such an abrasive choice of words, exclaimed as she caught sight of her husband's back. "I've never - Ever! - seen anything like this before!"

"Like what?" Frank inquired frantically.

"Like these - I guess you could call 'em raised rashes! - that you've got on your back!

"I mean, it's no wonder you been so itchy all day, as red and raw as these - I'm not exactly sure what I should call 'em! - look!

"I mean, they've got to hurt like hell!"

Frank allayed Gale's fears, saying that while they were as itchy as all get-out, they didn't hurt in the least little bit

"Well, even if they don't hurt, they've got to be uncomfortable! You know, raised up like they are!"

"Actually, Gale, if they didn't itch so much, I probably wouldn't have even noticed them.

Gale, always the skeptic, "Given how read and raw they look, I find that hard to believe!"

"Can you do me a favor and describe how they look to me?"

"Sure I can!

"Basically, these rashes, or whatever in the hell they are, are about a hand-span long and, starting right around the lower extent of your shoulder blades, they run down both sides of your spinal column"

Seeking conformation, Frank asked, "And you say they're raised and red?"

"Yes! For my money, they look like they're inflamed."

"Do me a favor. Touch one and let me know how they feel."

"Do I have to?"

"No. Not if you don't want to, but I would really appreciate it if you did."

Though squeamish, Gale did as Frank requested.

"Does that hurt?"

"Does what hurt?"

"Does my touching you hurt?"

"You're touching me?"

"Yes, dear. I'm touching you."

"Well, while I can feel you exerting a little pressure back there, I really can't feel your finger actually touching me."

Using her nail to make a deep furrow in one of the two parallel finger wide strip of mounded skin that ran down the center of her husband's back, a guardedly disturbed Gale asked, "How 'bout now, Frank? Can you feel my finger now?"

"Only the pressure."

"How 'bout this?" Gale said as she jabbed her nail into the unblemished skin alongside of the rightmost one of the two parallel redden mounds.

"Ouch! That hurts!"

Repeating her energetic finger thrust, once again targeting one of the ugly, ominous and inflamed looking cornrows that had cropped up on her husband's back, Gale, suspecting and dreading the answer she would receive, inquired. "Tell me! Did you feel that?"

"Nooo...

"I mean, I know that you're doing something! You know, as in I can feel the pressure you're exerting. But, no! I didn't really feel what you did or, for that matter, what you're doing the way one would expect I would.

"I mean, it feels like it's a... a... a..." Frank groped.

"Anesthetized." Gale offered.

"Yeah! That's it! That's it exactly! That part of my back feels more or less like it's somehow been anesthetized!

Then, after a long moment of contemplative thought, Frank said, "Okay! So anyhow, you still have yet to tell me what it fells like."

"Well..." in an effort to organize her impressions and there by, better explain herself, Gale began slowly and tentatively. "...while it kind of sort of reminds me of a scab - You know, given how crinkly and crackly it is to the touch - I wouldn't go so far to actually call it a scab.

"Look, while I know this is going to sound crazy, you know what it feels like to me! Snake skin. You know, after the snake has shed it!"

There were a lot of other things that added to Gale's qualms, such as a slight, yet nevertheless noticeable emasculation of both her husband's arms and upper torso, in so far as the size and definition of their respective muscle structure was concerned. Also, Gale took note of the fact that her husband's mat of unruly chest hair, while still very much in evidence, had thinned out considerably. And, by the same token, the five o'clock shadow that usually dominated his face at this particular time of day - didn't. Truth be told: Gale had to look hard to see any evidence of a five o'clock shadow. And what she did discern, was little more than a pubescent tuff of peach fuzz.

Not wishing to alarm Frank anymore than he already was, Gale elected to withhold such information for the time being, knowing all the while that she was only postponing the inevitable.

Given how crowded the wayside's eatery was, Frank and Gale felt lucky to locate a recently vacated booth. Though it had been cleaned with a whole lot more of a passing promise than anything that even approximated a lick of a moisten cloth, they sat down and began to chow down on what passed for cheeseburgers, fries and the damn near obligatory, overly watered down fountain sodas. As they did, they began to speculate on what could be causing the catastrophic changes that were targeting Frank's physique. However, they were only getting started in that endeavor when an sidearm totting, though far from imposing, dapperly uniformed National Park Service ranger general entered the wayside's restaurant facilities and, with a voice that wasn't quite up to the task, the young woman requested everyone's attention.

Though she had to repeat herself several times, the somewhat plump and spunky ranger general made the announcement that the prevailing weather conditions had forced the Park Service to close down the Skyline Drive to vehicular traffic. Until further notice, no one was being allowed to either enter or exit the Drive, stating in a very no nonsense and emphatic manner that the turnstile gates had been ordered closed and locked. Then, in an afterthought, she continued on to say that she was very sorry for any inconvenience that such a measure might cause, but that those at the wayside would be forced to remain there or in the campgrounds until the fog lifted.

A question and answer session followed in which the ranger general endeavored to tactfully address the concerns of the people, most of which were campers, who had been, through no fault of there own, stranded there. Regrettable, the ranger, in answer to one of the questions put to her, informed the campers that owing to how bad the fog was, they would have to leave their cars parked at the wayside and hike up the hill to their campsites. Having done so, the ranger general quickly added a word of caution, alerting the would be hikers to exercise extreme care on their way back to their campsite. There had been several ranger-confirmed sightings of a mother black bear and her two clubs frequenting the Loft Mountain Recreational Area, especially in and around the amphitheater, picnic grove, outer most campsite loop and campstore.

Someone then asked the very same questions that Gale had been on the verge of asking. "What would happen in case of a medical emergency? And, in lieu of an ambulance, could a medical evac helicopter be counted on to provide transport?"

The noticeable ill at ease ranger general answered the questions just put to her in reverse order. "No. A medical evac helicopter could not be counted on. And, should the unforeseeable occur, resulting in a medical emergency, first aid would have to suffice until other arrangements could be made. But not to worry, all of the park rangers, both the naturalist and the ranger generals like myself, are Red Cross Certified in first aid. And, just to ally any fears some of you might have, I should tell you that the campground hostess is a newly retired operating room nurse, who would no doubt be glad to lend a hand dealing with any medical emergency that might crop up..."

Fifteen minutes later, having indulged themselves with an ice cream sundae apiece, the Greys exited the wayside, only to find that the fog had done something that neither one of them had thought possible. It had worsened, so much so that it would prove a real challenge for them to make it back to their campsite on foot without getting lost on the way.

"So," Gale sought her husband's explanation as they began to trudge up the access road to the campgrounds above, "can you explain exactly why you didn't want me to ask the ranger if there was some way for us to get you to a hospital tonight?"

"Because, it wouldn't have done us any good!

"You heard her! They've closed the Skyline Drive until the fog lifts! No one - And, I do mean no one! - is going anywhere until it does!

"Besides, while you and I might think that what's going on with me equates to a medical emergency, even if we could convince the Powers That Be around here that I really am - I guess you could say: shrinking! Which, as you might well imagine: is highly unlikely to begin with! - they aren't going to consider it enough of a medical emergency to do anything about it! You know, because it isn't life threatening!

"And, just for the fun of it, let's say we did manage to make it to a hospital tonight and they did buy into this business about how my body's getting shorter and shorter, just what in the hell do you think they're going to be able to do about it?"

"I don't know, Frank!" Gale's retort conveyed a harsh, frantic and bitter sense of helplessness. "I honestly don't know!

Then, reigning in her rather frayed emotions, she continued, "All I know is: I feel like we need to do something!"

"I know, Gale. I feel the same way you do. Trouble is: I haven't a clue as to what that something could be.

"What I do know is: that whatever in the hell is happening to me has yet to run its' course. You see, though it's only a rough guesstimation on my part, I think I've lost somewhere in the neighborhood of another two inches since we were at that souvenir shop down in Rock Fish Gap this afternoon."

A few minutes after that, Gale broke the introspective and eerie silence that had, like the fog, enveloped the two of them.

"Frank! Did you hear what that ranger said about the bears? How they've been seeing a mommy bear and her two cubs in and around the vicinity of the campgrounds?"

"Yes, I heard." Frank's reply was that of an automaton in that it was distant, flat and completely devoid of emotions.

"Well, don't you find it ironic that you dreamed about a mommy bear and her two cubs only last night? Not only that you did that! But, in your dream you encountered them down at the campstore! You know, one of the very same places that the real bears have, according to what the ranger said, been sighted!"

"Well, now that you mention it, I guess I kind of do find it to be a little ironic..."

"Is it possible that you could have overheard someone talking about seeing the bears? You know, like when you were showering last night or down at the restroom?"

"Could have.... But, I really don't recall hearing anything about anyone seeing a bear around here.

"I mean, had I. I most certain would have told you..."

Then, after a moment of introspective contemplation, Frank mused, "You know what's really strange about that dream of mine?"

"No. But, I think it's safe to assume that you're about to tell me."

"Well, you know how dreams are, don't you? You know, how they begin to fade throughout the day, until you only end up with a vague and hazy recollection of them?"

"Yeah! So?"

"So, instead of getting hazier and harder to recall, damn if that dream I had last night isn't becoming more vivid as the day goes on!

"Hell, though something like this has rarely if ever happened before, that whacked out dream of mine is so vivid now that I'm actually beginning to have a hard time separating false from true! You know, as it almost feels as if really happened!"

"Maybe it did!" Gale, surprising the hell out of herself as she did so, tentatively offered. I know I'm grasping at straws here! You know, in an effort to try to explain what's going on, but maybe what's been happening to you is a direct result of something that fairy that you befriended in that so called dream of yours did to you! Maybe, the only way she has of securing your silence and there by preventing you from telling the world about her and her kind is by somehow changing you into one of them!"

"Yeah! Right!" Frank was incredulous. "Can you picture me - a fairy?"

"No! No, I can't! But, then again, since there's no getting around the fact that you are getting shorter and shorter with each and every passing hour, Frank, what other explanation is there?

"I mean, if you can come up with something else, I sure would like to hear it!

"So would I!

"Trouble is: though I keep wracking my brain to come up with another explanation, I can't!"

"And, then there's those icky, scabbed-over rashes - Or, whatever the hell you want to cal 'em! - on your back to consider!"

"Come on, Gale! You're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting, are you?"

"I most certainly am!"

"But, that's absurd!"

"Absurd or not, how else are you going to explain 'em?

Though it took some doing, not to mention a good deal of back tracking, Frank, with a chiding, "Didn't I tell you that I thought we were on the wrong loop!" finally managed to locate their campsite. As the two of them made for their tent, they inadvertently spooked a squirrel that dropped from an upright hunch to all fours and, in a frenzy of fur, madly scampered across the picnic table. Running out of table, the startled critter launched itself in a helter-skelter fashion towards a low hanging branch of one of the many black locust trees that fairly encircled the Grey's campsite, where, unbeknownst to the Greys it turned and resumed its' lonely vigil.

Catching a glimpse of an indiscernible pile of something on the table nearest her, Gale, dragging her husband along with her, walked over to the table to get a better look.

"Well, well! Would you look at that!" Gale said as she picked up one of the small, grayish-black cross-shaped objects and began to inspect it.

"I do believe I've seen these before somewhere..."

"Well, of course you have, honey!" Frank chimed in. "Truth be told: you've been seeing facsimiles of what you've got there all day. You know, like every time we've been in place that sells mountain souvenirs!

"However, I do believe that what you've got there is the genuine article!"

"You mean to tell me that you think this is a real fairystone?"

"Sure as hell looks like one to me?"

"Oh! That's right! If I remember correctly, didn't you tell me that back in your Boy Scout days, you collect a whole bunch of them when you were camping somewhere down around Stuartstown."

"Wow! You really do listen to me sometimes!

"But, you're right! Back when I was in Boy Scouts, I spent a whole week one summer camped just down the road from Fairystone State Park. And let me tell you! We all found a whole shit load of 'em in a dry creek bed that ran down the backside of the property where we were camped!"

"They're crystals, right?"

"Yeah, the real ones are.

"Now, don't quote me! But, if my recollection serves me right, I do believe that the technical name for them is staurolite and you can find deposits of them in both Georgia and New Mexico, as well as south of here in various parts of Fairfax County.

"Did I ever tell you the neat little story that goes along with 'em?"

"No, I don't believe so... Or, if you did, I really don't remember it."

"Well, local legend has it that on the day that Christ died, the fairies here abouts cried for the world's loss and that their grief was so pure of spirit that the tears they cried became little crystal crosses."

"I must say: that really is a beautiful legend...

"But, as nice as that legend is, it doesn't begin to explain how all these fairystones ended up here on our table!" Gale said, pointing out the obvious.

"No! You're right! It sure as hell doesn't..."

"Maybe," Frank continued on to conjectured, "someone who has just been down at Fairystone State Park in the last several days was using our table to look at 'em, or to sort through them or whatever and, for some reason or another, just up and left them here..."

"That is one plausible explanation." a clearly unsatisfied Gale freely admitted. "However, there is another one...."

"Ah! Come on, Gale! You're not seriously trying to suggest that a fairy was responsible for leaving this pile of crystals on our table, are you?

"I mean, don't you think that's you're grasping at straws here trying to come with an explanation?"

"Under normal circumstances, I would be the first to admit that that was a pretty farfetched assertion on my part! However, Frank - As well you know! - these are anything but normal circumstances that we find ourselves in!

"Besides, as Sherlock Holmes was so fond of telling Dr. Watson - And, I'm paraphrasing here! - once you logically eliminate all the possible explanations, however improbable the explanation you're left with is, that's the one you've got to go with!

"That's all well and good, Gale! But come on! You're not seriously suggesting that I'm turning into a fairy?"

"No... But, I'm not discounting that possibility either..."

Fifteen minutes later, Frank, having just made his way through a blanket of the thickest fog he had ever encountered to and from the bathroom, re-entered their tent.

"Gale!" he meekly intoned, having just stowed his toiletry bag. "Do you think it would be possible for the two of us to make love tonight? You know, because if you're right about this fairy business, which I'm staring to believe you might be onto something, this might well be our last chance."

Gale, who had been thinking pretty much along the same lines as her husband, was quick to acquiesce.

Their lovemaking that night was enveloped within a bittersweet tenderness. It was, by unspoken mutual accord, as unhurried as it was passionate. They intimacy became an almost palpable commodity, calculated to sustain their longings through a lifetime of bereavement over what might well be the very real possibility of their impeding separation.

Gale, well aware of the fact that her husband was beginning to develop the hint of female nubbins on his formerly manly chest and that his genitalia was on the fast track to becoming that of pre-pubescent boys', nevertheless wished to perform the selfless act of fellatio one last time as a means to convey her undying devotion to him. However, what entered her mouth as a child-like penis, exited it as an overlarge nub of what Gale knew to be a female's clitoral prominence.

"My God, Gale!" Frank, still in the wondrous and mind boggling throws of the joyous after tremors of a string of clitoral induced orgasms, finally managed to breathlessly gasped. "That was fantastic! Absolutely fantastic! I mean, I never - Ever! - imagined that women had it so good!"

"So, I take it that you like it?"

"Liked it?" Frank squealed in sheer and utter amazement, as he frantically endeavored to savor every nuance of the eye opening experience his wife had just treated him to. "I can't being to put into words how much I loved it!"

Then, after another short-lived moment of silent contemplation, Frank, his voice clearly conveying a sense of disgruntled resignation, meekly intoned, "So, I take it that I have a vagina now?"

"Not quite!" Gale replied, having taken a second or so to probe around down there, in between her husband's legs. "However, there's no getting around the fact that you definitely have one in the making!

"Yeah... and it looks like I'm in the process of getting fitted out with a pair of boobies to go along with it!"

"Looks like!" Gale concurred as she unconsciously began to impishly toy around with one of her husband's expanding areolas

"Oooo..." Frank seductively cooed, as a sexual shiver captivated his being.

"Damn, they're so sensitive! More sensitive then I ever thought possible!"

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No!" Frank's riposte was frantically emphatic. "No! I don't ever want you to stop!"

"So, I take it that you're starting to take a shine to these new feminine wilds of yours?"

"Yes! Oh, yes! While I'm anything but happy about this girl business, I have to confess that I absolutely love what you're dong to me..."

A few minutes later, "So, given this brand new body that you're well on your way to being fitted out with, do you think it's a safe bet to say that all fairies are female?"

"Probably..."

"Well, what are you going to give me if I'm right?"

Playing along, Frank, with a girlish chuckle, replied, "Well, you tell me what you want and I'll see what I can do!"

"Well, since it appears that our life together as we know it is all but over, I'll tell you what I want! I want to be a fairy too!

"Gale!" Frank furiously charged. "That's crazy! Why in the world would you ever suggest such an outlandish thing as that?"

"So, we could still be together, you big ninny!

"I mean, you're not the only one of us who takes our marriage vows seriously!

"Besides, you're not only my lover, my business partner, but you're also my bestest friend in the whole wide world! And, I'm not about to lose you, or have you waltz out of my life just because you've become both a female and a fairy! Alright?"

"So, you better make up your mind right now, oh husband of mine, that the first order of business for you to handle once this transformation of yours is a done deal is for you to track down that Solarna of yours - or whatever the hell her name was - and demand that she do whatever in the hell she did to you to me! You understand?

"I mean, fairy or not, Frank! You, my daring, are stuck with me!

"And, I don't want to here any 'buts' about it!"

Frank, though she did so with a great deal of reluctance, tearfully promised her wife that once a full fledge fairy, she would do whatever she could to find a means where by Gale's wish could be fulfilled.

Then, having gotten that matter behind them, the two of them began to reminisced, as each in their own way, endeavored to recall and savor the high points of their life together. Spooning herself about the dwindling and increasingly feminine form of her hubby, Gale strove to lend Frank what comfort and solace she could, in an all out effort on her part to ward off the encroaching melancholy that waited - vulture like - to feast upon their misery.

A nagging pain, caused by what she assumed to be a pile of pebbles beneath the tent's flooring and damn near obligatory plastic ground tarp that lay under it, roused Gale from sleep early the next morning. Almost immediately, she was in a panic. Frank was nowhere to be seen. Fearing that her husband had, for some asinine reason or another, gotten into that thick head of his to slip off in the dead of the night to link up with Solarna and her fairy clan, Gale was in a quandary as to what she should do. Should she try to find him? Or, should she wait and hope that he - Gale had to remind herself over and over and over again that he was a he no longer. - would keep her promise and return to their camp with a means that would allow Gale to share her husband's newly imposed life as winged sylvan.

Hobbling unsteadily on her knees, Gale none too agile made for the tent's zippered doorway. As she did so, she collided with a semi-hard lump of some elusive something that lay concealed beneath a portion their double sleeping bag. Throwing the top coverlet aside, Gale was rendered awe struck as she incredulously gazed down upon the diminutive, though exquisitely sculptured and down right seductively looking female that her husband had further transmogrified into during the course of the night.

"Oh, my!

"Frank!" Gale was frantic. "Is that really you? Did I hurt you?"

Having taken a long and drowsily bemused moment to take stock of her new self, Frank, in a voice that jubilantly tinkled with a intriguing sense of crystalline delight, tentatively replied as she demurely rose to her knees, before repositioning herself into a demure and very lady-like sitting position, "Yes! I'm afraid it is me. And, no, though you woke me from a sound sleep, you didn't hurt me at all."

"Are you in any pain or discomfort? You know, as a result of all the changes that you've undergone?"

"No! None whatsoever! In fact, I feel wonderfully! Really wonderfully!" Frank, though she failed to register the fact herself, was giddy with the wonderment of just how really splendid she felt. "No aches! No pain! No nothing!"

"That's good to hear." Gale returned in a self-targeted effort to reassure herself. "But, you're so small...

"Can you stand up?"

Frank, with all the grace and dexterity of a prima ballerina, did so.

"Oh, my! You really are small!"

"I am! Aren't I?"

"Yes! Yes, you are...

"I mean, you can't be much taller than three feet!"

"If, I'm that..." Frank, with a yawn and a stretching of her emasculated arms that resounded in a crackling, ripping sound, thoughtfully replied.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That sound!"

Before her husband could respond, Gale had the answer she sought.

"Frank!" Gale exclaimed in astonished amazement. "You've got wings!

Having craned her head around to have a look-see for herself, Frank commented, "Well, so I have..."

"They're so beautiful! So delicate! So intricate!"

"They are! Aren't they?" Frank, though she wasn't sure how she accomplished the deed, proudly fluttered those new gossamer appendages of hers in order to get a feel for them.

"They're kind of small though...

"I mean, proportionally, Solarna's were a whole lot bigger. But, it more or less goes without saying that I'll eventually grow into them!"

"You mean to tell me that you're not finished shrinking?"

"Not by a long shot!

"I mean, given the fact the Solarna was no bigger than my middle finger, I'd say I have a long way to go to get down to her size..."

"So, I take it that you had a hard time finding your way to the restroom?" Frank asked, as Gale began to laboriously crawl back into the somewhat cramped confines of their tent.

"That I did!

"Not only did I have a hard time finding the bathroom, but I had just as much of a hard time finding my way back from the bathroom!"

"Fog 's that bad?"

"Worse!

"I mean, though I never thought it could get any thicker than it was last night, I'll be darned if it hasn't!

"Oh! And, guess what! Not only did I scare off that squirrel again this morning when I climbed out of the tent to go to the bathroom, but I'll be damned if there isn't another pile of fairy stones on our picnic table! You know, right where the other one was last night! And, guess what! This one's at least three times larger than that one was!"

"So, what are you trying to say, Gale? That this squirrel of yours isn't really a squirrel? That it's really a fairy in the guise of a squirrel?"

"Could be...

"I mean, how else would you explain all the fairy stones?"

"Well," Frank knowingly beamed, "Guess what, honey! You hit the proverbial nail right on the head! That squirrel is - Was! - a fairy! In fact, it was Solarna!"

"And, just how would you know that?" Gale shot back in an indigent huff.

"I know that because, after you left to go to the bathroom, she changed back into her normal self; flew up under the canopy and, through the dome screen up there, she and I had a little chitchat while you were gone."

"And!" Gale harshly prompted.

"Well, after once again profusely thanking me again for helping her out the other night, she apologized for what was happening to me, saying in so many words, that had she known what was going to happen, she never would have asked me to help her."

"So, did you ask her!" Gale, eager and impatient to know the answer, enthusiastically asked.

Impishly, hoping to provoke a reaction, Frank played dumb as she answered her wife's question with a question. "Did I ask her what?"

"Did you ask her if she could change me into a fairy too!" Gale returned in a huff.

"Yes," Frank, aware that it was time to drop the jest, replied earnestly in an effort on her part to ally Gale's fears, "Of course I asked her."

"So! Tell me! What did she say?"

"Not much! Save to say that she would have to go ask The Kesslacarra."

"And, just who or what is this Kesslacarra?"

"From what I could gather, The Kesslacarra is Solarna's clan-mother."

"Okay! So, she has to go ask this Kesslacarra person of hers! So, then what?

"I mean, is she going to come back here and tell us what this Kesslacarra of hers says or what?"

"She didn't say! All she said was that she'd go and ask!"

"Well, did she give you any indication as to what the answer might be?"

"No... I'm afraid she didn't..."

Understandable, Gale wasn't at all happy with the open-ended uncertainty revolving around the current situation. She had been adamant about joining her husband in the impeding exile that Frank's fairyhood necessarily imposed.

"Well, what do think? Did she hold out any hope?"

"I mean, even though you're not a full-fledged fairy yet, don't I more or less pose the same sort of threat to them that you do - or, in the light of what's been happening to you, I guess that should be did? I mean, I could just as easily shoot my mouth off about there being fairies as you could, couldn't I?

"I mean, I can only assume that that's what they're afraid of! Otherwise, why would they have gone to all the trouble of changing you into one of them?

"Granted, they might look upon it as some kind of reward! You know, as a way to repay you for your good deed!

"But, I don't think so!

"I think they're afraid that the world at large will find out about them!"

'Gale's assertion seemed logical and so, Frank thoughtfully replied, "Yeah... I tend to think your right! I do believe that they're afraid about that as well!"

"Well, in that case..." Gale exclaimed, as she turned about and began to rummage about on her side of the tent, in an all out effort on her part to locate her fanny pack.

"What'ya looking for?"

"My fanny pack!"

"How come?"

"My camera's in it!"

"What'ya want with your camera?"

"I want to take some pictures of the new you!"

"Oh! I get it! And, let me just say that I think that's a really good idea!

If the fairy folk are pigheaded enough to refuse your request to change you into one of them, then you're figuring to use the pictures as a bride! You know, to more or less coerce them into doing what you want them to do! Aren't you?"

"Yeah! But, only if push comes to shove!

"I mean, the last thing in the world I want to do under these rather trying, if not convoluted circumstances is: ruffle their feathers! You know, to a point where they might just get ticked-off and take it out on you..."

Though she did so over of the course of the day, Gale took a grand totally of four roles of thirty-six exposures each. Occasionally, using her camera's built-in time delay function and some careful framing, she even took a fair number of snapshots that included both Frank and herself in them.

Though they both hoped and prayed that Solarna would return at any moment, even if she did so in squirrel form, so as to inform them of The Kesslacarra's decision, their hopes and prayers went unanswered. Solarna did not put in reappearance that morning. Nor, for that matter, that afternoon. Needless to say, as the day wore on and her ultra feminized husband's stature continued to dwindle away, Gale, though she tried hard to hide it, became progressively edgier and edgier.

By noon, Gale estimated Frank's height to be somewhere in the neighborhood of two feet and, by one, closer to eighteen inches.

"Damn!" Frank fumed as Gale reentered the tent, having made yet another round trip to the restroom.

"What's wrong?" Gale, sounding much as a concerned mother might sound, urgently inquired.

"Nothing!" a disheveled and noticeable distraught Frank uncharacteristically snapped, as the red blush of embarrassment flushed her cheeks.

"Oh! I bet I know what you were doing when I was away!" Gale couldn't restrain herself from chuckling.

"You were playing a game of stink finger with yourself, weren't you? Sort of getting in touch with your feminine side, so to speak..."

"Yeah... I guess I kind of sort of was..." Frank shyly admitted the truth of her wife's assertion.

"Well, though I can't believe I'm actually saying something like this: please, don't let me stop you!

"After all, if it'll help you deal with the ignominy you must be feeling - You know, what with you being a girl and all now! - I'd say: you might as well go for the gusto!"

"You're serious about this, aren't you?"

"I sure am!

"In fact, if you want me to, I can go outside and sit at the picnic table while you have at yourself."

"You'd do that? You'd really do something like that?"

"I sure would! In fact, it would be my pleasure to do something such as that for you!"

"I just wish..."

"Wish! What?" Frank's curiosity got the best of her.

"Come on, Gale! Stop being so damn cryptic! Tell me what you wish!"

"Well..." it was Gale's turn to be embarrassed. "It you must know, I wish that you were big as I am or, I was small as you are! You know, so that we could do what we did last night..."

"Oh!" Frank, momentarily at a loss as to how to phrase a fitting reply, mischievously exclaimed.

"Well, if you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting, I'd have to say that I'd kind of like that myself!"

"So would I, Frank... So would I..."

"So, you've had one of those sudden, what-ya-ma-call-it-like realizations! And, I take it that what you're trying to tell me is that, all of a sudden, you're a lesbian now?"

"The word you're looking for is epiphany. And, yes, though I can't believe I'm actually saying something like this - You know, the way I feel about that icky sort of shit - when it comes to you and that pretty and ever so petite new body of yours, I guess you can say that while you've become a full fledged female, I've become a card carrying lesbian!

"I mean to tell you! Last night, I got such a... a... a... rush - You know, as in: extemporaneous thrill! - out of bringing you to orgasm that I'd kind of like to do so again!

That afternoon, while Gale was tiding up their tent a little, she exclaimed, "Well! It's no wonder I woke up this morning feeling like something was jabbing me in the side!

"Quick! You really need to come here and take a look at this, Frank!"

Frank, who had once again been testing those stubby new, rainbow hued, gossamer-like appendages of hers to see if she had reached a point in her ongoing downsizing where they would sustain her in short flights, did as her wife requested. With a whimsical hop, skip and a fluttering, wing-extended jump and glide, Frank came over to see what Gale was so intently examining.

"Well what do you know! You lied to me this morning!" Gale teasingly charged. "You told me that I didn't know what I was talking about! And, that there was no way in hell that I could have heard you crying yourself to sleep last night, when it's now obvious you did cry yourself to sleep last night! And, this pile of crystals I found in our sleep bag proves it!

"And, given how many crystals that are here, I'd have to say that you, my dear, had to have cried your little eyes out!

"Fess up and tell the truth! Though you tried to hide it, you did cry yourself to sleep last night, didn't you?"

Faced with irrefutable proof of Gale's rather pointed accusation, Frank sheepishly admitted that she had lied and that she had indeed cried herself to sleep.

Then, in an effort to let her husband off the hook, Gale compassionately asserted that, given everything that was going on, Frank had every right to a good cry. Then, before letting the matter go, Gale quickly added an admonishment that, fairy or not, should Frank every get it in that pretty little head of hers to lie to Gale again, there'd be hell to pay.

Moving on, Frank, upon a closer inspection of the rather large pile of poorly formed crystals her tears had coalesced into, pointed out the obvious. "Well... as you can plainly see, it appears that I've got a lot to learn about this fairy business..."

It was a little after five that afternoon when Gale once again endeavored to get her husband to reconsider what she had been proposing for the last hour and a half that they do. "Frank!" she said to the nine-inch tall sylvan, "Are you sure that really want to do this?

"Tell me again! Please! Why you are in such an all fire hurry to do this? I mean, what's the harm in waiting until tomorrow?

"I mean, while I don't hold out much hope of this happening, Solarna could always come back here sometime later tonight with an answer!"

"True." Frank conceded her wife's point. "She might well just do just that.

"Then again, she might not.

"I just know that I need to do something!"

"Alright! I know you feel that you need to do something, but do you really think that having me take you over to Loft Mountain is the wise thing for you to be doing under the circumstances?"

"Yes! Yes, I do! Though I can't, for the life of me, explain why I feel that way!

"For some reason or another, I just have this eerie and nagging feeling that I need to get over to Loft Mountain tonight!"

"Well," Gale said peeking out one of the tent's zippered window flaps, "the fog has lifted a little, so, if you insist on doing this, I shouldn't have to much trouble finding my way back here. But, I have to say that I still wish you would reconsider!"

"Gale!" Frank lovingly intoned, as she stepped forward and tenderly enveloped one of her wife's index fingers in an endearing hug. "You know the last thing I want to do is leave you! Even if it's only for one night!

"But, it's something that I feel - No! Make that need! - to do!

"I mean, though I don't think you'll ever been able to understand this, I feel somehow strangely drawn to Loft, much - I guess you might say. - as an alcoholic is drawn to drink! Maybe, even more so....

"You know, like it's a really heavy duty compulsion! And, though I can't begin to explain it! I just have this nagging feeling like I really need to be there tonight!"

"Okay! Though I don't like this in the least little bit, Frank, against my better judgement, I'll take you over there! I'll even leave you there! But, you've got to promise me something!

"You've got to promise me that you'll come back to me! And, that our life together isn't over! And, that we'll find a way to make this what-you-what-to-call-it relationship of ours work! You know, in the advent that I don't get turned into a fairy!"

"Otherwise, you can plume forget about me taking you over to Loft Mountain today or any other day! Understand?"

As one might expect, Frank and Gale's leave-taking atop the craggy limestone precipice of Loft Mountain was as emotional as it was bittersweet. Though they had both pledge their resolve that their union was far from over, they both harbored the unspoken and ominous fear that this parting might well be their last time together and that fear weighed heavy on their hearts.

"Are they here watching us?"

"I'm not sure, but I think they are..."

"You will ask them again for me, won't you?" Gale, knowing that her question wasn't necessary, implicitly trusted that her fairyfied husband would do everything in her power to cajole Solarna's fairy clan into fulfilling Gale's ardent wish to join their ranks, felt compelled to ask it anyway.

"Yes! Of course I will..."

Having said her last good-byes, a teary-eyed and extremely distraught Gale Grey, with a pledge to herself that she wouldn't look back, retraced her steps to the Appalachian Trail and reluctantly, headed south along it. A minute or so later, as she passed the concrete marker that denoted the trail-head of the Deadending Nature Tail, Gale, consumed as she was by the heavy sense of melancholy that assaulted her spirit, absentmindedly reached down and picked up a fallen branch and began to employ it as a make-shit back-scratcher.

Oddly enough, the further down the trail she went the more intense and insistent that back itch of hers became. Once, when the itch became damn near unbearable, Gale found a young birch that abutted the trail and, having checked first to make doubly sure that it was free of any clinging poison ivy vines or icky creepy-crawlies, she back up to it and began to rub her back up and down along the fairly smooth gray hued bark of its' trunk.

As she did so, it dawned on her. Frank, during the early stages of her fairyfication, had had such an itch. Gale, though she would require more proof to completely ally all her fears, smiled. A great big shit eatin' grin of a smile!

Energetically, with a vigorous spring in her step, Gale, disregarding the deepening fog that was beginning to noticeable re-assert itself, fairly flew down the trail. Coming out of the woods just a few short step shy of the very spot where her husband had encountered the bears, Gale made straight for the rustic building that pulled double duty, serving the campgrounds as both a laundry and shower facility. Once inside the building, Gale entered the ladies shower room and quickly located a wall mounted dressing mirror. Yanking off her T-shirt in order to expose her back, Gale eagerly produced a compact that had been stashed in the outer pouch of her fanny pack and employed it to look back over her shoulder and there by, get a good look at her back.

Blessed reassurance and relief flooded over Gale as she clearly discerned the two furrowed cornrows of pinkish-red mounded skin that bracketed her spinal column.

As an emotionally disconcerted Frank watched her wife begin to retrace her steps, a tear, born out of the emptiness of a hamstrung heart, welled up out of the depths of one of those every soulful and dewy eye of hers. As it flowed and cascaded across an exquisitely sculptured cheek, the makings of yet another moisten laden droplet soon flowed its' predecessor's wake. Impacting upon the exposed limestone surface of the mountain's marrow, Frank's initial tear began to coalesce into a multi-faceted oblong crystal. However, before the amalgamation process had run its' course, a second tear impacted squarely upon the first and a cross, as perfect as perfect could be, formed at Frank's feet.

"Frank..." Solarna's empathetic and ever so crystalline voice softly wafted on the delightfully caressing and subliminally erotic breeze that that playfully teased and rippled across Loft Mountain's craggy tor.

"Fear not, my new sister." Solarna, coming up from the rear and enfolding Frank's much larger hand in hers, offered her reassurance. "Thy lifemate shall join thee soon."

"She will!" Frank was so overjoyed she was ecstatic.

"You mean to tell me that your Kesslacarra gave you permission to turn my wife into a fairy?"

"She is your Kesslacarra now too, Frank!

"But, to answer your question, my new sister, there was no permission granted or required."

"You mean, you're going to just up and do it on your own?"

"No. There is no need for me to anything of the sort."

"Then, who's going to do it? The Kesslacarra?"

"Then is no need for anyone to do anything. For you see, kin-sister, the process has already been set in motion."

"By whom?" Frank demanded.

"By you, silly! You and you alone are the one responsible for turning your lifemate into one of us.

"You see, as you will soon learn for yourself, we fairies do not wield what big people refer to as magic. We are creatures of magic! Magic flows to us! From us! And, about us! We breathe it in and out, much as we do air! It is the essence of our existence. Nothing more! Nothing less!

"Though I, like all the fairy folk, have been ardently instructed to shun interactions with humans, I never understood the impetus for such an admonishment until this very afternoon when The Kesslacarra took me aside and explained it to me.

"You see, it 'twas your prolonged exposure to the very nature of my inherent magic that precipitated your being transmogrified into one of my kin-sisters. In like fashion, it 'twas your lifemate's prolonged exposure to your newly acquired magical essence that is, even now, causing her to become one of us.

"So, Solarna," Frank sought clarification, "if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying in a nutshell is: it was my being in your presence for - Shall we say! - an extended period of time that did this to me? And, that my wife's becoming a fairy for no other reason than the fact that she and I have been together in our tent all day?"

Solarna confirmed the fact that Frank's assertion was indeed an accurate one, causing him to extrapolate, "Oh! So, if that's the case, if just being in the presence of a fairy for any length of time causes a human to turn into one, I can see why you are taught to avoid interactions with humans and so protect and preserve the anonymity of your kind!

"I mean, should you elect to do so, you fairy folk have it in your power to completely eradicate the entire human race..."

A few minutes later, having been surrounded by what seemed to be an ever-growing throng of her new kin-sisters, Frank somehow intuitive knew that it was Solarna's Kesslacarra who had stepped before her and, without a word being said, taken control of the proceedings with a simple up-raising of her delicate right hand. Having done so, The Kesslacarra continued on to warmly welcome Frank into the Sisterhood of the Northern-most Conclave of the Blue Ridge's predominate Stone Tear Clan.

"Sometime later, in the midst of the unbridled revelry that heralded the inclusion of a new kin-sister, Frank, who was flushed with the joy of the moment, inquired of Solarna, "So, tell me! When should I expect my wife to join us?"

"I asked The Kesslacarra that very question and was told by her to expect your lifemate sometime tomorrow night."

"Hey! What gives! It took me a lot longer than that to earn these new wings of mine!"

"That is true, kin-sister. But, your lifemate bathed in your radiated fairy essence longer than you bathed in mine. Plus, you had two distinct changes to undergo, where as, your lifemate has but one."

"Oh! I see what you mean! Gale's already female! Where as, I had to become one!"

"Yes." Solarna offered in a very matter-of-fact like manner. "And, may I take a moment to compliment you by telling you what a pretty little female you have become"

Taking a second or so to make a quick, cursory survey of her seductively reapportioned self, Frank, with a delighted smile blossoming on her angelic face, enthusiastically replied, "I have now, haven't I?"

• • • EPILOGUE * * *

It took a few days before Park Service Officials became aware of the fact that the Greys had turned up missing. It all started when the service station attendant at the wayside's gas station alerted a Ranger General to the fact that the Ford Explore parked in the lot across the way appeared to be abandoned due to the fact had been sitting in the very same spot for several days. A subsequent check of the campsite deposit tally sheets showed that the Greys had been remiss in paying for the use of the site for the last three days.

Two days later, the Grey's apparent disappearance became the lead story throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region.

"Richmond couple missing in Shenandoah National Park!" the headlines read.

Search parties, employing members of the Park Service, State and County Police, off duty and volunteer firemen, the Virginia National Guard and members of several different regional Appalachian Trail Clubs scoured the Loft Mountain area for almost a week and a half before throwing in the towel and calling it quits.

Almost immediately, the Grey's campsite was cordoned off and forensic specialists from the FBI were called upon by the Park Service to try and shed light on the Grey's disappearance.

The good news was that there was no evidence to indicate that the Greys were the victims of foul play. But, that just added to the growing sense of mystery that was beginning to envelop the case. Rumors and speculation abounded. Some claimed that the Greys had been abducted by aliens. Others suggested that the Greys had been somehow sucked into an inter-dimensional time warp and whisked away to who-knows-where. And, still others were of the belief that the Greys' disappearance was nothing more than an elaborate hoax reminiscent of the celebrated Blair Witch Project.

And then, about a month after their disappearance, someone, probably some insignificant someone within the Bureau itself, leaked some rather cryptic information that strongly eluded to the fact that FBI had in its' possession some rather interesting photographs that might shed some light on what had happened to the Greys. Though extremely reluctant to go public with the photos, a few of the more stubbornly persistent investigative reporters that had latched onto the case forced the FBI's hand via the judicial application of the Freedom of Information Act.

Needless to say, the photos accomplished two things. First off, they renewed a keen sense of public interest in the Greys' uncanny disappearance. And secondly, they fanned the flames of wild-ass speculation.

Once before, the public was taken in by pictures of fairies. In the early years of the Twentieth Century, two charming little English girls had cunningly manufacture pictures of the fairy folk and there by garnished the attention of the public at large. Noted celebrities such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the famed illusionist and acclaimed escape artist Harry Houdini had been so intrigued with the pictures that these two seemingly innocent and earnest young girls claimed to have taken, that they actually drove down from London to met with them and their parents.

Gale Grey's photos engendered the same sort of public fervor, as had those English girls' very craftily doctored-up pictures almost a century before. Not only did every single one of the supermarket touted kiss and tell tabloids hit the newsstands with a picture of Frank in her fairy form standing bare-ass naked foreground and with Gale Gray looming larger than life in the background on their respective covers, but so too did the weekly news periodicals the like of Time and Newsweek among others.

Having failed to discredit and there by, dismiss the authenticity of the photos through scientific means, the FBI took the one hundred and forty four pictures and divvied them up into smaller strips and single frame units. These they then took and had their agents hand deliver to noted photo-processing labs, such as those at Kodak and the National Security Agency located at Fort Meade in Maryland, for further analysis.

Eventually, after a lot of the who-struck-john of officially sanctioned stalling, the FBI, once again cajoled into doing so by an impatient and instant news media, finally released a rather ponderous and hard to decipher report concerning the validity of the photographs that Gale Grey appeared to have taken. Employing a lot of governmental double-speak, hyperbole and technically misleading gobble-gook, a careful read, followed by even more exhausting re-reads of the report, lead one to assume that basically, the pictures had the experts totally baffled. While the experts endeavored in every way they knew, and a few they didn't, to discredit the authenticity of photos, the conclusion that was buried - piece meal - within the heart of report, basically stated that they couldn't.

What they did try to debunk was the notion that Subject A, as they had deemed the unidentified and ultra feminized Frank Grey, was indeed a fairy.

If one were to take the one hundred and forty four some odd pictures and examine them in there proper sequence, as was pointed out ad nauseam in the FBI's report, it didn't take a rocket scientist to take note of the discrepancy in not only Subject A's size, but also in the wings that seemly underwent an ongoing reapportionment to Subject A's body size. Even a casual observer couldn't fail to take note of the fact that as Subject A continued to get smaller, the butterfly-like compound wings that appeared to be growing out of the diminutive female's back noticeably got larger.

Trouble was, while Subject A's changing size tended to support the presumption that the photographs were nothing more than a well concocted hoax, noted medical experts and physicians who were called upon as outside consultants found themselves hard pressed to rubberstamp that presumption. As much as this austere and accredited group of professionals wanted to debunk what the photos clearly showed, they were pretty much all in lock-step agreement with one another over the fact that, were one to disregard the wing-like appendages, the small female figure depicted in the pictures was anatomically correct in every way imaginable. The waters were further mudded when some high noted Hollywood FX types jumped into the fray, suggesting, in so many words, that even with all the resources open to them, they couldn't duplicate the flawlessly realistic way the butterfly-like wings protruded from Subject A's back.

Then, shit really hit the fan, as the FBI's worse fears became a reality. The same people who produced the televised presentation of the supposedly alien autopsy film footage, put together a two hour-long investigative report into the matter of the Greys' uncanny disappearance and the further possibility of there actually being fairies. In doing so, a hitherto unpublicized fact surfaced. Near the end of the television show, it was revealed that a small treasure trove of staurolite crystals, that were commonly known as fairystones, had been found both in the Grey's campsite and scattered within the confines of their tent, with the questions posed being: where had the crystals come from? Had the Greys been down at Virginia's Fairystone State Park earlier on in their vacation?

If they had, the wealth of receipts that the investigators found in Gale Grey's purse didn't reflect that to be the case. The Greys, as the various investigative agencies that had looked into their disappearance were reluctantly forced to admit, were meticulous record keepers. In fact, as the show pointed out, the Greys were so meticulous with their record keeping that the FBI had been able to piece together what they believed to be a fairly reliable accounting of the Greys whereabouts for practically the whole week prior to their extremely strange disappearance.

As expected, the show left the question as to whether or not fairies actually existed open-ended. While some agnostics would buy into the evidence provided by the photos and become true believers and others, more open to the possibility of the existence fairies, skeptics would tend to remain skeptical. And, by the same token, those idyllic new age adherents that did believe in the farfetched and fanciful notion that fairies did indeed exist would feel fully vindicated in their admittedly out of the mainstream beliefs.

Gretchen (the name Frank took as a winged sylvan of the Stone Tear Clan) and Gale didn't care who believed what. They were together. And, because they were, they were happy and planned on being so until their wondrous ever-after waxed into the promised fulfillment of the Firmament's forevermore.

Trite, but nevertheless applicable,

The Beginning