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A Flourish of Foxfire
by Kurt Kirchmeier

As usual, Cassy spent the better part of her evening atop the hill just east of her house, staring out at the swamp beyond, waiting for the lightshow to begin.

The foxfire displays had become frequent as of late, and though she knew full well that her father had been right in his long-ago assertion that the lights were a naturally occurring phenomenon--pockets of gas being ignited by some unseen force--Cassy couldn't help but reminisce on a childhood spent pretending otherwise.

It was Cassy's birthday, and she was alone yet again. Thirty-five and counting, forty now a dream. Whatever prospects might once have lain waiting beyond the horizon had long since gone the way of the sun, banished to the shadows by the lump in her left breast, leaving her with only the past for company.

Watching the lights took her back to her youth, to a time of pixies and sprites and imagination. It helped ease the pain, or at least it used to.

She shifted on the grass, then lifted her glass of absinthe to her lips. Half full or half empty, it didn't matter either way; she had three quarters of the bottle beside her still, and every intention of finding its bottom.

Three swallows before she saw it: a burst of radiant blue rising up from behind the gnarled trees. It winked out in a matter of only seconds, like a birthday candle set before an impatient child. Cassy didn't make a wish.

"Water sprite," she whispered, imagining a set of tiny azure wings beating at the darkness. The blue ones were always sprites.

Several flashes of green followed immediately thereafter, and hovered at the edge of the swamp, just feet above the muddy waters below. Fairies: the curious ones, always peering out at the world beyond, but never venturing past the ring of trees, as though there were some invisible barrier holding them within. Prisoners in their own magical realm.

From blue to green to blue again, back and forth it went, the alternating brilliance spreading through the body of the swamp, metastasizing, every flash taking Cassy deeper into her imagination. Deeper into the bottle.

Her head was spinning by the time the mysterious orange light manifested in the distance. It burst into existence like a ball of holy fire--three times the size of any she'd seen thus far--and continued to expand as it rose, drifting ever closer.

Cassy stood up, teetering precariously. She'd never seen one so vibrant as this.

The light continued to move, out past the water, around an isolated stand of trees, then right up to the base of the hill, where it paused as though it were waiting.

On unsteady legs, Cassy approached, her heart pounding, her absinthe left behind her in the grass.

"Hello?" she said.

The globe flared at the sound of her voice, four distinct branches licking at the night. Two of them continued downward, the others sideways, branching yet again. Fingers and feet, arms and legs. A raging inferno of hair set above ember eyes.

Cassy fell to one knee, then stumbled back to her feet, blinking against the brightness.

All in an instant, it solidified before her, from fire to flesh, imagination to reality.

"Come," he said, beckoning her to follow.

And follow she did, out beyond the trees, into the murky water of the swamp.
 

Kurt Kirchmeier currently lives and writes in Saskatoon, SK. His fiction has been rejected by such esteemed magazines as Chizine, F&SF, and Strange Horizons, and is slated to be bounced by many more fine publications in the future. To find out about the excellent venues in which Kurt's fiction has actually appeared, visit him here.