She was tramping back across the recreation ground, taking an unlit, unapproved shortcut home when she stepped into a ring of tiny toadstools. Instantly, she found herself at some kind of fancy dress party. The women wore long velvet dresses and the men breeches and brocade jackets. Everyone was dancing, so she danced too.
She was twirling sinuously about the dance floor with one of the young men when the hostess marched over, grabbed her painfully by the upper arm and marched her to the door. Her dance partner gallantly offered to walk her home and they stepped through the doorway from the party to the wet grass of the rec.
They made it as far as the park bandstand when she stopped, turned around and began to kiss him.
He pulled away from her.
“Be careful what you reach for. When your kind fall in love with mine, it doesn’t end well.”
“I don’t see why it should be a problem.” She said. “Not unless you make it one.”
He shook his head. “Mortals who have seen us, who have been with us to Faerie do not survive long. They have seen grace and beauty that they can never have themselves. They no longer take an interest in their own world, preferring to dream of what they have lost. Eventually, they refuse food and drink; they pine away and die.”
She laughed out loud at that.
“I think I’ll manage!” She said. “You’re cute in a willowy, gender-fluid sort of way, but I’d survive a break-up! And as for ‘grace and beauty that I can never have’, I’ve been on Instagram since I was twelve so I’m good with all that.”
And so they became lovers. She left her old phone for him in the ground keepers shed. When he visited her world, her would call her. She would sneak out of her parents’ house and they would make love among the lawnmowers.
“Whatever you do,” she said, “Don’t press this icon.”
“Why?”
“Trust me: If you think a girl might pine to death for a pretty boy, you’re not ready for that.”
~~~0~~~
One day, when she visited, she found him lying on the floor, eyes dull, skin greyish.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked.
“I pressed the forbidden picture.”
“Right. And?
“The fair folk of the app. They are so beautiful. Their skin is flawless.”
“Yeah, that’s a filter.”
“I asked if I should change my teeth. They said I should kill myself.”
She sighed. She sat down next to him and put an arm round his thin shoulders. “People are assholes. Ignore them.”
“How can I ignore them when they luxuriate in their wealth and happiness? They are sojourning in the blessed kingdom of Dubai where it never rains and all is gaiety! They force me to watch their revels!”
“They aren’t really forcing you. You can just not follow them. If you can’t see that it’s all lies and bullshit, just don’t look at it, OK?”
“OK.”
~~~0~~~
“You looked at the app again, didn’t you?”
He nodded, weakly.
She made a decision. “Give me back the phone and go home. Looking at this stuff is killing you.”
He shook his head. There were tears in his eyes. “Do not take it, I beg you. It is my only happiness.”
“What about you and me?” She asked. “That used to bring you happiness.”
He made no reply.
“I bought you bread and milk. Do want it?”
“Friends don’t give friends carbs.” He turned his face to the wall.
When she looked for him next, he had wasted to almost nothing. He left behind a skeleton of hazel sticks. Grass and cobwebs where all that was left of his flesh.