The forest on Midsummer's Eve was not a place for mortals.
Hannah knew this, in the way everyone knows such things, a childhood memory of warnings from grandmothers, a half forgotten superstition about staying out of the woods when the veil grows thin. But she was twenty-seven, practical, a graphic designer who spent her days in front of screens and her nights in her tidy apartment. She didn't believe in fairies.
Besides, she needed the photos. A client wanted ethereal forest imagery for a book cover, and the light on Midsummer's Eve was supposed to be magic. Hannah packed her camera and ignored the prickle at the back of her neck as she drove deeper into the countryside, farther from the city lights.
By the time she parked and hiked into the woods, the sun was low, painting everything in gold and amber. She found a clearing ringed with old oaks, their branches forming a canopy that filtered the light into something otherworldly. Perfect. She set up her tripod and began to shoot.
The light shifted as the sun sank, turning from gold to rose to violet. Hannah lost track of time, moving through the clearing, capturing every angle. It was only when the last light faded that she noticed something strange.
The clearing was no longer empty.
Figures moved at the edges of her vision, tall and slender, their skin shimmering like moonlight on water. She blinked, and they were gone. Blinked again, and they were closer. Her heart hammered. This wasn't possible. Fairies weren't real.
And yet.
A voice, soft as wind through leaves: "You're in our circle, mortal."
Hannah turned. A woman stood before her, if "woman" was the right word. She was tall, impossibly tall, with hair that seemed to be made of spun silver and eyes that held centuries. Her body was draped in something that might have been silk or might have been spiderwebs, translucent and shimmering, revealing curves that made Hannah's mouth go dry.
"I'm sorry," Hannah stammered. "I didn't know, I'll leave—"
"Leave?" The woman smiled, and the smile was hunger and welcome and something else Hannah couldn't name. "On Midsummer's Eve? When you've wandered into our circle of your own free will?" She stepped closer, close enough that Hannah could smell her, honey and night, blooming flowers and something deeper, muskier, older. "The veil is thin tonight, little mortal. And you've crossed it."
"I don't understand."
"No. You don't." The woman's hand reached out, fingers trailing down Hannah's cheek. The touch was electric, sending sparks through Hannah's entire body. "But you will."
The clearing erupted.
Suddenly they were everywhere, dozens of them, maybe hundreds, emerging from between the trees, from the air itself. Men and women and beings that were neither or both, all beautiful in ways that hurt to look at. Their skin glowed in the darkness. Their eyes reflected starlight. Their bodies moved with a grace that made Hannah feel clumsy and human and utterly overwhelmed.
The silver-haired woman who had spoken first took Hannah's hand and led her deeper into the circle. The others parted to let them through, and Hannah felt their hands on her as she passed—touches light as butterfly wings, trailing over her arms, her back, her hips. Each touch left a trail of heat, of longing, of need.
In the centre of the circle was a stone altar, draped in velvet the colour of midnight. Candles floated in the air around it, their flames burning blue and silver and gold.
"Midsummer is our night," the woman said, her voice honey and smoke. "The night when we take what we want, and give what we have, and celebrate the fire of life itself." She turned to face Hannah, and her eyes were endless. "Tonight, little mortal, you are our guest. Our gift. Our celebration."
Hannah should have been terrified. She should have run. But the hands on her skin, the eyes on her body, the scent of honey and flowers and something darker, it was intoxicating. She'd never felt so desired, so wanted, so utterly seen.
"What do you want from me?" she whispered.
The woman smiled. "Everything. For one night. We want all of you."
A male fairy stepped forward, dark haired, with eyes like emeralds and a body that seemed carved from moonlight and muscle. His hands found Hannah's waist, his lips found her neck, and she gasped at the sensation. Behind her, another fairy pressed close, her breasts against Hannah's back, her mouth on Hannah's shoulder.
The silver-haired woman watched, her smile approving. "This is our gift to you, mortal. To know what it is to be worshipped by the Fair Folk. To be filled with our light and our desire. To remember, for the rest of your short life, what pleasure truly means."
Hannah's clothes dissolved, not removed, but simply gone, as if they'd never existed. She stood naked in the circle, surrounded by beings of impossible beauty, and instead of shame, she felt power. She was the centre of their attention, the focus of their desire, the mortal they'd chosen to honour.
Hands touched her everywhere. Mouths followed. She was lifted, laid on the velvet altar, the stone warm beneath her. The dark-haired fairy knelt between her legs, his mouth finding her centre, and she cried out at the sensation—more intense than anything she'd ever felt, as if his touch was amplified by magic, by centuries of practice, by the sheer force of his desire.
Behind her, another fairy, this one with hair like autumn leaves and eyes like amber, lifted her hips and entered her from behind. The stretch was exquisite, overwhelming, the sensation of being filled in two places at once more than she could bear. She came almost immediately, crying out, her body arching off the altar.
But they weren't done.
They took turns with her, the fairies, each one bringing new sensations, new pleasures, new ways of being touched. Some were gentle, almost reverent, their caresses soft as whispers. Others were demanding, urgent, taking what they wanted with a hunger that thrilled and terrified her. She lost count of how many, lost track of time, lost herself entirely in the endless pleasure.
The silver-haired woman watched through it all, never touching, just witnessing. When Hannah finally lay limp on the altar, spent and trembling, the woman approached.
"Now," she said, "you receive my gift."
She knelt beside Hannah and lowered her mouth to Hannah's centre. The first touch of her tongue was unlike anything Hannah had experienced—not just physical pleasure, but something deeper, something magical. She felt power flowing into her, centuries of fairy essence, and she came again, harder than before, her vision whiting out.
When she opened her eyes, the sky was lightening. Dawn. The fairies were fading, returning to wherever they came from, their forms dissolving into mist and shadow.
The silver haired woman was the last to go. She pressed one final kiss to Hannah's lips, and the taste of her was honey and starlight and forever.
"You are changed now, little mortal," she whispered. "You carry our light inside you. You will never be entirely human again." She smiled, that same smile of hunger and welcome. "If you wish to find us again, return to the circle on Midsummer's Eve. We will be waiting."
And then she was gone.
Hannah lay on the altar until the sun rose, warming her skin. When she finally sat up, her clothes were beside her, neatly folded. Her camera was where she'd left it, untouched. Everything was exactly as it had been—and nothing was the same.
She drove home in a daze, showered, went to work. Life resumed its ordinary rhythm. But she couldn't forget. Couldn't stop thinking about the hands, the mouths, the impossible pleasure. Couldn't stop feeling the fairy light inside her, a warmth that never faded, a reminder of what she'd experienced.
Men and women she met afterward seemed dull in comparison. Ordinary pleasures couldn't compare. She found herself craving something she couldn't name, something only the fairies could give.
She waited a year. Every day, she thought about the circle. Every night, she remembered. And on the next Midsummer's Eve, she drove back to the forest.
They were waiting.
The silver haired woman stood in the centre of the circle, her arms open in welcome. Behind her, the others gathered, their eyes glowing, their bodies shimmering.
"You came back," the woman said.
"I couldn't stay away."
"Few can, after tasting our pleasures." She took Hannah's hand and led her into the circle. "But know this, little mortal: each time you return, you leave more of yourself here. One day, you may not want to leave at all."
Hannah thought about her apartment, her job, her ordinary life. She thought about the year of emptiness, of craving, of feeling only half alive.
"Maybe that's the point," she said.
The woman smiled, and the fairies closed in around them.
That night was even more intense than the first. Hannah was not just a guest now, but a participant, a partner in the celebration. She touched them as they touched her, learned their bodies as they learned hers, gave as much as she received. By dawn, she was marked with fairy light in ways she couldn't see but felt with every breath.
The next year, she returned again. And the next. Each time, she stayed longer, gave more, became more like them.
The tenth year, she didn't go home.
Her apartment was sold. Her job was forgotten. Her mortal life receded like a dream upon waking. She lived now in the spaces between, in the twilight where fairies dance and mortals only visit.
On Midsummer's Eve, she stands in the centre of the circle, watching a new mortal stumble through the trees. A woman, young and frightened and curious, her camera in her hands, her eyes wide with wonder.
Hannah steps forward, silver-haired now herself, shimmering with the light she's absorbed over decades.
"You're in our circle, mortal," she says, her voice honey and wind. "Welcome."
The woman stares at her, transfixed. And Hannah knows, with the certainty of one who has been both, that this mortal will not leave unchanged.
She takes the woman's hand and leads her into the dance, into the pleasure, into the forever that awaits those who wander into fairy circles on Midsummer's Eve.
The circle closes behind them. The celebration begins again.
