Lili Gloom Part 2

A few days had passed since Lili Gloom had the shock of her life when a fellow fairy had invaded her privacy and stolen her journal. Lili laid in her bed wondering why she did not feel as sad as she thought she would be. Immediately after facing the journal thief Lili went home and predicted dark days ahead, to her surprise they did not come. For some reason knowing Jay Tig was out there reading her journal didn’t bother her as much as she thought it would. She wondered if this was because Jay seemed to be a bit of a loner like her, even more since he lived completely separated from the rest of the fairy tribe. Lili was grateful not to be in a dark place like she had predicted. She was grateful she was able to get back to her normal routine and work. Every now and again she wondered about Jay and what he was doing back in his strange home at the edge of the forest. Every time Lili had fairies come to her home to pick up their hammers and tools she wanted to ask them about Jay but she did not dare.

One night Lili decided to go for a walk in the forest. She walked to the bush where she had hid her journal. This was the spot where Jay had been watching her and waited for her to leave to take her journal. The night she met Jay, Lili was so focused on getting her journal back that she ignored the things Jay told her, this was typical of her, she could be very selfish sometimes without even realizing it. As the days passed by the memories of their short talk swirled in Lili’s mind and she began to finally pay attention to his words. She remembered Jay explaining to her why she had never seen him before, apparently Jay preferred to be alone like her and that was why he had chosen to live even further away than she had. Something about Jay intrigued Lili. Suddenly she looked straight up at the moon and felt something inside of herself. When she looked down tears were streaming down her face. Lili fell to her knees. Unexpectedly she grabbed a dagger from her belt and in one fell swoop cut her long purple hair. She clutched her hair in her hand and threw it on the ground. She wiped her tears and stood up. Whatever that feeling was, it was now gone along with her hair. Lili put her dagger back in her belt and started to walk back home when she heard a familiar voice call her name. It was Jay.

Lili stopped and hesitantly turned around to see Jay standing there a few feet behind her. He was now looking down at her hair on the ground. Lili touched her hair which was now a choppy bob.

“Jay, what are you doing here?” Lili lowered her head trying to hide the fact that she had been crying. “Were you watching me again?” Lili wanted to walk away but Jay was now kneeling and picking up her hair, she could not help herself and she rushed to Jay and stopped him from picking up her hair. “Stop Jay! Not only did you steal my journal now you want to steal my hair? Why? Why do you care, Jay!?” Jay finally stopped picking up her hair and looked at Lili. He reached out and tried to touch her face but Lili backed away. She stood up and grabbed Jay's arm to pick him up too. After a few seconds of silence Lili finally spoke, “I want to see your house” Lili could tell Jay was taken aback.

“You do? Okay, let’s go” Jay started walking and Lili followed. They did not talk all the way back to Jay’s house. As they walked Lili saw the giant seashell where they had sat the first time they met and she was trying to get her journal back. Suddenly they reached a giant rock. Lili remembered Jay telling her he lived under this rock. She wondered how in the world he got under it. Jay moved some dirt around and found a hidden rope. He pulled on the rope and a door opened from the ground up to reveal some steps going down. Jay signaled to Lili to get in. Lili was mesmerized by the whole contraption. She wanted to study it and ask how it all worked. She figured she could ask him once they were both inside. As Lili walked carefully down the stairs she saw flickering lights at the bottom of the stairs. The closer she got the brighter it got. She realized that the flickering lights were candles lit all around a circular room. This was Jay’s home. Even though it was underground it still resembled the shape of the inside of a tree. Perhaps Jay wanted to pretend he was inside of a tree instead of under a rock. Lili noticed that even though he was living in the dirt Jay kept his things pretty neat and clean. He had carved little nooks in his wall and kept things organized in them. As she walked around looking at his things she found a familiar object in one of the nooks. It was her journal. Jay still had her journal. Lili sat down on some pillows Jay had on the floor. She was unsure of what she was doing in this strange underground house. Jay finally descended from the stairs. He smiled as he looked at her and put his bag on a hook next to the stairs.

“This is my home. I know it’s strange for a fairy since it is underground but I really like it. As you can see I have plenty of room and it's pretty cozy. You’re actually sitting on my bed right now and it's pretty nice right?” Lili looked around her and wondered how these pillows were his bed.

“This is your bed? You don’t sleep in a cot? Doesn’t the dirt itch your skin?” Lili scratched her head and felt the sharp ends of her chop again. She realized once she got home she was going to have to fix her hair into some sort of a proper haircut.

“Nope, I made sure to keep everything neat and clean. You will not find any dirt on the floor no matter how hard you look.” Jay walked closer to Lili and sat down in front of her. “Lili, why did you cut your hair?” Lili felt uncomfortable and she glanced at the stairs for a few seconds. She also looked at her journal and knew Jay was in a weird way already privy to her deepest darkest thoughts, there was no harm in sharing some new ones.

“Sometimes when I feel…pain from, well I don’t really know from where, but when it hurts I tend to do things without thinking. Tonight the pain came and without thinking I just cut off my hair. The funny thing is when I do things like this the pain stops. As soon as my blade cut off my hair the pain was gone. I don’t know if it was because I distracted myself or what, I don’t know, all I know is that it helps and it stops the pain immediately” Lili looked at Jay and wondered what he was thinking about her response. Jay got up, went to one of the nooks and came back with a bowl of berries. Lili loved berries, especially these red ones.

“I know you like the red ones, I picked a whole bunch today” Jay sat back down in front of Lili. Lili was thrown off by Jay’s comment but grabbed a berry anyway.

“Why have you been watching me Jay? Why did you steal my journal?” Lili decided tonight was the night she would get her questions answered. For a week now she had been asking herself questions only Jay could answer.

“As you know I’m not really part of the tribe. I chose to live under this rock in hopes that no one would find it and I could live in peace. I know it’s frowned upon not to be part of the tribe but I just couldn’t deal with the things that were being asked of me. Anyway, one day I was taking a walk and I saw you walking around the forest. I realized I’d never seen you before. I decided to follow you and saw that you lived in a tree that was very far from anyone from the tribe. I decided to go to the tribe and ask about you. To my surprise the other fairies warned me about you, this intrigued me even more. Anyway, I decided to keep watching you and I learned that you liked red berries, that you were a tool maker and that you stayed home and away from the tribe as much as you could. Then one night I saw you bury that journal and even though I know I shouldn’t have done it, I took it and I read it. I did not think you were going to find out though, or that you would somehow follow me, that was surprising. There’s just something about you that caught my eye, even before I read your journal, I knew I had to get to know you.” Lili sat holding a berry in her index finger and thumb. Once again she stared at the stairs leading out of this strange home. She looked at Jay and could tell he was anxiously waiting for a response from her.

“You want to get to know me? You live under a rock! You obviously want to be alone and if you’ve been watching me then you know I also want to be left alone. This whole thing is pointless. I’m sorry I asked you to bring me here” Lili got up and headed to the stairs. Jay sat there with the bowl of berries in his hands and watched as Lili headed up the stairs.

“I can fix your hair if you’d like. My Mom taught me about hairstyling before she died” Lili stopped walking and turned to see Jay. He was smiling at her even though he had just uttered such a sad comment. Lili could not help but feel bad for him and for his innocence. She did not want a haircut from a stranger, truth be told that was the reason why her hair was so long in the first place, but she could not say no to Jay at least not now.

“You really think you can fix me?” Lili touched her choppy hair and stared at Jay.

“I think it is my mission to fix you, come sit down” Lili did not like what Jay had said, she realized it could be taken in a different way, but tonight she decided to brush it off and accept Jay's help.