I always wondered what she was.

Out in the moor lived a maiden fair as sunlight. She was resplendent and free, unnamed so far that I or the others knew. Each day she picked her way across that open expanse, bare as a newborn, as if dancing slower than any human eyes could be perceived.

We did not mistake her for one of us. She was one of the blessed things that lived in the wild, a reminder from whatever Gods remained that there was magic in the world. Some had seen her chewing on blossoms of roses and violets, smiling so wildly that they felt both awe and fear at the sight. My father, Cyus, had seen her speaking to the small animals that gathered around the ponds. He had caught her singing to them in strange, lilting harmonies, her dark skin painted with all manner of colorful symbols. When he told me this, I had thought he might have stumbled upon the patron of the tiny and defenseless and I had grown with admiration in my heart. But my sisters spoke of how she lured men and boys to their dooms to find death in the peat ponds. Some of the glades out there in the moor were supposedly choked full of skeletons and rotting things.

So before dawn could grace the land and reveal my intentions, I slid out from the village and walked carefully through the moor.

I had never seen her with my own eyes, but I had to know for sure. The fairy of the moor, the maiden of day and night. Whatever she might be, I had to glimpse it. If my father had, if others in the village had, then I would join them. He would not shy away. If other could look upon magic and survive, then so could I.

There were places she was said to be fond of, places of sacred union with the ethereal Gods. Bogs and groves and caves that he was not to enter. But there was no rule against watching them, of sitting in wait to be graced with the sight of mysterious things. So it was the Bog my sisters called the Graveyard that I decided to watch, if simply to prove their fears wrong.

Twisted, spindly trees that had no more leaves stretched out of the bog, watchers who might alert the maiden of intruders. Pools of water were gathered between them, scattered like petals and colored yellow and green and orange. Some bubbled with lazy menace, unconcerned with the boy who had come to annoy them. Since I kept my distance, I was sure that this place would not notice me.

I laid there for a day, hopeful to see the graceful form of the maiden. My stomach coiled in tense knots, anticipating what she might do, how she might look. I pondered what I might observe based on the many stories I had heard.

She did not show.

I went the day after that, earning the ire of my mother for disappearing the day before. I told her I had something to do out in the moor and sprinted off before I could be questioned. Again I waited, tense and hopeful, and again she did not show.

For the remainder of the week I kept visiting the moor, taking in the peaceful sights while I waited. By the fifth day I had begun to consider that I was wasting my time. I had begun to question why I was doing this at all, why I was even curious. But then I would imagine the descriptions that had been fed to me and I would sit. I wanted to see her bite into a rose blossom and commune with the animals and speak to the air. I might not have been able to name the feeling, but I was starving for something I thought she could sate.

On the evening of the seventh day, she revealed herself to me.

What I had heard from the others had been true, she strode across the soft grasses and sharp stones in the nude, body on display as if she had never known the idea of shame or modesty. Her hair, black as night and unbound, hung in shining, soft strands down to her waist. For being such a timeless being, she looked in the prime of her adult life, body full and shapely and healthy. I tried not to stare at her nakedness, but the human-ness of her brought about an ordinary air to her, as if I was seeing one of the women from my village.

But her smile was too full, her teeth too white and her green eyes shining in a way no human’s might. The longer I looked, the colder I became. This was no temptress, aiming to draw men to their deaths. She was no sprite or spirit who was ignorant or dumb.

I knew then that this was a goddess, that I peered upon the divine, and was humbled at my meagerness. How had I ever thought myself worthy of looking upon one such as her?

Still, I watched her as the sun crawled towards the horizon, hidden beneath the fanning branches of a shrub. Time had slowed, yawning and stretching out as if to allow me the chance to give the proper admiration to this communion. The maiden walked across the wild landscape with ease, undisturbed by the sharp, craggy rocks hidden in the grass. She reached down to pluck a pink flower from the edge of a pond and plopped the thing whole into her mouth. Then she found a large, flat rock and stretched out on it, laying with her back to me.

She was everything that, to me, spoke of beauty. Curves and softness and supple skin. Hair that looked shining and soft, legs draping across the stone so gracefully I could not help the catch in my breath. Grace had dripped from the sky down onto the Earth and I was sole witness to it on this day.

By the time the sun had reached the horizon, the two of us had been laying in the moor for nearly an hour. Both of us watched the sun sink lower, unmoving and reverent in our watchfulness. A cold wind blew over the moor and I was tempted to rise, to sneak my way back to the village with this new story to tell. If I made it back, I might be able to proclaim that I had witnessed true beauty. Mortal beauty had been so powerful and alluring before this day, but now I knew its source. It was not in any food or drink or belief. It was in the maiden and simultaneously came from her.

Yet I could not rise, for she had not risen. So the distant mountains took in the light of the sun, obscuring it until only the faded pink light of the sky remained. And then she rose and I watched in wonderment as her skin took on the glow of the sky, radiating purples and pinks. Her hair drank it in and grew brighter, shining in the dimness of the encroaching night. Soon, she was like a torch of luminance, the fire of her being was splashing colors over the darkening moor.

I was breathless. What I had thought I had seen, my revelations of beauty, had been shattered in an instant. This was true beauty. This was divine.

Without a thought, I rose from my place. I felt the tugging of vines at me and looked down to see that some had grown, curling in over my ankles and legs while I lay there. They snapped easily, freeing me, and the disquiet I might have felt at such a thing was dulled in the light of the maiden’s brilliance. I stood, stepping out of the cover of the shrub and began to walk across the moor to her.

I did not know why I did it, but in this I had little choice but to do so. Her beauty was so great, so all-encompassing that I could not resist. The colors of her skin seemed to lash out like tongues of flame, growing brighter and more wild as night fell. The maiden was illuminating the dark, protecting the moor from what might prowl out there.

She turned to me and smiled and I barely kept my feet beneath me as wobbling took over my knees. Her expression was like a spear through the heart, so lovely and breathtaking that I barely could breathe. I saw my mother and my sisters in her lips, in the soft curves of her eyes. At the same time, I saw nothing human in her and still I drew closer.

She spoke to me but I knew not what she said. Her hands came up and though we were still a far distance apart, I thought she might be reaching for me. Each step brought me closer, everything in me wishing to embrace this lovely being and bask in her presence.

I barely noticed her frown, or the concerned gestures as I drew closer. I could not look away from those silver, shining eyes which held all of the answers I might ever desire. Even as they began to crinkle in fear, her body becoming animated in its attempt to gain my attention.

As I stepped into the water of the peat bog, I could not look away from her. As the water crept up my body with aggressive urgency, swallowing me up without so much as a question or whisper, I saw her crouch at the edge of the pond.

It was the icy breath of cold that filled my lungs that broke my reverie. Why had I not seen the water? Why had I thought she was in the middle of a field? I thrashed against the sucking mud that had me up to the waist, desperately clawing at the water with renewed sense of purpose.

The maiden stepped onto the surface of the water as if it was glass, kneeling and looking down at me. Sorrow painted her features as she spoke, but I could not hear her words. The water was a barrier against them as much as it was against her being. She perched atop the surface, watching me now. She watched so intently, dozens of emotions passing over her features as the cold closed in and my vision grew black. Those silver eyes never looked away from me, and I never looked away from her.

The last thing I saw were those eyes, the truest form of beauty.

Author Note

Featured image is “Achill Peat Bog” by Norman J. Craig

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