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‘Fuuuuck!’ growled like thunder across the heavens.
Out of thin air, Violet, one of the youngest fairy godmothers, appeared, startling the other fairy godparents who were on break, leisurely feasting on nectar and ambrosia.
A few moments later, a voice without a face called out: ‘Violet! The higher-ups want to see you immediately!’
She ducked her head sheepishly in shame, closed her eyes, and vanished, only to reappear in front of her elders.
‘Violet, what happened for you to behave so rudely? I suppose you’ve been spending too much time among humans, dealing with that difficult case of yours.’
‘I failed her again! What good am I to her when she keeps making decisions that will ruin her soul? Can’t you assign her a better fairy godmother?’ Violet asked, almost crying, her lips trembling.
Understanding her frustration, the elders nodded.
‘You know it doesn’t work that way. Unknowingly, humans choose their fairy godparents at the lowest point in their lives. And she chose you. You did a good job. There is only so much we can do for humans. We cannot interfere in their lives directly—you know that. We can only try to send opportunities their way and hope they pick them up and change the trajectory of their lives,’ one of them said, trying to placate her.
‘But I failed her. This curse we have—to see what life our charges will live after their big decisions… I can see she is going to be miserable,’ Violet argued.
‘Alright. Tell us about your case. Maybe we can give you some advice on how to proceed,’ they prompted.
She calmed down and began telling her story from the moment the girl chose her, for better or worse, to be her fairy godmother.
‘You know how it started. After that terrible thing that happened to her, she was lost—caged in her childhood room, afraid to go out. Somehow she chose me, the youngest one, fresh out of fairy school. I didn’t know what to do. The event that changed her life was so violent… I couldn’t think about anything except her fear.
‘And I guess because I was so young, and still a bit childish… I threw a brown Labrador her way. I made it so her father would find it tangled in the ivy in the woods near their house. He brought it home, and after a while she stopped thinking about that night all the time. She enjoyed fussing over the puppy, taking care of it… and not long after, she went for a walk with it, leaving the house for the first time after spending months in her room.
‘I let her get used to going outside, but she wouldn’t go too far. I had to push her a little further. After some time, I conjured the wind to pick up a leaflet from the pavement and throw it her way. It was about a driving course—and somehow I got it right. A few weeks later her father was driving her to a remote location where an instructor gave her lessons in driving.
‘She was good. She was really good!’ Violet said proudly.
One of the elders nodded.
‘You see? You did well. You helped her move forward.’
But sadness returned to Violet’s face.
‘Why can’t we show ourselves to them? Why can’t we just tell them the truth? Back then I knew her boyfriend was cheating on her. I wanted to warn her somehow… but our stupid rules didn’t allow it.’
‘As we said, it doesn’t work that way. We cannot compel people to tell the truth. We cannot reveal information we have. We can only place small things in their path and hope they lead to life-changing decisions. What happened next? Why are you so upset now?’
‘Well, she got better. She started going out more, even traveling to another city to visit that cheating boyfriend. A while later he got a job in London, and she decided to move there with him.
‘I thought that move might change her life’s trajectory, but it didn’t. She looked at him like he had hung the moon and the stars in the sky. She listened to all his ideas about what her life should be—working, earning good money to support the lifestyle he wanted, living happily in his shadow while he pursued his career… and I suppose other women.
‘She’s kind and caring… she doesn’t deserve that,’ Violet finished quietly.
‘Perhaps something will happen to change her course,’ one elder offered.
Now Violet sounded desperate.
‘No! I thought him pushing all those boring, high-paying jobs on her would make her react. But she just complied with everything he wanted. I hoped his constant whining about how little she earned compared to him would make him unattractive to her. She isn’t even materialistic. But it was all for nothing.
‘She stayed with him. And now… I don’t know what to do.
‘Tonight he made a move to seal her destiny. I tried, I really tried. I knew he was too self-centered to want his glory stolen, so I steered a very quiet—very obviously eavesdropping—couple to sit at the table next to them. For a moment it worked. He didn’t want them to witness him proposing, or ruin what he thought was a noble, self-sacrificing act—tying himself, the perfect and almighty man, to this damaged girl.
‘I thought I had succeeded. But when they left, he caught me by surprise. I never imagined he would do it on the streets of London.
‘His trousers were perfectly clean, so I threw extra dirt onto the pavement to make him think twice about kneeling. I even steered a few homeless men their way, sharing a bottle, hoping he’d change his mind because of the unwanted audience.
‘But he was adamant.
‘And now she is tangled with him for the rest of her life—miserable, raising his children, cleaning and cooking while he goes out, livens every party he attends, and behind her back spends time and money on other women.
‘That’s it. I failed her.’
The elders exchanged glances.
‘You did the best you could with what you had. She was practically agoraphobic when you met her. Now she will live a life—perhaps a dull one—but she will live it. She won’t be wasting away in her childhood home.’
‘Still… I wish I had done more. I wish I could have told her about his cheating. She wouldn’t stay with him if she knew,’ Violet said, fire in her eyes.
‘You know you cannot do that. You know the punishment for interfering directly. You would be banished—turned into a star, doomed to watch forever without the power to influence anything again.’
Violet knew that. Still, she thought she could make one last push. One last curveball.
Time flowed differently for fairies and humans. She had time. She reviewed everything she knew from the beginning. And then she saw it—a tiny flicker of hope.
A small disturbance in the Temporary Solutions files. Just a tiny mix-up. The next morning she saw the girl walking into the shabby offices on Denmark Street.
And then everything went wrong.
The girl—her heart fluttering when she saw which office she had been sent to—raised her hand to knock. The door burst open and a giant of a man slammed into her, sending her stumbling backwards toward the stairs and certain death.
Violet watched in slow motion. What lasted seconds for humans could stretch into ages for fairies.
In her mind she saw two possible outcomes.
One was simple, but unsatisfactory: let the girl fall. Let her escape the miserable life awaiting her.
But then, from the corner of her eye, Violet noticed another fairy godparent. It belonged to the giant.
The poor thing looked exhausted, worn thin—like protecting him drained every last bit of its strength. Like it had been failing him for years… and now was about to fail again by letting him kill an innocent girl.
Violet couldn’t allow that. No matter the consequences she did the forbidden.
She materialised beside them and pushed the giant forward so he caught the falling girl, while at the same time slowing her descent toward the abyss.
Her last thought before nothingness was a quiet acknowledgment: the trajectory of the girl’s life had changed. It was enough. It had to be.