She came to the outskirts of Nihlom only to find it deserted. There were wisps of a fire in the center of the village floating up to she sky where Keilil sat with the dead watching the faeries, anticipating their sorrow. The only sound was that of the elders singing in words even Pip had never heard. They were weeping for themselves. Pip knew that she had to tell them that nature was not going to hurt them, that the wind had saved her, and nothing would destroy Nihlom.

She ran to the fire blasting her message like a trumpet as she went, unaware of the boys behind her. As she reached the gatherings of mourning faeries, she was suddenly aware of the loud thumping behind her of the crowd. Even as she talked of peace and hope the boys could not contain their urges for the strange figures before them. She was left screaming her message of a kind nature while the boys broke all of the faeries' wings off. Showers of orange, green, red, blue, purple, pink, and yellow fluttered around the air being pulled into the fire as one by one the faeries were drained of all essence and broken to pieces. Pip ran to her mother, running her hand through Haval's nut-brown strands of hair, trying to save her.

Haval was the last to fall. When all of the villagers had been destroyed, only Haval and Pip remained shaking under Pip's window. The boys came up all at once and grabbed Haval's wings. They did not rip the wings to pieces, not this time. They went to get the whole thing. A cry like the wind crying came from Haval's lips as the boys thrust themselves on her and ripped her wings out from her shoulders, and then there was nothing. Haval did not sit there dying or dead as the others had, she simply disappeared into nothing. Her wings, too, vanished into thin air leaving only the gray shimmer to float to the ground.

Not being able to claim their prize of the full wings, they boys ran from the forest, crying for love they had destroyed and could not have. They ignored Pip who scooped up her mother's shimmer up from the ground and spread it along her face. Then she went back up to her room to live out the rest of her life as the last faerie ever to walk the earth.

back to the highway that never ends