A Dark Past Full of Regrets

This is part of a Choose Your Own Adventure story, Through the Black Door. Go back to the first chapter. You can also return to the previous chapter. Check out the chapter guide.

Asha Bluebell was a strikingly beautiful girl from your village. You were both eighteen, and you were in love. But you had to keep each other a secret, because your society had no tolerance for anything other than heterosexual relations.

Though your love for Asha was strong, this constant hiding, pretending to be just friends, and letting men court you to keep up your disguise, was wearing you down and filling you with despair.

One day, as you were preparing to go to bed, a faerie, sparkling blue and beautiful with forest-green eyes, appeared to you. The creature looked like a foal, but it sounded human when it spoke.

It told you that it had much sympathy for you and Asha, and that it had the magic to let you live happily, freely, and openly with your lover without fear.

As wonderful as that sounded, you weren’t born yesterday. You asked for the bargain price. The faerie only requested a bouquet of flowers, as your family had the finest blooms in town.

One thing led to another, and though you were determined to stay on guard against the faerie, you were also desperate. You didn’t want to hide your love forever.

A few days later, you followed the faerie out past midnight to a distant field. The blue sprite stated that you just needed to go into the faerie ring for a while, and dance with the other fair folk. When the time came, they would lead you back to the human world, and nobody would get in the way of your relationship anymore.

Even though you had your doubts, you decided it was worth the risk. You were terrified that you and Asha would get found out one day and be sentenced to death. Walking into a faerie circle was a reasonable path if it could free you.

But you hadn’t calculated just how that path would unfold — and unravel.

They coaxed you to have some faerie wine, a bluish-purple concoction in a glass goblet. Despite your hesitation, you didn’t want to upset the faeries. You tilted your head back and drained the glass. The drink was strange and sweet. It was the most delectable beverage you had ever had.

The next thing you knew, you woke up in a luxurious bed, and that foal-like faerie woke you, saying it was time to go. You didn’t realize how much time had passed.

Villagers said that one day in faerie was equivalent to one year in the human world. You had dismissed that as a mere tale to scare children, until you experienced it yourself.

After your departure from faerie, the human world you stepped into was vastly changed. You asked people around you and discovered that it was now the twenty-first century…In a way, the faerie had kept its promise, because the era and society you emerged into, was much more accepting of love between partners of the same gender.

Yet, since you and Asha came from the nineteenth century, your lover must be dead by now…Yes, you were free to love her, as openly as you wished, at her grave.

But you had no courage to visit her tomb; you felt too ashamed for abandoning her. How the faerie wine had made you unconscious, yet kept you alive, for two hundred faerie days, was beyond you.

Grief and hopelessness consumed your soul, and you tried hard to block out your memories.

You come back to the present, and you stare with shock and sorrow at the old woman in front of you.

Asha grimaces and glances away. She mutters, “I’m no longer the young and beautiful Asha Bluebell you used to know. After you disappeared, I was distraught. Your parents were scared. One day, that faerie came to me and told me where you went. She said that I only had to give her a bottle of perfume from my family’s shop, and she would take me to where you were.

“Before I left with the faerie, I told your parents the truth. I felt like they deserved to know what happened to their daughter, even if you don’t agree. And your parents had always been so kind to me, that I had faith in them. Indeed, while your mother and father were worried about what the church might do if they found out about our relationship, your parents loved you regardless, and just wanted you to come back home.

“Then I vanished into the land of faerie to look for you. When I got back to the human world, it was somewhere in the twentieth century. The faerie reassured me that you were still alive, but that I would have to be patient and wait for you.” Asha’s face hardens into fury. “But I never imagined that I would have to wait for fifty-two years!”

This is all too much. You feel faint and you don’t know what to say.

At this time, Lionel interrupts, “Ladies, I hate to cut in this important conversation, but we have trouble brewing outside.”

You all rush to the window. A storm is brewing again, with violently lashing rain, gusts of wind agitating the trees, and even occasional strikes of lightning.

And in the middle of this mayhem, stands the black mare. Her eyes are the color of emerald flame, and she glares at you in accusation.

Asha curses. “Shi Lei. She’ll never rest until she gets what she wants.”

Shi Lei is the faerie who once “helped” you and Asha. She is also the mother of the foal in the church room. It’s no wonder Asha is so bitter and determined to trap the foal.

You are angry too, but you’re not sure if you want to keep the foal imprisoned. A quick glance at Lionel shows that he has mixed feelings as well, and his jaw is tense.

He asks, “How long can we hold this fort? Can we really keep the foal forever?”

Your former lover bristles. “The church is protected by iron. She won’t easily get inside unless she wants to drain and hurt herself. She can rage all she wants. We’ll just ignore her.”

Lionel clenches his fists. “But we’ll eventually run out of supplies, especially with one extra mouth to feed.” He unceremoniously glances at you.

You then say, “Is it really in our best interest to keep the foal trapped? I’d say we free him.”

Lionel nods, while Asha fumes. “No! We’ve worked too hard for this. We can’t give away our leverage. Once her colt’s free, we’ll have no more advantages, and she will be free to kill us or worse.”

A part of you thinks that Asha is right. However, you also sympathize with the young foal.

What do you do?

1. Insist that you free the foal.
2. Listen to Asha and keep the colt imprisoned, so that you at least get an edge over the black mare.