I'm walking in the forest

my forest

it's not really mine,

my family bought this plot of land

many years ago

long before I was born

but it's still not truly ours

the faeries own it

the fae too, though i've never talked to them, my great-grandma told me to never speak to them

the dryads are the souls of the trees, giving the birds a home

and air for them to breathe

the nymphs play in the ponds and streams, teasing the frogs and chasing away the water snakes

we, the humans, are the invaders to this precious land

we have picnics in their woods

we built a house on their plain

we canoe in their ponds

why didn't we expect them to be angry?

they weren't truly angry

they knew we're temporary,

our intrusion is a minor inconvenience,

a blemish on their immortality.

they still wanted to mess with us, though

they're spirits, after all.

It started small.

When i walk my dog, I sometimes trip on nothing

thorns lodge in random places where thorns shouldn't be

spices go missing from our cabinets

my sister's kindle disappears without a trace

our lawn floods after light rain

I can never keep bracelets, they always get lost

trees would fall in our driveway and nowhere else

broken glass would appear in our streams

I realized who was doing this, and I knew it had to stop.

so I am walking in the forest.

I stop at my favorite grove, where I've spotted faeries before

and I take the things I need out of my backpack

some lavender tea

homemade bread

a small bowl of honey

a pen and paper (for their demands)

and I say 

"Hello, spirits. I am a human that lives here, in these woods. here is my offering so we may live peacefully. thank you. Goodbye"

I leave the grove and promise i'll be back tommorow

the next evening comes, the sun seems brighter than it did yesterday, the temperature cooler

I find the offering, or what's left of it anyway

I find the tea half drank, the bread eaten (only crumbs left), the honey completely gone, and the paper has only one sentence on it in small, elegant handwriting:

"the bread was nice, bring more"