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The little creatures marching across the meadow weren’t my business at all. I was just waiting for my next appointment to show up, and if I wanted to stand in the sun and enjoy the view for a few minutes, what of it? I appreciate a field of spring flowers as much as anyone.   There were maybe six or eight of the tiny fellows: skipping, dancing, singing, blinking in and out among the goldenrod that towered above them. I hoped their little parade would just pass me by: they’d go their way, and once I had things wrapped up here, I’d go mine.   Nothing doing, though. They rounded a stand of bachelor’s-buttons and saw me right away, as I figured they would. I wasn’t even bothering to hide.   One grows tired of shadows.   “Ooh!” the one in the lead shouted as they all stopped short, nearly knocking each other into the daisies. He pointed at me with his tiny walking stick. “Hey, now! What're you doin’ here? This is our field!”   I don’t blame Fae for being territorial. They have enough trouble finding places to call their own, since they don’t really fit in most material planes, and—as far as I know, anyway—they don’t really...die, so I imagine that finding enough space for everyone can be a challenge.   I raised my hand in what I hoped was a friendly-but-noncommittal greeting.   “Just waiting for someone,” I called back. “I won’t be long.”   The Fae leader scowled and turned to his group. They conferred a moment, then began their sing-song marching again.   Straight toward me.   When they reached my feet, they all bowed most courteously, and the leader, removing his cap with a grin, said,   “Perhaps you can stay a while. We’ll make you a deal.”   “No, thank you,” I said.   I don’t need anyone’s permission to be where I’m supposed to be. And I might not know much about the Fae, but I know better than to make any bargains with them.   The smile fell from the leader’s face and he stamped his foot. “Now look!” he said. “It’s spring-time, and you’re not supposed to be here. We’re willing to overlook this egregious trespassing, but if you won’t work with us, we can’t—”   “Hush,” I said, holding up a finger.   Someone was crashing through the underbrush in the woods at the edge of the field. I’d heard twigs snapping in the nearby trees, as if someone was staggering blindly along the path.   It was Gwen.   “My appointment is here,” I said. “If you’ll excuse me...”   “Well, I never!” The Fae shouted insults and blew raspberries at my back as I turned. I heard angry whispers behind me as I moved to meet Gwen, but the Fae could do no more to me than I could to them, so I figured that was the end of it.   Gwen stumbled across the edge of the woods and stepped into the expansive field just as the sun came out from behind a cloud and illuminated the flowers, spreading an ethereal rainbow glow across the meadow.   “Oohhhh,” she exclaimed. The bourbon in the bottle she held sloshed over the rim as she opened her arms to the maddening swath of color. “Oooohhh, flowers! They’re so pretty. Know what? I’mma sit here. Freddy can just...”   Her thought trailed off as she looked around, bleary-eyed, for a place to park herself. Seeing a big fallen oak across the path not too far ahead of her, she took a swig from the bottle and added, “T’hell with Freddy. Maybe I’ll come live here.”   As I made my way toward her through the dandelions, there was a sharp tugging on the hem of my robe.   I stopped and turned around. The Fae stood in a semi-circle on the path behind me—right behind me—looking mighty pleased with themselves.   “What?” I said.   “You’re not supposed to be here,” said their leader, grinning smugly as the rest of them stifled their giggles. “But she is. That means we get to keep anything she shares with us or leaves behind. Right?”   Gwen’s path was strewn with smaller branches and other detritus, and she was already struggling to keep her footing without dropping the bottle as she staggered to the big log.   “Yes, yes, I suppose,” I said. “Not my concern at all. May I do my job now?”   “Of course, Old One! We apologize for our rudeness before. We won’t detain you a moment longer.” The leader blessed me with an exaggerated bow as the rest nearly fell over laughing.   Not my concern.   Thank the Source.   Gwen was twenty or thirty feet away from the oak. The Fae flitted ahead of me, toward her, presumably to take stock of their soon-to-be-possessions. I hoped they liked cheap whiskey and plastic sandals.   I don’t judge anyone for their circumstances. Life can be hard, and mortals make their choices according to the information and experience they have. Gwen had never had much of either.   Come to think of it, the Fae would probably love the bourbon.   In her drunken delirium, perhaps, Gwen didn’t seem at all alarmed to meet them when they approached her. I could see them buzzing and swooping around her head, chattering away at her, and she was laughing, whispering back to them. Nodding along with whatever they were saying. Allowing them to flit in and out of her bourbon bottle.   Not even watching where she was going.   Fate is funny that way.   As she finally reached the fallen oak, her feet tangled in a pile of last autumn’s dead vines, and over she went, slamming her head against one of the jagged broken branches. The bottle fell from her hand and spilled across the ground.   It was mercifully quick.   That’s my cue.   Her body slumped to the ground, and the Fae scrambled to lap up the sweet liquid before it soaked into the ground as I approached. “Gwen, it’s time,” I said. “Come with me.”   Her spirit sat up, confused. “What happened?” she asked. “Who are you?”   “I’m your guide,” I said. “I’ll take you to wherever you’re going next.”   “You’ll take her nowheres,” the Fae’s leader said, smacking his lips as he moved to hover between Gwen and me. “She’s coming with us.”   “You said you’d let me do my job!” I admit I was losing my temper with the exasperating little beings.   “And you said we could keep whatever she shares with us,” said the Fae.   “I had the funniest dream...” Gwen shook her head, trying to clear the posthumous fuzz from her new senses. “I think I’m still dreaming.”   “You’re not dreaming, Gwen,” I said. “You’ve died. It’s time to go.”   I’m not usually so blunt. But this whole situation was getting on my nerves, and I had another appointment in a few minutes, so I needed to move it along.   “Lady-Gwen,” the Fae’s leader said, “what was your dream?”   “Um...I was talking to some fairies...”   A grumbling went through the group. That’s not the polite term for Fae.   “Ahem...and what did the Good Folk say to you?” the leader prodded her.   “They said that they could make me immortal, if I’d share my spirits with them. I let them drink from my bottle. Am I immortal?”   “You most certainly are n—” I started   “ARE SO!” The Fae chorused. “She agreed to share her spirits with us!”   “The booze!” I shouted. “The booze is yours! She has to—”   “Spirits,” said the leader. “Plural. We drank the drink, and as per both of the agreements, we’ll also be taking this soul. Now kindly step away, Lord Death, and let us fix this body so we have a place to keep it.”   The little buggers’ logic was more twisted than the vines on which Gwen had tripped, but it was sound.   I stepped back, defeated, and watched as one of them—a little blue one that wore a buttercup blossom for a dress—began channeling the life-energy from the surrounding wildflowers into Gwen’s head wound, staunching the blood and sealing the skin.   Gwen’s spirit looked back up at me, still confused. “Am I going with you?” she asked.   “Apparently not,” I said. “You made your choice. Good luck.”   Her spirit seemed to sigh wistfully as she sank back down, returning to her now-stirring shell.   “What are you going to do with her?” I asked the Fae.   A shrug. “We’ll see what Queen Mab says.”   I doubt they’d even thought that far ahead; they had just wanted to pull one over on me. I made a mental note to come back, when I had some downtime, to see how this was going.   You know, mortals fear me: to them, I am unfathomably ancient, brutally efficient, and I cannot be denied, delayed, or even questioned.   But existence is far older than I, and there is much about life that even I don’t know.   With a final bow to the Fae, I took my leave. It was almost time for my next appointment: halfway across the world, where it was autumn now, and the shadows would be dark, and the spring wildflowers would be long gone.