The May Queen's Bargain

The forest smelled of crushed elderflower and rebellion. I hadn’t meant to trespass into the Unseen Grove – one wrong turn while chasing my dog through the Scottish Highlands, and now moss-coated stones hummed beneath my boots like sleeping dragons. Above, birch trees wore crowns of bluebells that chimed faintly in the wind. May Day, Grandma used to whisper, was when the veil between worlds frayed. I’d rolled my eyes then. Now, my pulse hammered a pagan rhythm as a figure emerged from the mist.
She was all thorn and velvet – antlers sprouting from russet hair, her cloak stitched with moth wings. "Lost, mortal?" The May Queen’s voice held the snap of bonfires. Behind her, shadows resolved into creatures with foxfire eyes: a boy with bark for skin, a woman whose hair cascaded like ivy. My terrier, Finn, wagged his tail madly at a three-legged hare.
"Join the Riding," the Queen commanded, tossing me a hawthorn mask. It clung to my face like a second skin. As twilight deepened, the forest erupted in cacophony: drums made from hollowed oak, flutes carved from swan bones. We danced through meadows where flowers bloomed neon-bright under the moon. A goblin with teeth like cracked porcelain pressed a clay cup into my hands. "Drink," he rasped. The mead tasted of stolen sunlight and dandelion defiance.
"Your world forgets," the Queen murmured as we passed a crumbling stone altar. "They pave over roots that remember their names." Her fingers brushed a scarred oak – and suddenly I felt it: centuries of sap-blood, the ache of chainsaws, the whisper of acorns planted by Roman soldiers. Finn yelped, chasing a glowing squirrel that shed sparks like a meteor.
At dawn, the Queen halted at a crossroads. One path led home; the other vanished into silver fog. "Choose," she said. But my hands were already stained with chlorophyll, my pockets full of seeds that hummed. I thought of concrete cities, of friends who’d never seen the Milky Way.
"I’ll be your bridge," I heard myself say. The creatures hissed approval.
Now, back in my university dorm, ivy snakes through my windowsill cracks despite the 14th-floor altitude. Finn naps beneath a mushroom that shouldn’t exist indoors. Students smirk at my flower crown, unaware of the roots cracking sidewalks beneath their feet. Late at night, I scatter the Unseen seeds in parking lots and corporate gardens. They sprout into starlight-fed blooms that security cameras can’t capture.
The May Queen’s laughter echoes in thunderstorms. The veil’s thinner every year.