"Rosemary? Are you there? Please, say something!"

"Mrs. Cavaletti? Is that you?" I leaned over to turn on the light next to my bed and tried to sit up against the headboard.

"Oh, thank God I got you! He’s gone! Eddie’s taken him somewhere!" I could barely make out the words between her sobs.

"Mrs. C., what are you talking about? Who’s gone?"

"Raymond!"

"What? And _Eddie_ took him somewhere?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Okay, start at the beginning."

Mrs. C. took a deep, ragged breath. "Raymond’s gotten real bad the last couple of days. The doctor said he might not make it through to the weekend." She paused for another gaspy breath. "I was sitting up with him when Eddie came in. He was gone all day, but I was too worried about Raymond to go looking for him. I told him to sit with Raymond while I went to make some tea. As I came out of the kitchen, I saw Eddie carrying his brother down the stairs. I yelled at him, told him Raymond was sick and what was he doing? He said don’t stop him, then something about knowing the dance now and how he could save Raymond. And then he pushed past me and headed out into the night. I ran after him but he disappeared."

"Did you call the police?" I asked, stunned.

"No, no, no police. I don’t want my Eddie put in jail. But I don’t want Raymond to die out in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t know who else to call!"

"Mrs. C. you have to call the police. They won’t lock Eddie up--he just didn’t know any better. You call the police and I’ll be right over." It took some more convincing, but Mrs. C. finally agreed to call the cops. I threw on some jeans and a sweater, shoved my bare feet into my sneakers, grabbed my wallet and keys and ran out into the biting cold November night. I jumped into the Chevy and pointed it towards the other side of town.

I’d known Eddie for as long as I’d known anyone. We’d played together as kids and gone to school together. Except as I’d gotten older, Eddie’d stayed just the same. Oh, he got bigger, and ganglier, but inside he was still a little kid. He just never quite grew up. And because of that, some people picked on him. But not when Ray was around. Ray was Eddie’s older brother, captain of the football team and all-around great guy--I know cause I dated him for a while in high school. Ray took looking after his younger brother real seriously, especially since their dad had died when they were both pretty young. Anyone who picked on Eddie while Ray was around usually walked away less a few teeth.

Mrs. C. and Ray had gone out of their way to convince Eddie that Ray wasn’t really sick, that he was just tired from working too hard at college and was just taking a break before he went back. They even tried to explain the weight and hair loss, but I always had the feeling that Eddie knew more than they thought. I mean, I don’t think he knew it was leukemia, but he knew it was something bad. The Morgan Creek police were already at the Cavaletti house when I arrived. The house was typical for the town - big, about eighty years old, with a neat hedge around the front yard and a small vegetable garden in the back.

I used to live a few houses down, before my parents split up when I was twelve and Mom I had to move in with my grandmother across town. I still remember playing in that back yard with Ray and Eddie, and how Eddie always peeked when he was It in Hide and Seek, and how we always let him. Now, as I stood at the bottom of the walk, I suddenly felt like hiding again.

I walked up the winter-heaved concrete sidewalk and knocked on the blotchy aluminum screen door. A moment later Mrs. C.’s worried face invited me inside.

"I’m so glad you’re here, Ro. I was just telling Officer Candini about what happened."

The police officer nodded briefly at me, then turned back to his notepad as I sat down on the worn sofa. "Now you say that your son Eddie didn’t know that his brother had leukemia?" he asked, looking skeptical.

"Eddie’s...a little slow. He’s real close to his older brother and Raymond didn’t want to worry him."

"Has he ever done anything like this before?"

"Oh, no. My Eddie’s a good boy. He just didn’t understand about Ray."

As Officer Candini continued with his questions, I made some tea and listened to Mrs. C. answer as best she could. I could hear another officer poking around upstairs. The police left about twenty minutes later, promising to bring out the search dogs and look all over the area until they found Eddie and Ray.

I sat with Mrs. C. for a while, trying to convince her that Eddie would never do anything to hurt Ray.

She shook her head. "I know, but he’s been a little crazy the last few months, since right after Ray came home. He kept talking about dancing, and how that was the answer."

I nodded, remembering an afternoon in September when I’d stood outside the salon where I worked, watching an erratically bobbing shape in the distance. It was Eddie, jigging, crow-hopping and jittering along the main street. As he’d gotten closer, I could see that his face was split by its usual goofy grin.

"Hey, Eddie, how are you?" I’d called out.

"I’m doin’ good, Ro." He’d wound down to a stop in front of me and nodded emphatically.

"How’s Ray?" I’d asked.

"Oh, . . . fine," he’d said, the smile sagging just a little.

"Is something wrong?"

"Oh, he’s fine, just fine. He’s just tired is all. Mom says he’s been workin’ too hard." The smile had perked back up and he’d nodded again. "Well, gotta be goin’. Working on some new steps," he’d said, doing a clumsy spin. "Betcha can’t dance like me."

"Nobody can, Eddie," I’d said, and had watched as his scarecrow shape jerked and skittered its way down the street.

I told Mrs. C. about the meeting, and she shook her head again. "Dancing," she whispered.

After a while I got up and wandered around the house, not knowing what to do, but not sure if I should leave yet either. I walked up the narrow stairs and down the hall to Eddie’s room. The walls were papered over with posters of baseball players, and on the corner of the dresser sat the small black-and-white TV that Eddie watched the games on. I stared out the window and down at the small yard, lit up by the glow of the full moon. As I turned back for the door, something red under Eddie’s bed caught my eye. I knelt down to get a closer look.

It was a book, a picture of dancing fairies centered in the dog-eared red cover. Across the top, in faded gold letters, it said The Fairy Circle. I remembered the book - Eddie and I had read it in Mrs. Rowe’s third-grade class. Eddie didn’t read as well or as fast as anyone else, which meant that he really didn’t read much at all. But he’d read The Fairy Circle over and over, until he’d mostly memorized it. Mrs. Rowe was so impressed that she gave him a copy to keep. Eddie had learned about all the different kinds of fairies - wood fairies, brownies, sprites, he knew about them all. He could tell you about fairy circles in the woods, and how if you danced in the light of a full moon at midnight, the fairies would come out and grant you a wish.

And then it hit me so hard that for a few seconds I almost couldn’t breath. I sat for a long moment, stunned, as all the pieces clicked neatly into place. I knew why Eddie had carried his brother off. And I knew where. I ran down the stairs and out the door, not even pausing to tell Mrs. C. where I was going. The Chevy’s engine roared to life, the broken muffler clunking and rumbling as I gunned the car down the road.

My hands were shaking on the steering wheel as I turned onto Kensington. And suddenly I was nine years old again.

It was late June, the summer after we’d read The Fairy Circle. I was poking a stick into an anthill in my front yard, already bored with summer and still angry because my mom had yelled at me when I asked her why she had a black eye.

Eddie appeared through the gap in the side hedge, all skinned knobby knees and porcupine hair, toothy grin splitting his face wide.

"I found it!" he blurted out as soon as he saw me.

I blinked up at him, for a moment ignoring the ants. "Found what?"

"The fairy circle!" Eddie was nearly shaking with excitement.

"Oh," I said, turning back to the ants. I’d already heard way too much from Eddie about fairies.

"Don’t you wanna know where it is?" he said, sounding a little less excited.

"Sure," I said with a sigh. "Where is it?"

Eddie gave me another huge smile. "In the woods behind Fenwick’s farm."

"Okay," I said, standing up and pushing past him.

"Where’re you going?" he asked, confusion clouding his face.

"To Fenwick’s farm, where else?"

"But it’s no good going now. You won’t see anything."

"Great. Then why did you bother telling me?" I turned my back on him and sat down on the grass, suddenly hating him with as much fury as an angry nine-year-old could muster. After a moment he kneeled down next to me. He was quiet for a while, and out of the corner of my eye I could see that his forehead was all scrunched up as he tried to figure out why I’d gotten so angry at him.

"I’m sorry, Ro," he said real softly. And all of my anger disappeared, leaving me feeling awful for taking my bad mood out on him.

"’S’okay, Eddie. It’s not your fault." I turned toward him and smiled. "So, why can’t we see the fairy circle right now?"

Eddie’s face lit up as he said, "Well, you can see the stones, but there won’t be any fairies there now. We have to go at midnight under a full moon."

"Oh, that’s right," I said, remembering the book. "But when’s the next full moon?"

"I asked Mom and she showed me on the calendar, how the little circles on the days show when it’ll be."

"And?"

"It’s tomorrow night."

"Then I guess that’s when we’ll go."

We sat in the yard until almost dinnertime, making plans for our expedition. We were still there when my father got home. He had a huge bouquet of flowers in his hand and scooped me up under his arm, giving me a big kiss on the forehead as he set me on his hip. I waved happily at Eddie as we disappeared into the house.

The next night I waited until my parents had gone to bed and then slipped down the stairs and out the back door. As I crept around the side of the house, I could see Eddie waiting on the sidewalk by the front hedge.

"Ya got it?" he whispered. I nodded and pulled the charm bracelet out of my pocket. You had to bring something to the fairies to trade them for your wish, and they liked bright, pretty things. My grandmother had given me the bracelet for Valentine’s Day, but I thought it was for little kids so I didn’t mind giving it up. Eddie pulled out an old brass medal gone slightly green, hanging off a frayed red-and-blue ribbon.

"Grandpa’s," he whispered, shoving it back into his pocket.

"Are you sure they’re gonna be big enough?" I said.

"Yeah, you only need really big things when you’re asking for something really big."

I bit my lip, thinking about the puppy that I wanted so badly and wondering how big it would look to a fairy. "How big is really big?"

Eddie sighed and shook his head. "You know, really big." He spread his arms way out to both sides. When I still looked worried, he said, "You know, like...like a house...or an elephant or something."

"Oh." Well, at least a puppy was a whole lot smaller than an elephant.

"C’mon, we gotta get going." Eddie bolted out of the yard with me right behind him.

We ran down the sidewalk and across Kensington Street, then cut through a couple of yards to come out on the other side of the block. We headed down Elm for a long while. The houses got fewer, and I could see the moon shimmering behind the treetops. We finally came to the dirt road that the Fenwick farm was on.

"Hurry," he hissed. "We don’t wanna be late."

I could barely make out Eddie’s white T-shirt bobbing ahead of me.

"Wait up," I gasped. He stopped until I caught up to him.

"What time is it?" he asked.

I looked down at my Cinderella watch, turning my wrist so the moonlight fell on it. "Quarter till twelve."

"We gotta hurry," he said, and ran off down the gravel road. I hurried to catch up, and we raced up the farm driveway, then ducked under the fence past the barns. Eddie knew where he was going, and I struggled to keep up, afraid of getting left behind if I lost him. He came to a huge oak by the edge of the woods, turned past it and disappeared into the darkness of the trees.

"Eddie," I whispered, afraid of making too much noise. "Eddie, where are you?" I was suddenly scared, alone at the edge of a big, dark forest.

"C’mon," he said, popping up right next to me. I gasped at his sudden appearance and he shushed me. "Don’t want Old Man Fenwick to hear us!"he said. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the woods. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see a path. Eddie fairly flew along it, dragging me behind him. We went on forever, it seemed, in the almost darkness, the moon flashing on skin or clothing for bare moments between the heavy-leafed branches.

Suddenly we burst out into a moonlight-flooded clearing. "There it is," he said, pointing his chin towards the center. I could just make out a ring of white stones, an exact circle, its perfection chilling my spine. "What time is it?"

I looked down at my watch. "Five of," I whispered.

"C’mon then." He pulled me across the clearing and into the circle. When we got to its center, he let go of my hand. My palm was slightly sweaty, and the cool evening air falling across it sent a shiver through me.

"Now what?" I asked, my voice unsteady.

"A couple more minutes and we start dancing. That’s supposed to bring the fairies out."

I was real quiet, scared but afraid to show it. I looked up at Eddie and thought he looked a little bit scared too.

"D’you think they’ll come?" I asked, swallowing hard.

" Course they will," he said. And maybe now that we were about to try it, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. But he did his best to flash that signature Eddie smile.

"Wh-what d’you think they’ll do?" I said.

"Give us our wishes." The smile was firmer this time. "We better take out our trading stuff," he said, pulling the medal from his pocket. The moonlight flashed off the silver of my charm bracelet as I pulled it out as well.

"What’re you gonna wish for?" I asked, thinking about the puppy.

He looked shocked. "You can’t tell! Then you won’t get it." "Oh." I looked down at my watch again. Both of Cinderella’s gloved hands were just about at the twelve. "It’s midnight," I said in a hush.

Eddie gave me a big smile, then began waving his arms and wiggling his hips. I started twirling around like a ballerina and thought "puppy" as loud as I could. A thin mist began to rise from the ground inside the stone circle.

"Eddie," I hissed, "what’s that?"

"I dunno. Just keep dancing."

I did, but a cold sweat broke out across my body. The mist climbed up my legs and circled my waist, and I felt like it was pulling me down. I looked over at Eddie. He was still dancing, but his smile was gone. Then I heard a high, chittery sound. Again, and I realized it was laughter. I stopped dancing as cold, sharp fear clenched my stomach. The sound rose a third time, closer now, and I thought I saw a flash of something in the mist.

I dropped the charm bracelet, and it was a moment before I realized that my feet were running as fast as they could, carrying me out of the stone circle and across the clearing to the edge of the woods. I kept running as tree branches whipped across my face and snagged at my clothes. And then I stopped. Eddie! Was he still back there? I turned and ran blindly for a couple of steps before crashing into him, knocking both of us down.

He stood first, helped me up, and we ran home as fast as we could.

Fifteen years later, I could still feel that terror gnawing at me. I turned onto the dirt road and pulled over near the farm’s driveway. The place had been abandoned for years, and the FOR SALE sign out front was peeling and faded. I hiked across the overgrown lawn and back past the barns, stepping over the fallen-down fence.

After a couple of impossibly long minutes, I found the oak and the path through the woods and hurried down it. I stumbled over a rock, skinning my palm as I fell, but I barely felt the pain as I scrambled on. I had to be getting closer to the clearing. Then, through the dark silence, I heard something. I turned off the path and fought my way through brambles and brush, crashing through into a large clearing. The full moon lit up the space like a spotlight. I stumbled on and, as I got closer, I saw the circle of stones. They enclosed an area about twenty feet in diameter, and standing in the center, dancing as if his life depended on it, was Eddie.

I couldn’t really see his feet--there was a thick mist that rose up almost to his knees - and I thought I could just make out a vague dark shape lying on the ground next to him. Ray.

"Eddie, what are you doing?" I screamed, running up to the circle’s edge.

"No, Ro, don’t come in," Eddie cried. He stopped dancing for a moment, then picked up his tempo as though he had to make up for the missed few steps.

I paused, wondering what to do. "Eddie, you have to bring Ray home. This isn’t a good place for him to... I mean, he’ll just get sicker here."

"No!" he screamed, and I could see that there were tears running down his face. "No, Ro! I know he’s dying! I can help him!" He danced even faster, his arms and legs jerking and flinging in no discernible pattern.

I was feeling lightheaded, and in desperation I tried to step over the stones, but something stopped me. I stared into the mist and saw a flicker. It happened again, a flash of color in the glowing white. Then I heard a sound like laughter, but it couldn’t have come from Eddie or me. It was high pitched and reminded me of water rippling over rocks. I felt dizzy and sat down on the ground. The mist was at eye level for me now, and I could see more and more flashes of color running through the white. The laughter got louder, and I thought I heard music--pipes and drums and things I couldn’t even begin to describe. And Eddie danced on and on.

I don’t know how long I sat there, but suddenly the mist was gone and I could see the fairies clearly. They were tiny, no more than a foot tall, and dressed in colorful rags and flowers, leaves and jewels and anything else bright and fanciful. Some played tiny instruments, at least I think that’s what they were - I couldn’t describe them now, or what they did, but shaken, blown and banged they made what I guessed was fairy music.

Then, just inside the circle of rocks, directly in front of me stood one of the fairies, all wild red hair and golden eyes. I blinked, trying to focus on it, but it was like trying to look at something under water.

And then, as though I’d blinked away some tears, I could see it very clearly. Around its neck was a silver charm bracelet. As I stared at the bracelet, a small voice, like the tinkling of tiny bells, whispered through my mind. "What is your wish, Rosemary?" And for a moment, for just a sweet, brief moment, I was nine years old again, and wishing as hard as I could. Then the fairy faded back into the dance.

As my eyes tried to refocus, I saw Eddie again, in the middle of the whirling fairies.

"Betcha can’t dance as good as me!" he challenged them, laughing, even as the tears poured down his cheeks. He danced faster and faster, in and out and among them, until his feet were a blur. And the fairies began to blur too, until the colors and music washed over me like a hurricane wind.

I woke the next morning to a small whimpering sound. It was the very early edge of morning, the sun just beginning to lighten the eastern sky through the trees. I was damp and chilled through. I didn’t know where I was, but then I heard the sound again. I sat up and saw the circle, gray in the bare morning light. And sitting at the inside edge of the rocks was a tiny puppy, making the desolate sounds that only a puppy can make.

It cried again as I got to my knees. I called to it, patting my thighs with my palms, but it only whimpered louder, then gave a couple of yipping barks. It pawed at the edge of the circle but wouldn’t pass beyond the stones. Too weak to stand, I crawled on hands and knees to the circle’s edge.

As soon as I touched the pup’s red fur, it bounded into my lap, a wriggling, licking mass that warmed me from the inside out. It felt like all the Christmases and birthdays I’d ever had wrapped up in one squirmy red package.

Then I looked at the center of the circle and forgot the puppy entirely. I stumbled to my feet and lurched towards Ray’s body, falling back to my knees when I reached his side. His skin was very white, and for a moment I knew he was dead. I touched his icy face with numb fingers and as I did he moaned and moved his head, then opened his eyes and smiled at me.

The police found us a little later, my arms wrapped around Ray’s thin shoulders, trying to keep him warm, the puppy curled up in his lap.

Eddie was gone.

The doctors called Ray’s recovery a miracle. The leukemia had completely vanished, and within a few months he was strong and healthy. He even got a write-up in a medical journal. He went back to school, got his degree, moved down south somewhere. He’s got a big job down there, with a wife and kids, big house, expensive car. I tried to talk to him once about what happened with Eddie, but he just looked at me like I was crazy.

Maybe he didn’t remember that night, or maybe he didn’t want to. Or maybe I really am crazy.

I still have F.D.--for Fairy Dog, though I’d never admit that to anyone. His copper red coat and golden eyes remind me of something I’d rather forget. And every month, on the night of the full moon, he scratches and whines at the door until I let him out. Though I’ve never followed him, I know where he goes.

Of course they never found Eddie. Oh, they sent out search parties with dogs, and flew helicopters overhead, but they never found him. They say he wandered off and died in the woods, and I guess that’s as good an answer as any, but I know it’s not true. To be honest, I really don’t know what happened that night. But I do know one thing: Nobody could dance like Eddie.