They could hear the music. On their backs in the wheat field, staring up through the golden stalks at the aquamarine sky. A light breeze rippled through the field, waving the stalks back and forth, and they could hear the music of it. The crystal clear notes produced music like a faerie harp.

Fawn and Meadow, laying together, picking out shapes in the clouds. They tore pieces off a French Baguette and chewed slowly as they closed their eyes for a brief moment of unseen sunshine. The sun was warm on their faces, but they were at the same time cooled by a light breeze.

Fawn, a lovely girl with hair the color of a fawn’s hair and eyes the exact color of hazelnuts, and Meadow, a wild child with wheat colored hair and eyes as green as moss, smiled at each other in their matching yellow dresses. Their smiles were beautiful.

“What if,” Fawn whispered to her friend. “We could stay like this forever?”

“What if it never ended?” Meadow whispered back.

“What if we never had to leave?”

“What if no one would ever disturb us?”

“What if we were immortal?” Meadow gave Fawn a critical look.

“Immortal?”

“Yes!”

“But why would we want to live forever? We’d be all old and gross and we’d have to watch all our friends and family die while we couldn’t.”

“You see this?” Fawn ignored Meadow’s question and held up a small vial of clear liquid that hung from her neck. “This is eternal youth potion, from the fountain in the temple of Olympus.”

“You went to Olympus?” Fawn just grinned and rolled the the vial between her fingeres. Meadow rolled onto her stomach and studied her friend’s chocolate colored face, but the face held no lies. She wouldn’t be able to get any more out of her though, that was obvious. Fawn rolled back to her back and closed her eyes, her fingers still gripping the vial. Meadow watched her for what felt like days. Finally Fawn peeked an eye open and laughed. She stood and pulled Meadow to her feet along with her, together they raced through the wheat field, laughing and dancing and leaping like the future ballerinas that they were. Meadow’s last words hung like smoke between them, the only thing keeping them apart.

“Eternal youth potion,” Fawn said, as they dangled their feet in the icy stream in the forest that bordered the wheat fields. Meadow leaned her head back and watched the forest canopy rustle in the breeze.

“What does it do?” she asked, splashing frigid drops on her yellow dress.


“We drink it, and we stay our age forever. Think of it! We could never die! We can do whatever we want and we can’t be killed!”

“But...”

“But what?” Meadow closed her eyes, buried her face in her hands, and cried. Her shoulders shook with sobs. Fawn watched her quietly, her brows furrowed without understanding. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Meadow couldn’t answer. Even she couldn’t know why she was crying. Why was she so against living forever? She couldn’t think of a single bad thing about it, yet she wanted to remain mortal. Immortality seemed unknown and frightening, but it was evident that Fawn would drink the potion whether Meadow did it with her or not, and Meadow knew she couldn’t leave her friend.

“Alright,” she said, wiping at her tears with the backs of her arms. “Let’s drink it. I’ll go first.” Fawn grinned and slid the leather rope off her neck and handed the vial to her. Meadow yanked out the cork, raised the bottle to her nose, and inhaled deeply. All she could smell was the forest.

Meadow closed her eyes lifted the vial to her lips, and drank it. It tasted like water, there is simply no other way to describe how it tasted, and Meadow found herself doubting her friend’s honesty about the whole thing. Fawn just smiled though, took the vial and swallowed the rest.

Droplets of water were flung in the air as the two left their shoes behind and ran through the wheat fields, screaming like banshees and almost flying through the air. A bubbling sensation rose through the two from the soles of their feet and began to rise through their bodies. The girls screamed in delicious pain and ran so fast it was inhuman. Their feet were like their own beings, neither girl could stop.

Then they began to rise, still running, their feets pressing against nothing as they rose slowly, then faster, moving forward and up and forward and up and forward and up until their shrieks could barely be heard as they moved through the clouds, coming out sopping wet.

They were laughing, and they didn’t know why but they were laughing until tears poured from their eyes and rained down on earth. Then they left the atmosphere, and entered the land of the unknown. They changed, and moved, and were fated to live forever among the stars.

And they could hear the music.