A short story of whimsical horror in time for Halloween.

The Dream Fairy leaned over the old wooden headboard and touched their hand to the tip of their long beak of a nose in anticipation. They held a golden butterfly net in one hand and stared down at the toddler below them. The toddler with her tousled brown hair sprawled awkwardly across her mattress, the sheets coiled around her legs in a twisted mess. The Dream Fairy had always preferred the dreams of children to those of adults: they were purer, more naive, and filled with an excitement for life and the little things not yet overshadowed by the anxiety of finances and unsatisfying romances.

Frosted cupcakes, sprinkles, marshmallows, and playground slides.

Their pupil-less eyes of stormy gray luster flicked to a movement as The Tooth Fairy floated through the window and settled beside them. The Tooth Fairy’s mantle of alabaster hair extended from the top of their head like a willow tree to cover every extremity of their body.

“Evening, Dream,” The Tooth Fairy spoke in their light monotone. “It seems we both have a job here tonight.”

Dream nodded, uncertain how to respond to their work associate. They didn’t want their talk to spook the child. The market for nightmares was smaller and oversaturated, and Dream had often found them unethical besides. Also, they simply didn’t have a way with words.

“Don’t you love them,” Tooth sounded like they were grinning underneath all the hair. “They’re so peculiar, aren’t they? So beautiful in their uniqueness, so –” they struggled to find the right word, and when they found it, the word seemed to take on a life of its own. “– fragile.”

“What do you even do with their teeth?” Dream asked. It was something they had always wanted to ask but had never found the right time. This didn’t exactly feel like the right time either, but Dream didn’t know what else to say.

Tooth digested the question with a calm visage and turned to the child. The fairy loomed over the small human and extended a pale skeletal hand through their thick strands of hair. It slipped beneath the child’s head with practiced effortlessness to take the tooth from under the pillow. On its return, a bloodless phalange brushed lightly through the girl’s chocolate hair. Then they held the child’s baby tooth up to the moonlight. “They are all ephemeral, are they not?”

Dream stared. At first they thought perhaps Tooth was referring to the humans but then realized Tooth was answering the question with another question. Dream shrugged, not ever having considered how teeth and dreams might be similar. “I nurse their dreams and give them a life of their own, so they live on after they’re gone. Aren’t teeth just reminders of something that’s died?”

The child’s incisor disappeared under the fairy’s pale fur. “You value life, and I value death. If I didn’t, I’d have your job, wouldn’t I?”

Dream blinked, trying to decide if that thought was deep or if it just sounded that way. They faced each other in the silence of the child’s steady breathing. Finally Dream spoke again, “I don’t think that answered the question.”

The Tooth Fairy let out a small, tired sigh. “I actually don’t know what the teeth are for. It’s just my job, dude.” And they faded through the window the way they had come.

Dream watched them go, stunned. And then they laughed. It started small and worked into a long, body-wracking, uncontrollable laugh. They had to squeeze their hands around their beak to quiet themselves until a soft silence returned to the room.

When a fathomless minute had passed, a dream finally began. It drifted from the girl’s mind like a baby blue bird fluttering into a frenzy of life. Dream’s net reached out and caught it with ease, the smell of grandma’s fresh cookies coming with it. Dream clutched it tight to their chest. It was warm like a long-overdue laugh. Then they slipped it into the cage on their back and promised to savor it forever.