The full moon cast a silver glow on everything below its nightlight, making the forest appear to sparkle in a mysterious yet magical way.

Among the gently rustling leaves the forest was all but silent, save for a melodious, beautiful gentle voice singing in the distance:

Tall oak trees and land of thine,

Listen closely and hear my cries

I long for something so much more

Take me now, I'm forever yours.

The voice belonged to a young girl sitting on the edge of the forest beneath a cliff and beside a stream of water. After she finished her song, she was silent. She waited. She strained her eyes in the darkness to see a glimmer in the distance. She held her breath. The minutes ticked by, turning into hours. Nothing.

Heartbroken, she turned to begin her journey home in the darkness. It was just before dawn, and her mother would worry if she was not there when she rose for her early morning run.

Bineshii was seventeen years old, and in two weeks she would turn eighteen, at which time she was set the marry the man her parents had chosen for her: a tall, bristly man whose hobbies included hunting, skinning, and eating wild game.

Bineshii was disgusted at the very thought of marrying a man who killed innocent animals for fun, but she had no choice. It was proper for a young lady to be married at the age of eighteen, and it was always to a man chosen by the parents.

Bineshii arrived home and crawled into bed. Exhausted, she closed her eyes, hoping for the long, deep sleep that so often follows a night spent crying. It didn't come. Her thoughts were consuming her, circling around in her mind like the steady ticking of a clock.

She longed to be taken away by the forest fairies. It was her only hope. She had never seen the fairies, only heard about them from myths and legends, but she spent so much time wandering the secret passages in the forest, she knew in her heart they must be real. She wanted so badly to be taken to their secret land, where it was always summer and it was always lovely. It was her heart's greatest desire.

*******

On the day of her wedding, Bineshii woke up with a heavy heart. She put on the white dress and special beaded moccasins, and her mother's servants adorned her blonde, curly locks with bright red flowers and a variety of colorful feathers. She looked like a vision. With her petite frame and tiny features, she looked like a fairy.

She stood at the altar, looking into the eyes of the man she was set to marry. The killer of animals. She swallowed a lump in her throat; she was out of time.

Suddenly, a silver dust enveloped the wedding hall and began swirling around Bineshii. The guests looked around in a panic, trying to find the source. Suddenly, Bineshii was gone. All that was left was a pile of gold dust where she stood at the altar.Andrea's fiance and family searched for her for weeks, but to no avail. She had vanished without a trace.

One day, while her fiance was out hunting in the woods, he thought he heard her singing. He followed the voice until he was standing at the edge of the forest, just under the cliff and beside the stream, but the voice stopped. He looked around and saw her standing a few yards in front of him, dressed in a soft white cloak with pink flowers in her hair. Then she vanished, as quickly as she appeared.

Bineshii was never heard from again, but legend has it that on full moons, if you sit at the edge of the forest, you can hear her song, the song of the fairy princess.

Author's Note: This is my version of "The Fairy Bride" from the American Indian Fairy Tales unit. I chose this story because I immediately fell in love with the magic and whimsy in this story. It made me feel like a kid again, and I loved that the plot was sort of grown up. Basically, a young girl must marry a man her parents chose for her, even though she does not love him. She longs to be whisked away by the forest fairies to a faraway land where it is always sunny and there is no sorrow. I chose the name Bineshii because it means "bird" in the Ojibwe language, and this story is originally from the Ojibway peoples. I wanted the story to contain the same major plot points, but to be universal in terms of the time it could be set in, so that people could read my story and use their own imaginations to fill in the blanks. I also wanted to include a song like the original story did, so I made up my own version to use in this story. The image I chose is exactly how I imagined the fairy princess to look, and is definitely something straight out of my childhood imagination. I hope this story made you smile and brought out the kid in you.

American Indian Fairy Tales unit. Story source: American Indian Fairy Tales by W.T. Larned, with illustrations by John Rae (1921).