Disclaimer: Set in a real location, but everything else is entirely fictional. This text does not intend to spread any sort of misinformation about Scotland and the nation’s culture and rich history to create a pseudohistory. Everything is made up and not meant to be historically accurate. The time period/events/characters set in this story never existed in real life Scotland and hold no amount of truth. Thank you for reading!

Historical fiction and fantasy 

The small town of Edinburgh was at a peaceful time after continuous straints of war in Scotland that lasted more than a decade. The people rejoiced with each other after the Revolution and began to settle down and get used to their new lives. There, however, was an entirely bigger problem arising everyday. Townsfolk spoke of it under trees with a hushed voice, scared that someone would hear them. A new reign of terror was sprouting after what people hoped would be the last period of violence. The Witch’s Road they called it. The old cobblestone street that was annihilated during the war; it started growing the most strange looking trees. 

“Do you believe it to be true, Anna?” asked Mrs. Amelia Collins, who lived by the shoreline and could look at the haunting street from her window. 

“No, of course not! It’s just nonsense made up with the sole purpose of scaring the people, now that we are finally getting to live a little after the rebellion,” exclaimed Anna Primwood; the town’s critic. 

“Dear, I am exceedingly worried. My kids have to cross that vile road to get to school every morning,” confessed Mrs. Collins who had a habit of fearing for the worst.

“Amelia, just warn them not to believe the rumors other children create to scare each other and they shall be fine. There is no such thing as goblins or witches! That street was once a birch path and then it was used as a battlefield. It is finally starting to grow and regain its previous form. The new trees planted by the Citizen Council are growing a bit askew, but that’s just nature at its course! I have been telling all the folk the same thing, but people always want to believe what they hear first.” 

“If you say so then I shall believe you. However, I should arrange the buggy to drop off Blair and Marianne to school from now on,” said Mrs. Collins, decidedly.

“If it alleviates your worrying then do so, Amelia dear,” said Ms. Primwood with an exasperated sigh. 

Ms. Primwood always turned to reason and logic for an explanation. When she first moved to Edinburgh and gave her opinion on matters, people started to accuse her of being a witch and being in cahoots with the devil because she never believed in things people would imagine up for the sake of ruining others. “Anna the Nihilist” was what they called her. This was just a crude nickname. Ms. Primwood respected her faith and believed in it wholeheartedly. She would turn to that for what she needed, but she remained skeptical of anything that was just uttered by people and could not be proven.

The Witch’s Road became ingrained in people’s minds as the years wore on. It would reportedly be making howling and other unusual sounds at odd hours of the night or someone passing by it would see something and so on. The bended trees on either side of the paving were growing more irregular than ever and so were people’s imaginations of it. There was perhaps one individual of the town other than Ms. Primwood who wasn’t afraid of that location: Marianne Collins, although her mother was more weary of the street than ever. Marianne wasn’t one to remain cautious about anything for too long and became rather interested in it after Mrs. Collins arranged for her, and her brother to never walk through it to school ever again. Over the years, she grew older and decided to walk through the road instead of taking the buggy without telling her mother. She slowly creeped through it and explored it as much as she could before her classes started and couldn’t seem to find anything. The eerie cobblestone street seemed to appear more and more enchanting to Marianne. She loved the twittering of birds in the mangled trees, the gentle rush of the river near the brook, that almost seemed to be clad in rainbows, and even the quaint moss growing on the old stones. Then, one sparkling spring day in Edinburgh, she went on exploring, but this time, decided to take a closer look at the funny trees. There was one giant willow, in particular, that caught her attention right away. It had a small, wooden house on one of its branches. Marianne moved closer to inspect it and just thought it was deliberately put there with the intention of scaring people. She turned away as school was about to start and heard a faint, tinkling noise. She whipped around immediately and saw to her complete shock, a small flying entity come out of the little house. It looked to be a fairy of sorts and was embellished with countless amethyst crystals. Marianne stood completely still for several seconds and didn’t even dare to breathe. She felt the ground spinning beneath her feet as the fairy looked at her, and she could only stare back in horror. The fairy was inspecting her with a tilt of her head.

“Umm, hello there!” said Marianne, regaining her words. “I was just about to leave. Please don’t mind me!”

“Greetings, stranger. I don’t mind you,” replied the fairy in a seemingly normal voice. 

“Carry on with your said departure if you will.” 

Marianne slowly stepped away, keeping her eye on the fairy and then bolted to school. She made it just in time for class and sat there, still in a state of shock and disbelief. For the first time in her life she was rendered speechless. For the remainder of the school day, she dared not utter a word of what she had seen and quickly hurried home. There, at the door, she met her twin brother standing at the entrance with a triumphant smile. 

“Mari, I have a question,” he asked innocently.

“Not now, Blair! I have a lot of school work to do!”

“It’ll only take a minute!” 

“What is it?” implored Marianne impatiently.

“Where do you go every morning if you don’t travel to school in the buggy with me anymore?” asked Blair.

“I… uh, take the shortcut through the ‘Witch’s Road’ or whatever they call it. Please don’t tell mother, you know how she gets!” said Marianne desperately.

“Good heavens, Mari! Who on earth would do that?! What is wrong with you? Have you not been hearing what people have always said about that place?!” cried her brother.

“Yes, I have, and that is exactly what made me want to explore it in the first place and see for myself. I am afraid it might be true or maybe I am starting to see things! Who knows?”

“What did you see?” questioned Blair.

“Before I tell you what I saw, are mother and father home?”

“No, they left for the rally to choose the new minister.”

“Okay, good. This is what happened: I was going through the road as usual but this time decided to take a look at the strangest tree there -- you know -- the giant willow everyone says is the most haunted. I drew near it and saw a small house sitting comfortably on its sturdy branch. I thought it was just placed there by one of the Sheldon boys who make the most jokes and stories about the place, and was about to go away when I heard a sound. I turned around and do you know what I saw, Blair?” 

“Pardon-?”

“I placed my eyes on this unfamiliar-looking creature flying out of her supposed tiny home! I believe it to be one of those things in the books we have to read about Celtic mythology in Mr. Fraser’s class, called fairies or pixies do they call it? Anyhow, I spoke to it for a brief minute and quickly made my escape. It seemed to have manners, but what if it tells the other entities or creatures that dwell on the ‘Witch’s Road’ and they come at night to get rid of me?”

“That doesn’t seem likely considering how whatever you saw has remained quietly hidden all these years, and who knows if there are other creatures there,” said Blair trying to sound reassuring for the sake of his sister.

“There should be. Want to skip the buggy and find out?” suggested Marianne.

“Alright Mari, but if we perish and never return, it’s your fault,” said Blair, who was just as terrible at making good decisions as Marianne.

The next day, the Collins twins set out for the road after tipping off their buggy driver. They found the same tree where Marianne had encountered the amethyst fairy as Blair had begun calling it. 

“So, which branch did you say the small house was on?” asked Blair.

“The sturdiest one and it had the most amount of leaves on it. Oh! The fairy is emerging from her house! Get away from the tree, Blair!” screamed Marianne and pulled her brother away from the tiny house.

They both stood still as they saw the amethyst fairy along with another one that was clothed in citrine instead of amethyst and would be called the yellow fairy by Blair later on, fly out of the house.

“Hello, travelers!” said the yellow fairy cheerfully.

“Stranger, we meet again,” said the amethyst fairy.

“Hi, uh, nice to see you again. This is my brother, Blair,” said Marianne with a quake in her voice.

“Hello, I believe you have already met my sister, Marianne here. I wanted to ask you both about what you are and tell you that we mean no harm to you or anyone else that may reside here. We both actually hope to make your acquaintance”, said Blair in a calm voice.

“We are fairies! I thought you would already know that since we are the most popular creatures in Celtic mythology and other myths afterall!” cried the yellow fairy indignantly.

“Yes, and it’s nice to meet others after our homes were destroyed in this thing you humans seem to like doing to each other, called war.” added the amethyst fairy.

“Well, yes, that was a long time ago, and this place was used as the main battle area between artillery on both sides of the war. I apologize on behalf of humanity,” replied Blair, proud of himself for always gathering information on the past and also sad about what had happened.

“Can we ask you fairies your names?” inquired Marianne, interrupting her brother before he went on a long tangent about the Revolution of Scotland. 

“I am Annastaysia and this is my friend Crisanta,” replied the amethyst fairy.

“Nice to meet you both,” said Marianne, her fear subsiding.

Many days after that, the twins soon became friends with all the fairies inhabiting ‘The Witch’s Road.’ There seemed to be fairies of every valuable gemstone in the trees with their own houses. Marianne and Blair of course never told anyone about their mythical friends and protected them and their friendship with secrecy for many years to come.