"I'll go find the witch's house in the woods in this bright moonlight, and then I will come back again."
—The little girl
"A Fairy Story" is a literary Fairy Tale by Tom Sawyer that debuted in the March 1934 issue, also labelled as Volume XLVI Number Six, of The Archive, a monthly magazine by the Duke University. It has not been reprinted since.
In a pine forest, there lives a witch inside a solitary oak tree and a ghoul in a thorny thicket. At walking distance from the forest is a hillside neighborhood on the edge of a big city. A little girl fascinated by magic lives there in a household with two neglectful parents. After a failed attempt to summon fairies, the girl resolves to venture into the forest to meet the witch instead. One night, when her parents are ignoring her again, she goes to her backyard swing set from where she contemplates the peaceful forest under the bright moon. Deeming it a good time to search for the witch, she sets out. At first, she enjoys the serenity of the forest, but after a while the loudness of her own steps disturbs her and her growing fright becomes that much worse when the moonlight gets cut off by a cloud. When finally she finds what may be the witch's tree, she is far too scared and runs at the approach of a shadow. By the time the moonlight returns, she's in an unknown part of the forest. The ghoul finds her there and offers to help her back to her home. After some walking, however, he forces her back against a tree and does something to her mind before disappearing. The girl finds her way home on her own easily enough after that, but as both the front door and the back door are locked and her parents have gone to bed, she has to climb the rain pipe to an open window to get inside. For an entire week more, the girl sees the ghoul, but never surely enough to be confident of his presence. Her mind, however, never returns to the way it used to be.
"A Fairy Story" provides examples of the following tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: The little girl sees a "dark shape" approach her when she's at a tree she believes could be the witch's home. But she isn't certain there's actually anything there and makes a run for it before anything is ascertained. Perhaps the shadow was the witch, perhaps it was something else, and perhaps it was a trick of the girl's mind.
- Arboreal Abode: The witch lives in a little treehouse high in a solitary oak among pine trees. The way up to her treehouse is an elevator inside of the oak's trunk.
- Bad Moon Rising: From her house on a hill, the girl sees a bloody red moon rise from behind the forest of pine trees, becoming a regular white only after it is temporarily obscured by a dark cloud.
- That Cloud Looks Like...: One night, the little girl who wants to meet the witch is alone in her backyard looking up at the passing clouds in the night sky. One of them looks to her like a witch's head with a long nose.
- Demonic Possession: It is likely that the reason the ghoul disappears after attacking the girl is that he's now inside her head. That would explain how she suddenly knows the way home and why she keeps seeing him and thinking queer thoughts.
- Desperate Plea for Home: After the moon has been obscured by a cloud and shown the girl what the forest in the dark is like, after she's heard the incessant calling of a whippoorwill, after she has fled from an approaching shadow of what might be the witch at the witch's tree, after she has been pursued by an owl, and after she has bumped into several trees in terror and not calmed down until she finds herself in an unfamiliar swampy area, the girl decides that she really wants to be home again. A ghoul helps her get back, but not before altering her mind.
- Enter Stage Window: After returning from a her nighttime search in the forest, the girl finds that her parents have gone to be without checking on her and locked all the doors. A window on the second floor is open, though, so she climbs a rain pipe up to the adjacent balcony and from there clambers inside.
- The Fair Folk: Fairies do exist, but the girl gets told that they don't and her own attempt to summon one as per the instructions in Peter Pan is fruitless. She doesn't stop believing that they exist, but she also has nothing more to lead her to a conclusive answer.
- Familiar: The ghoul walks accompanied by the nearby calling of a whippoorwill and the witch is at least symbolically present through the owl. In both cases, the connection between the birds and the monsters is left unexplained, but a literal interpretation of their narrative purpose is that the former are the latter's familiars.
- The Ghost: The witch is whom the girl goes into the forest in search of, but she never finds her. She finds a ghoul, she hears an owl and a whippoorwill, and at one point she runs from a shadow she thinks but never confirms is the witch. After all of that, the traumatized girl returns home with little intention of trying another time.
- Going in Circles: The girl runs from a tree that she believes to belong to the witch when she hears an owl's hoots from its branches. Thereafter, she meets the ghoul who promises to help her get home. Following some walking, the ghoul forces her back against a tree that the girl recognizes as being the supposed witch's tree because the owl's still in its branches.
- The Hedge of Thorns: The ghoul lives in a small hut in the middle of a dense, thorny thicket. Because he is remarkably thin and wavery, he can pass through the thorns unharmed.
- Lunacy: It is because the moon is bright, big, and full and the sky only sparsely clouded that the little girl has the confidence to go exploring the pine forest in search of the witch one night.
- Mage Species: The witch is implied to be one by species rather than trade because she is likened to fairies when she is defined as a "magic person". What exactly makes her magical is implied at best: the owl that follows the girl is likely the witch herself or her familiar.
- No Ending: The girl set out to find the witch while her parents were neglecting her. She may or may not have met the witch depending on if either the shadow or the owl was the witch. Instead, she met the ghoul, who did something to her mind. When she returned home, her parents had already locked up and the girl had to break in through the window. The next morning, her parents make light of the fact they didn't bother to check up on her. The girl, worried about what the encounter with the ghoul did to her, doesn't correct them.
- Ominous Owl: The girl comes upon a thickly ivied tree and when she hears an owl hoot up in its branches, she gets it into her head that the tree is the witch's home. Suddenly afraid, she makes a run for it, hearing the call of the owl for a long time after. When later she gets cornered by the ghoul, she again hears the owl above her, making her realize she's gone in circles and making her predicament that much worse.
- Once Upon a Time: The tale opens with "Once upon a time, away in the forest lived an old witch." Funnily enough, the witch doesn't make an appearance herself. With some leeway for interpretation of the shadow's or the owl's identity, the witch is merely the catalyst.
- Our Ghouls Are Different: Ghouls are creatures that look like humans, but just a little off and actual humans instinctively can tell they're ghouls although not necessarily at a glance. They waver when they walk and are on average thinner and smaller than humans. Ghouls, in turn, are instinctively drawn to humans that are alone with their thoughts. If a ghoul asks a question, their interlocutor is unable to keep from answering. They're implied to be telepathic, up to being able to talk to plants, and for certain can remodel another person's mind. It might be a form of possession and it leaves the victim with thoughts they didn't have before.
- Parental Neglect: The girl's parents do not seem to care much for her. Notably, while they're hosting a bridge party, the girl is outside on her swing dealing with feelings of sadness and loneliness she cannot place. She goes off on an adventure and when the bridge party is over and her parents don't see her on the swing, they assume she's gone to bed without checking on her. They lock up for the night and when the girl returns she has to climb up a rain pipe to enter through an open window on the second floor. The next morning during breakfast, they make light of their assumptions.
- Repeated for Emphasis:
- When the girl sets out for the pine forest, she looks back at her house once and finds comfort in assuring herself that the house is "still there, still quiet, still lit up."
- During her trek through the pine forest at night, the girl hears "a whippoorwill calling. It was all by itself, and it was calling and calling." She only thinks the bird sounds lonely, an interpretation that seems to come from her own desolate situation. However, there's a legend that the call of a whippoorwill signals death, which makes the emphasis on its continuous calling deeply ominous.
- Shout-Out: In order to get a fairy come to her, the little girl tries "Tinker Bell's trick" from Peter Pan. Despite fairies being real, this particular method does not work.
- Talking to Plants: The girl takes note how some of the vines lean down from the trees to talk to the ghoul, but whatever is conversed is unknown to her.
- Telepathy: Ghouls are likely telepathic. Their listed powers are that others are unable to keep from answering him and that they can enchant minds, although what that exactly means is left open. Telepathy itself is not explicitly listed, but it fits with the other powers and when the ghoul talks with the girl, he's never demonstrated to be actually talking. The conversation between him and the girl is written down as a description, not as dialogue. The girl is also afraid to think in his presence because she feels the ghoul would know her thoughts.
- Trauma Swing: One night, the girl is alone on the swing in her backyard while her parents are preoccupied hosting a bridge party. It's implied that they don't have much concern for her normally and that tonight is just a little more on the nose. The girl feels sad and alone for reasons she can't explain and it's this emotional purgatory that spurs her on to head to the forest and make her wish to meet the witch a reality. This is further symbolized by her going from just sitting in the swing to actually swinging standing-up and jumping off while it's still in motion.
- Witch Classic: The witch is an old being with a long nose and a crooked back. She lives alone in a treehouse in the middle of a forest. At day, she walks with the support of a cane, while a point is made that no one among humans has ever seen how she goes around at night. It's implied she either takes the form of an owl or the owl is her familiar and she manifests through it.
