{"id":6388,"date":"2023-02-10T12:59:13","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T12:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6388"},"modified":"2023-02-10T13:00:01","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T13:00:01","slug":"the-moon-fairy-by-sofia-samatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6388","title":{"rendered":"The Moon Fairy<\/em><\/strong> by Sofia Samatar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Moon Fairy<\/em><\/strong> by Sofia Samatar (Conjunctions<\/em> #74, 2020) begins with a moon fairy arriving in the life of a young girl called Sylvie. Most of the rest of the story details their relationship (as well as Sylvie\u2019s domestic arrangements):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[Poor] Mittens, whom no one loved more than Sylvie, was given away to the neighbor children soon after the fairy\u2019s arrival. From the window on the landing overlooking the neighbors\u2019 garden, Mittens could be observed in her new circumstances, mewling piteously as the children forced her into doll clothes, tied her up in a wagon, and dragged it over the grass. \u201cPoor creature!\u201d Sylvie was heard to murmur, standing at the window. However, she made no attempt to rescue the cat, which had scratched her darling\u2019s wing, leaving a gash that took days to heal. As she looked down, holding the curtain back with one hand, the Moon Fairy curled up in its customary place on her shoulder, sighing placidly and nuzzling her neck.
It really was a charming creature. It smiled, laughed, turned somersaults in the air, played hide-and-seek among the clothes on the line, danced when Ellen played Chopin\u2014did everything but speak. In the evenings, when its energy tended to rise, it would fly round the room up close to the ceiling, emitting a happy buzzing sound. Sylvie said it was singing, but Uncle Claudius, who often dropped by in the evening to have a drink with Father, opined that the buzzing was caused by the movement of the fairy\u2019s wings, \u201cin the manner of a bumblebee or other insect.\u201d \u201cNonsense,\u201d said Sylvie, frowning. She disliked hearing the fairy compared to an animal. Since the fateful evening when the young man she\u2019d been walking out with that summer (the son of some family friends, a law student with excellent prospects) had rashly referred to the Moon Fairy as \u201cyour new pet,\u201d he had been forbidden the house, and the increasingly desperate telephone messages from him we wrote down were crumpled up unread.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Sylvie\u2019s intense relationship with the fairy eventually starts to unravel (Sylvie becomes possessive\u2014she ties a thread to its ankle\u2014and the fairy later turns on her). Then the fairy returns to the Moon, leaving the girl broken-hearted and inconsolable, a condition that still pertains years afterwards.
It is hard to see what point this is trying to make, unless it is an allegory for love affairs in general (dump your current attachments\u2014the cat and the suitor\u2014then get dumped yourself and pine away). If it is about that then the twee tone and content undermine the message.
** (Average). 3,150 words. Story link<\/a>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Moon Fairy by Sofia Samatar (Conjunctions #74, 2020) begins with a moon fairy arriving in the life of a young girl called Sylvie. Most of the rest of the story details their relationship (as well as Sylvie\u2019s domestic arrangements): [Poor] Mittens, whom no one loved more than Sylvie, was given away to the neighbor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1485],"tags":[17,296,1481,1482,1484,12,1480],"class_list":["post-6388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sofia-samatar","tag-17","tag-296","tag-conjunctions","tag-fairies","tag-lost-love","tag-short-story","tag-sofia-samatar"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6388"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6396,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions\/6396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}