The Fires of Beltane
On the eve of May, the mounds opened. This happened every year at the same time, it was not a secret exactly, but it was the kind of thing people had mostly stopped believing, which was exactly how the faerie folk preferred it.
The faeries were mischievous creatures, they liked to tangle your hair, hide your keys, move the spoons to the wrong drawer or make a sound like laughter just around the corner that stops the moment you turn to look. Dusk was when they emerged from the mounds, the low light giving them just the cover they needed to play their games. They worked best when nobody was paying attention.
The problem with May Eve was that someone always lit a fire.
They noticed one flame first, far away on a hill, then another a little closer, then closer still until it was everywhere. Fire wasn’t something they could argue with, fire was older than mischief, older than faeries. They didn’t let the fires stop their mischief, but they had to dance around the edges that the light couldn’t get to, down the lanes and in the fields, moving a shovel here, shifting a sign there or laying a tree branch across a path. Some people still believed and kept an eye out for the faeries, the faeries were too clever to get spotted, but a few people ended up with a bump on the head or found themselves a long way from home.
When morning came, the flowers were open. The hawthorn had bloomed in the night while everyone was busy watching the fires. Come dawn, with the dew on the grass, the hedgerows were white and sweet-smelling, and the faerie folk had gone back through the mounds, satisfied with their night’s work. Whether the may blossom was their doing or the fires’ doing, nobody could agree.