Author Jay Sturner

Snuggled deep within the soft, lime-green rug of her moth, Luna begins to wake. Slowly she uncurls out of snail-shell form—gold limbs stretching thin—and yawns a dew bubble. Lids lift musically over black, bulbous eyes, her ultraviolet dreams dispersing on the breeze. Twilight descends, and Luna and her moth settle into a spot at the open window. Others arrive presently. Polyphemus, Cecropia, Sphinx, Imperial, Io—all alight on the peeling white frame. Inside, a poet stares deeply into a pool of candlelight; intent, perhaps, on finding just the right words for something. Please look up, dear poet. Look up and see us. Those that you loved as a child, that you befriended on moonlit nights and drew. Remember us. And tell of us . Butterflies get all the attention. First published in  Space & Time Magazine in 2022.

I lie upon the moss of an old-growth forest, tired from picking berries. Moist, curling fingers of earth summon a wandering mist to blanket me. I slide, sweetly, into dream. Sprites appear, beating acorn caps; fern fairies pluck fiddleheads; something plays a flute. All around, foliage churns with the emergence of myriad fae, their voices piercing the twilight with song. Gold streaks blink and flare—a display of fireflies whirling in the purple air. Meanwhile, tiny hands tug at my locks, toss and juggle berries from my basket. A dragonfly zips through the trees, splitting apart the music. When the song leaps back together, I join in…. That was a hundred years ago, in a childhood dream. Yet I’ve carried that song deep within me ever since. Always it has knocked away the sadness and pain—like devils whacked by a frying pan! And though unseen, the wee ones came back to me the day My Love died. For weeks they wept alongside me in that rain-swept space left behind, sang to me when I could n...

In the instant after I died I was a bright fairy in a lush wood; yawning, stretching out the anxiety of a most troublesome dream. First published in Aphelion: The Webzine of Science Fiction & Fantasy  in 2023.

A light-gatherer zips across the morning pond to his mayapple village beneath the oaks, struggling with an upset stomach. Light from a ruby red feather—gifted by a hummingbird—sparkles outward from his tiny heart. Stores of captured starlight, moonglow, and suncrumbs pattern his fluttering wings like an enchanted mural. And in his hands are two sloshing buckets: trout iridescence and nightjar eyeshine. The fairy spirals to a clumsy landing atop the mossy rock. A yawning dryad waves her leafy hand. Kin awaken, begin to gather about him. “Is that all?” one complains, his internal light flickering low. “You’ve been gone for days.” The light-gatherer starts to dispense his load—the bulk of it will go to the young. “The human city grows near,” he says, still catching his breath. “At night, it smothers stars. By day its mechanical teeth crunch through forest and field. I heard but a single thrush, but two bobolinks. And fireflies sleep in gardens where I cannot go.” Coughing, the light-gathe...

They watch us in secret. Eyes aglow in the wand-like blossoms of hyacinth. Watch as we jog, walk, bike, bird through wooded corridors of quiet rivers. They enjoy the birders most—the passion they exude—but question their dependence on binoculars and cameras. If only they’d be fully present with nature! They might then remember the language. And the birds would fly right up to them and pose, and converse with them, and tell their secrets. But humans have truly forgotten, haven’t they. Erected walls, shut their doors, kept wildness at bay; a million boundaries set inside and outside the mind. For this, and more, the fairy folk weep for us, their buoyant tears evaporating into soft blankets of morning mist. Yet still they watch from their pale blue towers of enchanted hyacinth, entertained by our strange attempts to slow from perpetual busyness. Holding tiny, binocular-like devices of their own—mock toys, really, like children with long sticks for swords—for the fairies see us just fine ...

Inspired by “The Kith of the Elf Folk” by Lord Dunsany These I have drawn: a hillside of moonlit clover; creeks cradled by heather; a forest beyond the stone walls of a pasture. And all just to get home; I’ve been gone so very long. Today you’ll find me in the green layers beyond the city, sidestepping the coiled corpses of men’s dreams, bypassing industrial towns where mechanical beasts gnaw on adolescent hearts. For out here dwell the kith of my childhood: the salamander, fox, rook, and deer. Old friends too are the mosses and ferns, the spirits of pollen, the ghosts of tree rings. All under the watchful eye of Pan. You see, my troubles began as a child. I had become obsessed with humans, would sketch their tall bodies and lively faces on everything from peeled birch bark to rain puddles to hardened flows of sap. I read and reread all the stories about them—romantic tales of knights and beautiful maidens, of epic battles and hidden treasures. To me, the human soul mirrored endles...

In the rolling fog of the purple sea Where slugs infest the ridge And breeze-bent heather Tethers ghosts of the drowned Beyond the threshold of the mind Where sea hags howl at the moon And shapes unseen Sneak away human babes Lies the maritime trail I was warned not walk Urged by patrons of the old pub To return to America, and be gone at next breath: “For too tempting is the tourist from afar!” But I split my sides at their heathen pleas Doused their cares with whiskey and ale Till after a spell, I was cheered out of town Pushed along streets of leaping whispers So onward to accursed shores I went Bold with humor and the prod of drink Where fish-lipped merrows in cohuleen druiths Leered from frothy kelp isles And the mutterings in belch-bogs grew ever near . . . And the perverted, creeping shadows . . . I will never forget their dream-drenched faces As they sang and danced and picked over my end Goblets high in the salty spra...

You simply do not exist, they assert with buttoned-up stares, Though I’ve detected salty scents on the curled tongues of butterflies, And feet-shapes where the grass and clover straighten their necks. Get your head out of the mist, they keep telling me, There are no such beasts in the world. But I think I saw you once, at the corner of my eye. Yes, I truly believe I did! For you were tall and fleshy and sad, Just like the drawings in our books of lore: those spider-silk pages Guiding my dreams beyond the moonlight. (From the book  The Hunchback's Captive and Others )

Sitting under the spell of living oaks, dryad sits on a tree fallen and dead. Through the canopy falls the sun’s gold; empathetic warmth and just so bright. She is dressed in a splendid mourning gown, sewn with chlorophyll and splendors’ fingers. Her large green eyes are crystal-like; scenes of a tree’s life play within. Mist rises like fairy soldiers’ ghosts beneath her dainty and barefooted feet. Tears merge into silent waterfalls and her heart beats low like owl wings. A rustling puts a crack in the silence and dryad looks down at the petite sound: Leaves covered a seed, covered a growing tree; nature is cycles, is fairy spuds to winter snow. And young tree sprouts where mother spring and father sun foster new life. Such lessons come to each dryad in youth; they have come to her in this ephemeral light. A nearby butterfly takes to air, its dazzle and frailty the wink of beauty’s eye. With compassion it alights upon dryad’s shoul...