The Ladybird Should Have Flown Home.

She remembered so well the summer madness that had taken hold of her sixteen years ago, when she had sat outside, smelling the beautiful scent of some roses. And then their scent vanished and she noticed that dusk had fallen so thickly, it was as if her senses had been masked. And yet in some ways she felt aware of something amazing about to happen.

The stranger had come to her asking for a place to stay, her husband was away on business, and she should have hesitated, but a curious pink, sunlit shower, leached through a haze of cloud, fell upon her face like tears, and suddenly a veil washed away – then she saw a future, which only she could make happen.
  The stranger stayed with her that night and the next night.  They shared a passion, that hitherto she’d thought she’d never experience.  And then he left and Derek returned.
  Life trundled on as it always did.  She passed the child off as Derek’s and he suspected nothing.

Greg only looked a bit like his real dad, so all boded well.  But everyone thought the child was ‘a bit strange’ yet they could not say why. As he grew older, his peers tended to either keep their distance or be extra friendly, lest they were thought to be discriminating.  But then Greg’s strangeness intensified. He found a ladybird, adopted it as a pet, and said he’d fallen in love with her. He called the ladybird, Wilhelmina and she followed him everywhere. Naturally as his mother, she was a little concerned, but mainly put this down to an active imagination, so she ignored this ‘little foible’ of his as she tended to call it. More insects joined Greg’s collection though, until he was surrounded by them wherever he went  He said they were his friends.

And then the day of the wedding dawned –  Greg was just fifteen and he married his beautiful Wilhelmina, in a ceremony presided over by a large spider, which presumably had ecclesiastical leanings. Two butterflies were ‘bridesmaids’ whilst other multiple-legged, bewinged, or wingless things watching the ceremony, sat bemused with antennae or other bits of their anatomy sensitively twitching in disbelief at this odd coupling.

Next day, she found Greg sitting alone. There were no insects in sight.  Greg said they’d gone.
  ‘Gone where?’ she’d queried.  Back home she supposed.
  But Greg replied calmly, ‘I’ve eaten them.’
  ‘What about Wilhelmina?’
  ‘Oh, I’ve eaten her too.’
  She should have seen this coming but she’d been in denial.  However, his attraction to insects, in whatever capacity, was now explainable. Greg had reached puberty. His voice was deepening and small hairs had sprouted on his baby-face.
  ‘Stick out your tongue,’ she commanded.
  Greg shrugged.  He wasn’t used to his mother being so forceful.  He opened his mouth and his tongue snaked out, long, green and putrid-looking with a forked end.  A blast of fetid breath accompanied it. She recoiled.
  The stranger had warned her it might happen but she’d still agreed to bear his child. He was the last goblin in existence he’d said and wanted desperately for his race to continue. Her fairy goodness and compassion had come to the fore, along with a fair amount of lust – she’d always thought goblins were ugly but this one certainly wasn’t! She’d done a good deed, more than a little willingly, in order for the continuation of his species but she’d rather hoped Greg would not exhibit any goblin-like tendencies.
  Fairies needed to do good deeds, it was their nature. But that particular good deed had produced a half-goblin and she could no longer hide the lie she had been living. Her husband was a fairy too, but would Derek really understand her prime motive when it had involved adultery...?