I don't know if you want to know - it's no business of yours, anyway, so why should you care - but I am the son of a Hada. Oh, not any of those Spanish fairies, if that's what you think, for who knows that fairies are not the product of febrile imaginations - no, I mean of a real woman
Hadas, you must know, are a breed of extraordinary women that came from another world centuries ago. They had to leave their world when their sun fizzled out to become a dark cinder in space. They had seen it come, naturally, for during centuries before the sun of Haditsa went out for good, it had shed ever less light that had gone through the spectrum from yellow to orange to red, and then to ever deeper red and growing darker and weaker by the minute. Less light means less life; plants could draw no nourishment from a dehydrated soil and animals found no food, so that in the end nothing was left but a handful of people: Hadas and their men.
So it was that one of my forefathers sacrificed himself opening an interdimensional gate between worlds and holding it open until every last of his kin had walked through. They came to Earth, but the transition was not smooth so that only the women - the Hadas - and their children arrived. What happened to the males is not known, although there is a rumor in my family that they arrived on Earth thousands of years before the Hadas and to a different part of the world; in fact, we hold the believe that they were the angels mentioned in the Bible.
Like it is said of angels, the Haddish had extraordinary powers that may have appeared like magic to contemporary humans. They could not fly, of course, for this is against the laws of nature, but they had a knack of walking at right angles to the dimensions that permitted them to go from here to, say, the south pole in a single step.
They would have taken human wives and their offspring, being of mixed blood, had ever less powers between one generation and the next. Though the Haddish - angels if you wish - lived extraordinarily long lives, they did not live forever, and that is why you won't see any today.
The Hadas met the same fate. Want to or not, they had to take human husbands if they wanted to have children, and what woman does not want to have children. It is easy for them to find husbands for Hadas are so radiantly beautiful it hurts to look at them, and since they have only the standard one child per mother they have all the time in the world to spoil their husbands rotten. If you ever come across a woman like this, especially one that hangs on to the arm of a man who looks for all the world like he is walking on cloud number seven, you can bet your sweet life that she is a Hada.
Back on their home world, a typical Hada village would be populated by dozen or two Hadas, an equal number of children, and maybe one or two males, the Haddish. The Haddish would invariably be elderly and very sophisticated, even wise, and much revered by all. The Hadas, however, would as invariably be young.
Hadas were always young women, but they did age, if more slowly than human females. As they grew older, they would become melancholic at first, then morose and speak much of death and dying. Their behavior would become erratically, and they would erupt from time to time in unreasoning anger, until in the end they became insane. At that time they became dangerous, a threat to all, and had to be driven off at last. There was much crying on such occasions, and everyone saw them leave with mourning in their hearts for they would never return.
They must have lost orientation then for none attempted to come back to her village. For weeks, even months, one could hear their screeches and howls in the surrounding woods, frequently interrupted by insane laughter that would increasingly turn to yipping barks.
None ever returned; what came out of the woods eventually would be a Haddish, strong, elderly and wise.
Why this transmutation took place, why it occurred in this fashion, and lastly, why it ceased once the Hadas arrived on Earth is unknown. But cease it did and Hadas saw themselves obliged to seek human husbands.
Hadas choose carefully, and the man a Hada takes as husband is invariably handsome, intelligent and talented. Only in this manner can she respect him, and where she feels no love for him in the beginning, it will evolve in the course of their marriage. This it was how my mother chose my father for husband, and they hit it off from the very beginning. You could say that my parents were the happiest couple this side of creation.
Until I came along.
My grandmother took one look at the little bundle of joy in its hand carved cradle (need I mention that Hadas are skilled artisans?) and, blowing a blast or arctic air through her aristocratic nose, turned her beautiful back on our abode, never to return. In leaving, she uttered the darkest curse ever to pass from the lips of a woman.
You see, no matter how long she lives, a Hada can have only one child in her life. This is an inmutable law of nature, and it accounts for the small number of Hadas on this or any other world. The other hitherto just as unchangeable law is that the baby is always female. I was the first boy child ever to be born to a Hada.
A Hada's curses are magic at its blackest. They always have the most dire effects and are therefore never uttered unthinkingly. My grandmother's curse broke my mother; she started to wane, turned lethargic and performed her duties listlessly, although she never neglected me while she lived. Her trinkets that had guaranteed a handsome income, became dull and unattractive, which had jewellers that had previously beat in our door for ever more reject them. In the end, a shadow of her former self, she passed from life. It broke my father's heart. He could not live without her who had been the sun of his life, and followed her to the grave within a year.
My parents' early demise left me alone in the world at a tender age. I was handed from one uncaring relative to the next, and then to strangers to grow up loveless. Loveless and untrained in the wonderful magical arts of the Hadas. I never learned this Hada trick of walking sideways to the dimensions to go where I pleased. And, like humans, I aged more rapidly than a Hada ever would. At an age when my cousins were passing from merry adolescence to somber adulthood, I had turned into a dour old man with nothing to account for in my life. Indeed, I faced a very uncertain future.
In the end I decided to have it out with my grandmother. I was going to face her and demand my Hada heritage, or die in the attempt. I traveled to Spain, where she dwells at the family residence, a beautiful mansion atop the highest spire of the Sierra Nevada, built of stone so white it appears like blocks of ice.
Access to it is not easy for the front door opens directly on the deepest chasm far and wide, and only a narrow foot bridge crossing the canyon from the opposite rim leads to it. This bridge may be truly fashioned of ice as in the tricky light of those heights it is nearly invisible. Hadas have the sight and can cross unhampered, but for my mere human eyes it is hopeless to try.
Still, try it I did. I fought my way over trackless rock and through icy blasts of mountain air to a small level area across the canyon from where the bridge arcs to the mansion's door, and set my foot on the treacherous surface. This bridge is as slippery as the ice on a frozen lake, so, rather than raise my feet to take steps, I slid them forward like a rope dancer to insure that I did not lose contact, and balanced myself with arms stretched out to the sides.
The wind rose in strength. Howling like all demons from hell, it tore at my legs and blew against me, its voice screaming shrilly, but I, fighting the wind to maintain my footing, kept my eyes locked on the mansion's front door where I could make out my grandmother's form indistinctly; she was waiting for me.
I nearly made it. When only a couple of steps separated me from safety and my outstretched hand almost touched her fingertips, I slipped for the last time. After that I only saw a patch of diamond-studded velvety night sky above growing smaller rapidly and the canyon walls rushing upward on both sides. In the suddenly curiously still air I heard the bells of the churches of faraway Granada toll the midnight hour.
I am still falling. When at the end of a four thousand foot drop I will hit rock bottom, that will be