Fairy Dreams

by Gwyneth Rees

  Evie climbed back into bed and looked down under the covers herself, snuggling right underneath like she used to. She worked her way down to the bottom of the bed where the fairies had come from – but there was nothing there.

  Evie half expected Grandma to be sitting up in bed waiting for them when they got to the hospital the next day. She felt as if, now that she had actually seen a fairy, lots of other miraculous things might be about to happen.

  But when they got to the ward, they found that the bed in Grandma’s room was occupied by an elderly man. Evie immediately felt nervous without really knowing why.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mum said quickly. ‘Grandma must have been moved to another room or something. Wait here while I go and find out.’ She went off to ask one of the nurses, leaving Evie standing where she was.

  ‘They’ve moved her nearer to the nurses’ station so they can keep an eye on her,’ the old man in Grandma’s room called out to her. ‘She was a bit fidgety last night. Kept pulling out her drip. Not like me. I’m a good boy – I keep mine in.’ He winked at her as he held up his arm with the drip attached.

  Evie took a step inside the room. The man looked about the same age as Grandma, with wrinkled skin and hardly any hair. His blue eyes were smiling at her. ‘My name’s Harry,’ he said. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Evie . . .’ She stared at him. ‘You don’t look very poorly.’

  He chuckled. ‘What? Think I’m wasting a good bed, do you?’

  Evie flushed. ‘I didn’t mean that. It’s just that my grandma can’t sit up or talk or anything.’

  He nodded, looking sympathetic. ‘I guess I’m not very poorly compared with her then, am I?’

  Evie shook her head. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Because she knew people had to have something wrong with them to be in hospital.

  ‘I had a nasty tummy bug. Couldn’t keep anything down. Thought I’d be all right if I took to my bed for a few days but I got too weak to get up again. I live on my own so I didn’t have anyone to help. Luckily, my fairy friends paid me a visit and found me like that. They went downstairs and found my walking stick and banged on the wall with it until my neighbour woke up. Then they unlocked the front door so she could get in. It was her who called the ambulance.’

  ‘Your fairy friends?’ Evie was getting interested now.

  ‘That’s right.’ He winked at her. ‘The doctor says I must have been so sick that my mind was playing tricks on me, but I know differently.’

  Just then Mum came back to tell her that Grandma had been moved to a different side room. Evie quickly said goodbye to Harry – she saw from the card above his bed that his name was Harold Watson – and followed her mother. Before they got to Grandma’s new room, Mum stopped in the corridor and spoke very quietly to her. ‘Evie, I’ve just had a talk with the nurse in charge of the ward. Grandma woke up last night.’

  ‘Woke up?’ Evie felt excited.

  ‘Yes. She’s been opening her left eye and moving her left arm. The right side of her body has been paralysed by the stroke so she can’t move that. She isn’t able to talk, though, and the nurses aren’t sure how much she understands of what’s said to her. She got very confused and agitated during the night but she’s much calmer now.’

  Evie asked anxiously, ‘But will she get better?’

  Mum swallowed. ‘That’s what I need you to understand. We don’t know how much better she’ll get. She might get a bit better than this – or she might not. You remember what Mrs Evans was like after her stroke, don’t you?’

  Evie frowned. She didn’t want to remember what Mrs Evans was like.

  Grandma was lying in bed looking much as she had the day before, except that her drip was attached to the opposite arm. She looked as if she was sleeping.

  Evie went over and touched Grandma’s arm, willing her to open her eyes and say something. Mum went round to the other side of the bed and stroked her forehead.

  ‘Grandma . . . can you hear me?’ Evie asked.

  ‘She might be able to hear you,’ Mum said gently. ‘So talk to her as much as you want.’

  Evie took a deep breath. ‘I want to talk to her about the fairies.’

  Mum didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then, to Evie’s surprise, she murmured, ‘She loved to talk about the fairies, didn’t she? If only I hadn’t . . .’ Mum’s voice went hoarse and she suddenly let out a muffled sob and left the room.

  Evie started to follow her, but saw that a nurse had gone to comfort her, so she went back and took Grandma’s hand instead. She started to tell her about Star and Moonbeam. ‘They’re dream fairies, Grandma. Your bed is a magic bed, you see. That’s how they can visit!’

  Grandma suddenly opened her eyelids very slightly and looked at her.

  ‘Grandma! It’s me – Evie!’

  Grandma seemed to be looking at her without seeing her. Then she closed her eyes and didn’t respond when Evie tried to get her to open them again.

  When Mum came back into the room Evie told her what had happened. ‘She looked at me but I don’t think she really knew who I was.’

  Mum sat down beside Grandma’s bed and looked at her mother. ‘Why don’t you go to the hospital shop and choose some flowers for her, Evie? Then, if she opens her eyes again, there’ll be something bright and cheerful for her to see.’

  ‘Grandma likes yellow flowers the best,’ Evie said, as Mum handed her some money.

  ‘You’re right,’ Mum agreed. ‘She used to love taking me primrose picking in the spring when I was little. And I remember your grandad used to buy her yellow roses.’

  ‘I’ll see if they have any yellow flowers in the shop.’

  Evie had to pass Harry’s room to get there, and Harry waved to her as she went by. She waved back, remembering what he had told her about his fairy friends. She wondered if they had been dream fairies too, and decided that when she got the chance, she would go and ask him.

  Evie had to wait until the following night for Moonbeam and Star to come back again. She was in need of cheering up because Dad had phoned that evening to say that he wasn’t going to be able to make it to Grandma’s that weekend as he had to work.

  ‘Evie! Open your eyes! We’ve got a surprise for you!’

  She woke to find that her room was sparkling with fairy lights. Star and Moonbeam had draped them all around the walls, and across the window, and all along the top of Grandma’s dressing table. The two fairy lanterns were sitting in the middle of the floor and, in between them, the fairies had unfolded one of Grandma’s yellow cotton hankerchiefs and placed some tiny plates of sparkly food on top.

  ‘You gave us those lovely violet creams,’ Star said, ‘so we thought we’d bring some fairy food for you to taste.’

  Evie felt very excited as she sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the fairy picnic. Star and Moonbeam began lifting up the tiny star-shaped plates to offer her things, clearly excited too.

  The first thing they gave her was a sparkling biscuit, which fizzled in her mouth and tasted of strawberries. ‘That’s a magic fruit biscuit,’ Moonbeam told her. ‘It tastes of your favourite fruit.’

  ‘Now try one of these,’ Star said, offering her a different plate. ‘These ones taste like your second-favourite fruit.’

  The second biscuit tasted of bananas. ‘I’ve never been able to decide whether I like strawberries or bananas best!’ Evie gasped.

  ‘Well, now know. Here –’ Star offered her a plate of what looked like pink raindrops – ‘these are cloudburst sweeties. You suck them and they stop you being thirsty.’

  ‘Try a cloud tart as well,’ Moonbeam said, handing her a tiny pastry with a fluffy white centre.

  As Evie ate it and pronounced it delicious, Star asked, ‘Queen Celeste really likes violet creams, so we were wondering if we could take one back to fairyland for her? There’s no such thing as chocolate in fairyland, you see.’

  ‘No such thing as chocolate?’ Evie was surprised. She had always imagined tha
t fairyland was a place where you could have anything you wanted. She pointed to the chocolate box, which was still on the dressing table. ‘Help yourselves.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Star flew over to the box straight away.

  Then Evie thought of something. ‘Wait, I’ve got a better idea! Why don’t you bring her here to eat it? I’d really love to meet her.’

  ‘Queen Celeste never travels out of fairyland,’ Moonbeam explained. ‘She travelled a lot when she was younger, but now she feels that her place is at home so she can be there if any of her fairies need her.’

  ‘Oh.’ Evie did her best to hide her disappointment as she watched Star trying to lift out a whole violet cream from the box without getting sticky fingermarks on it. She told herself that it didn’t really matter, though, since there were other things that were more important than getting to meet the fairy queen.

  ‘There’s something I wondered if you could do for me,’ she began timidly.

  ‘What?’ Both fairies turned to look at her.

  ‘Well . . . you can do magic, can’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So . . . so can you make people better if they’re sick?’

  ‘It depends how sick.’

  ‘It’s my grandma, you see . . .’ Evie explained. ‘She’s very sick. She might be too sick ever to get better. And I really want her to get better and come home again so she can meet you. She believes in fairies too, you see, so I know she’d love to meet you . . .’ Evie trailed off.

  Moonbeam and Star were frowning.

  ‘Fairies aren’t able to do anything when humans are very sick,’ Moonbeam told her gently. ‘Fairies can’t interfere in human matters of life and death, you see.’

  ‘But there must be something you can do?’ Evie felt her voice starting to tremble. ‘Please? ’

  Moonbeam and Star looked at each other. ‘You say she believes in fairies?’

  ‘She’s believed in them all her life!’

  ‘There is something we might be able to do . . .’ Moonbeam said cautiously, still looking at Star. ‘Don’t you think?’

  Star nodded. She was looking thoughtful. ‘We might be able to take her on a trip to fairyland.’

  ‘Could you really do that?’

  ‘We might be able to. But we don’t normally take adults to fairyland so you’d have to ask Queen Celeste first. She sometimes meets children in a special meeting room in her fairy palace. There’s a magic way we could take you there – if you don’t mind being shrunk down to the size of a fairy.’

  ‘But that’s only if Queen Celeste agrees to have a meeting with you,’ Moonbeam added quickly. ‘You’d have to write to her first, explaining why you want to see her.’

  ‘I’ll write her a letter now!’ Evie said, getting excited. ‘Then you can take it with you!’

  ‘Oh, no, we can’t do that! You’ll have to find a fairy postbox and post it yourself. Queen Celeste says that any human child who can’t find a fairy postbox can’t have enough fairy sense to be worth allowing into fairyland.’

  ‘Fairy sense?’ Evie was puzzled.

  ‘Yes. You’ve heard of common sense, haven’t you?’

  Evie nodded.

  ‘Well, fairy sense is the opposite of that. Most humans have too much common sense and not enough fairy sense, and Queen Celeste says it’s not worth showing them round fairyland because afterwards they’ll just think they’ve dreamt the whole thing. And that makes it a big waste of time from our point of view.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think I’d dreamt it!’

  ‘Which is why you’re sure to find a fairy postbox straight away. Children with lots of fairy sense always do.’

  ‘But I don’t know what a fairy postbox looks like,’ Evie said, watching Star fly across the room with a violet cream balanced on her head.

  ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter. You’ll probably find one more easily if you don’t know what you’re looking for.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense!’ Evie protested.

  ‘It makes fairy sense,’ Star and Moonbeam replied firmly. Then, with a flourish of fairy dust, Moonbeam had cleared away the remains of the picnic and all the fairy lights, and both fairies had vanished under the covers of Grandma’s bed.

  Evie got up the next morning and wrote her letter to the queen of the dream fairies.

  Dear Queen Celeste, she wrote, I am writing to ask if you would please let me come and see you at your palace in fairyland. I really need to speak to you about my grandma. Love from, Evie

  She read it back to herself and added, P.S. I don’t mind being shrunk.

  Then she put the letter in an envelope and wrote, Queen Celeste, Queen of the Dream Fairies, Fairyland, on the front.

  Now all she had to do was find a fairy postbox.

  She started by searching out in the garden. It had been raining during the night so the grass was wet. She didn’t really expect to see a fairy postbox sitting in the middle of Grandma’s lawn so she went to the bottom of the garden instead. Maybe she would find a tree with a hole cut in the trunk and a fairy would come along while she was standing there and post a letter in it. Then she would know it was a fairy postbox.

  There were two trees at the bottom of Grandma’s garden, but when Evie inspected them neither had any holes in their trunks. She went to look in the flower beds instead. She was sure that a fairy postbox wouldn’t look like an ordinary postbox. Maybe what she was looking for was a special bush with fairy dust sprinkled on it or something. But all the bushes and flowers in Grandma’s garden were covered in raindrops, not fairy dust, though she did find the perfect spot behind a bush where she could set up her doll’s house for the flower fairies.

  Evie kept searching but she couldn’t find anything that looked like it might be a postbox, and in the end she went back inside the house. Maybe a fairy postbox was really tiny, like a fairy, and therefore difficult to see. But the letter she had written wasn’t fairy-sized. It was human-sized, written on Grandma’s best notepaper. So any postbox she posted it in was going to have to be quite big too.

  By the time Evie went with her mum to visit Grandma that afternoon, she was feeling fed up. Moonbeam had made it sound like it would be easy to find a fairy postbox, but it seemed like she was wrong. And if Evie couldn’t post her letter to Queen Celeste, how was she going to help Grandma? As Evie followed Mum on to the ward she noticed that the old man she had met – Harold Watson – was sitting up in bed reading. She wondered if he was going to have any visitors today. She hoped he would, because it must be lonely to be in hospital and not have any visitors.

  Grandma was asleep again when they went into her room. Evie sat looking at her for a while. Having Grandma so close, and yet so far away from her at the same time, was horrible and Evie suddenly felt like she couldn’t stand it any longer.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Mum asked as she stood up and made for the door.

  ‘For a walk,’ Evie replied.

  Mum nodded like she understood. ‘All right, but don’t go far.’

  Evie went as far as Harry’s room and stopped. ‘Hello, Mr Watson.’ She hovered awkwardly in the doorway.

  He looked up from his book and smiled at her. ‘Hello, there. It’s Evie, isn’t it? How are you today?’

  ‘All right. Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course. How’s your grandma?’

  ‘Not very well.’

  He closed his book. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I expect that’s why you’re looking a bit gloomy, is it?’

  Evie nodded. ‘But it’s not just that. It’s—’ She broke off, wondering whether to tell him the rest. He might be able to help her. After all, he knew about fairies, so maybe he knew about fairy postboxes too. ‘You know how you told me you saw fairies when you were in your bed at home . . . ?’ she began cautiously. ‘Well, I was wondering . . . were they dream fairies?’

  Harry looked surprised. ‘I see you know a lot about fairies. They are dream fairies, as a matter of fact. They’ve been visiti
ng me on and off for years now. How did you guess?’

  ‘Some dream fairies came to visit me too when I fell asleep in Grandma’s bed.’

  ‘Really?’ He looked extremely interested now. ‘An old bed, is it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Brass?’

  She nodded again. ‘The thing is, I want to post a letter to their fairy queen but I can’t find a fairy postbox. I’m supposed to have enough fairy sense to find one, but I don’t think I have.’

  Harry looked thoughtful. ‘You look like you’ve got plenty of fairy sense to me. Where have you looked so far for this fairy postbox?’

  ‘Well, I searched the whole of Grandma’s garden this morning.’

  ‘Hmm . . . It seems to me that the garden is the sort of place where a flower fairy might put a postbox. Dream fairies are a different kettle of fish altogether.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, think about it. Where would you go to find a dream fairy?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d have to wait for one to visit me while I was asleep, I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly. So if you want to find a dream fairy’s postbox, shouldn’t you look for that when you’re asleep too?’

  Evie frowned. ‘But that’s silly. I mean, nobody can look for something when they’re asleep.’

  ‘Can’t they? Not even if they’ve got fairy sense?’ Suddenly Harry looked past her and smiled. A grey-haired lady who looked quite a bit older than Mum was standing in the doorway. ‘Margaret, you made it! Evie, I’d like you to meet my daughter. Evie and I were just having a chat about fairy matters, Margaret.’

  ‘Fairy matters, eh?’ Harry’s daughter rolled her eyes in a way that made it clear that she didn’t believe in fairies any more than Mum did. She came over and put a bunch of grapes on the locker beside Harry’s bed. ‘Don’t believe everything he tells you,’ she said lightly to Evie. ‘Sorry I’m late, Dad, but the traffic was really bad. It took four hours to get here. I wish you lived a bit closer. It’s nice to find you’ve already got a visitor, though.’