When Libby Met the Fairies and her Whole Life Went Fae

by Kirsten Mortensen

  It wouldn’t be good, Maisey mixing them up together. Or turning Dean into . . . just a neighbor.

  Libby stared at her computer screen, telling herself to get a grip.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Hi, this is Libby Samson, editor of Dormet Vous Lustre’s newsletter, Skin Tones. I understand you’ve tried our ‘Tight By Tomorrow’ nightly facial crème, and I was wondering if I could profile you for our upcoming issue.”

  “I guess so.”

  Cold calls. Never Libby’s favorite part of the job.

  “Is now a good time to talk?”

  “I guess so. Who did you say you are, again? Did I win something?”

  Libby repeated her intro spiel. With the addition of: no, sorry, you didn’t win anything. Then asked her victim’s permission to record the conversation. One of the new requirements Dormet Vous had imposed—record all interviews, and send the tapes to Paul for archiving. Dormet said they wanted them in case they decided to “repurpose” any of the material. Libby suspected that the real reason was that their lawyers wanted to make sure the Dormet’s collective rear-end was covered in case she took too many liberties with her marketing narrative.

  “Let’s start with the basics. I’ve got a little bit of information about you from a survey card you filled out. But tell me in your own words, why did you decide to try ‘Tight By Tomorrow’?”

  “Well, a woman always wants to look her best.”

  Libby made a suitably sympathetic murmur.

  But it was a fake murmur. The only one who deserved sympathy was Libby.

  The woman went on a bit more, about how she’d noticed a difference right away, diminished wrinkles, tighter skin. She sounded like she was reading Dormet Vous copy off the Dormet Vous box. So much so that a picture of her rose unbidden in Libby’s mind: there she was, sitting on a dilapidated sofa, cordless phone in one hand, and in the other a “Tight by Tomorrow” box that she peered at through her drugstore reading glasses as she spoke.

  Libby fished around desperately for a line of questioning that would give her a real story. She needed to get to the pain. The humanity. “Tell me, Angela, when did you first start to worry about how old you look?”

  “Oh! I don’t look old!”

  Whoops. “No, of course you don’t. What I meant was—” Quick. Switch bait. “When did it become important to you to ‘look your best’?” Lame, lame, lame. She’d never go anywhere with that.

  “Oh, I’ve always wanted to look my best. Doesn’t everyone?”

  So. Back to the beginning again. Libby sighed. And wondered if Dormet would continue to fund the newsletter once they realized her articles were lifted, word-for-word, from their product packaging.

  15

  Oak trees are the slowest trees to leaf out in the spring, and the trees on Dean’s property were mostly oak. So when Libby looked up from her planting, it didn’t look like May, it looked earlier. April-ish. But the sun was already pretty hot, at 10:30 in the morning, and the soil was definitely dry enough to work.

  Not that there was much soil to work with. To her horror, when she finally got down on her hands and knees for a close look, she realized just how depleted her topsoil was. There was so little organic matter that it had hardened into rock-like clumps. And shallow. In some spots, Al’s plow had hit subsoil.

  Not good.

  After mucking around in it a bit, Libby stood up and walked to the downhill end of the field. She pushed her spade into the ground, past the sod, and flipped it over. Then again, deeper, another shovelful.

  Topsoil there was a good foot deep.

  She guessed why. Over years of use, the uphill topsoil had been washing down to the lowest end of the field.

  Oh. And also, Al Butterman had been right.

  She considered phoning him and asking him to come back and plow a new spot. But planting in newly plowed sod isn’t a good idea. As the turned-over sod decomposes, the bacteria eating it temporarily suck all the nitrogen out of the soil. She’d end up with yellow, sickly tatsoi, instead of green, healthy tatsoi. Yellow, sickly tatsoi doesn’t sell too well. Not a good way to launch her little operation.

  She could wait another month before planting, but that wasn’t appealing either.

  She had only one other option. Raised beds.

  Building raised beds is hard work. Hard work like digging trenches is hard work. Because that’s what she was doing. Digging trenches and piling the soil into long mounds between them. The trenches became the paths, and the mounds, a little over two feet wide, were the growing beds.

  It was slow going. It took her two days to finish.

  No sign of her supernatural beings that whole time, by the way.

  Once the beds were built, she needed to mulch. The closest place she could find straw for sale—she needed straw, not hay, hay has seeds in it—was Spencerport.

  It took her most of the next day to fetch it, because she made two trips—her car only held four bales, one in the trunk, two in the backseat, one in the front passenger seat. The bales shed pieces of straw in her car.

  She parked on the road, then carted the bales to the beds with her wheelbarrow. And yes, Al was right, planting closer to the road would have saved her some work.

  She spread some of the straw along the flanks of the beds and reserved the rest for mulching the tops.

  She really, really needed to get herself that tractor.

  At long last she was ready to plant.

  Tatsoi seeds are tiny. So she didn’t bother with furrows. She walked down the side of the beds scattering the seed, then made another pass with a rake, raking lightly. Then a third pass, on her knees this time, patting the soil, and then one more time, scattering a light covering of straw.

  She planted three beds. It would be a lot of tatsoi, but Sally and David had said she could offer her crop to their subscribers so she would have a market for it.

  She tossed the last handful of straw into place and straightened back up, rubbing the stiff places in her lower back.

  “You might have asked first.”

  It had been so long, at that point, since she’d last seen the little man, that for a split second she assumed it was someone else speaking. Okay. I’ll admit it. she thought, Dean. But then she knew it wasn’t, so she turned and the little man was sitting on the ground, not far from where she’d seen him the night of the ice storm.

  “Asked what?” she said. Not very enthusiastically.

  “About what to plant.”

  “Look. No offense. But—go away.”

  “There are choices that would have been wiser.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” She was thinking of her car, crushed by the maple tree. “What are you trying to say?”

  He regarded her thoughtfully but didn’t answer.

  “Look. I’m sorry, but it’s late.” Her congenital politeness, coming to the surface even though she was addressing a supernatural-slash-hallucinated being. “And famished. I need to go find something to eat.”

  “No offense taken,” he said. “But lamb’s lettuce would have been a wiser choice.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to go.” Libby picked up her tools, laid them across the wheelbarrow and began wheeling down the hill toward her house.

  He didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t look again to see if he was still there.

  But she wasn’t happy.

  She kept thinking about her crushed car. That thing, whatever it was, had known her car was going to get crushed. Did he know something about her tatsoi? Was it going to get crushed now, too? She eyed the sky uneasily. And if so, by what? Hail? There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A meteor, maybe?

  “There aren’t any tree limbs hanging over my beds,” she scolded herself as she pushed the wheelbarrow into the shed.

  It was ridiculous. She was a biologist, a scientist. She’d put a lot of thought into what she was going to plant. What did that . . . thing . . . expect her to do?

  No way was she going to take advice
from a . . . fairy.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Aunt Libby?”

  Maisey touched Libby on the arm.

  “Did you hear me? Paul called. A little while ago. He wants you to call him back.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Yeah, thanks.”

  “Are you okay?”

  No, she wasn’t okay. She was exhausted. She slumped back on the couch and set her plate, scraped clean—leftover burrito, she’d practically inhaled it—on the end table. “I’m fine.” She rubbed her forehead.

  “Do you feel okay?” Maisey had a concerned look on her face. “You’ve been working awfully hard. Mom says—” She paused.

  Libby yawned heavily. “Nothing personal, Maise, but I don’t need advice from your mother.”

  “Yeah.” Maisey grinned. “I know what you mean. Me, neither.”

  Libby thought about arguing that second point but changed her mind.

  It was warm in the house. So drowsy . . .

  “But seriously, you look kind of funny.”

  “I’m fine.” And her body ached all over. All she had to do was drop over sideways on the couch, tuck the throw pillow under her head . . . bet she could sleep for about a week. Easily.

  She yawned again and felt her eyes droop. “I’ve been pushing hard is all. And that weird man—”

  What had she just said? Libby started, suddenly wide awake again.

  “What? What weird man?”

  “Oh. It’s . . . nothing.”

  Too late, Libby. Maisey was now practically bouncing up and down beside her on the couch. “You’re hiding something! Tell me. Is it Dean? Is he, like, stalking you while you work?”

  “No! It’s got nothing to do with—”

  “It’s DEAN. But he’s not weird, Aunt Libby. He’s a dish! Oh my gosh, you like him, don’t you! Oh wow, Paul is going to just flip OUT.”

  “Maisey. Stop that. It is not Dean. You aren’t even close.”

  Maisey didn’t believe her. Not for a second. The teen’s eyes danced.

  And Libby panicked. Paul was coming to see the place on Saturday. His first visit. Which meant he’d be around Maisey . . . Libby envisioned suddenly how awful it would be if Maisey dropped some sort of silly comment about Dean—

  So she made her big huge mistake, the worse mistake of her life.

  She confessed.

  “Look, Maisey. You are to tell nobody about this. Do you understand? Not a soul.”

  Maisey’s eyes widened. “Sure, Aunt Libby.”

  “This place—my property—well, it’s kind of like—it’s like it’s haunted, kind of.”

  “Oh! Oh, shit!”

  Shit is right. She’d scared her. Bad Libby. Bad, bad Libby. Backtrack, quick . . . “No! No. That’s not—I shouldn’t have put it that way. That’s not right. Not haunted. They’re not ghosts.”

  “What? What’s not a ghost?”

  Libby sighed. “Look, let’s just forget about this, okay? But it has nothing to do with Dean—that’s the important thing for you to unders—”

  “Aunt LIBBY. You have GOT to tell me what is going on.” Maisey was shaking so hard her nose ring was trembling and her mouth was set in a way Libby had never seen it before.

  “Aw, dammit. Dammit. Okay. Okay. I’m seeing—I’m seeing what I guess are . . . well. Little people.”

  “Little people?”

  “Fairies.”

  “What do you mean, ‘fairies’? Like, with wings?”

  “No, they don’t have wings. They are—they’re little people. I can’t really describe it. They’re about this tall . . . I’ve seen them a few times when I’ve been out back—”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Aunt Libby. This is sooooo cool!”

  Libby made a face and picked up her plate from the end table. “Not exactly.”

  “Oh! Yes, it is!”

  “Look, you’re not to tell anyone. Not even Tyler.”

  Tyler cleared his throat.

  Gentlemanly of him.

  He was standing in the living room doorway.

  Libby groaned. “I thought you’d gone to town.”

  “Yeah.” He shuffled his feet. “I just got back. But it’s okay, Aunt Libby, I think it’s way cool, too. I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  Gee, thanks for that. “Look, you two. This is a secret. It’s not to leave this room.”

  “You’re like that lady from Virginia,” Tyler said.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “She, like, talks to nature spirits and stuff, and they tell her—”

  “Oh man! I want to see them!” Maisey was saying. “Do you think they’d appear for me, too? Oh man, this is so cool!”

  “—how to grow her garden. Like, where to put crystals and stuff.”

  “Have they given you advice about your farm, Aunt Libby?”

  “No. I mean yes, kind of. I think.” Libby rubbed her forehead again.

  “Wow. What did they say?”

  “To plant this other kind of thing instead of tatsoi.”

  “So did you?”

  “Of course not. I don’t have any seed.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Oh no!” Tyler, this time. He took a seat on the rug in front of the couch. He had dark brown eyes, almost black, and his face was so young he looked almost fawn-like when he looked up at her. “You got to, Aunt Libby. They’re like—they’re like tied to the land and shit.”

  “I don’t ‘got to’ do anything.”

  “But they’re like—you need to read that lady’s books.”

  Libby groaned again. “Look, you two. That’s enough, okay? This is not a subject I want to discuss.” She stood up. “I’m going to go take a shower. Please, this time, try to remember not to flush the toilet while I’m in there, okay, please?”

  “You could experiment,” Maisey said. “You could plant some of that—whatever they said to plant.”

  “Yeah,” Tyler said. “Do that, Aunt Libby.”

  “No. Please don’t flush the toilet until I’m out, okay?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “And I’m begging you guys—this has to stay a secret. It would be . . . this is a private thing, okay?

  “Sure thing.”

  16

  “So, this is it, huh?”

  Paul was standing on the driveway next to his Lexus, squinting up at Libby’s house.

  “Yeah, this is it.”

  “Needs a coat of paint.”

  “Yeah. But it’s—”

  “I suppose you want me to help you paint it.”

  “What?” One reason Paul lived in a condo was so he wouldn’t have any house maintenance responsibilities. He definitely wasn’t a paint-a-house-on-weekends sort of guy. “I never—no, Paul . . .”

  “Well. I’m your man, right?”

  “You don’t need—I wouldn’t ask you to do that.”

  He nodded. “Lemme know if you change your mind.”

  But she noticed he sounded a bit relieved.

  “Hiya, Paul.”

  Libby hadn’t seen Maisey coming. She’d been out walking, must be—she was coming up the driveway.

  Libby eyed her suspiciously. “Where have you been?”

  “Visiting Bo.”

  “Who’s Bo?” Paul asked.

  “Dean’s dog,” Maisey said.

  Paul looked at Libby. “The guy you stayed with during the ice storm?”

  “After the ice storm,” Libby corrected him, and took his hand to lead him inside.

  She gave him a tour of the house. He didn’t say much. She’d have been more comfortable if he had, but relationships are like that, she’d noticed. You veer away from certain subjects, not because the subject at hand is sensitive, but because you both know that there’s a nerve right there below the surface.

  “Want to see my growing beds?” she asked when they’d finished looking around inside.

  “Of course.”

  It had rained the da
y before and the air felt hot and lush. “Hear that?” Libby said as they pushed through the hedgerow behind the house. “Yellow warbler.”

  Paul nodded. It was really hot. He probably would have been more comfortable in shorts.

  They didn’t speak anymore as they hiked to the upper side of the lot. Libby was admiring how neat the beds looked, their bright straw dressing gleaming in the sun.

  But then they got a little closer.

  And she saw that something awful had happened.

  She cried out and ran to the nearest bed.

  “Lib? What’s wrong?” Paul said. “Is something wrong?”

  She couldn’t see any tatsoi. Wait. Yes, she could. Only—

  “Something’s been eating it!” Her baby plants. They’d all had their third or fourth set of true leaves the morning before. And now: lace. Lace and stumps.

  She dropped to her knees beside one of the beds. Little black shiny insects, hopping everywhere, crazily—hopping off of what was left of her baby plants.

  “What’s happened, rabbits?”

  “No,” she said miserably. “Bugs of some kind.”

  “That’s what’s put the holes in the leaves?”

  Yeah. Holes. Holes upon holes until there was nothing left except the holes.

  She stood up and walked between two of the beds, her back to Paul, her stomach in knots.

  “Some of the plants look okay,” he said.

  “No. None of them are okay. Every plant—every plant.” As her shadow passed over the baby plants, she could see the little black insects skitter and hop.

  She knelt and cupped her hand around one of them, trapping it against the ground as she pulled a Kleenex out of her shorts pocket. The insect wasn’t hard to catch. She folded the tissue around it and stood back up.

  Paul was still standing at the far end of the plot. She stepped over the beds and began walking down the hill toward the house.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Figure out what it is?” Maisey asked.

  Libby was on the living room couch with her stack of gardening books and insect field guides. She’d transferred the bug to an old mayonnaise jar so she could see it clearly, and was turning the jar in her hands and watching it hop around on the glass.