When Libby Met the Fairies and her Whole Life Went Fae

by Kirsten Mortensen

“Good, I guess.”

  Libby had too much on her mind to notice that her answer was a bit lacking in conviction. But that was okay. Because if Susan started asking for details, Libby might have to get into the whole horsetail brew business. A subject she’d rather avoid.

  “Well, you’re off to a good start.” Susan climbed into the truck bed to push everything up toward the cab.

  Libby noticed she and David had grown tatsoi.

  They watched David drive off.

  “Lamb’s lettuce is getting really popular. I bet he sells out.”

  Libby nodded. “I’ve got more.”

  “Next week.”

  They hoisted the cooler out of Libby’s trunk and carried it, between them, to Susan’s barn where it would be shaded from the sun. “We can’t seem to grow the stuff here,” Susan said. “Lamb’s lettuce. Just doesn’t like the clay, I guess.”

  Libby almost said, “I’ve got clay, too,” but she stopped herself. Susan and David had been doing this for over fifteen years. Obviously she’d gotten lucky. And if it wasn’t entirely luck . . . well. It still wasn’t anything she was going to start blabbering about.

  “C’mon, there’s coffee inside,” Susan said and she smiled at her gratefully.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She’d washed her hands and face at Susan’s but she was still feeling pretty grubby as she stood inside the door at Jine’s, scanning about for Paul.

  She spotted him finally, in a booth hunched over a menu. Then he saw her and waved her over.

  Ritual lip peck.

  She sat down.

  “So how’d it go? Didja bring in a cool million or two?”

  He probably didn’t intend that to be a dig. Libby gave him the benefit of the doubt, anyway. Yeah, her net was going to be thin this year, and probably next, so there’s nothing wrong with making a joke out of it, right? “Susan thinks they’ll probably sell everything I brought today. I’m off to a great start, she says.”

  “Look out, Cascadian Farms.”

  They ordered. She watched Paul strip the paper off a straw and plunge it into his cola.

  “So,” he said. “There’s something we have to talk over.”

  Innocuous enough. So why was Libby’s response instant foreboding?

  “What about?”

  “We need to make a couple little changes to Skin Tones.”

  Libby sighed. Soundlessly. “What’s going on this time?”

  “It’s very minor, Lib. We don’t think it’s peppy enough. Josh wants a bit more zing.”

  Paul had reached down under the booth and she saw he’d brought his briefcase. He propped it open on the seat and pulled out the last issue of Skin Tones. Libby suppressed a wince. One glance was enough to see. The pages were all marked up. Things were crossed out—not words, but sentences. No, make that whole paragraphs. And the margins—they were a tangle of handwriting. Paul’s. Sloppy, plus it was upside down, which made it pretty much unreadable, had she wanted to read it, which she didn’t, particularly.

  This isn’t his fault, she reminded herself. He doesn’t deserve any grief over it. Be cheerful. “So. What do I need to do?” That was all she really needed to know.

  “Oh, not much, really! It’s very close, very close.”

  Struck her as something of a lie.

  “We just need to spice it up a bit. You know, the target audience isn’t the same as before.” He paused and tipped the page to read something he’d written. “Yeah, like here. In this story about the divorced woman.”

  “Marla.”

  “Yeah. Like, where she talks, here, about starting her life over. We need more—I guess, more pain. You know? Like, she’s afraid, she thinks she might never get remarried, she’s pushing 50, is life over for her?”

  “She’s not pushing 50. She’s only 42.”

  “Right. Well, you get my point.”

  “And she’s actually pretty happy, now. Her ex was an alcoholic. She’s glad it’s over.”

  “Mmmmmmmm.” That was beside the point, apparently. “And here, in this piece, about the peptide research . . .” He looked at his notes again. “It just needs to be punched up, you know? Like . . . let’s see what he said . . .” He frowned. Not able to read his own handwriting. “Yeah, that’s it. The transformation effect. Everything has to come back to that. So it’s not just research, know what I mean? It’s transformation. It’s like, the phoenix arising from the ashes. We need that excitement, kind of archetypal—”

  “It’s not just research, it’s transformation,” Libby repeated. “I’m not sure I get what that means, exactly.”

  “Look.” He pointed to another note he’d written on the page. “Like with alchemists. Lead or gold? Lead or gold? Our women, our target market, they want gold. They need gold. We’ve got gold for them, Libby, we just need to communicate it.”

  The server plunked down their plates. Paul had ordered a burger. He opened the roll and began dumping ketchup onto the meat.

  “One thing that would help,” Libby said as he took a bite, “is if my contacts were screened a bit better.” She was still using names from a direct mail giveaway Dormet had run nearly ten months ago—long before the takeover. All she knew about the women, before she cold called them, was that they’d entered to win a month’s supply of Dormet Vous Lustre “New You Forever” cleansing regimen products. “Half the phone numbers are fake, and of those that aren’t, most of the women haven’t even used Dormet Vous products.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know,” Paul mumbled through his mouthful. She’d mentioned this issue to him before. He swallowed. “You just have to do your best. I’ve told them. Josh says he’ll have someone do some pre-screening.”

  It was a two-edged sword, actually. Depending on who did the pre-screening—it’s not just anyone who can figure out, in a ten-minute phone conversation, if the person on the other end would make a good interview.

  “Well, enough of that, anyway, we can talk about it on Monday,” Paul said, and at that very second his cell rang and when he flipped it open, he said “Josh,” and took the call.

  22

  It was late that afternoon when Libby pulled into her driveway.

  There was a car she didn’t recognize parked off the side, on the grass.

  Maisey’s car was there too.

  Friend of Maisey’s, must be.

  But as she reached the stoop, someone called her name, “Libby Samson?” and she turned around to see a woman in her mid-twenties or so, flip flops, Indian print skirt, tank top. Heading toward her.

  Nobody Libby had ever seen before.

  How had she known her name?

  “Can I help you?” If she was selling something, she’d left her samples in her car.

  “Oh! This is soooooo exciting! I’ve been dying to meet you ever since I read about you!”

  Huh?

  A Skin Tones reader? A Skin Tones . . . fan? A Skin Tones fan so enamored of Libby’s writing that she’d tracked her down to her house?

  Libby eyed the woman uneasily. She’d been trotting up, but stopped abruptly about five feet away and grabbed herself in a hug, looking at Libby as if she were fighting to keep herself under control. And talking the whole time. “I just couldn’t believe when I realized where you lived and everything. Right here in Dansville! It really is amazing. You just can’t know what this means. I’ve always known there was something special about this place. This hill. Well, really, the whole area. You know they used to see aliens, too, only that hasn’t happened a long time. But fairies!”

  WHAT?

  The woman’s lips were still moving. But Libby’s brain had slammed her ears shut right after that word.

  “What did you just say?”

  “When my step-brother moved in I told him—”

  “Excuse me?”

  The young woman quit her chittering for a second, thank goodness. Staring at Libby—perhaps the look on Libby’s face was a bit frightening.

  “Would you mind telling me how you
know who I am?”

  “Oh!” Nervous giggle. “I read about you. On MySpace.”

  “TYLER!” Libby whirled and shot through the door, leaving hippy chick to her own devices on the lawn.

  “Tyler!”

  Muffled thuds from the direction of Maisey’s room.

  “Tylergetdownhererightnow!”

  More thuds, then a doorknob rattling and Tyler slunk into view, fumbling with the button at the waist of his jeans. “I’m sorry, Aunt Libby, I’ll never do it—”

  “There is a young woman out there,” Libby said through gritted teeth, “who claims she read about me on the INTERNET.”

  Tyler’s face was already flushed. Now it flushed a deeper shade of red. “Well bu—”

  “Tyler. Did you post something about me on the internet?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

  Maisey had appeared like a shadow behind him, at the top of the stairs.

  “Look. I’m sorry. But . . . you need to get your things and get out.”

  “But Aunt Libby!” Maisey wailed.

  Tyler, head down, was already on his way to the living room.

  “Aunt Libby! It wasn’t his fault!”

  “Can it, Maisey, or you’re going, too,” Libby said.

  She’d never heard her voice come out so harsh.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Libby let it all catch up to her a little later as she stood under the shower.

  Her first impulse was to cry.

  She was tired. This was too much.

  But as she shampooed her hair, she gave herself a little talking-to and began to get a grip. So, someone—maybe a few people—had read something on MySpace. It would blow over. Just a coincidence that one of them happened to be a local.

  At least Libby had found out about it before it got out of control.

  Maisey’s car was gone when she came back downstairs. Driving Tyler someplace, of course. The justice of it felt good. She really ought to stand up for herself more often . . . she was too nice. That was her problem.

  Even now . . . she felt a slight twinge of guilt. Not about Tyler—she was still furious at Tyler. She felt guilty about leaving that hippy chick standing out on the lawn. Bad manners, Libby. But she’d get over it. No doubt Maisey and Tyler would have explained things to her, explained that Libby was a bitch or something.

  Technically the visitor was their responsibility, anyway. Make that part their fault.

  Of course, if Libby had talked to her, she could have explained . . . what? She could have denied everything, she supposed. Unfortunately, being a terrible liar, that would have been hard to pull off . . .

  No, better to have her witness things just as she had. Libby’s temper, Tyler’s banishment. Make it crystal clear just how unwelcome the whole subject was.

  23

  Libby had planted a lot of lamb’s lettuce. But that hadn’t been the only thing she’d planted. Because the trick to an organic market garden—a small one, when you’re doing everything pretty much by hand—is to interplant. So, for example, before the lamb’s leaf was large enough to harvest, Libby tucked shell bean seeds into the same beds. Now, the bean plants’ heart-shaped leaves were spreading over the holes left when she’d harvested her lamb’s lettuce.

  She’d decided on shell beans because nobody else grows them. She didn’t know if she could sell them. But Susan said they could always just put them in with her CSA deliveries.

  And beans are nitrogen fixing, so even if no one actually wanted to eat them, they would help improve the soil.

  She’d also planted some other things. Carrots, fennel, beets . . .

  What Libby hadn’t done was ask her . . . um, imaginary companions for permission.

  Fortunately the plants were doing fine. So far. Which was a major relief.

  On the other hand, lately she’d had company just about every time she worked on the beds. So she was getting into the habit of at least checking before she started a new job.

  Like today.

  “Okay,” she said. “I was thinking I’d thin the carrots.”

  The little man was sitting about five feet away, on the other side of the bean bed. He didn’t say anything, so Libby knelt and began to work. It was early, not too hot, yet, and the air was bubbling with birdsong.

  The carrot plants were on their fourth set of feathery leaves.

  Libby moved down the row, eyeing them, removing the smaller plants, keeping the bigger ones, making sure each plant would have enough room for the fat orange root it would eventually grow.

  The seedlings she pulled from the ground gave off a pungent, almost minty scent, and the damp earth had the faint smell of earthworms.

  “A half pound copper roofing nails,” the little man spoke up finally.

  Libby pulled another carrot seedling. “Okay. Then what?”

  “Bury them. One every few feet.”

  “How deep?”

  “Eight inches.”

  “In the beds, or between?”

  He paused a moment, then answered, “Both.”

  She nodded. See? She was getting used to it. Every morning, work on her growing beds while taking bizarre advice from an imaginary being. Earlier in the week, for instance, he had directed her weeding. You’d think, if you were weeding, you should pull up everything that you hadn’t deliberately planted. But no. Libby was to leave some of the weeds in place. So she’d asked him on every plant. She’d touch a baby dandelion, or thistle, or purslane plant, and say, “This one?” and he’d either say, “Pull it” or “leave it.”

  It seemed to follow no pattern. So she gave up on trying to figure it out and just did what he said.

  When she’d finished, her beds didn’t look very well-groomed, but he’d said it was for soil balance. He was big on soil balance, the little fairy dude.

  She discarded another of her culled carrot seedlings. “That horsetail stuff you told me to put on my beds. . .”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Is it going to be okay? When they test it?”

  Still no answer. And then she happened to glance over her shoulder and saw Maisey walking up the hill.

  The teen didn’t wave. She was still angry at Libby for kicking Tyler out of the house.

  Libby watched her as she approached, wondering if she’d notice the little man. But she didn’t. She was looking around, too, as Libby expected. Libby knew Maisey looked for them. She came up here sometimes, by herself, looking for them. But Libby had begun to suspect, at that point, that they were invisible to everyone but her. Which had its good points. It meant, for instance, that she could relax if, you know, an organic certification inspector was poking around the place. On the other hand, if nobody else could see them, they’d never be real to anyone else. Not like they were to her . . .

  “Hi,” Libby said when Maisey was close enough to talk.

  “You got a phone call.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “The Saturn people have a question about your car. I told them you’d call them back.” Libby had bought the Saturn to replace her poor crushed Toyota. It was a second hand car but low mileage and still under warranty, and was in for its 15,000 mile check-up. Paul, the sweetie, had helped facilitate the appointment by swapping cars with her, since he worked pretty close to the dealership.

  “Thanks, Maise.” Libby was noticing the little man in her peripheral vision. He was flicking the leaf of a milkweed that she’d spared, per his weeding instructions, the day before. Could Maisey see that the leaf was moving? A slight breeze had picked up in the past hour, maybe she’d attribute it to the breeze.

  In any case, she made no sign that she’d noticed anything weird. Yet more proof that he was invisible to others.

  Maisey started back down the hill and Libby moved to the end of the bed where the last few feet of carrot seedlings waited to be thinned.

  “Anything else?” she asked when Maisey was out of sight.

  He didn’t answer and she sa
w that he was melting away into the dense growth of motherwort and goldenrod that had sprouted up along the western boundary of the field.

  Libby straightened up and stretched her back to ease its stiffness a bit. She was facing her house, now, and yeah, it made her feel a bit glum. This was the part of the day that was hardest, when she had to make her way back down the hill, shut herself back indoors, and tackle whatever waited for her there.

  And in this case, what waited for her was a two-page computer printout of names. Josh had decided, now, that a revision wasn’t enough. The entire last issue of Skin Tones had to be tossed out. So Libby was starting over from scratch. Plus Dormet Vous hadn’t managed to get any of her potential interviewees prescreened. Funny how the importance of requests like that get diluted as they’re passed up the corporate management chain . . . it meant a lot more work for Libby, of course. She would not only have to write the stories, but before she could even begin that she’d have to pore over that printout for three or four women with stories about how their lives had been changed forever, thanks to Dormet Vous Lustre.

  She wasn’t looking forward to it.

  She picked up her tools. It was too bad Maisey was so upset with her. She was still a kid in a lot of ways . . . Libby had gotten used to her company. It was strange to have her all withdrawn that way.

  As Libby started down the hill, it occurred to her that she hadn’t gotten an answer to her other question—the question about whether her horsetail brew was going to pass the lab test.

  Figures.

  24

  Deja vous.

  The hippy chick’s car in the driveway, again.

  Only this time she wasn’t inside the car waiting for Libby. This time, she was inside the house, sitting on the living room floor, having a lively conversation with Maisey and Tyler.

  Well, it was a lively conversation until the door banged shut behind Libby and they looked up and saw her.

  They exchanged glances, then Maisey stood up from the couch. “Hey, Aunt Libby, you’ve met Alex.”

  Alex stood, too, and slipped her flip flops back onto her feet. She was a fragile looking little thing, high forehead, wispy hair pulled back in a pony tail. “Hi, Aunt Libby,” she said.