Photographing Fairies: A Novel

by Steve Szilagyi

  Turning back to the garden, I saw the tendrils of fairy mist reaching through the purple columbine and tall, white peonies. All thoughts of what the fairies meant to the world at large fled, and I felt an absolute hunger, a joyous need to look upon them once more, to be the object of a fairy smile.

  Without getting up, I turned to a tendril of fairy mist that ended atop the wall about a foot from where I sat. Oscillating my head, I focused on the periphery of my vision and tried to bring the fairy or fairies into view. As I had known it would, a figure became visible. But it was not at all the type of figure I had expected. Instead of the lithe female forms with whom I had been playing, I now saw before me a grotesque little man. Like the female fairies, he was not much larger than ten inches. But his neck was almost nonexistent, and his head was nearly as wide as his shoulders. A rough beard hid most of his face beneath the eyes, and seemed to merge with the short, curly hairs that covered his chest and the rest of his body. The only parts of his body that lacked hairs were his outsized hands and feet and, oddly, his large, knobby genitalia.

  I stared at him, and he stared at me. Then, unexpectedly, he bared his little teeth under his beard. Startled, I gave an involuntary jerk and momentarily lost sight of him. When I had got him refocused, he had begun to run, or at least to make a distinct running movement. For though his arms and legs were pumping, his actual rate of speed was slow, floating, as he appeared to be, through the same ether as the female fairies. As I watched, he made his way off the wall and down into a stand of purple baptisia.

  I myself ran over to the two girls, who were crouched in anticipatory postures by the great tree. They were waiting for something. Waiting like two hunters in a blind. Anna shushed me as I approached.

  “What are you waiting for?” I whispered.

  Suddenly, a thick wave of fairy mist broke around the great tree, and ribbons and curlicues spread out from it in great profusion. Tendrils arched high under the branches and fell precipitately, quivering and pulsating with a nervous sort of agitation. Individual fairies were difficult to pick out amid the mist, as the pulsating ether produced an effect much like viewing a landscape from a fast car through an irregularly slatted fence.

  What glimpses were possible revealed female fairies soaring through the mist’s arcing tracery, motivating with graceful running, swimming movements. With hair flowing around their shoulders, they came in twos and threes, looking back over their shoulders, eyes wide and mouths making circles of apprehension.

  They were clearly being chased. But by whom? I found out a moment later, when hard on the females’ heels came the male fairies — I’ll call them elves. The elves moved more firmly through the ether, their arms grasping and snatching at the females. For their part, the females managed to stay just beyond the elves at arms’ length. But though they ran in earnest, they did not do so evasively, nor did they take advantage of such cover as the leaves and shrubbery might have offered.

  All this, I repeat, was gathered from flickering, pulsating images such as were visible amid the agitated mist. And so also did I see what followed only in little bits and pieces: a flash of an image here and there, a brief glimpse of a key action, and long looks at unimportant movements.

  Grasping and reaching, the elves finally began catching up to their quarry. When an elf came close enough, he grabbed a fairy by her long, flowing hair, which he wound around his fist. This seemed to be a kind of signal for the fairy to cease flight and allow herself to be pulled back toward the elf. Here the elf took her gently from behind, and locked in copulatory embrace, the pair tumbled to earth. What happened then was impossible to say, since they vanished before hitting the ground, like water droplets turning to steam over molten lava.

  Once I gathered what was occurring, I looked about me and saw that the air was filled with fairy couples. They rolled, spun, and floated about me like weightless seed cases, or snowflakes slowly revolving in a souvenir paperweight.

  As my first gasping moment of wonder passed, I suddenly became concerned for the girls. This sight, as natural as it might be for the fairies, was nothing for a human child to witness. These were, after all, not mating dragonflies, but creatures cast from a mold similar to that of the human beings around them. Gathering the girls around their shoulders, I suggested that perhaps it would be best if we left the fairies alone just then, that what we were seeing was probably very private for the fairies, and that someday the girls would understand, although now it might seem very confusing and alarming.

  The girls, however, didn’t even listen. Wriggling from my arms, they ran over and each grabbed one of the fairy couples. I could not stop them both, and as I took the fairy couple from Anna’s hands, Clara rather expertly separated the male from the female of the couple she had taken and let the female trip away. The elf was not so lucky. Though he pumped his arms and legs, and worked his mouth in fierce expressions, he could not free himself from Clara’s hand, which held him fast about the waist. Heedless of her captive’s writhings and strugglings, Clara reached up and took his large head between her thumb and the first three fingers other free hand. Then she gave it a sharp little twist, quickly and neatly breaking the elf’s neck. Opening her hand, she let the lifeless body flop to the ground, and immediately reached for another.

  Shouting a protest, I lunged for Clara, inadvertently freeing Anna, who proceeded to perform the same fatal operation on the male of another fairy couple.

  “What are you doing?” I shook Clara by the wrist. “You’re killing those little men.”

  Clara looked up at me confusedly. “They’re hurting the fairies,” she finally blurted. “The little men are hurting the fairies.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not — not what you think.”

  “They’re hurting them,” she whispered, looking back at her sister.

  How could I explain? Nature and the supernatural both perpetuated themselves the same way, it appeared.

  “Take my word for it,” I said, giving her wrist a shake. “Please go inside. Go back to bed.”

  Gathering Anna, I knelt before them both and explained that it was late and that their father would worry if he knew they were both out in the cold night air like this. Having seen what the girls had done to the elves, I was actually a little afraid of them at that moment. But they could not resist the authority of an adult voice. Meekly, they allowed me to lead them back to the window they’d come down from. I released them and watched them climb back inside. What I wanted to do next was go back into the garden and learn more about the fairies. I wanted to try to communicate with them, to find out where they lived, where they were going, what they ate. I knew they copulated. But where were the babies?

  Study proved impossible. I was suddenly overwhelmed by an utter weariness. It was a fatigue such as I had never experienced. Was it the effect of the flower? I wondered. I still do not know. Whatever the cause, I lost all initiative for further pursuit of fairies that night. I was worried that I might simply drop off to sleep right there outside Templeton’s cottage. I did not want to be discovered that way in the morning, so I dragged myself back to the Starry Night. There, I slept like a drunkard.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  How I Returned to the Garden

  I awoke next morning to a cold, damp wind blowing through the window. Esmirelda heard me stirring. She came into the room and closed the door behind herself. Her disappointment was manifest when she saw I was already up and about.

  “I have to go out,” I told her, and asked if she had an overcoat I could borrow. She went down into the cellar and came back with an enormous, tweed, raglan-sleeved monstrosity that had been left behind by a previous guest. The skirts of this garment flapped around my ankles as I headed out the door. I almost tripped over them as I chased Brian Templeton down the flagstone path of his garden.

  “Brian,” I shouted. “Stop. Don’t waste — ”

  I grabbed him by
the collar.

  There were three of us there. Myself, Templeton, and Walsmear, who’d had a fight with his superiors. He was now an ex-constable. All three of us were shouting at once. Anna and Clara stood in the doorway of the cottage. They seemed to be cowering. Amid curtains of clammy mist, we three grown men stamped through their flowers. We argued. We slipped. We turned the earth into mud underfoot.

  “There’s got to be more,” Walsmear bellowed. He kicked a shrub. A shower of pink petals flew into the air. Some stuck to his muddy shoe.

  “Stop, stop,” I said. “We can’t just crash about.”

  Templeton was in a snarling mood. “I can do what I want in my own garden,” he said.

  He stood there before me, staring furiously. In his fist, he clutched a single tiny flower. It was the kind the girls ate to see the fairies. We had been able to find no others in the daylight.

  “How many of the flowers were there last night?” Walsmear angrily demanded. “How many did you see?”

  “I hardly counted them,” I said. “It’s just a wildflower. There’s got to be more.”

  “There isn’t more,” said Walsmear. “How do we know you haven’t picked them all? How do we know you’re not hoarding them?”

  “Why would I tell you about the flowers if I was only going to hoard them? Anyhow, I was in no state of mind — ”

  “What state of mind were you in?”

  I thought about it. “Have you ever,” I said, “been terribly drunk?”

  “Don’t ask a stupid question.”

  “I mean,” I went on, “so drunk that you felt sober?”

  “You mean you were drunk last night?” Templeton raged, waving the fist that held the flower.

  “No, no, no,” I said. “I mean — oh, never mind.” I was exasperated. “Listen,” I said, “we’ve got to work together here. This can’t be the only example of this flower in all of England. We’ll find more. But we’ve got to go about it methodically. Right now, we’re just damaging the garden. We could be stepping on fairies or elves right and left.”

  Walsmear jumped uneasily.

  Templeton clutched the flower closer to his chest. “Whatever we do,” he said, “whatever you find on my property is mine. And that includes this flower here and any others you might find. Do you understand that?”

  “Of course I understand,” I said.

  “I don’t want anything of yours,” Walsmear said.

  Templeton gave his old friend a lofty look. “Oh?” he drawled.

  “Don’t start, Brian.” Walsmear shook his finger at him. “Just don’t start.”

  “Start what?” Templeton asked. “I’ll start anything I want. In fact, this is just as good a time as any to start something. If you’re trying to start something.”

  “Stop, stop, stop,” I said. Standing between them, I held out my arms. “Listen to me, gentlemen. We have to establish our next move. There’s a great deal of work ahead. Please. Settle down. Don’t spoil everything by fighting.”

  “I won’t spoil anything,” Walsmear scowled.

  “I’ve got the flower.” Templeton flared his nostrils. “And I may just eat it. Someone’s got to find out if all this is true.”

  “No, no, no, hold on to it,” I abjured. “Before anyone eats it, we have to record it. We have to sketch it. Or photograph it.”

  “Where’s your camera?” Templeton asked. “Didn’t you bring it? How convenient.”

  I ignored his barb. “We’ll hold on to it for now. Someone can go to the library and get a book on wildflowers. We’ll find out what kind it is. We’ll find out where they grow. Once we know where to look, we’ve got to go out and collect as many as we can while they’re still in season. Then we can store them. Or we can give them to a chemist and distill their essence. But we’ve got to keep them secret, just as the girls did.”

  “But if it’s a wildflower, anyone can pick one,” Templeton said.

  “So we’ve got to control that information. That’s all we have to keep the fairies from becoming public property.”

  “Why not form a corporation or limited partnership,” Templeton sneered.

  I, however, had been contemplating just that. “That may be the only way we can profit.”

  “What an absurd notion. Fairies, Limited. It’s a farce, that’s what it is.”

  “You shut up.” Walsmear stood in front of Templeton. “I got no job now, Brian, and I could use a little money. We’ve got to protect our property.”

  “Our property? This is my property you’re standing on. All of this. Fairies and all. Don’t come on all communal with me. It is all mine.”

  Walsmear seemed to guess that Templeton was getting a little frenzied. And for the first time since we met, I saw Walsmear attempt tact.

  “Now, now,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “Brian, you know we’ve been friends for a long time.”

  “Friends?” Templeton stood back and bent forward in anger. “Now that there’s profit to be made you throw friendship in my face? After what you’ve done?”

  The mist was gone, but the rain had gathered into a steady downpour. I huddled under my giant coat and watched as Walsmear moved forward and stuck his nose right into Templeton’s. Water streamed down their faces. They stared at each other from a distance of mere inches.

  When Templeton spoke, his voice was quiet and husky. “She died right there,” he said, pointing to the house. “I forgave you for that. Long ago. But what happened then won’t happen again. What’s mine is mine, Michael. Not yours. Not again.”

  Walsmear answered through clenched teeth. “Damn you, Brian. You know nothing. You understand nothing. Don’t stand here — don’t make a fool — don’t make a fool of yourself.”

  Templeton laughed. “You made me a cuckold. Then you made me a widower. But I’ll make a fool of myself if I please. Yes, damn it. I will make a fool out of myself.”

  It must not have been simple for Walsmear to be tactful and appeasing toward his old friend. Now he dropped all pretense. His face reddened and his fist shot out as if sprung from a box. It glanced off Templeton’s shoulder and struck him on the chin. More stunned than injured, Templeton stumbled backward. Quickly recovering, he opened his hands and leaped for Walsmear’s throat. Gripped about the neck, Walsmear pulled Templeton to the ground. There, they struggled through the flower bed. They tore at each other’s faces. They pulled at each other’s clothes. They threw punches that did not land. And they churned great portions of the garden into a morass of mud, pale green broken stems, and mangled blossoms.

  It was Templeton who finally ended the hostilities. After being pushed into a bush, he decided not to get up and push Walsmear back. Instead, he rose (with branches crackling and snapping beneath him) and simply walked back toward the cottage. He did not look back.

  Walsmear followed him at a distance of a few feet, shouting, “She didn’t kill herself. I won’t stand it anymore. She didn’t. She loved both of us, Brian. Both of us. It was an accident, Brian. Don’t you see, Brian? She ate one of these little flowers. She saw the fairies. She was frightened. She ran out into the road . . .”

  He went on until Templeton gathered the girls (ashen-faced witnesses) and slammed the door in his face.

  Esmirelda had told me that Walsmear believed the fairies had chased Mrs. Templeton out of the garden. It was that belief that had brought him and the photographs to London. But I hadn’t thought much about the likelihood of the theory being true. Exactly why Mrs. Templeton ran out of the garden in front of Walsmear’s motorcar would always be a mystery. At least as far as I had been concerned. Now, I gave the whole theory another pass through my mind.

  The key for me was recalling what I had done when I first saw the fairies. What I recalled gave me a turn. When I had first sighted the little homunculi, I had been very afraid. I was so afraid that I ran. Blindly. If
there had been a motorcar coming down the road just then, I would be dead now.

  Walsmear stood for a moment staring at the cottage door. Then he turned angrily away and began walking down the road. He did so without a word or look in my direction.

  I ran after him. He still didn’t look at me. He didn’t even acknowledge that I was there. Trotting alongside, I told him what I had just been thinking about my first reaction to the fairies. I told him how an instinctive fear had made me run.

  “There was no thought behind it,” I said. “My legs acted of their own accord. I heard it was like that in the war. During a bombardment. You wanted to run, didn’t you? You couldn’t help it. You just wanted to get up and run.”

  I still didn’t know if he had heard me. He continued walking silently, face expressionless. I was about to give up and let him go on. Then he said, “Of course she was afraid. I was in the war. And that’s what it was like.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was frightened because they were different. So different from everyday life. The mind rebels. The body follows. The same thing would have happened to Mrs. Templeton. Imagine if she had idly put one of those flowers into her mouth. Or if it had been on the back of her hand and she’d rubbed her hand against her mouth.”

  “Don’t go on about it,” Walsmear said, still not looking at me. “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “I know some.”

  “Esmirelda.”

  “What about her?”

  “Esmirelda?”

  “She does talk,” I said. I was embarrassed, but I didn’t know why.

  “That’s not all she does.”

  “I beg your pardon?”