Photographing Fairies: A Novel

by Steve Szilagyi

“I know what she’s like.”

  “How is that?”

  “You’ve been to bed with her.”

  I was silent.

  Walsmear asked, “Do you love her?”

  “Love her? I, well, no, I can’t — ”

  Walsmear swung around to face me like a great door on hinges. “I do love her,” he said.

  I looked down. His thick finger lay against my chest.

  “And you’re going to be the last. I won’t kill you. But you can tell everyone else you meet at the Starry Night that you were the last. The next man who goes to bed with her, I kill. Things are different now. I’m at peace. I know what happened and I’m at peace.”

  I guessed aloud that he meant this: He was at peace about the death of Mrs. Templeton.

  “I’m glad if I helped,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’m going to marry her,” he said. “I’m going to get on with my life. I’ll go to Canada. Australia. Where you from?”

  “Boston.”

  “I’ll go there.”

  “Well, I wish you luck.”

  “Luck? What about our agreement? The photographs? Arthur Conan Doyle?”

  “That’s still on. But there’s a problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Templeton has the pictures. And the negatives.”

  “That bastard.”

  “We can reason with him.”

  Walsmear spat. “I’m not reasoning with that bastard.”

  “What should we do?”

  “You stay out of it.”

  “Me stay out of it?”

  “I’ve got a plan.”

  “What kind of plan?”

  “The less you know the better.”

  “What? Is it illegal?”

  “I suppose breaking and entering are illegal.”

  “You can’t do that. You’re a policeman.”

  “Not anymore. And I don’t plan to do it myself.”

  “You’re going to hire somebody?”

  “I know people. Experts at this sort of thing.”

  This was crazy talk. But I did not argue with him. In fact, I doubted that he really wanted to go through with it. Walsmear was now in possession of what he had wanted all along: Peace of mind. Now I was sure he would forget about the whole fairy episode.

  I, too, was ready to forget. I was ready to put the whole Doyle business behind me. I had an idea of what my own next step should be. It did not involve thievery, exploitation, or overnight

  riches. Walking down that road in the drizzle, I felt a sudden urge to act morally. To do what was right, not just expedient. I felt what might be described as a spiritual rebirth. I don’t know why, really. Maybe it was watching Templeton and Walsmear wrestle in the mud. It made me want to cleanse myself.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  How I Almost Got Arrested

  Walsmear was silent all the way back to town. In the square, he took his leave with an offhand wave. I did not see where he went. I’m not even sure of the direction he took. My thoughts were occupied elsewhere. I was thinking about the flower. The one you ate to see the fairies. That tiny wildflower was the key to everything.

  I had conjured an image of the little blossom in my mind. A perfect, crisp image like you might find in a botany textbook. And I was committing that image to memory.

  Templeton had the only specimen. While walking along the road with Walsmear, I had been scanning the roadside for another; but apparently it was not a roadside plant. However, that did not discourage me. There is a big world out there, I thought, and it’s full of wildflowers. I would eventually find another specimen. Many others. I would pick them. Cultivate them. I would build up a bank of the little flowers or their essences. Then I would dole them out to the doctors, natural scientists, and anthropologists who would soon be clamoring to study the fairies. I would make sure the studies were done with proper consideration for the fairies and their feelings. I would be the fairies’ protector, as well as their discoverer.

  So much to study! My heart beat faster just thinking about it.

  There must be fairies throughout England. But what about the rest of the world? What about the South Pacific? America? Africa? China? Were there different fairy races? Did Africa have black fairies? Did Alaska have Eskimo fairies? Could the fairies speak? Could they write? Were there fairy books, poems, epics? Or were the fairies no more than animals with human form? Perhaps the sprites did no more than flit about the flowers, mate, and die like so many mayflies. What I saw of them myself made me suspect that this was true. But perhaps there were different types of fairies. What if the fairies I had seen were simply a particularly primitive tribe? Maybe they were savage fairies. Other fairies in other parts of the world might look down on the fairies of England. All sorts of strange fancies came into my head. Maybe the fairies of the civilized human nations were the most primitive, and the fairies of the most savage human nations the most advanced.

  Communicating with the fairies was going to be a challenge. We had to have patience. We couldn’t rush anything. Just looking at them would be hard enough. And could they even hear us if we spoke? Sound is carried on air. But did the fairies live in a world of air? Did they live in our world, or another? What was the ether they moved through?

  I suspected that we and the fairies occupied different realms of the natural world. Could they, I wondered, enter our realm? And could we enter theirs? I knew it was possible to be touched by the fairies. I had felt them. Our skin apparatus could register their weight. But not folly. You didn’t feel pressure when a fairy landed on you. You felt a sensation that seemed to go deeper than the skin. You felt slightly permeated. And if we humans squeezed hard enough, we could touch the fairies to the extent that they could be injured — fatally, even, as the girls had done.

  Back in my room, I sketched the flower from memory. If only I had been able to photograph it! But I hoped that what I was able to recall of its petals (short, purplish red, spiky), the single yellow tuft that protruded above them, and the sharply serrated leaf edges would be enough for me to take to the Kew Gardens library for comparison. I was prepared to leave for London on the morrow to do just that. Moving just as strongly was another urge: I wanted to go back to Templeton’s garden and have another go at photographing the fairies. After all, this time I knew for certain that they were there.

  * * *

  It was the day following Templeton’s and Walsmear’s battle in the rain. Fat little clouds marched across a blue sky. While some parts of the garden were still calmly and luxuriously intact, other parts lay in whorls of muddy ruin. I got off several shots before Templeton spotted me. I heard an upper-story window creak open. Then I heard Templeton’s creaky wheeze.

  “Go away, Mr. Castle. This instant.”

  I turned around and saw Templeton’s shaggy thatch through the open window. Beneath it, I saw the two heads of the little girls pop up through another window.

  “Hello, Mr. Castle,” they shouted.

  “Hello, Anna. Hello, Clara.”

  “Castle, I’m warning you. Get off my property.”

  “Shush,” I said, snapping another shot. “This is not your property.”

  “By the devil, it most certainly is.”

  “Not where I’m standing now. I checked the town property records. As long as I stand right here by the road, I am not on your property. So I can stand here and photograph your garden all day. I’m perfectly within my legal rights.”

  My intention was to methodically map the garden by photograph. Standing on the verge of the road, I shot the garden from the great tree right down to the door of the cottage. I took close-ups of the flower beds and of all the flowering shrubs. Even if I didn’t get a single fairy image, I’d at least have a comprehensive record of the garden. Somehow I felt this was a good, scientific sort of thing to have.
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  But I was very certain that this time I would capture the fairies on film. It was only a matter of persistence, I was sure as I went about my work.

  The policeman who tapped me on the shoulder was one I had never seen before. He must have been Walsmear’s replacement; a polite young man.

  “Move along, sir,” he said, not bothering to dismount from his bicycle.

  I took another photograph before answering.

  “I’m sorry, officer, but this is a public road. I’ve looked into it. I’m perfectly within my rights to take photographs from this spot.”

  “That may be, sir, but the man in that cottage doesn’t like it.”

  “Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?”

  “You’ve got to show some consideration, sir.”

  “I’ll only be a few minutes longer, anyway. I’m almost finished.”

  “You’ll finish right now.”

  Through the lens, I saw the policeman’s palm loom up. Then I saw blackness.

  “I beg your pardon?” I said. “Do you know what you’re doing, officer? What’s your name? I think I’ll report you. What’s your name?”

  The policeman grinned and told me his name, which I’ve forgotten. “And feel free to report me,” he said. “But until then, I think you’ll have to move on.”

  “Oh yes. I’ll move on. I’ll move on, all right. But if you think you can push me around, you’re mistaken, officer. You’re awfully mistaken. You’ll hear about this Mr. [whatever his name was]. You’ll hear about this.”

  I heard myself talking and couldn’t believe my ears. I sounded like some rough type being shooed off a street corner in the North End. On the other hand, I felt fully as self-righteous as I sounded. I thought I was special. Maybe it was because I knew about the fairies; I knew their secret. Because of this, I was given some special destiny. The ordinary rules of humanity didn’t apply to me.

  After giving the policeman a piece of my mind, I began scornfully sauntering back toward town. Behind me, I heard Templeton’s voice. He was out on the road now.

  “Yes, officer,” he was saying, “I know him. His name’s Charles P. Castle. An American of some sort. I was charitable to him once. I let him stay at my house after he’d injured himself in a drunken debauch. Now he won’t go away. I’m afraid for the safety of my daughters, if you must know.”

  This was too much.

  “Where does he live?” I heard the policeman ask.

  “He has a room at the Starry Night, I understand,” said Templeton.

  “He won’t stay much longer, I think.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Please give me a call if you see him hanging about again.”

  “I most certainly will.”

  “Ha!” I shouted back over my shoulder. I didn’t care what they thought of me. I had seen the fairies. They could all go to blazes.

  For the next few days, I had similar prickly encounters with almost everyone I met. Whipped into a high emotional pitch as I was, I was ripe for making some terrible mistakes. And that’s what I proceeded to do.

  Returning to the Starry Night, I felt possessed by a strange, restless energy. I might have swept the floors if there had been a broom nearby. I could have raked the yard, weeded the garden, or cleaned the stable. That was what I could have done. But what I really desired, what was really at the heart of this sudden surge of energy was — and by luck I entered the dining room just as Esmirelda came clunking heavily up from the cellar. She was dragging a broom behind her.

  “Ah, Esmirelda,” I said with quiet, eyebrow-bobbing heartiness. “I’m going upstairs to my room now. You might want to come up and tidy if you like. I mean, you won’t be in the way, if you know what I mean.”

  As I stood there grinning and rubbing my hands, Esmirelda set her broom against the wall. Then she took one step forward, made her hand into a fist, and swung it full at my face.

  I jumped back, expecting to be struck. But Esmirelda’s fist stopped just short of my nose and hovered there. I gathered that I was supposed to look at it for some reason. Then I noticed the large diamond glittering on her grimy ring finger.

  “Me and Michael,” she said.

  “Walsmear?”

  She nodded. “We’re thinking about a Christmas wedding.”

  “Gosh. That’s . . . well . . . congrat — best wishes — I mean . . . ” I uttered other confused phrases as the big girl brushed past me. She left behind a cloud of her earthy scent.

  Nobody ever really requires an alcoholic beverage, but “I need a drink” was the first thought that came into my head. Fortunately, the means of getting one were near at hand. I stepped over into the bar. There, I found a larger than usual crowd. Cole seemed in particularly good spirits as he hobbled back and forth to serve them.

  “Here’s another one to join the party,” he said, seeing me come in.

  “Party?” I asked.

  He filled a glass to foaming and slid it under my nose. Grabbing the glass, I gratefully raised it to my lips. Quaffing deeply, I scanned the crowd from over the rim.

  Beside me was a balding man in an apron. His hair and shoulders were flecked with sawdust. I guessed he was a carpenter.

  “To her good nature,” he said, raising his glass.

  On the other side of me was an older man. He smiled, showing a single tooth. “Her nature,” he said, “was like Mother Nature’s.”

  “She was like a forest,” said a third man from the crowd. “Or a mountain. She was the Matterhorn.”

  “But a hell of a lot easier to climb,” laughed the carpenter. “What about you?” He nodded toward me.

  I lowered my glass and licked my lip. “What about me?”

  Cole filled another glass. “He’s one of the fraternity,” he said. The crowd cheered. “He’s from the American branch.”

  There was laughter. Someone slapped my back.

  “She was international in scope,” said a younger man in a fedora.

  “You going to write that up in that newspaper of yours?” said another voice.

  “I certainly am,” said the man in the fedora.

  I gazed across the faces of these dozen or so men at the bar. Their cheeks were flushed with drink and fits of laughter. I knew, of course, the object of their little fête galante. It was Esmirelda.

  The men seemed to be from the whole range of social classes. My God, I thought. What diseases might I have caught?

  “We’ll miss her,” sighed the man in the fedora.

  This man appeared to be somewhat younger than myself. He was, it turned out, a reporter from the local newspaper. He and I got to chatting. In the back of my mind was the thought of how astonished this young fellow would be if he knew what I knew. About the fairies, that is.

  I suppose I got a little drunk. I let slip that I might have a big story for him someday.

  “How big?” he asked, somewhat drunk himself.

  “Maybe too big. Too big for your newspaper, perhaps. Say, you don’t know anyone at a big London newspaper, do you?”

  “If I had contacts in London,” he said, “do you think I’d be working in Burkinwell?”

  He turned away with a bitter look.

  I realized that I had handled him badly. If I was to make the most of this fairy business I would have to cultivate better relations with the press. That, I guessed, would come with practice.

  I would gladly have stayed longer with that crew and helped them celebrate Esmirelda’s impending removal from the list of local amenities. But I had some other tasks to accomplish.

  Whisking out the door of the Starry Night, I hurried to the chemist’s. He was straightening up his store prior to closing for the evening.

  “Could you sell me a bottle of mineral oil?” I asked, standing at the counter.

  The chemist assented, whereupon
I heard another voice.

  “Charles.”

  It was the voice, followed by the face and form, of Linda Drain. She came out from behind a rack of combs.

  “Oh, hello.”

  “Not feeling well?” she asked.

  The chemist laid a bottle of mineral oil before me.

  “I feel very well, thank you,” I laughed.

  “You know, we have a very good doctor,” she said. “The one who treated you after your — fall. He’s very good with colds. My husband, you know. He gets so many colds.”

  I’ll bet he does, I thought.

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “But really, the mineral oil is for the darkroom.”

  Linda bought a comb. We walked outside together.

  “You know, since you’ve been here, I’ve been reading up on photography,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Just the technical side. I can’t seem to find anything about the artistic side. You know, the beauty of photography. That’s the part that interests me.”

  “That can’t be taught,” I said. “The technical side, however, can be. And that’s a good thing.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it’s the technical part that makes the beauty part possible. Without a sure grasp of the technical, aesthetic skills are useless. If you can’t control your medium, you can produce beauty only by accident. You know, like these abstract painters.”

  “Oh, I like abstract painting. But it is all so very hard, I do understand that.” She sighed. “I wish playing the piano were easier. But everything is so difficult. I get so discouraged sometimes.”

  “Don’t get discouraged.”

  “I’m not discouraged about photography. I think that’s something I could understand. Now, what about this mineral oil? What do you use this for?”

  “The mineral oil keeps down the dust.”

  “The dust?”

  “Yes, dust, tiny bits of skin. You don’t want them to get on the negative if you’re doing very fine work. Like I’m doing now.”

  “You put mineral oil on the negative?”

  “No, no, no. You put it on yourself. Spread it on your skin. It’s an old photographer’s trick. Actually, this will be the first time I’ve tried it.”