let’s go, all of you - we’ll entertain our visitor as an
Ellewyon faerie should.” Then, when Blossom started to
roll her eyes he said, ‘It’s not often we have a wee
visitor, Blossom, not a bird but a real, wee magical folk
a real treat for us and we must make this worth his time.
Come, come, come. Out, out, out!” and he shooed us all out of the house with such things as the
fasteners, petals, feathers, faerie-sized dress forms, and
leaves.
At dinner, I realized what I’d gotten myself into.
Blossom’s father was absolutely against the human sort of
all kinds, ‘but a very rare fellow, indeed’ he’s said. Once
again, I remembered the twinge but did not tell him I
intended to take his daughter to the house of a human. I
silently questioned my idea of asking Blossom to plead
Honor’s case with me to Blithe, but again I pushedaway
doubt with a swig of some very good cherry cider and
ate goat’s milk cheese and toast with elderberry jam.
Faerie fiddlers played and wee sized children
danced and then a feast of wild mushroom pie and
gooseberry cream cakes was served upon long, long tables
to every age and variety of fairy I could have imagined.
Several birds were also guests at the table. A wren and a
yellow-bellied warbler. I was told by Blossom who sat
next to me and often filled me in on the comings and goings on around us.
“A whirlwind and a delight,” I thought of the
dinner after guests and family left the table, one by one,
and Blossom and I were left alone to talk as her father
greatly enjoyed the wisdom and company of birds; and,
he’d told me once I learned to talk to them, I’d find
there really is not better conversationalist than a bird.
This is true, but it was to be many years before Iknew
this and agreed. He excused himself and his other two
guests and left the table to adjourn to a room with a
warm, chestnut shell stove, a whittled wood pipe, and
warm, comfy chairs off the kitchen. I then told Blossom
of my request, which now felt like a secret, asking her to
come with me upon the rise of the morning, and then I
betrayed her slightly, as I told her the tea would be with
my family and I intentionally did not tell her ‘of
humans’. She kindly and most graciously agreed without
a second thought. A group of sisters then called for
music to be played in the open round where all stairs converged and we danced and played in merriment until
the sun arose. Then Blossom and I bid farewell and set
off for the hollow and the McGillicutty’s home.
Two steps out of the tree; however, I was
stopped short by two things: the loyalty of a housecat,
and my own tendency toward inconsideration. Peter had
waited outside the tree all night long; and, I had
forgotten that I had asked him to wait there at all.
Peter was sleeping, and I thought this a good timeto tell
Blossom what we were about to do - so, I didn’t wake
him. Then, before I could explain my plan, I saw and
heard something, voices, so I paused. Coming out of the
wood along the route from the hollow was Honor and a
man I’d never seen before who walked behind her. She
was carrying a pail and sounded very happy as her voice
was melodious and she laughed occasionally as they
walked.
Blossom decided she wanted a coat and went
back into the tree to retrieve one. Honor and her companion stopped near an old oak tree to look at a
group of mushrooms near its base. I saw one foot of a
tree person, silently, slip out of sight; then, a nut shell
dropped down to the ground from whence it had been.
I watched, not knowing what to think of this while
Honor poked around the base of the tree, looking. She
looked beautiful. Her dark hair tousled, her cheeks pink.
She wore a lovely, dark blue shawl and a grey, pin
striped dress. I hear her speak clearly as I admit I was
intentionally listening more closely.
She said, “Here you are. Here’s what I’ve been
telling you about,” and she held up to him a perfect,
wild mushroom. She turned it once or twice in front of
his eyes and then dropped it in the pail.
I almost yelled, “Honor!” and then ran over, but
curious, I listened to his reply, as his expression showed
no signs of intrigue or excitability toward her find at all.
Then, once I’d heard his reply, I felt awkward, a third
wheel. Like I’d overheard and I definitely could not interrupt.
“Honor, dear,” he said, “I could buy you all the
mushrooms - even wild ones - you’d ever hope for. I’m
telling you, dear, I must have a wife and this hiatus of
mine - to look for one - must come to an end. I must
get back to business, the factory and the business of
money, and Honor,” he said, “I am asking you to bemy
wife. Why, you’re fair and lovely, even out here in this,
this muck.” He smiled a weak little grin.
“O, Mr. Fitzpatrick!” she said in a sigh. She
turned to him and he lifted her hands to his, moved the
pail with a look of only slight annoyance toward the
crook of her arm and then raised both her hands in his.
From his pocket, he took something out and she nearly
shrieked when she saw it. Blossom arrived just then out
the fairies’ door. She wore a rose petal poncho and dove
feathered boots and she smiled as through the sprint up
the tall tree was nothing at all. I frowned worried of
Blithe’s disapproval and the innocent goodness of Blossom mixing at tea.
“And now this!” I worried out loud.
Blossom’s smile lessened momentarily and she
asked me, “Now what?”
“I have to tell you, Blossom, tea will not be what
I expected, today. Well, it might be a bit tense,” I told
her, “or emotional, because you see -” Then, Blossom
yanked on my arm and I heard the ‘pop, pop’ sound I’d
heard the first time I saw Blossom and some of her
sisters.
“Human!” she said in a sharp sounding hiss. I
looked at my hands but I couldn’t see them. The grass
and the Old Soul’s tree could be seen right through
them.
“Are we invisible?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Wow,” I said.
“Come on,” she insisted and flew toward the
woods. I ran to catch up, then tired, I flew. It was easier than it normally was for me, flying. I could
suddenly fly very fast.
“Hey, this isn’t bad,” I thought. I zoomed and
zagged and made myself laugh. I glanced back at the
pair of newly promised matrimonial love before entering
the wood. They were in love. I sighed. Then, I looked
ahead and swerved - a tree! - trying to catch up with
Blossom, I wondered how in the realm I would explain
after seeing Blossom’s reaction to Honor that our meeting
- our tea - was a planned introduction to humans - my
family, I’d called them - a
nd would be held in a human’s house, too!
The Faerie Ring Dance
Chapter Ten * The Faerie Queen
Unable to keep pace with Blossom, I couldn’t
tell her where to go in order to reach the McGillicutty’s;
so, when I saw her zip inside the Faerie Ring‘s circle of
grass more green than the other grass in the clearing, I
yelled for her to stop.
“We don’t have time to go in there,” I cried as I
saw her dart for the edge of the ring and disappear. I’d
never seen a pixie gnome this spooked about a meeting
with humans and yet I had seen some unhealthy
relationships, for sure, between the two. Fairies, though?
I started to wonder, again, if this was a bad idea. I
entered the fairy circle as soon as I reached it; and saw
Blossom pacing, holding a slip of white paper in her
hand. “We’ve an order to see the Queen,” she said.
“But Blossom,” I protested, “we don’t have time.”
“It’s only a few minutes wait. Look at that!” she
pointed ahead. The butter girl, whom I’d first at the
Meadow Glen, held the reins of an enormous, blue
butterfly with two black dots which looked like huge,
black eyes looking out at us from each side.
“The Queen will see you now,” the girl said from
atop the magnificent flutterer, her own black and white
butterfly wings drew in and then back down again. She
helped us climb on and handed Blossom the reins.
“Here,” Blossom said, handing them to me, “I’ll
bet you’ve never ridden a butterfly before, have you?” I
laughed - it was very exciting riding on the gentle,
winged creature whose wings, looking down from above,
sparkled and shimmered in the sunlight with butterfly
dust.
“No, I haven’t,” I said timidly, “I’m not sure I
can.” “Yes, you can,” she said, “Give it a try.”
Then she said, “To the Queen’s!” and the wings
lifted up almost so close they enveloped us completely
out of sight from the others, then they strongly pressed
down against the air; opening up and lifting us into a
current of air. I laughed as higher and higher the
butterfly climbed.
“This is fun,” I said smiling at Blossom.
“I know!” she said, “too bad we have such
unfortunate news for the Queen.”
“Do we?” I asked.
“Of course!” Blossom said. Then the butterfly
dipped and began to soar very rapidly.
I held on tight to the reins, “Wow!” I exclaimed,
looking down, forgetting about the words Blossom had
just said.
“You can see everything from up here.” I enjoyed
the ride, then the butterfly touched down onto the
tallest branch of the magical Yew tree. There were fairies waiting outside a pair of gold doors which opened
outward and met in the middle with a gilded symbol
which I recognized from Old Ireland. There were
several birds perched nearby, watching the butterfly
land. A faerie played upon a tiny, silver flute and the
doors swung open.
“Enter, please,” another fairy told us who was
dressed as fine as the clothing Honor McGillicutty had
sewed for me out of purple and green velvet. Then,he
played a single not upon a harp and the doors swung
shut, again.
It was dark, then, the sunlight shut out by the
doorway, all but tiny lit firefly lamps upon the walls that
dotted the way and shone dimly toward the entrance
where an arrow was carved into the wood above the
words ‘Queen’s Quarters of Official Business in the
Realm Within the Faerie Ring’.
“Right this way,” the well-dressed wee person
told us, and we followed. I whispered to Blossom, “I forgot, what is this about again?” She shushed me, but
took hold of my hand and smiled with a ‘not-to
worry’, comforting kind of expression. After several
feet, another gold door, a single door this time, was
opened by a faerie dressed in white and deep green of a
trillium blossom - a sacred flower of the North Woods
as he also played a high noted, sweet melody upon the
tiniest, silver flute I’d yet seen.
“Enter!” was a woman’s voice as solid and
commanding as the wood in which we stood felt; and,
every faerie in the room stood up at once when she said
this, which made a sound like a quick, sudden wind in
the barn at the McGillicutty’s, only more intense and
proper which caused me to be nervous all at once. The
faeries parted down the middle and I saw the Queen
standing, a straight line from the entrance. Holding even
tighter to the hand of Blossom, I walked with her to the
front of the room to a white desk upon which there were
a very many papers and many lovely thing. The Queen held out her hand and Blossom gave to her the piece of
paper which she had carried since I arrived inside the
Faerie
Ring’s edge.
“What say you?!” the Queen asked sharply, then
looked at the paper, at us, and then with warmth added,
“Blossom and Mr. Twinks.”
“Humans! My lady,” Blossom said, and I gulped
my eyes growing wide with fear. “Humans in the wood,
past the Rise of the Hollow, near Old Soul’s tree,
madame.”
“What were they doing there, could you tell?
And how many?”
“Two, I saw two, your magic highness, and one
carried a pail.”
“She was gathering wild mushrooms,” I spoke up
in defense, “and I believe she was being proposed to,” I
offered my knowledge of Honor’s good news which
might have been too much out of nervousness and not enough out of logic and good planning.
“Proposed to?” the Queen asked.
“Yes, a proposal of marriage.”
“Ahh!” said the Queen.
Then Blossom yanked on my hand and added,
“Your Majesty.”
“So, it was a happy occasion, then?”
“Yes, your highness!” I said, “very happy.”
Again Blossom yanked on my hand and gave me a look
which made me wonder if we’d still be friends afterthis,
so I said, “Maybe I should let Blossom tell it, your
majesty, although to be fair, she did disappear into Old
Soul’s tree while I watched.”
“Well, that was true, my devoted Queen,”
Blossom admitted.
“Did you tell your father?” the Queen asked her.
“Yes, I did madame,’ she reported.
“Very well, then,” the Queen said, and she
shuffled the paper Blossom had given her into the center of a stack of many others looking to be about 200 sheets
high.
“It is upon knowledge give to me about the youth
and young love of humans that these two have probably
wandered off - as some tell me human love
is blind - only temporarily, I suppose. Perhaps they lost
their way. Nonetheless, Blossom and Mr. Twinks, it is
good of you to report. Nothing further then?” She
looked at me, and then at B
lossom.
“No, madame,” she said. I held my tongue, my
eyes wide and fixed upon her, trying to imagine what
either would say - what the entire roomful of fairies
might do - if I’d told her I was planning on taking
Blossom to tea in the household of humans and outright
introduce her to two of them - one being the very lost,
in-love human that had picked up a mushroom and
tossed it into the pail at the very same rise as the
Ellewyon’s Old Soul’s tree.
Because I was silently guessing at they’re reaction, I didn’t pay attention to what was being said until the
third, “Mr. Twinks?!” of the Queen’s in a new topic of
conversation, which I’d missed out on, so far, entirely.
Then, Blossom’s finger poked into my ribs, “O,
yes,” I said as a question but it came out like an answer.
“Good. Very well. We shall enjoy both of your
company at the Faerie Ring dance of the Hunter’s Moon
this full moon next. The Hunter’s Moon, infact,” she
turned away from us and looked around to all the faeries
in the room to address us all, “is named so, as its full,
bright light - at the peak of the wild mushroom harvest
- often allows for the hunters of wild mushrooms a
splendid, bright light which to work from this moon.
Understand? I therefore presume, nothing to be feared,
here. Please alert me, Blossom,” she turned her gaze
back upon us, solely, “if you see this human with the
pail, again. There may be more to know about her. Mr
Twinks?” she asked - I guessed because I was looking
down and sad, and I wanted to tell her, right then, there was so much more to know. I wanted to tell her that
Honor McGillicutty was warm and helpful, talented and
lovely. I wanted to tell her I knew her name and that
she was my friend. I wanted to tell her I’d called her
my family whenever Blossom’d asked about my origins
and the I’d planned to introduce them all together; but,
thinking these things, I did not want to ‘start
something’, not here, and I did not want us to be late to
tea, where we were needed to tell the sometimes much
too harsh Blithe, that Honor was free to do in thisworld
as she liked and that Blithe’s fears must not keep Honor
away from living to the most a much liked life - as she
liked and more often than anyone definitely deserved.
So, I said not a word, and I bowed to the Queen, which
The Faerie Ring Dance Page 10