bothering her, and warned him in a ladies voice to keep
his distance. He said he wouldn’t stay, and grumbled
something about her sheep’s wool’s price. Honor didn’t
want to talk any further with the incorrigible and
extremely unlikable man, so she let go his last comment
knowing he’d meet his match about that with Blithe.
She tried not to look in his direction but listened rather
to his footsteps as they led away; however, she could not
keep from looking once the sound was closer and she
‘felt’ along her arms, the sense that someone approached,
with what caused goosebumps to form - she turned
quickly and caught sight of a fox, standing on only two of its legs, watching her with wild, yellow eyes, taking
very small steps toward her, just one at a time.
Honor gasped at the sight of the bright colored
fox. She held her breath, it stepped again. Honor
jumped back, crouched, but on her feet, in case she had
to run. Her eyes now wide and wild, too, with fright,
the fox and Honor stared at each other. It took another
step toward her and she cried, but the thing refused to
move away. In fact, a strange and eerie music filled her
ears at the sound of her own cry; and, Honor sworeshe
saw a faerie, but then again, a fox.
“Narn?!” she called. There was no answer, and
the faerie fox stepped rubbing its tail that curled over its
shoulder, as though a fine lady wearing a stole.
“Are you a faerie?” she asked, and suddenly two
light colored wings glimmered, then disappeared. It
stepped out from the shadows into an opening, lit by a
moonbeam, in only the shape, and color of a fox.
Honor stepped back, “Don’t come any closer!” she said, and heard it snarl a sort of taunting purr, in the
yip and snarl of a fox.
“Narn?!” she said again, in its playfulness she
wondered if faeries, or pixie gnomes, in the woods
sometimes play like foxes. In fact, they do, but only the
Twelyth Teg when bad magic and enchantment has run
amok, enticing humans without a care of whether the
human’s bad or good or prayed for back at home to enter
through the door at any hour. Honor heard another
noise behind her and turned around. A wolf this time,
though small, stood playing a fiddle, on two legs it
pranced, lightly, to its tune. Honor, out of fright,
nearly fell into delirium. Her knees felt weak, her mind
light-headed from the sound, and her feet began to
dance.
That night, Blithe must have cried and prayed for
Honor to return, because in the end, the enchantment
didn’t keep Honor entranced; yet, the father of poor,
young Einion Gloff did not fair so well, with no one at home to care. Caught up into the dark enchantment,
found just steps away from Honor McGillicutty, Einion
Gloff’s father is surrounded by the band of faeries
making up the legend of the Twelyth Teg. With
glowing eyes and dark, sticky green - which at night,
under the moon appears like the black of night, the Old
Soul’s Goblin, joins their magic, having sent the kind and
harmless band of faeries in the opposite direction,to look
for Honor where he knew she wasn’t to enter the capture
of Master Gloff!
Honor did remember seeing faeries, too, among
the animal faces which played the tunes. They become
intense, changing from faerie form to animal faced shapes
and back again. Music and the playful sounds of yips
and howls filled her ears and moved her feet, spinning
her around, her arms held up, and then around again,
until Honor was whirled right out of their circle and fell
against the trunk of a tree which caught her fall. The
only thing she saw, or remembered after that was seeing Einion Gloff’s father, danced wildly off within the
center of the goblin and faeries playing their strange
music and turning magically into animal shaped faces
then back again to faeries as they danced. Playing eerily,
the playful forms turned dark and frightening whirling
him off, deeper into the forest an obvious sign that a
dark magic also lurked within the forest Honor loved. As
they left Honor, she fell into a deep sleep at thebase of
the tree. No one was there, to pull Einion Gloff’sfather
out and stop his dancing. And so it went, that hewas
never seen, nor heard from, again in Old Soul’s Hollow.
In later years, it was rumored that the only thing left of
him was a hill of dust, or ashes, found right outside a
ring of grass that grew more green than the other grass
in the Hollow, beneath the Yew tree, across the half
moon shaped clearing from the tree known in Old Soul’s Hollow as the Six-Shaped Tree.
The Faerie Ring Dance
Chapter Twelve * Humans and Faeries Don’t
Mix
As with most who’ve made a bad decision in
acting most unkind, Blithe was given a second chance;
her prayers were answered, and Honor returned home.
The goblin, sent word with an owl, once the Twelyth
Teg had Einion’s father carried off, as to where the band
of rescuers could find their Miss McGillicutty, sleeping in
the Wood, at the base of a tree. I woke her, gently, and
sent the others home with a word of thanks as message
to their Faerie Queen. Honor awoke apologizing for the
drama and the worry she had caused us all, and I spoke
to her as though I weren’t as worried as I was,
convincing her that after a good sleep in her own bed
and some chamomile tea she’d feel right as rain, bouncing back to her old self, quickly, once again. Neither of us
mentioned Blithe, at first, and when we did we both
burst out laughing from the feeling that being ‘in trouble’
brings. We were glad we’d got that out, between us,
before we even thought of walking home. The giggles
would not have gone over well in front of Blithe.
“Even though I’m the one out here, I can’t
imagine how Blithe made it through the night!” Honor
exclaimed.
“I’m sure we’ll hear about it - every minute!” I
added.
“You think you will?” Honor said, “I will! You’ll
get to go home. I suppose I’ll have to hear about it for
days.”
“Nevertheless, we’ll be home, and happy together
again. Shall we?” I asked extending my tiny hand in jest,
unable to actually help her up to standing due to the
limitations of my size. “Indeed, sir,” she answered, “we must go and face
our music, courageously,” she said.
It was quite the opposite of what we’d both
expected once we arrived inside the gates of the
McGillicutty home. Blithe had seen her own ghosts that
night, as she’d termed it, but never quite told either of us
just what she’d been through. Instead, she insisted on
drawing Honor a hot bath. She made tea with a squeeze
of Meyer’s lemon to keep away the cold that could
follow a night out in the wilderness. She broughtHonor
freshly ironed bed clothes to change into after her bath
and saw that she take an entire day in bed, leaving
reading material on her bedside table and a small lamp lit
in the corner of the room. She checked on Honor a
number of times that made us both realize she felt
downright guilty about Honor’s distressful night. The
uncharacteristic ‘sweetness’ from Blithe put both Honor
and I at ease that things would be quite back to normal
between the two McGillicutty’s, although never again so for Honor and her sewing machine man.
“He just didn’t believe in faeries,” Honor blurted
out right before I decided to tell her I was going to
return to my own little home.
“I know,” I said, “and for that we can not blame
him, I suppose.”
“No,” Honor said, letting the ‘o’ sound trail off
as she looked out the window.
“There’ll be others,” I whispered, “suitors, you
know.”
“Will there?” she asked, knowing why I
whispered, as not to set Blithe off again.
“There will,” I said with encouragement, and
then I saw myself out and went home to my pond and
my house, thinking about when I’d see Blossom again.
Wishfully, I thought about how she and the
McGillicutty‘s really might have become friends,
knowing she would have liked them without such a
scene. I waited two days, then I just couldn’t resist
calling upon Blossom at her home - the Old Soul’s Tree.
Her father, answered the door and instead of allowing
my request to talk to Blossom, he told me I required his
counsel instead. In the room off the kitchen with the
chestnut shell stove, and a few of his best friends - the
birds - he lit his pipe of elderberry leaves, sat back in his
chair, and looked down at me before he spoke.
“You’re new, here, so I won’t be quite as harsh
or even as judgmental - as I would have-” he began,but
the wren, in a comfortable chair, interrupted twirling its
tongue in a shrill, but melodic sound, and turned its head
away as if to say, ‘tsk-tsk‘.
“No,” he said, “this is some place you don’t come
from, and something you won’t know. Blossom, and all
of my children, at this grand tree, are forbidden -”
I began to interrupt, but he continued to talk,
growing louder, right over the top of my attempted
explanation, “inanyway, of interacting - whatsoever the disaster - with the,” he cleared his throat, “thehumans!”
Again, I started to speak but the same bird,
interjected sounds again of, “Mm, mm, m!” and looked
right down its beak at me.
“It’s a no-no, here,” the wren said.
“I know that,” I responded.
“Now, I know this might sound as though I’m
being quite unfair, but as I said, these terms are not as
harsh as if you’d been from around these woods for many
years - you’re going to have to stop seeing Blossom, as
well, any of my other children altogether.”
“Uuu,” I sucked in my breath. My mouth hung
open, just a bit, and I blinked.
“Is he alright?” another bird asked Blossom’s
father.
“He’s fine,” the warbler said.
“He’ll get over it,” Blossom’s father blew out a
ring of the old elderberry pipe’s smoke, then asked me, “Youare, alright, aren’t you?”
I couldn’t speak. Tears filled my eyes, but I
willed them not to fall. I didn’t want the birds, or
Blossom’s father, to see me cry at all.
“You lied!” I wanted to scream, “that is much too
harsh!” I wanted to say; but instead, I nodded and saw
myself out, just as the tears spilled over my lashes and
rolled down my cheeks where I wiped them off with my
sleeve. My throat burned with the words I’d held back
and my heart felt like a lump in my throat. I left the
grand, old tree - where I’d once been proud to be a
friend, filled with the idea of someday living inside as a
full-fledged member of the faeries shunned only
because of my good intentions.
I would have sulked and cried my eyes out, if it
hadn’t been that Honor, back home at my pond, was
found sitting near my little house, doing just those two
things - sulking and crying, both at once. It was then,
that I set off to inquire at the Faeries’ Ring - if the Queen would be kind enough to listen - about a human
enticement, allowing Honor to be brought inside the
Faerie’s Ring on the night of the full moon and the
occasion of magic and merriment to celebrate The
Hunter’s Moon.
“An intervention,” I explained after nearly a two
hour wait to see the Queen.
“To mend her heart,” the Queen agreed, and then
she said, “at Narn’s request!” She stamped the papers in
her hand while the finely dressed faeries in the room
made sounds of gleeful affirmation; and, several repeated
the words of their Queen in a rousing murmur, “to mend
her heart!”
“It just so happens,” said the Queen, “another
human has been brought to our attention. A suitor,
maybe?” she asked, and then she looked at me and
winked! I smiled, and I think I even blushed a bit for
during that wink, a tiny spark of the most adoring and
esteemed magic struck the air and filled my heart with the knowledge that I had brought Honor’s sorrow to a
most fair and reverent Queen.
“He will be traveling quite a distance, known to
be back in the North Woods after a long absence,”
she told the group, “word sent from the fairies who live
near his cabin further up into the hills, past the Deep
Wood’s Clearing,” and then her voice lowered a bitand
became more serious, “theTwelyth Teg,” she said.
I was excused after discussions with instructions
from the Court and Queen, herself. I was not to
mention anything to Honor and to lead her to the
Faerie’s Ring letting the enticement of the faerie’s music
coax her inside, as the faeries had a superstition about the
kind of human who would like to step inside their ring.
Rather nervous about whether I could carry out these
plans as given, I instead assured the Queen, repeatedly,
that I could. I set out for home wishing Blossom was at
my side to help me understand the firm beliefs the faeries
had. As it turned out, I didn’t need much help at all.
Honor called me over to the house to tell me she’d
planned to go out - picking wild mushrooms, at the peak
of the harvest, under the Hunter’s Moon. I was
thrilled when she told me she’d seen some growing in the
clearing near the Six-shaped Tree. Then, right before
we left that evening, as the moon rose in the not yet
dark, night sky, Blossom appeared to tell me she was
sorry for the words her father had said. She didn’t agree
with him and had argued with him until he’d alteredhis
opinion, ever so slightly, but
only about the humans
Narn knew, he’d said. So, the three left the house as the
full moon rose and the day gave way toward nightfall.
“We won’t be in need of a lantern, tonight,”
Honor said, “we shall work ‘by the light of the moon’.”
And with three pails we set out to gather wild
mushrooms in the clearing near the Faeries’ Ring - or so
Honor thought! Instead, we met the Queen! And
Honor met Michael McDonnell. While the two engaged each other in conversation about the Six-shaped Tree, I
climbed into the carriage of the Queen, an honor it was,
too, to be by her side. We watched Honor while the
faeries’ music started up to entice the
two, ‘Come and dance inside the faeries’ ring!’.
Honor watched in amazement as Blossom stepped
over the ring of grass more green disappearing from
Honor and the other human’s sight. Honor gasped and
so Michael McDonnell turned his attentions away from
the Six-shaped tree to gaze upon the lovely Honor, now
the loveliest maiden in Old Soul’s Hollow.
“What?” he asked and Honor pointed.
“Look!” she said and Michael and her caught
sight of the tiny, regal carriage of the Queen’s. The
music had caused Michael McDonnell to kick up his heels
and even charm Honor into sharing a dance, but as the
magical tinkle of the tiny carriage bells crossed over the
edge of the faerie ring into the realm from where the
enticing music drifted and the last of the tiny players (of lute, flute, and fiddle) stepped inside its green, grass
edge, Michael McDonnell grabbed the hand of Honor
McGillicutty, swift and firm, and stepped too close to
the edge, disappearing, himself, from Honor’s view. His
eyes grew wide with wonder and the enchantment of all
that he saw in the magical world inside the faerie ring.
But, Honor, grew afraid and pulled, hard upon his wrist
and arm. Out he stepped, appearing, again, to Honor,
but disappearing from the magic of the faeries’ realm.
“Come on!” he implored, smiling at Honor which
melted the fear she’d felt before and inside they both
went for the night of their lives filled with faerie magic, music, and unparalleled merriment inside the faeries’ ring.
The Faerie Ring Dance
Chapter Thirteen * A Magic All its Own
As the night in all its fantastic sights and sounds
The Faerie Ring Dance Page 13