The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry

“There is another way.” Arial’s words keep echoing in my mind. I remember the look in her eyes,  it was a look of cold determination. This was a side of Arial I hadn’t seen before and I just knew that the “other way” wasn’t going to  be easy. I decided to wait a while before I asked the inevitable question.

The storm had subsided a little, the wind had died down to  a relatively calm, steady, 35 miles an hour and it was a  balmy (Ha!) teeth-rattling, 10 degrees above zero, maybe Orlaith was getting over her anger.

I ventured out at one point, to give the dogs a potty break. Chihuahuas do not like rain, or snow, or cold, or wind. They scurried back into the house, giving me an are you joking kind of glare. I can’t blame them, I wouldn’t want to go potty out here either! I let them back inside and then thought about my faerie sign.

Glancing toward the back gate I made my way down the walk, pushing against the wind, searching for the sign. Like I suspected, it wasn’t on the wall. I found it around the corner, against the border of the garden that runs between our property and Mrs. Shunner’s, it was sticking out of a two foot high drift of snow.

Looking from the sign, to the Shunner’s house, then back to the sign again, I inched my way across the drive to retrieve it. Being this close to the neighbors house, a house that I knew harbored a dark creature from the faerie realm, filled me with shuddering dread.

It was bitterly cold outside, and despite the warmth of the parka that I had on, I felt a chill run down my spine. Using my foot to move the snow away so that I could keep watch on the house, I began excavating the sign.

As usual, the Shunner’s yard was quiet as a tomb. The drapes were closed against the outside world, nothing moved. Nothing Moved! I suddenly noticed that even in this constant wind, the bushes on the Shunners property were standing completely still. Trees and shrubs all up and down the street were tossing madly back and forth, but not theirs.

Oh, all right, you can’t tell me I’m the only one seeing this! The comparison is glaring. Time suddenly stood still, the driving storm retreated, I thought back to when I first started seeing my faerie friends. It seems like a lifetime ago, so much has happened, but it has only been three months.

I have been reading about and studying faeries for much of my life, I know that there bad faeries as well as good faeries, I just didn’t count on being plunged into the middle of a world where faeries battled over control of their realm. I naively thought that if I ever saw faeries, they would just be these sparkly little beings flitting about my flowers (duh!).

A blast of freezing wind shattered my concentration. I felt snow pelting my face and I realized that I had been standing there, for who knows how long, just staring at the Shunner’s house. Even if people can’t see the weird things going on over there, they can see me doing weird things, like standing outside in a bone-chilling snow storm. Who does that?

I shook off my thoughts and bent to retrieve the placard. Standing up, I used my glove to brush away the snow and inspected the edges for damage.The sign was intact. I skimmed over the words with my finger, Truer words were never spoken, I wonder if the people who made the sign knew what they were writing.

Something made me look up, glancing casually over at Mrs. Shunner’s front window I saw her standing in full view, something she never does, she was standing motionless, watching me. She looked like the Mrs. Shunner we have come to know, but now her eyes were glowing dark red, and she wore an evil smirk.

Startled, I jerked quickly around and started to make my way to the gate, the journey made easier by the wind  shoving me urgently away. As I started to round the corner of the house, I risked looking back. The drapes were drawn, and the little blue house with the black roof where our neighbors, the Shunners live, was radiating a sickly green-yellow light.

© Tami Ruesch, The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry, 2009.

There’s a sticker on my bulletin board that reads: “Magic Happens”. I have always thought of it as an inspirational motto, but in light of  recent events, I am beginning to think that the phrase is more a foreshadowing of life itself.

A good example of the saying “Magic Happens” is our next door neighbor, Mrs. Shunner. We just recently found out that she isn’t what she appears to be at first glance. If you saw her on the street, you would say that she was a short woman with sandy brown hair, about thirty something, and on the shy side.  Ask any of her neighbors they will tell you that she keeps mostly to herself and rarely goes out.

I know why she keeps to herself, it’s because she’s afraid that people will find out she’s a shape shifter from the faerie realm, hiding in the mortal world until she’s able to return and take control. Believe me, I know how this all sounds, but it’s true, Mrs. Shunner has become aware of the presence of  faeries in my backyard and her curiosity is compelling her to take chances that she might not otherwise take.

We stood at our window and watched as Mrs. Shunner came out her front door, held her arms wide, and morphed into a large black crow, flapping her wings to stay airborne as she shrank, the shining obsidian feathers reflecting the last of the suns light. I’d say that is about as magic as it gets. I can’t believe others haven’t seen her change, but then again, I have been living with faeries coming and going through the portal, I have experienced the realm on the other side, and I didn’t know she was anything except an odd little woman.

Arial says that the Shunners have placed invisibility charms around their property making it impossible for the neighbors to see anything mystical. She broke the field when she came snooping around our house, she didn’t know that I had faerie vision and that once the she set foot on our property, she would no longer  be able to hide her true identity from me.

When it comes to dealing with Mrs. Shunner there are two things that work in our favor. First is the fact that her power has been diminished. She has been away from her magical beginnings for so long that she can’t do much more  than change shape and keep the charms around her property in force. Now that we know she is so close, Arial and the guard will be able to defend against her attempts to gain access to the portal. Second, she doesn’t know that I can see what her abilities are.

There is a feeling of security that comes from having my faerie guard close by. Half of them are on the faerie side, keeping trolls and other dangerous creatures from being able to come across, and the others, including Arial, stay on this side, making sure that a certain level of normalcy is maintained, (like my life is normal!)

Tonight as I was closing the drapes, I glanced out the window, looking for any signs of Mrs. Shunner. Her house was dark, there were no signs of life but I had the errie feeling that she was in there, looking back, playing a waiting game. But waiting for what?…

Will Mrs. Shunner be abel to find the portal? What do the dogs think of all the mess Warren is making as he builds the new gnome home? Visit with us again for more news from the misty world of Arial Hollyberry.

© Tami Ruesch, The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry, 2009.

Bill came home not long after my confrontation with Mrs. Shunner. He found me sitting on the back step with my chin resting in my hands, staring at the ivy hedge. Arial was on my shoulder braiding my hair as usual. When Bill walked up, Arial darted over to him, circled his head a few times, and laughed as she poked him in the cheek, then flew back. He sat down next to me, smiling and rubbing his cheek, then pretended to grab Arial, who giggled, flipped her wings once, and popped out of sight.”Everything ok?”

Bill is a very good listener. I let out all of my frustration, “I caught Mrs Shunner trying to come into the backyard a while ago, she had her hand on the gate. You should have seen her face, she was mortified. When I ask her where she was going, she made up some unconvincing story about her cat getting into the yard, but you know, I think she was just snooping. I don’t know what I’m going to do, I can’t have the neighbors being suspicious.”

He put his arm around me. “It’s a nice day, why don’t we go for a walk?” What a good idea! A little fresh air, some exercise, what a great idea. A stroll through the park would be just the ticket for reducing  stress. I ran in to put on my walking shoes.

While I was lacing up the last shoe, my gnome friends, Warren and Odette scurried up to me. “Where you goin’, can we come?” Their question was asked in unison, and a vision of Chihuahua’s, one in each of  Bill’s robe pockets popped into my head. “Do you mind riding in my coat pockets?” Just looking at their smiling, up-turned faces  and shinning eyes made it very difficult to say no.

They jumped up and down with excitement, and when I had my coat on I held open the pockets for them. Odette jumped in first, not quite a swan dive, but not bad for a 6 inch tall gnome. She disappeared down in the bottom of the pocket, squirmed around until she was top up then stuck her head out so she could see. Warren was next, but he took  a more dignified approach. He asked me if I would hold out my hand so that he could stand on it and be placed gently in my pocket. Of course, I didn’t mind.

With gnomes in my pockets, I joined Bill who was waiting patiently on the back porch, humming to himself. Bill tells me that he has songs in his head all the time and we joke about the fact that he never knows all the words to any of them. Over the years we have come to call his singing thing,  KBIL–all of the songs, all of the time, some of the rhythm, and some of the rhyme. Depending on the song, sometimes it gets really funny.

We walked in silence for a few minutes, until we were well down the street. Then Bill noticed my pockets moving. “What’s that!” At that moment, Warren and Odette both stuck their heads out and grabbed on to the edges of my pocket to keep from slipping back down.

“Hello sir!” It was uncanny how they would say things in unison.They had great big smiles on their faces as they looked around, obviously excited to be seeing more of their adopted world. I looked from them, to Bill and then back to them and quickly clapped my hands over their heads to keep anyone else from seeing them. With a chagrined look on my face I explained how they wanted to come with us, and how I didn’t have the heart to say no.

Bill took the little hand that Warren proffered and gave it a shake. “Just make sure that nobody sees you, okay?” We were off again, walking down the street chatting about work and the weather and different plants by the side of the path. The gnomes bobbed up and down with my steps, their pointed red and green hats turning back and forth as they made mention of this plant or that rock. It was nice to leave some of the stress behind for a while.

On the way back we passed a hill, I noticed a single yellow crocus and pointed to it. “Hey look, the first spring bulb!” At first glance, it was a simple yellow crocus coming up out of the dirt, but when I looked closer I saw a tiny faerie pulling at the petals with both hands. Her feet were braced against the stalk and she was leaning backward, pulling with all her might. Odette saw her too and waved. The tiny faerie shot up and hung in the air an inch away from Odette’s face. She tilted her head back and forth, squeaked “Hello!” then winked out and was gone.

“Friendly folks here”, Odette smiled up at me and I shook my head in agreement. I had to jog a little to catch up with Bill who had rounded the corner of the house, coming to a sudden stop…

© Tami Ruesch, The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry, 2009