The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry

With thoughts of the mysterious monk I encountered on the path to Willowmeer swirling through my mind I hurried around the curve in the path and was instantly transported back in time, just ahead of me stood the shops and cottages of  Willowmeer, looking exactly like the photo’s in the brochure.

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It was just a few months ago that I had decided to take a vacation to the UK. I wanted to see the grand old castles and visit Stonehenge, making the side trip into Ireland was a decision that I made when I got here. I reasoned, I’m so close why not visit the country of my ancestors. I picked up a few brochures in the lobby of my hotel and instantly fell in love with the photo of a small town that was only a day trip away. I decided that I would  leave in the morning.

The drive through the beautiful rolling green hills of Ireland was serene and I almost missed the small weathered sign stating “Willowmeer-1km” pointing down the path on the right side. I pulled off the road into a small dirt parking area and got out of the car. The sun was still fairly high in the sky and I thought that it would only take and hour or so to visit the town, so I started off down the path. A kilometer turned out to be farther than I had planned on.

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I pulled myself back from my reminiscing and focused on the  winding street in front of me. Holding the lantern out I made my way into the center of the town. Willowmeer was a quaint village  consisting of  stuccoed shops with paned windows and thatched roofs, some place right out of the seventeenth century. The street was cobblestone and was bordered on both sides with tall iron street lamps that were now glowing with a soft yellow light.

A few women were closing up their shops for the evening and started walking together in twos and threes up the sidewalk, making their way to hearth and home. A couple of stout little women in long skirts and aprons smiled and waved to me, then drifted off into the twilight, talking softly between themselves.

I stopped in front of a wooden door with a plaque above it proudly proclaiming it to be… “The Lucky Horseshoe Inn and Tavern, D. O’Brien-proprietor”. A large tree stump sat off to the side with a pile of firewood stacked beside it. There were two axes leaning next to the stump and another with its blade buried in the middle of the large, nicked surface.

It was way to dark to go back now, I would have to see if I could get a room here for the night. I placed the lantern on the stump and pushed hard on the door. To my surprise, it swung in easily, with me stumbling in behind it.

A tall, rugged looking man with a red beard and shaggy hair was standing behind the bar, wiping glasses and setting them on a high wooden shelf behind him. He gave a short laugh when I made my embarrassing entrance and said, “Well lass, come on in then and set a spell, looks like you could use it.” I smiled sheepishly at him then straightened up and nonchalantly smoothed my hair back. He waved his towel at the door. “Don’t be forgettin’ the door now, it’s lettin’ the cold in.”

Cringing a little I said, “Oh, I’m sorry!” I started to close the heavy door and remembered the lantern. Pulling the door open again, I stepped out to retrieve it. I had set the lantern down on the tree stump, I know I did, but now it was nowhere to be found. Where it had been was a circle of fine gray ash. I was staring at the stump when a chilling wind swirled around me and blew the ash out into the darkness. At that same moment, a hand landed heavily on my shoulder. I jumped and turned around as the bar keeper, towel thrown over his shoulder,  stepped out into the night.

He looked up and down the street, now empty of all life, and said in a low voice, “ghost wind’s blowin’ tonight, better come in now.” He took one more look around and lead me inside, closing the big door with a solid bang. Shutting out the spirits that roam the night.

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

” Arial, come and look.” I was working at the computer when an e-mail message came in from a good friend, Katherine Bourgeois. Kat and I met on a social site for business people and were immediately friends. I was told by Queen Litha that faerie people find each other, and I am finding out that  she was right, people from all over are writing to me about some faerie sighting or another.

“Remember Kat? She introduced us to Patricia Saxton.” Arial was all smile’s as she made herself comfortable on my shoulder. “Yes, I do remember, have you received new tidings from her? (Fairy’s tend to talk “old world”).

“I have, would you like to see?” Arial jumped up and swirled about in a fast, rather complicated series of aerial maneuvers. She stopped suddenly and drew a tiny silver flute from  her belt. It wasn’t long after the sweet, melodic notes had faded away that the room exploded into hundreds of fall faeries, all struggling to look at the monitor. I had faeries sitting on my head and slipping off both shoulders, one even tried to perch on the tip of my nose. “Um…excuse me!” I carefully removed the offending faerie by lifting her up by the wings and setting her down on the desk, where remarkably, there wasn’t one other faerie. “Thanks Arial, just what we needed, a faerie fan club.”

The room vibrated with excitement. Arial darted back and forth, “Hurry, hurry hurry!” A couple of  things I have noticed about my faerie friends, they don’t have much patience, and they love a good story (that’s probably why Arial is so insistent that I write things down). “All right, calm down! I’m opening it, look, here it comes. She sent pictures too!”

Kat wrote:

Tami, on a recent trip blueberry picking in a beautiful valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, my granddaughter Chloe and I discovered several beautiful faerie hideaways.  These lovely little spots also sparked a little faerie haiku.

Arial wrinkled her nose as she tip-toed around the keyboard. “What is “haiku?” She ask this as if it were something to avoid stepping in.

I had to laugh at the expression on her face. “Haiku is a form of non-rhyming, Zen-like poetry that originated in Japan. It has a formal structure limited to seventeen syllables, five in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third line. Would you like me to read them to you?” All the faeries clapped and cheered so I began:

Deep in the valley

I thought I saw a glimmer

Of faerie luster.

Twinkling by the stream

Sparkling, blinking, and shining

Faeries as flashlights

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Faerie, tucked in for

The night, did you hide your light

Under the covers?

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Silly Faerie, why

Do you think I cannot see

You blinking at me?

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Do faeries smile and

Stop to talk a while and be

Friends like you and me?

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Is there faerie time?

Or can their days be measured

In winks of an eye?

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When faeries get mad

Do they blink slowly and point

A mean wing at you?

There was a soft collective sigh when I stopped reading. Fairy eyes are, for the most part, large and dewy, but now I noticed that there were more than a few misty eyes in the group. I smiled. “Judging by everyone’s response I take it that you like Kat’s Haiku?” The faeries were sitting in groups of two and three hugging each other and humming softly.

Arial came up close to my ear and whispered “We must send Kat a missive this instant thanking her for her charming words and her captivating still life!”

The fall faeries drifted off, one by one, still caught in the magic of Katherine’s words.

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

“I knew you could do it!” Arial whipped around my head, giggling and tweaking my cheeks on each pass. “I knew it, I knew it, well done.”

My head was spinning. Traveling magically though time and space isn’t something that I do everyday, not on my own anyway. “Is it always this way?” Arial stopped buzzing around my head. She tilted her head to one side and stared at me with her huge luminous. ‘Is what always this way?”

I found a flat rock and quickly sat down, holding my head to stop the spinning that threatened to tip me over. “You know, fairy travel. When you pop in and out, do you feel like your being sucked down a worm hole? I felt like I was in one of those spinning tunnels in the fun house. It was more colorful though, like someone had taken all the colors ever imagined and swirled them all together.” I closed my eyes and pressed on the top of my head again.

Arial landed on my left shoulder, took my ear lobe between both of her tiny hands and pinched. “In the beginning there are some side effects.”  I felt a tug on the opposite ear. “There, feel better now?” I sat for a moment, taking stock of my general well being and decided that, everything considered, I was as well as could be expected. I mean, after all, this was nothing compared to my little feline escapade, or getting caught in the middle of the blasts from two fairy wands and ending up in a dark forest. ” Yes, I do believe I am beginning to feel a little more like myself,  thanks.”

The palace doors were thrown wide to the sound of crackling electricity, a flood of orange, red, and yellow faeries poured out of the opening. The winged masses rolled down the steps like a tidal wave and streaked toward us. Within seconds we were surrounded and all I could see were scintillating wings and large gleaming eyes. There was so much electricity around us that my hair was pulled straight out away from my head.

I wish I could describe the feeling that comes over me when I am surrounded by the Fae. It is a warm, comforting feeling, like being snuggled in a fuzzy blanket on a cold winters night, and even though the faeries of each season do things a little differently, they always make me feel as though I have come home.

I noticed that Arial had risen above the crowd of excited faeries and was performing a deep,  respectful, mid-air curtsy. I craned my neck and looked in the direction of the palace doors. Standing on the flag stone steps was Litha, queen of the fire faeries. Her gown was a deep glittering red, it floated around her like a cloud. Her hair looked like a flame, red turning to orange, turning to bright yellow at the tips and her crown was a circle of  flashing lightening bolts. I had only seen her once before, in the elvenwood with Elendain and I had forgotten what a striking presence she commanded.

A silence fell over the crowd of faeries and they parted as she floated toward  toward me. Litha stopped, flashed a bright beautiful smile, then addressed Arial.

“Welcome, daughter of  Orlaith, Queen of the Winter Faeries, come and stand at my right hand.” Arial floated gracefully to the ground, growing in height, and took her place by Litha.

The High Queen of summer is much more proper than the other queens I have met, so when she turned to face me I offered a deep curtsy, following Arial’s example. “Queen Litha, I have come in response to your summons. I hope that I haven’t kept you waiting.”

Her laugh wasn’t high and musical like I would have expected, but low and throaty. Litha’s laugh sounded like the far off rumble of thunder, and her eyes sparkled like diamonds under a bright light.

She took both of my hands in hers. “Daughter of Summer, you who have become a beacon of hope for the world of the Fae. Do not carry the fear of disappointment, but rejoice in the light that you bring to the realm. It is I that have kept you waiting. Waiting far to long since my court arrived, and for that I apologize. I have had urgent matters to attend to. It seems that there are those forces who would take the magic from our world to do evil in yours.”

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