The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry

Odette and I followed Elendain up the rope bridge to a large platform high in the tops of the gigantic evergreen forest. We burst out of the branches into bright morning sunlight that spread as far as we could see. I stopped at the end of the bridge, holding tight to the rough rope. “Is it safe up here? I mean, won’t we fall off if the wind starts to blow?” Elendain turned back to me, smiling. “My dear, we have been here since the dawn of time, no one has ever “fallen off”. Come, walk with me and I’ll show you.” She held out her hand to me. “I promise, you won’t feel even a whisper of movement.”

I took her hand and carefully stepped out onto the large, round platform. Elendain continued. “We live in harmony with nature, we respect Gaia and she respects us, the wind never blows strong in these woods. Walk to the edge and put out your hand.” I moved gingerly toward the edge, a tingling sensation of dread crawling up my spine. Stopping about five feet back, I held out my hand toward empty space.

Elendain glided up behind me. “That’s right, keep going. Hold your hand out in front of you, yes, that’s right.” I nervously inched my way closer to the edge of the platform. Two feet to go and my hand hit something. My eyes told me that there was nothing there, but my touch said there was a wall in front of me. With my eyes wide and my mouth hanging open, I took a few more steps closer and put both hands out, palms forward, and mimed  my way around the entire platform. “It’s an invisible wall!”

Elendain motioned for me to return to her side. “There are charms all through the elvenwood. This great hall is where we hold all of our celebrations and we prefer to be as close as we can to the heavens. That is why we charmed the ceiling and walls to be invisible. Odette was giggling under her breath, with a mischievous look on her face she darted toward the edge. At the last moment, before she could leap out into the blue sky, she turned her body and smashed, shoulder first into the invisible wall.

“Oh, Odette don’t…”. She rolled on the floor at my feet laughing hysterically. “Ah missus, these inviseeble walls mess with yer brain they do. Lettin ya think yer gona fall.”  Elendain was laughing too. I turned toward her with a mock look of exasperation. “Don’t encourage her.” I tried to keep my voice stern but it’s hard not to laugh when everybody around you is laughing.

Somewhere below a flute played. Elendain turned toward the east. “Your escort is arriving.” In the distance I could see bright flashes of red, orange and yellow all through the dark green of the trees, it looked like tiny  fireworks moving toward us.

As we made our way down, dropping once more into the  shelter of the evergreen boughs, I had a thought. “Elendain? If there are charms all through these woods, how did a troll find you? When Arial and the emerald guard helped me get home through the woods by the faerie palace, they kept throwing little silver orbs into the bushes at the side of the road. They said that it made the path invisible to the trolls and since they couldn’t see the road, they would wander off in another direction.”

A shadow of doubt played across Elendain’s face. Her eyes darkened the way Lilly’s did the day Lucy and I walked down the street in front of the little white house. Elendain’s voice pulled me back from my musings. “Yes, that is a good question, and one I will be looking into, but for now…” She stopped at the bottom of the tree and stepped to one side to let me pass in front of her. “Your escort is here.”

I looked up, flying toward us through the lingering mist on the forest floor, came hundreds of  faeries riding on fireflies.

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

We stood facing each other: a five foot, six inch tall human with long auburn hair and moss green eyes, holding out her hand, and a two inch faerie with  auburn hair hanging to her knees and bright crystal blue eyes, standing on the proffered hand.

The bright smile on Arial’s face quickly dissolved into a look of serious contemplation. With hands on hips, she paced back and forth from finger tips to wrist and back again, her wings casting a multicolored  array of sparkles in the morning sun. “Bill only sees faeries because he is so near to you. We block his memory later, this is how we protect our involvement with humankind.”

She motioned for me to sit down and continued. “Queen Orlaith knew that this day would come, that you would eventually start asking questions, and she has left the decision to me as to when you should be  enlightened.”  She cocked her head to one side as she looked at me closely, trying to decide if I could comprehend what she was about to tell me.

“Faerie vision runs in the bloodlines, it is past down from one generation to the next. Only those with faerie blood in their veins have the ability to develop the talent. Human men and women  have faerie vision only because it has been past down to them  through their family. We have noticed that the males don’t actually see faeries as much as they sense them or hear them. It is the females that can interact with faeries by seeing them in their physical form. Still, we have been surprised by the occasional male that can see us.”

By this time I was completely confused. Bloodlines? Inherited? I couldn’t decide if I was  being dense, or if , on some level, I didn’t want to hear what Arial was telling me. I chose to just sit there with my mouth shut and listen.

Arial drifted over to my shoulder where she could braid my hair while she continued. ” In the beginning of our history,The Tuatha De Danann settled in the northern most mountains of Ireland. They were a tall and graceful race of people who had magical abilities. The Formorians, who had settled the same area, were jealous of these newcomers and wished to posses their magic so they set out to conquer and enslave the Tuatha De Danann.”

“It wasn’t until after several conflicts that the two races decided to join together as families, thus preserving peace in the land. Bres, a Formorian King and Brighid, a fair daughter of the Tuatha De Danann, were wed. This was how humans with  faerie blood began.”

“There was peaceful coexistence until the Milesians challenged the Tuatha De Danann and won. At that point, the Tuatha De Danann retreated underground into a parallel realm.” Arial stood and shook her wings out, flipped them once and hovered in the air, gently swinging back and forth.

I jumped at the chance to ask the question. “Are you telling me that I have faerie blood in me?” Arial beamed, delighted that I had caught the jest of her story and proceeded to perform intricate spirals in the air. “But what does that have to do with Bill not being able to remember seeing faeries?”

Arial landed back on my shoulder and continued. “Our leaders were worried about the safety of those humans with faerie blood. If the Milesians ever found out, they would make sure that they ceased to exist. A group of faeries were charged with watching over and protecting these chosen ones, preparing for the time when they would help with the Tuatha De Danann’s return.”

“At first, there were enough faeries to carry out the task, but as the generations unfolded, we needed help. We relied on humans who didn’t have faerie vision, but who were blessed with exceptional intuition and sensitivity to watch over the chosen ones, we only stepped in as needed… Bill is your intuitive other half.”

My mind was reeling, could this be true? I had been so enthralled with Arial’s story that I hadn’t noticed the other faeries gathering in the branches above us. There were hundreds of them, sitting quietly among the soft green leaves, listening to the story (faeries do love a good story!). When Arial stopped talking, they all stood up and fluttered their wings giving the trees a wiggle picture effect.

Arial spoke again. “Your faerie blood is handed down to you through your mothers family. Your grandparents both had faerie blood. This happens sometimes because those with faerie blood are attracted to others of the same, it makes for a stronger bond to the lineage.”  She smiled brightly. “We can trace your ancestry  in a straight line back to Bres and Brighid. This something that very few can claim.”

“It is no accident that a portal to the faerie realm exists in your garden, Kind One,  the emerald guard and I are honored to carry on the task set forth so long ago.”

I sat up a little straighter, smiling to myself  I wondered if I could tell Bill all of this.

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

I’m Bill, you know the one that thinks it’s all about the food? Maybe that is true, but it isn’t my fault, after all, men since before cavemen have been the hunter gatherers. That was our main job. Find food. So, you see, because I’m a guy, I was naturally born with it. Besides, my mother told me to eat so I could get big and tall. I did, and now I’m big and tall enough to take on any ol’ woolly mammoth that comes along. Not by myself, of course, but with my other hunter gatherer buddies. Just kidding about the woolly mammoth. I know they are extinct. But an elephant…how about an elephant?

Gee, now I’m hungry. I think I’ll go make a sandwich.

The other day my wife showed me her journal pages. I said, “You are making this up, aren’t you?”

She said, “No.”

“What do you mean–no? Do you really believe there is a portal in the ivy hedge where fairies come into this world?” I looked at her like I thought she might be going bonkers. After all, fairies, who in their right mind, believes in fairies? I knew she liked fairies because we have porcelain figurines all around the house of pretty girls with wings. Decorations she calls them. Just decorations.  I wondered if that is what she was talking about, those little statues.

Now she was looking at me like I was the one that was cracked. “Bill,” she said, “You’ve been to their world. You’ve met Arial and her mother. You saw me transformed from a cat.”

“No I didn’t. How can you say those things? I haven’t been to any faerie world and you certainly haven’t been any gol darn cat! If something like that had happened, I would remember it. A cat, boy have you got some imagination.”

She almost shouted, “Don’t you remember the Spring festival? And how about the gnomes living under our sink?”

“Under our sink?”

“Yes, I’ll show you.” With that she flung open the cabinet doors and said, “There is their pumpkin house. Odette will you come out?”

I guess the imaginary thing she called Odette said no, because I didn’t see any gnomes or pumpkin house either. All I saw was the trash can, cleanser, a box of scrubbing pads, and some air freshener. To be fair the box of scrubbing pads was kind of pumpkin orange.

“What?” my wife asked, leaning her head toward the open doors. I didn’t know what she was doing, but it looked like she was talking to somebody. This could be worse than I imagined. Right now I started making plans for taking care of stuff while she was locked away in some looney bin. I don’t know much about nut houses, having never been to one before. Should I pack some clothes or do they provide those at the home? How about a bathrobe, and slippers? I don’t even know who to call. Do I dial 911 and say my wife is out of her ever lovin’ mind? ”

“Of course, that explains it. Thank you Odette.”

She turned to me, slipped her hand around my arm and twined our fingers. She smiled at me lovingly and moved to lead me out of the kitchen.  ”Let’s sit in the other room.” She wasn’t mad anymore, but this was too good to be true , this sweet act she was playing at. It was almost as scary. I was suspiciously sure she was nuts, but I was willing to hear her out. I’m nothing if not reasonable. “Bill, honey, the reason you can’t remember seeing the fairies and couldn’t see the gnomes is because you haven’t developed your fairy vision. ”

“Huh?”

“Oh, don’t feel bad, there are only a few of us who have it, and none are men.”

Thank goodness this mental illness only strikes women. Just because she now has bats-in-her-bellfry doesn’t mean I’m going to get it too. I didn’t say that though, I just said, “Whew.”

She ignored that sigh of relief from me and went on. “Fairies are magical you know. When you are close to them you see them, and can talk to them. If you get further than ten feet away you can’t see them anymore and the memory of them fades away like a dream. Do you understand? Bill, have you had any odd dreams lately?”

I didn’t want to admit it, but there was something in what she said. Didn’t I wake up one morning and she was meowing like a cat? And sometimes out of the corner of my eye I catch small darting glows just at twilight. It’s like something you are trying to remember but can’t quite get it into focus. Like a dream she said, that’s it, it’s like a dream. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. I’d let it go for now, but believe me I’m going to find out who to call just-in-case she gets worse.

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