The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry

While celebrating her new found ability to mind-link with Ember Innocenzi, the Kind One remembered that there are more serious matters back at the ivy hedge. Menacing forces were trying to breach the portal and her family was in serious danger.

Before her fears could run away with her, Arial intervened. “Don’t give into panic–there is a better way,” she said, and she invited the Kind One to think about what she had learned from the queens, and her interactions with the faeries. After pondering the gifts she carried with her in a small pouch around her neck, and with a little help from Arial, the Kind One was suddenly overcome with clarity of purpose…the items she carried were not just friendship tokens, they were tools with immense power.

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I stood, shocked by the scene that confronted me when I finally returned to my cozy garden. The sun had long since set behind the mountains on the far side of the valley and shadows were getting darker under the trees, but there was still enough light left in the sky to make out a line of scorched grass that wove from the sidewalk to the ivy hedge. The path of devastation crossed the ivy, weaving up and down, leaving brittle, dead leaves littering the ground.

The laurel bushes at the back of my patio sit just to the left of the ivy hedge that conceals the portal, the small opening that leads to the faerie realm. The location of the portal is a tightly held secret, only a few of us know its exact location. Last year, our neighbor, Mrs. Shunner, a disgraced shape shifter who had been banished from the realm, started snooping around, trying to find the opening. Arial’s elite emerald guard started patrolling it 24/7 ever since.

Tears came to eyes when I saw the dried and shriveled leaves of the Laurel bush that stood farthest from the ivy. Arial, Sunny, Ferne, Bella and Pip all hovered in and around the branches and leaves of the wasted Laurel. Ferne pulled out her silver flute and played a melancholy tune while the others looked on with respect, honoring the departed green spirit of the shrub. When the last notes of Ferne’s tribute had faded away, I turned and dashed toward the house.

Pulling the back door open I called for my dogs. “Lucy, mama’s home! Lucy? Merry? Edie, where are you? Come to mama.” I was greeted by a cold, eerie silence and I felt a knot start to form in the pit of my stomach. Moving cautiously into the kitchen I called out for Bill. “Bill!” I took the stairs two at a time. “Bill….! Bill, This isn’t funny! Where are you?” All around me were signs of a hasty departure, dog blankets were strewn all over the floor, shoes had been kicked into corners, and Bill’s hoodie laid in a heap on a chair with its sleeves pulled inside out. I sat down hard on the top step and laid my head in my arms. What had happened here? Where is everyone?

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Bill stopped the car for the red light and checked in the rear view mirror to make sure the kennels holding the chihuahuas hadn’t slipped askew in his frantic departure. His eyes were met with three pairs of shocked, round puppy eyes. Wide eyes that asked the question…”What was that all about!” He started talking in a calm, but shaky voice. A calm he didn’t really feel. “It’s okay girls, daddy is just taking you for a little ride, we’ll go home in a while.” Edie, the smallest, gave him a sideways look, a look that we have come to know means that she is very skeptical. Very skeptical indeed.

The light turned green and he eased the car forward, still not sure where he should go from here. They were far enough from the house by now, far enough that he was pretty certain they were safe, so he turned into the entrance of our local park that sits across the street from a small shopping center. I’ll just stop here for awhile and catch my breath, he thought and swung into a parking space by an isolated pavilion.

Cool, quiet, darkness settled around them. The only light came from a solitary street lamp that stood across a wide expanse of well tended lawn. Bill rolled down the window and let the evening breeze blow the built up stress he felt out of the car and across the shallow stream that ran through the middle of the park. He had forgot about the two little gnomes that sat silently in the seat beside him.

Warren slipped out of the wide seat belt that he and Odette had hastily crawled under as the car sped down the street. He climbed up the back of the passenger seat and jumped onto Bills shoulder. Bill had laid his head back and was sitting with his eyes closed,  when Warren’s weight landed on him. He shot forward, almost hitting his head on the windshield. “Mr Bill…sir, would it be all right with you if the misses and I went for a wee stroll?” Bill sat, starring at him in stunned silence. This was going to take some getting used to, these tiny talking dolls. Without speaking a word he nodded, then watched as the diminutive couple grasp each others hands and leaped from the open window, hitting the ground in a graceful run. He watched them go, laughing and dancing through the deep green grass.He leaned the seat back and closed his eyes again, trying to calm his racing thoughts. This day’s revelations had taken all the energy right out of him.

He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there, eyes closed, head back, when the feeling that he was not alone swept over him. It felt like he was being watched. Just as he was opening his eyes he felt a hand lightly touch his arm. Jerking his head around, he opened his eyes wide to find Lilly, the white haired little lady from down the street, starring at him with shining blue eyes and a reassuring, friendly smile.

© Tami Ruesch, The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry, 2009-2010

There’s a time of day where the light in the sky is the same, whether dusk, or dawn. Have you ever fallen asleep and woke up not knowing how long you slept? You can’t tell from the light in the sky. Is it six in the morning, or six in the evening? What time was it when I went to sleep? Have you had that surreal feeling that you slept all night (or day). Sometimes the only way to get your balance back is to run through the house looking for someone else. Someone that you can ask what the time  is, and risk appearing the fool when you ask, “Did I sleep so long that I missed something?” They will look at you strangely, I promise,  when you follow up with, “You know, is it today or tomorrow?” It’s a very disorienting feeling.

That’s exactly how I felt when, after long frantic discussions, held in hushed tones, and a flurry of tense activity by the faeries in the emerald guard, Arial finally decided to open the portal so that we could go home.

She pointed her wand at the ivy hedge, sending out  a beam of blinding white light that penetrated the vines. As she whispered something in elvish, the gnarled branches began to fold back on themselves, groaning and creaking as they twined around, finally producing an archway large enough for us to pass under.

The night was starting to bow to the birth of a new day in the faerie realm, but as we stepped through the portal into the mortal world, the light in the sky was the light of sunset. Dusk and dawn, yin and yang, I was beginning to see how intertwined our world was with the transcendental world of the Fae. One world can’t exist alone, each is dependent on the existence of the other.

We had barely passed through the arch when the hedge begrudgingly filled back in, letting us know with every groan that it resented being disturbed at this early hour (I couldn’t help wondering if the hedge, being the boundary for both worlds, regarded the hour as early, or late). Arial and two other faeries remained with us, while the others stayed in the realm to continue their vigilant guard of the portal.

Jet lag drains all the energy out of you, and even though we hadn’t traveled across physical time zones, we had traveled across time, so we retired to the upstairs earlier than we would normally and fell into bed exhausted from our recent adventure. The last thing I remember Bill saying was, “Wow, our pillows smell good!”

We woke up this morning to a blizzard of whiteout proportions. It’s not unusual for us to have a spring snow storm, but this was furious driving snow that beat against the windows making them rattle like they might crack and break. It didn’t feel right, this storm, and it wasn’t until Arial appeared as we were having our coffee that I understood why.

“Queen Orlaith is livid!” I traveled to the northern realm to ask the queen’s council on the disappearance of the faerie, Krystil. I told her we suspect that Mrs. Shunner has taken her away to a dark place to drain her of her magic.”

Arial saw Odette on the floor trying to get our attention by waving her coffee cup. She floated down and grabbed under her arms, then shot back up to the top of the counter and  gently let her down. I got an eyedropper full of coffee and filled the little mug that she held out. “Didn’t want to be stopping the conversation now!” She took a sip, “I’ll be thankin’ ya for the brew.”

Arail continued, “Orlaith flew, enraged, to the topmost tower of her castle. Turning to face the south, holding her arms out in front of her, she pursed her lips, and with fire in her eyes, blew out a thin wisp of  frost. She turned back to me with instructions to return quickly, that I might keep the biting cold out of your garden.”

“This breath of frost gathered shape and intensity, it grew into a powerful freezing storm, prepared to do Orlaith’s bidding. Orlaith instructed the storm to pound down on the shape shifter, demonstrating the full power of the Queen’s anger at the audacity she showed when she took a member of the queen’s realm. I barely made it back ahead of the storm!”

We  huddled together under blankets on the couch, listening to the wind whistle around the corners of the house. It sounded like it was going to tear the awnings off. There is a sign hanging on the wall leading to the backyard, that is if it’s still there, it reads: “DON’T PISS OFF THE FAERIES!” I always wondered what would happen, and I’m glad that Orlaith and I are on good terms.

“Arial?” The queen’s daughter backed away from the window and turned to face me, I could see from the look in her bright green eyes that a plan was  forming in the back of her mind. “Arial, I can appreciate the queen’s anger, and it doesn’t surprise me that it took the form of snow, but, this storm is freezing everyone, not just Mrs. Shunner.”

“Yes, that is true.” She casually spun around my head, stopping right in front of me. “There is another way…”

© Tami Ruesch, The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry,