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

The other day I walked into my magic room to find a couple of rather nasty goblins under my desk. They were hunched over and chewing on my computer cables. After chasing them around the room for a few minutes I called Arial to help get rid of the nefarious creatures. “Arial! come quick! There are sneaky goblins reeking havoc on my computer!” Arial shot into the room followed by two glowing fire fairies. They formed a triangle around the two little slimy green beasts, pointed their wands at at the center and chanted:

“Goblins green in face and arm

Here to do the Kind One harm

Be ye gone by count of three

Lest we fairies clobber thee”

Streaks of bright green light flashed from the fairie wands and surrounded the offending pair of goblins in a glowing bubble, then vanished in a burst of sparkles leaving only a  faint trace of footprints. Arial checked around the room to make sure that there were no more intruders. “That should do it. I think that it will be a long while before those two decide to come over again”

I turned on the computer and tried to get on the internet. “Shoot! They have fried the modem cable.” I checked to see if the lights on the router were flashing, nope, all dark. “Oh no, they wrecked the router too.” I looked over at Arial and the other fairies. “It’s going to take at least a week before I have this all replaced, what are people going to think if I don’t keep them up to date on the fairie happenings?”

Arial landed on my shoulder, her usual place, and whispered in my ear. “If you write it, they will come.” Yeah, yeah, I know, ever since Arial discovered videos she spends entirely to much time watching TV. She is a HUGE fan of Kevin Costner. I had to think for a minute. “I guess I could try to tweet on my cell phone until my network is up and running again, it won’t be the same, but I guess it will have to do. I wonder how they came through the portal, isn’t it invisible anymore?”

The three fairies put their heads together in a huddle then Arial floated back to my shoulder and stood with her hands behind her back. “It is the opinion of my colleagues that they came through the night you came back from the Midsummer celebration. Honeyed mead can make fairies a little, oh, how shall I say it, light headed.” I frowned at her. “So what you’re saying is that no one noticed that we had two to  many people in our group?” She giggled.”We do love our celebrations.” She stood a little taller and flipped her wings. “But we are now focused on the task at hand once more, never fear.” The two fire faeries slid up beside her, nodding agreement.

“Well, the damage is done, there is nothing else to do but go forward from here. Just make sure that the emerald guard is watching the portal.” I thought back to the day the trolls hairy arm came through the ivy. “It could have been a much scarier creature.” The three of them spun around my head, smiling and whispering words of consolation, then they winked out of sight. I have noticed something about the fire faeries, the air shimmers around them. The more determined they get, the more defined the shimmer becomes. When Arial and the two fire faeries winked out, the fire faeries had a very heavy shimmer around them.

I looked out the window to see Lilly heading down the street toward her little white house, it looked like she was talking to someone, but there was no one with her that I could see. I squinted my eyes and looked harder, nope, there wasn’t anyone else with her, not that I could see anyway. There is something more to her than she is letting on. I made a mental note to visit her again, maybe I can figure out what it is.

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

Much to my delight, Arial gave me permission to film one of the baby flower faeries as she was learning to fly this morning. She was a little unsteady at first, this being her first time out of the bud (flower faeries come into the world straight from the buds of spring flowers).

I’m not sure how Cythia will take the news that  one of her fledgling faeries was captured on film for the whole world to see, but like Arial said, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission!”  She motioned for the newborn faerie to come out into middle of the yard and away from the ivy hedge so that I could see her better. Arial laughed, it was like a thousand tinkling chimes blowing in the wind as she said, “Besides, how many humans do you think will really believe it?”

I guess everyone will have to decide for themselves. As for me, I believe!