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.

********

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?

********

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

Something was wrong! I didn’t know what it was, but my heart started doing a Gene Krupa drum solo in my chest and my breathing stopped, then started with a squeak. I thought I was having a heart attack. Men my age have them, you know, but I’ve learned the warning signs of a heart attack and this wasn’t it, nor was it a stroke. I think it was a panic attack. I was panicked but without a cause. Doesn’t that seem odd?

I was looking out the kitchen window at the ivy covered back fence. I stood there shaking and grasping the sink until my physical sensations settled down. That’s when I saw it. There was a beam of light like laser pointers, only it was an icky green instead of red. It was aimed at the ivy near the round outdoor thermometer. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. My best guess was across the street, but lasers pointed at the moon 238.000 miles away have illuminated spots that were seen from earth. If this was a laser its source could be anywhere there was a direct line of sight.

As I watched the green pinpoint started to grow and the ivy leaves scorched where it touched. I was shocked but fascinated. I had never seen anything like this and I wondered what I should do. If it grew any bigger it could cause some real damage. What if it shifted from the fence to the house? That’s when I got scared. We had to get out. We had to let someone know that our fence was under attack by, by what?

I didn’t know but I didn’t want to wait any longer to find out. I went rushing through the house yelling for my wife, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t know she was out, but she sure wasn’t in. I grabbed for the dogs who were yapping like a pack of idiots because they didn’t know what was going on. Better to yap than to be caught unprepared. The silly things ran away from me every time I tried to pick them up. I had to herd them into a couple of kennels so I could carry them out to the car. You’d think a four pound dog couldn’t put up much of a fuss, but they can. I don’t know if they were reacting to my fright or if they sensed something wrong too. They were bumping, and thumping against the sides of the kennel so hard that I could barely hold on to them. The handles on top were straining and I was afraid that they might break and they’d tumble down the stairs kennels and all. I was lucky, no breaks.

We reached the back door when I heard something strange above the caterwauling of the dogs. I know, dogs don’t caterwaul, but these three were coming very close to disproving that belief. It was loud, and obnoxious, and high pitched. I didn’t think I could hear a bomb go off in the din they created. But I heard something. It sounded like a woman shouting at me, “Mr. Bill, Mr. Bill don’t go away and forget us! We’re scared too.”

“Wha?”

It must have been the ringing in my ears and my overactive imagination. “Nah,” I thought, “I didn’t hear anything.”

Then just as I turned back to the door again, I heard it again, “Mr. Bill, don’t you dare leave this house without us!”

I turned around and there standing just outside of the kitchen were two little people only six inches tall. My eyes bugged out. I dropped the kennels, which caused the dogs to get louder if that was even possible, and I fell down hard on my butt. “Oh great,” I thought, “Here I am running around the house like a crazy person, scaring the wits out of our dogs, and the truth is I’ve gone around the bend to the funny farm and climbed the slippery basket-weaver’s tree.”

The little folk took this chance with me seated on the ground to run up my legs, scramble up my shirt and perch on my shoulder. The female said, “Hurry, we have to go. There is going to be a breach in the portal and we can’t be here when it happens.”

I didn’t move. The male of the pair slapped my ear and yelled, “Get up, yer big lug — we don’t have time for yer amazement. You can be amazed later — right now we gotta go.” With that he yanked the hair at the nape of my neck and screamed, “Go, go, go!”

So I did. Luckily the car door opened easily. In went the kennels. The tiny folks scrambled from my shoulders on to the front seat beside me. I jerked the door closed and backed the car down the drive. There wasn’t a moment to lose, I turned and shot down the street. Car, kennels, little guys and me, rushing headlong into the darkness. I glanced over at the little man and woman struggling to get under the broad seat belt and started to think. Were these the gnomes that lived under our sink? My wife said they were there, but I had never seen them. Not until today that is. What else has she been talking about that seemed too fanciful to be believed — fairies, shape shifters, and centaurs? What if it was all true? What if? The thought made my stomach queasy. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. Besides I had better figure out where we were going and what we were going to do once we got there.

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

Why is Bill surprised? Visit “Real Men Don’t See Faeries”

Be sure to check out the post “What Lurks in the Dark Wood?” to catch up on the action

Related posts: “At the Request of the Queen”

I looked around and saw that we were standing in the grassy meadow that I have come to know so well. Funny how it has started to feel a little like home. I couldn’t help thinking, at least my life couldn’t be called boring! The Palace rose up in front of us. The last time I saw it, it was sparkling ice blue, all icicles and frost. Now, it was a warm pink. Vines of Wisteria and Honeysuckle wrapped around the columns, ferns were growing wildly everywhere. The crystal doors had be replaced with bamboo reeds that were woven together to look like gigantic butterfly wings.

Wow! The spring faeries certainly decorated different than the frost faeries. Cythia lead the way up the steps. When we reached the top, the butterfly wings parted to reveal a beautiful fairy hovering just inside the arch. Tiny pink and purple flowers were braided into her long blond hair, and her crown consisted of masses of multicolored butterflies. I looked a little closer and saw that the wings of the butterflies were constantly moving.

Before my eyes she transformed into a tall graceful elven like being, her gown was made up of layer upon layer of leaves that had been interwoven with a sheer gossamer fabric, it wasn’t a fabric I had ever seen before.

She came forward, took my hands in hers and smiled. Have you ever seen anyone smile with their whole face? It was like that, but more, when she smiled her face actually lit up, it glowed. “Welcome! Please do forgive me my bad manners. I had hoped to greet you much earlier than this, and under more favorable circumstances. Come and sit with me.” She turned and held out a hand to Cythia. “Dearest, would you please have some nectar brought for our guest?”

I was at a loss for words, I’m afraid I gave a very rude first impression but I didn’t know how to respond. Here was a faerie queen treating me like I was the royalty, and it didn’t help that Arial and the guard had retreated politely into the background. “Your Highness…”  she held up a hand to stop me. “Please, call me Alina.” Okay, if I wasn’t already feeling totally undeserving, that did it! I bowed my head, “Alina then, thank you.” I continued. “Alina, please forgive me, but I’m afraid that I’m a little confused. Cythia and Arial have been being very, how shall I say it? Mysterious. Something about things that can impact me?”

Alina sat back and sighed heavily. “Yes, that is my fault. I have instructed them both to be wary of divulging too much information. You never know if the walls have ears.” I looked around the room quickly. “I thought that saying was just a cliche.”  The queen laughed suddenly. “Oh, Kind One! You forget where you are! In the Realm, the walls can literally have ears, and I’m not to sure if that truth hasn’t spilled over into your world.”

Her mood turned suddenly serious. “We have had reports from our allies in the dark woods that there are plans to use you as barter for pardoning the shape shifter, giving her the right to return to our realm. She wants to return and meet again with those who would overthrow the faeries of the four seasons.”

“Ages past, there were beings that could change into anything they had touched, these beings came to be known as shape shifters.  They believed that because they could change form, they were superior to the four seasons of faeries and should rightfully possess the keys of the crown and rule the realm. The four clans came together and exiled the shape shifters, denying them and their descendants, forever after, access to the realm that they so fervently wanted to control.”

“The four seasons of faeries worked together to produce a potion that could change anyone into the thing they touched, leveling the playing field.” Alina cupped my face in her hands. “You, Kind One, are the only human to ever experience the  effects of the changeling potion, and you did it out of love for the fae. There is no way to ever repay our debt to you, you will be forever changed as a result. We must, no, we will protect you. With your world in crises, this is the ideal time for them to stage a takeover.”

Alina stood and paced back and forth. “Our time here is short, the newborn animals are surviving and the crops are planted and growing. We have fulfilled our responsibilities for this turn of the wheel. We must relinquish the power of the season to Queen Lilith and the fire faeries of summer. Midsummer is upon us, but never fear, we will pass on this critical information and the situation will be dealt with, you will be safe.”

When Alina stopped speaking, Arial and the Emerald Guard came forward. Alina waved her wand over our heads and the palace dissolved in white light.

We were back on my porch when Cythia popped in. “Kind one, my queen has dispatched me with a gift from the flower faeries.” She held out her hand and in it was a butterfly from the queens crown. “This will guide you when you are lost.”

I had an uneasy feeling of things to come and all I could say was…”oh crap.”

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