she liked; so, she smiled and signed off on a new piece of
paper which she handed to a faerie who handed it to
Blossom, and told us good-bye with a wish and a
sprinkle of what I knew to be pixie dust. This caused
me to smile with pride. With that, we were shown out of the tree, and
carried by butterfly to the outer edge of the Faerie Ring,
where we dismounted our fanciful carriage. Blossom pet
and kissed the butterfly behind her ears.
“Good-bye, girl!” she said as it disappeared,
once again, inside the ring.
“I wish I could have one of my own - I’d fly
everywhere on it,” she said. I agreed that would be most
fun, and then, once again, I remembered Peter, or at least
I remembered that I had, once again, forgotten Old
Peter and left him behind.
We were six tenths across the hollow, not far
from the McGillicutty household when I saw him. He
was sunning himself atop a rock wall along the lane that
led to the driveway of the house. As soon as he saw me
he sniffed the air, looked down his nose - but not at me
- and then he lifted himself up and turned completely
away, so that only his back faced me and Blossom.
Then, he laid his enormous head all the way down onto his paws and sulked. Not doubting that Blossom didn’t
like cats - if she didn’t like humans, she wouldn’t, I
guessed - I asked her to stay put for a minute.
“There’s someone I’ve got to talk to,” I said, “I
believe an apology is in order.” Blossom looked around
us.
“Who?” She asked, kind of laughing.
“A cat, but before you disappear and run off to
tell the Queen, he’s just a housecat.”
“Just?” Peter said, his voice coming from behind
his back.
“O! there he is!” Blossom said and quickly added,
“I’m not afraid of cats. I know a wee fun bit of magic.
Kittens are my favorite to do this with, but it also works
on cats. Come on!” she said. Then just as I’d feared she
took my hand and ‘pop’, ‘pop’ we both disappeared
again, to the average eye anyway. We flew in front of
Peter, who couldn’t see us at all.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Peter. He turned even more away from where he thought I was standing. I nearly
laughed. Blossom scratched behind his ears then tickled
his whiskers.
“Hey!” he yelled and swished his tail. Blossom
caught it and held on while it yanked her back and
forth. She laughed.
“Alright,” he looked behind, and all around him.
He began to chase his tail, as it was the only thing he
could see to pounce upon and capture. We both
laughed.
“Where are you, Twinks?” he finally said.
“Blossom, meet Peter,” I said, and she said
“Hello,” but he still couldn’t see her.
“Come on!” he hissed.
“O, alright. Blossom?” I asked, “would you?”
“You sure he won’t bite? Or pounce, or chase?
Now that we’ve had our fun? Cats usually like this.”
Peter’s tail swished and he raised an eyebrow like he was
thinking it over. “He won’t,” I assured and reminded us both, “I
saved his life - from drowning in a pond.” He sighed.
I pressed on, “Would you give us both a ride to
the McGillicutty’s, now?” I asked him.
“Not even for a barrel full of fish,” he said to me.
“You haven’t even let me explain,” I said,
“Blossom had made us both invisible. I didn’t
know how to get back - you know, to visible - alone.”
“It didn’t stop you from bothering me just now,”
he complained.
“Well, then I’m sorry,” I said. “Come on, over
it?” I asked as I climbed onto his back and held the
harness which he still wore.
“Okay, maybe for two barrels full of fish.” And,
Blossom climbed on behind me, as he slowly too off
walking.
“Just like a faerie cat bus,” she said as we were
moving down the lane.
“Yeah, sorry we were late,” Blossom said, enjoying the ride, “as Narn said, I had torched off and
seen the Queen,” she glared, teasing him back, “there
were humans - near Old Soul’s where Ellewyon live.”
“Um, about that,” I started to explain.
“You haven’t told her where we’re going, have
you?” Peter asked.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“To tea,” Blossom said, “with Narn’s family.
Very English, I suppose, inviting me to ‘tea’ - butyou’re
Irish aren’t you?” she asked.
“I am, indeed, you see and the sisters - the ladies
- well they’re not just English.”
“The ladies? That’s what you call them, that’s
cute. Is one your mum?”
“No, no, my dear sweet mum’s passed long ago,
I’m afraid.”
“O, I’m sorry,” she said as one almost always says
when they’ve brought up the dead or a sad memory of
losing a loved one, even though it is sometimes a strange thing to say.
“The ladies, Blossom, and please don’t be afraid,
don’t be angry at me for lying.”
“He can’t catch fish, either,” Peter complained.
“How did you know that?!” I asked him.
“Just a hunch,” he said.
“You lied, or you’re lying, right now?” Blossom
asked.
“Are we not going to tea, we’re going to catch
fish? Why there aren’t any ladies at all, are there?” She
demanded an immediate explanation.
“What’s going on here? What have you two
done? Because I’ll go, you know, leave. I’ll disappear
and leave right now. I demand that you tell me
specifics, this minute!”
“No!” I yelled to stop her mid-panic, “we’re
going to tea, we are, and the ladies are real - it’s just that
they’re human, not pixies, not gnomes -they certainly
aren’t faEries or you’d have no fear at all about meeting them - they’re lovely, they are. Why, they are my
family, quite a bit since my mum died - the only family
I’ve had so far.”
“Hu-mans -”
“Stop saying it like that!”
Then Blossom laughed, “We’re going fishing,
aren’t we? Why didn’t you say? I’d like to go fishing,
sounds like this might be a rather fun day.”
I was shaking my head side to side in order to tell
her, “No, we’re not going fishing,” while she
caught my eyes with hers. Confused, her head began to
sway side to side with mine.
“No?” she asked slowly, “we’re not. No fishing.
You really are friends with a human?” I held up two
fingers.
“Two human?” She asked, “you call them your
family, yet, yet, your stature - wee-sized, like I am, but
how? How could you?! You’ve broken a vow of the
fairies, at least, not to mix with the humans - not to be friends! All these years of oppression, their denial - the
forced ‘disbelief’ - unless, of course, there is reason,
enchantment like the Faerie Ring, because one of them
‘knows’ how ‘bad’ they really can be, like us - and likes
us, like young Einion, you know? I thought all the
magical wee folk alike, but you, you pixie gnomes - I
don’t know what
to say.”
“Say you’ll come with me and meet with the
sisters; they’ll like you - they like me - and I think we
can help.”
“But I must not, Narn Twinks and Mr. Housecat,
no, I must go home.” Just as she said this Peter turned
onto the drive, the McGillicutty homestead stood right
in front of us. To us, huge in size with its cottage
garden and wide open porch, we all three were
speechless for three seconds, at least, the human world
has its pockets of charm, and it looked, well, enchanting.
We just looked at the house, each one of us wondering if we would go inside.
Peter suggested he leap up onto the wall near the
drive while we talk this all out before actually entering
where we could be seen.
“I’m not going in that house,” Blossom said.
“O, please,” I prodded her, “Honor’s in need of
our help, here. I know it; and, she has so often done
things for me when I’ve asked. And, even, on occasion
when I haven’t.”
“Is she in some sort of trouble, oppression, or
trapped? Because if this is enchantment, Narn, we must
tell the Queen. I can’t do this alone and I’m not even
sure, no harm to your feelings, what a pixie gnome is, or
if you have any magic at all.” I wanted to tell her, I’m
sure you’d agree, that Honor and Blithe just need a good
chat with some second opinions - no need to enchant
but the comment about magic! I have magic! And Blithe
had become quite a tyrannt - a trap?
“Hmm,” I said, putting one finger up near my chin and just for a moment I thought about that house. I
thought about Blithe’s crippling fears, telling Honor so
often how she couldn’t do this and she couldn’t do that.
I thought of the magical happiness, how much in this
world - and in this wood - that I’ve come to know, free
to run about and do as I pleased. I remembered, in
England, the long silent days, hiding about and I then
thought of Honor, sort of hidden away.
“Would you please, Blossom, talk to Blithe with
me, please? Then Honor can marry the man of her
dreams.”
“Marry? Was she the maid at Old Soul’s tree’s
hollow’s rise?”
“Yes!” I yelled, happy my conscious now clear,
“Exactly the one, and her new beau proposed, right from
Ellewyon’s tree - why that must mean something!
Honest! And Peter made a sound, clearing his throat.
“I promise!” I said. “Well, I can’t say I haven’t
done it before - talked to a human - but I promised my father, and the Queen when he talked to her, after my
sisters and me talked to the sheep tender. After what
happened, we all said we wouldn’t”
“Einion Gloff?” I questioned her.
“You know?” she asked, “the goblin, you went?”
She clapped her hands together.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Isn’t he fascinating?” she asked me.
“He certainly knows the legends and lore,” I
acknowledged. Then as we were talking about him and
what I thought we must do, Peter jumped down from
the wall and began to walk toward the house.
“I wouldn’t ask, if it weren’t important,” I said
and took Blossom by the hand.
“They won’t hurt you,” I added and the two of
us followed in Peter’s paw prints through the cut grass
of the garden, toward the house.
“I wasn’t worried about that. I have magic.
Principles, I guess. I could. I’ll go.” I laughed. “You’re already going.”
“I know.”
Once I’d caught sight of a strange carriage in the
drive, I knew Honor and her suitor must have already
arrived. Upon entering through the back door into the
kitchen - Peter, Blossom, and I - were drawn
immediately into the drama unfolding inside
the McGillicutty household with a loud crash and a
shrieked word of cursing from Blithe. She’d dropped
the entire tea tray of which she was about to carryinto
the front room, where I assumed, Honor and her sewing
machine man awaited the arrival of refreshments and the
company of me and Blithe.
“I’m here!” I called out.
“O, blast it all, Mr. Twinks. Can’t you see what
I’ve done?” she cried. I knelt down onto the floor where
she was, bent over on hands and knees picking up shards
of a broken, china tea set, dripping with tea and placing
them onto the cleared away, wooden tray. Peter licked, discreetly, although I still thought it rude, at a lady
finger near him on the floor.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“No, Mr. Twinks. I’m not!” Blithe said with a
most upset sounding cry to her voice.
Then she put her head near my ear and
whispered, “They’re going to marry. He’s already
proposed!”
“That’s not so bad, is it?” I suddenly coaxed
“Stop,” I said to her and touched the hand she
reached out toward the top of a broken tea pot. Her
eyes met mine. She almost cried tears, I could see this.
If she had, I doubt the next few moments would have
ever occurred. She’d have lost her battle of controlling
her fears by overly controlling Honor’s life choices, cried
defeated and gone about the tea party accepting Mr.
Fitzpatrick in as a brother-in-law-to-be, Honor’s
wished, and the couple’s good news; but, she didn’t. She sniffed in - a draw of breath which made her nose, for
one long, silent moment appear pinched, and I had to
admit, watching this, rather like an actual shrew; and,
with that sniff, she appeared to have ‘collected’ herself,
and strengthened her resolve.
With a toss of her head and a lift of her chest,
she made a vow, “I won’t let her go through with this,
Mr. Narn T. Twinks. I just won’t!” and so with
that she lifted herself from the floor, hands to her knees,
picking up from an improper crouch - which back in
England would never have been spoken of - but here on
the farm was not matter as the ladies had learned to do
what Blithe often termed ‘what they now had to do’. I
tried to stop her with an ill-timed introduction to
Blossom, who cowered in the corner beyond the housecat
unseen by Blithe; but to no avail. Blithe marched back
into the drawing room, empty handed - holding onto
nothing except her self-righteousness and denial.
As one might have guessed by the scene Blossom and I’d walked into, the wound of Blithe’s was less than
healed by the fact that the sweethearts, now caught in
near embrace, were so enthralled by their own company,
they hadn’t even heard the crash the tea
tray must have
made upon the floor. Alone upon her knees, she’d been,
without the rush of Honor to her side to see that Blithe,
her sister, was fine and to aid in cleaning up the mess.
Blithe’s concerns at what this marriage proposal and a
‘new arrangement’ meant to her certainly compounded
like the worst upon the worst.
“I am here for you,” my gesture told Blithe as I’d
bent down to help that day, yet that sentiment caused
two opposite reactions and changed Blithe’s mind set not
at all. First, she regained composure to ‘make it through’
the tea appearing as though the new couple’s good news
had not shaken the small, carefully tended plot of
ground upon which she ran her life. Second, she did not
acknowledge there were other people, here, to help her
small though we may be - as me and Blossom had arrived to tell her. Consequently, she did not release nor let go
of her control of Honor, whom, like the hair she’d once
fastened into severe and proper buns back in England for
her, held so tightly in Blithe‘s strong but bony hands. I
tried to tell her, if she’d only let Honor go she would
certainly return, soon, even friendlier than before. This,
however, on the tip of my tongue and left unsaid, was of
no match against the curse Blithe set upon her sister and
the tirade that ensued.
Something had to be done, that I could tell. I
knew, that day, from the ancient whisperings of me ol’
Irish heart, the plan I had cooked up since visiting Old
Soul’s Tree was the right - or so I thought - thing to
do. I would rescue sweet Honor from the harshness of
Blithe, and my ‘rescue’ would involve the faeries. Eager
to open up a new route of hope, I excused myself from
helping Blithe, and saw Blossom to the front room,
where the soon-to-be-wedded couple sat, side-by-side,
looking into each others’ eyes and talking in a tone that others couldn’t hear.
I cleared my throat hoping to get the couple’s
attention - this was an introduction I’d been waiting for,
not just because I’d be meeting Honor’s mysterious
‘sewing machine man’, the real person, a real friend, not
just the few words we’d heard about him, or the
insinuations Blithe threw around; but, because I’dat last
be introducing Blossom, my faerie friend, to the humans
who had become a sort of ‘family’ to me. Ah, I thought,
this was a moment indeed. Honor turned and
interrupted Mr. Fitzpatrick’s inaudible words with a