Beyond the Firefly Field

by Munzing, R. E.

Once again, the carved panels continued to tell the fairies' history. As the cyclorama progressed, there were fewer strange creatures and more humans pictured.

  “What are these things?” Clayton finally asked. They stood in front of a panel that showed the strange creatures massed together. He pointed at the largest creature with a large boulder raised over his head, aiming at a fairy tree.

  “Those are the ogres,” SeeLee answered.

  “There really were ogres?” Penny asked incredulously.

  “Yes, they were big, dirty humanoid brutes who wore a green tinge from plant fungus that got under their skin. They contaminated each other with it, and they soon started being born green as a genetic trait.

  “The fungus made their hair fall out, and the ogres were usually scratching themselves since the itching was terrible. Males were born hairless, but the females had blotches of hair on the top of their heads. They usually had bloated bodies from eating too much grass and too many roots, but they ate meat whenever they could find it. They were twice the size of humans and five times stronger. Their clothes, made from sticks and logs tied together with leafy vines, looked funny.

  “Ogres were actually kind and loving creatures. But when they got hungry, watch out! They would run after animals and eat any creature they could get their hands on. They ate until they were satisfied.

  “After their feeding frenzy, the ogres slept for a full day, then spent two days being kind and loving, then got hungry again. It was a vicious cycle.

  “This panel shows the first time humans were evolved enough to organize and fight a major war of extermination against the trolls, ogres, orcs, goblins, gargoyles, and gremlins. In this battle, we joined forces with the humans and fought all these other species together. Hundreds of years of skirmishes led up to this one big fight.”

  SeeLee pointed at a creature standing next to the ogre. “That's a troll. Below the waist, the troll looked much like a goat. It was covered in shaggy fur, with overly large thighs narrowing down to thin bones below the knees.”

  Clayton was awestruck. The troll's feet were three-pronged hooves. Long, thin, tightly-muscled arms ended at hands with short, triangular claws. Arms hung from broad shoulders, settling on the troll's barrel chest, ballooning from his small stomach.

  Even the troll's head looked half human and half goat. Its human features were distorted by a long snout. Matted hair dangled under its chin, and small horns curled back from the sides of its forehead. It had teeth like a dog, which left no doubt that it was a meat eater. Although SeeLee said trolls could walk on hind legs, this carved troll ran on all fours like a goat, climbing rocky slopes with ease.

  “This next one is an orc,” SeeLee went on. “Similar to a human shape, orcs were half the size of a human. They were wiry, strong, and fast. With claws attached to their hands and feet, they could easily run up trees or cling to cave walls and ceilings. They were completely hair-covered except for their sparsely covered, ugly, little heads. They didn't wear clothing, which they felt would slow them down and catch on rocks or branches. They always attacked in numbers sufficient enough to bring down any sized creature. They would spring from behind bushes and drop out of trees to ambush an animal, and they usually started eating it before it died.”

  The crowd of children gasped.

  “Those, over there,” SeeLee pointed, “are goblins.”

  The goblins looked mostly human and were close to the same size, but very thin. All their joints were extremely large and bony. Their enormous heads balanced on bony shoulders. They had large, triangular eye sockets set deep into their foreheads, but no human nose was evident. Instead, two narrow, triangular slits sat above a very large mouth of misplaced, mismatched, jagged teeth. Goblins wore animal hides to cover themselves.

  “Whatever goblins ate was smashed to mush to make chewing easier. They hunted in packs with one goblin playing ‘possum dead,’ which was easy to do since it looked half dead anyway.

  “The goblin would lie on the ground looking as dead as possible. When any creature or animal came along to sniff and eat it, they were surprised by the dead goblin coming to life and grabbing them. Disguised goblins, covered with sticks and leaves, popped up around the decoy. They would kill and devour whatever it was they had tricked. Goblins frequently hunted on roads, going from town to town to search for food, which made traveling very dangerous.

  “And here we have the gargoyles,” SeeLee noted as she pointed to an ugly, bulldog-faced, owl-looking thing roosting on a tree branch. Stubby wings jutted from its sides.

  “Gargoyles were small, bony, heavy creatures that couldn't fly. They were covered with a tough, grey hide, and they used their short-clawed arms and legs to climb trees. From that height, they would crash down onto their prey using their stubby wings to steer as they fell. Their bony heads would smash into the unsuspecting victim, killing it instantly. When humans killed a gargoyle, they would display it on a pole above their huts so other gargoyles would be afraid and avoid the area.”

  “They were still putting cement gargoyles on public buildings a hundred years ago,” Karl said. “Now we know where that came from.”

  “Then there were the gremlins,” SeeLee continued, her voice now sounding aggravated and full of contempt. She pointed to a creature about half the size of a human. Some were shown running, and looked like dogs with shaggy body hair, and furry heads overwhelmed by gargantuan, pointed ears. Others were shown standing as tall as humans, and they had gnarled mittlike hands bulging at the end of shaggy arms.

  “Gremlins were the most clever but annoying creatures of all. They were originally called ‘grimlings,’ because no matter what the condition of your life, when they showed up it became much grimmer. They might have even been the smartest species. Their fingers and thumbs were thick with sharp claws on the ends of their hands. They had dog-looking heads covered in long, matted, brown and black fur, and their ears were so big they could hear for miles.

  “They ran like dogs with their fingers curled under, and broad pads covered their knuckles for protection when they ran. When they really wanted to run fast, the gremlins uncurled their fingers and grabbed the ground, their claws digging in for traction so they could thrust themselves forward in long, fast leaps. With their massive, curled hands, they could easily hide a rock in their palm and pitch it hard and fast to drop whatever they were chasing. They were very good hunters—very cunning and vicious.

  “In this panel, the gremlins are shown running through an army of humans who were marching toward a battle. Running gremlins often tripped a human, while others braced pointed stakes against the ground for the human to fall upon. Others are shown biting at humans' legs or clawing at their eyes to disable them.

  “It's when they're standing that gremlins get really annoying. They were very good with their hands and could take anything apart very easily. If you built something, a gremlin would come along and destroy it. If you stored food in a special container, a gremlin would get into it somehow and steal the food.

  “Their favorite pastime was to rig something to fall apart when used. They loved to create chaos, then jump right in the middle of the melee, barking, laughing, and tossing things around. And maybe worst of all, they could talk. They easily learned whatever language was spoken wherever they were. They'd bark and growl the words, and Grandfather always said that gremlins made any language sound vulgar. All the Old Ones say gremlin laughter is the worst sound they ever heard.

  “Of all the creatures, gremlins gave us and the humans the most trouble. For thousands of years, gremlins preyed upon all species equally. They could have developed into the dominant species on the planet, but they spent all of their time fighting with each other and destroying everything they came across. In the battle shown here, they were on no one's side, attacking all other species indiscriminately in blood-driven frenzy. On the other hand, any creature that could kill a gremlin happily did so.

  “We formed an alliance with the humans before this battl
e. We teamed to lure all these different creatures to a spot where an army of humans and fairies could ambush and attack them. The fairies acted as bait since we were more experienced at fighting on the run. A few decades earlier, we learned to levitate, and in this battle, we found we could levitate others. Look here.”

  SeeLee pointed to a spot on the panel where two fairies were spiriting a gremlin twice their size, then plummeting the gremlins to their deaths.

  “Did you win the battle?” Paul asked.

  “Nobody won this battle. Almost everyone died. Small groups of each species escaped, and just a few fairies were left flittering over a lifeless battlefield. Almost all the males of each species were wiped out, and we went our separate ways to recover and regroup.” SeeLee shuddered, and Clayton knew it was the sadness and pain the battle scene evoked.

  Up until this point, Penny felt so carefree with the fairies. But now that she had seen the grotesque panels, she knew she would have nightmares.

  The remaining panels showed humans and fairies in times of peace. Occasionally, fairies were being chased by humans, but the group hurried past those panel scenes.

  “In this carving, the fairies are shown escaping an island being destroyed by an erupting volcano. That was Atlantis, and we lived peacefully there for a thousand years with the Atlantans.”

  Karl exclaimed, “This looks like Rome!” The panel showed a city with Roman-style architecture, but much of it was on fire.

  “It is Rome. When Atlantis was destroyed, we barely escaped, and after wandering for hundreds of years, we finally settled in Rome. We lived there peacefully, sharing the knowledge of the Atlantans with the Romans. By that time, the Atlantans were extinct.

  “Eventually, a Roman emperor ordered our extermination because we wouldn't help him dominate the world with our knowledge. Our peeper fairies gave us an early warning, and we learned all our trees were ordered to be burned by the Roman guard. We rigged fires to spread back to their own homes in Rome to teach them that destroying the fairies wouldn't be so easy.

  “Instead of escaping out of the city as they thought we would, we went into it instead. We burned as we went, and the army spent their time chasing us instead of putting out the flames. Most of the city burned to the ground. The emperor was furious and had all records of our existence destroyed, forbidding anyone from ever mentioning us again.”

  “What are these fires?” asked Penny, who had strayed over to the next panel.

  As the group joined her, SeeLee answered, “That's what you call the Dark Ages. They burned the villages because everyone died from the plague, and they didn't want the sickness to spread.

  “The end of this panel shows SanDroMonEnLor leading the fairies to an island on the north end of Europe. He thought we could suffer from the plague, so he segregated us into small groups as we headed north. Some groups died before they could make it to the island, as they were already contaminated. When the plague finally reached the far European island, we immediately fled to the land we now live on.”

  “That looks like the famous Cliffs of Dover,” Karl remarked, pointing at a carved area right next to the panel's edge.

  “It is. You seem to know much for one so young,” SeeLee replied.

  “He's a bookworm,” Clayton explained. “His sister took him to the library when he was four years old and told him that if he wanted to know everything, he needed to read all the books in the library, and this seems to be his mission.”

  “Karl has about twenty books on a shelf in the tree house,” Brian said with a hint of complaint in his voice.

  “So I read books instead of watching TV,” Karl said in his defense.

  There were only two panels to view before they reached the second landing. Clayton could hear fairies in that chamber talking and laughing. He could see part of the door that led to the furniture factory. He was glad the stairs were so wide because they were now very high above the floor.

  The next panel was a peacetime carving. It showed fairies living with tribes of Native American peoples. The panel—the longest one of all—seemed to go on forever, showing different tribes with fairy-tree villages thriving next to the human settlements. By the time they reached the end of the panel, peace had ended. The scene carved close to the edge showed fairies and Native Americans fighting the invading Europeans.

  The next panel started with the same bloody battle. The fairies and their allies were once again being killed in large numbers. The last panel only showed one Native American village and a few fairy trees.

  The last chamber opened a few feet from the edge of the panel, and suddenly something flew out of it. The object looked like a wooden airplane, with a propeller spinning to carry it past the staircase. The plane's wings were as long as Clayton's arms spread fingertip to fingertip, and looked to be made from woven strips of dead, willowy grasses. Abruptly, a parachute popped from one of the wing tips. After jerking open, the drag effect on the wing spun the plane around as the slender threads of the parachute snapped. The plane flew back into the chamber, leaving the parachute to flutter to the floor.

  As the group looked into the chamber, a half dozen fairies congratulated the fairy pilot who held the plane. The whole chamber was filled with airborne creations. Hot air balloons of every shape and color floated lazily near the ceiling. A single flame from a small oil pot hanging under each balloon kept them in the air, while a string tethering each balloon to a table kept them from crashing into the ceiling.

  Small spiral staircases floated around the room. They spun wildly, the effect of heat from the small flame pots hanging below them. They hovered at varying heights without the benefit of tethering. All airborne devices seemed to be made of finely woven strips of dead, tall grasses. Many broken plane fragments littered the benches.

  Before Clayton could question the fairies' need for such things, SeeLee provided an explanation. “This is a hobby room. These fairies just love building balloons and kites, and anything else they can get to stay in the air. The next time we have a night when there's no moon and the wind is still, we'll let them all fly into the sky. The fireflies and moths love chasing after them, and the whole happening is really beautiful.”

  After looking around the room once more, the group walked out, weaving around the spinning staircases drifting into their path.

  Only three panels were carved between the second landing and the top of the stairs. The first started with a few fairy trees and Native American villages. Towns and villages, filled with white settlers, dotted the rest of the panel.

  In the third panel, the settlers' towns and villages were larger and more populous. Large cities filled most of the landscape. There was only one fairy tree visible, and no sign of Native Americans. The remaining carving nearing the top showed large cities and towns with flying planes, trains traveling on tracks, and cars zooming by on carved roadways.

  At the top of the stairs, a massive double door led to the furniture factory. The doors were three times Clayton's height, and an arched peak formed where they met in the middle. He felt the floor sink slightly as the doors opened automatically, revealing a very large room packed with fairies.

  “This is the furniture factory,” SeeLee announced, her arms spreading wide to encompass all the chaos inside.

  The Furniture Factory

  The chamber was shaped like an exceptionally massive egg, with its domed ceiling soaring forty feet above. There were at least a dozen rows of tables with benches attached, and dozens of fairies walked along each row.

  There were fairies of all ages sitting on the benches or standing at the tables. They were happily chatting, with peals of laughter puncturing the air. The younger fairies were busily fitting pieces of wood together as their bantering kept pace with their energy.

  The room was brightly lit, with dozens of mounded piles of fairy light scattered on the walls. The waxy, rounded ceiling reflected the fairy light as if it was a mirror. Ornate patterns were carved in the brown walls, and flowers occasio
nally danced through swirling patterns.

  “This place was practically deserted when we were here a little while ago,” Karl remarked.

  “Look at all the churlas! They're so cute! Can I take one home?” Penny asked.

  “That wouldn't be any more practical than me going home with you,” SeeLee answered, giving Penny her best “don't be ridiculous” expression.

  Cheela stretched her limbs before jumping from Penny's shoulder and running to the nearest table. She joined her friends and was soon lost in the whirlpool of excited churlas. Churlas hugged the shoulders of the fairies walking the rows. Many more frolicked on the tables, mimicking the woodwork activities of the young fairies. The churlas' tails were also busy grabbing, juggling, and tossing pieces of wood.

  The group had barely taken a few steps into the chamber when they heard SeeLee's name called. The voice sounded young, and everyone turned to find its source. A very young fairy jumped onto a table from her bench. She appeared to be four years old, with streaming, pale-yellow hair and green, almond-shaped eyes that seemed much too big for her round, happy face. She was dressed identically to SeeLee, as if they were wearing matching sister outfits. The tiny fairy stood, waving excitedly, then made a mighty leap toward SeeLee.

  She leapt into the air, but lunged with too much effort, flying past SeeLee. The tiny fairy's wings hadn't developed full spread and offered just a hint of the bright, golden glow that would some day shine at the edges.

  Any color patterns that might have been budding were hard to see, as the wings fluttered behind her like flags. She quickly stiffened her legs in front of her. It appeared to Clayton that she was going to try to slide to a stop to keep from sailing past her intended target. This might have worked had she been sliding on the ground, but her ill-timed action had no effect while flying in the air, and the little creature looked ridiculous as she kept on cruising despite her best effort to stop. Her arms swung wildly behind her as she would soon smack right into the wall above the door. SeeLee flew to intercept her, catching the small fairy as she whizzed by. Grasping the little fairy's hands, SeeLee turned the smaller fairy's momentum into a spin as they spiraled gently down to the floor together in a hug. SeeLee accepted a kiss on her cheek as she guided the tiny fairy to the floor and turned to the humans.