The Faerie Ring Dance

by Kara Skye Smith

  The Faerie Ring Dance

  by Kara Skye Smith

  Fae-tality Publishingc. 2011

  The Faerie Ring Dance

  starts from an old, uncovered text which was found in the hollow of a six-shaped tree; written - as best detected by a process known as carbon-dating in 1910. Simply signed,

  N.T.~personal account

  The Faerie Ring Dance

  Chapter One * The Uncovered Text

  IIIIn a thicket in a wood, or perhaps in the dell of a

  meadow - often at the base of a tree called the Yew

  there sometimes grows a ring of grass more green, or

  toadstools which form a circle - from low to high

  mimicking in shape and hue the light, bright ring around

  a full moon. This ring, known to mortals and the magic

  folk as The Faerie Ring, is the sight where, on occasion,

  a dance is held, like never a dance was known. Few

  actual accounts of these dances retold - have ever

  ’gotten out’ - by eyewitnesses anyway. Only those who

  have actually stepped inside The Faeries’ Ring during

  the night of its magic can ever tell these tales.

  Mortals be wary, there are only a few in existence

  - this text being one of them - because the enchantment

  of such a dance to the human sort is so enticing that most humans who have stepped inside The Faeries’ Ring

  to dance have never returned home, nor were they seen

  by their loved ones again!

  This is the story of The Faerie Ring Dance held

  in the Northern Muir Woods with one such unsettling

  tale - the disappearance of Honor McGillicutty.

  In the faerie circles of the Muir Woods, the

  Ellewyon Faeries of the North dance. If a human steps

  too close, close enough to be pulled in, only a loved one

  can pull him out - by standing very near the edge,

  waiting for the dancer to dance close enough to reach in,

  grab, and then pull out! This distressing fact, as

  troubling to accept as it is to divulge, ’tis not the most

  ghastly mystery to note, here. If a mortal fell in among

  the Twelyth Teg, a band of faeries with strong magic

  which tended often to turn a bit more bad than good

  regularly and intentionally enticing humans of all types

  the mortal inside their fairies’ ring was often held

  entranced to dance for years and years. Danced literally to death, some turned to dust or ashes right before the

  very eyes of the same loved ones to have pulled them out

  and stopped their dancing.

  This text is very rare as many who’d escaped had

  not even the time available to write or scribble something

  down about the magic and merriment inside the Faerie

  rings. And so it is, with sollum remembrance and athank

  of Honor McGillicuty’s lucky stars that she fell into the

  circle entranced by the Northern Ellewyon Faeries rather

  than dancing to an untimely death among the Twelyth

  Teg. In fact, there’d been reports of Honor’s

  appearances in San Francisco, Paris, and Rome; but none

  were ever validated nor followed up on, so one can never

  be too sure of such unreliable reports!

  On a warm, spring day after a particularly windy

  rainstorm the night before, a mist hung about the

  foothills of the Muir Woods like wisps of a low hanging

  cloud from the sky. A fisherman named Michael

  McDonnell walked home from the wedding chapel of St. Francis where his younger sister had just married a man

  named Fitzpatrick, the owner of a sewing machine

  factory. It was not a merry wedding party for Michael,

  because he’d hoped his sister would marry a better man.

  For the factory was not a place where sewing machines

  were made, but a place where young girls were held

  tightly in their seats to sew for long hours at a time,

  with few moments off and not much pay.

  The oversee-er of this tightly run ship was

  Fitzpatrick, himself, quickly becoming a wealthy man off

  the toils of young girls with such unbecoming ethics, and

  he was taking Michael’s sister away with him to nearby

  San Francisco - as soon as the wedding, and the

  customary party which followed it, convened. Michael

  worried at the sight of tears on his sister’s cheeks and

  lashes several times during the ceremony and at least once

  at the reception party where he celebrated the union of

  the newly wedded with not even one single dance. He

  did have a slice of cake, though, vanilla with white icing and white confection roses, which he enjoyed enough to

  smile at his sister right before he said good-bye and gave

  her a hearty, warm hug. This made the young bride

  smile, too, and she insisted he find her in San Francisco

  right as soon as the couple arrived.

  “Nonsense!” she’d told him at his mention of

  allowing the honeymooners a proper amount of time,

  alone, to settle in.

  “Right away,” she reminded as he left the

  decorated parish doorway to walk, quite a ways, toward

  the cabin he stayed in during ’off’ fishing seasons and

  times like this when he’d been called home from the sea;

  but, Michael McDonnell was not alone. He left, that

  day, waving to his sister who watched him from the

  parish steps, accompanied by a secret guest, as yet unseen

  by both of them.

  Honor McGillicutty left the steps of her house

  with two friends by her side at that very same moment.

  The very two friends who had actually prevented Honor McGillicutty from being the bride of Mr. Fitzpatrick in

  the very same parish where the McDonnell-Fitzpatrick

  wedding had been held that day. Mr. Fitzpatrick had

  not liked Honor’s friends, and since his introduction,

  considered her an unsuitable choice for a bride.

  In fact, the same word spoken to Michael

  McDonnell that day at the parish, “Nonsense!” was the

  same word he’d said every time Honor would speak to

  him about her friends. With this much in common, and

  the timing so right, it seemed a little more than destined

  that these two - Honor and Michael - would be brought

  together - somehow! - and it was!

  Honor left the house that day with a pail to

  gather wild mushrooms which grew near a clearing she

  knew about amid the foothills of the Muir Woods. That

  night was to be the Hunter’s Moon - round, full, and

  bright - at the peak of the mushroom harvest, namedso

  because gatherer’s would work late into the night - or as

  often referred to: by the light of the moon. Because of this, Honor did not choose to bring with her a lantern.

  Honor, being lively in her mood and gregarious

  about her task, was quick in step keeping to a pace more

  rapid than the melancholy Michael McDonnell’s pace

  allowed. Honor made it further from her home than

  Michael made it from the parish by the time the two

  met, face-to-face, beneath a Yew tree, directly
across

  the half-moon shaped clearing from a tree known inOld

  Soul’s Hollow as the Six-shaped Tree.

  Luckily, it was this tree - the Six-shaped - that

  caught the attention of the fisherman, having spentmuch

  more time at sea than in Old Soul’s, and he hurried

  toward it to ‘have a look’ which kept Honor at least ten

  paces back from a ring of grass that grew more green

  than the other grass in the clearing - which neither

  noticed at that time - and Honor bent to pick a bunch of

  blue-eyed grass - to fix for a bouquet at home - a home

  she would never enter into again.

  “Fascinating!” Michael McDonnell said out loud, stepping back from a closer look at the tree to marvel its

  shape entirely.

  “Excuse me?” Honor asked, looking toward the

  Six-shaped tree to notice the fisherman who had been so

  bold as to speak right out loud to himself (as fishermen

  often do. Proof of this is always found near any

  waterbank while listening to a man in a boat by himself

  catch a fish.

  “I said, fascinating!”

  “Are you speaking to me, or the tree?” Honor

  asked unfolding from a flower picking posture to upright

  as proper as any lady from England, but not quite. No,

  not since she’d left England, anyway. Her hair, which

  had been held tightly in buns for many years which her

  overly controlling sister had fastened for her - much too

  tightly as to have given her a pinched look - now tousled

  freely down about her shoulders, nearly to her mid

  waist. And her waist, from now doing the chores

  around the farm upon which the sister’s homesteaded was fit and trim which left the cotton dress and coat about

  her flowly, like her hair. Her cheeks were rosy with the

  outdoor walks and her skin was bright. Her eyes round

  and warm with her appreciation of the beauty in wild

  flowers, little people, things like the Harvest Moon, and

  the Six-shaped tree held interest. So, as Michael

  McDonnell took his eyes off the Six-shaped and focused

  them across the clearing to gaze upon Honor

  McGillicutty, now the loveliest maiden of Old Soul’s

  Hollow, he only stood and blinked, for a moment, his

  jaw held open to the ‘ing’ part of the word ‘fascinating’;

  and, he had to remember back, first to her question and

  then to the tree.

  “I said, fascinating!”

  “I know that,” said Honor, “but what about?”

  “This tree,” Michael pointed, his eyes remaining

  upon Honor, although he’d pointed at the tree, while

  three other people, not seen by this pair at that moment,

  whose plan this had been all along, giggled out loud as they watched Michael do this - keep his eyes upon the

  lovely Honor, instead of looking at the tree - and, at the

  sound of these giggles, a strange music started up within

  the ring of grass more green - the Faerie Dance Ring

  and the music which had started up was the music of

  enticement to ask the couple, without words, “Come and

  dance inside the faeries’ ring!”

  As Michael McDonnell gazed upon Honor, the

  faeries’ music reached his ears and all at once, all of the

  dancing and merriment he’d held back at the wedding

  reception - a room and event made for such things

  reached his feet and swayed his hips. Michael

  McDonnell raised his arms up high and went whirling

  and twirling toward Honor McGillicutty, who tried not

  to laugh, but did (although back in England, standing

  next to her strict sister, Blithe, she certainly would have

  held her tongue.)

  “My goodness!” she said.

  “Goodness, now,” he said to her, “for I have walked away from badness without even a waltz or

  getting involved in stopping the badness at all. And

  now, I feel like waltzing. That must be it! Please?!” he

  asked and held out his hand to Honor McGillicutty with

  a slight bow forward. He stopped just short of feeling

  silly at the catch of the gaze from her dark, warm eyes

  upon his own.

  “Well this is something to say, ‘My Goodness’

  about, indeed”, she said, “I haven’t been asked to waltz

  in years and years, and out here in this field, too? Well,

  my goodness,” she laughed, “is all I can think of to say!”

  “Then you will?” he asked again.

  “I -,” and just then Honor saw Blossom waving to

  her from the edge of a ring of grass beneath the Yew

  tree as the Queen of the Faeries and her accompanying

  entourage entered the circle and disappeared from view.

  “O, my goodness,” Honor said, again, but this

  time the laughing tone was not in her voice. She put her

  hand up near her mouth, and Michael McDonnell grew a bit annoyed. He sighed and withdrew his outstretched

  hand and turned to look in the direction of the fairies

  which had caused Honor’s latest gasp of the repetitive

  exclamation, however, Michael McDonnell saw nothing.

  Nothing but a ring of grass more green.

  “Well, look at this,” he said; and, Honor smiled

  knowing that Blossom and the Faerie Queen, herself,

  were waiting just inside the ring’s dark edge. I was not

  in it, yet, and because of that I know this tale. A tale

  which started back in England with a formal invitation

  to the dinner party of a rather rude and well-to-do

  Mistress - daughter of a Dame of English upbringing

  Miss Tullie. A dinner party where Honor did not do

  much but enjoy a vast array of teas, cheese, and exotic

  delicacies while her sister, Blithe, engaged in

  conversation, almost a debate, expressing the firmness of

  her opinions quite openly among the guests of lackadaisical English upper crust.

  The Faerie Ring Dance

  Chapter Two * The Unkind Word

  There it was, Miss Tullie had said it, “Shrew.”

  She said it to Blithe. Shrew? Shrew. The social stature

  of Miss Tullie afforded her the luxuries of an often

  willfulness with words overlooked. She could have

  called her any other word - any word at all - and Blithe

  wouldn’t have cared; but, shrew hurt, because, it held

  with it a curse, the curse that she might never marry,

  and, the insinuation that her unmarried status was not

  due to a lack of suitable men her own age, but rather,

  something all her fault in that she’d often spokenharshly

  and could not hold her tongue. Today it was Miss

  Tullie who had spoken harshly, though, wasn’t it?

  Nonetheles, the word stung Blithe. It was cruel,

  downright unkind; and, it cleared the room for several seconds of all sound - even the staff stood still

  scarcely daring the sound of an exhale. All eyes were on

  Miss Tullie.

  Slow, upturned and doe-eyed glances plead,

  “Please don’t.” It wasn’t until the final 1000, if you’d

  have counted 1, 1000, 2, 1000, 3, 1000 during those

  moments (self-consciously, I think I did) when Honor’s

  spoon made a tinkle in it’s tightly held cup that the room

  began to fill with a wave of slow r
olling murmurs.

  When the conversation nearest the mistress of the room

  - the sword-tongued lasher, Miss Tullie - refused to

  include her that she turned on one heel, flipped her

  shawl about her and marched out of the room uttering

  just what the glances had plead her not to, one last jab.

  “It just HAD to be said. Can’t help it ifI’mthe

  one to say…” Luckily, the door she’d swished through

  slammed closed behind her before more cutting words

  wounded innocent Blithe, already killed in a room

  supposed so proper with her finishing touch, “the

  obvious”.

  No one had dared to look at Blithe until the

  door slammed. Conversations interrupted at the sound,

  however, and all eyes turned toward Blithe. A lavishly

  decorated room in an uptown home of proper standing

  seemed full of pin-suited and lace-dressed ancients of the

  cave as they all quickly looked toward Blithe, as if she’d

  stood her ground, chased off the sword-tongued lasher.

  Similarly upturned glances, looked at Blithe and then the

  others. Was Blithe now their social queen?

  Blithe, feeling obviously awkward (probably even

  worse - as the cruel word had suggested) cleared her

  throat, slightly, quietly, politely and said, “A lack of

  proper manners, and in such a home, too, poor dear. As

  we all know, I’m not the loveliest nor the most poetic,

  and never claimed to be; but, I did not come here to be

  insulted. Honor?! Let us gather our things and go.”

  “Certainly, dear,” was Honor’s response as she

  hurried in one last sip of a devilishly delicious tea she had found among many other types laid out upon a buffet

  style table for those not choosing the cordial of the

  evening.

  “We’ll get our things.”

  Then, Honor and Blithe McGillicutty made an

  exit, not quite as defiant as the bitter-tongued Miss

  Tullie, with Blithe uttering all sorts of excuses,revealing

  all sorts of insecurities like, “from the school yard boys,

  maybe, I’d have thought Miss Tullie more thoughtful,”

  and “I just never have time to put in on myself,” and

  then, in nearly a whimper, “I’ve never been so hurt in my

  life!” To which Honor added, “and publicly humiliated,