Faery Tale

by Signe Pike

  “We’re almost there,” Charlotte announced, pulling into a large parking lot at the edge of the ocean. It was unlike any of the other beaches I’d seen on Man; it was completely composed of smooth stones. Millions of perfectly shaped pebbles and rounded rocks in all different shapes and colors. We strolled along the water, my feet sloshing through the stones. Charlotte bent down and scooped up a huge piece of washed-up bone—it looked like some sort of animal pelvis that had been bleached in the sun.

  “This is for you,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  “Thanks.” I shrugged, thinking, What the hell am I going to do with an animal pelvis?

  “You know, sometimes, I just need to come out here for, I guess it’d be an adjustment. Energy-wise. This is a really powerful point because all the energy that circulates within the island meets right here, at this point, surrounded by the water. Maybe you should just take a seat for a little while and just . . . be.”

  “All right,” I said. I walked for a bit, out toward the point, and then, feeling like I’d reached a good spot, I sat down on the sun-warmed stones.

  I began to feel somehow different after a few moments. Clean. And then something hit me as I gazed around. Millions of perfectly shaped pebbles and rocks. I laughed out loud, like a lunatic. What was it I’d said?

  I really wish I could have taken a stone . . .

  It was my birthday, and apparently now I’d been given free rein to take my pick. I closed my eyes and reached out my hands, feeling the stones, until I decided on one. A beautiful, deep copper stone. It reminded me of the color of the rock at the Chalice Well, like the color of my hair when I was a little girl. I noticed with some curiosity that in front of me were also two black feathers. I picked them up and put them in my pack with the pelvis, tucking the stone into my pocket.

  “Well,” I said, making my way back to Charlotte, “I think I got what I came here for.” I told her the story of the bridge, and my wish for a stone, and she laughed. “Of course. This means you’re in, you know. ‘You want a stone? Here, pick a stone!’ This is great news for you, Signe. Great news.”

  Perhaps it was, I thought. We had so much time left, the afternoon still yawning open for us, to do with it what we would, so I asked Charlotte if she fancied a walk in the woods.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’d like to see the spot you were, when you first started to believe.”

  She smiled at this. “Okay then. Let’s go.”

  I’d seen the signpost for Ballaglass Glen while riding the Manx Electric Railway to Douglas and the Manx Museum. Getting the chance to visit Ballaglass on my last day made me feel as though my trip had come full circle. There are seventeen major glens on the Isle of Man, and having seen only a few, they were so varied I could assume that each glen would be different—in feel, light, remoteness. Depending on the glen, the trails could be muddy and wet, dry as a bone, precariously steep, or gently sloping. Ballaglass was compact, only fifteen acres big; cut deep into rock, it instantly reminded me of a gorge I’d loved to visit in Ithaca.The Cornaa River ran through it, rushing down to join the sea, and the trees created an arched canopy that gave you plenty of room to breathe. The sun came through the leaves, creating dancing patterns of shadow on the rock. Lilting ferns lined the banks of the river, which was filled with spongy, moss-covered rocks. The glen felt open, friendly, cozy. And yet still mystical.

  “We can stop and sit anywhere you’d like,” Charlotte said. When we came to a fork in the trail, she asked me which way I wanted to go.

  “That way.” I gestured to the left. After a few minutes, the trail began to climb up, the river spilling into a crystal pool, sheltered by rock cliffs on either side that obstructed the view from the trail. It looked private. In comparison to the rest of the glen, this place felt forbidden. I had to go down there. Charlotte waited on a bench farther along the trail as I climbed down the slippery rocks to the belly of the river. The water came tumbling down a narrow split in the rock in front of me, creating a perfectly concentric pool. The only sound was that of rushing water echoing between the two cliff walls that reached high overhead. The rock was slick under my boots, but I was drawn farther in—ahead of me there was a massive log that had fallen, creating a dry area behind it that bordered the cliff wall. The tree was too massive to climb safely over—as my dad had said, “If you have to think twice, don’t do it. That’s a good way to break a leg.”

  Checking to ensure it was well lodged against the rock and couldn’t slip to crush me, I slithered under the tree trunk to the other side. Brushing the dirt from my pants, I took in the sheltered surroundings. Now I was standing well beneath the trail, looking back into a funny-shaped cave in the rock. It was only about three feet high, and too narrow for a person to do much but stick their arm in, but it exuded a distinct feeling of age and foreboding. It looked like a good place to find a hoard of goblins. I forced myself to stay there, looking into its inky depths for a few minutes.

  I was so sick of being afraid.

  I bit my lip in frustration, and after a moment the frustration built into a powerful torrent of anger. This had to stop. I had to face this, own it, embrace it, banish it. I stood there, looking into the cave, and imagined every terrible thing that could dwell within it. I welcomed them, challenged them. They could do nothing to touch me, because I was stronger. I understood, then, something about the nature of evil. There was no such thing as evil in nature. There was balance. Death, destruction, these things were necessary to sustain life. Nature was devoid of mal-intent. It was humans; humans were the ones truly capable of evil. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I took the bone, the animal pelvis from my pack, propping it up to the right of the split in the rock so it was resting on the mossy shelf. Taking the two black feathers, I placed them at the top of the pelvis, one at either side. I imagined this thing I created held all of my fear inside it, and I was leaving it there, where whatever it was that was here could help me with it, transmute all those feelings into something positive. I stepped back to admire my impulsive handiwork. The pelvis had a ridge running through the center, which looked like a nose. Combined with the placement of the feathers, there was no denying it. I had just made a mask.

  I scurried back under the log and up the rocks to join Charlotte on the bench, feeling like I just dropped a boulder I’d been carrying around on my shoulders. Walking through the glen, I could actually feel the joy of everything around me once again, just as I had that evening in Glastonbury. The sparkling light of the sun reflecting off the water, the sweet fresh air, the sound of the swiftly rushing water. I was able to let it all in, become part of it. We arrived at the top of the glen, and the trail crossed the river on a high bridge, a set of stairs moving up to the railway tracks above.

  We stood there a moment, shoulder to shoulder.

  “So what type of work is it you do exactly?” I asked Charlotte as we gazed down at the peacefully moving water.

  “Well,” she said, “I use various techniques, but essentially what I do is help people rediscover their true selves, restore their inner balance and peace. You know, just improve their general quality of life.”

  I was going to tell her about the mask, the moment by the cave, when she turned to me, giving me a pat, and said, “Maybe that’s why you found me. You just needed a little tune-up, that’s all.”

  As we prepared to head back, I felt a rush of gratitude. Ballaglass Glen had taught me what lay at the core of the Isle of Man: only the sparkle of the natural world and the energies within it. There was nothing to fear. I looked up into the towering maple tree above me and thought, Goodbye . . . thank you. Then something caught my eye. It was a single maple leaf moving back and forth, waving at me. All the other leaves were perfectly still.

  “Charlotte, look!” I whispered.

  “Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “It’s waving!”

  Feeling like a couple of fools, we waved back, laughing, only to see the leaf really going fo
r the gusto now. After a minute or so it finally stopped, and a breeze picked up, making the leaves softly rustle once again.The action over, we shook our heads in disbelief and turned to go.

  I thanked Charlotte as she dropped me off with a warm hug, but we both had the feeling we would see each other again. I turned the key to my room and there, sitting on the bed, was a beautifully wrapped gift. Who could have done this? I wondered, pulling apart the gift bag. Inside was a glass bottle of elderflower liquor, obviously handmade and bottled, and a rustic ornament carved from wood in the shape of a fish that read “Isle of Man.” I read the card:

  Happy Birthday! From Mike, Ali, the kids . . . and the faeries. I melted. I had gone into the day expecting nothing and had ended up with one of my most memorable birthdays ever. The kindness of others was simply astonishing—I was the luckiest girl in the world.

  That night was my last with Wol, Paul, and Big John, and we were going to the pub for one final evening out. But I needed to say goodbye to Mike and Ali before leaving for the night. I found them outside with the kids.

  “You guys are incredible,” I said. “Thank you so much for the gifts. You didn’t have to do that!”

  “Of course!” Mike smiled.

  “You can mix the elderflower liquor with Pimm’s, seltzer water, or vodka . . . it’s made from the flowers on the hawthorn trees, you know, the faery trees.” Ali grinned.

  “It’s amazing, thank you. I love it.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “for giving us the chance to discover something that we didn’t even know existed in our own backyard.”

  That made me feel pretty special indeed.

  Little George was standing in front of a brown dish tub, blowing bubbles into the courtyard. “Hey, George, I want to say goodbye now, because I probably won’t see you before I leave.”

  He froze, dropping the plastic bubble maker, and turned to me, a shocked, heartbroken look on his face.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice tiny.

  “Well, I’m leaving very, very late tonight. And you’ll be fast asleep in bed! I just didn’t want to miss you.”

  He processed this for a moment. “But when are you coming back?”

  My heart swelled. “I’m going to come back as soon as I can again, to visit. Maybe next summer, or the summer after that. America is pretty far away, you know, but I really do want to visit soon, okay?”

  He looked down at his toes, stricken, and his upper lip began to quiver. Don’t cry, I willed silently, please don’t let him cry! How this little boy loved so openly, and saw so many people come and go, I just don’t know.

  “Listen, George,” I said, placing my hand on top of his blond head, looking at him quite seriously. “I wanted to ask you for a favor.” I paused, to allow the gravity in my tone to sink in. “Do you think you could do something for me?”

  Ever the brave boy, he straightened and, looking up at me, nodded his head slightly.

  “You were the very best faery helper today . . . so I wanted to ask you. Do you think you could keep an eye out, for me, you know, until I come back? And let me know if you see any more faeries?”

  He beamed. “Yup, I can do that.”

  “That would be wonderful. I hope I’ll get to hear about your adventures someday.” Giving his hair a tussle, I turned to head back to my room, lest I suffer from my own case of the quivering upper lip.

  I was only blowing gently on the flame of imagination he already had kindling within. Someday he was going to grow up, like the rest of us. But maybe, when he was walking in the woods, he’d see something that reminded him. And just for a moment, he’d remember the day the red-haired lady came, and he and his cousins and his mom went off into the woods, looking for faeries. Maybe that was all that the faeries were trying to connect us with—a flash of magic, if only in a memory.

  I met up with Wol, Big John, and Paul in the kitchen.

  “So,” Big John said, as I detected the slightest smirk on his face. “Did you have any luck? Did you see any faeries?”

  “No,” I replied, “I couldn’t say I saw them . . .”

  “Well, we did,” he said. “We saw a faery.”

  “Ha-ha. Very funny,” I said, crossing my arms.

  “No, really, we did!” exclaimed Wol.

  “And we brought it back for you.” Paul was smiling broadly now. They stepped aside to reveal a small white box.

  “Happy birthday,” they said.

  “You guys!” I exclaimed, flipping it open. Inside was a beautiful little pewter faery with pink wings and an Isle of Man symbol on her chest. “Oh my God!” I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat. No crying allowed in front of bikers. Wol passed me a greeting card. For your birthday, we thought you’d like something that makes you feel loved, admired, and appreciated! I flipped the card open. So here we are! They had all signed it, and at the bottom was written simply, We are waiting.—The Faeries. Then Big John handed over a jar of Manx Knobs (very funny) and I burst out laughing and crying all at once. It was the perfect end to a magical day.

  “Okay,” I said, recovering myself. “I’m ready to celebrate!” The TT was over, and most everyone had left, so we had the pub pretty much to ourselves. We didn’t stay out too late—I had been planning on just staying awake until two thirty a.m., when my taxi was scheduled, but my adventures of the day had caught up with me, and I felt my eyelids closing of their own volition. We took a cab back to the Centre and I said my farewells.

  Before the tears came, I managed to give them one last hug and disappeared into my cabin. I was on my own again. But little did I know, I had seen a faery. Rather, my camera did.

  At the end of my journey, looking back at my photos from the old Fairy Bridge, something caught my eye. A tiny glowing dot on the bottom left of the photo. Zooming in, it gets blurry, but I swear, within the glowing bubble is a little form with wings.

  IRELAND

  16

  The Last Battle of the Fir Bolgs

  Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.

  —WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

  IT was three thirty in the morning, but I couldn’t sleep on the ferry ride from the Isle of Man to Dublin. I’d been thinking a lot about the old saying that there is nothing new under the sun. More often than not I’ve found this to be true. Even as we discover new species of plants and wildlife, we tend to forget that these things are not new at all—they’re simply new to us. The problem is that as humans we have an annoying habit of making a big deal of ourselves. It’s been estimated by an organization called the UN Global Diversity Assessment that Earth supports close to 13.6 million species. Of which human beings comprise . . . one.

  What does this have to do with faeries, you might ask? Lots. We aren’t certain about the existence of faeries, so we conclude they don’t exist. But just like some undiscovered exotic species of plant or animal, they could exist whether we see them or not. It made me wonder once more how so many people believe in the existence of God and angels but laugh at the notion of faeries, ghosts, and other spirit-world characters. You’d think they were part and parcel, would you not?

  Now as I roamed from place to place, I couldn’t utter a word about my search without people entering into a full-fledged debate over the existence or nonexistence of a world outside our range of human perception. It was fascinating and, after a while, exhausting. I grew tired of hearing people argue that God was real but faeries weren’t. That angels were real, faeries weren’t. I would ask them why they felt that way, and the funniest thing was, no one knew. “Because God is real and faeries are fictitious,” came the common response.

  So perhaps by the same logic, God could be fictitious and faeries could be real. But if you ask me, the existence of one only serves to support the existence of the other.

  Apparently, insomnia on a ferry in the middle of the Irish Sea wasn’t a bad thing. I had nothing but time to think. Now that I was headed to Ireland, I had been re
ading a lot of William Butler Yeats, and I was surprised to discover that he and I had more in common than I thought. First of all, we had the same birthday—June 13. Of course, he was born in 1865, making him 115 years older than me. But hey, I’ll take it.

  Also, when my parents split, my mother moved to West Yates Street, which is probably why I grew up spelling his name wrong. If those commonalities weren’t enough to bind us together as kindred spirits forever in my mind, there was the subtle fact that we both were interested in the world of faeries. Yes, that’s right.

  You may have read his poem “The Stolen Child,” which was one of several Yeats wrote about the faery kingdom. Not only did he write poetry about it, Yeats truly believed faeries existed. He made a lifelong study of mysticism, occultism, spirituality, and astrology. “The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write,” he wrote in 1892. And like W. Y. Evans-Wentz, Yeats’s interest in faeries spurred him to travel the Irish countryside collecting local folklore and supposed firsthand accounts of faery encounters, which he presented in his book The Celtic Twilight (1893).

  At the turn of the twentieth century, much of Ireland had been devastated by the potato famine of 1845-1851, which claimed the lives of more than one million people and caused another million or so to leave Ireland for better hopes of survival abroad. Ireland was struggling to retain its autonomy against British rule, and nearly everyone who lived outside the major cities still believed in faeries. So actually, the fact that Mr. Yeats wandered the countryside chitchatting with locals about “the kindly neighbors” and “the good people” was quite unremarkable. Mysticism was on the rise at the turn of the twentieth century, as many people participated in séances and created the famously mysterious occult organization the Golden Dawn, in which Yeats was an active member. During this time, faeries had yet to undergo the Victorianization that was to come. Instead, faeries were considered, much in the way the Frouds consider them today, mutable spirits connected to the land that should always be respected (and were best left alone entirely).