Gold Dust Letters

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  Both of them were shivering a little by now, half from cold, half from nervousness. Angela looked shaky, too, but she continued to go down. When she came to the bottom step, she turned and glanced back at them. Her face was so white that it looked like a sick person’s.

  Stop! Poco wanted to call out. You don’t have to go!

  But beside her, Georgina was waving Angela on impatiently. “Go!” she was mouthing. “Hurry up! Now!”

  At first (Poco was right), Angela had been afraid of seeing Pilaria. Or perhaps she was afraid of not seeing her. At the top of the stairs, her courage had suddenly fled and her usually reliable legs had started to shiver. A magic being in the living room! It was too wonderful to believe. What if the magic should fail? What if none of it were true?

  But now—Angela gazed up the stairs at her friends—now that she had come all the way down, a great excitement began to rise in her. She stepped toward the lighted doorway with confident eyes. Pilaria wanted to be seen. Poco had said so. She was interested in Angela and would not mind if she looked. Angela approached the living room quietly, her bare feet cushioned by hall carpet. When she reached the doorway, she drew in her breath and peeked around the corner.

  All she could see in the beginning was a dazzling glow in the center of the mantelpiece. It was exactly as if someone had lit a small fire there and gone away, leaving it to burn. Several seconds passed before Angela realized that the glow was in motion. It was moving around in a circle, waving and flickering, and seemed to be made up of many wings, not a single pair. Angela squinted and peered.

  “Pilaria?” she whispered, leaning into the room.

  There was no answer, but the glow burned brighter. Its light surged in warm waves through the room. It caught the edge of a picture frame, the china cheek of a bowl, the shaft of a lamp. Each flared up briefly, then blended back into the gloom. On the mantelpiece, the fairy’s wings flickered and glowed, and dimmed. They moved more slowly. A faint rustling sound came to Angela’s ear. She took two steps forward and paused. Behind her, in the hall, she heard Poco and Georgina coming cautiously down the stairs.

  “Pilaria? Is that you?” Angela asked. “What are you doing?” She was about to creep closer to the amazing being, when a terrible uproar broke out in back of her.

  “Stop! Where are you going?” a voice bellowed in the hall. Heavy footsteps shook the floor and came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs.

  “We are just waiting here,” Angela heard Poco say in a frightened voice. “For Angela. She’s in there.”

  “Where!”

  “In the living room.”

  Even before Poco had finished answering, Angela’s father was rushing into the room. He stormed toward Angela like a furious, dark monster, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her through the door.

  “Angela Harrall! What are you doing up?”

  Angela’s hands flew to her mouth. She trembled all over and could not speak.

  “Who are these children? Your friends? What are they doing here?” Mr. Harrall shook Angela’s shoulder fiercely. “Where is your mother? Asleep upstairs?”

  Angela nodded with teary eyes.

  “William? Is that you?” Mrs. Harrall’s voice floated down from upstairs at just that moment.

  “Yes! And I’ve caught Angela here. Still up at this hour! With her friends running wild all over the house!”

  “No we weren’t!” Georgina protested. “We were just on the stairs!” Mr. Harrall glared at her and let go of Angela, whom he had been holding by the shoulder like a criminal all this time. She backed away from him and went to stand with Poco and Georgina.

  “William! What is happening down there?” Angela’s mother called. “Are the girls …?”

  “Yes! Wide-awake. Running around down here, out of control!”

  Mrs. Harrall leaned over the upstairs banister and looked down at the small, quaking group below. “Oh, Angela,” she said in a disappointed tone. “I particularly asked you not to stay up too late. Do you realize that it’s past three o’clock in the morning?”

  Angela still could find no voice for a reply. Her eyes were wider than Poco had ever seen them. And they were filled with tears only just now beginning to overflow onto her cheeks.

  “It’s all right, William. I didn’t know you were coming home tonight. I’m sorry they bothered you,” Mrs. Harrall said to her husband. “I suppose it’s asking too much to let me know your schedule in advance?”

  “I told you I’d be home tonight,” Angela’s father replied angrily. “Several times, as I remember.”

  “Well, I remember none of them!” Mrs. Harrall snapped back. “Come on up, girls.” She motioned to them. “My goodness. I certainly am surprised at you all! And after I specially asked you to be good about settling down …”

  So the friends slunk upstairs to bed. No one dared to look back to see what had become of Pilaria. Mr. Harrall was standing in the middle of the hall scowling at every step they took. And Mrs. Harrall was frowning and ordering them under the covers.

  “And no talking! Or I shall have to separate you,” she said in a cross voice as she closed the bedroom door. It was quite unlike her.

  For a long time after this, there was no sound in the room, except for Angela’s little sniffs as she cried into her pillow. The friends lay rigid as boards in their sleeping bags and listened to the angry silence of the night. Poco was close to tears herself. She wished that she had never agreed to stay overnight and wondered where Juliette was at that moment. It would have been so nice to have a soft body to hold.

  Finally, since Angela’s sniffs seemed to be turning into more of a rushing stream, Georgina sat up and spoke in a whisper.

  “Angela! What did you see?”

  Angela didn’t answer immediately. She took a minute to gather herself. To her credit, Georgina didn’t push her, for once. She sat still and waited, and pretty soon Angela cleared her throat and said, “I saw Pilaria again. She was all lit up.”

  “Where?”

  “On the mantelpiece. I think she was picking up my letter.”

  The friends lay quietly, considering this. Then Poco sat up and leaned close to the others.

  “Could you see if she left you anything?” she asked.

  Angela shook her head. In the dark, it sounded like a low, sad rustle. “I think everything is over,” she said. “Pilaria won’t ever come again after tonight.”

  “What do you mean?” Georgina asked.

  “She won’t, that’s all, because it isn’t safe here. This is not a good house. This is a stupid, hateful house that could never believe in anything!”

  Angela uttered this last sentence so bitterly that the friends were shocked. They knew she was speaking of something more than fairy belief.

  “Maybe Pilaria will come again,” Georgina said gently. “Maybe she’ll feel sad for you. You never know with magic beings. Sometimes they are scared away, but sometimes they decide to come out all the more.”

  These were such unlikely words to hear from Georgina, who had been so suspicious of Pilaria before, that her friends looked at her in surprise.

  “Do you think so?” Angela asked doubtfully. “Oh, George, do you really think that?”

  “Why not?” Georgina replied. “Pilaria likes you. She let you see her, didn’t she? She wouldn’t turn her back and walk out on you now.”

  After this, all three friends lay down under their covers with a much happier feeling. And quite soon, they had fallen asleep. All over the Harrall house, a new, peaceful silence rose up, and the air seemed to drift more easily through the rooms. Under her radiator, Juliette lifted her head and glanced about with her wise Siamese eyes. Then she pulled her tail close, began a satisfied purr, and settled down to sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  GEORGINA AND POCO WERE still asleep the next morning when Angela burst through the door of her bedroom with a loud cry. She had been downstairs in the living room and, “Guess what!” she shrieked. “Look what I found!
”

  This was not a nice way to wake people up, especially people who had gone to bed at three the night before. Or was it three-thirty? Georgina covered her ears and rolled away. Poco groaned and pulled the sleeping bag over her head. Angela, however, would not be put off.

  “Get up!” she screeched. “This is very important! Pilaria wants to go on. She has left another letter!”

  These words had more effect. Sweeping their tangled hair from their faces, the friends tried to sit up and show some interest in the world.

  “Good grief!” Angela declared. “You are taking forever to even open your eyes. I think I’ll go have breakfast.”

  No, no, no. The friends were awake.

  “As awake as we ever will be at this hour,” Georgina mumbled.

  “Read us the letter,” Poco yawned. “We can’t wait to hear it.”

  Angela sat cross-legged on her bed and held up the new letter, which was rolled and tied with the same gold thread as the others.

  “Wait!” Georgina ordered. She crawled over and cupped her hands under the letter. “Okay, ready.”

  Angela began, very carefully, to unroll the paper.

  Poof! The gold dust flew out and shimmered down through the air. Georgina did everything she could to get her hands around it, but without success. The dust vanished as she touched it and left no sign of itself on the blanket below.

  “It’s like fireworks on the Fourth of July,” Poco said. “They burst out in a big shining cloud, and then, a second later, they completely disappear. No one ever sees fireworks come down.”

  Georgina frowned and examined her hands on both sides.

  “Listen to this!” said Angela, who now had the letter open.

  “ANGELA:

  I, Pilaria, known also as the Gray-Eyed Faerie, send friendship and love in this time of trouble. Your letters made me happy and I will try to answer your questions. You asked where I live. My world is invisible to you, and would seem strange if you could see it. Here there are no colors, only dark grays and browns. The people go about with stiff faces, and few can say what is really on their minds. We faeries have fallen on hard times in recent years. Though we do not speak of it to one another, we often long for the bright, merry days of our past in the First and Second Earths.

  I have forgotten my age, but feel it is very great. My power to grant wishes has lately grown weak. I am sorry.

  Will you write me more about yourself?

  Respectfully yours,

  PILARIA

  of the Kingdom of the Faeries,

  Eighth Tribe, Fourth Earth,

  Under the Sun-Star Aravan,

  May It Shine on Our Land

  Forever and Ever”

  “Oh! That is so sad!” exclaimed Angela, as she allowed the letter to roll itself back up. Like the others, it seemed to prefer privacy. “I never thought fairies lived such hard lives!”

  “Well, they didn’t always,” Poco said. “Pilaria says she used to be happy. I wonder what happened.”

  “One thing that happened is that a lot of time went by,” Georgina said in her practical voice. “Did you notice how Pilaria talks about First and Second Earths in this letter? And then, down on the bottom, she signs it with ‘Fourth Earth.’ It makes you wonder if other sorts of worlds existed on our planet before we came along.”

  “That would certainly explain some strange things that Juliette has said to me,” Poco declared. “She keeps talking about the eight lives she’s lived in other times and other places.”

  “A cat’s nine lives—oh, please!” Georgina rolled her eyes. She got up and started to get dressed.

  “Anyway,” Angela said, “I guess Pilaria wasn’t very upset by my father last night. She doesn’t mention a thing about it.”

  “What did you see last night, anyway?” Poco asked her. “You haven’t really told us yet.”

  Angela lay down on her bed and propped her head up with one hand. In a low voice, she began to tell about the extraordinary light she had seen burning on the mantelpiece when she entered the living room. She explained how, at first, she had mistaken the glow for a small fire, and then it had appeared to be many wings flying in a circle. At last she had realized that the light came from one pair of wings, and when she had spoken the light had burned brighter, so she knew that Pilaria had heard her.

  “What color was the light?” Georgina inquired. “Red? Silver? White, like a light bulb?”

  “Oh no,” Angela said. “It was golden. Like the magic dust and the gold thread around the letters. Pilaria is gold colored all over. That’s the sort of being she is.”

  Georgina’s old suspicious gaze blinked on when she heard this. “And what happened when your father came in? Did her golden light just go off?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You mean you didn’t notice?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Well, how do you know your father didn’t see Pilaria, too? Maybe she was showing herself to anyone who came along.”

  “Oh no! She wouldn’t!”

  “Is your father still home this morning?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to see him, anyway.”

  “That may be,” Georgina said sternly, “but I think we had better do a little investigation to find out what he knows. Pilaria might not be safe otherwise. We should start right away, at breakfast!”

  “Oh, do we have to?” Angela wailed. “I’m so embarrassed after last night.”

  “We have to,” Georgina decreed. And so, with great nervousness, the group finished dressing and descended to the kitchen.

  In line with all the newness and plushness of the Harrall home, the Harralls’ kitchen was also a beautiful place. It had recently been done over so that the morning sun could flood through the windows. The stove was on a built-in island at the room’s center. Three ovens clung to the walls, and the counters were filled with every sort of modern appliance.

  The kitchen table was large and comfortable to sit down at, and normally the friends looked forward to having meals there. Not this morning, however, for settled like a large brown toad in the middle of all the brightness and warmth was the fearful shape of Angela’s father. The girls caught sight of him as soon as they entered the room, and each of them jumped a little. He was sitting and reading a newspaper at the table.

  “Good morning!” Angela’s mother sang out when she saw them. She had been leaning, arms crossed, against a kitchen counter, and it seemed that a serious conversation had been under way because her face looked strained, even when she smiled. “I didn’t expect you girls up so early. What a night you had!” She threw her arms around Angela’s plump shoulders and gave her a hug.

  This was a very nice thing to do, as it started things off in a cheerful, nonaccusing way. All three girls smiled, too. Angela’s father glanced at them over the top of his newspaper. He was wearing his little reading glasses again. Behind the lenses, his eyes looked small and unfriendly.

  “Good morning,” he said stiffly. “I hope you all are … I mean to say, I hope you all slept well?”

  Before anyone could answer, he set his coffee cup down with a terrible crash and drew the newspaper up until it covered his face again.

  “I’ll be gone in a minute,” his voice continued behind the paper. “I just want to finish this article.”

  “Oh, don’t hurry,” Angela’s mother said to him. “There’s plenty of room for everyone. The girls would love to keep you company. Wouldn’t you, girls?”

  “Um … I guess so.”

  “Well … okay.”

  Mr. Harrall lowered his paper and gazed at them with eyes that seemed softer than usual. A strange look came over his face, as if he were trying to smile. But a second later, the newspaper went up again.

  The friends spent the next several minutes pouring cereal into bowls, cutting wedges of coffee cake, and trying not to drop their napkins on the floor. Every once in a while, they caught Mr. Harrall peering at them
from around a corner of his newspaper. Otherwise he remained invisible. It took all of Georgina’s courage to steel herself and speak up.

  “Mr. Harrall? Is it all right if we ask you something?”

  “What?” His elbow jerked and nearly sent his coffee cup to the floor.

  “About last night,” Georgina went on. “You see, the reason we were all downstairs is that we thought we heard something. We were investigating. We wondered if you saw anything unusual while you were there.”

  “Unusual?” Mr. Harrall dropped his newspaper and stared at them.

  “You know, any strange noises, or … lights?” Georgina tried to look casual as she said this.

  “Oh, well …” Mr. Harrall’s eyes flew over to Angela. “No, I … I mean I didn’t see anything but …” He seemed to be having a struggle with his words. His face had turned a dull red. “But I would like to apologize, Angela, for pouncing on you that way. I … I … don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean to get so angry. I’ve been nervous lately. I’ve been worried about something else, and you surprised me.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Angela said, rather mildly considering all that had happened. “We didn’t know it had gotten so late.”

  Her father looked relieved. His eyes brightened. Then, while the friends clutched their cereal spoons because he stuttered and mumbled and had such a hard time asking, he invited Angela to go to a movie with him that afternoon.

  “Just the two of us,” he said. “Would you like that? You can pick the movie.”

  After a pause, Angela shook her head.

  “I’m sorry but I can’t,” she said, keeping her eyes on her plate. “I’ve already made plans. We are supposed to go to Georgina’s house and do some things.”

  “Oh, I see.” Mr. Harrall’s face sagged. “Maybe another time, then?”

  “Maybe,” Angela said coldly.

  Her father got up from the table and went in the direction of the coat closet.