Fairy Stories & Other Tales

( Part II of Mrs. Pimms Finds a Fairy )      There was more to finding a fairy than Mrs. Pimms had anticipated.  That said, there was plenty involved that was expected.  Mushroom rings, position of the moon, warmth of the day, and a field or meadow hidden from most eyes by thick forests; but the problem lay in finding a place that met all these conditions at once.  Then, of course, there would be the excuses made to Mr. Pimms and Mary's mother.  And, naturally, the extremely likely scenario that the fairies, when found, would know nothing of a recipe concerning lemon cakes... But all this was rather beside the point, which was: Mrs. Pimms herself very much wanted to find a fairy. And even if no cake recipe presented itself, so did little Mary. Thus, united in purpose, it was on a day which had held just the right temperature, on a night which had just the right moonlight, in a meadow surrounded by a forest on the outskirts beyond their...

     Mr. and Mrs. Pimms were very normal, no-nonsense kinds of people.  Well, Mr. Pimms was, anyway.  Mrs. Pimms looked like she was a very normal, no-nonsense kind of person, but the truth was, Mrs. Pimms had a secret life.  One complete with all kinds of nonsense that contained no normality whatsoever — at least as far as Mr. Pimms would have been concerned.             Mrs. Pimms, you see, was a witch.             Her days were filled with potions and magic, scrying and hexing until five-thirty in the evening on the dot when Mr. Pimms, without fail, Monday to Friday, walked in the door of their suburban cottage.   The weekends were tricky.   But Mrs. Pimms always managed to get a spell of work done—work of the un-normal kind—in between Mr. Pimms’ Saturday round of golf and Sunday’s afternoon nap.   Indeed, Mrs. Pimms fou...

      The wind swirled around and made the whole world look like a freshly shaken snow globe.  Joe thought he had never seen anything so wonderful.  The people passed beyond the front lawn, heavily bundled; the cold made everyone look like colorful, plump grubs.  Joe liked grubs, and he usually felt indifferent to people; but their rosy faces and their colorful garb endeared him to them.             He took a slow sip of hot chocolate and wiped the whipped cream that had settled itself on his upper lip with the back of his hand.   Joe had spent enough time inside.   The snow was falling steadily, and he had work to do.   Snowmen didn’t build themselves.             He dropped his mug in the sink, yelled a quick, ‘Thanks Mum!’ out into the void, buttoned up his coat, hastily wrapped his dad’s old scarf around his neck, put...

   'What's the point of having a dragon around, if she doesn't keep foes at bay?'               Quint said, throwing up her hands as she looked at the dragon idling by the hearth. ‘Well, obviously because we are delightful company, my dear,’ the dragon said lazily.   ‘Additionally, I have no desire to sit across our doorstep in the dead of winter.   And, of course, we have a difference of opinion about the word “foe” at the moment.’   She raised a lethargic claw in the air as though it proved her point, and then circled around twice, winding her long tail around her, and lay down.   Despite her fearsome jaws and scales, the dragon was practically adorable. ‘How can you sleep in the middle of the day when the world is falling apart?’ Quint said, exasperated by the relaxed body and slowly closing lids. ‘The world is not falling apart.   Your world has a small hitch in it, which I’m no...