The Fairy and I (Part I)
Once, when I was very young, I sneaked into the forest by moonlight.
By chance, perhaps, a fairy landed on a branch so close to my face I could see the glimmering of her pale eyes, alight with the glow of a thriving moonlit night. Her hair of spun silver, and delicate wings, her pale skin, and graceful movement inspired a thrill of joy that sang in my body from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair. She was the most beautiful creature my child-eyes had seen—or so I had thought in that moment. For I would come to learn that I was quite mistaken.
“Oh, you are so very beautiful!” I exclaimed, holding my fingertips back though they longed to touch, to make certain with another sense the truth of what my eyes saw.
The fairy raised her delicate silver eyebrows, her eyes wide with surprise.
Do you really think so?”
“Indeed, fairy, I think you are the most beautiful creature of all I have ever seen!” I spoke my impassioned truth again.
“Ah,” the fairy sighed, and took in all of me. “But you are very young. Time will bring creatures more fair than I.”
“I do not think so, fairy,” I said, resolutely. For I was all but seven years of age, yet I knew the truth for what it was.
The fairy put her hand on a curved hip, her head tilted gently.
“Come with me,” she said. And leapt off her perch in flying spirals that caused my heart to thrill at the wondrous sight of it. I followed her, walking behind, immersing my body in the sparkling dust that trailed in her wake. My senses hummed.
Until she stopped.
Suddenly and all at once.
In the thin of the air, or so it looked to me until I came closer and saw the thinnest of sticks attached to a great tree’s trunk. A trunk surrounded by golden light, and though I could not see the source of the glow, I heard an unfamiliar tinkling sound coming from beyond the wide, barked base.
“Come and see,” the fairy beckoned me, a delicate flick from her small pale hand.
Bending around the tree my eyes teamed in wonder at the sight of three beautiful golden fairies. Dabbing in and around a pool elevated from the forest floor, it glowed with the trails of their shimmering dust. They were different from my small silver fairy; each golden where she shown pale, their hair sparkled with a thousand hues of yellow and golden brown.
And the knowledge that I had seen four fairies this day sunk into me like magic...
(To be continued next Sunday...)