A Wee Bit of Magic

Late on a Saturday morning and I am feeling anything but awake. Perhaps it was from my night time adventure of waking up in the wee hours to play tooth fairy for KC's missing tooth, depositing the single dollar beneath her pillow with as much stealth and speed as is humanly possible for me to possess when more asleep than awake.

And I expected her to be disappointed this morning.

The way she told it last night, the last tooth she lost - which happened during her weekend stay at her father's - gained her a five spot beneath her pillow. Wallet decidely empty, I promptly went about giving an explanation on Fairy Diplomacy. As in different fairies work for different counties, resulting in different amounts of money being left for a child to find, and not every fairy left fives unless that particular tooth was extra spectacular.

Unfortunately the kid has a memory like an elephant and remembered the last fairy story I told her, where evidently fairies had Friday nights off. A story concocted to save the day when I had slept soundly throughout the night and had forgotten that the TF was supposed to have been on duty. A bit of an oops for me if you will.

I did however alleviate her concerns, stating that the Board of Fairies had reinstated Friday as an official night of work, and that at least half of the fairies were on schedule for collecting teeth. And as I watched, she rubbed her hands in glee, giving me the details of her plan on how before bed, she was planning on setting a trap for the TF in the case that it turned out it wasn't really me who took her tooth and put money from my purse in its place.

"Do you believe in the tooth fairy Mom?" she asked, her eyes wide with question. And feigning shock, I looked at her, raising my eyebrows in mock surprise.

"I can't believe you've even asked me that," I answered, as if perplexed. "Of course I believe in fairies! Where else would all the magic in the world come from, if it weren't for the fairies and all the other mystical creatures of magic?" This seemed to cause her to pause for thought and think she did. Taking her time to ask the question that lit upon her face, as I waited for it to come.

"But have you ever seen a fairy? I mean, really seen one?"

"Of course I have. I even have a picture of one," I said, remembering the developing spot left over on one of the pictures I had taken years before. "Don't tell me you don't remember the summer we went to camp? And how we walked down to the creek, beneath the green canopy of the trees with the sunlight just squeezing through like so, and the way the moss clung to the trees and the ferns branched out like feathers over the place where the wild mushrooms grew. And remember the sound of the water, rushing past the rocks and boulders, waterfall after waterfall, emptying into one small pool after another. And over the pools, clad with gossamer wings, an army of dragonflies hovered still, in bright turquoise, emerald greens and radiant reds. And that is when we saw the fairy. She had eyes the color of amethyst, hair as red as a sunset, and wings the color of a hummingbird and fluttering just as fast.

I think she was just as surprised to see us and we were of her. And for a moment, she just stayed there, floating on the wind very much like a thought or a trick of the mind, watching us as if we were the oddity. And then you laughed, and the sound of it made her ears perk up and her mouth break out into a wide smile. You wouldn't remember this, because you were very small then, but as quick as a bolt of lightening, she lit upon your nose, standing there in her stocking feet and danced upon its very tip. Not once but thrice, twirling herself in circles, her fairy dress like that of a morning glory, turning about in a riot of colors and a fragrance so sweet it could have been the scent of the mountain itself.

And then, giggling still, you asked her her name. Stopping her flurry of movement, she sat, perching there on the very end of your nose, arms folded across her chest with chin resting upon her hands, her long slender fingers tapping away like so as if she were thinking very hard. And then she opened her mouth, and said in a tone quiet reminiscent of a summer breeze and the sound of a small bird singing, I am called Echo.

Around us the forest had gone silent, fearful what power the giving of a fairies name might do in the hands of humans such as us. And I could feel the scores of eyes watching us from their hiding places, some behind bushes, some lurking in the leaves of the trees, some with their toes still dipped in water, hesitating now to move in their vulnerability to be seen.

Climbing down from your nose, wings extended she trilled silently to the thick moss spreading along the bank and a tree that looked as old as the moon itself. Sit she said, raising her hand and motioning us towards a giant boulder that on quick glance appeared more chair than rock and proved to be just as comfortable.

You have given me a great gift this day, she said, each word a musical note lilting out of her mouth. For in innocence you have asked my name and with faith I have given it. Called Echo by my Mother, daughter of the Queen of Fairies, keeper of sounds and all that can be heard, I was missing but one sound. A sound I never thought I could ever hope to hear again. And you have blessed me freely with this small one, with laughter as precious as rubies and as innocent as moonstones. And so I have given you this, a gift of site to make the unseen seen, so that you may balance out your mortal world with the magic that exists in places still left untouched by time.

Pressing a kiss against your brow, I could barely hear the whisper of her words to come as she knelt close to your ear. Protect this gift for all your life and it will pass down from you, one generation and to the next, so that all who know and come from you will remember that magic is neither cruel nor lost. And then she came to me, pressing that same kiss upon my cheek, but this time with words that only I could hear. Sister of my soul, she said. You who have seen far beyond your years, lived with the threat of sorrow above your head, and hidden beside us in shadows for far too long alone, for you I will share this laughter, so that you may well remember where from once it came. And take this, a silver feather she said, snatching it from the air, where moments before it had never been and this as well, the ink of life snatched from the end of a rainbow itself. And because I know what magic you already have within yourself, write your stories down so that those things that cannot be remembered alone, will be saved throughout all time for both our worlds to come.

And so I did, and I have. And now that you're old enough to know, yes KC, fairies are very real, just as is the magic that surrounds us every day. So do not doubt the magic you hold inside, it's as real as a sunrise and as precious as the first star that brightens up the night."