This is a tribute to the great George Macdonald. To him I owe the inspirations for the world you are about to enter, although the journey itself, was indeed my own.
- D. M. Hoven
I have never been to fairyland, but I met an Irishman once in a pub in near Belfast who had been. I was a much younger man then, and didn’t pay much attention to such tales. But in my sleep, a dream overtook me with such vigor, that I have since come to believe the old man’s tale. What I recount is not that dream, but a tale that came to me last Tuesday, that I have only just found time to put to paper. I hope it may transport you, as it transported me.
Chapter 1
While walking the world of brick and stone, my eyes downcast, and forehead furled,
I came upon an arbor alone, where a fork in my own way did diverge, leading left and right, long a crumbling wall. It was my habit to pause here, turning back the way I came, for right and left, I long had known, lead roundabout ways back the same. But startled now, by this unexpected arch of tree and vine which perhaps I’d passed a hundred times unaware, my eyes turned upwards.
I searched through memories, and found one there, which seemed out of place, unexpected and fair. It painted the picture, of what I now saw, and saw it a gate, that once stood in the wall. Above me, the leaves of this world out of place, where nature had left this one lingering trace, beckoned the memory of a choice here now gone, where a third way had closed from neglect and passed on.
Seized with desire to see now again, what memory told me would be straight ahead, I passed through the arch, and under the trees, to feel the rough stone, and ponder road’s end. But from under the trees as I now emerged, the way up ahead appeared newly altered, and seeing this change, my memory faltered.
For right where the stone had ended the path, there seemed now a mist, ethereal, beckoning. I timidly froze, and sought reassurance, from the cobblestone ground and the brick and the mortar. But then to my ears the softest voice came, so small as to seem from a bird or a bee, and singing in language of angel or siren, It called me further, to cross the misty style. For now I could see through the clearing haze, low steps to a forest, a green woody maze. Descending them quickly I hastened to catch, with my eyes the enchantress I’d heard just before. It seemed so long passing, that short stairway down, each step seemed the end, but another appeared. Till finally at last, through the mist I passed, and on soft ground my feet fell and the way ahead was clear. Through the treetops above there filtered soft rays, of a sparkling sunlight set free from its prison, where colorless light meets in raindrops a prism. And it seemed to me strange, for a man of the world, that such open space should be empty yet full. For alone I was, yet from lonely furthest, for around me it seemed, the very light was alive.
The voice that had called me, no voice at all, but the sound of the raindrops set loose by their fall. And pattering down, into pools all about, they splashed with this sound,
“Come drink! Come taste!”
The world I had left, knew no season or rest, but it seemed here was spring, for a soon passing shower, had whetted the forest, and run from the sun. A worry I felt, some duty unattended, a reason to turn, and leave to go back. But just as my head did tilt to look down, resuming my habit in the world of stone, I saw there perched on a leaf of a maple, a creature I’d thought but a fiction of fable. It was winged like the locust, but glimmering, crystal. It had golden hair, like a daisy, and whistled. I could not see, for it’s back faced me, it’s face, for an angel, or insect, or maiden. I stooped down to taste, the cool crystal liquor, from hollow of leaves for this purpose made special. The droplets laughed, as I drew near to sip them, and scurried away, with legs like round ants.
“You have to give them something first,”
Spoke the green crystal maiden, for now I could see her face in the full. She had grown in stature, but remained like a child, though a thousand years could not age such a visage. I laughed, and opened my mouth to speak, but instead out came bubbles, iridescent, full of haunting splendor. They sang as they emerged, a music was cast into the rays of sunlight that split and scattered, to fill the air round me with eternity in each of a thousand shimmering worlds. The creature gasped, and stepped three-pace back, then hung her mouth open watching almost in dread. The smile on my face looked back from one mirroring sphere, then began jumping from this one to that. But the oddest thing happened then, for from the center of each world it touched, a black thing emerged, with long spidery legs, and no face. It crawled through the world echoed by each orb, it’s thousand reflections reaching for my now trembling face.
“Blow!”
I heard from beyond, and my mind returned for but only a second, yet long enough it was to pause and take heed. I blew a great wind through puckered lips, and the shimmering cloud scattered from before me, my smile returning, as the greedy mirrors could not reflect what they no longer faced.
Such a wondrous happening seemed ordinary somehow, and though full of questions, I questioned it not, deciding against speech, to risky a business it was in a mirror world such as fairyland, for that surely is where I had wandered. A thought came to turn back, but a memory returned, that stated of a certain that no soul once entering fairyland, may leave as he came. The winged maiden simply said,
“beware of the ash, and don’t pet the cat”,
Then with a flutter of wings vanished into sparkling dust.
I still had the problem of refreshment, the taunting pools still echoed their bounty, but the solution to this riddle did not present itself to me. I walked through the forest till the sun had nearly set, and realized then, that I had not the slightest plan for shelter, the memory again warned against the dangers of sleeping in a place enchanted as this, so I searched for a hill, or other high place, to survey this land for a cottage or castle. But at last I succumbed to the tire of the day, and leaned against the trunk of a straight and tall tree.
But no sooner did my face feel the rough bark, then it grew soft as a hinds fur, and a deep voice from some cavern below echoed up to the ground neath my feet. It spake not in words, but in crying sighs, that seemed to me sadder than the love song of a great whale, the last of his kind, whose bellows reach the ends of the ocean, and turn back to give him one moment of hope, before the silence remaining relives his despair. I looked up with tears on my face, and quickly saw that this tree stood alone, a different, older kind, than it’s arboreal neighbors. I wondered if all the trees had songs, and, hearing my wonder, the tree spoke again, this time with words I’d never heard, but whose meaning felt familiar and dear nonetheless. It gave me a new memory, older than my own race, where I saw children singing to a forest of saplings, the beginning perhaps, of the tale ended by those woeful sighs.
I lay down in the moss beside him, where a round marble boulder gave shelter.
I feared sleep, unsure of what circumstance might befall one who sleeps in an enchanted forest, but the fear changed within me, and instead I became aware of new surroundings, I lay on the very ledge of a great stone wall. It plunged below me into endless depth, and a soft rain fell from a gray sky that could have been moonlit or day. In my dream the ancient tree was the rocky mountain itself. My tremulations came now as though the revelation of a great mystery was nearly upon me. Overcome with the sensation of sparkling nerves, I rolled from the ledge, and fell into a new trance, a dream within a dream.
What came to my overwhelmed senses in those precious moments, seems a thing not fit for pen and paper. But I shall at least try, though it still stings my heart to recall it. I saw a world, as one in a snow globe. I was looking upon it, yet somehow inside it. A pink glassy lake of frozen crystal, given color by the light of a rising sun, filled the borders of my sight. On a raised terrace of snow, encircled by a railing perhaps stolen form heaven itself, a little girl’s bedroom had been fashioned. The miniature bed was made, with covers matching the glow of the crimson pink ice, and pure silver twisted in metal stories made the frame of it’s repose. I sensed I should not be here, that this was a place too holy, to pure, to precious, for the eyes of a man such as I, as if my presence were an un-washable stain on this pure white garment. And then there came through the breathless air, a melody of half tones, from an open music box by a mirror on the dresser. Each note searched my soul for a screaming memory, almost there, of the melody first known to a child’s mind, that judges all music heard thereafter as a mere imitation of the one, true, perfect, shattered song that sang his life into the world. At last I was aware of nothing but the music box, mesmerized by the sparkling clockwork within, as it reached closer and closer, to that perfect note, but as the penultimate tone passed, and my eyes filled with tears, it wound to a stop, and I burst with cries of unconsolable longing for that stolen jewel. The bedroom was gone, I was still lying on the moss, and as I left that perfect place, I tried with all my mind’s might to remember that melody, but could not.
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