Charles De Lint - Dreams Underfoot

“The old gods and their magics did not dwindle away into murky memories of brownies and little fairies more at home in a Disney cartoon; rather, they changed. The coming of Christ and Christians actually freed them. They were no longer bound to people’s expectations but could now become anything that they could imagine themselves to be.

“They are still here, walking among us. We just don’t recognize them anymore.”

Meran looked up from the paper. “It’s quite evocative.”

“The essay was supposed to be on one of the ethnic minorities of Newford,” Mrs. Batterberry said.

“Then, to a believer in Faerie,” Meran said with a smile, “Lesli’s essay would seem most apropos.”

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Batterberry said, “but I can’t find any humor in this situation. This—” she indicated the essay “—it just makes me uncomfortable.”

“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” Meran said. “I didn’t mean to make light of your worries, but I’m also afraid that I don’t understand them.”

Mrs. Batterberry looked more uncomfortable than ever. “It ... it just seems so obvious. She must be involved with the occult, or drugs. Perhaps both.”

“Just because of this essay?” Meran asked. She only just managed to keep the incredulity from her voice.

“Fairies and magic are all she ever talks about—or did talk about, I should say. We don’t seem to have much luck communicating anymore.”

Mrs. Batterberry fell silent then. Meran looked down at the essay, reading more of it as she waited for Lesli’s mother to go on. After a few moments, she looked up to find Mrs. Batterberry regarding her hopefully.

Meran cleared her throat. “I’m not exactly sure why it is that you’ve come to me,” she said finally.

“I was hoping you’d talk to her—to Lesli. She adores you. I’m sure she’d listen to you.”

“And tell her what?”

“That this sort of thinking—” Mrs. Batterberry waved a hand in the general direction of the essay that Meran was holding “—is wrong.”

“I’m not sure that I can—”

Before Meran could complete her sentence with “do that,” Mrs. Batterberry reached over and gripped her hand.

“Please,” the woman said. “I don’t know where else to turn. She’s going to be sixteen in a few days.

Legally, she can live on her own then and I’m afraid she’s just going to leave home if we can’t get this settled. I won’t have drugs or ... or occult things in my house. But I ...” Her eyes were suddenly swimming with unshed tears. “I don’t—Want to lose her ....”

She drew back. From her handbag, she fished out a handkerchief which she used to dab at her eyes.

Meran sighed. “All right,” she said. “Lesli has another lesson with me on Thursday—a makeup one for having missed one last week. I’ll talk to her then, but I can’t promise you anything.”

Mrs. Batterberry looked embarrassed, but relieved. “I’m sure you’ll be able to help.”

Meran had no such assurances, but Lesli’s mother was already on her feet and heading for the door, forestalling any attempt Meran might have tried to muster to back out of the situation. Mrs. Batterberry paused in the doorway and looked back.

“Thank you so much,” she said, and then she was gone. Meran stared sourly at the space Mrs.

Batterberry had occupied. “Well, isn’t this just wonderful,” she said.

From Lesli’s diary, entry dated October 12th:

I saw another one today! It wasn’t at all the same as the one I spied on the Common last week. That one was more like a wizened little monkey, dressed up like an Arthur Rackham leprechaun. If I’d told anybody about him, they’d say that it was just a dressedup monkey, but we know better, don’t we?

This is just so wonderful. I’ve always known they were there, of course. All around. But they were just hints, things I’d see out of the corner of my eye, snatches of music or conversation that I’d hear in a park or the backyard, when no one else was around. But ever since Midsummer’s Eve, I’ve actually been able to see them.

I feel like a birder, noting each new separate species I spot down here on your pages, but was there ever a birdwatcher that could claim to have seen the marvels I have? It’s like, all of a sudden, I’ve finally learned how to see.

This one was at the Old Firehall of all places. I was having my weekly lesson with Meran—I get two this week because she was out of town last week. Anyway, we were playing my new tune—the one with the arpeggio bit in the second part that I’m supposed to be practicing but can’t quite get the hang of. It’s easy when Meran’s playing along with me, but when I try to do it on my own, my fingers get all fumbly and I keep muddling up the middle D.

I seem to have gotten sidetracked. Where was I? Oh yes. We were playing “Touch Me If You Dare” and it really sounded nice with both of us playing. Meran just seemed to pull my playing along with hers until it got lost in her music and you couldn’t tell which instrument was which, or even how many there were playing.

It was one of those perfect moments. I felt like I was in a trance or something. I had my eyes closed, but then I felt the air getting all thick. There was this weird sort of pressure on my skin, as though gravity had just doubled or something. I kept on playing, but I opened my eyes and that’s when I saw her—hovering up behind Meran’s shoulders.

She was the neatest thing I’ve ever seen—just the tiniest little faerie, ever so pretty, with gossamer wings that moved so quickly to keep her aloft that they were just a blur. They moved like a hummingbird’s wings. She looked just like the faeries on a pair of earrings I got a few years ago at a stall in the Market—sort of a Mucha design and all delicate and airy. But she wasn’t twodimensional or just one color.

Her wings were like a rainbow blaze. Her hair was like honey, her skin a softburnished gold. She was wearing—now don’t blush, diary—nothing at all on top and just a gauzy skirt that seemed to be made of little leaves that kept changing colour, now sort of pink, now mauve, now bluish.

I was so surprised that I almost dropped my flute. I didn’t—wouldn’t that give Mom something to yell at me for if I broke id—but I did muddle the tune. As soon as the music faltered—just like that, as though the only thing that was keeping her in this world was that tune—she disappeared.

I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to what Meran was saying for the rest of the lesson, but I don’t think she noticed. I couldn’t get the faerie out of my mind. I still can’t. I wish Mom had been there to see her, or stupid old Mr. Allen. They couldn’t say it was just my imagination then!

Of course they probably wouldn’t have been able to see her anyway. That’s the thing with magic.

You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.

After my lesson, Mom went in to talk to Meran and made me wait in the car. She wouldn’t say what they’d talked about, but she seemed to be in a way better mood than usual when she got back. God, I wish she wouldn’t get so uptight.

“So,” Cerin said finally, setting aside his book. Meran had been moping about the house for the whole of the hour since she’d gotten home from the Firehall. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“You’ll just say I told you so.”

“Told you so how?”

Meran sighed. “Oh, you know. How did you put it? ‘The problem with teaching children is that you have to put up with their parents.’ It was something like that.”

Cerin joined her in the windowseat, where she’d been staring out at the garden. He looked out at the giant old oaks that surrounded the house and said nothing for a long moment. In the fading afternoon light, he could see little brown men scurrying about in the leaves like so many monkeys.