Summary: Adam time travels to the 21st Century to visit his girlfriend. He discovers that she has been abducted by the Abominable Snowman and sets out to rescue her. A series of other fantasy elements and creatures appear in this story.

Rated T       Wordcount: 35, 488

Chapter 1…Prelude To A Date

The night was as black as the blackest pearled eye of a raven, the shadows just as ravenous too, like a flock of ravens descending upon some fresh carnage. Slithering shapes of dark shadows devoured any stray cast of light, but the moon was full – pregnant with the possibility of magic – and only from that celestial lady was the darkness ruptured by her beams of ethereal light.

Out of this far-flung cast of darkness, one light shone. One flickering flame of a candle-lit window broke the devouring dark that blanketed the urban jungle of Toronto, that city home of the realists who wore matching socks and suburban smiles and caked-on cosmetics to hide from those unknown beasts that go bump in the night as they played their own unique out-of-sync tune.

That candle-lit window was in a high-rise pest-infested apartment belonging to Heather, an extraordinary poet and writer, wannabe mermaid, friend to the fairies and unicorn fancier, as well as the adored betrothed of the time-travelling cowboy Adam Cartwright.

This particular night, Heather had just finished writing the final Chapter of her very first book “The Chocolate Bookworm” and was just going through it again, adding in any extra touches it may need. But it was done, her heart’s loving labor. The final Chapter of her book was now written and awaiting publication. And Heather was so proud of herself for her accomplishment…and her fiancé Adam Cartwright was proud of her too.

The last time he visited Heather was only a few nights ago. He used his usual time-travel method via one of the many fairy rings that surrounded her building. For a slummy pest-infested building, at least it was surrounded by a lot of nature which attracted the fairy folk and of course, it was they who created the fairy rings by which Adam Cartwright could visit his beloved Heather. But how he wished he could take her away from her lowly slummy building. She deserved better than to live with the vermin there. Nature’s bounty and the fairy rings that girdled it was this building’s only redeeming feature.

“Soon,” Adam had told Heather on his last visit. “Soon, I will take you away from this place and you will travel with me through the fairy ring as my bride.” Then he wrapped his arms of ranch-built brawn about her, pulled her against his hard, virile body and kissed her until Heather melted from the heat of their embrace. Oh, how she dreamed of that day!

Heather was expecting Adam to arrive very soon that night, in fact anytime now. Soon, she would hear that customary loud pop that preceded the opening of the fairy ring and signaled the rupture of Time, then the purring of Adam’s motorcycle as he drove up to the back of her building. His horse Sport always transformed into a motorcycle when Adam time traveled to her through the fairy ring.

Adam knew that she had just finished the writing of her book’s final Chapter that night and he was coming to celebrate with her. This night, being the night before Halloween, made time travel even easier as the veil between worlds was the thinnest around Halloween. And they had much to celebrate.

Adam was bringing a bottle of Chocolate Raspberry Truffle wine, Heather’s favorite. It was in the portable cooler on the back of his motorcycle. He also stopped off at Pizza Hut to pick up Heather’s favorite pizza with extra pepperoni, bacon, and garlic. It never failed to amuse Adam to observe how surprised the employee was to see a 19^th century cowboy striding through the door of Pizza Hut. Then, when it came time to pay and Adam placed several gold coins on the counter…well, the situation frothed with humor.

Heather changed into her black negligee – she knew it was Adam’s favorite. And hers too. She was aware it would show off her curves to the best advantage, readily comprehending this from the appreciative gleam in Adam’s hazel eyes whenever she wore it for him. Heather wondered if they would be celebrating inside her apartment or picnicking outside under the moon. Mmm, celebrating with a picnic by moonlight had a lot of possibilities. But wearing only a black negligee she might get cold…Heather smiled to herself as she thought of several ways that Adam could warm her up again…warming them both up most likely.

Then she prepared her bunny Pernell’s salad, cutting the red pepper into neat bunny bite-sized pieces, then sprinkling it over the Romaine lettuce, cilantro, and dandelion in a bowl. She watched as Pernell, with a joyful hop, came over to where she placed her salad bowl on the floor, then contentedly munched away, eating first her favorite red pepper.

Suddenly, there was a low rumbling from outside, followed by a great tearing sound as the giant window of her westside wall shattered, splinters of glass and concrete imploded in a shower of violence, the likes of which Heather had never seen before!

She screamed; Pernell froze in fright mid-chew. Both woman and bunny stared at the gigantic gaping hole that only a moment ago was the westside wall of her 6^th floor apartment. Now it was an ugly yawning mouth with jagged shards of glass and splinters of concrete as its monstrous teeth. Heather felt the cool gust of October air rush in and it chilled her, scantily clad as she was in her sheer black negligee. But what she saw next chilled her even more.

Appearing in the giant hole where her wall should’ve been was a face. But not just any face, but the horrifying face of a monster! It had dirty white fur, shaggy and coarse, framing a leathery pale face. Its eyes glittered dull blue, but its mouth was the most terrifying. While the creature was roaring and howling like some soulless beast from out of the depths of Hades, its teeth shone like giant shards of jagged icicles, sharp and absolutely terrifying!

Heather couldn’t stop screaming and crying. With all her years of reading books of a variety of subjects on ancient religions, mythology, folklore, nature and even the supernatural, only one name echoed through her terror-stricken mind. She knew exactly who this creature was. It was the Yeti. Also known as the Abominable Snowman.

He stood just over thirty feet tall and had climbed up her apartment building as easily as his distant cousin, King Kong, had when he scaled the Empire State Building with his lady love.

Heather didn’t know how or when she had captured the Yeti’s amorous attentions, but she definitely did. Now here he was, his scary face peering in at her from the gaping maw left behind after tearing out her westside wall.

Then with a giant leap, he was inside her apartment. Heather was shaking in her fright. Pernell was still frozen.

Immediately, the Abominable Snowman grabbed her in his strong-as-steel grip, then he leaped back out of the apartment with his coveted prize.

“Pernell!” Heather screamed to her bunny. But all Pernell could do was look on, helplessly, her luminous red eyes filled with fear, as the Abominable Snowman carried away her human friend.

 

Chapter 2…Beauty And The Beast

Where was he taking her? Heather wished she knew. But all she did know for sure was that she had never been more terrified in her life.

From skyscraper to another concrete skyscraper jutting upward into the sky like a gigantic finger displaying its obscenity for all the world to see, did the Abominable Snowman swing with such ease as if he was also a relation to Spider-man and not just King Kong.

Heather was still screaming and crying; with her fear of heights the Yeti’s acrobatic trek through downtown Toronto played havoc with her nerves. But it was when the creature scaled the CN Tower that her stomach plummeted and Heather felt like a sick cat on a Ferris Wheel. Then she fainted.

If she had been conscious, she would’ve noticed the Abominable Snowman hanging, poised, on the very top of the CN Tower where he looked out over the city. From his vantage point he could see for miles as his sharp eyes surveyed the great distance, searching for the fairy ring that would take him to his arctic home.

Over there. Yes. He found it. Giving a satisfied grunt followed by a howl of triumph, the Abominable Snowman jumped off his perch on the CN Tower, and using his primate acrobatics he swung his way through the city and to the fairy ring that he knew was the gateway to his arctic abode.

 

Chapter 3…Adam Arrives

“Heather…is…Heather is…” Adam Cartwright sat at the creaky kitchen table as he attempted to decipher the SOS Morse code that Pernell was frantically using to give him a message by thumping her right hind foot against the tile floor.

He had arrived at what used to be Heather’s apartment – with the wine and pizza – which he unceremoniously dropped on the table when he saw the chaos that used to be his lady love’s home. What happened? Where was his lovely Heather? Why was the entire westside wall missing?

So many questions and no answers. But there was Pernell, Heather’s beloved bunny, still frozen before the empty space where a wall once stood. Once she became aware of Adam’s presence, she snapped out of her fearful trance. Now she was desperately trying to relay her message of what happened to her Heather. If only the human male could decipher her Morse code bunny-talk. Pernell tried again.

“Heather is…Heather…” Slow down, Pernell. You’re impossible to understand when you stutter!” Adam said, frustrated. Pernell tried again, furiously thumping out her message with her furry hind foot.

“Heather is…in trouble. Stop. Send help at once. Stop. The Yeti has her. STOP!” Adam stood up as he yelled out the last word of Pernell’s message, alarmed at what had befallen his lady love while Pernell, that persistent bunny, collapsed on her side with a roll of her luminously red eyes. Finally, the human understands, Pernell looked like she was thinking to herself.

Adam rushed out the door to his motorcycle and raced off to the fairy ring that he knew would transport him to the arctic…the home of the Abominable snowman.

 

Chapter 4…In The Beast’s Lair

With a sharp explosive pop like a cork rocketing out of a champagne bottle, the fairy ring opened up and out roared Adam Cartwright’s motorcycle. He skidded to a halt on the ice to survey his surroundings.

In every direction stretched fields of ice, as far as his luminescent hazel eyes could see laid hills and valleys and even mountains of ice. The silence of this remote place laid as thick as a blanket, but it also glittered sheer like musical notes hanging suspended in the frosty-hewn air.

The experienced tracker that he was, Adam kneeled down to examine the glacial ground. There it was. Like a signature stamped into the polar ice were footprints – gigantic footprints that could only have been made by the Abominable Snowman.

“There you are. I have you now,” Adam said grimly as he stood up, bundled his coat tighter about him and pulled up the collar as he set off after the Abominable Snowman who had abducted his beloved fiancée.

He left his motorcycle parked by the fairy ring as he knew it would be too noisy and would surely alert the creature when he drew near. No, stealth would be his best friend on this trek.

So, Adam set out on foot after his quarry; the crisp cookie crunch of the packed snow beneath his black leather cowboy boots was the only sound to intrude upon the silence. In the arctic air, his breath trailed behind him tendrils of steam that reworked itself until it formed hieroglyphics that slowly evaporated. A light snow started to fall, landing on the brim of his black Stetson and delicately dusting his coal-dark hair. Several icy snowflakes stuck to his eyelashes, making them look as sharp as a stiletto, but at the same time as soft as a crow’s feathers, as deduced by the shadows they threw over his face.

The minutes marched forward until an hour passed…finally, Adam saw it: a cavern chiseled into the side of a mountain of blue glacier ice and snow. The home of the Abominable Snowman.

Slowly, Adam entered the cavern and being careful not to dislodge any loose piece of ice and debris that littered the rough craggy path, he made his way down. He unhooked the safety on his holster then his right hand lightly rested on the handle of his revolver, ready to draw when the need arose.

His eyes had already grown accustomed to the dim light as his ears strained to hear any sound of the Abominable Snowman deep in his lair.

It wasn’t long before a stale decomposing stench assaulted Adam’s senses. Then he saw some old animal bones strewn along the cavern floor. Adam knew that he was now in the belly of the beast’s lair. Even before he heard the Yeti’s howls. And Heather’s screams.

If that creature hurts her…Adam clenched his teeth at the unfinished thought while quickening his pace down the rugged trail, still trying to be quiet.

In a few moments more, the cavern’s narrow path fanned out at the entrance to the beast’s lair. Adam flattened himself against the wall so as to remain unnoticed by the Yeti. He didn’t have to worry about that: Heather had the Abominable Snowman’s undivided attention. Unseen, Adam looked. He took in the situation, dire as it was.

The beast stood just over thirty feet tall and he had Adam’s girl firmly in his grasp. The fingers of his left hand gripped her around the waist while he held her up in the air. It was easy for Adam to move unnoticed into the cavern since the Abominable Snowman only had eyes for his sweetheart.

Heather screamed, her long chestnut tresses whipped about her heart-shaped face in her futile struggles to get free. But the creature just growled and bared his terrible teeth at her. Her black negligee ripped and tore in some key areas, exciting the beast even more! Adam softly swore. That was his favorite. At least the creature had taste.

The fair maiden, unused to such brutality, her creamy skin flushed like a rose in her fright. Seeing Heather’s tear-filled chocolate eyes caused Adam’s heart to constrict painfully. He had to rescue his beloved…and soon!

Suddenly, a small tawny blur sped by, right past Adam and towards the giant beast where it ran in a circle around his legs as thick as tree trunks, then the blur stopped. It was Pernell! The brave bunny sat poised like a little superhero between the beast’s legs for a second, then she swiftly ran another circle around the Abominable Snowman.

Somehow, without Adam noticing, Pernell had followed him out of the devastation that was now Heather’s home. Then as Adam mounted his motorcycle, Pernell, the clever bunny that she was, jumped on and hid behind the portable cooler on the back. Adam was so focused on rescuing Heather, the lady who strummed the strings of his heart, that he never noticed the little bunny stowaway. Even when he passed through the fairy ring and trekked through the arctic terrain to the Yeti’s lair, he never noticed Pernell who followed close behind. Such was Adam’s focus on his mission of rescue and such was Pernell’s love for Heather. There is no love purer than that of an animal and the bunny’s presence in the beast’s lair was proof of that.

“Pernell!” Adam called out as the Abominable Snowman, enraged by the intruder, took a swipe at Pernell with his right paw. The energized bunny ran just out of reach and the creature missed.

“Oh Pernell! Be careful!” Heather screamed, fearful for the safety of her furry friend.

Again, Pernell ran a figure eight around the Yeti’s legs, and again and again the furious creature swatted at the little bunny, but missed each time.

Meanwhile, Adam had drawn his revolver from its holster and was just waiting for the right opportunity to fire. He didn’t want to fire when the Yeti was still holding Heather in his tight-fisted left hand.

Adam knew that Pernell was trying to wear down the beast, hopefully to get him so tired and confused that he would put Heather down and then Adam could open fire. Though, Adam thought that it looked like the brave bunny was the one who was growing tired and the beast more enraged.

“Pernell, please stay back,” Heather cried, terrified of the danger the bunny was putting herself in.

Pernell started to circle the Abominable Snowman’s feet with another infinity sign, but she was slower and clearly growing tired. The beast had his paw raised, ready to take another swipe at the bunny. Then Heather bit him. And she continued to bite him as hard as she could until she had the creature’s attention.

With a howl of surprise, the Abominable Snowman paused his attack and turned his attention to Heather. He gently put her down on a rugged ledge behind him. Now he could focus on the intruders who were attacking him in his own home.

With another howl full of indignant rage and fury, the Abominable Snowman lifted back his right arm as he prepared to take another deadly swipe at the bunny. But he didn’t get the chance to complete his attack.

It was just the opening that Adam was waiting for. Without a second of hesitation, he opened fire on the great beast. His revolver fired six bullets, one right after the other in quick succession. The beast bellowed his fury as he took a step in Adam’s direction…but he didn’t get far.

Adam had already reloaded his revolver and fired another round straight at the beast. He knew that he had hit him too as blood trickled from the bullet wounds in his chest. The beast watched in a daze as his life ran from him in crimson rivulets.

Adam reloaded again. The sound of the speeding bullets echoing in the cavern were reminiscent of the blasting guns in a Star Wars movie. Adam’s aim was true and his target impossible to miss. The stalwart cowboy clad in heroic black, watched as more and more blood flowed profusely from the beast’s massive torso, deep crimson staining the dirty white fur.

The Abominable Snowman staggered and turned towards the cavern’s icy wall. He was mortally dazed and trying to hold onto what life he had left in him before the last of it trickled away with his blood, but somehow, he managed to focus on the ledge where he had placed Heather. His arm was unstable that reached forward, but his hand fumbled its way to the terrified lady.

Oh no, you don’t. Stay away from my future bride, Adam thought to himself as he reloaded his gun with the fourth fatal round and fired. Each of the six bullets drove into him, their burning ferocious force pummeled the last flicker of life from the Abominable Snowman.

The Yeti fumbled one last lingering caress to the terrified Heather before he staggered backward, and with more of a whimper than a roar, the mammoth creature fell. Dead. It may have been bullets that killed him but it was love that drew the curtain over his final act. Beauty vanquished the beast. The cavern floor thundered under the fall of the Abominable Snowman and onward his epitaph echoed. Then, silence reigned.

His gun back in his holster, Adam ran to the cavern wall. “Heather?” he called up to his beloved. He couldn’t see her from his position, but he could hear her softly crying. “Hold on, sweetheart, I’ll be up there in a minute.”

True to his word, it took him no time at all to climb the cavern’s rugged wall to the protruding ledge. When he saw Heather’s torn black negligee, her tear-streaked face and the purple bruises that were already starting to bloom over her sensitive flesh from the Yeti holding her too tightly, it tore at Adam’s heart. He hurried over to her and gathered his lady love in his arms, her softness melting against the heat of his brawny strength.

“You came after me…” Heather said softly as she pulled back from Adam’s enveloping embrace so she could gaze into his hazel eyes. Those fluid orbs that mirrored his beautiful soul, they were as luminously warm as a bonfire on Midsummer’s eve.

“Of course, I came for you. I will always come for you, my love,” Adam reassured, but he could see that she was not herself. All of the distress, action, and the adrenaline rush had taken its toll on Heather’s nerves…and then she fainted in his arms. But Adam resuscitated her with a kiss. A very, very passionate kiss.

After several more “resuscitative kisses”, and caresses too, Adam helped Heather to climb down the cavern wall (which basically consisted of his lady riding down on his back with her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders and holding on for dear life as he climbed down).

Once she was safely on the ground again and slid off of Adam’s back, a small furry body hurled itself into Heather’s arms.

“Pernell! You brave bunny, you helped to rescue me.” Heather cried joyfully, cradling her furry friend in her arms as she kissed the bunny’s face. “Thank-you.” Pernell softly purred under Heather’s affection.

“I couldn’t have done it without her. Pernell and I make a good team,” Adam said as he put his right arm around her and his left behind her legs and then he lifted his beloved lady off the frozen ground.

“I don’t want your bare feet to get frostbite,” he explained as he cradled her in his arms. Then his mouth covered hers and he kissed her until Heather felt like her blood had turned to lava.

“I could never get frostbite when I’m with you,” Heather sighed happily as their lips parted. “And especially when you kiss me like that.” Adam kissed her again.

Then, with Pernell in Heather’s arms and Heather in Adam’s arms, the trio left the Abominable Snowman’s arctic lair and left behind his massive dead body too.

 

Chapter 5…Arctic Chase

Outside the cavern, they entered a wilderness of white. The snow had continued to fall, creating a wintery architecture all aglow under its crystalline chill and frosty fleece.

“And this, my sweet, is for you,” Adam said as he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small rose-shaped bottle and handed it to Heather.

“What is it?” She asked as she turned the bottle around in her hands. The bottle was not only shaped like a rose slowly unfurling her petals, but it was rose-colored too, with the petals fringed in gold. She held it up and could see that it contained a liquid. It sparkled like an elixir of fluent jewels as the sunlight shone on it.

“A gift from Maeve, the fairy queen,” Adam said as he continued to walk at a steady pace. “When I went through the fairy ring to come here, she stopped me. At first, I was annoyed, to put it mildly, that the fairy queen would interfere with me going through their portal. What, with all of those gifts of cream and honey cakes that you always left out for the fairies at every full moon and solstice. Giving me access to use their portal to rescue you was the least they could do. But she threatened to close their portal if I didn’t stop to listen to her. So, I had no choice but to stop.”

“That was a wise choice,” Heather said with a smile, her arms around his neck as he carried her. She heard stories of what could happen to humans if they didn’t take the time to listen to the fairies. Though they could be extremely helpful to humans, it was best not to anger the fairy folk. Especially the queen.

“Queen Maeve said that she knew the Abominable Snowman had taken you to the Arctic and I was on my way to rescue you. She said that while it was extremely wrong for him to have abducted you, for the time being when you’re with him in his lair, you’ll be eclipsed by his aura of arctic magic that surrounds him and thus, protected from freezing to death. She said your protection against the extreme cold will end once you leave his lair…”

“I wondered about that. I knew I should be feeling so much colder than I was. I didn’t understand why the Arctic’s cold wasn’t affecting me,” Heather said in dawning wonder.

“…so, she gave me that bottle and said it contained a fairy elixir – brewed within a milkweed pod in a prairie of thistledown and pussy willow, then left to ferment in a tent of spider-silk until the next full moon as a fairy named Story, I think, continuously rotated it clock-wise for three quarters of an hour. Then another fairy, Dewspinner – where do they come up with these names – took over and rotated it counter clockwise for another three quarters of an hour,” Adam said this with a dramatic roll of his eyes at all of these details that Queen Maeve related to him so proudly.

Heather just giggled at the thought of Adam having to listen to the queen as she narrated the details of her fairy magic in the making of this elixir. She knew what an honor it was and was touched to realize that Queen Maeve must really think of her as a friend to the fae for her to help Adam by giving him a potion of her magic. Adam silenced Heather’s laughter with another steamy kiss, then he continued his story.

“That fairy elixir will protect you against the cold. You must drink it now, my sweet, its magic will protect you while we’re in the Arctic.”

So, Heather uncorked the bottle and drank the fairy elixir. Her eyes brightened at the taste. “Wow! It tastes just like caramel apples!” She exclaimed in her surprise. Then she looked at Adam in concern, and little Pernell curled up in her lap.

“No need to worry. I already had mine on my way here. Queen Maeve made sure I drank it before continuing through the fairy portal. My elixir tasted just like rum soda. And though I never noticed the little stowaway here, Maeve must’ve given one to Pernell too. Probably tasted like carrot cake to her, no doubt.” Heather giggled again and Adam kissed her sweet appetizing mouth.

Adam continued to walk with Heather and Pernell, but when they were halfway to the motorcycle and fairy ring, a series of forlorn mournful howls shattered the silence. They were long and drawn-out and went on for several minutes. Their echoes haunted the Arctic wilderness.

“What was that sound?” Heather asked in trepidation, her body becoming rigid in Adam’s arms. Even Pernell seemed inquisitive as her ears perked up and her nose twitched.

Adam listened; his dark brows furrowed in thought. “It’s possible that the Yeti wasn’t the only one of its kind…” Adam trailed off. He didn’t want to frighten Heather any more than she had already endured, but he had to be honest.

“You mean he had a family?” Even without Adam finishing his thought, Heather could finish it for him. She had wondered too, if the Yeti was one of a kind or if there were more of him. She found the thought unsettling.

Adam nodded solemnly. They were quiet as they listened to the succession of mournful howls, so full of anguish and sorrow that Heather and Adam could feel their pain as the howls continued like a funeral lament for their fallen family member. It colored the polar air with its eeriness. Heather gave voice to those feelings.

“Even with the ordeal that Yeti put me through, I can’t help feeling sad for him…”

“It sounds like they’re getting closer,” Adam said pensively as he listened to the howls creeping closer.

“Let’s get out of here. It sounds so eerie,” Heather said, her voice filled with a new sense of alarm. No matter how sad she may feel for the Yeti, she absolutely didn’t want to meet up with his family.

Adam quickened his pace through the surrounding beds of snow, pulling his coat up around the lingerie-clad Heather in his arms to protect her from the bite and burn of the wind. The Arctic was a harsh country, but also one of fragility as seen in the delicate designs of the ice sculptures they passed, no doubt sculpted by the infinitely cold hoary hands of winter. But there was no time to dawdle and admire the Arctic’s artistry…those howls were getting closer, sobbing on the wind as they seemed to advance, keeping in rhythm to Adam’s quick pace. They were almost there…they couldn’t arrive at the fairy ring soon enough for Heather.

“Oh Adam, I can hear them getting closer! They seem to be just around the bend of the mountain of snow we just passed,” Heather cried, her fear increasing as she knew they were being followed even though she couldn’t see them yet.

Adam didn’t waste time looking back; he knew Heather was right. They were definitely being chased. Adam could feel the vibrations through the ground like the sound of distant thunder. Even the air seemed to shiver with their advancing giant steps. Some of the freshly fallen snow was shaken free from their stubborn stance on the fluffy white pillows they passed. Their glitter and glow displaced, but still it was just as beautiful wherever it fell.

The motorcycle and the fairy ring were in sight. They were almost there. But so were the family of Abominable Snowmen judging by the very close proximity of their vengeful howls. Adam chanced a quick look behind him and to his apprehension he saw a giant shadow looming from out behind a hillside just twenty feet away.

Adam sprinted the rest of the short distance to the motorcycle, the Yeti close behind. Heather’s arms were wrapped around his neck as she buried her face against his chest. She couldn’t look at the creatures that she knew were behind them.

The distant thunder of their advancing steps now sounded like they were almost in the eye of the storm as the vibrations rumbled through the ground. As if that wasn’t enough to announce their nearness, Adam could also smell their foul stench. Their shadows continued to loom, blocking the sunlight, their heavy breathing Adam could feel disturb the polar air…

But there was the motorcycle and just behind it, the fairy ring glowing invitingly. They made it! With haste, Adam mounted the motorcycle, Heather and Pernell securely behind him. The engine roared to life and it – along with the three time travelers – disappeared through the fairy ring. And not too soon, as a gigantic Yeti-shaped shadow towered over the portal’s entrance, its deafening roar of outrage at its prey having escaped its clutches was the last sound that Adam and Heather heard before the fairy portal transported the trio back to the 21^st century Toronto.

 

Chapter 6…Halloween Ride

The air crackled and sizzled around the entrance to the fairy ring as if someone – an invisible someone and certainly not Heather – had stuck a wet finger into an electrical outlet.

They had escaped from the Abominable Snowman! There was a moment when Adam wanted to destroy the portal to stop anymore of the Yeti’s family making use of it to get to Heather again. But she placed her hand over Adam’s just as he was about to draw his gun from its holster.

“Please don’t,” she said softly. Adam looked at her.

“Why?” He asked incredulously. “They must be stopped. They can’t be allowed to come through again.”

“I know…I just think we should leave that decision up to the fairies. It’s their portal after all,” Heather said, her soft doe eyes glowing with an inner light. Adam thought she had never looked more beautiful, or more otherworldly.

“Everything exists for a reason and every living creature has a place in this universe and a right to be here. Even the Abominable Snowman,” Heather said wisely. Then snuggling her body up against Adam with her arms draped around his neck, she said sweetly “I remember you said so yourself on more than one occasion.”

With Heather so intoxicatingly close, Adam was distracted enough not to be annoyed at his own words boomeranging back to him. Instead, he placed his arms around her waist, holding her lightly against him, then he kissed her, slow and deep, as if plundering her mouth to give up its sweetest treat. It was Halloween after all. And Adam Cartwright had planned on being a pirate.

“Alright. We’ll leave it up to the fairies,” he said as he came up for air from their kiss. His voice was as rich and smooth as the honey that Heather drizzled over the cakes she left out for the fae.

That settled, they mounted the motorcycle again and Adam took Heather and Pernell home…or at least, what was left of it. The night air was cool and crisp like the autumn leaves scattered on the ground, crunching like potato chips as the children shuffled through the decaying foliage on their trick or treating rounds.

Heather’s tattered black negligee fluttered behind her like the furious wingbeats of little black birds. If Adam was a dashing pirate, then she must be a fallen fairy…or a fallen something with her negligee in rags and her smeared make-up. As for Pernell, if there was a costume suited for a bunny who had just helped to rescue her human friend from the Abominable Snowman, then that costume would have to be a lion. Nothing else would do for her lionhearted bunny.

Heather loved seeing the children out in their costumes as they drove by and she hoped that they would get lots of good candy. As for Heather, she had Adam and he was the best candy of all to her.

She laughed when on the telltale wind, she heard snippets of the trick or treating song that the costumed children were saying this year:

 

Trick or treat, smell my feet,

Give me something good to eat.

If you don’t, I won’t care,

I’ll pull down your underwear!

 

Very soon, her apartment building was within sight: a gigantic eyesore rising into the nocturnal bosom of the night sky. Heather had always considered her apartment building to be a giant eyesore though. The housing company had painted it pink and blue, the clashing colors alternating their way around the building. The finishing touch: they placed a giant bright yellow number sign on the front! Now, who would paint a residential apartment building pink and blue and bright yellow? Unless that person was the Easter Bunny…Mmmn. The hole that was born when the Abominable Snowman ripped out her entire westside wall so he could seize her, his coveted prize, that ugly hole was the pupil to that giant eyesore and could only be an improvement.

But it was home nevertheless. At least, for the time being.

As the motorcycle turned the corner and headed into the parking lot at the back of her building, Heather saw more trick or treaters heading out…and one who was particularly tall. Heather took a second glance and almost choked in horrified recognition. It was her superintendent. Dressed up as a giant cockroach. After recovering from the shock, she couldn’t help but laugh. She always knew that her superintendent was a giant cockroach! But Halloween was about dressing up as something else…

Adam cast a questioning look at her in the side mirror upon hearing her laugh.

“I just saw my superintendent over there. He’s already to go trick or treating…dressed up as a giant cockroach,” Heather explained, still laughing at the irony of it.

“I guess he decided to shed his human form and go out as himself tonight. How appropriate,” Adam replied, chuckling. Heather couldn’t agree more!

 

Chapter 7…Pizza, Passion, And Chaos

“You know, I think the elevator is working. We could’ve taken it,” Heather said, from her cozy position on Adam’s back with her arms wrapped around his shoulders as he climbed up the side of her building to the devastation site that was her apartment.

Adam had parked in the back lot and after helping Heather dismount with Pernell, he stood and gazed up at her apartment – or what was left of it – after the Abominable Snowman had thoroughly destroyed it.

Taking a cable with a hook attached to one end from the storage box under the seat on the motorcycle, Adam threw it up until the hook latched onto the side of the building, just below the ugly gaping maw that was now her apartment. Then, he took out a net from that same storage box and grabbed Pernell, placing her safely in the net that he attached to his belt. Wow, Heather thought to herself. Her man had everything on this motorcycle! He really took the Boy Scout motto “always be prepared” to heart. He even had a cable with a hook for climbing up walls PLUS a net for squirmy bunnies in the storage box on the back of his motorcycle! I wouldn’t be surprised if next Adam suddenly pulled out a blender for making ice cream blizzards from that storage box. Heather smiled to herself at this thought while Adam helped her to get in position on his back.

Then, very much in the fashion of Batman, he started to climb up the side of the building with the arms of his lady love around his neck, holding on for dear life. Pernell was riding up in the net but was most definitely not enjoying the ride! With all this in-the-air-action, some of it several hundreds of feet off the ground and considering her lifelong fear of heights, Heather was more than a little surprised that all her fear caused her to do was faint and not throw-up. And she was praying that it would remain so. It would really ruin the romance of this story if she were to “toss her biscuits” now.

“I thought this would be more romantic for you,” Adam grunted. “Especially in your, umm, state of undress.”

Yes, Heather understood what he was referring to. She had dressed in her sexiest, most seductive – and skimpiest – black negligee that evening because Adam was coming over for their special celebratory date. But after being abducted by the Abominable Snowman and enduring his primate acrobatics as he swung from building to building throughout Toronto’s downtown core before being taken to his arctic lair, then there was Adam and Pernell’s daring dramatic rescue of her, not to mention the motorcycle ride…a lingerie-clad lady wasn’t really meant to go riding on a motorcycle. Not unless she wanted her negligee to end up around her waist…well, suffice it to say her negligee had taken a lot of abuse that night and left nothing to the imagination. Anyway, it was only meant for Adam’s eyes and not the whole city of Toronto, and most certainly not her lunatic pigpen neighbors. Heather didn’t say anything, she just kissed his neck. That special spot just under his jaw. Her hero. Why speak when a kiss could say more?

In a few minutes they arrived at where the westside wall of her apartment should’ve been. Also missing was most of her balcony, which Heather was actually happy to see. The concrete of her balcony smelled like a sewer due to the upstairs pig dumping his filth overboard onto hers. But the Abominable Snowman had ripped out her stinking balcony until all that was left of it were sharp serrated edges of concrete jutting outward from the side of the building.

Adam easily bypassed the cosmic-sized chaos that consisted of giant shards of glass, brick, steel rods and concrete as he jumped through the ugly gaping mouth into her apartment. He eased Heather off his back, but the sheltered lady, not used to such excitement, especially excitement that involved her flying through the air a thousand feet off the ground while in the clutches of the Yeti, had not yet regained her equilibrium and her legs buckled under her. But Adam was quick to catch her before she fell among the debris on the floor.

Safe in his arms again, he kissed her as he carried her over to a chair, somewhat clean, and gently put his lady down. Heather felt luxuriously warm from the amorousness of Adam’s kiss. There was no better way to chase away October’s chilly fingers from touching her than by sipping the wine she could only get with Adam’s warm lips on hers. She smiled up at him, feeling intoxicated on his presence. How could any man still look so deliciously good after the events of this night? His black clothes were still impeccably black, even his black Stetson was still clean. His raven-black hair was still so clean that its glossy waves looked like they had been polished to stay poised in place.

Adam lightly caressed her cheek, his eyes highlighted with the love that filled him for this rare jewel of a lady.

“I’m so glad you’re alright. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” he said softly. The sound of his voice and his gentle touch told Heather how much he cherished her. There was no better feeling in all the world than knowing that you’re loved by the person you love. Heather luxuriated in the feeling as she happily sighed under Adam’s loving touch.

Then Pernell, finally let loose from her confinement, glared angrily at Adam. Her fur, rumpled by the ride in the net, had left her in a huff at him. She spent a few moments grooming herself from his fingerprints and the rough ropes of the net, then she jumped into Heather’s lap. She needed some affection too.

Heather and Adam laughed as their intimate moment was interrupted by the heroic bunny. Then standing up as he surveyed the damage around him, Adam asked “Do you think your superintendent will notice?”

“I don’t know. The list is already so vast of things he doesn’t know and care about that it’s hard to keep track of what else he doesn’t know or care about,” Heather said, without missing a beat. The negligence of her so-called slumlord superintendent was well known, some may even say legendary, among the tenants of her building.

After a few moments her legs felt steadier and her stomach had seized its somersaults, so Heather stood up to test her equilibrium.

“Be careful, sweetheart,” Adam cautioned as he saw Heather start to walk tentatively among the debris that was scattered across her floor. The old creaky kitchen table was not much better. Debris was littered on it like shrapnel after a war-zone explosion. But there was the pizza box that Adam had haphazardly thrown on the table when he first saw her apartment. Once it was their love nest, now it was a wasteland.

Heather cautiously lifted up the top of the pizza box. “Eeww,” she said in distaste upon seeing the gooey strands of congealed cheese sticking to the lid of the box. The pizza was stone-cold with the pepperoni and bacon darkening after sitting on the table for close to 24 hours. Had it really been only 24 hours since her abduction by the Yeti? It seemed more like two or three days!

“Yes, I imagine the pizza wouldn’t be very edible now,” Adam said thoughtfully as he stood beside Heather.

“Garlic is supposed to ward off vampires…I wonder if it also works against the Abominable Snowman too? If only we had our pizza before he attacked,” Heather mused as she put down the lid. Then she saw the bottle of her favorite Chocolate Raspberry Truffle wine on the floor by the table. The label was a little scuffed, the bottle dusty, but unbroken. “But at least our wine is safe,” Heather said triumphantly as she held up the bottle, then placed it on the table.

“Hooray for small miracles,” Adam said as he pulled Heather against him. His muscular arms wrapped around her just as his mouth covered hers and they shared a kiss that Adam deepened as he felt Heather respond to his desire with her own. His hands caressed her back then moved downward…breathlessly he parted from her. Now was not the time to indulge in such intimacies. Heather deserved better than to me made love to in this wasteland.

“Why don’t you stay here and I’ll go out and bring back a fresh pizza,” Adam said, his hands back on her waist, chastely holding her away from him and temptation. He kept his eyes level on hers so they wouldn’t stray to the glimpses of creamy flesh that his lady’s tattered negligee rewarded him.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Heather said, at last taking notice of the hunger pains gnawing away at her empty stomach.

“I’ll get the Pizza Hut usual…extra pepperoni and bacon…

“And don’t forget the garlic. Maybe you should make that extra garlic in case one of the Abominable Snowmen comes back,” Heather said with one of her sweet smiles that she saved only for Adam.

“Fine. I better kiss you now before dinner. I might not want to after,” he said as he kissed her, holding tight on the reins of his passion as he did so.

“I’ll stay here…and clean,” Heather said as she picked up the broom in the corner.

Then with a wink, Adam departed the same way he had come in. Through the 17-foot Yeti-made “window”.

 

Chapter 8…A Visitor

After looking around at the wreck and ruin of her home, Heather’s eyes fell on poor Pernell who sat in front of her old salad on the floor, gazing in dismay at the debris that now littered it like concrete croutons.

“No, this won’t do for you at all,” Heather said as she promptly removed the bowl, and after washing it out she made a fresh salad for Pernell, that heroic bunny of hers full of zip and zing. As a special treat, she sprinkled some chopped carrots and blueberries on the top before placing the bowl in front of the bunny superhero. Heather smiled down at her furry friend as she immediately started munching away.

Once Pernell was occupied with her dinner, Heather picked up the broom in the corner of the kitchen and gave the floor a few long sweeping strokes before she stopped. It was pretty much pointless trying to clean up this war-sized devastation. And the late October wind certainly wasn’t helping.

It was a crisp and cool Halloween night with the wind unfurling itself over the city, its fingers teasing the trees outside to give up their bounty of leaves. And once the trees succumbed to their seduction like a burlesque dancer peeling away her clothes, the wind carried away the leaves, scattering them near and far…and a great many of them ended up in Heather’s apartment.

She watched, mesmerized, as the leaves like a treasure of bronze and copper coins, swirled together inside the Yeti-sized jaws of her apartment. Faster they swirled, their aerial somersaults were beyond comparison, they seemed to come alive. The swirling, dancing leaves reminded Heather of a host of butterflies seen in flight. And in fact, they were.

Before Heather’s eyes – widening at the incredible sight – she watched as the air-born leaves metamorphosed into little black butterflies. Each leaf, one by one, became a iridescent black butterfly until her apartment was not filled with leaves anymore but with these dear charming creatures. The sound of their rapidly fluttering wings sounded just like a cat purring. A harem of cats purring. Heather looked at the butterflies in delighted amazement.

Then, just when she got used to these shimmering black butterflies, they metamorphosed again! The fanciful pageant swirled together, faster and faster, until with one last furious flutter they spun inward as if they were melting into one giant butterfly, then just as fast did they flutter apart. There was a momentary flash of light as they did so, then the new metamorphosis was complete. Heather’s skin tingled as if caressed by magic, her eyes sparkled in amazement at the new sight. Before her, stood a fairy.

She was no Tinker Bell, but stood several inches over five feet tall. Her skin was as pure as milk, glistening like dew after being kissed by the first maiden rays of May. Her eyes were golden brown like a ripened acorn – the same earthy shade of Heather’s – and framed by lashes, lush and long as the spindly legs of a spider. Her hair was liquid moonlight and cascaded in a scale of ripples down her back. Fairy glamour glittered and twinkled throughout like stars that had been caught and were now intertwined amongst her celestial-hued tresses.

Under the subtle wash of the city light that filtered into Heather’s apartment, the fairy’s dress glistened like an iridescent rainbow. A rainbow that could only have been conceived by the dreamy landscape of nocturnal reveries.

The exalted feature that told of her royal status were her wings. They were as gossamer-refined and exquisite as butterfly wings, reaching a foot above her head and arcing like a rainbow down to her ankles.

Heather knew that she was in the presence of no ordinary fairy, but of a fairy queen. Long had she been a friend to the fae, leaving out dishes of cream and honey for them at every full moon and at the equinoxes and solstices, she had even seen them outside in the wild overgrowth of a park one night on the summer solstice. Their fairy glamour’s luminescent glow was unmistakable to her eyes. Through her dreams the fairies visited, weaving about her magic as the tempo of their dancing seemed to pulse out a name to her: Maeve. Their every breath seemed to exhale out the name too, until Heather felt that Maeve was no mere tendril of a dream, but was the name of a fairy that she had a connection with, if yet unknown.

“You’re Queen Maeve, aren’t you?” Heather asked once she found her voice.

“Yes, I am, Heather-fey…my daughter,” Maeve said, her voice silvery and light.

Before Heather could respond to Maeve’s declaration of parentage, the fairy queen held up her hand in front of her. She made a fist for a moment before opening it. Then, like a warm summer breeze, she blew on it and from her palm a ball of fairy glamour rose up in the air and flew toward Heather, eclipsing her in the glowing glitter and sparkle of the fairy queen’s glamour.

Once it cleared, Heather saw that her torn and tattered negligee had been replaced by a dress that looked like it was made of the same otherworldly material as Maeve’s dress, except that Heather’s was of an iridescent black like those little black butterflies that had filled her apartment before they transformed into Queen Maeve. Heather felt like Cinderilla in her new fairy dress.

“There! Now that’s better suited for my fairy daughter,” Maeve said, pleased with the transformation.

Before Heather could respond to Maeve’s startling statement, she heard the unmistakable sound of Adam climbing up the wall to her apartment. He had returned with a fresh pizza from Pizza Hut. Then, with feline grace he jumped over the jagged edge of concrete into her apartment, landing on his feet with the same feline grace.

“I see we have a visitor,” he said upon seeing the fairy queen. Then after placing the new pizza on the table, he noticed Heather’s new attire. “I like your new dress. I didn’t know you had anything like this.”

“Umm…I don’t. This is a gift from Queen Maeve,” Heather faltered. “Adam, she just called me her daughter.” Heather was not sure how to explain this to Adam…for that matter, she wasn’t sure how to explain it to herself.

“Why did you call me your daughter? Do you mean in the sense that I love nature and have always believed in fairies, even leaving out offerings of cream and honey for them?” Heather was trying to understand. “And why did you call me Heather-fey?”

Maeve gave a carefree laugh, its sound like silver bells carrying in the air. “No, Heather-fey, you’re my daughter in the purest sense. And Heather-fey is your true name,” the fairy queen said gently to the puzzled girl.

“Let me tell you a story. A fairy tale some may say, but it’s a true one…” Maeve began.

 

Chapter 9…A Fairy’s Tale

“I belong to the Kingdom of Fairies known as the Seelie Court, and have lived in the land of the fae for as long as I can remember.”

“I have been queen for most of those years too, when my mother Queen Mavelle – whose name means songbird – and no name could be more suited for her as she had a golden voice and her singing was beyond compare. Her mother, Vevina, my grandmother, said that when Mavelle was born, she never cried. Instead, she sang.”

“But I’m getting off track here,” Maeve said with her carefree laugh. “Anyways, after a few hundred years, my mother Mavelle grew tired of being queen and passed on her queenship to me by having me drink from her own royal chalice of mead. Thus, I was made queen.”

“Like many creatures of the Otherworld, fairies age very slowly and live notoriously long lives, however we are not immortal. I don’t quite know how old I am…I’ve lost track as I watched the earth ransacked of her secrets, her riches spoiled by the rising of cities and civilizations.”

“Though we have been pushed to the outskirts where nature is still allowed to grow wild, many of the fae now live nomadic lives, moving from place to place when civilization encroaches on us as they try to manicure nature and tame her wild ways. But a fairy’s heart was meant to beat fierce and free and so we happily moved to seek out those places that still welcome us…”

“I’ve always sought ways to welcome the fairies into my home,” Heather said with an otherworldly light sparkling in her golden-brown eyes.

“That’s because you’re my daughter and intuitively you’ve always known this truth,” Maeve said with a gentle caress to Heather-fey’s cheek. Silk against silk, like the softest touch of butterfly wings caressing another butterfly.

Adam didn’t have any difficulty entertaining the notion that his beloved Heather was fairy-born. When he thought of all the times she wanted to dance naked under the full moon, or that time at the Scarborough Civic Centre when she stared at the Koi fish in their indoor pond and then, as if she was in a trance, started to undo the buttons on the front of her dress. Adam was there to stop her before her “undressing” went too far and attracted the attention of one of the city counselors, but Heather seemed genuinely disappointed that he wouldn’t let her swim in the nude with the Koi!

Then, there was that time on Beltane when his free-spirited Heather celebrated the first day of May by going to Riverdale Park at the break of dawn, getting naked and clad only in the glory of her nudeness, she collected wild roses and other blossoms that had been kissed by the early morning dew. Adam was with her on that first day of May and now that he thought of it, he realized that he wasn’t dressed either. In fact, he and Heather had enjoyed an extremely pleasurable “roll in the dew.”

Still, there were those fantastical dreams she had of living in another world where fairies dwelled with other creatures such as unicorns…and then there was her confession to him of seeing fairies out of the corner of her eye in her home and seeing fairies on the summer solstice, their glamour boldly glowing luminously before her eyes…well, finding out that Heather was a fairy just made sense. But how did the Abominable Snowman fit into this fairy tale?

“Please continue with your story,” Adam said as he stood protectively beside Heather.

“Yes, please,” Heather-fey exclaimed, happy that Adam found this story as interesting as she did.

Maeve smiled at her captive audience then continued.

“I lived with my three younger sisters, Nightwing, Moonweb, and Spiritdancer in a treehouse mansion high up in the boughs of a cluster of oak trees. It was enormous and was the envy of many of the fae. We each had our own room and slept on beds fashioned from willow tree tresses and peacock plumes threaded together with the sun’s golden rays and fluffed up by the exhales of the whispering wind. Moonweb told the spiders the kind of curtains we wanted for our window, and in just one night those industrious spiders weaved our curtains from their own spider silk.”

“We held many galas and lavish parties with an abundance of food. Cream and honey cakes, sugared berries, flower nectar, apple pie, gingerbread, and an assortment of fruit wines were our favorite fare.”

“Our concerts created the perfect merry atmosphere too. Nightwing played the flute while Spiritdancer performed on the harp. Together, their music was truly enchanting. There was dancing and many poetry readings were held.”

“In fact, it was at one such poetry reading on Beltane that I met Ariel…your father,” Maeve said slowly to gauge Heather-fey’s reaction to the introduction of her father into the story.

“My father…please tell me about him,” Heather-fey said earnestly. Maeve smiled at her daughter, and Adam looking intrigued, then she continued her narrative.

“Your father’s name is Ariel – a sylph fairy of the air and all that is associated with it is his specialty. Ideas, inspiration, songs, poetry…they fly about him as if exhaled by the pulsing of his wings.”

“His wings are like those of a tiger swallowtail butterfly…bright yellow with an arc of vibrant blue and eyelets of striking scarlet, sweeping backward as extravagantly fine as the jewel of an idea.”

“He stands tall for a fairy – nearly six feet. His hair is bronzed gold like the sun at twilight; his eyes are blue like the high noon sky without a furrow of cloud to mar its halcyon clarity. I could look in his eyes and see forever,” Maeve whispered softly, lost in thought for a moment. Then coming back to herself and her surroundings again, she took up where she left off in her story.

“No fairy could be as charming as Ariel and when our eyes met on that fateful night I could almost hear the collision as our hearts ran aground in the other. It was like…a meeting of destinies. We just knew that we were meant to be together.”

“Our courtship was as swift and strong as a tropical hurricane…and before long I grew round with child. I was carrying you, Heather-fey,” Maeve said with a gentle smile as she looked at her daughter standing with her own beloved beau, her doe eyes sparkling at hearing this story for the first time and all the revelations about her past that were becoming known to her.

Heather had always known that she was adopted – the parents who had raised her had told her this truth when she was still a small child. That would explain what they called “her strangeness” and her feelings of never fitting in, of never being comfortable in the human world they tried to force her into. Like a square block that wouldn’t fit into a triangle mold, so was Heather-fey. She never fit in nor felt a sense of belonging with the family who raised her and now she was learning why. But never in her wildest dreams did she imagine that her birth parents were fairies! Okay, well maybe she did in her wildest, but to actually find out they were fairies and so was she…what a revelation!

Maeve’s eyes glistened with unshed tears; she knew what her dear daughter had been through with her adopted family. How she had been called “strange”, “weird”, and even “freak”. It broke Maeve’s heart and how she wished that she could erase the sting of those words and let Heather-fey know how truly loved and wanted she was. And she truly was. Maeve was soon coming to the part in her story that would explain the dire events that surrounded Heather-fey’s birth which led to her adoption into the human world.

“Ariel, ever the adoring husband, was with me all through my pregnancy, seeing to my every need by feeding me honeycomb and freshly plucked blossoms bathed in the early morning dew. When my time came, Ariel gathered me in his arms and carried me to a lush fragrant field of purple heather. There, he laid me down and in that field of heather I labored until I gave birth to you. My daughter. Ariel was the first to hold you. At first you cried, but he soon silenced your cries with a song. You were mesmerized by his voice. Then he handed you to me.”

“When I first saw your face and held you in my arms, I felt like I had been waiting a lifetime to meet you,” Maeve’s bell-like voice trembled as her unshed tears now freely flowed. Heather-fey was crying too, her tears trickling in a map of rivulets down her heart-shaped face. Adam was silent as he stood beside Heather, his hand rubbing her arm in his desire to comfort her. Then, he turned her to face him and pulled her into his embrace, his strong virile arms wrapping around her protectively.

“If her birth meant so much to you, then why did you give her up for adoption?” Adam asked angrily, no longer able to remain silent. “Her parents always knew there was something different about her…and they never accepted her because of it.”

“I know…and I’m so sorry for all your pain, Heather-fey,” Maeve faltered. “But it was necessary, it will soon be revealed. Please listen and let me continue,” Maeve pleaded to her daughter.

Heather-fey just nodded, unable to speak for the moment, though her tears had slowed in Adam’s comforting embrace. Adam just scowled at Maeve in stony silence as she continued her story.

“We loved you dearly and presented you at the party that Nightwing and Moonweb threw in your honor. All of our family and friends thought you were the most beautiful little fairy that the land of the fae had ever seen. We had not yet named you, as naming a fairy just like in the naming of any newborn baby requires a lot of care. But we all loved you and thought you were a cherished jewel. We all loved you…all except for the Blue Hag.” Maeve’s voice was so full of admiring love as she talked about Heather-fey’s birth and her first days as a fairy baby. But she said the last very ominously.

“Who is the Blue Hag?” Adam asked. This fairy tale was starting to have more twists and turns in it than a sidewinder snake!

 

Chapter 10…The Blue Hag And The Phooka

“Vivian”.

“The Blue Hag is of the Unseelie Court that comprises the wicked, malevolent fairies who have a deservedly bad reputation. She is a withered fairy with a scraggly mass of hair as white as frost. Her skin is blue due to the bitter cold land where she makes her home. She wears a hooded cloak the color of decaying foliage and carries a gnarled staff crowned with the skull of a carrion crow,” Maeve’s normally bell-like silvery voice was laced with an ominous note as she described the Blue Hag to her daughter and Adam. Even her honeyed eyes clouded over.

A chill crept down Heather-fey’s spine and she shivered. Feeling her shiver, Adam pulled Heather-fey deeper into his warm embrace, both settling back to hear how the ominous Blue Hag fitted into this fairy tale.

“Vivian was rightly feared by the good fae of the Seelie Court and we avoided her as best we could. She knew she was despised but she still came around…probably to feed on our fear which only seemed to increase her power. Sometimes she would even invade our parties and try to touch one of us with her staff…it would mean certain death if she did. She just smiled grimly as we fled from her.”

“We didn’t know it at the time but there was a deeper reason that she kept coming around: The Blue Hag had fallen in love with Ariel.”

“I don’t know how your father captured her attention…perhaps she saw Ariel flying among the clouds as he cleansed the impurities from the air…or maybe she was intrigued by the symphony of sparkles he left trailing behind him. However it happened, the Blue Hag was enthralled by Ariel’s fairy glamour. Your father was very charming,” Maeve said the last with one of her enchanting smiles and a wink. Heather-fey giggled, its sound chimed the air, silvery light and playful. Adam just held his fairy bride against him, her iridescent-clad form molding perfectly to the contour of his protective embrace. What a charming couple they make. They will surely have exceptionally beautiful children together. Fairy-children that is…even half fae children are greatly influenced by their fae genes. I hope Adam won’t mind when his children start to fly, Maeve thought to herself, then after a moment she continued with her story.

“But of course, your father wanted nothing to do with her and he made that absolutely clear to her…anyone with a beating heart and eyes to see the love he lavished on me and his newly born fairy daughter would understand…but not the Blue Hag.”

“Then, one day, she just disappeared. Had she finally given up on vying for Ariel’s attention? We didn’t think it likely and were suspicious of her sudden disappearance. So, Moonweb sent out her network of spiders to track down the Blue Hag and discover her whereabouts…it was barely a fortnight when the spiders reported back and what they had to tell was so incredulous that Moonweb had to see for herself. She took along Nightwing and Spiritdancer.”

“Amongst the silvery green foliage of the elder and hawthorn that encompassed the barrier between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts they hid. The velvety darkness was their cloak and the troop of spiders their faithful friends. Wispy tendrils of silk were embroidered among the branches where the spiders had gathered to spy on Vivian in her hovel.”

There, the three fairies hid and it didn’t take long for them to discover Vivian’s secret. They could see her through the window of her house. Suddenly, they saw a dark shape of smoke and sparkle circulate in a cloud in front of Vivian.

“What or who could this be?” Nightwing whispered softly as she watched the materialization take form…then all three fairies gasped in shock and surprise when they recognized the newly arrived fairy…it was Ariel! Or so it appeared.

Though this male fairy before the Blue Hag had the appearance of Ariel, from his tall stature to his bronzed gold hair and translucent skin to the sweeping grandeur of his swallowtail wings… there was a hardness to his blue eyes like a dark storm thinly veiled behind a noontide cloud just waiting for its chance to break loose a rampage of wicked trickery. Yes…it was this aura of mean-spirited trickery with a dark blaze of mischief and wickedness that the three fairies sensed about him. They knew this was just a façade and was not the real Ariel. Especially, when they watched Vivian welcome this fake Ariel and eagerly took him to her bed.

“If Vivian wasn’t so hateful to us, I could almost feel sorry for her being duped so cruelly – almost,” Moonweb whispered to Nightwing and Spiritdancer.

“But we know that’s not Ariel. He’s with Maeve looking after our little fairy niece. We all saw them together. Now who could this imposter be? Who in the Unseelie Court is so good at disguises and is mischievous enough to pull off such a cruel trick on the Blue Hag? Not that Vivian doesn’t deserve it after how she harassed and tormented Maeve and the rest of the Seelie Court for years,” Nightwing whispered back as she thought of who this imposter was. What was his real identity?

“Could it be…the Phooka?” Spiritdancer asked softly.

“Yes, of course,” Moonweb and Nightwing cried in unison.

“That shapeshifting goblin, the Phooka, is always taking on another form and gains pleasure in fooling people in the most wicked way,” Moonweb said.

“Mmm, the Phooka and Vivian the Blue Hag…in a way they make the perfect couple,” Nightwing said in grim satisfaction as she thought of how Vivian had tormented her family for years with her own mean-spirited trickery. Now she had met her match with the Phooka and his devilish play.

“If it is the Phooka…we must stay until he reveals himself,” Spiritdancer said reasonably, a gentle breeze whispering through her long tresses that were the hue of ripe autumn leaves.

So, the fairy trio stayed hidden by the elder and hawthorn trees, safely shielded by the sable shadows of the night, but they could still see by the ethereal light of the moon, that maternal moon enthroned high above, she was so full that she looked pregnant. Any moment, the fairies expected her to give birth to those celestial offsprings that teach dreams to dance free and imagination to take flight. The night parted her indigo plumes as they waited, while the Blue Hag dallied with the Ariel-imposer in her bed.

Soon, the sky turned rosy gold from the shy maiden glances of the dawn as she arose over the horizon, softly and gently awakening the dewy-eyed world. Then, before three sets of fairy eyes, the imposter was revealed. As he slipped out the Blue Hag’s hovel door, he dropped his impersonation and his true identity was revealed.

“It is the Phooka!” Nightwing exclaimed as she watched the tall black form run down a path, his golden eyes gleaming brightly from that murky, pitch-black face. His limbs were gangly but he moved at a quick pace, most likely energized by his trickery.

“Well, Nightwing and Spiritdancer wasted no time in reporting back to me on their discovery. Moonweb stayed behind with her spiders to continue her surveillance on Vivian.”

“We surmised that the Phooka somehow became aware of Vivian’s feelings for Ariel and seized the opportunity to play one of his shapeshifting tricks. I couldn’t help feeling somewhat sorry for her, though with how she tormented me in the past and the despicable assaults she had launched against my home, I couldn’t feel too badly. She had tried to kill me in one of her deranged attacks after all,” Maeve said in the bell-like tones of her voice. Then seeing the look of alarm that had sprung in Heather-fey’s widened eyes, her body rigid with distress, and the disturbing furrow of Adam’s dark brows, she laid her milky hand on her daughter’s arm.

Even Pernell looked up from her salad bowl. She had been contentedly munching away during the telling of Maeve’s story, her appetite ravenous after her Arctic adventure where she performed feats of heroism that no mere ordinary rabbit would ever do. But at the mention of the Blue Hag’s attack on Maeve, Pernell’s ears perked up, her nose twitched, and her luminous liquid eyes held a look of definite consternation.

“But that’s another story for another time,” Maeve said with a gentle smile, trying to ease Heather-fey back into her calming repose as she settled into Adam’s embrace. Ever the bear-like protector, Adam’s muscular arms enclosed around her again, holding her tightly against his chest as his sensuous lips warmed Heather-fey with a long lingering kiss pressed to the soft nape of her neck.

“Please continue with your story,” Heather-fey said softly, calm once again. Maeve smiled at the two, then continued her narrative.

“Well, the Phooka kept Vivian occupied, shall we say. We didn’t see her for a season – which, of course, we were happy about – though we were also concerned about what she was up to, if she was busy plotting another attack against the fae of the Seelie Court. So, Moonweb sent out her legion of spiders to spy on her again. And again, when they reported back to her, the news was so fantastical: Vivian the Blue Hag had just given birth.

Moonweb, Nightwing, and Spiritdancer had to see for themselves. So, off they went to the Blue Hag’s hovel at the first break of dawn. Their gossamer wings carried them faster than a cicada’s and once there, they hovered in the air, silent and still, as they looked in the grimy window.

The spiders’ report was true: The Blue Hag had just given birth to a baby…if you could call it that.

The infant was a monster-baby, covered in dirty white fur from head to toe – or claw in this case, for that’s what it had. Each furry finger and toe were crowned with a threateningly sharp claw, each one already an inch long though the monster-child was only a day old. Its wide mouth was full of teeth, as sharp as a splinter of ice while its eyes glistened glacial blue. Its cries were not the cries of any fairy baby, but instead its baby wailing came out in a series of screeches, grunts and growls. There was no doubt about it. It was a creature that could only have sprung from the loins of one of the wicked fae belonging to the Unseelie Court. This monster-child was the Yeti.

“Vivian looks shocked,” Nightwing whispered as she fought down the dread and terror that attempted to rise up in her at the sight of this monstrous offspring.

The three fairies looked on as Vivian stood before the cradle, its dark wood so old that it was gutted with rot. Its stench was so repulsive that she must’ve collected the wood from the flotsam that washed onto the sandy shores of the Emerald Isles, and thus her cradle was fashioned. What kind of mother would use the rotted wood from some ill-fated ship that she found on the shore to make her baby’s cradle? Only the Blue Hag.

Now here she stood before the cradle, with a look of horror on her blue withered face. Along with shock. And betrayal. Even the maggots that nested in the deep furrows of her face looked terrified.

“How can this be?” The three fairies heard Vivian whisper to herself. “This cannot be the offspring of the beautiful and magnificent Ariel. What trickery has happened here…” she whispered as an angry tear slid down her blue shriveled face that reminded the fairies of the harvest’s last apple on the tree finally being blown to the hardened ground by Winter’s frosty breath, and there, the apple soon became a hollowed husk after being fed upon by the hungriest worms.

The tear turned to ice, as dried up as Vivian’s heart. The fairies watched as scorn threw its shadow over her prune-like face. Then realization dawned in her dark beady eyes.

“The Phooka!” Vivian breathed. “This hideous monster could only be the offspring of the Phooka!” She raged, thinking of all those times it was Ariel who she thought she was having an affair with and how pleased she was thinking that she was stealing away the husband of Queen Maeve but all along it was the trickery of the shape-shifting Phooka. She vowed her revenge somehow, some way…

“Come Moerae,” she called to her crow companion and with her signature cry, the black bird flew to the Blue Hag and perched on her bony shoulder.

“We’re going to the Seelie Court, Ariel – or the Phooka – will not get away with making a fool of me,” the Blue Hag intoned ominously as she struck her staff on the ground, hard enough to rattle the carrion crow’s skull perched on top like some macabre symbol of her dark power, then they were gone. A suffocating breath of smoke filled the space where she once stood. And the piercing cries of the baby Yeti.

“Oh no…we have to get back to the Seelie Court at once,” Moonweb cried while her legion of spiders shivered with excitement around her.

Some of the more experienced writers of the spiders even wrote messages in their webs. “We WANT TO HELP” said one message made by a particularly beautiful black and yellow spider whom Moonweb had named Mrs. Merry Legs, because of how happy she seemed as her seven legs danced about while she busied herself with her web-writing. She had lost one leg in a fight with an adversary over a moth…but Mrs. Merry Legs never let her handicap interfere with her web-writing. How proud Moonweb was of her arachnid friend!

Mrs. Merry Legs was no ordinary spider. No, she was a fairy spider and a faithful friend, nearly a foot in length, and very wise in the magic she weaved. Her beauty was exquisite and how dowdier spiders envied her for it! Her yellow body was more striking than the sun’s golden rays at high noon and comprised the perfect contrast to the pitch-black skull-like design that ornamented her back.

“Not this time, my friend,” Moonweb smiled kindly at Mrs. Merry Legs hanging from a thread after writing the message in her web. “I’m afraid this will be too dangerous for you.”

Clearly agitated with this answer, Mrs. Merry Legs busied herself with creating another web which was made in record time with the assistance of her daughter Calliope. The message written in the center: “WE NOT AFRAID”.

“I know you aren’t my dears…”

“The Blue Hag is going to the Seelie Court. This might be the start of a war…” Nightwing said, trying to speak reasonably with Moonweb’s family of spiders who were not always known to act reasonably. Spiritdancer nodded in silence.

Then, without further delay, the three fairies left for the Seelie Court, leaving behind a multitude of agitated spiders.

 

Chapter 11…Fairies At War

Their gossamer wings whipped the air into a warm frenzy with every rapid heartbeat-flutter of their flight as they rushed to the Seelie Court…hopefully before the Blue Hag.

But alas, Vivian had started on her trip a few seconds before the three fairies, vengeance fueling her speed. Even in Fairyland, a few seconds could be several minutes or even an hour’s worth of trouble.

The air crackled and snapped, its sound reminiscent of tree branches fracturing after being encased in ice after a ferocious Winter storm, but really, the sound was caused by the swift arrival of the three fairies and the emotion they exuded once they arrived at their family’s treehouse…and saw Vivian was already there.

“Oh no! We’re too late!” Spiritdancer cried, distressed upon seeing the Blue Hag poised just outside the window to the nursery. The honey-rich voice of Ariel drifted down to them where they hid in a thicket of holly and elder trees. He was singing to their newborn fairy niece, Heather-fey, a lullaby song he learned while flying above a village one dreamy-eyed Twilight. It was composed by a human family gifted in soul and song and they called themselves “The McGuire Sisters”. As Ariel listened to these musical sisters, entranced by the lullaby, he folded it away in the ethereal treasury of his memory and vowed to sing it to his own daughter when he was blessed with one. Now, from his heart Ariel unfolded the keepsake like a love letter well-worn from being read so many times and sang the lullaby “May You Always” to his own precious daughter:

 

May you always walk in sunshine

Slumber warm when night winds blow

May you always live with laughter

For a smile becomes you so

May good fortune find your doorway

May the bluebird sing your song

May no trouble travel your way

May no worry stay too long

May your heartaches be forgotten

May no tears be spilled

May old acquaintance be remembered

And your cup of kindness filled

And may you always be a dreamer

May your wildest dream come true

May you find someone to love

As much as I love you.

Nightwing and Moonweb could imagine the parents gathered around the cradle that Maeve had fashioned herself from tulips of every color, a rainbow of tulips had the fairy mother weaved and linked together to create her fairy’s baby’s cradle. Once it was done, she clothed the bottom of the cradle with the soft royal downy blossoms of purple heather, and here on her bed of heather and in her tulip cradle did her fairy daughter lay, while Ariel fashioned an archway of lilacs at the entrance to the nursery. Now, here was Maeve caressing Heather-fey’s petal-soft skin and Ariel singing to her, both oblivious to the danger they were in from the Blue Hag who was spying on their tender moment.

“This is the babe that I should’ve had,” Vivian seethed in her jealousy as she looked at the fairy baby with fawn-colored hair and crystal blue eyes, a baby who was obviously Ariel’s daughter. A beautiful fairy-daughter he had with his wife, Queen Maeve, and not her as she had hoped to achieve with her plan of spite and jealousy. Instead, her plan backfired in her repulsive face. She should’ve choked on the fumes, but she was too hateful for that.

Was this really Ariel in that room singing to his newborn daughter while Maeve rocked her in her arms and kissed her milky brow or was this the Phooka and his trickery again? Vivian wasn’t sure nor did she care. Her mind was so twisted that it was the true ugliness of her, but in that ugly-twisted mind of hers they were both to blame. Ariel and the Phooka. And Maeve. They will pay for this trickery. Pay with their lives, they must.

Then the Blue Hag’s gnarled hand reached inside her cloak and pulled out an object. It was small but razor-sharp and chiseled to a deadly point. It was an elf-bolt. The three hidden fairies gasped in horror when they saw it.

“She has an elf-bolt!” Nightwing cried upon seeing the deadly weapon, while in her agitation she plucked some holly berries from the bush and tossed them into her mouth. Elf-bolts were highly dangerous and being struck by one could cause a variety of illnesses and even death, for humans and fairy-folk alike. Only the evil fae of the Unseelie Court, whose souls were already diseased with malignancy, would ever use elf-bolts.

“We must stop her,” Moonweb said with grim determination, her liquid silver eyes glowing fiercely as she moved from her hiding place, followed by Nightwing and Spiritdancer. But before they had a chance to act, the Blue Hag hurled the elf-bolt through the nursery window! Right at Ariel!

“Ariel, watch out!” Spiritdancer cried her warning to the fairy father.

Ariel glanced up at the alarming cry and seeing the elf-bolt heading right towards his little family, he pushed Maeve with their baby daughter in her arms out of its path, shielding them with his giant swallowtail wings. But even as fast as Ariel was to act to protect his mate and newborn daughter, they did not quite escape the deadly danger.

At that precise moment when Ariel saw the speeding elf-bolt and was sweeping up his giant wings to shield Maeve who was holding their newborn fairy, there was a split second where the danger could rupture through…and it had: The elf-bolt had grazed Heather-fey’s brow. The little fairy let out a piercing cry that broke the night’s hallowed ear.

“Oh no, Heather-fey! My dear baby daughter,” Maeve cried as she held Heather-fey tightly to her breast, trying to soothe her fright. “Ariel, the elf-bolt grazed Heather-fey.”

Ariel put his hands together as if he was fashioning a ball. And he was. A ball of fire formed in Ariel’s hands, fashioned from his anger and his instinct to protect his family. Between his cupped hands the ball of fire flickered to life and grew brighter, fiercer. Then Ariel threw his fireball at Vivian, the Blue Hag grinning her evilness through the nursery window. She tried to move out of the fireball’s path, but tripped over her own feet. The hem of her cloak caught on fire and Vivian puffed her fetid breath onto it, trying to put out the tongues of flickering flame. Moerae the crow just squawked her indignation at having her tail feathers singed and flew up into the dense foliage of the tree house’s upper branches.

Amidst this commotion, a silver strand twirled down from the great oak’s rafters. It was a strand of spider silk, as fine as diaphanous gossamer and stronger than Herculean steel and from the uppermost branches of the treehouse it twirled downward, right in front of Maeve still holding Heather-fey.

“It’s Mrs. Merry Legs,” Moonweb joyfully cried upon seeing her arachnid friend busily spinning another strand of spider silk. The intrepid spider that she was, Mrs. Merry Legs was not about to be left behind by Moonweb and her sisters, especially when they were in danger. So, with their busy spinnerets, the spiders led by Mrs. Merry Legs and her daughter Calliope, weaved their way through the forest. Strands of silk they spun from their own bodies adorned the tree branches, blowing like the breath of a ghost as they moved under the dancing motions of the spiders.

So intent on their mission were they, and such expert weavers too, that it didn’t take them long to arrive at Queen Maeve’s treehouse in the Seelie Court. Now, here was Mrs. Merry Legs twirling down another strand of silk in front of the fairy-baby in her mother’s arms, and just as soon as she threw down the first silken strand, then she threw down another, then another. As fast as her spinnerets weaved them, Mrs. Merry Legs threw down the silken strands until a diaphanous tent was starting to take shape in front of Heather-fey.

Mrs. Merry Legs had climbed down as agile as any dancer could be and as fiercely brave as any spider ever was. Her creation was not done. Maeve watched in amazement as the black and yellow spider started to weave her downward twirling silken strands with a crosswise stitchery of silk until the threads formed a cocoon over the fairy-baby. Queen Maeve had complete faith in Mrs. Merry Legs and her arachnid family: long has the spiders been a friend to the fae. She knew that the spider was working to preserve the safety of her newborn daughter Heather-fey. So strong was the cocoon that Mrs. Merry Legs had spun over her, no elf-bolt could penetrate and threaten the life of the precious fairy inside. And the spider stayed poised over the cocoon to assure its safety.

Meanwhile, Ariel threw another fireball at the Blue Hag who just dodged it and cackled evilly. Then, she reached into her moldy cloak and withdrew another elf-bolt. Her goal was still the same, to destroy Ariel by aiming at the heart of his family: the newborn fairy daughter Heather-fey. And she wasn’t going to let a spider and her weaving stop her!

She threw the elf-bolt and watched as it sizzled through the air.

“Oh no…its headed straight for us,” Maeve whispered as her eyes grew wide in terror, but with how tightly bound her baby was in the cocoon she couldn’t move out of the way. Though Ariel tried to shield them with his giant swallowtail wings, he was in the process of forming another fireball and it took a great deal of effort.

Mrs. Merry Legs was still sitting poised over Heather-fey’s cocoon, her seven legs stretched out and holding on tightly to the precious cargo within. When she saw the elf-bolt blazing its way straight at her and the cocoon, she never scampered away as other spiders may have done. She never even flinched. She just sealed herself even tighter over the cocoon and braced for the impact.

Then it came.

The deadly elf-bolt struck Mrs. Merry Legs squarely in the center and set the brave spider on fire! She gave a little whimper as her seven legs twitched, then her grip loosened and she started to fall off the cocoon. Before her final fall, she reached forward with her shaky right leg and lightly touched the cocoon in the place where Heather-fey’s head laid just underneath.

“Blessings to you…Heather-fey,” Mrs. Merry Legs whispered with her last breath. Then she fell backward. The intrepid spider was dead.

Tearfully, Moonweb raced over and with trembling hands she gently picked up her arachnid friend. She couldn’t find the words to speak, but she didn’t have to. The hot flow of her tears coursing down her grief-stricken face spoke more than words ever could. Mrs. Merry Legs had been Moonweb’s friend, confidante, teacher. For years this wise spider shared her gentle wisdom and taught Moonweb the secrets of her weaver’s life: Know Thyself and Thou Shalt Know the Universe. Now, as the broken-hearted fairy cradled the dead spider in her hands, she vowed that she would never forget the lessons that her friend taught her, but would live them to the best of her ability. That’s all anyone could do, whether fairy or human. To be a friend to another living creature meant that your life was not lived in vain. Mrs. Merry Legs was this to Moonweb and so much more.

Silently did Nightwing and Spiritdancer kneel beside Moonweb, one fairy on either side. They put their arms around her, their gossamer wings caressing each other as they shared in Moonweb’s grief.

“We’ll give Mrs. Merry Legs a funeral. One fit for the hero she was,” Spiritdancer said comfortingly.

“Come sister,” said Nightwing as she and Spiritdancer led Moonweb away so they could honor the brave spider’s heroic life and the sacrifice she made to save their newborn fairy-niece Heather-fey.

 

Chapter 12…A Blessing And A Curse

The silence stretched between the trio for a brief suspension of time, stretching between them like taffy until finally Heather-fey ruptured the silence and broke the stretchable strands of taffy, savoring the flavor on her tongue instead.

“A spider saved my life. Mrs. Merry Legs…sacrificed herself to save me,” she breathed into the night that was now as dark as a spilt inkwell. She tried to absorb the magnitude of the sacrifice that a mere spider had done for her. For so long – too long – had Heather-fey felt like a jewel that her parents had once cherished because they thought her to be valuable, but they soon discovered defects and cracks in her asymmetrical shape, her shine was too rebellious to be that of a true gem, so she was cast into the back of the drawer like any other useless piece of costume jewelry.

Now, she just found out that a spider – who was most definitely not a “mere” anything, but a very special spider – had valued her birth so much that she sacrificed her life to save hers. It was a sacrifice of great love and faith.

Was she worthy? Once upon a time, she would’ve had trouble believing that she was, but from her years of listening to the unique workings of her soul (if her soul was asymmetrical too, then so much the better!) and from writing what her inkheart dictated her to write, Heather wrote her life as he saw it. Some may call it a fantasy, but who knows where reality ends and the fantasy begins? And vice versa.

If, in the permeable hours of the night when candor was an incoherent mumble she barely understood, and she craved the relatable art of knowing there was beauty in being broken, and a story waiting to be told by those beautiful broken things too, Heather-fey just remembered Leonard Cohen’s poem that Adam taught her one night. He told her to say it to herself whenever she had doubts that she was okay as she was and always had been. It was a poem that she took to heart:

 

Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.

 

“Your life was saved by a spider…I always knew you were special,” Adam said, giving Heather-fey a wink, followed by one of his most charming smiles. His lady love always had a strong affinity toward spiders, and in fact she had several dozens of tarantulas as pets throughout the years. Now, finding out that she had a deeper connection to her eight-legged friends than just an inborn affinity…well, it just made sense.

“What did it mean when Mrs. Merry Legs blessed me before she died?” She asked Queen Maeve.

“It means she gave you a very special gift,” Maeve said with her gentle wisdom, her eyes were two liquid pools of love looking back at Heather-fey, her daughter once lost, now found. Now that she had and Heather-fey was learning her birthright, Maeve vowed to herself not to lose her again, not to the vengeance of the Blue Hag, not to anything! Her golden-brown eyes glowed with an inner radiance.

“Magically speaking, spiders govern the creative energies. They are the teachers of language and of writing, how to weave magic with words. They are naturally born good writers, and no one better than Mrs. Merry Legs. By blessing you as she did, she was imparting to you her gift of writing.”

“I am honored,” Heather-fey said simply, touched by the profound gift she received from the spider.

“You were blessed by a magical fairy spider…somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Adam said as he took Heather-fey’s hand in his and kissed the silken back of it, his lips warm as a pulsebeat, they lingered for a few seconds longer that decorum dictated, his brilliant hazel eyes were a fluid flame that melted Heather-fey from the inside. She felt like a supernova was ready to burst beneath her skin so she reclaimed her hand. Now was not the time for fireworks. Not when there was a story they had yet to hear the conclusion of.

Adam just gazed at her with his “bedroom eyes” look. There was something about Heather in that iridescent black fairy dress that he found irresistible. She looked like a butterfly poised in the prime of her garden, pollinating the liquid lapses of darkness with the palpable depths of a newly awakened fairy glamour that was hers alone. Heather-fey…Maeve said that was her true name. “Fey” meant “strangely fanciful”. How appropriate, thought Adam. It was her originality, her unique fanciful nature that had first sparked his intrigue in her, and from there did their love bloom like a rose slowly unfurling her succulence. Being with Heather-fey was like a breath of fresh air blowing away the stagnant converging lens of normalcy. What is normal anyway? It was not imaginative, novel, original…nothing that belonged to the rare worth of his Heather-fey. Being with her was never boring…in fact, there were several times (intimate times, that is) when he felt like a plucked dandelion under her sugar-and-spice charms.

But no matter how irresistible he found her, he must resist! Now was not the time…especially with her birth mother in the room. Still, there was nothing wrong in looking at the appetizing dessert who was his sweetheart.

   If I had wings I could fly right now, Heather-fey thought to herself as she gazed back at her cowboy love whom she felt was undressing her with his eyes. I hate to interrupt him when he’s only half done but there are things I need to know. Like, if I’m a fairy then why don’t I have wings? And what about that elf-bolt that grazed me as a baby? I need to find out the rest of this fairy tale…

“I can see it in your eyes, my daughter, you wish to know more?” Queen Maeve asked, all-knowing.

“We must know more,” Adam said, bringing himself back to the present issue. “Let’s start with that elf-bolt. Why didn’t it kill her?”

“Though elf-bolts are highly dangerous and mean certain death if struck…a glancing blow such as you received will not usually be fatal. Instead, it causes a variety of afflictions, illnesses and diseases. Though not fatal, they are often incurable maladies that cause great suffering…” Queen Maeve explained, her normally dulcet voice somber, her eyes swimming with tears as she trailed off. She could see that her daughter understood.

Heather-fey felt cold damp fingers creeping down her spine as Maeve’s words filtered through the weave of her consciousness. Like a minnow leaping out of the muddy mire of debris-littered water that it had long been stuck in, so did the name of her affliction leap into Heather-fey’s mind.

“My panic attacks,” she breathed. “I’ve had them since I was a six-year-old child. The elf-bolt caused me to develop this panic disorder, didn’t it?”

“Yes…it did,” Maeve said softly. “I’m terribly sorry, I know how you’ve suffered with these debilitating seizures.”

“Is that why you gave me away? Because I wasn’t a perfect fairy baby?” Heather-fey could barely speak past the emotion that constricted her throat so that her words came out with a painful tremble.

“No, of course not. Your father and I loved you very much,” Maeve said hurriedly as she watched Adam open his arms to her daughter and drew her into his enveloping embrace. “It broke our hearts to give you away…but we had to…to save your life,” Maeve finished softly, reaching out her glistening milky hand to stroke her daughter’s back. But the hard glitter of Adam’s eyes stopped her from making contact. She slowly withdrew her hand. She had to make her daughter understand. Once she heard the rest of the story, Maeve knew she would understand.

“Please, let me continue,” Maeve pleaded.

“Then get on with it, “Adam said simply, continuing to hold his beloved.

 

Chapter 13…A Destiny Of Decisions

While Ariel’s giant wings shielded the terrified Maeve as she held their cocoon-swaddled fairy baby, he hurtled another ferocious fireball at the Blue Hag. The circular flames of fury sizzled through the air, black smoke trailing sharply behind it like a sword.

Still choking on the fumes rising from the acrimonious burning of the valiant spider, Vivian was too slow to avoid it this time – plus she had tripped over her own feet again – which definitely helped.

The fireball had landed in front of her, ravenous tongues of flame started licking at the frayed bottom of her mouldy cloak. Vivian howled her outrage as she started to stomp out the flames before it turned into a feeding frenzy.

The Blue Hag distracted, Ariel seized the opportunity to escape with his family through the nursery window. As the couple took to the air with their hands clasped together and the cocooned Heather-fey held tightly to Maeve’s breast, Vivian looked up. She gave another howl of outrage as she watched her prey escape from her…but not without her yelling a curse at the fleeing fairies.

“You cannot hide! If I cannot have you, the price I demand is your newborn daughter! The bride of the Yeti, one day she will be. Mark my words! She will be the Yeti’s bride or she will die at the stroke of midnight on Halloween in her twenty-third year!” The Blue Hag’s curse echoed behind Ariel and Maeve as they fled with their fairy daughter, their wings carrying them high through the indigo breadth of clouds.

~~1~~

“We were distraught. We knew that you wouldn’t be safe in the Seelie Court – nor anywhere in the land of the fae – not with the Blue Hag’s curse suspended like an executioner’s axe above our heads. Vivian, as evil as she was, would make good on her curse and send her monstrous Yeti son to claim you as his bride. We couldn’t allow such a thing,” Maeve said softly, her honey brown eyes sparkling with tears until they looked like orbs of liquid diamonds set in her heart-shaped face.

“What did you do?” Heather-fey asked, her voice an octave unsteady in the asking, but she knew that she had to know. Her eyes locked with Adam’s, their hazel depths drawing her in, assuring her whatever the answer was that he would be here for her. Heather-fey wasn’t going through this story alone. Adam was with her. No matter what the circumstances were or the outcome, they would face it together.

“To keep you safe we had to make some heartbreaking decisions,” Maeve said, her normally silver voice tremulous with the pent-up emotion she was finally giving expression to after so long, way too long.

“We had to give you up for adoption in the human world. Even though those human parents would never understand you and even fear you once they realized you were not a normal human baby as they first thought you would be when they took you into their home. Even though they may never love you…for how can they love a “strange child” who makes them uncomfortable, a child they blame for everything that goes wrong in their home, a child so strangely fanciful that they just can’t relate to her at all? But to save your life that is the type of human family we had to place you with…the Blue Hag and her Yeti son will never look for you there.”

“Though I had to give you up, I never gave up my love for you…and the hope that one day we will reunite.” Tears had long ago broken free from the crystal cabinet of Queen Maeve’s eyes and freely they trickled down her face, creating a map of emotion. It was the mirror image of the map of tears that Heather-fey wore.

Maeve opened her arms to her daughter and without an ounce of hesitation did Heather-fey fall into her soft welcoming embrace. Adam remained silent as he allowed the reunited mother and daughter this precious moment. Watching them, he felt a nugget of emotion lodge in his throat. To find out that she had a family who truly loved her as she was, to find her “own people” …how Adam had wished this for his Heather-fey for so long. He knew that he was going to give her a family once they married, but to find out that she already had a loving family out there and she finally found them…well, that was even better.

Then, after several moments, their hug ended. But the reunited pair couldn’t bear to be without physical contact again after so many years apart, so Maeve held Heather-fey’s hands in hers, their arms creating a bridge. She looked deep into her newly found daughter’s eyes that were so much like her own as she told of that last night.

“The decision was made. We knew what we had to do, though our hearts were breaking. But we wouldn’t let you go without giving you a special blessing from each of us. That last night we all gathered together as a family. It would be our last night together though we didn’t know it at the time. Moonweb was the first to give you her blessing.”

“With the blessing that Mrs. Merry Legs gave you, I will now add my own,” she began as she held you tenderly. Her silver eyes locked onto your newborn fairy eyes. “Your heartsong and soul’s voice lie in your future of writing. May you realize your talent early and when the difficulties and misunderstandings of living in a human world assault you, may you find freedom and healing in your writing. This is my blessing for you, little fairy. May it be so.” Then she gave you a kiss and handed you to Nightwing.

“Sweet fairy-niece,” she began as she held you and watched as you entwined your fingers in a wayward lock of her silken ebony tresses. “Imagination will be your greatest strength and asset,” Nightwing began. “May you remember this and you will always have a way to escape the pain. May you stay true to who you know you are and your purity of heart will remain with you, unjaded.” Then she kissed your petal-soft brow and handed you to Spiritdancer.

“Aw, little fairy, though you must live apart from your true family for now,” Spiritdancer began as she held you close. “May you always feel the wonder of nature surrounding you and know that you are a kindred relation to her. And may your spirit always dance with hers. May you learn to listen well to your intuition when it tells you of your fairy roots and you will never feel alone.” Then, giving you her farewell kiss, Spiritdancer handed you back to me.”

“How I held you and never wanted to let you go. All I could say was “my love will always be with you…now and forever. I pray that we will be reunited again.” Then, Ariel took you from me and he flew to the human world with you…where we thought you would be safe.” Then, mother and daughter tearfully embraced again.

“I want to meet my father,” Heather-fey said as she parted from Queen Maeve’s embrace.

“I’m sorry…but you can’t. Ariel never returned,” Maeve said tearfully to Heather-fey’s shocked expression.

“What do you mean, he never returned?” Adam asked, moving to stand beside his beloved.

“Just what I said…that night, when he took you to the human world was the last time I ever saw Ariel. He never returned….” Maeve tried to explain. No one knows what happened to him after your father dropped you off at The Mary Poppins Nanny Services and Adoption Agency in the human world. “We’ve had a host of sylph fairies out looking for him but no sign was ever found. Did the Blue Hag or one of her soulless minions finally caught up with him…we just don’t know.”

 

Chapter 14…Feeling The Power

“It’s about time that someone put a stop to Vivian the Blue Hag, once and for all! I will not have her terrorizing Heather like this,” Adam said sternly, crossing his arms across his chest and taking up the stance that Heather loved and knew so well. The stand that says he had made up his mind and that the time for action was now.

“I know…that’s why I’ve come. This Halloween night of your twenty-third year, my daughter, when Vivian’s evil curse will reach fruition…unless you come into your Power before the final stroke of midnight,” Maeve said in her gentle wisdom, an otherworldly quicksilver flash in her molten honey eyes.

“My power…I don’t understand. What is my Power?” Heather-fey said, confused and unsure what Queen Maeve was referring to.

She would like to think that she was powerful…how she wished she was. But all her life Heather felt the exact opposite. Powerless and clumsy and nothing special, that’s how Heather felt growing up. Actually, that’s how her human parents told her she was as they made fun of her clumsiness and sneered as she grappled her way through school with her panic attacks. She wished that she had power over them, but back then – especially back then – they were more powerful than she, so powerful in fact that Heather felt like a fish floundering on land as she gasped for breath under the crushing, suffocating weight of the panic attacks that held her firmly in their cruel grip. Those sickening seizures that were caused by the dizzying encounter with that elf-bolt as a baby. How powerless she felt under their continuous assault. And the unkind laughter of her human parents didn’t help.

It wasn’t until Adam came into her life that Heather learned she wasn’t to blame for every wrong thing that happened to her. In fact, because of her isolated upbringing, she grew up to become the most unique, unusual, free-spirited lady that Adam ever had the good fortune of meeting. Certainly, someone worthy of love and happiness. She had become someone worth celebrating. She was no cultivated, manicured rose but was like her name: Heather was a wildflower strengthened by her growth in an acid region.

“You have more power than you were ever allowed to realize,” Maeve assured, with her hands enclosing her daughter’s. “but only you can answer what that power is.”

“But how will I know?” Heather-fey asked, perplexed.

“Don’t worry. It will reveal itself to you when you are ready. Tonight,” Maeve imparted this nugget of fairy wisdom.

“I’ll vanquish the Blue Hag. As Heather’s soon-to-be husband, it’s my job to defend her,” Adam stated his intention in a no-nonsense tone.

“I knew you would want to…and have brought a special present for you,” Maeve said mysteriously as she reached into the bosom of her bodice and from between her twin full moon globes she pulled out a miniature sword. It was so small that it looked like a toy from a Dungeons and Dragons game. She held it in the palm of her opened left hand that she held up level with her mouth.

Adam and Heather-fey watched, mesmerized by this little ritual as Maeve breathed on the toy sword that laid on her open palm. They watched as the fairy queen’s breath swirled around it like a ferocious whirlwind, faster and faster the whirlwind worked her magic until its speed actually picked up the toy and held it within its center. Then the whirlwind steadily grew and with it so did the toy, until finally, after a few moments, the whirlwind slowly died away. As it did so the toy was no longer a toy but a full-sized sword with a three-foot silver blade glinting sharp and dangerous. The hilt was a work of art as it was fashioned to coil about the hand that wielded the weapon.

“I’ve never seen its equal before,” Adam said appraisingly as he took hold of the circular hilt that coiled about his right hand like a protective silver snake.

“It has a good weight to it,” Adam said with evident admiration in his rich voice, giving a few practice lunges and thrusts with the weapon that he would use to vanquish the Blue Hag.

“I’m glad you’re comfortable with it. It was forged specifically for someone brave and pure of heart. Only this sword in the hand of such a hero, has the power to defeat Vivian the Blue Hag,” Maeve said seriously. Adam could see the truth of her words shining in her golden-brown eyes.

“I’ll do it for the safety of my Heather-fey…and for the future protection of the Seelie Court,” Adam said just as seriously. Heather-fey moved to stand by the left side of her man. That was her place: to the end would she stand by his left. Why his left side? That was the side where she could be closest to his heart. Feeling her draw near, Adam’s left arm encircled her waist and pulled her against his side.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, appreciating the graceful contour of the sword’s blade and the artistry of the coiling hilt.

“So, do I get a sword too? I really want to help vanquish the Blue Hag. It’s me she wants, after all,” Heather-fey expressed her enthusiasm. Adam stiffened beside her. Ever the manly protector, he didn’t want her to put herself in such obvious danger and Heather-fey knew this very well. He also didn’t think it was a good idea for her to dance naked under the full moon on the solstice or when there was a lunar eclipse. But she did it anyway.

She tried giving him a reassuring smile, but judging from the determined set of his jaw and how it enhanced the sexy dark shadow of stubble that graced it, she knew it would be near impossible to convince him.

“I love you,” she said hopefully.

“I love you too…and you’re not going.”

“Now children, don’t fight,” Queen Maeve said with a gentle laugh. “Actually Adam, Heather-fey needs to be there. Vivian won’t cross through the fairy ring if she doesn’t sense her presence on the other side of it.” Heather-fey felt her heart thrill with this little victory and in her rebellious jubilation, she did something she would never do under normal circumstances. She stuck out her tongue at Adam.

Adam did a double-take at her. “How would you like a swift kiss in the mouth?” He asked. He couldn’t quite hide the small smile that crossed his lips at his lady love’s boldness. During the time he had known her, she had definitely become bolder, braver, her shyness slipping away like a Vestal virgin’s virtue once she became familiar with the flames of love. All his Heather-fey needed was to know the security of his love for her to let go and be more. More daring, braver, and even more beautiful if that was possible. She had always rebelled against convention, but lately she was even more so. Had she always been like this or was it just the transformative power of his love? Adam suspected that she had always been so, but his love helped to free her soul’s wings of the fetters for her to fly unencumbered and self-assured, knowing at last that she was free to do so, knowing that she was loved. Knowing that she would always fly back to him. Her love.

“But not to fight…I don’t want her to be put in danger once the battle starts,” Adam conceded reluctantly, bringing his mind back to the dire subject at hand.

“No, she won’t fight. At least not with a sword,” Maeve said as both Adam and Heather-fey stopped and looked at her.

“You get a very special weapon to wield, my daughter,” Maeve said in her enigmatic way as she pulled out an object from the very air, or was it from her dress that was potent with magic? Heather-fey couldn’t tell but there was an object in Maeve’s hands that wasn’t there a moment ago. She handed it to her daughter.

Heather-fey looked at the object in her hands as she turned it every which way. It was small and slender.

It was a pen.

“This is a pen!” Heather-fey exclaimed, baffled.

“That’s all the protection you will need,” Maeve said, encouragingly.

“But it’s a pen! How will I protect myself with a pen,” she proclaimed, growing frustrated.

“When the time is right, you will know what to do…” Maeve tried to comfort her agitated daughter.

“With a pen?”

“Remember that old saying, Honey. The pen is mightier than the sword,” Adam said reassuringly as he sheathed his sword and pulled Heather-fey into his embrace. “You’ll be better protected than me,” he said as he stroked her chestnut tresses and kissed her head.

“I guess I’m about to find out if that saying really is true,” she said as she contemplated how a pen, not quite six inches long, could possibly be mightier than a three-foot sword. She knew that greatness could be found in small packages, and was familiar with the saying that stated it wasn’t the size of your instrument that mattered, but how it was used (Adam had taught her that and there was no one more skilled in using an instrument than Adam). But still…”my long-lost mother gives me a pen to defend myself against an evil monster,” Heather mumbled as she allowed herself to be comforted by Adam’s all-encompassing embrace.

One thing was for sure. This night had much in store for them both.

 

Chapter 15…A Hunk Of Burning Love In Action

The night was a web where every particle of magic and mystery were caught, and each was a happy prisoner as they caused every silken strand to glisten wet and wild as only magic can do once the spirit gives it free rein to be all it was meant to be.

It was into such a night that Adam swung down from the cable attached to the outside of Heather’s devastated apartment, twirling down as effortlessly as Indiana Jones while holding Heather-fey securely against him with one arm. Then once on the ground, they proceeded to walk across the parking lot when a voice bellowed down at them.

“You two @#$%&! Put some @#$%&! proper clothes on! You’re always @#$%&! half naked! @#$%&! fairies!” It was one of Heather’s offensive neighbors, one well known for her brutish manners and sewer-mouth. There she stood out on her balcony, angry and red-faced as was her usual coloring since she was always angry. If someone dared to look at her the wrong way she would become cross-eyed in anger, if someone spoke too loudly she would fly into a rampage of fury while giving no credence to the daily yelling matches she held with her poor cat (or was it just the shadows on the walls she was yelling curses at?). Anger, rage, and fury were the daily poisons she fed upon, so much so that once Heather even saw her froth at the mouth like a rabid dog, a crazed warped look in her eyes. Heather tried to stay away from this deranged lunatic.

“I wish she would shut up. We are properly dressed. We always are. I really don’t know why that Loudmouth is yelling at us,” Heather muttered in annoyance.

“Just ignore her sweetheart. She’s not worth the trouble or worry. That type of lunatic thrives on causing anger, conflict and discord, not just in herself but in others too. Don’t give her the satisfaction of upsetting you. That’s what she wants. She also must be in love with the sound of her own voice to holler like that. She could use a dictionary too. It’ll clean up her language,” Adam said, not even giving Sewer-Mouth the credit of a glance back at her. Heather-fey knew Adam was right and she was so grateful to him for his wisdom.

But Heather glanced back quickly, just in time to see the loud-mouth lunatic getting ready to spew another tirade of vulgarity their way, but before she did a giant iridescent-green scarab beetle metamorphosed out of thin air and clamped itself firmly right over that big sewage hole in her face!

Heather laughed in delighted surprise as she watched her offensive neighbor stumble into her apartment from her balcony as she tried to dislodge the scarab beetle from her face.

“All’s well that ends well,” Adam chuckled softly.

“Yeah…but I wonder how that happened? Why did that giant beetle suddenly appear as if out of thin air?

“Magic is afoot tonight, my dear,” Adam said in his best cultured voice as he linked Heather’s arm through his. “I’d say you’re already starting to come into your power,” then he gave her a wink.

“You really think so?” Heather-fey asked, smiling, obviously pleased at this prospect.

“No doubt about it,” he said as he raised her hand to his lips and kissed its back, causing a warm tingling to spread beneath his lady’s already flushed skin.

Then, hand in hand, the lovers continued their short walk across the grounds to the fairy ring by Heather’s beloved butterfly garden.

Queen Maeve was already there waiting for her fairy daughter and her time-travelling betrothed.

~1~

The fairy ring glowed luminously bright as if a party of rambunctious fireflies dwelled in the magical gateway and created its elven glow from the fire that could only be ignited within the hearts of those who knew how to believe and how to live in the conjoined light of their own singular truth.

Caught in the ferocious glow of the fairy ring, Queen Maeve’s dress took on the hue of autumn leaves melting into her body while the dress’ skirt frothed about her thighs in rich gossamer folds. She turned at the subtle approach of her daughter and Adam.

“The portal is open and ready,” she said, her voice a silvery wingbeat in the night.

“We’re ready too,” Adam declared, as he released his love’s hand and unsheathed his sword, its blade cutting through the air with an upward stroke. Heather-fey looked at him and smiled in gratitude.

We’re ready too Adam had said, including her in the plan. So many times, in her reclusive past had she been left out because she was too quiet, too strange, too something else…How that exclusion by the parents who raised her had bruised her to be even more silent, how it had cut her to the quick. Now, here was Adam announcing her involvement in the night’s plan to defeat the Blue Hag. Albeit, a little reluctantly at first, Adam now knew how essential she was to the coming battle’s success. And he was not afraid to let it be known. Heather loved him all the more for it.

A sound, like the wooden hull of a ship creaking against the strength of a storm at sea, emanated from the fairy ring. Steadily, it grew louder and louder until it was a full-blown cackle. There was no mistaking that sound. It was the malicious cackle of Vivian the Blue Hag.

Cold prickled over Heather-fey’s skin, its creepy fingers leaving behind a clammy sheen of perspiration in its wake. Her eyes sparkled fiercely like amber fire, but she vowed to herself not to let her nerves get the better of her and run amok. Queen Maeve needed her. As did Adam. They were partners after all, not just for this night as they battled to free fairydom, but partners for a lifetime.

A thought flickered in the depths of Adam’s incandescent hazel eyes as he hurriedly undid the buttons on his shirt and untucked it from his black pants. It only took him a moment to remove the garment, his sword exchanging hands briefly so he could free his right arm from the sleeve. Free at last with the sword back in his right hand, he passed his shirt to Heather.

She looked at the discarded piece of clothing, then she looked up at Adam. His upper torso was clad only in the magnificence of his masculinity. Heather-fey smiled.

Adam stood before her bare-chested, his ranch-hewn muscles rippling at the ready under sun-kissed skin, the dark curly hair that covered his chest was like a prairie, wide and deep. And oh so sensuously expansive.

“It’s my last clean shirt. Look after it for me,” he said with a wink. Heather giggled.

“It’ll be my pleasure,” she smiled at her stalwart cowboy, even not wearing his traditional heroic black, Adam was still a hero. Looking at him, a prized example of what it means to be a man amidst the pure potency of his virility that always surrounded him, Heather was reminded of Pygmalion and Galatea’s story from Greek mythology. Pygmalion, a talented sculptor had created his idea of the perfect woman, and once done, the lonely artist fell in love with his own creation and prayed to the goddess Aphrodite to bring her to life. Aphrodite, as the goddess of love, was concerned with all things of the heart and felt for Pygmalion…and so she brought his sculpture Galatea to life. Had Heather prayed to Aphrodite too, she couldn’t have asked for any better man than Adam to be at her side.

Then, with sword held poised, Adam was ready, Queen Maeve and Heather-fey stood on his left. The brave trio didn’t have to wait long.

“Stand back,” Adam ordered the ladies as the fairy ring glowed ferociously and hummed with otherworldly power. The Blue Hag’s evil cackle thundered from the portal, then with a gigantic crack as if the gods on high were using lightning as a method of cooking their ambrosia, the fairies’ gateway yawned wide. The Blue Hag’s shadow loomed ominously, slithering into the mortal world as her foul darkness eclipsed the darkest shadows of the night.

When the Blue Hag emerged from the vortex and her shape solidified, Heather-fey had her first glimpse of her nemesis. And she was just as terrible as Queen Maeve described her to be.

Just then, the heavens opened up and let loose a steady downpour of rain. Big, wet, drops of water splattered the earth where the battle was ready to take place. Maeve just shook her hair about her like a lioness, spraying out the water in a glittering shower of her own design while her wings fluttered rapidly to protect themselves from becoming drenched under the downpour.

Heather-fey laughed at the divine timing of the rain. She turned her face up to the sky and opened her mouth, catching the rain inside. She felt blessed by it and allowed it to cleanse her free from the fear and stress of the battle that was about to begin. There was no negative emotion that could withstand the pure cleansing that poured forth from Mother Nature’s giant watering can in the sky. Heather-fey always believed that. Each had their own way of responding to the rain.

All except for Adam. He was the only one who didn’t get wet. While Maeve and Heather were thoroughly soaked, Adam remained as dry as Nevada’s desert.

Heather looked at her man and smiled. There he stood, bare-chested and dry as he held the sword poised for action, waiting for the Blue Hag to make the first violent thrust.

The rain did try to soak him under its steady downpour, but every drop that splattered on his bare flesh just sizzled and turned to steam.

“That’s my man,” Heather said with a proud smile. “So hot is he that even the rain can’t get him wet.” Maeve just looked on in amazement. Clearly, Adam was no ordinary man!

Vivian the Blue Hag towered above him but Adam remained unflinching in his resolve. He had to vanquish her before he could start his new life with Heather as his wife. He vowed that he would.

Then, Vivian reached into her mouldy cloak and pulled out an object. It was an elf-bolt. The same type of deadly elf-bolt that had grazed Heather-fey when she was just a newborn fairy and inflicted on her a lifetime of suffering with her debilitating panic attack seizures. Vivian looked at it for a moment in her gnarled, bony hand. Then, with a malignant smile, she let it fly.

The time-travelling cowboy lunged forward and deflected the weapon of dark magic with the silver-glinting blade of his sword.

Adam was a prized thoroughbred in action: swift and hot-blooded, his virile-wrought muscles were unbridled as he wielded the sword with deadly precision, his very being aflame with the burning need to protect the lady he loved, his beautiful Heather-fey.

As the swordfight continued in a dance of thrusts and lunges, blade strokes and pivots, the rain had stopped just as suddenly as it had started. The ground was again dry and the night sky as clear as a mirror. As clear as a blank page before an author’s first pen-stroking wrote it to life…that is, until the stars came out.

A multitude of stars were at once seen, winking and twinkling in the high bosom of the night sky. There were enough stars to create at least a dozen constellations, but this host of starry souls had formulated themselves into a choir, one that was obviously choreographed by some unseen composer.

This celestial choir was not just for show, but actually had the magical power to sing. And they did. Glory be, the stars were singing as Adam engaged in a spectacular swordfight!

Heather-fey looked at the stars in amazement. I can hear them! What is that song? It sounds so familiar…she thought to herself. Then, she didn’t have to guess as some celestial finger cranked up the volume and the song came through loud and clear for all to hear. What was the song that the stars were singing? It was Elvis Presley’s Burning Love:

 

I feel my temperature rising

Higher, higher,

It’s burning through to my soul.

Heather, Heather, Heather

You gonna set me on fire,

My brain is flaming…

 

   Adam continued to wield his sword, slashing and slicing his way to the Blue Hag who just howled her outrage at having to battle this mortal man. But he didn’t fight like no mere mortal…was it possible that he had some otherworldly force in him? If Adam could read Vivian’s warped mind he would’ve answered “no force besides love”.

All the while, the stars kept on singing Burning Love as if it was Adam’s theme song.

 

…Burning, burning, burning

And nothing can cool me,

I just might turn to smoke

But I feel fine.

 

The Blue Hag had another deadly elf-bolt in hand, but this time she didn’t throw it at Adam, instead she let it fly straight at Heather-fey! Seeing the weapon headed straight toward her, she backed away from Maeve and Adam.

“Oh no! Heather-fey run!” Maeve cried out to her daughter, fear in her molten honey eyes.

Before her fairy-daughter could get far, the elf-bolt struck the ground in front of her, the explosion throwing her backward and created a great chasm in front of the fairy, thoroughly separating her from her mother and betrothed. The earth had been blown away under the elf-bolt’s blast and a ring of fire circled the terrified girl. She screamed out in fright.

Seeing the fire encircling his Heather, fear constricted Adam’s heart, but being a man of action, he wasn’t about to let that stop him, so without a moment’s delay he jumped over the fence of fire, his sword still in hand. But he dropped it without a second’s hesitation so he could take his fair lady in his strong – though perspiring – embrace. Then she fainted. For the third time that night.

“Heather…” Adam whispered as he lowered her to the ground. Her face was flushed from being so close to the flames, her chestnut tresses wet from the perspiring heat that was mercilessly closing in around her.

Adam tenderly caressed her cheek. Then, putting his muscular arms around her, he lifted her up. The perfect globes of her breasts strained against the iridescent black fabric of her fairy dress, but he only had eyes for her perfect face. It was time for another very passionate resuscitative kiss and Adam was always ready to oblige.

Finally, she stirred in his embrace, her eyes fluttering open.

“You know, we have to do something about your habit of fainting,” Adam smiled at his lady love. His hair was askew from the battle, his manly jaw was covered with two days growth of stubble, his bronzed flesh was glistening under a sheen of perspiration, so much so that even his abundant chest hair was matted down. But Heather thought she had never seen a more beautiful sight.

“Yes, I know…but then I wouldn’t receive your resuscitative kiss,” she purred.

“You don’t have to faint for me to kiss you,” Adam continued to cradle her against him. “It’s my pleasure.”

“Mine too,” she said coyly. The way Adam looked at her, as if he was touching her in the most intimate way and yet not touching her, and only with his eyes too, made Heather-fey feel slightly off balance.

“Adam, is Heather-fey alright?” Maeve’s voice called out, her fear and concern evident.

“I’m fine mother,” Heather-fey called back as she waved politely to her over Adam’s bare shoulder with her bare foot.

Adam helped his flirtatious fairy fiancée onto her feet again. Her playful carefree nature seemed to have resumed once she was by Adam’s side again. It was where she belonged.

They both shared a smile of those who knew they were reunited with their soul-mate again. Still, did the stars – that constant choir of singing stars – continue to sing Elvis Presley’s Burning Love:

 

It’s coming closer,

The flames are now licking my body…

…it’s hard to breathe

And my chest is a-heaving…

“Deliciously so,” Heather-fey happily sighed as she watched her man in action again as Adam tried to find a way out of the circle of fire.

 

I’m burning a hole where I lay.

 

“No truer words were ever sung, Elvis,” Adam muttered to himself as he wiped his hand across his sweaty brow, leaving behind a smudge of smoke. Lord, he had never been so close to a wildfire before!

The flames raged in a series of manic contortions, its ferocity burned with leers and snarls, a rolling hideous heat instead of teeth it had, but its bite was just as sharp. The rising flames took on grotesque shapes and monstrous caricatures. Looking at them, Adam felt like he just had a glimpse into Hell and he hoped that would be the closest he would ever be to the burning underbelly of the Underworld.

“The flames are getting higher! How can we get across?” Heather-fey asked frantically. So far, she had succeeded in holding herself together, but just barely.

“We’ll get across,” Adam assured her as he removed the cable from his belt and threw the end with the hook until it latched onto the giant willow’s overhanging branch. He gave it a firm tug to test its strength and felt it bend slightly as willow do, but Adam felt it would hold. It was one of Heather’s favorite willows that stood like a timeless sentinel by the butterfly garden. He remembered her claims of actually seeing the face of the tree spirit who inhabited it in the bark. He was skeptical and thought that it was more likely her imagination that was running wild as it often did when his free-spirited Heather-fey was out in nature, tending to her beloved butterfly garden and conversing with the trees.

Except now, as he looked at that giant willow whose thick branch he had just roped, Adam would swear that he saw a face in that willow’s enormous trunk looking back at him. And then the left eye of the tree’s face winked! There really wasn’t time to give the matter any serious thought, he would just take it to mean that the tree-dwelling spirit was on their side. As he had already said to his Heather that night…magic was afoot.

Then, holding the cable firmly with his right hand, his left wound around Heather’s waist and he pulled her firmly against his side, holding her securely against him like the rare precious jewel she was.

Heather’s breath caught in her throat at the close contact. Even in dire circumstances such as they were now facing, Adam still had the power to turn her bones to pliable clay when he held her so intimately close. But as he did, Heather felt all her fear evaporate away. Fear had no power over her when she was with Adam.

“Ready?” Adam’s voice was a promise of safety.

“As long as I’m with you. I’m ready for anything,” she said with wholehearted sincerity as she wrapped her left arm around his broad chest and her right over his shoulders, then from where they were standing on the upward sloping knoll Adam swung himself and his beloved over the ring of frenzied fire and landed safely on the other side. Their swing was very much in the fashion of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi. Full of heroism, passion…and a kiss.

As they landed and just before he released her, Heather-fey kissed his sandpaper-rough jaw, feeling her lips tingle delightfully under the contact. She breathed in his musky male scent as she did so, relishing in the warm flush that spread through her body in wave convulsing upon wave.

“There. We made it,” Adam said, his voice husky from her nearness and affection as he turned to her. His face was only a breath away from hers, her slightly parted lips – dewy and rouged like an unplucked rose – were a tempting invitation. An invitation he had no wish to deny as his mouth captured Heather’s in a kiss that was hotter than the fire they had just escaped from and had the potential of getting wildly out of control…so Adam released his lady love. Now was not the time to indulge in such intimacies.

“And to think, my mom said I was wasting my time by watching TV and I would never learn anything from it,” Heather-fey exclaimed, still breathless from Adam’s smouldering kiss, as she stepped away from him and spun around, the sheer gossamer of her skirt fanning about her like a windmill in her excitement over their Star Wars-like swing, rewarding Adam with a generous view of her shapely thighs.

“We showed her,” Adam smiled at his fairy fiancée. He loved to see her bubbling over with excitement about what she just accomplished, either with him or on her own. Continuously in her past, those parents who raised her would tell her she wasn’t capable of doing something, always discouraging and disapproving of her, never being supportive of her dreams and efforts as good parents should, always criticizing and pecking away at her self-esteem…never accepting her as she was. Under his love, Adam watched his Heather bud and blossom and flourish. She should’ve always been so loved. But now her past was over and there was only the promising blush of her future before her. One filled with magic and mystery, fairies and faith, love and Adam. Adam was grateful that he was the one to nourish this thirsty flower and he had the pure satisfaction of watching that flower open up and sprout forward, her growth was no longer hindered but was now free to flourish as it always should’ve been.

“And not a single chest hair singed either,” Adam said as he took his flower in his arms again.

“There better not be,” Heather-fey said with a raised eyebrow. “Once this is over, I’ll gladly spend the next three nights counting each one to be sure.” Adam just laughed at her flirtatious answer.

But the battle was not over yet. The shadows slithered forward as the Blue Hag slowly encroached closer, continuously throwing her elf-bolts every few steps in her twisted hope that the suffocating clouds of sooty smoke rising from the explosions of the elf-bolts’ dark magic would confuse Adam as to how near she actually was. And so, getting her closer to her target: Heather-fey. But the Blue Hag didn’t know Adam and was clearly underestimating him – and Heather-fey too – if she thought such a futile plan would work.

Releasing his lady love, Adam jumped back into the fray, his sword poised as any experienced sword-fighter as he fought Vivian the Blue Hag who just cackled as she let loose the deadly missiles full throttle. Like a grenade giving a warning whistle of impending death and destruction so did the elf-bolts as they seared a path through the air. Adam’s sword caught them with a thunderous stroke on its blade, even as each elf-bolt combusted on impact and sent a shower of sparks in every direction. Adam’s sword must’ve been hot to hold but not once did he drop it, but continued to deflect the exploding elf-bolts for the love of his Heather-fey, her newly found family, and for the safety of Fairyland.

Heather-fey watched Adam and tears misted her honey eyes knowing that it was his love for her that was fueling him on. How she wished that she could help him in some way, but Adam had told her that the best way she could help him was to keep herself safe…after all, it was her love and her faith in him that would help him to win this battle.

Suddenly, the choir of stars in the night sky stopped singing. Heather-fey looked up. All through this Halloween night full of magic and finding one’s power, that constellation-sized choir of stars continued to sing Elvis Presley’s Burning Love as Adam battled the Blue Hag. Now they stopped.

But Heather-fey could see that they were not still. Instead, each star’s twinkling, glittering light seemed to dance as that celestial choir broke up their formation and reconfigured themselves into…into a…Heather-fey blinked her eyes, she could hardly believe it. But it was happening right above her in the sky. She watched, enthralled, and she did believe it.

The stars had reassembled themselves into Elvis Presley himself! There was no mistaking him…the stars shimmered in an array of color as they created Elvis’ famous jewel-encrusted white suit. Then, once the formation was complete, the stars glittered and moved about in Elvis’ signature dance moves throughout the night’s cloak of velvet darkness as they sung the chorus, their host of celestial voices sounding every much like Elvis himself:

 

Your kisses lift me higher

Like a sweet song of a choir,

You light my morning sky

With burning love,

I’m just a hunk, a hunk of burning love,

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love…

All Hallows Eve, that ancient holiday steeped in pagan lore, when the veil between the living world and the spirit world is the thinnest, on that most magical – and some may say creepiest – of nights, the dead are said to visit the living. So, who knows? Maybe that really was Elvis Presley dancing and singing Burning Love across the night’s celestial sphere.

“Yes, that’s definitely Adam’s theme song,” Heather-fey spoke to herself. Then a furrow disturbed the creamy smoothness of her brow.

“But what is my theme song?”

 

Chapter 16…Finding Her Theme Song

Just as magically as the star-assembled Elvis started his performance then did he stop, the chorus slowly fading away on the halcyon wings of night. At last, silence reigned…except for the sound of the battle as Adam continued to fight the Blue Hag and her endless arsenal of exploding elf-bolts.

Heather-fey contemplated the pen in her hand. Suddenly, she felt the air shift around her as if there was a vacant space left behind by some unseen entity, then as instantaneous as the flick of a switch, a presence came to occupy the vacancy. Heather-fey looked up to find Maeve standing beside her.

“It’s time for you to come into your power,” she said gently as she wreathed her arm over her daughter’s shoulders.

Heather-fey looked at her uncertainly, then at the pen in her hand. The object was cylinder-shaped as any regular pen, slender as any good writing pen should be and fashioned from a silver metal. She had never seen a more ordinary and harmless object in her life than this pen.

“With a pen? How am I supposed to defend myself with a pen?” She exclaimed, clearly mystified as to the role it was to play in vanquishing the Blue Hag. Though Heather-fey did feel like she was on the threshold of some crucial discovery…but what? Was it her power? And what did this ordinary unremarkable-looking pen have to do with awakening her power?

“Am I supposed to write her out of existence with a poem?” She asked. Maeve just laughed softly, her hand lightly rubbing Heather-fey’s arm as she tried to comfort her daughter, wishing she could soothe away her fears and erase out of existence the doubts Maeve knew she still harbored about her abilities.

Drat those human parents that the Mary Poppins Nanny Services and Adoption Agency placed her with! It was supposed to be a very reputable agency but unfortunately Mary Poppins must’ve been on vacation when Ariel brought Heather-fey there. Ariel. How Maeve’s heart thumped excruciatingly and a painful nugget of deep emotion lodged in her throat at the thought of her lover and husband. She never knew what happened to him and that was another wound that couldn’t heal. Night after night did Maeve spend at their treehouse nursery window where Ariel had flown away into the wild blue yonder with Heather-fey cradled safely against his chest. It was the last time Maeve saw him and she thought it was the last time she would ever see her precious fairy daughter too, but Fate had been kind and reunited mother and daughter. If only it would do the same with Ariel.

Ariel, wherever you are, from my heart to your heart I speak…I love you. Please come back to me if you can…Maeve would pray as her eyes scanned the horizon and sky, never giving up hope.

“Mother?”

This one word brought Maeve out of her reverie and back with Heather-fey, her warm doe eyes searching Maeve’s face.

“Mother…I like the sound of that,” Maeve said, giving a tender smile.

“You were far away just now,” Heather-fey said, concerned.

“Yes, but I’m alright. Now, don’t you go worrying about me,” Maeve reassured. “Most especially not tonight. This is your night…when you come into your power. And once you do you will have earned your fairy wings. There is no room to doubt yourself and your abilities. That is what your human parents imparted to you and it’s an inheritance you can do without,” Maeve said, never more serious as she held her daughter’s hands in hers, her eyes gazing into the infinite depths of Heather-fey’s.

“Trust yourself and believe. Do you believe?” The question was the softest whisper, but it flew from Maeve’s lips into her fairy daughter’s soul.

“Yes, I believe.” No truer words had Heather-fey ever spoken.

Maeve looked at her daughter, her face shining as if she had just absorbed the water of the purest light and that’s why the night was so dark now: because Heather-fey had taken in all the light and it became a rainbow in her soul.

How could any human think that Heather-fey was anything but beautiful? Maeve thought to herself. What others perceived as her defects, impediments, or irregularities whether in her appearance or behavior, were just the markings of her fae heritage. Besides, while ordinary vanilla ice cream is good on its own, it’s the toppings that make it into an extraordinarily unique sundae. And my daughter is nothing short of a work of art in her own right.

They shared a smile that went beyond mere words to convey the love that bonded the pair together. Then, riding upon a sparkle Maeve flew up into the boughs of the willow by the glowing fairy ring and went back on trying to call reinforcements from the land of the fae to help in the battle to end all battles.

Alone for the moment, though Heather-fey knew that she was never alone and never had been, even in her darkest moments when she felt like she was starving for acceptance, even when she wasn’t aware of it she was never alone. The love of her fairy family spooned her – though from afar – the umbilical cord that stretched like an elastic string of stardust and pliable silver remained whole and through it they fed her imagination: fragments of dreams depicting another world that was her true home, inspiring in her poems and stories, gifting her vision with fancies only she could see, coloring her inner landscape with a plethora of reveries…it was the only way that her fairy family could communicate with her.

While she grew up with parents who blamed her for her mental illness that was caused by the impact she had with that elf-bolt and found her otherliness eerie and made fun of her physical asymmetry, Heather-fey now knew that her human parents and the other humans in her life who were like them were the truly sick ones. They couldn’t see past her physical limitations to the limitless art of her soul. They couldn’t accept the unique workings of her mind or see her tremendous talent for the neurotic discord that blemished her mentality, marking her – in their narrow-sighted eyes – a deviant from the rest of her presumed “family.” They blamed her for being born not perfect…like a single chipped plate in a cabinet full of flawless bone china so did Heather-fey feel herself to be. Which raised a pertinent question within the ever-introspective fairy: who was really mentally ill here? Was it her, for being born as she was…or her human parents for seeking to adopt a baby and then rejecting that baby for not turning out as they had envisioned, rejecting her for being different from themselves? Heather could now see the answer. It was they who were sicker than she ever was.

Heather-fey would be the first to admit that she had never been graceful. In fact, she was clumsy. The very clumsy one with the asymmetrical walk from having flat feet, even her face was slightly asymmetrical. But unbeknownst to her, all her physical irregularities were caused from being a flightless fairy trying to live in a human world. The out-of-sync workings of her mind, her mental upheaval and her panic attacks were just the repercussions of the elf-bolt’s stroke to her that she received as a newborn fairy. Not her fault. None of it was her fault.

Now she had Adam…and her life had never been the same. Heather used to be afraid of the dark, but Adam came to her and took her by the hand. Clad as he was in black, from his raven’s black hair to his black Stetson and clothes and black cowboy boots. How could Heather be afraid of the dark when the man she loved made black his signature style? Adam showed her that black wasn’t the absence of color and light, but was in fact…ALL. Black was composed of every color and light diluted to its most primal state. It was the most spiritual and intellectual of colors. Adam opened her eyes and revealed to her all the original colors that made up the dark. Since then, she had never been afraid of the dark again. Heather now knew the myriad shades of color – all decked out in its original birthright beauty – that encompassed the blackest black and the darkest of the dark. And she was no longer afraid.

The night brushed against her, a smile at her revelation that Heather-fey could feel rather than see. Her essence, sweet and silken, breathed into her until it became one with her inner self, filling up the pockets in her lungs until they were so full that Heather had to exhale through her honeycomb pores or risk imploding and becoming a supernova. It was then she heard the sound that punctuated the night. The rhythmic sound of crickets. A choir of crickets.

At first it was one. Then that single cricket was joined by a friend, then another and another, their cheerful chirping calling forth more of their friends to join in and sing the song with their continuous trilling and tinkling that only musically gifted – and magically enhanced – crickets can make. And indeed, it was a song. The chirping crickets was not a cacophony of sound without rhyme or reason, but a song with a distinctive rhythm and beat to it…and it sounded very familiar to Heather-fey as she listened to the colossal choir of crickets turn up the volume of their song until it seemed to be a living creation, vivid and vibrant, beating and breathing in the night.

She couldn’t see a single cricket, hidden as they were among the outdoor autumn carpet of grass, decaying leaves and pine needles, but she heard them and their combined voices created a choir of such magnitude that their song was loud enough to overwhelm the sounds of the battle: Vivian’s cruel cackling as she threw her elf-bolts at Adam, her snarls of outrage as they struck against the sword that Adam wielded with such elegant expertise, and then her coughing fits as his sword sent the elf-bolt back at her and she choked on the fumes as it exploded in her repulsive face.

Heather-fey felt like she was watching the battle from a great distance as the jumble of sounds faded away…and all she could hear now was the crickets’ climbing crescendo, their chirping and trilling voices rising and falling, slowly and fast, as the rhythm of their song required. Heather-fey knew this song, knew it to be a favorite of hers though its name escaped her for a moment, its familiarity flirting between the skirts of the fairy’s mind. Then dawn broke inside her, chasing away the dusk of doubt and she embraced her recognition of the song. The song that the choir of crickets were singing: It was What A Feeling by Irene Cara.

 

First when there’s nothing

But a slow glowing dream

That your fear seems to hide

Deep inside your mind.

 

“What…or who is that?” Heather-fey exclaimed, startled upon hearing the unknown voice that had just sung the first four lines of the song What A Feeling to the accompaniment of the cricket choir. Her eyes were wide as she searched the shadows of the night, her burnished chestnut hair whipped around her heart-shaped face, lending their fragrancy to the spicy sweet autumn air with the subtle scent of her honey shampoo that still clung to her long locks. Wave upon glossy wave they tumbled about her bare shoulders as Heather-fey turned every which way in search of the unknown singer. Then, before her, she saw a red luminous glow eclipse the night with its otherworldly radiance. It was eyes. Pernell’s eyes.

“Pernell! What are you doing here?” Heather-fey cried out in her surprise at seeing her bunny best friend before her. So mysteriously. She had left Pernell in her apartment munching away at her hay after finishing her salad. She had even given her an extra helping of chopped carrots and blueberries to keep her occupied while she and Adam left to battle the Blue Hag. She hated leaving Pernell behind in the devastation site that her home had been reduced to by the Yeti’s attack, but Heather-fey didn’t want her anywhere near the battle zone. Now here she was. Pernell.

The brave bunny was sitting before her, the moonlight turning her tawny fur a rich golden hue while her eyes glowed like red roses that could only bloom in the fairy realm. Now, their soulful depths stared into Heather-fey’s melted chocolate eyes. Heather knew this was Pernell…yet, there was something so much more about her.

 

All alone you have cried

Silent tears full of pride

In a world made of steel, made of stone.

 

“Pernell…you can sing and talk…” Heather-fey said, her voice soft and full of wonder, then tears pricked her eyes at these lines in the song that Pernell had just sung to her. Heather could relate to them so much and how true they described her solitary early years. It was like Pernell could see right into her heart and knew the perfect song to sing. Her theme song. A timeless otherworldly wisdom shone in the bunny’s rose-gold eyes. Pernell was teaching Heather-fey her theme song. The fairy’s eyes grew misty at the love her furry friend was showing her. Pernell just nodded. She had always known the truth. Now Heather did too.

When I hear the music,

Close my eyes, feel the rhythm,

Wrap around and take hold of my heart.

Heather-fey sang the next lines in the song, her voice soft but sure.

What a feeling,

Heather-fey sang the first line of the chorus, her voice slightly quivering…with pent-up feeling.

 

Needs believing,

Pernell sang the next line in her smooth as honey bunny voice.

 

I can have it all,

Now I’m dancing for my life.

Heather-fey sang the next lines in her theme song, her voice growing stronger, more certain of her truth.

 

Take your passion and make it happen,

Pernell sang the next lines in their duet…

 

I can dance right through my life.

Heather-fey sang the last line of the chorus.

 

Now I hear the music,

Close my eyes, I am rhythm,

In a flash it takes hold of my heart.

Heather-fey sang the last lines of her theme song What A Feeling, her voice smooth and strong, her eyes full of love and gratitude as she gazed at Pernell. She had taught Heather her theme song and they had just sang a duet together to the accompaniment of the cricket choir. Clearly, Pernell was no ordinary rabbit. But Heather-fey had always known that. They were bonded together by love. Pure love.

“Thank-you,” Heather-fey said softly as she reached out her right hand to Pernell who nuzzled her sweet furry face into her fairy friend’s palm for a few moments, then moved her face to the side and gave a few wet and warm bunny kisses to her wrist. They were the sweetest, most pure and loving kisses that Heather-fey had ever received. Besides Adam’s kisses of course.

 

Chapter 17…Magic At The Fairy Ring 

Gold and green light shone with otherworldly power as it steadily grew in a fluid circular pattern about the fairy ring. Its brilliant fluorescence pulsed as if it was a living creature, not a creature belonging to the earth’s mortal menagerie, but a creature luminous with magic.

   It reminds me of fireflies, Heather-fey thought to herself, as she remembered a night from a few years ago when she and Adam decided to celebrate the Summer Solstice by watching the movie A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The movie had just ended and she had fallen asleep on the sofa, reclining back into Adam’s body with his arms wrapped around her. She remembered suddenly waking up and looking around her in pure wonder. Fireflies had somehow found their way inside her apartment and were flickering around the room with their living lantern lights all aglow. Heather had laughed in her child-like delight as she left Adam’s arms to dance around in her white gossamer nightie with the fireflies. She remembered Adam watching her and smiling at the exuberance of her simple joy.

Later, Adam helped Heather to release the fireflies from her apartment. He explained that they were not meant to be “bottled beauties”. Their living lantern lights would be snuffed out by morning if they were not set free. As would I, Heather-fey mused as she basked under the warm kindling of this magical memory.

Maeve was still poised in the boughs of the willow, high above the action, so still that one might inadvertently have taken her for being a part of the giant tree. Her hair was a russet twine downward and so delicately braided with the light of the full moon that it could have easily been mistaken for the sway of the willow’s tresses. But Heather-fey knew she was there. Even without seeing the aura of perspiring sizzle and steam that outlined her fairy mother, she could feel her presence, as surely as she could feel her own heartbeat.

“They’re coming,” Maeve breathed, a smile blooming over her glowing face. Her eyes still had that faraway look to them, but now they sparkled as she watched, entranced, at something Heather-fey couldn’t see yet.

Then she did.

A caricature of shapes, like inkblots some know-it-all conforming psychiatrist holds up in front of a rebelliously unique patient who possesses a mind too beautiful for him to comprehend. A jigsaw of shapes appeared in the fairy ring. They were still a short distance away, but they were there…and they were coming closer. Heather-fey could see their shadows advancing, steadily ascending near to the fairy ring’s entrance…and nearer to the Blue Hag.

Adam continued to fight with the skill and poise that any experienced sword fighter would be envious of – and without any serious injuries too, besides a few superficial cuts and scrapes. But every time he was grazed by an exploding elf-bolt, Heather’s heart bled along with her love. This battle had to end…and soon!

At last, it looked like the end would soon dawn. With each second that dissolved away into the next obliteration of time, the army of shapes crept closer, until finally, the residents of the Seelie Court stepped out of Vivian the Blue Hag’s ominous shadow and made themselves known.

At the head of the vast array of fairy folk was a giant black and yellow spider, very much reminiscent of the heroic Mrs. Merry Legs. Was this her reincarnation? Thought Heather-fey. No, it couldn’t be. This spider has eight legs, not the seven of my saviour.

   And indeed, it wasn’t…it was Calliope, the daughter of Mrs. Merry Legs.

Sitting on the spider’s back, proud and poised, was a fairy with luminous liquid silver eyes, her long silver hair blew behind her like ribbons of moonlight streaked with blue. She wore a dress spun from the finest cobwebs so it would cling to her curves while some stray strands of spidersilk shone like gossamer as they played around her thighs and the graceful contour of her cobweb wings. Heather-fey knew intuitively that this fairy was her aunt Moonweb, friend to the heroic Mrs. Merry Legs and since the spider’s sacrifice, Moonweb had worked with Calliope in forming the vast army of arachnids. They knew that the day would come when they would have to take on Vivian the Blue Hag again and Calliope wanted very much to be at the head of the legion of spiders. For the love of her mother Mrs. Merry Legs and to honor the sacrifice she made with her life and last breath.

Through the fairy ring the spiders came: each one weaving threads of silk as strong as steel along the decaying crunch of the ground. Not just spiders came through the portal, but salamanders and frogs and owls as well. Heather-fey saw a striking purple salamander with orange spots, each one gleaming like a sun descending into the sea at twilight. Its eyes shone like liquid onyx, full of ancient wisdom. Upon its back was a fairy with long auburn tresses and golden green butterfly wings. Her dress looked like it was woven together from the petals of a dozen flowers: buttercup, bluebells, honeysuckle, daisies and more comprised her fairy dress. Heather-fey just knew that here was her aunt Spiritdancer.

She looked at the creatures making their way through the portal from the fairy realm and love over-brimmed her heart knowing that these were her brethren coming to fight Vivian the Blue Hag on her behalf.

Just then a barn owl soared out of the fairy ring, carrying the luminous light of the full moon on its outstretched wings…and a fairy sitting on its downy back. Her hair was the color of polished ebony and feathered behind her in shadowy streaks, her sapphire eyes glowed brilliantly, a weave of indigo gossamer laced with scarlet fashioned her dress. Here was Nightwing, Heather-fey’s third aunt.

Heather-fey knew that her fairy aunts were not normally so small as to sit on the back of a spider or a salamander or an owl, but for the sake of this battle they had shrunk their size down so they could…it would be easier for them to pass undetected by Vivian in their magically enhanced smaller stature.

Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she looked at her family all about her. They hadn’t seen her since she was a newborn fairy and really didn’t know her since she was sent away to live from Fairyland, her true home, for her own safety. But here they were. Moonweb, Nightwing, Spiritdancer…and Calliope the spider whose mother had sacrificed her life to save hers. They didn’t know her but they were all here to fight for her. They just knew that Heather-fey was their long-lost niece and she needed their help. It was so much for her to absorb. Though she never had a family fight for her in her childhood, she knew that’s how families should be. And she had one now.

But most of all through the unfolding of her life’s story as Heather-fey learned she was a fairy and discovered her true family who were fairies too, of course, the pure truth of the matter was instilled in her: it was love that made a family and you didn’t need to be a blood relative or even the same species for that.

“Oh, I wish so much to help them,” Heather-fey said to herself, never more earnest in her life as she watched the spiders spinning trip lines of silk from one side of the pulsating fairy portal to the other. They were furiously spinning away to make their silken threads thick enough to trip the Blue Hag.

Vivian spotted the spiders and knowing what they were up to, she gave a vicious kick to the arachnids gathered on her left. She almost lost her balance, but unfortunately stopped herself from tripping over her own feet and the strands of spidersilk that she broke apart with her kick. She smiled malevolently as the spiders let out a high-pitched squeal of pain as they flew through the air from the Blue Hag’s assault. Some landed with a sickening thud against a nearby pine tree, breaking off a few legs and causing them to bleed blue blood from their wounds. The Blue Hag just cackled evilly upon seeing the casualties.

Nightwing soared close to Vivian, so close in fact that the barn owl smacked her in her repulsive face with the razor-sharp grazing of her wing. Nightwing just laughed at the Blue Hag’s look of utter shock.

Heather-fey let out a horrified gasp at Vivian’s cruelty upon the spiders, tears pricked her eyes just before they breached the shoreline of her eyes and flowed freely down her pale cheeks.

Adam, seeing the Blue Hag momentarily distracted, seized the opportunity and lunged at her with his sword. But she had moved slightly at the last second, so instead of taking off her head, Adam’s sword struck her side.

Blood the color of black tar and stinking worse than a decaying corpse that had been sitting out in the hot sun for three days until it was too putrid for even the vultures to bother with it, flowed from the wound in her side. Vivian looked in shocked outrage at the mess staining her mouldy cloak. She howled her wrath at Adam as she prepared to throw another exploding elf-bolt.

“I wish I could help in some way…but what can I do?” Heather-fey despaired as she looked at Pernell who was sitting in the grass by her side, appearing as composed and all-knowing as Yoda. With her eyes as bright as liquid rubies she looked at her fairy-friend toying in distraction with the pen in her hand. Pernell nodded at it.

Heather-fey looked at the pen in her hand. Queen Maeve said it was all the protection she would need to defend herself against the Blue Hag. If that was true, then there must be something she was missing. Maeve said it was a very special weapon and one meant only for her. These thoughts do-si-doed through her head as she ran her hands over the pen.  What am I missing? she thought to herself. Then, fumbling the pen in her hands again, turning it every which way, the top clicked! From the bottom emerged the writing tip, glistening sharp and ready…but ready for what?

Heather-fey looked at the pen in amazement…she could feel a power in it, a power that had suddenly awakened. At the same instant that the writing tip thrusted outward from the writing instrument, the fairy ring started to pulsate like a living being, it pulsated as if it had a heartbeat and it glowed even brighter than had the starry constellation of the singing Elvis.

Then, with one gigantic exhaled breath from the vibrating core of the fairy portal did a paper flutter out – furiously flutter out – but its fury tendered itself into a graceful dance as it landed in Heather-fey’s outstretched hand as if it was destined for her…and only her.

The fairy – though new to her fae self-awareness – felt an otherworldly aura eclipse her. It was as though time was standing poised on a great precipice and it was waiting to see if she knew what to do. If she was ready to meet her Destiny. Heather felt a coldness tiptoe over her scalp and down her spine…but it was chased away by a warmth spreading itself over her once slumbering sixth sense, kissing her awake, at last. As she held the pen in her right hand and the paper in her left, Heather-fey felt her power awaken. For the first time in her life. She felt like this pen and this paper had always belonged in her hands and finally, they found their way to her. Heather-fey felt she could create magic with them. She knew she could.

Quite suddenly, a new chaos of violent sounds disarrayed the fairy’s introspective moment. Startled, Heather-fey turned to the right where the sounds originated…and was shocked to see a six-foot tall hideous monster covered in insects and it was lumbering her way!

The creature was a writhing mass of scarab beetles from head to foot; it looked like it used to be human but it was now being eaten alive – and from the inside out too. Heather-fey was horrified to see the dung beetles writhing beneath the scabby skin, then there was a rending sound as if the skin was being ripped from another layer of skin as they ate their way though the flesh, leaving behind blood and gore for their larvae to feed on – once they hatched inside of the creature and glutted their way out as did their parents.

Heather-fey held back her scream at the grotesqueness of the creature as her newly awakened intuitive sense told her of its identity.

It was Joanne, her barbarous neighbor with the crude brutish manners and the mouth as filthy as the world’s filthiest sewer. Old Sewer Mouth herself. She had been standing on her balcony and bellowing a tirade of profanity at Heather and Adam for no reason when they had set off for the fairy ring. But then she was silenced by a scarab beetle that mysteriously appeared and fastened itself firmly over that ugly sewage cavity in her face. The last Heather saw of her, she was stumbling back into her apartment trying to dislodge the hungry and fierce insect.

But obviously she wasn’t able to free herself from the scarab dung beetle…and like breeds like anyway. Joanne had always been consumed with anger, hostility, coarseness, bitterness, vulgarity…and obviously her brutish manners and hateful attitude towards others had attracted the negative dark forces – quite possibility accelerated by the Blue Hag having entered into this dimension – and the scarab beetle came to feed on her murky antagonistic energy. First it was one…but that one soon bred into a colony. And isn’t that the way of extremely aggressive and antagonistic people who harbor inside of them hateful thoughts and hostile feelings? They infect other people with the rampage of their dark energy, very much like a disease. A disease of the soul that curdles and distorts them until they barely resemble a human being anymore.

So now, here was this creature who was a writhing mass of scarab beetles and smelled like the excrement of cockroaches. The creature obviously attracted those too.

Heather-fey felt her stomach churn at the sight of it lumbering toward her. Adam was busy with the Blue Hag…so it was up to her to vanquish the Bug Creature.

   What can I do? She thought frantically to herself. Suddenly, she felt an intense silvery tingling come from the pen and travel through her right hand. The paper in her left glowed luminously bright. Heather smiled to herself as her fae awareness told her what to do. Write.

“Okay, I will,” she said in response to the urgings of her inner voice.

   Living vines like tentacles burst upward from the ground and entwined around Joanne the Bug Creature’s legs in a strong-as-steel knotted hold. Then before she had the chance to utter another four-letter word, the vines pulled her down into the belly of the earth and Joanne the Bug Creature was never seen and heard from again.

   Heather wrote in her cursive script as the pen’s silvery ink flowed out onto the magical paper like liquid moonlight. Therefore, as she wrote it, so was it done. That was the end of the Bug Creature. Adam had said that magic was afoot tonight as she was coming into her power. And as usual, he was right.

Heather-fey had just vanquished her first monster. Now it was time for Vivian the Blue Hag’s demise.

She walked back to the battle zone and looked at the scene before her as if in a dream. Adam fighting the Blue Hag…Queen Maeve now standing on the bough of the willow, her body alight with her power…and those industrious spiders under the command of Calliope and Moonweb, had repaired their silken threads as they continued to weave their webs along the borders of the fairy ring, making it even stronger than before…and there was Nightwing on her owl friend, continuously grazing passed Vivian, keeping her distracted so she wouldn’t kick the spiders again…and Spiritdancer warning Adam of another incoming explosive elf-bolt. They were all working in conjunction together, fighting on behalf of Heather-fey, for the safety of her and her future with Adam.

As she looked at the battle and realized the love for her that fueled on her fairy family, including Adam and Pernell, Heather-fey stepped out of her dream-state and with her pen poised in her right hand and the magical paper in her left, she prepared to join the battle and fight the only way she knew how: Write.

And not too soon, as the Blue Hag just fired her missiles again. But this time it wasn’t just one, but a whole handful of five elf-bolts. They would have enough explosive power to create a crater bigger than the Grand Canyon! And they were headed straight at Adam!

   The five elf-bolts that Vivian the Blue Hag threw, suddenly stopped dead in the air, their elven fire was extinguished and the duds fell to the ground, rendered harmless forevermore, wrote Heather-fey. The Blue Hag just looked at her former weapons, dumbfounded. Then she took a step towards them, but stopped.

   The Blue Hag took another step forward but she tripped over her own feet again – and the spiders’ weavings – and she fell down hard, landing flat on her repulsive face. As Heather-fey wrote it, so did it happen.

Adam, for once not taking the time to seek a logical explanation for how the elf-bolts suddenly lost their power and why the Blue Hag had fallen so hard that several cracks appeared in the earth like an arterial map, instead he seized the opportunity and with one swift stroke of his sword he took off her head!

Her blood, full of the depravity of her sinister life, flowed out of Vivian’s headless body and seeped into the ground, into the waiting womb of the Earth Mother. Full of love for all of Earth’s creatures – even the deranged lunatics – the Earth Mother accepted the Blue Hag into her as she had the Bug Creature. She cocooned her damaged and warped soul in healing darkness where she will slumber away the pain and hopefully metamorphose into something other than what she was. One day, perhaps a millennia from now, she will be reborn from her cocoon of silk and shadow and hopefully in her next incarnation she will be a creature of love.

“It’s over?” Heather-fey asked, her voice trembling with relief and adrenaline as she tucked the pen behind her ear and fell into Adam as he opened his arms to her.

“It’s over,” Adam soothed. “You’re safe”, his voice was a gentle caress upon her frayed nerves as his arms enclosed around his lady love, his hand stroking her hair as Heather-fey cried out her relief and finally let go of her fear.

Adam continued to hold her as he let her cry a lifetime of tears for what she had been through, the love and acceptance she never had but finally found, first with him and then with Queen Maeve, her birth mother, and her extended family of fairies. He cradled her head gently against his naked shoulder as he soothed her and allowed her emotions to flow. For himself, he reveled in the feeling of having Heather-fey in his arms and safe again, her softness melting into the firm contours of his body pressed to hers, and despite all of the violence that his sheltered lady love had just witnessed, he knew that her sweetness of spirit and her pure heart were still intact.

Often, she had told him that she would rather be hurt than allow her heart to be hardened. Adam knew she meant it and truth be told, he wouldn’t want her any other way too. There is something very rare and special for someone to have suffered parental neglect as Heather-fey had, to be assaulted and blamed for it by those who should’ve protected her the most, to witness acts of violence and cruelty, yet still have the inner strength to reject it and remain true to herself, to be soft in a hardened world. Her adoptive mother wanted her to be tough and blamed her for the assaults that happened to her because she wasn’t tough…but his Heather didn’t want to be tough. That wasn’t the make-up of her psyche. To her, great strength lay in being sensitive. She felt that she wouldn’t be the poet and writer she was today if she had allowed herself to be toughened up and grew callouses over her heart. That wasn’t for her. Her strength was in being sensitive and soft and introspective and feeling a deep connection with nature. Her highest ideal was to live with a pure heart, for the most part she felt that she lived by this ideal. And Adam wouldn’t have her any other way.

When Heather-fey’s tears slowed, Adam lifted up her head so that he could look at her. Even with her smeared make-up, her dress torn and dirty, her skin bruised from enduring such an action-packed night, and now wearing a thin layer of sweat and blood from being in his embrace, she was still the most beautiful lady he had ever seen. And she was not just any lady, but his betrothed. Adam’s heart overflowed with love as he took her head in his hands, and looking at her with compassion kindling in his crystalline hazel eyes, his lips found hers and they shared a kiss full of the love they both held for the other, a love they cherished above all else.

Then, there was a flutter of wings next to the couple followed by a hand gently laid on Heather-fey’s back. “Vivian’s power has ended…but yours is just beginning,” Maeve said softly to her daughter.

 

Chapter 18…Always Loved, Ever Protected

At her touch, Heather-fey turned in Adam’s embrace to look at her fairy mother. Her dark honey eyes that were so like her own, held nothing but love as Maeve gazed at her…and something else that Heather-fey wasn’t accustomed to seeing but one she had long hungered for: a mother’s pride at her daughter’s accomplishments. Maeve was proud of her for the battle she had fought and won…with the help of Adam and her family of course. But that’s how families should be. No family member should fight a battle all alone without her family with her. All for one and one for all, that’s how families should be. Finally, Heather-fey had one. It may have taken her twenty-three years, but she found a family who truly loved her. She just wanted to bask her soul under the loving rays beaming at her from Maeve’s eyes. And as she did so, she felt the bruises start to fade from her. Finally.

Heather-fey could feel the magic shift in her as a subtle tingling started to pulse to life beneath her shoulder blades. From deep inside, the tingling grew, brilliantly, as if a dormant splendor was waiting to burst forth.

“What’s happening to me?” Heather-fey breathed as she took a step backward, her hands fluttering to her solar plexus where she felt a warmth sparkle to life and from there it prickled throughout her body, feeling like the sensation of pins and needles…but much more. The otherworldly awareness of a caterpillar walking over her skin was the description that came to Heather-fey’s mind.

“Heather…” Adam exclaimed, alarmed. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know…I feel something…” Heather exhaled, breathless but at the same time exhilarated by the glow and sparkle that was spreading throughout her body. Her solar plexus pulsated like a heartbeat, brilliant and alive. The sharp tingling sensation of a caterpillar walking over her skin became sharper, biting her almost painfully as the sensation concentrated itself in her shoulder blades.

“What’s happening to her?” Adam demanded as he looked piercingly at Queen Maeve.

“She’s becoming…” Maeve said, her bell-like voice full of wonder and joy.

Adam looked back at his Heather-fey just as the illumination of her burst open like an eclipse and light shone brilliantly before its kindling fell away…and as it did, a pair of wings were revealed, sitting on her back like a crown.

Still new and dewy and furled like a rose, Adam watched as with no more effort than a breath, her wings unfurled themselves. They swept outward with a graceful motion, their contour arcing up and down, its dormant splendor now released to its full-fledged awakening grandeur. They were as majestic as Monarch butterfly wings…and indeed that’s what they were.

Heather-fey was a caterpillar no more. She had come into her power and vanquished her monsters, her senses were now awakened and engaged by her self-discovery and birthright. Finally, she grew her fairy wings. Her Monarch butterfly fairy wings.

“Oh Adam,” Heather-fey breathed as she looked at herself in wonder, feeling very much like Cinderella after her transformation for the Ball.

“I’m beautiful…finally,” she said, tears sparkling in her warm honey brown eyes.

“You always were, Heather. My beautiful Heather,” Adam said, never more sincere. He held out his arms to her and Heather found her home as she closed the short distance between them and laid her head against the manly scruffiness of his brawny chest. He enclosed his strong arms about her, holding her against his warmth. It was the only place she ever wanted to be. The world may be going mad around her but as long as she was with Adam and he held her in his strong embrace, then everything was alright in her part of the world. Heather-fey’s wings pulsed the air around her with her happiness. Then she felt Maeve beside her.

“My daughter…my precious fairy daughter,” she said, caressing Heather’s cheek with her hand as she turned to her. Adam released Heather and stepped back so the reunited mother and daughter could have this moment. The pair embraced, their wings caressing each other.

“Can we join in?” said a voice behind them. Maeve and Heather-fey turned around to see Nightwing approaching, her ebony hair rippling as the gentle wind took it in hand. Behind her was Moonweb and Spiritdancer.

Then, before either could respond, Nightwing drew Heather-fey in an embrace and kissed her cheek.

“We haven’t seen you since you were a baby,” said Moonweb.

“It’s been way too long,” elated Spiritdancer as the fairies took their turns embracing their long-lost niece Heather-fey.

Finally, she was girdled by love. The love of her fairy family encircled her as tightly knit as the most intricate tapestry. They were really here. They were no longer a half-remembered fragment of a dream nor just the fingers of inspiration she felt touching her as she wrote her poems and stories, no longer a fanciful glimpse of motion she caught in her peripheral vision at home, not just an otherworldly luminous glow she saw in the woods on the Summer Solstice. Finally, on this fateful Samhain night the mist between worlds parted and they allowed their glamour to fall away as they left the wild fringe that spanned the space between the two realities.

Heather-fey was in her twenty-third year when the Blue Hag’s curse was destined to fructify against her, as well as the awakening of her fae awareness. Her family had relinquished her to the human world to save her life from the curse. But unbeknownst to them, the Blue Hag had found her and set her curse in motion. So, her family had left the safety of the Seelie Court in Fairyland to come to the human world and fight for her. She was one of them after all. And this knowledge warmed her almost as much as Adam’s most ardent kisses did. And Heather-fey could see them now.

Her faith had always been strong and she knew that she was never alone, even when her earthly eyes couldn’t pierce the misty veil that separated their worlds. But now, with the awakening of her sixth sense and her fae awareness that fructified just in time for her to defeat the monsters that had been plaguing her – the Blue Hag and the Bug Creature and those intangible inner monsters bred from her childhood that were just as real – Heather-fey could finally see her fairy family who had always been with her in her dreams and solitary years. Now they could show themselves to her – fully – since she came into her power, claimed her fae birthright, and finally grew her fairy wings.

Surrounding her now was her mother, Queen Maeve, and her aunts Nightwing, Moonweb, and Spiritdancer. Together with Heather-fey, they created a circle with no end and no beginning, just like the purest of pure love. The kind of love that binds the Universe together. Heather-fey felt like she was a part of a loving family. At long last, her most desired heartfelt wish had come true. She was finally a member of a family who wanted her, and more than that…they loved her. Just as she was. Again, her tears started to flow. But she wasn’t the only one. They were all crying at finally being reunited after so long being forced apart. They were together again, and their love flowed as freely between them as did their tears.

“The family is together again as we always should’ve been,” said a voice behind them.

The group of fairies – and Adam too – turned around to find Pernell sitting in the grass beside them. Heather-fey’s bunny best friend, who this night was certainly showing that she was no ordinary rabbit since she revealed her ability to sing, and now she’s talking…what’s next? Ballroom dancing? But then rabbits have always been friends to the fae so Pernell’s newly discovered abilities shouldn’t come as a surprise.

There she sat in the grass, wise and all-knowing and still as composed as Yoda. Her fawn-colored fur gleaming under the rays of moonlight that fell around her like lunar kisses while her rose-gold eyes glistened like jewels and beamed forth their otherworldly light.

“Pernell, I’m so glad you’re here and alright. I love you so…” began Heather-fey as she took a step towards her suddenly talkative bunny.

“I’ve always been with you,” Pernell said, her voice deepening as the bunny was all at once luminous with light.

A blinding flash of radiance and fiery glitter eclipsed Pernell’s small furry body. It started from her heart and branched out like arteries of lightning. Pernell’s body was an assemblage of lustre and shine held together – and then apart – by the hand of iridescent glitter. Then it faded just as fast as the show began. The metamorphosis was complete.

“…and I love you too, Heather-fey. My daughter,” Ariel said as he stood up from his crouching position.

A stunned silence fell over the family reunion, shivering between each soul, whether magical or mortal, each felt the wonder of these words and reacted in their own way:

Heather-fey inhaled sharply and Adam looked at her in concern. Queen Maeve was struck by this magical disguise that even she didn’t discern, as were her fae sisters. While Calliope and the spiders drummed their feet excitedly.

“Ariel, is that really you?” Maeve asked softly when she found her voice.

“Father?” Heather-fey whispered tremulously as she stepped forward.

“It is I,” said the sylph fairy…who was indeed Ariel, the husband of Maeve and Heather-fey’s father, who had disappeared so long ago. Twenty-three years ago, in fact. That fateful night when he left his beloved Maeve and his home in Fairyland and flew to the human world with their newborn fairy daughter Heather-fey…that was the last anyone ever saw or heard from Ariel again. He just disappeared…or so they thought.

But here he was. The bunny Pernell had dematerialized in a glorious shower of glitter that in the next second reassembled itself and metamorphosed into Ariel.

He was very much as Maeve remembered him. His smooth skin had a golden sheen that glistened under the moonlight, pure and rich, like Inspiration’s bottomless well once a poet dips her quill into its illuminating waters. The contours of his chest along with the swell of his biceps and his strong legs poured in fluid lines to create his chiseled physique; his sun-bronzed hair feathered around his shoulders; and his eyes were still a striking blue. Bluer than the cerulean clarity of the sky. His wings were still those of a tiger swallowtail butterfly. Brilliant yellow with its swift arc of royal blue and eyelets of striking scarlet. They arced back, sweeping upward and down, more graceful than a hunter’s bow.

“Ariel. Ariel!” Maeve cried as she flew into his embrace, letting loose her tears that copiously poured from her eyes, those trinkets of emotion that were also shared by Nightwing, Moonweb, Spiritdancer…and Heather-fey.

“Where have you been? Why didn’t you come back? Why…” Maeve continued to cry until she could cry no more.

“Forgive me…I’m sorry for the pain I caused you, but I couldn’t come back,” began Ariel, his voice flowed like a soothing syrup to heal those raw wounds in Maeve’s heart that he inadvertently inflicted on her with his disappearance. Maeve lifted up her head to look into Ariel’s eyes. Her warm honey mingling in his dessert of blue.

“I couldn’t come back…not when I arrived at the Mary Poppins Nanny Services and Adoption Agency with Heather-fey…then learned that Mary Poppins was on assignment in England and no one knew when she would be back. I couldn’t leave our daughter there, alone and unprotected…”

“So you stayed…to protect our daughter,” Maeve said, fully understanding, love shining from her eyes.

“Yes…” Ariel said softly, his eyes staring into Maeve’s warm depths. Then, with a lingering caress of his hand against her cheek, he released her. His eyes searched the small gathering of fairies in front of him…until he found her.

Heather-fey was standing a little further back from the others. Though she wanted to run to Ariel too, she didn’t know him and would he really want to know her? her old self-doubts asked. So, she stood apart from the gathering, not wanting to intrude on this moment between Maeve and Ariel. She spent so many years alone, that Heather-fey didn’t know where she fit into this reunion. She didn’t realize that she was the integral heart of it. So she stood back with Adam, his arms around her waist, being careful of her wings as he held her safely against the bulwark of his body.

With a purposeful stride, Ariel made his way to his daughter. He walked as if she was a lighthouse and he the ship guiding him to her. He walked as if she was the beholder of his final destination, as if she was the only destination that mattered, the only one he could see.

“Heather-fey,” Ariel said as he stood in front of her, his voice was like warm sunshine on a summer’s day, breaking through the shingled canopy of trees in a forest, breaching through their entwining branches to shine his light and warm the sheltered glade within. Then placing one hand on either side of her head, he held it so tenderly as he looked into her upturned face, drinking her in, drinking in the beauty of this flower who had thirsted for the watering of love upon the soil of her soul for so long.

“Father,” Heather-fey whispered, her voice breaking as she stared up into the face of her father for the first time. She could feel his love palpitating in the air between them and oh how she had thirsted for the unconditional purity of parental love. She never felt such a gift given to her by her adoptive parents. She thought such a love would always remain out of her reach…that is, until she was reunited with Maeve, her birth mother, and now Ariel, her father. His love was so purely felt and just as purely given, Heather-fey couldn’t stop the fresh onslaught of tears.

“Father, finally I have a father,” Heather-fey managed to say her litany of a lost childhood dream through her broken sobs, her eyes swam with tears that caused Ariel to be just a golden blur before her. “What did you mean…?”

“…that I’ve always been with you?” Ariel could easily finish Heather’s words for he knew how isolated she was from others during her childhood’s formative years. How her adoptive parents viewed her feyness, her strangely fanciful nature as a personality defect and a mental illness, how they literally punished her for this and her panic attacks too, how they ostracized her and made her an outcast, labelled her primitive and below average to other kids, the black sheep of the family…and all for being born different from them. Even the other kids at school thought she was too strange to be friends with because of her panic attacks, or maybe they also sensed her fae otherliness. Either way, it left his daughter very lonely and isolated, but as the poet and writer she was destined to be, she harnessed her feelings of isolation and listened to the inner teachings of her solitude, she made her imagination her best friend and deepened her connection with nature. And when the pain was too much she found her escape in books as she dreamed of another world, another family where she was loved just as she was. Unbeknownst to Heather-fey, Ariel was there to see it all. And how it broke his heart.

“I couldn’t let my little girl go into such a harsh world all alone and vulnerable…so I took on other forms so I could stay close to you. First, as the family dog Trixie before your adoptive father got rid of me for being too possessive over you; but later on, I was the street cat Ruby you bonded with; then later your favorite lilac tree in the backyard. I was there when the abuse and name-calling started…and how I wanted to turn your adoptive parents and the bullies at school into the foulest toadstools and your cousin into an eunuch…but I couldn’t, not without giving myself away and that would just bring even more animosity onto you…all I could do was to sprinkle fairy dust on your head at night to help you dream of another world, your true world, as I wiped away the tears drying on your cheeks even in your sleep. Of course, I would stay, becoming the night-light in your room throughout the years. Then when the assaults increased, I was there whispering words of poetry into your thoughts, inspiring your heart with poetry in the hope that you would pick up your pen and start on the journey that would make you the writer you are today.

“I learned to listen to my heart and the stirrings of my soul,” Heather-fey said with a shy smile.

“I’m so proud of you Heather-fey. A lot of people don’t know how to listen to their inner selves, instead they wander through their lives, lost, not knowing who they are or who they were meant to be. Not knowing how to find that lost part of themselves.”

“But not you Heather-fey. You’ve always known being a writer and a poet was your destiny. And you never wavered away from your course,” Ariel said, pride saturating his every word.

“I’ve had a lot of practice listening to my heart through my connection to nature, making friends with my imagination and my inner self, being still amidst the noise…and you were really there with me the entire time?” Heather-fey’s voice broke like an egg and the yolk’s golden seepage was her emotion finally trickling free to shine.

“I was,” Ariel said tenderly. “Even later on when you moved away into your own place I was your favorite corn snake Tequila, then Peaches, Mocha, Reverie…and finally I was Pernell your bunny.

“You’ve never been alone, Heather-fey, my daughter,” Ariel said in his voice thick with emotion as he tenderly wiped away with his thumbs the tears that now streamed freely down her heart-shaped face. Heather-fey closed her eyes and gave another wrenching sob as she allowed herself to be comforted and laid her head on his chest, silently weeping out her love and pain, as Ariel wrapped his arms around her for the first time.

“At last, I finally get to hold my little girl in my true form,” Ariel said, not trying to hide the emotion he was feeling nor his tears, those trinkets of heartfelt emotion that spangled his cheeks too. Maeve and her fae sisters gathered around her and Adam was at her back as always, he was her shield and sword, a tree rooted deep in the earth and dripping his sap of love to nourish her, his flower. Together, they created a circle of love.

Finally, Heather-fey found her family and as Ariel had said when he was still Pernell “the family is together again as we always should’ve been”. Heather-fey felt the truth of his words and at last, she felt complete…and loved.

 

Chapter 19…Going Home

   The obsidian expansiveness of the night sky was a garden of stars, each one a flower blooming, each blooming starry flower unfurling its essence like Heather-fey’s soul: bright and brave and brazen.

While below the night’s starry spangled garden, that fairy who was so full of love that she glowed like an earthbound star herself, she ran ahead of Adam, her child-like laughter full of joy that would surely rejuvenate the soul of anyone who heard her. Its sound, silvery and bubbling like a brook after spring’s first thaw, bespoke of her pure happiness after having broken free from the fetters of the past. Her inflictions and childhood pain were her jailer but it was love who held the key, and with Adam ever by her side, Heather-fey found her fairy family. There is an old saying that the truth will set you free, but Heather-fey would declare it was love that set her free. Free to heal, free to let go and live.

Adam smiled as he watched her, revealing those delectable dimples that gilded his handsome face far richer than a King’s ransom of jewels. At least in Heather-fey’s opinion as she often told him. He had since donned his traditional black shirt as his lady love combed back with her fingers the disarray that his hair had become during the swordfight. The sword, with the unblemished grace of its silver-glimmering blade and its coiling serpent hilt, had served him well during the battle, but Adam felt its rightful place was at the Seelie Court in Fairyland, so he gave it back to Queen Maeve with his gratitude to her for its use.

The fairies took their turn giving a tearful departure to Heather-fey, before disappearing through the fairy ring.

“This is not goodbye…now that I’ve found you again you’re a part of our family as you always should’ve been,” Maeve said tearfully as she held Heather-fey in her arms.

“That’s right, little niece,” Moonweb said with a smile.

“We’ll be around you so much, you’ll get sick of us,” Ariel said, looking into his daughter’s tear-glistening eyes.

“Never!” Heather-fey had cried as she wrapped her arms around her father’s shoulders.

Adam had felt the truth of their parting words. After the trials of this night, nothing could break apart this fairy family. They would be around, they would always be here for each other. Heather-fey felt the truth of their words too…they gave strength to her dancing spirit, they were the wind beneath her wings.

And now, as she ran and danced ahead of Adam, her wings unfurled their fae beauty, fluttering behind her in a dance of orange and black, blue and white. Heather-fey wanted to test the strength of her new wings, she felt they could carry her to the stars if she was so inclined. But actually, she wasn’t headed that far away. She and Adam were walking – or in her case running – to the motorcycle. It was time to go home. Home to their future together.

As the parking lot came into view, Heather-fey slowed her exuberant pace. She waited for Adam but in her jubilation, she hadn’t noticed that he was right behind her, having been caught up in the tailwind of her high spirits, he was running right behind her. In the next second, he took her hand.

“Let’s walk the rest of the way together,” he said as he pulled her against him, his arms wrapping around her while his lips found hers, teasing them apart with his tongue…

“Together forever,” Heather-fey said breathlessly, feeling her own desire mount.

It wasn’t the right time when they were surrounded by the rubble and ruin of Heather’s apartment, and it was certainly not the right time while Maeve was telling her story nor when they were surrounded by the fire during the battle…and it was still not the right time to give in to their shared passion for the other. Not in a parking lot at three in the morning. How crude, the rational side of Adam’s mind chastised him. But it will soon be the right time on their wedding night. On a bed strewn with rose petals and chocolate curls. Or on a bed of thistle and down in the midst of a forest. Whichever manner that his romantic fairy bride wanted their nuptial night was the way it should be. Adam would make sure of it.

Pulling back on the reins of his galloping desire, he broke off his kiss and released her – except for her hand. Heather-fey just smiled at him as if she knew his thoughts and shared in his battle. And indeed, she did. Then together, hand in hand, they walked to the motorcycle.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked in concern as they stood beside the bike. He noticed that Heather-fey looked lost in thought and was clearly distracted.

“Well, I was just wondering…you’re human and I’m a fairy. What will our children be?” Heather-fey voiced her thought.

“They will be loved, that’s what our children will be. They will be very much loved and wanted,” Adam said without a moment’s hesitation.

Heather smiled and glowed with joy at Adam’s answer. Then she mounted the motorcycle behind him, holding him snugly about the waist as he reared up the bike. She reached up to kiss his cheek, her lips petal-soft against his sandpaper jaw.

“I love you,” she whispered in his ear and for an answer he just squeezed her hand and held it against his heart as they drove back to the battle site and the fairy ring opened up for them.

Then together, they rode their motorcycle back in time to start their future. Heather-fey’s wings fluttered behind her like a flag at the start of a race. Only this wasn’t a race…but it was the start of a whole new fairy tale for this 19^th century cowboy and his 21^st century fairy bride.

 

Epilogue…A Future With Fairies

Adam and Heather-fey got married six months later. They had so many fond memories of celebrating the first day of May together, also known as Beltane, that it just felt right to make it their wedding day.

Since this was the first marriage between a human and a fairy that they were aware of, they decided on a compromise. They had their wedding at the Ponderosa but as for their Honeymoon…that was in Fairyland!

Soon after the Honeymoon, there was an addition to the Cartwright household. Nine months to the day of their wedding night, Heather-fey gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Adam had gotten his bride pregnant on their wedding night. Well, after that matrimonial feat, Heather gave Adam the nickname “the Cowboy King”, as well as some other names that are too risqué to mention in a PG-13 fairytale. But she only called him those behind closed doors. Closed bedroom doors.

Heather-fey thought – and Adam was in complete agreement – that since she wouldn’t be here among the living if not for the bravery and sacrifice of the heroic spider Mrs. Merry Legs, the newlyweds believed it was only appropriate to name their firstborn daughter after her. So, they came up with the name Merrily. They considered it perfectly fitting for their daughter.

Merrily Cartwright was a pure delight as her name would imply. She had wavy blonde hair which she inherited from her grandfather Ariel, and her eyes were an iridescent hazel just like her father’s. And what did she inherit from her mother? Her love of poetry and story-telling!

Many nights did mother and daughter spend writing poems or singing songs together, accompanied by Adam on his guitar. Often, Ariel and Maeve would come by for these family sessions too, and it was on such a night when Ariel brought Heather-fey a special song he heard while flying over Ireland. A song by an all-female band, Celtic Woman. Ariel thought of his daughter immediately upon hearing it and he knew that he had to share it with her. Though the theme song of her past was What A Feeling, Ariel felt that the song he just found by Celtic Woman, Walk Beside Me, was the theme song of her life now and leading into her future with Adam, Merrily, the rest of the Cartwright clan, and of course her fairy family. Heather-fey’s eyes glossed over with tears when Ariel taught her the song. She felt it was the theme song of her life now too, gift-wrapped as it was in the present:

 

A child begins with one single step

Then walks a million miles,

And though these wings are not ready yet

I will try to fly.

 

My eyes can’t see,

my arms can’t reach,

I need strength when I’m weak

I need your faith in me.

 

Don’t walk in front of me

I was not born to follow,

Don’t walk behind me

We were all born to lead,

Don’t walk without me

I might need you tomorrow,

Walk right beside me

Be the real friend I need.

 

If you take small stones, one at a time

You will move that whole mountain

If you climb each rainbow, it’s gold that you’ll find

And shelter from the rain

 

My ears can’t hear,

my heart can’t feel,

I need strength when I’m weak

I need your faith in me.

 

Don’t walk in front of me

I was not born to follow,

Don’t walk behind me

We were all born to lead,

Don’t walk without me

I might need you tomorrow,

Walk right beside me

Be the real friend I need.

Walk right beside me

Be the real friend I need.

 

And so, life continued on for Adam, Heather-fey, and Merrily Cartwright just like the song Walk Beside Me.

On her fifth birthday, Merrily grew her fairy wings – blushing blue and creamy white with a fringe of gold outlining them. The parents were told that this was the traditional colors for child fairies and the color and shape of her wings will most certainly change as she grows…so, no one knew what her wings would look like as an adult. But for a celebration present, her grandparents Maeve and Ariel, gave Merrily a pink unicorn with a purple mane and tail, thus making Merrily the only child in Nevada (probably the world!) to have a pet unicorn.

The Cartwrights doted on their youngest family member. Little Joe taught Merrily to ride a pony when she was five years old and even tried teaching her to do a “swing mount” like her Uncle Joe – to the consternation of Adam and Ben. But it turned out that neither father nor grandfather had nothing to worry about since Merrily had just grown her fairy wings, so instead of doing a “swing mount”, the rambunctious little fairy just fluttered her wings and up she flew into the saddle!

Hoss enjoyed teaching Merrily the ways of the animals and they had such fun together when he tried teaching her how to milk a cow. Merrily couldn’t decide on which side she should milk, so she kept fluttering over to the left side, gave a few squirts of milk in the bucket, then she would fly over the cow again to the right side and gave a few squirts of milk in the bucket. Back and forth she kept on going…suffice it to say that the cow was not at all impressed with these “fairy games” and kicked over the bucket. Hoss tried to be stern with Merrily but whenever he did, she would just squirt milk at him with the cow’s teat. In the end, they just ended up laughing as they both squirted milk at each other…with none in the turned-over bucket. Although, Hoss and Merrily were covered in milk!

Adam and Heather-fey Cartwright also started to breed and raise rabbits (for pets of course, not food) in honor of Pernell. They started with two does and two bucks…and well, six months after the rabbits did what they are famous for doing best, they had almost as many bunnies as they had cattle. They called it Pernell’s Bunny Farm. Merrily loved to help her mother with the rabbits, especially the babies.

As for Heather-fey and her writing you may ask? Well, the new mother made it a habit of reading bedtime stories and poetry to Merrily every night. She even read to her stories and poems that she wrote herself, though she had to be extremely careful doing this, since her writings had a way of coming true.

Once, she wrote Merrily a story about unicorns and the next morning Adam counted at least a dozen unicorns dispersed amongst the herd of regular horses. Then there was that story she wrote about a mermaid and the next day, Little Joe came home bubbling over with excitement. He said he had just found a mermaid sitting on the shore of Lake Tahoe combing her hair. Once she saw Little Joe, she beckoned to him. Little Joe wanted to keep her and tried to carry her home, but Adam came upon them and made his brother set her free.

One thing was for sure, life was never dull for Adam living with his fairy wife and fairy daughter and members of her family who continually dropped in for a visit…and Heather’s writings that had a habit of coming true.

But the best story of Heather-fey’s that came true…is this story!

   Adam, that time-travelling cowboy, after finding his fairy bride and helping her to vanquish her monsters, brought her back home to the Ponderosa where they – along with their daughter Merrily – all lived together happily ever after.

   And so, as Heather-fey wrote it, so did it come to be.

 

Author’s Note:

I hope you enjoyed my fantasy-action-comedy-romantic story. This really started out as a short story with the Yeti abducting me that I was writing to amuse myself during the time that the computers weren’t working at the library because of the cyber attack. But the computers were down for three months and so I kept on writing at home with pen and paper, and this “short story” grew into so much more.

Back in the 1990’s my favorite TV shows were Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (starring Kevin Sorbo), and its successful spin-off Xena: Warrior Princess (starring Lucy Lawless), both shows filmed entirely in beautiful New Zealand. I owe a lot to those two TV programs. They inspired my imagination with their tales of Greek mythology and got me interested in reading/researching the Greek myths on my own.

By the way, if anyone else out there is interested in Greek mythology, one of the best books you could ever read on the subject is Bulfinch’s Mythology mentioned in my bibliography.

I have always been a writer since a child, and I even made the Honors’ Roll for English in grade 12. That was my proudest moment in high school. But it wasn’t until the 1990’s that I became extremely prolific with my writing, most prominently with my poetry and as of today I have well over a thousand poems. I really think it was those two TV shows that inflamed me with inspiration.

A nightly radio show I listened to called Lovers and Other Strangers in the 1990’s to 2009 also inspired me a lot too. The host would read poetry from poets throughout the centuries, tell stories that went straight to your heart, and all woven together with appropriate music that went with that night’s topic. He had such a relaxing voice, his voice was like a soothing balm to me as he read these stories and poetry, and many nights I cried while listening to them. So many of my poems were inspired and written while listening to that radio program. It was on at night so I would be drinking tea and dancing around in my nightgown as I fantasized about a tall, dark, and handsome man reading poetry to me.

I am indebted to that radio program in another way too: I wouldn’t be online today. I always hated computers and wanted nothing to do with them. I typed up my poetry on an old-fashioned typewriter and that was good enough for me.

Until in 2009…when Lovers and Other Strangers was suddenly taken off the air after 19 years and replaced by another program called Intelligence For Your Life. I was very upset and distraught and I cried. I couldn’t imagine my nights at home without Lovers and Other Strangers. I didn’t want intelligence, I wanted my nightly poetry! I called the radio station and wrote a letter to the host, Don Jackson.

Don Jackson was sad too, as it wasn’t his decision and he loved his radio show. He had been hosting it for 19 years. He told me that he didn’t want it to end and knowing that it had a following, he started a website where people could listen to the podcasts online.

I was determined not to lose complete contact with my favorite radio show, so for the love of Lovers and Other Strangers I started going to the library, and slowly and steadily with perseverance, I learned how to use the computer…and the rest is history.

EDIT:

It’s been quite a while since I’ve listened to Lovers and Other Strangers on the Internet (it’s just not the same as listening at home), so I decided to look it up again…and I am very sad to discover that the host Don Jackson died in 2020. His program was on 98.1 CHFI. Another radio caster of CHFI, Erin Davis, had this to say about Don Jackson’s beloved radio program Lovers and Other Strangers:

“Don was one of the most talented broadcasters with whom I have had the great fortune to share the airwaves. If you never heard Lovers, you missed a nightly display of aural magic – a Northern Lights to the ear.

Don would research (largely pre-internet, remember) poems and pieces of writing that would invariably touch the heart and often the soul. He would have a theme for the evening and write and wrap his own carefully-chosen words around the songs.”

 

Bibliography:

Sasquatch: North America’s Enduring Mystery

By Rupert Mathews

Copyright 2008

 

Guide To The Fairy Ring

By Anna Franklin and Paul Mason

Copyright 2002

 

Fairies: The Myths, Legends, & Lore

By Skye Alexander

Copyright 2014

 

Fairy Magic

By Aurora Kane

Copyright 2022

 

Bulfinch’s Mythology

By Gramercy Books Publishers

Copyright 1979

 

Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small

By Ted Andrews

Copyright 1993

 

Tags:  fairies, future, monsters, time travel