Fairy Wings and Sandwiches

Everything seemed so much more magical when I was younger. The world and life around me still had secrets, so those hazy blank spaces were left for the imagination of a child to run wild. Wind rustling through autumn-touched leaves could be the sounds of fairies taking flight and the tinkling of wind chimes in the distance was their laughter as they danced through nature.

My mind whisked me away after their small, glittering wings, soaring through crystal blue skies, landing in sun soaked grass that warmed the wildflower clearings. I could imagine their adventures with great detail. Warm afternoons lazing down the creek in acorn-cap boats, an evening with the fairy King eating berries and mint. Or I could, until the porch bell rang me from my musings.

Even when I sprang to my feet, I would imagine them fluttering around me as I traversed the woods. Leaping and running over rocks and branches, touching tree bark as I passed and crunching leaves beneath my feet. As I emerged into the lush grassy backyard of the little white house, I would wave my fairy friends goodbye. They’d stay in the woods, I knew, waiting for me to return to their adventures.

I would pass the stone-lined pond with the little stone boy fixed in the middle whose umbrella acted as a fountain that trickled down into the water below. I’d skip through the steps that separated the flower garden from the vegetable garden and march right through the back door of the little white house, passing under the bell that had just rung for me.

There, my great grandmother would greet me with lunch in the little kitchen with rainbows scattered across the walls cast from tiny crystals that hung in the windows. Most days, her short grey hair would be curled to perfection. She’d wear a floral housecoat over a pastel blouse and owned many pairs of baby blue pants. Although I didn’t know any better then, it was clear that she had kept most of her clothes from decades past.

Even here, in her tiny kitchen, at her tinier table, the magic lived. The rainbows danced as the crystals turned slowly in their windows and birds sat patiently on the outer-sills, waiting for their scraps of bread and seeds. The scent of sage wafted through the air and tiny stones stood watch on high shelves, to ward off ill-will, she had said.

One day, however, was different. I had skipped into her kitchen and above my grilled ham and cheese sandwich was a little black book. I took in a deep breath and smelled the sage she was burning, toasted bread, and there was a slight floral hint from the garden outside. Sweet little crystal shaped rainbows danced over the book and I stopped short as a breeze pushed in through the door behind me, rustling the cover. It was just the wind, I told myself. Or could this little book be waving hello?

I took it into my hands and brushed my fingers over the cover. It was soft and as I flipped through it’s blank pages, my imagination raced with all the possibilities, each new line waiting to be filled with the creations from a child’s imagination. I would write about the fairies and their adventures. I’d fill some of the pages with drawings of the intricate patterns of their delicate wings and the little flower crowns they’d make in the spring. I imagined myself laying out in the clearing, a pen in hand, writing about the secrets I had learned.

Another grilled ham and cheese sandwich was placed at the table and my great grandmother joined me for lunch. “Our favorite.” she noted. Her housecoat that day had little green flowers dotted all over, a pattern the fairies would have liked.

I hesitated, but slowly put the book back down on the table. She was right, this was our favorite lunch and she made the absolute best sandwiches.

“You create such beautiful stories,” she had said, “I wanted to give you a place to write them down.”

I almost didn’t taste how great the sandwich was because my mind was racing with the possibilities of this little blank canvas. I thanked her profusely and shortly after lunch I was back in the woods behind the little white house, laying in the clearing, pen in hand, whispering my stories to the little black book.

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It was only a couple of years later that she had passed away. I was twelve, and although I still wrote of fairies, it had been some time since I spent my days creating worlds and adventures in the woods with my imaginary friends. The loss was staggering, the world seemed to stop and suddenly the birds weren’t chirping the same.

I would return to the wildflower clearing in the woods that bordered her back yard as I got even older and it seemed impossible to feel the warmth from the sun there. I wanted the whimsy and innocence to return, but it was as if the woods were mourning with me. In my grief, I turned to my stories for comfort, my writings of fairies and happier days, to my little black book.

As time passed, the grief waned and eventually mourning turned into cherished memories. Though she had done her best to nurture the magic that I found within the simplest corners of the world, I eventually grew up, as we all do, to know that fairies weren’t fluttering through the treetops and that the wind chimes in the distance were just clattering pieces of metal in the breeze. This innocence, however, lived on through my stories that I continued to write into adulthood.

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On a crisp spring afternoon, some fifteen years after my great grandmother had passed, I drove to the little white house that I spent part of my childhood in. The very same place where I first learned of the fairies that I weaved into my stories. It had changed since then. I had wished so desperately that time had stood still there. I walked through the yard and stopped where the stone pond and the little stone boy should have been, now gone. I walked through patchy grass that used to be fresh soil for the garden until I reached the back porch and the bell that hung above it.

The house was dark and empty but for one lonely crystal that hung from the kitchen window, as if a small bit of magic from my childhood was fighting to live on. A for-sale sign hung lifelessly on the front lawn, a stark reminder of the passing of time.

I moved on, walking past the house, down the same street I had played on as a child. I walked by the middle school, over a traffic ladened bridge, and finally entered through the old iron gate that stood as the entrance to the cemetery. Within, I found my great-grandmother’s stone beneath a willow tree, a few birds sat atop it preening their feathers.

I sat down and leaned up against the cool rock, doing my best not to disturb the tiny stones that stood guarding her resting place from ill-will, and brushed my hands through the grass. The birds flew up into the tree and chirped loudly at being disturbed. I closed my eyes and imagined her standing in the tiny kitchen, a green, flower dotted house coat on, sage burning on the counter. I could smell toasted bread, the flowers in the garden and I listened to her talk to the birds outside the window. I was almost surprised to be back in the cemetery when I opened my eyes.

Stuffing my hands into my coat’s pocket, gentle fingers pulled from it the little black book and a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. The cover was still soft, even more so having been so loved over the years, simply holding it felt like greeting an old friend. I opened the book, it’s pages worn with age and touched a check tucked into the front that had my name on it. It had been signed that morning by the executive of a publishing company. Twenty thousand dollars, that was a lot of money.

“There are more checks to come, but this will cover the first set of sales.” he had said, signing the check over. It wouldn’t be with me long, I knew, as there was a house for sale that I had my eye on.

A smile spread across my lips as I unwrapped my grilled ham and cheese sandwich from the wax paper. “Our favorite.” I said, as I began to read aloud from my little black book the story of fairies and their adventures in the woods behind the little white house with the kind old lady who fed the birds.