"Pixie Dust!", John Stormm [book recommendations for young adults .TXT] 📗

PIXIE DUST!



      Long ago, on a sunny midsummer day, I sat by a babbling forest brook, in a park near my home. My ten year old heart was very lonely, broken and desolate.
I had finally made some friends at the playground with my half-sisters and half-brother. For all my showing off, it looked like I might even be popular. Hubert and Ronnie came by the house with me and were talking excitedly about how I had run up the side of a large oak in the playground, to retrieve their kite.

      "Johnny, you just ain't human!" exclaimed Hubert with a slap on my back.

      My mother was pouring us some iced Kool-Aid and glanced from me to them. Her eyes took on that flinty look. I knew I shouldn’t have been showing off.

      "He's at least half-human,” she said. “I would know."

      Hubert and Ronnie stopped cold and looked at each other side-long. They gulped down their drinks and there was this awkward silence for a moment.

      "Thanks, Miz Greening. We gotta go help our dad now. Bye!" they said while walking backwards out the kitchen door. I knew I wouldn't be seeing a lot more of them like today, and I was furious with my mom.

      "So which half is the human half?" I growled. She gave me a stony glare and I left in a huff.

      I would often go to the park and search out the deepest parts of the woods. I always felt as if I belonged there. Far away from all the full-blooded humans I would never fit in with. At home, I was the half breed son, always on the outside, looking in. Only Grandma ever made me feel loved. She had recently moved to Cleveland to preside over our clan coven with my aunts. My mom rejected the craft. My conception was something she wanted to forget, but couldn't as long as I was present. I was never sure of who, or what I was. But I certainly wasn't "normal."

As I sat by the brook in the woods, I remembered the faeries in Grandma's garden, when I was much younger. I would play with them for hours on end.

    "Pixie dust!" Grandma would yell, "Johnny, if you're going to invite the whole fae world in here, have them keep down the pranks. Your grandfather found all my straight pins in his sock drawer and he's not happy."

      As I grew older and moved away with my mom and new stepfather, I saw them less and less. Eventually, I figured it was all childhood imagination. I smiled to myself at the memories. It was a sad smile.

I sat and watched the sunlight play on the water. The still summer air buzzed with insects and fluffs of pollen wafted by, set ablaze with the noonday's sun. The air was intoxicatingly sweet. A little behind me, to my right, came the baritone buzz of dragonfly wings. I looked to see the rainbow hues glinting from it's wings and was stunned by what came next.

     "So sad, cousin." it said, in a voice that sounded like a vocalized bird chirp.

     Had it said "whippoorwill" or "chickadee", it would no doubt had sounded like a bird call. It also lacked a dragonfly's head and torso. It, or he looked to be human shaped, about two and a half inches tall, dressed in iridescent green silk pajamas. From around the bend in the stream, came two more just like him. One wore iridescent maroon, and the other, iridescent blue. All of them were barefoot and had sharp cast facial features, with upswept eyebrows much like my own. Their eyes had an opalescent quality to them, that made it impossible to pick out any single dominant color.

     "Faeries!" I whispered breathlessly.

     "Cousin!" chirped Green.

     "Come to cheer you," squeaked Maroon.

      "Have something just for you!" peeped Blue.

      I was enthralled. They joined me by the brook and time had no meaning. They told me of contact with a strange race called Ys (pronounced :"EES" or "EE" for singular) and the mighty Vruun, whom they rode, and sometimes turned on each other. The Ys rarely would journey through the deep wood paths. They preferred the "dead paths". These paths, when used or crossed, meant almost certain death to the Fae or other forest creatures. Even the fleet footed whitetail deer had been pounced on and mangled by the deadly Vruun, whom could outrace the very wind. They had terrible eyes that shown like the noonday sun and smoky acrid breath that was noxious to all. The great trumpeting voices and loud roars of these creatures could be heard for miles. Their great chromatic bodies were impervious to hooves, horns, claws, fangs, stones and sticks. They were unstoppable to all but the Ys. In my mind I pictured mighty bronze, red, gold and green dragons, belching smoke and flame. The fierce Ys riding in saddles on their broad backs.

     "Are they winged?" I asked, "Do they fly?"

      "Mostly not, cousin," piped Green.

      "Some do," chirped Blue. "Some fly."

      "I seen one fly," squeaked Maroon.

      "I wish I could have seen that," I said wistfully.

      "I seen her fly! I seen her die!" sang Maroon. "Her bones are not far from here!"

      Oh, the fantastic luck! I might be the one to reveal the bones of an actual dragon, (excuse me, "Vruun") to modern scientists. I would be rich and famous. As my mind filled with all the images of my salvation, it continued on track. Or I may discover a lost hoard of faery gold. Oh, what a godsend my little cousins would prove themselves to be.

They led me eastward, across yet another brook, through thickets and brambles on the faintest of game trails, to the base of a tree covered hill. Along the ridge at the top, I could hear the occasional traffic along King's Highway speeding back and forth between the lake and the city. The drone of faery wings was a song in my mind. I pictured the great creature, sailing through the skies, in it's death throes, and crashing to it's final resting place in this very hillside. Who knew how long ago that might have been? Faeries have a notoriously feeble grasp of the concept of time. We followed a game trail up to the wooded base of the hill and picked our way through the dense trees and brush.

     "There she lies," squeaked Maroon, "just where I left her."

     To my astonished eyes, there lay the rusting hulk of a 1953 DeSoto. It had obviously crashed the guard rail above at great speed and landed here. Smoke belching, wind racing, armored dragons,INDEED! From above me, came the sounds of engines revving as some teenagers prepared to drag race the stretch of highway through the woods.

      "The Vruun!" squealed Green.

      "They hunt!" shrieked Blue.

      "We flee!" shrilled Maroon. To which they all fled in the direction of the brook.

      "And what of the Ys?" I thought. In the distance, I could hear the faint voice of a mother calling her children home for dinner.

      "Bill-eee, Kenn-eee, Jack-eee! Time for sup-per!"

      "Of course," I thought. "Ees."

       Faeries can be perplexing creatures, with a set of values so different from humanity. For all the times I had spent in their company, I have never found a crock of gold, or anything like that. But I'm now a much older and wiser wizard. I live closer to the woods now, and I have these stories... faery treasure, no less.

Publication Date: 02-01-2010

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