Faerie Folly and Wizard Wands

Faerie Folly and Wizard Wands

Nobody knew what she was. She had been American, but that wasn't completely true. She was...British and...American...and...

She's never known her father, and she hardly knew her mother...

Chapter One

She was wild, her mother. A wild, woodland sprite, who smelled of pine and rosemary. She never stayed long in one place, and they never lived in a town. They haunted all the rundown, forgotten shacks in the woods, and she grew wise in the ways of her mother.

Her mother was a fairy of the Greenwood species. She was painfully shy of regular humans, and they stayed in the miry wilds-her home. She saw the young child as entertainment for her-for the girl was something cute and amusing to have tag along. For her mother cared aught for people-she only cared for nature's secrets, which she divulged for the girl, by example.

Perhaps this is why her father never stayed, yet that was not the impression she received. Her mother's emerald eyes would soften and her pixie face smile when she asked of father, but she never spoke of him often. The girl would ask;

"Mother-is father coming back soon?"

She would soften, her high energy slowed, and she said quietly, in her delicate, wispy voice,

"Your father cannot come back, young wee 'un."

Her mother's voice had a fairy lilt, a round roll of feminine joy. "Your father..." her eyes would lose focus. "He was a great one..."

She never called him a man; never. He was always "a great one" or something equally as poetic. As the she grew older, she ceased asking for him-and began to wonder if he was human at all. Somehow, she couldn't see her mother loving any human, no matter how kind and patient he was. Her mother never let anyone see her, and they stayed and played in the deep gloaming and darkest area of the forests.

She grew slowly on the foods they ate. The tubers and legumes and spring water did not make her grow to a large girl. She knew her mother to be a fairy that lived upon the very air and scents of the woods, but she was half her father's child, and needed nourishment of more sustenance.

Perhaps this is why, at the age of four, her mother left.

The girl-she was a hindrance to the fairy, as she was only half-blood Greenwood, and she was wild, her mother, and free.

Before she was old enough to learn the essence of her blood, or what she was supernaturally capable of, her mother took her to an area where a few humans dwelled in the deep green of the woods.

She grew increasingly edgy as they neared the humans, and she finally halted before they could see even a wisp of smoke. She could feel the people; their liveliness and energy flooded the wood in gentle streams.

She bent to the girl, her long long hair spilling around her white face and green eyes.

"You go to the people, wee 'un. Go to the door of the red house-the first dwelling you see, and there you shall be where I can leave you."

She stared at her mother with large eyes, as she touched her hair, then her face. Little did her mother show affection to her; she reveled in the brief touch.

"Listen, wee 'un...I must leave you." She stood. "Do not cry."

As her mother turned, she asked the hesitant question, one last time.

"Are you sending me to father?"

She turned back, and the softness was apparent-she showed more gentleness when she spoke of her father's memory than even when she spoke to the girl.

"I do not...he is a great one, you father." Her eyes landed on her daughter. "He left much of himself inside of you." She touched the young one's chest, and in that, the girl grasped the memory she passed on.

A laugh, deep and joyful, a flash of red hair, a sparkle, and eyes that shone brilliant, sapphire, a blue too true, that read the goodness of the heart...yes indeed, he was something great.

Her mother removed her finger and smiled.

"There, then, wee 'un, you'll remember him if they send you to him." She shuddered as she looked toward where the few people dwelled. "Do not follow. Good-bye, little wee 'un. Good-bye."

Without a backward glance, she spun and leapt. She had never seen her mother fly-she hadn't known she could. Only when she was older did she realize that she, in her youth and unknowing, had hindered her from the air. As she watched, four years of age, her mother flew speedily, her black hair flowing; wispy song drifting back, she knew she could never find her mother again, even if she looked.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The red house was actually secluded from any other humans of any kind, and smelled of a thousand herbs and several human spices she could not identify. She had never seen a human up close, and stood uncertainly on the edge of the garden; it stretched vast and wildly green; as green as her mother's eyes. A woman was bent double over the feathery green and she looked up after a great long while and gave a gasp.

She, too, was startled, for she was nothing like the pixie, delicately perfect loveliness of her mother. Her face was long and lined, and her eyes muddy and brown; her hair was pulled back, and her body old and slow.

"Well; I've never seen the like!" she said softly, but her voice was harsh and low. Her lips smiled, and the girl sensed no ill will, just curiosity.

"And you are?" she asked.

She stared at the woman, but could not speak. She had no name, and the woman's speech was muddled to her ears. While she understood what she spoke, the girl could not formulate the words used.

"What's your name, wee 'un?" she crooned kindly, leaning on a stick.

She had none. Mother never used names; she never bothered to name the girl. Perhaps her father had called her something in human language, but she was raised by a fairy, so it was she did not respond to a name.

The woman finally sighed, and held out her hand.

"Come, child, I'll get you something to eat."

She looked at the hand outstretched, but did not touch it. Unused to touch, she ignored the limb, and walked to her, but stayed her distance.

She smiled and walked with the girl to inside her house; the red house her mother had sent her to-her mother, who was wild and free...