November 28th.
Crazy as it sounds, I think I have fairies in my backyard.
I know my neighbours already think I am completely out of my gourd. I spend a lot of time outside my house. If I am not outside planting or pruning, I’m mowing and raking. Or I am just walking around talking to myself. Or at least it seems that way to my neighbours, I’m sure. What I’m actually doing is something far less sinister. Some might even call it praying: I talk to my garden.
And on some full moon and new moon nights, I sometimes run around my garden naked singing and my cat, Demeter, is usually out there dancing through my legs with me.
So just to summarise: I’m a crazy cat lady, who talks to the shrubbery, and thinks there’s fairies in her garden.
Yeah; I sound crazy even to myself right now. So let me explain: I am a witch.
Oh my heaven! This keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?
Let’s try this again: I’m a practicing Wiccan, with a pet cat (black haired and green-eyed – that part fits the stereotype), an affinity for nature and a fondness for late night, naked rituals. And lately, I’ve been hearing tiny voices chattering and giggling in my garden.
Well, to be perfectly honest, it’s not even my garden. There is a strip of land behind the house and beyond the yard that it known as the “greenbelt” and that’s where I’ve been hearing the voices. Out there, under the trees, beneath the forest undergrowth. And trust me, it’s not children. No self-respecting parent is going to have their children running around wild in a greenbelt. Besides, fall is almost done and all the non-evergreen trees have shed their leaves. If there were children back there, I’d be able to see them in between the evergreen tree trunks.
No, this is something else entirely and I don’t know what it is … yet.
My dearest friend, Abby says I might have a fairy infestation. At the time, I’d thought it was an odd thing to say. I mean, fairies are mythical – right? I hadn’t dismissed what she said, though, because Abby has seen her fair share of odd having led an open circle as high priestess for a number of years. She would know. Still, the whole notion of fairies seems entirely too mysterious and fantastical for it to be truth. Course, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun with it.
Abby says they’re pretty ugly and that she’d stay hidden too if she were that ugly. I once asked her how she’d managed to see them but she hasn’t told me that story yet. She keeps putting me off, saying it’s “another story for another day”. I’ve asked her how I can encourage them to show themselves to me, but she didn’t have a clue.
Some online bloggers I pinged say fairies like sweet cakes and honey. Honey I get; I mean any woodland creature who knows how to raid a bee hive can get at honey. But sweet cakes? I didn’t know that nature had a way to turn eggs, milk, flour, sugar, and flavouring into a baked good that a nature-loving creature such as a fairy might get to eat. No; sweet cakes didn’t make much sense to me. Maybe fruit?
Oh my heavens! I really must be losing my mind; because here I am thinking about feeding fairies and worrying about its nutritional value.
Demeter must be channeling my mood again because she just walked up to me and gave me what I suspect is her best attempt at a comforting bump on the calf. She head-butts me in the calf and drags her head, neck, and as much of her back as she can muster along my calf. I like to think its a comfort bump because she does it often when I’m in deep thought.
Anyway – back to fairy nutrition. So if sweet cakes are out of the question, then what can I put down with the honey that they might like? Berries? Grapes maybe? I can try that. The blogs say that if you feed fairies, they’ll live in your garden and make it beautiful.
What’s the worse that can happen? They get angry because I give them seeded grapes instead of seedless?
December 5th
I’ve been putting grapes and honey down in the garden on a flat rock every day for the last week or so. Every morning, the grapes are gone but the honey is still there. I can’t tell whether the level in the dish is less than the day before or not. So I don’t know if they are drinking it or not. I guess I can be happy that Demeter hasn’t been getting into it, at least.
There has been some progress on the voices, however. They don’t giggle as much anymore when I’m out walking. The whisper quite a bit though – even when I stop and start looking for them, they don’t go quiet anymore. They just whisper; which is almost as bad. You’d think the whispering would make it easier for me to locate them, wouldn’t you? It doesn’t. Now, for some odd reason, the whispers aren’t coming from one particular spot. It sounds … this is crazy … but it sounds like every plant, every blade of grass, every branch, every leaf is whispering. That damned whispering; it’s everywhere and it’s nowhere.
It’s just a few days in, but I’m already beginning to regret this.
December 15th
Ten more days of the same thing – everyday, the grapes are gone, the honey hasn’t budged. I throw it out every morning and replenish it every evening. It’s getting colder and colder outside, but it doesn’t much matter anymore. The whispering is following me into the house.
Even Demeter is picking it up now. When they start whispering early in the evenings, after I’ve put out the grapes and honey, she senses them. Maybe even hears them. Or maybe it’s what they’re saying that makes her perk up and look scared. So far, it’s not bad enough to have her yowling and running to hide, but she hears them alright. She’ll pick her head up off her paws, and cock her ears. And then within a minute her eyes will dart towards me and she’ll just watch me with narrowed pupils and twitching ears.
December 18th
Clearly it’s not the whispering that is making Demeter uneasy. The whispering hasn’t gotten any worse or any better, but now when I get up to pet her, or call her she flinches and walks away. She waits until I’ve gone out of the room or the house to eat and she isn’t using her litterbox.
Course, I don’t blame Demeter one bit. I too am feeling a little antsy. I have no idea what’s happening and the online bloggers warned against stopping suddenly after I’ve started. And so I am committed. I keep putting the grapes and honey out religiously every evening, and clear it away every morning.
One morning, I thought I’d wash the dish in the dewy grass and turn it down to dry outside. Let them see how “clean” I am being. I don’t think that is making a whole lot of a difference. The tenor of the whispers hasn’t changed; nor has the volume. The only thing that may have changed is that now they chatter on all night long. They are night creatures, that much is clear. But why they stopped giggling and why they now whisper all night is beyond me. And I don’t know what to do.
December 19th
I’m about to lose my mind. I wrote in to one of the bloggers today. I asked what she thought might be happening. She hasn’t responded. I am a bag of nerves.
December 19th – again
She finally replied. Took her a grand total of 5 hours. Sheesh. Thought she’d realise how desperate I was and write immediately. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised or upset. If I don’t spend all my time in front of a computer, then I can’t expect that anyone else would.
Anyway, she was just as stunned as I was. Apparently, she had never had any kind of contact with fairies at all. So to hear that they made themselves known to me at first with chatters and giggles, and then whispers after the treats started was quite the surprise to her. She’s excited. Talking about wanting to come visit. Promising to stay out of my hair as much as she possibly can but still being able to witness this “wondrous occurrence. It’d make for an awesome story, don’t you think?”
Wow – talk about news-whore.
I declined. If I’ve angered them in some way, inviting another person to witness their antics doesn’t sound like something they’d like any better.
She says she understands, but … can anyone ever really know someone else’s mind?
December 21st
Happy Yuletide.
At least I hope yours is. Mine has been just as harrowing as it’s been for the last month or so. The whispers are louder now. I can’t sleep at night because of them. Demeter has disappeared. I put out her food the night I spoke to that woman blogger and she ate it, but I haven’t seen her since.
I can’t sleep at night, so I am exhausted every morning. I spend most of my days sleeping instead of writing and communing with nature like I am used to. My whole routine is topsy-turvy.
I can’t take it much longer. I’ve stopped putting out the “treats” mostly because I am just way too tired when evening comes. Besides, we had some really cold weather pass through. The first night I thought it’d be too cold for even them and so I didn’t bother.
Today, though, I got really scared because the whispers started around noon, louder than ever, and they haven’t stopped since then. It’s 4am and I am so exhausted, I can barely see the keyboard to type.
Ah. Screw it. I’m going to get some earbuds and listen to Enya. Maybe in addition to blocking out the whispers, it’ll calm me down enough to get some sleep.
December 25th
The only thing normal about today is that my neighbour of 10 years still invites me to Christmas service at her Pentecostal church every year. She always says something to the tune of “I know you aren’t very religious, but I’d love to have you accompany me to Christmas morning service. Knowing God could so enrich your life, dear.” Today was no different. Although, and this might be paranoia on my part, but she seemed distinctly less friendly today.
Nah. It must be my imagination. I am so exhausted that I’m misinterpreting everything.
December 26th
Yup. Losing it totally. I heard them tonight. I mean, I’ve been hearing them for a month now, but tonight I understood them. There were words. And they are NOT happy. I get that they’re angry with me, but they haven’t yet mentioned the reason why they are.
The only good thing is that now that I can understand them, maybe I’ll eventually find that out.
Assuming I stay sane long enough to write it here, you will too.
January 30th
Well, looking over the last few entires, I see that I’ve lost an entire month. One minute I was thinking I had fairies, and the next minute it’s January. What the hell happened in-between? Well, it’s a good thing I was writing all through December, I know what happened all the way up to December 26th from the entries, but I have no recollection of most of it and every day after December 26th is gone completely. I must be losing my mind! Maybe I should see a doctor …
March 31
Ok. Brace yourselves: Demeter told me everything.
I know. This sounds even crazier than ever. Give me a few minutes and I’ll make it all clear.
Somehow, I lost the whole month of January this year. It happened after I started courting the fairies in my garden. And apparently, the reason why my memory was wiped is because they don’t want me to talk about it. So if you never hear from me again, you’ll know why.
Course, this is all so crazy that I don’t know why they think people would even believe me anyway.
Anyway, to the meat of the matter – this is how Demeter started out her litany to me. She’s a meat-loving cat – what can I tell you?
Anyway, Demeter says fairies get their enjoyment out of influencing things on the sly; unbeknownst to humans. They evaluate you, by watching you from your gardens and from greenbelts. They listen to your heart and to your voice and they judge whether you are worthy of their attention. You aren’t supposed to know they exist. They flit between leaves, under branches, and amongst the blades of the grass. They are so tiny that you can’t see them with your naked eye … unless they want you to. And no one can hear them.
Fairies read you through your voice and your body movements, but they can’t read minds. They had no idea I had heard them … until I started putting out grapes and honey. The more evenings I put out grapes and honey, the angrier they got. Why? Fairies don’t eat people food. They feed on positive energy; the energy of growth. They don’t have the same physiology as human beings or animals. And so I insulted them by assuming they were anything like me.
I know what you’re wondering. You’re wondering why, then, were the grapes disappearing. No one knows. It wasn’t Demeter and it clearly wasn’t the fairies. Maybe some other woodland creature likes grapes too. We’ll probably never know now. In any case, there came a day when Demeter started to hear the whispers too. She said (mewed?) that at first it was just whispers for her as well. And then on the morning of the 21st, the day she disappeared, she heard them – loud and clear; in her head. It freaked her out a little, she says. She’s a house cat. Had she been a wild one, she might have known more about fairies. But she just got scared and ran. She admitted that it didn’t matter how far she went, though, because the voices stayed in her head the whole time.
She said they were angry that I sought to feed them. That they were insulted that I had the idea that they were helpless and needed care, They are the caretakers, not me.
Anyway … after I stopped putting the grapes out, I guess I must have given them some kind of indication that I was just clueless and that it was all just a huge misunderstanding. They realised that I have a special gift that allows me to tune into their thoughts and “hear” them. That my attempt to feed them was good- and not ill-natured. Still, they couldn’t allow me to have such a connection to them. It is forbidden. And thus the reason why I lost the whole month of January.
Apparently fairy magic is non-specific and somewhat hit-or-miss when it comes to humans; because I remember everything up until the minute I started putting out grapes and honey. And then nothing else until last weeks when Demeter suddenly started to talk to me.
Yes; you heard me right. My pet cat whom I’d never known could “Speak” suddenly started talking to me through my thoughts. That story is a lot more convoluted and I won’t get into it here. Suffice it to say that Demeter is a true witch’s familiar and has always been able to communicate with me; she’s just always chose not to. Until now. And it started a few days ago when she gave me dating advice. (I know, this just gets crazier and crazier, doesn’t it?)
I took advantage of that fact, and asked her outright if she knew what had happened to the fairies. My question scared her. And not because of anything that happened to her. No. It was because, she said, she finally caught a glimpse of them one day. And fairies, my dear friends, are the ugliest creatures ever.
Demeter says they have no face. It’s just antennas and mouths. Their bodies look like praying mantis’ except they have a tail with a stinger like scorpion. Their bodies are like chameleons – they change colour depending on their surroundings. But Demeter managed to see one, one day in January. It was out on the lawn, the antenna focused intently up towards my bedroom window on the top floor of the house. The whispers, she says, were louder than ever that day. And, she says, there is nothing else on the face of this earth as ugly as a fairy. After that day, she said, the whispers stopped.
Clearly, they were horrific enough that Demeter to started to pee herself while telling me this story. Why humans would ever want to befriend them is beyond me.
Or maybe …. their appearance is a deliberate attempt to keep us at bay…