I wrote this for the Big Random Short Story contest. My story is about a housecleaner in fairyland climbing a tree.
In a perfect world, all St. Johns and all St. Peters would actually be worthy of the title Saint. I do not intend to blaspheme—forgive me, Mother Mary-- but they are human just as I; and ‘tis a delicate state, humanity. Our faith is weak, strong only as the fine fiber upon which we tread in its service.
I grew up with a father who always told me stories around his frothing pint of amber-colored ale about a real saint—“St. Vin” as he called him—who lived right in our own backyard. Who had hair as red as currants and as tendrilly as the sweet pea’s vine; who wore a crown of clover and had damselfly’s wings.
“You mean fairy Vin,” my mam would interpose sarcastically.
“Aye,” winked my dad with a grin. “Fairy.”
Mam paid no mind to my fathers’s tales, so every morning it was just me and him who trekked through the mists of the valley to the outskirts of our neighbor’s wheat field. There he showed me at the base of an old gnarly tree a cave-in where the wood had rotted away. We called it Fairyland. Inside the cave-in lay a little tangled heap of spider’s silk and dried leaves, serving as a bed, with one large green leaf as a coverlet. On the ground next to it was a tiny twig resembling a flute; too small, however, to test. Every morning we swept away the leaves which daily blustered round the entrance to St. Vin’s home and replaced his coverlet with a bonny new one, leaving him a bit of crumbled meal bread. After all, housecleaning was our trade, and we prided ourselves on what we did best. And every time we went back the next morning, the bread would be gone.
Twenty years later, my father gone to be with the Mother and all the saints now-worthy, still I return to the field every morning.
Still I clean houses like there is no tomorrow, but the joy has gone out of the work. I have properly learned how to disconnect my mind from my body, so that I can labor for hours on end without a single complaint. My only stimulant as I scrub the pots and wax the furniture, is the memory of my father’s voice, telling me that I serve the greatest personage in all of Ireland. Surely.
“Nature is his home,” whispered my father mysteriously, kneeling down at the mouth of the cave as I looked on in childish wonder. “No man-made building can contain his free spirit. Have we ever seen him? Nay; but nature, worshippin’ and flourishin’ at his every touch, leaves us wee relics. Where he has crouched upon a boulder, there remain mossy foot- and hand-prints. Or where he has rested his head at the stump of a tree, there might burst up a bed of violets, as if to cushion his dear head. And why not? Does he not love her like a tender husband? Spend his every wakin’ hour in her presence?
Alas for the days when what was once beautiful in the world caves in on itself, and becomes, like the cedar tree, a rotted void.
As I drudged to Fairyland one dubious morning, I halted speechless in my tracks.
There was a coyote… lapping up the bread.
“Argh! Off with ye!” I cried, flinging my arms in the air, as he tripped away, licking his teeth.
“I can’ believe it, Dad! You lied to me this whole time? Why?!”
Silence.
“I waste my time here!” I spat. “Out there in the world of title and status, I am just a housecleaner. And here in the world of perfection, I am still just a housecleaner!”
Something fluttered past my vision and plunked at my mud-caked boots. I picked it up, fingering it. ‘Twas the tiny flute.
Fallen from the sky…?
Overhead was a dome of matted, mossy branches. I eyed the moss. Suspicion, mingled with defiance, urged me to take that first arduous step up the cedar, and with every advance, my anxiety grew. Flower buds were sparse to be seen at that time, but the higher I climbed, the more numerous they grew; blooming before my eyes, dancing, growing, reaching up as if to kiss…
St. Vin!
There he was—unmistakable—reclining among the branches, like a little dragonfly at first. Stealthily I drew nearer. The air shifted: so fresh it sparkled in my nose. My vision grew sharper: shapes and outlines looked stenciled; colors seemed richer. The strangest look of rapture was burning upon his minute countenance; some fine and pure emotion too divine for me to comprehend.
“Fly little one,” he whispered, unaware of my presence. His hair was such an unearthly red. A shrill little chirping answered him back from inside a bird’s nest situated next to him, where struggled to fly the sweetest little dove I had ever seen. It hopped into the air, hovering one pathetic moment, before collapsing again.
“Oh, please! For me!”
With a frantic flap-flapping of wings, as if afraid to let go, the dove suddenly shot through the branches, soaring triumphant into the open air. St. Vin watched as it soared higher and higher, never once averting his gaze, until ‘twas invisible.
The air lie hushed. ‘Twas only him, pale, speechless, clasping his slender hands together over his tremulous breast. Although his tiny frame remained among the flowers, I felt his heart was soaring with the dove’s. And then I had this sudden inferior sensation that I committed sacrilege by being here, witnessing this.
Alas! Something dark—foreign—compulsive—began to overshadow my heart just then... He can’t be real.
The fairy’s eyes darted toward mine—had he heard me thinking? He held them, fixed; then, with a flutter and a whoosh that bid me cover my eyes and shield my face, he was gone. I was left all alone with the premature flowers, their faces turned, staring at me.
