Moonchild, A Fairy’s Tale

Moonchild the garden fairy makes a human girl a forever friend.

 

            IN THE BEGINNING, Garden Fairy Moonchild wandered. She fluttered from here to there without finding a suitable, safe place for a fragile fairy to settle into. Eventually, she came upon a cozy, comely backyard that struck her fancy having both cover and comfort. Having settled on the farmhouse backyard, Moonchild remained chary and unseen in the pastoral garden for a manner of years despite her luminous chartreuse essence and playful behavior.

            BY DAY, Moonchild often danced in the willow’s shade, the tree’s green fingertips accompanying her in tuneless tempo or she waded in the brook, thoroughly soaking her lithe gown’s hem. However playful, she never failed to fulfill her fairy chores such as placing her fairy dial’s circle stones precisely according to the moon and planets’ positions, and so…

            AT NIGHT, Moonchild flew silently into the farmhouse, her glow giving everything nearby a faint greenish hue. She’d hover over the sleeping babies to wonder at their young unrepressed spirits and flittered past the scary snoring adults to peruse the humans’ possessions especially admiring their small pretty things. Every so often, she’d borrow a sparkly bauble from the old carved wooden box atop the bedroom dresser. With gem in hand, Moonchild fluttered out the window to rise up to the farmhouse’s eaves to gaze through her prize marveling the sparkling spectacle lit by the shimmering moon, though...

            AS YEARS PASSED, Moonchild observed the fresh children playing amidst her charmed places in the backyard. Only a couple children ever looked close enough to glimpse Moonchild hiding behind a daisy or under a dandelion, but only one singular perceptive girl child would become Moonchild’s friend. This special child’s vitality made Moonchild shine the brightest and soar the highest. This child was Eleanor, named for the first rays of the morning. One day as she sat in the girl’s upturned palm, Moonchild deemed Eleanor her forever friend. Despite her fairy wisdom and experience, Moonchild could not foresee their friendship’s future, but...

            OFTEN, as Moonchild waded in the brook telling true fairy tales, Eleanor giggled, wiggling her bare toes in the cool swirling water. The twosome often played tag with the vibrant butterflies or they shared adventures such as the day noisy nasty pixies ran amuck in the backyard. Irritating creatures, Pixies find gleeful gratification in mischievously misplacing human belongings that cause owners’ frustration. With their unrelenting chattering and snickering announcing their intentions, the gaunt red troublemakers bounded into the farmhouse on another mission of mirth. However, much to Eleanor’s relief, Moonchild boldly chased the snittering and cantankerous pixies right out of the farmhouse and far from the back yard and…

            ONCE, stout gnome patriarch Gus came to visit Moonchild. Laborious little people, gnomes distress mellow fairies with their overbearing work ethic. Like most fabled creatures, Gus remained cautious and standoffish around humans. Gus waddled into the backyard to brag about his current labors at his hedgerow home. Neither socially adept nor astute in etiquette, Gus made a reluctant acquaintance with Eleanor by gripping her fingertip with two hands in a brief, reserved greeting. Surprising though, Gus offered his assistance if she ever needed anything repaired, built, broken, caught, cooked, or covered up, planted, reaped, or pruned, or lost, found, or moved. Always keen to return to work, Gus did not linger to chat. For quite a length of time, Moonchild and Eleanor enjoyed many enchanting occasions together until…  

            ONE DAY, Eleanor never came out to play and never return again. Moonchild flittered into the house that night and other than Eleanor being gone everything in the human household seemed normal. Moonchild sensed grief from the family members but never found out what happened to Eleanor. She didn’t understand. She sat along the brook’s bank sobbing crystal teardrops.

            OVER TIME, Moonchild lost interest in the goings on at the house and changes around her realm, and soon for her, the other children grew up and disappeared. The farmhouse became quiet, unkempt, empty. It grew weathered with paint flaking off. The roof sagged. Weeds grew thick in the backyard that had once been lawn and garden, and…

            SO NOW, so sadly, the once enchanted backyard is quiet, the love gone. After sighing thousands of times, Moonchild becomes frail. Her once vivid chartreuse essence dims. Her flowing golden hair dulled and tangled. Her filmy wings lost their glimmer and do not levitate her as lofty as before Eleanor vanished. She neglects her fairy chores as ragweed overruns her favorite place in the yard, her fairy dial. The circle stones remain, but she lacks the vigor to move them about. Moonchild treasures the reminiscences of her dear Eleanor and wishes her return, for…

            THESE DAYS, she remained forlorn, until Gus’s gruff voice startled Moonchild from her individual grief. He offered a visit from his missus, Gertrude, to cheer her up, but without waiting for a response from taciturn Moonchild, Gus walked away singing an “I love to work” ditty. The pixies came back too, but without the humans and their interesting belongings, the pixies continue on past to harass other unsuspecting human households.

            TIME PASSED, for lonely Moonchild until human visitors began to happen by. One woman repeatedly returned to the old farmhouse showing different people around. This Guide Woman seemed to know her way around but was not one of the humans that had once lived there. She talks about the children long gone and despite the disrepair, she points out the house’s grand features like the tower, stained glass, and once charming backyard. The people show interest in the old farmhouse, but they shake their heads over the house’s many needed repairs. Moonchild remained dim and weak until one fortuitous day because on…

            THAT DAY, a child, woman and a man come with the Guide Woman. The girl child, Moonchild discerns, is singular in purity and charm. Moonchild is drawn to her. Moonchild follows the people from echoic room to the next flitting from corner to corner, hovering behind an abandoned cobweb or blending into a bright sunbeam on a windowsill. Suddenly, the child tugs on her mother’s blouse and points at Moonchild. The surprised fairy hastily back flitters into a corner, calming her glow to blend in with the woodwork. The child tiptoes to where Moonchild hides and terrified by the closeness of the child, Moonchild regains her potency to fly out of the room in a beeline!

            STILL, so frightened and yet excited, Moonchild zooms down the hall, banks round the landing, nosedives down the circular stairs, and flits out her secret portal. The child’s attention ignited a long-dead spark. She stopped�"flittering back and forth on the porch with the angst of indecision. She took off, floating to the brook to sit and ponder her action. She realized she had almost forgotten the joy of human child as a friend. Could this child be a new friend? Her tiny fairy heart ached.

            TIME was of the essence, so Moonchild cautiously sensed where the people are. She zoomed into the dining room diving into a mouse’s hole beneath the stairs. When the people come down the stairs the steps creaked above her. The little girl kneeled to peek into the hole where Moonchild hid who pulled back in fear and muted her glow. Moonchild decided that she must befriend this child.

            MOMENTARILY, the family wander out to the once special but now weedy backyard. They showed interest in the trees, brook, and inoperative birdbath fountain. As thistle down ethereally floated through the air, Moonchild watched the little girl search for something in the once trimmed lawn, now thick with weeds, until she found the Fairy Dial. Moonchild thought it seemed as she knew that the dial existed there. The girl then wandered to the willow and trickling brook. Moonchild flittered stealthily, unseen, low in the foliage. Just as Eleanor once done, the little girl sat on the rock under the willow, pulled off her shoes, and wiggled her toes in the cool water. AS the girl stared up into slowly waving willow tears formed on her rosy cheeks. 

            THEN, with new found courage, Moonchild flittered down to hover before the girl who gasped with the fairy’s appearance. Light as a feather, Moonchild alighted on the girl’s outstretched palm. With her own tiny hands, Moonchild scooped a tear from the girl’s cheek and let it fall into the brook. The tear became a sparkling crystal catching the sun while gently tumbling in the slowly swirling water.

FINALLY, seeing Moonchild quite clearly, the child brightened with a smile as warm as the first sunny rays of the morning. Moonchild returned the favor with her dazzling chartreuse essence just the same as so long ago with Eleanor, her dear forever friend, but this new friend’s name was Elle.