HERB

Incomplete | Work in progress

It was on a calm and beautiful day such as this one, in the middle of the hot summer, that Herbiverus Plaice was lying on the ground in his parent’s garden, underneath the tall branches of a willow tree.

There were much larger trees in the garden that offered more shade, but to Herbiverus, or Herb as his friends called him, the willow tree provided the coolest environment, with its long leaves waving in the light breeze; it made him think of the ocean, and how long it had been since he and his parents had ventured down to the private beach that they owned.

Herb was a boy of small stature. He was but twelve years of age, and as he always retaliated, ‘still in the growing phase’. He had short brown hair that always stuck up in the weirdest of places and big blue eyes, like his mother’s.

Even in his summer holidays, he wore his creased and already dirtying school uniform, with his tie bearing the school emblem imprinted in big gold stitching on the front. He wore it because it made him feel like he was always on an adventure, even in his back yard, where even now his eyes closed and his mind slowly drifted away to some lost imaginary realm in his mind.

Today was truly beautiful. The soft breeze, nothing to worry about for a whole three months…ah, yes, this was grea-

-A twinkling sound made Herb’s eyes open wide. What was that, he thought? He could have sworn he heard something, like a faint tinkling sound of little bells. His nose was twitching uncontrollably. He was going to sneeze, but managed to hold it back.

He could have sworn something had brushed past his nose ever so slightly. But nothing was there, and the sound of the wind rustling the leaves soon filled Herb’s senses again, and drifted back to sleep once more…

Another rustle past his nose!

And this time, Herb let out a huge, mind-rumbling sneeze that echoed throughout the garden, and something went whooshing through the bushes that lay all around the willow tree. Herb sniffed and let out a sigh, and his thoughts were once again interrupted when the thing that flew into the bushes began rustling about, causing an odd scraping noise.

What was it?

Herb sat up from his spot, and went to examine the bushes. The thing kept moving about. Herb was scared. Was it a bee? Would it fly at his face and sting him? Or maybe it was something larger, something much more dangerous…

Herb pulled apart the thick leaves of the bushes, and he was hurled away flat onto his back by some bright light. He sneezed three more times.

His vision was now blurry. What was that? He thought.

Well, whatever it was, it had gone. And Herb was quite happy to return to his house that day, safe from whatever it was he had disturbed.

 

      **

 

Back at his house, his mother was busy making dinner. She was a tall woman, with long spidery legs adorned with a red skirt and matching red high heels, and a white blouse. In between the open cuff, there rested against her chest a long golden chain with a locket at the end of it. His father had given it to his mother a few birthdays ago, but Herb had yet to find out what was inside it.

Herb sat at the kitchen table. His mother was making steak with mushroom sauce. His favourite. It smelled heavenly.

Then the phenomenon of what had occurred to him today in the garden quickly rolled back into view, and he hurriedly asked his mother, before he would forget:

“Mother, something very strange occurred today. I was lying in the garden, when this tinkling light passed by me in a bush, and made me fall on my back. And no matter what, whenever it occurred, I couldn’t stop sneezing.”

His mother turned her face towards him. Indeed, her eyes were the exact same shade of blue as Herb’s. She was a very beautiful woman, with long wavy brown hair till her shoulders, and soft delicate features.

“Maybe it was a fairy,” she said, her face as serious as ever, and she returned her attention to the steak on the pan.

Herb was confused.

“A fairy? Aren’t those mythical creatures, with wings and magical powers?”

“Yes, that’s them,” she replied, her voice steady.

Herb wanted to laugh, but he found this situation more intriguing than comical.

“But...surely they don’t exist!”

“Well, if no one’s ever seen them, then why shouldn’t they exist?”

She had gotten him there. While no one having seen them could well mean that they didn’t exist, it also meant that they could.

“But why in our garden?”

“Faeries are known to live in the oldest of places, especially gardens and forests, which have very old magick in them. And this garden is quite old. Over 300 years old, in fact.”

Herb was beyond confused. He was a very open-minded individual, but he would never have guessed that faeries were real! They only existed in story books...right?

“So, what do I do now?” he asked.

“You could try catching the fairy! It might lead you to its fairy colony, and the fairy king might decide to grant you a wish.”

“A wish?” Herb’s eyes lit up.

“Yes. Any wish you desire.”

A wish would always come in handy, thought Herb.

“So how would I go about catching it, mother?” asked Herb.

His mother looked away from the pan for a while, and then said: “My grandmother had told me once about a very old way to catch them. It must be somewhere in the library. We’ll look for it tomorrow. First, EAT!”

She placed the steaming hot plate in front of him, and the delicious smell quickly blotted out all thoughts about faeries and traps. He dug in, and that night slept peacefully. The next day the investigation would begin.

 

      **

 

“Keep your eyes peeled, Herb,” said his mother. “We’re looking for a very old brown leather book.”

The next morning, Herb woke up extra early to search the library with his mother for a particular book that used to belong to his great-grandmother. They must have gone through hundreds of books on all sorts of subjects, until finally they found it: a large leather-bound book covered in dust. It was indeed a very old book, for the pages were yellow and practically falling apart. A mass of long, squiggly handwriting was found on all the pages.

Herb’s mother went through each page slowly, with Herb waiting beside her rather impatiently.

“Aha! Here it is!” said his mother, brushing her fingers down a page. There was a picture of a fairy ring on it. A fairy ring, as Herb knew from the story books his mother would read to him, was when many faeries held hands and danced around a magickal ball of light. But hardly anyone ever got to see such a marvellous thing.

“So, it says here,” she read, “that to catch a fairy, you need to first make it want to reveal itself, because they are invisible. You need to give it gifts.”

“What kind of gifts?” asked Herb, as curious as always.

“I’m not sure, but I guess we’ll figure it out sooner or later. But let’s continue.”

And so his mother read on and on, and Herb learned as much about faeries as his memory would permit.

He learned that faeries have eight powerful wings to fly, and they have three eyes to keep a lookout for strangers who might accidentally venture into their homes and step on them. He also learned that faeries aren’t male or female; they are just fairy, without any further classification. From their interests, Herb could deduce that faeries enjoyed silk from spider’s webs to make clothing for themselves, honey for food, and belief.

This puzzled Herb the most. You couldn’t touch belief! It was an intangible thing!

Herb and his mother read on, delving deeper into fairy lore.

Faeries were found in small colonies all over the place, mostly in gardens and forgotten spaces, far from human contact. The dust they secreted from their silver skin made them invisible. Herb guessed that this dust was what made him start sneezing back in the garden.

Fairy rings were also the most magickal of things. It always rained on nights that a ring was taking place, and if you gained the trust of a fairy, it might invite you back to its home, and then a fairy ring, where you could make your wish.

However, faeries were not always good natured. It said that while they can be quite hospitable, they are very sensitive, and will take anything, even a mistake, as an offense, to the extremes of magickal interference (toying with oneself and the respective family, to the point of tricking, cursing, hexing, etc.)

Herb had no clue as to what that meant, but he would leave that for later.

Herb remembered all he could about them, and set about working to capture a fairy.

 

                      **

 

His mother watched Herb intently from the kitchen window as Herb made plans for the capture of a century, as he had so named it. He summed up all he needed in a checklist:

1.       Silk from a spider’s web

2.       Honey (that wouldn’t be a problem, thought Herb)

3.       BELIEF (this was written in block letters, and Herb still couldn’t figure it out)

Herb journeyed around the garden, searching in the deepest of places where spiders might be lurking. He found a number of them strung up in all the damp and dark places, behind trees and in between bricks. The spiders weren’t too thrilled about their webs being stolen like that without permission, but Herb ran away before they could say anything.

                He wound the silk around a wooden stick and placed it carefully in his bag of supplies.

Next, he would have to find the honey. He ran back inside the house and nicked a jar of honey from his mother’s kitchen cupboard. He was sure she didn’t need it for now.

Last was BELIEF. Herb thought long and hard about this one, and his mother, seeing him stress and strain over the subject, said: “Maybe you shouldn’t think about it, and just do. Belief is in you. If you believe in faeries, then that’s all you need. Otherwise, how else will they show themselves to you if you don’t believe in them?”

Herb immediately understood. He now had everything he needed, and so he could get started!

Herb returned to the spot where he had encountered the fairy the first time. It was quiet as usual, but not a nice kind of quiet. The birds weren’t singing, and there was no wind. Herb paid no attention to this, and began.

From his bag he unloaded the stick with the spider’s web on it, the jar of honey, and the thing that mattered most of all: the power of belief. He also took out the rumpled piece of paper with the summoning incantation on it. It was the last piece of information Herb had found in the book on capturing faeries; that an incantation had to be recited in fairy language, to coax the fairy out of hiding so as to view your gifts. Without a moment’s hesitation, Herb read the incantation out-loud:

“Plethon plethon ragundakx

May you faeries here my cry

In this time I need your help

Xkadnugar nohtelp nohtelp!”

At first nothing happened, and Herb was just about to give the incantation another try, when a gust of wind blew the paper out of his hands, and sent a shiver down his spine. The tree branches beat from side to side with the wind, and the sun disappeared from the sky. What was happening, wondered Herb?

Just like the last time, Herb heard a strange tinkling sound and started to sneeze. The fairy was present.

Herb couldn’t see anything yet...but, strangely enough, the items on the floor were twitching slightly, and then moving in great lunges. It couldn’t have been the wind moving them, surely, for while they were too heavy to be moved by mere wind, all the wind had but died once more.

First, the stick with spider silk moved and rolled about a little, and when it came to the honey, the crap was unscrewed in one quick turn, and an unseen force levitated the jar in midair, as the golden liquid slid down the container and disappeared into nothingness, with all but a soft swallowing sound to be heard.

Suddenly, the jar was thrown to the side, where it crashed and spilled all over the floor. A choking sound emitted from the unseen figure, and then something began pulling at Herb’s hair, and pinching his skin.

The fairy was attacking him!

                Herb ran away from the area, the fairy still hot on his trail, as he couldn’t stop sneezing, large blows from his nose as he ran. He fell to the ground in another part of the garden where apple trees grew. He was safe from the fairy, he hoped.

What had happened? That fairy had gone ballistic! What could have Herb done wrong?

“The honey must be fresh,” said a whisper. Herb looked around. Where had that voice come from?

“Over here,” it said. Herb looked above him, where a single apple was hanging from one of the branches of an apple tree. It was ripe and a yellow-red colour, and in the centre of it, Herb could have sworn he saw a face. The face of an old woman, and indeed, Herb was not imagining anything.

“Yes, I am real, young man,” she said.

“Who-what-are you?” asked Herb, astounded as always.

“It does not matter who I am,” she said. Her voice was soft, and while the words were definitely coming out of her mouth, he felt they were detached from the solid apple, as though the voice was inside his head.

“The honey you offered as a gift to the fairy was not fresh. You must collect honey from the first morning flowers when they bloom. Be be wary, for the bees will be after that honey too.”

And then the face was gone.

So, the honey wasn’t fresh, huh? Thought Herb. Well, he would have to find out a way of getting fresh honey the next thing tomorrow.

                      **

                That night, Herb sneaked into the library and found the fairy book. He wanted to find out more about them.

                He ran back to his bedroom and tucked himself underneath the covers with a flashlight.

                His great-grandmother must have been a huge fairy enthusiast. She had written down every little detail about them.

                Faeries had apparently first been discovered by a child. With their level of innocence, only their imaginations could see past the invisibility dust, and the child had caught the fairy quite by accident: the fairy took the child’s agile moves for granted and was soon caught in its firm grip. In a desperate attempt to be free, the fairy used its magick to make the baby vanish. Who knows where it was now...poor thing.

                Then, Herb came across something of interest. It looked like a warning. The text read:

                “To whosoever attempts to win the favour of the fairy folk, be warned. They are not a race to be trifled with, and with the good comes the bad.”

                Surely a wish couldn’t be that bad, thought Herb.

                Setting the book aside, Herb quickly fell asleep, where he dreamed of faeries and what he would wish for is he ever managed to capture the darned things.

 

                      **

 

The next morning, Herb woke up to the sound of his mother and father turning the kitchen upside down looking for something. As soon as he entered, their eyes widened, and they asked him whether he had seen the honey jar that was usually always at the back of the kitchen cupboard.

                “I do so need that honey. It’s very special. The only one of its kind. I need it for my tea,” his mother said, starting to rummage through a drawer of cooking utensils.

                His father was helping her. He was a tall man, even taller than his mother, and he had the same short brown hair as Herb.

                “You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, would you, Herb?” his father asked.

                It then hit Herb that he had used the honey yesterday in an attempt to catch the fairy. But now there wasn’t anymore! The honey hadn’t been fresh, and the fairy had quickly disposed of it.

                He couldn’t imagine how he was going to explain this to his parents, so he just kept his mouth shut and waved his head, to his parent’s disappointment.

                Herb was filled with shame the entire day, and in an act of desperation, actually went back to the area under the willow tree to see if he could scoop up any remains of the honey from the floor. But alas, all of the ants and birds had devoured the sweet, sticky, golden substance, and all that was left was the little pieces of glass from the jar.

                What was so special about this honey anyway, thought Herb, that it couldn’t be purchased in a store?

                Either way, Herb had wasted the entire day already thinking about his mother and the honey, so he put the honey-collecting off for the next morning.

 

                      **

 

A brand new day dawned and Herb was all set to go. He still had to figure out how he was going to collect the honey from the flowers. It couldn’t have been the easiest of tasks. But nevertheless, Herb made his way over to the flower patches in the garden.

                The sweet smell of jasmine flowers filled the cold morning air, and the cacophony of buzzing noises pervaded his senses. That meant only one thing.

                Bees.

Bees, while pretty to look at from afar, were truly vicious beings. They would not hesitate to sting you with their sharp stingers if you interrupted them in any way.

                They hovered everywhere, over the bright spring flowers, digging into the sweet depths of the flowers and retrieving large quantities of pollen.

                There had to be a way of collecting that pollen. Retrieving it was not the only problem, however. It had to be retrieved by a bee! Only when the needle of a bee touched the pollen did it magickally transform into sweet honey.

                “So, I have to convince one of the bees to give me some pollen,” said Herb “But how?”

                Herb thought to himself for a moment as he hid behind a large oak tree, away from the bees’ eyes.

                If bees liked honey so much, then maybe they enjoyed all sorts of things that smelled like honey...like-like his mother’s perfume! That was it!

                Herb ran back inside the house and crept into his mother’s bedroom. His parents were still searching in the kitchen for the honey. If only they knew their efforts would be in vain...

                The perfume his mother used was his favourite. It smelled like a garden full of fresh flowers. With the round bottle in hand, Herb ran back outside and his once more behind the tree.

                He uncapped the bottle and the fumes from the liquid penetrated his senses. It smelled divine as always.    

                Gazing once more at the flower bushes infested with a mirage of yellow and black creatures, Herb sloshed the perfume from the bottle with one great wave of his arm, covering a number of the bushes on the opposite side. Even from such a long distance, the scent of the perfume reached Herb’s nose, making him dizzy, so it was no question that the bees too smelled the honey-like mixture, and in one ferocious buzzing wave, they dashed for the scent, licking it off the leaves with their stingers.

                This was Herb’s chance. He ran for the jasmine bushes, a beautiful palette of delicate white petals against harsh green leaves. The bees, who had been interrupted in their chores, had left some already churned pollen on the flowers, which had now turned into soft, sticky, golden honey. Quickly spying a look at the other bushes, where the bees still indulged in their feast and frantically tore the bushes from branch to leave to petal, Herb took out a small container and a spatula he had nicked from science class the previous year, and hurriedly scooped the honey into the jar. He had almost finished collecting one jar-full of honey, when the bright sun began glinting against the half-empty perfume bottle. The reflection of this upset one of the bees, and realising the trickery of what was occurring, disturbed the other bees and warned them. They all turned to Herb, whose eyes widened to an extreme extent, and as the bees began to charge in a furious rage, Herb ran with all his might back to the house, the bees hot on his tail. He could hear the drumming from their wings, the razor sharp sound of their stingers at ready...

                Herb was so close to the door, and then, he shut himself in. He had evaded the bees. He breathed in hardly, clutching the honey-filled container to his breast.

                As Herb returned to his bedroom, quite pleased with himself, it struck him just how violent his garden really was. He was standing, face to face, in front of another world he had never experienced before. The garden he used to love, lying down in, feeling the warm wind against his face, was now unravelling into its true nature. Spiders were evil, bees were ferocious, and faeries...well, Herb didn’t know what to think about something he had only just found out really existed.

 

                      *

 

At supper, Herb noticed that his mother was looking frightfully pale. The smile that was normally plastered on her face had diminished, and her skin had lost its natural glow.

                “Mother, are you alright?” asked Herb, wanting to know what the matter was.

                It was as if she hadn’t even heard him ask the question, because her stare remained just as glazed and detached as ever.

                At that point, his father, sitting on the other side of the table, spoke, looking concernedly at his mother and then turning to Herb.

                “It seems that your mother’s dependence on that honey has had a greater effect than we thought. You see, son, your mother has diabetes. It’s this very serious disease that happens when your body can’t control the amount of sugar you eat. That honey was very special and very rare. It could control her diabetes, without it causing any risks.”

                At that moment, Herb wanted to scream at the top of his lungs: “I did it! I took the honey trying to catch faeries, but then it fell and broke all over the floor, and the ants and birds ate it all.” But his mouth remained shut, knowing how stupid that would sound to his father, who apparently hadn’t received the knowledge from his mother that he was trying to catch faeries.

                He dropped his head, feeling even guiltier than before.

                “Are you sure you don’t know where that honey jar is, Herb?”

                Even though Herb was staring at his laps, he could feel his father’s penetrating stare on him.

                “No, father. I’m afraid I don’t. In fact, I’ve never even seen it before you told me about it.”

                That evening, Herb didn’t eat a single thing, and his dreams were haunted by visions of what could happen to his mother if she didn’t get some of that honey soon. If it was that rare, then it wouldn’t be something easy to find, so Herb needed a miracle. Or more than a miracle, he needed a wish.

 

                      **

 

                The next day, Herb knew he had to accomplish something. Last night, he had learned that his mother could die because of his reckless enthusiasm, so now he had become even more determined in catching that fairy.

                He was just about to step outside of the house, all his supplies at hand, when there was a crash and a tumble, and his father’s voice filled the air with shrieks of “Fiona?! Are you alright?! Speak to me!”

                Herb ran into the kitchen, only to find his mother’s unconscious body lying on the cold floor, his father’s figure looming over her body like a vulture waiting to consume a corpse.

                His father heard Herb’s worried gasps for breath, and immediately said: “She needs to go to the hospital. Herb, I’m putting you in charge. Take care of the house while I’m gone.”

                His father pulled his mother’s limp body over his shoulders and went to the car, and as the sound of the screeching tyres rolled off into the distance, Herb was left standing in the kitchen, utterly useless.

                “No, I’m not,” thought Herb.

                And with that, he ran outside into the garden, entering the shadow of the tall willow tree. Once again, everything went silent.

                He sat down on the cold soil, and laid out his materials.

                He didn’t have the patience to recite the incantation. He was filled with a sense of revenge against the fairy, and would summon it no matter what the consequences.

                “I know you can hear me,” he shouted. “I need your help! Please! Show yourself! My mother is gravely ill. I need you now!”

                All remained quiet, and hot tears welled up in his eyes. They burned as they rolled down his cheeks and he sunk to his knees, helpless. He had failed. He had failed everyone. He had failed himself.

                But then, a faint gust of wind picked up, and a cyclone of willow tree leaves circled around Herb’s body...and before he knew it, he had started sneezing again, only this time, he was happy about it.

                Just like the other time, a faint tinkling could be heard, a flutter of fairy wings, and one, two, three, a fairy popped into existence, right before Herb’s eyes. He couldn’t believe it! It had shown itself before even examining the gifts! And what a cute little thing it was, he couldn’t help but think.

                It had a long, slender body, with iridescent skin, and it sparkled in the sunlight. It had three eyes, just like the book had said, and powerful transparent wings twitched slowly behind it.

                The creature was very cautious. It moved slowly, taking in every detail about Herb, just as Herb did the same, for he was astounded, and felt like crying with joy.

                Faeries were real!

                The fairy turned its attention to the offerings, though Herb could still feel one of its heavy eyes observing him. It uncapped the honey quickly, and drank it to its heart’s content. It jumped about, as if it had been given new energy, new life. After that, it merely glanced at the spider webs, as if it knew they would be good.

                Then, the fairy turned towards Herb, all three glinting eyes on him. It beat its mighty wings, and hovered off of the ground, and in an instant, began to circle Herb. Round and round it went, starting up another cyclone, and Herb, while entranced by the tornado of colour, felt himself being cut short of breath. His hands ran for his throat. He was going to suffocate. The fairy was going too fast. No oxygen could get through. He...his eyes began to dim, and he could feel himself...slowly...

 

                      **

 

                When Herb awoke, he could feel a warm flickering against his cheeks. What had happened? Thought Herb. And before he had a chance to open his eyes, all the thoughts came rushing back in.

               

Author's Note

This is a story I felt very attached to for quite some time. It'll probably remain incomplete, but for the sake of being a little more optimistic, I'd also like to think it's a work in progress - clearly I don't like feeling pressured into doing something.

This started as another writing prompt from that very helpful writing book by Brigid Lowry. The prompt was 'Many odd things are buried in gardens. Write a story that involves digging'. Probably the only story I ever felt really great about, mainly because I had started slow and was handwriting the whole thing. I still have the rough handwritten drafts. I never intended it to get very long, but that's one of the great things about it: it just started writing itself. There's a little bit more I had handwritten before stopping entirely, so maybe at some point I'll add it too. I would sincerely love to know where and how this story will end.

Compiled 1 August 2010.