Faery Tale (18 page)

But I was too worked over to fight it; I let my imagination take me where it wanted to lead. This, Raven had told me, was the first step in taking my own journey. Within our imagination, she believes, lies the key to accessing even the most distant of worlds. As I lay on my back in the grass, my mind and body completely at rest, I concentrated on being open, being present. Mentally, I sent out a wish: If I did truly have a faery advocate, could they give me a sign? I lay there, healing, relaxing, recovering. After a few minutes, I opened my eyes and sat up—I had the most distinct feeling that I was to wait for something.

I heard a soft flutter of wings, and the next moment a little robin, looking much the same as the one I'd seen the day before, landed on a branch close to me. Delicate and brownish gray, with a burnt orangeyred breast, its eyes were filled with a curiosity, a remarkable intelligence. I gazed back, and it fluttered closer, as if trying to capture my attention. Now it was within ten inches of my face, so close I could see the layers of feathers that made up its breast. But a moment later, it flew off.

That was weird
, I thought.
The birds here are so uncannily friendly!
Not knowing what I was supposed to do to get in touch with my advocate, I picked up my pen and journal to do some writing while I waited for this mythical faery man to appear. A moment later I was startled by the reappearance of what looked like the same bird, as close as it had been before. I noticed with surprise that this time it held something in its beak—a large ant. With the ant in its beak, it cocked its head at me.

“Mmmm, yummy,” I joked. The bird flitted from the branch onto the grass at my feet, looking at me rather expectantly before flying off again. I glanced over at Raven, who had made her way to a shady spot nearby, and saw she had an inquisitive look on her face.

“It's a flirty little thing, isn't it?” I called to her. “Not at all like the robins back home!”

“Mmmm.” She nodded, gazing at the tree intently.

I had just put pen to paper when I heard a soft noise and glanced up to see the robin had come back—this time with some sort of wasp in its mouth. I dropped my pen in my lap and watched, completely puzzled.

“Signe,” Raven called in a loud whisper, pointing, “I think that bird is trying to tell you something.”

I considered this and gazed back into its deep black eyes. It was just standing there, regarding me. And I never knew robins were such efficient hunters—it was a matter of less than a minute between the two insect captures.

Is that true?
I thought.
Are you trying to tell me something?

The odd thing was, the bird wasn't eating the insects. It was just holding them,
showing
them to me. It took a few hops toward me and then took off—to finish its meal, no doubt. But I couldn't help but feel for a moment like Snow White—why, I bet if I had stretched out my hand that little robin would have alighted right on my fingers!

Gathering my things, I ambled over to Raven.

“What do you think that bird was trying to tell me?”

“Signe,” she said, shaking her head, “I have no idea.”

I thought for a moment, then smiled. “Maybe he was saying it's time for dinner.” I laughed it off, but secretly, I was flustered—I had just been visited by the same bird, three times in a matter of minutes. What was it trying to say? Having spent the whole day in the gardens, it was now late afternoon. Gathering our things we retreated inside to freshen up for dinner.

Sitting outside over a glass of wine, we savored our last night in Glastonbury. I remembered Coleen Shaughnessy saying that faeries would often come to people in the form of insects, even birds. Birds I love; anything furry or with feathers could perch on my face for all I cared—after all, I was known to crawl around on the carpet with other people's dogs. But something of a disenchantment had happened between me and insects, I realized, as I looked down at my arm and noticed, for the third time that day, there was a tiny green insect with transparent wings that had perched itself on my forearm.

Since it was our last night, we decided to enjoy the sunset on Glastonbury Tor. I figured there wasn't a better place to be than on the top of the faery king's hill as twilight emerged, and I was determined that tonight I would not be afraid. To burn through my fear (quite literally), Raven had suggested that I write a promise to the faeries and, at sunset, set the paper on fire at the top of the tor. Perhaps I needed to cement my goodwill, to let them know that I would do whatever it takes to complete my journey.

As we climbed the series of steps that led up the steep slope of the tor, the sun lit the grasses in gold. There was a nunnery on top of the hill at one point, which some say is the reason for the bizarre-looking terracing along the hillsides. Others said the terracing was caused by the trail wound by the pagan worshippers in the thousands of years they made their pilgrimage up it. Our breath grew short, and I thought of Gywn ap Nudd. In 1275, an earthquake brought down that nunnery, leaving only the tower. It had been rebuilt, dated to the 1500s, and now, once more, all that remained was the tower, stuck on the top of the hill. As we climbed, it seemed the great faery king had certainly had the last laugh. What it really had become was one large standing stone, I supposed, channeling the energy between heaven and earth, just like the stones at Dartmoor.

We reached the top of the tor as the sun was a few degrees shy of setting to find more than a dozen people gathered, transfixed by the splendid coming of twilight. The sun burned its way down toward the ocean, dark pink and magnificent in its enormity, and the hills of Wales were shimmering in the blue distance. A woman with a camera and boom mike was questioning a group of teens who were sitting with their backs to the tower. “But you're up here this evening,” I heard her say, “so wouldn't that put you into the group of people who want to believe magic still exists?” I smiled inwardly. It was comforting to know I wasn't alone.

I drank in the beauty of the countryside, letting it fill me completely. I remembered something Peter Knight had said yesterday, and I tried the words on for size:
Fear is an illusion. Fear is an illusion. I choose love . . . I choose love.
Everything in my life had funneled down into me sitting at the top of that hill, looking out to Wales, with Raven leaving the next day, leaving me to pursue this quest alone. What was I so afraid of? Trees? Hills?
Nature?
My father would be so disappointed.

As the sun sank, I felt something lift from the center of me—not completely, but noticeably. I could feel my fear, for the first time in years, beginning to dissipate. I had the most powerful sense that I'd felt this freedom from it before. I felt like I could soar from the top of the tor, hollow-boned like a bird.

All this time, Raven and I were silent, feeling. A pearly crescent moon rose above the tor, and from inside the tower, I heard the low rumble of a didgeridoo. The long notes buzzed deep into the coming night, vibrating through everything in their path, vibrating through me. I wondered what it would be like to be the man who made a nightly pilgrimage up the tor to blast the evening with ancient song. We saw him as we made our way to the wind-shielded side of the tower, walking with the massive instrument balanced nimbly between his fingers. Under the shelter of the tower we knelt, and I pulled out my promise, holding the thin slip of paper between my cold fingers as they fumbled against the wind to light a match. The paper caught and burned, and I watched as the fire ate it up, taking my words with it, into another form. Raven's hair glowed in the light of the flame, and I thought of the other priestesses who had walked this hill before, thousands of years ago when this place was known as Avalon.

We stayed until the wind whipped up and the stars multiplied, carpeting the sky. As we descended down the steep stairs I wasn't worried about tripping or falling. I wasn't frightened of the enveloping blackness around me. I wasn't worried that we were trespassing on the sacred mound of an ancient faery king. As the wind blew, the trees at the bottom of the hill bent toward me as if they were bowing, their leaves shimmying in the moonlight. We made our way through the gate, across the road, and back into the Chalice Well Garden. After the vast expanse of the tor and the countryside around it, the garden felt cozy, secure. Raven had given me her cloak, and I walked through the night garden barefoot and hooded in green, a woman not completely myself, yet more myself than I'd ever been.

As we reached the tree, we sat once more, back-to-back. I gazed out at the night around me, but there was no more fear, just curiosity.
Fear is an illusion, I choose love.
It radiated from me, from the very center of my chest, and I felt timeless. Last night, when I heard the shuffling noise, I'd been afraid—and my fear had broken the moment. Was it a test? If so, I'd failed. Tonight I could feel the land singing to the stars, feel the trees gently twisting in the wind, the bushes rustling as though they were papered silver in the moonlight. Behind me, Raven was humming something soft and delicate.

It was then that I began to notice tiny pinpoints of lights from town, blinking in the bushes. I watched them as they twinkled in and out, in and out. But after a moment, it dawned on me—I couldn't be seeing lights from town. I gently shook my head in confusion. I was looking at a thick hedgerow, with an orchard on the other side. We were sitting at the top of a hill, but I knew that banking the hedges on the other side was only another hill—the orchard itself. Meaning, beyond the hedge was nothing but the slope of earth and grass.

If I were seeing lights from the city, I reasoned, I would be able to move my head, and the light would stay fixed, possibly be blocked by leaves when gazing from another perspective. Then again, Glastonbury was hardly a glittering metropolis. Even as I reasoned, even as I puzzled, I watched a blue pinpoint of light move slowly at first, then zip into the tree above us. There were dozens of them now, delicate dots of light glowing within the dense blackness, one deep blue, another orange like fire, many in bright white.They began to move, to come alive it seemed, and I let out a small gasp in disbelief. Those were no city lights.

“Are you seeing them?” Raven whispered.

I hardly wanted to move my lips, afraid my voice would put a stop to whatever was happening around us.

“Yes,” I managed. “Yes, I'm seeing . . .”

I understood now what Coleen Shaughnessy had meant. This phenomenon was vastly different from any fireflies I'd seen. Fireflies are a flash, a burst of light, and compared to these, fireflies were too large, fuzzier and clumsier somehow. As I marveled, the lights moved around us, glittering and dancing in the night. And as I sat there, beneath that ancient tree, my spine resting against the spine of the priestess, I began to cry.

All I could do was sit there and acknowledge that the implications of this moment could change the course of my life forever. I shook my head in amazement, and leaning back into the cool night grass, I gave myself over to it.

A
S much as I wanted whatever was happening to continue forever, to keep twinkling until the sun rose over the hills of Somerset, whatever we were seeing was certainly not at our beck and call. I had the distinct feeling that we had been granted something, and then it was over. Had it been minutes or hours? We lost track of time. I said thank you, and we made our way back through the night garden. My head was reeling, my body electrified.

By the next morning the human brain had recovered itself and began the process of doing what it does best—denying. I had known, even as I slept snug under my blankets, that this would come, that it was an inevitable part of the process.
I know what I saw
, I thought as I drifted off to sleep.
Nothing will change in the morning
. Morning had me back at faery hill examining the hedges, the bushes. I had no explanation. There was, indeed, just a hill on the other side of the hedge where I'd first seen the blue light, and the bushes were so incredibly thick, it seemed doubtful that light could penetrate them at all. And yet still, the more time that passed, the more I wondered—had I really seen it? Couldn't my eyes, in concert with my imagination, have been playing tricks on me?

Soon it was checkout time, and Raven was in tears at the thought of leaving. Bags packed and in the car, we sat at the well head, each mourning our departure in our own way, and I realized that there was indeed something waiting for Raven in Glastonbury. Here, she could be herself. People walked the streets in cloaks, they sprinkled faery dust in stores, they walked around wearing ribbons and elf ears. Here people conducted ceremonies at any time of day or night, or played the didgeridoo on top of the ancient tor. She had fallen utterly and irrevocably in love with Glastonbury. And her heart was absolutely breaking for it.

“I just want to be here, I just want to stay,” she said softly, brushing tears from her eyes. I hugged her close, and said, “You can always come back. Someday, maybe you can buy a house here, your very own house where you can live with Michael, and you can walk down the street in your faery ears, and you can do so many ceremonies in your very own backyard.”

I gave her hand a squeeze and left her to say her goodbyes in privacy. I wandered back over to the stone wall, the Sanctuary, and sat down on the bench. It seemed like weeks, not days ago, that I had first arrived. I thought about last night, about the bird, and about the question of a faery advocate. I wanted so badly to know if it had all been real. If there was truly some spirit that would be accompanying me, to guide me, protect me. At the Chalice Well gift shop, I'd purchased a necklace with the symbol that represented Glastonbury to wear on my journey. I felt it was important to honor this place, where I broke through my fear for the first time, where I saw the tiny lights glittering back at me in the darkness. It was the oddest thing, but I
missed
that little bird. A thought flashed into my mind then, a gentle chiding. One that didn't feel like my own.