Faery Tale (22 page)

To take my mind off the imminent departure of my friends, I tried to refocus on the faery world. Something in Ninefh's story about throwing the pink quartz heart into the glen pool on the isle was echoing within me, and I felt on some level, perhaps if I paid a visit to honor Manannan on his mountain, my search might begin to turn up some more concrete findings. At the culmination of my time on Man were two major trips—Glen Auldyn and the Fairy Bridge. However, I couldn't undertake these until I'd paid a visit to Snaefell, the highest peak on the island, rumored to be the seat of the ancient god, where it was said on a clear day you could see all of the seven kingdoms: England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man, the heavens, and the sea. In a tradition I was told was still carried on to this day, the islanders would climb its slopes on Midsummer Day to leave tributes to the sea god for blessings, protection, and bountiful fishing on the Irish Sea. The weather had turned unexpectedly cold and bitter, but I couldn't delay my trip up the mountain any longer, so the next morning I put on as many layers as possible and ventured out into the whipping wind and biting rain.

I'd love to say I climbed Snaefell, but I rode the tram. I was disappointed in myself, but the grueling hike from Ramsey to the top of Snaefell was too lengthy to risk in such volatile weather—especially given my atrocious navigational skills.

Accompanied by only three other tourists, the ride to the top was stunning even in the lashing storm. The Manx landscape fell below us in a patchwork of lime and forest green, sprinkled with the yellow flowers of prickly gorse and the white elderflower that scattered across the crumbling stone walls.

As I exited the tram, the wind tore at me with punishing force, the rain needle-sharp, and my traveling companions retreated inside to the warmth of the café. Pulling up my hood, I leaned into the wind, pushing my way up the gravel path to the top of the mountain where Manannan unleashed his fury. The wind tugged my body from side to side with unimaginable strength. The air on Snaefell was significantly colder, probably in the midthirties (in June!), and it quickly chilled me to the bone. But at the summit I knelt down to fish out a small pink quartz heart that Raven had given me, some shells I'd collected from the beach in Castletown, a piece of sea glass from the beach in Ramsey, and a piece of the Glastonbury Thorn, said to have been planted by Joseph of Arimathea himself, that we'd found discarded at the foot of the famous tree. I was looking around, trying to find the perfect place, when something caught my eye. It was a black feather, half sticking out of the ground beside a large rock. Something told me I should try and lift that stone. To my surprise it lifted effortlessly, and underneath I found smooth bare earth. With numb fingers, I dug down a few inches and closed my eyes. Into the wind, into the rain, I sent my thoughts out to the Tuatha Dé Danann, to Manannan. I wished that they would come back to live among us in whatever way they could. I told them how desperately I thought we were all aching to find magic once again in our everyday lives.

With that I placed my items in the ground, along with the black feather. Gold aside, I hoped I was making an offering like those Manannan used to receive, but more than that, I was leaving a piece of myself there, hidden, a connection that no one could break between me and this mystical island. Replacing the rock, I made my way inside. I was enjoying the warmth, examining a poster board on Manannan, and sipping hot tea when I felt something cold trickling down the back of my pants. Puzzled, I tugged off my pack and, opening it up, resisted the urge to cry. The top to my water bottle had somehow come off, soaking everything in my pack—including my brand-new iPod. Cursing under my breath, I flipped the case open and pressed the On button to find the screen tragically black.
Death by drowning
. How had this happened? It hit me then, and I couldn't help but wonder. Could this have been the kind of sacrifice that Ninefh had been referring to when she told me about spraining her knee? If so, the faeries definitely knew how to hit me where it counts—the wallet. Aside from that, I'd have no portable music for the rest of the summer. But if I'd sacrificed something, it left me to wonder: What was going to happen in return?

 

That night after dinner and the pub, we sat around drinking cans of Boddingtons and passing around my flask of whiskey in the dining area of the kitchen. John told me he'd heard that Man was considering taking down the trinkets people left at Fairy Bridge.

“Why on earth would they do that?” I exclaimed.

“Well, Sig, it's a busy road, and they can't have people stopping their cars and bikes in the middle of traffic to tie a bit of ribbon on a tree, you know.”

“But how
could
they? Can't they see that people are leaving trinkets there because they are desperate to feel a tie to something, a tie to their own histories, their heritage, to the
land
?”

And what would that do to our already diminishing ties to a magical world?
I wanted to add. Instead I told them about how the bridge on the main road wasn't the
real
Fairy Bridge anyway, a tidbit of information I'd uncovered from speaking with a docent at Castle Rushen in Castletown.

“You know where the real bridge is?” Wol asked me.

“Well, the guy at the castle tried to describe it, but it was confusing. I might be able to find something online . . .”

“Listen,” he said. “If you can find the location, we could take you. You could ride with me, on the trike,” referring to his three-wheeled motorcycle. Big John gave a nod of agreement.

“Really? You'd do that? It could be miles and miles away.”

“Sure,” Wol said. “You can't write a book about faeries without having been to the
real
Fairy Bridge, now can you?” He gave me a grin.

“He's right,” Big John said. “That just won't do.”

“John! Did you hear
that
?” I said triumphantly. “We're going to find the Fairy Bridge!”

“Well, in that case, I'm only disappointed I can't join you. We're leaving tomorrow morning, remember?”

Oh. Right
. Actually, I had done my best to push it from my mind. I looked around the room a little sadly. John, Joe, Sam, Huw, and Mark were all hitting the road. What could I possibly say to them? Thank you for being so awesome, thank you for the full English breakfasts and the laughs and for making me feel like family? I wanted to tell them that I would never forget any of them, and that I wished I could be a part of their clan forever. That they were some of the kindest, most endearing men I'd ever met, and the world was a better place because they were in it.

When John knocked on my door early the next morning, I shot upright, smacking my head on the bunk above me.
Shit!
I'd overslept! Damn all that Irish whiskey.

“Sig,” he said through the door, “we're leaving . . .”

Leaving? Already?
I was planning on getting up to have breakfast with them before they were gone. I was hoping to get some more time.

“Oh, no! Wait!” I called, flying out of bed in my pajamas and swinging open the door, squinting to see them without my glasses. I could see John okay. Behind him, the rest of the boys were just a fuzzy blur of helmets and coats, already astride their bikes. I hugged John. How I could possibly express everything so they would really understand? At a loss, all I could say was, “Bye! Bye!” Waving, trying not to cry. “Have a safe journey.” John mounted his bike, and they drove off.

I closed the door and sat down on the edge of the bed, and the tears came.

Thankfully Wol, Big John, and Paul were still there until Saturday, which was, incidentally, my birthday. I was so glad to have them here for a few more days, but at the same time, the thought of having to feel this terrible feeling twice was unbearable.

I'd heard people say that as a traveler, you have to be careful not to get attached. Now that I'd felt it, I say that's garbage. If you are lucky enough to find people worth getting attached to, attach yourself with nothing less than all of your heart. Because if you find a companion to walk a stretch of the road with you, a person whose warmth and kindness makes your journey feel that much brighter, you have no other choice—you are among the very, very fortunate.

I found the boys in the kitchen.

“Find those directions, Sig,”Wol said, “and let's get on the road, eh?”

 

Our first stop was the Home for Retired Tram Horses, where I unloaded a backpack full of sliced apples to feed the huge geriatric draft horses, all of whom had pulled the horse trams around Douglas during the prime of their lives. They were majestic, monstrous, beautiful, and mean, so incredibly mean! Their ears laid flat against their head, they snatched the apples without so much as a thankful whinny. The guys took a few apples from my sack at my prompting but headed to the gift shop after a while—apparently, it was time for tea. (Tea, I was beginning to understand, was similar to the Italian or Spanish siesta, except that there was no sleeping, just sitting, and you could always find an excuse to do it, and with cake, too, several times a day.)

From there we headed out to see the Calf of Man, a small, completely undeveloped island. I whipped out my camera and took a video of our ride through the countryside on the back of the trike behind Wol, my friend and fearless driver. Getting out to stretch our legs, I held out the camera and snapped a few silly pictures of all of us, smooshed together and smiling in the sun.

We went over the directions to the real Fairy Bridge that I had dug up online, but after two attempts, we still couldn't find the right road. I was disappointed to say the least, but on the way home, just before we came to Douglas, we passed the modern Fairy Bridge, complete with a sign marking it for all who passed over the busy road. The trees made an archway overhead, a tall, noble canopy, and there it was, a little stream running through. I caught a quick glimpse of ribbons and pieces of tattered paper. Were they notes? Dreams? Prayers? I saw Wol give a small salute in front of me, and looked ahead to see John and Paul do the same. Maybe it didn't matter what was real, or what was fake, what was old, what was new. What mattered was this nod, this salute, this respect of tradition. The wind rushing past as we zoomed by, I took a deep breath and shouted, “Helloooo, faeries!”

That evening I went to see Mike to borrow a topo map and get directions into Glen Auldyn by foot. Writing them down, I told him about our misadventures trying to find the original Fairy Bridge. The next morning, my penultimate day on Man, I was in my hiking gear departing for the glen, when Mike flagged me down in the parking lot.

“Listen,” he said, “we've been feeling really badly that you weren't able to get over to the old Fairy Bridge. My wife, Ali, and I thought, if you were interested, we could go tomorrow—you know, and take the kids. Make a morning of it.”

“Seriously? I mean, are you sure?”

“Yeah. It could be fun!” He grinned and turned to his boys behind him.

“Hey, guys, you want to go look for faeries tomorrow?”

The boys grimaced. “Blech! No!”

I turned to them in mock surprise. “
No?
You guys don't want to go and look for
faeries
?”

They looked at me, hesitantly. “Faeries aren't real,” Mike's son Alex said a little triumphantly.

“Well”—I thought for a moment—“I suppose you could be right.”

He considered this. My answer seemed to throw him. “Do
you
believe in faeries?” he asked me.

“Um, yes. I do, actually. But being a grown-up and all, it's really hard for me to see them. Kids are actually supposed to be able to see faeries, like,
ten times
more easily. That's why I could really use some helpers.”

He assessed me warily. “All right.” He shrugged at last.

“Excellent! Trust me.” I grinned at him. “We're gonna have fun.”

With that, I shouldered my hiking pack and headed out to see if I could track down a scary little green man of my own. From the beginning, the trek sucked. Even though I had perfectly clear directions, I got turned around going through Ramsey. Every time I stopped to ask a local, poised at the edge of the road to catch the race that day, they pointed me in a conflicting direction.

Again I got the feeling that I was being conspired against, that something wanted to keep me away from the glen, but it only made me more determined to get there. I finally made my way onto the marked trail, heading out across open fields. Folks had told me I would be lucky if I saw another human being up in the glen, and I understood now—as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but trees in the distance. It dwarfed me, and made Ballure Glen feel like child's play. I had Janet Bord's book with me, and my intention was to set out on the same trail that had so startled John Hall so many years ago. This was it, my one chance, and Glen Auldyn was the mother lode: aside from the green man in the tree, there were sightings of the Phynnodderee reported there, and another man had seen five small creatures dancing in a ring, hand in hand.

Even though I was in another country “faery hunting,” for lack of a better term, I found these types of stories a little difficult to believe. The concept of faery creatures dancing in a ring rang too cutesy to feel authentic. When the road divided at the Methodist chapel, I took the road that forked to the right but ended up at a dead end. I would have had to cross a boggy stream; the trail on the other side was impassibly thick with brush and it was clearly marked Private Property. Thinking I might have taken a wrong turn, I went back the way I came and started over again from the church. Seeing a road that wound uphill to the right into the woods, I started in that direction.