Thistle's Coven written &
Illustrated |
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From
his perch on the upstairs window ledge, Pooka could hear Elsie singing to
herself as she moved around the room behind him. Paws tucked to his chest in classic kitty
yoga position, he was trying to focus on the late October sunshine warming his
back. However, every few minutes,
Elsie’s voice would find a wrong note, jarring him out of his meditation and
causing the tip of his tail to twitch irritably.
He wondered if there was a Cosmic Law that said witches were not allowed
to carry a tune!
A
small movement in the garden below caught his attention. His eats flicked
forward, then his eyes bugged open
and he almost toppled out the window as he sprang to his paws!
He hissed; his back arched and his fur stood straight out in all
directions!
Elsie
turned just in time to see his tail disappear under the bed.
She lifted the hem of the quilt and peered under the bed.
Two gold eyes, round with horror, gazed back at her.
“Look
out the window!”
Curious,
Elsie leaned out the window and looked down.
She blinked a few times. Then
she pinched herself, closed her eyes and opened them again. It didn’t help.
Traipsing across the bridge and up to her house,
was a
single file procession of solemn little fairies. They were all dressed in
identical flowing black robes and wearing tiny pointed black hats!
At the head of the parade, dainty nose in the air and looking Very
Important, marched Thistle!
“Oh
Poopy Pentagrams!” Elsie rolled her eyes.
“What now?”
She
bent back down and tried to coax her cat out from under the bed. “Pooks,
it’s only Thistle and a bunch of fairies dressed like…”
“I
SAW what they were dressed like,” growled Pooka.
“I’m staying here!”
“I’m
sure there’s an explanation!”
Pooka
waited. She couldn’t think of
one. The cat retreated further under the bed.
“Fine,”
declared Elsie, “be that way!” and by herself she went downstairs to answer
the door. However, when she opened
it and looked down at the tiny troop of pixies all dressed like witches and
gazing up at her, she almost wished she’d joined Pooka under the bed!
“Halloween
is still a few days away,” she informed them. “And since when did fairies
start trick or treating?”
Thistle lifted the wide brim of her hat so she could look up at Elsie. “This is my coven!”
The
little witch felt her heart sink. It
was as bad as she’d thought! “Your
what?”
“My
coven!” Thistle gestured to the troop lined up behind her like well-behaved
school children. “I’m training
them to be witches!”
“And
now we’re on a field trip!” piped up one little pixie with curly brown hair.
“We’re going to go see a real witch!”
She leaned her head out and peered past Elsie in happy anticipation.
“This
is Elsie,” Thistle announced. “She’s
the witch I told you about!”
The
fairies silently looked Elsie over. They
obviously had their doubts!
“Well,”
conceded one sprite after a moment. “She is dressed like us!”
Their
tiny pointed hats all bobbed in agreement.
The
little witch stood back from the door. “Perhaps
you’d better come in,” she said.
The
fairies arranged themselves in a dinky circle on the parlor rug with Thistle in
their center. Elsie headed for her
favorite chair by the hearth being careful not to step on any of them.
“Now,
tell me all about this.”
One
sprite, slightly smaller than the others jumped up and down and clapped her
hands in excitement. “We’re going to be witches!” she sang out.
“Bramble!”
Thistle admonished her wee protégé. The
fairy instantly sobered.
Addressing
Elsie, Thistle explained: “These are my students and I’m going to teach them
all about witchcraft!”
“But
Thistle, “ Elsie objected. “They’re
fairies – not witches!”
Thistle
folded her arms across her chest and tossed her head defiantly. “Why can’t they be both?
Fairywitches!” she demanded. “I
am!”
“You
are?” asked a startled Elsie.
“Of
course,” Thistle nodded. “I
know all about witchcraft and spells and stuff!”
“And
where did you acquire all this knowledge?” Elsie wanted to know.
“From
being around you and Aunt Tilly!” exclaimed the sprite, beaming at her
proudly. “Besides,” the fairy flew up, hovered next to Elsie’s ear, and
continued in a lower voice, “I can always come to you if there’s something
I’m not sure about, right?”
“I
suppose so,” Elsie murmured uncertainly.
She had caught the horrified look on Pooka’s face peeking around the
corner into the room.
“Thanks,
Elsie!” Thistle whispered, and then in a louder voice she marshaled her little
troop. “All right, fairywitches,
this way to the herb room!”
They
filed out of the room toward the back of the house where Elsie made her
concoctions. Elsie and Pooka
trailed slowly after them feeling quite helpless before the onslaught of
Thistle’s enthusiasm.
By
the time they entered, Thistle was already holding court on the wooden
worktable.
“These
are herbs,” she told them, waving an arm at the gleaming jars lining the
shelves. “They are good for lots of magickal things!”
An
exceptionally pretty, dark haired little fairy asked: “Are there any that work
for love spells?”
“Lots!”
Thistle assured her.
The
fairy twirled a strand of hair around her tiny finger and looked speculative.
“Like what?” she wanted to know.
Thistle
looked momentarily stumped and quickly read some of the labels. “Like,
like…ah-HA! Rose Petals!” she
cried triumphantly.
The
little fairy asked, “Well, what do you do with them?”
Thistle
scowled at her. “Berry,” she
said sternly. “These are deep, mysterious and arcane subjects requiring much
study and dedication! You can’t expect me to teach it all to you in one day!
All right, everyone,” she brightly addressed the rest of the assembly.
“Now you’ve seen the herb room! Any
questions? No? Good!
Let’s go back to the parlor!”
The
tiny creatures all looked at each other in bewilderment and then obediently
followed her out of the room. Berry,
bringing up the rear, continued to glance over her shoulder at the jar of rose
petals as she left.
Elsie
looked down at Pooka next to her feet. “I
see you came out from under the bed.”
Pooka
glared at her. “This is not
good!” Obviously he expected her to do something about it!
The
little witch shrugged. “Fairies don’t focus on one thing for long,” she
told him. “By tomorrow they’ll have lost interest.”
“Now,”
announced Thistle. “We are going
to raise a Cone of Power!”
“What’s
that?” squeaked Bramble.
“It’s
a thing to raise magickal energy,” Thistle explained.
Another
little fairy asked, “Well, how do we do it?”
Thistle
told them, “We all hold hands and fly in a circle really fast!”
The
fairies dutifully joined hands and eight pairs of gossamer wings began to
quickly vibrate.
Elsie
told Pooka, “We’d better stand back.”
They retreated to the edge of the room to watch.
Within
moments, the circle of pixies was a blur of motion whizzing through the air.
Pooka felt dizzy just watching and he noticed Elsie’s eyes were wide as
she clutched the back of a chair for stability!
Several
tiny voices sang out “Wheeeeeee!” but one was heard to object. “I don’t
feel good!” A moment later, a
small drop of nasty greenish brown liquid came flinging out of the spinning
circle and splatted on the wall. Then
came choruses of: “Me neither!” and “Please! Can we stop now?”
They
heard Thistle announce: “Fairywitches, halt!” and all the little fairies
came tumbling to the ground. Some
simply sat where they landed, hands holding their heads while their eyeballs
rolled around in their little faces. Others
collapsed on their backs moaning, while a few struggled to their hands and knees
and were heard making tiny retching noises.
Thistle looked around at them and said uncertainly, “Maybe we need more
practice…”
Pooka
smiled smugly up at Elsie and reminded her:
“Cats don’t clean carpets!” He then strolled off to the kitchen,
his tail waving high. Elsie, eyeing
his departing backside, felt the urge for a well-aimed kick – just this once! However, she sighed and went to get a rag and bucket.
After
the fairies had staggered back out the door and the mess in the parlor was
cleaned up, Elsie joined Pooka in the kitchen.
The little cat had just finished a bit of left over lunch and was now
busy cleaning his whiskers. Elsie
sat heavily in one of the chairs around the table and was quietly thoughtful.
Finally she said, “By tomorrow surely they’ll have forgotten all
about this nonsense.” Pooka stopped washing and just looked at her.
The
next day, however, the Pixies were back. Bright
and early they congregated on Elsie’s front step and when she opened the door,
she almost slammed it shut again! Instead,
she barred the entrance and told them, “You are NOT bringing bugs into my
house!”
Pooka
peered around her skirts. Each
fairy had some sort of crawling, hopping or flying insect with her.
Thistle looked up in astonishment. “But
these are our Familiars,” she insisted, “and we have to train them!”
Feeling
a little on the dense side, Elsie repeated: “Your Familiars?”
Thistle
rolled her eyes in exasperation as she struggled to keep hold of the beetle she
had chosen for herself. “Well,
you can hardly expect us to have a cat or a crow or anything else that’s 10
times bigger than we are!”
Elsie
shook her head as if trying to settle its contents.
“Outside!” she told Thistle. “Today’s
lesson must be held outside!”
“Oh,
all right!” sighed Thistle.
The
fairies turned and paraded back out into the yard where, once again, they formed
a teensy circle and set their “Familiars” in the center.
Elsie
and Pooka watched from the steps.
“Now,
fairywitches, I want you each to concentrate on communicating telepathically
with your Familiar! Ready?
Go!”
However,
once released, the “Familiars” seemed to be concentrating on escape! The fairies were soon busy chasing down and trying to
recapture hastily retreating ants, centipedes, leafhoppers and caterpillars.
Even Thistle was having a hard time catching her beetle again.
Finally, the only fairy left where the circle had been was Bramble, who
had brought a snail.
Little
dark-haired Berry, in a fit of anger, threw a pebble at her nimble-footed
insect. She flew back to
Bramble’s side complaining bitterly. “Why do we have to do all this stuff? I only want a love spell to make that stupid elf, Bracken,
like me!” and she flounced to the ground with a sulky pout.
Before
long the rest of the fairies joined them, their tiny faces flushed.
“Thistle?”
panted one (who was quite out of breath) “Must
we have Familiars in order to be fairywitches?”
Thistle,
who was just as out of breath and temper as the rest, waved a hand in lofty
dismissal. “Oh, no!” she told
them. “Witches don’t really
need Familiars. They don’t
actually DO anything anyway!”
At
this, Pooka stood up and stomped indignantly into the house.
Later
that afternoon, Elsie was busy in the kitchen of her little cottage. Halloween was coming and every year she enjoyed making treats
for the costumed children who visited her. Already she had tins and baskets
filled with crunchy, sweet popcorn balls and soft, chewy molasses cookies.
Their spicy warm aroma filled her little kitchen.
Glancing through the window as she stirred a bowl of pumpkin pie mixture,
Elsie smiled and shook her head. Outside
in the yard, the coven of “fairywitches-in-training” sat in a circle under
an old oak tree. Thistle was
conducting a Workshop and their tiny heads were bowed in concentration on the
project she had assigned – tying bits of dried grasses to the ends of their
wands to make “fairywitch brooms.”
“Of
course, we don’t really need them for flying,” Thistle had told her
assembly, “but witches use them for magic, too.”
“But
I already use my wand for magic,” objected Berry who was turning out to be the
most vocal dissenter in the group.
Their
leader explained patiently, “Yes, but that’s only Nature Magic – helping
trees grow, making seeds sprout and keeping streams busy.
Stuff like that. Don’t you
want to do Real Witch spells?”
Berry
nodded reluctantly.
Elsie
set the bowl on the table and turned to check her oven temperature. “How’s the group coming?” she asked over her shoulder.
Thistle
smiled brightly. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed.
“I think they have a real aptitude!”
Elsie
smiled knowingly: “Getting a bit bored, are they?”
Thistle’s
shoulders drooped a bit. “I think
so,” she sighed. Then she
immediately brightened again as she added confidently, “But all that will be
fixed tonight!”
Pooka,
who had leaped up onto the table and now had his face buried in the bowl, looked
up quickly. He appeared rather
silly with his whiskers and chin coated with pie filling but his expression was
serious. He knew there would be a
full moon tonight.
The
same thought had apparently occurred to Elsie.
“What’s happening tonight, Thistle?”
The
fairy finished her cookie crumb and dusted off her hands.
“Tonight I will teach them some spells!”
Pooka
and Elsie exchanged a look.
“I’ll
be under the bed,” the little cat informed his mistress.
Elsie
started to ask where on earth Thistle had learned spells, since she knew her own
magick was always of a subtle and discreet kind.
Then she remembered the time her little friend had spent visiting with
Aunt Tilly. Elsie’s aunt tossed
spells around as freely as confetti and Thistle must have picked up a few!
Instead,
she shook her finger at the fairy and began to warn her: “Now, Thistle, so far
this has all been fun and fine and no harm done.
But before you start having fairies do witch magick, there’s something
you should know!”
Thistle
looked up at Elsie, her pixie face showing polite interest.
But before Elsie could continue, they were distracted by a strange ruckus
outside. Tiny curly-headed Bramble
appeared in the window, her small wings a blur of agitation.
“Oh, Thistle! Come quick!” she cried and disappeared again.
Thistle
shot out the window and Elsie dashed over and leaned out to see what was
happening.
The
red and golden leaves that still clung to the old oak shading the fairies’
workshop shivered and shook! High
pitched giggles and jeering laughter could be heard from its branches and acorns
rained down pelting the pixies below. Thistle’s coven clung to the little hats
protecting their heads and darted in every direction trying to avoid the nuts!
Pooka
leaped to the windowsill alongside Elsie and looked out.
“Elves!” he growled.
And
sure enough, a moment later Elsie saw a number of tiny figures shimmy down the
oak’s trunk. They were still
laughing! One little boy stood with
his legs spread, his fists on his hips and stuck out his tongue. “Fairies trying to be witches!” he scoffed.
“Yeah!”
added another little fellow all clad in brown and green. “Why don’t you
stupid fairies go back to the forest and grow something!”
Thistle
flew at him in a rage. “Why don’t you go crawl down a toad hole!” she
countered, and whipping out her wand, she smacked the elf on his head.
His
eyes bugged out for just an instant before his elf form was replaced with that
of a very large frog that towered over tiny Thistle.
She shrieked, panicked and ran. The
frog bounced after her. The other
fairies turned and flew to her rescue, dive-bombing the frog – except one dark
haired sprite who darted in the opposite direction around the side of the
cottage.
The frightened Thistle recovered her wits enough to use her wings and flew out of reach of the frog leaping up to catch her.
“Turn
him back, Thistle!” pleaded her coven. The
boy elves gathered around and scolded them.
“See what happens when fairies think they’re witches?” they yelled.
Suddenly,
Elsie heard a crash of broken glass come from her herb room!
She wasn’t sure which way to go! At
this point the angry elves and the furious fairies were nose to nose in
confrontation and it looked as if both sides might come to blows at any moment!
Her
dilemma was solved (along with the question of what had broken) a second later
when she saw Berry dart around the side of the cottage.
Her arms were filled with as many dried rose petals as she could carry!
She paused for a moment in midair while her eyes scanned the tiny mob of
fairies and elves. Then her vision
singled out one particular little elf wearing a gold cap and she dove in that
direction. As she got close enough,
she began throwing the rose petals at him, chanting: “Roses for Love, It's you
that I pick; Roses for Love, the spell will stick!”
The
elf threw his hands up to ward of the petals. “Hey!” he cried out. “Quit
that!” He broke from the group
and ran into the forest with little Berry in swift pursuit.
“That
must be Bracken!” Elsie grinned at Pooka, who winked back.
By
now the fairies and elves were to the point of shoving and serious insults.
Elsie grabbed her broom and dipped it in a mop bucket still full from the
morning’s housework. She dashed outside and into the fray with Pooka on her heels.
Swinging the broom, she showered the tiny mob with sudsy water, drenching
each and every one of them. They
shrieked in protest and all scattered in different directions, fleeing into the
surrounding woods.
All,
that is, except the frog, which Pooka now held firmly under one paw.
Elsie
scooped the frog up and dropped him in the pocket of her apron.
“We’ll have to change him back,” she told the cat.
Pooka
cocked his head. “Can I play with
him first?”
Elsie
answered him with a look.
In
the evening, after supper, Elsie cuddled down in her favorite chair next to the
fire and tried to read. For some
reason, though, she couldn’t concentrate on the words and found herself
reading the same paragraph over and over. She
knew something in the air was bothering her, but what?
She was about to put the book aside and get out her tarot cards when
Pooka jumped into her lap, his paws on her chest. His whiskers inches from her face, he stared into her eyes
and gave a loud “Mrrrroooowl”.
“What
is it, Pooks?” She stroked his
head.
The
cat sat down in her lap and looked around the room uncertainly. “I don’t
know,” he said. “Something just
isn’t right! I feel it in my
whiskers!”
Elsie
rubbed in front of his ears – one of Pooka’s favorite spots -- and tried to
soothe him. “We’re probably
just upset over this silly Fairywitch business.
Come on. Let’s get you to
bed.”
Pooka’s
head shot up dislodging her hand. “Elsie!
Thistle said they were going to do
spells tonight!”
“Oh
Pooks! Surely not after everything
that happened today!”
But
Elsie was wrong.
Her
first clue came while she was setting the syrup jug on the table for breakfast.
(This morning they were having pancakes.) The
sound of feathers fluttering in the kitchen window and a raspy caw told her
Edgar had arrived for his meal. But
when she turned to greet him – instead of a shiny black crow, the bird in the
window was bright blue! “Edgar?” He
answered with another caw and then strutted back and forth on the ledge, showing
off and preening. Elsie
held out her arm and Edgar flapped over and landed on it.
She examined his feathers closely. They
weren’t dyed. They had actually
turned blue! The crow was obviously
pleased with the results, but Elsie was not!
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“Uh-oh!”
came Pooka’s voice from the doorway. Edgar
flew to the ground and the cat padded over to him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I
woke up pretty!” exclaimed the bird happily.
“What
did he say?” Elsie wanted to know, and the cat told her.
Although she and Pooka conversed freely, she had trouble understanding
Edgar’s crow language. As now,
Pooka usually served as interpreter.
“Ask
him if he saw anything unusual last night.”
Edgar’s
reply was a raucous laugh. “Fairies!”
he cawed. “Lots of fairies!”
and then he added for Elsie’s benefit: “I
didn’t eat them.”
Nevertheless,
the witch knew that Thistle had never forgotten Edgar’s interest in her as a
tasty morsel when first they’d met. She
hadn’t been comfortable around the bird since then.
Elsie was afraid she was seeking a bit of pixie revenge!
The question was, what else had the little band of fairywitches been up
to in the night?
“Pooks,
I think we’d better go to town today.”
The
little cat agreed.
The
village was a glorious riot of fall decorations.
Pots of colorful chrysanthemums and ivy stood outside all the shops.
Every step and post sported a carved pumpkin. It all seemed very nice and normal until they reached the
center of town and the village green – which was pink!
Several
small groups of townsfolk were clustered around discussing the phenomenon.
Elsie and Pooka exchanged a look and edged closer to one of them to hear
what was being said.
“How
do you suppose they did it?” An elderly gentleman was shaking his head in
amazement.
A
middle-aged man with a broad, jolly face exclaimed: “Must have taken all
night! Do you suppose now we’ll have to call it the Village Pink?” He hooked
his thumbs under his suspenders, laughing heartily at his own joke.
The
prim sounding voice of the schoolteacher, Mrs. Crabtree, spoke:
“It’s no laughing matter, John Beasley!
Why, in our day we just soaped windows…”
“And
overturned a few outhouses,” he reminded her with a wink.
“Yes...
well! At least we waited
until Halloween. We didn’t start
the mischief days before!” the schoolteacher harrumphed.
The
elderly man added, “We didn’t stick any cows in trees either.
Wonder how they managed that!”
Mr.
Beasley laughed again. “Wasn’t
Lavinia Hinkle mad! Took ten men to
get that cow down. She says the
kids will get no treats out of her this year!”
Mrs.
Crabtree snorted. “As if she ever
passes out treats!” And then,
shaking her finger she added, “I’ll bet it was those Kettlesworth kids.
They’re always up to something!”
Suddenly
she noticed Elsie standing nearby. “Hello, Elsie.
I didn’t see you there.”
Elsie
greeted the others. When asked what
she thought of “The Village Pink,” she simply smiled and shrugged her
shoulders, indicating, without actually lying, that she was as bewildered as any
of them.
The
elderly gentleman left, mumbling into his beard about kids these days, and John
Beasley drawled reluctantly, “Well, I’d better go get that loaf of bread for
the misses before she comes looking for me.”
“Haven’t
you heard?” asked the schoolteacher. “There’s
no bread this morning.”
Mr.
Beasley looked concerned. “Old
George the Baker isn’t sick, is he?”
Mrs.
Crabtree’s eyes twinkled. “Worse.
He’s smitten.”
“What?”
“From
what I heard, George was headed in to work at dawn to get his ovens fired up.
Emily Tiddle was just opening her dress shop next to the bakery.
I imagine she’d decided to go in early, what with Sally’s wedding
coming up.”
“Well,
what’s all this got to do with my bread?” thundered John Beasley.
“He’s
been baking nothing all morning but currant buns and taking them over to Emily.
She loves currant buns, you know!” and Mrs. Crabtree gave Elsie a nudge
and a wink.
“You
mean…” gasped Elsie.
The
schoolteacher nodded. “He’s in
love! And when I stopped by the
dress shop, Emily Tiddle was carrying on worse than one of my students –
blushing, dropping things, giggling, I tell you.
And at her age!” Although she tsk-tsked and shook her head, Mrs.
Crabtree looked quite pleased for her friend.
“Well,
I’ll be,” John Beasley grinned. “After
all these years! Wonder what made
him finally notice her? Guess the
misses will just have to make her own bread today.” He said “Good day” to
them and headed in the direction of his house, no doubt anxious to share the
gossip with his wife.
“I’d
better get going, too,” sighed Mrs. Crabtree.
“I’ll be seeing you, Elsie. You
too, Pooka.” The schoolteacher
liked cats.
Pooka
gave his best cat meow in reply; she scratched his chin and then left.
Pooka
and Elsie exchanged a look and headed back toward home.
As
they neared the cottage, they heard a thunderous symphony of caws. As the little house came into view, they could see the
branches of the surrounding trees were filled with crows all squawking and
cawing and flying from branch to branch, juggling for position. Many more were perched all over the roof of the cottage.
On the lawn, proudly strutting back and forth and apparently still
thrilled with his colorful plumage, was Edgar.
“Pooks!
What’s gotten into them?” the little witch cried.
Pooka’s
fur stood on end. “I don’t know! I
can’t understand! They’re all yelling at once.
They sound mad!”
With
that, he flattened his ears and streaked across the yard.
A single bound sent him sailing through the kitchen window.
Elsie
tried plugging her ears as she ran after him.
The noise was deafening! After a few moments of fumbling with the latch,
she tumbled through the front door, slamming it on the commotion outside.
She leaned against the door, panting to catch her breath, then made her
way into the kitchen and closed the window to further dim the sound.
“Great
Goddess Petticoats!” she cursed. Just
wait till she got hold of that headstrong little fairy!
There was no doubt in her mind that Thistle was behind all of this.
The
thought had no sooner crossed her mind than she saw the lid of the flour
canister over the stove raise a few inches.
A pair of wide, frightened pixie eyes peeked out.
Elsie
waited.
“Is
it safe?” came a high little tremulous voice.
A
cupboard door swung open a crack and a little nose and two more eyes peeked out.
“Elsie? Is that you?”
The
little witch saw a diminutive form squeezing out of the teakettle spout. Berry dropped onto the stove and, twisting around, spread her
wings and checked for damage. Seeing
none, she grabbed the corner of a nearby dishtowel and began drying off her wet
legs.
A
fourth little fairy crawled out from behind the cookbooks.
Then a fifth emerged from under the old stove.
One
by one the members of the fairywitch coven crept out of their various hiding
places. The very last to appear was
Thistle, who had concealed herself in the familiar sugar bowl.
She
shoved the lid aside, climbed over the edge and dropped to the table.
“Hi, Elsie,” she smiled uncertainly, and waved her sugar-coated
fingers.
The
other fairies flew to the table and gathered around her. Their little eyes were
round under their pointed black hats and their small mouths were shaped in
frightened circles.
Pooka
leaped to the windowsill and stared out through the leaded glass at the crows
still congregating in the yard outside. His
tail beat fiercely on the ledge and his teeth chittered together threateningly
at the birds outside.
Thistle
seemed to shrink even smaller than she already was as Elsie bore down on her.
“What did you do?” the little witch demanded.
Before
Thistle could answer, curly-headed Bramble piped up.
“We made a Cone of Power!”
Another
little fairy squeaked: “It was
amazing, Elsie! You should have
seen it!”
Bramble
added, “We were so good! We all
agreed to keep going ‘til one of us threw up!”
A
very small fairy with a mop of golden curls raised her hand reluctantly. “That was me,” she admitted sadly.
Elsie
sighed and looked at the ceiling. “So
what happened?”
Berry
continued, “Thistle told us to all concentrate on a Magick Thing we wanted to
happen. But do you know how hard it
is to concentrate when you’re flying in a circle really, really fast?”
She pushed her tiny witch’s hat back from her forehead and glared at
Thistle, who looked down and studied the table’s surface.
Elsie
asked: “And what Magick Thing were you trying to make happen?”
Berry
sighed, “Well, I was doing a love spell.”
Another
little sprite giggled: “All I could think of was a nursery rhyme I heard!
You know – “Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle…?”
“…the
Cow jumped over the Moon,” Elsie recited.
The
sprite clapped her hands, delighted. “That’s
the one!”
Elsie
shook her head in despair. “So
you all were working your own separate magick?
Not one of you was focusing on the same thing as another?”
The
fairywitches all shrugged their shoulders at each other, clearly perplexed.
Finally, Bramble asked, “Were we supposed to?”
“Never
mind,” sighed Elsie. “Then
what?”
One
of the pixies told her, “Soon these pretty bubbles were spinning off of our
circle …”
Elsie
nodded. “Concentrated magick without a focus.
Wherever the bubbles land and pop, something will happen. But what’s
with the crows outside?”
Thistle,
still looking down at the table, told her, “One of those bubbles landed on
Edgar. Now all of the crows are
jealous and want us to make them blue too!”
“And
you don’t know how to do it, right?”
Thistle
looked up then, her tiny face crumpling and her lower lip trembled. “And they don’t believe us.
Elsie, they say they will eat us if we don’t make them blue like
Edgar!”
Suddenly
there was a hammering at the leaded glass panes of the kitchen window.
Pooka scrambled back, startled by the sudden appearance of the strange
spectacle demanding admittance.
Elsie
opened the window a crack. The crow’s insistent caws filled the room for a
moment and then dimmed as Bracken, the boy elf, crawled through the opening and
Elsie shut the window again. Berry gasped as the elf stood up, fists on his
hips. Bits of roses were plastered
all over him. There was one on the
side of his face. Others were stuck
to his back, legs and chest. There
was even one on his foot.
“Are
you a witch?” he demanded of Elsie.
She
nodded, wordless, just staring.
“Well,
can you get these stupid flowers off me? ” To demonstrate, the elf tugged so
furiously at the one clinging to his foot that he knocked himself over – but
the petal could not be dislodged. “You
see?” he asked. “This has to be
magick! Someone put a curse on me and I need a witch who can take it off –
NOW!”
Behind
a curtain of hair, Berry’s face was as red as the dried rose petals stuck to
Bracken. “I’m sorry,” she
mumbled.
Bracken
twisted around and turned his glare on her.
“You
mean YOU did this?”
“It
wasn’t meant to be a curse! Stupid
Thistle said it was a love spell. I just wanted you to like me!”
There
was silence for a moment as Bracken stared at Berry astonished.
Finally he said, “I like you. At
least,” he amended, “I would if you tried acting like a fairy once in a
while instead of a witch! Not that
there’s anything wrong with witches!” Now
it was his turn to blush as he suddenly remembered whose house he was in and
whose help he was soliciting.
“That’s
all right, Bracken,” Elsie smiled. “I
know what you mean. The thing
is,” she told the little coven of up-turned faces, “I don’t try to do
fairy magick because I’m a witch. It
isn’t in my nature. And on the
other hand, witch magick requires a certain, well – a certain concentration that isn’t
natural to fairies.”
“Is
that why our spells didn’t work?”
“Well,
Berry, I wouldn’t say they didn’t work.
But without the concentration it’s hard to control the results. The
magick just sort of bounces around and you don’t know what will
happen. ”
“Concentrating
gives me a headache!” frowned Bramble.
“Being
fairywitches was getting boring anyway!” one of the pixies sighed.
Another
nodded, taking off her pointed hat. “Too much work!” she said.
“I
was really getting tired of throwing up,” agreed the curly-headed blond fairy
sadly.
Elsie
breathed a sigh of relief. “So,
no more fairywitches?”
They
all nodded and Berry added, “It’s much more fun just being fairies!”
“What
about you, Thistle?” Elsie asked.
Thistle
looked disappointed, but reluctantly agreed – no more fairywitches.
“But what about the spells we did already?” she wanted to know.
“Well,
the Village Pink will go back to being green as it grows out. Miss Hinkle’s
neighbors managed to get the cow out of the tree.
And, as far as George the Baker falling in love with Miss Tiddle, if the
love isn’t real, then no spell can make it last.
If it is, then two lonely people have found each other and no harm
done.”
Thistle
tugged on Elsie’s apron. “But
what about the crows?”
The
little witch frowned. “That is a
problem. And I only see one
solution. I’ll have to turn Edgar
black again.”
Pooka,
who’d been listening while keeping watch out the window, said, “Edgar’s
not going to like that!”
“Is
he still out there?” Elsie asked.
Pooka
replied that he was and still strutting like a king in front of the other crows.
“Then
I’d better do it now. Thistle, I
need to know what magick you were trying to do in that cone.”
Thistle
looked uncomfortable. “Promise
you won’t laugh?”
Elsie
raised her eyebrows. “Okay...”
“I
don’t” declared Pooka, jumping down from the sill and padding toward them.
Thistle
stuck her tongue out at him, then turned back to the witch.
“Well,
I’ve always heard that really special things only happen during a blue moon.
I wanted our magick to be extra special and so…”
At
that Pooka did laugh and, despite her promise, Elsie, too, chuckled. “And so you tried to turn the moon blue?”
She shook her head and smiled fondly at the sprite.
“Oh Thistle, only you would think of that one!
Remind me to explain to you sometime about blue moons.
But right now, I have work to do!”
She
disappeared momentarily toward the back of the house, emerging a few moments
later. In her hand was a
black-handled knife.
“You
fairies had better stay in here,” she told them.
“Come on, Pooks!”
The
moment they heard the cottage door shut, each and every little fairy dashed to
the window, pressing their tiny noses to the glass.
They
saw Elsie in the middle of the front yard with Pooka beside her, walking around
in a circle. The hand holding the
blade stretched out before her as though drawing a line that connected and
encompassed herself, Pooka and Edgar. Her
mouth was moving but: “I can’t hear what she’s saying!” complained
Bramble.
“Open
the window, Clover!”
The
red-headed fairy perched on the latch peered down at Thistle.
“Are you kidding? The
crows will get us!”
“Just
a crack,” Thistle told her, and then impatiently flew up and pushed Clover off
the latch. “Here. I’ll do it.
Berry, help me.”
The
fairies pushed up the window latch and shoved open the window a few inches, then
piled one on top of the other, craning their faces through the crack to hear
what was going on…
Where
Elsie had traced with the knife, the air shimmered and rippled with iridescent hues. She then seemed to
divide the circle into four parts, moving to each one, saluting it and drawing a
symbol in the air. Each sign she
left behind seemed to spring to life, crackling and sparkling.
“What’s
she doing, Thistle?”
Thistles
eyes were as wide as the others. “I
don’t know!”
Elsie
then moved to the center of the circle while Pooka prowled its inner perimeter
in a clockwise direction. Edgar, on
the ground next to Elsie, flapped his blue wings and cawed in protest, but the
rest of the crows were now silent.
Elsie
pointed her knife at the ground then raised it over her head, skyward.
“Look!”
cried little Bramble, but the others quickly shushed her.
Elsie was speaking again and now the tip of her blade was pointed at
Edgar.
“Blue
is the sky,
Red
is the rose,
White
is the moon
And
black is for crows!”
The
blue of Edgar’s feathers seemed to grow a shade darker.
Elsie
repeated the chant over and over, and with each repetition, the crow’s
feathers grew darker still until finally Edgar was as shiny black as before.
Elsie
then repeated the motions she’d gone through before, only this time in
reverse. The fairies watched as the
symbols disappeared and the rippling rainbow colors of the circle flowed into
the earth and vanished. Edgar gave
an indignant caw, rose into the air and flew off toward the forest.
All the other crows followed after him noisily.
Elsie
wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and the cat flopped to the ground.
“Whew!
Well, Pooka, I guess that’s that!” the little witch sighed.
Suddenly
eight tiny fairies tumbled out of the window and a chorus of excited little
voices was heard crying out: “We want to be fairywitches!
We want to be fairywitches!”