Short Story: The Violet And Pink Fairy

Short Story: The Violet And Pink Fairy

You may imagine you know something about fairies.

Charles Palmer thought he did; gleaned from childhood stories, from film and television. All in all he had decided he did not believe. Fairies were a fantasy; a suspension from reality; a delusion. He was proud to be counted among the sceptics as a non-believer; placing into the same category, little green men, Big Foot, ghosts, the Bogeyman and the Man in the Moon.

His girls were the reverse. Their speech constantly littered with references to fairies and elves, pixies, hobbits and gremlins with their reading matter containing the same. He was to blame for encouraging such fantasies, he and his wife that is; the grandparents, the story tellers, the booksellers, the makers of TV programmes and Hollywood. Yes, they all took a share of the blame. He wasn’t entirely responsible.

One day as Charles was working in the garden he came to regret this lack of belief as he was confronted with irrefutable evidence to the contrary, and could hardly believe his eyes as a tiny fragile creature lay on the ground before him whimpering pitifully.

“Can you help me?” she asked in a thin piping voice.

He didn’t know if he could. In fact at first he had to open and close his eyes a few times to make certain he wasn’t dreaming, but then she spoke again.

“Please help me.”

He recognised that it was a fairy as she lay resplendent in violet and pink with transparent wings that fluttered helplessly. And as she inclined her head towards him he noticed her face was a shade of grey (the kind of smudged grey a moth leaves behind); her eyes were blue with hooded lids in the same violet colour as her body, and when she twitched her lips he noticed they were purple. Even so he didn’t dare approach, shaking his head to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“Who…. What are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Elspeth – how do you do?” the fairy answered politely, struggling to sit up as she lay on the ground.

“What happened?” he asked. “Why are you here?”

“I wasn’t looking and crashed into a branch. It knocked me down and I’ve hurt my leg.”

“What can I do?” he asked cautiously.

The fairy flinched as he bent to examine her. “Not too close. Your eyes are very hot and will start to burn if you stare too hard – pick me up please.”

The fairy weighed nothing in his hand and he could hardly believe she was sitting in the palm rubbing her injured leg while gasping softly from the pain it caused her.

“How is it I see you?” he asked. “I’ve never seen a fairy before.”

“Perhaps you weren’t really looking properly. We’re not easy to see and if you don’t believe, less so.”

“But I see you clearly and I don’t believe – that is, until now.”

She fluttered her wings until they became a blur and in the midst all he found to see was violet and pink, as if he might have caught a glimpse of a faraway flower failing to find any detail of her face or body. She stopped the beating of her wings and perched there staring back at him.

“Did you see me?” she asked, to which he shook his head.

He smiled, suddenly aware of how lucky he was to be given this opportunity. “I’d like my girls to meet you – they do believe. In fact they’re mad keen on fairies.”

“No,” she answered firmly. “No. If more than two pairs of eyes are able to detect our presence we disappear in a puff of smoke. As I told you, human eyes are very hot and there is a danger I’ll be burned up.”

She rubbed her leg again but this time not so hard and as she did it gave off a thin vapourish cloud of something exotic that seemed to sparkle. The leg, like her body, appeared to be clothed in a soft material similar to the sheer tights his wife sometimes wore but much thinner and almost completely translucent. He wanted to ask about it but thought it might appear rude, instead he pointed to the leg.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Not so much now,” Fairy Elspeth answered, fluttering her wings again and keen to be off. Charles was afraid she’d fly away before he could ask all the questions he needed answers to.

“Is it really true – all the things they say about fairies?”

Fairy Elspeth laughed. “I don’t know. What do they say?”

He recounted all that he could remember and she listened, but not too closely.

“You humans are always making up stories. I really don’t know where it will end,” she said, and he thought she sounded quite haughty but then he had never met a fairy before and quite possibly this was the right approach to take.

As a representative of the human race he felt he should make his case.

“We mean you no harm,” he said.

Fairy Elspeth laughed again. “I’ve seen the way you all behave. It’s not always nice – is it? Even some children are quite mean.”

He didn’t know how to argue against this and was forced to agree.

“Can I take a photo of you?” he asked. “To show my daughters?”

“No,” she answered. “That isn’t allowed.”

He wondered if she even knew what a photograph was, but didn’t contradict her.

“How will I tell them about you – they’ll think I made it up.”

“No they won’t. I’ve seen your children playing in the garden – I think they know about us or suspect that we exist. We listen in to what children say. Does that surprise you?”

Charles was astonished to hear this but wouldn’t admit it to her.

“Not really. They’re only small and forever talking about fairies and elves, pixies and goblins too. They don’t all exist do they?”

Fairy Elspeth stood up, testing her leg. “What do you imagine?”

He shook his head and she suddenly rose with fluttering wings.

“I’ve got to go now,” she announced.

“Where?” he asked, thinking he might have displeased her with the answer he’d given. “Where do you live - is it far?”

Fairy Elspeth flew around his head a couple of times so he was forced to revolve to keep up with her and almost lost balance holding onto a fence post to keep from wobbling.

“Not far,” she announced, hovering in the air before his face.

“Will you come back?”

“I’ll be around, but you’ll never notice. You’re not supposed to see us – just believe. Do you believe?”

He was reminded of the question posed in Peter Pan, clapping his hands; reminded of Tinkerbell, and childhood stories. Most emphatically he was reminded about his childhood favourite, Rupert Bear. It all came flooding back, and as it did he lost sight of her as she moved too swiftly for him to follow.

“How could I not?” He spoke into the empty air, and was astounded as the fairy hovered into vision again.

“Now I’m really going,” she said. “Thank you for your help today. Goodbye.”

She soared away faster than the eye could follow, to be swallowed up in the borders of the garden where the plants and flowers grew at their best.

Charles examined his hand, barely able to believe a fairy had actually rested there, examining minute traces of the sparkling dust that had come away from her costume. He pinched it between his fingers, but as he brought it close to his face it exploded in a puff of smoke that billowed softly. From somewhere close but not too near he heard faint laughter and turned to look but failed to catch a glimpse, if it was fairy Elspeth who was hovering nearby.

He never encountered a fairy again but afterwards never failed to doubt they were present somewhere in the garden, and sometimes if he listened really hard he thought he heard their laughter, close but not too near.

Next time you’re outside listen hard and you may hear it too.