A Fairy Story

[conradd]

If I had to give up one of my five senses, I know that it wouldn't be my sense of smell. The scent of an Oregon rainstorm, the ocean, a wild rose, or a new baby are pleasures that I would miss terribly. One of my favorite aromas is the smell of lavender. Every summer, I gather armloads of fresh lavender at a friend's farm. Vases of lavender flowers scent every room in my house. Dried petals are sewn into dryer sachets and tumbled with my sheets and towels. Last July, I wove stalks of lavender with ribbons into wands that, when rolled between my hands, release a wonderful perfume. When I visited Hadassahchana and her family in August, I took her a lavender wand as a small hostess gift.

A few weeks later, she wrote, saying that her youngest son had unwrapped the wand because he was certain there was a fairy inside. Fairy wands, lavender wands. Both contain a wee bit of magic. I sent directions for weaving another wand with the lavender she grows in her own beautiful garden and included the following cautionary tale for her little boy.

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Once upon a time, there was a very small fairy named Laverne, so small that she was no bigger than a grape seed. She loved the color of lavender (sort of a light purple color), so much that she spent most of her time eating plums, grapes, and eggplant. Her fairy godmother didn't think it was a very good diet, but Laverne knew that lavender foods tasted better than any other shade.

At night, Laverne slept between lavender sheets with a lavender teddy bear. During the day, she wore lavender clothes to match her wings which were tinted a lovely shade of purple. Although she wanted to dye her hair Atomic Lavender, her fairy godmother wouldn't allow it, and this made Laverne very sad.

One day, Laverne was fluttering high in the trees when she spotted a bush with lovely purple blossoms down in the human world. Even though she knew that fairies were forbidden from the human world, she flew closer and closer and closer until she could perch on a petal. "So this is what purple smells like", Laverne thought. It was a wonderful smell, much better than any of the smells in her fairy world. She whispered secrets to the petals and they whispered back as a breeze ruffled through the garden.

Hopping from petal to petal, Laverne played a lovely game of leapfrog with a visiting ladybug, stopping only when she heard her fairy godmother calling her home for dinner. "I'll be back", she promised the bug. As she flew away, the ladybug flew with her until she reached the lowest branch of the nearest tree. There, the ladybug waved goodby to the little fairy and flew home to her own children.

The next morning, Laverne couldn't wait to visit the garden again, even though her fairy godmother had forbidden her to return. As she fluttered through the trees, she heard human voices in the garden. She peeked from behind a leaf to see the humans gathering stalks of lavender from the plants. "Stop!" she cried, but they didn't hear her. "That's what they do" said the ladybug. "They cut the flowers as soon as they become beautiful, and take them inside." "Why?" asked Laverne. "I don't know," said the ladybug, "but there will be other flowers."

Laverne flew back to the lavender stalk she'd found the day before. "There are humans with scissors! Watch out!" she whispered to the petals. "It's harvest time," sighed the petals, so softly that she had to bend close to hear the words. "Some of us will be squeezed to release our oil and it will be used to make soap and perfumes." Laverne shuddered. "Does it hurt?" "Not really," the flower replied, "it's like getting hugged so tightly that you can't breathe and then it's over. We're flowers and it's just the way things are for us. But that's not the best thing that can happen." "What other things can happen?" asked Laverne?

"Some of us are dried and arranged with other flowers, but the luckiest ones are woven into lavender wands", replied the flower with an envious snort. "That's what we all hope to be. Why some wands have been around for 100 human years and are still fragrant".

"That sounds wonderful!" sighed Laverne. "Fairies live to be hundreds of years too, but they don't smell very good after awhile." The flower nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, the flower shook as a huge hand grasped the stalk and cut it in one swift motion. Laverne held on tightly, too terrified to fly. She whispered, "What happened? Where are they taking us?", but the flower didn't hear her, or maybe she had stopped paying attention.

Jostling up and down as more flowers were added to the bunch, Laverne tried to think of a way to escape without being seen by human eyes, for that was the biggest no-no in the Fairy Book of Unalterable Laws. A fairy who is seen by a human loses much of her magic and must spend the rest of her life hopping instead of flying, waving instead of fluttering, and (worst of all) shining instead of twinkling.

Finally, when 15 stalks had been gathered, the bunch was complete. Laverne hugged a petal tightly as the human tied a ribbon tightly around the base of the flowers. She wished the ribbon was purple instead of gold, but then she didn't have time to notice as the stalks were bent over the petals and the ribbon was woven through and into the stalks until it formed a tight little prison cell. "So this is what happens to bad little fairies" thought Laverne. "It's certainly tight in here, maybe I'll be squeezed for oil. I wonder what fairy oil smells like?"

It seemed like a long time later, but was probably only a few days, when Laverne heard voices outside her prison cell. "Here, I made you a lavender wand" said a human voice. "A lavender wand! That's what I need!" thought Laverne. "If I had a wand, I could sprrinkle fairy dust on it, and twinkle myself out of this prison." She crossed her fingers and wished on a long-ago star that somehow, someway, she would be released from the prison to find her way back home.

Another long time later, that was most certainly only a few days, Laverne felt her prison shake. Outside, she heard the voice of a child practicing fairy spells as he tried to turn hs brother into a toad. "He certainly doesn't know what he's doing" thought Laverne. "Humans never do."

Laverne was very sad. Even though she lay among purple flowers, she missed her fairy godmother and the rest of the fairies and wondered if she would ever see them again. One day, as she thought up more memories, she felt her prison shake. The bars seemed to get looser and sunlight poured in. She held on to the faded purple petals as a little boy unwound the ribbon from the stalks. "Is there a fairy in here?" he asked? Holding her breath, she lay as still as possible. Gathering all her strength, she waited until the little boy looked around to see if his mother was watching, and then threw her last little bit of fairy dust in his face. He sneezed and sneezed, and Laverne was blown from the wand into a corner of the room. She was very glad to be free, even though her wings were rumpled and her dress was torn and dirty, and as soon as the little boy ran from the room she flew through a crack in the window and headed home.

"Where have you been?" scolded her fairy godmother, but she was so happy to see her little Laverne that she hugged the little fairy instead of punishing her. "I'm so happy to be home" laughed Laverne, "I'll never misbehave again."

Did she misbehave? Of course she did. Fairies are like little boys; no matter how good they try to be, there will always be mischief. But, she was the last fairy to ever be trapped inside a lavender wand.

By Deb Conrad
all rights reserved

[amykhar]

Deb,
That is so sweet! Think it was Cindy's little guy who rescued Laverne?

Amy

[hadassahchana[$]]

Deb! This is so sweet! We read his story to him every night- I am feeling all weepy right now, because this really is the sweetest story!

Hugs to you,
Cindy

[emeleel]

Oh Deb, that was just so sweet! Find you an illustrator, that would make a great kids book!

[kurt_messick]

This reminds me of Cindy's son who wants to be a fairy...

[hadassahchana[$]]

Same son! Only now, he goes around telling people,"From the waist down, I'm a mortal, but from the waist up - a fairy!"

I have got to get these children some new videos!


Cindy

[kurt_messick]

Interestingly, my faculty friends who gathered on Thanksgiving decided to watch Iolanthe.

One person (an openly gay faculty member), on seeing the actor playing Stephon, said, 'he's not just half a fairy!'

[pluckyduck]

Delightful!

This is a test comment to test the work Amy has been doing. If this were an actual comment, it would be much more insightful and interesting.

Andrea

[Redlass]

Oh! How wonderful!

I think we have a new bedtime story to read!

[ms_n]

Sounds like a tradition in the making! Nice story.