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You’re walking through a stretch of woods, that’s filled with evergreen trees. Smell the pungent scent of the pine trees; the sap is seeping from them. Beneath your feet, dried needles carpet the earth. It’s just beginning to turn from dusk to nighttime. However, this is the safest place for you to be. There’s nothing evil in these woods.
It’s the shortest night of the year—Midsummer. The moon is as full as a bright coin, and it peers down at you through the trees. Clouds are beginning to roll in, covering the light of the moon. Perhaps it will rain soon.
In your hair, you wear a crown of flowers. Your dress is a soft lilac color, and your feet are bare. The forest floor is soft with moss. The air around you is humid and close.
Walk through the trees, making your way slowly and quietly. You do not want to frighten the small folk. The trees are lush and green. Creep toward the trees, using your hands to pull back the branches. Beneath your fingers, sticky pine sap is leaking out of the branch.
Before you, there is an amazing sight. The glade is lit up by a warm, glowing light. At the center, there is a ring of brightly colored toadstools—a fairy circle. At the very center, tiny glowing lights dance. They are many-colored, blue, gold, and green. They float, as though they are dancing. All of them have delicate wings, which look like those of moths or butterflies. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought them to be bugs.
There are thousands of them, crowded into the glade. It’s like standing at the center of a whirlpool of lights, all of them calling out to you in greeting. Their tiny voices are like little silver bells. You feel welcomed in, and you step forward calmly. The tiny lights surround you, with their little bell voices. Don’t be afraid—they want to meet you. Hold out your hand so that they can rest there. All around you, there is soft music—it sounds like the tinkling of tiny bells. This is how the fairies speak to you.
They want you to travel with them, to their home. They lead you onward, down a forest path. As you walk through the dark evergreens, it begins to rain. The raindrops look like tiny crystals, which shatter as they reach the ground. All around you, the fairies dance among the drops. Hold up your hand to catch one, watch as it hits the surface of your palm, scattering into smaller drops.
There is a white light ahead of you, in the darkness of the forest. Take a deep breath of the cool air. When you approach the light, you find that you are entering the fairy village. All around you, there are tiny fairy houses, made of birch bark and tiny glistening stones. The roofs are all thatched, made of woven grass and the stalks of flowers. They all have different colored doors and tiny windows.
You wish that you were small enough to go and explore it on your own. A fairy comes in your direction. You hold out your hand, palm up. She’s made of light and stardust. She holds out a sliver of mushroom to you, telling you to eat it.
Place it in your mouth, and chew. It tastes of the earth—soft and loamy. You begin to shrink until you become small enough to visit the homes of the fairies. They all clap and cheer as you become small enough to join their celebration.
You walk along the main path which leads through the village. You, too, have small wings, sprouting from your back. They’re the same soft luminescent green as a Luna Moth. Flap them, watching as they lift you from your feet. While your wings are small, they’re strong, too.
Like the fairies, you are now made of brilliant white light, and it emanates from the center of your chest. The light runs through your arms and your legs, shooting out through your fingers and your toes. You can feel the locus of your power—it’s in your chest, as well as in the palms of your hands.
When you reach out, you find that you can make things happen—send the power out through your hands and watch as a flower blooms before your very eyes. You can do anything to which you set your mind. Watch as the petals of the poppy stretch open to reveal the black heart at its center.
The fairy that handed you the mushroom tugs at the sleeve of your dress. This way, she seems to say in her musical bell-like voice. You follow the others, as they make their way through the tiny houses with their flowerbeds of bluebells and dandelions.
At the very end of the path, there’s a castle. It sparkles in the night, glowing as if made of light itself. It has high spires, and seven towers, all around a keep. There are fairy guards, dressed in leaf-green, and they walk along the top of the walls.
All around, guards ride their steeds—squirrels, chipmunks, dragonflies. Around the castle, there is a forest of tall daisies, which seem as tall as trees to you, at your current stature. This is the home of the fairy queen. You know, with utter certainty, that this is the place where you’ve been headed all along.
As you walk, you are joined by a large crowd. Usually, you find crowds stressful. But this isn’t like anything that you’ve ever experienced. You can feel what everyone else all around you is feeling. You are all connected, and everyone is happy, excited. Tonight is the Midsummer Feast, and everyone is arriving to celebrate. They, too, are wearing flower crowns.
Tonight, the drawbridge to the castle is down, and everyone can enter. You make your way through the front door. Inside of the front hall, you look upward. Four stories above you, there is a stained-glass cupola, depicting the night sky in blue and all of the constellations in gold. In the day, light must seep through it. Right now, it’s night, and the light is coming from within. Tiny white and purple candles are lit, throughout.
The castle is made of white, glimmering opal, even the stones beneath your feet. The light on the stone is prismatic, glittering in rainbows. All around you, there are silver statues of elegant figures which line the hallways. Everyone seems to know where they’re headed, so you follow the crowd, deep into the heart of the palace.
When you reach the center of the palace, you find that there is a queen, seated on a silver throne. She is surrounded by flowers, orchids which seem to be living jewels. She’s dressed in a silver silk gown, and her hair is long, silky, and blue. There’s a flower crown of white roses in her hair, and silver ribbons are wrapped in her curls.
A pair of silk slippers cover her tiny feet. From her back, two pale wings sprout. They look like the wings of a Bath White butterfly—white with black markings. They flutter as she walks, almost lifting her from her tiny slipper-clad feet.
She wears a moonstone, wrapped in silver wire on a thin chain around her neck. On her fingers, there are many rings, set with stones of different colors. Silver bangles clatter on her wrists.
Her eyes are a deep green. She stands up from her throne and then walks towards you. As she nears, you curtsy to her. She smiles, baring her straight white teeth.
She welcomes you to her home—they don’t often have human visitors.
You thank her for her hospitality and tell her that her home is the most stunning you’ve ever seen.
She tells you that she would like to give you a gift, as is fairy custom on the night of Midsummer. The fairy queen would like to offer you one wish. Whatever your heart desires.
You tell her: to stay here, forever. The land of the fairies is full of magic and light, and you never want to return to your former life. There’s so much to see and learn here, deep inside of the forest.
She smiles at you sadly as she shakes her head. She tells you that you must return to your world. But you can stay here, for a little while longer. She tells you that she will, however, allow you to return, and names you a friend of the fairies. When you need them, just come back to the woods, where you know where to find them. She removes a ring from one of her fingers. On a silver band, there is a brilliant emerald stone that glitters in the light. She tells you to keep it with you, as a sign that you’re a friend of the fairies.
You curtsy low, thanking her for her generosity, sliding the ring onto your finger. After all, she could have told you never to return. The idea that there will be many more nights like this lightens your mood.
The two of you turn back to the hall, where all of the fairies are dancing. They move with elegance and grace. Here, where they’re normal-sized, they seem long-limbed, moving in time to the sounds of the music. There are several stringed instruments, which are playing a graceful, slowly swelling tune.
The fairy queen joins in the dance, while you stay behind to watch. Among them, she shines the most. It’s as though her skin is made of the same stuff as her castle—rainbow prisms are glowing from within her.
When she dances, it’s like the rest of the room disappears. The ribbons in her hair sway and her skirts are a whirl of soft fabric. There’s no one in the world as graceful as the fairy queen. There’s no one like her at all. She’s one-of-a-kind.
You walk around the edges of the room, greeting those that you meet. Everyone is kind and glad to see you here. All eyes are on the queen, who is still dancing to the soft strains of the violins, the harp, and the tambourine.
There’s a table along the back wall, which is filled with fairy food and drinks. There is a life-sized caterpillar, who is serving everyone. He smiles at you and waves with several of his hands. His teeth are tiny and pointed. He seems like a kind fellow, and when he hands you a tiny plate with a serving of cake, you accept it. You pick up a tiny glass of fairy mead and then walk over to where there are delicate silver chairs set up. Everything tastes sweet—it has been made of nectar from honeysuckle and gardenias.
It’s delicious, and you eat with your fingers, licking the cake frosting off of them. As you eat, your eyes are drawn to the middle of the room, where all of the fairies have opened their wings. When the music flourishes, they all rise into the air, as one large swarm of wings and light. They float within the hall, which is slowly brightening as the moon sets and the sun begins to turn the sky pink and then gold.
The fairy queen approaches you, letting you know that it’s time for you to leave. When you ask her how she tells you-you only need to wake up. After all, this is nothing but a dream within a dream. You ask her when you can return, and she tells you that you’re always welcome, there in the castle in the middle of the woods. When you call for them, the fairies will answer. She taps the emerald stone that’s on your finger, as a reminder of her gift.
You close your eyes, and you feel a rush, as though you’re traveling very quickly over a long distance. A warm breeze blows in your face, and your hair is blown back.
When you awaken, you are laying on a bed of soft moss. The ground and the trees around you are damp, from the recent rainfall, and the sun glows golden through the verdant leaves, sparkling on the drops of dew. Ahead of you, a young doe steps gingerly through the underbrush. She reminds you of the fairy queen—serene, graceful. Her dark eyes take you in. You wonder what she thinks of you. She moves on, walking daintily through the trees.
You get up and begin to walk back home through the woods, your feet traveling over the path. You wonder if you will ever be able to return to the world of the fairies. You look down at your hands, finding the silver and emerald ring, still on your finger. You open your hands, stretching your fingers open wide, remembering how they held the power of the white light. You can still feel the tingle of power in your palms, and you know that a trace of the power lingers inside of you.
Perhaps, someday soon, you will return for a visit. But for now, you must go home. Your life is waiting for you, on the other side of the pine trees. As you leave the forest behind, you can hear what sounds like many small voices, whispering. Or perhaps, it’s the sound of the wind through the pine branches.
