We had lived together for twelve years, Mr. and Mrs. Tommy Tipp, in that small brown house on the outskirts of S—. We had even bought a lawnmower from Father’s firm, which Pepper-Man-in-Tommy pushed around in the garden every Sunday, toweling off perspiration with crumpled-up T-shirts and drinking cold beers on his breaks. I would watch him through the windows sometimes, making roast and salads in the kitchen, using freshly picked vegetables from our own patch. I was quite the housewife, back then. When I felt particularly inspired, I even made raspberry and blackcurrant spreads, canned fruits and mixed herbal teas.
I grew sated in those years. My hips rounded and my braid fell long and thick down my back, looking all lustrous and healthy—Pepper-Man loved it, played with it for hours. Those were my years of milk and gravy.
Pepper-Man-in-Tommy was the perfect husband; I never had to worry that he would stray or leave me. The two of us were so strongly entwined, so mingled and as one, separation seemed impossible. Still does.
I remember that first day at our new home, when we carried the things from the white room inside; the cardboard boxes of books I had long since outgrown, the wicker chair, the fairytale pictures—how out of place it all seemed on the vast, wooden floor of our new living room. I placed it all in the attic, and the attic is where it still is. You can have a look for yourself; I had it all moved when I came here. The white room is neatly boxed up above your heads—all those bitter nights.
I had decided I wanted to be like the rest. Be like those other—good—women. It was easier that way, you see. Being different is hard and takes a toll. The rest of society is always pushing, herding us strays toward what it deems natural and decent and safe. Easier then to give in, I figured, pretend to be like everybody else. Even with a dreary reputation like mine, it was still doable, I believed, if I built those walls strong enough and painted the backdrop of my life in loud and cheery colors. Maybe if I kept my head down and dazzled all of S— with my pretty illusions, they would all think me happy and well adjusted, and I could at last get an ounce of peace.
Time to create. Time to explore. Time to walk between the worlds.
I didn’t write professionally yet, that came later, after the trial. I dabbled in it, though, and painted and worked on some other arts as well.
My masterpiece from that time was doubtlessly my life. In that respect, I was no different from other young women. Every choice I made—from picking out a sofa, to choosing a profession for my man—was a measured move, a careful staging. Those four walls, that husband and that car, everything was calculated and carefully thought through. It had to appear solid and true to the world, you see. Every young wife can relate to that. If you can make your life a piece that fits neatly in the puzzle, you are all set and bound for that bland brand of happiness that people think they crave. Just look at your mother, Olivia did it too—she always excelled at it. Unlike many other girls, however, I didn’t build my doll’s house or raise those pretty screens to hide some petty mundane blemishes—alcohol problems, a lack of love, or a crushing, bottomless debt.
I was protecting rather than hiding.
Protecting my other life; the one that brought me endless joy; steeping my faerie tea, running through the woods, spending days on end with Mara in the mound.
So, you see, no matter what your mother thought at the time, or what she has told you, that I was “well for a while,” that things were peachy back then, she was wrong.
She didn’t know me at all.
Dr. Martin came to visit sometimes, drank iced tea in the garden. I remember him complimenting me on my “radiant health” and admiring my “harmonious lifestyle.”
“So close to nature,” he would say, glancing at the surrounding woods with a hint of suspicion.
The closeness to the woods was important, of course, when we chose where we would live. Easy access to the mound and Mara was number one on my list. Otherwise, we decided to keep a faerie-free environment, nothing unusual for our neighbors to see; no overgrown lawn or crowns of twigs, no faerie tea jars on display.
On the surface, everything was clean and untangled, fitting right in with the world around us. In our bedroom, however, or where no one cared to look, in closets and drawers, the nooks and crannies, nature burst forth: green leaves sprouted and moss lined the walls. Spider sisters spun sheets of silk around our bed, toadstools grew in our basement, and in the garden lived a tribe of frogs. That’s what it’s like being married to a faerie; the woods are never far off. Sometimes you have to pluck rowan leaves and hawthorn berries out of your laundry; throw out gallons of curdled milk; nap the fresh sprouts of buttercups or daisies from the sink. There is always debris; leaves and pieces of bark and twigs. Seeds and pollen. Dead things on the windowsills.
Visitors never saw that, though. They only saw our clean and spacious rooms; the cozy blue couch, the white tiles in the bathroom, the dining room set of oak with eight chairs. Barnaby’s locksmith and hardware business was a good trade for a young husband like mine; the money allowed me to stay at home with my typewriter and my tea. I didn’t write to sell yet, mind you, it was only for me and my Pepper-Man to see. My stories back then were just drafts of what was to come; rough coal sketches to the oil paintings I would make later, filling in the blanks with color and emotions. I never wrote about faeries, though. Never wrote about strange creatures living all around us, in the rustle you hear behind you on the street or the draft of icy wind that passes through your living room. No, instead I wrote about sinful seductions, indulgent romance and piña coladas, office intrigues and family dramas. That’s what I found in the faerie tea: stories about normal people, about lives I’d never live.
That was exotic to me, you see, human lives without faerie implications. Was exotic to them as well, human lives untainted by death and rebirth—so that’s what’s captured in those jars: stories rife with flavors, scents, feelings, and trivial worries.
Dr. Martin tried a cup once, after we’d discussed them at length. He’d suggested that the faerie tea was nothing but alcohol, and that the leaves and the flowers, the stones and the pieces of bark in the jars, were nothing but various forms of pills. Clearly he thought I was drinking my days away, dissolving pills in vodka and gin. I was horribly offended, of course, and sought to prove him wrong.
It was a lush autumn afternoon, just after my trial.
He was sitting on the porch at the brown house where I had returned to live after my acquittal.
“Tastes like grass and water.” He smacked his lips. “What did you say it was? An acorn and a leaf?”
I nodded.
“Now what then? I go home and dream?”
“No. You just go about your day. The story will come to you; unfold like a flower, subtly—deep inside.”
He claimed it didn’t work, but of course it did. It became Away with the Fairies: A Study in Trauma-Induced Psychosis. I guess it worked a little different on him, being unused to the faerie side of things.
If I have one regret from our time at the brown house, it’s that we didn’t allow Mara to come inside. Thinking back, it seems harsh, though she never seemed to mind; she was as happy as before whenever I came to visit. This house is different, though, even closer to the mound so she can come and go as she pleases—that is why I bought it in the first place. It was run down and neglected when I got it for nothing, the strip of road was overgrown. But I saw potential here. Saw the lilac beauty it could be.
I had to move, you see. When that wave of curious horror following the trial and the uproar around Dr. Martin’s book had subsided, people didn’t fear me as much anymore. The village youth started to drive by in their cars, throwing eggs and other nastiness at the walls of our little brown house. I found letters reciting Bible verses on my porch and a dead rat in my mailbox.
Out here, there’s no way to come and go unseen.
Dr. Martin was horrified at the prospect of me moving so far into the woods all alone. He said it wasn’t safe, but I knew it would be. I would move further into faerie land, so that their power would be stronger—would keep me safe, as it always had. And time has proven me right, hasn’t it? There’s been no more verses on my porch or dripping foodstuffs. I am merely an eccentric old lady now, “that writer out in the woods,” solitary in her secluded home, doing whatever eccentrics do.
People have almost forgotten about the trial, and about those other deaths too. That’s what people do: they forget and they move on.
Not your mother, though.
Olivia will never forget.
If you are still with me, we should move on too.