MIMSY

MIMSY

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun36
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

I both love and hate the fog.

I hate it because of the aches and pains it causes me, but I love how it shrouds everything, making even the most familiar landscape mysterious.  I love how it floats, swirls and engulfs the air around me.  Most of all, I love how it makes me seemingly invisible.

It was thickest at the bridge over the river.  So thick that no one saw me slip around the barriers and inch my way along the damp three-inch edge of the beam until I got to the first tower.  No one heard me as I used a hammer I’d brought to break the padlock that led inside.  No one cared that I was able to climb the long, rusting steel ladder to the top and just sit up there, watching the landscape peek out from between the cottony mists.  This was my world; the one place I reigned.

“Whatcha doin’ up here, me boyo?” said a voice beside me.  It nearly startled me off my perch, but he grabbed at the studded belt around my waist and held me fast.  “Steady on, Jocko!” he purred in a soft Irish brogue.  “We wouldn’t want yer ta be slippin’ off into the mists now, would we?  Wouldn’t be a good ting to have your death on me hands, lad!!  Oh no.  Not ‘t’all!”

“I’m a girl, not a boy!” I said as I looked over at the man – or, rather, midget of a man.  He couldn’t have been more than four-and-a-half feet tall in shoes, reminding me of a ginger-topped Danny DeVito, but in a weird, incongruous, jolly sort of way… and with pointed ears.  He pulled a pipe out of his vest pocket and began to puff upon it, smoke rising from the glowing bowl without him having to put a match to it.

“Who are you?” I asked.  “How’d you get here?  How’d you… light that?”

“Beautiful up here, innit?” he said, indicating the city with a sweep of his pipe-stem and ignoring my questions.  “Didn’t want to come to Amerikay, no, I din’t.  But me maither, she says ter me, she says, “Boyo, you go to Amerikay!” she says.  “Go there an’ by Brighid, you’ll make your mark.  So oi came.  And here oi am!”

I looked at him and he looked back, teeth gleaming and eyes twinkling.  I’m thinking it was his eyes that relaxed me.

“Tell me, lass,” he asked, taking a puff from his pipe and his face growing somber.  “Were ye close to him?”

“Huh?”

He pointed at my clothes.

“All the somber black ye be wearin’.  Yer must be doin’ some powerful mournin’ ter have made your way up here jes ter sit a spell.  Can’t say oi approve o’ all o’ the makeup, ‘specially ‘round the eyes and setch.  Makes yer face look all awash.  But everyone has their way, I be tinkin’.”  He took another puff from his pipe and asked again.  “Were ye close to him?”

I coughed and waved away the smoke, trying to look irritated, but in reality, it just reminded me that I’d left my smokes with my purse at the bottom of the ladder.

“I’m not close to anybody!” I said crossly.  “And I dress this way because I like it!”

He squinted one eye and looked me up-and-down slowly, then nodded sagely.  “I hain’t gaw nertin against yer choice of garb, lass.  In fact, yer remind me of me own dear cousin, Eithne.  Sweet lass, she was, but of a dark disposition, right down to her wings, she was!”

“I don’t really care about your cousin, Eeny or Ainy or whatever her name was.  I just want to be left al-, wait… did you say ‘wings’ just now?”

“Aye,” he said, getting up and heading for the ladder.  “A melancholy one, that!  Became a hooman mortal ter chase after some daft boy who didn’t know love from a library and she prolly been witherin’ away from loneliness ‘ter since.  Tis why I wait up here,” he said, pointing with the stem of his pipe as he knelt and then began to slide a leg into the opening, “t’was her favorite spot, ‘t’was.  I come up here ever so often ter see if’n she wants back.  I still hae her wings a hangin’ in me abode from when she shed them to acum hooman.”

He began to climb down.

“WAIT!” I called.  My face must have been scrunched up in a conflict of emotions because he stopped and peered at me over the rim of the opening and began to laugh softly.

“Yer don’t believe me, then?” he asked.

“I don’t… don’t know,” I stated, confused by this turn of events.  Damn it, I’d come up here for the solitude and he’d interrupted it.  But his interruption intrigued me.

“Well, yer welcome ter come and see… or not!” he said, and continued his descent. 

I started down carefully but jumped when I heard his voice go “ah-WHEEeeeeeeee-ooooh!” and fade echoingly downward.  I could feel myself frowning intensely (and disapprovingly) but I continued my slow descent.  When I got to the bottom, he was wiping his hands on a handkerchief and grinning broadly.

 “Ah, lass, ter hain’t nerttin like a quick slide down the auld banister!  Yer puts the instep of yer pups agin the sides of the rail to act as breaks and yer slides!  They hain’t painted in awhoile so me hands got a bit nicked and rusted.  A moment whilst I clean a bit, eh?”

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“Alasdair!” tsked a woman’s voice in the dark, “Yer din’t mind yer manners yet agin?”

“Och, Mumsy, I din’t tink she’d actually come with, bein’ all high-fallootin with her airs ‘n’ sooch up there!  But tell me, hain’t she the spittin’ of ol Eithne?”

A mousy-looking woman came out of the depths of the darkness, sweeping at the damp floor with a broom.  She squinted in the faint light and stared at me, her eyes blinking rapidly.

“OOOOhh!  That she dar!  That she dar!” said the woman.  She was even shorter than the man, though not quite as stout.  She wore a dun-colored skirt and a gauzy top, over which was a bodice and an apron.  On her head, she wore a scarf and a snood to hold her hair back.  The scarf hung over her brow like the brim of a hat, leaving her face bathed in shadows still.  I had to laugh as she looked like something out of a renaissance faire or the Cinderella Disney cartoon.

“Apologies, lass,” said the man, bowing with a broad sweep of his hat.  “Oi’m called Alasdair McGooghan, though me friends call me Dairsy.  This here be me wife, Iola or Mumsy as she’s called.  Come in!  Come in!” he called by way of introduction.

“Come in where?” I asked.

“Why, tru the doorway, deary!” called Mumsy, disappearing once again into the shadows.  I followed, holding my hand out and expecting to have it hit the wall and end this hallucination.  I should have eaten before coming up here, but I didn’t think it would be necessary.

My hand went through where my senses said a wall should be and I yelped as I almost fell.  Hurrying back, I grabbed my purse and ciggies, then flicked my Bic.  There should have been nothing beyond that wall but air, 70 feet down to the water.  Instead, I stepped onto carpet and stumbled down the first few steps of a narrow, enclosed, spiral staircase before catching myself on the handrail. 

“Ouch, damn it!” I groused as the lighter got hot.  I turned it off and let it cool in my hand as I went down. I could hear Alasdair and Mumsy clumping down far below me, so I began to hurry a bit.

The stairs seemed to go on forever in the misty darkness.  My one hand held onto a rail while the other rubbed against the damp, rough wall.  I’m a tactile person and it felt exactly like that of the sides of a castle I’d once visited over in Germany when my step-parents took me on a European trip for Eddy’s work.

The downward spiral of the staircase seemed interminable and I lost track of how far we’d come, but it had to be well below the waterline of the bay.  The rock face of the wall had become slimy as we moved down further.  At one point there was a sudden, cool, arid breeze followed by a static-electric tingling and from then on, the wall was dry.

I stumbled at the bottom landing as my foot groped for the expected stair.  I could barely see in the gloom.  My palms pressed against a wooden threshold and sounds of movement emanated from within the darkened room.

“Hello?” I called.

“Come in!  Come in!” cried Mumsy.  I walked carefully forward and heard the door close behind me.

“Alasdair!” scolded Mumsy, “She hain’t like us wee folk.  Yer should’er left the door open for the light until I unshuttered th’ winders!”

The light? I thought to myself.  I could barely see my hand in front of my face!

“Sorry Mumsy,” he said, chagrined.

“No nevermind.  I’m opening them now to let in some good, clean forest air anyhoo.”

My eyes were accustomed to the dark interior of the stairwell, so I blinked at the brightness of the feeble light coming in from the windows as Mumsy unshuttered them.  Where there should have been either murky water or mucky silt was, instead, sunlight filtering down in misty rays from between branches at angles that indicated it was either early in the AM or going on evening.  I found myself in a comfortable-but-cramped room that was neat and clean, but crude and sparse in its furnishings. 

“Have a seat, dearie, while I pour the hot water into the pot to steep,” said Mumsy.  As I began to sit, she scolded, “Och, no, not that ‘un.  Tis Alisdairs chair!  Choose the one thar in th’ corner and sit a spell.”

“I’ll stand a moment, if you don’t mind,” I said, watching as Alisdair built a fire in the hearth.  Soon he had a merry flame crackling among the tinder and I couldn’t exactly see how he did it, but he either used his finger or the pipe stem to light it.  Either way, the chill gradually left the room as the fire began to crackle merrily.  Now that I had a little more light, I looked around.

The walls were crudely spackled and whitewashed.  Ceramic plates and bowls of a half dozen hues decorated the shelves on the walls, as did a small clock above the fireplace mantel that chimed politely at the quarter-hour, but had ten hours on it’s face instead of twelve, though the numbers there were more like symbols.  The tic-tock was far more slow and pronounced as the second hand moved with each swing.  According to it, it was only 3:45 – whether AM or PM here, well, who knows?  I looked at my own watch and it said it was 9:13 AM.  A large, heavy table dominated one side of the room and over it was a red woven tablecloth.  A teapot, cups, cream and sugar sat atop it, along with crackers and several jars of jam.  I walked over to the windows and looked outside.

I rubbed my eyes because I couldn’t seem to focus them clearly.  Everything appeared to be shrouded in mists that were designed to keep you from seeing anything until it wished to be seen.  Gradually, I could make out the trees in the forest that were about 25 yards outside their door.  Along this side of the house was a pleasant root garden.  As my eyes adjusted to everything, I could make out impossibly tall oaks dropping huge thumb-sized acorns onto the ground.  Birds sang in the trees, squirrels and other animals flitted to-and-fro.  The foliage must have been extremely dense because it was almost as dark as evening out there and the sunrays cut through the gloom like blades of light.  Mumsy handed me a cup and saucer set.

“One lump or two, dearie?” asked Dairsy.

”Uh, two, I guess,” I replied.  He used tiny tongs to drop two cubes of sugar into my cup. 

“Cream?”

“Uh, sure.”  He poured a dab of cream into my cup, then poured the hot tea in.  I picked up the small spoon on the side of the saucer and stirred, then sipped.  It was fragrant with a bouquet of wildflowers and yet, had that slight tartness of tea.  I warmed my hands around the cup as I looked outside, watching nature’s creations frolic.  I must have watched for quite some time as my tea had gone cold when I finally gulped the rest of it down.

The clock on the mantel struck four, even though my watch said it was going on 11 o’clock in the morning!

“Would yer like some more tea, Miss… er…”

I started.  “Oh!  I’m sorry.  Jamie-Anne McLaughlin, though most people that know me just call me “Mack.”

Mumsy made a face and I was surprised I could see her features now.  I wasn’t kidding when I said she was mousy looking!  All she really needed were whiskers to complete the look on her pinched features. 

“Mack is not a name befittin’ a lady,” she scolded, her face all a-sour. “An ‘specially one wot’s got one befittin’-like a beauty such as Jamie-Anne, though that dunna seem ter fit you noither!  You ain’t the frilly, flouncy type, I be tinkin, I do!”

I made a face and rolled my eyes.  “I’m the seventh adopted child of eight and I had amnesia when I was adopted.  The folks at Protective Services couldn’t figure out what to name me.  I was told that,  the Director and Chief Nurse put their names together and this is what I got stuck with!  Hell, I’d have been happy with a normal name like Sunshine, Tuesday, April, Lilly, Autumn or Summerlea.  But they gave those names to my step-sisters.”

Dairsy sat down in a weathered old rocking chair.  It began to creak with an “ahhhh” as he sat, then the chair started to chant, “that’s good, that’s good!” as the stubby little man began a gentle back and forth motion, once again puffing on his pipe.

“And yes, I would like some more tea!” I said, regaining my wits.  “Thank you very much!”

Mumsy smiled and said she’d be right back, wandering into the kitchen to heat more water.

“Set a spell,” invited Dairsy, pointing to the large green chair in the corner of the room.  To those two, it would have been a couch, but it was just barely large enough to accommodate even my skinny little butt.  I felt as if I were sitting in a kindergarten class where all the furniture was designed for the height of the students.  As I sat, the chair groaned with a basso-profundo, “Ooooohhh-yeaaaaaah!” 

Dairsy frowned at it harshly.  “Gurfell!  Manners!”

It made one more apologetic groan as I moved to get comfortable, trying to pull my short skirt down to a more prudent length, since the seat was low enough that you could look right up it.  I compromised and tucked my legs up under.

“Oi, I cain’t get over the resemblance, I cain’t,” he mumbled once more, chuckling with mirth, reminding me of why I’d come down.

“You said something about wings?”

“Och, I did,” he said, a sad look on his face.  “They’re stored over there in the cabinet where she locked them up.”

“Can I see them?”

“If’n yer had the key, yer might!” he said, taking a cup, saucer and plate of crackers and jelly from Mumsy.  She handed me my refreshed tea and a plate of crackers and jelly as well.

“Oh,” I said, trying not to sound disappointed.  “You don’t have the key?”

“Nay,” said Mumsy, bringing a teapot and “digestives” as she called them and placing it on the table in front of us.  She held the sugar bowl expectantly. 

“Um, three?” I responded to the unasked question.  Three lumps went in. 

“Cream?”

“Please,” I requested politely.  She sat a plate of jam covered crackers down beside the cup and I began to look around for a rabbit in a vest with a pocket watch, complaining he was late.

We sipped our tea and ate our “digestibles” while making small talk.  Mumsy called out, “Thanalome!” and a settee seemed to scoot over to accommodate her.  The crackers she served were more like the shortbread my granny used to make.  They were dry but the jam was good.  I had grape, strawberry, mint and something she called lavender/honey jam.  I ate them all with relish and had two more cups of tea.

My eyes were suddenly heavy and I felt as if I wanted to sleep.  I remember Alasdair and Mumsy helping me to a room and putting me on a bed. 

I dreamt strange things:  Of having wings and flying; of causing mischief and polite mayhem; of playing rude jokes on “human” people and other beings; of… of… falling in love with dark hair and blue eyes and a jaw chiseled from stone…

I dreamt of cutting off my wings to follow him, to hold him, to bring him here or to die with him and finding I’d failed in all of those things.  I awoke, crying, as he was slowly taken from me, his dark hair turning to grey, his chiseled jaw going slack and the blue eyes losing their lustre. 

My sobbing must have alerted Mumsy, for she came in to my room.

“Are ye all right, dearie?  Oh good, yer be awake, then!  Come, come, come!  Tis time to sup!”

I shook a little and poured some water from a pitcher into a basin and washed my face.  To my surprise, my purse lay at the foot of my bed, so I touched up my makeup and dug into the zippered pockets until I found some undies to slip on.  I didn’t want Dairsy getting any more free looks if I could help it.  While it didn’t seem quite as creepy as it would on the outside, I wanted to keep my faux pas to a minimum here.  I liked Mumsy.

I emerge from my room and found the place lit by candles and the fire still cheerily burning in the hearth.  I still towered over the two and had to duck under the ceiling beams, but I made it over to the table without too many incidents.

I opted to sit on the floor rather than on a chair.  I was a little lower than normal – solved by Mumsy telling Alisdair to fetch me a cushion off the couch, allowing me to sit “Saracen-style” – while we ate a delicious stew that had all sorts of veggies, fresh herbs and succulent meats in it, though I couldn’t tell you what meat it was.  On top of that, there was a fresh loaf of bread and honeyed butter to dip into.  I ate three helpings before remembering I’d “turned vegan” a short while back.  I rationalized it by thinking that this wasn’t slaughter-house meat and it had been hunted by those that used everything from the animal.  My veganism had more to do with protesting wasteful consumerism anyhow.  Here, none of it went to waste.  We pretty much finished off the large pot of stew, with Mumsy and Alasdair eating almost twice as much as I did!

Then we sat around the fire with clay goblets of strong wine.  Both Mumsy and Alasdair pulled out pipes and began to puff on them.  I don’t know what it was they were smoking, but it made me cough as the smoke filled the room.  Alasdair gave Mumsy a look and she twirled her finger and the next thing I know, the smoke climbed straight up, hugging the ceiling, then crawled down the mantle wall, heading for the hearth and streaming up the chimney! I dug my own cancer sticks from my purse, but when I lit up, I found to my surprise that they tasted disgusting.  I ended up throwing the entire pack into the fire.

Mumsy worked on some knitting and Dairsy pulled out a yellow-paged old tome and began to leaf through it.  My eyes wandered around the room, but seemed to be drawn to a certain locked cabinet at the far end of the house.  I wanted very much to look inside at the wings there and touch them; see what they were like.  I fought the urge to ask them to see if we could break into it, but I was also afraid.

“Tell us about your childhood, dearie,” said Mumsy, interrupting my thoughts.

“Pardon?” I said, hiding my confusion by sipping gently at the wine.  It tasted of wildflowers and honey and sweet grasses and fruit.

“Tell us about yer childhood as a wee cailín?” she said again.

“Colleen?  No… oh, wait!  I remember!  That’s the Irish Gaelic word for girl!”

“Sea, cailín tis the word, indeed.  Tell us what ‘twas like fer ye,” said the old woman in a gentle voice.

“I… I don’t remember much,” I told her truthfully.  “I was told I was adopted.  At age 15, I was in a traumatic accident that apparently killed everyone in my family.  I was in a coma for awhile and, when I awoke, they told me I was an orphan, though I couldn’t remember anything about myself or my family.  They told me a little about what happened, but it seems I had nobody other than my mom, dad and adopted siblings.  Afterwards, I was passed around to various parents, houses and families as a foster-child and that I was a… ‘troubled youth’.  I guess I caused a lot of problems for my foster parents.  Again, I don’t remember much because of the accident and I didn’t really feel as if I was causing problems for anyone.”

“What kind of trouble did you cause?” asked Dairsy, looking up from the book and cocking his brow.

I sighed.

“I have a tendency to be attracted to older, rugged-looking guys.  I’ve never looked my age and they always just assumed I was ‘old enough.’  My foster’s would set them straight and there’d be a big fight between us all when they’d do that. 

“Then I was with one family and, well, the oldest son was someone I just… well, it was love at first sight.  It was as if we’d known each other all our lives.  This time, there was no real way for them to keep us apart.”

“What happened?”

“Kent…” I began, noticing that they both started at the name, “Kent was something of a dare-devil and was going to school down at UC San Diego.  I bought a train ticket and went to visit him – this was before his parents noticed anything was going on between us – I went to visit him and he began to show me around.  Some creepy guy made a pass at me at a party and Kent just about got into a fight with him about it.  I calmed him down and he spent the rest of the time at the party either holding my hand or with his arm around me.”

I smiled.  “He was the one that nick-named me ‘Mack’ and it sorta stuck.  Anyway, we both got drunk and I confessed to him that I was very attracted to him and he confessed his attraction to me and, well… one thing led to another.”

“I see,” said Mumsy without approval or disapproval.  “So, did yer marry the lad?”

“No,” I replied sadly.

“What happened?”

“One of Kent’s hobbies was hang-gliding and he took me the next day.  Oh, my God but that was the most wonderful day!  We took a running start and ran right off the cliff with this kite on our back and we spent the next several hours soaring and floating.  I closed my eyes and felt as if I had wings again…”

My words drifted off as a strange niggling in the back of my mind began to make its way forward and I began to cry.

Mumsy and Dairsy waited respectfully.

“Some sort of… I want to call it a flying accident, but it wasn’t.  I guess I was one of those really suicidal types or I was hallucinating or something.  I felt as though I could fly when I was up there with him. 

“The next day, Kent went off by himself to test a new kite.  Something… happened.  He… he crashed… into the cliffs.

I burst into tears and they left me alone for a bit.

“It was wonderful and horrible,” I said.  “The flying, I mean.  Kent would zoom down and then climb up on the thermals and we’d circle around and around, getting higher and higher.  He was zooming down to gain speed when it… when it…”

“I see,” said Dairsy, his face in a contemplative set.  “Do ye often have thoughts of flying?”

“Do you mean, do I dream of it?” I asked, wiping my eyes and blushing. I hesitated before answering and they both looked at me, almost expectantly. “Yes, I do.  A lot.  But so do many of my friends.  So many of them are unhappy or depressed though and I try to help them, but…”

“But?” asked Mumsy, softly.

“But… I don’t know.”

I thought about it for a bit. 

“I don’t know.  I’m thinking that they lost the ability to believe in anything anymore.  Most of my friends didn’t believe in themselves either; didn’t believe in life; didn’t believe in an afterlife; didn’t believe in anything.  It’s as if their souls were empty, like uncharged or dead batteries.”  I was rushing along now with my thoughts.  “I would talk to them and try to get them to believe in things, but they always put everything down.  Some of them were really good, loving people, but something inside them had died and it was like a cancer spreading through them, turning everything black. 

“Others were either extremely self-centered because they’d either come from privileged families and thought everything was their right, or they never had anything and felt they were owed everything.  They would steal when they couldn’t buy something.  They would attack others and take from them. They would snicker and be snide and then take drugs to get over the guilt…”

I shuddered and took another sip of wine and we sat in silence for a bit, with Dairsy going back to his book and Mumsy to her knitting.  I got up and looked around the room.  In one dark corner, I found a harp and began to pluck at it, causing both the little people to start.  I brought it back to my seat.

I must have learned to play piano at one point because I started to pluck out melodies with ease.  I fell into one tune – a particularly melancholy one, playing it hesitantly at first, as if struggling to remember it.  On the third try with this melody, Alasdair began to sing in a soft, yet strong tenor about a maiden and her lost love and Mumsy joined in on harmony.  I couldn’t stop playing as long as they were singing and, by the end, we were all crying.

“I’m tinkin’ that’d be enough for this night,” said Mumsy, gently dabbing at her nose with a kerchief before removing the harp from my hands and placing it back in the corner.  I went to bed with a heavy heart and fell into a deep sleep, once more dreaming about black wings, laughter, love and pranks.

The next morning, I was the first to awaken.  I rekindled the banked kitchen fire and put on a kettle, then looked in the larder for breakfast.  Mumsy came out a few moments later and shooed me out, telling me to dust and sweep the floor.

“May I go outside for a bit?” I asked after I completed my task.  Mumsy stopped in her tracks and had that deer-in-the-headlights look.

“Nil, ye may naught,” stated Dairsy, almost as a command.  Then he softened it a bit, “Least naught until our guests arrive.”

“Guests?”

“Sea,” said Mumsy.  “We shall have guests soon enough.  Tis why I ask that you help me wit the cleanin’ and moppin’ if ye would.”

“I guess I could help.”

I mopped, dusted, cleaned, folded, rearranged, chopped, cooked, cleaned again and otherwise did what I was told.  I amazed myself as I wouldn’t do these things before when I lived in all those other homes.  I felt like Cinderella when living as a foster child.  I never “belonged” like I felt I did here.  I was always being judged, criticized and scolded in those homes.  Here, I felt encouraged.  I can’t put my finger on the exact difference, but there was a sense of comfort here.  I seemed to know exactly what Mumsy wanted just before she told me and, when she saw me moving to do it, she complimented me instead of telling me what I already knew.

The clock struck again on the mantle as I carried a large tray filled with cups surrounding an enormous glazed ceramic pot filled with hot tea.  As I set it down, there came a knock at the door and in came more folk like Mumsy and Dairsy, though some were shorter and darker while others were taller and more… ethereal. 

One was a woman who looked somewhere between 30 and 60.  Her hair was long, straight and white and her skin seemed almost translucent.  She was impossibly thin and wore a long, flowing dress that looked as if it were spun from abalone shell.  I mean, I could see through it, but I couldn’t see anything.  She had curves, but that was all I could see.  And I wanted to kneel at her feet and lay my head upon her lap, knowing she would stroke my hair and comfort me.  I could also see her sharp intake of breath when she saw me.

“You’ve cut off all your hair!” she cried, standing there and staring at me. 

“Years ago,” I said, running my fingers through my pixie-cut in a nervous gesture.  I swear that, when she spoke, you heard an ethereal chorus of female voices in the background.  It was unsettling because they went away as quickly as she stopped speaking.

Mumsy whispered something in her ear and the woman’s eyes grew wide.  Her gaze flitted to me then looked away with a horrible sadness, making me want to go and comfort her.

“Aoife, this be Jamie-Ann McLaughlin.  She says her friends call her ‘Mack” but I’ve told her it’s not a name befittin’ a lady.  Jamie-Ann don’t seem to fit her neither.  But Jamie-Ann she is.

“Jamie-Ann, this hare be me second-cousin, thrice removed, Aoife Beitha.”

“Hello Effie Baya,” I said, trying to imitate what I thought Mumsy had called her and curtsying.  My goddess!  Did I just cursty??

“Aoife is just fine, my child,” she said in that beautiful voice-with-chorale.  Her smile was a brilliant white.  She reminded me of that scene in Lord of the Rings where Frodo meets Galadriel.  But Cate Blanchett didn’t come close to this sort of ethereal beauty.  Even stooping in the room like I did, Aoife seemed to float as she walked to the chair that I’d occupied last night.  I could see it sidle up to her like a puppy dog, its cushion pushed out obscenely like a tongue.

“OOH YEA-,”  She cut off the sound with a wave of her hand and sat down, the chair expanding and resizing to accommodate her diminutive stature.

“Why didn’t it do that for me?” I wondered.

“You have to know how to ask,” said Aoife to me in a sotto voice that I think I was the only one to hear.

More people filed in, all of them gasping in shock as I was introduced.  With the exception of Aoife, who sat regally alone, everyone else gathered in parts of the room, engaged in hushed conversation as they looked at me.

Within moments, there were well over 100 people in that room!  It should have been cramped but, instead, it seemed to expand and fill out to accommodate everyone comfortably.

My feet were tired and I desired to sit, so I moved to an empty chair by Aoife.  I looked at it and asked, in a pleasant voice, “May I sit here?”

“Of course!” said the chair.  “What else would yer be doin’ wit me?”

I jumped and Aoife turned to scold it.

“Thannalome!  Behave yourself with guests!”

“Aithne?  She’s not a guest!”

“This is Jamie-Ann McLaughlin, Thanmalome!  Now, accommodate her!”

“As you wish!” it said deferentially, growing to seat me modestly.

As I sat, all the talking in the room ceased and all the heads bowed.  Aoife made a small gesture and everyone’s head rose and the rumble of voices began again, though far more subdued.

“Supper is served!” called Dairsy from the kitchen door.  He walked in and was followed by two young teens carrying a spit, upon which was a side of… well, meat.  It smelled of smoke and sizzle and herbs and spice.  In other words, my mouth was drooling.

Dairsy carved it easily with a long sword-like knife and the first slices were given to Aoife.  Then the next two slices, both rare and juicy, were given to me and to Mumsy.  Everyone but the two of us seemed to serve ourselves.  We were offered plates of steamed vegetables, leafy greens, rice, noodles, bread, honey-butter, cups of a cool, fermented liquid that tasted like a bitter beer.  I ate a salad (missing tomato, which didn’t seem to be in evidence) and then the meat and some potatoes (which had a sweet quality to them) and some of the steamed greens. 

Nobody talked to us.  Nobody approached us.  Not even Mumsy and Dairsy.

“Why is everyone avoiding us?” I finally asked Aoife.

“They’re waiting to see what happens, I guess,” she said cryptically, cutting off a chunk of meat, stabbing it with a knife and putting it into her mouth.  But she made the crudity look elegant, while my careful cutting of the meat into manageable chunks and daintily picking them up with my fingers looked uncouth by comparison.

I was thinking that they were treating Aoife like royalty.

“Are you a queen or a princess or something?”

Aoife stopped eating.

“What makes you say that, child?”

“It’s the way everyone is treating you.  They’re very deferential.  Are you the Queen?”

She laughed and the musical choir laughed with her.

“No, my dear, I am not a Queen, but I am a Princess as ar… as was my sister.  Pass me some of the gingerbread, please?”

Suddenly, a poem by e.e. cummings popped into my head and I began to recite it:

“here is little Effie's head

whose brains are made of gingerbread…”

I giggled when I recited it, but heard the collective gasp go up from the people in the room nearest 

to us.  Aoife turned to me.

“What was that bit of verse you recited?” she asked, with just a touch of terseness.

I grabbed my purse and pulled out my journal, where I copied down a dozen or so poems by poets 

I admired.

“It’s by e.e. cummings,” I explained.  “He’s a famous poet that broke all the rules and created new 

ones.  He’s sort of my hero in the poetry world.”

“Broke the rules?  What rules?”

“Poetry rules.  He didn’t always follow punctuation rules, usually spelled his name all in lower case and 

sometimes wrote a poem within a poem and reading one or the other or all together could give you 

different meanings and such.  Editors were always trying to correct him and he fought with them until 

he died.”

“Oh.  How does it go?”

I began again: 

here is little Effie's head

whose brains are made of gingerbread

when judgment day comes

God will find six crumbs

stooping by the coffinlid

waiting for something to rise

as the other somethings did-

you imagine his surprise

bellowing through the general noise

Where is Effie who was dead?

-to God in a tiny voice,

i am may the first crumb said

whereupon its fellow five

crumbs chuckled as if they were alive

and number two took up the song

might i'm called and did no wrong

cried the third crumb, i am should

and this is my little sister could

with our big brother who is would

don't punish us for we were good;

and the last crumb with some shame

whispered unto God, my name

is must and with the others i've

been Effie who isn't alive

just imagine it I say

God amid a monstrous din

watch your step and follow me

stooping by Effie's little, in

(want a match or can you see?)

which the six subjective crumbs

twitch like mutilated thumbs;

picture His peering biggest whey

coloured face on which a frown

puzzles, but I know the way-

(nervously Whose eyes approve

the blessed while His ears are crammed

with the strenuous music of

the innumerable capering damned)

-staring wildly up and down

the here we are now judgment day

cross the threshold have no dread

lift the sheet back in this way

here is little Effie's head

whose brains are made of gingerbread

I giggled again and then realized why it had come to my memory.  It was Aoife’s name…

“Oh, my God, I’m sorry!  I wasn’t trying to make fun of…”

Aoife simply took the book out of my hand and began reading through it, smiling at some of the entries and crying at others.  She read aloud the Yeats, Joyce and Burns, of course.

“How delightful!” she said.  “You have a love of poetry!”

“I do.”

“So do I!” she told me, then began to recite a poem about the wind and the meadow.  Everyone stopped to listen and I was enchanted as well.  We all clapped when she finished.

“That was beautiful,” I told her.

“Thank you,” she said, sadly.  “It was written by my… sister.”

“Oh, how… Oh!”  I was now uncomfortable.  It was obvious that her sister was no longer.

“Do not weep,” she said softly.  “I have shed enough tears for us both.”

“What was she like?” I asked.

Aoife looked at me with sad eyes for a very long time before quietly saying, “Much like you.”

Again, my eyes were drawn to the cabinet where Alasdair indicated the wings were locked away.

“Dairsy claims there are wings locked away in that cabinet,” I confided.  “Did they belong to your sister?  And how come I don’t see wings on anyone here?”

Aoife’s eyes went wide and then her face clouded and then, just as quickly, the clouds parted and she radiated sunshine again.  “Dairsy talks to much, sometimes.”  She sipped her wine and sat back in her chair.  “And you don’t see wings because you either chose not to see them or we choose not to let you!”

“Can I see your wings?” I asked.

Aoife abruptly turned and looked at me.  “My, but you are as impertinent as my beloved sister!”  She grinned and then leaned in towards me.  “You can see them,” she whispered, “if, and only if, you have the key!”

I looked at her in wonder as the air shimmered around her.  I looked harder, but the air just continued to shimmer.

“You must believe,” someone whispered, so I believed that she actually had wings.  The shimmering cleared and I could see her wings slowly come into focus behind her, glistening with luminescence and refracting light.  They seemed to continue to grow and expand behind her, the edges flickering and blinking like small explosions of light as they grew.  Soon, they were larger than Aoife and curled around the beams, the floor and the walls.  They created a radiance around her and made her even more beautiful than she had been.

Aoife smiled shyly.  “You can see them?”

“I can!” I exclaimed softly.  “They’re… beautiful!”

“Thank you, Eith… Jamie-Anne.”

“I wish I had wings as beautiful as that,” I murmured.  I turned, expecting everyone else to be in as much awe as I was, but no one else was paying attention.

“My… sister… had beautiful wings, as black as these are translucent, but they shimmered with a metallic gleam,” said Aoife wistfully.  “She and I would flitter and fly all around the countryside, playing with the dragons and eagles.  We would always get into such trouble for being late for feast…”

Aoife caught herself, tucking away her emotion like a handkerchief.  “But, that is not what we are here for!”

“What are you here for?” I asked.

“Why, to welcome our guest!  You, my dear.”

“I’m just a nobody that followed Dairsy down here.  You don’t really have parties for everyone that comes down this way, do you?”

She smiled.  “Not often, no.”

“Tell me about this Mimsy.”

Aoife sighed.  “She was my older sister, though she always looked younger.  She was a free-spirit and rebellious little hellion.  She gave my father, the King, fits because of her attitude.  He wanted her to marry a Prince from a smaller kingdom to the north to help settle a small dispute, but she refused.  She said she couldn’t love anyone that she wasn’t in love with or had never met.  We hadn’t known she’d come into contact with a human who had followed her into one of the portals.

My father became upset with her because of her stance and died suddenly.  My mother, distraught, took her own life.  That left Mimsy to govern, but she was not yet of age, so rule fell to the Prince Regent, our cousin, Penn.”

“Why didn’t it fall to you?”

“Because it goes by succession of first-born.  I am, or was, eighth in line.  I’m now third.”

“Why is that?”

Aoife sighed again.  “The Prince from the southern kingdom and his twin sister refused to marry my own sister and she, Penn, which would have solidified a pact and the lines of succession.  Instead, Eithne, my sister Mimsy, refused not only to wed him as well, but refused to go to war over the broken pact as Penn wanted because the Northern King’s daughter had refused to marry him.  Pressure was put upon Mimsy by Penn because he lusted after Dofikela, the princess.  It was said she was a great beauty but was also inseperable from her twin brother, Ennik

When that human wandered down here caught Mimsy’s eye, she went traipsing after him to the mundane world, leaving her wings behind.  Penn waged war against the Northern Kingdom and slaughtered many of their peoples as well as most of the Royal Family.  Only a handful survived.”

“That’s horrible!  This Mimsy should be punished for leaving her responsibilities and turning over rule to that monster!”

Aoife looked sad.  “In many ways, she may have been punished, for the longer the wings are left off, the less she remembers about herself until she forgets entirely.  The magic in the wings has a direct link to the brain and the heart.  Within 20 of our years, the memory is gone completely and the wings whither and die.”

“How long has it been?”

“19 of those years.”

---

To be continued.  Email me if you want to read more.