Maria Weber

The spark for this story originated from a timed writing, a technique advanced by Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones. I draw inspiration from my weekly writing group, The Writer's Block, and from an online Goldberg Writing Loop where topics are presented three times a week. - Maria Weber

My parents produced one daughter --me-- their only experiment in child rearing. I was the kind of offspring who might later in life have become an ax murderer -- passive, but seething inside -- had my parents been abusive. But they weren't. Mama and Papa were intellectuals who read books deep into the night, who bought used books by the gross and lined the walls with them. In fact, they raised me by two books that they kept on the shelves in the living room: The Child from One to Five and The Child from Five to Ten. Very early, I disliked my upbringing, especially when my father teased that my behavior was right on target, according to The Book.

As for Mama, I was attached to her by an invisible rubber band. I needed her attention and approval, but strained against her smothering. I resented her talents -- that she had friends who talked for hours on the phone with her, that she had been top in her high school class, that she could converse nonstop on any subject, and that she wrote poetry. I wanted nothing to do with her writing or her ideas. Mama preached; she advised; she pontificated. She thought she was opening the world to me, but I kept my ears sealed as tightly as possible.

Phyllis Bracewell, my best friend who lived up the street, was two years older than I. One summer, she proposed that we cut our arms with a razor to become blood sisters. In the fall, she led me to the back yard where her father wrung a chicken's neck and her mother scalded it in boiling water to loosen the feathers. That winter, she insisted we read Charlotte's Web together in her basement next to the coal stoker.

Even though other kids my age lived in the neighborhood, I liked Phyllis best. She taught me how to make a grapevine swing and said fairies were real. We used to practice trying to shrink down to fairy size. We would sit still with our legs stretched out straight, willing ourselves small. There were days when I knew my legs had shortened just a little.

On Christmas morning of my tenth year, fantasy became reality. Upon awaking, I noticed one of the windowpanes in my bedroom was dark and shiny. I found a letter, hand written on aluminum foil, stuck to the pane. The handwriting was large, filled with flourishes, and it spelled greetings from Queen Thimble Bee -- a fairy. In addition, sitting on my bookshelf was a forest of tiny pink and gold tinsel trees, a gift from said fairy. My mouth fell open as I examined each glittering tree. I called Mama in to see this miracle. We reread the foil letter together, wide-eyed. It made sense to me that a fairy, knowing how badly I wanted to become one, would contact me.

After Christmas, I wrote my first letter to Fairy Queen Thimble Bee and left it in the tinsel forest. Each morning I checked the forest for an answer. Many, many days later I was rewarded with the following letter.

Dear M.

Thank you for your little message, my Child Friend. Not many fairy creatures from the Invisible World have Human Friends. Most people think we only live in Fairy Books!

Writing to you takes more time than you would think. I have to first change myself into solid elements--for I am light as thistle down. I love you, dear M. F.Q.

#

For the next three years I wrote letters to Queen Thimble Bee and left them on my windowsill. She answered from time to time. Whenever I received a new one, I showed it to my mother, whose eyes twinkled at our mutual secret.

Dear M.

How nice the Pond looks! When the moon is full, it makes a silver, shimmering lake and reflects my "Wand Light," as well as the moon light. Mrs. W. thinks I fly in the evening with the fireflies--She is right! But always higher than a certain pair of reaching fingers!!! Have you heard my summer orchestra? The cricket fiddlers play for you each night. Love, F.Q.

Every Sunday, Mama pried me out of my overalls and into a dress, shiny patent leather shoes, prim hat, and white gloves. We three traipsed off to Broad Street Methodist Church, where I slumped in a morose funk on the wooden pew for an hour. I fidgeted, sighed, folded my program over and over, and tried to be annoying without making a scene.

I grew to hate Mama's own personal quest for spiritual perfection. Her prayers never seemed to be answered often enough; her good works fell too short to bring her everlasting happiness. I eavesdropped on dozens of her one-sided phone visits, and they made me want to puke. I vowed never to bow and scrape to God the way she did.

On the other hand, Thimble Bee's correspondence saved me from dourness. It may have saved my soul. Her loving words broke through the crusty wall I erected to keep my mother out.

Dear M.

Fairies live mostly on nectar from flowers -- that is why we go south with the birds -- I had to come back for some "Fairy Business" which I can't explain -- a sparrow brought me on his back -- I return now until springtime -- Thank you for the green honey! Unicorns are Fairy Creatures -- We ride them sometimes -- I have strange powers -- I can grow big and grow strong when I have to -- that is how I can write with your mother's pen (Mrs. W.) I am as tall as your four fingers are wide -- My hair is golden -- I sleep in a leaf on the tallest tree for I am a Woods Fairy -- I can also make myself very small! My woods work now is helping with the seed scattering. Christmas in Cuba then off to Brazil for the winter. Thank you my dear M for everything. Queen Thimble Bee

#

At eleven, I begged to stay home from church once in a while. Mama wouldn't hear of it. She was determined to hammer her resistant rock of a daughter into the equally rigid shape of her own upbringing. Sunday was a day I came to despise, and for that weekly torture, I perfected my pout and my glare. My innards curdled into churning darkness since Mama wouldn't ever let me have what I desperately craved -- acknowledgement that I was an individual -- not her mirror image. I daydreamed about ways to hurt her -- maybe I'd jump in front of the school bus or flunk arithmetic. Visions of erupting volcanoes and menacing tornados plagued my sleep.

Meanwhile, the letters continued.

Dear M.

Well, I made the long journey back from Brazil for your Christmas. This time I just made a magic spell and wished myself here. I am returning with Mr. Jay Bird who has never been away from our woods. His feathers match my blue traveling costume. I wrote to you the first time on a foolish impulse. I had watched you grow up here in my woods and you did not know I was here.

Mr. Claus is a sprite and helps the fathers and mothers with Christmas. There used to be Easter Bunnies in the long ago. There may be a few yet in wild places.

I noticed Mrs. W's Spring flowers. The only ones awake in the whole woods.

Thank you for the lovely gifts. They are very precious. Good-bye, my dear M. T.B.

#

At twelve, I was eager to draw, paint, and make figures with clay. I credit Mama for letting me glue pieces of stained glass onto our dining room windows as a permanent sunburst. Mama was an artist. She filled one end of our dining room table with a continually changing display of polished rocks, abalone shells, fresh cut daffodils, dried grass, and Ansel Adams photos. I allowed her into the artist part of myself as well as the part that revered nature in this magical green cocoon. Mama was someone I could have loved if only she had not been my mother.

The letters continued for another year.

Dear M.

You are my faithful friend. Forgive me, please, for making you wait so long --three dear notes from you. Oh yes! I always see them, but I can't always answer them. You would have to be a Fairy to understand that.

I can't promise to write on a special day. Our calendar is not like yours. Our days are named for flowers. When each flower in my Kingdom has had its own day, then, that is what you would call a Week. See how long our Week is. The months are named for Noble Trees. But we keep the same Four Seasons: Spring -- Awakening,

Summer -- Flowering, Autumn -- Bearing, Winter -- Sleeping. . . .

A Mayapple Flower without a Bee cannot make an apple! Can you guess why? As Queen of the Woods, I help every single flower, weed, plant, tree and growing thing make its fruit and seed. . .Do you wonder, that I am kept busy!!!

Your Woods are full of creatures, spirits, invisible lovely things. The Wood Nymphs guard my trees, Meadows and Mountains and Rivers. Each has its own Queen. Have you seen the Silvery, Misty, Mazy, Moonlight lately? Love, F.Q.T.B.

By the time I received Thimble Bee's last letter, my bitterness toward my mother had subsided. Mama was beginning to loosen her grip enough for me to breathe.

Dearest M.

I could not go without telling you good-bye. I was so surprised to find your lovely letter for I thought you had wrapped me up as one of your pleasant childhood dreams -- a secret fancy to remember -- now that you have become a Young Woman! It is a rare thing for one of "Us" to ever openly communicate with a "mortal," and rarer still for a Fairy to find a child who believes in our existence as long as you have (At least in This Country of America).

My work in the woods is over now. The seeds have fallen and the trees are painted and the birds are going South. Where did you find the corn like jewel stones? Scatter it for the birds who stay with you in My Woods. I borrow my gifts from those who will never miss them. . . .A little here, a little there. My friend Swallow waits to carry me to Brazil. One last Xmas visit, but invisible, I will be with you always. Q. T. B.

#

I was thirteen when Queen Thimble Bee stopped writing. There were twenty-three letters in all and I have shared several of them. You'd think after forty years I would have forgotten those letters or discarded them along with my fifth grade diary. But no. I kept all her letters in a blue and gold talcum powder box. They remain my hidden treasure.

Mama took the secret of how and why and whether she wrote them with her to the spirit world. I was always afraid to ask her point blank, "Mom, did you write those letters?" If she had said, "Yes, Dear, I did," I would have dissolved. Hearing those words would have tarnished the most prized memory from my early years, the event that nudged me to seek out meaning for myself and opened a spiritual life quite different from hers. During Mama's last week in the nursing home, I still had a chance to ask her, but I didn't. I wanted the mystery to remain just that.

To this day I believe it was possible for a filmy Queen of the Woods to change herself into solid material and write those letters. Or, at the very least, maybe my mother wrote them late at night while under the spell of a Fairy Queen who wanted to reach me.