Memories of Stories Past

Some summer nights, when the stars were just blinking their hellos to the sleepy world below, when it was so still it seemed the world had stopped its turning, when the cicadas and crickets harmonized their strings with the periodic bass of the bullfrog, my grandfather would give me a wink at dinner. Our secret signal would soon find me hugging the rolled navy blanket to my chest, taking deep breaths of the musty, earthy smell that never left its faded threads, and trotting behind my grandfather next to the lilac hedge that fenced our backyard. The hedge, deep green and as thick as I was tall, made our journey feel even more sneaky as it hid us from the lights of the houses. His gentle, quiet steps followed the trail into the open field, past the huge willow weeping over the creek, past the copse of trees dreaming of the stories they’d seen through the decades, towards the rise we all had dubbed simply, “The Hill”. The grass was always as tall as my chest that time of year, and I could feel it whisper against my bare arms and elbows, sometimes catching on a loose thread of the blanket. At the top, the world would be as quiet as the morning of the first snow of the winter, muted and soft, and we would settle the blanket over the tall grasses so they framed our view of the sky above. We would lie on our backs side by side, our pinkies just barely touching, and stare upwards, watching each star blink to life and listening to the crickets and cicadas for a long while. My grandfather would then take a long, slow breath in - just in time before a young body would get fidgety - and begin to tell a story.

“Once, long ago, when more bullfrogs hopped around the creek and it was easy to see the stars just from your porch instead of walking away from the world, I took a walk on the beach. You know this beach well, little one, as you have been there many times. It was night time and quiet, just as it is here and now. All I could hear was the sound of the waves touching my toes and maybe, sometimes, a laugh or voice from far away on the beach. The moon was so very bright that night it seemed each shadow, small or large, were doorways to another world, and I could see far on the horizon the waves cresting and falling. And, ahead, I could see a figure bending over and reaching into the water. She was wearing a white dress, shining in the moonlight. She had no shoes. Her long, dark hair swayed all the way to her waist. I could not believe my eyes as I saw large, iridescent wings, shimmering lightly, sprout from her back as she turned, but as I blinked, they disappeared.”

I never spoke during his stories. I would drift on his words as a cloud on the wind, watching the stars become vivid and alive on the black velvet of the sky. Sometimes his stories were of the constellations themselves and how they came to be stuck in the heavens, or why the willow weeps over the creek, or why the crickets play their strings so very loudly at night. Tonight, he told a tale I’d heard before, and I settled deeper, watching the stars turn and twist and come together to become the fairy with the bright-as-the-moonlight dress and the dark-as-the-night long hair.

“As I walked closer, I could see the fairy was crying. I stopped, of course. You must always stop when you see a fairy crying, little one. They hold magic, and you must always do what you can to help spread their magic.

“Why are you crying, fairy?” I asked.

“I have lost my necklace,” she said, so sadly I could hear flowers dying with her words. “It was a gift from someone very important to me. I have asked the waves to return it, but they are jealous of anything that sparkles and seem to want to keep it.” 

I nodded, knowing the sea is as greedy as dragons of their hoards of treasure. I asked her what her necklace looked like. 

“A silver chain, as fine and thin as a spider’s web. A crescent moon on the chain, no bigger than your thumbnail, with a crystal smaller than a teardrop,” she said.

I looked at my thumb and became as sad as she, for the moon was so bright it was hard to see beneath the surface of the water, let alone for something so very small. I joined in her impossible search, and she gifted me a small smile as thank-you. We used our bare toes to dig under the sand and our fingers to sift. We found pale shells with secret rainbows on the inside, pebbles round as marbles, colored glass worn smooth, pieces of wood bleached white when taken out of the waves, and a starfish we threw deeper into the sea.

We hunted a very small area for a very long time, as she knew this, exactly, was the place it had slipped from her neck.

I could see she was giving up.

“What is your name, fairy?” I asked her.

“My name is Melody,” she said, gifting me another very small smile. I told her my name - of course you know it is Grandpa - and I said I would continue to look if she needed to go home to rest, and I could come back at the same time tomorrow to search. I imagined at the time that she would shrink away into the size of a bumblebee and her wings would grow more solid and beautiful as the sun rose in the sky, and I believed I could only see her in the night when the stars granted her a human form.

I spoke kindly to her, as you must always be kind, saying, “Get some rest, Melody, for the stars are fading, and we may find this gift tomorrow when they are bright again.””

He paused, hearing me gasp as a single star flew across the entire sky, and we revelled in the luck of a wishing star for several silent moments.

“The next night I returned,” he continued, “but she was not there. I stayed a long while, digging my toes in the sand, using my hands, but there were deep clouds in the sky and the sea was pitch black. I could only see by the touch of my hands and feet. I searched still, but she never came, and I found nothing.

The third night came slowly. It rained terribly all day, and everything dripped and was extra squishy and muggy. As the sun set, I told myself I would go back one last time. ‘Good things come on the third try,’ I told myself. ‘Maybe I will have some magic tonight.’

I could see the moon, shy behind some drifting clouds. It would look out for just a moment, only to hide away again. Again, I did not see the fairy. I looked in the water longer than I had both of the nights before. I was getting sleepy and sad. I thought that maybe I was dreaming. I thought maybe I was really at home with my heavy blankets covering me and my head was heavy on the pillow, and I was dreaming of the moon and the stars and the silver necklace under the sea.

At that very moment, the moon peeked out just enough for me to spy the smallest sparkle under the water. I reached in as quick as I could and grabbed it. It seemed the night itself had given its light to the chain as thin as a spider’s web, the crescent no larger than my thumbnail, the smallest gem I’ve ever seen.

I gave a little cry of amazement and disbelief, wondering at the magic of finding something so very small and how I could ever find the fairy when I had not seen her for two nights. The clouds wandered away completely then, and I looked up the beach to see the moonlight land on a woman in a white dress with dark hair walking barefoot towards me, smiling a song of the night. That, little one, is how I met your grandmother.”

I grew older and began to be stubborn and too old, and then tired and too busy to listen to the tales my grandfather shared with me on the hill away from the world. He would continue to wink at me on those special nights, throughout the years, never forgetting to give me the opportunity to share peace and quiet and dancing stars.

One night, having watched a couple of decades curl themselves into lines around his eyes and mouth, the years swelling his knees and knuckles, life showing itself in permanently curled hands and lowered head, I gave him a wink. My heart grew as wide as his smile.

He hugged the blanket to his chest, maybe smelling a little more of dust and humidity than before, maybe more the color of twilight than of a dark night sky, and perhaps more than a few threads had been picked away by fidgety fingers. My steps were the gentle, slow ones in front this time, his careful and quiet behind me. The lilac hedge had been trimmed back to be replaced with a wooden fence, and the trail was well loved and used. Our field and creek were now the smallest, lightly manicured nature reserve, though I knew kids still cannonballed into the deeper part under the willow and I could still feel the blades of grass whisper against my fingertips. I could not hear the crickets and cicadas until I had spread the blanket over the grass on The Hill, helped my grandfather sit, and tucked a pillow under his neck. The strings of the crickets and cicadas cautiously returned, tuning quietly at first before their concert began in earnest. I turned my head and smiled at the man next to me as a bullfrog bellowed his opinion of the tune. As I turned my eyes back to the sky, opening my mind and heart to the stars, I took a long, slow breath in and began,

“Once, long ago, when the grass grew as tall as my chest and as thick as my hand, when paths were just learning to walk by themselves, when there was no such thing as a silent night, a magician met a moon fairy.”