A Midsummer Night's Rave

In the gathering dusk, Puck the pixie peered out from around the hydrangea bush. The humans were gone, retreated into the house after their Solstice ritual, but there was a pipkin of honey and cream left on the altar, surrounded by fruit of all kinds. (Honey will actually make a pixie drunk, because of the way in which their bodies process raw sugar.) These were offerings to the Fae Folk for the power they lent to the midsummer rite. Puck whistled, and the gathered Fae emerged from the trees and shrubs and flowers where they had been hiding, just waiting for Puck to give the all-clear. Little sparks of fairy light glowed yellow and blue and green and pink, like psychedelic fireflies.

The Matriarch of the Maple Grove Garden Clan was named Tatiana. She lived deep in the heart of the great, graceful maple tree that grew in the back garden. Tatiana was a benevolent ruler who always thought of her people first, so she was quite popular. The assembled Fae were watching her tree, waiting for her to emerge and say the words that started the party every year.

Finally, they could see their beloved leader, her brilliant red hair curling and waving in all directions, her gown of rose petals and dewdrops resplendent in the twilight. The pixies all thrummed with their wings, honoring her, and she took a moment to beam kindly upon them all, trying to make eye contact with each and every one of her folk. Then she announced, in her bell-clear voice:

“Let the Midsummer celebration begin!”

The mass of pixies immediately took flight, zooming around the garden whooping and hollering and conducting impromptu air dances. Then Tatiana flew to the altar and the offerings that had been left for them. As Matriach, the first cup of cream belonged to her. She took her dainty little cup from her belt and drew some honey and cream from the pipkin, which was half her height and filled to the brim. Eyes closed, she took a sip and rolled the sweet cream around in her mouth, savoring it completely before swallowing it down. Then she turned to Puck, who had alighted beside her while she took her drink, and said sweetly: “Kindly do your whistle again, my friend.”

So Puck stood up straight and tall and whistled for all he was worth. At once, the pixies stopped what they were doing and everyone saw that the Matriarch had her cup of honeyed cream. They descended en masse to the altar, where each of them presented their own cup to be filled. Tatiana dispensed generous portions, but the pipkin seemed nearly bottomless. Soon a few pixies were coming back for seconds. They all drank until they were feeling cheerful and gay and the pipkin was dry.

Some of the pixies were standing on the altar, near the Matriarch. Cups in hand, they spoke of things like how the garden was doing this summer and were the blueberries ripe enough yet. Midsummer was the only time when the pixies who lived in the house came out and mingled with the pixies who lived in the garden. When they got together, they woud talk about different kinds of magic and what cantrips are useful inside or outside. One of the indoor pixies, Jack by name, was chatting cheerfully with Puck, who stood half again as tall as he. He made up for the difference in their heights by hovering in the air to put his head on a level with Puck’s. The colors coming from his humming wings shifted slowly through the entire prism while they talked.

“I tell you, that cat’s nose was no more than eight inches from me!” Jack was saying. “I had to stay put, though, or the whole thing would be a wasted setup. Once it was too late for him to back up or stop, I poofed straight up and out of reach. He shot through that cat-door like an egg out of a hummingbird and then I locked him out. It was so funny, I had to land on something and laugh until I couldn’t breathe. I could hear all my brothers, laughing, too, and of course that made me laugh all over again. That stupid tomcat sat outside the door the whole time we were harvesting, yowling, but all the humans were asleep and nobody wanted to let the cat out a three in the morning. You know, all the humans think he is really dumb and locks himself out all the time by accident now.”

Puck, an outdoor pixie by nature who was well-versed in the art of cat avoidance as well as deep into his third cup of honeyed cream, threw his head back and laughed so loudly that pixies a few feet away stopped what they were doing to look at him. A lot of them started laughing with him, figuring there must be something funny going on.

Then Tatiana noticed that Jack had a hand-drum attached to his belt. She had a soft spot for musicians and loved any live music, so she called to Jack over the sound of pixie merriment: “Do you play, friend, or is that drum of yours just for show?”

“I do play, my lady, and if somebody here plays the flute, I know an enchanting song about daisies and the smell after rain,” he replied, untying the knot that held the drum to his belt.

From the assembled crowd, one diminutive flower fairy came forward with a beautifully-carved flute in their hands. Jack recognized the instrument immediately, as he had carved it himself and given it to this very fairy in exchange for a pair of goggles not two years ago.

“Hail and well-met again, my friend! I could not have asked for a better partner! Let us jam our hearts out for our lady Tatiana!”

Jack sat cross-legged on the altar with his back against a strawberry and his drum in his lap, and he played and played.

The flower fairy, whose name turned out to be Nasturtium, shortened to Nast, played the flute with the reckless abandon of an angel that just found out why it was on the wrong side.

They jammed all night. Sometimes other musicians would grab their instruments or lend their voices to the music, mostly it was Jack and Nast. When dawn broke and the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon, it was time for Jack to go back inside, Nast back to their flower and Puck to his home in the shrubbery until next year. Before going their separate ways, they took a moment to regard what had been done to the backyard.

The above-ground pool wall was broken and bowed in, and half the water had come out. The pump was making a weird grinding sound. The food on the altar was gone, and so was the honeyed cream. The pipkin lay on its side, covered in tiny sticky fingerprints. The vegetation was untouched, save for some tiny blossons that a few pixies had picked to stick in their hair, but the man-things in the backyard were fair game. One chair had been upended completely and now lay with all four legs in the air.  

“If we shadows have offended,” Puck said, kind of summing it all up.

They went home.