Keeper Of The Imaginary

The silence in her grandmother’s house after the funeral pressed down on Sarah like a thick blanket. It was still full–trinkets on shelves, half-burned candles in ceramic holders, an unfinished quilt draped over the couch. But without Grandma humming from the piano or the low whir of her sewing machine, it felt hollow.

She flipped the hallway lights off one by one, each click echoing a little too loudly. That’s when she noticed it–the tiny mousehole in the bathroom wall. A slow smile tugged at her lips. She remembered thinking a fairy lived there when she was a child and they went on marvelous adventures together all over the property.

The tall grass behind the house became an enchanted maze. They would get lost and then fight their way out before the trickster garden gnomes could find them.

The front garden was home to brave snail warriors who always needed rescuing when irrigation time threatened to flood their lands.

And the old airplane workshop at the back of the property? That was the castle of the evil Shadow King. He made the shadows move strangely and tried to kidnap the little fairies–so Sarah and her imaginary friend Katie would swoop in to save the day.

Sarah had so many fond memories in this place and seeing the mousehole after all these years tugged at a yearning deep in her heart to be young again. Life is so uncomplicated when you’re just a kid. She’s thirty-one now and life is so much scarier than anything the Shadow King could have come up with.

“I wonder if a mouse ever really lived in there,” she murmured, getting down on her stomach to peek inside.

A rush of adrenaline shot through her as something peeked back–two tiny black eyes stared straight at her. She yelped and scrambled backward, spine colliding with the doorframe.

Still frozen, still staring, she watched as a small hand–delicate, with long fingers–gripped the edge of the mousehole. Slowly, a girl stepped into the bathroom.

She was no taller than a thimble, her skin pale and glowing. Her dress shimmered, made of pink rose petals stitched together like a tutu. Her silver hair was swept into a ballerina bun, and pink and purple wings fluttered at her back, lifting her gently until she hovered at Sarah’s eye level.

Sarah pressed harder into the doorframe, both hands clamped over her mouth. “Oh my–Katie?? Is that you?”

The fairy nodded. “You look…different. Are you a grown-up?” She tilted her head, puzzled. “How did that happen?”

Sarah spun to the sink, twisted the cold water on, and splashed it onto her face. “Nope. Nope nope nope. I hit my head. Or I fell asleep. Or–yes! The stress finally got to me. My therapist did say I should go twice a week, and now–”

She cut herself off, staring into the mirror, locking eyes with her own reflection. She pointed at it. “No. You do not see your old imaginary friend. You-are-not having a breakdown.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she turned back toward the mousehole and peeked.

Katie hovered there, smiling politely. She gave a tiny wave.

“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t need your help so badly. I know this must seem strange.”

“Strange? STRANGE?!” Sarah slumped to the floor, dropping her head into her hands. After a moment, she lifted one hand, palm up. “Why do you need my help?”

Katie landed softly into Sarah’s outstretched hand and clutched her thumb for balance. “It’s the Shadow King, ever since Doris passed there’s been no one here to help keep the shadows at bay. I didn’t know what to do and she always wanted you to take over as Keeper-”

“Wait, Doris? Are you saying my grandmother knew about all of this?” Sarah waved her hand in a gesture around Katie and the mousehole.

“Well of course she did, she was the Keeper of the fairy kingdom. And what a kind, wonderful Keeper she was. We miss her so much already.” Katie sighed, her head dropping for a moment.

“You and me both. I can’t believe all these years she knew…hold on.” Sarah stood up suddenly, carrying Katie with her, and flicked on the lights to her grandmother’s bedroom. Over the bed hung a large quilt, Sarah had stared at it for a long while earlier it was a map of the property but with little names over certain areas.

“Is this a map of your world?” Katie flew up inspecting it closely.

“Yes! This is the kingdom center! And this!” she flew north of the center and pointed to what looked like tiny buildings made of teacups, “this is where I live! In Faeryndale!”

“Awe I always wondered where you lived.” Sarah’s hand caressed the quilt gently. It was clear her grandmother put a lot of time and love into this. Sarah looked around the room and noticed for the first time that fairies were everywhere. In the wallpaper, the wind chimes, and hundreds of little porcelain statues. How had she never noticed before? She felt a sudden deep connection to her grandmother, it was clear she devoted her life to caring for the fairies long after Sarah even stopped believing in them.

Sarah stood up straighter feeling determined for the first time in a long time. “Alright, what can I do to help?”

Katie led the way to the kitchen and wove between the tall glass jars in the cupboard until she found a jar of cookies with a handwritten label taped to it that said Do Not Eat! Sarah’s head crooked to the side, “what are we doing with grandma’s expired cookies?”

Katie let out a giggle “they aren’t expired, Doris always said that so no one would accidentally eat one. These are laced with a magical potion that will let you into our world even as an adult. Little kids have really high levels of imagination but sometimes adults need a little extra help to see the magic that’s all around them.” she did a little twirl and tiny sparkles fell away from her like a firework.

“Sooo, it’s dru-”

“Good heavens, no! It’s a magical potion, I brewed it myself!” Katie crossed her arms and looked a little offended.

“Sorry!” Sarah put her hands up almost in surrender, “Alright give me a magic cookie!”

She held the cookie for a moment. Somehow it still felt warm as if it were freshly baked only minutes ago, the smell of vanilla and milk chocolate filled Sarah’s nose. She inhaled deeply before taking a bite. Warmth wrapped around her like one of her grandma’s hugs and for a moment she felt like a kid again. Another bite and that feeling lingered, finishing the cookie she felt a sense of wonder deep in her soul awakening after what felt like ages.

“I feel so light” She said while looking over herself to see if anything had changed.

“Doris always said that was what life felt like without stress. I don’t know what it means, must be a human thing.” Katie shrugged. She was right. The stress had crept in slowly over her teenage years, then crashed down in adulthood, until she forgot what it even felt like to be light.

On impulse Sarah jumped into a cartwheel across the long kitchen and let out a confident “Woo!” at her successful landing, “Let’s go kick some Shadow King butt!”

Katie led the way again out the back door towards the tall grass, “This is the easiest way for humans to enter our realm!”

Sarah stopped at the edge of the tall grass, it had always been shades of greens and yellows and much taller than her as a child but now it felt dry and crispy, all bearing the same yellow-beige of dead grass. “What happened here?” she asked, concerned.

“I think towards the…end, it was harder and harder for Doris to get out here to care for the grass so the Shadow King sucked the very life from the blades. The portal is weakened by the state of the grass but it is still our largest portal so we must try.” Katie plunged into the dry blades weaving gracefully around them. Sarah broke off a blade and watched it crumble to dust in her hand. She had to fix this. She parted the grass with her hands to create a path and walked in. Though the tall grass was only an inch above her head now, it still seemed to close around her. She felt disoriented, struggling to keep up with Katie as the light dimmed with each step.

Suddenly she stepped without the crunch of grass underfoot and she pulled the rest of her body out of the thick grass forest and found herself standing in front of the workshop, only she was suddenly the same size as Katie. The workshop looked massive but also different.

Had those spires at the top always been there? Sarah wondered to herself.

Birds flew around, circling, watching, like guards in the sky.

Katie was looking up at them timidly, “we need to get inside now.” She whispered urgently. They ducked under the tall garage doors and Katie flew up to the wooden beams. She looked down and motioned for Sarah to follow. Sarah looked around, hoping to see a tiny staircase or elevator before looking back at Katie with a shrug to indicate she didn’t know what to do. Katie giggled quietly and tugged at her wing while pointing back at Sarah on the ground. Sarah spun, suddenly noticing the bright orange and black wings that now seemed to be part of her. She jumped up, arms extended in the air like a superhero, eyes squeezed tightly shut. But nothing happened. She tried again, nothing. She shot a desperate look back up at Katie.

Katie fluttered back down to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked with slight exasperation clouding her voice.

“Hey! I’ve never done this before! How do I–you know, make them go?”

“Sure you have! We used to do it all the time!” Katie could see Sarah was still lost so she walked around her and pressed her hand into her back between her shoulder blades, “you kind of flex and relax the muscle right here, if you picture how a butterfly flaps its wings it kind of feels the way that looks, if that makes sense?”

Sarah focused on the muscles between her shoulder blades. The wings twitched. She rose a few inches, wobbled–and dropped back to the floor.

"Good!" Katie chirped. "That’s it! Now just do it harder!"

This time, Sarah locked her eyes on the wooden beam above. She flapped, rising in an unsteady zig-zag. With a final push, she landed, knees thudding onto the rough wood. “I did it,” she whispered, breathless as Katie flew up to meet her.“Okay! What’s the plan now?” Sarah asked.

Katie pointed up to one of the spires, “we need to get up there and free my friend Ella and then we face the Shadow King!”

Sarah smiled, a memory rushing back to her of freeing fairies from tiny cages. They made their way up quietly and carefully. When they entered the small room at the top of the spire they saw metal cages hanging from the tall ceilings clanking together in the slight breeze.

“Ella?” Katie called out in a half whisper. A hum of wings answered from above. Katie flew up and found a small hummingbird locked in one of the cages, she looked around and found a hairpin. “Sarah, help me lift that to the lock!” It took the both of them to lift the heavy bobby-pin up and into the lock, with some fiddling around they heard a click and the door opened. Ella flew out, making a victorious loop in the air. Katie climbed onto her back and hugged around her neck tightly.

“I was so worried about you when you didn’t come back! Are you alright?”

Ella nuzzled into Katie, “I’m okay, thank you for finding me. We have to do something though, the Shadow King wants to take over the human world!” Katie gasped at this, knowing what it would mean for her world once darkness consumed everything. Fairies were creatures of light and without it they would cease to exist.

They sat up there making a plan.

“Wait.” Sarah said, “isn’t this all a little too easy? Where are the guards?”

The shadows started to swirl around them like the answer to Sarah’s question, though not the kind she had wanted. The darkness closed in and then she heard a deep chuckle.

“Well, well, well. What’s this? Another Keeper trying to save the day? Well you’re too late.” The darkness seemed to grasp around Sarah’s throat, choking her. “My plans have already begun and there’s nothing you can do about it.” She felt him toss her aside, landing on the hard ground.

Sarah had grown up afraid of the dark, even as an adult it made her uneasy, only now she realized that fear was because she knew what was waiting inside of it.

“You can’t win.” Sarah gasped out, holding her throat delicately. “Not as long as hope and love and light remain.”

Red eyes burned from within the darkness, boring into her like fire. “Oh? Look at the world, I’ve already won. Darkness has already won the hearts of your world leaders, your jobs dragging you deeper into the darkness of your own minds everyday, your pathetic lives are one big victory to me. You say I can’t win as long as light remains, but little Keeper where there is light there is shadow, and where there is shadow I will always remain.” The words crept into her heart like a promise, threatening and sure.

Sarah looked around desperately, she looked at her friends who were huddled together against the wall staring up at the shadow that formed a menacing figure five-times their size. She saw something shine in Ella’s feathers, a small silver heart-shaped pin with blue flowers on it. It was her grandmother’s favorite brooch. A sob escaped Sarah’s throat, she didn’t know what to do. She felt a soft hand touch her shoulder and pull her in for a hug.

“It’s okay my dearest Sarah. I know I didn’t prepare you properly for this, but you can do it–you just have to be brave.”

Sarah looked up her own eyes wide into the soft sparkling blue eyes of her grandmother.

“Grandma?” She cried out, tears streaming endlessly down her face. “What do I do?” She buried her face into her grandmother’s shoulder and cried hard. Her grandma pulled Sarah’s face up in her hands, her skin radiated a bright golden light and Sarah felt the warmth envelope her. She rose, wings beating stronger than before, still holding on to her grandma’s hands the golden light spread from her grandma to fill her own skin with the warm pulsing light. They flew high into the rafters and the cages reflected their light all around. The Shadow King's cloaks sizzled with each beam that touched him.

“What’s happening? NO!!” He shouted trying to reach for Sarah. This time the light burned away his hand, a deep smoke building around him. He looked around like a wild animal trapped in a cage and dove toward Ella and Katie still on the ground. They both rose unnaturally from the ground choked by the darkness. Sarah started to break the connection to reach out to her friends, but her grandma pulled her in tighter and hummed You Are My Sunshine their light grew and she nodded encouragement to Sarah. She joined in singing the words with her grandma just as she always had whenever her grandma played the piano growing up.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine-” she continued on as their light filled the whole room until no shadows were left, the Shadow King seemed to burn away leaving nothing but a white smoke filling the room with one last final cry out as he sizzled away.

Katie and Ella fell to the floor coughing and holding their throats. Katie was the first to speak as Sarah landed beside them, “How did you do that?” She asked, her eyes filled with admiration.

“My grandma-” Sarah went to point back but there was no one there behind her.

She looked around then sank to the floor, head drooping low, “she was here, she helped me find the light.” Just then a golden gleam emanated from the pin on Ella’s chest.

“May I?” she asked, arm outstretched toward it.

“Oh! Yes! This is the mark of the Keeper, I was bringing it to you when I got captured the other night.” Ella placed the brooch in Sarah’s hand and it glowed warmly before dimming back to the polished silver. Sarah clutched it tightly to her chest before pinning it to her blouse.

She knew of course that the Shadow King wasn’t gone forever, but for the moment the whole workshop seemed to be filled with light. Sarah stood proudly, lifting Katie up with her.

“So?” Katie said with a huge smile, “Keeper Sarah–does this mean you're gonna stay?”

Sarah laughed, “Of course I am–who else is gonna believe there’s a whole world inside the mousehole in the bathroom?”

The three of them giggled and set off on their journey back. The grass, Sarah noticed as she stepped out of it and back to her side of the world, was already greener.

The next week Sarah moved in with her husband and their three kids, she smiled to herself as she pulled Do Not Eat cookies out of the oven and told the kids they had unfortunately burned, the kids disappointed for only a moment ran to play outside and she even heard one of them whisper something about fairies in the garden.