Written by: Aryea

 

TITLE: Land of the Fienne

 

 CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Braennon greeted them with her usual calm as Sydney and Nigel entered the forest where they had left their companions. Myrine, a creature that had also accompanied them on their journey and looked more like a small gnome than a fairy, held an expression of pure, unadulterated joy as he stared at the bulging bag in Nigel’s hands.

“Is that it?” he squeaked, excited. “You actually managed it? You found the tree?”

Nigel and Sydney grinned. “We even have permission from the previous owner to return it to your people,” Sydney replied.

Braennon smiled then, relieved. “She is truly a great lady,” she sighed as she allowed herself a small moment of delight.

Nigel nodded. “She is indeed.”

“Come, we must waste no more time. We must return quickly. The tree must be replanted before the next sunrise or it will die.”

They hurried through the forest. Nigel carried the tree as he was used to the burden of precious relics. They finally stopped at sundown. Time was of the essence so they knew their rest could not be for long. Myrine handed out delicious looking, palm-sized cakes along with a selection of plump berries.

Nigel scoffed down his food, famished and slightly winded from their fast paced trek through the forest. Now in the body of his youth, he no longer seemed to have the energy or stamina that he had acquired the last three years working for Sydney .

He was trying not to complain or show how exhausted he was because that would be admitting defeat. He’d always thought he had been horribly out of shape as a child, despite what his mother tried to tell him. Have another biscuit. That was her answer for his woes.

Sydney was weaving the tale of meeting Queen Elizabeth and the story of Ann Bolin’s finding the tree and Nigel was taking advantage of the time to catch his breath. He couldn’t allow himself to fall behind; it would be too humiliating.

Even in a child’s form Sydney still had all of the energy she usually had. She didn’t even seem tired and that made Nigel feel even worse. His legs were shorter and he couldn’t cover as much ground. He was carrying around a lot of extra weight, other than the tree on his back and he was trying not to break a leg tripping over some of the larger tree roots they were encountering.

“What a wonderful story!” Braennon decided, clapping her hands with delight as Sydney finished her tale. “What a remarkable woman this Queen must be. I would like one day to meet her.”

Sydney smiled. “I think she’d like that too, Braennon.” She glanced at her watch and rose. “We better get moving. In a couple of hours it will be too dark to see.”

Myrine had already put everything away and was standing beside Braenon. Nigel slowly rose and adjusted his backpack. He tried not to sigh at the idea of more walking.

They trudged on for another two and-a-half hours, Nigel and Sydney using their flashlights to travel by when it started to get really dark. However, soon the thickness of the forest left them in a pitch-blackness that even their lights could not cut through and Myrine found them a place to bed down for the night.

Braennon started singing softly and within moments hundreds of glowing fireflies surrounded them, offering them enough light to get their camp settled. Myrine had gathered a selection of fallen fir branches and soft moss to make a nest between the thick, raised roots of a giant chestnut tree.

“This should be comfortable for you,” Braennon suggested indicating that both Sydney and Nigel climb into the nest.

Sydney and Nigel did as commanded. Myrine had made canopy beds for them in an enormous oak tree on the journey across the forest to England , but sleeping that high up had made Nigel nervous, so he was glad for a bed on the ground this time. Their small guide had designed nothing for himself or Braennon and when asked where the two Feinne would sleep, Braennon smiled and told them both not to worry.

Nigel set his backpack just outside of the tree root that housed their bed and lay back. It was soft, like down feathers and he released a soft sigh as he sank back into its welcoming depths. Now this was the way to sleep outdoors. He’d have to try and remember the technique for the next time that he and Sydney found themselves overnight somewhere in or close to a forest. It was much better than sleeping on the hard ground.

Sydney settled in beside Nigel and snuggled down. She could tell he had been working hard to keep up with them the last several hours, but she would never humiliate him by commenting on it. She still thought he was absolutely adorable as a little boy.

“This reminds me of camping with my Dad,” she commented quietly.

“Hmmm.”

“Did you ever go camping, Nige?”

Nigel lay on his back, his fingers linked across his stomach as he stared up at the patch of starlit sky shining thru the canopy of trees. “No, not really. We had a summer cottage just outside of Kent , but I wouldn’t call it camping. Mum and Dad took us there every July thru to August. It was close to several other cottages and they had boat races on the lake and sometimes picnics and the like for the children. Some summers they had polo matches and football games.”

Sydney smiled. “Sounds nice.”

She wondered if Nigel had been an active, energetic child or if he was one of those brooding bookworms that held back from social activities in favour of a good book. As intelligent as he was, and the way he devoured any material handed to him, she knew most people would assume that he was a bookworm. But her instincts told her different. She imagined Nigel in his current form, running around after a soccer ball or chasing butterflies as his family picnicked near by. The idea made her smile.

“Did you go every summer?”

“Yes. Well, until I was thirteen.”

“What happened then?’ Sydney poked him jokingly. “Adolescence hit and you decided you were too old to go to the cottage with your folks?”

“No. My parents died.”

Sydney felt as if she had been slapped and a flush rose to her cheeks. How could she be so stupid? She searched for something to say, some way to make up for her insensitivity. All she could come up with was, “I’m sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t kill them.”

Sydney winced. The simplicity of his remark led her to ask another question that she had always wondered about “How did they die?”

Nigel never really talked about his parent’s death. In fact, he rarely spoke of them at all, except a few stories about his father’s story telling. Sydney had assumed that they had died when he was much younger and so he didn’t have many memories of them to speak of.

“Their plane went down on a return flight from Rome .”

Sydney didn’t know what to say. She had lost her mother when she was ten, but she still had her father at least. “Sorry.”

Nigel shrugged and drew his arms closer around him in a hug. “Yeah, me too.”

Sydney rose up on her elbow and looked down at him. The trees above seemed to part for them and allowed a shaft of moonlight to pierce the darkness. Under the beams Nigel’s young face appeared even paler than usual and he seemed so incredibly vulnerable. Sydney felt the urge to protect him from anything ever hurting him again.

She leaned down and took his hand in hers, the same hands that she had cut during her oath now slid together once more. “Hey,” she whispered.

Nigel glanced up at her and swallowed hard. With her long dark hair creating a curtain of deep chocolate against a face glowing with moonlight, she looked like an angel from heaven. Even at this age, Sydney Fox was incredibly beautiful. He couldn’t respond and could only look at her.

She squeezed his hand in reminder of their pact. “We have each other, now. Right?”

Nigel felt his eyes glisten with tears and he prayed that Sydney would not notice. He returned the squeeze. “Right,” he whispered and offered her his best smile so that she would not guess what an emotional wreck he was at that moment.

She smiled and lay back down, releasing his hand.

A few moments later, Nigel asked her. “Syd?”

“Yeah?”

“What was it like? Your childhood?” He could only imagine how thrilling and exciting it had been for her to travel so extensively with her father. Observing other cultures, seeing things other people only ever read about. Hell, she’d learned how to defuse a bomb when she was kid. His own boring childhood must pale in comparison.

Sydney considered the question for a moment, and then remembered Nigel’s descriptions of going to the cottage every summer. She and her father traveled so much, after her mother died, that there was never any time for creating family traditions. They had a few small customs between each other that offered a semblance of routine to their chaotic lives, but nothing that she could really look back on. No one thing that they did every summer or every holiday.

She had an amazing childhood and would not have changed it for anything. She got to do and see things most people only dreamed about, but sometimes, when she heard about her friends decorating a Christmas tree every Christmas Eve, or watching fireworks every Independence Day she became wistful. Anything that was deemed a family tradition that she never got to experience and sometimes wished she had.

“Lonely,” she decided after a while.

Nigel turned to look at her, but the moonlight had vanished and he could barely make out her shadow now. He didn’t know how to respond to that, so he said nothing. Sometimes, with Sydney , he didn’t have to say anything for her to know what he was thinking or feeling. The greatest thing about their friendship was that they never had to mince their words. More was understood between them with the less being said.

She didn’t expect Nigel to respond to her and she was suddenly so incredibly tired that she no longer had any interest in the conversation. She released a wide yawn and then curled onto her side and closed her eyes. Nigel did the same a second later, turning his back to her. She tossed an arm over him and found he was already asleep.

Braennon was perched on the branch above them, watching them sleep. Myrine floated up to sit beside her and retrieved a small leather pouch from his pocket. “Is it time, Mistress?” he asked quietly.

She nodded and dipped her hand into the bag. “It is time.”

She opened her hand. A dusting of sparkling powder fell from her fingertips and nestled over the sleeping forms below. She spoke some ancient words over them and a moment later, small bubbles appeared above Sydney and Nigel’s heads and started to float upwards.

Braennon inspected the visions in each of the bubbles as she gathered them to her, and then gently handed them to Myrine, who took great pleasure in popping them with a giant pin. They made only the softest sound upon breakage, so their friends remained sleeping.

“What is it you are looking for, Mistress?”

“I will know when I find it,” Braennon replied as she inspected another bubble. She frowned slightly and handed it to Myrine again. “They are not sleeping deeply enough.” She reached out her hand. A butterfly appeared from nowhere and landed in her palm. She whispered gently to the butterfly and it flew off.

A few minutes later two large grey owls landed on the branch above them and started gently cooing. A moment after that, a beautiful blue Nightingale appeared in the opposite branch and started to sing a sweet melody. The two small people nestled in their forest bed smiled in their sleep and more bubbles formed above their heads to float up to Braennon’s waiting hands.

“This is more like it,” she decided as she inspected the bubbles. She selected two of the circular globes and placed them in her own small pouch, attached to her tiny belt. She gave the rest to Myrine, who gleefully continued to pop each bubble with relish.

“Mistress,” he asked when all the bubbles were gone and the owls and Nightingale had flown off. “Must you do this?”

Braennon nodded solemnly. “No, but I wish it.”

Myrine sighed. “Then so it must be. It is so much. Already you have done so much. I shall miss you, Mistress.”

Braennon smiled. “I will not be far away, my dearest friend.”

Myrine nodded and looked down at the two people he had become quiet fond of. “They are not so bad, are they?” he pondered aloud. “For humans.”

Braennon concurred. “I think they are wonderful.”

“I should like to go with them when they leave.”

“Then so you should.”

Myrine sighed and shook his head. “Indeed, it is folly. What would I do in their world?”

“Be their friend?”

Myrine scoffed and climbed to a higher, calling to the tree to move its branches closer and form a nice hammock for him. “You tease me, Mistress. I cannot leave you and we have no place there.”

Braennon watched him fondly for a long moment, until she heard his gentle snoring. She gazed down at her charges. “Would that we could, my dear,” she whispered softly. “Would that I had the strength to allow such a wish. These two need us more than they realize.” She patted the pouch on her belt, wistfully. “This will have to do.” She smiled and continued her vigil from her branch, one tiny bare foot swinging to the night time melody of the forest

 

 

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Sydney and Nigel watched with growing excitement as the Singing Tree was replanted in its original place among the people of the Feinne. Several taller fairies, much like Braennon, moved forward and started to sing a melody that was almost too beautiful to listen to. Both Nigel and Sydney felt their throats swell up with tears and their hearts threatened to burst through their chests.

Slowly, the tiny tree that Nigel had carried upon his back through the forest, the tree that Ann Bolin had happened upon centuries ago and had taken for her garden, and the very tree that Queen Elizabeth said never bloomed or grew in that garden, started to grow. Slowly it rose and tiny branches reached out longingly for the exquisite voices of the Feinne.

A whirlwind of sparkling movement swirled around the tree, more fairies, and the smaller ones that were so difficult to see when they were moving. The tree rose inside their circle, its branches grew thicker as the tree expanded and grew taller and wider. Tiny white and yellow blooms appeared on the outer reaches of the higher branches and suddenly the roots plucked themselves from the ground and started to plunge deeper into the earth, its base thickening to support the tree’s new height.

It was over in a matter of minutes and finally there stood the most glorious tree Nigel or Sydney had ever set eyes upon. It could not be distinguished as a specific species, such as oak or chestnut, but seemed to be a combination of several. The trunk was spiralled with a multicolour of browns. The thick, heavy branches that reached far into the sky held leaves of every shape, size and colour and were speckled with white, yellow and purple flowers. It was a tree from a fairy tale, a tree of legend.

Nigel and Sydney were speechless. Never had they witnessed something so spectacular. Then, just when they thought it was over, the sun started to set and as if by a great painter’s brushstroke, the sky above became streaked with citrons, magentas and deep blues. The sunbeams touched the branches of the tree and remarkably it began to hum, a deep, soothing vibration that could be felt from the very earth beneath their feet.

A larger leaf, that had appeared coiled in upon itself like a caterpillar’s cocoon started to unfold and inside was a sparkling of life. The taller fairies flew upward and coaxed the creature from inside to emerge. Another cocoon seemed to appear, of the most brilliant gold and yet, this cocoon had tiny pale feet. Not a cocoon, but a set of beautiful, iridescent wings slowly spread apart and revealed the tiny form inside. The birth of a Faerie.

Sydney felt a single tear slip from the corner of her eye and slide down her cheek. Nigel glanced at her then looked away to award her some privacy. He was very close to tears himself.

Braennon moved towards them as the other fairies flew about to touch and caress their newest additions. She held out a rounded object wrapped in a black cloth of shimmering silk. “This is for you, Nigel.”

“What is it?” Nigel’s voice was still deep with emotion from what he had just witnessed.

“It is your greatest wish.”

“My what?”

Braennon smiled. “When you were fifteen years old, you threw a coin into a fountain and made your greatest wish.”

He stared at her, stunned. “I…how do you…?”

He had been a withdrawn and shy boy all through school, and so he turned his attentions to his work rather than trying to make friends. His thirst for knowledge and near photographic memory helped him to graduate from school a year and a half earlier than the others his age. Despite the scope of his accomplishment, he had been miserable the entire day.

He had not been invited to the after graduation parties, because he was younger than the rest of the graduating class and considered a freak. He had not even considered going to the prom, what a joke that would have been. He went for his diploma ceremony, and then left directly after.

There had been no one to see him accept his certificate, except his English Professor, who had glowed each time he announced Nigel’s name for an award. The Science Award, the Award of Excellence, and the Queen’s award for Scholastic Achievement, for the highest graduating average in all of Great Britain . Nigel accepted the awards with grace, but they meant little to him. If anything, he found them an embarrassment.

He had cleaned out his room in the dormitory, packed his diploma and awards and caught the train back to London . He arrived to an empty house with a note from Preston , stating that he was on a mini-break with his girlfriend and would be away until Sunday night. There was a bottle of champagne with the note, Preston ’s token gift for graduating. Nigel fixed himself a sandwich in the kitchen and drank most of the bottle before heading out, unable to stay in the large empty house one minute longer.

He had walked the streets of London for hours, well into the night, feeling lonely and full of self-pity. He finally settled on the edge of a large fountain in the centre of London and stared at all the shining coins in the water below. He was close to tears when he pulled out a handful of change from his pocket, selected a specific coin and tossed it into the water, making a desperate wish. He could not, for the life of him, remember what that wish had been.

“Accept this, Nigel,” Braennon encouraged kindly, still holding the gift toward him. “It is yours, a token of our gratitude.”

“We don’t need anything…” he protested automatically.

She smiled. “Consider it a little piece of magic to take back with you, then?”

Nigel accepted the gift, graciously. “Um…thank you.” The object was heavy and he used two hands to make sure that he did not drop it. He started to pull the cloth off, but Breannon placed her hands over his, halting his movements.

“For when you get home, Nigel. Do not open it here, the magic will be lost.”

Nigel nodded and smoothed the covering back over the gift.

“And for you, Sydney.” Braennon handed her an identical gift, wrapped in a red shimmering cloth.

“Thank you,” Sydney smiled and accepted the gift, remembering Braennon’s instructions to Nigel. She handed it to Nigel who carefully set it in his backpack with his own gift, careful of St. Patrick’s staff head, also inside.

“Now, for the uncomfortable part.” Breannon offered them each a small, familiar mushroom.

“Oh God,” Nigel moaned, even as he accepted it. “Not again?”

Sydney glared at him and accepted her mushroom, suddenly filled with a sad regret at having to leave. She did want get back to being an adult again, but it had been fun to be a kid. “Will we ever see you again?”

Braeannon gave them a secretive smile. “All things are possible. Watch for us in the trees. Listen for us in the wind and whenever you see a flower dance…we’ll be there.” She gave them a playfully stern look. “Don’t step on the flowers!”

Sydney and Nigel smiled as Braennon stepped forward to hug them both.

“Long life and happiness go with you both,” she said as she embraced Sydney .

“Likewise,” Sydney offered softly, she didn’t want to let go.

Sineya buzzed up to Nigel and he reached out his palm for her to settle upon. In her tiny hands was a colorful marble, which seemed to be half her size. “Remember your happy thoughts,” she giggled and dropped the marble into his hand.

Nigel grinned. “Thanks, Tink,” he teased.

Sineya’s entire body flushed red and she giggled again and flew off.

Nigel’s hand closed around the marble thoughtfully.

Braennon winked at him and her eyes twinkled as she hugged him. The gentle flapping of her wings as she hovered just above the ground tickled his face.

Nigel returned her embrace for several long seconds and closed his eyes at her warmth and goodness. “I do believe in faeries,” he whispered into her delicately pointed ear and felt the heat from her blush warm his cheek.

“And we believe in you,” she whispered back.

They offered Breannon a final, wistful look, exchanged a wary glance with each other and then Sydney and Nigel ate their mushrooms.

 

Continue to chapter 6

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