"I was just being silly," she said with a nervous giggle. "I didn't really mean any of what I was doing. It was just a sort of reenactment of our forefathers' superstitious beliefs." she paused, carefully scrutinizing his face to discern any reaction or judgment. There was none to be found, so she somewhat shyly continued.
"I just hummed some tune, then words came to me. So I sang the words, and then I felt like dancing. The next thing that I knew, I was singing and laughing and twirling and having a grand old time." She smiled at the memory. Would not her neighbors have been scandalized to see some loony girl clad in a white linen, ruffled, ankle-length nightgown zipping about the garden among the lilies,lilacs, lavenders, daffodils, and crocus like a little girl instead of behaving like the introverted twenty-five year old librarian they knew who frequently baby-sat all of the children in Rockchest County?
Fortunately for her reputation, however, her family's home sat a quarter of a mile from any other house, and the garden was shielded from the road traveler's view by a thick, green line of fully-leaved, vivacious hedges. Besides, she reflected, it may not be such a bad thing to tarnish her pristine reputation. Certainly it could not hurt her dating situation, which at the moment was no dating for Victoria.
She smiled sheepishly, looking up from behind her unruly golden-streaked brown locks. Although she should not think of such things as reputation tarnishing while in mixed company, she could not help but giggle briefly. His face as impassive as a statue of Adonis, she blushed. He, however, was unaffected. Her sun darkened, little hand covered her ruddy lips. She had spent more time in the outdoors this spring than she ever had for entire summers of her life. The few friends that she had were not athletic types, and they preferred going out at night and sleeping deep into the afternoon. In any case, they were too busy this summer to bother with Victoria.
This year, however, father allowed her to tend the garden in any way that she saw fit, and she was consumed by a passion to create. She would work with the beauty of nature to create living art. The shrubs already in place, she concentrated first on the flowers, spending the entirety of last winter in study. She learned the proper planting techniques for each along with its cumbersome scientific name. Then Victoria nicknamed the blooms herself according to their temperament.
Next, the statues were bought. The first was a gift from her uncle who worked in a specialty marble shop, and her heart leaped when he presented to her the tiny Grecian birdbath with the delicate nymph standing proudly in the water, her flowing gown blending with the waters. She named the nyad Avina, the keeper of the birds.
The birdbath added such a formal touch that Victoria found herself collecting the stony additions to the garden, adding little statues to represent the flowers, trees, hedges, the little stream and the well. She chose a pixie for the little critters that scampered about, a gnome for the earth itself, a kobold for the less desirable such as snakes and spiders and creatures that ate her beloved plants.
Her favorite acquisition, however, cost her three weeks of salary. This was a little fairy with gossamer wings painted in the iridescent colors of the Spring flower petals coated with glistening dew. This beautiful creature she named Galendrin for the butterflies.
Last summer, how surprised her father was with the job that she had done in his suburban yard! He had always been mildly impressed by the small garden of houseplants that she kept in her small, green bedroom, however. With her brothers away, one at college, the other in the Navy Seals, the quiet girl seemed to draw even further into herself.
So, her mother suggested that Victoria fix the entire yard, grow things, to occupy herself. Mother reasoned with father that with the boys gone, no football or roughplay was likely to trample the carefully tended flower beds, and he would be freed of the bulk of the yard work. Victoria was willing and capable of tending the two acres of yard and found the project so appealing that father agreed without further coaxing. Victoria spent her time planning the horticultural wonders.
Victoria blinked herself from her revelry. Surely she paused, yet his expression had not changed. Neither annoyance nor interest betrayed the stoicism of his face. She pushed back a tendril of hair from her freckled nose, pushing it behind her ear. She looked briefly at her hands. They used to have such fastidiously manicured fingernails, though now presented were stubby nailed, freckled hands accustomed to two seasons of daily yard work.
In fact, Victoria suspected that much about her appearance changed since last autumn. Although she was never chubby, there was a leanness about her now that gave her an almost elven appearance which rather pleased her. She wore absolutely no makeup now, and she preferred flowing, comfortable sundresses to the sensible pants and sweaters that she used to wear.
"What next," his eyes seemed to say in a detached manner rather like a bored old detective on yet another case. However, he never spoke a word. She took a deep breath of the sparkling Autumn air and continued.
"I heard this rustling behind me, but no matter how quick I was, every time that I turned, it was too late. I saw nothing except a rustling in the underbrush. Once, though, I swear that I heard a musical little whinny, and there was one time that I saw a wisp of white." She looked down to again study her hands folded on the glass topped circular table.
How small her hands were, she realized, but so callused from labor. Although she was a woman in her twenties, Victoria felt still like a frightened, curious girl. In fact, of late she often was mistaken as being much younger than her actual age. To daydream so vividly, so imagined, must arrest the aging process. She could not tell the man across from her that even now she hoped to catch a glimpse of a unicorn in the Rhododendron behind him.
"This made me think, of course, and I remembered how ancestral people would leave offerings to sprites and fairies." She remembered her frantic run into the house, rummaging through her private possessions. Her entire coin collection, homemade potpourris, needlecrafts, and a favorite book she left as offerings alongside home baked breads with honey and milk. These disappeared from her leafy alters by morning.
Again, she paused to scrutinize him, looking deeply into unreadable eyes. She wondered if he practiced being cool, watching "tough guys" on television as role models. She rolled her eyes slightly, then reached under her seat to the wooden crossings beneath her dark maple wood kitchen chair and produced a book. An ancient pictorial guide to fey folk, this tome was given to Victoria by her great Grandmother, a woman almost as old as the volume considered. The ponderous work was beautifully illustrated and written entirely in poetry and riddles. There was a foreword warning readers to beware insulting the folk of Faerie, for they were powerful even if unseen, it read, giving advise to stay on the good side of the natural forces.
She opened to the forward and pointed to a phrase that read, "Ye maids, beware, for unless ye like elfknots in your once flowing hair or blisters on tongue and lips, never a cleaning or offering skip."
This passage and years of heirloom folkwisdom were her inspiration. While dancing, Victoria became consumed with the passage, which lead to her dash for treasures to buy for the folk who perhaps inhabited her garden. "Silly, I guess, but I was in a silly mood," she giggled, recollecting the enjoyment of frivolous release.
Then she jutted out her chin, her jaw clenched a bit, anticipating his reaction. Still, he showed nothing of a reaction, not even in the face of her slight defiance. She steeled herself and continued her monologue.
The words flowed from her heart like a stream swollen by winter's thaw and spring's rains. She no longer watched for his reaction, no longer acknowledged his presence before her, so impassive and unfeeling. She simply recited the further events of her May Day with unadulterated abandon. Child-like or maniacal, she continued.
"I know the fairies do not like sluttishness at all, and I wanted them to feel welcome. How else to welcome spring than by cleaning out the winter's cobwebs and pent-up odor, throw wide the windows and doors in welcome to the spring, the glory of rebirth. Spring's rains clean, after all, the very outside."
She described in detail the scrubbing, scrapping, and preparations of an intense cleaning of the split entry house in which she was born. "It had not been apparent to me just how filthy things had become, with the boys traipsing carelessly through the house, Mom away working, and Dad busy with work and volunteering at the medical complex." She vowed to keep it sparkling, that the "little ones" need never go away in disgust. "I imagine that they, being so much smaller in many cases, are able to see and feel the grime much more than we insensitive humans."
On May Day, it rained. Victoria questioned why, when she work so hard to clean thoroughly, the rain would come on the day she hoped for sun, but then she decided that the wind caressed the plants gruffly like a grizzled yet loving father and the mother rains nurtured them. The thunder sang a song much stronger than any that Victoria could manage, and the lightening made a fiery dance across the sky of unmatchable beauty. Admiring the wisdom of God, Victoria stood on the side porch, experiencing the winds and rains, feeling nature's symphony swell around her garden.
With a sigh, Victoria walked to the cement spot to recapture a bit of the magic of that May afternoon, unconcerned about her silent watcher, smiling peacefully at the full moon's glittering, wakeful majesty. As she gazed at the silvery orb in silence, the silvery rays transformed her rather plain face to one of delicate beauty, hiding the masses of freckles and the societal imperfections. She closed her hazel eyes momentarily, drinking in the beauty of both remembered and present scenes, then with a sigh, she returned to her rambling explanations.
"Right where the protectress moon shines now, right there in the beautiful, mysterious sky above the garden, after the storm ended as quickly as it started, shined a prefect rainbow, its pastel colors pure and bright. I ran to the garden," she exclaimed, breathily remembering the site, the ionized freshness of the spring-cleaned air, then continued, "and found the origin of that rainbow," with a flamboyant wave of her hand, she indicated her beloved yard, "right in this garden!"
She recalled the flowers with their seemingly bowed heads, raindrops dripping from their humility, crying tears of joy for May Day, for Persephone's liberation and their own from the underworld. Moved to joyful tearfulness, Victoria continued, "Although the flowers lost none of their beauty, their colors seemed to run into the ground, to the stream, to the well. Hydrina, the well nyad, sat where I placed her, lazily contemplating the waters housed within its depths, reaching for them with her stone hand."
Yet unlike Victoria, the statue Hydrina missed the beauty of the rainbow, the promise keeper, emerging from the darkness to grace the sky, a shining reminder to the world that God would not destroy the earth again.
Victoria paused then to remember her Sunday school lessons. She heard that there was no room on Noah's arc for the unicorn. Why, she pondered, would this be? She thought perhaps that God was not worried about the creature because he gave to it the ability to survive the flood on its own. There was a silvery flash in her peripheral vision, but the origination of the movement alluded her sight.
"I stood there in the garden for a long time, staring in awe at the beauty of the rainbow. It did not surprise me that it should emerge from the darkness, since spring and flowers and our own lives do the same." She sighed in recaptured contentment, recalling the sun's return in golden glory which seared away the rainbow and dried the moisture from the boughs of the plants.
"I then went inside to finish some house cleaning and prepare dinner. There was a knock at the kitchen door, and although I rushed to answer, noone was there when I opened the door. That happens a lot, though, and I don't think that anything could upset me much after so much magic, so many miracles from this special day." She lapsed into a tune that she unconsciously sang that May Day, a song that filled her heart.
Again, the faintest trick of silver just outside of her field of vision appeared. She ceased singing and continued, "All of this was pretty much unintentional, really very innocent. It was my humble way to celebrate the coming spring."
In private pleasure from the outcome of her earlier actions, Victoria's stance changed. She stretched herself tall, pride glowing deeply within her eyes, and her smile languished nobly upon her lips as she turned toward him.
"I will never send them away, the fairy folk who play in the garden. I imagine that I made it all for them in any case. I remember childhood friends who used to braid my hair or help me with my housework. I could not forget them the way that most children do when they enter adolescence. I rewelcome them to this which was first their home and hope that my vision is acceptable to them." She smiled sheepishly, seeing the splendid silhouettes of well-tended beds and bushes and statues that seemed lively in the dappling moonlight. Ironically, she added, "I am not an artist, after all, but I do love rather well. Do you agree?"
She turned back to him, staring into his vacant, sculpted marble eyes. The interview concluded, this statue that her parents sent from their travels in Italy should work well in the garden peopled with his kin.
She leaned her elbow against the cool, mottled glass top of the table and rested her flushed cheek against her hand. Sighing, she lowered her head. How everyone would laugh to see her carrying on so with a statue, but noone even sent word to her since late February when her parents departed for their European tour. Her friends were far too busy for eccentric Victoria. This statue arrived this September evening with only a postcard of the leaning tower of Pisa, a note hastily scrawled, "You are not forgotten. We'll be home in time for Thanksgiving." Signed, Dad.
She walked over to where the handsome marble man sat with his impassive stony gave and regained her place opposite him. After consulting her book, she decided that he would be named Orick for the rocks. She bit the sides of her fingers, trying to figure out how to get the heavy statue tot he garden location that she had in mind without help, when she heard a loud thud from the kitchen porch.
She turned to look and saw the snowy head of a unicorn, his opal horn glowing in the silvery moonlight, his eyes as fathomless as the sea. Yes, she would always believe in the unicorn, in the music he inspired, in spring and in everyday miracles. She managed a slight awe-struck smile and knew that this majestic creature could exist as long as people could believe in him. He shook his silver and snow mane and stomped his heavily fetlocked, cloven foot. Then he disappeared into the shadow with the grace of a deer, soundless as a resting stream.
Motionless for a while, her mirth never vanishing from her face nor from her heart, Victoria at last started from her reverie when the moon moved from view behind a large cloud mass. She rested her head in her hands, elbows unabashedly propped on the cool tabletop. She looked blankly at the neatly pushed-in chair opposite hers, her smile lingering upon lonely lips.
"Of course," she muttered, "The fairies hate sluttishness." Then she went to her gardens where she knew the young man statuary should sit. Indeed, he looked splendid in his majestic robes, his crown the lilac, his throne azalea of purple spent, and his scepter the ruby crown imperial.
She could hear the giggles behind her and the padding of little feet, but Victoria learned long ago that the fairy folk do not enjoy being spied upon, and she did not want them to feel unwelcome. Besides, she could believe in fairies without seeing with mortal eyes, for hers was a heart filled with love.