Beyond the Firefly Field (13 page)

“Okay then. Giant deer, no problem,” Brian summarized.

As the twilight faded, the firefly lampposts seemed especially bright. In the illumination, the adventurers could count many more fairies than were out the last time they visited. The fairies happily walked the branches and crowded around the booths. The smell of sweet rolls baking filled the air, and food and drink booths were full of fairies happily chatting as they nibbled sweets and drank berry frappes.

A few dozen children fairies ran through throngs of teenage and adult fairies. It looked like they were playing Follow the Leader as fast as they could. They ran around older fairies, jumping over laboring insects as they raced in a line running down to a smaller branch. When they reached the end, they leapt off the tree, landing squarely on a branch of another. Without slowing down one bit, the child fairies raced up the new branch toward the trunk and vanished out of sight.

Clayton's attention was drawn to cheers coming from above. An audience was shouting encouragement at the fairies who were throwing wooden knives at targets. Fairy archers were also sending arrows out of sight at targets he couldn't see. When he glanced at SeeLee, Penny was just releasing her from another hug, and SeeLee turned to look at him.

“We were on our way to get sweet rolls when we saw you and thought you needed relief from Vork. We're going to a baker's booth now. Will you join us?” SeeLee asked, already seemingly unconcerned about the dire warnings Clayton had issued earlier.

Aromas from the fairy food court were making them hungry, so they quickly agreed to join SeeLee and her friends for a treat.

“The baker's booth is up there,” she said. She grabbed Clayton and Penny's hands. “Step up with me,” SeeLee said as she stepped onto the air.

Without thinking, Clayton and Penny each raised a foot and placed it on an imaginary stair. Both held a leg up, standing on the “nothing” to steady themselves. They were standing on air as they rose with SeeLee. Clayton's first reaction was intense panic, and he squeezed SeeLee's hand tighter. A wave of excitement rushed through Penny, and now she knew what it must feel like to be one of those kids in a fantasy movie.

Clayton looked down. The motion he was experiencing didn't feel like rising. Instead, it seemed like the branch was falling away. He didn't feel he was being pulled or held up. It felt as though he was on a slow-moving escalator as he approached the branch above. Without the sensation of movement, the branch above seemed as though it was gently falling toward them. SeeLee artfully dodged the branch and came around to its top. They stopped briefly, less than a foot above the branch, when a slight tug from SeeLee drew them off balance. This caused them to step down onto the branch.

The others traveled the same way, guided by SeeLee's friends, and they were all shocked by the levitation. It brought back similar feelings from when they were made smaller and first met the fairies.

“Wow!” Karl said, recovering first. The others seemed too stunned to speak. “Can you take us home like that?” he asked as his face lit up with the thrill of levitation.

“Yeah,” Penny joined in. “Can you?”

“We could if we weren't forbidden to do so,” SeeLee replied. “There's too much risk of being discovered.”

Even though levitation wasn't what Clayton expected, and he certainly didn't move as fast as he thought it would, the experience was as breathtaking as a rollercoaster ride, but a ride with no safety belt, seat, car, or track—only air as its structure.

They were standing on a branch split from a larger one. The two branches were level with each other and bustling with activity. With twice the number of firefly lampposts, it was much brighter.

The smell of food was stronger, too. There were more food booths on these branches, and enjoying a bite to eat with friends seemed to be a favorite fairy pastime. The hungry group followed SeeLee and found two tables with benches to seat them all. SeeLee's friends walked to a stove where a fairy baker was feeding it twigs to keep its fire going. When he finished feeding the fire, he carefully removed a tray of hot sweet rolls from the oven and placed them on a nearby counter. Soon the pastries were piled on their tables and distributed on flat, wooden plates with carved handles. The fairy carried a tray crowded with cups filled with berry drinks.

“These rolls smell really good. What's in them?” Paul asked, breathing in the aroma.

“We don't know, only the bakers do. The only thing we care about is that they taste good,” SeeLee replied as she pulled the wooden handle away from the plate, revealing a knife blade snuggled into a slot in the side of the plate. She cut a triangle-shaped piece from the roll and stuck the knife into it. “I'm sure it's just grains, nuts, spices, and honey,” she guessed, inspecting the morsel before popping it into her mouth.

Following SeeLee's lead, they all pulled knife handles from their wooden plates and ate their treats with frequent comments about the incredible flavor.

Karl pulled and replaced the knife into his plate several times, his brow furrowing, seemingly impressed at the clever design. They discussed the unique handle/knife combination and began to suspect that everything the fairies made was more complex than it appeared to be.

As they relaxed and finished their drinks, SeeLee returned from a second visit to the drink booth and burped loudly. “Oops,” she said, putting a hand to her mouth. “CoPsi always makes me do that.”

“What is CoPsi?” Penny asked. “Is it some special fairy drink?”

“It's either Coca-Cola or Pepsi. We can never tell which one it is.”

“You have a soda pop machine in the fairy tree?” Karl asked.

“No. The gather fairies find bottles or cans left behind at picnics and bring them here. We open and funnel them into an unused water line bored into the tree. Voila! We have CoPsi! Oops,” she said after another big burp.

“Can we try a cup of CoPsi?” Penny pleaded.

“We can probably tell you which soda it is,” Brian said with confidence.

They each got a cup filled with the drink and returned to their seats.

“Coca-Cola,” Phil proclaimed with full certainty after just one sip.

“Pepsi,” Paul proclaimed, equally certain.

“Don't listen to them, they always argue,” Karl explained. “It tastes like Pepsi,” he said after taking his sip.

“See, I told you,” Paul said with a shove and a burp. “Oops.”

“No,” Brian countered, “it's not sweet enough for Pepsi. It has to be Coke.”

“See?” Phil said and shoved him back.

“Coca-Cola,” was all Penny said.

“Pepsi,” Ron and Clayton said at the same time.

“Well, thank you for clearing that up for me. We just call it CoPsi. It changes a little from being contained in wood. I like ginger ale the best. It doesn't seem to mind being in wood.”

“What else do the gather fairies gather?” Penny asked.

“Anything and everything. The hall of the gather fairies is filled with treasure and junk, and mostly we can't tell which is which.”

“We can probably help you with
that,”
Karl offered.

“Like you did with the CoPsi? How do I know you're not all helper humans?”

“Let's all slap her,” Penny said as SeeLee laughed.

After they finished eating and drinking, the kids were eager to explore the tree and discover what else they might find. After returning the empty plates and cups, the group decided to go their separate ways because everybody wanted to explore something different.

LeeLan and AnDrin agreed to show Phil, Ron, and Karl where furniture was made. SeeLee told them everything was made in the tree, but sometimes the builder fairies didn't know what they were making until it was finished.

MarLan offered to take Paul and Brian to the knife throwers' branch. Clayton stayed with Penny, who talked SeeLee into showing her the inside of a nearby smaller branch. After watching the others fly to their destinations, Clayton and Penny followed SeeLee. She walked toward a light coming from a window in a small branch that rose from the one they were on. There were many smaller branches attached to the larger branches, each with bright lights shining in them.

When they arrived at the branch, which jutted up at a slight angle, Clayton leaned against it to look through the window. It seemed to be just a piece of broken glass that had been jammed into a hole in the wood. As Clayton started to make out what was inside, the window was filled with moving swirling colors, reflecting what was going on behind him.

He pushed away from the branch and turned to see dozens of fairies in the air, all heading in different directions. Their wings displayed a dizzying and dazzling array of colors and patterns. It was difficult for him to focus on any one fairy. Sometimes, two fairies would almost collide, but then grabbed each other and spun around merrily like skaters on ice.

Their artistic wings would sometimes flow together, transferring vivid colors and intricate patterns, sometimes combining features of both. The skating fairies would then continue on their separate journeys, leaving with identical wing color displays.

Once, an intense color combination swept through all the fairies' wings at the same time, and they each held the colors for a few moments as the colors waved through. Clayton started to wonder if this was a form of communication.

The sparkles falling from so many wings at the same time created a twinkling curtain, rivaling the beauty of the colored wings from which they fell. As quickly as the fairies appeared, they disappeared in different directions.

“What was that all about?” Clayton asked.

“Those are the peepers.”

“The what?”

“They're peeper fairies. They go to peoples' homes and look in their windows,” she explained as if it was a perfectly normal thing to do.

As Clayton started to feel offended, SeeLee further explained. “They mostly just watch television and stay in the city. I guess they have better shows there. They see different things, but most importantly, they watch educational shows. When they fly back, they send reports to the Old Ones about what they have seen. That's how we keep an eye on the planet and learn much of what we know.”

Clayton winced. “You must have a horrible opinion of us.” He thought about the news snippets he caught between changing channels. Mostly crimes and ecological disasters. Television shows and movies dealt with the same gory subjects, and now Clayton felt like he was on trial, defending the whole human race.

“Only the Old Ones and a few peepers have enough information about humans to form opinions. The only things my friends and I know about humans is through you, and we like you,” SeeLee said in her reassuring voice as she seemed to sense his unease.

“Where
are
your Old Ones?” Penny asked.

“Inside the lower part of the tree, and they seldom venture out. Follow me. We'll go inside the tree.”

SeeLee walked to the gnarled knot scar in the branch and swung part of it out, revealing a carved, polished wooden door, slightly taller than she was. It had a small window at the top. She pushed the door open and strolled right in, with Clayton staying an arm's length behind Penny.

He was relieved they stayed the same size and felt no disorientation going from outside to inside. He paused for a second, gaping at the huge circular room.

He looked back to see a very large door creaking shut behind them. It was at least three times his height. They
had
just become a lot smaller after all! Realizing what just happened, he swayed with unsteady steps, but kept walking behind Penny and SeeLee, afraid to be left behind in whatever size happened next. Penny either didn't notice or didn't care about another size change. She walked happily hand-in-hand with SeeLee, looking around the room.

Searching the cavern, he saw beams curving to a point in the ceiling. The beams didn't look like they were added as a decorative afterthought, but appeared carved with the ceiling and walls. Between the beams, the walls and ceiling were carved with scenes of animals, flowers, woods, or rock-strewn creeks. All were highly polished and had a slight waxy look. The golden lights in the room were reflected on the walls like a mirror.

Eight flat stones were set into the walls at waist level. The stones were evenly spaced around the room, and each radiated golden light from something piled on them.

The room's floor was carved away from the tables and benches marching in rows around the room. Across from the entrance, a staircase climbed to another room. It seemed like steps and rooms reached upward forever until they faded into distant darkness. Clayton couldn't recall the branch being so long before he passed through the door. It was difficult to judge space and dimension from a sudden, smaller frame of reference.

“What is this place?” Penny asked.

“It's the meeting hall of the peepers. They were here earlier to get their assignments and will meet back here after they are finished.”

“What are the lights made from?” Clayton quickly asked, changing the subject. The thought of spying fairies made him uncomfortable. He felt guilty for all the times he did something wrong or played when he should have been working. He worried that he had been spied on and his offenses uncovered. He started sweating and felt the flush that meant his face was turning red.

“The lights are made from the chafe we shed from our wings. Chafe builds up on the edges of our wings and itches like crazy if we don't move around enough to cause it to fall off. Aphids, those little green bugs that ants herd around, gather the pieces and pile them on the stones for us. Then fireflies land on the piles, flash their lights, and the pile stays lit. The lights are quite happy to glow all night long.”

“What's in the boxes?” Penny asked, indicating the stacks of boxes lined against the wall beside each light.

“They are filled with paper. The peepers write reports about what they have seen and sort them in order of importance. Now and then something gets sent to the Old Ones to discuss, but we rarely find out what they think or decide, as they seem to talk about it forever. The whole thing seems pointless to the rest of us, since the events of the world will continue anyway, and there's not much we can do about any of it.