Faery Tale (24 page)

“Signe, I've called my friend. I'm sorry, I just thought . . . I should do it. So it's Charlotte on the line. You two should talk,” she said, handing me the phone.

We said hello, and explaining my search, I asked her if we could meet. Despite my time constraints, Charlotte agreed to meet me at the Venture Centre for tea in a little over an hour.

I flipped the phone shut and smiled at Ali. “Thank you. This is shaping up to be a pretty spectacular birthday.”

“It's your birthday?” they exclaimed.

“Yup. So far it's been pretty unforgettable.”

We collected the kids, who were now wandering with Mike a little farther upstream, and headed back up the path. We'd been walking for a few minutes when something occurred to me. I had really wanted to ask permission to take something with me from the area of the Fairy Bridge. Not someone else's tribute, of course. Just a fallen leaf to press, a twig, a stone, something. The place had felt so magical, it
was
my birthday, and most important, it would forever serve to remind me that I'm not alone.There are other people who believe, and who want to believe, and seeing the bridge had given me a new surge of hope that this journey I was undertaking wasn't going to be in vain. I let out a sigh and looked down at the dirt path. Nothing but old paving pebbles here. Nothing special.

Oh!
I lamented.
I really wish I could have taken a stone . . .

 

Back at the hostel, I freshened up and went outside to wait for Charlotte MacKenzie to arrive. Soon I heard the crunching of shoes on gravel, and Ali came toward me accompanied by a pretty lady with a button nose and a broad white smile. Something about her radiated an elegance, even though she was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a T-shirt. She looked at me in surprise.

“Looking for faeries?” she said, laughing. “You
are
a faery! Look at her,” she said, turning to Ali. “Doesn't she look just like a faery?”

Me? Look like a faery? Ali left the two of us together, and Charlotte sat down across from me. We had an instantaneous rapport that took me completely by surprise.

“So. Here I am, and my time is yours. Where do you need to go? What do you need to do?”

“Well,” I said, “I actually have no idea. It's my last day on the island and I feel like there's so much I haven't seen. What are some places that you might suggest?”

She squinted at me, and thought for a moment. “There's Ballaglass Glen, which isn't too far from here, and it is, in my opinion, a pretty magical place . . . but then there's the Point of Ayre. A very powerful place. It's at the northernmost tip of the island, and to be honest, the two places couldn't be more different.”

“Oh, goodness,” I said, contemplating. “I don't know . . .”

“What do you
feel
?” she asked me. “When I mention them, does one place pull you more than the other?”

God, all this feeling stuff was really hard! I tried to turn inside for a moment, and Point of Ayre popped up.

“Then that's where we'll go,” Charlotte replied.

The car ride was stunning—miles and miles of pristine Manx countryside, and the mist had burned off, splashing the open fields in sunshine. The white-washed thatched huts with brightly colored flowers adorning them slipped by, and glimpses of the ocean flashed through the distant trees. As we drove we talked about my trip, my search, and Charlotte's take on the faery world. She'd spent summers on Man growing up, but had only become aware of faeries as an adult, when she moved to live on Man full-time.

“I spent a lot of time just walking in the woods here,” she told me. “I was healing from a lot. And I guess I just became aware of this energy, all around me.”

“What do you mean, energy?”

“The more you look inside, and begin to trust what everyone refers to as ‘intuition,' the more you'll become aware of the way places feel. The more you tune in, the more you begin to know things.” She tapped her head. “Not with your head, this is a different kind of knowing. You'll know things in your heart.”

“So this energy you felt, what did it feel like?”

“It felt earthy, ancient, wise, and . . . sentient. After that I had a big phase I went through, where I wanted to know everything there was to know about faeries. But ultimately, the faery energy connected me to the work I'm doing now. Even bigger energies, divinity.”

Listening to Charlotte, I considered the feeling I'd experienced when I saw the sparkling lights in Glastonbury. It wasn't until I had let go of my fear of the unknown that I had seen something—and I had no doubt of what I was seeing. I'd recognized the otherworldly nature of it in my heart. Since then, my head had reclaimed its hold. I was afraid again, so afraid of everything. Just when I thought I had banished my fear, it roared back.

I was afraid the faeries would scare me to death, blind me, possess me—who knew? Steal me away to the land of the undead. But how could I be so intensely afraid of something when I wasn't even convinced it
existed
yet?

“We're almost there,” Charlotte announced, pulling into a large parking lot at the edge of the ocean. It was unlike any of the other beaches I'd seen on Man; it was completely composed of smooth stones. Millions of perfectly shaped pebbles and rounded rocks in all different shapes and colors. We strolled along the water, my feet sloshing through the stones. Charlotte bent down and scooped up a huge piece of washed-up bone—it looked like some sort of animal pelvis that had been bleached in the sun.

“This is for you,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Thanks.” I shrugged, thinking,
What the hell am I going to do with an animal pelvis?

“You know, sometimes, I just need to come out here for, I guess it'd be an adjustment. Energy-wise. This is a really powerful point because all the energy that circulates within the island meets right here, at this point, surrounded by the water. Maybe you should just take a seat for a little while and just . . . be.”

“All right,” I said. I walked for a bit, out toward the point, and then, feeling like I'd reached a good spot, I sat down on the sun-warmed stones.

I began to feel somehow different after a few moments. Clean. And then something hit me as I gazed around.
Millions of perfectly shaped pebbles and rocks.
I laughed out loud, like a lunatic. What was it I'd said?

It was my birthday, and apparently now I'd been given free rein to take my pick. I closed my eyes and reached out my hands, feeling the stones, until I decided on one. A beautiful, deep copper stone. It reminded me of the color of the rock at the Chalice Well, like the color of my hair when I was a little girl. I noticed with some curiosity that in front of me were also two black feathers. I picked them up and put them in my pack with the pelvis, tucking the stone into my pocket.

“Well,” I said, making my way back to Charlotte, “I think I got what I came here for.” I told her the story of the bridge, and my wish for a stone, and she laughed. “Of course. This means you're in, you know. ‘You want a stone? Here, pick a stone!' This is great news for you, Signe. Great news.”

Perhaps it was, I thought. We had so much time left, the afternoon still yawning open for us, to do with it what we would, so I asked Charlotte if she fancied a walk in the woods.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I'd like to see the spot you were, when you first started to believe.”

She smiled at this. “Okay then. Let's go.”

I'd seen the signpost for Ballaglass Glen while riding the Manx Electric Railway to Douglas and the Manx Museum. Getting the chance to visit Ballaglass on my last day made me feel as though my trip had come full circle. There are seventeen major glens on the Isle of Man, and having seen only a few, they were so varied I could assume that each glen would be different—in feel, light, remoteness. Depending on the glen, the trails could be muddy and wet, dry as a bone, precariously steep, or gently sloping. Ballaglass was compact, only fifteen acres big; cut deep into rock, it instantly reminded me of a gorge I'd loved to visit in Ithaca.The Cornaa River ran through it, rushing down to join the sea, and the trees created an arched canopy that gave you plenty of room to breathe. The sun came through the leaves, creating dancing patterns of shadow on the rock. Lilting ferns lined the banks of the river, which was filled with spongy, moss-covered rocks. The glen felt open, friendly, cozy. And yet still mystical.

“We can stop and sit anywhere you'd like,” Charlotte said. When we came to a fork in the trail, she asked me which way I wanted to go.

“That way.” I gestured to the left. After a few minutes, the trail began to climb up, the river spilling into a crystal pool, sheltered by rock cliffs on either side that obstructed the view from the trail. It looked private. In comparison to the rest of the glen, this place felt forbidden. I had to go down there. Charlotte waited on a bench farther along the trail as I climbed down the slippery rocks to the belly of the river. The water came tumbling down a narrow split in the rock in front of me, creating a perfectly concentric pool. The only sound was that of rushing water echoing between the two cliff walls that reached high overhead. The rock was slick under my boots, but I was drawn farther in—ahead of me there was a massive log that had fallen, creating a dry area behind it that bordered the cliff wall. The tree was too massive to climb safely over—as my dad had said, “If you have to think twice, don't do it. That's a good way to break a leg.”

Checking to ensure it was well lodged against the rock and couldn't slip to crush me, I slithered under the tree trunk to the other side. Brushing the dirt from my pants, I took in the sheltered surroundings. Now I was standing well beneath the trail, looking back into a funny-shaped cave in the rock. It was only about three feet high, and too narrow for a person to do much but stick their arm in, but it exuded a distinct feeling of age and foreboding. It looked like a good place to find a hoard of goblins. I forced myself to stay there, looking into its inky depths for a few minutes.

I was so sick of being afraid.

I bit my lip in frustration, and after a moment the frustration built into a powerful torrent of anger. This had to stop. I had to face this, own it, embrace it, banish it. I stood there, looking into the cave, and imagined every terrible thing that could dwell within it. I welcomed them, challenged them. They could do nothing to touch me, because I was stronger. I understood, then, something about the nature of evil. There was no such thing as evil in nature. There was balance. Death, destruction, these things were necessary to sustain life. Nature was devoid of mal-intent. It was humans; humans were the ones truly capable of evil. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I took the bone, the animal pelvis from my pack, propping it up to the right of the split in the rock so it was resting on the mossy shelf. Taking the two black feathers, I placed them at the top of the pelvis, one at either side. I imagined this thing I created held all of my fear inside it, and I was leaving it there, where whatever it was that was here could help me with it, transmute all those feelings into something positive. I stepped back to admire my impulsive handiwork. The pelvis had a ridge running through the center, which looked like a nose. Combined with the placement of the feathers, there was no denying it. I had just made a mask.

I scurried back under the log and up the rocks to join Charlotte on the bench, feeling like I just dropped a boulder I'd been carrying around on my shoulders. Walking through the glen, I could actually feel the joy of everything around me once again, just as I had that evening in Glastonbury. The sparkling light of the sun reflecting off the water, the sweet fresh air, the sound of the swiftly rushing water. I was able to let it all in, become part of it. We arrived at the top of the glen, and the trail crossed the river on a high bridge, a set of stairs moving up to the railway tracks above.

We stood there a moment, shoulder to shoulder.

“So what type of work is it you do exactly?” I asked Charlotte as we gazed down at the peacefully moving water.

“Well,” she said, “I use various techniques, but essentially what I do is help people rediscover their true selves, restore their inner balance and peace. You know, just improve their general quality of life.”

I was going to tell her about the mask, the moment by the cave, when she turned to me, giving me a pat, and said, “Maybe that's why you found me. You just needed a little tune-up, that's all.”

As we prepared to head back, I felt a rush of gratitude. Ballaglass Glen had taught me what lay at the core of the Isle of Man: only the sparkle of the natural world and the energies within it. There was nothing to fear. I looked up into the towering maple tree above me and thought,
Goodbye . . . thank you.
Then something caught my eye. It was a single maple leaf moving back and forth, waving at me. All the other leaves were perfectly still.

“Charlotte, look!” I whispered.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “It's waving!”

Feeling like a couple of fools, we waved back, laughing, only to see the leaf really going for the gusto now. After a minute or so it finally stopped, and a breeze picked up, making the leaves softly rustle once again.The action over, we shook our heads in disbelief and turned to go.

I thanked Charlotte as she dropped me off with a warm hug, but we both had the feeling we would see each other again. I turned the key to my room and there, sitting on the bed, was a beautifully wrapped gift.
Who could have done this?
I wondered, pulling apart the gift bag. Inside was a glass bottle of elderflower liquor, obviously handmade and bottled, and a rustic ornament carved from wood in the shape of a fish that read “Isle of Man.” I read the card: