Meeting The Faerie Children...

I've often written about the Faerie...the adult Faerie that is...though as you know, they are more or less immortal...no-one ever seems to have seen an old one...leaning on a stick perhaps, to save his aching legs...or an ancient woman, smelling faintly of pee with liver-spotted hands, her fingers curled up from arthritis.

It's common enough to see the Faerie...if you have the gift of course...but not many can say they have the children in their garden...

A small gathering of them making mischief...clambering up the old Plum tree to steal the fruit...squealing when an angry wasp goes buzzing past...batting at it with skinny hands. I'm afraid they'll be stung...lose their footing and tumble to the ground. But they are agile and swift...plucking the plums as fast as they can and stuffing them into their trouser pockets before jumping down with malicious grins on their grubby little faces...

It's almost impossible to tell whether they are male or female...they all wear trousers that are too small and much patched and mended...all have long tangled hair bedecked with bits of ribbon they've found somewhere...or stolen. Their little feet are so often blue from the cold...their hands, with those long broken nails, are invariably filthy dirty.

The fruit is what attracts them I think...they pay no heed to the neat rows of cabbages and leeks...the radishes are safe, as are the crunchy French beans. They love the strawberries though...squatting down together in an almost circle they push and jostle and deliver mean little pinches to those who sit too close...

I watch...trying hard not to sneeze or cough...always aware of the great grey hounds who stand, alert and watchful, down by the edge of the river.

The children are stuffing their mouths with soft ripe strawberries...the juice runs down their chins and drips onto their bare feet, attracting the ants and the fat black beetles who live under the strawberry leaves...they pay no heed to the insects so I think maybe the ants just tickle a little and don't bite...

One child knows where I am hiding behind the willows...he looks up and gazes at me with his dark green eyes, a plump strawberry clutched in his scrawny hand...his hair is long and matted with dirt...tiny silver earrings glint in the moonlight...his gaze makes me uncomfortable...it is filled with knowledge of other worlds and different times that he, and not I, are privy to.

He laughs then and deliberately looks towards the hounds waiting alert and patient...reminding me of the power they have...of the power he himself holds.

There is the faintest of sounds on the night air...a flute perhaps...an owl swoops over our heads and the hedgehogs appear...snuffling and grunting as they plunder the dish of food I've put out for them.

The hounds raise their heads and sniff the breezes...there is that flute again...the Faerie children get up and stretch their arms...they join hands and run towards the river and their dogs...the boy with the all knowing dark green eyes stops and turns...he nods...briefly.

Then they are gone.