For Isabella and Emma

Fairy Houses
The Storm
The Waterfall

Special for Isabella and Emma

June 7, 2006

The Mist Fairies

By popi

Alice Preston lived with her mother, father and baby brother in a log cabin on the Athabasca River just outside the village of Jasper. They also had a dog named King. No other children lived near Alice, so most of each day Alice had to play by herself.

Fortunately Alice’s cabin was located just above a beautiful waterfall, and Alice liked to play along the trail that led down the mountain next to the falls. The trail twisted and turned down the mountain. She walked under spruce trees that were tall and green and under birch trees that had bark like pieces of paper. Robins sang and landed on the trail in front of her, and Alice stopped to smell the little blue bells and the wild pink roses.

Sometimes Alice would sit on a rock next to the falls listening to the roaring water and watching the rainbows form in the mist rising from the tumbling water. One day while watching a rainbow, Alice saw a tiny fairy flying in and out of the rainbow. At first she thought it was a dragonfly. But then Alice noticed that the fairy had short hair the color of sand and that she wore fairy clothes that looked like a field of wildflowers. The fairy also had a tiny pouch tied at her waist that she would put something into as she flew in and out of the rainbow.

Alice watched the fairy for a few minutes and then said, “Hello.” The little fairy stopped in mid air and looked at Alice with big wide eyes. Then she flew down and sat on Alice’s knee. The fairy folded her little wings behind her back, and Alice and the fairy smiled at each other.

Alice said, “My name is Alice. What is your name?”

The little fairy almost fell off Alice’s knee. She whirled her silver wings and held her hands over her tiny ears. Then the fairy’s mouth moved, and Alice heard squeaks and whistles so soft they were like sounds a baby bird would make in the top of a great cottonwood. But in Alice’s head or in her heart she heard the words that the squeaks and whistles said.

“My, my, don’t talk so loud, Alice,” the fairy said, folding her wings behind her once again. “You will knock me into the water.”

So Alice whispered. “What is your name?”

The soft squeaks and whistles came again, and Alice heard, “My name is Angel, and I am a Mist Fairy. What are you?”

Alice thought for a minute. She wasn’t sure what she was. She had never really thought about it before. “I guess I am a person,” she said. “Yes, of course, I am a human.” Alice looked closely at the fairy. “Why do you fly in the rainbow?” Alice said.

“Oh my, don’t you know? I am collecting pieces of rainbow.” Angle reached into her pouch and pulled out a tiny handful of red and yellow and green and blue and purple rainbow pieces. She held them up to Alice. Alice’s face became warm, and the air between Alice and Angle glowed in all the colors of the rainbow.

“They are so beautiful; what do you do with them?”

“I collect pieces of rainbow for all the fairies. The rainbow pieces keep our fairy houses warm and make them bright. Every fairy caries a little bit of rainbow with them all the time. When the storm comes, the rainbow pieces help us remember that the storm will pass.

Here, hold out your hands; these are for you.” Angle dropped the pieces of rainbow into Alice’s hands.

Alice felt the warmth in her hands and the colored lights flashed in her eyes.

She put the rainbow pieces in her pocket. “Thank you, Angel. I will keep these forever.”

Angel flew into the air. I have to go to the fairy houses,” she said. I have deliveries to make. With a zip and a whirl Angel disappeared in the rolling mist.

When Alice got back to the cabin it was almost dark. She climbed the ladder to her bed in the loft. There hanging on the wall behind her bed was a small leather pouch decorated with colorful beads that her father had given her after one of his trips. Alice took the pieces of rainbow from her pocket and poured a glowing stream of them out of her fingers into the little pouch. Then she hung the pouch around her neck.

The next day Alice and her father walked together down the trail by the waterfall. They sat on a rock and looked at the river flowing away below the falls. Alice’s father held her hand. “You seem bright and cheery today,” he said.

Alice smiled and touched the leather packet with the rainbow pieces in it. She heard soft squeaks and whistles and looked into a sky that looked like it was painted with bluebird feathers. Alice knew that storms would come, and that when they did, the pieces of rainbow that the Mist fairy had given her would remind her that the storm would pass.

They sat quietly for a while looking at the river. “Oh dad, look.” Alice pointed down the river. “Those rocks stacked up at the edge of the river look like fairy houses.

“Why they sure do Punkin. They sure do.”