'The Little People' from 'Tuberose'

THE LITTLE PEOPLE

It was then end of May, a week after Jan and Gladys had returned home to England after a long, leisurely holiday with us.  The grape harvest was completed, and the days were beginning to shorten, as autumn took hold.  I sat way up in the hills again, looking to the purple mountains in the distance, the faint smell of salt on the air, and bathed in the soft warmth of the golden sun.  This was my favourite time of year.  I could hear the earth sign, the hot months of summer over, everything warm and well baked.  The trees stood quiet and proud, flowering and fruiting past, just being, before the cold of winter came, dashing the leaves, dyed rust and gold and brown, from the branches, carpeting the earth, clothing her for the coming cold.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had been up here alone, and it felt wonderful.  I thought back over the past months, the holidays with Abby, Nigel and Benji home from school, spending long days outside playing and exploring.  We swam most days to keep cool and enjoyed gathering shellfish for dinner. Nigel particularly, liked to gather food from beach and garden and then help me prepare a tasty meal for the family.  This summer he was old enough to start making some simple dishes on his own.  His favourite was mussels with garlic butter.  We would collect
them at low tide and bring them home to be carefully scrubbed on the grass under the walnut tree before being taken into the kitchen to be prepared by Nigel.

I lay back on the crunchy dry grass, wriggling around to avoid the sharp ends of long seed heads, and closed my eyes.  Suddenly I could remember one of those days and played it all back in my mind, smiling as I remembered a certain pitch of voice, the hot air, or the smell of garlic…

“Come on guys, see how fast you can get your togs on, and we’re off to the beach”  I called.  It was a hot afternoon, the wind came in small warm puffs, not enough to offer any relief from the heat of the sun as it burnt overhead.  There was a quick flurry of activity and then like magic three children stood in front of me, transformed into bathing beauties.
“Ok then, great, let’s all jump in the car”
“Can I get some mussels?” Nigel asked, waving the blue bucket he used for that purpose under my nose.
“Sure, I think the tide will be low enough to get to the beds”, I replied, picking up a pile of sunhats as I went out the door.
“I could make mussels for tea” he continued, “with garlic and herbs”
“That’s a great idea” I said “yum, you make the best mussels Nigel”
He grinned up at me, basking in my praise for a brief moment, then went on with his menu planning.
“You could make a salad and garlic bread to go with it” he said looking up at me with bright eyes.
“Me too, me too”  yelled Benji as he jumped up and down on the back seat of the car.
“No Mum” called Nigel, “just you and me in the kitchen, not him, he makes a mess”
“I do not” replied Benji indignantly, “I help too”
“Yes, Benji” I replied, thinking fast, “you can help collect the mussels, Nigel and I will cook them and you can help Abby set the table ready for dinner later.”
“No” came the reply, “I can cook too.”
“Muuuum, no” said Nigel, looking up at me in despairation.
“We’ll discuss this later”, I said to Benji.
“Don’t worry”, I added quietly to Nigel, “I’ll think of something else to occupy Benji while we cook.’

I stretched my back, savouring the relief it gave and hearing my joints pop.  Somehow I had sorted that cooking competition out, but I can’t quite remember how now.  Just a few more minutes in this glorious golden sun I thought, and then I’d better be back down to the house to get ready for the kids return from school.  And so the dance of life continues, eat, sleep, play, work, eat, sleep … 

It was sometime later before I became aware of my surroundings again.  I rolled over and lifted my head, not quite sure where I was.  It looked familiar, but then something wasn’t quite right.  I saw the sea, still in the distance, our house below me and the sun was warm and low in the sky.  What I couldn’t work out however, was what I could see over under the trees just near me.  I rolled onto my side and watched in wonder as little people ran though the long grass. 

They were not even a foot high, with limbs as thin as pencils, and tiny faces with quaint features. I was scarcely breathing now, as more and more gathered around a spindly stand of manuka.  They wore little suits all different colours, but in almost the same style, and some had little hats.  I was just too far away to hear them, but they seemed to be talking to each other.

I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I was still dreaming.  I quick pinch of my arm, and I knew I was awake.  Could I be going mad, I wondered?  Seeing things not really there? I continued to lie there watching, silent and amazed.  Suddenly, I remembered another autumn day, in another hemisphere, far away.  I was about eight, I can remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday.  I had been playing in the woods behind the common with a few friends.  The others had raced on ahead, when I came across what I knew was a fairy circle, complete with toadstools.  I remembered back to that day, and thought of the little shoes I still had in a matchbox in my chest of treasures at home.

These little people seemed to just be busy about their own day, but I knew they hadn’t seen me yet.  Looking up at the sun, I knew it was getting late.  The children would be nearly home and would be looking for their afternoon tea when they were. But I couldn’t move, and risk disturbing these little people. 

What type of fairies were they I wondered to myself.  I thought of all the fairy stories I had read as a child, and how I had hoped they were all true.  No adult I asked had given me any hope that they were, and so I had grown up and finally believed that they were just in the imagination.  In that case my imagination had just got quite seriously carried away with itself!  I was rapidly revising that belief now though, as a soft sweet fragrance drifted across to me.  It was like nothing I had ever smelt before, but it did resemble the soft sweet, musky scent of tropical flowers like ylang ylang and tuberose. 

A few minutes later I heard them begin to sing, a soft sweet trilling sound carried on the breeze.  I lay my head down in the grass and listened.  I felt myself being pulled towards them, as if my inner essence was being drawn out, up into the light, and I too began to make the sweet trilling sound, softly in my throat.  I don’t know how long we sang together, but slowly the singing subsided, and the little people began to move away.  A few minutes later and they had all left, dancing off into the bush from where they had come. 

I rubbed my eyes and sat slowly up.  Wow, what was that, I thought.  I got quietly to my feet and walked carefully over to where they had been.  I don’t know what I expected to find this time, but suddenly right at my feet there it was, a tiny pink hat lying in the grass.  I picked it up carefully between my thumb and forefinger.  It was not bigger than a Barbie hat, my thumb fitted perfectly into the crown.  It must have been a child’s hat I thought, one of the tiny ones I had watched dancing and playing with each other while the adults sung.  I held the little hat in my hands, unsure of what to do.  I really wanted to keep it, to take it home and put it with the little shoes I had found so long ago.  I decided I would leave it where I had found it in case they came back for it. Suddenly, I knew what I was to do.  I would return with the little shoes in the matchbox and exchange them for the hat. 

I made my way slowly back down the hill, my thoughts far away.  Bill had come up from the cellar to get the children their afternoon tea.  They were quite happily munching on cheese toasties at the table, glasses of juice half drunk at each place.  Bill swung around from his place by the stove.
“Thank God you’re here” he said, “I have to fly, need to stir the juice right now”.
“Oh, sorry,” I said quietly, “I can explain”, searching wildly for an explanation, any explanation that would come close to covering what had just happened. “And yes, I’m fine too,” I added quickly, smiling broadly back at him.
“Sorry, Doll, I was wondering where you were.  I’ll catch up when I get in for dinner.  Love ya”, he called from the back door as he stuffed his feet into his gummies and took off down the path.

I made myself a nice hot cup of tea, and sat down with Abby, Nigel and Benji to hear all about their days.

Days past before I was free to return again to my hill.  I was breathless with exirtion and anticipation when I reached the top of the hill.  I flopped down on the thick grass, resting my head on a nice big clump of tussock and relaxed every muscle as my breath slowed in my belly.  This was the place where I had brought my tortured mind to sift through the rubble and find the real me and my own mind. 

I noticed a gentle shift in the energy up here, a lightening, both in weight and quality of light.  The oppression and darkness was waning, and peace trilled on the air as lightly as the vocalizations of the little people I had witnessed last time I was here.  Something was moving, and the old was leaving through the back door, as through the front light, peace and wholeness was being ushered in.  I lay, and bathed in it, letting the new sensations and understandings wash over me. 

It was some time before I remembered the little shoes.  They were safely in my pocket, still in the tissue paper I had wrapped it in all those years ago, resting in a matchbox.  I knew what I had to do, and walked over the place were the little hat had been.  There it was, just as I had left it.  Gently I swapped the hat for the shoes, laying them on the ground in the open matchbox.  I went back to the tussock to rest and lay back, waiting, hoping that the little people would appear again. An hour passed, but they did not appear that day.  I took the little pink hat home, safely packed in a small flax kete, leaving the tiny shoes hidden in the grass.

I was slow and thoughtful in my preparation of lunch after that.  Bill came in while I was still toasting the pita bread, and sat watching me, with his chin in his hands, elbows resting on the edge of the table.

“Doing a bit of thinking doll?” he asked, winking at me.
“Yeah.”  I replied vaguely.
“Anything I should worry about?” he said, grinning.
“No, not worry about. Ouch” I added as I burnt my hand on hot bread.
“Just that your wife’s been seeing things.”  I said elusively.
Finally, “Ok, here’s the thing.  I’ve been seeing little people”
Bill’s black bushy eyebrows shot up.
I took a breath and continue.  “Up in my hills, tiny little fairies, dancing and singing the most amazing trilling music.  They smelled like ylang ylang and tuberose fragrance.”
Bill’s eyebrows were still up around his hairline somewhere. his mouth round, like a perfect zero.
“Ok, just say it, I’m going mad”
“Ummm, well, actually, I …”  his voice trailed off.
“Weird” he continued, rubbing his head,  “I’ve been smelling a fragrance like that around the tractor shed.  Sure couldn’t work it out, there are no flowers there.”
“Oh” I reply, feeling wordless.
“Could also explain these”, he said, taking a tiny pair of soft yellow shoes from his pocket.  “They remind me of that story, umm, what is it now … oh I know The Shoemaker’s Elves”.
“Yes, oh yes, that’s right.  I had a book, a Ladybird book, remember them?” I replied, images flicking through my mind.  “Gorgeous little shoes, they made at night”.
“Yes, that’s the one. Wow, freaky, but very cool too,” Bill added.

“Well, just a minute” I dashed off to my room, and opened my top draw.  I lifted up the thickly embroidered handkerchief which had been my grandmother’s, in which I had hidden the little shoes for all those years, and gently lifted out the little old matchbox.  I slipped it slowly open and there lay the little pink hat still.

Returning to the table, I lay it down in front of Bill.
“This is what I found up in the hills.  Years ago, when I was about 12 I found a tiny pair of blue shoes just off a secluded woodland path near our home in Whitby, not unlike the ones you found here.  I never told a soul about them.  They were always my happy secret.  Along with that ugly black secret I carried, I knew I had a happy secret too.  It comforted me somehow.”
“Wow,” said Bill touching the little hat with his finger, “that’s amazing, but what’s going on, do you think?”
“I don’t know.  I found the little pink hat after the fairies had left the first time.  I left it there, and it was still there when I went back.  I took the hat then and left the little blue shoes. I haven’t been back, so I don’t know what they think of them yet, but if they take them, I’ll know they know who I am”