Copyright © 1994 Rob Weiman
It wasn’t a large box, but it was special. She sat it on the table by her bed so she could see it, and she looked at it a lot.
Her Mother said it used to belong to her grandmother, and that she had brought it from someplace called, “The Old Country”, but her older brother said it was a Fairy Box and that was why it was so fancy. Alicia knew that what her brother told her was true.
He said that if you waited until night time, just before you went to sleep and you turned off all the lights in the room (except maybe the little one in the far corner) the fairies would come out. Sometimes, when the moon was full and you opened the curtains you could see them. They would dance around on the box as the trees outside would creak and sway in the summer breeze.
The fairy box was silver, and it had pictures on it. Pictures of men with dogs and children on ice skates, there was a merry-go-round with horses on it that looked like they wanted to jump right off.
The box wasn’t round but it wasn’t square either, it was some other shape that Mom called an octagon. Alicia thought it was shaped like a thick stop sign.
The pictures on the fairy box weren’t exactly painted on, they were sort of smushed on there. Dad said that they were stamped on, but Alica had seen her brother stamp on old cans to recycle them and they never came out looking anything like the fairy box.
The parts of the fairy box that were not shiny metal color were dark black, like a magic marker. “That was where they got the words magic marker from,” her brother said, “They are black markers, as black as a magic fairy box.”
Sometimes, when the fairies came Alicia would see the horses prance, and paw the ground, then they would gallop with the wind in their manes, right past the pond, as the children would spin and whirl on their skates, and the dogs, with the men would bark.
On the top of the box there was a picture of a balloon, not the type Alicia got at birthday parties, but a huge sky balloon the type people ride in.
Sometimes, Alicia would tip the magic fairy box on its side, right before she would get into bed, then as she snuggled into the covers and sat with her back against the headboard, she would watch the balloon as It sailed right over the treetops, past farms, tiny villages, and tall church steeples.
There were letters all around on the fairy box, they were twisty and strange. Once she thought her mother said they were German, but every time she told her brother that he said it was elf writing.
Alicia loved the fairy box and sometimes she took it to bed with her. There, with the moonlight shining through the windows, she would turn the fairy box over and over, until at last, she would sigh, lay her head on the pillow, and the fairy box would slip from her hands and tumble, like a dream to the covers.
As the years went by the fairies did not come as often and Alicia started to use the box to store her rings and necklaces.
Then, on her sixteenth birthday, Alicia’s uncle gave her a beautiful handmade jewelry box, and Alicia put the fairy box away.
Alicia’s life became quite normal, there were boys and parties, friends and marriage, children and commitments, yet she often found herself staring out her window her mind awash with thoughts of skates, and ice and barking dogs,of horses, and balloons, and fields and tall church steeples with loud clanging bells.
One summer night, as the wind blew through the curtains, Alicia woke from a strange dream. She had dreamt that she was six again and the fairies were there.
Her teddy bear was dancing with a tiny man in a tall top hat. The covers lay soft against her skin. The air smelled of honeysuckle, as the curtains fluttered above her head and she was very, very happy.
The next morning Alicia went to the attic, it had been far too long.
Her own daughter was six now
and she had something she needed to do.