The Fairy Box
Copyright © 1994 Rob Weiman, for my daughter Ali
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 some place 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 go 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 it’s 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 tree tops,
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, when 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 where 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,
and she was very, very happy.
The next morning Alicia went to the attic,
it had been far to long.
Her own daughter was six now
and
she had something she needed to do.