The Tale of Princess Karolina and The Fairy Queen’s Chest

The Tale of Karolina and The Fairy Queen’s Chest

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The story told here is utterly, fictitious and any resemblance between the characters herein or the events depicted and any true incident depicted by = the Fairy tale is completely coincidental and unintentional.

Dedi= cated to Karolina

Once upon= a time in a time long before the many invasions of the British Isles, when the little people had no hindrances, there came in= to being a little magic harp. For it and with it was made a small wooden chest= of a wood more ancient than the harp itself. Its maker was unknown and its magic was undeniable yet it remained unnamed despite many who tried and failed to find its proper name. In time,= it was simply referred to by its chest, The Fairy Queen’s Chest. The gifts it bestowed upon those fortun= ate enough to play it were a living legend that was forgotten, as the waves of invaders came and settled down where the little people still live to this d= ay, unseen and undiscovered but by a few who earn the right. As the legends of old were forgotten, T= he Fairy Queen’s Chest was put into the guardianship of human women who had sufficie= nt faith, by the faeries.

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Many cent= uries passed and the Chest’s guardians dispersed and were forgotten. In every age= the Fairy Queen’s Chest resurfaced and the harp’s magic gave aid to one, or man= y, and bestowed a fortune upon one woman before it vanished back into obscurity. Its guardian for the la= st century was nearing the end of her life in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. La Dame Vieux de Gnorr, as she was known, was visited by a gnome = from the Tellurian Realm of North America as that was the harp’s next destinatio= n. With her instructions for passing the harp on to Karolina, a young and gifted mu= sician, the old lady is also informed of its healing destiny for this age. She is t= old that the seeker will find Karolina Dawn and that for a time the harp must g= o to a youthful seeker. When The Fairy Queen’s Chest has been passed on to its next guardian, La Dame Vieux de Gnorr discovers she will = have the choice to depart to Faerieland if she so chooses.

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Meantime,= Julie is born to her rigid and unfortunate parents in Lovelock Nevada at the hands of the local obstetrician, bald Dr. Summers. Her father is a clerk at the courthouse, and her mother is a librarian at the h= igh school. Julie is like her friends,= an ordinary girl with simple expectations and reasonable hopes. Julie likes to dance, plays the clarine= t in band, likes icecapades and hopes that maybe she= can get a scholarship and go on a foreign exchange before settling down and hav= ing kids.

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Julie’s p= arents both are diagnosed with chronic neurological diseases when she is a freshma= n in high school. Having been sideswipe= d by life in this way, Julie never again wholly lets off thinking about her pare= nt’s painful and aggravating future. Having been raised to be a faithful believi= ng young woman, Julie prays daily for her parent’s welfare. As the years pass Julie witnesses the gr= adual onset of the myriad of symptoms. Numerous medical tests reveal little and the doctors pronounce a doo= med life. There is nothing they can do until the illness develops into cancer or another treatable ailment according to the specialists.

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Desperate= at the news, Julie sits beneath an old spruce tree at the park and prays again= as she watches the birds nibbling on a pile of bread crumbs. A young gnome com= es out from the trees roots and listens to Julie as she recites her prayer with her eyes fixed upon the feathered creatures. Having pity on the young woman of nearly eighteen, he sits upon her = knee and waits for Julie to finish. “Th= ere is a cure for your parents,” he begins as Julie opens her eyes to an expressio= n of startled surprise. “To find the ma= gic harp and play it for them for nine turns of the large hand of the grandmoth= er clock in the hallway of your home.” Julie listened intently not daring to miss a word lest the gnome ref= use to repeat the cure. “However,” he continued after taking breath, “to find t= he magic harp you must leave immediately on your quest.” The gnome took her left hand in his and kissed it. “The seeking will be a trial for you that will increase your consciousness and awake the magic within you that has lain dormant within, = in this life you have led.” “To find the magic harp in the Fairy Queen’s Chest= you must depart tomorrow, your eighteenth birthday, and you will be known to th= ose who ask, as the seeker.” The gnome kissed her hand once more. “All I know is that for you to find it you must = go north and that you must trust he who has magic in his hands.” “There are many forms of magic, but for= you it must be in the hands.”

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For the t= hird time the gnome kissed her left hand held in his and then he slipped down on= to the grass. With an amusing formali= ty, the gnome took off his hat, stood up very straight between her knees and bo= wed to Julie.” “If at any time you are= in need of guidance, close your eyes and wish to speak with Nettles and soon I will be with you, but trust your senses and not your feelings.” Julie blink= ed and the gnome was gone. Where he had been standing there was a very small velvet purse in a remarkable shade of intense purple that made Julie burst = out laughing as it contrasted with the green grass. Inside the impossibly small purse she found one solid gold coin, a b= one pin, and a pine nut.

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Listening= to her senses as they instructed her, Julie ate the pine nut and put her long auburn hair up in a tight bun and threaded the bone pin through the hair to secure it. With the coin in her ha= nd she put the empty purse in her brassiere beneath her shirt and cardigan and sto= od up. Coming home unexpectedly with = an impossibly ancient gold coin, Julie told her parents what had happened and = that she must go. To her immense surprise and relief her parents not only believ= ed her thanks to the magic pine nut, = but they gave her a plastic card with a few hundred dollars in funds promising = to replenish it monthly as well as they could on their meagre income. Giving J= ulie a one way ticket on the Greyhound coach with a destination of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, her parents hugged her at the Grey= hound depot in Winnemucca= , Nevada, wished her the best of luck, a= nd waved her goodbye with tears in their eyes.

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While at = the coach station Julie had found a world atlas in a magazine pile while discus= sing with her parents where she should go first. On an inexplicable magical coincidence, Julie had opened the atlas a= nd found herself looking at a map of northern = Canada. Yellowknife seemed to have jumped out a= t her as if it had become suddenly three dimensional, like a hologram. With her sensory perception Julie had a distinct impression that something awaited her there. On that illogical intuition she had mad= e up her mind to head there. The trip would take a few days, but she would see w= hat was calling to her when she disembarked in Yellowknif= e, North West Territory, Canada.= Using her small duffle bag as a pillow,= Julie dosed off into dreamland as the coach rocked rhythmically to the rumble of = the interstate.

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On Julie’= s eighteenth birthday, Karolina Dawn was visiting Antwerp in Belgium= , not far from where she had been recording her latest album. It was a pleasant day with a light wind= and an unfulfilled threat of rain from the heavy clouds. Wandering through the old streets of Antwerp, Karolina= found a rather busy bakery packed with bustling old ladies with scarves wrapped abo= ut their heads and large brown spice cookies in their hands called Speculoos.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Naturally joining in the fall equinox c= heer, Karolina found a place at the counter and collected one enormous hard baked cookie and a baguette to enjoy later at her hotel with a new pot of coffee.= She did not get past the threshold of the bakery door with the two paper bags w= hen she heard someone addressing her by her childhood nickname.

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Surprised= to say the least, Karolina swung around in her tight fitting black overcoat wh= ich accentuated her long silvery locks and pronounced lively features. She found a very small elderly woman w= earing an old green wool dress wrapped in an oversized brown shawl that was partly wrapped about her thin grey hair like the hood of a cowl. Holding her bags of baked goods in one = hand, the old woman took Karolina’s delicate long fingered hand in hers and bid h= er come to tea with her at her flat above the fish monger’s shop across the st= reet and one block farther from cathedral than the bakery. Graciously Karolina accepted the seemin= gly insignificant invitation from the elderly stranger. They walked together the distance of one block and disappeared from the sidewalk together through a narrow dark wood door and up the narrow wooden staircase that led to the flats above the row= of shops.

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While sip= ping from a very strong and sweet cup of tea and nibbling from shards of one eno= rmous Speculoos, Karolina had listened to the old woman, La Dame Vieux de Gnorr, as she told tales = of the past history of Belgium and the Benelux. Whist listening to the story Karolina n= oticed the rustic décor with thick tapestries over the walls and draped over both = the dining table and the little coffee table. The windows were covered by wispy white embroidered outer curtains backed by heavy embroidered inner curtains that resembled the tapestries, drawn out to let the dim sunlight in. With the historical tale abruptly endin= g, the old lady told Karolina that she had something for her that had been waiting= for her a very long time.

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As the ol= d lady put down her tea cup and raises the rug over the coffee table she told that= she had kept this chest for the last 93 years. She glances at her guest and smiled reassuringly before adding that = she had received it when she was only seven from an old witch that had befriend= ed her mother. For all those years she had been its guardian but only opened the c= hest once a year for an hour on the night of Midwinter for the Faeries. However, she had never touched the trea= sure within as it was not her destiny but Karolina’s. Without another word the old woman had = taken the small, dark, and impossibly ancient wood chest, opened its lid and held= it out to Karolina. Hesitating naturally, the young talented musician reached inside as the old lady urged her telling her that it was her privilege to p= lay the ancient magical harp in her husky Belgian accent. With her hand came the dark and heavy w= ood of the little arched harp strung with wound hair and gut strings.

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The little instrument was neither beautiful nor ugly, but it seemed to have an inner l= ife of its own like a spirit that seemed to urge Karolina to play it. Tentatively at first the musician found= the voice of the little harp, locating the various notes as she thrummed the strings gently. In the complete silence within the Spartan flat La Dame listened motionl= ess as her silver headed guest found the tune to one of her songs, Call Me Back. The harmony was aquiline and unearthly = like and yet also unlike anything Karolina had ever heard before. The music reminded her of the sound of a spring creek when the snows first melt before the lush green of spring burst forth. It was complex yet also simple, harmonic, rhythmic and simultaneous melodic like the voice of Mother Nature itself singing from afar.

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Karolina stopped gradually letting the internal resonance quiet itself and then reac= hed to put the instrument away. As if reading her mind’s doubt the old woman spoke. “It is yours, for you to play= and make music with, a gift and a burden from the Faeries.” Closing the lid to = the Fairy Queen’s Chest, the old woman pushed the chest into Karolina’s hands. = “Do not fear it as it will bring you fortunes, play it and enjoy it for its sou= nd will bring joy, health, and well being to others. Karolina accepted it with= out being able to refuse such a gift. = With the little trunk in her lap, Karolina drained her cup thoughtfully before taking one more morsel of Speculoos.

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“It is a = gift for you; it will bring you good fortune beyond your imagining.” La Dame was watching her youthful and well presented guest affectionately as she spoke. “The chest and the harp are one and can= not be separated and there is nothing to fear for you as no one will be able to take it from you.” “Likewise, you will not be able to lose it or rid yourse= lf of this treasure as it will find its way back to you always until the Faeri= es tell you to whom it will pass to next.” “There are only these instructions I was given for you.” “Relinquish the magical instrument when the seeking girl asks if she may please play the harp for the Faeries of the icy rock.”=

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Karolina listened with curious interest chewing slowly on a piece of Speculoos. She wanted to ask how she would know or= find the seeker, but her intuition told her that she knew everything she needed = and that only time’s passing would help her to understand. Faerieland often seemed to be teeming w= ith nonsense, but those who have faith also know that they take Faerieland ligh= tly only at their own peril. There was= no mention of the consequence of desiring to bring harm to the chest or the ha= rp. There were no tales of warning and nobody had ventured against the Faerie Queen’s instruction. The absence of warnings and the lack of any taking a chance did not mean that any attempt to discard or destroy the chest and the harp did not mean there was no consequence. It was precisely that history that concealed an agonizing and disast= rous penalty to such a person.

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Knowing t= hat the two would never meet again Karolina and La Dame hugged affectionately like a familial farewell of an emigrant leaving to find a new home. Once more donning the black coat, the y= oung musician took up the baked goods, her precious gift and departed down the stairs to the street once more. Wh= en Karolina opened the door she discovered a dark night lit only by stars in a= now clear night sky. The hours seemed = to have passed much faster than she had expected. Walking back to her hotel along the narrow sidewalk she could feel a childlike excitement rise up within her to play the harp and find ways of incorporating its beautiful sound into her musical composition. There was no doubt that the producer would be enchanted as much as any listener.

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Over the following three years Karolina found an ever increasing fan base with sever= al number one hits and top tens in music charts all over the world, including = Asia and South America. Radios everywhere played her compositio= ns and she found herself juggling her continued creative compositions with two exhausting world tours with a travelling show. Gradually the harp fell out of use and became a rarely seen instrume= nt with the exception of one song that was sometimes requested by her audience= at performances. The fact that the an= cient harp had no electric pickups never seemed to matter for it own magic carried the sound to every willing listener and every person who needed its healing power’s aide.

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Julie disembarked nearly five days later at Yellowknife on the edge of the Great Slave Lake. A s= hort and fat man with a rather unappealing stained brown coat and scarf was havi= ng a rather heated argument with a station attendant about some piece of luggage that seemed to have been damaged in transit. Julie was transfixed by his strange appearance and did not want to come near him. Therefore she scuttle= d by his back as she disembarked to take a thoughtful rest on a bench to decide = what to do next. Julie had been subconsciously disappointed to not have received a warm and friendly welcome from a complete stranger as she arrived. She knew of course that no one knew her in this northern town, but she was inexplicably disappointed in any cas= e.

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From a sa= fe distance on a bench across the station, she continued watching the old man bellowing his complaints at the uniformed man who had given up negotiating = with him and was now only trying to conceal his irritation and indifference politely. Some of the diatribe was carried out in English, some in French, = and some in another language that Julie could not identify. In time the old man threw up his arms a= nd huffed before taking up his leather satchel gruffly and turning in Julie’s direction.

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Instantly= Julie averted her eyes and began fiddling with her bag in the hopes that the old = wan would simply disappear from the station now, leaving space for her guardian angel to arrive in a gleaming new car in an attractive and fashionable suit= to offer her a comfortable room and hot food. If he happened to have a nice warm fur coat to wrap her up in too Ju= lie would have liked that very much. T= he old man walked past without even looking at her and went to the snack shop slum= ping agedly in his overcoat.

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A few min= utes later Julie was surprised by the very same old man sitting beside her on the bench. He looked at her with two medium cups of steaming hot cocoa in his h= and and pushed one at her mutely. He t= ook a sip of one as he held the other out to her unceremoniously. She shook her head in refusal and moved= away to the edge of the bench. “Drink i= t, its only hot cocoa from the store, you look cold.” “What are you doing here alone with such a thin coat?” “You look like you got lost looking for something.” Are you a seeker?” Julie only replied = with shakes or nods of her head, but she took the cup from his hand. He then looked away and sipped pensivel= y from his cup in silence. Julie had the distinct impression that he was carrying on a silent conversation with some= one she could not see.

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Unsettled= by his company, Julie took refuge in the warm drink and returned to her wonder= ing of how and were this person who did magic with their hands would appear. Ju= lie was thinking about sinking into a soft and comfortable heated leather seat = of a big sedan in the fur coat when the old man turned toward her with a rolled = up leather bundle in his other hand. He pushed it at Julie and only said, “You will need this, - I made it once long ago with my very own hands for you.” = Then he stood up as if to leave.

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Putting h= er cup down on the bench beside her, Julie unravelled the leather bundle to discov= er a sort of cross between a fur lined cloak and a leather duster. It looked like it was far too large for= her, but she stood up to try it on. Wit= h the fur tickling her cheek, Julie found herself suddenly perfectly comfortable = in a greatcoat that fit her exactly. She thought that it felt as if he had made it for her and was startled to find = the old man answering her thoughts verbally. “I did, years ago.”

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Compelled= to ask, Julie addressed him at last. “You did what years ago?” Finally their eyes met and Julie was sh= ocked to look into what seemed like a very young face radiant with life and energy yet marked with the lines of age. Showing her his hands with their thickened hard skin and stubby rounded fingers he answered her after a pause. “I made that coat for you eighteen years ago.” “I have been travelling all year looking for the seeker.” “If you had not been thinking so hard a= bout being found I might have missed you.” “I should have stayed home these past months I suppose.” After a brief pause and another sip of = her drink picked up from the bench, Julie responded with a sense of mingled, surprise, relief and disappointment filling her. “Looking for me, - waiting for me, stay= home, suppose you missed me, thank you for the ….”

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Simultane= ously Julie felt like she had understood a great deal of things all of which conf= used her because they did not make sense to her in relation to how her life experience had been explained to make sense. She felt that her world had fractured like the glass of a mirror, fa= llen apart, rearranged itself, and come back together in a new shape that was mo= re real, concrete, and understandable, yet also beyond the reach of words for her. Julie knew that a gnome was m= agic she could not deny, but her senses told her that between them there was a reality of invisible magic. Julie = wanted to have her old world back even though it made less sense, but there was a = reality that was safe and free of illusions in this world. Suddenly Julie knew she was different b= ut that being different did not matter. This was a world she could trust.=

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The old m= an took her hand and Julie stepped forward throwing her other arm around him i= n an embrace of friendship and acceptance. Julie thought that she should introduce herself, and immediately the= old man spoke his name with the half slurred speech that Julie would learn to f= ind comforting in the coming years, “Arluin, yours?” “Julie,” she replied with a shy smile. “Nice to meet you at last, let’s go,” Arluin spoke warmly with t= he same slur and began to walk taking up Julie’s little duffle bag in the same hand that was holding the now empty satchel.

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Arluin to= ld his young companion to close her long coat and trot along with him to the motor= bike with a side car. It was frigid wit= h a light but brutally cold wind that left patterns in the thin layer of light = and powdery snow that had fallen recently. Julie was shocked at the height of the snow banks before winter had = even showed signs of life back home. The thermal shock gave her only a moment to note the early dusk in what should = have been mid afternoon. It was only he= r third breath past the station doors and she felt her nasal passage and throat ache sharply from the sudden cold. She focused her eyes on the only motorcycle parked outside the station, pressed her nose and mouth into the fur fringed leather sleeve and began to run. <= o:p>

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Julie soon overtook Arluin and hopped into the side car. She pulled the canvas canopy she had raised quickly down over her and let out a muffled groan. She close= d her eyes and thought very hard about Nettles the Gnome who appeared sitting in = her lap only a few moments later. A mo= ment later she heard Arluin exclaiming as he came up to the motorcycle, “what a sprinter, - Môn Dieu! – Net= tles, hello again.” As soon as the gnome had appeared Julie had begun to feel the sidecar becoming warmer. By = the time that the old man had reached his vehicle and taken his seat in the driver’s seat, even the frame of the motorcycle had begun to gain some warmth. Moisture from a smooth she= en of ice that had coated much of the sidecar and bike had begun forming large droplets of clear water. Nettles w= ho could perceive how Julie’s awareness had been changed by her realization in= to consciousness of spiritual conversations spoke directly into Julie’s mind. =

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“I am gla= d you trusted your senses and accepted that Arluin was speaking into your mind and listening to yours with his spirit.” “I had worried about how you might res= pond since he does not molest himself with managing his image to create a pleasa= nt reflection for other humans.” Julie could feel that Arluin objected to being spoken of in this way, but that he also had to admit that the Faerie was telling the truth after all. “I do= n’t usually use magic to heat things up you know, I am an Earth Faerie and not a Fire Faerie,” said the gnome, “I am just doing it to show you the energy pattern that will help you deal with the cold winter since you will be spen= ding the height of winter in Arluin’s cabin learning and preparing your own skil= ls.” He fell silent and looked at the old wizard before gazing into Julie’s wide open dark eyes fringed with dark hair that sometimes made her look like a Native American.

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In the su= dden silence before the rumble of the old engine rose above the silence of the o= nce more falling snow, Julie realized that the gnome had answered questions that had been forming in her mind that she had not yet been aware of. The young woman found that yet again the world around her had fragmented and reformed. She was not aware but conscious of how her body was using its energy= to clamp down on herself which constricted her blood flow in the cold making h= er feel even colder. With the sudden = shift of consciousness, Julie shifted her energy by paying attention to the desir= e of her spirit rather than by using her will to force a change as she had been doing. Julie found that she was rapidly becoming comfortable in the warmth afforded by the fur lined leather that enveloped most of her body.

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Without uttering a word Julie thanked Nettles for his help with her thoughts. The gnome inclined his head and vanished leaving only the ringing words in Julie’s mind, “any time, just ask for me.” The engine roared to life and Julie lurched forward as they set off with the spiked winter tires scrambling for grip. As the roar of the engine rose Jul= ie heard Arluin’s voice bellow over the clatter, “Well done, well done.” The trip was short and uneventful despi= te Julie experiencing some sickening moments of panic when their vehicle would slide around a curve threatening to disgorge them into ditches or snow bank= s.

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Turning o= ff one of the city streets past the vast and snowy airport at the end of Yellowknife, they= travelled even more slowly up a gradually sloping narrow drive encased by what seemed like a miniature forest of mixed furs, pines, spruce, and yew. Just as Julie began to wonder how many = miles they would go on for in the evergreen forest, the vehicle stopped. She real= ized that they had only travelled a few dozen feet into what was a copse of coni= fers atop a small hill with a domed house covered with snow atop it. It was only a small cottage, but it had= thick walls that had been covered with earth to look like a hillock. What she had felt had been a sense of t= ime moving more slowly here ever since they had turned up the drive and passed = the first set of trees. “Yesss…= ”, she heard Arluin’s voice in her mind again, “that time shift is one of the protections thanks to the Faeries.” “I can do many things with these old hands, much like what you will learn here over the years, but that is Faerie magic, and I have been very thankful for= it many times over the past five decades.”

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They went inside to enjoy hot coffee and venison stew as they would often over the ne= xt seven months. During this period J= ulie learned her first lessons and practiced her consciousness and magic. In the uncomfortable intimacy of the li= ttle one roomed cottage the wizard and his apprentice grew their bond of friends= hip, affection, and mutual respect that is so rare in this modern world distract= ed by progress and its many illusions.

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Before th= e thaw that released the fields to bloom with the fervour of spring, Arluin was boarding a flight with Julie in Yellowknife that would end in Gdansk= , Poland nearly forty eight hou= rs later. It was the only time he wou= ld travel with her and it would serve as both a lesson and a promise to Julie = who would thereafter be patronized by the mysteriously wealthy old wizard. This would allow her to keep all the fu= nds that her parents and her elderly grandmother on social security contributed= to the debit card they had given her. This would serve them well later as an invaluable savings they were unaware of.

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While abo= ard one of several flights along her journey, whilst headed over the Atlantic w= ith a transfer destination of Heathrow in London, Julie had a curious dream. Ever af= ter she could never be sure it had been only a dream. There was always a doubt that perhaps it= had been a vague and forgotten memory from a dark and cold night at the height = of the northern winter. It seemed to = be impossible, but as the old wizard was quick to remind her afterward, “Truth, m’dear, is often stranger than any fiction.” And this doubt about the dream’s reality would remain for many years as a gradually fading question that seemed, with every passing day, to gain another grain of firmness.

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In this d= ream Julie was awoken from her dosing beneath the eider down covers in the darke= st part of the northern night by the unlikely tapping on the window beside the= bed by a Northern Hawk Owl pecking it urgently. Julie stared at it for a moment= and then looked at Arluin. Arluin was asleep in his fur lined leather sleeping = bag in complete silence as if he had been caught out of time between snores. Wi= th a shaky hand Julie opened the window a few inches to let the creature in. A b= last of frigid air came in after it and the window shut itself behind the waddli= ng owl now perched upon the long bedside table that also served as a sort of writing table and a dining table further down. The owl jumped down onto the fur that served as a rug, but it did not land. In the blink of Julie’s eye there was instead, a thin young man stand= ing before her in a rather shocking state of undress, but wearing a feathered h= at upon his crown that reminded Julie of the grey owl she had just seen enter.= He bowed to Julie and spoke his thank y= ou in perfectly comprehensible English, however, Julie somehow knew that what she= was hearing was not English, but a language that permitted every creature to sp= eak to any other. It was a language of= the mind that could only be understood to be telepathy despite it not being that either.

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After kis= sing her hand the owl boy spoke again. “Well done Julie, I am glad you are consc= ious of our meeting this time.” “You have learned well this winter. In three triplets of time you will have= travelled their square.” “If you do not forg= et to sing to the faeries of icy rock the fortune will be yours for a space with = no walls or fences.” “Listen well for= the undertone of a muffled wing beat on a snowy night time as silent as that of= a hunting owl.” He fell silent and s= imply stood there peering at her in his unusual staring fashion. Julie noticed finally that the owl boy = was shivering and was covered by goose bumps. Instinctively she raised the covers and beckoned him to take cover f= rom the cold without breaking the magical silence. He crawled in under the cove= rs and settled his head on her flannel covered shoulder like a small child gla= d to be in its mother’s arms.

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When Julie awoke once more in this dream reminiscence the room of the cottage was slig= htly less dark and the owl boy was gone. She had a single wing feather threaded though her top button hole and found a s= mall tuft of downy feathers on the fur rug beside her. The window was once more shut, but ther= e was a frigid draft passing through a single remaining space where the window fr= ame seal had not been forced together. Julie soon drifted back to sleep to awake to the smell of a commercial airliner mingled with the familiar scent of leather from Arluin’s coat as she had sl= ept leaning her head upon his shoulder.

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For much = of the remainder of this first trip, Julie retold and discussed her curious dream = with her mentor, patron, and companion. Arluin was certain that it was not an ordinary dream. He recalled finding the seal of the bed= side window broken some time after mid winter’s day. He had found it odd, but he had repaired it without mentioning this apparently insignificant matter to Julie. However, now that this memory had been reborn into her memory as a d= ream he warned her again to never forget the most frivolous details of what a Fa= erie might tell her. He mentioned again= as he had countless times before that it was often the negligible details of what Faeries did and said that mattered the most in reality. The fact that a Faerie had taken the tr= ouble to alter the fabric of time/space and her memory to not only relay an impor= tant message, but to spend time with her was more a point for debate.

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It could = have been that the Faerie was enamoured of her spirit as much as it could have b= een simply a meaningless game for its own entertainment. The old wizard made not too fine a poin= t of the fact that this and other forms of play by Faeries had often led to unexpected complications with many unnatural humans. The result was that those Faeries unfort= unate enough to have a reason to inhabit a human body were consequently often lab= elled by people as retarded, insane, or dangerous. Faeries are of course the farthest from being in any such state and never having any intention of harming anything.

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Many hours later, the pair disembarked in Gdansk International Airpor= t in Poland. By putting on airs of being very busy in pursuit of some business contact that should have sounded very suspicious, = both Julie and Arluin cleared through customs in record time. Not long afterward they were exiting a taxi outside the harbour gates quite close to the naval design offices that were their destination.

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Julie fol= lowed Arluin who entered the unmarked white office door scuttling like a large be= etle in much the same way he did in his home upon the hill. The office receptionist greeted her men= tor with a distinct respectfulness and immediate recognition. Julie could not understand any of the P= olish, but as Arluin spoke considerably more slowly, she picked out her name and s= oon after another, Lud. It was not cle= ar if Lud was a man or a woman, but she was quite sure that they would meet shortly.

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A moment = later the rather large and ebullient middle aged woman led them into a corridor a= nd then to a large upstairs office. J= ulie noted the simple but remarkably beautiful dress the woman wore as it flowed easily around her as she walked with firm steps. The woman smiled reassurin= gly at Julie as she held open the conference room door. As Julie passed her she stopped to look= into the woman’s clear light blue eyes. To her surprise, the woman put a hand on= her shoulder in a friendly and welcoming way and gave her a peck of a kiss on e= ach of her two cheeks. Automatically J= ulie kissed her hostess back before stepping through into the room overlooking o= ne of the shipyard’s dry docks.

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A few min= utes later the same woman returned with a large tray. She deposited it before them as the two= sat at the smaller of the two tables encircled by two C shaped sofas. She told Arluin something about Ludmil = and left. As Julie began to wonder at = the name, her guide told Julie that Ludmil was a long established Naval archite= ct and that he would be arriving from an inspection at another Shipyard nearby= a little later. They were there to m= ake a currency exchange as a favour to his long time colleague as well as to get = some information from him. He was after= all married to a Faerie woman, who would probably be able to help Julie get started.

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After hav= ing enjoyed a lovely breakfast at a café within sight of the Basilica, <= span class=3DSpellE>Bazylik= a Mariac= ka Wniebowzięcia Najświ&#= 281;tszej Maryi Panny, Julie = and Arluin paid their respects there. = Following their short visit, they made their way to Antwerp by train as suggested by the ethereal, wispy, and startlingly beautiful bla= ck haired and green eyed Faerie woman. The trip was long, but very comfortable with an enormous number of fascinating historical looking structures such as old fashioned brick houses, stone castles, chalets, cathedrals, and so on that had begun the moment London had first = come into view beneath the cloud cover from the aircraft window. Julie felt a distinct pang of desire to= spend more time looking about all the villages and Cities they passed. She also knew that though there would b= e not time now, she would have plenty of time to explore in the coming years as s= he quested for the Faerie Queen’s Chest.

After a transfer stop or two and a long n= ight of sleep being gently rocked along the tracks Julie enjoyed a hot cup of familiar thin coffee accompanied by a croissant sandwich for breakfast from= the passing cart. Arluin was in a rath= er irritable state claiming that he could never sleep in moving vehicles and detested train food to skip the meal. It was some time after having disembarked in Antwerp that they finally found themselves stepping off a tram in the district of Eilandje to find the fishmonger above which La Dame Vieux de Gnorr had settled several decades before Julie’s birth.

Arluin stopped with Julie at= a fabric shop to purchase nine metres of silk embroidered fabric with mackerel shapes in a relief in the same sea green threaded silk. Julie found the fabric to have a magical beauty to it despite the odd appearance of the fish shapes upon it. She thought it was a gift for whomever = they would be visiting and consequently did not ask about the purchase. La Dame Vieux de Gnorr was not in the least surprised when she was handed the extravagant little parcel. The old woman worked deftly to separa= te the fabric into three unequal measures. ”One,” she said, “for the dress, one for the cloak, and the last for= the crow’s nest.” Julie looked at the = old woman in such puzzlement that they were both laughing embraced in each othe= r’s arms only moments later as the old witch explained the matter with the fabr= ics.

Two portions she would leave= with Julie along with one bundle of Camel hair wool for a cloak, and one bundle of delicate dark green goat leather to form portion of the dress. The third portion would be made into a = pillow the old witch would use to stay in touch with Julie by sharing a cloth. As Arluin would here after not accompany Julie on her travels, La = Dame would be able to offer her some measure of protection in this way whenever Julie was on the European continent.

When Arluin and Julie depart= ed La Dame’s flat, they had= with them not only the various fabrics but also the pattern for both the many layered dress and the circle cloak that Julie would be wearing several years later at the concert in Freder= icton, New Brunswick. Eight more times it would be that Julie= would fly from departure points in North America to Europe= . With each journey Julie would spend sev= eral weeks travelling around the old world pursuing phantom leads to the Faerie Queen’s Chest. Six times Julie als= o traversed the North American continent from North to South or East to West. The chest had been known to have been i= n Merida, Tepic, Me= xico City, Shasta, Little Rock, Rhode Island, Moab, Mobile, Duluth, Victoria, and Sudbury.

Julie followed the trail and= found herself in a pub in Fredericto= n three years, three months, and three days after leaving home. She had the company of what seemed to b= e a young man who was encouraging her to drink and to accompany him to a concer= t by Karolina Dawn to which he professed to have both tickets and back stage pas= ses. He seemed inexplicably compelling = for a man, as if he was a faerie. The yo= ung man also seemed to be unusually attractive in a distinctly unearthly way th= at made Julie wonder if he might be a Faerie taken to a man’s body to woo her = as Lud’s wife had. After asking this question of the universe, Julie received the affirmative response to which she was not able to respond due to encouraged intoxication. She did however acco= mpany her seducer to the performance at Willie O’Ree Place. At the intermission, Julie found herself abandoned and wandering about in search of her escort and in possession of = the passes. One of the guards checked = her papers as Julie asked about her absent seducer discovering that she had a p= ass back stage. Under the guise of her escort possibly being back stage Julie was ushered into the dressing area.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>

Shortly Julie discovered she= was alone with Karolina for a few moments. For Julie it was much as if a spring had been set off in a trap. Instinctively while engaged in prattle = with her celebrated hostess, Julie asked if she could play the magic harp for the Faeries of icy rock. The moment Julie touched the harp any lingering haze in her mind resulting from the drink cleared immediately. There had been times that Julie had won= dered at how she would know the right moment to ask that odd little question the Faerie had told her. Now it seemed= perfectly natural and a ludicrous improbability that she would have missed her moment alone with the keeper of the magic harp. The sense of relief was so great that everything from the thickness = of the air to the clarity of the performed music increased.<= /p>

With the ancient wooden case containing the instrument in her arm, Julie thanked= her hostess and departed promising to return it. She felt a mingled sensation of conflicting relief and urgency. It w= as now much less important where her lost companion had gone. She knew somehow that he was nearby but not visible to her. Julie felt him urging her in her mind to make haste and return to her parents immediately. Standing outside the event centre on Cliffe St. Julie wished desperately that she could get home more quickly than the = long hours of travel by air and ground transport promised to her. The hotel reservation and her luggage were irrelevances to be dealt with later. She asked in her mind if there was not another way that Nettles the Gnome could help her in this. It was not a mom= ent later when Julie felt a slight weight upon her shoulder and the reassuring reply from Nettle’s warm and woody vice in her ear.

“Yes Julie, there are the Faerie passages through the fabric of time-space that = may help you get home.” “Oh, thank goo= dness Nettles, I am gladder to see you now than I have ever been, thanks for comi= ng,” said Julie. Julie was standing near the edge of the curb beside a row of ta= xis. She suddenly became aware that a middle aged man was calling to her and ask= ing if she would like transport to her hotel. Declining the offer Julie realized that the driver had probably seen her raise her hand to touch Nettles and interpreted this as a signal requesting a car. That, of course, made Julie aware that others people probably could not see the small and friendly look= ing Gnome in his woven grass suit and hat with hairy bare feet perched upon her. Aware of this, Julie henceforth spoke to Nettles using her mind rather than= her mouth.

“Well, how do we get to Lovelock, to my parent’s home?” Nettles replied that the journey would = be very quick but perhaps eerie. He w= ould instruct her as to where to stop beside the time-space gap, and how to enter the opening into the fabric of the universe to arrive in her home town. The trick, as Nettles put it, was to cl= ear the mind of all wishes and doings. If one permits onese= lf to fill only with a desire to reach the time-space gap nearest to the desir= ed destination, maintaining that intense desire in the consciousness throughout the passage, the intensity of desire would set the time the journey took. All that was needed additionally was to= allow one’s body to turn and fall out of existence in a state of inner peace into= the fabric of the universe, through the sensible yet invisible fracture they ca= me across.

Julie walked along the street past the row of taxis along Willie O’Ree Place on Cl= iffe Street in Fredericton and went on for two more blocks, toward the St. John= River. They stopped beside a public telephone,= stood there for only a moment before turning slowly toward the telephone and vanishing out of sight. The only p= erson who saw them was an elderly man walking with a metal cane in one hand and a= leash in the other, attached to an equally aged and nearly blind, but neatly kept beige cocker spaniel. The old man stumbled and shook his head before deciding to stop in at the pub for a pint and a whiskey sour to clear his head from the nonsense he thought he had se= en. After all, “people do not just vanish in plain sight, in broad day light, o= n an broad public street leaving no trace; it’s impossib= le,” as he mumbled to himself yet again as he drank from his beverages. The old dog was oblivious as he sat out= side with his leash tied to the railing and wondered why they had returned to the pub for yet more drinks when they had only left a quarter of an hour earlier as dictated = by their habitual rituals.

It was no more than a minute after they had left Fredericton that Julie had emerged with Nettles into the Lovelock public library photocopy room from what looked li= ke the middle of a very large off white commercial copy machine. The passage had been pitch black and co= mpletely lightless. It had felt to Julie’s touch that the passage was made of stone = in what could have been a square or rectangular corridor. However, it had been strangely muffled without any echo or reverberation of the sound of their footsteps. The librarian who knew both Julie and her mother as a co-worker, barely restrained a scre= am when the young woman stepped out of the room beside the library counter. The middle aged, grey haired woman in a shawl cardigan was about to ask how Jul= ie had gotten inside without being seen earlier, but Julie made her apology and made haste. What she might have had in that strang= e wood box would have been the next question, but as it did not set off any alarms= at the exit doors, Julie was not intercepted. Naturally, as it is meant to be with inadvertent intersections of Faerieland with the unbelieving lives of so many moderns, all memory of the incident drained away completely from the memories of all who saw Julie with the Faerie Queen’s Chest.

In only a few minutes walk from the Library down a pair of suburban streets in Lovelock Nevada, Julie was proudly knocking upon her parent’s door. She was thrilled with joy and excitement pulsing though her as the awaited time of curing= drew near. When the door opened and her= parents invited their long travelling daughter in, Nettles bade his farewell and le= ft Julie with the message that Talus, the Faerie who loved Julie and had visit= ed her at the cottage would visit the three of them when harp was finally stilled. For the following nine ho= urs her joyous parents were immersed in the soothing and healing music of the strings as thrummed by Julie’s delicate, long fingers, guided by the love a= nd the magic of the Faerie Queen herself, whose energy and life filled the lov= ely little instrument.

It was the middle of the night and all the lights were still off as none had m= oved since the first note from the harp had filled the little house made of timb= er and dry-wall with brown shag carpets. Both her parents were healed, suffered pain no longer, and had cease= d to groan with discomfort hours before. As the clock struck for the start of the tenth hour, the last note of the reso= nant harp echoed softly in the hollow walls. At that very moment the sitting room was filled with a bright flash = of light and before the three of them stood a white feathered creature that was neither properly a man nor a bird. His beak opened and his feathered arms and hands opened in friendship, greeting, and respect before he took a half bow.

At the very same moment of his greeting Julie and both her parents heard his l= ow and hooting voice speak into their minds. “I am Talus. “ “I have come= , - at last.” “It is time, and I ask for Julie’s hand in marriage.” I have = been with her for many years in many forms, sparrows, owls, young men, old women, dogs, cats, and sbo on.” He turned to Julie and was silent for a moment. During his silence he rapi= dly transformed into the Northern Hawk Owl, then into the owl boy, followed by = the strapping young man that had accompanied Julie to the concert. Before another word was spoken Julie pu= t the harp into its chest and leapt up to embrace the young man in the strange wh= ite suit she had met at the pub in Fredericton early the previous day. Audibly, f= or her parents to be certain that they were in fact hearing Julie speak to them, s= he thanked Talus for being there with her all the years of her quest. She then turned to her father and state= d that if he consented, she would like to marry Talus.

Taken aback by the surprise, Julie’s father could hardly speak, let alone answer = such a question. Both Julie and Talus k= new that an answer would come after he had first become adjusted to the reality= of no longer being an ailing man. Tal= us sat beside Julie, who was suddenly reminded that she had been able to save all = the funds from the debit card she had been given in addition to a priceless gif= t of land, a cottage, a workshop, and several large bags full of ancient gold co= ins like the one she had received at the start of her journey. Arluin had shown her the property encompassing nearly seventy acres near the international border on the sout= hern end of Alberta. At the time Arluin had said it was a gi= ft to her from a bird man that would assure her both love and fortune after retur= ning the harp.

With the help of Talus, Julie explained this fortuitous forgotten reality to her parents. They were of course even = more tongue tied after this revelation. For nearly two hours Julie sat with Talus in the family room while her parents = took solace in busying themselves to absorb the overwhelming changes that had befallen them that night. They made coffee, served oven baked hot pockets, pizza rolls, mini quiches, and cooke= d a pot of chilli con carne. Two more = pots of coffee were made and dawn had illuminated the sky outside before either = of her parents spoke again. At last t= he replies came in fragments of speech recited like practiced lines by a pair = of synchronised actors delivering the lines of one part in a theatrical production.

“Thank you,” said the father, “ for healing,” spoke the mother, followed by an interval before the word ,”us,” was added. In this manner the formerly terminally = ill parents expressed their gratitude, then their joy, followed by relief. The relief was of course tied to their recovery, and then later to the surprise of the saved funds, followed later= by surprise at the gift. At last, when Julie was starting to wonder and flash worried looks at Talus, who was unperturbed, the parents consented. They admitted they could not understand what Talus was, what he did for a living= , or what his personality was. However,= they could see that the love, however much work it would demand, was undeniably = real between them. They would be happy = to have them marry.

Talus, who was still equally calm with this eventual reply, finally spoke again. He asked, looking at Julie for agreemen= t, for the parents to come with them to live on the property where they could use their unused skills to make harps very similar to the magic harp that could never be duplicated. A month lat= er the new family with the newly wed Faerie husband was departing for their new home. Julie and Talus made a visit= using a time-space gap, to return the Faerie Queen’s Chest to its rightful guardi= an, Karolina, while she was on a performance tour in Melb= ourne Australia. Julie’s restored middle aged parents fo= llowed the new couple to the estate a few months later after settling their work a= nd personal contracts, selling the house, and enjoying a restorative two week vacation in Cancun,= Mexico.

~END~