The Pixies and the Pines

[Justin Passing]

This is a memory from when I was 4 or 5 years old that I wrote up as a story a few years ago. Hopefully you like it.

------------------------
Thornhedge road was a fairly quiet street. It dead ended about four houses down from my house when it ran into the bay. When I was growing up there was still a small forest at the other end of the street. I liked to go up and play in that forest, and did quite often. Supposedly there was an old foundation of a house in that forest, but the briars were so thick I never found it. My brother had some stories about that house. It had burned down or something when I was very very young.

Two old ladies, sisters I think, lived in the last house before the forest. I always loved that house. It was nestled into the forest, set back from the road, and had a lovely nymph-like feel to it. It was on a fairly narrow lot. There was a dirt driveway at one side, and the house faced the driveway instead of the street, looking at the forest. Everything was slightly "unkempt", and the forest was slowly reclaiming the house & yard from all sides. It was as if the house was an illusion, a magic trick, a boundary or gateway of some kind between this world and another one where fairies danced in the moonlight.

The two old ladies' felt like that too. They felt like pixies who were disguised as old women. I often wanted to visit them, but rarely did. Why would they want to spend time with a child? I wanted to discover their secret, wanted them to show me the secrets of their hidden world, but I knew that would never happen. Why would they? They were hidden there, they were safe. They were also waiting for their time to end, and that made me sad. I didn't want the magic in the world to fade away & die. I could feel it happening, but I couldn't stop it. They were a tie to that world, a very old tie. To me, that house reached back centuries, back to a time when fairies & pixies & their magic was everywhere.

Anyway, one day I went up to the forest to visit the pine trees. There was a small patch of them in the forest near the corner where the ladies house was. Under their massive limbs the undergrowth gave way, and it was clear and cool there. One tree was my favorite, and I'd spent many hours in that tree. One time I fell asleep lying on a big limb about midway up the tree. When I woke up I forgot where I was and rolled over, right off the limb. I remember listening to the tree as I fell. We were both saying the same thing. "Not that one" as one branch passed by. "Not that one" as another branch went by. And finally "That one!" I grabbed the next branch with both hands, both legs and my teeth, landing on top of it, completely unhurt.

That tree was my friend. Trees don't really like people all that much. We're annoying. But I was a child, and it liked children, as long as they were quiet & respectful. And I was. In winter time, with the snow on its limbs, that tree was magnificent, all green & white, reaching for the sky. That tree is my definition of "winter wonderland" to this day.

On this particular day I climbed all the way to the very top of that tree. It was slightly taller than it's neighbors, and the view from there was spectacular. But it wasn't the view I was seeking. I was seeking the wind. I loved that feeling, with the wind blowing through me, high up in the sky. I had to be careful. The trunk up there was very thin, and pines aren't that strong. If I shifted my weight wrong my weight would've bent it and possibly broken it. So I was careful. I didn't want to hurt the tree, just be with the tree and the wind, way up in the sky. The wind was moving us both, and I was careful to move with the tree as it swayed back and forth.

Unbeknownst to me, the two old ladies had spotted me in that tree blowing around in the wind, and they were worried. They knew who I was, and called my house, and soon enough my brother was down below the tree asking me if I was ok. I was a bit puzzled by that - didn't I look ok? I was fine - obviously. It never occurred to me that someone might be worried about me, least of all my brother. So I told him I was fine, and he told me I should probably come down. The ladies were worried about me. So down I came, and home I went, sadder but wiser.

For the most part adults ignored children, and that was fine with me. They didn't bother me and I didn't bother them. But if adults saw me doing dangerous things they would interfere. They had to. That was part of their job. I'd always been safe spending time with my tree, even that time I fell. I'd thought that the old ladies would understand that. After all, they were pixies. They knew how wonderful it was to dance in the forest at midnight. They knew about the magic. And I'm sure they did understand.

But they had a role to play. They appeared to be old ladies, and that role was important. And old ladies had to worry when young children were hanging onto the top of trees blowing in the wind. They might understand, but they still had to play their role. They had to interfere. That's what adults do.