Follyglass

I always thought it was a shame that we couldn’t feel the magic atop our own heads, but at least we could see the crowns of the others. There was no reason that we could decipher as to who wore what crown, but I know that mine was garnet set within whorls of nettle wrought in silver (Twitch told me so…it was nice to have someone to trust here; someone solid amidst the wavering turning magic). Once you entered the meadow, you got a crown, and it was always the same forever and ever and always every time you passed through the oaks. Another thing; each crown was unique.

We could not speak each other’s true names in the meadow. The names in our mouths were replaced with the sound of an uprush of the meadow boundary’s oak leaves. And so, my sister and I had taken easily to calling each other by our family-given nicknames–Twitch and Sugar– while the others stumbled about calling ‘you’ and ‘blue coat’ and such.

There weren’t ever any rabbits or birds in the meadow. But sometimes after a thunderstorm, Twitch and I would run to the meadow just so we could sit in the vetch and watch the butterfly deer wake from their naps (they always slept during thunderstorms), eventually stretching their long amber bodies and flitting up on their great colorful wings into the sky. It was better than any acrid fireworks or greasy loud carnival that the town threw.

I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. I don’t even know your name–not that you could tell me.

Maybe it’s because I’m trying to fill the space with some kind of meaning, this talk about vetch and names and meadow. Maybe I’m telling you all of this so you know something about the magic. So you have an idea how it twists and fades.

Maybe I’m telling you all of this so you know the weight of what it means to me that you’re wearing a crown of thyme and pearled antler. Just like my sister wears.

As I remember it, the June Prince always had a pocket full of Tisket seeds. When we were talking, he’d sprinkle some, flicking them between thumb and forefinger onto a hummock of verdant meadow. Rambling gave him the opportunity to sprinkle more, and he often asked me to accompany him on his wanderings. Though I grew up a farmer’s boy with a keen eye for everything from indigo to alfalfa, I can’t say that I remember Tisket flowers when I was growing up. It’d be hard to miss the little but bright starry pink flowers, but after meeting the June Prince, I saw them everywhere.

Common as weeds. Only a delight to those who truly notice.

Something in the back of my mind liked to conjure tales of him being elvish, and if need be, he could twinkle through a patch of Tisket and arrive at his castle of dewlight. There was a kind of magic that limned him, so, perhaps it was true. I never confessed to him these thoughts.

Once, after he told me the story of his nickname, I felt daring enough to ask about the Tisket flower seeds: “Why do you do that? The seed throwing?”

The June Prince faced me soberly, and said, “Simply because I consider them my kingdom. Where I throw them, I can live. Forever.”

His explanation did not much make sense to me back then. To my younger self, it sounded much like how empires and the mystical working of their flags: planted means claimed. Simple. Rather arrogant, I thought, and slightly eccentric.

But now. When I tramp through the meadows and woods, the sighting of Tisket flowers greets me as warmly as the June Prince had (though they could not kiss my bearded cheek as he did on that one summer’s end day).

The coin was wanting and the hours variable, but still, the happiest job I ever had was working at a very small shop. At other places (I think of the breadbaker next door and Mr. Zweibeln whose common complaint of ‘too warm bread’ practically sawed through our shared shop wall), someone was always sour, whether that was the customer or the owners or the workers; there was a curdle to the atmosphere no matter how lovely the bread smelled or how rich the coffee was or what fantastic books were at a customer’s fingertips. I’m sure you’ve witnessed these things yourself.

But I cannot bring to mind, no matter how hard I try, to summon sour memories within the shop that I was employed at. Before you ask where such a charmed place exists, I must tell you that I would, but it’s simply not done: The Little Miracles shop is at its best when stumbled upon.

Within, there are labyrinthine shelves of boxes steeped in the scent of darkest vanilla and candlesmoke, and each box contains little squares of carefully considered confections, each of them in something akin to hibernation, waiting to be taken from their cozy little beds.

The customers who arrive are bewildered, their eyes searching the cases for a clue as to why they were drawn in, but the shopkeeper always welcomes them as if they are expected. Ease is followed by charm as the keeper asks the customer what their favorite memories are.

‘Mint and sunlight and a violin’ ‘Cicada trills. A checkerboard with pieces all the same color.’ ‘Silver rings and peonies and cake and our dog.’ ‘Burdock.’

The shopkeeper nods –his time in the shop has endowed him with a knowing– and he directs the customer to an area of boxes, ‘Each is filled with little squares about the size of a piece of fine chocolate.Take any one you wish. But don’t open it here.’

The customer is hesitant. Their gaze flickers from box to shopkeeper and back, and before they can ask the question, the shopkeeper assures them that whatever singular little wax-wrapped parcel they decide to take, it is gratis.

Free.

Just like the everyday miracles that we encounter with the price of a little attention.

Never have I seen a customer return to the ordinary world with a frown. Isn’t that a delight? That I could see all of these customers go into their days with a spark in their hearts?

For this customer the little square in her pocket dissolves and there is a rapturous rush of sparrows from the grasses. For that customer there are a few moments when he watches his dog breathe deep the new summer breeze, scenting rain and rabbits.

If you’re in need of furniture and there happens to be a somewhat-nice-even-though-there’s-a-small-rip-in-the-side floral wingchair sitting half on and half off the brick sidewalk…you’re gonna take it. After a quick sniff and sit, of course. And even though you found it in the old section of Witchton, near the historic Black Gables house, you’ll consider yourself lucky. A prize! It goes with all of your other furniture in the same way that everything you own has the same sort of provenance: questionable. You’ll put it next to the fireplace and across from the hand-me-down brown vinyl couch and the lamp you found on trash day three weeks ago.

That night, I slept soundly.

In the morning, there is a painting on my wall. An actual painting. The frame is gold. I’ve never seen it before. My room-mates shrug when I ask about it, but we all agree it’s quite nice, and perhaps even worthy of being in the Gardner Museum. My room-mates like the ‘new’ chair.

It is the middle of the night and a prickly thought has startled me awake. I shrug on my robe and slippers, and stagger sleepily to the back garden, where I pry apart the warm earth with my fingers and place the thought there, patting the soil atop it.

I will not permit it grow wild in my mind, to send its runners to strangle what is hopeful, but this is not a burial.

For as many days as the thought needs care, I tend to it. I whisper soft good things at its soil and watch as lovely rain patters upon it. See? The world will feed you if you let it.

After forty-seven annual invitations to the party at the manor, Ollace finally accepted the forty-eighth. While all of the rest of the townspeople looked forward to the extravagant goings-on, he had always found something more interesting to do in his own home. After all, he had not read all of his books, and that was important. The party would always be there next year. And when he wished to, he could see bits of the sparks from the silver fizzling fireworks through the trees.

This year was different, though, this year he was going to be seventy-five, and the thought occurred to him that perhaps he would like to see the inside of the manor. Take in the portraits. Nibble on peach tarts. Perhaps he would like to dance, just a little bit. Just once.

Uncle Pickett–not related to anyone around here, everyone just calls him Uncle Pickett–has a glass cabinet full of creamy towers of froth just kinda sagging and leaning into each other. They look like celebration cakes, or at least that’s what most people initially thought, me included, but they’re stacks of doilies. “All got second-hand,” says Uncle Pickett. It’s important to him, the second-hand thing.

I’m told when he first came to town ain’t hardly anyone knew his name, and even after the many teas he hosted at his home, he didn’t talk about his doilies, not that anybody really pressed, but people noticed his collection and surmised that much like how Miss Whitwilliam is fond of cats so she must be in want of cat figurines, well, then, Uncle Pickett must be an admirer of doilies and was in dire need of the happiness that only hundreds of roundels of lace could bestow upon him. When Aunt or Grandma or whomever died, instead of displaying the ghastly sweet doilies in their own homes, the neighbors would drop off paper sacks of them at Uncle Pickett’s door.

We thought they were just frilly little nothings decorated with the cloying flower du jour. But Uncle Pickett pointed out their ubiquity and its importance. “A fine web of connections often crafted while the mind is faraway; a link to here…. and there.” I thought he was just prone to poeticisms of the ordinary, which was alright, because the world needs people who see things differently. But when Miss Whitwilliam died and we were all in mourning, Uncle Pickett set us straight. He invited us over to a supper, and over candlelight, he had us all touch the doily in the middle of the table, a round in a round. In a voice befitting the softness of the candlelight, he called her name…….and Miss Whitwilliam appeared from the mists.

“Here,” the bookseller said while flipping to a page, “is the shadow of the first butterfly that flew through the glass castle.” After the customer’s eyebrows raised, the bookseller opened to a green bookmark. A series of minute dark shapes danced across the page, “And this shadow record is from the breath of a Tinley sparrow while it sang. See? You can follow the little notes, the trills,” the bookseller smiled, “more precious than a page by Vivaldi himself.”

The customer eyed all of the little bookmarks woven through the pages, little gems hanging from ribbons of different colors. His expression began to visibly sour when he noticed that the binding was powder blue and embossed with a pattern of kittens. And was that strawberry cupcakes he smelled? Was it coming from the book? While the bookseller flourished her hands over shadow pages of languid tea curls and the long-lost Queen’s Jewel itself, it occurred to the customer that this might all be a joke. He had traveled days for this book. Rearranged the meeting of the Thornblood Society. The bookseller slowly thumbed open a page marked with a lavender ribbon, but before she could begin to explain the shadow marks – this one was really truly interesting – she heard the shop door bells tinkle the customer’s goodbye.

“Gone so soon?” chuckled the bookseller in what silence remained. She carefully straightened the bookmarks and gathered Phoebe Hobbs’ Book of Shadows in her arm. On the way back to the rare books room, her apprentice called after, “I thought you finally had someone that really wanted it?”

At first, it was sighted cresting the hill of Kinnon’s farm. It took three days before the RubyGlass lighthouse drifted into the village, advancing slow as fog on currents undetermined. During the day, it was green and opaque and still as stone. At night, it shown red as an alarm, but nobody cared to determine what that danger might be. It was odd, and that was enough warning to keep a distance.

For centuries, it was the tradition of the Hellerstern family to be ‘sparkled’ after death, and rested in a place of honor– their family mansion. There, such earthly things as worms could not pulse in their marrow, nor rain fade their bright eyes. There would be no vulgarly baroque caskets lined with lead and silk and shoved into the most common of common things: dirt. Instead, a crystal cabinet cradled their new perfect forms, those of sharply cut diamonds. The light shifting within the jewels seemed to reinforce the notion that Aunt Audalia was somehow still awake, still observing from somewhere in the inner spectrum of her diamond.

Over two centuries, visitors to the mansion gawped at the crystal cases, wondering in whispers about treasure and the measure of greatness. They wondered aloud what a paradise such as this really felt like. ‘Can you imagine?’ they asked each other.

When the last Earth-bound Hellerstern died, and the mansion seemed to sag, Josebal Cutter – the same Cutter family that were the Hellerstern’s longtime servants, the ones who fashioned the diamonds to brilliance – swept all of the jewels into a sack and fled across the dusty fields out of the province. Josebal knew what all of her Cutter ancestors knew: the Hellersterns’ minds were actually mapped into the diamonds, their immortality was shining and brilliant, nearly indestructible.

There was a time that I was once too grown for the small things that made me happy. When my starry coat went missing from the laundry line, I thought ‘good, it was too babyish anyway.’ When I left my blue velvet shoes on the porch to dry after running through the rain-splashed daisies –and they disappeared– I thought ‘I had outgrown them, and perhaps it’s too messy to run through daisies anyway.’ When I told my parents that I mistakenly left my flute in the park, I thought ‘what use is learning to play the notes when being an adult means not playing?’

The fox noticed. Small and fire and curious, it peered at me from the hedge, but I made myself look away. I once had so many happy books about foxes, but I realized in my growing that my interests in animals did not matter.

Many years found me occupied by doing things I thought adults should do; putting aside small brilliant things, hiding simple joys from myself, pressing on with more serious matters. It was an asceticism that I thought displayed wisdom. Sometimes, I would see the fox darting between houses, a flash of fire against the expanse of brick suburbia.

It was when I was much older that I happened to find a pair of green velvet shoes in a fancy shop; they fit me. I wondered if it would be too silly, too childish to buy them. Surely, anything that made me happy like that probably wasn’t good for a serious adult to do. I bought them anyway. They sat in my closet, a brief glimpse of joy before I shut them away again since I could find no appropriate occasion to wear them.

Until.

There was a warm cricket-song night, and I slipped them on to walk the white-garden I had carefully cultivated. It was especially lovely at night – my neighbors had told me so over wine I thought too astringent but sipped anyway– the lilies and roses glowing against the blue hour, a perfumed fairy garden. A series of silver notes rose from the daisy field and floated over the peonies. Since nobody was looking, I began to move about, sweeping my arms wide. It was only when I was dancing in my own garden that the fox appeared, wearing a starry coat, and blue velvet shoes, and playing the flute that I had lost.

Together we danced in arabesques and hops and giggles and ate honey and berries and laughed and wore crowns of daisies upon our heads.

I apologized to the small fox for ignoring her. I confessed that I thought it was the grown-up thing to do.

The fox considered me, then asked in what used to be my own childish voice, “and are you grown-up now?”

“All of the frames in this museum are merely stringent tradition, a mirage that plagues me in its constancy,” sniffed the gallerist eying the carved wood and gilt. No matter how many times she had said it aloud now, the gallerist had yet to encounter a like mind. After all, most people were culturally conditioned regard frames as a mere device in service to what really mattered: the delicacy, the pretty visions made by mixing powdered jewels in oil and swishing them about to mimic light and shadow and magnificent life rendered on a smooth piece of wood or copper. Most often they were portraits of those that were and now were nevermore.

Everyone remembers the cake that’s here and gone, nobody gives notice to the plate, unless it is filthy or cracked.

The gallerist thumbed the pendant at her collar, a small silver capsule that housed a gilded splinter; it was what remained of a work by Wm. Goodricke.

One day, she would find another frame by Wm. Goodricke, that bastard.