And I'll look after you

My grandmother collected bells. Some small, some big, a rainbow of shapes and colours. During summer, when I used to visit, we would spend entire afternoons tying them in strings, adorning the front porch for a party only we knew was happening.

I still remember sitting outside, feet dangling from the swing, huge slices of watermelon on my lap. A gentle breeze would play the bells for us, in a tune that was somehow always familiar and always new.

Her garden was filled to the brim with flowers, berries, spices, trees, and of course bells.

<<Why do you put up so many Nana?>> I would ask, fruit juice dribbling down my chin.

<<To keep out the fairies, dear>> She would answer, reaching into her pocket for her faithful handkerchief, <<every queen needs her knights, don’t you think?>>

I didn’t know what she meant then, but I believed her regardless.

As the years passed, our trips to see Nana became shorter, rushed, and ultimately forgotten. She would send letters from time to time, old-fashioned reminders of days spent in the garden.

We got the news the day it happened. Memories of her hands, of her smile, every little moment came rushing in. It felt unreal, like one of her stories. But it was real. My parents didn’t want the house to fall to ruin, and because of my insistence they allowed me to take care of it during the summer. I packed almost all of my closet into my bags, and off I went.

The journey was usually short, but it somehow felt longer without her there. I was in no rush to arrive only to find her missing, after all. But as time went by, the roads became familiar, and the house became visible, peaking ever so slightly over the hills.

The first thing I noticed was the strings of bells. There were almost five times as many as I’d remembered. Some were broken in places, others were rusted from enduring the elements all those years. I let myself in and put down my things, careful not to disturb the dust for a reason I couldn’t quite put to words.

Every little aspect of the house seemed to be designed to remind me of her, or of a moment we had spent there together. I could feel my lungs tighten, and walked back out into the garden.

It was silly, really, but I must have spent a few hours retying bells and taking down broken ones to glue back together. I picked up quite a few off the ground, wondering how they had escaped their nots. Once I was done I felt a little silly, shuffling back inside after one last whiff at the flowers. I found some tools to fix “the fallen”, as she would call them, and lay them on the table to set.

As I climbed the stairs to what would be my room, I found more strings zigzagging all the way across the ceiling. They looked really lovely inside as well. I had not expected sleep to come as easy as it had. There was something about the old house than soothed me. I took my time getting downstairs for breakfast, not wanting to have to clear the table of the bells. It turned out I didn’t have to.

I could recognise the heads of the creatures in front of me as the little shiny orbs I had been fixing. What I could not recognize were the small, armoured bodies that now stood beneath them. As if they had heard my thoughts, their heads turned in unison, jingling almost melodically. One of them inched forward, making it to the very edge of the table. It waved a gauntlet at me.

For a moment I saw them, and then the ceiling, and then blackness, followed by a thud that only later did I recognize as me hitting the floor. When I came to, they were spread around me, some lightly poking me with the softer ends of their spears, while others kept their distance.

I sat up slowly. The one at the edge of the table was still where I’d left it, and jiggled it’s head toward the door. Still a bit dizzy, I made my way outside, hearing small jingles as they followed. The one from the table took longer, eventually making its way to the front of the lines they had formed in front of me, like a shrunken battalion.The little one in front rocked its head first to the left, then to the right, and the rest stood at attention, all facing me.

I understood then, what she had meant.