Finding
Felix
By Dr. Win Mellor-Hay
The
small boy-fairy, Felix, had been missing for about sixteen hours when
things started to fall into place for Eryn Fallway.
Felix Navreet had gone out to play on a Wednesday afternoon, waving goodbye to his mom and trotting off over the hill. Mrs. Navreet knew that Felix spent all his free time in the North Forest. He was fascinated with plants and bugs and the magical qualities of such things. He talked incessantly about devising a natural remedy that would force his wings to open early and speed up the process of coming into his magic. The usual time for the arrival of a fairy’s magic was at puberty, when his or her wings opened. But little Felix had never been satisfied with the “usual” in anything.
Right from the moment of his birth, Felix’s parents had recognized that he would walk a singular path in life. They just hoped that this path would lead their only child to greatness and not to disaster. He had emerged from his mother’s womb upside down and backwards with great huge ears. Within seconds he was bawling a loud, unnatural sound. Over the years, his voice softened and he grew into the size of his ears. Hardly anyone in Fairyland could even remember the strange sight he had made at his birth.
As soon as he could read, Felix made regular visits to the library researching magic and the magical properties of everyday items. He was quite a mature, independent little fairy. His teachers liked his quick mind and his retentive memory, although most of them thought his ardent focus on magic was a little narrow for one so young.
Now he was nine and he had already written two treatises expounding his theories on the manipulability of magic. Publishers had returned the monographs, saying they’d be happy to re-read them after Felix provided proof for some of his farther-fetched hypotheses. They did admit that for a young fairy who had not yet come into his own magic, he did know a lot about magic. Felix had snorted when he read the publishers’ comments.
“Faint praise,” he’d muttered and crumpled up the letters. I will give them their proof, he’d said to himself, and headed up to his room to work on his latest treatise.
Mrs. Navreet knew her son to be a bit of a loner, preferring to work on his magic theories rather than get involved in any of the activities the other children his age favoured. His father would tease him, and tell him to go outside and play games with the other young fairies.
“Physical exercise is the only way you are going to get to be big and strong like me!” Mr. Navreet would crow, playfully, posturing like a body-builder. Mrs. Navreet would laugh at her diminutive, fine-boned husband, but Felix’s face would darken and he would say, “When I perfect my power-boosting formula and my magic comes in early, I won’t need to be big and strong!” His parents would stare at him in dismay, puzzled by his obsession with hurrying the natural process. They would shake their heads. Later when Felix was up in his room working on his experiments, Mrs. Navreet would say to her husband, “It is far better to be smart than strong” to which Mr. Navreet would smile and say, “Thank Goodness. Otherwise I would never have been able to convince you to marry me!”
That Wednesday, when Felix didn’t appear for the family evening meal, Mrs. Navreet started to worry. In her eyes, he would always be her baby and when she thought of him out of doors after dark, she couldn’t stop conjuring images of her tiny son at the mercy of evil strangers or wild animals.
Mr. and Mrs. Navreet ate their supper in silence, neither one admitting that Felix’s absence was digging a pit of worry in their guts. After washing up, Mr. Navreet said that he was going to take a little walk in the North Forest where he expected to come upon Felix, leaning up against a tree, lost in thought, having completely lost track of time. Mrs. Navreet smiled and nodded but as she watched her husband head out, the ball of fear in her belly grew cold. Once Mr. Navreet was out of sight, she phoned her best friend, Mrs. Palla, who was also her next door neighbour.
“Felix is gone!” she blurted out.
“Oh no!” the friend said.
“He went outside today like he always does, but he didn’t come home for supper.” Mrs. Navreet started crying. Mrs. Palla put down the phone and rushed right over to comfort her friend.
“Mr. Navreet will find him,” she soothed, and hoped it was true.
But
at nine o’clock when a distraught Mr. Navreet returned home alone, Mrs.
Palla ran to sound the Fairyland alarm. Soon the Navreets’ front yard
was overflowing with throngs of fairies. Babies and their mothers and
the very old and infirm had stayed home. But everyone else was in attendance,
including Eryn Fallway. They were all waiting to form an organized search
for Felix.
The fairy elder from the Security guild spoke into a mega-phone and soon all the fairies were assigned to teams, led by fairies with search experience. As the team leaders briefed their volunteers on effective search methods, Mr. and Mrs. Navreet clung to each other on the porch of their modest wooden home. They had been told to stay put incase Felix wandered back home on his own. The Fairy Elder from Security had explained to them that the search would concentrate on the North Forest since it seemed most likely Felix had spent at least a portion of the day there.
To the south of Fairyland lay a vast body of water called Meditation Sea. Fairies were, by nature, leery of water, so few fairies ever ventured South. Those who did disappeared and rumours circulated about their fate. Drowned, captured by Pixies, swallowed by monsters, sailed away on a handmade raft: they were stories scary enough to keep other fairies from heading that way. Mrs. Navreet closed her eyes and shivered as she tried to push an image from one of the stories out of her mind: her little Felix engulfed by a huge wave and foundering helplessly in Meditation Sea, drifting farther and farther from shore as his unheard cries for help faded into silence, and the unforgiving icy depths closed around his little form.
To the west of Fairyland lay the Mystic Mountains. They were densely populated up to about half of their elevation. From there up, vegetation and the occurrence of wildlife thinned. A few reclusive fairies still lived in shacks up in the mountains. And lone fairies often wandered up the Mystics for solitary time. Many fairy groups went up there on retreats and often groups of students could be found in the Mystics, studying life above the tree line. But so far, everyone who had gone up the mountains had always come back down. The vista seen from a mountain top was spectacular and afforded a clear view of the way home. Fairies were natural mountaineers and wilderness survivors. Not only that, but anyone climbing the Mystics had to pass umpteen dozen fairy houses on their way and someone living in those houses was sure to see that person passing.
Felix had never been drawn to the mountains. His parents knew that the only time he had visited them was on a school trip. And they knew that he possessed the traditional fairy fear of water.
That left the east and the Flatlands. Miles and miles of unbroken plains stretched out to the east from Fairyland. Beyond the Flatlands lay another mountain range that was nothing but a grey smudge on the horizon on a clear day. These were the Fortune Mountains, rumoured to be inhabited by Pixies. As long as anyone could remember, no one had ever left fairyland to traverse the Flatlands.
No, it was neither the water, nor the mountains nor the Flatlands that intrigued Felix. It was the forest. And that was where he would be found, Mrs. Navreet felt sure. So that’s where the search began.
Find out what happens to the fairy Felix in the next installment of Finding Felix in the Spring issue of Fairy Tales!
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Poinsettia |
Poinsettia’s
brilliant red attire denotes the gaiety and festive spirit of
a very special time of year. She uses her powers to bring people
together and share in all the joys that are theirs and those that
will be theirs. Poinsettia’s vibrant spirit is evident in her
pose and her air of abandon. Red, gold and green jewels accent
the edges of her dress bodice and her skirt petals are shaped
like a real poinsettia bloom. Floral inspired wings and curly
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The Good Little Folk
The
fairies went from the world, dear,
Because men’s hearts grew cold;
And only the eyes of children see
What is hidden from the old;
And only the magic of love, dear,
Can ever turn the key
That unlocks the gates of Fairyland
To set the Sidhe folk free.
B y Kathleen Foyle
Update of
the fairies on the World Wide Web
- We have added a new splash page to our wesite. Run your cursor over the butterfly to make it fly! (click here to try it)
- Our Christmas Gallery will be up for viewing by November 1. Check out our growing collection of Christmas fairies. If there is a special fairy you would like us to be sure to have at a show, please call or email and let us know.
2005
Fall |
A Fairy drawing by Yoko Yamamoto
Fairy Customer and Artist
| Discover who your future spouse will be by peeling an apple carefully in one long piece. Hold the peel above your head and then drop it on the floor. The fairies will form the initial of your future spouse with the peel. |  |
 |
Once
again, our cheers of appreciation go out to the many friends and customers
who help and feed us throughout the season, especially… Our newsletter contributors Dr. Win Melor Hay and Yoko Our Fairy Booth help Kimberlee, Brenda and newbie Michelle. |
HOW
TO REACH US: Website:
www.fairys.com
Email: terry@fairys.com |
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