faery

Of course the fall semester didn__ start for another eight weeks or so. There was always a chance we were both being overly optimistic in thinking I__ be alive when it rolled around.

By the Hospital Lane goes the 'Faeries Path.' Every evening they travel from the hill to the sea, from the sea to the hill. At the sea end of their path stands a cottage. One night Mrs. Arbunathy, who lived there, left her door open, as she was expecting her son. Her husband was asleep by the fire; a tall man came in and sat beside him. After he had been sitting there for a while, the woman said, 'In the name of God, who are you?' He got up and went out, saying, 'Never leave the door open at this hour, or evil may come to you.' She woke her husband and told him. 'One of the good people has been with us,' said he. ("Village Ghosts")

He wanted a faery. More than anything else in the world. He had already imagined exactly how it should happen. He would set up the invitation, and the next day there would be a petal-winged pisky clinging to the top of his bedpost. It would have a foolish grin on its face, and large ears, and it wouldn__ notice at all that Bartholomew was small and ugly and different from everyone else. But no. Mother had to ruin everything.

It's the shape of the stories that matters, the way belief forms around it. The story has real weight', He pointed at himself. 'Patupaiarehe look like monsters in some stories, but they're beautiful in a lot. I guess people believed more in the beautiful version. And the ideal of beauty changes. If I'd been born two hundred years ago, I bet I wouldn't look like this. The stories shaped me. They shape everyone, inside and out, but me more than most, because I'm magic.

When he kisses me again, the last part of me that could stand myself dies.

The faery lords are immortal. Those who have songs ballads and stories written about them never die. Belief worship imagination we were born of the dreams and fears of mortals and if we are remembered even in some small way we will always exist.

The creature which stood before me was no bigger than a child, yet I would have sworn she was wood nymph. With pointed ears, translucent skin and a halo of woodland flowers in her silvery hair, the small woman held a strange presence. Besides the creature's obvious beauty, I couldn't draw my gaze away from her magnificent opaque wings. They fluttered in the breeze like the leaves above us.

Aye, well, it__ like a battle. Ya lay yer plans, then when they go wrong, ya make things up as ya go.

Education and assimilation were devastatingly effective at controlling a conquered people.

High to low, roof to floor, wall to wall, and door to door; Basement deep to sky above, fill this home with light and love.

To hold the Gift is to protect the balance in all things and to restore harmony. To hold the Gift is to comfort the mind and spirit, and to heal both heart and body. To hold the Gift is to be a bridge between worlds and to be a bearer of light.

Perhaps the so-called civilized world was a great noisy burden beneath all its wonders, and it was a relief to let go of it for a while.

Funny how being a grown-up didn__ make you any less glad to have a mom on the scene. Whether it was your own or someone else__ mother, it was like having the cavalry arrive.

Life is naught but battles big and small, and most of them unexpected.

I__e told you that I__ a tricksy wight, and I am, my sweet. But there are those in the Seelie Court who would make me seem a very perfect knight.

There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart__ Desire.

He was walking into Faerie, in search of a fallen star, with no idea how he would find the star, nor how to keep himself safe and whole as he tried. He looked back and fancied that he could see the lights of Wall behind him, wavering and glimmering as if in a heat-haze, but still inviting.

Kind of like CSI investigating a social error__ere__ the corpse of the situation, what do you think killed it?__ith the hope of preventing further fatalities. Often as not, it boiled down to missed cues.