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The Introduction
“HearYEE, HEARYEE!” Lucy shrieks, sending a moonrock-shattering note through the crowd. We’re standing on a bandstand that Lucy has conjured for the purpose of introducing me. We are bathed in two pools of light that shine happily at our feet. They are lime green and cherry red, and they smell like sherbet.
Silence falls over the group. Lucy continues. “LadEES, I have a special surprise for you today. Believe it or not, we have the extraordinary honor of having a HUMAN in our midst.”
A human, where? The godmothers scatter, holding out their arms and looking up into the sky as if they expect to catch something from above.
“Here, right here,” shouts Lucy. “Beside me. Look here.”
“I can’t see a human being,” states that gruff aforementioned figure in the tartan skirt.
Someone shouts, “We need a person with spectacles!”
“All present stand by,” cries a little cracking voice at the rear. The godmothers make an aisle for her and a dark-skinned little woman wearing an indigo cape with stars on it comes rolling through the crowd, and I do mean rolling, like a wave coming into shore. Her feet are not apparent under her cloak. Perhaps she has no feet at all.
She glides up the steps of the bandstand and stops about three feet away from us. Steadying herself, she places a monocle over one eye and, rocking upwards and downwards, she gets a good look-see. “Oh yes, she is a human alright,” she announces. Then she rolls back into the crowd like a bowling ball into a den of pins, sending the godmothers flying in all directions.
As the news is absorbed, the crowd takes a deep breath, and on the exhale, ahhhhhhhh … the godmothers let out the most extraordinary golden fairy dust. It streams out of their mouths and ears and it lands on everyone and everything in our midst, including me. Then I hear many little voices piping, “Now I can see her! I can too! There she is. Over there, see?
She’s taking form in the gold dust. Oh dearie, look over there, oh my. Oh me. Oh my.”
The love of a thousand mysteriously wise and ancient souls envelops me, gathering sweetness until it becomes intoxicating. It smells and tastes like maple sap, and carries a
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