Aunt Jemima's Garden

 "I would like to meet, as in really meet a fairy or an elf," Susan said. "I sometimes see glimpses of them while looking through the hole in that stone, They dance in the meadows among the trees, soaring over apples and stones as lightly as fluffy dandelion seeds."
"Some say you can entice them with poppy seeds, as they like the taste," Heidi said. "Personally I think this is hogwash. I think they come and go as pleases them. I have a vague memory of us visiting aunt Jemima in her old house. The fairies were dancing in the garden there. It was marvellous. Later that year she moved away from that house. I don't remember much about it."
"Oh, I wish we could go visit that garden!" Susan enthused. "Can't you ask your mother where it was, like?"
"Neither she nor Aunt Jemima will tell. She says there's a shadow hanging over that house - that's why aunt Jemima moved in the first place. But maybe, I got an idea," Heidi's face lit up. "I think I have some old letters from Aunt Jemima. Maybe her address is on one of them!"
"Where there's a will, there's a way," Susan said. "Find those letters, better hurry up!"

***

It was cold in the attic, and Heidi stood in front of the fire for some time before reading the address, it was far away and they were disappointed. Heidi looked up the address in an old telephone directory: "Aunt Jemima's husband was a rugmaker," Heidi said in a disbelieving voice. "I always thought he was a politician of sorts."
"Couldn't he be both?" Susan asked, "politicians are chosen, no 'elected' is the right word, I think, every second year ..."
Lis raised her head from her book: "No, every fourth year, only they disagree so much that we have elections more often than that."
"Thanks," Susan said, shaking her head over Lis' ability to read a book and listen in at the same time. "Election every fourth year as a guiding line and oftener if they disagree too much. Anyhow Aunt Jemima's husband could very well be a carpetmaker when he was not elected."
"Sounds right," Heidi said, He could not even be sure to have a job for more than two years as a politician, not so good."
"I love elections," Susan said smiling broadly, "we have that day off school, and they use the gym for the election, so no PE for at least a week, two if we're lucky. And then you go voting with mom and dad and are given sweets."
"Oh, we do this too!" Heidi said. "But why are elections always  on a Tuesday, never Monday or Friday that would be so nice?"
"It's not 'always'," Lis raised her head from her book once more: "last time it was actually on a Thursday. You better be happy it's always a school day, in many countries elections are always on a Sunday."
"Ohh!" Heidi said, "I won't complain. Sunday, terrible!"

It took forever before Heidi and Susan had a day off school and everything else at the same time, but finally they were on their way by trains and buses, as they were still not allowed to teleport anywhere, and there were no portals leading near their destination. They had brought along a humongous picnick basket, a blanket, mosquito oil, spare clothes and all the many, many thing both girls' parents deemed necessary for such an outing.

***

Heidi and Susan got off the bus near the white farmhouse as they had been instructed. Now follow the street lights, not lit this time of day, and keep on for around two kilometres until they reached the golf club. It was a wonderful summer's day, the road was dry and small clouds of dust rose from the surface if they stomped hard enough. In the end they were quite dusty, and eventually shoes and socks were removed and they waded in the brook along the way. Small insects left the tempting, honey smelling flowers, brushed up against their bare legs below the skirts, and flew away again. Susan unthinkingly repelled the moth-like flutterers as they tickled her bare legs. Heidi looked at her in envy, but she did not say a word. Susan did not consciously use magic, and telling her what she did, would only spoil the day. Using magic out of school was the one thing where they did not agree. Heidi's mother Sandra clamped down on the rules here, forbidding Heidi and her siblings, the twins Lis and Tage even the smallest spell as long as they were not within the borders of the Unicorn Farm. Susan's parents of course did not care, and she was not averse to making her tasks easier by use of a cantrip now and then. 
When finally they reached the golf club, they sat down on the green grass next to the road, ate a single sandwich and drank some of their sodas, carefully closing the bottles  with the flip-top seals.

***

When everything was back in the basket, they walked on, holding the basket between them.
"Do you think their names are still on the mailbox?" Susan asked, "Or how will we know we found the right house?"
"I hope so. Aunt Jemima is the sister of my paternal grandmother, so her last name is not Bach like us, but err, something so plain that the contrast to Jemima always tickle my funny bone. Let me look at that old envelope again," Heidi said, and let go of the picnic basket. Susan had been pulling up a bit to compensate for Heidi's lower grip and was toppled when she suddenly let go. She sat down, hard, on the gravelly road.
"Oh, sorry," Heidi said, "did you hurt yourself?"
"Susan gingerly placed the big basket next to her and got up. She dusted off and felt her behind and legs. "No," she answered, "nothing bad at least."
Then she dived into the basket and pulled out a bottle, "Bur your bottle lost its flip-top." Some of the contents had spilled into the basket, and the two girls quickly pulled out sandwiches, blankets, and napkins. Nothing much had happened. When everything was tucked back in, and the bottles safely re-sealed and propped up by the blanket, Heidi finally pulled the letter from her pocket.
"Jemima Carlsen,  Smedevej 123 pr. Ejby" she read.
"Carlsen," Susan said. "Is that her last name or her husbands? I know you told me that she was married. But I cannot imagine a husband for her," Susan said earnestly. "You told me he was a rugmaker, and a politician. He must have been quite the man to do that and be married to Aunt Jemima."
"Yes and Mom told me recently that he also worked as an illustrator, he drew illustrations for the journals," Heidi said. "I have a hard time imagining Aunt Jemima and a husband too. She's so bossy, I imagine him as small grey and mousey. But that's hard to figure with him being a politician, and a rugmaker, and an illustrator.""
"Let's get going," Heidi said. They picked up the basket and walked on. Heidi continued: "Aunt Jemima and her interesting husband were also young once, maybe she were not this intimidating then."
"Let's not pass judgement where we lack compassion ... that's what my Mum said as I asked about my aunt Clio and her husband. She reminds me of Jemima," Susan said thoughtfully. "My aunt .. she's not my aunt by the way, but my dad's great aunt or something. She's married, to a small grey, insignificant man. Once I asked Mum how these two ever met and fell in love and ... you know. Then she told me off for prying, and cited that one about judgement and compassion."
"I know how Aunt Jemima and her husband ... what IS his name ... I can't remember ..."
"Don't think too hard, then you will remember," Susan interrupted.
Heidi nodded slowly and continued. "At least this is what dad tells. Aunt Jemima had a friend. This friend was interested in aunt Jemima, as she was tall, witty, creative and even pretty - hard to imagine her as young and witty. Anyway, this friend dared Mr. Carlsen to ask her for a dance. It was some kind of bet, even. And then Mr. Carlsen and aunt Jemima ended up getting married, and the friend was so angry."
"What happened to him?" Susan asked
"Dad never told," Heidi answered.

***

In silence they walked down the road. After a myriad of false starts they finally found number 123. It was old, decrepit. Surely nobody lived there or had lived there since Aunt Jemima and her husband moved out those many years ago. They looked at the letter box. The writing had faded, but they were still able to read Carlsen, and a long name, which could be Jemima, or almost anything else.
Carefully they opened the creaking gate and went into the garden. It looked just like they imagined the garden of the sleeping Beauty. Everything growing wild, but beautiful. The house was almost hidden in tall, flowering hollyhocks. On the clothesline laundry still hung. Most of it worn to rags by sun, rain and animals. An old quilt, bleached, but otherwise sound hung on the line.
"Do you think the rugmaking husband made that quilt?" Susan asked.
"Maybe. I saw hard, uncomfortable floor rugs in my mind, but maybe he was really making quilts," Heidi answered. Susan clasped the stone in her pocket. "Was that only a product of my imagination, or did that quilt just move?"

She froze and slowly, oh so slowly pulled the stone from her pocket and put it to her eye. Heidi saw and understood and she too froze. After a few minutes she did what Susan had done out on the road and dispelled all the bugs and critters pestering her. This was too important to spoil by being bitten by some obnoxious mosquito in a wrong moment. From now on, Heidi decided, she would pay lip-service only to her mom's rule of no magic, and do what she wanted to, just like Susan. All those small things in everyday life, cantrips and so on. But never ever big stuff. She felt stiff, felt like moving to ease a cramp in her leg, but she knew, Jon and Thora had told them often enough, that it was easier to suppress the impulse first time around, and that giving in did not lead to anything but more itches and cramps.
Susan's hand with the stone was now level with her shoulders. A new itch began in Heidi's left leg. To distract herself she began to mentally assemble a list of all the cantrips she knew which could be safely used outside of school. at the same time basking in the happy, free feeling inside her head. It was right to use your magic!

***

It was a beautiful afternoon, the house was situated at the road, with fields stretching from the unkempt hedges into the far distance, the furrowed fields emitted a nice, pungent earthy smell, which both girls enjoyed.

Finally in small careful increments, Susan set the stone to her eye and looked into Aunt Jemima's enchanted garden. Not knowing what she would see, she was totally awestruck. The garden was crammed with fairies. They sat in the flowers, hey hung from clotheslines, windowsills, roofs and just everywhere. It was overwhelming. Susan stood still, the fairies seemed to be organized after size and colour, and they were singing.
She listened, no, not singing, maybe crying. She clutched the stone while holding it to her eye. No mean feat, and listened. The faeries sung, or cried, Susan was still not sure, about the big world beyond the enchanted hedges, beyond the wall.
Susan took the stone from her eye, still she could hear the crying song from all the fairies. "Heidi," she said, "something is wrong here, totally wrong. The garden is crammed with fairies, they could not hide even of they tried." She put the stone back with a swift, hard movement, and even thought the fairies cowered, they could not all hide. She handed the stone to Heidi, who in her turn looked trough it.
"I have never seen anything like it," she said. "What do we do?"
"My first thought was simply letting them out, breaking the magic circle that binds them or something," Susan said. "But I'm in doubt. There are so many. Do they as that book has it live in some ... what was it now ... Yes metaphysical symbiosis with wizards, and would they perish without this vital something from magic?"
"I don't know," Heidi said. "My father would. He always liked fairies and studied old books to know more. He would be totally crazy to be here."
"Can we summon him somehow?" Susan asked.
"Nope, but ... I have an idea. A magic letter! That would sure make him come, he can teleport, he knows the garden."
"Brilliant!" Susan said and dug up her notebook and pencils from the basket. "Here, you write!"

***

Susan could not stop putting the lucky stone to her eye to watch the faeries. Their crying songs was almost hypnotic, and she spent a long time trying to find all the meaning of the song and their dancing. It seemed they concentrated on the blanket, the hedges and on one of the windows in the house.
Heidi insisted in trying the stone too, and the two girls took turns looking.
The became hungry, and made good use of the contents of their picnic basket. Heidi just let her wrapping paper, egg shells and so on lie on the lawn. Not so Susan. As usual she put all waste back in the basket, carefully wrapped in a napkin.
"Why did you do that?" Heidi asked. "I'm sure we do not need old waste, why bring it back home?"
"My Mum always taught me to respect the nature, and not let my crap lie around. Apple cores, banana peels and so on are fine - preferably under a hedge or a bush. They turn into earth fast, but the rest ... that's just litter." Susan answered, looking through her stone. "Look at the faeries, I'm sure they agree with me on this case."
"Heidi looked and saw agitated faeries pointing at her heap of soiled papers and things. Hurriedly she too unfolded a napkin and placed her waste in it just like Susan had done. Both napkins with contents ended in the basket, and Heidi saw the faeries unwind and calm down.
"I'll never let my waste lie around like that any more. Promise!" Heidi said. "I like nature to be free and wild like this garden, not soiled and grey. I hope my dad will arrive soon."
"So do I ," Susan said, The two girls got up and slowly wandered to the house. The window panes were grimy from years of not being cleaned, Heidi used another napkin to wipe off the pane, and the two girls cupped their hands around their faces to look inside the house.
Inside was a living room. Totally untouched, like it had been left only yesterday. Surprisingly almost no dust had settled on the furniture either. Susan put the stone to her eye. "Nope, no faeries inside. Even though this room looks like it would be fun for faeries, look at that old parrot cage with swings and slides! A fairy playground if ever I saw one."
"Yes," Heidi said, "and the ceiling fan, they could use that one as a merry-go-round."

A whooshing sound made them turn around. Heidi's father stood at the garden gate.
"Oh, dad!" Heidi said. "I'm happy to see you. We sure need some help here."
Kai walked up to the gate and Susan and Heidi did the same from the inside.
"STOP!" Susan yelled, "Don't open that gate, all the fairies are standing ready to escape once it's opened." She handed Kai the stone when he began babbling. "Look through this stone!" After one look at Susan's face, Kai accepted the stone, wordless for once and did as he was told.
"Wow!" he exclaimed, "This garden sure IS crammed with fairies. Let me think while I eat." He sat down outside the gate and opened a bag of burgers and shakes from the fast food shop in town. "Would you like some?" he asked. The girls had felt full a minute ago, but the smell from the burgers made them realize that they were in fact still hungry. They shared a big burger and a strawberry shake, while Kai polished off a giant burger with lots of meat, lettuce and cheese and drank a big raspberry shake as well. Then he meticulously licked his fingers and wiped fingers and moustache in several clean napkins. All the cups, straws, and napkins ended up in the bag again.

Kai rose. "OK girls, move over. I'm going to jump the gate. Here, catch!" he said and threw his bag over the gate. When Heidi and Susan had moved over, he backed off a bit, and took a running vault over the gate, landing agilely between two flower beds. Then he opened his bag and pulled out a piece of canvas and a string of Garlic.
"Dear Heidi and Susan," he said. "What I am going to do now is  ... not black magic, no, but maybe a bit grey around the edges. You both have to help me, but please do not try to memorize the words or the somatics. Sandra would flay me alive."

***

Kai stopped: "But first I owe you an explanation. Sit down." They sat down on blankets from the picnic basked whereupon Kai drew his wand and made a circle in the air around them. "This will keep the fairies at bay," he said, "They are far too curious ... Aunt Jemima told me, not today, but a long, long time ago that Carl, that's her husband - he died many years ago. I surmise that Tue and Lis can remember him, but you're surely too young." Heidi nodded.
"Anyway," Kai continued, "he was a handsome man, a man of many talents, and that was his demise. He was a rugmaker, an illustrator, a painter, sometimes a politician, an inventor, and a really good wizard. And as Aunt Jemima told me he combined all of these talents trying to re-invent the flying carpet"
"That one on the clothes-line?" Heidi asked.
"Might be. I don't know, and I don't want to go into details about what happened to him. Firstly I am not sure I know the story in its entirety secondly I am not sure Aunt Jemima told us everything, or even kept to the truth. But we can ascertain that some accident befell him, with fatal results, and that Aunt Jemima left this house not long after, sealing house and garden before she left it to its fate."
"How did we get in, then?" Heidi interrupted.
"It is sealed to intruders only, and you are not intruders, but family," Kai explained. He continued. "I gleaned from Heidi's letter that you correctly suspect that the faeries live in symbiosis with magic people or places. They are attracted to them. And as this garden is a charmed place, they have been propagating with nothing to cull their numbers. But to have become this many ... I never dreamt ... If we just let all these faeries out, I'm afraid two things will happen. First they'll flood the surroundings, driven by curiosity and their hunger for magic. I think they've sucked this garden dry as a bone... "
"That one window over there," Susan mused. "There might be a tiny hole or a crack over there, as they keep flocking to it."
"Could be. Please let me have your lucky stone again." Susan gave it to him, and he looked for a long time, watching the faeries going about their doings in the garden.
"Yes, they are attracted by the window. The magic seal might have begun fading there. It is fortunate that you arrived here today, even if I suspect your mother will be fuming when she discovers your whereabouts. How did you find your way to Aunt Jemima's old abode? Sandra would never disclose her address."
"I had an old letter from Aunt Jemima, back from when she lived here. She had written her address on the backside of the envelope," Heidi answered.
"You're nothing if not resourceful," Kai said. " And I think is was for the good you came here today. If the faeries ever got in ...
And that leads me to my second fear. The fear of magic predators. I will not mention any of their names here, and you should not give words to your suspicions either. I am sure Thora and Gilvi have warned you off of magic monsters?"
Both girls nodded, tight lipped.
"We'll have to let out the faeries, but in a trickle, and not just to the other side of the hedges. I'll fashion a kind of mini-portals, a trap-like thing from these materials, and then place it in the hedge. The fairies will become attracted, and when they wander in, they can't just walk back out again, but will be forced to continue through the contraption, and into one of the many tiny portals inside.
"That's not entirely legal. Teleporting beings against their will is frowned upon by the powers that be. But I see no other way out of this quandary. We have to disperse or dilute the fairy population, and we can't allow them to cover, harry and pester all the decent, absolutely not magical farmers and townspeople for miles around. Neither can we allow for them to catch the unwanted attention of beasts better unnamed. And I don't like them to ruin Aunt Jemima and Uncle Carl's house either in their aching for magic."

Heidi and Susan held, tied, raised and lowered pieces of cardboard, canvas, strings, sticks of metal alloys, glass beads and other strange objects, then they stood quiet, holding the contraption while Kai in a subdued voice activated it. They both listened, even though Kai had asked them not to, but none of them were able to catch more than a single word here and there. Suddenly the contraption flickered, shifted and felt lighter in their grip. "Eureka!" Kai exclaimed, "It worked. Thank you, and thanks for not prying. I know that your curiosity is still unbridled and unsated, but unfortunately it will have to remain in that state for yet a while."

Kai placed the now activated one way trap in the hedge and Susan watched the faeries entering the trap while Kai removed all traces of his activity. Susan watched the faeries closest to the trap first turning their heads in its direction, then looking at it, slowly inching closer and then entering the box. She noticed that very few exited the box on the other side, outside the hedge, most of the faeries simply disappeared. Heidi asked for the Lucky stone, and Susan handed it to her. She naturally saw the same as Susan had seen.

"It will take days, maybe even weeks before this garden is somewhat cleared of the immense amount of faeries," Kai said. "I think the most pressing enterprise for us now is to restore the faulty shield around the windows."

***

Some weeks later.
Candles were lit, everyone were ready. It was nine o'clock. Susan and her co-apprentices had been waiting for this moment for days, she could feel her heart beating, fast, uneasily. She looked into the flame of the candle, to still her thoughts and fears. Then she stared into the contents of the bowl, exited what she was going to see. Funnily a picture of aunt Jemima rose to the surface of her mind. First she saw aunt Jemima as she had last seen her, and old, white-haired, grey-skinned, tiny lady, then as she had seen her in the photos in the house when they finally got in there, majestic, chestnut coloured hair reaching all the way her waist. It did strike her as strange that aunt Jemima had left almost everything behind, when leaving the house after Carl, her husband, had died. Then she remembered that Jon had warned them about getting sucked into someone else's memories. Happy that she had dodged that bullet she stared on, and a pair of ballet shoes rose to the surface. It was her own ballet shoes, tied together by the pink satin band, hanging over her bed at home in Elsinore, and her thoughts slipped back to her dreams of being a dancer. The mini series Ballet Shoes had run on TV, and she had dreamed of becoming a famous ballet dancer just like Posy Fossil. She even persuaded Mum and Dad to buy her a pair of pink pointe shoes. Those that hung over her bed still. After buying a book on ballet and doing plies and limbering exercises for months, she realized that she was much more a kindred spirit of Petrova, who went off exploring with Gum in the end. Her Mum's worrying for her feet, for broken bones and pulled tendons when she and Linda grappled with the basics of standing on their toes of course made Susan's stubborn streak become rampant and made her continue her exercises and reading for almost half a year more before finally giving in. Linda had stopped long before, taking up normal dancing, which Susan absolutely abhorred. So many people, and you had to be girlish and nice to stupid, clumsy girls, and ugly boys. She carried on with the limbering exercises every morning until she found the perfect excuse for quitting. She found out that female ballet dancers was limited to a height of 165 cm - even if the bar was up from 156, she was still going to be too tall within a year, and furthermore she was far too old. She suddenly missed doing the limbering exercises every morning, and realized that she did not need to try and become a ballet dancer to do the exercises, her body clearly needed to stay limber and agile. With this realisation she looked up and met Jon's eyes. "You saw and learned something, I see," he said. "Write it down in your note book and call it a day. Scrying is tiring work, and lunch break will be in ten minutes." Susan just nodded, pulled out her green notebook, drew the ballet shoes hanging over her bed and wrote: If I don't practice for one day, only I will know. If I don't practice for two days, my teacher will know. If I don't practice for three days, the audience will know. Then she stroke out "the audience", and wrote 'everybody' over it. She did not remember if this citation came from The Ballet Shoes or from a book on children in a circus, or from somewhere else, but it fit in with her resolve to train her body as well as her mind.

***