fairy

The Small Stranger – Part One: Beneath the Shadowed Moon

Posted on by Patrick

Autumn arrived like a newborn child: very loud, messy, bare, and filling the heart with warmth and wonder. He would grow into a strong and lusty winter. His teeth came in small, but very sharp. Those were the days ruled by the moon, as a symbol of change and season, and as the nighttime of the year drew closer.

Otto Kunger could not sleep, so to calm himself he pulled his heavy quilt tight and thought of Else Verboom, his sweetheart. It had been more than three months since she had defeated the zonnestrider, saved their lives, and impressed the deeply unimpressible Prof. Morhier, their teacher of Magic at Cancer Independent. Nothing so supernatural had happened since that dreadful time. Dr. Tom Kikkert had warned him and his friend Kitty Bauer not to disturb the fairy prince in the Bauers’ pasture:

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The Pasture Watch – Part Five: The Furnace of the Sky

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It was a zonnestrider, a diurnal spirit that exhaled a deathly aura of fury and violence. No weapons were permitted on or around the pasture, not even the fairy blade. The fathers of Otto, Else, and Kitty were livid that they were not allowed either. Dr. Kikkert, as the least physically dangerous of the older men, was placed outside the gate with a radio transceiver to contact Prof. Morhier, who waited up the road in a car. Morhier taught Otto a ward to repel the enemy for a time; after at least a day he would be able to prepare a more permanent solution.

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The Pasture Watch – Part Four: The Cure

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By the time morning came the fairy tree was not only withered but rotten. The fallen leaves that had dried and then been wetted by the dew filled the whole place with the bay leaf smell. Otto thought it was rather inconsiderate of the fairy’s signal to make such a mess after only one brief conversation, but Kitty pointed out that it was it easier for them to get at the roots, where the signal had said the weapon was buried.

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The Pasture Watch – Part Three: The Signal

Posted on by Patrick
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Dr. Tom Kikkert was friendly about the number of people he let in the room when they were those who needed to be there. He kept the true proverb, that “companionship is the purest medicine”. Otto’s room had warm brown walls: the doctor tried to avoid sterile white. Otto’s barrel-chested father sat by the bed and held his hand. Nearby sat his mother, who seemed undisturbed (“He is a boy, after all”). She was holding Otto’s baby brother, who also seemed undisturbed, and was pointing with interest at the various medical and magical things in the room: he had never been in this interesting place before. Kitty was sitting on a love-seat, and leaning, exhausted, on Else Verboom, Otto’s sweetheart; Else was a nice person to lean against.

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The Pasture Watch – Part Two: The Sting

Posted on by Patrick

Otto Kunger had a round head, with close-cut hair, and round, thick glasses; however his spirit was quite squarish. His eyes were quick and clever, so that when he went “hunting” with Kitty in the fields and woods, while she found things more often, he found things that were usually more interesting; consequentially, they each thought the other was better at it.

Today they would not be hunting. Kitty’s heart beat almost as fast to show Otto the fairy hole as when she and her mother had first followed the light bearer to it. They clambered nimbly over the gate; Kitty as usual was in her bare feet, while Otto had on a pair of sturdy battered shoes that may have once belonged to his father. Kitty was over the gate first, even quicker than usual. Otto’s glasses glinted in the afternoon sun as he got his leg across.

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The Pasture Watch – Part One: The Light Bearer

Posted on by Patrick
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Kitty Bauer was jumping on a small, indoor trampoline, her wavy hazel hair and light springtime clothes flouncing lightly. While she jumped she seemed to be deep in thought, rather in contrast with the enthusiastic movements of her slight form. Her mother, Dolores, came into the game room with a can-opener in her hand and a somewhat lost expression on her face.

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