#follyglass

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Mirror

The little looking glass was unremarkable; it wasn’t encircled in gold laurel or hung by a length of green ribbon as was the custom of the time, and there was a certain fogginess that rendered the gazer as if they were looking into a fairy pool, but Cedar was drawn to it all the same. This mirror was the only thing in his uncle’s house that he could stomach, not because it was the most simple object, but because nobody else seemed to want it – everything else had been at best, bickered over, at worst, screeched about by his family from the delphine carpets to the inkblack books to the icefire chandeliers– and so he took it from the wall, said his polite goodbyes and brought it to his little room over the bottle shop. After he found a suitable place and hung it, his fingers traced the arcing light in the bevel. And he found that it sang. A quiet ringing note that was barely audible, but it sang all the same. Cedar wondered back to the street musician who played the goblets, and how the varying levels of champagne within influenced the magic of the music. Cedar ran his thumb around the mirror’s edge in a slow, deliberate crescent, and brought watery chiming notes forth, each beginning to ripple the mirror’s surface, the fog giving way to a shimmering view of the lost lake of mists.

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Small

There was a time that I was once too grown for the small things that made me happy. When my starry coat went missing from the laundry line, I thought ‘good, it was too babyish anyway.’ When I left my blue velvet shoes on the porch to dry after running through the rain-splashed daisies –and they disappeared– I thought ‘I had outgrown them, and perhaps it’s too messy to run through daisies anyway.’ When I told my parents that I mistakenly left my flute in the park, I thought ‘what use is learning to play the notes when being an adult means not playing?’

The fox noticed. Small and fire and curious, it peered at me from the hedge, but I made myself look away. I once had so many happy books about foxes, but I realized in my growing that my interests in animals did not matter.

Many years found me occupied by doing things I thought adults should do; putting aside small brilliant things, hiding simple joys from myself, pressing on with more serious matters. It was an asceticism that I thought displayed wisdom. Sometimes, I would see the fox darting between houses, a flash of fire against the expanse of brick suburbia.

It was when I was much older that I happened to find a pair of green velvet shoes in a fancy shop; they fit me. I wondered if it would be too silly, too childish to buy them. Surely, anything that made me happy like that probably wasn’t good for a serious adult to do. I bought them anyway. They sat in my closet, a brief glimpse of joy before I shut them away again since I could find no appropriate occasion to wear them.

Until.

There was a warm cricket-song night, and I slipped them on to walk the white-garden I had carefully cultivated. It was especially lovely at night – my neighbors had told me so over wine I thought too astringent but sipped anyway– the lilies and roses glowing against the blue hour, a perfumed fairy garden. A series of silver notes rose from the daisy field and floated over the peonies. Since nobody was looking, I began to move about, sweeping my arms wide. It was only when I was dancing in my own garden that the fox appeared, wearing a starry coat, and blue velvet shoes, and playing the flute that I had lost.

Together we danced in arabesques and hops and giggles and ate honey and berries and laughed and wore crowns of daisies upon our heads.

I apologized to the small fox for ignoring her. I confessed that I thought it was the grown-up thing to do.

The fox considered me, then asked in what used to be my own childish voice, “and are you grown-up now?”

Yes, I think I finally was.

[follyglass]

It was night. I expressed my regrets that there was only one teacup, but she eagerly grabbed it from my hand and assured me that it was perfect. I did not know the proper ways of things, and social rules vexed me. Would a glass bottle have been better? Before I could ask, she pressed on.

As she dumped powders into porcelain, her brow furrowed. When she asked for an unspoken wish, I gave my breath to her cupped palm, which she then upturned over the teacup. I could not tell if her squint meant that something had gone wrong – Had something gone wrong? Was it the teacup? Was it me? – I held my breath.

She thought, then exhaled slowly over the little cup.

After a satisfied nod, handed the teacup back to me, with the instruction to “Flick the rim.”

I peered into it and only saw lavender powder with a sparkling swirl run through it. No water, no tea. A puzzle. But I did as she said and flicked the rim, which set the powder to fizzing bright as sparklers, growing like little fireworks into the dark. I marveled at the color and light growing, blooming into shapes of bells and clustered stars. I had never seen such magic, and tried not to blink for fear that I would miss something.

It occurred to me that I should try my best to remember this moment, this buzzing jewel-bright sensation, to keep the glow in my memory and in my heart for as long as I could.

“I can’t believe nobody’s given you flowers before,” she said, smiling.

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Moon

On days of the full moon, I’m sure to be inside at home. It’s the blessing my goblin-mother made for me: only when the full moon’s crystalline light brushes against the threshold of my home can I leave and receive the gifts. So, I’m careful.

Outside, the forest has pulled the sun into the trees and threads of gold are being spun among the branches, and that is my cue to check the satchel to make sure I have everything I need; the candles, the seal, the bell, and the notebook. I consider a second and add a bottle of morning-glory sparkle and a loaf of thyme bread for Mizzerlin, then I press my nose back against the cold glass of my front door, and fidget as the gold fades and is overtaken by a lavender blue band of twilight.

The moon, it is too slow for my patience, and as soon as its creamy crystalline light touches my doorstep, I am running barefoot pearl-rabbit-quick through the snow East-North-West-South-East-North-West-South-East-North around my home until I finally find the Eath direction and the hidden side of my little home reveals itself.

My feet are barely chilled as I open the door to the goblin’s hidden library of moonlight books.

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Doilies

Uncle Pickett–not related to anyone around here, everyone just calls him Uncle Pickett–has a glass cabinet full of creamy towers of froth just kinda sagging and leaning into each other. They look like celebration cakes, or at least that’s what most people initially thought, me included, but they’re stacks of doilies. “All got second-hand,” says Uncle Pickett. It’s important to him, the second-hand thing.

I’m told when he first came to town ain’t hardly anyone knew his name, and even after the many teas he hosted at his home, he didn’t talk about his doilies, not that anybody really pressed, but people noticed his collection and surmised that much like how Miss Whitwilliam is fond of cats so she must be in want of cat figurines, well, then, Uncle Pickett must be an admirer of doilies and was in dire need of the happiness that only hundreds of roundels of lace could bestow upon him. When Aunt or Grandma or whomever died, instead of displaying the ghastly sweet doilies in their own homes, the neighbors would drop off paper sacks of them at Uncle Pickett’s door.

We thought they were just frilly little nothings decorated with the cloying flower du jour. But Uncle Pickett pointed out their ubiquity and its importance. “A fine web of connections often crafted while the mind is faraway; a link to here…. and there.” I thought he was just prone to poeticisms of the ordinary, which was alright, because the world needs people who see things differently. But when Miss Whitwilliam died and we were all in mourning, Uncle Pickett set us straight. He invited us over to a supper, and over candlelight, he had us all touch the doily in the middle of the table, a round in a round. In a voice befitting the softness of the candlelight, he called her name…….and Miss Whitwilliam appeared from the mists.

She still loves cats.

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Leap

It was a tale she had heard when her legs weren’t so long, a tale that once made her shy from the garden, a tale that now hurtled her thin body across the clipped grass, each pound of her heart a prayer, a hope that they were hungry. Please be hungry… I am my only key. In a great moonlight arc, she dove into the round of black pansies, and she felt their petal mouths closing around her long ears and tiny paws…a darkness…a hum…… And then emergence from the white-blue pansy mouths of the Neverwhen Garden, where she found those who had long awaited her, eager to bestow upon her the Faberge strawberry.

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Shadows

“Here,” the bookseller said while flipping to a page, “is the shadow of the first butterfly that flew through the glass castle.” After the customer’s eyebrows raised, the bookseller opened to a green bookmark. A series of minute dark shapes danced across the page, “And this shadow record is from the breath of a Tinley sparrow while it sang. See? You can follow the little notes, the trills,” the bookseller smiled, “more precious than a page by Vivaldi himself.”

The customer eyed all of the little bookmarks woven through the pages, little gems hanging from ribbons of different colors. His expression began to visibly sour when he noticed that the binding was powder blue and embossed with a pattern of kittens. And was that strawberry cupcakes he smelled? Was it coming from the book? While the bookseller flourished her hands over shadow pages of languid tea curls and the long-lost Queen’s Jewel itself, it occurred to the customer that this might all be a joke. He had traveled days for this book. Rearranged the meeting of the Thornblood Society. The bookseller slowly thumbed open a page marked with a lavender ribbon, but before she could begin to explain the shadow marks – this one was really truly interesting – she heard the shop door bells tinkle the customer’s goodbye.

“Gone so soon?” chuckled the bookseller in what silence remained. She carefully straightened the bookmarks and gathered Phoebe Hobbs’ Book of Shadows in her arm. On the way back to the rare books room, her apprentice called after, “I thought you finally had someone that really wanted it?”

It was a common thing, the inquiring, the wanting. Every few years, someone heard about the book and contacted the bookseller. Each time The Bodleian had hired a new rare books curator, they visited. As did the Redwood Athenaeum, and many collectors of rare and exquisite tomes. But still, the Book of Shadows remained. The bookseller shrugged, “If they can’t handle the whimsy of eight-year-old Phoebe Hobbs, they don’t deserve her more powerful spells from when she was seven.”

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Bells

The last breath that left the empress’ lips set the tower bells swinging across the lands. Despite their massive size and unrivaled craftsmanship, the bells did not ring. Instead, they called only to the next empress with a single word; this word that plagued them until they reached the palace gates and uttered it… it was the key that opened the empire to their rule.

The girl from Twofields had seen the crowds gather at the tower before, everyone watching the twelve bells clash and sway. She understood that the bells did not make a sound for them, and in this manner she felt their equal. She had never heard a bell before, and always wondered what it might be like. But this time, with each peal of the bell, a vision flashed strong and persistent across her view : an ivory carnation.