Faery Tale (19 page)

I brushed the thought aside. I was so fond of that little bird, I wanted so badly to see it again, to say goodbye before I had to leave.

My breath caught when, a moment later, the robin landed beside me on the bench. Who was I, Sheena, calling to the animals of the garden by pressing my fingers to my freaking temples? As the bird hopped down to my feet, I shook my head in disbelief. In its beak, it was holding an insect. I didn't know what any of this meant, but nothing like this had
ever
happened to me before. This was the stuff of fairy tales. I gave a soft laugh, my eyes spilling over at the sight of the little bird, hopping closer and closer as it studied me once more.

I had gotten my wish. Now it was time to go.

For the first time since I'd been driving, I wasn't worried I would crash the car, prematurely ending my faery search, and we listened to music as we drove through the countryside.

“I'm so glad we recorded that ceremony,” Raven mused. “When I get home, I'm going to play it back and see if we were lucky enough to catch anything.”

“I'm so glad you recorded it.”

“Wha—wait a minute,” she said, thumbing through her iPod. “It's not here.”

“What? What do you mean it's not there?”

“It's gone!” she exclaimed, bewildered. “The ceremony was there when I stopped recording, and now it's gone.”

“Well, wait a minute. Are you sure you did it right? I mean, maybe you thought you were recording . . .”

“Signe,” she said, throwing me a withering look, “I record my Equinox meditations practically on a weekly basis. I know how to work this machine.”

“Right, right,” I said. “Well, maybe
they
didn't want it recorded.”

She sighed. “I guess maybe they didn't. 'Cause it's definitely not here.”

After dropping off the car—and receiving a hefty assessment of nearly sixteen hundred dollars in damages—we returned to Jill's house for the night. As we grilled in the backyard, the practicalities of a spiritual traveling companion struck me. I may seem silly, but I was genuinely worried. What would
he
have for dinner? Where would he sleep? What was he doing when we were drinking wine and talking about men and marriage and other mundane life topics?

After cleaning up, I grabbed a dinner roll and walked barefoot in the yard. No sooner had I stepped outside than a little robin, the same type of bird I'd been so fond of in Glastonbury, landed on a branch above me. I'm sure they're all over the Untied Kingdom. They're called, after all, European robins. But it made me smile, and I broke the bread into small pieces, leaving it at the base of the tree before heading back inside.

The next morning Raven packed as I took a shower to accompany her and Jill to the airport. I was toweling off my hair when I walked back into the room to find Raven perched on the bed, waiting for me.

“You'll never believe this.”

“What? You can stay?!”

“No,” she said quickly. “Our ceremony . . . it came back.”

I saw the iPod in her hands. “Lemme see.”

Sure enough, where there had only been three recordings the day before, there were now four.

“But it has the wrong date on it,” I observed. “You listened to it? You're sure it's the right recording?”

“Yes, it's us all right. But here's the weirdest thing,” she explained. “The date on it is March third.”

“I know! And we recorded it May twenty-fifth,” I said.

“Right. All the other dates on here are correct, except for this one. But it gets weirder,” she continued. “There's an old saying that when you knock on the door to faery land, you're supposed to knock three times . . . then three times again . . . then three times again. For a total of nine knocks altogether.”

I looked at her blankly.

“Three times three is nine: 3/3/09! ” she exclaimed.

“Oh,” I said. So it wasn't the most convincing of evidence. I still thought any sort of electrical snafu could have occurred, no matter how well she knew her equipment. But it was something to note at least.

Saying goodbye was hard. It gave me that first day of kindergarten feeling, and predictably, I cried. But soon I was back at Jill's in a flurry of planning, booking a train from Oxshott to London, London to Liverpool, a hostel in Liverpool for the evening, and then an early morning ferry to the Isle of Man.

I knew that in choosing to go to Man, I was eliminating Wales from my trip altogether. I hated that thought, but the signs pointed to Man. I just hoped I wasn't missing anything by taking this leap of faith.

As I was saying my goodbyes to the ancient Chalice Well, I had felt like the waters whispered,
Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake
. In Glastonbury some part of me had been awoken, even more so than the unfolding that had begun back in Charleston. And I didn't want to slip into the unconscious again.

The next night, as I drifted off to sleep in a hostel in Liverpool, I wasn't thinking about how it was the home of the Beatles. I wasn't thinking about how the people spoke with accents I could hardly understand. I was thinking about something Raven had said right before she left. She told me that she had done a journey for me, while I was in the shower, to ask about my next destination, and if there was anything that the spirit world wanted me to know.

“I don't know what this means,” she said, her brow creased, “but I just kept getting this over and over again.
The Isle of Man is for you, an Island of Masks. Nothing there will be as it seems
.”

—MRS. KINVIG, RONAGUE (QUOTE ON DISPLAY AT THE MANX MUSEUM)

 

 

 

 

T
EN days on the Isle of Man. Now that I looked back on it, it seemed that the Isle of Man had beckoned from the middle of the Irish Sea. Of course, what first captured my attention was the fact that it was unbelievably rich in faery lore. There were reports that its great green glens echoed at night with faery music, that people would often get a funny feeling in the woods there, as though they were being watched, or sometimes even hunted by something they couldn't see. Adventurers in the wilderness would feel uncomfortable, then frightened, and some of them experienced problems with their vision, and a light-headedness that made them worry they might lose consciousness.

In her book
The Traveller's Guide to Fairy Sites
, Janet Bord writes that there have been such occurrences as recently as 1994. A man named John L. Hall and his friend were exploring an area called Glen Auldyn, just outside the town of Ramsey on the northern part of Man. They'd been walking for some time when they began to hear tinkling voices and strains of music blowing toward them on the breeze. Seeing as they were in the middle of a deserted forest, with nothing around for miles, they began to feel a growing sense of unease. They felt something was traveling along with them, watching them, but they saw nothing. They felt unwelcome, like they were trespassing. Agitation slowly grew into panic.

After deciding to press on, Hall noticed his vision growing fuzzy. He worried that, at any moment, he would black out. Unable to continue, the two turned back, abandoning their trek—not before, however, John snapped a few pictures. When the photos were developed, they were stunned to see what appeared to be a green man standing amid the tree branches.

Also associated with Glen Auldyn was the star-crossed love story of Phynnodderee, a handsome faery man who fell for a mortal girl who lived in the village of Glen Auldyn. Though he was part of the nobility of the faery world on the Isle of Man, his devotion for the young woman was so great that he left the faery court to be with his human love. But on the eve before Phynnodderee was to join his lady, he failed to attend an important faery event in Glen Rushen, deeply offending the king of the faeries. The king transformed the once-handsome Phynnodderee into a horribly ugly creature, banishing him to the mountains.

Isle of Man or “Manx” folklore, as it was called, was apparently rife with sightings of Phynnodderee, who, despite his terrifying appearance, was willing to assist humans who found themselves in trouble. On the Isle of Man, the faery world was so close that grandmothers told stories of
their
grandmothers seeing or speaking to beautiful men or women who behaved strangely on the roads at night, only to turn to find them vanished the next moment, seemingly disappeared into the moonlight or the eerie evening mist.

 

Folklore aside, there were other things about the place that made me wonder if it might be a particularly lucky location for faery research. The entire island, for example, was simply one big 'tween place. Any island, of course, is an oasis between land and sea. But the Isle of Man wasn't just any island. It was an island almost exactly equidistant from four different countries: Wales, Scotland, England, and Ireland. And yet amazingly enough, despite its proximity to four different countries, the isle is a sovereign country of its own, with its own currency, language, postal system, and laws.

 

Though the island had enjoyed relative tranquillity for the past thousand years, there was still one ruthless invasion that took place every year, carried out by rough, bearded, powerful men. Their conquering was fast, furious, and it roared across the island for two weeks every summer. Since 1907, the Tourist Trophy Motorcycle Races, or TT as it is better known, has been held on Man, bringing tourists, tattoos, and the deafening thunder of roaring engines and squealing rubber to this otherwise quiet island.

I thought I was avoiding race week, as every tour book strongly suggests. But phoning a local hostel, I learned otherwise.

“Oh, hi there, need a room, hey? You coming for the TT?”

“What? Oh, no.
No
.” I paused, utterly confused. “I'm actually coming to do some hiking.” My statement was met with uproarious laughter by the man on the other end of the line.

“Yes.” I cleared my throat, my fingers tracing the phrase in my guidebook. “I've heard the area around Ramsey is perfect for hiking, with its many glens and streams . . . you know, I'm just looking for some peace and quiet . . .”

“Yes, of course. We have lovely walks here. It's just that you've picked quite a time to get some peace and quiet.”

“I don't catch your meaning.”

“It's going to be TT week. Or didn't you know?”

“The motorbike races?” the man on the phone continued.

“No, no. That was
last
week.
Bank holiday
week,” I informed him. Silly man.

“You would be right,” he said, failing in his effort to control a snicker of amusement. “But they've moved it this year. You'll be coming smack in the midst of it now.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. But you're lucky. I don't have anything available for the first two days you'll be here, but I can get you in for June four through June thirteen.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “Please do.”

I called dozens of places before I was able to book my first two nights in the only hostel left that had space. It was a music school that housed visitors in the summer, King William's College in Castletown, all the way on the other side of the island.

I came to terms with TT, or so I thought. Maybe I was
supposed
to be there during the loudest week of the year. After staying the night in Liverpool, I woke up early and caught a cab to the shipping port. The novelty of leaving England via steamboat was exhilarating. As we pulled up to the port I spotted the
Snaefell
, the huge white-and-red ship that would be ferrying me to Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man. Ticket in hand and a smile on my face, I walked the gangplank that led to the outer deck of the massive steamer. Turning the corner toward the bow of the boat, I must have gasped out loud, because the whole gang turned in a single movement. To stare at me.

Oh. My. God.

The ship was packed, and I mean packed, with testosterone-fueled, beefy, leather-clad bikers, who were eyeing me quite openly. I scanned the boat in disbelief. I was practically the only woman on board.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to look confident as I made my way over to the ship's rail, but I could feel the curiosity all around me.