Elyse McInerney - Letters from Fairyland

 

I was seven when I created my masterpiece. What started out as the polystyrene packaging to a dinner set became the wildest imaginings of a fairy palace. I spent hours crafting tiny pieces of furniture, tiny fairy beds, tiny fairy tables, even tiny pieces of fairy cutlery. I went to bed that night with the tired satisfaction of an artist who knew they'd created something very special. 

 

The next morning, I ran in to bask in the glory of my creation, and in front of it was a sprinkling of fairy dust and a tiny piece of floral letter-writing paper, on which, in tiny, curly, elaborate handwriting, were the words, "Dear Princess, is this for us?" "Oh wow," said my mum, who’d come in behind me, "It looks like the fairies were really impressed with what you made for them." She pulled out my pencils and we wrote a response welcoming them to their new home. And so, began a wonderful friendship. 

 

I found out the fairy I was corresponding with was called Candytuft. She and her best friend, Rose, had the very important job of flying around to all the gardens in my neighborhood, taking care of the big fairy babies that lived there. She told me all about her adventures in fairyland, and I told her all about my adventures in grade two. I told her who my best friend was that week, which boy I decided could be my boyfriend that week, about the fights I was having with some of the girls in my class, and she always was there with some words of support and advice.

 

I'd tell her about times when my dad wouldn't come home, and my mum would cry, and she'd tell me that she knew with her fairy magic that both of my parents loved me very much and that everything was going to be okay. Having a fairy pen pal gave me massive street cred in the playground. [audience chuckle] As the chosen one, I would perch myself upon a bench and share all the latest updates from fairyland, and I would come home with stacks of drawings and letters from all of my classmates who’d asked me to pass them on to see if they could get a fairy pen pal too. Some kids did and some kids didn't. 

 

As questions started to circulate and tensions rose, Mr. Shorthouse, our grade two teacher, announced that fairies were now officially banned in Grade 2S. [audience laughter] And so, the fairy craze of St. Mary’s Primary School died as quickly as it had started. But the craze continued at home. I had pictures of the Candytuft fairy all over my walls. And on my eighth birthday, I woke up to find that my polystyrene creation had been replaced with a beautiful fairy lamp that played music when you wound it up. 

 

And so, I continued correspondence with Candytuft for quite a while, with differing levels of regularity depending on the important things that were going on in my life at that time. During one of those lulls, my mum and her best friend planned a two-week trip away. Whether it was missing her or some kind of seed of doubt, I thought that would be a really good time to write a letter. And so, I wrote my letter and I waited. A night passed, and another night. And so, I just casually mentioned to my dad that Candytuft was taking a little longer than usual to reply. 

 

And then, the next morning, [audience laughter] next to my fairy lamp, was a piece of A4 printer paper. [audience laughter] And in blue highlighter, in something that very much resembled my dad's handwriting, [audience laughter] was a letter from the fairy king, who was just letting me know that Candytuft had gotten caught up in a spiderweb recently. But it was all going to be fine. She was just going to be out of action until Saturday, which, coincidentally, was when my mum would be back. [audience laughter] My heart crumbled and I sobbed and I sobbed, and my panic-stricken father tried to comfort me, but I just couldn't stop grieving for the magic and the excitement that I'd lost now that I knew that Candytuft was just my mum. 

 

And so, my mum came home. We didn't talk about Candytuft. But as the months passed, things got a little more stressful. My parents were fighting a lot more and my dad moved into the spare room. I didn't know how to talk to anyone about it, so I was fighting with all of my friends. And so, one night, I was sitting on my bed and I looked at my fairy lamp and I thought of something that I could do to make myself feel better. So, I wrote a letter. And the next morning, there was a sprinkling of fairy dust, a piece of floral writing paper, and in painstakingly curly handwriting, a letter addressed, "Dear Princess." I knew then that I didn't need fairy magic to know everything was going to be okay when I had a mum who loved me that much. Thank you.