• 880 words
• 3 min 31 sec reading time

I met Storm Fairy so long ago that I have only fragments of memory. I hope you will forgive this abrupt telling to clear the way to where I stand today.

One minute, I was on the promenade in Tramore. Watching white foaming waves break onto the shoreline, battering the concrete walls and hissing spray at the nearby buildings.

In the distance, on Brownstown head, a solitary Metal Man stood on an imposing plinth, pointing away from the shallow strands of Tramore and onto the deeper waters of Waterford’s harbour.

The entire vista shades of grey, tapering into white fluffy tips. My mind played tricks on me. I imagined chaotic shapes rising from the waves.

Suddenly, three large Cormorants left the shoreline in sweeping formation, hovering just above the waterline and heading toward the Metal Man. It was then she appeared at the corner of my eye. I glimpsed a shadowy silhouette of a woman with waist-length hair dressed in a billowing black dress. I turned to look at her, but she disappeared, along with Cormorants.

Nearby, people were walking tilted, the wind making it impossible to stand straight, and kids jumped like superheroes storm-busting. No one noticed the Cormorants or the woman. I twisted my head to look over my left shoulder and squinted. She reappeared. This time, up close and looking into my eyes. I stumbled forward, and she caught my hand. Her fingers were ice cold.

That’s when everything went askew.

‘You caught me.’ The first words she spoke to me are forever embedded in my memory.

‘I did?’ Shaking my hand free before I replied, ‘Looks like you caught me’.

She looked into my face and paused before abruptly rewinding to where I had initially seen her. I followed, unintentionally, as if I were an image glitching behind her. Finally, standing by her side.

‘You’re not from here?’ Not my best opening line.

‘No, neither are you, Shush, they’re coming.’

Exploding from the centre of a giant wave, one of the black Cormorants shot into the sky, followed by its two compatriots. Swooping back into formation, they followed the irregular waves back to shore and landed before the woman. Unintelligible sounds babbled back and forth between them. The woman held her hand forward, commanding silence. In succession, each of the Cormorants placed the side of their head in her palm and swiftly disappeared.

I wanted to run, but I stepped forward. The waves built as the swell changed direction and headed toward where I stood.

She, who I now know as Storm Fairy, placed her hand over mine. The swell reached the shore. In a deafening vacuum, waves towered above me before crashing down on my head.

I cowered. The sky turned blue, and the waters calm.

In the distance, the Metal Man jumped down from his plinth, landed on the calm, blue-as-blue ocean, and glided across its surface in a thrust forward motion.

The woman let go of my hand; confused, I looked around. Suddenly, she had a giant bell and was shaking it. A high-pitched sound vibrated, and a second Metal Man appeared on the horizon. Gliding at speed. He caught up with the first Metal Man just as he reached the shore, and they both stepped onto the sandy beach.

‘I’m starving.’

‘Me too.’

I blinked, and we were all in a quaintly styled room with high ceilings and pale blue walls. I was seated at a table with a full banquet in front of me.

‘Where am I?’

‘At lunch.’ She handed me a bowl of glazed carrots.

‘Lunch is late today.’

The Cormorants walked into the room, bird bodies on human legs, and took the empty seats between the Metal Men.

‘We’re sorry,’ in unison.

The Storm Fairy coughed, and everyone turned to look at me, ‘We have a guest?’

‘A human?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why is she here?’

‘I invited her.’

‘You did?’ To this day, I never actually felt like I had been invited.

‘I let you see me. Now, do you want those carrots?’

I remember holding onto the serving bowl, hoping this was all a dream. A crazy dream with a bowl of carrots.

‘If you don’t, I do.’ She waved her hand, and the bowl floated across the table.

‘But really, where am I?’

‘You’re here, and we’re at lunch. We, the Earth. As your kind calls us. We do take breaks.’

‘Here, here’, the Metal Men concurred, ‘do you know how hard it is to stand all day, arm outstretched, just because you humans can’t find your way?’

‘No.’

‘And how hard it is for us to guide the wind and the waves?’ The Cormorants chorused.

‘No.’

I look at the carrots and then into the woman’s eyes. ‘I don’t know who are you?’

‘I am Storm Fairy. I am Earth. I raise the seas and make the storms, move the waves that crash onto the shores. I am the bringer of peace and silence. I am the seen and unseen, the ever-present, and right now, I need to eat. Have food with me so we will get to know each other, and when you leave, we will have a voice to speak on our behalf. Now eat.’

And so it was I met the Storm Fairy.