Faery Tale (14 page)

“It's incredible!” I breathed, climbing out onto the rock and lowering myself facedown, so my dangling hair was inches from the cold, rushing river.

Jo laughed. “Fancy a swim?”

“I wish,” I breathed. The water was so clear and cold it was all I could do to stop myself from putting my lips to it and drinking. But the freezing-cold gorge waters of upstate New York, I had a feeling, couldn't hold a candle to how much I'd suffer from a dip in this river. I sat for a few minutes at the edge of the Tolmen Stone, listening to the soft rushing of the water.
Pillow your head on a rock and wash your ears with the sound of a stream
, my father used to say. A line from a famous poet, I'm sure, but when he said it, with his deep voice as we stood, arms linked, by a shady gorge back home, it became his own. We moved back out to the moor in silence, until we approached a grove of ancient-looking trees that looked out over the hills of Devon. I sat under a twisted old tree with spongy green moss mounded at its feet and aligned my spine with its trunk. Jo smiled.

“They're curious about you,” she said.

I understood her. “Who, the faeries?”

“Yes. They're kind of wondering why you want to know about them. Maybe you should explain why you're here.”

I thought for a moment. “I want to know about them because they're magical. And if magical beings exist, there's hope for us all.”

“Well, they think that's pretty funny.”

I didn't see what was so funny about that. In fact, I was beginning to glower at the fact that perhaps these English faeries weren't taking me very seriously. We walked on and out of the moor, and even as we did I could feel its immensity at my back, as though it stood there witnessing, as time moved through the rest of the world.

I liked Jo. She was kind, quiet, earnest, and honest. Back at her house Jo snipped fresh herbs to make us tea, and we arranged to meet back up at dinnertime.

My curiosity had been piqued and not satisfied by my visit to the moor. Some digging uncovered a few more interesting facts about the legends surrounding Scorhill and the vicinity. One notable thing pertained to domesticated horses. Dating back as far as local memory ran, riders on horseback could not get their horses to enter the circle or pass through it at all. And yet there was also a written account of someone in the nineteenth century who had witnessed a line of wild Dartmoor ponies approach the circle, and enter it one at a time, each waiting for the one before it to linger and then exit before entering themselves, just as Jo had told me. Perhaps the wild ponies knew more about its original purposes than we could ever hope to.

The Tolmen Stone had derived its name from the Celts,
tol
meaning hole and
maen
meaning stone. Naturally formed from thousands of years of water erosion, there was speculation from an early Dartmoor writer that, during Celtic times, Druids used the stone to purify people who had been accused of some wrongdoing within the tribe. Holed stones like the Tolmen were sometimes found as entrances into burial chambers or ancient tombs, like portals into another world. In addition to the supposed cures from arthritis, the Tolmen Stone had been used to cure children of whooping cough and tuberculosis. Some believed that passing through the hole could enable you to see the future. It was believed that looking through a holed stone could give a person “second sight”—the ability to see into the land of the supernatural, making faeries and other spirits visible.

That night was my last in Chagford, and Ed joined us for dinner. As Jo, Ed, and I sat outside in the cool May evening we talked about life and the meaning of magic, until it was time for them to head home and for me to walk the deserted streets of the tiny village, alone but not unsafe, to Shelagh's door. It opened with a creak, and I made my way swiftly down the hall, ignoring my intoxicated notion that there was someone in the living room who must be responsible for that waft of sweet-scented tobacco, and someone moving behind me up the stairs like a mother shooing her child into the nursery, hours past their bedtime.

—CHAUCER

 

 

 

 

T
HE next morning I said farewell to Shelagh and set out on another dreaded drive, this time to Oxshott, where I was picking up Raven for our journey to Glastonbury. Glastonbury had captivated my imagination since I'd read
The Mists of Avalon
, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, as a teenager. I was utterly enthralled by Bradley's gorgeous turns of phrase, rich with the hues she lent a legend I thought I knew. She wrote of the mythic Isle of Avalon, which legend says was a holy pagan island. In her epic, Avalon was home to the great Priestesses of the Old Religion, and the book bears witness to the clashing of the Old World with that of the new, as Christianity became popularized in Britain. Avalon was an island shrouded in mist not just in legend, but in literature as well. People have translated the name to mean “Isle of Apples,” and it had been linked time and again to the Arthurian legends through an enigmatic heroine: Morgan le Fay. She was often spoken of as a priestess, but in earlier stories (namely Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Vita Merlini
, circa 1150) she was called a faery, a healer, and a shape-shifter. Some claim, or perhaps even Monmouth himself claimed, that he was working from genuine Celtic material when he created the poetic work that first truly popularized the Arthurian legend for greater Europe. According to that legend, Arthur was brought to Avalon to be healed by Morgan le Fay of his fatal wounds from the battle at Camlan. Some believe that, to this day, Arthur and his knights yet lie sleeping in the hollow hill of Avalon until such a time that Britain needs its legendary hero once more. Each year thousands of people come to walk the steep slopes of Glastonbury Tor, where many believe that Arthur still lies in magical slumber. And still others believe the tor is the domain of Gwyn ap Nudd, a faery king and lord of the underworld in ancient Welsh mythology.

But at the heart of Glastonbury is the Chalice Well, one of the best-known holy wells in Britain. For nearly two thousand years, people have visited to drink the waters, thought to have healing properties. The water flows at the same rate and temperature regardless of draught or other climate-related conditions—miraculously it has never, at least not in recorded history, run dry. In the late 1950s, the Chalice Well Trust was established to protect the well and surrounding area. “The ancient people saw wells as gateways where the veils between human existence, the world soul and the spirit realms became thinner, and beside them they established shrines and conducted ceremonies,” according to the trust's website. Because the well waters are rich in iron, they turn the rock they flow over a brilliant red color, which at first glance is a little alarming. Today people come from all over the world to meditate near the well, walk in the healing pool, or to simply sit and enjoy the beauty of the extensive gardens.

Glastonbury and the Chalice Well aren't home to King Arthur and the faery folk alone, however. Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathea, who some say was great-uncle to Jesus, spent time in Glastonbury with Jesus as a very young man, and that upon Jesus' death, Joseph traveled to Glastonbury with the cup from the Last Supper, hiding it in the depths of the well. While Jerusalem to England would have been a long journey, it was certainly possible—England was a part of the Roman Empire during Jesus' time. And thus there are those who believe the well represents the blood of Christ: to drink its waters is an ultimate communion with the son of God.

Raven had visited Glastonbury back when we were first becoming friends, long before chasing around after faeries was even a pixie-sized thought in my mind. When she first mentioned finding faeries in my apartment, she'd also cited two unusual experiences that she'd had with faeries there. She'd been staying at the Inn at Little St. Michael, owned by the Chalice Well Trust. She was so taken with the beauty of the gardens that she would often wander through them at night. One evening she had a strange feeling that she wasn't alone and turned just in time to see a small silhouette with a rounded hat move across a shaft of light from the garden lamp. She had also seen strange lights in the bushes and trees, on various occasions. Now, Raven is a very close friend, and I trusted her inherently, but believing or not believing in something is not a leap I take lightly—I need proof. Raven was so “in touch” that often she didn't question things, and that I couldn't trust. But her experiences were intriguing enough to make me want to see if there was something in Glastonbury that I could experience for myself.

I invited her to come with me, but just before we left for Charleston, she'd broken some bad news.

“Signe, there's nothing I would love more than to come with you—believe me. Glastonbury is like
heaven
to me.” She looked at me intently over her wineglass. “But I'm just not sure I'm meant to be there with you.
You
need to be the one reaching out to them. Not me.”

My face fell. “But, Raven, I need you!” I begged. “I have no idea what I'm doing. I'll have no idea what to do!”

Panic began to rise in my chest. I only had nine weeks in Ireland and the United Kingdom in which time I desperately needed to get in touch with something—nine weeks in which I desperately needed to rediscover a sense of enchantment. And the one woman who had opened the door for me in the first place, who I'd traveled with to Mexico, who had become like a second mother to me in New York, was trying to bump me out of the nest. She was my Gandalf and I was a lost and bewildered Frodo, now being sent off to the ends of the earth completely alone. Now I knew the fear and the braveness required to bear the terrible weight of the hero's journey.
There can be only one
. No, wait. That was
Highlander
. But nonetheless! It wasn't that I needed her to prove to me that faeries were real—I knew that was something only I could do for myself. But Raven was my interpreter. She was versed in the world of faeries; she spoke their language. She'd seen them, she could sense their energy, and she knew what to do to get in touch. And I wanted her with me because she has a talent for making life magical. Even though she is a grown woman, she can see the world through the eyes of a child. Raven never doubts herself. Her life experiences have given her a purity of belief. And she is open to a magic that I don't think the rest of us understand.

I had steeled myself to journey through England alone, when a month and a half shy of my departure she called with good news—she would come after all. She told me that something interesting had happened: she'd received a message that there was something in Glastonbury waiting for her.

In case it's not already self-evident, I should state for the record that Raven is a bit . . . magical. To be perfectly blunt, she's a goddess-worshipping ordained priestess, Reiki Master, hypnotherapist who is trained in shamanic journeying. I mean all that in the nicest way. She's both enlightened and incredibly down-to-earth. The perfect copilot for my quest, if only for one leg of my travels.

What made Raven change her mind was a “message” she received while in a shamanic state, or “journey”—a dreamlike, out-of-body experience (are you still with me?) that offers a bridge to the spirit world.The “message” she received was that if she chose to accompany me, there was something she would experience that could change her life forever.

At long last I arrived at a stately home in Oxshott, in the fashionable county of Surrey. It was the home of Jill Schmidt, a friend of Raven's. At the sound of the car Raven appeared at the door, her blond hair wild with curls against a dark green cloak, the likes of which only she could pull off. I extracted myself from the car and nearly ran into her arms. It was so good to see such a warm, familiar face that I couldn't keep my eyes from welling up.

“I'm so glad you're here,” I sighed.

“Not any gladder than me, darling.” She smiled.

After a quick lunch, we set off together to Somerset. Now that Raven was in the car with me, everything felt safer, calmer. I told her about Ed, Jo, the Frouds, my time in London, as we wound our way through roundabouts and finally onto Route 303, a two-lane road that twisted through the English countryside.

A wreck on 303 caused us to creep the majority of the way—not a problem when you get to pass Stonehenge at three miles per hour, but it meant we didn't arrive until after nine o'clock. At last we pulled into the parking lot of the Inn at Little St. Michael. Raven had told me that if we wanted to double our chances of catching any faery activity, we needed to have access to the Chalice Well Garden at night. During the day, the gated gardens were open to visitors for a fee, but those staying at the inn had the benefit of twenty-four-hour access.

We rang the bell and were given the grand tour by a member of the Chalice Well Trust who told us the house rules (no cell phones, no electronics, no shoes, no kidding) and finally showed us to our bedroom. A serene and airy room with three twin beds, sturdy wooden rafters, and a cavernous fireplace, the house was clearly several hundred years old, but its condition was excellent.

We took a few minutes to get settled, before Raven looked at me, wild with anticipation. “Want to go out to the garden?”

Mmm . . . not especially
, is what I longed to say. But how could I? This was what I was here for, and night frights or not, I instructed my head to nod. An auto-light went on as we exited, illuminating a paved path that led from the back door up a set of stairs. In the darkness beyond, I could make out a picnic table and an arching trellis. All around us were the shadowy outlines of hedges. As I squinted toward some large trees up ahead, something caught my eye. It almost seemed like the foliage of the tree, maybe two hundred feet away, was sparkling ever so faintly with tiny pinpricks of light. But no sooner had I registered it than it was gone, leaving me wondering if it hadn't been fireflies. I took a deep breath to relax and found the air was thick with the scent of honey-suckle and rose. As we climbed the stairs, the motion-sensitive light shut off and the only sound was the soft rustling of the wind through the garden foliage.