A MIDNIGHT SUMMER DREAM
Dedicated to Elena, my dear mother, and the keeper of the Heritage.
To María Calzada, who recently crossed the door with me.
And to William Shakespeare, whose birthday and storytelling are celebrated today.
"One with dragons and damsels for today!", a naive child would ask.
"No, no!", a slightly older voice corrects. "Sandra doesn't like that kind of story. She'd rather make up one with warrior princesses saving harmless dragons from wicked black knights!"
"Calm down", I reply. "You shall have a nice story. One without dragons or damsels, warrior princesses or black knights... a true story that happened to me a few years ago. And it isn't that dull or ordinary!"
"Let's listen! Maybe it's as good as the one with the Ringstettens!", they called out in chorus.
Upon that I relied and began to relate...
It would never have happened if I hadn't flunked the Maths test that year. Another one choc-a-bloc with sign errors, and another 4 out of 10. It was the third time in my teenage years. Thus, I had to take the chance to ask some of my Swedish friends that summer. Being able to spend every holiday abroad is a pleasure, and getting away from the heat waves in Spain, picking berries, sailing... were definitely on my playlist.
But that short night, I was lying in bed at my Swedish Nan's and hugging my soft white pillows, while trying to fall asleep. Nothing special would happen that week, meant for reading, for crafts, and gardening, and making cakes, or so it seemed.
Now, before I resume, there is something you ought to know. Behind my Swedish Nan's châlet there is a high and somewhat steep hill, with heathland and woodland and even a little lake at the top. Ever since I spent my first holiday there at 7, I had often heard the warning given to generations of Dermark children: "Never go up to the lake on your own!" And I had faithfully paid heed to that warning.
I was thinking of nothing more than the pleasures I had already experienced weeks before, when suddenly a ray of moonlight sneaked past the curtains, and then I woke up, startled, to find a young boy with dragonfly wings, as tall as my arms, sitting on the pile of books (topped by Andersen) on my bedside table, beneath my reading lamp.
I neared by, he addressed me. How did he know my name? He picked up the watch from the floor, and put it in my hands. I turned the light on. It was five minutes to midnight. The pixie boy was turning pale and staggering as if he were drunk. As he fainted, I took his warm form in my arms and tucked him into bed like a ragdoll. He was copper-haired, dressed in a scarlet doublet of rose petals, but the rest of his clothes, and the hood of his doublet, were made of green reeds. Once he had been tucked into bed by my side, his eyelids fluttered, a rosy colour returned to his freckled cheeks, and he woke up, revealing eyes dark green as pine needles. He was coming to.
"Carry me away from here, bring me to the lilac..." His voice was sweet and musical, more than any human child's. "I'm weak, I'm dying..."
Cradling the young pixie in my arms, I put on my nightgown in haste and ran out into the garden. We sat beneath the lilac tree. The sky was as rife with stars as our cheeks were with freckles, and the bright full moon watched over them, and over us, like a loving mother hen.
"Thank you... you saved my life... there was cold steel in there, so close to you..." I thought of my reading lamp. Cold steel makes fairies weak. I wrapped myself in my nightgown and looked at my new friend. Now he skipped up on his feet. "I haven't introduced myself! I have many names, but most people call me Robin", he said, as he put his green hood on and climbed onto the lilac tree.
"I'm not good at climbing", I explained. "Then, cling to a low branch as tight as you can!"
I did as Robin had told me. And, voilà, the lilac tree started to grow at lightning speed, just like Jack's beanstalk! Within five seconds, it had grown as tall as our hill, so one could easily jump from our leafy and flowering seat to the shore of the lake, a liquid mirror, with a frame of lily pads, for the moon and stars.
We remained perched on the branches, as I listened to Robin's stories. "You know, you're still a child at heart. Not many have the pleasure of listening to my stories". We leapt onto the hill, and then, Robin started to tell a familiar story:
"Once there were two royal brothers. And, while the eldest went to war in foreign lands, and was finally killed at the end of these wars, the younger one stole his crown. He got drunk on power and oppressed the common people... Now the fairy king, Oberon, saw the mortal king, John, become a merciless despot... and he sent me, his most faithful servant, to aid the peasants. I recruited a few rebels, we set up a tree fort in the forests of Sherwood, we stole from the nobles and gave to our fellow peasants. There was also a court lady in our merry band, an orphan left to die in the woods by her guardians... Her name was Mary Anne, or Marian, I can't remember exactly. But I had to let her go. For a better ruler came, and the peasants were well fed once more, and Marian went back to the royal court to marry the new king or become one of his queen's ladies. The people still remember me, a hero, a freedom fighter, Robin Goodfellow in the legendary Hood. But a trickster hero, who loves chaos, who enjoys playing pranks..."
"Pranks? So did I, before going to high school!"
"You should have seen me. For only children at heart can see me. I'd dance a polka inside a butter churn and listen to the milkmaid's curses on the cream. In the end, she'd have whipped cream in there as I flew out! Or trick the copper vats in the brewery (all of our utensils are made of copper) and spoil the good lads' beer! And, once the beer was served that evening, I'd turn into a crab, slip into a tankard, and pinch any fellow who'd drink it in the nose! Or when an old nan is telling her grandchildren tales by the fireside... off goes the chair, down goes the nan, everyone is laughing! Alas!! I can't do anything like that anymore! For mortals nowadays have cold steel vats for beer, cold steel churns for butter, cold steel boxes instead of grandmothers to get hitched on stories... and cold steel chairs to watch the pictures on those boxes... The number of pranks I can play has, honestly, dwindled. But nothing can be compared to the prank I played on Their Majesties on their wedding anniversary!"
"A royal prank? Sounds interesting!" We were sitting on a mossy rock by the lake. After all, it was the witching hour, and I was not on my own.
"Picture yourself in the woods of Arden, on a short and quiet summer night like this. King Oberon and Queen Titania. Both of them tall, blond, beautiful, with pointy ears and brittle wings. Having an argument over the cake. And I was close by, listening. Her Majesty had forgotten His Majesty's anniversary. But he hadn't. And he wanted Jamie as a special gift. Now Jamie was a changeling from one of the nearby villages: a raven-haired little mortal boy who suffered the misfortune of losing both his parents. The Queen herself whisked him away from an abusive stepmother and put Peasblossom's young son in the cottage cradle. So she kept him as a valet of sorts, and the King wanted him for a bodyguard. By the time this story is set, such a bickering would mean a declaration of war. Queen Mother Mab, responsible for the mortal children we rear, had declared herself neutral. The royals were going to break up. And I couldn't partake in the feast with such a threat ahead! Now there is this flower (here, Robin took some wild pansies) called love-in-idleness. You spray the nectar on a sleeping person's or fay's eyelids and... voilà! Love at first sight ensues. I had seen some mortals not far from court, an actor troupe in fact, and the shy lead going to essay his lines away from the others. I found the actor sleeping on a mossy rock, like this, and my queen sleeping in her riverbank bower, decorated with all the flowers of the Northern summer. A few drops of love-in-idleness here and there, and a donkey's head spell given to Nick in a moonflower cup, and soon I was watching from atop a fir like this one... a beauty and a beast mad with love at each other, yet unaware of it! Soon, Nick had the Queen's ladies and maids at his every beck and call: Peasblossom massaging him between those long ears, Cobweb taking up honey from a hollow hive tree in acorn cups, Mustard-Seed shaving those furry cheeks with a copper razor... and Queen Titania fondling and kissing her lover, who responded with lovely caresses. In the light of the full moon and the fireflies, a squirrel brought them some hazelnuts to dunk in their honey. And they finally fell asleep together. As the King chanced to pass by and take his hand to the hilt of his sword. I woke the lovers up and the effect of the spells faded away. Nick, with a human head once more, set off to encounter the rest of the troupe, as Their Majesties reconciliated and thanked me for the trick that had saved their relationship".
"I like being a peacemaker. I can't stand fighting".
"Well," Robin said, "you mortals are worse peacemakers than we fay are. There was this young lady in this outpost... she was beautiful, she was clever, she was gifted in the arts like you. And she was married to this great general who would give his life for her sake. Now there was one lieutenant her age, a childhood friend of hers and equally clever and dashing. And this lieutenant was punished for getting drunk on duty. So he asked Her Ladyship to make peace, to bridge the rift between the general and this irresponsible lieutenant. And she put all of her passion into defending his cause as well as any lawyer. Now she lost a shawl which her lord had given her, and the lieutenant found it in one or other way. So the general thought his lady was unfaithful... and thus, led by the whispers of his deceptive aide, he strangled her in bed on a summer's night like this, with an equally full moon. The lieutenant survived, but he left the army to become a lecturer, for he had broken his left leg in a fight with the aide's cronies. The aide literally lost his head, and the general's heart broke apart, pierced by cold steel, with four tears of regret and one last kiss from his late beloved."
"Poor folks! It makes me sad, that there are wicked people here as well!" We had left our mossy rock to sit once more on our lilac throne, before I returned back home.
"Yes, mortals can be rather wicked! But there are good ones as well. I knew one who could do magic like us, and he didn't get drunk on power! He lived with a little girl, a sprite, and a monster (the two latter were slaves of his) on a rainforest isle somewhere in a vast ocean. The mortals were the only survivors of a shipwreck. And another shipwreck did they cause, to sink the royal flagship of their home kingdom (for the wiz and the girl had been driven away by courtly intrigue and war to the New World). They had the heir to the throne and his crowned father wash upon opposite shores and think each other was dead. And then, they ensured everyone reunited in a rainforest cave. The royal family joined in one passionate embrace, and the girl was doubtlessly accepted as the old king's daughter-in-law, for she was a dethroned princess. So all three sailed to court in a raft, which all of the castaways had made together. The old wiz freed the sprite and the monster, relatives of mine, and then he cast his wand into the ocean from a cliff and buried his sorcery books in an oaken chest. Only Ariel and Caliban, my sprite and monster friends, know the location of that hidden treasure, that inspired generations of pirates through three centuries, but has not been found yet".
The lilac tree was slowly shrinking. I thought of my storybooks and asked: "Do I have a stash of treasure?"
"You have one indeed", Robin replied as I landed and looked sorrowfully at him.
"It's time for me to go to bed. After so much fun together!"
"This is not the farewell", he replied with a Cheshire Cat grin. "Just make a wish for me every night you feel bored, take me away from cold steel, and I'll bring you more of my stories". Then, like the Cheshire Cat, Robin gradually faded away, his eyes and grin being the last of him I saw that night.
The next morning, I woke up at midday. At first, I thought it all was a dream... but I had gone to bed in a dewy nightgown, and there were little human footprints on my Andersen storybook.
Come what may, I will never forget that midnight summer dream.
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