fairy story back up

 Fairy Garden:


    I am about to tell you about my magical adventures as a little girl in the land of Nala with my friend the fairy princess Neela; I am also about to tell you about the confusion, terror, and conflict this caused for my family.

   I don't remember exactly when or how I met Neela or first starting going to the land of Nala; my mother said I had this "imaginary friend" since I was at least 2 years old and liked to hide under the kitchen sink, the cubboards, and under beds and tell her I was in Nala. I think maybe she thought I got the idea in my head from (The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe) or (Alice in Wonderland); I mean its not exactly an uncommon trope that a small child would see in a story book or a cartoon; heck a ton of cartoons have little children going to some imaginary play land with all sorts of colorful creatures. But if that was it, there wouldn't be much to tell, and when you really think about it, for all the innocence of those shows imagining what would be going on back on the real world end with babysitters, relatives, their parents; but I am probably getting ahead of myself, jumping to the emotional stuff.

   To back up a bit, I know when I was 3 or 4 I had crayon drawings of stuff, not the best looking back; but again I was 3 or 4 years old. When I was 5 however, when I can definetly remember stuff more clearly...well clearer, still pretty fuzzy; like I couldn't say what every "adventure" entaled or anything. But I guess I should start with the basics.

   Neela, when I was very little I called her Princess Neela; I thought of her as the magical princess of the magical land of Nala. As far back as I can remember she was around but only I could see her; as could animals. My mother told me how my aunt got spooked visiting us one day as she had her dog with her and it kept barking at the corner of the wall and cieling; and I told them that Neela was hanging around up there watching every one. Apparently the dog wouldn't stop it and they had to put it outside. Well anyway, Neela looked like a typical kids' book fairy, about the size of a Barbie Doll, wearing green leaf clothes alot like what Tinker Bell wears, little green shoes; dark pink short ruffled hair, and pink dragon fly wings. Her eyes were originally pink but otherwise human like also and her skin like mine; but by the time I was 10 her skin was looking silvery and her eyes like solid pink gems in her head; also her fingers were looking more pointed; but again a little ahead of myself.

   I remember when I was about 5 years old going to the land of Nala. Thing is, there was no special one way to get there. Again I don't remember how I first got there but so long as Neela was with me all I needed was to find someplace dark and away from where others could see; like inside a closet, behind a bookshelf, under the kitchen sink, the doors under the entertainment center, under a bed if it had blankets touching the ground; and even under my own bed sheets. It would turn into this tunnel of wood like a hallway, and then like inside a log before coming out in different places in Nala. But not like relative distances. It didn't matter if it was under my sheets at home or a closet at my aunts house visiting over Christmas...I'll get to that in a moment; nor did I always come back in the same thing I left.

  All that said the land of Nala, by the time I was 8 years old I was already questioning some things about it. To be clear it wasn't some giant pixies inhabited fairy land, no houses, castles, no Smurf Village sort of things. I'd say that as a little girl I could walk from one end to the other in under an hour, and a little over an hour along the beach. Which to explain, it was an island, but not like out at sea, but like a forested island with a small spring in the center, trees, tiny streams; sitting in a pond. Which was surrounded by forests; the north end looked like it had trails leading to the shore, the south end was always full of fog though. Neela had rules for visiting the land of Nala, I was never to wander away from her, ever, and I was to never try and cross the pond; even (when) there was a bridge to the island...yeah some details would change by the season. Although it was always warm there. I didn't notice it until I was 8 or so, probably because I was getting taller, but beyond the north end's trails just barely visible through the trees was a cabin and sometimes I could hear a woman singing from that direction. When that started though to get closer, Neela would say it was time to go home and she'd guide me through some random log or magical door appearing in a rock or tree and pop up back home. When I was little I think I understood that as like the music at the end of an episode of those shows about kids viisting magic lands, but getting older it started to not feel right.

  Which I guess is a good segway into the creepy stuff. I already mentioned by aunt's dog; but when I was 6 years old we went to visit my aunt one state south of us for Christmas. Due to my age, much of what I am about to say is what I was told much later; like ten years later. From my perspective we had gone to my aunt's house, which was a huge house out in the woods (I am told this is not the case, they had neighbors not a hundred feet away, but to a small child it might as well have been forest all around in a snowy Christmas season). There were tons of people I didn't recognize and I retreated from everyone over by the Christmas tree, as all the adults and my much older cousins were all talking about this or that thing that a small child would never care about and I can't remember as a result. Neela appeared from inside the tree and lead me past the adults to the bathroom where I crawled under the bathroom sink and through the magic wood tunnel to the land of Nala. I don't remember exactly what we did there, but coming back was a huge commotion; adults yelling, asking me questions, like where was I, how'd I get out of the house. I pretty much blocked alot of that out, as right after no one let me out of their sight the whole rest of the trip. From what I was told, one of my cousins had spotted me going into the bathroom and crawling under the sink; when my mom was looking for me they told her where I had gone hiding; apparently another cousin or aunt or second cousin or whatever told them no one was under that sink they had just been in there. This got everyone looking all over the house, outside around the house, no footprints in the snow, checking in closets and under beds. Well I crawled out from not the bathroom sink but out from under the kitchen sink; I had been missing for 2 hours and one of my cousins had even said they had looked where I had emerged just seconds before I did. Well the long-short here is they concluded I was running around and hiding in different places playing a trick on them.

    If it seems odd I don't know any of their names, keep in mind a twenty year age difference and also something else that caused me to not have much contact with them. So over the next two years as I said I continued to visit the land of Nala, noticing as I got older that it was smaller than I had thought it was, like maybe the size of a small mall or a Wal-Mart at most. Pretty big for a really little kid, but as you get older it stands out as not a magical world when you can't cross the water; and those rules started to feel more controlling. When I was 8 years old my parents told me I was too old to still have an imaginary friend and that I neede to stop hiding around the house, I was getting too big to doing that. I honestly think they had convinced themselves that's what was happening as I dissappeared for hours at a time when I went to the land of Nala. My teachers even called my parents about my talking about it in school, and being a "weird kid" who made the other students uncomfortable with the other stuff I talked about. Neela told me stuff, stuff about nature, fairies, old histories, gods, demons, granted alot of it was telling me reasons I couldn't wander from her and go into the lands around Nala, as they were home to goblins, trolls, giants, and all sorts of terrifying creatures she spoke of in great detail.

   My parents figured I got it all from tv, books, and video games; granted not any that I had growing up. I remember them putting locks on cabinets and cupboards and extra locks on the doors, as well as a security camera outside the front door. I also remember the man who came by the house only one time and never came again after asking me some questions and then abruptly leaving. Again, much later my parents told me what that was about. They were encountering Neela. I say encountering because they weren't seeing any tiny pizie fairy. My father was getting small burning scratch marks on his legs and arms, bruises. When I was at school my mother *who was a stay at home mom, I suspect this was part of why my parents divorced; my dad was a very controlling man*, anyway, my mother would hear a soft whispering woman's voice, sometimes hearing my name being called from my play room like someone was looking for me but trying to be quiet about it. She's see fast shadows move along the wall, she described as about the size of a cat; as well as cupboard doors opening and closing on their own. My dad installed the camera after one night hearing the front door open and finding it open and me lying on the floor in the living room asleep not ten feet from the open door. I have no memory of that; I do know if and when I'd fall asleep in the land of Nala I'd wake up in my houses, either in my playroom or on the couch in the living room; I'd get up and go to my room. Guess one of those times my dad saw me before I woke up; why Neela would need to take me through the front door is something I've never figured out.

   But none of these things ever deterred anything, I mean, like I said, I could go there from under my bed sheets, heck I could lift a couch cushion and slide down a magic tunnel there. The man I remember seeing was a priest my dad had called in. Apparently when he left he had been in a car accident, nothing fatal, but according to my parents his break lines had been cut, like someone had torn them to pieces according to my dad who knew the guy. Not long after my parents filed for divorce; I know there were a bunch of other reasons; but from what I heard my dad was acting like he was losing his mind, thought I at only 9 at the time was practicing witch craft; and threatening to call in some exorcists to "force the demon out of me". I do remember us staying at my aunt Judy's house (my mother's sister, different person than Christmas; which was my dad's family). To be fair I rarely went to the land of Nala anymore; I was 9, it wasn't some big enchanted magical land like the stories I was into at the time; it doesn't take much to enchant a small child, glowing leaves, vines that sparkle like glitter, fish that are invisible while under water, berries that taste like candy, singing flowers, ect... I was getting into that age group whose fantasy had more to it; heck Neela was the ONLY fairy I ever saw there; there was no colorful cast of characters or adventure. That didn't stop Neela from hanging around my house though, and I guess taking out her frustration of me constantly saying no to going with her, and most of the ways in being locked up on my parents; I guess she blamed them. Which, yeah, I of course noticed they were noticing i was missing, and stranger danger being taught in school; I figured they thought I was sneaking out of the house and running off into the nearby woods.

   Well as I said before by age 10 I was noticing Neela didn't look the same anymore, her skin was more silver colored, her eyes more inhuman, her fingers more pointy and her hair was getting longer, her wings bigger too and less insect like more...floating crystal lights in roughly insect wing shape, like spirals and dots. I can't say much happened though, other than one night waking up to a weird giggling sound only to find Neela was in my Barbie house rolling around with one of the Barbies, like being freaky with it, licking it, rubbing herself on it like a fat, straddling its stiff plastic fingers. I pretended not to notice and went back to sleep, I was still too young to really know what she was doing in any real way.

  I didn't see much of Neela after my mother and I moved out, my father got the house. We actually moved to a whole other state. My mother's parents, whome I hadn't met before; that I could remember; lived here and helped her find a place. Alot smaller than the house we had, so no play room. My stuff had to be in one room, and it was a pretty small room by comparison, so closet space and packing away any toys I didn't play with anymore. Over the next few years I nearly forgot about Neela and the land of Nala until my mother brought it up, how I used to hide everywhere and told stories about a fairy princess imaginary friend. Now to be clear I was 14 at this point, and my mother told me about the haunting stuff too, but thinks my dad was somehow behind it and the stress of living with him and how she was sure he was just going crazy. Alot came back to me and I wrote a bunch down, I thought maybe I could use it as a basis for a writing project at school.

   Then, I did something, while typing out a story about a little princess playing with fairies in an enchanted garden I walked into my closet and closed the door behind me, it was a sort of method acting thing and knocked on the wall while saying, "To the Magical Land of Nala" in my best princess voice. To my surprise the wall vanished, it was like the back wall of my closet was gone and instead there was forest. It was night time there; I don't remember ever as a kid, even when going there at night ever seeing it be night time there. I walked through the forest, remembering all the paths and strange things so clearly now; and on the north end of the island, which only took me twenty minutes going by the time on my phone; I saw the bridge was there. As I started to cross it I heard her voice, Neela's voice, "I told you to never cross that bridge."

   What I saw when I turned around was not the Neela from my child hood, this creature; her skin dark grey, her hair long, going down her back, still pink though; her wings were like knives made of energy composed of red sharp lines and arrow heads with a few spirals; they floated off her back so her hair went right under them. Her eyes were like solid red drops of blood and took up as much of her face as cat eyes, her mouth looked wider than I remembered with no real nose. She was hunched over, perched, on a tree limb. I back up onto the bridge and she said, "Are you afraid of me?" I didn't know what to say, she was clearly frightening, she just repeated, "Are you afraid of me?"

  I tried to shake my head no while backing up, she flew through the air right towards me and I stumbled back, halfway across the bridge. There were sparkles in the air in front of her, not coming from her thought, she was fighting something, like a force field, she couldn't cross the bridge. It never occured to me even once as a kid that was why we never went on any adventures off the island. As I turned to run she burst out crying and shouting, "I love you, I love you, please don't be afraid of me."

  When I looked back she was standing on the ground, she was smiling, not a comforting look on her inhuman face. I spoke first, "Why did you leave me?", the look that came over her face was unbelievable a look of confusion, anger, she started to pace back and forth rapidly, hovering, shaking her head, waving her arms about; she wasn't speaking to me, but clearly having some kind of internal discussion with herself. She spun around into the air and slammed into the sparkle a few times and shouted, "You left me! You no want to come here! Alone!"

   I told her about my parents locking up doors and that I couldn't just dissappear for hours at a time, especially getting older they'd be suspicious. I had to be home, had school, and friends, and home work. I told her I was growing up, I think I might have thought I was dreaming this and had fallen asleep at my desk because I was playing out the role of Wendy from Peter Pan, explaining that i was growing up, had grown up responsibilities, and couldn't just vanish to some enchanted land escaping my responsibilities.

   Neela giggled at this and asked me out of no where what the age of consent for my culture was, I just blurted out 18, and she asked me how old I was, of course 14. So she just whispered, loud enough I could hear, "Not grown up, still child, odd age, run away age. you want to run away from responsibilies right?"

   I told her no, and tried to explain again, I was feeling panicky, because I wasn't sure if this was real or a dream; but if real my only way home that i knew of was on that island, I had no idea what was in the dark spooky woods behind me on the other side; other than the stories she told me as a kid. She agreed to let me go home, on the condition she go with me so she as she put it, couldn't lose me again. My best guess, when she showed up it was at the house I grew up in, but I could come and go from anywhere. I have no idea how or why that worked out that way, but "fairy magic" is my best guess. So I stepped back over the bridge and she...flew into me. Like a slam but not a slam, just hit me in the chest and an explosion of red sparkles. I found my way back to the brush that opened into my closet and was back in my room, an hour had passed but my mom was at work so no one could have noticed I was gone.