A Fairy Affair at a Faire

Beware, my child, the good folks' song, the music in the glen,
For if ye dance in Faeryland, ye'll ne're be seen again.

Take no sup and drink no wine the good folk offer ye,
For if ye dine in Faeryland, they'll ne'er set ye free.

Trust no word the good folk speak, the truth can still deceive,
For if you're fooled in Faeryland, you're ne'er going to leave.

The good folks' gifts and favors given, ye always must repay,
For if ye've debt in Faeryland, ye'll ne're get away.

The good folks' pride and honor, must ne're be brought low,
For if you're rude in Faeryland, they'll ne'er let ye go.

The queer ways of the good folk, are nae for us to ken,
But if ye dance in Faeryland, ye'll ne're be seen again.

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Alessandra who studied theater at her university. Alessandra loved the theater. She loved the costumes and the lights and the pageantry. She especially loved the drama. Compared to the stories that unfolded on the stage, real life always seemed dull and colorless to her.

Alessandra loved the theater so much that one summer, rather than go home to her Mom and her Gran, she stayed at school to take extra classes. After leaving class one day she saw a flyer for the local Renaissance Faire tacked to a bulletin board.

When she was just a little girl, Alessandra's mother took her to Renaissance Faires and Festivals every summer. They would drive from state to state to wander through mocked-up medieval villages, see the costumes and the characters, and watch the jugglers and acrobats and storytellers. But when she was thirteen, Alessandra's mother got promoted from teacher to assistant principal, and they stopped going to Renaissance Faires because her mother had to work all summer.

Alessandra missed those days. Going to Faires and Fests was like living inside of a giant theater production. She was so excited to see the flyer that she immediately called her boyfriend Greg on her cell phone.

"We need to go to the Renn Faire!" she told him. "Please, please, please can we go?"

Greg had never been to a Renaissance Faire, but Alessandra made it sound like so much fun he agreed. It was a long way from the university though, and neither Alessandra nor Greg owned a car. Fortunately, Greg studied business at the university and he was very good at managing paradigms to maximize outcomes with minimal inputs.

What does that mean? Why it means that he knew how to get something for nothing.

Greg's roommate, John, studied engineering and liked to read those sword & sorcery novels, so Greg thought John would enjoy the Renn Faire too. John didn't own a car either, but he was dating a girl named Leslie, and she owned a car. So Greg asked John and Leslie to go to the Faire as a double date.

Leslie invited her roommate, Quinn.

Alessandra knew Quinn because Quinn was a dance major in the school of Performing Arts and they had been in Theatrical Management class together. Alessandra would never admit it, but she was jealous of Quinn's long, long hair. Poor Alessandra could never get her hair to grow longer than a short, boyish bob, which made it easy to wear wigs on stage, but it wasn't very dramatic in real life.

"That's too many people," Alessandra complained to Greg. She really didn't want Quinn to go. "We'll never be able to agree on where to go or what to do."

"It'll be fine," Greg assured her. "You and I can always split off on our own and meet the others later if we want to." Then he went back to playing video games with John and ignored her until they were done.

And so on Midsummer's Day, they all squeezed into Leslie's little red hatchback and drove out to the Renaissance Faire. Leslie parked with all the other cars in a big, grassy field on the edge of a forest. Above the treeline, they could see a mocked-up castle on top of a hill and they could hear festive minstrel music playing over loudspeakers, beckoning the crowd towards the woods.

Alessandra was so excited she skipped through the parking field ahead of the others.

"Alessandra, wait up!" Quinn called.

"Walk faster!" Alessandra shouted back over her shoulder.

They had all printed tickets from the Renn Faire web site, so Alessandra skipped right past the ticket line and up to the gate. The ticket-taker, in his velvet doublet, colorful pantaloons, and floppy hat, greeted each guest in turn.

"Welcome back, Alice!" he said brightly to Alessandra.

Her mood immediately soured.

"Why would you call me 'Alice'?" she scowled. "'Alice' is a stupid, boring, dreary name."

"I'm sorry," the ticket-taker in the velvet doublet apologized, taken aback by her venom. "I like to make up names for all of the guests. It makes a dull job a little more fun."

"Oh," Alessandra accepted the apology as she took the map of the village he offered. "Alright then."

By this time, her friends had caught up to her.

"Well met, Rapunzel!" the ticket-taker in the velvet doublet greeted Quinn, who tossed her long, long hair with a smile.

"Enjoy thyself, Leonardo," he told John. "Enter and be merry, Penelope," he said to Leslie. "Hail and welcome, Marco," he greeted Greg.

Alessandra and her friends filtered into the crowd that flowed under the open portcullis into a village square. Two broad avenues led deeper into the wood, flanked on either side by colorful half-timbered and jettied facades. Sign boards advertised "Her Majesty's Jeweler" and "Fantastical Fancies" and "Ye Olde Whitler's Shoppe."

Mixed in with all of the visitors wearing shorts and T-shirts were men in kilts or hose or leather breeches, women in corsets and chemise blouses and summery gowns, children dressed as pirates or knights or princesses. There were cosplayers in capes and cloaks, bracers and boots, elf ears and goblin fangs.

In the cool of the morning, the atmosphere crackled with creativity and wonder, and Alessandra felt invigorated by the spectacle.

"Look!" she pointed to a whimsically ramshackle store front. "They rent costumes! We should totally do that!" Alessandra believed that everything was more fun in a costume.

"I don't know," Leslie demurred looking up from her map. "It sounds expensive."

"C'mon, it'll be fun," Quinn prodded her roommate. "I'll pay for your costume," she offered with a mischievous smirk, "if you let me pick it out."

Inside the shop, her friends made choices quickly, but nothing caught Alessandra's eye. The generic princess costumes and generic sorceress costumes and generic pirate queen costumes just didn't speak to her. Alessandra began to worry that maybe her expectations were too high—that maybe she couldn't recapture the child-like wonder she'd had with her mother all those summers past.

After picking through the outfits for a third time, at the very end of the very last rack, deep in the shadowy back corner of the shop, Alessandra finally spotted something different—something dramatic. "How did I ever miss it before?" she wondered.

The dress was made of a material Alessandra didn't recognize. The fabric was a shimmery pale blue and had a texture like flower petals. Attached to a cleverly concealed harness were a pair of butterfly wings of iridescent gossamer, embroidered with such fine stitches that the pattern seemed to move on its own.

It was a fairy costume—the kind of fairy that her Gran would call a "pixie." As far as Alessandra could tell, it was the only one like it in the entire shop. And it was all hers.

Alessandra rushed to the changing rooms and stripped out of her shorts and tank top. The sleeves of the dress sat well off the shoulder, so her bra would have to go too, but Alessandra was sure that as the summer temperature climbed, she would be glad to be rid of it. She stepped into the sleek dress—being careful not to soil it with her sandals—shimmied it up her bare ribs, and snugged it over her bosom.

The hidden mechanism that supported the wings worked so well, that Alessandra had forgotten they were there until she turned to admire herself in the mirror.

The dress conformed to her figure perfectly, hugging every curve and smoothing every bulge. The short hem fell to just below her bottom and the only flaw in the costume that Alessandra could find were the panty lines across her hips.

"I'll just have to be extra careful," Alessandra thought to herself as she slipped her underwear into her bag with her other clothes. "Maybe I'll be naughty and show Greg later."

Outside the shop, Alessandra's friends were waiting.

Greg was dressed as a pirate in a tri-cornered hat and frock coat over a loosely laced shirt with faux leather boot-toppers over his shoes. His open collar plunged down far enough to show off his broad chest underneath and he posed with his fists on his hips and one foot up on a tree stump like a cask of rum.

John was dressed as a wizard in a long robe and a pointy hat, but the red nylon backpack he always had slung over one shoulder sort of spoiled the effect. He was looking over the fairground map with Leslie.

Quinn had dressed Leslie as a tavern wench in a billowy off-the-shoulder blouse, a light blue skirt, and tightly laced bodice that pushed her boobs up high on her chest. You could almost plant a flagpole in the deep cleavage Leslie was showing.

Quinn herself was dressed as a knight in a long hoodie made from a loose-knit fabric that was a reasonable facsimile for chain-mail if you didn't look too closely. It was a boy's costume, but with a sword belt cinched around her hips, Quinn made it look feminine.

"Alessandra, you look amazing," Quinn gawped as Alessandra stepped down from the open front of the shop, the wings of her costume fluttering gently on their own. The compliment made Alessandra beam with pride.

And why shouldn't she be proud, she thought. She had never worn a costume so flattering before, and her short-bobbed haircut fit the character perfectly. Greg would surely notice.

"Babe, that dress is bangin'," Greg agreed, leering appreciatively.

"How are those wings attached?" Leslie wondered out loud, circling behind Alessandra to get a closer look. She was studying engineering, and had a keen interest in all things mechanical.

"Cool fairy costume," said John.

"Shhhhh!" hissed Alessandra, suddenly glaring at John and rapping hard three times on the nearest wooden railing. "They don't like it when you call them that."

"Call who what?" John asked, a perplexed frown darkening his face. Or maybe it was the shadow of his broad hat brim.

"The others," Alessandra explained. "The good folk, the gentry, the forest people. My Gran says the word 'fairy' is disrespectful. Fairyland is a place. You wouldn't call someone from Ireland an 'ire', would you? Or someone from Maryland a 'mary'? It's the same thing really."

"Oh, yeah? I've never heard that," Greg said, shamelessly ogling Alessandra's figure in the skimpy dress.

"My Gran knows all about the good folk from back in the old country," Alessandra told them. She added darkly, "In the fairy tales I grew up with, the children usually end up getting eaten by witches or red caps."

"What's a red cap?" John asked. The books he read were more about dragons and magic swords than they were about fairies.

"Kind of like a goblin," Alessandra told him in a hushed, ominous tone, "but they dye their hats in human blood. And if the color of their hat ever fades too much, they fade away into nothing, so they're always looking for new victims."

"Yeah, between all the theater-geek superstitions and her Gran's stories, Alessandra knows lots of imaginary ways to die," Greg teased with a smile, putting his arm around Alessandra. "Don't ever wish her 'good luck' if you know what's good for you."

Alessandra rolled her eyes at Greg. She wasn't really superstitious. She didn't actually believe her Gran's stories. But she found that superstitions made the world a more interesting and dramatic place. So she never spoke the name of the Scottish Play, and she tossed salt over her shoulder, and she hung a horseshoe over her door—open end up, so the luck wouldn't spill out.

"Tease me later," she told Greg, ducking out of his embrace. "Come on, let's go. Let's go!"

"We were just looking at the schedule," Leslie stopped her. "There are blacksmithing demonstrations every half-hour. Oh, and glassblowing too!"

"Dude, check it out, there's a jousting tournament," Greg pointed out to John.

"Awesome!" John agreed. "Hey, was that guy eating like, a whole turkey leg? Where's the food court?"

"Down here by the wedding chapel," Leslie replied. "We can swing through there for lunch on our way to the afternoon dance workshop."

"What do you suppose a 'Fantastic Menagerie' is? Let's check that out on the way to the jousting field."

"Look at all of the jewelry stores, Alessandra," Quinn said, but Alessandra wasn't listening.

Her mood was souring again. She couldn't enjoy a Renaissance Faire with all of this scheduling and planning.

"No! No! No!" she pouted, stamping her foot and making her pixie wings flutter. "You have to wander and explore. If you plan everything ahead of time, you lose all the magic of discovering things."

"But what if you miss something good?" Leslie argued.

"But what if you find something better?" Alessandra countered. "Come on, follow me!" and she took Greg's hand, and choosing a path at random, followed the crowd down mulch covered boulevards through the sylvan village.

They stopped at a stage set into the bottom of a dell that formed a natural amphitheater. There were actors on the stage rushing back and forth much too fast. The sign board next to the stage read "Shortened Shakespeare: Hilarity in Half-an-hour, Guaranteed!" A large clock counted down the minutes and when the shorter actor wearing furry pants slapped the taller actor wearing donkey ears, the crowd erupted with laughter.

"It's a Midsummer Night's Dream!" Alessandra whispered to her friends, "Come on, let's find seats!"

There were five actors in total and they all switched from one role to another. Alessandra marveled at the creative way the scenes were blocked and the actress who played both tall Helena and short Hermia by alternately standing and kneeling. The dialog had been rewritten and simplified with many a modern aside breaking the fourth wall.

The audience loved it.

"If-we-shadows- have-offended," rushed the actor wearing furry pants as the clock ticked down toward zero, "think-but-this- and-all-is-mended!" The rest of the cast dashed out to join him on stage. "'Tis-but-our-curse- to-play-these-parts, because-we-majored- in-liberal-arts!"

The clock bonged on the last syllable and the cast all took a deep bow as the audience applauded and shouted "Huzzah!"

Alessandra and her friends laughed and cheered. They stood up and clapped as the cast took another bow, and Alessandra remembered to discreetly tug down the hem of her dress, which had ridden up her back side.

Wouldn't it be lovely, Alessandra thought, to spend your life on stage like these Renn Faire performers? As she watched the actors exit into the wings, the actor in the furry pants continued his odd gait as if his knees bent the wrong way. Alessandra admired his commitment to the part, and she could have sworn that she saw him turn and wink directly at her before he disappeared behind the curtain. It was surely her imagination though.

"Let's go backstage and meet the cast!" Alessandra suggested, backing hastily out of the row of seats.

But she was much too excited. She turned too quickly, dashing out into the aisle, and crashed straight into two girls with alabaster skin.

The sable-haired girl wore purple lipstick and smokey eyeshadow with a black leather corset and black silk gloves over bare white skin. The blonde girl with piercing blue eyes wore a bright floral sundress.

Alessandra felt just terrible, but before she could apologize, the girl in the bright floral sundress exclaimed "Hey! Watch where you're going, Tinkerbell!"

In an instant, Alessandra's mood flipped from contrite to indignant. "Theaters empty from the back to the front," she retorted, putting venom in her voice. "Every idiot knows that."

The girl in the black leather corset just sneered at Alessandra as she and her friend turned and walked away. Her long, lacey black skirt dragged the ground and made it look almost like she was floating, wafting away on the breeze.

"Every idiot should still watch where she's going," the girl in the bright floral sundress spat back over her shoulder. "Or she might get her little wings broken." Her dress was cut low in the back, showing off an expansive tattoo that gave the illusion of exposing her spine and ribs and shoulder blades, as if her flesh had been stripped away and her body was empty inside.

"I bet they get such a sunburn," Quinn said to Alessandra with a giggle as the girls disappeared into the crowd.

"I know, right?" Leslie agreed. "Like, have they ever been outside before?"

Hearing her friends' catty remarks and knowing they were on her side made Alessandra feel better. "I dunno," she added with a laugh, "Goth chick might just catch on fire if she walks out in the sun."

In fact, Alessandra felt so much better that she was only a little disappointed when Leslie pointed to a shop across from the theater and said "Oh! Look at the whirly-gigs!" and everyone followed Leslie and forgot about trying to go backstage.

Outside of the shop, pinwheels and windmills turned cranks and gears made of wood and tin to power clockwork vignettes—a cat pouncing at birds, a knight battling a dragon, spinning ballet dancers, and the like.

The sign above the door read "Beads & Bangles & Baubles & Bits." Inside, the shop offered all of those things and more.

John and Gregg admired daggers and pouches and letter openers shaped like swords. Quinn went straight for the jewelry cases in the back. While Leslie studied the whirly-gigs, Alessandra looked over a series of Commedia dell'arte figurines.

"You should buy Leslie that agate pendant in the case," Alessandra heard Quinn whisper to John. "It would look amazing with that dress and really bring out her eyes."

John quietly headed back towards the jewelry counter and when Greg asked Quinn to help him pick out something too, Alessandra smiled to herself anticipating her present.

A woman in a tartan dress with her steel-grey hair up in a bun opened the case to show John the pendant. As Greg and Quinn moved out of her way, Quinn spotted something odd in the back corner of the shop.

"Excuse me," she said to the woman in the tartan dress. "There's a plate of bread and a bowl of milk on the floor in the corner. Do you have a kitty?" she asked.

"Oh, no, love," the woman replied in a heavy Celtic accent. "It's nae for a cat."

Alessandra recalled her own Gran leaving milk and bread outside their door on summer evenings. "You're hoping for a brownie, aren't you?" she asked from across the small shop.

"Aye! Clever lass," the woman in the tartan dress smiled at Alessandra. "But of course a pretty pixie like yourself would know that."

Alessandra blushed at the compliment, but Greg was confused. "How do you make brownies out of stale bread and warm milk?" he asked.

"Not 'brownies' the food," Alessandra said with only a hint of disdain. "'Brownies' the creature. They're like elves. You leave out bread and milk to attract them."

"I saw a guy in a Legolas costume earlier," John offered.

"Not that kind of elf," Alessandra explained, rolling her eyes. "Like Santa's elves. Like a gnome or a trow or a nisse. Tolkein totally screwed up the word 'elf'. What he called 'Elves' were more like what are called 'Sidhe', or 'Tuatha dé Danann', or 'Aos Sí'."

"Aye," agreed the woman in the tartan dress. "But we don't need any of that pompous gentry 'round here," she said, rapping three times on a wooden beam. "They have a nice, hard-working brownie over at 'Hats in the Belfry', and I'd be happy to have one of me own."