Lilly Pads and Fairies

By Peter Bowden

 


The pond rested behind the field where the grass gave up trying to be orderly. Lily pads spread across the water like green coins tossed there by some patient hand long ago, each one holding a small universe of rainwater, sunlight, and secrets. Dragonflies skimmed above them in flashes of blue and silver, moving so quickly they seemed less like insects and more like pieces of broken sky trying to remember where they belonged. Beneath the pads, turtles drifted with the slow confidence of old thoughts. Their heads rose now and then through the stillness, ancient eyes blinking at a world they had already forgiven for being noisy. Along the muddy banks, toads crouched like damp stones with hearts inside them, waiting for evening to loosen the air.

The child who came there believed in fairies because the pond required it. Some places did. You could not stand among the reeds with the frogs singing their low thunder songs and the cattails bending in the wind and think the world ended with what could be explained. At dusk, when the shadows stretched thin and golden across the water, she sometimes caught movement between the lily flowers: something pale and quick, no larger than her hand. Once she saw what looked like a lantern drifting low above the pond, though there was no wire or pole or reason for light to float there alone. The dragonflies seemed to follow it, circling like tiny guardians, and the turtles slipped quietly beneath the surface as if bowing to a queen passing through her kingdom.

Night came softly there. Fireflies stitched small green sparks through the reeds while the moon laid silver across the pond in careful brushstrokes. The fairies, if they were fairies at all, never showed themselves fully. They stayed at the edge of certainty, where wonder lives best. But sometimes the lily pads trembled though no wind moved, and tiny ripples spread across the black water as though invisible feet had stepped lightly from one floating leaf to another. The child would sit very still, knees pulled close, listening to the croak of toads and the whisper of wings overhead, feeling the strange comfort of knowing the world still held hidden things. And the pond, deep in its quiet heart, seemed glad someone believed.

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