“Gutweed, you will return that IT billionaire to his California mansion! And put his kneecaps back while you’re at it.”
“But Your Effulgence, he’s only just mastered the peat cutter!”
“We have rules in this house… uh, queendom… And one of those rules is, we do not abduct people. At least not without a written permission slip. That displays my signature.”
“But Your Effulgence! Who will cut the peat? What will heat our stoves?”
“Silence! Uh, and furthermore, you shall confine yourself to the knot of an oak tree, until such time as, uh, the seven son of a seventh son leaves a silver rabbit’s foot in that hole. Or until Tuesday afternoon, whichever happens first.”
“I obey, Your Effulgence.”
Ness banged the elephant teapot on the arm of her chair, to signal that her judgement was complete. Gutweed crawled backwards, dragging his slimy green hair along the floor, leaving a dirty smear in his wake, muttering “Gutweed obeys, Gutweed obeys…”
Although Ness had been living with the faeries a couple of days, she had not quite learnt their titles. It was like a fresh class of students. You had to show the class you could call anyone’s name, so each student knew you were aware of them personally. That made them think twice about attempting bad behaviour. Normally, she used mnemonics. For a student called Teresa, she might visualise them with their arms wrapped around a tree. Usually, that helped her get the full roster down quick.
It was much harder with the wee folk. For one thing, a lot of them were already trees, so that mnemonic was out. The size changing was easy to adjust for, but some wouldn’t share their names, citing the risk of theft, and a few of them adopted a different face each day. Ness was getting by by matching names to consistent affectations like gossamer butterfly wings and blooming mushroom caps, as though they were a student’s telltale necklace or beloved hoodie.
There was Gutweed, a goblin. A large black dog with red eyes. A couple of bored mermaids, generic examples of the type. A long thing like a feather duster, with one eye on top of its stalk, and a single gnarled foot. A tiny hobbled old woman in a shawl, always chattering. A copious allotment of dryads, sleek and wary. One shockingly good-looking young man in a knight’s armour, with the proud bearing of an icicle. Fluttering pixies. Changelings, currently transformed into erect babies with jaded eyes. And an unusually soggy ghost horse.
This was the Selee court, arrayed with all its banners and livery, in attendance on the judgement of its queen - Ness.
You, as a friendly observer, might wonder how Ness got herself into such a strange situation.
As is so often the case, it involved alcohol, and the internet.
Friday night in the life of a first year teacher - going out is not an option, because you need to work late to chip away at your mountain of witless paperwork, everything from your teaching portfolio to permission slips. You hope that if only you complete enough forms, you may be able to do a little teaching one day, as a treat.
And when that toil is complete, perhaps you have a boy waiting at home? One who will attempt to cook something, even though he has no idea what he is doing, and will just throw more things into the pot, even though that just makes it worse, but you still appreciate the effort?
Ness had a boy, in principle. But he had left her on read all day. All Ness had to look forward to that night was the tickling oblivion of sparkling rosé.
And this was a particularly bad day for Ness. Heedless of her training and experience, in a careless moment she had asked the class to turn to page 69. Not even a long weekend could scrub that memory. Next week, she would see her mistake in the leer of every graceless stripling.
And so she found her way online, and between the videos of dogs in air jail and amateur torch songs, she saw the ad:
Fancy yourself a Marquesses or Marchionesses? Buy a snippet of land in our bonnie country, and all the honour and respect that comes with that slice of green field is yours! Let your neighbours know you rule the glen!
Much is split between the cup and the entry of credit card information, but Ness’ grim self-pity inspired enough determination to make the modest purchase.
The next morning, the faeries showed up at her door.
Through the tapping hammer of her hangover, Ness gazed at the miniature convention on her doormat. Having taught ninth grade, Ness could no longer know fear, even at this outlandish cavalcade - and so she invited them in.
The herald of the group, a chubby pixie called Flitterbug, explained to Ness that with her purchase of an insignificant patch of land in Scotland, she had acquired the location of that land’s notorious faerie kingdom, and this made her the queen of all the fair folk, heir to radiant Gloriana and passionate Titania.
Used to taking responsibility for misshapen creatures with no measurable ethics (again, from teaching ninth grade), Ness asked them if they needed anything, and Flitterbug explained that they needed somewhere to stay, that they might be near their new queen. Ness suggested they move into the attic. The faeries cheered, and declared a celebration in honour of their new home, and the ascension of their latest monarch.
You may have been at faerie revels before, and seen the tongue and elbow dance, or tasted the bluebell mead. In that case, you know that these carnivals are messy, loud, and stickier than the upstairs dancefloor of that one bar you always show people visiting from out of town.
Determined to be a popular ruler, Ness climbed the ladder up to the attic, and slipped through the hatch a plate of fresh-baked apple tarts. Most were eaten, but only after a long hunt, and one managed to escape, and found a new home in an abandoned rabbit warren.
Ness stuffed her ears with noise-canceling earplugs, but even those and a pillow over her face couldn’t blot out the shouting and laughter. A few neighbours made noise complaints, and police officers arrived to intervene. The only result was that Ness’ front lawn acquired some bright blue mushrooms.
The next day, Ness decided this would be an excellent time to visit her mother. Faeries were one thing, but she didn’t dare face the assistant principal on Monday without lesson plans, and this was not a house where any work would get done. Perhaps, once the sprites had settled in, they would calm down.
Ness was wrong. Unsupervised over the weekend, the faeries dreamed merry havoc, as only the fae can.
One lost pedestrian asked a stranger for directions to the library, and got directions to the passport office instead. What scamps!
A trendy cafe found all its milk curdled, and could not offer lattes that day. The disruption in caffeine supply was the indirect cause of seventeen car accidents.
The local farmer’s market found itself host to a mysterious stall selling juicy orchard fruits. Specifically: apples, quinces, lemons and oranges. Unfortunately for the fae, they were undercut by low prices from factory farms, and only sold one bag of quinces, which was forgotten about, and thrown out rotten and uneaten. In any case, the higher sugar content of modern fast food has significantly dampened the addictive properties of fairy comestibles, so the stall with enchanted fruit wasn’t their best idea.
Not even you, the reader, were exempt from the mischief. The wee ones transported you to Antarctica, but fortunately you were promptly rescued by a Japanese research team, and are now enjoying a cup of rehydrated leek and potato soup while you read this, with your feet thawing in a tub of warm water. You have even developed a special bond with one of the huskies, Alphonse, and will adopt him when he retires, giving him the loving and comfortable home he deserves in old age.
The worst, however, was what Ness found when she came home on Sunday afternoon. The fae had discovered television, and begun collecting the world’s personalities.
The pop star that wore the distinctive costume at the recent music video awards. The aforementioned IT billionaire. That controversial politician, with the opinions you find heinous. And that one, and them, and the other one too! All put to work at household tasks, as the fae understood them, such as gathering peat, churning butter, and beating laundry on rocks, all in a misguided effort by the fairies to make the life of their queen more comfortable. Even Beyoncé was there, put to work peeling potatoes. There are certain things one does not ask of Beyoncé, and peeling potatoes is high on that list.
This was when Ness realised that faeries, much like children, require structure.
Donning a ceremonial bathrobe, and brandishing the elephant teapot of state, she sat in her desk chair like a throne, summoned her teacher's voice, and passed judgement on the faeries, that they might know the terrible authority of their queen.
Gutweed, confined to the knot of a tree. The dryads, sentenced to adorn the windowsill. A mermaid ordered to cut their hair. The young man in the shiny armour, told to perform crossing guard duty at a local primary school. And the black dog not allowed any severed human hands to chew, even though they are excellent for the gum health of supernatural canines.
The celebrities were returned to their various celebrity places. And for a few days, the house was quiet again. Each night, when her teaching work was done, Ness read them a few chapters from her latest spy thriller.
A few weeks on, however, the faeries had become restless. One of the changelings decided to take the place of a cat at the animal shelter and, quite by accident, got put down. That was bad enough, but even worse, the changeling then got back up, to the horror of the veterinary staff. The incident went viral on social media.
Seeing the risk of leaving them idle, Ness resolved to put the wee ones to work. Finally, she would have her own teaching assistants.
The pixies were tasked with curriculum planning, and given a printout of the curriculum guidelines to work from.
The tiny old woman was asked to study the student records, and develop personalised lesson plans.
The mermaids were tasked with writing a reflective statement on Ness’ teaching philosophy and goals, for inclusion in her teaching portfolio.
The dryads were asked to develop exam papers.
And so on, through the Selee court, until she had distributed every piece of her teaching administration to the faeries.
The next day, Flitterbug approached Ness, and spoke as herald:
“Your Effulgence, this humble one knows they are not fit to bask in your presence, and it shames me to say it, but this isn’t the kind of work we’re cut out for. The mermaids don’t understand professional goals other than looking beautiful and luring sailors to their death. They think fostering a growth mindset is about combing their hair. The other pixies are doing their best to apply the core skills framework, but they don’t know why dancing and flying aren’t included, and none of us are any good with numbers. And the ghost horse can’t work out this bell curve business. Really, is there anything else we can do? Make someone sleep for a hundred years? Turn leaves into gold for you? Organise a ball? This teaching work is important, we understand, but it’s all a bit much for us.”
Ness was firm. She was their queen, and this was her order.
Flitterbug went away in silence.
The next day, Ness could smell something.
She poked her head up the hatch and into the attic.
The wee ones had brewed a large bowl of bluebell punch - their final one. The faeries, after all, are creatures of mist and glen, and dance in our world for only a moment, and can shed their forms at any time, becoming spirit once again, to be reborn in the dance of fertile marsh and imagination.
From Ness’ point of view, however, in exiting the human realm they had left behind rather a lot of disgusting organic matter, and in her attic. Another item for her to-do list, which was already extremely full.
But she was a teacher, and had more urgent responsibilities.
Cleaning out the attic could wait for tomorrow.
Ness got on with grading assignments.
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