About Those Balls of Light

 

            Marge, Twigg’s buddy from Gifting Stump days, was growing up, as we all do. She was done with high school, for which she thanked the dear Lord, and was now attending the local community college taking general distribution classes and with a major in the art program. She was pretty happy there; it was a good fit. She continued to read a little bit of everything, a well-read kid.
            She had grown another inch taller since Twigg and she had last talked and was thinner, but she still looked like herself. She still liked to wear overalls. Actually overalls were a pretty good costume to wear working in the materials of the art department. If they get spotted with paint, well, that’s OK. It’s like a badge of honor as an art student.
            One late spring day between quarters, Marge had nothing much to do, and she began wondering how her friend Twigg was faring out in the Great Forest. She missed him and felt badly for not seeing him for over a year. The problem she had was how to contact him. The only thing she could think of was to make a journey out of town, walk to the meadow where the Gifting Stump stood and see if he appeared, which he just might, things being a little odd in the physics of the place.
            Marge drove a totally stealth old gray Honda Accord. It worked and ran cheap.
            So, she drove out to her mom, Enid’s, place and parked in the driveway. Enid and her new husband, Arthur, were not home. That only made things easier. She didn’t have to go in and visit them before setting out on her quest.
            It had been a long time in a young person’s life. The path seemed quaint and diminutive. Had she really walked this path so many times? There was the low stone cottage, Ooog and Thaga’s. She hoped they were well, but didn’t see anyone outside. She went on.
            The blackberry vines seemed to be more grown up, and all the alder saplings and grasses were taller than she remembered in the meadow. But the cedar stump was taller than all of that and still stood, a monument to the old logging days.
            She had brought a gift to leave there in case Twigg didn’t show up, so that maybe he would find it. It was a small wooden box containing sea shells and beach pebbles. Marge knew Twigg would like the seashells, things from another world from his forested one.
            The sun was shining; it was around noon. The meadow was nearly silent. There was just the sound of some birds chatting in the distance. And just like the first time she had been there she sat on the grass, leaning back on the old stump. She opened the box and looked at the shells and pebbles inside. It still seemed like a good gift, though rather humble. Her eyelids became heavy and Marge slept.
            As Marge was sleeping there like a child in her overalls, holding a wooden box in her lap, an exceedingly large raven saw her and drifted in to have a look. She landed on the grass near Marge and remembered the human girl who had been Twigg’s friend. She turned her shiny black head this way and that taking note of the scene with bright black eyes. The girl didn't wake, so she made up her mind and took off. Maeve was looking for Twigg.
            Marge dreamed as she slept in the meadow, of spheres of light. They seemed to be observing her. Then they left. If you had asked her, she would have said it was a dream, but who knows. Some things are so remarkable that they must be dreams! Or so she comforted herself as she was waking. It seemed as if she must have slept for over an hour. Twigg had not appeared so she prepared to put the box of seashells on top of the stump where he might find them. Then she thought she would go back to her room in town.
            Twigg must have gotten the message because suddenly there he was. And he was a sight to behold. He was at least seven feet tall, and heavily built. He looked a lot like his father, but had his mother’s sweet smile and he was surrounded by a cohort of bees, his nearly constant companions.
            “Twigg? That must be you,” said Marge when she turned and saw him.
            “Well, you’ve changed too, Marge,” said Twigg, and they grinned at each other as if they had only been apart a day or two.
            “I was missing you, so I decided to come out here and see if I could find you,” she said.
            “Maeve saw you and told me you were here,” said Twigg. “You remember Dad’s raven?”
            “Yeah, I heard about her,” said Marge. “Is she like a carrier pigeon around here?”
            “Um. No! Don’t let her hear you say that!” But he was laughing so much that he must have been imagining Maeve’s reaction to being compared to any kind of a pigeon.
            “She is more like his assistant who happens to be able to fly.
“          “I missed you too, but I can’t really go looking for you. I did check your mom’s house a couple of times. I hope I didn’t scare her too much. I think she caught me at it once!” said Twigg.
            “No problem, Twigg. She knows there is no such thing as a Bigfoot!” Marge was giggling too.
            “Why are all those bees flying around you?”  she added.
            “Beatrice, not the queen, but a leader of bees sends them with me. They call me the Friend of Bees because I help them with stuff sometimes. So she rotates out a crew to fly with me in the daytime. This one on my finger is Betty!” said Twigg, holding up his finger where Betty sat.
            “That’s pretty neat,” said Marge.
            “Yeah! They give me honey too!” said Twigg.
            “Probably better than taking classes! Hey, Twigg, while I was waiting for you I fell asleep for a while and I dreamed, or I think I dreamed of several round lights. They came and circled around me like they were looking at me, then they zoomed off. Do you know anything about anything like that? Were they really here, or was I still asleep?” said Marge.
            “I don’t know if you were dreaming, but those balls of light are real in real life. We see them all the time and we can use them too, if we want to.”
            “Use them for what?” said Marge.
            “Well, I’ve never done it, but my dad does sometimes. They’re a way to go somewhere like into another world or time. I’m not sure who made them. But, like, if I wanted to visit some place that is tiny, like if I wanted to go inside the beehive and walk around with the B’s. (I call them B’s because their names are all B names.) Anyhow, I could go in one of those lights. It’s inter-dimensional in two ways, I guess,” said Twigg.
            “It shrinks you?” she said.
            “I guess you could say that,” he said. “If you see one, it’s somebody coming or going somewhere.”
            “I brought you something,” said Marge and fetched the box back off of the top of the stump, and handed it to him.
            He opened the box and looked long at the seashells. They weren’t anything unusual, but Twigg had never been to a salt water beach or seen any shells.
            “What are they? So pretty, and those are pretty rocks too,” he asked.
            “I got them on the beach at Mukilteo when the tide was out. They’re just the shells of little animals. I thought you might like them,” said Marge, smiling up at him, still getting used to how big he was.
            “I better get back to town. I’ll probably have to visit with Enid and Arthur too before I can really leave, “ said Marge.
            “Will you come back?” said Twigg.
            “Yes. In 14 days I will be here at about the same time as today,” said Marge. “Do you think I could go for a ride in one of those balls of light, Twigg?”
            “All we can do it to try it! I can’t think of a reason why not. I haven’t done it, but maybe we can try together!” giggled Twigg, with his rather fey grin.
            “Alright! I’ll be back in 14 days! Don’t forget. Say hello to Ralph, and give my love to your sweet Mama, and Cherry and the animals, Twigg!
            “I’ll be ready to take a ride!” she said, a bit wildly, because honestly, she was a little afraid.
            “We’ll do it together, Marge,” he said, watching her walk down the path to her outside world.