Synopsis: Strongly recommend you read the first chapter. Michael Gallagher gets a big surprise one night, on the patio in his garden. The fireflies he sees are really fairies! One is injured, and he must mend her broken wing, and find the herbal formula that will heal her.

Cleona, Final Chapter

With my one phone call, I left a message for Frances Wright, the sharpest attorney around. When Frances had divorced her wealthy, cheating attorney husband, Frank Garamendi, for infidelity, grief, job-interfering stress and pain and discomfort, it was delicious fodder for the gossip-mongering in our small town. Because of those charges and the medically proven fact that Frank had brought home an STD, Frances was awarded the divorce and a huge settlement, amount undisclosed.

Two years after Allana disappeared, my neighbor, Mrs. Lucy Wedell, filed suit against me, claiming I had built my eastern block wall on her property. I had to have a survey done and hire an attorney. Frances was recommended to me by no other than Deputy Scott O’Brian.

After we won the case in the late afternoon, Frances and I went to the Days Inn in the state park, for a celebration drink. We found we had a lot of the same interests and took our third drink out to the park. We sat on a bench in the dark and Frances asked me if there was any news about Allana. As Frances sympathized with me her hand slipped from mine onto my leg. My hand slipped from hers, and suddenly we were sharing a deep kiss. My hand on her shoulder fell to her breast. I felt her budding response, then just as suddenly, I was caught in remorse. What if Allana came back tomorrow? Frances was very understanding. She drew back, punched my chest, and laughed. “I’ll give you a rain-check, Mike!”

Now, in my cell, I looked up at the moon through my barred window, too high to see out of. There was a rustle at the window and a strange-looking bird with long, folded wings squeezed through the bars. A voice in my mind said, “Put the root in the nighthawk's bill.” I took the root bag out of my mouth and held it up. The bird pecked it from my hand and was gone.

At 11:00 am the next morning, I talked to Frances on the client-attorney phone as I looked at her, through the window. She had already read my arrest report and had my defense going. “Mike, you are emotionally distraught and unstable, because of your mental condition.”

“But, I--”

“I already have an appointment for you with a psychiatrist, Dr. Maurice Withers. He will be here at 2 pm to examine you.”

In spite of myself, I teared up. “Thank you, Frances!”

She smiled. “Don’t worry, Mike, I am charging you plenty for this!” As she got up, she mouthed, “Plead not guilty from your mental state!”

Dr. Withers was a tall, thin, white-haired gentleman, who walked slightly stooped, and had an accent I couldn’t place. He put his briefcase and recorder on the table, then smiled, and winked at me. He handed me two sheets of paper stapled together. “Do these look like your symptoms, Mr. Gallagher?”

I scanned the pages and nodded.

“Frequent headaches?”

“Yes.”

Blackouts?”

“Yes.”

“Delusions?”

“Wow, do I!” “Yes.”

The doctor took my blood pressure and did a short physical exam before he went to the door and knocked to be let out.

That night a deputy came to my cell and gave me a small bottle of pills. With water from the sink, I took two, as directed. I still couldn’t sleep.

Early the following morning, I was taken to the showers and given new underwear and a clean jumpsuit. At 9 am, I was cuffed and escorted from my cell to a conference room for a video appearance before a judge. Frances was on a separate TV. I was seated at one end of a large table. Tom Watters, the district attorney, and Wendy Morse, the prosecuting attorney, sat at the table a few chairs down from me. A lady court reporter sat at the far end, leaning over a shorthand typewriter. The judge tapped twice with his gavel, and said, “In the matter of the county of Hot Springs versus Michael Gallagher, may I hear from the prosecution?”

Wendy wore a man’s suit and tie, and her hair was cropped short. She shuffled her papers and nodded as she gave me an exultant look. She stood and read; 

“Michael Gallagher was arrested on August 12, at approximately 11:35 pm, on the property of Mr. Hui Zhang, in Mr. Zhang's garden, attempting to steal an herbal plant from Mr. Zhang. He is charged with Felony Trespass and Attempted Theft.”

“Thank you.” The judge looked at me. “How do you plead, Mr. Gallagher?”

“Not guilty, by reason of my mental state.”

“Would you define that, Mr. Gallagher?”

Frances spoke up: “If it pleases the court, may I offer the definition?”

Wendy jumped to her feet. “We object, your honor! Mr. Gallagher should respond and explain his own actions!”

The judge paused a moment, looked down at his papers, then without raising his head, he said, “Overruled. Because of Mr. Gallagher's mental state, I am going to let his defense respond.”

Wendy slammed down into her seat, looked at Tom Watters, then put her elbow on the table, and rested her chin in her hand.

Frances nodded. “Thank you, your honor.” She held up a paper. “The arresting deputies reported there was no evidence of theft. I submit here the results of a mental examination of Mr. Gallagher by noted psychiatrist Dr. Maurice Withers, performed on Mr. Gallagher on August 13, here in the county jail.” Someone in her room took the paper. “Mr. Gallagher was experiencing a blackout on the night in question.”

Wendy jumped up again. “Your Honor!”

The judge’s mouth went into a straight line. “Yes, Miss Morse?”

“May I ask, is Mr. Gallagher experiencing a convenient blackout, now?”

“Mr. Gallagher is on medication now,” Frances interjected.

The judge held up a hand for a pause as a clerk handed him some papers. He read the papers, then turned to Wendy. “Miss Morse, I am going to request that your last remark be stricken from the record.” He raised his gavel. “Is there any more from the prosecution?”

Wendy sat and glared at me. “No!”

“The defense?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Gallagher, you may stand and face the bench. Do you have any statement before I pronounce judgment?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Gallagher, I am finding you guilty of simple trespass on private property. Your fine will be $300.”

The gavel came down. “Court is adjourned.”

At the Personal Property desk, I called the bank and had $300 transferred into the county general fund. I was released at 11:00 am. Frances already had my towed pickup released from storage; it was parked across the street from the jail. My keys and cell phone lay in the seat. There was a note on the steering wheel. “Winner drink?” A smiley face below. Ha. Funny. I texted her back, “Rain-check, please.”

At my home, I hesitated at the door. I didn't want to walk in and see a dead fairy. Cleona lay on her back in the bed, her mouth open. Her light was still dim, but steady. Her good right-wing and broken left wing were spread beside her. A clear, plastic tube ran from a pop can on the counter to the bed, where it was fastened to the headboard. As I watched, a single drop formed on the tube end, quivered and fell into Cleona’s mouth. She gasped, choked, and swallowed. Her little skirt was pulled up and where her female organs should have been, it was just smooth. Below, several little yellow dots were on the white cover, something like honeybee waste. I got a damp paper towel and cleaned them up. I looked at her again, so beautiful, long lashes against closed eyes.

Yeah, I’m a wuss, I choked and teared up. I was also very tired, almost no sleep for three days. It looked like everything was working, so I showered and went to bed.

I slept until 11:30 the following morning. When I went to the kitchen in my pajamas, another small fairy was there. Cleona's eyes were still closed, and the small fairy was holding Cleona up as she gave her a drink from the tube. The holding fairy regarded me calmly as I walked in.

I was surprised to hear Shiree's voice in my ears instead of in my mind. “Mr. Gallagher, I am Shiree, Cleona's other sister.”

I guess I was over being shell-shocked, I just nodded.

“The nighthawk brought us the last ingredient and we were able to make the medicinal drink from your herbs. We had to use twice the amount of the Ashwagandha root because it was not mature, but it worked. You saved my sister’s life from the dragon, who kills and eats us, and from her injuries. You will be rewarded.”

I started to say I didn’t want anything but for Cleona to live, but Shiree smiled.

“We have one more request of you, Mr. Gallagher.”

"Oh my Lord, I hope it’s not anything that could get me arrested again!"

Shiree laughed. “No, not anything unlawful by human standards, but this will be very difficult.” She frowned and shifted Cleona a little, lifting the tube from her sister’s mouth. “Cleona's wing can only be mended with a piece of another fairie's wing.”

“But how-”

Shiree nodded. “I will tell you, but first, I must tell you about us, the Ancient Welsh Fairy-Folk. In our pure state, we are somewhat like honeybees. We only drink nectar and, like the bees, have a fore-gut, a mid-gut, and a hind-gut. We rid our body waste like you do, in little yellow pips. We do not reproduce like humans, but rather like the bees. We are here in Wyoming only because housing developments have claimed our habitats. We survive the Wyoming winters by staying warm in the beehives. We have this organ in our chest that we can light up when we want, but only for a while, it takes too much energy. We can change our sizes, from tiny to what you see. If we enlarge any bigger, we lose our wings. We can build and enter a cocoon and in three months meta-morph into a female human. If you think that strange, consider the caterpillar morphing into the butterfly. When human, we can even have children, mostly human, but with some of our abilities." Shiree smiled a sad smile. "As fairies, we are almost immortal. As humans, we only live your life-cycle." She nodded. " From the Welsh Ballad, Leeson Brand, where a fairy mother and her child both die in childbirth and are revived, we took the herbal formula the mother's husband used, along with our own magic, to save Cleona.”

I just listened. I didn’t know what to say.

Shiree smiled again, and continued. “Cleona had a twin sister, both born before me. Genifore woke first, saw Cleona, and was afraid there was not enough nectar to feed them both so she pushed unconscious Cleona from the nest. Our mother, Eliam, found her days later, almost dead, and revived her. Genifore was accused and was to be brought to trial before the elders and the tortoise but she escaped, hid, and made a cocoon and became a female human.”

Yeah, not shell-shocked, but I am trying hard to absorb all this!

“Genie lives fifty miles from here, in Lander, Wyoming.”

“What can I do?”

There's that smile again. “You can go to her home and ask for her wings she shed when she morphed.”

“What if she won’t give them to me?”

“Then we must ask for help and find her cocoon, it will still be where she left it.”

Wow. Another almost impossible task! But yes, I knew I must try.

In Lander, I rang the doorbell three times before a lady opened the door a crack. “Yes?”

I got halfway through my story before Genifore screamed, “Cleona had me thrown out of our family! She forced me to leave my beloved fairy form and become human! I am going to die! Why would I help her fly again?” The door slammed.

Fairies, birds, and bees searched the country surrounding Lander for a month, finding nothing.

Cleona kept getting stronger and I tried mending her wing with an assortment of materials, but they all came loose. Cleona grew sadder with each failure. I took her to the fountain at night but it made her cry to see the others flying.

Finally, I went to my garden, found Epictetos asleep, half-buried in the soft earth, and woke him. After I listened to him grouch and ask why in creation I had woken him, I told him my story. When I finished and he didn’t say anything, I said, “Come to Lander with me. I know those wings have to be there, somewhere.”

After dark that night, we stopped down the street from Genifore’s home and, I put the tortoise in my pickup bed. He raised his head and blinked his yellow-brown eyes. He turned several directions and tilted his head as if he were picking up signals of some kind. Finally, he looked at me and said, “Take me to Genifore’s house.” I parked right in front. “Take me to the door and ring the doorbell, then go to the backyard and look under the lumber pile!”

I was halfway around the house when the door squeaked open, and I heard Genifore scream. In the backyard, I shined my flashlight on the fence and went through the gate. There was a trailer and a riding mower there, but I couldn’t see a lumber pile. Then, outside the fence, I saw some boards stacked up. I climbed over the fence, lifted some boards, and there the cocoon lay, crumpled, covered with spiderwebs and years of dust and dirt. I pulled it out from under the boards and looked inside. It was like tissue paper. Nothing. I picked the cocoon up and shook it. Some fairy wing pieces fell out. I shook it again, and a small, whole wing fell out. I grabbed the biggest pieces, the whole wing, and ran around the fence and alongside the house to the front.

Epictetos was waiting by my pickup. The house front door was still open. I could see something, or someone, lying on the floor just inside, but I didn’t stop. With the tortoise safely on the front seat, I tore away from there.

At home, I tried many types of glue but finally had to use egg-white to fasten a mending piece to Cleona’s wing. She was very excited, and I held her hand as she fluttered and experimented, lifting just an inch off the counter. When I let her go she flew in a circle. I thought for a while, then glued a broken piece of a wing the same size on her other wing. She had to buzz harder, but soon she was flying around inside my home. She couldn’t hover yet, but just having her flight back made her light brighter.

That night, we went to the fountain, and Cleona reduced her size and flew with her family. She was still weak and could only fly a short time before she would come and sit on my shoulder for a while, squirming with delight, only to take off again. Every few minutes, the swarm would leave the fountain and fly around us, singing a sweet little song. Late in the evening, Cleona flew to me, increased her size, and sat on my shoulder. When I turned to smile at her, she put her hands on my face and kissed me, sweet, small lips against mine. While our lips were together, I felt some of the pain leave my heart. I felt happy again for the first time in five years.

I felt something else. What was that strange tingling, that sudden yearning? Was I falling in love with a fairy?

When Cleona drew back, she smiled at me and flew back into the dancing circle. Her sister, Shiree, came and sat on my hand. She gestured toward the fountain dancers.

“We know you are an author, and you will want to write about all this. We are not worried about that, because your story will be taken just as a fairy tale, read and disregarded.” She put her hand on my arm. “Do not worry about Cleona, we must take her from you for a healing time.”

I started to speak, but I choked. I cleared my throat. “Wait. You know many things denied us humans.”

Shiree looked away, then down. She spoke in a low voice. “I cannot tell you everything, only tell you what I am allowed.” She looked up at me. Her eyes were cloudy, a tear at each corner. Her lips came together. She sighed deeply, then said, “Your wife, Alanna, is at peace." Shiree put her hands on her temples for a moment, then continued, "Allana said to tell you, 'Quid agis fieri non potest emendari, carpe diem!'” (Latin for: What's done cannot be mended. Enjoy the pleasures of today, without concern for the future.)

She touched my hand and flew back to the dancers. My head went to my knees. The tears burned as I held my hands over my eyes. The sobs racked my body until I stumbled from the bench to my knees. I got up, walked a few steps, and fell down on the lawn.

When I woke it was getting light and all the dancers were gone. In the lonely dawn, I went in and threw down two shots of scotch and went to bed. I awoke at noon. I looked over at the empty place beside me and a soft peace came over me. I could feel Alanna smiling at me. The void was still there but it didn’t hurt as bad.

Resolution? I don’t know.

It was getting down in the Fall, and by late September it was too cold for the dancers to come, they were in the beehives. The first week in October I drained the fountain and all my water lines. In late afternoons I still came to sit on the patio, sometimes reading, and sometimes staring at Elowyn in the fountain until dark.

I started having a few glasses of scotch before bedtime, so I could sleep. I had bad dreams; lost fairies' wings, swarms of huge, red dragonflies after tiny fairies.

On Christmas Eve, I had a few drinks, then bundled up and took a glass of scotch outside and waded through the snow to the patio. I scraped the snow off my bench and sat and looked at the icicles hanging from Elowyn. I must have dozed off. When I woke, my scotch had spilled, making a yellow stain on the snow. I trudged back into the house, doffed my extra coat, and made it to my bedroom.

There, I heard a familiar, soft voice say; “Hello, Michael.”

In the dim light, I saw a beautiful young lady leaning back against my dresser, wearing nothing but a red Christmas ribbon and bow she had tied around her waist.  She had tilted eyes, long lashes, pointy ears, and short, curly hair. She smiled and said, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Gallagher.” In the mirror, I saw two small marks on her back.

End

Author's notes: