Gold Dust Letters Read online

  There, just as Angela had described it before, their first impression was that a small, powerful fire had sprung up in the middle of the mantelpiece—three feet above where a fire should be burning. Poco covered her mouth with both hands. Georgina stared.

  “Pilaria?” Angela asked, a quaver in her voice. “Is that you?”

  The light danced and waved.

  “I’ve brought my friends. Here they are.”

  Poco stepped forward, followed by Georgina.

  “Can we come closer?” Angela asked respectfully. The group tiptoed across and stopped about ten feet away.

  “She is spinning around,” Georgina whispered.

  “I see a lot of lighted candles,” Poco said.

  “What are those gold things?” Georgina inquired. “Hey, wait a minute!”

  Angela shifted her weight uneasily.

  “Wait a minute!” Georgina said again. “This isn’t Pilaria. It’s a candle carousel. We used to have one at our house, only with gold angels flying around instead of”—she stepped up closer—“instead of these little whatever-they-ares.”

  “What are they?” Angela asked weakly.

  “I don’t know. Fireflies, maybe. They look like little bugs with wings. They’re made of brass or something. The heat from the candles makes them spin around. That’s why it’s called a candle carousel.”

  Angela’s face had taken on a collapsed look.

  “Is this the thing you saw the other night?” Georgina demanded in loud, suspicious tones. “Because if it is, it’s not magic. You see them all over the place in the stores around the holidays.”

  Now Angela appeared on the verge of tears. Poco stepped forward.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing.

  “Where?” Georgina turned to see.

  “On the mantelpiece next to the candles.”

  Angela saw it, too. She reached out eagerly to grasp the familiar-looking scroll of paper. It was tied with a thin gold thread. As the others watched, she slipped off the thread and began to unroll the paper. And though everyone had forgotten to expect it because the moment was so tense, a tremendous waterfall of gold dust poured suddenly between her fingers and tumbled and twinkled its way toward the floor.

  “That was the most gold dust ever!” Georgina exclaimed. Angela hardly noticed. She wrenched the letter open and started to read it.

  “Pilaria has left us a message,” she announced in a relieved voice. “She has invited us to a fairy banquet. Right now. In the kitchen.”

  “Right now! Are you sure?” Georgina came around to read for herself.

  “TO ANGELA HARRALL AND HER TWO FRIENDS:

  Pilaria, known also as the Gray-Eyed Faerie, humbly requests the pleasure of your company at a Faerie Banquet in the Kitchen, in honor of Our Friendship. Please come at your convenience.

  Respectfully yours,

  PILARIA,

  Eighth Tribe,

  Fourth Earth, etc., etc.”

  Georgina looked up from the letter. Poco’s hands had flown to her face again. “In the kitchen!” she cried. “That’s Juliette’s place. And where is she, anyway?”

  They looked around the room. Juliette had disappeared.

  Angela allowed the letter to roll up with a snap. Keeping it in her hand, she began to walk out of the living room. Poco and Georgina followed silently. Down the hall they marched, toward the back of the house. Though it was dark in this section, they had not gone far when a faint light began to appear ahead.

  Someone was in the kitchen, there could be no doubt. As they went closer, little rustling sounds and noises of movement came to their ears. And a mysterious smell, half sweet and half musty, met their nostrils. Angela clutched Poco, who reached for Georgina’s hand. Then, with pounding hearts, the friends rounded the corner together, determined to see the real Gray-Eyed Faerie at last.

  Chapter Ten

  IT WOULD NOT BE enough to say that the Harralls’ kitchen was a changed place. When something is changed, a new thing comes and takes over the old. But the old part is still there, still visible in places. It lies quietly under the surface with its familiar shapes and ways, reminding you of just what was changed into what.

  To Angela and Poco and Georgina, the kitchen that appeared before their eyes that night had not changed. It had vanished. Nothing was familiar in the shapes that met their gaze. Nothing lay beneath the surface. Everything had been swept away. And in its place …

  Angela drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Oh, Pilaria,” she murmured. “How beautiful!”

  The room was bathed in golden light. As if a golden moon had dropped down from the sky, the air itself seemed to twinkle and shine. Candles were everywhere, lighting every corner and ledge. And hanging from the ceiling were long veils of golden cloth, glistening chains of glass, and bright silver flowers the size of umbrellas. The kitchen walls seemed to have dissolved completely, and there, off in the distance, a sprinkle of stars lit some magical outer space.

  But that wasn’t all. That was only the background to the wonderful vision that floated front and center before the friends’ eyes. It was a table set for three, covered with shells and sparkling confetti and a wild tangle of flowers. In the place of plates were giant golden leaves. And where the napkins usually went, they saw small pairs of white gloves.

  The cups were long-stemmed goblets, half-filled with a golden liquid. Other leaf plates lay about the table. Upon them could be seen strange little cakes and layered sandwiches, slices of fruit, and sugared nuts. A shiny green leaf plate held a mound of the tiniest strawberries Angela had ever seen. And on another leaf—what were those pale, circular slivers? Shavings of white chocolate? Angela leaned forward and squinted into the candles’ glare.

  It was then she saw something move, beyond the table. Back in the corner, a figure was standing in shadow. When the figure saw that it was noticed, it attempted to move farther into the dark. And indeed it might really have slipped away—it was already heading shyly for the back door—if Angela had not gone quickly toward it and stood in its path.

  “Pilaria?” she asked, looking up at the form. Poco and Georgina stared wide-eyed from across the room.

  “Yes. Oh dear, I’m afraid you’ve really caught me this time,” the form replied. “You came much earlier than I expected. But … don’t let me interfere. This is your banquet to enjoy. Go right ahead and sit down. All of you are welcome!”

  A rather long and frightening pause followed this amazing statement. Angela, who continued looking up, seemed to sway and then to sag a bit on her feet. For a moment, her chin trembled, as if she were about to cry. But then, with sudden resolve, she drew herself up straight.

  “But … aren’t you going to sit down, too?” she asked the form in a clear voice. “There’s plenty of room for everyone.”

  “Well, I …” The form stammered and hesitated. “Of course, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Not at all. We’d like it,” Angela answered, drawing the form toward the table. Only then did Poco and Georgina see who it was.

  “Mr. Harrall!” Georgina gasped. Poco looked stunned.

  But Angela shook her head. “Not tonight,” she said. “Tonight I would like to introduce you to”—she turned toward him respectfully—“Pilaria, of the Kingdom of the Faeries, Eighth Tribe, Fourth Earth, Under the Sun-Star Aravan, May It Shine on Our Land Forever and Ever.”

  Pilaria was seen to glance around nervously at this. But he managed a small smile.

  “I am more pleased to meet you than you will ever know,” he told the group, and bent over and gave them the humblest and nicest bow.

  Later, the friends would understand how everything had been accomplished. They would see, for instance, that the banquet’s golden veils were really camp mosquito netting turned golden by the candles’ light; that the glass chains were made of plastic; that the leaf plates had been traced and cut from gold paper; that even the faraway planets and stars had a more local origin—they came
from Angela’s old Night Sky toy, which cast constellations in shining dots upon the ceiling and across the walls.

  Later the magic would lift like mist along a river, and the Harrall kitchen would return to view, and the table would stand square on the floor again. Later … but not now.

  Now, despite Pilaria’s shocking revelation, somehow the magic was still at work. It swirled about the banquet table in the most exciting way. First Poco, and then even Georgina, allowed herself to come forward and be charmed. They sat down under the veils and admired the little cakes and slices of fruit. They examined the shells and picked up some white stones with holes in them that lay near the leaf plates. They tasted the strawberries and sipped the golden liquid (it was honeyed lemonade). And put on their white gloves.

  What these were for no one could imagine—until Pilaria, seeing their confusion, spoke up in an apologetic voice. He had not uttered a word while the group had examined the table, but had hovered anxiously behind their chairs.

  “I’m sorry, I should have explained,” he said, sitting beside Angela at last. “They are fairy handshakes.”

  “Fairy what?”

  “You know, napkins.”

  Apparently, the table manners of invisibles were far more advanced than those of mortals, who continued to use ridiculous little cloth or paper squares at meals, which were always falling off their laps and causing conversation to be interrupted.

  “Handshakes are better than napkins by every measure,” Pilaria explained. “You can really wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, not just dab when no one’s looking. And there are two, one for each side, so there’s always help close by.”

  He looked uneasy as he said this, and glanced at the friends to see how they would take it. When they laughed, he was relieved and seemed genuinely pleased. He was, in many ways, an alien creature, and so obviously unused to associating with human beings—or with human girls, anyway—that the friends began to feel sorry for him. Though he resembled, in appearance, the person they had known before as Angela’s father, all other signs of that disturbing figure had disappeared.

  “What are these strange white stones with holes in them?” Poco asked, to keep the conversation going.

  “Oh, those are charms to ward off fairy powers,” Pilaria replied. “It is easy for mortals to fall under an invisibles spell, and some fairies are not so nice as others.”

  “And this horseshoe?”

  “The same. A shield against spells. You could also turn your sweaters inside out. It keeps mischievous invisibles under control. Not me,” he added hastily, gazing at them in alarm. “I am not playing or pretending.”

  The friends nodded. They felt his seriousness. It was why the banquets magic was continuing to work.

  “The shells, by the way, are fairy coaches,” Pilaria went on. “They are the way most invisibles travel about in the world, though we humans never see them. Fairies are careful to turn their shells invisible, too.”

  Georgina sat up suddenly. “Wait a minute! Where did you learn all this?” she demanded. “I know it’s not from fairies. You read some book, right?”

  Angela and Poco were horrified by this rudeness, and looked to see if Pilaria would be angry. But he seemed not to mind.

  “It is from fairies, actually,” he said. “You know, I used to write to some myself.”

  “You did!” Angela was amazed.

  “When I was young. I took quite an interest in invisibles of all sorts in those days. And I believed, really and truly, in the answers I received. Most of them were from my mother, I found out later. But there were a few …” Pilaria paused and looked thoughtfully at the group. He reached out and picked up a white pebble and turned it about so that it gleamed in the candlelight.

  “There were a few letters that could not be accounted for,” he went on, slowly. “That’s how magic is, I suppose. It really happens only once in a while, and afterward—”

  “You forget you saw it,” Angela finished in excitement. “Or people tell you you’re crazy, so you don’t believe what you saw anymore.”

  Pilaria nodded. He put the white stone back on the table.

  “That’s right,” he said. “That’s exactly what happened to me. Over the years, I completely forgot about those letters, and about invisibles, and I didn’t believe in magic anymore. I’d even nearly forgotten about the candle carousel.”

  Angela’s head jerked up. “What about it?” she asked. “When we saw it on the mantelpiece, we thought it was a magic being.” Poco and Georgina nodded.

  “I used to think so, too,” Pilaria replied. “For many years, when I was small, that carousel appeared in my family’s house. At certain holiday times during the year, it was lit at night. I used to stare at it and imagine the little spinning figures were invisibles who’d crossed over into our world. That’s why, when Angela wrote a letter to her fairy godmother …” He paused uncertainly.

  “You remembered. And answered!” Poco declared.

  “Yes.” He looked at Angela in such a way that the candlelight caught his eyes and everyone saw their color.

  “The Gray-Eyed Faerie,” Georgina murmured. “You really do have gray eyes!”

  Pilaria glanced down. “I wasn’t trying to play a trick,” he said. “I wanted to be friends. Martin and I have stayed on good terms. But Angela …” He turned toward her shyly. “You always seemed so far away from me. I didn’t know how to talk to you. I decided to give you the candle carousel as a special present—from Pilaria, of course—to bring you closer.”

  “Then what Angela saw the first night on the mantelpiece really was the candle carousel?” Georgina asked.

  “Yes. I lit it and set it going. But then you all appeared and surprised me. I was embarrassed and acted badly, I’m afraid. It had been so long since I’d believed in other worlds. I guess I hadn’t quite gotten the feel of it yet. Can you forgive me, do you think?”

  Angela nodded gravely. “Your letters were beautiful,” she said. “How did you write them?”

  Pilaria shrugged modestly. “It’s a little talent I have,” he said. “I used to be quite good at calligraphy. The purple ink and paper are old equipment from the past. They were up in the attic—another thing I’d forgotten all about!” He smiled. “First and Second Earths,” he added. “Those were the days!”

  “So, a lot of what you wrote in the letters was true,” Georgina declared.

  “Yes. Quite true. Though I don’t go around recording major disasters or advising birds and fish of their locations. My real job is not so important as that.”

  “But where did you keep the paper and ink?” Georgina asked. “We looked and looked for it.”

  “Oh, in my briefcase,” Pilaria said. “It traveled with me wherever I went.”

  There was a sudden scuffle under the table. Poco leaned down and came up with …

  “Juliette! You silly thing. What are you doing slithering around under there!”

  Everyone laughed. The old Siamese looked hurt.

  “It was Juliette who came and told us you were here,” Angela said to Pilaria. “We’d started to think she was an invisible in disguise. She acted so suspicious all the time.”

  “Siamese cats always act suspicious. It’s part of their nature,” Poco said. “Nothing compared to bats, though. They are the most suspicious-acting creatures of all. You can never tell what a bat has up his sleeve.”

  “Up his sleeve! Oh, Poco, ugh!” Georgina shivered all over at the thought of bats in sleeves.

  “Now that is truly interesting,” Pilaria said, leaning forward. “I used to know a bat when I was younger. He lived in my bedroom, under the eaves, and liked to come out and fly around at night. I provided him with food—insects and such—and left the window open so he could go off. He always came back, but …Now that you mention it, Poco, he was mysterious. I suspected him of many things, including stalking people on the road after dark. I sometimes heard their frightened screams.”

  “How horribl
e!” Angela exclaimed. “Do you think he was a vampire?”

  Georgina went absolutely white when she heard this, and stood up and quickly turned her sweater inside out. Afterward, a lively discussion erupted about suspicious things of all sorts. The layered sandwiches and cakes were gobbled up, and almost everything else as well. In fact, the banquet was going so wonderfully, and there were so many fascinating things to talk about, that not until quite a while later was there a lull in the conversation. In the sudden quiet, Angela looked over at Pilaria. She had a question for him that she had been saving.

  “What about the dust?” she asked.

  “The dust?” Pilaria reached for the last sugared nut. “What do you mean?”

  “You know, the gold dust. It always flew out of the letters whenever we opened them. What was it made of, and how did it work?”

  The silence in the room became complete. All three friends gazed at Pilaria, who stared back at them with a bewildered expression.

  “I’m afraid,” he said at last, “that I know nothing about any dust.”

  “Yes you do!” Angela protested. “You remember, the gold dust. We want to know how it was done. It flew out—poof!—whenever we opened a letter. But no matter how hard we looked, we could never find anything inside.”

  Pilaria listened carefully while Angela finished this explanation. Then, to the horror of the friends, he shook his head a second time.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know anything about it. And that is the honest-to-goodness truth.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THERE WAS NO HELP for it. Angela’s father simply refused to admit to the gold dust. The layered sandwiches, yes, he had made them. The golden leaf plates, yes, he had cut them out himself.

  He had transformed the kitchen and set the enchanted table and written the beautiful letters and lit the candle carousel. He had done so many things that Angela would never have believed he could do, in fact, that to her it seemed like a kind of magic. It was as if her father really had been invisible before, and had decided, suddenly, to come out and be seen.