Fairy Civilizations

My sisters used to make fairy civilizations… little cities, houses. They’d use little Barbie furniture items, give them chairs to sit on, swings to play on, baskets of these little berries from this bush in our backyard to eat. They could never see the fairies— they were shy, my sisters would say—but they would leave the little fairy homes out overnight and come out the next morning and things would have shifted or disappeared, and they were convinced fairies had come to visit while they were sleeping. I was always convinced it was the wind or opossums or my parents pulling a ‘Santa Claus’ to make my sisters happy. But my sisters were very serious about these endeavors. And they would get so upset if my mom tried to clear out their backyard fairy creations before, like, a party or something. The fairies would get angry, my sisters said, if their houses were destroyed. They’d like, throw tantrums because they were scared of what the fairies would do. It was bad luck or something. So my mom would just leave them in our backyard, in the plants. They were there for like, years, until we remodeled the backyard and they had to go. The gardeners would work over them and stuff up until then. My sisters were probably fourteen when the fairy houses were removed. The next day, one of my sisters broke her arm. That same day, my other sister’s boyfriend broke up with her. They had a bad week. It was probably just coincidental, but they swear it was the fairies.

J knows this story because it happened to his sister and the fairy civilizations were a big part of his childhood. His sisters were obsessed with mythical creatures when they were young, particularly fairies, and he was often dragged into helping them build their little houses for them. He never believed in the stories, but his sisters still bring it up to this day.

.I’ve always heard that fairies can be ruthless, like when people get caught in a fairy dancing circle and then when they come to, eight years have passed. So, I’m sure a fairy would be upset if someone built a house for them and then destroyed it. When I was little I used to make fairy houses with my friends at school, but we would always take them down after recess and bring our Barbie furniture home with us. I don’t remember having much bad luck as a result—or maybe I did and all the bad things that ever happened to me are a result of that!