All in a Day's Midsummer (A Story in Three Chapters)

Chapter 2. Creating a Sculpture of the Fairy

Back at home, Malcolm sat in his darkroom and went through the footage he had filmed. He was pleased with the result. It was only meant to be a twenty- minute film, and even with all the distractions he had managed to obtain the core material he needed. All that was required was some padding and the rest of the soundtrack and he could finish it.

The film would begin with the wood in daylight, a haunt of seekers in classical Yoga postures deep in meditation who he would splice into the scenes. Later as darkness fell the place would become first creepy, then threatening. It wasn't a new theme, but he hoped to portray it in an original way.

As evening approached Malcolm sat gazing out at the little clump of trees opposite his window on the other side of the road. It was only a copse compared with the wood he had been in that morning, and yet in some way the two had an affinity. He closed his eyes and recited, "the leaves are yellowing." It hadn't even been a day, let alone a year. The fairy and the shapeshifter and the counterfeit Monica would all be laughing at him.

The aethyr appeared, and it lay in a mysterious limbo between his closed eyes and the physical plane. It superimposed itself over the copse across the road, and he saw the fairy there standing in profile against a tree trunk. She looked elegant from the side, like a model in a magazine. Then her partner was there too, his rapid shifts of form looking unnatural in such a small space, as if it had been invaded by prancing shapes from a video game.

"I already know you two guardians," Malcolm whispered. "Surely now it is time to pass you and go beyond?" He tried to move into the realm, but it would mean astral travel in between his closed eyelids and the window, or in between the physical copse and the copse inside the aethyr. He couldn't thread himself in there like a darning needle. It might be easier to hypnotise himself to do it in a dream- but that didn't work either when he tried it later in the night.

Two weeks later he was sitting in his studio room working on a sculpture of the fairy. The obsession with Monica that he had originally restrained had reawakened and was starting to grow, and he sought to gain control by channelling it creatively. He was chiselling carefully, absorbed in his work, when a girl tapped on the window.

"Malc, why are you trying to find my sister?"

It was Pat, an old friend from High School who he hadn't seen for several years.

"Monica's your sister?"

"Yes. You should know that, if she's a close enough friend for you to write to all those people asking where to find her. So what's going on?"

He unlatched the window and met her eyes, brown and confident. He couldn't fool Pat.

"I actually only met her once, at the café where she was working. I fell in love with her, and then I heard she was married so I tried to forget her. But recently I've been thinking of her again. I only want to talk."

Pat shook her head. "Really, Malc! I'll bet that's not all. You've heard the stories that she isn't happy with him, haven't you? She hasn't exactly been quiet about it."

"I heard- something. But I don't know anyone close to her, only you, and I never realized you two were related. Come in, Pat, and we'll have some drinks and talk inside."

Pat didn't need asking again; she was keen to resume their friendship, and she could forgive his interest in Monica. As Malcolm made some tea in the kitchen she looked carefully at the sculpture. He had never shown any aptitude for crafts before, only filmmaking and a little drawing. But they all counted as art, and she guessed he must be extending his repertoire.

"Do you still make films?" she asked when he came back in with the tea.

"Yes. I'm working on one I've always wanted to make at the moment, about Midsummer Day and how mystical and magical it is."