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“Are you mad at me?” He said that he wasn’t. He was just thinking. “The woman little person that spoke to me said that I had to take her spot. That I needed to be their helper if you would allow it. She knows who you are. She also knows Mom.”
“Granny used to tell us about the little people of the mountains. Every winter, she would tell us how she had to put out food for them and when spring came, they would bless her with a plentiful garden and bountiful trees.” Maria said that was what they told her. “Yes. All right. Granny also told us that they would only pick the bravest and the most pure heart to help them. That to help the faeries, that’s what she called them, was something that very few people ever got to do.”
“Thank you, Dad, for believing me.” Maria climbed up on his lap then and hugged him. When she started speaking, Gibb held onto his daughter tightly, knowing now that she was even more special than he’d thought when he’d first met her. Maria had been chosen to watch over the little people like his granny had.
“When my granny was just a little girl, no older than you are now, she told me that she’d been out in the gardens when she found a small creature. It was shaped like a person but had the most beautiful wings that she’d ever seen. No one believed her. Everyone who came to hear about Granny and her little people would tease her and poke fun at her. Then, when she met Grandda, he saw them too. They were helpful to the little people together, and no one made fun of them again.” Gibb asked Maria if her brother and sister could see them too. She told him that they both did. Then she got up but stood close to him. “What do you need to help them? I’ll get you three whatever you need to make sure that they’re taken care of.”
“Dad, she wants to talk to you.” Gibb sat up straighter in his chair. Looking around, Maria told him that he couldn’t see her until he believed in her. “You do, don’t you? Believe me when I tell you that I’ve spoken to the queen of all the little people.”
“I do. I don’t know why other than I think that I almost believed my granny when she would tell me about them. She never told anyone else, not my brothers either. She said that she needed for me to help her, and I did. I would gather winter flowers for them, and Granny would make sure that they were given to them. I don’t know if then I really believed she needed them or was just trying to get me out of the house, but I gathered them for her.”
“Her name is Roseland. She’s right here.” Maria reached into her pocket. When she pulled it free of the small opening, she put out her hand for him. Gibb didn’t see anything, and it disappointed him all the way to his core. “Keep looking, Dad. She said that as an adult, it’ll be hard for you to see her right away.”
So he stared at his daughter’s small hand. When he was ready to give up, thinking that he’d not had a pure enough heart, he saw a flash of something. Then more as he moved his face closer to the open palm. Then? There she was.
“My lady.” He put his hand over his mouth when she put her hands over her ears. With a whisper this time, he told her that he was glad to make her acquaintance. “You’re someone that I never thought to see in all my life. Welcome to our home.”
“You look much like your grandda when he was a good deal younger. I am sorry for his death and that of his mate. They were more special to us and good to us than anyone has ever been before. I think you and your little ones will be even more helpful to us, too.” He told her that he would do anything in his power to keep them safe. “I thank you, kind sir. If you, as you had before, are willing to find us food to eat during the winter, we will be fine. Also, some juices. We do better than well with fine juice.” Gibb had a thought.
“You gave my granny the tea recipes.” She bowed before him, and he laughed though quietly. “We’ve only a few…you also made sure that one of my children could make it, didn’t you? That the tea would be there for us for a long time.”
“I did. We did. It was our pleasure to do so. Your children have brought us much joy since they have been here. Just to hear their laughter, it makes our magic stronger. And the little one that is here in your house as well, he’s been such a wonderful addition to our faeries.”
“Is it true that only the small ones can see you without any kind of magic?” She said that infants see them the most, but yes, they can see them all. She also said that they would watch over little Joey, too, because of what he and his family had done and are currently doing for her kind. “As I said, we will do whatever you need.”
“Would it be all right with you, young Gibb, if we were to live in your greenhouse in the colder months?” He said that it had heat now, and they were welcome to it. “Thank you. So very much. And in return, we will do the same for your gardens and plants that we had for your granny. But, as we did with them, you cannot tell anyone of us. Not any of your brothers. They will not understand as you have.”
“What about my wife?” He heard Maddy coming through the house then. When Roseland turned when she entered the room, she bowed before Maddy. Gibb knew the exact moment that she saw the little woman. It was Maria who introduced her to the queen. Gibb, feeling good about the events, went outside to put the burgers on the grill. While he was out there, he took a look around the yard. It was then that he saw what he’d never in his life imagined himself seeing.
There were hundreds, no thousands, of the little people just beyond where he was standing. Hovering in the air about his height. The sound, he knew that he’d heard it before, was like cicadas in the summertime. A beautiful sound that made him smile. As they moved closer, almost in a swarm, he nearly dropped the platter of meat and ran for cover. But all they did was float like a smallish Christmas light in front of him. It was then that one of them landed on his hand. The door opened and closed behind him, and he knew that it was one of his children.
“Dad, don’t move quickly, or you’ll hurt them.” Belle. He laughed a little, thinking that if he moved, they’d be all over him before he could react. However, all he did was tell his daughter that he wasn’t going to harm them. “The one on your hand, her name is Strawberry. She’s just getting to know what you smell like, that’s all.”
“I have the burgers in my hand, honey. I don’t think I’ll smell very good to them. Do you?” Belle laughed and told him to be careful but to cook the burgers. That she was hungry. “All right. Just, I don’t know, honey, be careful that they don’t want to hurt you either.”
He nodded to the little creature when she flew up from his hand. Ever so gently, he put the burgers on the flame and then set the platter aside. Moving slowly, telling all that were around him what he was doing and how he was going to move, he felt silly when Strawberry landed on his shoulder. While he couldn’t see her well, he knew that she was hanging onto the collar of his shirt.
“You are a good man, Lord Gibb.” He said that he was just Gibb, not lord of anything. “Ah, but you are now, my lord. You have accepted us much faster than anyone has. You’ll be a fine person to care for us in the coming years.”
“It’ll be my pleasure to help you all. I don’t mind if you use the house or the greenhouse for your living space. Just, I don’t know. Just not mine and my wife’s bedroom. Nor the bathrooms. That’s sort of a private place for us.” She told him that she’d never enter those rooms if someone was in there. “Thank you for that. If you need anything, bedding though I’m not sure how that would work, you tell one of us, and we’ll get it for you.”
“Thank you.” She did tell him of a few things that she might need soon. Mostly, it was scraps of yarn and material they could use for blankets. Wood splinters they could carve for tools. A lot of things that he remembered his grandma saving all the time. “You are right in thinking that your granny saved a great deal for us. There is a can in your own kitchen that she used. I believe that your brother gave it to you for a remembrance. However, it has been closed now, and we are unable to get into it for the treasures there. If you could open it enough that we can slip in and out of it, we would be ever so grateful to you.”
“I’ll do that now.” He closed the lid on the grill and watched as several hundred of the little creatures came closer to it. They were warming themselves up, he could see and invited them into his home. “Just be careful of the fireplace, and I’ll light it for you.”
After opening the can that they told him about in the kitchen, he dug out other things that he knew his granny had saved, to which he’d been saving as well. A habit that he’d only just come to realize he was still doing from his childhood.
Twist ties from things that they ordered online. Small rubber bands. Safety pens and pieces of crayons. All things now that he had met the little ones, he could see usefulness for. As he was headed to the living room to start a fire, it was Thad who was telling his mom that they were going to need to buy sugar cubes as well as dried fruit.
~*~
Rusty held her son to her breast as she fed him. All she could think about was how lucky she’d been in being found. The baby, her little Joey, had been breached and had the Cross family now shown up when they had, she was sure that she would have died and he along with her. Hugging him tightly to her again once he was finished feeding, she stood up and put him into his makeshift bed.
The Cross family had been so generous with their time and magic. Rusty knew about magical creatures and shifters. Her great uncle, now long gone, had been a hawk. His mate, she had heard, was just human and had died long before he had. Uncle Raymond had told her of his adventures as a shifter, the way to tell them apart from humans that they worked or mingled with. She knew a great deal more than she thought most humans did about sharing space with someone who wasn’t at all like they were.
The knock at the door had her pulling her gown up and over her naked breasts. She wasn’t a prude, but she knew that there were children in the house. Great kids who had been helping her out since she arrived. As well as they saved her and Joey’s life. After bidding the person to come in, she smiled at Belle.
“We’re about to have dinner. Dad sent me up here to see if you’d join us. And Mom said that if you wanted a shower before dinner, I can watch Joey for you.” She said that she’d just fed him so he’d sleep. “Okay then. You take a shower and stuff, and then we’ll go down together.”
