Once upon a time there was a goldfish. It was a pretty goldfish with long beautiful fins. She lived in a pond that was full of koi. They were very old koi and she loved to listen to their stories. The one named Hanako was over 200 years old! Hanako was a brilliant red koi and the goldfish loved to swim near her. Hanako had the best stories. The things that she had seen and the places to where she had moved were fascinating but the little goldfish loved the stories about koi becoming dragons the best.

If a koi swam up a waterfall they could become a dragon. The little goldfish wanted to be a dragon. She wanted to become a dragon so badly! The kings and queens of the air still passed overhead occasionally and Hanako would point them out to the little goldfish. Hanako said it used to happen much more frequently when she was a fry. They were so majestic and lordly.

Sometimes at night they would fly low over the pool. Low enough that their whiskers would drag the surface of the pool just to let the koi in the pool know they were there. They were all water dragons of course, because what else would a koi become but a water dragon.

The little goldfish watched for them every night when their fluorescent scales would light the night sky over the pool and she longed for the day when she could join them swimming through the sky. There was only one big problem with her dream her pond had no waterfall. Something that Hanako pointed out to her but that never stopped the little goldfish's dreams nor did the fact that as Hanako also pointed out that she wasn’t a koi for only a koi could be come a dragon.

The koi lived on a big estate and so they never knew that there were people that might catch them for dinner when they swam in their pools and hunted for mayflies and amused themselves with catching bits of rice cake that the children who lived near the pool would come to throw in the pool. They were so tame that they let the man who tended the pool caress their beautiful fins and would eat from his hands. The koi and the little goldfish grew fat and happy and swam in their pool enjoying the sun hitting the pool through the leaves and the air that would leave little riffles across the pond, playing tag around the lotus that grew in there.  

But one day they noticed the children weren’t coming to bring them rice cakes and they grew lonely because the old man had stopped visiting too. Where were their friends? The fish didn’t know that a great sickness had passed through the land and that there were no longer people on the estate to admire them. They didn’t know that there was hunger in the land because there weren’t enough people to farm rice on the estate. They just knew they were alone.

Time passed and the goldfish grew and swam along with the koi and still she dreamed of being a dragon but she wondered too why the world had changed. One day a boy came to the pool and the fish gathered thinking he would bring them some rice cakes and give them pats but he had a pole with a hook and a fat snail on it and he threw his line in the water and the koi and the goldfish backed into the mud at the bottom of the pool. What was this? It was something new and not something that looked friendly and so they waited, for koi are smart fish and they know when something isn’t right in their world.

The goldfish was feeling brave so she went up to watch him from under a beautiful pink lotus that was blooming. The boy was sitting on the edge of the pool rubbing and rubbing his tummy. She wondered if his tummy was hurting him. She didn’t know he hadn’t eaten in a long time and that this was the only thing he could think of to do.

“Boy, why do you look so sad and why do you rub your stomach so?” The boy jumped up with a terrified look on his face. The fish ducked back under the lotus. The boy had never heard a fish speak before. The fish was pretty surprised too for she had never done it before either. It had just happened. The boy knelt down and peered under the lotus’s leaves into the water.

“Was that you, little goldfish?” asked the boy.

“”Yes, I think so,” replied the goldfish swimming out to give him a better look. He looked it very skinny. He looked like he had been ill and his clothes were torn. “I’m not quite sure. I’ve never done it before.”

“So why do you look so sad?” the goldfish asked again.

“Because I’m hungry and I’m the only one left in the village besides the old people.”

“Oh, but what were you doing with that stick and string?”

“I was going to try and catch a fish. I didn’t know you could speak.”

“Does that make a difference?” asked the goldfish who really didn’t want to be someone’s dinner.

“I think it must because if you speak you are like me and I can’t eat someone like me.” the boy replied.

They both sat staring at each other wondering what to do next. The fish wondering if she should go join the koi on the bottom of the pool and the boy wondering if gingko leaves were edible because that was about all that was left besides tea.

Kwan Yin had been watching the people sicken and wondered what a Goddess of Compassion should do. Kwan Yin had been granted the power to relieve children’s suffering and she thought this was definitely something she should do. She had the feeling though that something important was about to happen and so she thought she’d watch for a bit.

The goldfish regarded the boy from the center of the pond. He was very skinny and his clothes hung off him in a way she hadn’t seen before from the people that visited the pond. She thought about what she could do and she came to the conclusion that the one thing she could do was going to hurt a lot but it was really the only caring thing she could do. She swam close to the shore. “Take me but please make it quick. No hooks.”

The boy looked at her. “You want me to eat you???”

“Well, not really but where else will you find food?” The goldfish closed her eyes and waited. Kwan Yin decided that was enough and walked down the hill to the pond as the boy was reaching into the water to grab the goldfish she reached down and stopped his hand.

“Go back to your home and you will find enough food to feed your village waiting for you. Go!”

Kwan Yin pointed back in the direction of his village. The boy needed no further urging. Meeting a Goddess even a Goddess of compassion is not something most humans feel comfortable with. Most humans tend to think that goddesses are great in the abstract but terrifying in person. The boy ran!

“What am I going to do with you, little fish?” The Goddess sat down at the edge of the pool and watched the goldfish as she swam back and forth. The koi had come up from the bottom of the pool and surrounded the goldfish looking at the Goddess. The Goddess reached down and stroked all the fish that came up to her.

The koi and the goldfish swam patterns for Kwan Yin. The Goddess watched with a fond smile on her face.

“Little Goldfish, because you were willing to give of yourself I will give you a gift but I have a better idea than being a dragon. Dragons are so big that they have to hide themselves. Would you like to be a dragonfly instead?”

The goldfish thought a bit and then nodded enthusiastically. Kwan Yin reached down and held the goldfish cupped in her two hands and blew gently on the goldfish. The goldfish’s body began to stretch and become more slender. Lovely diamond wings replaced her beautiful fins.

She began to test her wings and lifted out of the Goddesses hands, hovering in the air in front of Kwan Yin.

Kwan Yin smiled and waved at her. The dragonfly zipped back and forth over the surface of the pond admiring her reflection in the pond. She sparkled in the surface of the water like a golden gem. Hanako and the other koi watched her and shouted encouragement to her. She thought she had the best of both worlds. She was near her friends and she could fly like a dragon.

So next time you see a dragonfly wave at her and make a wish because you are seeing someone whose dreams came true.

Once upon a time there was a small rabbit goddess and her name was BunniHoTep. She was brown and very plush and wore a silver circlet with a moon on it around her ears and it sat just right on her forehead. This morning she was sitting trying to meditate in the main chamber of her Temple down by the Nile.

Her Temple was the last one in a long row of Temples on Temple Row. It was by far the smallest but that was alright because she was by far the smallest goddess. The priestesses were busy all over the Temple going about their morning chores and getting ready for the spring festival. BunniHotep was noticing something for the first time that morning. 

Her priestesses were all singing or humming all over the Temple. There was a problem with this however, they were all singing something different and it didn’t quite go together. One was humming the hymn to the morning sun for Ra and one was singing about the knot of Isis and she could hear one singing something rather naughty song that she must have learned from the sailors down on the Delta which was really very funny. She could even hear a lullaby from the priestess who was taking care of three orphaned bunnies. She could hear other tunes from farther away in the Temple.

BunniHoTep kept trying to meditate and it just wasn’t working. She noticed she was flowing with the music and letting herself float along on it but every time she caught a different tune her mind changed direction. But she started to hear something else every once in a while and she had an idea.

She hopped up quickly and went to find the closest singing priestess.

”Come with me I have an idea.” And she grabbed the priestess by the hand. They came to the next priestess in the offering room. The one who had been singing the naughty song and they grabbed her too. Soon they had found all the priestesses and gathered them back in the main room of the Temple along with the three baby bunnies.

“Can we try something?” BunniHoTep asked. The priestesses all nodded. When BunniHoTep had an idea it was best to go along with her. It was usually a good one.

She pointed at the older red-haired tall priestess. “Would you sing this here?”

BunniHoTep sang a line from the knot of Isis song. The priestess sang it back to her. She pointed to a priestess who had long beautiful hair that was shot with silver. “Would you sing this?” and she sang the line from the song again a little higher in pitch. The priestess sang it back to her. “Now would you sing them together?” The priestesses sang again. That was much better. The priestesses looked at each other and smiled. That really sounded good.

BunniHoTep went around the circle of priestesses giving them pitches to sing on. She grouped priestesses together to sing with each other. Pretty soon all the priestesses were singing and the room was filled with the most beautiful music they had ever heard. The priestesses’ eyes got bigger and bigger and they sang out louder and louder. The room was filled with the sounds of the lovely hymn to Isis. The baby bunnies woke up and just listened as the song went round and round.

BunniHoTep got so excited she decided they had to share what they had made. “We have to show Isis this. It’s too wonderful to keep to ourselves.” The priestesses all agreed and they hopped and walked down the Temple Row with three of the priestess carrying the baby bunnies whose eyes were big and round. This was more exciting than most days in the Temple and they didn’t have to go to school.

They all went into the main room of the Temple which had a very high ceiling. Isis was talking with Hathor and Nepthys on the far side of the room when BunniHoTep and the others came in. “Isis! We have a surprise for you! Come and listen!” The goddesses came over with very curious looks on their faces. How could there be a surprise when the priestesses hadn’t brought anything with them?

BunniHoTep arranged all her priestesses in a circle around her and they started to sing. By now even the baby bunnies knew the tune and could join in with their sweet high voices. The song rose high in the Temple and swirled around the room. It rang with happiness and peace. It rang with the beauty of the song and the love the priestesses had for their goddesses and it rang with the love they had for each other.

Isis and the other goddesses listened in wonder. The song touched something inside each of them in a way that singing alone never did and they sang too. They discovered it took listening and cooperation to do this and make it sound right and make it ring in their hearts and their whole bodies. They didn’t want it to ever end. And BunniHoTep looked at her priestesses and knew they had made something special, they had made magic.

Once upon a time there was a tree. He was an old pine tree. He’d stood there in the forest for many, many years. He’d stood in the forest through fires and floods. He’d stood there in spring and in fall. He stood there in snow and when bear and rabbits went by. He’d been standing there when people passed him wearing skins and hunting the deer with bows and he stood there now watching people build a camp for children. 

He watched with great curiosity. No one had ever stayed near him for very long and so he watched. When the camp was built and tents were all put up children started to play around him. He enjoyed this. Some of them hugged him. Some sniffed him and argued whether he smelled like vanilla or butterscotch. Some leaned against them while they read books. Some just curled up at his feet. He thought that was the best.

He wondered if Gaia watched these children the way she watched over him. Gaia sometimes came to visit with him and he thought he’d talk to her about the children next time she came. Or maybe he’d just give a passing jay a message to pass on. There didn’t seem to be any great hurry.

He stood at the edge of an area that they had talks around a fire circle. He didn’t like being so close to the fire but they controlled it carefully and he really didn’t like that they had cut down a lot of his friends to use for log benches but he thought the talks were interesting some of the time and just plain silly some times.

One day a group of children came to listen to a man. He said he was a missionary. He didn’t know what a missionary was. The tree instinctively didn’t like this man. He was dark in a way the tree couldn’t explain just that he was dark.

A small girl leaned against the tree and got her self cozy at his feet and the tree felt happy. This little girl had chosen him all week to lean against and he had watched her go through camp. She was always humming and singing. He’d noticed she liked to sing a song called “This is my Father’s World.” He wished he could tell her it was really her Mother’s World not a Father’s World.

He hadn’t been really listening until the little girl started to push herself into his bark. He started to listen and then he started to get angry. He heard the missionary say that the world was evil. He heard the man stay that it wasn’t the Father’s world it was Satan’s world and that the world was a terrible and bad place and he saw the little girl cringe and he knew he had to do something. He gathered himself together. He wanted to speak to the little girl but how? He finally decided he would try and talk to her the way he talked to Gaia. So he thought, “HE LIES!”

The little girl looked startled and turned around to study the tree and she nodded at the tree. She leaned back against the tree and he knew some how that she no longer believed the man. She left the camp a day later and he thought he saw her again many years later but he wasn’t sure. She had grown and stretched up a lot taller but she sat against him with a smile during the night’s campfire program.

The tree never knew that that day everything had changed for that little girl. She had heard the tree. And later when she heard about Gaia she knew what she heard was true. And she always remembered the tree and thought of him fondly once in a while sometimes even when writing stories.

Once upon a time there was a lonely little star. She shone up in the sky every night but she shone all alone. There were no other stars for millions of miles. For millions of years she went round and around another star called Polaris because that was what all stars did near her and she got fainter and fainter.

One day the Star Goddess couldn’t stand it any more. All the other stars she shepherded were fine for stars are like sheep and have to be shepherded very carefully. They shone brightly each night and lit the night just like they were supposed to do but this little star was different. She wasn’t part of a constellation and she was way, way at the tip of her nebula so the Star Goddess could see how she could be lonely so she went to visit the lonely little star.

“Astra.” For that was the lonely little star’s name. “What can I do to help you shine bright like all my other stars?”

The lonely little star twinkled at the Star Goddess. “Keep me company?” Astra asked shyly.

“No, you know better than that. I have an immense flock of stars to keep watch on. There are millions and millions of you and you all keep moving all the time. I know time moves very slowly for you out here and not even a comet has come to visit you in a long time so I have a suggestion. See that tiny planet down there?” She pointed to a blue and green marble way down below.

The star twinkled faintly at her. “Yes. Why?”

“I want you to watch that planet for a year and see if there is anything you can do to help someone down there on it and if you do I’ll have a surprise for you.”

So the lonely little star started her vigil watching Earth for a year. She saw ships that sailed on the sea but no one seemed to need the kind of help she could give. She watched the people who lived in the desert but no one seemed to need her there either. She watched jungles in the Amazon but life seemed to be very busy in that jungle although she could see things like the cutting and burning of lots of trees. She didn’t like seeing trees hurt but how could she stop the hurt?

She became very interested in trees as she roamed over the world at night she looked at all the different kinds of trees. There were tall ones and skinny, funny looking ones with poufs at the top. There were tiny squat ones on the edge of cliffs or in deserts. There were trees that were constantly blown by the wind and trees that always had their feet in the water. She crossed over the poles and one night while the Aurora was playing below her she saw him, a tree all alone. He was a sturdy little tree. She saw that he was a beautiful deep green. He was very far north on the blue and green marble. She watched him every night as she passed over the Pole. Sometimes he was covered in white stuff. Some times he wasn’t but he looked cold standing there all alone. She wondered how he got there since there were no other trees near him. One time she did see some large animals with big antlers pass by him. It reminded her of how the stars move through the sky.

One day when the planet was tilting toward the star that was their Sun the Star Goddess came back.

“Is my year up already?” Astra asked.

The Star Goddess smiled at the little star. The little star didn’t know that ever since the star had found the little tree she had been growing brighter and brighter every night. She now shown so brightly that she could be seen on that little blue and green ball. She also didn’t know that the Star Goddess had had a conversation with Gaia, the Earth Goddess. For the Earth Goddess was having a problem with a certain lonely little tree who was very, very lonely, so lonely that not even squirrels and birds visited him and they had a plan,

“Little Star? What do you want your wish to be?” the Star Goddess asked.

“There is a tree that stands all alone in the snow. It looks so lonely. Do you think I could meet him?” The star looked up at the Goddess with hope in her eyes.

“Do you mean the one that’s way up on top of the ball where it’s almost always white?”

“Yes!’ The star twinkled at her. “No one ever visits him except big herds of some beast and they only run by him. They don’t seem to stay and chat.”

“You mean the reindeer?” The Goddess asked.

“Reindeer? So that’s what they are. I wondered.”

“I have a job for you and I think you are going to like it. You might even make it your wish when you hear it.”

“What!” The star was bopping all over in excitement and getting brighter and brighter and somewhere down on Earth there were three very confused astronomers watching and wondering.

“Well, I talked to Gaia about you and she says she wants you to meet that very tree you have been watching. He has been drooping and she is very worried about him because trees live a long, long time. Not quite as long as stars but a long time down on Earth but he isn’t going to live very long if he doesn’t cheer up. Now, here is what I want you to do.” And she whispered in the star’s ear.

“Just for tonight?”

“Just for tonight and if all goes well next year too and the year after that.”

“Ooooooh! Goody!” squealed the little star.

And the star began to compress herself into a very, very, very tiny ball of very bright light. The star whizzed down to Earth heading for that small tree way up on top of the world. She slid down the Northern Lights and bounced across the stone and snow until she came to the tree she had been watching. People every where that Solstice Night, for it was Winter Solstice saw a bright light move across the sky to the north and called out to each other about it but the star didn’t know anything about that.

“Hi! Tree!” twinkled the star at the lonely tree. “I’m here to visit you!”

The tree looked up at the little star. “Why do you want to do that? No one ever visits me but reindeer passing by. I haven’t seen any body else since a big black bird dropped me here when I was just a cone.”

“I’ve been watching you from way up in the sky and the Star Goddess said I could visit any one I liked on Earth and I picked you!”

The tree was quite astonished. Someone had noticed him! He didn’t think anybody but the reindeer, that big black bird and maybe Gaia knew he was here. He stood up a little straighter. He could have a friend after all.

“Would you like to rest in my branches?” asked the tree. “You must have come a very long way.”

“Oh, that would be nice.” And the star settled down on top of the trees very top. As she settled in star dust fell off her and made the tree glow with hundreds of little lights. The Star Goddess had been careful to make sure that when the star visited she wouldn’t burn anything.

The star and the tree started to get to know each other and as they started chatting something strange began to happen. Some birds noticed the beautiful shining little tree and they came to visit. Then the reindeer came around to chat with both of them and drink in the beautiful sight of the star and tree shining on this longest night. Squirrels and badgers and bears woke up from their winter’s nap just to go see the beautiful sight knowing they would have to go to sleep again soon. Owls and other night birds came to see. Pretty soon the little lonely tree and the little lonely star were surrounded by a party of animals and never noticed that they weren’t lonely anymore. The night sped through all too swiftly and soon the sky began to get pink and yellow and the star knew she had to go back up into the heavens.

“I have to go now.” The star told the tree. “But the Star Goddess says I can come again next year. You only have to wait a little while and I’ll come again, I promise!”

The tree nodded but not too sadly. Now that all the birds and animals knew he was there they promised him they would visit too.

“I’ll see you next year!” The tree cried.

And the star flew back up into the sky of dawn light. She twinkled at Venus as she whizzed by. She had a friend now. She settled back into her cold bit of space and watched over the little tree. The next Winter Solstice would come again soon enough and she wanted to shine bright enough that her new friends would be able to see her every night.

And so the little star and the little tree weren’t lonely any longer and the Star Goddess and Gaia saw this and knew this was a good thing. And one year on their nightly visit a lone woodsman was out and saw them in their beauty and splendour and it made him feel very good and the next year he decorated a tree in front of his cabin just like he had seen the little tree shining. And now little trees shine at Winter Solstice all over the world with stars on top and deep in the northern part of the world under the Aurora Borealis every Winter Solstice a very, very, very tall tree still lights the northern snow on the longest of winter nights with his friend the little star.

Finis

Once upon a time for that is how all good stories begin there was a town called Heart Town. Heart Town was a beautiful place. It was neat and tidy with everything just so and the people were pretty too. They were all made of crystal and where most people’s meat hearts should be they had a heart of red crystal. Those hearts were all tied up with ribbons of every colour because in this town when you were loved by someone your heart got received a ribbon tied in a bow of their colour. Everyone in this town had many, many ribbons tied around their hearts all tied in different kinds of bows. Silly bows, foofy bows, simple bows as individual as the people that had tied them.

A shy witch had moved to this town and her name was Fay. Well, that’s what the Mayor of the town had decided she could be called. Her real name was Penelope Faery Rainbow which was just not a good name for a witch. Names are funny things once you are given them they don’t go away because they define at least part of who you are so somewhere deep inside she was Penelope Faery Rainbow but not most of the time.

Every Sunday night something wonderful happened in this town. At the stroke of seven on the town clock everyone started to sing. First the people’s hearts started to chime with a lovely sweet sound and then the people would sing with their hearts. One person in town wasn’t singing but no one knew this, yet…

The shy and formerly lonely witch, Miss Fay wasn’t. She sat alone in her fantastically turreted and towered house and listened and wished she knew how. Miss Fay had moved to this town as a grown up and had no idea how to make her heart chime or how to sing along with the people. She just didn’t know the song that everyone else had learned as a child. So she sat in her big stuffed green chair and listened to the town every Sunday night.

Once she had known this happened every Sunday night she made sure she was home that night. She didn’t want to be embarrassed about not knowing how to sing or chime her heart. So she sat at home and dreamily listened while sipping her tea and wished she could join in. It never occurred to her she could just ask someone how. She was still new to this friend making thing. She had only just told people her name a bit ago. She thought maybe she could ask the Mayor how they did it but she would feel so silly and stupid she hadn’t done it yet. Maybe she would do it next time the Mayor came to tea. Maybe while he was trying one of her new pastries. He sure seemed to like them and he always took some home with him for his family. But the Mayor came to tea several times just to chat and see that she was all right but she couldn’t seem to get her courage together to ask him but then something changed.

She had lived in this town almost a whole year so she hadn’t been part of all the celebrations and town functions yet and one day she got an invitation in the mail. It was a lovely thing with ribbons and beautifully cut shapes and a painting of a red crystal heart on the front of the invitation. This was a very special invitation. Once a year the town’s people got together on a Sunday night and sang together. Everyone was invited and she could tell from the invitation that she really was expected to go. What was she going to do? She had no clue how to sing the song or make her heart make those beautiful sounds. Maybe she could say she was sick and move away before next year’s celebration? But she really loved living in her cozy funny looking house and she really loved her beautiful garden. She loved the weather in this town. It only rained when the weatherman said it would and stopped right on time when the garden had had just enough. So she always knew she could go up to her tiny observatory and watch the stars and planets. What was she going to do? She worried and she fretted and she put off replying to the invitation because she couldn’t figure out how to answer. And then the Mayor came to call…

Because sooner or later things that you have to do come back around and have consequences if you don’t do them and in this town the Mayor would come to your door to see if you were all right.

Miss Fay answered the knock on the door. The Mayor always knocked. He never poked the door bell. She thought was very strange but she was too shy to ask him why. Maybe on another day she would but today she was afraid it was about that beautiful invitation with the heart on the front. She opened the door slowly. And there stood the Mayor in his crisp black suit smiling at her. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Mayor?” She asked.

“You know I asked you to call me Ben way back before the garden party? “ The witch nodded shyly. She still was having a small bit of trouble calling people their names. It was just so personal.  

“Why haven’t you replied to the invitation we sent out?” The Mayor, err, Ben asked.

The Witch looked down at her shoes. They were really quite interesting shoes. They were black and laced up and had a nice blocky heel and an opening where her big toe could peep out but they weren’t that interesting and sooner or later she was going to have to answer the Mayor.

 

“Won’t you come in Ben? I have some new chocolate pistachio bars for you to try.” And the Witch bustled off to her kitchen grateful she had thought to something to do besides look at her interesting shoes and her big toe.

When she had brought a tea tray back into the front room the Mayor was seated in his favourite overstuffed chair of deep blue. “You still haven’t answered my question.” said the Mayor.

The Witch looked down as she fixed her tea still unable to meet the Mayor’s kind eyes and she said in a very low voice. “I don’t know how to sing like everyone else does. I’d feel silly going and just standing there what if I can’t do it?”

The Mayor looked at her. “How do you know until you try, Miss Fay?” Miss Fay busied her self with the tea set and re-arranged the chocolate pistachio bars into a complex castle.

“Well, what if I can’t sing and everyone else can? I’ll just ruin your celebration and everyone will be mad at me.”

My family will come to escort you to the town square tomorrow night and we’ll just see how it goes. I promise it will be all right.” The Mayor stood up and thanked her for tea and left without giving her time or space to say no.

Miss Fay sat stunned. No one had ever done that to her before. Maybe she would just stay in her favourite pjs all day and he’d feel too embarrassed to make her go but she decided that the Mayor was a force of nature and just might make her go even in her favourite gnome pajamas. So the next night at a quarter to seven she sat in her white wicker chair out in the garden when the Mayor and his family all showed up to escort her. She went to meet them and walked between the Mayor and his tiny wife Milly followed by all the children. She thought there were six but they kept moving and messing up her count. They looked like three sets of twins but she couldn’t tell for sure and she was too shy to ask.

They arrived after the short walk at the town square where there was a statue of a heart with ribbons tied on it and the whole town was gathered around it in a large circle holding hands. Ben and Milly grabbed her hands so she couldn’t get away and the town clock started to strike seven and a weird thing started to happen in her chest. When the town’s people’s hearts started to chime her heart started to vibrate just a little bit and she heard a small sound from it. The Mayor and his wife turned to her and smiled.

“See, you’ll be just fine. You just have to listen and believe that you are part of all of us because if you are going to live here we are part of you too.” The Mayor whispered this in her ear. Everyone in town was starting to sing and she could feel it all through her body and she started to relax. It didn’t matter that she didn’t quite know the tune in her head her heart seemed to know it and that was all that mattered as she started to sing with the rest of the town. This was a good place to live and now every night she could sing and chime too. She liked that. It was good to be a part of something and the witch smiled and sang.

Once upon a time there lived a witch in a town known as Heart Town. The witch had moved here because she was lonely and wanted someone to love her. She had gotten in a lot of trouble over that. People in Heart Town were people made of clear crystal who had beautiful ribbons tied around their red crystal hearts. These ribbons were all different colours, a different colour for each person that loved them.

The witch had gotten into a lot of trouble because she had tried to hold onto the ribbons so she could be sure of who loved her and the whole town had gotten all tangled up and some had fallen and gotten cracks in their bodies. The town’s people were all made of crystal so that everyone could see their hearts and no one had ever even gotten a scratch before the witch had arrived in town. Some of the people still hadn’t gotten over that. It just wasn’t what they were used to but the poor lonely witch had another problem now. She wouldn’t tell anyone her name and people were starting to avoid her again. This had made her sad again.

Names are important things. When you have someone’s name you could call it and get someone’s attention or ask them to do something. The witch didn’t want anyone making her do something she didn’t want to do so she wouldn’t tell anyone her name. The witch didn’t understand the power of two different words, “yes” and “no”. She was convinced if some one asked her to do something and they knew her name they could make her do it. This was a town of very nice and polite people who would never make anyone do anything they didn’t want to do but the lonely witch wasn’t good at helping and she wasn’t very good at even trying that was why she was the lonely witch after all. Besides that she really hated her name. Her name was Penelope Faery Rainbows. That was just not a good witch name. She thought a good witch name was something like Agatha or Esmeralda or Guisbertha not someone who could be called Penny.

So when she went out she was always addressed as “Miss Witch”. She was getting tired of this but she really wasn’t outgoing enough to tell anyone her real name. She was shy and had a hard time making friends at all. The town’s people had finally had enough of this. They got together again and decided that the Mayor should speak to her again. That’s what worked the last time and they saw no reason to change now. They were a very practical town of people and if it worked once it should work again, right?

So Mr. Mayor went across town to visit the witch. He actually liked visiting the witch because she had a beautiful garden and always had fresh pastries and cookies. The Mayor was very fond of baked goods.

The witch’s house was very strange. It was all higgledy-pigglety. It was full of strange towers and funny shaped windows like moons and stars and had a widow’s walk around the top. It was also painted in many colours. It had a teal tower and a cobalt blue tower next to a turret that was painted emerald green. The porch was painted lavender with white pillars and was covered in pink roses that filled the air with a sweet scent and even though it was all mixed up it all sort of mixed together and was quite pretty.

Mr. Mayor opened the gate on the white picket fence and walked up the garden walk. It was filled with flowers. There were columbines and foxgloves. There were nasturtiums and abutilons. There were violets and lavender and sage and marigolds and pansies. The whole garden was filled with colour and around the edges she had planted pumpkins. There were some of the biggest pumpkins he’d every seen. And as he walked up the walk he had an idea. He wondered if it would work. He walked up to the door and used her doorknocker. It was in the shape of a pumpkin too. She must really like pumpkins.

The witch answered the door wearing her apron. She had been inventing a new cream treacle scone recipe and had flour on her nose and all over the brim of her hat. She wasn’t a bad looking witch. She was round where she should be round and not where she shouldn’t be. She had big blue eyes that twinkled when she wasn’t being shy. “Wouldn’t you like to come in Mr. Mayor?” She asked, “I have some new scones that should go nicely with the raspberry jam I made yesterday or would you rather have lemon curd?” She shooed him into her front room.

The Mayor looked around in wonder. There were always so many things to see here. She had bookcases full of books. She had things made of glass that spun and twinkled and made rainbows all over the room. She had an enormous desk that had a huge open book that he saw had a recipe written on it. She also had the biggest cat he’d ever seen sleeping on a foot stool with one eye half open studying him quietly. Mr. Mayor sat in a big overstuffed chair next to the tea table that had a large steaming tea pot in the shape of a big green cabbage.

“So Mr. Mayor, what brings you over to my house on this bright sunny day?”

“Well,” Mr. Mayor started just a wee bit uneasily, “It’s about not knowing your name and I bet you don’t even know mine, do you?”

The witch looked ashamed. “No, everyone just calls you Mr. Mayor and I’ve never heard anything else.”

“You should be around my wife. She uses it a lot.” Mr. Mayor laughed. “My name is Alyious Benjamin Honeydew but you can call me Ben. We would like to know your name so we don’t have to keep calling you Miss Witch. People here in this town are very kind and won’t make fun of it no matter what it is.”

The witch was blushing and fidgeting in her chair. “I have a awful name for a witch. My mother had no sense of a proper name for a witch so I never tell people my name. I’m afraid I’ll become my name and it’s just too silly.”

“Surely it can’t be that bad, can it?” asked the Mayor.

“Well, you be the judge, it’s just not a proper witch name. It’s Penelope Fairy Rainbows.”

The Mayor choked back a giggle. He could see that maybe a witch wouldn’t like such a foofy name. “I can see that that might not be a name a proper witch might like or even one you could grow into like Aliyousus. Have you tried shortening it?”

“Do you think ‘Penny’ is any better?” the witch asked.

“Maybe not.” The Mayor was thinking quickly. “How about Fay?”

“That isn’t too bad.” The witch thought that wasn’t too awful a name. It didn’t make her cringe like her real name in fact that just might work. “Miss Fay? That isn’t too bad but how do I let people know nicely what my name is? I’ve been here almost a year and it seems kind of late and embarrassing to spring it on people now.”

“I have an idea.” said the Mayor. “Why don’t you have a party and invite people to your garden and you could share some of your wonderful pastries and have tea. You could send out invitations and just put your name on them and that way you don’t have to walk up and tell everyone your name. We could also put a pretty sign out on your fence that says ‘Welcome to Miss Fay’s Garden’. Would that be all right?”

The witch sat back in her big chair and thought and thought while the Mayor took another scone and heaped lemon curd on it. She wouldn’t have to leave her house except to go to the post office to mail the invitations. She could just stay in her garden and welcome people in but what if they wouldn’t come? She worried.

“What if no one comes?” She asked fretfully.

“Oh, they will come. People are always curious and they know from taking walks that you have a lovely garden from the outside. They will come, trust me.” The Mayor got up to leave and shook the witch’s hand. “It was nice to see you again Miss Fay.”

The witch sat in her chair for a moment. She got up and got her special feather quill and a packet of stationary and sat down at her desk. She dictated the invitation to the quill and let it get busy writing the invitations out. What was the good of being a witch if you couldn’t let something else do some of the work? She went back to baking. She had just thought of a new raspberry cookie recipe that would be good. She might as well use that jam she had just made for cookies for the party. Later that afternoon she mailed the invitations.

She woke up bright and early on Saturday morning and looked out her bedroom window at the sky. It was going to be a beautiful clear day for the party, so far so good.

She had been tidying her garden all week. The gnomes that lived in an oak tree in the back had been helping and she knew the dryads, devas and faeries had been helping too. All the colours of the flowers were perfect and there wasn’t petal out of place. She was going to set up tea in the side garden wear she had conjured up some comfortable garden chairs. So much to do and what if no one came?

Three o’clock came and people started to line up at the gate. Their heart ribbons tied in gay bows and their crystal all shiny. The witch relaxed. People had come. She went out to greet them. The Mayor’s family was first in line. “Hi Miss Fay! We’re here!” they cried!f

The witch went eagerly to greet them. She shook hands with everyone and remembered most of their names. They all greeted her happily and called her Miss Fay and she didn’t mind the name a bit. The witch learned a lot that day. She learned that if she was nice and friendly people would want to be her friend too. Now if she could bring her self to share the scone and cookie recipe…