Edna wakes to warm night air that lies on her skin like a comforting hand. The last thing she remembers is that lying woman, and nurses helping her into bed, and Pam. Yet, though it is dark, she knows that she is not in her bed at Sunflower. In fact, she doesn’t seem to be in a bed at all. But her brain is clear, and she has an indistinct feeling of relief that confusion is warranted.
She struggles to sit up and then peers into the darkness. All she can make out is the outline of foliage at a near distance; and she seems to be lying in grass. Am I in a forest? She thinks. Pam is probably behind this; as sweet as that girl is, she always has foolish notions about loosening me up. She pats the soft ground, feeling for her walking stick, but she finds a wooden cane with a curved top instead of her thin aluminum cane with its soft rubber top. Her stomach twists.
“Pam,” Edna yells, voice quivering. “Honey, this is not right to do to me.” She listens, waiting for a reply, but gets none. “This is not okay,” irritation steadies her voice. Another moment goes by. “I have arthritis, for crying out loud!”
A swarm of fireflies suddenly surround the periphery and fill the atmosphere with a warm glow. This allows Edna to examine the cane. There are ivy vines carved into its smooth mahogany surface, and on the curved top is a layer of moss. The moss is soft, like the ground she lays on, and it is more satisfying to touch than the rubber on her aluminum cane. She has a sudden fluttering in her stomach, as though excited by curiosity, but she wants to give no one the satisfaction of knowing that.
“What is this old piece of firewood doing here? Where’s my cane?” She yells. The swarm of fireflies begins to move towards the thicket, and then it stops, as though it is waiting for Edna to follow. Goodness sakes alive, she thinks. “What, Pam? Have you trained the fireflies?”
Edna digs the end of the wooden cane into the grassy forest floor and uses it for leverage while she struggles to stand. Once on her feet, she follows the fireflies into the forest, prodding the ground as she goes. She places her left palm on trees she passes, for stability, and notices that they are covered in moss, just like the top of her cane.
“What?” she shouts, “did you drug me and fly me to the Amazon? You always wanted me to travel. Well,” now mumbling to herself, “I guess you got what you wanted after all.”
The fireflies continue into the forest, and Edna trails behind them, but her knees are throbbing from the pressure of lifting herself from the ground without the help of a nurse. This is just cruel, she thinks. The fluttering of excitement is gone. In its place the ache that has always lingered inside Edna intensifies. The intensity of the ache is almost as strong as it was the months after her husband had left her.
After Grady left, Edna often curled up in her armchair with her eyes closed tight and her arms wrapped around her knees. Sometimes her children (all grown) or neighbors would visit so she would not be alone. But conversation only complicated her pain. Whenever someone mentioned the weather, or their gardenias, the words they spoke were like birds crashing against her skull. But if anyone asked her how she was doing her chest would tighten, threatening to seal itself off from the oxygen that she had to consciously work for. So, to keep the oxygen coming, she would steer the conversation back to the mundane.
The feeling tires Edna, and she wants to go back to sleep. She cannot curl into a ball anymore, like when she was younger, so sleep has become her way of pushing that feeling away when it is strong, as it is now (Edna is often asleep). She stops following the fireflies. If an explanation wants to reveal itself, it can, Edna thinks, but I don’t need to deal with this nonsense. Before she can lay back down she notices that the swarm of fireflies have begun to disperse. As their condensed glow spreads and softens, it undulates in rhythm, adorning the forest with speckles of light.
Edna notices that the large objects ahead of her, objects she had assumed were boulders, are moving, ever so slightly. She strains to focus.
“There’s something different about this human,” comes a voice from one of the objects.
“Yah, her skin’s too big for her!” says another.
Edna gasps. “How dare you insult me. This joke has gone on long enough. And it’s not funny. Pam, enough of this. You’re being mean… Pam!”
“Pam!” A menagerie of voices repeat, in unison.
“What!” Edna responds. “I’ll teach you to mock an old woman, you, you good-for-nothings!”
She moves towards the objects, lifting her right arm and shaking it in consternation, but her foot hits a root and she begins to stumble. Before she gets hurt, however, something catches her in its arms and the fireflies move closer to Edna and the thing that is now holding her. This allows Edna to see her surroundings more clearly. A slim creature with large crystal eyes is looking at her, curiously.
Edna’s heart starts beating, wildly, like a bird that is thrashing about in its cage. She stares into the crystal eyes, and in them she can see her own reflection. She looks afraid and vulnerable. She feels afraid and vulnerable. And she is overcome with shame that her feelings are so clearly exposed. Edna is horrified by what she does next but is incapable of stopping herself. Edna begins to cry.
The thing with the crystal eyes lifts Edna up so Edna can stand, and then it holds her in a kind of motherly embrace as Edna continues to sob. When Edna is finally able to stop crying, she pushes away from the thing that holds her and frantically wipes away her tears, trying to regain composure.
There are about 20 creatures that are like the one that held Edna, and all share the same features: eyes like crystals; hair of various shades (neutral greens, browns, and yellows); bodies the same shades of color as their hair—but with a texture both scaly and supple, like the soft belly of a snake. And they have peculiar hands and feet, with fingers and toes that are lobed and spread like maple leaves.
“Are you all fairies?” Edna asks.
The mouth of the thing that had held her changes from a curious and soft smile to a mischievous one. “No, we’re pixies,” It begins to giggle.
“No, you’re the pixie, I’m a yumboe,” says another one.
“They’re all weirdos, that’s what they are. But I am an elf,” says a third.
“I’m no weirdo! I’m an aziza,” says a fourth.
Edna begins to lose patience, which is a relief. It’s easier to feel irritated than vulnerable. She uses the irritation she feels to forget the shame of crying.
“In this place, whatever this place is, you may think it’s ok to be fools and tease an old woman, but where I come from people show respect for the elderly.” The fairies, or whatever they are, quiet their giggling, and now Edna hears the other creatures chuckling—the things that Edna had believed to be boulders.
“You’re all just a bunch of knuckleheads, aren’t you? All of you!” Edna says.
“Hey,” one of them says. “I’m a knucklehead? I thought I was a troll.”
Edna gives a sharp look to the creature that has just spoken. The dawn has begun to break, and sunlight is beginning to expose more details of Edna’s surroundings. She observes a short hairy creature that is wearing a coat of brown moss. Its head is thumb shaped, its skin is clay-yellow, and the colors of its eyes are a deep chocolate brown and framed by long delicate eyelashes. Edna cannot help but notice how remarkably handsome its eyes are.
“You can’t be a troll,” Edna says, mollified after observing the gentle looking creature that calls itself a troll. “Trolls are supposed to be terrible creatures that eat children and live under bridges. I don’t believe in them, however, or fairies, or any of what you all claim to be.”
“You don’t believe in us?” The one who calls itself a pixie asks. “Even though we are right here for you to see and touch?”
“Why should I believe in you?” Edna snaps. “Or even trust you, for that matter; you won’t even tell me what you are!”
The pixie creature regards Edna for a moment. “You’re different from the other humans who come here.”
“What’re you talking about? What is this place? Who are the others who come?”
“This is Storia. All humans come here. They’re usually much smaller than you are, though.”
“That’s ridiculous. If everyone comes here, then why doesn’t anyone talk about it? I’ve never heard of this place.”
“Yes you have! If you hadn’t heard of Storia you wouldn’t know about trolls and fairies.”
“I’ve never been here, and neither has anybody I know.” Edna says; voice sharpening.
“All humans come to Storia, by the age of seven.”
“Ha! See, now that’s a lie. I’ve never been here and I’m well past seven. I’m 85!”
“Well, this is highly unusual,” the pixie creature says, and pauses for a moment as it observes Edna. “I wonder if that’s why you’re so …” the scowl on Edna’s face stops the creature from finishing its sentence.
The troll walks up to Edna and tugs on her shirt. “Do they really believe we eat children?” It asks. “Is that what they say about us?” Edna’s scowl softens.
“I’m not familiar with all fairytale stories. You might be portrayed differently in some,” Edna says. “Do you all have names? I don’t know what to call you.”
“You can call me Pixie,” says the pixie creature.
“You’re not a pixie, but you go by Pixie? Then what are you?”
“You know us as fairies, but we’re many things to your kind, including what we’ve called ourselves; except we’re not pixies, those are the pixies,” Pixie gestures to the fireflies. With the natural light increasing, Edna can see that what she had thought were fireflies are, indeed, little creatures with arms and legs. They are too far away for Edna to get a good look at them, but they remind her of her daughter’s old Tinker Bell doll. The light that had glowed so helpfully from the pixies has dimmed, becoming increasingly encompassed by the natural light; but Edna can tell that their light is radiating from the movement of their wings. She turns back towards the hairy creature.
“So, do I call him Troll?” Edna asks.
“Only if I can call you Human,” the troll says.
Edna rolls her eyes. “You can call me Edna,” she says.
“Well, I’m Twynne, nice to meet you, Edna.”
Edna nods, then looks at the other trolls and fairies who have not yet introduced themselves. They stand at a distance, behind Twynne and Pixie. “I don’t bite.” Edna says. “Am I to guess all your names?”
One of the troll’s eyes widen. “Sure, what do you think my name is?”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Edna says. “That was sarcasm. I’m not going to guess your names. I’m not one of the kids you claim frequent this place. I don’t have patience for tomfoolery, if you hadn’t noticed.”
The trolls give each other nervous looks. They clear their throats and begin to introduce themselves.
“Speak up. I can’t hear you.” Edna says.
They speak louder. Edna hears a lot of names that start with T. There is a Twall, a few Triiinks, some Twees, a couple of Twynnes, and one Susie. Susie smiles when she says her name, sticks a few fingers into her mouth and then farts, accidentally. The trolls burst into laughter and Susie blushes.
Edna does not hear the flatulence and thinks they are teasing her again. “Ok, Susie, whatever you say. And what are your names?” Edna says, turning to the fairies.
The fairies have all taken names that have been given to them by visiting children. So most of the fairy names are common human names from various cultures and languages—though many of the names are not familiar to Edna. Edna only meets two who do not have a common human name, and Pixie is one of them. Her name came from a child who kept referring to her as Pixie, rather than the name she had been given prior, and Pixie was fond of the child, and the name, so she began to go by Pixie, instead. The other unusual name is Mr. Toots Alot, given to the fairy by a very silly little boy. Edna chuckles at the silly name.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it were one of my kids who gave you that name. My children were such rascals,” Edna says, then falls quiet, momentarily lost in thought. While conversing with these creatures she has been steadily assuring herself that she must be having some sort of dream, yet she realizes that she has been responding to these creatures of her imagination as though they are real. She does not want to give them the satisfaction. But she is curious about things, too, so she decides to humor them; it’s just a dream, anyway, and dreams are easily made sense of. So she asks, “If all humans come by the age of seven, why didn’t I?”
“I don’t know.” Pixie responds. It has always been understood, by Storians, that humans come to Storia so that during the difficult times in their lives, they have an assurance that there are good things outside of their current experiences to put their hope in (even though they leave without explicit memories of their time in Storia). For, as Pixie understands it, after a certain age humans find it difficult to comprehend much beyond their own senses. And that, Pixie thinks, would be like living in the dark. As Pixie ponders Edna’s question, her eyes rest on Edna’s cane, and they widen after a few moments of observation. She glances at Twynne with a questioning look, but he’s not paying attention; he appears to be trying to think of something to say that this odd human will find amusing. Then, seeming to have forgotten Edna’s question, and that Edna is likely hoping for more of a response than I don’t know, Pixie says,“I think we might have quite an exciting adventure ahead of us.”
“Adventure? Is there more than this?” Edna asks.
Twynne and Pixie laugh simultaneously. “Oh yes,” Pixie says. “This isn’t even the beginning. You’re sure to have the most exciting experience of your life!”
The joyful anticipation of the two creatures irritates Edna.
“There’s nothing to be excited about,” she tells them. “This isn’t good for me. I’m old. I should be home, resting.” Edna glares at Pixie. Pixie’s smile widens. “Kidnapping an old woman is not something to be proud of,” Edna says, now glaring at Twynne. His smile stays the same, as if he doesn’t even realize she’s talking (still thinking about what to say that might make Edna laugh). “I’m old,” Edna repeats, eyeing them both in turn. Her irritation rises the more it is not responded to.
“Okay. Let’s not dawdle; best get moving.” Pixie says. “I’ve a feeling there’s going to be more in store for us than there usually is.”
She and Twynne stand beside Edna, one on each side, and she slips her arm through Edna’s left elbow. This does not bother Edna; she is used to being escorted by caregivers at Sunflower in the same way, and she welcomes it as the only acceptable distraction when irritated.
As Pixie and Twynne begin to escort Edna the pixies drift off to find rest amongst the foliage, and the rest of the trolls and fairies wave goodbye. Each one who waves goodbye is a little relieved that they are not taking Edna on her adventure; and a little disappointed, as well.
As Edna walks arm-in-arm with a fairy—a troll close to her right—she realizes that the ground is not grassy after all. It is covered in moss, just like the top of her cane, and the trees, and Twynne’s coat. It is so unusual that curiosity reminds Edna of itself, for she is filled with questions. So she reminds herself that it is creatures of her own imagination that she humors when she asks questions; and that this is simply a dream, and dreams are easily made sense of.
“Where are we going? What are the plans?” She asks.
“It’s not entirely clear at the moment,” Pixie says.
Twynne simply shrugs his shoulders, as though the question is so insignificant that he can’t be bothered to give any more of a response.
“Well, don’t you know anything? Or don’t you at least have advice? I’ve never done this before, you know.”
Pixie looks at Edna with a mischievous smile. “Just make sure you don’t lose that wood thing you’ve got there.”
“It’s a cane,” Edna says, rolling her eyes and then touching a few fingers to her hair—relieved to have recently re-done her permanent.
Renee Rushing 
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