Chapter 1

My earliest dreams all were about flying. When I was young, I had mentioned this to my mother, once. In a very uncharacteristic action, she came down hard on me. She told me to get that nonsense out of my head, that people can't fly, and that's that.

Don't mistake me. My mother loved me. It's why she did what she did. She moved us from Scotland to America when I was very young. As a matter of fact, I have a hard time to this day, remembering anything of Scotland.

My mother is very good with accents. She must have corrected mine, early, as well as hers. By the time I was going to school, I had no trace of an accent. Hers disappeared, too. I just thought this was something that was normal. Well, they are a child's memories ... what can you say?

Several times during my childhood, something happened that would upset my mother and she would come down hard on me. I learned very quickly not to mention dreams of flying, or the strange little flying things I saw that no one else seemed too see.

Walt Disney sort of had it right when he made fairies the way you saw them in his cartoons ... At least, they're the ones you remember best.

These creatures that I saw, were very small indeed. They traveled in large groups, though. They were small, winged, and were always flying around gardens and greenery. They ignored humans, pretty much.

The most amazing thing to me, was that no one noticed them! Right there in front of their noses, and everyone acted like they couldn't see them. I soon discovered that no one could! The very few times I made comments about them, I was treated as being a little strange, or joking. Mother interjected strenuously that I had a vivid imagination, and that I should control it better.

We had settled in the Midwest of the United States. My mother felt comfortable, there. It was totally different from my birthplace, if I had but known. I did not find that out until much later.

It was different, yet it was more similar than she could know.

It was in the sixth and seventh grades that I discovered a world that was totally different from that which everyone else was aware.

I quickly learned not to say a thing about it, either! Children are not stupid! The few experiences I had earlier with my mother, in mentioning what she considered was strange, was enough of a warning for me. Well before my 'graduation' from elementary school, I had learned to keep my mouth shut!

For example, I never mentioned that when I became angry, things happened around me. Lights flickered and blew out, and things became disturbed. I mean ... for example ... Once, when I was being punished for something, I went outside and into the backyard. I watched in stunned disbelief, as the entire garden was transformed in front of me.

It was as if a blizzard of clippings had happened. One moment I was pissed off. The next moment, the very air was filled with pulled weeds flying through the air, and onto a large pile. I had watched, amazed, until the effect stopped.

Mother was quite pleased that I had weeded the garden. She did not know that I had not touched anything, physically.

That brings up something else. I had an affinity to greenery and growing things. Mother tried to direct me into other areas, but I always loved gardens, and plants of all sorts. I seemed to have a knack for growing greenery.

Our lawn was always well tended. It always grew for me, as did our little garden. Whatever we planted, grew. I seemed to know what to do, if a plant was not doing well, or something was wrong with the lawn. I started helping neighbors.

By the time I was in high school, I had established myself in my neighborhood. I was the 'go to' person for lawn and garden care. I made money from my neighbors wanting my expertise in dealing with their lawns or gardens.

My third year of high school saw me buying a pickup truck and a trailer to haul the equipment that I was accumulating for my lawn and garden care business. By the end of the growing season that year, I had hired three fellow classmates to do general lawn mowing and trimming with me. I was very busy.

That was the year I learned that the IRS came after kids who made money. Oh, they didn't come for me that way. It's just that I made so much money, that I had to declare it for tax purposes. I had established my business, and it was taking off!

Fairies, as I said, are dumb creatures. They are very small, between the size of a gnat and a sweat bee. They travel in swarms and are easy for me to call. Yes, I discovered I could call them, somehow.

They are also easily killed. People swat at them constantly, killing them without realizing what they are. The reason is that their little bodies disintegrate almost as soon as you kill them, making it impossible to identify what they had looked like in life.

Another thing, fairies love bugs. I called them to gardens to take care of people who had bug problems with their gardens. Bugs, mites, aphids ... it didn't matter, the fairies loved them all. They loved nectar as well, and did the job of bees rather nicely. When I called in a swarm of fairies, they cleared a garden quickly and efficiently of pests leaving it much healthier than when they arrived. That was one of my business secrets, the fairies.

Another, was I was damned good with seeing what was wrong with the land, or plants, and fixing the problem with a solution that worked.

I could also 'see' when something would not work out. Sometimes the land just would not support what you wanted done there, you know? In several cases, the land itself refused to grow anything more than a few straggly weeds. That was because that's all it could, or would, support.

One major life-changing thing happened, one year. It was during the later part of the summer after my junior year of high school. I had always gotten along with animals. Dogs, cats, birds ... You name it, and I seemed to have a knack for them. They liked me, and I liked them. They were natural, of course ... and all things concerning nature were good, right?