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It was day - what the heck was going on?
Gary felt the grass under his cheek At first, he thought he had si there so very coain the sprite archer and the dance of the fairies, and his eyes popped open wide It took considerable effort to lift his head and prop hihed heavily in his lied it, and he looked around, and then he became even more confused
He was still in the blueberry patch; all the trees and bushes and paths were in the places he reh - Gary knew that instinctively It took hiure out exactly as different, but once he recognized it clearly, there could be no doubt
The colors were different
The trees were brown and green, the grass and rayish brown, but they were not the browns, greens, and grays of Gary’s world There was a luster to the colors, an inner vibrancy and richness beyond anything Gary had seen He couldn’t even begin to explain it to himself; the vieas too vivid to be real, like some forest rendition by a surrealistic painter, a primordial viewpoint of a world undulled by reality and hureeted Gary when he turned his attention away froe, at the landscape beyond the school that had stolen his favorite valley He saw no houses - he was sure that he had seen houses fro mountains
"Where did those come from?" Gary asked under his breath He was still a bit disoriented, he decided, and he told hie before, never allowed hiht Of course the mountains had always been there, Gary had just never noticed how large and truly spectacular they were
At the snap of a twig, Gary turned to look over his shoulder There stood the sprite, half a foot tall, paying hibow "What are you?" Gary asked, too confused to question his sanity
The diave no indication that it had heard the question at all
"What," Gary started to ask again, but he changed his mind What indeed was this creature, and this dream? For it had to be a dreaent person awaiting the dawn of the twenty-first century would tell hih There were too le-purposed visions cos, could turn in any direction and see the forest clearly And he had never experienced a drea a drea
"Time to find out," he ht hih school His lunge at the sprite was pitifully slow, though; the creature was gone before he ever got near the spot He followed the rustle stubbornly, pouncing on any noise, sweeping areas of dead leaves and low berry bushes with his ar a pinprick in his backside He spun about The sprite was a few feet behind hi its bow and actually laughing at hi the creature out of his glowering stare He leaned forward, histhat would put him beyond the creature, cut off its expected escape route
Then Gary fell back on his elbows, eyes wide in heightened disbelief, as a second creature joined the first, this one taller, at least two feet fronized
Gary was not of Irish decent, but that hardly mattered He had seen this creature pictured a thousand ties The creature wore a beard, light brown, like its curly hair Its overcoat was gray, like its sparkling, reen, with shiny black, curly-toed shoes If the long-steiveaway, the tam-o’-shanter on its head certainly was
"So call it a dream, then," the creature said to him, "and be satisfied with that It do’ not matter" Gary watched, stunned, as this newest sprite, this leprechaun - this frickenleprechaun! - walked over to the archer
"He’s a big one," the leprechaun said "I say, will he fit?"
The archer chirped out so too squeaky for Gary to understand, but the leprechaun seemed appeased
"For yer troubles, then," the leprechaun said, and he handed over a four-leaf clover, the apparent pay Gary
The pixie archer bowed low in appreciation, cast a derisive chuckle Gary’s way, and then was gone, disappearing into the underbrush too quickly and completely for Gary to even visually follow its movements
"Mickey McMickey at yer service," the leprechaun said politely, dipping into a lo and tipping his tam-o’-shanter
Oh reeting, waited patiently
"If you’re really at my service," Gary stuttered, startled even by the sound of his own voice, "then you’ll answer a few questions Like, what the hell is going on?"
"Don’t ye ask," Mickey advised "Ye’d not be satisfied in hearing me answers Not yet But in time ye’ll come to understand it all Kno that ye’re here for a service, and when ye’re done with it, ye can return to yer own place"
"So I’m at your service," Gary reasoned "And not the other way around"
Mickey scratched at his finely trimmed beard "Not in service forhere does doYe’re in service to an elf"
"The little guy?" Gary asked, pointing to the brush where the sprite had disappeared
"Not a pixie," Mickey replied "An elf Tylwyth Teg" He paused, as if those strange words shouldto Gary With no response beyond a confused stare forthco, Mickey went on, soain "The Fair Family Ye’ve not heard o’ the open
"Sad ti in, ye poor lad," Mickey , jerky movement for a creature as small as he, and finished his explanation "These elfs are na, the Fair Family To be sure, they’re the noblest race of the faerie folk, though a bit unbending to the ways of others A great elf, too, this one ye’ll soon be htly ’Twas him that catched me, ye see, and made me catch yerself"
"Whyto this whatever it was at all Would Alan Funt soon leap out at hi to that elusive camera?
"Because ye’ll fit the ar should make perfect sense "The pixies took yer ood yerself as another, that being the only require reflectively into Gary’s eyes
"Green eyes?" the leprechaun ren!"
Gary’s nod showed that he accepted, but certainly did not understand, what Mickey was saying It really wasn’t a big probleh, for all that he could do was go along with these thoroughly unbelievable events and thoroughly unbelievable creatures If he was dreaht be enjoyable And if not well, Gary decided not to think about that possibility just then
What Gary did think about was his knowledge of leprechauns and the legends surrounding the a leprechaun and, dream or not, it sounded like a fun course to take He reached a hand up behind his head, feigning an itch, then dove headlong at Mickey and cauy
"There," Gary declared triuht you and you have to lead old! I know the rules, Mr Mickey McMickey"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," he heard froainst a tree stu Gary’s book,The Hobbit, open before him Gary turned slowly back to his catch and saw that he held Mickey in his oo hands "Sonofabitch," Gary
"If ye know the rules, ye should know the gaainst the tree - said in response to Gary’s blank stare
"How?" Gary stuttered
"Look closer, lad," Mickey said to hiet yer hands all dirty"
Gary studied his catch carefully It reh it didn’t see veryleprechaun and shrugged
"Closer," Mickey ier Gradually the i a large and dirty mushrooround, then noticedThe Hobbit lying at his feet, right where he had left it He looked back to Mickey by the tree trunk, now a ain, and then back to the droppedhi, catching a leprechaun?" Mickey asked him sourly "Well, if it was, do ye think any of us’d have any gold left to give out?" He walked right next to Gary to scoop up the strange book Gary had a thought about grabbing hiain, this time to hold on, but the leprechaun acted first
"Don’t ye be reaching yer hands at me," Mickey ordered "’Twasat the likes o’ Mickey McMickey, ye just don’t knohat ye er than ye’ve been alive, I tell ye! I telled ye once what did ye say yer naain!"
"Gary," Gary answered, straightening up and taking a prudent step away froer"
"Well hts now seemed to be fully on the book’s cover, "Bilbo co by Tolkien himself Mickey nodded his approval, then opened the work His face crinkled immediately and he mumbled a feords under his breath and waved a hand across the open page
"Much the better," he said
"What are you doing todown to take it back Just before he reached it, though, he realized that he was putting his hand into the fanged , and he recoiled i over backwards
"Never knohat ye ain absently, not bothering to look up at the startled er, ye must learn to see more the clearly if we ons if ye can’t look through a si, then" And Mickey started off, reading as he walked
"Dragons?" Garyno response "Dragons?" Gary asked again, this time to himself Really, he told himself, he shouldn’t be so surprised
The fire road, too, was as Gary remembered it, except, of course, for the colors, which continued with their surrealistic vibrancy As they ht that the woods seemed denser On the way in, he had seen houses from this point, the new constructions he always tried not to notice Noanted to see them, wanted to find some sense of noraze could not penetrate the tangle of leaves and branches
When they came to the end of the fire road, Gary realized beyond doubt that ed about the world around hie colors This time there could be no mistake of perception