I had quite a start earlier this evening when I was walking Dixie. We went past a sewer grate, the kind that abuts a curb, and Dixie became fascinated with it. I strolled closer to see what she was cocking her head over. As I looked down I noticed a few leaves moving around on it. "Funny," I thought idly, "there's no wind tonight."
Then slowly a small, black, leathery hand reach up through the grate and grasped it tightly. A second one appeared and searched for a good grip. My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe it. A little person was coming up out of the grate. "Elves!" I thought for a split-second. "Oh, it is true, they do exist!" My heart soared. I held Dixie on a tight leash as she whined a little. "Elves?" my rational self said scornfully. "ELVES?"
At that moment, a narrow snout on an inquisitive little face wearing a black mask poked halfway out of the sewer. "A raccoon!" I said, starting to laugh. "Imagine that, Dixie, raccoons in the sewer." Dixie promptly lunged for it, and it disappeared. We continued our walk, and I marveled at the persistence of a childhood passion. I adored fairy tales, and folk tales, and any halfway decent fantasy with talking animals and the Fair Folk in it. I wholeheartedly believed in elves and fairies until I was fourteen. I was in love with the idea of the mysterious Other. It was very hard to stop believing.
Apparently, it's not entirely out of my system.
All the more serendipitous, then, that I have ordered a book I haven't read since junior high, but am still able to quote large passages from, entitled King Oberon's Forest. I don't usually try to relive my childhood, and I am slightly appalled at how many people my age are trying to buy back the icons of their youth on eBay, but this was a very special book. I want to see if it is still as good as I remembered it. I don't see how it could be, but it fueled many a long, complicated play session with my stuffed animals, and lots of daydreams. I'm sure it had a strong influence on my writing. I look at some of my work, and I hear overtones of the Blue Fairy Book, and Tolkien, and Hilda van Stockum who wrote King Oberon's Forest. It will be interesting to reread it after all these years.
And I defy anyone who's never seen raccoon paws to look at some coming up through a dark hole in the ground, and not have a momentary throwback to childhood's belief in the Little People.
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