Ex Penna

Tonight I went into my workroom and sat down at my desk to prepare for some spells I needed to cast.  And, yet again, an essential piece was missing.  This time, it was the spell itself I couldn't find--the protection talisman I was talking about last time.  I set to finding it right away.  I knew it didn't come from any book I own, so it had to be in one of my big binders of filed information.  I pulled them down and looked; it wasn't under Spells, nor Amulets and Talismans, nor Sachets and Conjure.  None of the other categories fit, so I put the binders up and checked my BoS.  Being the pseudo-librarian I am, this, too, is heavily indexed.  But nothing!  I thought that maybe it was a newer addition to the book and had escaped my labeling, but no.  With a frown, I slapped my BoS back on the shelf.  *Humph!*  I was starting to get mad.  It wasn't in the "To Be Filed" folder I keep by my desk.  It wasn't in any of the notebooks I have stacked on shelves or slid in drawers.

Alright, hand it over, lady!

This is, sadly, nothing new.  I often discover that there are missing ingredients, missing jars and bottles, missing papers, tools, ink...you name it.  While making a batch of Vesta's Marriage Repair candles for the shop, I noticed my Reconciliation oil running a little low.  So I got into my books to assemble the ingredients for making a fresh bottle.  I went through all the books I own that contain formulas, all the binders, notebooks, and files I have that might contain the recipe.  I even went online to see if anything I found there looked familiar.  And I still came up empty-handed.  Anybody out there know how to make Reconciliation oil?

On the same day I wrote about cleansing the house I had done a ridiculous dash through the house searching for my censer, my head waggling left and right trying desperately to spot it in some out-of-the-way place.  When I finally gave up, I found it--sitting on a canister of wishbones on my workroom desk.  Was it there all the time?  Was this someone's joke?  How could this happen?  How could it continue to happen?   

With how crazy it makes me (and how hilarious it must look when I go crazy), I can easily imagine that this is the work of little peoples unseen.  But there's more to it than that to make me blame the fairies.  Firstly, I don't go in for the tinkly-music and bubbles version of fairies.  But neither do I see them as buxom coquettes with corsets and butterfly wings.  My views are a little more complex, yet also a little less defined.

I guess you could say that, from experience, I think the fairies are tricky, sneaky, and irritating--but all without malice.  Like a 3 year-old.  And like a 3 year-old, they can make anything disappear into nothingness by simply turning your back on them for 60 seconds.  If that thing is shiny, they will snatch it.  If it's movable, they might break it.  If it's something you want, they will indubitably want it more and prove it.  With a 3 year-old, you need to either safeguard all your precious things by putting them up before little fingers enter the room, or hope that you can shift their interest to a safer object once they've got something expensive in their grasp.  (Note: this isn't some disgruntled babysitter or friend-of-a-new-mommy talking--I've lived through 2 little ones and had numerous magical items get dumped, crushed, and drooled on in their time)  But with fairies it may not be so simple.  They can get into anything and move your stuff wherever they choose.  If you need it now, then it's all the more fun.

I first had this trouble about 10 years ago when I incautiously invited the fairies living in my yard/garden into our home for the winter.  "Poor things!"  I thought.  "They'll be so cold out there!"  Who I should have been pitying was me, since it was from that time on that all manner of items routinely came up missing.  They would--maybe--be found a few days later in some odd place for which no obvious reason could be found.  The tradition continues to this day with the kids' toys, school papers, my husband's projects, and my magical wares.  I had been tempted to blame it all on that one incident so many years ago, but I'm more inclined now to see it as another example of the attention that magic-making here brings from other places.

Part of the purpose of casting a circle is to keep back all the disruptive influences that are gathered by the act of casting a spell.  But most witches (myself included, of course) cast smaller spells all the time without benefit of a circle.  Some form of magic is to be found in this house at least 3-4 times a day.  That's a lot of circles!  And even if I did protect myself each time, I would have to cast it around the house to keep these pesky little critters away from my belongings.  Our house isn't very big and yet that's not very likely to happen. 

So here's my plan to regain my missing objects and set some limits for the future:

• Presents!  Everybody, from cranky relatives to immortal Gods, loves to get things. Offerings are a simple way to open up communication between two parties, no matter who they may be.  
• Tricks of my own.  I read about a little girl who came up with an ingenious way of dealing with her fairy troubles.  She and her father place a strawberry on the table and then put a glass over it, like a tiny force-field.  Then they announce to the fairies that they can have the strawberry when the missing item is returned.  I can just imagine them wringing their pointy hands and biting their little lips.  Grrr!
• Lure them back outside.  I think it must be the lateness of the year that draws them to our home's never-dull interior.  Outdoor activities and decorations soon-coming for Halloween may catch their eye better.
• If all else fails, it's back to the old standard of salt, iron, and St. John's Wort.  If they won't hand it back nice, I'll get nasty!  It's not as though I've got no weaponry!

So here's hoping that tomorrow morning I receive a pile of goodies heaped at the end of my bed as though Santa had been here, not the least of which are my missing talisman instructions and Reconciliation oil formula.