an unshakeable belief in fairies
kala frances wahl

My mother and I believe in fairies; it’s almost unshakeable. As a child, she taught me not only of their existence, but also that they’re responsible for any missing items in a household, like socks or keys. Maybe even the knockoff designer sunglasses my mom purchased from a street vendor in Las Vegas. They were her favorite pair: big, round, and hot pink.

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“The fairies can be little shits,” my mother will say, “every last one of them.”

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They do, however, always return these items whenever they see fit. Sometimes, that might include not returning them at all—it’s completely up to their discretion, the lore of which my mom has never explained. Growing up, I grew frustrated at all the items that would seemingly go poof! Into thin air. Barbie dolls and mechanical pencils. I once made it my mission to find the fairies in their hideout, rumored to be somewhere in the forest behind our house. The source of the rumor was, of course, my mother. I never found their village, but that didn’t stop me from believing. My mother’s words were sacred, holy, like the parables of the Bible. They still are.

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Now, at twenty-seven years old, I make it a habit to call her over the phone often, usually from the lukewarm water of my bathtub as I rinse away whatever troubles the day brought. We talk for about an hour. 400-something miles away from each other, she dispenses advice as if I’m a young girl cradled to her chest again. I am in constant need of it, her advice. 

 

During tonight’s conversation, my mom discusses my ex-boyfriend, cults, and past lives—none of which are related to each other. I listen intently. She just had an appointment with her spiritual counselor, Heather, who is a self-proclaimed expert on all things reincarnation. My mom tells me that maybe her and I were in a past life together at some point.

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I believe in reincarnation. My mother claims she was tried and hung during the Salem Witch Trials, in a previous life, of course. The noticeable blemish on her neck isn’t a scratch from overgrown fingernails or a childhood wound. She says it’s a marking from the noose in which she hung from in Massachusetts. My mom covers this scar with decorative scarves now to hide the painful memories. Heather uncovers this information for some fee my mom won’t disclose to me. She’s also discovered my mother was a “troublesome” Dutch boy in yet another life.

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“Reincarnation,” my mom imitates Heather, “is the gateway to understanding your current life.”

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No new lives were uncovered during this visit, my mom says, but she did pick up a couple of new healing crystals from Heather’s gift shop. She wants to send them to me in a care package along with some Hostess cakes and a bottle of lavender-scented oil. I have lots of crystals from my mother. I place them strategically on the windowsill of my bedroom because she tells me they need to charge in the moonlight. That’s the only way they can be effective. She sends me these crystals to help alleviate the symptoms of my bipolar disorder, like a sort of at-home remedy to use in combination with my medicine. But my mom doesn’t like to say “bipolar disorder.” In her universe, that label doesn’t exist. I am, instead, a young witch whose turbulent emotions are powers of enchantment I have yet to master. The crystals are to help ground me. It’s a fun belief, easier to stomach than the clinical definition of bipolar disorder, which my mom finds to be a confining term.

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“It’s limited,” she says, “and I believe you are someone who is limitless.”

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My mom tells me that people with mental illness in other countries are usually spiritual advisors of some sort. I ask if Heather is mentally ill then, but my mom says she doesn’t know. She can tell me, however, that those with mental illness are more sensitive to the world around them, which makes them mystical and all-knowing. Therefore, I am mystical and all-knowing. I digress into a sea of multicolored healing crystals, essential oils, and a cocktail of anti-psychotics. These things have become my holy trinity.

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I believe in my mother’s remedies. She offers them to me not as a cure for my disorder but as a kind of therapy, something to add extra relief. It’s not in her nature to discredit the magic of good medication. Her healing crystals come in all shapes and sizes, and also with little cards attached offering insight into their many powers. Some provide harmony and wealth, while others offer grounding and a closer connection to whichever god you believe in. My crystals, however, are said to calm me. Sometimes, I wear her crystals around my neck as pendants, dangling from strips of brown suede my mother crafted as chains. She says the crystals are more effective when closer to my heart, and I believe her. So, I try to keep them there, but sometimes they get confiscated.

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I’ve been admitted to the hospital twice for suicidal ideations. Both times I brought rose quartz with me, and both times the nurses put the crystal in a plastic baggie to be locked away in some desk, out of my apparently psychotic reach. The hospital band around my wrist meant I was a danger to myself and others, a liability.

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“You could choke on this,” one nurse said, examining the rose quartz between her thumb and index finger, “or use the chain to hang yourself.”

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She proceeded to have me strip down inside of a hospital room shower, checking my asshole for knives and other weapons. There’s no nice way to put it. I made sure to spread my cheeks wide.

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“See?” I said. “Nothing there.”

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She then pointed to my chest, “Lift those up, too.”

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There were no shivs beneath my tits either, just lint from my unwashed sweater.

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I tell my mother this over the phone, and we laugh. It’s good to have a sense of humor about these things. I told her I was given my rose quartz back upon my release. It’s the stone for love, all forms of it. Despite not being physically close to my heart during my hospital stay, I found it to still be effective. I had developed a newfound love for myself and life. I could attribute this to my completion of the program and new medication, but that’s too limited. I’d rather blame it on my witchcraft.

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My mother has another idea about my recovery. She attributes my quick recovery to the fairies. She tells me they took my mind for a little bit. For basic repairs, she says. Now, my brain was going to be new and improved. I like to think about it that way. The fairies make things seem less daunting. I enjoy placing the responsibility for my well-being into their tiny hands. I suppose they’re not always so mischievous.

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Our phone conversation trails off onto other subjects. My mom and I continue to talk without pausing. I am badly pruned from the bathwater. This is how it always goes. Everything is as it usually is, and I prepare to tell her I need to go to bed for the night. She cuts me off, however. My mom tells me there’s been something else on her mind.

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I’ve always claimed to know her mind so well. I know everything about her and everything she feels; we’re very close in that way. Even now, as I stare into the bathwater at my belly button, I swear I can see an umbilical cord that has never been cut. Our emotions flow through the fleshy tube to each other in a soft stream, so that’s how I know something is wrong right now. It’s not just in her tone, shaky and uncertain; it’s in my stomach. I have a pit. After a long pause, my mom tells me she’s been feeling depressed.

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After another long pause, she says she’s been thinking of committing suicide.

 

My mom tells me she hasn’t showered in weeks. She burned all of her books on reincarnation and spiritual healing. In a fit one afternoon, she even burned her paperback guide to parenting a child with bipolar disorder. I didn’t know she had a book like that; I thought she didn’t believe in the word “bipolar.” She can’t get out of bed and dreads waking up each morning. I can’t understand why she’s telling me all of this. I’m supposed to be the one seeking answers from my mother. It’s not the other way around.

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The cord is attached to my stomach, and I want to cut it off.

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As she continues speaking, I retreat further into my own thoughts. My mother is depressed, and I didn’t know that. Probably because I never bothered to ask, so wrapped up in my own mental illness. It never dawned on me that sometimes mothers need help, too. The intense blame I put on myself is too much, so I turn it toward her.

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I wonder where all of her own crystals and oils are. I wonder if the fairies took those, too. Because my mom feels sad, and she says she doesn’t know what to do. I feel angry at her for being this way and for telling me these things when, at times, I’m as stable as a teeter-totter myself. I wonder why she doesn’t utilize her own remedies. I don’t know how to be strong for her. My mom has always been my rock, and now that I’m supposed to be hers, I feel lost.

My mom sighs. I ask her if she’s seen a doctor.

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“No,” she says. “I’ve been hoping it’ll just go away.”

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Surely she knows it won’t, though, I ask myself. Mine never has. I don’t know what to say to my mother, so I remain silent. I let her talk. It sounds like she needs to talk. I try very hard to listen, but I can’t help but continue to think about other things, like my mother’s dreamboard. It’s a corkboard filled with tacked-on pictures of everything she wants from life. My high school picture is up there, along with photos of log cabins and elaborate backyard gardens. I don’t know why I’m up on her dream board, though, because I thought she already had me. Perhaps she fears losing me; maybe she should put a picture of herself up there.

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“I’m sorry,” my mom says. “I don’t want to worry you. I don’t know why I said anything.”

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“It’s okay,” I mumble; that’s all I can think to do.

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I wish I knew the right thing to say. I wish I had an answer to her problems, but I don’t. I would be sure to arrange my crystals that night, just for her, on my windowsill. Onyx is for strength. Smoky quartz is for overcoming negative emotions, and rose quartz is, of course, for love. I may not know what to say to her, but this I know I can do. I don’t believe in God or anything, so I’ll instead tell the crystals to keep my mom safe. I’ll even slather the lavender-scented oil onto my chest. Heal her, I’ll plead with the plastic bottle. And then heal me.

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The fairies have taken her mind somewhere, and they have yet to give it back. I hope it’s for maintenance, as they had with mine, but I can’t be too sure. My anxiety is overwhelming. I wonder where the fairies have stashed her brain, perhaps in some dark, moist place within the wooded area behind my mother’s house. Maybe it’s preserved behind a plexiglass trophy case in the fairies’ tree stump homes for all the other fairies to laugh at the fragile human mind. Fairies can be little shits, you know. But my mom would say they’re doing something positive with it. Why I can’t think to reassure her of this, I don’t know. I know she needs to hear these things, but I can’t open my mouth and say them. It makes me think I’m worthless. Maybe the fairies never even returned my own mind; maybe it’s still missing. I bite my fingernails. The fragments drop down into the water, and I feel dirty looking at them.

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“It’ll be okay,” my mom tells me.

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I believe her without question, as I always have. I find myself needing even more reassurance, though, so I dig into my arsenal of beliefs. It’s what comforts me.

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I believe aliens helped build the pyramids. I was twelve years old when the historians on my television screen suggested there was no way the ancient Egyptians could have built the pyramids without some kind of assistance—assistance that had to have been, quite literally, “out of this world.” After watching, I confronted my mother. I asked her if she believed this was true. She nodded her head, so I decided I believed it, too.

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“Life is not black and white,” she says. “There’s mystery in there somewhere.”

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I believe in meditation. When I visit her, she makes me lie on my back, close my eyes, and meditate on a CD of peaceful music and Gregorian chanting for about an hour. She will lie beside me on the carpet and remind me to breathe. She says I’m such a horrible breather, constantly forgetting to exhale. My mom believes meditation is like a massage. It loosens your muscles and clears your mind, she says. 

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I believe in Yetis and astrology because my mother does. I believe online personality quizzes can be accurate. I believe in knocking on wood - one, two, three times for good luck. I believe in these things because they’re mysterious, and my mom always reiterates that mystery is an important part of life. Some things can never be explained.

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I end the call with my mom, wishing her a good night. I still can’t bring myself to get out of the bathtub. I want to stay in here for a few more—minutes, hours, or maybe even days. I’ll sit in my dirty water and contemplate the great mysteries of the world: aliens, crystals, and even fairies. I’ll think about my mom’s depression, too. I’ll figure out their explanations and all will be well. The holes my mom could never fill will be whole, and through my witchcraft, I will cure her. I don’t want the mysteries anymore; I want answers.

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If I reach far enough upward, toward the sink of my bathroom, I can maybe grab the lavender oil sitting next to my toothbrush. I could splash it onto my wrists, rub it into my arms and legs like lotion, and pour the rest into the bathwater. I want to reek of lavender. I could rub it into the umbilical cord, which floats idly to the surface of the water. Heal me, and then heal her. 

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If I were still a child, I’d go looking for my mother’s brain in the forest. I’d take with me a flashlight so I could catch the fairies at night in their hideaway, and maybe some fruit gummies in case I get hungry from my journey. But I’m not a child, and I’ve never seen a fairy. I just have to rely on mine and my mother’s belief. Unshakeable, I tell myself. It’s supposed to be unshakeable, but now I’m not so sure.

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