In a quaint village where the sun set like a painting in the sky, there lived a little girl named Lily. One particularly beautiful evening, Lily found herself feeling very lonely. Her family had gone away on vacation, leaving her with her grandmother. She had played all day, but as twilight began to wrap the village in a soft blanket of stars, her heart felt heavier.
“Why does summer have to be so long?” she sighed, looking at the gleam of the first evening star. It had been shining brightly, almost as if it was listening to her sorrow.
As she walked slowly in the flower-laden garden of her grandmother, she caught sight of a strange glow coming from the old cider mill at the corner of their yard. It was overgrown with weeds and bushes and looked like something out of a fairy tale. Curiosity piqued, she tiptoed closer, and her eyes widened in amazement.
The little mill was shining all over with a deepening iridescence, like the feathers of a peacock. She could see around its walls, and then she saw it. A small door, usually invisible, stood open, and within was a dark, moving mass of some strange fluid that shone with silver light. Daringly, she bent forward. Then the glow folded and curdled itself into a silvery stairway leading down into depths she couldn’t imagine.
“Fancy!” thought Lily. “It might lead to a gold mine or even to the fairyland itself?” At that word “fairy”, the princess put a stop to her long overpurple dreams.
“Won’t Papa and Mama be glad I went and found the fairies for them! They’ll think I’m a heroine,” she thought, clapping her hands with delight.
But she came to her senses, and the truth, like a candle in the dark, lighted up all shadows of her mind. “No, I can’t,” she mournfully said, and slowly retraced her steps homeward.
But an impulse forced her into the mill, and yet another made her sit down on the stairs that seemed to draw her into the depths beyond.
“I will simply stop at the top,” she said, “and then go home to bed.”
She hesitated an instant. Then, putting her hand in her pocket to touch the mysterious talisman that had been given her, she let herself go.
Down and down she went into the dark, shiny depths. Just halfway down the stairs she felt dizzy.
“There is no more staircase!” she screamed. “Oh help! I am going into the dark African forest, as the office-boy told me in the funny book ‘The Life of the Black White King à la Tenti’”, where Daddy found the holes that looked like doors. Nobody knows how to take me out again.”
But just as the thought came to her, she felt the pressure of arms over her shoulders, and suddenly the vision of sofa, easychair, and stuffed green rabbit floated by her in the air.
And there she was, on the grass, face downward, the moon smiling down over her and whispering:
“It’s nothing serious. You only fell asleep while gazing into the mill. To-morrow morning put the large flower-basket instead of the mithridate bottle under your bed, and come to-morrow, Monday afternoon, as soon as the cuckoo has said goodnight on Monday noon. The cuckoo’s farewell always speaks English; so don’t be frightened, even if you should see his Majesty, of or course you will even this time?”
She took the talisman from her pocket, closed the mill door behind her, and started dancing down the path. Yes, to be sure, she would do what she had promised, just as her little heart delighted in it. And, oh joy! She heard somebody else coming along the path right to her. “Papa and Mama!” she shouted, clapping her hands and doing a little jig in the air.
“Oh children, we were so lonely without you!” and she threw her arms about their necks.
“But how did you come back so soon?” her father and mother both asked together.
And when she had told them all, they stopped short and in a deep tone said, “That’s all quite true, Lily, and we are proud of you. Nothing but little golden-hearted girls are to be sent by the fairies on such missions. Fancy chic instead of fried sole for supper. What should we ever have done without you! Where, dear child, did you go to fetch such an assortment of surprises?”
So saying, they signed to the butler and had the large flower-basket brought-up that you will see walking ahead of her. It was full—really full—of all good things imaginable. Where did she get them? That was always the same question, but nobody ever could find the right answer.
Nothing but Lily knew how that happened, and it was in that way Midsummer Eve was always spent in their quiet little house.