The Boy and The Brownie

The Stone Wall

A boy named Colin was born not too very long ago. A weak and sickly child whose mother passed hours after meeting him. To keep him as healthy as he could, Colin's father kept him home and they lived on the edge of a suburb and an ever increasingly small forest.

Colin, now six and a half years old, watched the forest from his back window. He flapped his stuffed dragons wings and made whooshing sounds as his mighty beast flew up over the treeline and dove down to crawl into his pillow cave and hoard his yellow legos!

"Colin!" His father called from the kitchen, struggling to get his arm in the other sleeve of his suit jacket.

"Yes papa?"

"I have Mrs..-" his father frowned and followed the sound of his sons voice. "-ah, there you are. I have Mrs. Barry coming to watch you in.. in..." he pulled his jacket sleeve up to look at his watch and turned pale.
"Well hopefully now." He chuckled to himself. "Be sure to-" the doorbell rang. "Thank god!"

The front door squeaked open and Mrs. Barry's slow, happy voice greeted him with a smile in her voice.

"Ah! Colin!"
The boy ran to his father and got a kiss on the cheek.
"Behave yourself. Thank you Mrs. Barry!"

He rushed out of the house but quickly returned digging around in the pocket of another coat, muttering 'keys' before finally leaving and leaving his son with the sweet little old lady who had taken her knitting with her.

"Hello Colin." She smiled and pat his back. "Its alright sweetie. Daddy will be home soon, I'm sure. Are you hungry?"

"Yes please Mrs. Barry." Colin turned with her and went back to the living room.

Her bag was large and full of yarn with the tips of her knitting needles protected by what looked like home made rubber buffers.

She was a stout woman with grey curled hair cut short and walked with a cane that always made a tiny click sound when she put it down on the floor. Her skin was the color of warm red earth and her sweet eyes a lovely amber.

Colin liked to imagine what Mrs. Barry would have looked like when she was younger but it was difficult.

To him, she had always been the sweet old lady from down the road who baked pies and had a hearty laugh. Her wrinkles only prominent in the places that moved when she smiled. Her skin was usually cool to the touch but her heart was warmer than her just-out-of-the-oven home made cookies.

"Oh, I love this movie." She chirped happily when Colin put in a Disney movie. It was an old one with an evil witch who turned into a dragon! She hated everything, even the sunlight!

He giggled at the thought and took a bite of his sandwich. Mrs. Barry rocked slowly with her heel and continued with her yellow and orange project. It looked like it could be a blanket but she corrected dear Colin that it was a shoulder wrap for her daughter.

Come the end of the movie, when Arthur became king, Colin woke Sir Dragon from his slumber and asked Mrs. Barry of they could play outside.

"Fresh air should do both of us good, I reckon!" She laughed and brought her knitting outside, letting Colin run around the back yard. His dragon flew until he became dizzy and laid on the ground, watching the clouds together when something caught his eye.

Colin knelt on the ground and crawled as close as he dared. "Mrs. Barry?" He called and pointed at what looked like a wall made of stone. "What's that?"
Her eyes followed his finger and she smiled. "It's an ancient elf castle ruin." She said, going back to her knitting.

Colin's eyes widened and his mouth fell agape. "Really?!"

"Mmmhm." Mrs. Barry smiled. "They used to live here when I was a little girl. Catching fireflies one night I saw an elf! She was tall and beautiful and she walked right out as if it weren't a ruin at
all!"

Colin and dragon made their way over to Mrs. Barry's side. "I thought elf's were small. Like Santa's elf's!"

"Ohhh no no. They're tall and slender and very beautiful." She smiled and shut her eyes, as if lost in thought.

"Can I go and look at it? Please!"
"As long as you stay in sight." She said seriously. "If I can't see you, I'll call for you and you have to stay in the yard."
Colin nodded and gleefully ran to look at the stone elf ruins.

The moss covered cobble stone blended in perfectly with the surrounding wood. Fallen leaves from years past layered the ground. Dragon sat on the wall and surveyed his new territory.

A snap of a twig above and Colin grabbed a stick from the ground. Sword in hand and Dragon at his side, Colin stalked closer to the source and jumped out of hiding.

"HYA!" He called, stabbing the million foot wall of thorns! With the help of his mighty Dragon, Sir Colin defeated the evil bush of thorns.

Between the, now open, tree doorway Colin paused and noticed a building. He dared peak a look at Mrs. Barry who was focused on her knitting before taking the magical step through the doorway, walking over to the structure.

"What do you think is in there?" Colin spoke for Dragon and replied as himself in a whisper.
"I don't know."

Colin walked around it and found an open window. He knelt down and squinted to see inside and saw something move from within!
He jumped back with his chest heaving.

"It was probably just a squirrel." Dragon assured him, looking him in the face with one half chewed off plastic eyeball. Colin nodded and gulped past the grape sized fear in his throat, crawling back to look inside the abandoned house.

"Hello?" He called, looking around.

"Hello." Came a voice within and sent a shiver of fear to crawl through Colin's whole body.

"Who are you?"

The voice seemed to get closer. "My name has been forgotten. I live 'ere. Who are you?"

Colin searched the darkness within to find who was talking but no one was visible.
"C-Colin." He said.

A tiny old man's face appeared in the window. He had a bushy whiskered mustache and beard the color of snow. His wrinkles resembled Mrs. Barry's and his deep green eyes were clouded yet sparkled in some places.

"It is good to meet you, Colin. You may call me Riley."
He stuck out a tiny brown hand and Colin noted that it was smaller than his own as he shook Riley's hand.

"Why do you live here?" Colin asked.

"I came 'ere a long time ago and have lived 'ere ever since. I daren't leave. My first home is far from 'ere and this is where my family lived."

"Where are the rest of your family?"

A deep sadness over-took Rileys face and he turned his eyes to his feet, only one covered with a sock much too big for his foot.

"They are no longer 'ere. I take care of the house in their memory."

"Colin!" Mrs. Barry called.

"Yes?" He turned from Riley only a moment and the old man had vanished back into the house. "Hey! Wait!"

"Colin! Where are you?" She called and Colin was forced to grab dragon and jump back through the tree doorway and ran back to her.

"Mrs. Barry! You'll never believe what I found!"
The poor woman looked worried and picked the leaves and twigs from his hair with a 'tsk tsk' coming from her. "I told you to stay where I can see you. Let's go back inside. Now... what did you find?"

Colin recounted his encounter with the thorn bush and the trees and house and lastly Riley. "He was so small Mrs. Barry. Smaller than me!"

"Hm. That's very interesting." Mrs. Barry rocked back in the chair. "Maybe he was a fairy."

"A fairy?"

"Oh yes. They're quite small though sometimes they grow to be about your size. They usually prefer to stay tiny and fly around everywhere."

"I thought fairies were small little women like Tinkerbell."

Mrs. Barry laughed and nodded. "Some of them are!" She brought her index finger to her lips. "How about when your daddy has the time, we ask him to walk you to my house. I think I have the perfect storybook for you!"

Colin smiled and nodded excitedly. "Oh! Yes please! Thank you Mrs. Barry!"