The Fireflies and the Sylph

There was a bit of a tempest last weekend.

I’m known for my candor, when I speak about myself. But I am very careful to respect the privacy of the children in the neighborhood, and my own child. That’s why I give the children fanciful names, and I don’t describe their appearance very often. When they tell me their stories, and I write what they say, I change identifying details for safety’s sake. Trust me when I tell you, the Artful Dodgers have suffered a great deal, and their difficulty is far from over. Sometimes they act like little angels. Sometimes they behave the way you’d expect traumatized children to behave.

The Sylph had been banned from the property, after her sassiness went beyond plain old mischief. On Saturday, she poured the cat’s litter box into her freshly washed cat bed, just to punish me for having no time for a visit. On Sunday, she insulted me and called me names, so I sent her home. Later, when I was at Mass– or, rather, when I was sitting outside Mass on the doorstep, shivering, hating myself that the struggles with religious trauma had come back and I couldn’t bear to sit in the pew– she started to hit and curse at Adrienne who was sitting at home on the porch. I got an urgent phone call and sped back, before the Mass was quite ended. I chased the Sylph to the vacant lot, screaming with all my pent up anger at Jesus and Mary, Michael Scanlan, the Charismatic Renewal and the Catholic Church, as well as my anger at her. I told her she was never allowed back in the garden if she was going to act like a little demon child.

First, The Sylph looked defiant. Then, she ran away.

Finally, she stole some silk flowers from Jimmy the mechanic‘s porch and threw them on mine, in the hope that Jimmy would think I was the thief.

I was so upset that I could barely sleep– and when I did, I dreamed of nuclear war. It all felt so real that I was surprised to wake up in a world where nothing was falling from the sky but rain. All that I could feel was that I was going to hell– not because I’d screamed at The Sylph and drove her out of the garden. My outburst with The Sylph was the proof that I was damned. But I was damned because God didn’t love me.

The rain continued, buckets and buckets of it, punctuated by steamy gusts of wind. The wind blew so hard that it whipped the zucchini bushes sideways. The pea vines sagged sideways on their frames. The garden sprung up and the weeds sprung with it, with crabgrass and ground ivy over every inch of the garden patch. And no children came to the house.

Eventually, days later, the younger sister of the Sylph, the five-year-old girl I call The Mandrake, came to the door to ask for a popsicle during one break in the rain. She was sticky, smelly, dressed in the same clothing she’d been wearing for days. The Dodgers always look and smell like that. I handed her the popsicle and shooed her off. Adrien found her still on the porch later.

“Why are you here?””

“Because I like to play.”

There is really no safe place for children to play at the Dodgers’ house. I let her play in the yard for a few minutes, until the rain came back. Later, as the clouds cleared and the sun was setting, the boy I call the Artful Dodger appeared with Jimmy’s boy.  They were catching fireflies, running back and forth through all the yards on this block, leaping up in the air and clapping their hands as if they were dancing and not hunting.

I scolded them when they managed to slap a firefly to death. “Don’t hurt them! They’re a threatened species!”

“When you squish them and the white stuff comes out? That’s what highlighters are made of!” teased the Artful Dodger.

We laughed. The boys went back to their hunt, clapping their hands more gently this time, to catch the bugs alive and then let them go. Charlie the cat crept out from her hiding place under the porch– she, too, tried to leap on the fireflies. The children and the animal baltered and danced in the slick wet grass, sparks flying everywhere, the moon peeking out from behind the clouds at last.

When it got quite dark, I saw the Sylph, standing on the edge of the lawn.

She did not break the rules. She stayed beyond the boundary, calling to her brother, and did not address me.

The next day, the rain was nearly gone. It sprinkled a few drops here and there, but for most of the day, we could play outdoors. Jimmy’s Boy and the Artful Dodger came by for snacks, which they got. The Mandrake came back for another popsicle. I gave it to her, along with a jar of bubble soap. We blew bubbles on the back porch and watched them fly over the garden in the last of the gusty winds.

“They’re going up to Heaven!” I said, wishing that I was.

“That’s where Jesus is!” said The Mandrake.

Just before dusk, the boys came back again. I showed them the garden, and how the sunflowers were getting their buds. I said they were welcome to grab a handful of peas or the last of the strawberries without asking me, as long as they left the other food alone. I was going to bring tomatoes and squash to the homeless downtown when they were ripe, and then make pasta sauce for everyone.

They helped me pull weeds. When I said that some of these weeds were actually kale plants from where last year’s kale had seeded itself, growing unwanted brassicas everywhere I’d spread compost, they were fascinated. The Artful Dodger took a bite of it, and then another, and then ate a whole bunch.

I said he could help himself to kale and lettuce– but better not eat just any weeds, because some weeds are poisonous. I pointed out weeds as  I pulled them. Violets are edible, but they’re not very tasty to me. Grass is harmless but you can’t digest it. Mint is edible. Sourgrass, also known as yellow sorrel, is delicious and tastes like green apples. If you see a plant that reminds you of Queen Anne’s Lace but has a smooth stem with purple blotches, you mustn’t eat or touch it, because it will kill you.

There was the Sylph again, standing on the edge of the lawn. She was bedraggled as ever, in the same clothes she’d worn yesterday, her hair matted, reeking like old sweat, unloved. For awhile, she played with her brother and Adrienne– minding my rules, and not speaking to me. She cut through the yard of The Haunted House, chasing them, while they evaded her and ran to the other side of the garden. Then she cut around to the alley, but they’d already gone around front. She darted through the abandoned yard again to the front yard. She did not trespass in the garden.

After awhile, I called out directions to help her. She squealed and laughed as she joined in the game.

I conferred with Adrienne, and then offered peace terms.

“You have to mind your manners like a good guest and never tease or hurt people. You have to clean up after yourself. You may never steal anything except a handful of peas or a bit of kale again. You can only be out here when I’m here with you. And no going inside my house for awhile. And you have to apologize. If you do that, you’ll be welcome to play in the garden again. Can you do that?”

Yes, she could.

I welcomed her onto my yard.

I showed her where the kale and sourgrass were growing. She gobbled handful after handful while I showed her the edible and poisonous plants I’d showed her brother. “This pokeweed is poisonous, but it makes a good ink. Those pioneers in the cartoon about horses you showed me, they kept their diaries with pokeberry ink. I’ll boil a big pot of it to show you when the berries are ripe.”

All played on the grass, as the fireflies came out.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, said everything.

No, the fear didn’t suddenly leave me. I’m still anxious and traumatized and always will be. I suppose that I’ll feel as if I’m going to hell until Jesus appears to pronounce my sentence Himself.

But it’s Easier to believe in mercy just now.

Night fell, and life was good.