Image: © Nelly @20
They say fairies can bottle moonbeams and store them away. They bring them out in the spring when mating time rolls around, and as fairies don’t have such a great libido the moon beams are used to rub into all the important bits that will give rise, no pun intended, a little while later, to lots of new fairies.
Some groups worship the moon believing it possesses an energy that can give them great power, so they hold rituals at the full moon and dance naked around large fires believing the moon will come forth and make them supermen/women.
Miss Marble, the resident witch at No 46 Grimace Street, didn’t believe any of that.
“Stuff and nonsense,” she’d say at any such suggestion. The moon she’d say was there for a purpose and her Granny, the legendary witch, Amelia, ‘Pigseye’ Marble has learned how to harness the moon and what it was useful for which according to our Miss Marble was not a great deal.
“It controls the tides,” she’d say, “and that if you think about it is a full-time job what with global warming and all that. Rising sea levels the moon has to deal with and with all that extra water it’s got to go somewhere doesn’t it.”
Miss Marble got all melancholic on nights of the full moon.
One night she came out onto the veranda and sat down with a what looked like a jar of dirt.
“Moon dust,” she said setting it down between us.
“Real moon dust?” I asked incredulously.
“Of course, you think I’d have fake moon dust?” She sounded quite insulted at my question, so I acquiesced and settled back to wait for her inevitable tale.
“Granny passed it on to me, and I’ve kept it sealed up all these years.” She then put her hand on the lid to make sure it was still on tight.
“What’s it do?” I asked in complete wonder.
“Rights wrongs,” she said her gaze now fully on the jar.
“That must be a good thing then.”
“Depends on what wrong it thinks it is righting. It’s not the most judicious of substances moon dust. You have to be careful with it. It can right a wrong that turns out was a right in the first place and vice versa. Things can get hairy with this stuff, and I don’t like to use it as I can’t trust it. Has a mind of its own.”
“Why have you brought it out now?”
“It’s the full moon you see. The dust likes the beams, they do things like settle it down. Sometimes moon dust can get a little jumpy and then it might fall from the shelf, and there’d be chaos from breakfast to supper time. And it’s not something you could vacuum up either. Confining it inside a vacuum cleaner is like igniting a bomb. Never a pretty sight.”
So, the jar sat there and every so often Miss Marble would turn it allowing another side of the container to face the moon.
I did find it fascinating doubly so as I watched the dust swirling inside the jar and every so often Miss Marble would put her hand on it as I swear the sides would bulge from the force inside.
A little later she took the jar away figuring it had had enough moonlight for one night and went off to make us a cup of tea.
Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/tale-weaver-116-the-moon/
Morpethroad 