There was an indefinable scent in the air. Robert was not sure whether his own excited imagination was working upon his senses, bringing only a memory to his nose of his mother’s garden and summer and careless days of childhood, or if, somewhere behind these drowsy homes, hidden gardens sent forth their faery perfumes. If fairies die when we cease to believe in them, he thought, is their death as sure as ours or, being more part of nature than we, is their death merely a winter, a season, from which they might spring again? Robert was in the mood where he half expected some sort of fantasy to come true. Mightn’t a dragon fly overhead with a princess in its claws, or a black knight suddenly block his way? It seemed the waste of a perfectly splendid morning for the fairies to be hiding away in back-gardens.
With a sigh, he strolled down the lane, remembering moods and emotions he could no longer feel, and wishing for what he knew not. Perhaps he was hoping his mother would call him to dinner, and he would go racing home, but his mother and father were long dead now.
Tale Told 