By Nancy Meyer
When I was a little girl, my mother filled my head with stories of fairies and elves every night at bedtime.  In the morning I lay in bed thinking about the magical forest world, while I listened to the elves rustling in the leaves under the big Elm tree by my window. On nights when the soft breeze blew through the pines, I could hear the fairies sing.
“They sing when the wind blows,” mother said, “because that’s how fairy dust travels. And, without fairy dust they can’t fly.”
“Tell me the story about little Clara,” I begged.
“Do you want the story about the night she couldn’t fly?”
“Yes, tell it again. Please!”
“It was a windless night and Duncan and Evelyn, the garden elves, heard Clara crying. Nickers the Naughty Cat had pushed her into the well! Duncan and Evelyn fished her out and helped her to dry her wings. The fairy dust was gone and when she tried to fly she fell to the ground with a little thump. Evelyn ran to find Clara’s parents while Duncan stood guard to keep Nickers from having Clara for dinner.”
“I know!” I jumped in eagerly. “Her parents came and flew her up to the top of a tall pine tree and called to the wind for help.”  Then my mother would sing the most beautiful otherworldly melody and the wind blew and little Clara cloud fly again.
Having been raised by a mother who believed in forest spirits and talked with birds that sat on her out-stretched arm, it wasn’t easy to let the fanciful world of my childhood give way to the balancing act of adulthood. However, as time passed, thoughts of fairies and elves slipped into the recesses of my memory and I happily accepted a more scientific view of the world.
That was of course, until I had a child of my own.
It’s not that science isn’t exciting. Photosynthesis, pollination, and plant reproduction are pretty good stories, even for children. But, when you’re in the woods with a five year old and you see a circle of toadstools, do you launch into a lecture on fungi growth patterns or do you whisper, “That’s a fairy ring where the fairies come to dance in the moonlight.”
That was long ago and my little woodland princess grew up like all children do and I went back to enjoying the amazing wonders of nature. Now, I live next to the Elfin Forest on Morro Bay and I have yet to see an elf. I keep my eyes open on my daily walks, just in case one pops up. In the meantime, I listen to quail rustling in the bushes and enjoy the chattering of the birds, wishing I could speak their language.
There is something magical about that little ancient forest though, and the other day an amazing thing happened as I strolled on the boardwalk. I saw a little boy, about six years old, squatting down poking at something on the path.  I stopped to see what held his interest. Definitely coyote scat, I thought. He looked up at me with a twinkle in his eye and asked, “Do you see this?”
“Yes,” I said. “What do you think it is?”
“Elf poop,” he said emphatically. His mother’s worried glance begged me not to crush his spirit and I gave her a reassuring smile.
“I think you’re right. It looks like elf poop to me,” I replied. “Have you heard them scurrying in the bushes?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “All the time.”

Nancy Meyers is a member of SLO NightWriters, the premier writing organization on the Central Coast of California. She writes short stories and flash fiction. Nancy loves being in nature and has taken up wildlife photography as a retirement hobby. Photo credit: Dennis Eamon Young