The Wispy people and Monsters

[Stacy Marie]

My daughter is three and she has begun to draw interesting pictures of round and “furry” creatures she calls “Monsters”. I stopped myself short of telling her monsters aren’t real.
I had to stop myself. My maternal instinct wanted to assure her all was well in her world and that there was nothing to feel fear from in her own bedroom. The Witch in me demanded I handle it from an approach other than denial. I assured her that nothing that wanted to cause her harm was going to be able to get into her room or the house at all, because it is protected by magic. And monsters or otherwise would have a pretty hard time getting through my magic, but if they did, then they would have to deal with Daddy. And not many things wanted to do that, cause Daddy would beat them up.
This soothed her, but the drawings continue.
I realize this was not the best possible explanation for a few different reasons. One, gods forbid, if a human thief or prowler broke into our house I would have a lot of explaining to do or her faith in Mommy’s magic would be forever broken. Two, offering her Dad to beat up things probably should not have been my first choice…if you have kids you understand the importance of quick response time to such things, sometimes this leads to explanations that bite us in the ass. Most of the time we simply sit and think of a better way to handle such situations later. This is one of the reasons that parenting often becomes easier with successive children. This particular situation has not arisen in my other children, it is, as most things with her, unique to my youngest.
This soothed her, but the drawings continue.
I realized that the word monster is the only point of reference she has for things she may see that she cannot otherwise explain. Of course it is possible that they are indeed pure figments of her imagination. Being a Witch and a Mother puts me in a predicament with such things and makes me takes a stroll down memory lane to my own experience as a child. So lets get in the “way back” machine as I tell you a tale from my own life when I was about the same age as my daughter..

Not so long ago, relatively speaking, there was a little girl who was bright and spirited and a little different then her cousins and the other children she played with on occasion.
She realized she was a bit different, I am guessing before she could even talk.
Her senses were aware of things others were not, or if they were they cared not to mention. Through her infancy she learned the names of many things. Waiting patiently to discover what others called all that existed in her world, she realized eventually others just never referred to some things. Wanting desperately to be praised and to be like everyone else she made no mention of the things left out. To her in her tender youth they became simply “the things never spoken of”.
Now it came to pass that her father obtained and began to read to her tales from a big book she came to know simply as Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Much to her surprise “the things never spoken of” began to be spoken about at bedtime through these stories. Bedtime quickly became the most treasured part of her day, as worlds that were similar to those she traveled next to this one began to be spoken of by her beloved father. When he would read of things that were familiar to her she was always sure to let him know. He often smiled warmly at her and patted her on the head.
One night some time after her story she was awoken by little black wispy people jumping on her and laughing and pulling her hair. She told them to go away, and usually they did, but this particular night they did not. Tired and irritated she wondered up the spiral stairs and into the living room where her parents were watching TV. Wispy people nipping and jumping at her ankles the whole way.
“Daddy, can you make them go away. They wont listen to me and they are keeping me up.” She said.
“Who, darling?” he responded.
“I think they are brownies, isn’t that what the Grimm book said they were?”
One darted behind her father’s chair.
She pointed and said, “right there.”
She climbed up onto the recliner and one of the wispy folk hopped onto her shoulder. She was startled and jumped, brushing it off of her.
“Get it off!” she cried.
Her Mom laughed nervously and announced she must be sleep walking.
Her father walked her back down the steps and into her room.
“Daddy, didn’t you see them? They are little and black and wispy like your cigarette smoke, but not gray, black. Didn’t you hear them laughing?”
Her Dad tucked her into bed and kissed her on the forehead. Honey, I think you are half dreaming. Go back to sleep. And wanting to please him, she did just that, albeit a bit confused.
The next morning her mom told her about her night time experience, but her mothers words were not the same as those she would have used. Her mother insisted that she was sleep walking and became visibly upset when the little girl told her she was awake and remembered the whole thing, just not the way mom was retelling it.
Being a bright little girl and again wanting to please her mother, she finally and quietly gave up. Sleepwalking must be an acceptable way of speaking about “the things never spoken of” to adults, the little girl decided.
This is also when I decided that adults were a bit strange.