I'm sorry Roe Skidmore, but I will never divulge that secret.

My sister, Lisa Phillips-Owen's painting, The Hidden Village (as seen in an earlier post) inspired me to write a short fictional story about my childhood encounters with the Village of the People. Please let me what you think in your comments.

The Hidden Village
By Mark William Phillips

I had just turned six, late in the Indian Summer of '66. My parents and I were on holiday in the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior when dad overheard some tourists on the mainland speak of a "fairie" village hidden deep in the woods of Madeline Island. Origin stories varied, but most centered around a grieving father chiseling the stone village decades ago in memoriam of his drown children lost at the bottom of the great lake.

The islanders were sworn to secrecy and wouldn’t reveal the location. So dad bribed an old ferryman at the docks into drawing up a map in honor of my birthday. The ferryman smelled of gasoline and fish. He stared at me, but wouldn't meet my eyes.

Due to my stubby, six year old legs, it took the better part of the afternoon to hike to the spot, but the village enchanted me on sight and put an end to any whining. Upon arrival, I spent an hour playing among the buildings.

In my mind, I was a giant and villagers ran screaming as I stomped through town. Dad made me swear to be careful and not hurt any of the buildings, but I still fantasized about knocking over steeples and kicking down walls.

In short order, hunger overtook us and we discovered a path to a birch glade nearby. My parents laid out a picnic blanket. I gulped down my food, eager to return to terrorizing the village. They let me head back alone, while they cleaned up, as long I promised to stay the path and not go beyond the village.

"Leave everything as you found it," dad reminded me, "so the next family can enjoy it as we did."

"Besides," Mom said with a sly smile, "you wouldn't want to anger any fairies."

Walking back, I smelled the roses before I heard her question.

“Do you like them?” The little girl asked.

She sat towering over the village town square. In her hands she clutched a bouquet of wild white roses. The flowers matched her dress and complimented the paleness of her skin. The gentle breeze carried their fragrance thick through the air.

Discovering her alone there, with no parents or adults, shocked me. I found myself just staring at her. I could hear dad talking to mom just beyond the tree line and thought about calling out to them, telling them about the girl and her white roses. The little girl scrunched her nose sizing me up then looked in the direction of the sounds of my parents. She looked back and smiled.

“The flowers,” she clarified. “Do you like my flowers?”

Suddenly, I felt incredibly shy and awkward. I couldn’t speak. She just giggled at this and buried her face in the blossoms. Her lilting laughter reminded me of wind chimes and my shyness lifted like fog off the bay. A warm breeze filled the boughs of the trees around us and I found my voice.

“Y-you’re pretty,” I blurted. “I mean... I mean they’re pretty.”

“Thank you.” She spoke through her laughter. “They love them.”

I felt a surreal wave of déjà vu and remembered dreaming this very conversation, maybe dreaming it more than once. The scent of the roses grew along with a increasing sense of lightheadedness. I started laughing with her, until suddenly I wondered just who she meant when she said, “they.”

I gulped back my giddiness and glanced nervously around again for her parents or siblings, but I saw no one else. In the distance I heard mom laugh and reconsidered alerting my parents. Then the sweet fragrance of the roses drew me back to her. She was beautiful. I smiled.

“Who? Who loves them?” I asked.

“The people, silly,” she replied.

“W-what people?”

“The villagers, of course,” she answered.

I looked around at the empty stone buildings. She was playing make believe. I loved playing make believe. I, too, had seen the people in my mind when I was playing the rampaging monster earlier. I raised my arms tight to my chest, in the fashion of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and lurched towards her.

“They love my monster, too!”

I roared and stomped. She jumped to her feet. Her face tightened into a scowl.

“No, they most certainly do not love your monster.” She scolded. “You stop that right now!”

Her words made me freeze with my right foot poised in the air. Movement beneath it caught my attention. Something small ran into one of the buildings, gone before I could get a look at it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another thing dart through one of the doors. When I turned, something else ducked out of sight down one of the alleys. Slowly, I lowered my foot.

“Wait.” She commanded.

I stopped and looked beneath my foot. A tiny man cowered on the ground, no bigger than one of my green plastic toy soldiers at home, but dressed like someone from another country in one those old Saturday afternoon monster movies on TV. I carefully set my foot down away from him. He got up, dusted himself off and shook his fist at me as he ran away. I couldn’t help but laugh.

I squatted down and lost sight of him darting into a factory building. I tried to look in its door, but lost my footing. I grabbed the chimney shaft to regain my balance and the top of the smokestack broke off in my hands. I fell backwards into the street, landing hard on my butt. Slightly stunned from the fall, I looked at the little girl through the shaft of the small piece of chimney still in my hand. The insides were blackened like our chimney flue back home.

“You are a very bad boy,” the little girl proclaimed.

I felt a sudden afternoon chill in the air. I looked back down the shadow covered streets into the empty doors and windows of the hidden village. I sensed something looking back from the darkness within. I felt scared, but my fear was overcome by youthful anger. I was bigger than her and a whole lot bigger than toy soldiers. My fist tightened around the brickwork masonry in my hand.

“You are a guest here,” she said behind me, “and this is certainly no way for a guest to behave. It looks like we are going to have to teach you some manners.”

“NO, YOU ARE NOT!” I turned and stood to protest. “I’m gonna teach…

The little girl was gone and in her place there now stood a large building. It took a moment to recognize it as the village town hall. I was standing on streets of the hidden village, now no bigger than the toy soldier villagers. Then, out of the shadows, doors and windows, they came. They were all adults. More and more gathered around, scowling at me. I began to scream and cry for my parents.

Then I smelled the roses again. A shadow fell over the town square. I looked up and the little girl, now a giant, loomed over us blocking out the low sun. I tried to run, but the townspeople pressed in. I saw her hand come out of the sky, like the hand of a god. Its meaty fingers scooped me up and stifled my screams.

Right then, I heard my parents walking towards us down the path, smiling and chattering. I pressed to look through the cracks of my captor’s monstrous fingers. There, above me, stood giant versions of mom, dad, backpacks, picnic baskets and blankets.

“MOMMY! DADDY!" I howled, "HELP ME!”

“Having fun, son?” My dad's voice rumbled above me.

Fun? I felt wounded by his question, before I could form a response, I heard someone who sounded just like me answer in a booming voice, “I want to go home.”

“Are you sure?” mom asked. “We haven’t been here that long.”

“Yes,” the other me thundered, walking out of the village and onto the path. “I want to go home.”

“Ok sweetie,” Mom purred. “Are you having a happy birthday?”

“The best,” I heard the impostor say. “The bestest of the best.”

I screamed until my voice broke, but they didn’t notice. I could hear them singing "The Ants Go Marching In" as they paraded out of sight. Fake me turned back one last time and smiled, just as the girl dropped me into her massive bouquet. 

I bounced off enormous sheets of petals, overwhelmed by their pungency, and slid down the stems into huge, sharp thorns. I tried avoiding them, but they were too tightly bunched, so I just covered my eyes. I felt thorns rip and rend my skin and clothing away until, mercifully, all went numb and black.

I awoke naked and bleeding, surrounded by the villagers. Their gray eyes glared in envy at my tender age. The hidden village had robbed them of their childhood, as it would mine, and they would now beat and scratch and tear the remaining youth out of me. The little girl's shadow bathed the town square in its gloom and blocked out the setting sun. My ears rang with her rumbling laughter and I trembled in the twilight of a fading Indian Summer.