Fairies in the Hedges
By Sue Greenwald
My parents built a summer home on the St. Lawrence River, along the top of New York State. Across the river was Canada. I spent every summer there as a child, and loved it. When I went to bed, I’d hear flute music, laughing, like a party, every night coming from the neighbor’s hedge, which was about 10 feet from my bedroom, on the other side of the wall. Every night the fairies and gnomes were having parties in the hedges, and I could hear them.
I’d ask my parents about the music, and they seemed surprised and largely ignored me. For some reason, nobody else could hear that music, and so I dropped the matter after a while. Years later, I was asking my parents about some of my unusual experiences, and my mother reminded me how I’d hear the music in the hedges.