4
Some remarkable Wonders of an Invisible Kingdom.
For fairy women came to her by night, whispering.... ‘Get up ... get up ... get up....’
Strange hands plucked at her bedclothes, pinched or patted her.
Although her window was fast shut, once a great scaled and hairy arm came in by that same window, and she trembled. Now the arm grew to three times, four times, the length of human arm. She saw it sweep the room with a blind and scythe-like motion. It searched for her. She remained still. Then it was gone as miraculously as it had come.
There was a vast animal that rubbed nightly against the house, sniffing and blowing.
A monster (she thought it a demon) treaded the roof-tree by night.
Such was her appreciation of these awful and yet to her (coming from him she chose to accept as God) pleasing sights, she scarcely slept, being more awake by night than day, for at night she could hardly lie upon her bed nor close her eyes. She was forever staring and listening, listening and staring. With the crowing of the cock these disturbing visions retreated to that same Hell in which they had their geneses.
Sometimes she floated forth without volition, as on a certain night when she cried out, ‘Master, command me and I will come.’ Then far away and from the midst of the moonlight, she heard fairy women cry, ‘Get up ... get up ... get up....’
‘Then I will,’ she said. Of a sudden her body was filled with lightness and (at first maintaining her horizontal position) she was elevated from off her bed. Thrice around the room she floated and, looking down, she saw her own vacant body as it lay still and flat as any corpse. ‘If I am going out to walk wet fields,’ she thought, ‘I should put on slippers.’ Then the red slippers Mr. Bilby once had bought her in Boston appeared upon her feet. She floated through the window, but once this was cleared she was set in vertical position. However, she felt no contact with the grass, and she took no steps. She floated on.
The moon was big upon the hills. The night air shook ravishing perfumes from the flowers and new leaves. The air was full of birds’ songs (although it was dead of night), of voices, strange music, laughter. She floated on. The silver birches twinkled and bowed to her. Her name was called by a thousand little voices. A million gleaming eyes watched her. At last she was thus conveyed to the fiend, who was seated upon a hillock, as on a throne. He raised her up when she would prostrate herself to him. He bade her have no fear, for, although in Hell he was indeed a great prince, upon earth he was as mortal man and her true love.
In the morning, when she awoke in her own bed, she believed that the adventure of the night had been but another dream. She drew her body from between the sheets, and set her feet upon the floor. Upon her feet were the red slippers, and they were wet. Upon the sheets were green stains from the grass crushed beneath her feet.
Now could she know truth from dreams and dreams from truth.