Eight-year-old, Shawna is inconsolable. The tears flow through her hands as she sits on the porch of her rural South Carolina home. At Shawna’s feet is the Earth Day bag she got at school, filled with different pamphlets and books on how to save the environment.
Her mother sits down beside her. “Honey, it’s okay. You can still save the planet.”
“No, I can’t,” whines Shawna. “You can’t save the planet if you can’t stop global warming.”
Her mother holds Shawna close. “Honey. Baby, I don’t know why your father told you that. Sometimes he has bad moods and doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“He knows what he’s talking about,” Shawna snaps. “He’s a climatologist.”
Shawna’s mother holds her a little tighter. Together, they just sit quietly. The wind blows through the woods surrounding their two-story home. Red and orange leaves fall from the trees, oblivious to the environmental cataclysms ahead.
Her mother stands up. “I’ll go make you some krispy treats, okay?”
Her mother goes inside the house. Shawna is left alone with her Earth Day bag of broken dreams. She gets up and walks around the big oak trees in the front yard. She caresses them, trying to understand their pain. Shawna can almost smell them taking greenhouse gases out of the air and exchanging them for oxygen. Yet for all their effort, they can’t stop the warming of the overall Earth and the global climate change that’s occurring as a result.
The trees can’t stop it and neither can Shawna. Fragile ecosystems will have to be shattered. Countless animals will have to go extinct. Even some populations of arctic countries are becoming endangered, and still there’s nothing she can do.
Shawna hears a snap and squeak. She runs towards the sound to see if someone’s been hurt. She hears more squealing. It’s probably an animal in danger. Shawna jumps the fence separating her front yard from the forest. Just beyond the fence is a raccoon caught in a bear trap.
Shawna thinks about calling for help. Raccoons have rabies. That’s what her daddy told her. The raccoon tries to crawl towards her, but one of its back paws is caught in the trap still. It squeaks to her. Shawna pities the creature as she kneels down to open the trap. Maybe her father is wrong, she thinks.
Shawna puts her might into opening the bear trap, but it’s tough. She manages to make an opening just large enough for the raccoon’s paw to slip through. The trap snaps shut as Shawna’s strength gives out. She falls backwards into the leaves behind her. Shawna stands up and brushes herself off. She checks her fingers and finds a scratch on her fingertip. She squeezes it. A single drop of blood falls.
The injured raccoon is waiting at her feet with its front paws stretched upward. It catches Shawna’s blood. Then it rubs its front paws and head with it. It starts peeping excitedly. Shawna watches as the raccoon’s fur fluffs up. Then it grows and grows and grows and grows until…
POOF!
The raccoon bursts into a puff of glitter and smoke. In its place is a beautiful woman in a beautiful, poofy dress with many bright colors. The woman has creamy, cocoa skin and holds a sparkling twig.
“Hello, little girl! I’m the Earth Day Fairy. You may call me ‘Charmelle’.”
“Hello, Miss Charmelle,” Shawna greets. “My name is Shawna Dupree. It’s very nice to meet you.”
The Earth Day Fairy, Charmelle, flourishes her magic twig. “Ah! Shawna. I saw you earlier today. You were crying on the porch of your house. Why were you crying?”
Shawna explains, “I was crying because my daddy said no one can stop global warming.”
“Oh, tiddle-bits, little Shawna,” says Charmelle, waving her hand dramatically, “Your father simply doesn’t believe in magic. That’s all.”
“Magic?”
“But, of course!” says the fairy. “I was a raccoon a few moments ago. Don’t tell me you don’t believe in magic after seeing that.”
Shawna shuffles her feet. “I guess magic is real…”
“Of course, it is!” yells the fairy, throwing up her hands. “All you need are the right ingredients and you can do anything you want.” The fairy bends down to face Shawna. “Now tell me, little one, what is it you wish for?”
Shocked by the prospect, Shawna mutters, “Um…well…I guess…I wish…I wish I could stop global warming?”
“You want to stop global warming?”
Shawna nods her head.
“Well, so do I!” the fairy proclaims. Would you like to fix the ozone layer too?”
Shawna nods and smiles.
“Well, great! TERRIFIC!” shouts the fairy. “Now let’s go get the ingredients.”
“But what are the ingredients?” Shawna asks politely.
The fairy Charmelle peers down at Shawna. “Well…I’m going to need…a basket of kittens.”
“A basket of kittens?”
“A basket of kittens,” Charmelle confirms.
Shawna thinks to herself for a moment and remembers: “The Peterson’s cat just had kittens!”
“Great! Wonderful!” Charmelle exclaims. “Were they white?”
“The Petersons?”
“No, the kittens,” Charmelle clarifies. “We need six kittens with the purest, white fur and clear, blue eyes.”
“Blue eyes?”
“Like the sky on a clear day,” Charmelle replies.
Shawna thinks hard. “Yes! Yes, they do!” She takes a step. “Let’s go get them!”
“Wait!”
“What for?” Shawna asks the fairy.
“The kittens aren’t that way,” Charmelle discloses, “I know the family you speak of, and the Petersons have been a tad naughty.”
“How?”
Charmelle motions towards the woods leading away from Shawna’s home. “Mother Peterson could not find any good owners for any of the new kittens, so she put them in a basket and took them deep into the woods, where nature will have her way.”
Worried, Shawna asks, “They’ll be alright, won’t they?”
Charmelle puts a hand on Shawna’s shoulder. “They’re going to need a strong, courageous, young girl to help them. Can you do that? Can you be strong and courageous?”
Shawna takes a step back. “Do I have to? Daddy says there are bears and snakes out there.”
Nodding, the fairy says, “Courage is the main ingredient in a great many spells.”
Shawna steels herself. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The two make their way into the deep woods. Charmelle flutters above the ground with her insect-like fairy wings, so her poofy dress doesn’t drag along the ground. Shawna is running as fast as her little legs can carry her. She doesn’t want to think of the terrible things that could happen to the cute, little kittens alone in the deep woods.
Suddenly Shawna stops. She can hear her mother calling her. Shawna looks back. Her mother will probably be worried.
“You must press on, little one,” the fairy prods. The kittens are alone and the woods can be a dangerous place.”
Shawna pauses to build her resolve. This is not just for the kittens, but for the world. She needs the kittens to stop global warming and protect the habitats of dozens of arctic creatures.
Shawna asks the fairy, “Are you sure you need these kittens for your spell?”
“My dear,” replies the fairy, “I’m absolutely certain of it.”
Sighing, Shawna says, “Let’s go then.”
Darkness begins to fall as Shawna runs deeper into the woods. Time passes and soon it grows so dark that Shawna can barely see the trees in front of her. Charmelle follows behind her, but the fairy’s wand is only barely luminescent.
Finally…
“Stop!” says the fairy. “We’re here.”
Shawna looks around the darkness between the trees. “Are you sure?” Shawna asks.
Charmelle puts a hand to her ear. “Listen,” she says.
Shawna takes a breath and listens. Then she hears it: a soft mewing.
“I hear it!” Shawna pipes.
She follows the sound behind another tree and finds the basket. There are two kittens still inside. Shawna quickly spots one just outside the basket. She picks it up and places it inside. She hears mewing to her right. She follows it to find another snow white kitten. That’s four.
Shawna looks around. Charmelle points her dimly-lit magic twig in the direction of another kitten. She fetches the blue-eyed kit.
Shawna strains her eyes to count them. “That’s five,” she says. “Where’s six?”
Charmelle floats towards the basket. The fairy holds up her hand and in it is the last kitten.
“Hooray!” Shawna exclaims. “Now we can save the world!”
The magic twig begins to sparkle brightly, along with the fairy herself.
Mystified, Shawna says, “Wait. We’ve been running around in darkness and you can glow in the dark?”
Charmelle the Earth Day Fairy nods her head solemnly. “I had to obtain the final ingredient for your wish: courage. Courage shines the brightest in the dark, and you, child, have great courage.” Charmelle points her wand at Shawna. “I need a piece of your soul, child,” the fairy states grimly. “Will this be okay?”
Shawna thinks for a moment. Her mother would want her to do the right thing, plus her father said that souls are just something people made up, so…
“Sure! You can have my soul,” the girl agrees. Shawna adds, “But just a piece of it, right? Not the whole thing?”
Charmelle smiles. “Of course, my dear, little one. With bravery such as yours, a piece is all I require.” Then Charmelle taps Shawna’s forehead gently with her magic twig. Shawna immediately begins to feel weary. Shawna lays on the forest floor and falls asleep.
On the forest floor, Shawna dreams of fresh air and clean water. She dreams of dolphins frolicking in the open ocean. Images of squirrels and puppies playing together waltz through her mind. Shawna imagines the soft, white kittens playing in a sea of dandelions.
She dreams.
The kittens in her dream call to her. They mew loudly at her, as if in pain. Shawna awakes with a start. She’s still in the woods, surrounded by darkness. She can still hear the cries of the kittens. She looks behind her and sees a tree with rainbow-colored lights shimmering from behind it. She walks towards the tree.
She peeks behind it.
Shawna’s knees go weak from the sight. There are only four kittens left in the basket. Another kitten is in the hands of Charmelle the Earth Day Fairy. The fairy sucks at the kitten’s juices as she eats the kitten alive. A loud crunch is heard as she bites down on the kitten’s head and sucks down the remaining fur. Charmelle reaches down for another kitten.
Shawna shivers as she shrieks, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Charmelle stands from her meal. “You’re awake?”
Shawna reaches for the kitten basket. The fairy knocks Shawna back with a spell from her wand.
“This is all part of the spell, child,” Charmelle explains before biting into another kitten. Charmelle turns away from her. “Go away. Your wish will come true, very soon.”
Shawna rushes the fairy. Charmelle knocks the girl back again with another spell.
“You lied,” the girl shouts. “You said you were magic!”
Charmelle wolfs down the rest of the kitten in her hand and reaches for another. “I did NOT lie. This is how magic works.”
Shawna gasps as she helplessly watches Charmelle bite into another kitten. Shawna bursts into tears. “You said we would save them!”
“No,” Charmelle retorts, “I said we needed them for the spell.”
Through her weeping, Shawna cries, “You said you needed my courage.”
Charmelle gulps down another kitten and looks at Shawna with tender eyes. The fairy wipes the blood from her mouth as she says, “Spells require ingredients. The more powerful ones require sacrifice, sometimes in blood, sometimes in souls. Sometimes both.”
Charmelle reaches for the last kitten.
Shawna watches the beautiful, blood soaked fairy rip open and swallow its innards. The fairy chews the meat as Shawna sits on the ground in stunned silence.
“I will admit to some deceit,” the fairy confesses. “My name is Gaia, not Charmelle. I am not the Earth Day Fairy. I’m the Earth Spirit.”
“Why?” asks Shawna. “The magic…”
“Magic is real,” says the Earth Spirit, “and I needed these ingredients to help heal the planet. I needed courage, purity, and blood. I could not get these on my own. I didn’t write the laws of magic. I really did need your help. I am truly sorry, little one. Take heart in knowing that your bravery has helped save the planet and that these kittens did not die in vain.”
Gaia, the Earth Spirit touches Shawna’s shoulder and transports her back to her house, disappearing before her parents can run out to see their lost daughter. Shawna doesn’t tell her mother or father about what happened. She simply says that she wandered into the woods and got lost. She does not tell her father about magic or fairies or that the earth has a spirit. She now knows that her father only says the things he does to protect her from the cruel reality of the world. Sadly, for all of her father’s efforts, nothing could protect her from the horror of the Earth Spirit.
Still, the next day, the ozone layer is healed. The smog in the atmosphere evaporates. The polar ice caps reform and the world is saved. It only costs the lives of six kittens and a piece of a brave, little girl’s soul. With what is left of her soul, Shawna grows up to the age of sixteen before dying a peaceful death in her sleep.