Manú the Rain Fairy and the House of the Yellow Cats

It was back when we had no mobile phones, no landline, no computer at home. We didn’t even have cable TV yet, so we spent the whole day outside, roaming around the apartment blocks in our neighborhood.

They named me the Rain Fairy on a day when summer felt almost unbearable. It hadn’t rained in more than a month, and the whole city was under a drought alert. The heat was so fierce it seemed as if the entire neighborhood had been dropped into a giant, boiling cauldron we couldn’t escape from. The asphalt shimmered and bent the air above it, and the adults took refuge inside their apartments, hiding in the shade. Only we, the kids from the neighborhood, stayed active from early morning - heat, for us, was just another summer accessory. It was the start of July, that magical time of year when peaches were still firm but sweet, watermelons blushed red, corn was ready for boiling, and the smell of roasted peppers drifted up the stairwells of the apartment blocks. School was barely a memory; summer vacation wasn’t even halfway over, and most kids were still around instead of being shipped off to their grandparents’. Our days were wonderfully free, with only two rules: stay close enough to the building so the parents could spot us, and be home by ten PM. The second rule was easy to stretch - if we gathered in front of the block in a big enough group, parents were always more flexible. And so we wore our apartment keys around our necks like medals and set out to conquer a whole summer.

Our favorite place was the vacant lot at the edge of the neighborhood, a scruffy patch of land which we had christened “the land of fairies.” Andreea, Little Bia, Kinga, and I were the lucky ones - we lived in the block closest to the lot. That meant we could roam the place freely, exploring its miniature world: excavator-carved mounds of earth, rusting chunks of abandoned metal, wild tangles of weeds, exposed water pipes, even a forgotten metal scaffolding from some old construction. Our parents could supervise us from far away - our building was a tower, ten floors tall, one of only two such giants in the neighborhood. We thought it was the tallest building in the world.

Three trees stood at the edge of the lot: the walnut tree I’d learned to climb without being seen from our apartment window; a spindly, unnamed tree that was bare no matter the season; and an old chestnut. On the day I first saw the book of fairies, even we kids were hunting for shade. We curled up beneath the walnut’s thick canopy, buzzing with excitement. Little Bia had told us all about the book: shiny hardcover, orange butterflies fluttering across it, distant mountains from the fairy realm, and the silhouette of a fairy with hair down to her knees. She had read the first lines whenever Andreea looked away. The real book was even more dazzling than Bia had described. Brand new, glossy, nothing like the worn library books we usually borrowed. The cover stole my breath: green hills fading into faraway mountains, and at sunrise, the shape of a fairy with impossibly long hair against a sky of gold and red.

Before anyone opened it, Little Bia declared in her tiny but commanding voice:

— Let’s play fairies!

Kinga and I agreed at once, thrilled. We always followed Andreea and Little Bia - they knew how to turn anything into an adventure. Any girl in the neighborhood considered it an honor to be included in their games. We waited, almost trembling, for the fairy roles to be assigned. Kinga became the Flower Fairy, who appeared only briefly in the first chapters, with her long simple dress and flowers tucked into her hair. Little Bia claimed the Fairy of the Seasons, the closest companion to the supreme fairy - the Fairy of Fairies - represented, of course, by Andreea. She had brought the book to us, she was the most influential girl in the neighborhood, and no one questioned the roles she assigned. Two other fairies appeared in the story: the earth fairy and the rain fairy. The Rain Fairy was one of the iele, the storm-weavers - wild fairies from old tales who danced in circles and brought winds strong enough to bend the cornfields, along with storms and pouring rain.

Andreea cast a quick, slightly disapproving glance at me and announced:

— You’ll be the Rain Fairy, the one people avoid because she brings only rain, wind, and storms.

I didn’t protest. It probably suited me. How could the admired or lovable fairy be anyone but someone as beautiful as Andreea? I was pale, skinny, my hair always tangled. Adults constantly asked my mom - loudly and within earshot - “Is she sick? She’s so pale.” I had stopped pinching my cheeks to make them look rosy. I was happy with any role Andreea allowed me, as long as I could be a fairy too.

Still, that summer was unbearably hot, and the whole neighborhood was begging for rain. For once, the Rain Fairy might actually be wanted. Even so, I couldn’t help noticing how heavy the role suddenly felt. The iele were never exactly wanted around - strange, feared creatures said to live at the edge of the mist - but bringing rain to a summer like that was no small task. And something told me it would demand far more than anyone would expected.

We set out to choose our mountains under the scorching sun. The vacant lot was full of uneven mounds, each one a potential kingdom. Andreea, naturally, took the tallest one - she ruled over us, made every decision, and set every rule. She assigned me the farthest mound, beside a sad-looking patch of weeds.

— This is your castle. It’s small because it’s surrounded by water, since you’re always bringing the rain.

I didn’t argue. Andreea no longer attended the neighborhood school; she had the longest, silkiest hair, always perfectly combed, the biggest brown eyes framed by lashes that looked mascaraed, and the most fashionable clothes. Her dad had the longest job title I’d ever heard, and our teachers practically glowed when she recited it:

— Associate Professor Doctor Engineer at the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Automation and Computers.

I had counted: fifteen words. Fifteen magic words that made the rest of us vanish from the teachers’ attention and turned Andreea into a star. I’d tried to understand what it meant and had asked my mom - all I understood was the “doctor” part.

— Computers are complicated machines nobody understands, she said. Don’t bother with them.

— But Andreea’s dad understands them! He fixes the broken ones. He’s a doctor of computers!

My mom wouldn't hear it. My dad, however, believed those machines were the future. Soon everyone would have them. Some people already did. At the factory where my parents worked, a computer behind the soap-making machinery calculated exactly how many molds to send down the conveyor belt. And in the future, dad said, things would be like in science fiction movies: we would each have a computer at home; we would talk to one another and see each other on giant screens like in Star Trek, the series aired by the national television: we would control lights and temperature with a touch; where we’d order whatever we needed with just a voice command and it would get to us in a day or two.

— Stop filling that messy head of hers with nonsense! my mom used to snap.

I never understood how my dad supposedly filled my head with nonsense. And what could I do if I could never manage to comb my hair properly? It wasn’t as if I chose to have this wiry hair. As far as I knew, my head wasn’t full of nonsense at all. My dad was cool and kind, and I loved him dearly. Adults, though - were impossible to understand. Sometimes it is better to stay quiet and keep eating your corn on the cob while they fight.

So yes, I accepted Andreea’s choice for my fairy mountain, even though I would have chosen differently. I had already fallen in love with a grassy mound dotted with dandelions turned to fluff, which made it resemble a snow-dusted peak. That one would be my secret mountain - my hidden kingdom as the Rain Fairy. I would need it - every bit of it - because bringing the rain was only my first duty. Being a fairy would ask much more of me than I was prepared to give.