The Fairy Room

You know you’ve screwed up when Granny Rosita makes you sleep in the Fairy Room. It isn’t that the bed in there is uncomfortable; to be fair, it’s probably the best bed in the house, which is saying something. It’s not that the room used to be my mother’s when she was eight, and still has the original fairytale wallpaper, complete with Jacks and Jills, Cinderellas and fairy godmothers, sets of three little pigs, and big bad wolves and the like. It’s not even the discolored floral decor garnishing the nightstand and headboard, with vines of fake ivy draped over the posts and dangling from the canopy. No, none of these things are what assures you that you have fallen out of Granny Rosita’s graces: it’s the eight-by-nine-foot mirrored china cabinet directly across from the bed, the shelves of which are lined with dolls dressed in fairy princess costumes.

Anyone I’ve ever asked always told me that my grandmother is not a witch; I’m fairly certain that’s true, but I’ve never been wholly convinced. It was never exactly a secret that Granny’s never quite gotten over the doll phase. One of our favorite pastimes when my sister and I were little was coming over for tea parties, when Granny would let us each pick a doll to have tea with. She’d brew real tea—served in a full tea set, too—and make cookies and little tea cakes and scones, and in nice weather we’d go outside to sit in the garden to have it, and it was all quite enjoyable. Once we’d outgrown dolls, we still upheld our tea party tradition, but we could tell she was always waiting for some unsuspecting visitor or other to bring over their daughter or granddaughter or niece so she’d have an adequate excuse to break out those dolls. I couldn’t really believe she ever played with them by herself; I mean, yeah, she probably brushed their hair and cleaned them and changed their clothes and kept them nice looking and all, but I never got the idea that she did anything else with them when no one else was there. It was probably more to do with how pretty she thought they were. She had lots of stuff like that in her house: doilies, fragile knickknacks, Victorian era ceramic-looking things, etc. But the dolls never left the shelves for anything but the practical application of tea parties with the children.

That being said, Granny Rosita had discovered that the dolls could be functional in other ways. She never liked my Uncle Harris, who frequently had the tendency to deplete her stores of liquor, which she only ever used for cooking, but were expensive enough. Upon one or other of these occasions, which happened to be over a holiday weekend the whole family stayed at her home for, she graciously allowed him to take the “back spare,” known among the grandchildren as the Fairy Room. To his credit, Uncle Harris made it two full nights in that room, with the streetlight outside the window illuminating that cabinet, translucent rainbows dancing across the walls whenever a car drove past. The third day, one of the younger cousins left a baby doll behind, whereupon my mischievous cousin took the opportunity of putting glow-in-the-dark stickers on its eyes and setting it up on the nightstand. Since then, Uncle Harris has maintained full sobriety when visiting.

It wasn’t until I was a senior in college when we were formally introduced to my sister’s third-and-a-half boyfriend, Tony, over Thanksgiving. As I am one with solid trust in animals and children, I could tell right away that there was something off about this guy. Our cat––the sweetest little bundle of fuzz who prides herself on mutual love and affection for literally anyone––hated him. She wouldn’t let him pet her, hissed and swatted at him if he came near, then sat down on my sister’s lap for the whole afternoon and tried to bite his hand whenever he reached over to touch my sister. Having not seen my sister in a while, I decided to help act as a buffer and monitored her for the whole night. At first, I couldn’t tell if she was acting any differently than usual or not; she did look a little worn out, but it might have been from how trying the semester had been. Soon, however, my suspicions were confirmed: while helping Granny Rosita get the table set for dinner, I accidentally brushed against her as I scooched through the door with a plate of Granny’s famous spicy meatballs. She jumped about a foot as if she’d been burned, then crumpled into the corner, smashing herself against the wall so I could get by, hurriedly rambling several breathless, “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry!”s.

The physical reaction would have been of more merit if I’d just clocked her in the head with my elbow, but the verbal response left me in mute bewilderment for a solid thirty seconds. Granny Rosita noticed it, too; setting aside the creamed-corn casserole she’d been about to transport to the table, she hurried over to my sister, asking, “Are you all right? Did you get hurt?”

“No, no,” she gasped, still breathless. “It’s fine. I’m okay.”

It was at this point that I noticed what my sister was wearing. (I rarely notice clothes on anyone at first glance, so give me some leniency here.) Up till now, she had usually preferred a more glamorous style, while I was more of the comfortable-practicality type. Traditionally, this time of year, I’d expect her to wear something with a low neckline, knee-high boots, decent makeup, and a small but pretty bit of jewelry somewhere. Given that, what was on her came as a shock: a plain, oversized turtleneck sweater that was a bit stretched and looked like it was thrift, dark jeans, no jewelry, and no lipstick, but definitely heavy concealer––not just on her face, but also her neck, judging by the stains on the collar. In short, she was dressed like the stereotypical overworked soccer mom on a busy weekend. That, along with the drastic shift from an almost immobile normalcy one moment to near hysterics the next, I concluded that there was something seriously wrong.

Granny Rosita sensed it, too. We exchanged a meaningful look before she took my sister’s hand and said, “Now, cariña, would you mind helping us set the tables? I’ll make the boys set up the others––girls on one, boys on the other, remember!” Then, clapping her hands, she gave her orders to the gentlemen, who set about the task while she slipped quietly into the bathroom. A few minutes later, she returned, having washed her hands, and instructed all to do likewise, then took drink orders. She was very meticulous about these, carefully doling out lemonade, iced tea, fruit punch, and sodas in her fancy glasses. Tony’s was a lemonade, which she filled especially full. “Got to hydrate the growing boys!” she commented, setting it at his place with graceful ceremony.

Tony reached around me to get his glass, leaning a little closer than I was comfortable with. He slipped me a toothy grin and quite possibly half a wink; I wasn’t certain at first, but the deliberate rush of the back of his hand against the small of my back told me otherwise. I returned the smile with as much composure as I could muster, then murmured humorously in passing, “Watch out, or Granny Rosita might put a curse on you.”

Dinner passed somewhat normally. We held amiable, cozy conversations over the raucous noise of the youngster’s table in the kitchen. I could hear the men discussing sports in the next room. I watched my sister’s movements throughout the meal; she didn’t eat a whole lot, and what she did she fidgeted with more than actually brought to her mouth. She did drink most of the iced tea Granny Rosita made, and inattentively oversalted her empty dessert plate while trying to converse naturally with our mother, but no one else seemed to notice this.

After dinner, the guys turned on the TV to watch football, the kids bundled up and hastened outside to play in the snow, and my sister and I started helping Granny Rosita wash up and prepare the desserts. It was about this time that I figured out what Granny Rosita had been up to in the bathroom before dinner. I suppose she must have slipped a laxative of some kind into Tony’s beverage, because about fifteen minutes into the game, he disappeared into it. Several minutes later, he returned; but just a few minutes after that, he went back. On his third trip, he stayed in for a considerably long time, to the point where there soon came to be a line of various nieces and nephews outside the door, whom Granny Rosita directed to the downstairs bathroom instead. It was over half an hour before Tony emerged, looking rather peakier than he had that day.

By nightfall, we had determined who was staying and who wasn’t, and all the sleeping arrangements were made. We helped Granny Rosita carry clean sheets into all the rooms, but she insisted on making the beds herself. “How will anyone sleep if their beds aren’t tucked up properly? It’s an Abuelita’s job to see that it’s done right!” After dessert, she announced all the children would be going to bed before eleven, and everyone else ought to be in bed by midnight.

“Aw, that’s no fun!” Tony protested. “It’s a holiday! There’s no curfew on a holiday!”

Granny Rosita’s eyes flashed, but her smile remained polite. “There is one in this house. Old ladies need their sleep, too, and I can get very bad insomnia if people stay up making a lot of racket.”

Tony grinned––not unhandsomely, but it set every nerve I had on edge––and reached out to my sister to put his arm around her. “Well, we’ll just be very, very quiet, won’t we? Which room is ours?”

“No, thank you!” Granny Rosita very carefully pulled my sister to her side. “It may be a holiday, but I’d rather not have to do more laundry than I have to tomorrow. The girls will be with their mother tonight in the second bedroom; you will be taking the back spare.”

The atmosphere in the room had been growing chillier throughout this exchange, but now it seemed to freeze over. Tony’s grin faltered as he glanced around, noting that everyone was taking Granny Rosita seriously. He’d never been over before, so he’d never seen the back spare, but it was obvious he’d taken for granted his hope of sharing a room with my sister. But once this was established, he only smiled and said, “Oh. Well, where’s that one?”

The rest of the evening passed quite peaceably. We sipped on black coffee with pie, cake, and donuts while the kids watched a Charlie Brown movie, then one by one departed for bed. The sleepwear my sister had chosen was also a little unusual: a long-sleeved nightshirt with a collar that buttoned almost to the throat, along with a shawl she wrapped herself in to cover the rest of it. I no longer wondered what she was covering up under that shawl, but decided not to bring it up until later. One by one, we all said our goodnights and went to our rooms. Once my sister and our mother were in bed, I took the opportunity to adjust the dresser ever so slightly, so the corner was in front of the door––not enough to block the door entirely, but just enough so that it would knock loudly on the corner of the dresser if anyone tried to come in. Not completely content but satisfied for the moment, I settled down for a good night’s sleep.

It had to be almost four in the morning when I was roused by a stifled shriek, a muffled thump that shook the floor, and the noise of feet running down the hall. But the cry and the thump had both come from another room down the hall, and the running feet were not human, but the cat’s. I’d almost risen to go see what was up when the hall light came on; I heard shuffling footsteps, followed by low voices speaking quietly, one saying something like, “Don’t wake the children.” Footsteps went to and fro for a bit, creaking along to each door. I shut my eyes as a dark figure came to ours; I could tell it was Granny Rosita, making sure all else was well. After a few minutes, she apparently retired, the hall light clicking off. Feeling drowsy, I decided to wait till morning to figure out what had happened.

The next morning, Tony was absent for breakfast. I saw Granny Rosita shuffle by, gathering all the used bedclothes for the wash; she took rather longer in the Fairy Room than usual, so I went in to see what there was to see and to see if she wanted any help. As soon as I entered the room, a strong scent of disinfectant rolled over me. Granny Rosita had a brush and was scrubbing away at the mattress.

“What happened, Granny?” I asked, eyes watering.

She looked up at me, a gleam of mischief dancing in her eyes. “Oh, there was a bit of a mess early this morning. Apparently, Tony accidentally shut the cat in with himself. I suppose she must have jumped on the bed. Tony had to run out early; he said he might be back later.”

As it happened, Tony was not “back later.” He and my sister broke up ten days later, and with much less than the usual hullabaloo about it. She didn’t really tell anyone what she’d gone through––or, at least, she hasn’t yet––but in this case, there’s not much need for it yet. When she’s ready for it, she knows we’ll be here for her.

Granny Rosita outlived her husband by at least twenty years, and she outlived two of her own children by another ten (and they weren’t young when they died, either). I once asked her what she thought might have contributed to her longevity. She gave me that knowing smile and said it was probably because her fairies hadn’t found any homes with little girls to protect yet. It wasn’t long afterwards that her health finally began declining for real. We knew she wasn’t going to last for much longer when she gave each of us granddaughters a doll for Christmas one year. As tradition warranted, I put mine on a stand under glass, where it stood on the top of my dresser until my husband made me move it to the living room. When our second daughter nearly knocked it off the shelf with a model airplane one day, I moved it to my own “back spare,” which I reserve for whenever any of my husband’s more unruly friends are over. To my knowledge, only one of them has ever complained to my husband about getting stuck in the Creepy Doll Room, to which my husband’s only response was, “I don’t know what to tell you, man; it’s hers, not mine. Just don’t offend her grandmother’s ghost, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”