As alarmed as I was with the sudden ringing of the telephone, its shrill screech reminding my ears with a less than compassionate manner as to the wonders of transitory electronics, the content of my subsequent telephone conversation proved to be much more alarming, and for that matter much more rewarding than any mere audible reminder that I still existed. It caught me off guard, occurring during a time that I least suspected it to happen; only this was a most surprising event the likes of which I never expected would happen. My career was in dire need of a shot in the arm, but what I received was a booster of adrenaline square in the heart, it certainly felt as though that figurative embellishment was literal with the increasing thump inside of my chest as the conversation continued.

Pardon my crass, suspense inducing introduction, it is merely an extraneous side effect of my Brummie heritage. My name is Christine Willows, at the moment I am thirty-four years of age, I have lived and worked all throughout the kingdom, and happen to be a native of Birmingham, just to clarify in case you did not understand the British reference. The primary focus of my studies was the mind, along with its infinite assortment of idiosyncrasies, both those common to humanity and the type that are specific to each individual. Not knowing what path to take to gain entrance to the psychological superhighway, or which exit to take, although a toll road would be a more accurate description, all that I knew was that I was willing to pay the price for a chance to cruise on down the road of the mind, and pay a price I would.

Eventually focusing on adolescent behavioral disorders, my fingerprints adorned a fair share of successful cases where I felt as though I were impacting lives and making a positive difference in the world, although those instances were few and far in between and were becoming a rarity. Complicating matters was the sad fact that we were dealing with many children and teenagers that simply did not stand a chance. The capacity of my expertise was no match for the obstacles that lay in their path, for they were damaged goods beyond reproach, their issues too insurmountable for a woman such as myself to triumph over. Pardon my brash honesty but I was never one to set the high score in the game of political correctness. By the bushel they came from broken homes and would be returning there in due time, it was a numbers game and they were statistics, which is what I was quickly becoming, a lowly, insignificant digit drifting increasingly aimlessly amidst the population. Then it happened…

 It was the early hours of a Saturday in May, a weekend morning much like any other in the county of Suffolk, when a farming couple was awakened early one morning with the relentless barking of their dog in the fields outside.

“Edward, please see what he’s barking at, there may be animals in the yard again,” asks an elderly woman as her husband reluctantly stumbles out of bed to glance out the window.

“I’m sure whatever it is ‘ole Corgi will scare it away,” responds old man Edward.

“What is it?” asks the woman.

“It looks like...someone is out there,” he replies in a confused manner, closing the blinds retreating downstairs to the backyard.

“That’s enough Corgi,” orders the farmer as he shuffles his feet in the dirt and makes his way out into the field, finding his dog pressing his moist snout against a chain link fence, barking towards two individuals huddled up in an adjacent enclosure on the property that is separating the entrance to the woods from the majority of the curtilage.

“What have we got here? What are you two doing here? Are you all right? Hello?” asks the farmer, staring down at two small children, a boy and a girl resting along the dew-laden grass and clinging to it as if their lives depended on it.   

Shielding their eyes with all their might as if to block out the invading bright rays and radiation of a sun falling to Earth, Edward looks about perplexed as to the source of their struggle, finding nothing overhead aside from grey overcast skies, as the young girl cried form the pain and began screaming uncontrollably in pain when she saw the farmer.

“What’s the matter, are you hurt?” asks Edward, his questions going unanswered. Moving in for a closer inspection, his advance is repressed as the children fight him off, as he backs up in accordance with their wishes. That’s when his fading seventy-nine year old eyes picked up on something most peculiar, as the color of the hands, arms, and face of each child were shaded in an unfamiliar tone. His vision may have been failing him, but what he saw as he strained those eyes in deep focus was not a stain from the grass or reflection from afar, rather the sight for sore eyes viewed that morning was a clear green hue covering the skin pigmentation of the children...

If the preceding fanciful tale rings a bell of recollection, consider yourself an astute listener. According to legend, once upon a time, the 12th century to be precise, two mysterious children sporting green skin were discovered by a mystified community, not far from this very spot. They came to be known as the Green Children of Woolpit, two children wearing unfamiliar clothes and speaking an unknown language, who eventually adapted to varying degrees into countryside society, speaking and telling of their ancestral roots in a land of perpetual twilight where all the inhabitants were green. Many scholars and readers have offered up varying explanations for the alleged incident, among them that the two were a pair of displaced immigrants, a possibility that the two were extraterrestrial in origin, as well as a theory that the two originated in an underground, hollow Earth setting. Still others believe the story to be nothing more than a legendary fairy tale of folklore.

Regardless of the explanation, each theory is about to be put to the test with careful study to come, as the fabled green-clad characters of yore have returned. Only this is no fairy tale, or false legend passed down through the generations. Nor is it a hoax or a chapter from a bedtime storybook, for what we have is a contemporary sighting of a medieval legend alive and well here in the Space Age. They are here in the flesh, green tinged that is, alive and far from well, and as our narrator Ms. Christine Willows will soon tell you, regardless of what may have happened once upon a time, as far as this visit is concerned, they are not here by mistake...

Following the arrival of the children and their initial discovery by the farm hand, the witness explained his findings as a series of phone calls were made to the proper authorities, and this is where I come into the picture. Working as a Cambridge educated behavioral psychologist, I had spent the past several years relegated to playing the role of a glorified social worker. Through luck, I happened to be one of the names called in to help with this most unusual project. A few of the “A” list candidates were away or could not be reached, and for the first time in a long while I felt very fortunate, being in Suffolk I was in the right place at the right time. Isn’t that how it always works?

A pinch to the cheek or a hard slap to the face would not have hurt as I listened to the voice on the extension that day in the office, hesitant to respond given how convinced I was that I was on the wrong end of a practical joke. That is until the right names and titles and the verbiage of the professional lingo demonstrated to me the authenticity of the call, and despite the hard fact that the legitimacy of the claims could not be verified, at this time they were worth looking into for analysis, and such was more than enough to blow the dust off my stagnant routine and pique my interest.

Before departing for Ipswich, the nearby town where the children had been transported to, I researched all that I could about the Woolpit legend during my short lunch break. Some of the details provided in the historical accounts were quite vivid, although for the most part the specifics were vague generalities, as this centuries’ old story left behind a dearth of information upon which to draw from. Still, it is worth noting that this was far from a skin and bones tale as far as legends were concerned.

Ignoring traffic during the fifteen-minute drive into town, my thoughts drifted back to what it must have been like to witness the incident during the dark days of the 12th century...

To have been a villager staring down into the wolf pit that day and finding not a wounded animal howling in anguish, but the sight of two confused children screaming in fright while holding each other in an ill-fated search for comfort. Two small children outfitted in a strange, unusual form of fabric, speaking a language that was virgin to the ears of Woolpit, and most immediately and incredibly of all, the presence of the green-toned skin pigmentation glimmering in the Medieval sunlight. Two small children that for that matter were lost, possibly orphaned, either way without parents or any relatives in sight, they stood and spoke alone amidst the mystified eyes of the villagers.

Fearful to consume any food for several days, it was said that the two siblings eventually ate green beans and later bread, however the lackluster diet caught up with the younger brother, who passed away shortly thereafter. Despite the barriers to language and widespread limitations, the older sister survived and prospered for that matter, learning the local language, becoming baptized in the church and losing her green shade while being accepted and thriving as a regular member of society, aside from her “loose” and “wanton” demeanor that is, why she even married a nobleman after coming of age. Who knows, perhaps her loose and wanton lifestyle was an asset in Middle England.

When pressed about her origins, the girl explained that her and her brother came from a place dubbed St. Martin’s land. She spoke of a world filled with raging rivers and numerous cattle, and most fascinating of all it happened to be a world where the sun neither rose nor set, a place of perpetual twilight, where everything, including the inhabitants, were cloaked in green. While playing in the heavy forests one day the girl and her brother were frightened with the loud clanging of bells ringing in their ears, leading the pair to escape from the noise. In the scramble of panic their mad dash would take them, lure them, trap them, or warp them into one of the many wolf pits of Woolpit, and a legend was born.

Raining down on the parade of this story, I must say that from what I have read before I had always assumed the tale of the green children was nothing more than a folktale that had eroded from the realm of the storybook and had sprung to life over the ensuing years, with each account and citation adding a fanciful layer, growing more imaginative than the last.

Letting the air out of the balloon of the legend even further, provided that the two children of green color really did appear, the most likely explanation and the one I most fondly recall reading up on back during my formative years, is that the children were the offspring of Flemish immigrants from the nearby settlement of Fornham St. Martin. The two may have been orphaned or lost from their parents and left to fend for themselves in the forests, which would explain their sickly green appearance from the onset of Chlorosis, a condition brought forth from a vitamin deficiency. Speaking Flemish and wearing a different style of clothing would have made the children outcasts enough as it was, let alone the green discoloration of their skin that made them look otherworldly in appearance.

Bear in mind that the timeframe for this so-called time warping of the dimensions was during the 12th century, well before the age of enlightenment and the advent of globalization, a time when fairy tales ran rampant and illness and disease were not the work of microorganisms, but of evil spirits, and this was common knowledge. Some have argued that the nobility of the village that were called in to investigate surely would have picked up on the sound of the Flemish tongue. Perhaps they did and the educated few in the area were well aware, but the initial shock and hysteria of the incident impacted the community to such an extent that rumors began spreading like wildfire every which way throughout Brittania and the damage was done, permanently sealing and encasing the fabled green children of Woolpit as an ironclad legend of folklore.

Did the Flemish immigrant theory provide a perfectly acceptable explanation for every last detail concerning the mysterious encounter? Hardly, but as my mind began to drift towards the possibility of extraterrestrials or an underground world or an alternative universe with parallel dimensions bursting from the seams, I had arrived at my destination. Before I could ask any more important questions, I was going to uncover some vital answers.

It’s difficult to say just what I was expecting to find as I opened the door and entered the room, but as I first laid eyes upon the mysterious children, reality dawned upon me that this was it, and the legends were substantiated, as I felt like an auditor of history checking a series of boxing in my mind. I was neither a botanist or a biologist, but it took neither to discern that these were walking, living, breathing, creatures, separated from us by culture, and perhaps not much else, but perhaps so much more, as I was greeted with something very real yet very indeterminate for that matter.

“Hello there,” I declared, spontaneously blurting out an unorganized series of short greetings and statements over the ensuing thirty seconds or so, waiting for a response from the children, a boy approximately twelve years of age and a girl that was about eight. Never a connoisseur of fashion, my eyes fixated on their outlandish clothes, clothed in a style that did not appear to be from this century, or any of the preceding few for that matter.

“They don’t speak English, Mr. Willows,” replied a member of the evaluation team.

“Christine, that is my name,” I declared to the children, pointing at my chest and ignoring the others, as the young girl mimicked me and uttered something awful, hurling not an insult, but a dirty snowball however given her mouth full of words that came across as an incoherent rambling of indistinguishable tones. Moments later the other child followed suit, speaking very quickly, very bluntly, and abstaining from pointing to himself for identification.

“That sounded like Juniper and Josephine to me,” I exclaimed, chuckling to break the tension in the room, an effort that was to no avail.

While the girl was the elder of the pair in the legend, here the boy was the older of the two. They were diminutive in size and stature, Juniper stood approximately four feet five inches tall and weighed about seventy pounds, while Josephine was just a little thing, standing three and a half feet tall with a weight somewhere in the neighborhood of forty pounds. The green hue in the pigment of the skin was somewhat faint, in that it did not radiate from the skin like a lush forest in spring, but it was nonetheless clear as day. Each child had a head full of golden blonde hair, Juniper fielding a shaggy cut, while Josephine’s flowed down her back like a spindle of gold. The facial features of the young ones were basically normal although they had slightly smaller eyes than others I was accustomed to seeing, crystal clear blue eyes at that. They also possessed a pair of larger, rounded ears, and featured a nose with a wider bridge than your average subject of the crown.

     Continuing onward through my initial tests and studies, the information on the children began to roll in like the fog off of the coast of Dover. Shapes, sizes, colors, the two seemed familiar with such elementary concepts. The younger child was even having fun, laughing with each exercise, while the older appeared to be growing agitated, as if ridiculed with the patronizing rudimentary tests. Neither appeared familiar with letters or numbers, whether from our English language or Latin Alphabet or others used around the world, not that I thought these children was prove to be fluent in Arabic or Mandarin Chinese.

     Etching my name into a sheet of paper with thick, bold letters, I tore off the sheet and placed it upon my chest, attempting to breakthrough the communication barriers. Providing paper, crayons, and an assortment of coloring utensils to each child in order to analyze what they had to draw, I watched as Josephine eagerly drew when given the chance, favoring the green colored crayon above all others, wearing it down as she used corresponding colors sparingly. Mesmerized with her artistic renderings, I watched as she scribbled about, drawing a series of unknown, fantastical crawling, climbing, and flying creatures and an object resembling the sun suspended from the sky.

     Juniper refused to draw, sitting with his arms folded and playing with some variety of toy he had brought with him, a wooden device that resembled a hand carved tic-tac-toe board. Speaking aloud to himself quite a bit, the two spoke to each other in their unknown language. Regarding their native tongue, the language was a whole mess of what sounded like throat clearing consonants. I had studied merely a semester’s worth of linguistics in college, but their words were unfamiliar to any language family or dialect that I had ever heard in my life.

     Flipping on a radio to assess a reaction, the two merely glanced up at the new and intruding sound, unfazed with the audible wavelengths permeating throughout the room. Turning on a television set alarmed them something off, as they each stood up, analyzing the mechanical picture box with intrigue yet trepidation, as it was clear as day that they were unfamiliar with the technology on display.

     “Well, there have not been any reports of any missing children within the past several hours or for that matter days, at least none fitting such a description. Nobody else has stepped up to claim these children as their own, or as some sort of cruel experiment of barbarism either. What do you think Mr. Willows, a real live case of feral children, like the ‘babes in the woods’ folktale of old?” asked a colleague.

     “That is not a bad explanation, but no, I do not believe they are feral. They appear much too organized, from the conversation they have maintained throughout the day between themselves, their spoken language is complicated, it is far from gibberish and I can tell you that they did not compose it themselves. Their behavioral pattern indicates that they are well familiar with communicating with others aside from themselves as well, for instance they warmed up to me awfully quick and I’m but a man with a clipboard and a pen. Their special awareness and recognizing of geometric shapes indicates that they have at least some moderate intelligence and familiarity with some common objects of a civilized society, save for the television that is. For example they are clearly familiar with the use of the chairs they are sitting on, and Josephine has drawn before, and each child plays with toys. The boy talks to himself, but I have seen a wide variety of children do that, particularly children in unfamiliar surroundings with feelings of heavy isolation, both of which are off the charts in this case,” I replied.

     “So do you feel as though they were neglected, and lived in the forests, at least for some period of time?” asked the colleague.

     “Quite possible, yes. They must have been neglected in some fashion, whether they were lost or abandoned, as for whether they had a stay in the woods I cannot be certain. We’ll get to the bottom of this, we just need to be patient, the answers will come,” I replied, an assertion that I am happy to say would prove to be correct.

The first thing we learned over the coming hours and days was a diagnosis from doctors, characterizing the skin condition as the result of Chlorosis, the vitamin deficiency that I had theorized earlier. Never one to toot my own horn, I was merely happy that the two had not been poisoned, subjected to drinking water laced with arsenic or some other additive or the victim of experimentation or a byproduct of some genetic disorder.

     Whereas the children in the Woolpit legend consumed a diet that consisting of merely green beans for quite sometime, Juniper and Josephine subsisted on a largely vegetarian diet, although they were not reluctant to try any meat or dairy products, they just ate very little from those corners of the food pyramid, although they ate very little of anything for that matter.

     Adapting to their surroundings much quicker than many of us had expected them to, I must give the children a resounding, ample serving of credit and round of applause, as they got used to myself and the researchers must quicker than we were able to come to terms with the mysterious green children. Kids are resilient after all; they learn quickly, even those of the green skinned variety born from plants, or wherever it was that they came from.

     Each child, even Juniper, gravitated towards me in particular in due time, a reason I concluded being because although I had no children of my own, I was the closest thing to a mother figure among the group, a fresh breath of air in light of the barrage of scientists that had conducted test after test upon the kids. Personally and professionally, I was enjoying myself for the first time in eons, fascinated with the strange condition and background of the mystery duo, a fact that no doubt rubbed off on them. They were a refreshing break from the norm for me, although part of that may have had to do with the fact that there were no problem parents in the mix, although that did not stop my colleagues from cracking jokes pertaining to how the biological parents of the children must have partaken in a addiction to drugs or some other chemical, household or natural, during pregnancy or copulation or whatever biological explanation you’d care to bring to the discussion.

     It took a matter of weeks worth of feeding them a well balanced diet full of vitamins and nutrients to kick aside the soft green pigment, disappearing from the skin like a rash fading into irrelevance. Walking through the streets of the city the houses and buildings in the area mesmerized them, as they were enthralled with most every structure constructed from wood, brick and stone, big or small, much like a remote village tenant setting their first sights upon Piccadilly Circus. Even the sight of passing pedestrians brought delight and glee to their faces, as they laughed and spoke and snickered in wonder and amazement at most every person they encountered, viewing them as if they were each a bright and colorful ride or attraction at an amusement park, the children as elated as if they were high from a sugar rush brought forth from devouring a copious sampling of carnival cotton candy.              Of course, the adaptations were stifled in some departments. For instance, the children refused to ride along in a car, terrified at the prospect of merely sliding through the doors, which we theorized was from a belief that automobiles were large animals that would eat them.

The most agonizing aspect that they were unaccustomed with was the basic concept of bathing. Cleanliness and basic grooming were lost on the children, and despite drinking large quantities of water, strangely enough the two appeared deathly afraid when presented with the prospect of submersing themselves in water, kicking and screaming when faced with the possibility. Refusing to shed their primitive cotton textiles for more modern attire, clinging to them like hoarders unwilling to spruce up their domain, or more accurately like children refusing to give up a revered toy, we had no choice but to let them wallow as they pleased.

     Hearing the legend of the elder girl from the 12th century integrating into society, however the optimist that I still was, I reserved my doubts that either child would ever be able to fully acclimate themselves to our civilization. Bathing aside, it did not help that neither child was trained to use the toilet, relieving themselves wherever they pleased without warning like animals for the first several weeks. No job is not without its downfalls.

One disheartening aspect in the research and study was that the more we time we spent working, and the closer we seemed to be getting to the truth, the further it felt as though we were drifting into the dark. Underneath it all, it was difficult for many colleagues to admit that they were at a loss for words as to the origin of the children.

“Where did they come from, Ms. Willows?” asked a colleague one night off the record after hours. “This is 2015, there aren’t any random Flemish outposts lining our country roads, Pakistani maybe.”

“To think that I had my reservations regarding the old Woolpit legend from long ago, I was under the impression, at least in my limited understanding of it, that it was just a misplaced fairy tale that was lost in translation, and that somewhere in time a mistake was made, whether in a translation from Old English, Middle English, Norman French or Latin, or simply from a game of generational telephone. What we have encountered here, not merely with the skin tone but the clothes and language is history in the making. This is not a fairy tale, cautionary tale, wives tale, or story spun from fantasy,” I explained.

“At this point I would imagine that any theory is possible, whether it be extraterrestrial, parallel universe or some fantastical underground world,” I continued. “Why, who is to say that the correct answer is not the simplest one, they could be runaway gypsy children for all I know,” I quipped.

“They may be less strange than the Roma, that may be as good a guess as any, especially with the funny clothes. Then again, that would not account for the strange language; one of our experts would have picked up on one of the throngs of Romance or Slavic languages. Not to mention the eyes, nose and ears, even the doctors were baffled. Sure it may just be a gigantic coincidence, perhaps they are gypsy children abandoned due to a birth defect,” explained my colleague, pondering a deeper thought.

“I must admit though, the extraterrestrial possibility does grapple my mind. One historical account of the Woolpit legend describes the children as falling from heaven. Aside from the skin, clothing and language, the physiological construction does make me wonder. You believe in aliens, UFOs, do you not?” he asked.

“Me? Sure, well, yes I believe so. Not sure there are any UFO’s hovering about looking for some misplaced offspring, but then again I’m not ready to discount anything anymore, not at this point. Josephine’s drawings, they included strange animals, the likes of which you don’t see trotting or flying about Britain, not even at the zoo. She also drew something that looked like a sun only it was different, it’s hard to explain, but it seemed bigger, closer, more wide reaching and impactful, a greater part of their life. Then again the dimensions may not have been drawn accurately to scale, it was drawn by an eight year old,” I explained.

“The possibility that freaks me out the most is not that these kids may come from beyond the stars, but that they may come from right here, only they slid through a time slip, crossed into this dimension or parallel universe or whatever. Imagine that Christine, a neighboring dimension residing right here with ours, a shadow world, why, these may be two normal kids over there, maybe residing in the Suffolk of shadow Britain. There may be a shadow Christine Willows, and she may inadvertently appear here, or worse, one of us may slip through whatever window was opened and find ourselves in a world of green people,” he explained.

“You’re right, that is a very frightening concept, and for that matter possibility, but I am a behavior psychologist, I know nothing of a cross rift of inter-dimensional happenings. The kids are coming on with their English, soon enough they should be able to tell us just where they did come from,” I explained, growing weary and frankly uneasy with the course of the conversation.

In seemingly no time at all after that momentous conversation the pace of the communication barriers slowly eroded away quickened, as Juniper and Josephine picked up on basic English and becoming somewhat fluent, at least from my positive, glass half full point of view.

As their ability to communicate with those of us in the room that were British increased, we asked as many answers as we could, carefully constructing and tailoring each one in order to each the translation difficulties and maximize efficiency. For one thing, neither Juniper nor Josephine had a clue as to the earlier appearance of the fabled Green Children of Woolpit from the 12th century.

“You see, two other children appeared here some time ago, and they looked just like you two,” I told them, taking them to the magnificent village sign in Woolpit that had been constructed in the 1970s, depicting and celebrating the fabled children.

“You see, they were green and spoke an unfamiliar language too,” I explained as they merely watched the sign swing back and forth in the breeze.

“Of course you don’t know, that was almost a thousand years ago. Imagine if I was picked up by a flying saucer, and an alien asked me if I knew anything about a random Earthling from the 12th century,” I continued.

Each child had been given a birth name, although attempting to pronounce either one of them was more than enough for me to begin choking on my tongue. Juniper and Josephine were authentic enough as much as far as I was concerned.

As far as their fear of bathing in water, the two explained that there was a wide, surging river that flowed through their homeland, and was the bringer of death to many a child who was pulled into the waves, easily as good a reason for aqua phobia as any I had ever heard.

Now for the million-dollar question, just where did these two come from, and how did they get here? Much to our chagrin, the details provided were exceedingly cryptic. As opposed to some interstellar spacecraft capable of faster than light travel, or some revolutionary futuristic transporter of matter, the children claimed that they managed to walk to Suffolk, an excuse that drew a wave of skepticism from our team. Refusing to inform us of just where they came from, the pair remained tight lipped throughout the extended questioning, as if they swore some oath of allegiance or signed some variety of non-disclosure agreement. Wherever they happened to be hail from, neither they nor their homeland appeared to be a stranger to treason.

Before more persuasive methods could be brought to the table to get the children to open up, a curious event began occurring, taking place all throughout England. While we were under the casual impression that the sudden emergence of green children had a rough frequency of occurring once every millennium, such a proverbial notion was shattered when other pairs of children with similar attributes to Juniper and Josephine began springing up all throughout Southeast England. Showing up in a diversity of locales including dense forests, bustling cities, remote hidden caves, and the rocky beach right along the coast, each were dressed in the unusual clothing style and spoke the bizarre language. The subsequent green children each ranged between an estimated seven to fourteen years of age, always occurring in pairs, appearing sickly and in poor health and unable to communicate, at least they showed no attempt to try and do so.

Questioning Juniper and Josephine, our adopted children denied knowledge of any of the other children on a personal level, appearing unfamiliar with the advent of photography when they were showed pictures of the others, as Juniper began speaking with the picture.

Many among the outside world began to formulate a belief that the discoveries were one giant charade, part of an elaborate hoax. Sure enough, many of the ensuing claims were fraudulent, as out of dozens of pairs allegedly found, only three were authenticated of resembling our two trendsetters. Others admitted to the scams, seeking money, fame, or worst of all merely desperate for attention. Some of these were rather easy to discern given the profuse coloring of the skin, as some of the “children” looked like regular kids wearing Halloween costumes dipped in a splattering of face paint, and suffice to say they lacked the authenticity requisite for a closer inspection, as they were not worth the time and effort to investigate. 

Yes, all in all Juniper, Josephine and the others became quite the hum of a frenzied media buzz, but subjecting them to the flash and spark of press and paparazzi would have ben far more callous and vengeful than just about any medical analysis possible. Rapidly becoming fodder for Internet chatter and tabloid sensation, I had never been one to care for trends existing beyond my daily life, and so I was generally in the dark regarding just how popular the green children were becoming in modern society.

Many members of our team began wondering just what was going on with the sudden onslaught of appearances, as it was mystified to conceive how they were showing up in so many places almost overnight, with no trace of their previous whereabouts from any source. If the green children were alien in extraterrestrial, why were there no sightings of flying spacecraft? Then again, we were informed that large groups began gathering at Stonehenge to await the formal arrival of some master alien race to descend and shake off the dust of our humble planet. This was the first moment I began to seriously pray that the children were not extraterrestrial in origin, for how desperate and pathetic our planet would look in the eyes of any visitors, watching us bow down in eager anticipation by lighting a candlelight vigil at some historic sight when there were no real signs of any impending arrival or any clues as to where such a landing place would be or just when a meeting of the worlds would occur.

To tell you the truth, the frightening parallel universe theory was becoming a greater likelihood in my mind, with the sudden appearance of each pair of children, seemingly confused as to why they were where they were.

Back to the original conflict at hand in our journey of enlightenment, just where were they coming from?

     “Wherever it is, what if they are sending these legions of pairs of children out on purpose, releasing them into our environment as some sort of biological weapon?” proposed one member of our team.

     “If this culture is of Earthly origin and is stuck in the middle Ages they could be harboring plague, or God knows what else. For that matter if they are from the future, or are aliens, well, game set match, regarding any technological sabre rattling. What do you think Ms. Willows?” I was asked, catching me off guard.

     “From the reports we have seen about these other children, they were all found sickly, frightened and confused, just as ours were. It may be possible that the children are refugees of some sort. However all of newly discovered children, even the older ones fourteen years of age or so, have been found to have the intelligence of a five year old, at least from detailed analysis from colleagues of mine, some that I am familiar with, and I trust those findings. All besides these two, our two, the first two, in this era that is. There is something different about them, they seem to have a bit more between the ears, I’m not sure just what that is or what secrets they are harboring, but we’re going to find out,” I declared.

As we would soon learn, of the four other authentic pairs of green children, six of them would perish before long. Tests showed that they were malnourished, many of them rife with parasitic infection, although none were storing any major bacterial, viral, or other form of biological or chemical contaminant. Music to my ears was the test results, as I was growing increasingly fearful of what was to come, with the budding scent of suspense clouding the springtime air.

     With continuous careful and considerate effort, before long I was able to get Josephine to break her silence and shed some light on the subsequent pairs of green children emerging throughout the region. To best translate the words of her juvenile grammar and tenuous grasp upon the English language, I can tell you that she began telling more about the whereabouts of her origins, although both Josephine and Juniper held steadfast in their denial of laying out the entire truth, saying how they were not allowed to specifically divulge just where it was that they had come from.

Wherever it was, whether it be in the heavens beyond the stars or here on Earth, or a shadow Earth at that, our team was informed that there had been a great war taking place in their homeland, a battle that had begun only recently and was now raging on furiously and at full tilt. The details may have been sketchy at best and not completely accurate, but the children surmised that changes were afoot, a new order of elders that was treating the youthful inhabitants of this land horribly, committing foul acts of treachery and going so far as to force them into enslavement. That is why other pairs of children began appearing, they were escaping this new order as refugees, and for the second time in as many tries, my unpredictable scientific hypothesis proved correct, an accurate forecast I was able to derive no pleasure from given the dastardly conditions spoken of by the children.

At this point a most unusual phenomenon occurred, as young Josephine choked back both tears and more information, an action that was most vigorously rejected by Juniper, who commanded for her to cease at once in her watering us a well of information, in fact he grew quite determined in his impatience, casting demands with vitriol. Conflict between Juniper and Josephine continued to unfold over the coming hours and days, the disharmony between the two becoming a fascinating development considering that Josephine had been adapting to our customs quite readily and with eager desire, while Juniper displayed an ironclad and staunch reluctance.

Splitting the two children apart, we learned that the pair was not brother and sister, as we had originally theorized and frankly assumed given their similar appearance and personality tendencies, aside from cultural assimilation. Answering everything under the sun when not in the presence and duress of Juniper, we finally uncovered the lost clues in our mysterious search in the form of words spoken of by the eight-year old girl. There was no distant planet or fall from heaven, no parallel universe or springing out from a storybook at play before us. Rather, Josephine told of an underground land, a formerly marvelous place that more closely resembled the surface layer of the planet more than I ever could have realized.

Josephine spoke of a land beneath the ground stocked with plentiful gardens, flowing with roaring rivers, and networked by an endless and interlocking supply of caves that provided the modes for transportation to communities and settlements scattered about the underground. Why, she even claimed that thick forests covered much of the subterranean landscape. How do they grow you ask? According to the girl, they grew from a “second sun,” the likes of which I had a difficult time of comprehending, even considering that my comprehension limits long been pushed to the brink. Considering that she lacked a background in physics, geology, or any other useful science, she struggled explaining the phenomenon of this alternate sun, but from the sounds of it the energy was derived from some variety of manmade power source that had been harnessed to suit their needs, such was my understanding of it anyway.

“Let me guess, your home is called St. Martin’s Land?” I asked in jest, referring to the legend.

“Pritania Coomb,” she replied--close but no cigar.

That was not all, as Josephine explained how the trouble from her homeland was not merely restricted to the subterranean realm, as the underground inhabitants had wished to establish their new order up on the surface. Their culture had sent a pair of children out every so often in order to spy and conduct a report on the workings of the surface people. Asked just who they were, the girl provided a rather startling answer, claiming that her, Juniper and the others are descendants of the persecuted peoples union with the fairies. When pressed for further explanation, she merely was able to state how that is just what they had been told, and what they’ve been taught.

Just who were these alleged persecuted peoples? As I searched my brain for answers, I reached the unsatisfactory conclusion that it could have been one of several groups over several centuries. Hell, this “union” between the surface and the fairies may have dated back thousands of years, as there were a wealth of persecuted groups and races scattered throughout the history of Britain, many of which could be counted and tallied among both the list of conquerors and conquered. Anglo-Saxons, Normans, Welsh, and Scots to name a few, although the group that stuck out the most in my mind were the ancient Britons. After all the evolution of slightly smaller eyes and slightly larger ears would take some time to unfold, even in the dark recesses of the earth where sight was less vital and sound was of far greater necessity.

Speaking of the importance of sound, Josephine informed me that Juniper’s “toy” was in actuality a communications device that he was able to use to get in touch with the underground. In time she shared with me how it worked, and despite its primitive coating, it was quite advanced, operating on vibrations. Far from a cellphone, this tool had to be placed in the appropriate type of terrain in order to relay messages. To imagine how we had been under the assumption that he had been speaking to himself and playing with a toy, a device that appeared capable of communication storage, at least according to some electronics experts of ours.

There really had been something different about these children all along, given their relative confidence and even less relative intellectual advantages in comparison to the other pairs of green children found. To think that these two were advanced scouts sent up above to scour the present state of mankind so they could plan some strategy, whether it conventional attack or something slightly more covert. That being said, just what type of culture would utilize children to serve as cadets? One was approximately twelve years of age, while the other was eight, two ages that we were never able to completely verify, as the children were unfamiliar with the measurement of time. Juniper and Josephine, green clad children that was essentially soldiers following orders, kids doing what they had been told. It appeared that in their culture those two distinctions were one and the same.

On the other hand, perhaps it did serve a purpose, offering up a hidden rationale, underneath the surface if you will. Cloaked in the guise of inconspicuous children, but straddling the line between intelligence and knowledge, and with it right and wrong, were our two science projects. Taking comfort in the knowledge that myself and our team, and entire surface culture for that matter could provide refuge, comfort and safety from her predatory underworld superiors, Josephine began crying, claiming that she did not wish to return to such a horrid place, begging to stay with us. Less of a case of Stockholm syndrome and more of an example of a detainee offering up secret and classified information in exchange for asylum. As a behavioral psychologist that has worked with many young people through the years, while there may be no supreme answer choice in the nature versus nurture debate, children are capable of rising above the confinement of being products of their environment to make the right choice in their lives, even brainwashed individuals that are spoon-fed a biased agenda from an early age, such as Juniper and Josephine.

Whereas the conflict between right and wrong weighed heavily on the ever evolving mind of young Josephine, the conflict at play for Juniper was the battle between loyalty and rebellion, perhaps it was not by chance that the this underworld group had abstained from sending more fully grown teenagers to do their bidding. Maybe they did have more in common with us culturally speaking than I would have imagined.

Debating in his heart just whether he wished to return and fulfill his obligations to his superiors was Juniper, in part based upon the promise of preferential treatment in exchange for his services. Intrigued with the words of Josephine and admissions of Juniper, my captivation was reaching fever pitch with this alleged subterranean world of endless caves, green gardens and forests and the inner workings of this so-called second sun. Striking a deal with Juniper, who opted to return to his underground world, it was agreed that he would break the rules imposed upon him and take me with him underground, me and only me, a journey we began immediately.

Along the way my initial thoughts harkened back the discussions with my colleague regarding the origin of the children, and how the hollow-Earth theory had came up, just as it was theorized as a possibility with the original 12th century legend. I suppose it did make sense, as this Earth of ours is an awfully big place, and that is just regarding the surface area, without mentioning of the vast expanse of oceans or the size of the subterranean crust and mantle. That being said this was not the journey towards the center of the Earth, given that the sick and lethargic refugee children had been able to spring up with relative ease, leading me to believe that their civilization was located not very far beneath the surface.

Another aspect confirmed to me through the words of Juniper was that while this new order down below had wished to return to the old world, the surface land, the actions of myself and our team had inadvertently saved the day from whatever uprising would have occurred. Juniper had warned the others underground of the many machines and tools utilized above the ground, the mechanical picture box of the television, fierce animals and a far more powerful sun, which he deemed as the “light of the Gods.” Learning that our introductory methods prevented some sort of skirmish or another provided a great wealth of solace for me, regardless of whatever forms the clash would have taken, as we had likely saved lives, either ours or more likely theirs, which made me feel good even if they were a band barbarous tyrants.

Wandering through the fields for sometime, I began growing weary and sweaty in anticipation of whatever sights were readying to befall upon me. Meandering deeper in into the dark forest, an unwelcomed helping of rancid thoughts filtered through my brain, as I began to worry whether or not I was walking into a trap or some sort of trick. Would Juniper turn and strike at me? Would I have a chance to defend myself if the need arose? Despite potentially fighting against a seventy pound twelve-year old, we were in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps we were not alone in the forest, as a gaggle of green-clad associates or relatives or soldiers or whoever would emerge from the thick brush, camouflaged no less, and bombard me with weaponry never encountered by my race before as I fall, becoming the first casualty in the uprising.

“Come,” he declares, pointing into a small cave. “Here, below,” he declared, his English skills paling to those of his younger counterpart, yet still clear enough and painting a picture vivid enough for me as I crouched down and crawled into the abyss, heart beating and dread aching through my bones. In no time at all the small crevice gave way to a wider opening, so wide as to allow the two of us to stand and walk, myself doing so with each slow and cautious step while Juniper casually strolled downwards, doing so as comfortably as a snake slithering through a murky swamp or a spider climbing up a wall. One interesting item of note was how the green eyes of Juniper were shining brightly and glowing in the dark like those of an animal glimmering in the night. To think that I had been fearful of my surroundings in the preceding forest, where the only light had been a few lonely rays of sunshine making their way down through the heavy canopy, an alternative that seemed so pleasant in light of the journey into this pit of darkness and absence of natural light, where the only source visible to my eyes were those of the boy who underneath it all remained a stranger despite all of our progress over the last several weeks. My trust was fully in his hands, amazing to think of how quick I was to transfer my fate into his fingers in exchange for the chance to take a glimpse into his world, but intrigue is a mysterious and marvelous thing.

A low rumble began vibrating through my ears, resembling the onset of thunder, but as the ground shook underneath my feet I swapped one familiar weather phenomenon to that of another, at least geologically speaking, as it felt like an earthquake was thrusting violently from below. The increasing surge fo the vibrations loosened me from my defensive stance as I lost balance, falling to the ground. Initially fearing the potential disgust of walking into a nest of bats, I was now worried that the roof would cave in, or even worse that the Earth would split open, engulfing the two of us into a fiery pit of molten hot magma. Juniper began shouting instructions to me, which were inaudible given that they were not in English, but more so because the buzzing in my ears reached fever pitch. Closing my ears with the palms of my hands and closing my eyes as I waited for it all to end, it felt as though I were tumbling, sliding along the ground for sometime before it all stopped. Juniper was gone, and I would never see him again...

It is difficult to say just how long the duration had been of the entire episode, or just what had happened for that matter. As my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, they began to emerge. A few at first, and then some more, as the collection of bystanders casually increased within my vicinity. Stranded in some type of pit with a circumference of about ten feet in diameter, I glanced upwards, where approximately ten feet above me, they stood. Men and women, speaking the same unfamiliar language of Juniper and Josephine, wearing the same antiquated style of clothing, although slightly different varieties I might add, and most prominent of all, of course was the green skin pigmentation. Although he was nowhere to be found, Juniper had kept his promise, as I was now down below with his underground race, or tribe, or clan, or whatever other denomination of group was most appropriate.

Josephine’s descriptions were fairly accurate as I glanced around, finding cave networks in the distance, a wide variety of green plants growing across the ground, and a small stream flowing through the region, although it wasn’t roaring in ferocity. Overhead a wide-ranging lighting system provided some lamination, a system that I difficulty with deciphering, it were as if it were a splicing between fire and artificial light.

It was also difficult to assess just how many of them there were, several dozen that had gathered around before long to stare at me, and a small handful of others scattered about. Here was I, amazed and confused, trapped and frightened, feeling much like Juniper and Josephine had been, along with the rest of the green children past and present. Feeling the verge of panic setting in as their eyes descended upon me, studying me with the same look of bewilderment that our species had casted down upon them, this was hardly the type of encounter I had prepared for or had been seeking.

Eventually the chatter above subsided as one called down to me, speaking in a language that appeared to be Old English.

“Yes, Old English. How about Modern English? Of course I’ll settle for Middle English too?” I asked, attempting to break the ice with a bit of humor that was lost on my hosts.

“Pritania Coomb?” I began shouting, identifying the two words of the language of the children that I recalled. Such a great deal of time had been spent in the office attempting to translate their words to English, it never once occurred to me that I would have been well advised to pick up a phrase or two of their dialect. With my senses and my mind racing a mile a minute, over-stimulated with the sight of this mysterious race allegedly descended from fairies, as well as their entire underground world, some aspects that had initially evaded me were now readily apparent. Among them were the children, each pulling and working on some contraption or another that led me to believe that Josephine’s words were entirely authentic, for this did not simply appear to be children helping tend the fields, regardless of my lack of cultural understanding for my new surroundings.

Over the subsequent hours and days I was subjected to a series of tests and experiments conducted by the little green men that were not extraterrestrial in origin, some physiological and anatomical, while others seemed to be almost psychological and behavioral, not unlike the tests I had subjected their young field agents to. Of course I had been compassionate in my endeavors, unlike this group that treated me with a complete and utter disregard for my well being, generally doing as they pleased. Although the proceeding was usually painless, the helplessness experienced inside exemplified the terror ten fold. Reducing to tears and sobbing, I began pleading with the group to release me, attempting to relate to their human nature, in the hopes that they possessed any. Despite not being fluent or cognizant in their words, I was able to discern that they were engaged in debate, as if some wished to release me while others wished for me to remain, concerned with the prospect that I could return to the surface and inform my people of what I had witnessed down in their secret world below.

Whether that is what the topic was being discussed will never be known, that was merely my interpretation of it, and unfortunately granting my wish for freedom proved to come with much too dire of potential consequence, as my sentence of false imprisonment was extended indefinitely. Over time I watched as more of the youth were subjected to foul and wretched punishments the likes of which made me cringe. All the while, many of their people came by to look down upon me, not in greeting but in assessment, occasionally throwing down scraps of food for me to live on. Over time it became apparent that they cared very little in conversing with me, studying my physiology, my behavioral patterns, or learning about me in any way imaginable. Less than a novelty act, I was not even given the treatment usually afforded to newly acquired zoo exhibits, nor was I paraded around as a conquered prisoner of war. Rather, they had no interest learning anything about me at all, as I was essentially reduced to playing and starring in the unwanted role human being trapped in a well, only there was no way out and no way of finding help...

It sounded like such a fun and whimsical fantasy, the preceding story, the only one that I can now recall in any fleshed out capacity these days, one that concluded for me several months ago now, or at least I believe that to be so, there is no time anymore where I am now. My skin eventually faded and is now a flush, green hue, as my vitamin deficiency and poor diet has stripped me of my health and weight, making me one of them on the outside, although I remain an outsider on the inside. I even happened to pick up a few of their short and common phrases, although this is all for naught as nobody listens to what I have to say. This is the end, it is certainly nobody’s idea of a happy ending, but then again how many lives end on a joyful note? Rather, endings come when you least suspect them to, or sometimes when you are expecting them, in which case they are almost never joyful and pleasant.

Watching this underground culture I learned a few final lessons. Sometimes it is easy to get discouraged with humanity, the variety that tends to stray above the surface, that is, wars, famine, pestilence, the daily miseries that are all around us, some momentous and some miniscule. Yet our species has also spread peace for quite sometime, a peace that exists throughout much of the world, we just don’t notice it because we only tend to look for it during times and places of war. Our species has helped food and clothe people around the world, we’ve helped endangered species around the world, inoculated people that we’ve never seen, eradicated deadly diseases, brought forth technological advancements that have provided better lives for millions.

What happened a thousand years before in the village of Woolpit, regarding the green children and the societal strife between various groups that may have discriminated against any number of persecuted peoples, fairies, their children and their descendants, I cannot be entirely certain of, but neither can I apologize for it, for the mistakes of my distant ancestors and others whom I have no relation to are the fault of them and them only, and should have no bearing on me in my present capacity, just as nobody’s should. Of course there is no method of appeal, no cry for help, no communicative device from Juniper to call up to the world above. Whether the boy led me to this confinement intentionally or whether he lacked any ill will and the consequences were entirely unintended I shall never know, although at this point it matters little.

Theirs was a culture of a brute savages, stuck in the dark ages, in terms of their location but more importantly regarding their way of life. To think of how those of us above ground have been quilted into focusing on the bad all the time, how many people were killed here or there, from this or that. We don’t nearly celebrate how many people were saved. How many people starved, but how many were fed? Call me a hopeless dreamer, but the first thing I would change about our culture, would be to take a glass half full approach all the time, the same approach that I began taking once again after having the pleasure to investigate the new children of Woolpit in this update on the legend of folklore where the fantasy has become far too great of a reality for yours truly.

So here I am, trapped in this underworld as a prisoner of sorts. From the discussions had with Juniper and Josephine and from what I can tell from the looks of the scenery viewable from my restricted horizons, there will be no war on the surface, and I may die as the only victim, the only casualty alongside these children below that suffer and those above that made it to the surface but did not fare well. If I shall indeed perish it won’t be as a martyr, or as a hero. I’m just a woman, a woman that eventually was able to do all that she could in the time that she had. That’s all any of us can ever do...

The lingering recollection of Ms. Christine Willows, a woman held prisoner in a wondrous subterranean nightmare, despite the fact that the only crime she is guilty of, was a curiosity of getting to the bottom of this alleged underground world of her young subjects. Ms. Willows did find her calling, as well as the rebirth of her spirit; all it took was the rekindling of a thousand year old fabled legend. Just goes to show you, that when it comes to opportunity, careful planning or even pigment for that matter, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side...

END