Fairy Tale Treasure (Book Two: The Road to Ever After)

Chapter Eighteen

Princess Sarah finished wrapping her braided hair into a bun on the back of her head with a smile. She flounced the puffy sleeves of her blouse and very much approved of her reflection in the mirror within Guinevere and Goliath's abode. Squishing her lips together for added redness, Sarah was ready to start her day.

"Aye, someone be up good an' early," Guinevere stated, a frying pan in her left hand and a wooden spoon in her right. "Going somewhere, Miss Sarah?"

"Just a little island exploration," she fibbed.

"Oh, indeed?"

Sarah winked. "Don't wait up for me!"

"Wait up for ye? Ye haven't even had breakfast!"

The princess skipped over to the door with mischief in her wake. She swung the door open, still looking at Guinevere. As she stepped one foot outside, she ran right into a wall of human flesh.

"Oof!" Hurley grabbed her before they both fell over. He smiled. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Sarah brushed the wrinkles out of her skirt. "I should have been watching where I was going."

"Oh! Yer Majesty," Goliath peeked out of the cottage door. "Good mornin' to ya! 'Spect ye was lookin' for yer first mate. Somethin' ye be needin?"

"Oh, uh...no, sorry, Goliath," Hurley scratched the back of his neck, embarrassed. He motioned to Sarah. "I think I've found what I was looking for."

Guinevere sniggered in the background. Goliath was not jealously offended. He just nodded with a salute.

"Very good, Sire. Very good, indeed."

Hurley saluted back to his first mate and then started leading Sarah away. "I wanted to show you something."

"Color me intrigued," she replied as they began their jaunt through the pirate village. They walked and talked with youthful vigor. As they crossed the families of this marine race, they waved and "good morning"-ed each party. Wives set out their husbands' newly cleaned clothes on laundry lines as fathers chased their little rascals in a game of tag.

Hurley led Sarah away from the village, past palm trees and tall rocks.

"Where are we going," Sarah asked, ducking a low-lying branch of fauna.

"Don't worry," he said. "You'll like it."

"Yes, but I tend to like things that are very bad for me," she continued. "So, that's not super reassuring."

"Just around these rocks," he ignored her. "Here we are."

They stepped into the opening. Surrounded by towering boulders, a calm pool of water sat protected from the world. It was a peaceful oasis. Even if all it was was a private pool of sand and limpid, blue water, it would have been a glorious surprise for two people becoming...well, whatever they were becoming.

But it was more than that, so much more that Sarah's mouth dropped open in wonder.

At the center of the pool was a perfect pearl. Not just any pearl. A pearl as big as a coconut. No, bigger. It floated in the middle of the water...and it wasn't alone. All around it, bobbing at various distances were more pearls, hundreds more, of all shapes and sizes. Beautiful, dainty, darling pearls.

"M.O.P.," Sarah uttered. "It's the M.O.P."

"The mop?" Hurley seemed confused, then it dawned on him with a laugh. "Oh, Mother of Pearl. Yes, it's the M.O.P. and all her lovely children."