The Love of a Fairy

Chapter Three

    Suki sits on my shoulder as we approach the shiny, white gates to the festival. The paths are sprinkled with rose petals and there are young children cutting in front of people trying to tag their friends. Most of the stands are open and the aroma of lemon and rosemary baguettes fills my lungs like sweet oxygen. The festival has so many amazing sweets and baked goods but the breads were always my favorite.

    Suki points out a stand that has a sign on a table that reads, "Sweets and Beets." Suki and her mom used to go to their bakery when Suki was a kid. All of their baked goods contain beets. When Suki first told me about them years ago I thought it was the most disgusting thing I have ever heard of, but eventually I succumbed to her nagging about taking me there and I found it was really rather good.

    The orchestra's playing some light music. The violins are the most prominent, which I love! Violins are my favorite instrument. I started playing at age nine. Suki loved to hear me play, she said it was her favorite thing to do after a long day at work.

    "Prim, over here!" Suki announces, flying off my shoulder and over to the Sweets and Beets booth.

    "Why hello there, honey!" says a short, gray haired baker lady.

    "Grandma!" Suki exclaims as she runs into her open arms.

    Mrs. Needa was her mother's best friend and often babysat Suki as a girl. She wasn't Suki's biological grandmother, but she delivered her and was an important female figure in Suki's life. We often invited her over for dinner and she would invite us over for tea and pastries in return. We spent a lot of time with her during the week and she became an important person in my life as well.

    "I already have your beet juice and eclairs," Mrs. Needa says, turning around to fetch the warm eclairs out of the portable oven. She places them in paper wrappers then she pours the juices into a cup.

    Three other fairies that were chatting on the other side of the booth came over to help Mrs. Needa pour the juice into a bigger cup for me. I offer to do it but she refuses and says it's no problem.

    Suki and I walk around the festival, drinking our drinks and nibbling on our eclairs. The beet juice also has apple and pear juice in it as well. Which, yet again, I thought was the weirdest thing, but like most things, Suki convinced me to try it and I love it.

    The eclairs are just like any normal sugary sweet you've tried before but the cream was so smooth and surprisingly good considering it was made with beets. It was mixed with honey, which made it Suki's favorite.

   She loves bees, (especially honey bees) beeswax and honeycombs. Anything to do with bees or honey, she'll love it.

    We stroll up to a stand that says, "free rose crystal with any purchase." A tall witch with deep brown skin is standing at the stand barely paying any attention and is reading something out of a book that looks to be about spirituality. She's wearing a tall, black, pointed hat that almost covers her light violet eyes. Her head looks to be bald and she wears a long, black bat sleeved dress.

    She turns around when she hears us approach. "Hello!" she exclaims cheerfully.

    "Hi," I say, looking at the books and jewelry on the table.

    "All of those jewelry are handmade," she says with a smirk. "By me."

    "Oh really?" Suki asks, standing on the table, examining the small fairy diamond rings.

    "Those ones were hard to do," the young witch says with a laugh, pointing at the tiny fairy jewelry.

    "It's so hard to find decent jewelry in fairy size," Suki tells her, still examining the jewelry. Suki picks up a dark, long, ruby necklace. "May I try this on?" Suki asks.

    "Of course!" the witch says.

    Suki fumbles with the chain but manages to clip it. It goes low into her shirt and in between her cleavage. The most shiny and eye-catching gem is hidden between her breasts (which seems like a waste to me considering you can't even see it) and along the rest of the necklace are teeny little ruby's.

    "Oh, this is beautiful!" Suki says, feeling the necklace with her fingertips. "How much?"

    "Eleven coins," the witch says without missing a beat.

    Suki doesn't respond for a moment—probably debating if it was too much or not—then suddenly flies up and takes eleven coins out of her tan bag hanging from her shoulder.

    Suki hates wearing this bag; it doesn't match her style but I've never gotten around to making her a new one. Preferably a smaller one, considering, for the most part, she only puts her coins in there.

    Suki hands her the coins and happily runs her fingers along the necklace. "Thank you so much!" Suki says before we leave the stand.

    It isn't very often that Suki gets something nice for herself, so I'm glad she decided to treat herself today.

    We walk around and chat with some people we recognize from work and somehow a couple hours pass and the festival fully opens and the orchestra starts playing upbeat music and the floats start to arrive.

    The first float's a gold and white one shaped like a castle with the king and queen sitting on top on thrones with their two year old daughter, Leah, waving at all the people cheering. She throws out little handfuls of candies and people scurry in the street to go get them before anyone else does.

    Suki flies up and catches two midair. She gives me the yellow toffee candy and she takes the red. We eat them as we watch more floats go by.

    In the float that's approaching behind the Kings and Queens is another royal float; the royal library float. This float is made to promote literature and later will be parked to the side to sell books.

    Every time Suki and I would come to the parade, the second that the library float would park, she would rush me to go buy some books before all the good ones were gone. The library float is one of the largest floats at the festival. Because it's a love festival, all of the books are either about romance or about family or friendship.

    Suki's a sucker for cheesy romance. I would jokingly pick on her and say, "You bought another pulp fiction, huh?" She would brush me off and continue to get lost in the story.

    I would usually pick up a novel about friendship. I do enjoy a good romance from time to time but I'm not as big on romance as Suki is. I used to convince myself that it was just because I've never experienced love before, but that was a lie and I knew it. I have been in love, it was just forbidden love.