Alpha Erebon ☾ Book 2

Chapter 6

Sabrina's POV

Next day

After dropping my girls off at the daycare, I met some of the teachers looking after the children who were all orphaned witches and wizards. Erebon wasn't exaggerating about baby animals, each child had a companion animal. Alice and Noah were excited to be there and I was actually excited to get started on the task at hand – jam making.

I didn't expect there to be literally hundreds of recipes for jam in this book. It seems unusual, but some recipes differ slightly to others, almost like there was an experimental process going on. On one index page I find more answers; Grandma Greywood jams had secret ingredients. Fairy nightflowers; gifted by the fae of the witchwoods. Strawberry jam would beckon forth one fairy named Tin. He would trade strawberry jam for a nightflower of his choosing.

These flowers were sketched, and they were otherworldly. Some were listed under edible, sweet and bitter. A small few were labelled under poison – red petals and blue pollen cores were usually deadly.

Most of the information I find creatively entertaining, like their grandma was a storyteller who passed her time thinking up these stories for each creation of jam. Just for fun, I take the instructions seriously.

Step 1 to trade is to clean the little jars for the fairy folk. I look around the house, to no avail do I find such 'little' things. But I've already concocted the strawberry jam for 'Tin' by cooking exactly 1 strawberry in 1 heaped teaspoon of sugar. I now have a tiny layer of jam in the pot and nowhere to put it.

I take a break from jam making to instead sew up the damage on the blue table cloth, and for that I open a sewing tin. Inside this tin is where I find the little jars for jams, the size of my pinky finger – the lids look like real gold to me. I immediately think of the gold on Erebon's chain. I pick up the glass jar and I unscrew the lid as gently as possible.

I fetch and make use of a twig from the witchwood to scrape up and press the sauce into the tiny jar, which was per the instructions. By the time I have screwed on the miniature lid, I hear a little knock at my kitchen window.

I slowly turn around and I see a small being with wings. I pause as I take in the tiny man, wearing a metallic purple cloak, surrounded by the flare of his golden translucent wings. His hair is spikey and blonde, while his eyes are completely black. He keeps knocking at the window above the sink, and he points to a tiny latch on one of the square window panels.

I quickly move closer and use the hidden latch in the wood. I turn it and the window pane swings open on small hinges. I gently put down the jar and the fairy picks it up. It's giant for him, he shakes it and looks at the insides, assessing the contents.

With a smile, he reaches into his cloak and brings out a golden flower with thin golden petals, like a daisy, with a yellow centre. He walks closer to my finger tip as I hold out my pinky. He lays the flower on my finger and flits away into the garden with the jar of jam.

I see him flying through the overgrown bushes, out into the witchwood. Not only that, his fairy dust trail starts growing more berries right before my eyes. Blueberries and blackberries start to swell on the leaves, turning a rich and ripe color.

Magical!

None of what I witness scares me, instead, I feel a deep respect for this process.

I also realise Tin and I didn't utter a single word to each other – but we both somehow agreed to the trade.

I watch the golden flower start to grow in my hand, and then I realise the petals are covered in fairy dust.

I go back to the recipe book and I find another page of instructions.