Lessoc Fountain - a fairy-creature tale

Ch. 4 A visitor of Unusual Size

Cocot was still mentally shaking herself, wondering if she was actually awake when something in the room coughed politely.

Sitting sat straight up in alarm, she saw a seven-inch tall, white-bearded fairy sitting on her bed frame.

"Would it be possible to get some coffee this morning?" the fairy man asked, sounding oddly out of sorts. "Or maybe some water in a cup my size?"

"Hello?" she asked, voice raspy with sleep. "What, ah, what are you?" There wasn't much light in the chalet; a soft glow coming from the window by the table.

"What sort of question is that? What do I look like? I'm a hand fairy," he huffed. "Now about that coffee....?"

Cocot stared at the hand fairy for a moment, unable to decide if this was real or still a dream. It felt real, but couldn't be. This was a problem to solve, a puzzle. So she studied the hand fairy as a puzzle to put together from the scattered, individual pieces that made him.

First she noticed his balding head with fuzzy white hair forming a cotton halo on the back half, his craggy face and big, watery eyes that were narrowed in a deep squint, his eyebrows (that were beyond bushy) shooting out in every direction, his bulbous nose and finally his ears that swept up and outwards in an alarming manner.

From his head, her eyes moved to his clothes as bright and colorful as the flowers she had picked, which were loose and layered like a traveling gypsy, except that instead of a canvas bag on his back, he flaunted a huge set of gossamer wings that reminded Cocot of an intricate spider web laced with dew drops and sparkling in the morning sun. The fairy's shoes were dark green with a long point that curled up in a lollipop spiral over the toes.

She couldn't quite get all the pieces of the puzzle to mesh in a logical way. She was missing something.

It was the shoes that finally convinced her that she was indeed speaking with an actual fairy; for no creature who wore such ridiculous shoes and had such an ill disposition would have come from her imagination.

She clapped her hands in excitement. A real live fairy had come to visit.

"So?" he asked her, reminding her of the boy from the farm. He was definitely cranky, she decided, and this in spite of his shoes.

"So...what?" she asked, not remembering what he wanting.

"So do you have coffee?"

"Oh! Of course, do you want some coffee?"

"Why would I ask you if you had coffee, if I didn't want coffee?" he said, sighing with frustration.

"I'm not sure if I have any coffee." She jumped from the bed to start checking in the cupboard. Her first fairy visitor and she couldn't offer him anything nice.

He snorted. Or laughed through his nose. "Everyone has coffee."

"There might be some coffee grains left over from before Jean-Baptist died. Let me look."

"Please do," the fairy replied. After a moment of watching her digging through the cupboard, he asked, "When did Jean-Baptist die?"

"At least fifteen years ago, I suppose," she said. "I'll be fourteen soon and he died several years before Mother found me."

He stamped a green shod foot on the footboard, making his wings shake. "Why would I want fifteen year old coffee? It must have molded away by now!"

"So, you don't want any coffee?" she asked, heart sinking.

"I'll take some water."

"In a thimble?"

His eyebrows jumped in surprise. "A thimble? Did you just ask me if I wanted my water in a thimble?"