On the horizon, a dot appears inside the dancing ring. I squint to make out what it is, which is impossible. It looks like a birthmark in the sky.
As the robins continue their circles of flight, the dot grows bigger, and a strange noise sets in. The sound is high-pitched like a rocket, but far away. It gets louder, deeper, and the spot grows to a white… Heck, is that a speed stork?
Perhaps Cindy’s already sent me a message—a flash telegram that’s obviously going to detonate on my porch! I duck my head, shrieking, as the thing races past me and knocks into the potted plant next to the door. The clay pot explodes in a loud clatter of shards.
Carefully, I take my hands down and turn around. An interesting woman lies sprawled in the mess, legs jammed up against the wall. My mouth drops open in silent shock.
A painful moan drifts from the jumble on the floor. “Dear me…” Then a pair of starlight blue eyes beams at me from upside down. She waves. “Hello there.”
Wariness tenses my muscles. Cautiously, I draw closer, pitching up my eyebrows. “You battered my ficus…”
“Ah, sorry.” She climbs to her feet and brushes leaves and dirt off her bottom. “That definitely wasn’t one of my best landings.”
Judging from the chaos on my porch, someone had better take away her flying license. There’s no telling what else she’s been battering. Halting on the top stair, I cock my head and throw her a sideways glance. “Who are you?”
Her face lights up. “Why, I’m the Fairy Godmother, my dear!”
Thick strands of her white hair are wound around pin curlers, a purple bathrobe covers her body, and her feet are stuck in yellow crocs. “You don’t look like the Fairy Godmother.”
She glances down at herself, and a snicker makes her curlers wobble. “Oh. Yes. That’s because Cindy’s message caught me at the spa. Pinocchio was just giving my back a massage.” Her lids flutter shut as she expels a dreamy moan. “Those wooden hands work magic, trust me.” In the next moment, her eyes shoot open again. With the little stick in her hand, she taps herself on the head and—poof!—the crocs and curlers are gone. Stars zap around her, brightening up my porch, as the bathrobe turns into an ostentatious, shiny white gown with gold embroidery around her voluptuous waist.
Startled, I trip back, knocking over the second ficus beside the door.
“Mmm, tsk tsk tsk,” she mutters, slapping the wand into her palm as her brows knit with a skeptical frown. “A little clumsy, aren’t you? Cindy said that you burned your dress. Now I can see how that might have happened.”
Excuse me? She was the one who bolted into plant number one. Quickly, I get back to my feet. “Cindy talked to you about me?”
“Yes, my dear. Of course. Why else do you think I’m here?”
I actually have no idea.
She takes my hand and drags me into the house, chattering away. “Tonight is the grand masked ball at Briar-Rose and Phillip’s castle, is it not? Princess Cinderella told me it was the girls’ idea to bring you a fine selection of princes.” As she looks around my small home, she scratches her head with the pointed wand. “What you want with them all, I don’t quite understand. Isn’t one prince adequate for you?”
“One is definitely enough,” I answer fast and nod vigorously. “I just didn’t know where to find one, so they thought the ball might be a good place to start.”
“Oh, right.” Another smile sugars up her face. “And why did you set your dress on fire tonight, my dear?”
My gaze slides to the embers in the stove. “Er…” I work my lip between my teeth.
The fairy tracks my glance. “Hmm. You didn’t try to use them as transportation, did you?” Her puzzled frown meets mine but eases just as fast. “No. You didn’t.”
I squeeze my eyes tight. “No, I didn’t for sure.”
“Good. Because it doesn’t work in our world.” She leans in close and whispers with a hand at the corner of her mouth. “I’ve tried.”
The lady is nuts.
Something behind me catches her attention next. She whizzes past me and grabs the clock from Alice. “Oh, isn’t this lovely?” With her index finger, she moves the minute hand around two circles, and the thing goes off with three grandfather clock-like chimes all of a sudden. “Well, it’s late.” Putting it back, she claps her hands. “Let’s get to work.”
Like a ficus in my own house, I stand rooted and just follow her strides with my wary eyes. “What are we going to do?”
“Oh, didn’t I say?” Using her wand, she lifts my chin and beams at me. “Cindy sent me to your rescue. We’re to give you a new dress.” Then she cocks her head. “If you still want to go to the ball, that is.”
A dress? The ball? Gripped by a bolt of excitement, I grab her hand holding the wand with both of mine. “I do!”
“Careful, dear child.” She works her wand free of my grip. “We don’t want this to go off by accident and turn you into a naked-ass baboon.”
Goodness, no! We definitely don’t want that. Keeping my hands to myself, I start rocking on the balls of my feet. “What do I have to do?”
She takes a step back, still smiling. “Undress, darling.” Next, she starts to fiddle her wand like a conductor’s baton and, in a shower of stars, the enchanting light-blue ball gown from Cindy’s personal fairy tale appears on an invisible hanger in the middle of the room. “And then slip into this.”
Oh, holy Christmas tree! I clap my hands over my mouth, simply overwhelmed. “It’s beautiful.”
The glass slippers materialize beneath it on the floor. “Go, put it on,” she prods me, waving her hands to usher me forward.
I strip as fast as I can, carelessly tossing my clothes aside. My blouse lands on the chest and knocks a photograph of Bellina and me to the floor. In my underwear, I rush over and pick it up. Whoops. The glass frame shattered into a mosaic of a thousand cracks.
The fairy casts me a look of reprobation. Sheepishly, I grin back and return the frame to the shelf.
“Come over here, child, before you damage the entire house in your flurry.” She holds the dress out to me so I can step into it. When she tugs it up and ties the laces in the back, sparkles suddenly whizz around the wide, bell-like bottom. They change the material to a deep rose red. In wonder, I watch the glowing stars spiral up around me. As if a paint pot was tipped over the dress, the new color seeps up along the fabric, getting fainter toward the waist and finally coloring the bodice a soft hue of pink.
As the sparkles move down my arms, the long, sheer sleeves of Cindy’s dress disappear. A pair of elbow-length satin gloves replaces them, dyed in the same morning-sky pink. Stretching my arms out in front of me, I run my hand up the smooth fabric. My mouth is open all the while.
“Whoops. This is new,” the fairy chimes out, giggling as she steps in front of me and inspects me from head to toe. “But it suits you well, I have to say.”
I dash to the corner of the cabin that is my bedroom and open the door of the wardrobe with the tall mirror attached to the inside. In front of it, I twirl left and right, making the gorgeous, multi-layered, rosy gown swing and sway like a snowdrop in the winter breeze.
“Even though you seem to have personalized the dress, don’t forget that it comes with a handicap, my dear.”
The fairy appears behind me in the mirror, but I can’t pay her any attention. Carefully, I run my hands over the little diamonds worked into the bodice that fade as they run down the gown. The light reflects off them like a sea of stars.
“At the twelfth strike of midnight, the gown and accessories will return to the magical closet of artifacts again.”
The sleeves of the dress are now two simple, rosy voile bands that run around my upper arms. They keep my neck and shoulders bare.
“So you must leave the ball before midnight.”
I can’t breathe, steamrolled by so much beauty. It really is a miracle.
“Are you even listening?” The fairy bops me on the head with her wand. “This is important, girl.”