Dawn and the Tooth Fairy

Photo by Mikel Ibarluzea on Unsplash

This is a continuation of The Mysteries of Flight.
 
The plane ride was uneventful. Dawn spent the entire ride with her face pressed to the window in awe. She made occasional comments about the shape of the clouds and the play of the light, but Liz didn’t hear them. Liz had earphones in, and was glued to the in-flight movie. Flying was so much easier now that planes had movies. They took her mind off her fear of crashing. She still had to take several deep breaths though and remind herself that the plane was not a death trap. Was a family reunion really worth the anxiety? Once they touched down, she could breathe easily again.

“So now we’re on the other side of the world,” said Dawn in amazement as they walked down the ramp.

Liz laughed, “Just the other side of the country. Come on, we need to find our luggage.”

Dawn was blown away when Liz looked at a screen and determined where their luggage was. “That’s… that’s, but how does it know?” she gasped.

“So, you know those tags we put on our luggage at the last airpot…” Liz started while wondering if she even knew the real answer. But she got something out that satisfied Dawn, and then she had to explain how the baggage carousel worked. Liz was relieved when they got out of the airport and her brother Edward and his seven year old picked them up. She didn’t have to explain things anymore. Dawn already understood cars.

“Auntie Liz! I lost a tooth! Look at it!” He waved the little white tooth at her, “The tooth fairy was supposed to come last night, but dad says she was recovering from a broken wing and couldn’t fly. But she’ll come tonight. How much do you think the tooth fairy will give me for it?”

Liz exchanged looks with Edward, “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been a long time since the tooth fairy visited me.” 

They chatted about the tooth fairy during the drive to the cabin. Dawn had retreated into her usual silence. She was rather shy about meeting new people. She didn’t like admitting that she only had six years of memories. Liz thought Dawn was a little too touchy about her lost memories, but let her be. Once she warmed up to the family she’d open up. When they reached the cabin, Davey insisted on dragging Liz’s carry-on up to the room they were sharing. This was difficult, since he wouldn’t let go of this tooth. Edward eventually took over. Once the bags were in the room and the boys were out of earshot, Dawn turned to Liz.

“What’s a tooth fairy?”

Liz looked up from her suitcase in surprise, before realizing this was a very reasonable question. “It’s a kid thing. When you lose a tooth you put it under your pillow and the tooth fairy leaves money or something. My parents gave us a bag of those gold chocolate coins, which I realized later was kinda defeating the point.”

Dawn sat down on the bed deep in thought. Liz started unpacking, waiting for the deluge of questions that was sure to follow.

“Jill says fairies aren’t real. She says I’m not allowed to read anymore fairy tales until I have a firm grasp on reality.”

Liz sighed. Dawn’s social worker had a good thought going there, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about the rest of society. Until Liz had met Dawn, she hadn’t known how many unreal things she causally believed in on a regular basis. Well, this would probably be easier to explain away than the flying snakes. “And she’s right. No fairies. The tooth fairy is just a story made up for children. Like Santa Claus at Christmas.”

Dawn’s face lit up, “Oh! Jill says Santa is the mascot for Christmas. So the tooth fairy is the mascot for teeth?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Liz in relief.

“I think I get it now. Everyone just pretends the tooth fairy is real, because they think lying to kids is cute.”

Liz laughed and shook her head, “I guess that’s one way to put it.”

A sob came from the hall. Both of them turned toward the open door. There stood Davey, still clutching his tooth. He immediately turned and ran.

“Davey, wait!” Liz called out and ran after him.

Dawn followed, still puzzled. Davey’s cries brought Edward running and despite promises from every adult present that the tooth fairy really did exist and would bring him a one dollar bill - “Maybe even three!” - couldn’t console the seven year old. It wasn’t until another aunt herded a bunch of young cousins off for swimming that he calmed down at all. He was still very sad when they left, though. Dawn watched it all awkwardly and didn’t say much. Having just nearly learned about the tooth fairy, she didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Edward glared at Liz as the kids left, “You have to fix this!”

Liz sighed, “Look Ed, I’m sorry. I should have closed the door. But when you put that dollar under his pillow, he’ll forget all about it.”

“Not after this, he won’t! I forgot two nights in a row already. He’ll never believe in the tooth fairy now.”

“Yeah, and now he’ll tell the rest of the kids too. There’s going to be a lot of unhappy children before the day’s over,” grumbled another uncle, planting himself in a chair.

“Why do they need to believe in the tooth fairy?” asked Dawn. All the adults look at her as if she’d suggested they eat the kids.

“I’ll explain it later,” sighed Liz. She turned to Edward, “You could include a note from the tooth fairy maybe, and add glitter or something to make it magical?”

The grumbling uncle suddenly jumped up, “I’ve got it! I’ve got it! Ed, get your camera! We’ll take a picture of the tooth fairy!”

“How?” asked Dawn, but everyone else was nodding.

“I’ve got pictures of butterflies I could photoshop for the wings,” mused Ed looking happier. “And if I shrink it down enough,   no one will be able to tell the difference. Not a seven year old, anyways. Who’s going to be the tooth fairy?”

“Liz,” said the uncle.

Liz looked at them and then shrugged, “Okay I guess. But I don’t have a skirt.”

“I do,” said Dawn. She still didn’t get why everyone was so upset about this, but she might as well help out.

A few minutes later Liz was in the wooded backyard wearing Dawn’s jean skirt and trying to pose like a fairy. She didn’t look like a fairy. That’s how Liz’s mother fund them when she and her husband pulled up. After explaining why they were  attempting a photo shoot, Liz’s mom shook her head, “That’s not going to work. Look, we passed a formal clothing rental on the way up here, why don’t you go down there and pick out something?”

Liz frowned, “A tooth fairy in an evening gown. That’s not much better.”

“No, no. Like a prom dress. Something puffy and sparkly. Get going, before the store closes.”
“I can’t afford it.”

Her mother smiled, “I can!”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” said Liz as they piled into the car. Dawn shrugged at her and didn’t say anything.

The people at the rental store thought that dressing Liz up like a tooth fairy was an absolute ball. They went through several sparkly dresses, and had a lively debate over which one was most fairy-like. Dawn spoke up once to say she liked the green dress best, but this was dismissed as not very “toothish.” A blue knee length dress with a very puffy skirt and lots of beading was finally chosen. By the time they had a dress, Edward got a text that the kids were on the way home from swimming. So the rental folks let them take pictures out in the back parking lot.

“Your photoshop skills had better be good,” Liz told him as once again she tried to pose like a fairy. It went better this time. They returned the dress after they were done and hurried home, making a stop to pick up dinner.

Dawn didn’t speak again until they were getting ready for bed, and first she made sure the door was closed, “So, every family dresses someone up like a fairy that doesn’t exist to make sure kids… don’t think too much?”

Liz rubbed her eyes, “No. We’re the only family I know that’s done this. The dressing up part that is. The whole tooth fairy thing that everyone does… It’s just for fun. It’s fun for the kids. I loved the tooth fairy coming. Even when I was older and suspected it was just my parents. It just makes childhood happier.”

“Huh,” said Dawn, but didn’t ask anymore questions.

In the morning Davey waved the picture that his dad had “caught” of the tooth fairy and all the young cousins were suitably impressed. Childhood innocence had been preserved. Dawn stayed thoughtful and quiet. When she hadn’t said anything by lunch time, Liz took her aside.

“Is it bothering you that much?” she asked behind a closed door. “It’s not a big deal.”

Dawn gave her a look, “Do you know how hard it is to tell fact from fiction while everyone else is just lying without a second thought?”

“Kids grow out of it! They’ll look back on this and think it was so fun that their parents made photographic evidence for the tooth fairy.”

“I suppose,” said Dawn doubtfully. “So, you’ll actually tell them someday that all the adults were lying about that?”

“Yeah. I mean, they figure it out eventually.”

Dawn mulled this over for a bit and then sighed, “I’m glad I’m not a kid then. I couldn’t handle it.”

The Mysteries of Flight

Photo by David Kovalenko on Unsplash

Liz took a deep breath, trying to banish images of the plane diving to meet the ground. Would crashing in the woods, or the sea be worse? Were they even flying over a significant body of water?

“So, where are they?” asked Dawn as they stood in line at the airport.

Glad of the distraction, Liz turned to her friend. Dawn didn’t always say much, but since this was her first time flying, she was bound to have questions. Lots of questions. Maybe answering them would keep her mind off her own anxiety. “Where’s, who?”

“The winged serpents. They can’t be in this building, there’s not enough space. Do we have to take a car or something to get to them? I don’t think they’d like cars. Are there carriages?”

Liz blinked in confusion. Dawn was a reasonably intelligent person; they’d met in a math class at the community college and had hit it off. Dawn was much better at math than Liz. But sometimes talking with Dawn was a lot like talking to a four-year old. It wasn’t her fault, of course. Losing all your memory as an adult would do that to anyone. “There are no such thing as winged serpents,” said Liz, starting with the easy part.

Dawn frowned, “But what other animal would we be flying on? Brandon says dragons aren’t real. Besides, you wouldn’t be so upset if there weren’t snakes involved.”

Liz suppressed a shudder. Flying snakes would be so much worse than regular ones. She’d faint dead away. “I’m scared of flying and snakes. Two separate fears. There are no flying snakes. We are getting into an airplane. It’s a machine, made by people. They’re made out of metal and, um, fiberglass.”

Dawn was silent for a moment as they inched up in the line. Her forehead was creased in concentration. “Metal doesn’t fly,” she said at last. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“Yes,” said Liz tersely as headlines declaring Passengers Perish in Explosion and Airplane Wings Weren’t Screwed On Tight flashed across her mind. She took several deep breaths. She could feel Dawn watching her face. “I’ve flown before and survived. We’re both going to be fine.”

“I think we should go by winged serpent,” said Dawn. “They’re intelligent. I had a very nice conversation with one last time. Besides, if we fell, they’d catch us.”

“Um. I think that was a dream,” said Liz as gently as possible. Dawn was always trying to remember something, anything, from the days before her memory vanished. It was painful to see her latch onto the wrong thing. “You must have been reading some fantasy book and had a dream about it. Snakes can’t have wings. Only birds have wings.”

Dawn’s face clouded, but then she pounced on the last thing Liz had said, “Butterflies have wings.”

Liz laughed, “Okay, and some insects too. But not snakes. They’re reptiles. Reptiles don’t have wings.”

“What about pterodactyls?”

“Extinct,” said Liz as they moved forward. Dawn pressed her lips together and Liz wondered how many counter-arguments she’d come up with. She smiled fondly at her friend. It was going to be an interesting flight.



Written for Verge.
For more of Dawn's story see Blank Slate and Out of Reach.

The Grand Tour

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Squirrel placed her hand in her new husband’s as he helped her gently down from the carriage. With her skirts rustling around her, she looked up in awe at the country home. Who would have thought that she, former street thief, would be here, a proper lady and married to a rich and charming man? Some would say even that she was marrying down! Well, that was the nobility for you. He was richer than some dukes, but was merely a merchant, and therefore second rate. Captain Delman and Lady Corrine, her adoptive parents, had been insistent that Mr. Price wasn’t worth it. So she had done a very non-proper thing and runaway with him.

“My dear Sofia,” said her smiling husband, “Come, the grand tour awaits!” He swept her off her feet and carried her into the house.

And the tour was grand! He showed her every room, starting with the great hall with its wide trailing staircase, the dinning room with golden candlesticks and he did not forget the kitchen, which was cleaner than she had ever dreamed a kitchen could be. He showed her the drawing room with its crystal chandelier and ornate plasterwork on nearly every inch of the ceiling and walls. The guest rooms dripping in silk canopies and sheets covering mahogany beds. Their own room had been redone after the passing of his last wife (the fourth wife one he’d lost, poor man) with completely new furnishings, including a charming vanity with a mirror in a gilt frame, that he’d commissioned just for her. Squirrel was dazzled. He ushered her up the stairs to the servants’ quarters, which after the opulence she had just witnessed, seemed more bare than any others she had once inhabited (when she was lucky.) The tour ended at the door of the garret at the top of the house.

“And now, my bride, my dear, mistress of the house! You have seen everything, you are queen here. The keys to your domain, my lady!” He made a show of bowing and handing her a ring with a great many keys.

“Thank you, my lord,” she laughed and curtsied as she took them. “But what is behind this door?”

His face darkened, but he smiled, “Aha, that my precious, is the one place that I forbid you to enter. This key here,” and he pointed to a key smaller and older than the others. “Opens the door, but that you must never do, my love. It shall not go well with you if you do.” And he led her away down to dinner.

Well, thought Squirrel, Why give me the key at all? Why shouldn’t I use it?

She did not climb the rickety stairs to the garret that night though, nor the next night. Squirrel waited. She had learned patience on the streets, where one wrong move could have ended her life or sent her to the jailhouse. Instead, she enjoyed the lavish meals, and the fine clothes, and the fairytale she’d somehow found herself in. She went in and out of the many rooms and looked them all over carefully, for they were hers, and this was a novelty she would never get over.

At the end of the first week, Lady Corrine wrote her with entreaties to come home. Squirrel was amused and tucked the letter away. At the end of the second week, Mr. Price went away on a business trip. “I must be away for some six weeks. But do not pine in my absence. Invite your friends, my dear Sofia. Invite your lovely parents. It will ease their minds. Be merry!” Squirrel thought of the room at the top of the house and sat down to write a great many invitations to her house party.

Mr. Price had hardly left the grounds when her guests descended on it. Captain and Lady Delman were first among them, as well as a number of young lords and ladies and their servants. They bustled in every which way they could, and Squirrel greeted them as prettily as Lady Corrine ever had.

“And now,” cried Squirrel, before they had a chance to settle in. “The grand tour!”

Her tour was not as grand as Mr. Price’s. The guests had a glimpse of the great hall, but they they saw not a peep of the drawing room, nor dining room, nor hardly anything of the furnishings, for Squirrel led them straight up to the top of the stairs to the garret and thrust the little old key into the locked door. The door swung open and the key fell out onto a floor of blood. For in that haunted room were the cut up bodies of the four former wives of Mr. Price. There were screams and gagging and the town guard were sent for and Captain Delman himself led a hunt for Mr. Price. Lady Corrine whisked Squirrel back to the city and fussed and scolded, “I told you it was dangerous! I told you not to do it!” she said. “Didn’t I say the lawmen could get to the bottom of it without you getting involved?”

“The most recent Mrs. Price was my friend. I had to do something,” said Squirrel unrepentant. “Besides, what danger was I in when I in with everyone around me when we looked into that room?”

Lady Corrine shuddered and kept her indoors until Captain Delman returned, with the prisoner in tow. Mr. Price was locked up in the Imperial Dungeons of the Realm, and quickly executed.

“Well, now Sofia,” Captain Delman said to her after Mr. Price was deep in his grave. “You married him, his estate is yours. Whatever shall you do with it?”

“Burn it,” said Squirrel.



Prompt: An Escape

For more of Squirrel's adventures read: The Sword Thief.

Blue Beard has many variants, but the one by Perrault is quite nonsensical. The heroine discovers her husband's murder room during a house party, while there are tons of guests. Does she raise the alarm? No. Instead, she must face Blue Beard alone. Perrault then has the audacity to end the tale by claiming the "moral" is that women shouldn't be curious.  This was unacceptable, so I fixed it. The Grimm brothers' version, Fitcher's Bird, is much better.