Stone Hill Homestead

“What do the fairies use fairy dust for anyway?” I asked the Night Gardener the other night.

“It is used to dust anything about to ripen. All summer the fairies add color and sweetness to the fruits and vegetables. Stuff can ripen without but not as well or quickly. Sometimes it can be used to repair something as well. But that usually requires saving up a lot of dust.”

The fairy queen mother was found. No one is actually sure how there came to be a queen mother even. The only thing anyone can remember is that it had something to do with a birthday party and she was rewarded to be queen for the day. Somehow one day turned into another and before they knew it, it was a permanent thing.

Here’s how she looked when I saw her. Still wearing the ridiculous hat, which is very much in need of being thrown away. She seemed rather ashamed of how shabby it was.

So I asked her, why did she need the birthday hat anymore?

“Because it is what makes me the queen!”

“Was it meant to last forever?”

And this is where our silly little fairy, who was never meant to be queen of all the fairies forever, and who was really quite miserable with the charade herself, broke down sobbing.

I took the sorry hat and burned it in the candle and, like anyone who finally gets something off their chest that they’ve carried for far too long, she laughed and smiled through her tears.

Then she was sober again, “But what will I tell the others? They will be so mad when they learn why there was a ban on fairy dust! I just wanted to repair my hat! I was going to collect for a whole month!”

“What about the ban on flight?”

“Ban on flight?” Theodosia, for that was her name, looked at me blankly. “I never banned flight. Why, fairies cannot live without flying! It’s not possible!”

So now there is another mystery to solve. But honestly, I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t Theodosia behind the flying ban. But who is?