Ella Enchanted - By Gail Carson Levine Page 0,35

I'd watch to make sure they didn't leave.

The wedding began.

The bride and groom came into the field holding hands. She carried a sack, and he carried a hoe. Each wore trousers and a white smock.

At the sight of them, a roar rose from the giants' stands. Giants screeched, moaned, grunted, and hummed that the bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, they would be healthy for long and forever, and this was the happiest day in anybody's memory.

Aside from enormous smiles, the couple ignored them and began to plant a row of corn. He prepared the ground, and she dropped in seeds from her sack and covered them with moist earth.

As they finished, clouds rolled in and a gentle rain fell, although the sky had been clear when the ceremony started. The giants spread their arms and tilted their heads to receive the drops.

I looked down at the fairies. The two plain ones were smiling, but the beautiful one was rapturous. She seemed to be singing, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

The giants pantomimed their lives together. They farmed and built a house and brought a series of older and older children from the audience into the imaginary home, and then more babies for grandchildren. It ended when they lay down in the grass to signify their deaths together.

Then they sprang up. Benches were overturned as giants poured onto the field to hug them and exclaim over the ceremony.

I stayed in my place, marveling. These giants were lucky to see their lives laid out so sweetly before them. Did the pantomime help? Did it stop ogres from eating you? Did it prevent droughts and floods? Did it keep you from dying before your children were grown?

Except for the beautiful fairy and a number of giants, everyone started back to the house, including Father. I stayed to watch the fairy, hoping -- praying --

that she would reveal herself to be Lucinda. She pushed her way to the newlyweds through a crowd of relatives and wellwishers.

In a few minutes the giants drew away from her. The bride and groom clutched each other. Both were crying. Uaaxee appeared to be pleading. She crouched before the fairy so that their faces were level, and her eyes never left the fairy.

The fairy stroked Uaaxee's arm sympathetically, but Uaaxee flinched at the touch.. Finally the giants turned and walked slowly back to the house. The fairy watched them go, smiling blissfully.

This had to be Lucinda. There was every sign of it. She had probably bestowed a gift on the newlyweds that was as gladly received as mine had been.

"Lady..." I called, my heart pounding.

She didn't hear me. As I spoke, she vanished, without even a puff of smoke or a shimmer in the air to mark her departure. Now I knew for certain she was Lucinda, the only fairy in the world who would disappear in plain view.

"Fool!" I called myself. "Idiot!" I should have spoken to her the moment I suspected who she was. She could be in Ayortha by now, or soaring over an ocean.

I returned to the house and found that the giants had grown somber, although the small people were still merry. I wandered through the hall, munching on this and that, while watching out for Father. Where should I go next? How could I continue my quest?

The other fairies might still be here and might know where Lucinda had gone.

Quickening my pace, I began to search, and in a few minutes I saw them, standing together and looking as sorrowful as the giants. When I had almost reached them, Lucinda materialized in their midst, still smiling.

I pretended to be utterly absorbed in the problem of cracking a gigantic walnut I had taken from the banquet stool.

"I won't waste my breath telling you how wrong it is to disappear and reappear as yogi do," the gentleman fairy told Lucinda. "I hope you don't plan to do it again in the middle of this crowd."

"No, Cyril. How could I leave the scene of my greatest triumph?" Her voice was musical. I smelled lilacs.

"What horror did you visit on this poor couple?" he asked.

"No horror, a gift!"

"What gift, then?" the other lady fairy asked.

"Ah, Claudia. I gave them companionship and felicitous union."

Cyril raised his eyebrows. "How did you accomplish that?"

"I gave them the gift of being together always. They can go nowhere without each other. Isn't it splendid?"

The walnut almost slipped from my hands.

"It's frightful," Cyril said.

"What's wrong with it?" Lucinda thrust her head