a few more tricks up my sleeve.” She kissed my cheek and hustled into the main showroom to buy her purchases. “Thanks for the help.”
I wasn’t sure I’d given her much. On the other hand, sometimes a receptive ear was all anyone needed to erase negativity.
Fiona plopped onto my shoulder and fluffed her first set of adult wings, which she’d acquired after helping me solve a crime. She was quite proud of them. They were striated with filaments of blue and green. “Didi needs a potion or a spell to cleanse her spirit.”
“Can you do that?”
“My mentor is teaching me how.”
“I mean, are you allowed to?”
“I’m allowed to practice.” She mumbled a phrase that sounded like, “By dee prood macaw.”
I’d heard her utter words in her native language before, but I could never determine what she was saying. Back in college, I’d read The Canterbury Tales in Old English, which our professor said sounded like Erse and Gaelic. Fiona’s language reminded me of that class. I’d figured out a few terms she used, like ta meaning thanks, littlies meaning babies, and furries meaning all small creatures like dogs and cats, but the rest sounded like gobbledygook.
“Courtney!” Meaghan Brownie, my best friend, beckoned me from just inside the French doors leading to the main showroom. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Her curly brown tresses bounced the more she waved. She, like Didi, loved wearing Bohemian-style clothing. Her white crocheted dress draped her lithe form nicely.
I joined her. “What’s up?”
“My mother needs two fairy gardens, not one.”
“Two?”
Meaghan and I had met in our sophomore year in college. When she visited me one summer in Carmel, she fell in love with the place, gave up her pursuit of becoming a professor, and decided to move here and devote herself to art and beauty. After Meaghan graduated, her mother, Wanda, moved to Carmel, too, and was now one of the premier artists’ representatives.
“Can you make another fairy garden in time?” Meaghan asked as she toyed with the sleeve of her dress.
“Sure I can. No problem. Does she have a theme in mind?” I asked. “She wanted the first to be relevant to antiques, so I decided time should be the theme.”
“Time. She’ll love that. And how apropos for her.”
In addition to managing the Beauty of Art Spectacular and representing artists, Wanda brokered antique deals, played a mean game of pickleball, and was president of the women’s association at Sport Zone. To help Didi Dubois, Wanda even offered assistance at the Zone. She always went a mile a minute. Meaghan worried that her mother’s chakras were out of whack because she never slowed down. Wanda didn’t give a hoot about chakras. After she kicked her abusive husband out of her life—Meaghan had been five at the time—Wanda had been determined to prove she didn’t need him. She would live life to the fullest.
“Let me see what you’ve done so far,” Meaghan said.
“It’s about time gone by.”
“Dinosaurs?”
“No, silly, dragons.” I led her to the project. “I found a miniature castle called the Dragon’s Keep.”
“It’s so big.”
“Not every fairy garden has to be made with teensy fairies,” I said. “This one is over-sized. I started with this ornate purple warrior dragon with a tooled letter opener as its sword.” I lifted him from the setting. “Hold him.”
“Oof. He’s heavy. And ominous.”
I replaced the dragon and said, “To combat him, I’ve added Eyela.” She was a radiant Schleich fairy dressed in a turquoise gown and sitting atop a white unicorn.
“Awesome. I love the sign.”
I’d set the stone-carved sign: Warning: Dragon training site this way prominently in the front of the design and had created a primordial ooze behind and around the castle using a glue gun, a plastic bag, and lots of pebbles. In addition, I’d added a fiddlehead fairy—not the prettiest of fairies, closer in likeness to a gnome with huge pointed ears and hooked nose—at the top of the keep. Who would mess with him?
“To contrast the first garden, why don’t you make the second pot’s theme beauty?” Meaghan said.
“Beauty it is. Pick out the fairies I’ll need.”
“Me? Shouldn’t Mom have a say?”
“She gave me carte blanche.”
Over the past few years, Wanda had become like a second mother to me.
“This will be fun,” my pal said as she browsed the figurines.
Meaghan was the reason I’d risked investing in Open Your Imagination. She’d known how unfulfilled I was when I’d worked as a landscaper.
“Select a few accessories, too,” I added, “like some twinkling lights and a lantern