The three girls entered the cozy little house arm in arm.

“What a great house!” exclaimed Bea.  Are there bedrooms and everything?”

“Oh yes!” said Prudence.  “The fairy king spared no expense.  Fairies are quite rich, you know.  Especially in Ireland.  Let’s get some dew drop lemonade out of the fridge and make cookies like we used to.”

For the next several hours, the three girls talked and laughed as if they had never been parted.  They took a long walk in a nearby meadow and gathered small dandelions and wild flowers to decorate the fairy home.  They stuffed them in their pockets and continued homeward.

Later, they made the smallest little cookies you can imagine.  But they were filled with lots of sugar and chocolate M&M’s.  After they made their batch of cookies, they sat outside in the front of the fairy house and ate every cookie they could lay their hands on.  The forest animals wasted no time coming to help devour the feast: deer, rabbits, squirrels all wanted to nibble the yummy confections of the resident humans.  Purity and Bea had to fend off several deer that refused to take “no” for an answer.

As twilight came, the two young girls grew tired, but they did not want to go home. They fell asleep on a couch under a shamrock plant cradled in their sister’s arms. She sang them a haunting song to help them fall asleep. (See the video attached).

Around midnight, Prudence scooped each sister into her arms and took her to her forest bedroom deep within the bowels of the fairy stone house. Each one, she placed under the bedcovers and pulled the blankets up to keep her warm through the night.  On on each sweet face, she kissed each sister:

“Good night, sleep tight, pleasant dreams, I love you,” whispered Prudence.  Then, she blew out the candle next to the bed and closed the door behind her.

The fireflies continued to light up the sky as Prudence looked out the window as she put away all the cookie ingredients in the fairy kitchen.  “I hope they know how much I love them,” she said.  The big black rabbit pushed his nose through the miniature doorway and nibbled the last bit of chocolate from tiny table next to the stove.  Prudence giggled.

Suddenly, Bea awoke with a start.  She was back home again and Purity was in the bed next to her.  Her oldest sister was gone as was the fairy house in the middle of the Irish forest.  But Bea noticed the left over dandelions still clung to life as they hung haphazardly from the pockets of her favorite jeans.

“Was it real?” asked Bea.

“Of course it was.  It was as real as Prudy’s love for us,” replied Purity. “And she’ll come again.  In our dreams and when we least expect it. She is never very far from us. Magic keeps her close…as long as we believe.” 😉