Free Perchance to Dream by Lisa Mantchev Page A

This isn’t the Théâtre, if you’ve forgotten already.” They tried to apologize again, but she was having none of it. “Shut up. Where’s Peaseblossom?”
    Three fingers pointed, and Bertie turned. The last member of the ravaging horde sat atop a thankfully undamaged confectionary masterpiece. Dark fruitcake peeped between ornate scrolls of royal icing and meringue, which in turn was interspersed with orange blossoms, but it was the sight of Peaseblossom clutching a marzipan groom that caught Bertie unprepared. “Pease!”
    The fairy didn’t bat a lash, so busy was she making doe eyes at the manikin. “Yes?”
    “Get down from there!”
    Peaseblossom turned slowly and gave Bertie the most Evil of Eyes before hissing like a tiny spiteful cat.
    Bertie was shocked down to her toes. “Peaseblossom!”
    “You don’t understand! You’ve never been in love!” The fairy clutched the marzipan figurine, subsiding into mumbles of “I won’t let them separate us” and “never fear, my beloved” while the boys made gagging noises.
    “He’s not real, Pease,” Bertie tried to reason with her normally rational friend.
    “I don’t care! I like the strong and silent type!” Peaseblossom clutched the tiny groom until his almond-paste head fell off. Over her disconcerted eep! Bertie grabbed both fairy and her beheaded paramour.
    “You’ve ruined someone’s wedding feast—” Bertie started to remonstrate before the Scrimshander towed her face-first into the cake. For several seconds, Bertie’s entire world was candied fruit, nuts, and meringue. Though she’d managed to close her eyes, her mouth had been ajar to scream and the frosting had not only filled that but gone up her nose as well. Flailing, she inadvertently dropped everything: fairy, marzipan groom, journal.
    A set of strong arms extracted her, and it was to Ariel’s credit that he did not laugh has he did his best to wipe off Bertie’s face. “No one at the theater would ever believe that was an accident.”
    “It was an accident!” She choked on what turned out to be a stray orange blossom as she located the journal in the grass. Peaseblossom had disappeared with her newfound love, but the boys hovered near Bertie’s frosting-bedecked face, trying to get their licks in while the village women clucked over this horrifying new development.
    “We’ll need time to prepare another cake.”
    “I could manage a new meal in a few hours.”
    A young woman dressed in an ivory gown appeared on the fringe of the crowd. “Performers for the celebration?” She clapped her hands and turned to the woman in daisy-sprigged silk. “Thank you, Mother!”
    “We didn’t hire them,” the woman protested. “They arrived without warning, and I’m afraid there was some damage to the luncheon.”
    “Pah!” The girl—for she couldn’t have been older than eighteen—waved at Bertie with great enthusiasm. “I would sooner have dancing and music and a play than food.”
    Ariel knew a cue when he heard one. “‘If music be the food of love, play on.’” He made her a lovely bow. “I take it you are the bride to be?”
    She colored prettily under her flowered wreath. “I am.”
    Ariel started to hum a song of spellbound honeybees. The air around him shimmered and turned faintly gold, and his familiars emerged to settle around his brow like a crown. When he lifted his hand to his hair, a perfectly white butterfly walked with delicate legs onto his finger.
    “Oh, how lovely!” the bride exclaimed.
    “Not so lovely as you.” Deftly transferring the compliment along with the unusual adornment to her carefully arranged curls, Ariel spoke with a purr. “Permit us, fair maiden, to work off our debt with songs and storytellings.”
    Bertie broke between them. “Would you excuse us for a moment, please?” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Ariel by the arm and dragged him away. “Have you lost your mind? We can’t stop to sing for the fairies’