The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker

by E. D. Baker

The repairman came a few minutes later. After showing him the window, she went to the kitchen to clean up. Noodles kept her company as she tidied the room, and followed her to the big, comfy chair where she curled up to watch the repairman replace the glass.

  “What broke the window?” the repairman asked as he handed her his bill.

  “Someone threw a tooth through it,” said Cory, not wanting to tell him the whole story.

  Shortly after the repairman left, Cory headed to Suzy’s shop, by the seashore. Although she had to fly into the wind most of the way, she didn’t mind because she loved the smell of the salt air and was looking forward to seeing the ocean. When she was young, her mother had taken her to the beach for a vacation one summer. Delphinium hadn’t liked the way the sand got into everything, so it was the only time they went, but Cory still remembered it fondly.

  Spotting a lighthouse, Cory turned right. She flew above the shoreline, looking for the little cove where Suzy’s shop was located. When she finally saw it, she circled once before landing. Suzy had told her that there was more than one building, but she hadn’t said how charming they were. The biggest building was a converted seashell with a wide wooden porch on the front. Whatever creature had lived inside the shell had been enormous; it was huge even after Cory returned to her human size and stood next to its milky-white curved wall. The other buildings were set farther back from the water in an uneven row. Made of driftwood with driftwood furniture on their small porches, they had colored, sea-smoothed bits of glass in their windows.

  Hearing sounds from the bigger building, Cory walked around to the front and saw that the area under the porch roof was a shop filled with items made from seashells. There were seashell necklaces, bracelets, earrings, anklets, rings, and brooches. There were seashell belt buckles, headbands, nose rings, tusk rings, and tentacle bands. Seashell-decorated halters hung on a wall, while a large table was covered with seashell-decorated book covers, hats, vases, and lamps.

  A green-haired mermaid who had dried off enough to turn her tail into legs was examining the jewelry. Two human women were exclaiming over the more unusual items and had already set aside a pair of lamps to buy. Cory waited while a selkie carrying a bulging shopping bag over one arm and his sealskin over the other nodded to her and stepped off the porch, heading for the ocean.

  It wasn’t until Cory stepped onto the porch that she noticed the person behind the counter. She was an older woman with a slight build and long gray hair hanging loose down her back. The tunic she wore had been woven in the blues and greens of the sea, and around her neck strand after strand of seashell necklaces clinked when she moved.

  “Are you Suzy?” Cory asked her.

  “I sure am,” the woman replied. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

  While Suzy helped the two women decide between two vases, Cory wandered around the shop. She was holding a string of shells the same blue as her eyes when the two women left and Suzy came over to help her.

  “That’s the last one of those I’m going to make,” Suzy told her. “I’ve quit making jewelry altogether, actually. I plan to close my shop and retire soon.”

  “Is that why you’re doing inventory?” asked Cory.

  “You must have seen my help-wanted ad!” said Suzy. “Are you here to apply for the job?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “Good! You’re hired! I’m going to take inventory so I know how much stock I have left. I have a buyer who wants most of it and I’ll take the rest with me when I move to Greener Pastures. I’m going halfsies on a cottage there with my sister. Just a minute. I think Algina is almost finished.”

  Cory waited while the mermaid made her final choice and bought all the jewelry she’d selected. When Algina left, Suzy began to pull down wall-size shutters, closing the shop off from the outside. Cory caught a glimpse of the mermaid stepping into the waves. A moment later, her legs grew together and she disappeared into the water with a swish of her long, scaled tail.

  Suzy pulled the last shutter down and turned to Cory. “We’ll work in here today and tackle the storage room tomorrow. Here,” she said, taking leaves and ink-plant stems from a drawer under the table and handing one of each to Cory. “You start at that side of the room with the lamps. I’ll do the jewelry. List how many I have of each color lamp. Tell me when you’re finished.”

  Cory worked diligently throughout the morning, listing everything that wasn’t jewelry. At noon, Suzy went through the back door, returning a few minutes later with cooked shrimp rolled up in seaweed. After they’d eaten, Cory started helping Suzy with her list. They finished by late afternoon and Cory left, promising to return the next day.

  That night, Cory’s band set up at Sprats’. Its owners, Jack Sprat and his wife, Jillian, were known for their fine food both for people who liked fattening treats as well as those on diets. The restaurant had a bar on one side and a dining room on the other. Cory’s eyes swept the crowd as she tuned her drums and was surprised to see that every seat was filled. Zephyr had played there before, but never to such a large crowd. Humans and fairies took up most of the tables in the dining area. A group of ogres seated at a table near the stage was getting rowdy. When Cory turned to let Olot know, she saw that he was already watching them.

  No one had brought a stool for Cheeble, so they had to wait until a busboy fetched one. While the brownie grumbled about how people always forgot him, Cory studied the crowd. She saw Chancy sitting front and center, like usual. Skippy’s three nymphs were with the ogre’s wife, giggling and waving at the satyr. Cory had to look twice when she saw the elf whose picture had been in the newspaper for punching a reporter. Marjorie Muffet was seated at a table beside a window, and Johnny Blue was sitting near the group of ogres. Cory was looking at her friends when one of her visions started making everything blurry.

  The stool arrived for Cheeble. Olot cleared his throat and said, “All right, everyone. Let’s begin.”

  The vision faded away as Cory reached for her drumsticks. One of the figures might have been Marjorie, but the other was too indistinct to tell. Maybe it will be clearer next time, she thought.

  The first song they played was “Fairy Spring,” one of their most popular songs. It started out slow, but would pick up tempo halfway through. Apparently, the ogres couldn’t wait that long.

  “That tune’s as lively as a dead skunk and stinks just as bad!” shouted one of the ogres.

  The other ogres agreed, banging their flagons of watered-down fermented berry juice on the table. Cory shot a glance at the other members of the band. Olot’s jaw was set in a grim line, Cheeble and Skippy looked nervous, while Daisy was beginning to look frightened. They had been heckled before, but never by a group of ogres. At Olot’s signal, the band picked up the pace.

  “My granny’s snoring sounds better than that,” shouted another ogre.

  “The cats yowling outside my cave sound better than that,” a different one hollered.

  The ogre who had first called out slammed his flagon on the table so that the juice sloshed over the rim. “Stick ’em in a sack and toss ’em in the river. Get us some musicians who can really play!”

  The ogres were laughing and discussing who should go fetch the sack when Johnny Blue pushed back his chair, stood up, and bellowed, “QUIET!”

  Cory and her friends stopped playing as everyone in the restaurant turned to look at Johnny. Even the ogres, who she’d always thought didn’t respect anyone, seemed to respect Johnny Blue. He was half ogre, and as the best trumpet player around, he brought honor to them all. Instead of getting angry at him, as they would have if anyone else had told them to be quiet, they closed their mouths and settled back in their chairs, waiting to hear what he had to say.

  “Play ‘Morning Mist’!” Johnny Blue said to Olot, and sat back down.

  It was a song that the band members had come up with during a jam session on a quiet morning when they couldn’t get together that night. They’d been talking about how beautiful the m
ist was in the meadow below Olot’s cave when, one by one, they began to play. Although it was one of the band’s favorite songs, they’d played it in public only once. Evidently, Johnny Blue had been there to hear it.

  Cory and her bandmates turned to look at each other. When Olot nodded, they started to play.

  Cory’s drums beat the pulse of the earth deep beneath the ogre’s cave. Skippy’s pan pipes were the sleepy birds waking up and greeting the rising sun. Daisy’s castanets were insects in the underbrush telling of their night’s adventures. Cheeble’s ox horn and Olot’s lute played the melody of the coming day, drawing everyone together.

  As the band played, the ogres listened, their heads tilted to the side, their eyes closed. The nymphs giggled until Chancy shushed them, then they closed their eyes, too, and smiled, just like the ogres and everyone else in the room. There was magic in the song; everyone there could feel it. When it was over, they sighed as if something wonderful had happened.

  “That was beautiful,” someone whispered, but because it was still so quiet, everyone heard it.

  Then someone began to clap, as hard as she could. It was Marjorie, seated off to the side. Soon everyone was clapping, including the ogres, who never, ever clapped for anyone. After that, the band played other songs that they had made up together. And the ogres loved each one. Cory and her friends played “June Bug Jamboree,” one of the first songs they’d written as a group. The ogres laughed and swatted at each other, as if the room really was full of june bugs. Then the band played “Storm-Chased Maid,” “The Last Flight of Silver Streak,” “Heat Lightning,” and “Shooting Stars.” When they played “Dusk in the Meadow,” some of the ogres actually began to cry.

  By the time they finished playing, Cory and her band were tired but happy. They had played songs that they enjoyed and made other people happy, too. The people who had been eating dinner when the music started were still there, which meant that there hadn’t been tables for anyone else. Late arrivals were standing in the back of the room.

  “We’ll have more tables next time,” the Sprats told Olot as the band put away their instruments.

  “That song they played, the ‘Morning Mist’ song,” Cory overheard one restaurant patron tell another, “when I closed my eyes, I felt as if I was in a meadow on a beautiful spring morning. I swear I felt the mist on my cheek and could smell the flowers!”

  “I know! Me too!” said her friend as they walked away.

  “They were right,” Johnny Blue said, coming up behind her. “That’s a great song. I think your band puts magic into your songs when you play like that.”

  “They’re just songs we’ve written,” said Cory. “I’m glad everyone liked them! You know, I was about to go looking for you to say thanks. If it weren’t for you, tonight would have been a disaster. Those ogres were about to turn ugly!”

  “You mean they weren’t already!” Johnny said with a laugh. “Seriously though, you don’t need to thank me. I didn’t do anything special. You would have turned them around soon enough.”

  “Hey, Johnny!” shouted one of the ogres standing in the doorway. “Me and the boys want to buy you a berry juice!”

  “Listen, you all played really well,” Johnny told Cory, Daisy, and Cheeble, who had come over to see him. “I just wanted to congratulate you.”

  “Johnny!” the ogre called again.

  “I’ve got to go. Someone has to keep an eye on them when they get like this,” Johnny told Cory and her friends before heading to the door.

  As Cheeble went to talk to Olot, Cory tried to find Daisy in the crowd. She finally spotted her talking at a table of young elves. When Daisy took a seat with them, Cory decided not to interrupt or wait around for her. Feeling oddly alone, Cory left for home.

  Chapter 10

  It was sprinkling off and on when Cory woke the next morning. The sky looked gray and dreary, and she was still tired from being up late the night before. She wished she could stay in bed, but Suzy was expecting her. Crawling out from under the covers, Cory made herself get dressed and staggered into the kitchen, yawning.

  “What are your plans for the day?” her uncle asked as he set a cup of juice by her place at the table.

  Cory pulled out her mushroom stool and slumped onto it. “I got a job helping a woman named Suzy do inventory. She’s selling everything in her seashell shop and moving to Greener Pastures.”

  “I have a friend who moved there,” said Micah. “It’s supposed to be a very nice retirement community.” Thunder rumbled and he turned to look out the window. “Drat! I hate flying to work in a thunderstorm. I suppose I’ll have to take the pedal-bus. In that case I should go now. The bus always takes longer in bad weather because so many people use it. No one wants to fly in weather like this.” Snatching a piece of nut bread from his plate, he gave Cory a quick kiss on her cheek and hurried out.

  Cory scowled at the rain as it grew heavier and began pounding at the window. She doubted that the pedal-bus ran all the way to the beach, but if it did it was going to be a long, wet ride.

  By the time Cory had eaten her breakfast and was ready to leave, the rain had let up, although the sky was still overcast. Hoping to get to Suzy’s before it started raining again, Cory flew as quickly as she could. Drops were just beginning to fall when she stepped onto the porch. Suzy had some of the shutters down to block the rain, but the rest were open to let in the cool air.

  “There you are!” said Suzy. “Come on in! We have a lot to do today, but we were so fast yesterday that we might be able to get it all finished. We’ll be working in the storage room. You start with the odds and ends and I’ll start with the jewelry. That seemed to work well yesterday.”

  Cory followed Suzy through the house, aware that she was gawking like a tourist. Once past the door to the shop, the seashell house was spacious with curving passages and large rooms where the builder had broken through the shell’s dividing walls. The floor would have been slick if it hadn’t been covered with gritty sand that gave it traction. It was light inside; everything was white and the shell itself was nearly translucent with a faint pink cast.

  “This is beautiful!” said Cory.

  “I love it,” Suzy said, caressing a wall as if it were alive. “It’s going to be hard to leave, but it’s time. I’m getting too old to keep the shop going and I need to relax a bit. Collecting the seashells, making my treasures, and selling them takes up all my waking hours and I’d like to try something else for a change. Macramé, maybe, or I might take up the drums. I’d also like to read a book, something I haven’t had time for in years. Let’s see now … You can start with the vases on this shelf while I go through this box of rings.”

  They had been working for nearly two hours and had made good progress when Cory heard an odd scraping sound. “What was that?” she asked.

  “What was what?” asked Suzy.

  “Listen! There it is again.” Cory looked toward the ceiling. She was sure the sound had come from above.

  “That’s odd,” said Suzy. The noise grew louder as they listened until it seemed to come from all around them. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Cory followed Suzy out of the storage room and down the hall to the door leading onto the porch. Suzy opened the door and stopped with a gasp. There were crabs everywhere, climbing on the tables, skittering across the floor, even dangling from the seashell wind chimes.

  “Watch out!” Suzy exclaimed, pushing Cory back and slamming the door shut. “I’ve never seen anything like this before and I’ve lived here for thirty-two years. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “Shouldn’t we close the rest of the shutters?” Cory called after Suzy, who was running down the hall.

  “We will!” Suzy shouted over her shoulder.

  Cory lost sight of her and was left alone wondering how they could get the porch cleaned off. The crabs were scratching on the door now; Cory even saw the doorknob move. And then Suzy was back, lugging buckets inside a round metal tu
b with a lid.

  “Here,” said Suzy, handing her a bucket. “Scoop up as many as you can, but be fast about it. They’re speedy little critters.”

  Crabs tumbled into the hall when Suzy opened the door. While Cory picked them up, Suzy ran onto the porch to collect more. Cory slammed the door shut as soon as she could, then turned and headed for the steps.

  “Where are you going?” Suzy asked.

  “To dump these in the ocean so I can collect more.”

  “Don’t do that! Put them in here!” Suzy said, poking the metal tub with her foot even as she emptied her own bucket into it. As soon as Cory had added the crabs she’d collected, Suzy clapped the lid on. “Good! Now help me close the shutters.”

  Crabs were still swarming up the steps when Cory and Suzy started closing the few open shutters. “What are you going to do with all the crabs?” Cory asked.

  “Eat them, of course,” Suzy said. “I love crab soup and steamed crabs and crab cakes and—”

  The crabs froze, making Cory wonder if they had understood what Suzy had said. Suddenly, they began to turn away from the door, climb down the table, and scrabble at the closed shutters. Above them, the noise of scurrying crabs moved to the edges of the porch roof, followed by soft thuds as they hit the sand.

  “These are smart crabs!” Cory said as she and Suzy continued to collect them.

  “Not really,” said Suzy. “If they were, they wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

  It took them the rest of the morning to collect all the crabs that had been trapped on the porch. When they were finished, Suzy took some to her kitchen to steam for lunch. Cory and Suzy returned to work in the storeroom after they’d eaten. It looked as if they really might finish taking inventory that day, until Suzy discovered a stack of boxes she’d forgotten.

  “It’s getting late,” said Suzy. “And it’s going to take a few hours to get these done. Would you be able to come back tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” Cory told her. “Do you think we could have crabs for lunch?”