February 5th 2022

Chapter 36
Our Sparks For Fairies

There had been some benefit to Marianne being smaller before this year. While she had been aware of 'the Christmas Fairies' making their visit once a year to sprinkle their magic over the house, she had always found herself far enough on the outside that they could easily put her to bed on the last night of November and jump to work as soon as she was asleep. Then, she would wake up in the morning, and ta-da! There would be all the decorations for her to discover, and they would be set to kick off the holiday season proper.

But she was four years old this year, and fairy card in a tin aside, she was clearly becoming more and more aware of things as she grew, enough so that her parents couldn't say for certain how much longer they'd be able to pull off this trick, at least for her benefit. They'd still have the triplets to amaze in years to come and… Yes, the triplets…

They couldn't understand that their family would be hard at work and trying to surprise their big sister, nor would they be expected to understand. They were only coming up on three and a half months… though that in itself felt like the real magic in the Friar house. How had so much time passed already? Oh, it was a good thing, wonderful thing, to see them growing and thriving, after they'd come early and small, but at the same time, maybe the fact that they had started from so far back made their evolution that much more surprising. They were becoming more mobile, showing hints of personality… Kacey was the first to show what felt like a proper, not gas-induced smile, and on the whole would be the first of the trio to reach any milestone. Remy would attempt to grab hold of anything put within her reach. And Lucy hated tummy time, started to cry like they'd just dropped her in the middle of the ocean. They were doing their best to encourage her through it, but it was an uphill battle.

"We're going to need backup," Maya stated, a few nights before fairy night, as she gently rocked Kacey back to sleep and paced the floor of their room. Lucas was also walking, going the opposite direction, with Remy and Lucy. They were getting closer to full nights, but they were definitely not there yet.

"Yeah," he agreed, stifling a yawn before looking to his daughters' faces to see if they were any closer to sleeping. "Maybe your grandparents can come and keep an eye up here while we're doing everything down there…"

"What's Marianne going to say if she wakes up and sees them?" Maya asked, seeing potential in the plan but finding the flaw just as easily. Lucas thought it over for a moment.

"I'm sure we can find a way to… suggest to her that they need to be here for this."

"You want them to spend the night? Where are they going to sleep?" Maya paused and turned to him. He paused and faced her, too.

"Then we don't say anything and, if she wakes up, we tell her they were curious about the fairies. And if she doesn't wake up in the night, then… they were never here."

So, the stage was set, and finally it was the evening of November 30th. The… foreseen complications only became more so when Lucas picked up his daughter from preschool the day before and was asked if Winnie Grayson could spend the night at their house, so she could see the magic in the morning. According to her, the fairies had never come by her home, at least not like this. She had decorations and a tree, yes, but she didn't recall anything about fairies and magic. Well, this year, she would be part of the Friars' tradition. Her mother was on board, and just like that Marianne was having her very first sleepover, and her parents had a second small child to keep under their spell.

"You girls okay like this?" Maya asked as Marianne and Winnie settled down into the bed and she tucked them in.

"Yes, Mommy."

"Yes, Annie's Mommy."

"Okay," Maya chuckled. "Do you still want your book?" she asked Marianne. "I don't know if Winnie knows it," she pointed out. They were halfway through their latest read with her.

"Mommy, how come the fairies don't go to Winnie's house?" Marianne asked, while her little friend looked equally curious and just a bit disappointed at the reminder. She liked fairies, clearly, she had the wings and everything.

"How do you know that they don't?" Maya suggested to the girls. "You've never seen them, have you?" No, of course not, or else they wouldn't come. "The magic is going to come, not always at the same time and not always the same way, but it will come. You just have to look for it. Okay?" she smiled at them and got a couple of nods. "How about we keep the book for another night and stick to a simple story instead, just like this?"

"Can you sing a song?" Winnie asked. "My mommy sings," she explained.

"A lullaby?" Maya asked back, and her guest nodded. "Oh, I can definitely do that."

Tanner and Angela Clutterbucket had very gladly answered the call to watch over their great granddaughters while everyone went about their roles in spreading the fairy magic. For that reason, they had also been tasked with applying said magic to the nursery and Marianne's room. They could not forget, could they? She'd asked the fairies, and they'd written back with the promise that they would of course attend to the triplets, and to the aunts.

As far as the Hart-Lane girls' rooms were concerned, they were having something of a Christmas swap. Emma was decorating Eliza's room, and Eliza was decorating Emma's room, the better to surprise one another when they'd be done. This had required a trip to the mall for supplies, and the sisters had been giggling with anticipation for days. Maya suspected that her sisters had been planning some jokes to play on one another. She also had a feeling, going by the looks they would give her, that they had some surprises planned in unison, for her room. Possibly, they'd roped Lucas in on it, out of some respect, seeing as it was his room, too, and he was their brother-in-law.

Whatever they had planned, for her and Lucas and each other, the big reveals would have to wait. First things first, now that Marianne and Winnie were asleep and the triplets were being seen to by their great grandparents, they had to tackle the outside decorations and the lights, and then the tree and the rest of the living room, eventually spreading to the other rooms. Every year since they'd had Marianne, it seemed, the Christmas coverage just got wider and wider, until no room was left untouched.

"Hey, so you guys got the…" Maya asked her sisters. She'd just gotten her hands on the family stockings and been hit with a couple of opposing emotions.

On the one hand, after pulling out her own stocking, and those for Lucas, Marianne, Ella, and Tori, she'd found the one belonging to Granny Lizzie. Even if she hadn't spent last Christmas with them, they'd hung it up symbolically. But this year… Still going up, has to… Don't think we'll ever keep it down… On the flipside, she was thinking about the triplets, and their stockings, even if they could almost fit inside one… which gave her a photo idea… She didn't have any for them yet, on account that Eliza and Emma had cut in and requested to take care of those weeks ago. Maya and Lucas had happily left them to it, and now…

"Yeah, right here!" Eliza bolted to grab a box previously hidden. She brought it to her sister and brother-in-law, even as Emma came to join her. They both had great big grins on their faces. It was wrapped up, bow and all, like a present.

"Look," Emma pointed to the tag stuck in the corner. Maya and Lucas leaned in to read.

To: Kacey, Remy, and Lucy

From: Granny Lizzie

It was written in Emma's hand, they recognized it, but still… They looked at the box and, even without having opened it, they felt a wave of love and grief, wishing she was still here with them. When they did open the box and found the stockings, there was just no doubt. Elizabeth Hart had made these with her own hands.

"She started on those almost the day we all found out about the babies," Eliza explained. She and Emma had similar looks on their faces, remembering their late grandmother. "She knew she wouldn't be here for this, and she really wanted to make them." Maya nodded, holding back tears. She would do that.

"The names…" Lucas remarked. They had been stitched in on each stocking, but it was impossible… Yes, they'd told her what they would be, but they'd only done so… hours before she passed away. She could never have done it.

"We did those," Emma raised her hand as Eliza nodded. "The last time we got to talk to her that night, she told us where the stockings were, and she asked if we could finish them for her and give them to you. So, I guess now would be the time to tell you we knew they'd be girls and what you were going to call them. But we didn't tell anyone, swear," she crossed her heart.

Lucas chuckled. The last time he'd talked to Elizabeth, she'd asked him the spelling on the girls' names, 'just to be sure.' He looked to Maya, and she was definitely crying now, so he put his arms around her. Eliza and Emma closed in around her, too, and they stayed this way for a few beats, remembering.

The stockings were hung up all in a row, including those for Eliza and Emma, who'd received them in the mail, shipped out by their parents. They hung Granny Lizzie's right next to the triplets'.

The rest of the 'Christmasing' carried on, and thankfully no little girls' magic was spoiled. Lucas suspected that Marianne, being very familiar with 'the rules' would have made certain, even if she woke up, not to see anything she wasn't supposed to see, and the same for Winnie. The Clutterbuckets kept watch over the babies, even as they saw to the decorations in the two kids' rooms. As they later reported, the nursery had been a breeze, while Marianne's room had them both on tip toes, like spies. Their mission was successful.

And after a night which felt much too short – as it did every year – Maya and Lucas were awakened, in the middle of their Hart-Lane decorated room, by the squealing sounds of the little girls waking and discovering that yes, the fairies had come. They stayed in their bed and listened, following their progress. They saw the bathroom! And the hallway! And… yes, the nursery! Hello, sisters! Finally, they appeared in the master bedroom's doorway, with sparkling eyes and giddy smiles.

"It worked, Daddy, it worked!" Marianne told Lucas even as he was getting up. "Gotta see upstairs!" she sped off again, Winnie on her tail.

"Knock first!" Lucas called after them. Maya came up behind him, locking him in a good morning hug.

"She'll still be excited for this even if she finds out it's us, right?"

"Hey, just because it's us, doesn't mean it's not magic," Lucas reasoned, and Maya snickered in his back. "Fairies work in mysterious ways," he insisted. He reached his arms backward, holding on to her as best he could. Overhead, they could hear Marianne and Winnie with Eliza and Emma.

"We certainly do our best."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners