“But I don’t want to be a wizard,” insisted Chevy, stubbornly.  “I want to be a mechanic.”

Llywarch stopped dancing and singing something about “I get to retire!” and answered.  “I know, and I’m sorry,” he said with a straight face.  “I wanted to be a diplomat.  But when that tree said you weren’t a wizard, it was lying.  The amulet proves it. 

“So that’s why he can hear bluebells,” said Rosa.

Llywarch nodded.  “Didn’t you feel strange when you put it on?  It’s a family heirloom, always worn by the person next in line to be a wizard.  I thought it was lost when my brother drown.  I should have known that wasn’t possible.  It proves you’re his son.  You are a Llewellyn, Chevy.  And that means you have to become a wizard,” he added with a broad smile.

“Now?”

“You’ll grow into it, of course.  Certainly not before you’re twenty-one.  How old did you say you were – fifteen?”  Llywarch started counting on his fingers behind his back.  “When I’m…forced…to retire, you’re next.  Did I ever tell you about the sandy beaches in Barbados, where a man can lay all day in the sun being waited on by island maidens?”

“How will I know when it’s my turn?”

“Why the amulet will tell you.  Be sure to pass that on to your son – as soon as possible – is my suggestion.  I wonder why I always remained a bachelor.  I did come close once…ah…Gisele.”

“So Chevy’s part of the family,” said Chris.  “That explains Rosa’s wish.”

“It is sad to think that Rosa was the first person – ever to be kind to Chevy,” Mimi said.

“Unbelievable is more like it,” was Chris’s response.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Rosa.

“I wish she’d leave me alone now,” Chevy responded.

Rosa, when she got over her disappointment at not being magical, kept offering Chevy her pan.  “See if you can see my father in it,” she kept asking and sticking the pan in his face.

Finally Chris took it from her, exclaiming, “I see something.”

“Really?” said Rosa.  “What is it?”

Chris held the pan at arms length.  Then with his finger he straightened a lock of hair.  “That’s better.”  And he handed the pan back to her.

“You’re still not funny,” Rosa said.  And she walked away in a huff.

They started out at the first light along the path behind where the Oak had been.

Gretel was tired.  She spent all night searching for the missing glove.  Her eyes were dry now.  But they were red from crying.

Randolph kept telling himself that sailors could sleep through anything.  But his dreams had been haunted by a mournful mime, with one bare hand.

They walked for hours, but the trail was straight and easy.  The climbs were gradual.  Soon they would be over the divide.  The trail curved around a large boulder and they found themselves in a beautiful valley.  It was lush and green, full of waterfalls and wonderful creatures.

“I didn’t know that unicorns were real,” said Llywarch.

“And there are dolphins,” said Mimi.  “But shouldn’t they be in the sea?” she asked Hansel.

“I see ducks and geese and walruses.  But not a single chicken.” added Rosa

“And thousands of roses!” exclaimed Gretel.  “They’re beautiful.  Randy,” she ordered, ”put your sword away.”

But Randolph was busy watching a fleet of miniature boats under full sail darting to and fro across a mirrored pond.  The smooth movement of the boats didn’t even stir a ripple in the water.

Chris rubbed his eyes.  Everywhere he looked, he saw Rosa.  But never more than one Rosa at a time.

“This is a Hemi engine with a four-barrel carburetor,” explained Chevy, of the object in front of him.  He didn’t know what that meant, but he was sure eventually he would.  He lovingly touched the red metal block that was purring.

“SUEY!”  Hombre and Harley were cavorting in a field of clover with a herd of pigs.

Rex was standing head to back with a brown-eyed cow.  They were fanning each other with their tails.

Hansel couldn’t understand it.  All he saw was a rocky gully; desolate except for sagebrush, thistle, and a small mud hole.

Mimi put a cool hand to his forehead.  “It must be from the blow,” she said.  “Sit here.  Rest in the shade of this tree, while I go talk to the dolphins.”

She sat Hansel by what appeared to him to be sagebrush.  And off she went to the mud hole.

“Hello,” Mimi said to a dolphin that stopped leaping in the water and came to meet her.  “What a lovely nose you have.”  She sat down on a pristine rock, so they could have a chat.

Hansel rubbed his eyes and stared at what Mimi was sitting on.  It stared back at him.  That was no rock; that was a human skull.

“This is a four-stroke engine with a camshaft that has a timing ratio of 1 to 2,” Chevy told Rosa.  “It’s a 420 cubic inch V-8 engine with 399 horse power, an 8 to1 compression ratio, and 400 pounds of torque.”

“”It’s very nice color,” agreed Rosa, as she petted a walrus.

“I must be catching a cold,” Gretel said to Randolph, as she handed him another rose to hold.  “I should have stayed by the fire, instead of searching for that glove.  I need to blow my nose.”  She sniffed.  “Is that a handkerchief in you pocket?”

“What?  No!  Er…I mean, Yes!  But it’s used.  Let’s go find Mimi.  I am sure she has lots of them.”  Randolph gripped the roses and they went in search of Mimi.  He paused for a moment to shove the glove deeper in his pocket.

“How is a unicorn different from a rhinoceros,” Llywarch asked the creature he was talking to.  “Other than the weight thing, I mean.”

Chris knelt beside a clear stream and bathed his face.  This time when he looked up, he didn’t see Rosa, but Mimi.  She was sitting on a rock, talking to a fish.  Just beyond her, Llywarch was conversing with a unicorn.

“Mimi,” he said as he approached her.  “Can I ask you a personal question?"

The former fairy looked up at Chris.  She thought it was a shame that he had such an ordinary nose.  But other than that, he was a handsome man.  She replied, “Sure, I don’t mind.”

Chris knelt down beside the rock.  “How did you know you were in love with Hansel?”

“Why do you want to know?” she asked with a smile.  “Is there anyone you think you’re in love with?”

“No!” Chris answered emphatically, ignoring the sight of Rosa standing beside a walrus.  He turned to the dolphin.  “This fish cannot understand me, can he?”

“Lulu is a she,” replied Mimi.  “And dolphins are mammals.  Lulu gets offended when people call her a fish.  Yes, she can understand, because Llywarch is close.”

“I apologize,” said Christopher to Lulu.  “Say, you are named after…”

“Yes, “ said Mimi.  “It seems that Lulu has two maiden aunts and both of them…”

“Are named Lu,” Chris finished for her.  “Well, I’m pleased to meet you.” he said to the mammal, with a bow.

The dolphin nodded her head regally.  Then she scooted away using her tail, keeping her body rigid above the water.  She was allowing them privacy.

“Let’s see now,” said Mimi.  “How did I know I was in love with Hansel?  It was many things.  Of course, I couldn’t stop looking at his nose.”

Chris nodded.  It was a good thing for his self-esteem that he didn’t know she found him lacking in that department.

“And he was handsome and kind.”

Chris promised himself that he would work on the kindness aspect.  But two out of three wasn’t bad.

“I knew he would be a good father.”

So, he would have to work on two things.

“But you know the clincher was that I understood him.”

“You mean you were soul mates” responded Chris.

“No… well…yes.  But what I mean is I understood his words.  We didn’t need Llywarch to translate, because our hearts spoke to each other.”

“You understand every word he says?”

“Yes, “ answered Mimi.  “Every word.  And some he doesn’t say.”

“So, if I loved someone, I would understand what she said in my heart.  And if she loved me, it would be the same for her.”

“Based on my experience, yes,” said Mimi.

Chris walked away dejected.  This love business was a lot harder than he thought.

Hansel, passing as he left, wondered why Chris had mud on his face.

“Did you know you are sitting on a human skull?” he asked his bride.

“Don’t be silly,” said Mimi.  “This is a beautiful white stone.”

“With eye sockets and missing teeth?”

“Oh dear.  You’re seeing things.  You must have a concussion.”  She stood up and made him sit in her place.  She felt his forehead again.  “Maybe you’re a little warm,” she worried.  She dipped her hand into the clear water and smeared mud on him.

“Mimi, do you have a handkerchief?” asked Gretel as she and Randolph came up.

Mimi searched in her pockets until she found one and handed it to her.

“Why’s Hansel wearing mud on his face?” asked Gretel.  Then she blew her nose.  “I am sorry.  I must have been mistaken,” she continued, when she could breathe again.  She looked at Hansel closely.  “There isn’t any mud.  The shadows must have fooled me.”

Neither Randolph nor Mimi saw any either.

Rosa and Chevy approached.

Hansel could see they were carrying bits and pieces of thistle and sagebrush.  And their mouths were smeared with mud.  He was astonished by their words.

“We’ve come to share our feast with you,” said Rosa.  And they dumped onto the clean grass beside the lake, a banquet of meats, fruits and vegetables.  “And nothing’s sweeter than the water in this lake.”

Llywarch and Hombre joined them.

“I am so hungry I could eat a hog, “said Llywarch.  “I am sorry,” he said to Hombre.  “I didn’t mean it.”

“This isn’t hog, but it’s delicious,” said Hombre, as Hansel watched him munch on a twig.  “It’s very tender,” he added.  And he took a swig of mud.

Christopher wasn’t hungry.  So he went for a walk.  It wasn’t a relaxing walk.  Rosa kept popping out from behind trees and waterfalls and boulders.   She would beckon to him with her finger.  And talk sweetly to him in Spanish.  But he never understood her.  And she always disappeared when he came close.

Maybe he could escape her in sleep, he thought as he yawned.  He found one of the white rocks and laid his head on it.  He closed his eyes.  Just before he drifted off to sleep, Rosa approached.  She knelt beside him and kissed his cheek.  “In case you never wake up, know this.  I love you, mi amore.”

Then he slept.

Randolph felt so guilty over stealing Gretel’s glove that he had no appetite.  So he was not as disturbed as the others when Hansel went into a rampage.

“You’re eating twigs and thistle weeds.  And you’re drinking mud,” he raged, knocking their food to the ground whenever they lifted it to their lips.

“Here.  We’re willing to share,” said Randolph, as he offered Hansel a bit of sagebrush.  “There’s plenty for everyone.”  Personally he thought Hansel was crazy from the blow to his head.  But he didn’t want to say anything to hurt Gretel.  He had done enough harm already.  Poor Mimi, he thought, to have her marriage go sour on the second day.

But Mimi and Gretel were coping.  They dropped what they were eating whenever Hansel came near.  Then they picked it up again, as he went on to harass someone else.

He didn’t bother Hombre or Rosa.  Hombre was too strong to take anything out of his hands.  And Rosa was eating hers from the frying pan.  Hansel knew better than to get near that.

Finally, exhausted and discouraged, he slumped down on another skull and gave up.  His head hurt.  Not only was his nose sore, but the veins in his temples throbbed with every pulse.  He had to breathe through his mouth, because he couldn’t get any air through his nose.

Mimi came up to comfort him and lovingly spread more mud on his face.  She held him until he slept.  Then she gently lowered him onto the soft grass and propped the rock under his head.  She sat back on her heels and watched.  In his sleep, he was still having difficulty breathing.

“You must love him,” said Gretel.  “You’re so kind and gentle.”

“Men are easy to handle,” answered Mimi, from her vast two days experience.  “They are just large children really.”

“I know someone that acts like it,” said Rosa.  “I wonder where he is.  It’s just like him to make us worry about him.”

“Who?” asked Mimi, smiling.

Rosa blushed.  “No one,” she answered.  “I was just speaking hypothetically.  No one knows where Chris is, do they?  I’d hate to have him stumble in here, after we’re asleep, waking everybody up.”  She peered into the growing darkness with a worried look on her face.

“Tell us about love,” Randolph asked, to everyone’s surprise.

Chevy wasn’t interested.  So he wandered off to tinker with the engine.  He had noticed some objects on the ground near it.  He suspected they were tools.

Mimi told the rest the same things she told Chris.

“Christopher has a rather handsome nose, don’t you think?” Rosa asked Mimi.

Mimi crossed her fingers behind her back and nodded in agreement.  Gretel gave a long appraising look at Randolph’s face, while Llywarch and Hombre each felt their own.

Lulu and the unicorn came closer to listen.  The walrus was snoring at Rosa’s feet.  Its whiskers were fluttering with every breath.  The herd of pigs was answering with snores from the field were they lay.  Geese and ducks were tucking their heads under their wings.

“You can understand everything Hansel says in your heart?” Gretel asked.  “You don’t need a translator?”

“Translators are always needed,” insisted Llywarch.  “Good communications skills are never over rated.”  But the others ignored him.

“That’s the sign of when you’re in love?” Randolph asked in disbelief.

Mimi nodded.  Her eyes were sparkling.  She looked at him and Gretel and smiled to herself.  She yawned.  “I’m getting sleepy,” she said, and lay down beside Hansel.  “Good night, everyone.”  She felt Hansel’s head one last time, before she put her arms around him and rested her head on his side.  It had been a long day.  Soon she was asleep.

In the distance, the engine stopped.

Beside it, Chevy was flat on his back asleep, with his arms folded over his chest.  He had a socket wrench in one hand and an oilcan in the other.

The dolphin slipped under the water and the unicorn wandered off to lay in a glen.

“It has been a long day.”  Gretel and Rosa politely covered their yawns with their hands.  Llywarch, Randolph, and Hombre were not so polite.  They all lay down in a circle with their feet pointing inward.  Soon all were asleep.

Rosa’s last thought before she drifted off was of Chris.  She would have to hunt him down first thing in the morning.  Then she would tell him off.  The idea of making people worry about him.  She knew just what she would say.  “I love you, mi amore.”  Now where did that come from?

But when morning came, they didn’t wake up.  Wind blowing down the desolate terrain piled sand up against them.  Floating thistle weeds coated their hair and faces.

This was the same fate that befell the owners of the bones that littered the gully.  The trail was truly the way out of the Alps.  But this gully should have been crossed without stopping.  Its plants were noxious.  First came hallucinations, then drowsiness, and sleep.  Once a person was that far under their spell, he or she never awoke.

An honest oak would have told them so.  It was their misfortune to meet a lying one.

Hansel’s nose was stuffed.  So he should have risen, except sometime during the night, the swelling went down

The sun came and went two times.  And still they slept.

At last, a full moon rose over the Alpine peaks.

Mimi stirred.  She sat up and brushed away the sand and thistles.  The Blue Fairy stood up.

She shook Hansel.  But he wouldn’t return to consciousness.  Even in her distress, she was glad to see his nose was much improved.  She shook the others.  But it was no use.

What happened?  What could she do?  If someone woke up, they could wish everyone out of there.  But she couldn’t grant a wish that no one could ask.

She needed the comfort of her window.  She walked to the oxcart and rubbed it with a kerchief.  It unfogged immediately.  Despite the crack, she read their terrible fate.  She looked up.  A short way off, she could see Chris and Chevy sleeping.

She sat on a skull and worried.  Time was running out.  When the moon went down, she would cease to be a fairy for another year.  Only she wouldn’t be alive then.  Soon she would sleep again.  By the time the next year rolled around, her bleached bones would be resting in the sand beside the others.  Someday some weary traveler might sit on her skull.

She walked over to the window and rubbed it again.  She saw a black hole.  The black hole of my despair, she thought.

HOLE!  That was it!  The idea was audacious.  And she would have to make sure the wish was done correctly.

She ran over to Hansel, shook him and hoped.  Sometimes he talked in his sleep.

“Five more minutes, Mom” he mumbled.  “Are you sure there’s school today?”

Mimi smiled.  If this worked, someday that would be little Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod trying to stay asleep.  “Hansel,” she said.  “Don’t you wish that you could have given me a diamond ring for our wedding?  A stone that would be mine?”

“Wish,” said Hansel in his sleep.  “Diamond…mine…be…mine!”

Suddenly a diamond mine opened up underneath the mud hole.  There was a giant slurping sound as the mud and water drained into it.

Mimi ran over and looked in.  Moonbeams shining on diamonds lit the tunnel downward for as far as she could see.

A fairy is stronger than the average woman.  And Mimi was able, with effort, to drag every one into the mine, including Rex and Harley.  She had just finished pulling the oxcart in, when the moon went down and her powers vanished for another year.

The opening of the mine closed behind her.

And everyone started to wake up.