The Peaceable Kingdom was inhabited by treasures galore. The interior consisted of a table that stretched from one end of the store to another, donned with a delicacy of little toys and artifacts in little plastic bins. Ruby especially loved the plastic ants that she often placed within colonies of real ants and waited for them to notice. There were little rubber toys and precious miniatures, toy trucks, finger puppets, bouncy balls, but Ruby's favorite was the little Guatemalan worry dolls that were almost as small as her fingernails. As she dug through the bins, she thought about how they were Barbie-doll-sized for Lilac, glancing at her still form in her other hand, and wondered if she should buy some for her. She selected three of a different color.
"Mom, I want these," she nudged her mother, who was taking in the antiques that lined the walls. She pulled out a pile of bills without looking away.
"Go crazy. And don't go outside without me!" her mother called after Ruby as she ran to the register. She passed her sister, Kalina, who was standing awkwardly next to one of the glass displays.
After purchasing the dolls, she glanced at her mother to make sure she was still enraptured by the antiques, and Kalina to make sure she was still picking at her elbows, and sped out the front door.
To the left of the entrance was the fairy door, carved into the green siding. It was a little brown door with a white shade identical to that of the shop's front door with a pair of eyes and spectacles that opened and closed, with the words "Sorry, we're closed." Underneath it was a little stoop for gifts.
"What do I do?" Ruby whispered to Lilac as customers spilled in and out of the store, ignoring her as she leaned down and left two of her worry dolls on the stoop.
"Put the key through the door handle," instructed Lilac. As Ruby placed the taut string of hairs near the knob, a tiny hole appeared, and she placed the key inside and turned. The door opened to reveal the interior of the little fairy boutique.
"Now what?"
"Place me inside, and crawl in after me."
Ruby neglected to point out how she was too big to fit in the door. If a doll could talk, and her hair could unlock a door, there was no reason why Ruby shouldn't fit through it.
As she placed her fingers on the edge of the door and crawled forward, she was met with the sound of a bell over a shop door and warm tangerine lighting. Suddenly the glass plates, paper mache flowers, the stacks of pennies, and the doll-sized antiques were all suited for her size. Ruby had imagined herself phasing through the glass many times and living inside, and here she was. By the counter in the middle of the store stood Lilac, admiring the products inside the cases and the rows of baby teeth. Ruby looked toward the glass. The shop was comically large, and the glass made everything else look strangely distorted. It was like watching a movie screen.
"Before we go, you should take some of these with you," Lilac grabbed six worry dolls from off the shelves and handed them to Ruby. "They'll keep you safe." Ruby shoved them in her pockets. She marched toward the white door on the furthest wall from the entrance and beckoned for Ruby to follow.
The door opened to a darkened stairwell. Ruby felt for a railing and was greeted with walls of bark. When they exited, the first thing Ruby noticed was the labyrinth of roots on the ground, which grew into the veins of ginormous trees. Ruby glanced behind her at the little carved exit in the tree trunk they'd just entered through. She looked up at the sky, a patchwork quilt made of fall colors mixed with loud neons and soft pastels.
"It's like a rainbow," said Ruby as she picked up a winged-like leaf, admiring the intricate patterns and the small, still body with antennas protruding. She experimentally kicked at piles of leaves on the ground, dead butterflies unceremoniously falling back to the earth. "They're all butterflies," she remarked, glancing back up as live butterflies broke free from the tree branches, dancing across the sky. Others glided toward the ground, stiff and lifeless.
"Take as many fallen ones as you want," offered Lilac. "We use them to make watercolors."
Ruby grabbed fistfulls of dead butterflies, shoving more and more into the pockets of her jeans.
"Here we are," said Lilac as they came to a clearing. There was a cul-de-sac of tall mushrooms surrounded by a meadow. The mushrooms were encased by little houses, some made of moss and bark, some made of smooth rocks and sharp crystals.
The sky was a tapestry of translucent wings and petal skirts. There were fairies everywhere, some flying, some dancing together, others chatting with neighbors, others sprawled on top of the ground painting and making crafts.
"Welcome to Oak Meadow," said Lilac. Among the houses, live butterflies soared and perched on flowers and sucked at the nectar. Sitting on the ground painting, Ruby noticed a young fairy.
"Want to try some?" asked Lilac.
"Huh?" said Ruby, still admiring the fairy girl. Lilac pulled out two hollow sticks and handed one to Ruby, then stabbed one of the flowers and began to suck out the nectar.
"We can drink it?"
"Of course," said Lilac. Ruby mimicked her and took a sip. It was a fantastical blend of fruits as the nectar changed flavors, each overpowering one another.
"It's like an everlasting Gobstopper," she remarked.
"A what? Anyway, welcome to my circle," beamed Lilac, gesturing toward her neighbors. They went over to join some of the fairies painting on the ground as Ruby gravitated towards the young fairy. She appeared to be in deep discussion with the fairy next to her, a beautiful golden-blonde woman in a white floral dress that bled into hot pink on the tips of the petals.
"Hey Lilac!" greeted the fairy.
"Hey Honey," said Lilac, joining her on the ground amongst the canvases and buckets of paint. "Ruby, this is my friend and neighbor Honeydew. Honey, this is my human friend Ruby. She saved my solid form from being crushed by a trash compactor."
"How noble of you!" Honeydew complimented. "This is sweet Juniper," said Honey, gesturing toward the young fairy next to her.
"Hi," greeted Juniper. "Do you want to paint?" she moved to make space.
"Sure," said Ruby. She sat knee to knee with Juniper, who handed her an empty canvas.
"We brought more paint," said Lilac as she sat on the other side of Honeydew and outstretched her palms toward Ruby. Ruby wrenched the little butterfly bodies from her pocket and handed them to Lilac. Lilac squeezed them between her fingers, color dripping into the paint buckets. When she let go, little shriveled grey carcasses crumbled from her fingers. Juniper and Honeydew swirled their brushes in the new colors and resumed painting.
"I'm making a horse," explained Juniper as she began to paint a lean neck onto an oval body. "What about you?"
"I'm going to paint ants," said Ruby, thinking of her collection of plastic ants from Peaceable Kingdom that were in a canister on her dresser. "Dancing ants." She looked over at Honeydew's canvas, which was a mural of soft clouds. "Are you a doll too?" she asked.
"Yes," said Honeydew.
"Are you all dolls?" she asked.
"Not all of us, no," said Honeydew.
"We're between the pages of books, on shelves, painted into walls, born from embroidery. We're everywhere if you pay close enough attention," Lilac elaborated.
"I'm on a pillowcase," explained Juniper. "I get to watch parents play tooth fairy."
"I'm just like Lilac," explained Honeydew, "And just as breakable," she smirked at Lilac, who glowered.
"I think I'm done," Juniper announced as she sat her brush down and turned to Ruby. "You wanna see something cool?" she reached her hands into the painting and pulled, and out leapt a full-sized, pink and blue spotted horse with angel wings. The creature flew and galloped around the circle, stopping as fairies came to pet its mane. "Now you try!"
Ruby reached into her painting, hard canvas turning to cool liquid as she wrenched out the little creatures and watched as they grew from specks of paint into ants the size of basketballs as they began to overthrow the meadow.
"Oh dear," said Honeydew as chaos ensued. "It's an infestation." Fairies scattered in terror, the circle full of screaming and squelching as some tried to stomp on the creatures and others retreated into their homes. Lilac and Honeydew grabbed buckets of water and began drenching the spiders until they dissolved into little black puddles.
"She said she's sorry!" Lilac shouted to the remaining fairies, who irritably began gathering up their fallen things. "Water is how we wash away watercolor creatures," explained Lilac. "Or you can just wait for them to dissolve on their own."
"I'm done with mine as well," said Honeydew, reaching into her painting and pulling out soft pink clouds, which she tossed in the air until they met amongst the others in the sky. "Want to go walk on them?"
"Wait, wait!" said Juniper, climbing on top of her horse. She reached out to Ruby. "Want to ride?" Ruby clambered on top and braced her arms around Juniper and held on for dear life. Lilac and Honeydew began to fly, and the horse leapt after them, gliding through the air like a fish in water. Together they landed on one of the clouds.
"You can eat it!" cried Juniper as they dismounted. She picked up a handful of cloudlike cotton and began violently ripping it apart with her teeth. "See? Cotton candy." Lush pink syrup dripped from her gums. Ruby picked her own handful and began eating greedily.
"This feels like a dream," said Ruby. "Is it?" she asked Lilac.
"Yes, you slept yourself silly and now you've entered into another world," she replied sarcastically. "As long as you are real, so is this."
She knew if anything was real, it was Juniper. She was beautiful in a way the rest of the world wasn't. Overflowing her wings were thick locks of brown hair, and her dress a mix of yellow and auburn with leaves sewn in patterns. She didn't feel glittery or too good to be true.
The four of them laid on the cloud and devoured it bit by bit as they admired the sky. The cloud grumbled like an empty belly as it began to rain. Ruby felt the soft plush under her feet dissolve, and suddenly she was falling through the sky amidst a downpour. The horse was nowhere to be seen. Lilac grabbed onto her and flew her back to the ground, while Juniper and Honeydew landed next to her. The downpour followed them as thunder rumbled.
"Want to go dancing?" asked Juniper with a wicked grin.