“But Mistletoe,” Beth said in a sudden surge of common sense. “How long will I be able to fly?”

Mistletoe was not sure. “A year at least,” she said. “More? Honestly? Probably your whole life. But anyway, it has the virtue of stopping only when your feet are firmly back on the ground. The magic won’t stop when you are still in the air.”

Beth was not sure if that sounded quite right. She remembered in the back of her mind that the little ones, as Mistletoe called them, could be tricky; but the feeling of flying felt too exhilarating to think anymore. She happily followed Mistletoe right up to the clouds.

When they arrived at cloud level, they found Hyacinth, Daffodil and Holly playing “swirlies” in the cloud. They spun around and around as they slowly fell to make little whirlpools in the white fluff. Mistletoe and Zinnia tried it once before they prevailed on Beth to try. She was flying big, of course, and she made such a whirlpool, the others squealed in delight. Beth was delighted in turn by the sound of their fairy laughter, which is known to be a powerful enchantment, but then Beth made the mistake of looking down. This did not agree with her at all, and so she began to look to the left and right instead as she tried to get her head to stop spinning.

She realized again that they were indeed on an island. She had caught sight of the distant sea on her way up, but she was not exactly sure even then if it was an island or a peninsula because there were some very high mountains in the distance, so she thought to ask.

“It is an island. The hills rise up to the mountains before falling away again to the sea,” Mistletoe explained.

There were also other islands Beth could see in the distance.

“The archipelago,” Holly said. She zoomed up to Beth’s ear to try out the word.

“The islands of the Kairos,” Mistletoe continued to explain. “No one knows exactly how many islands there are. Some fall away now and then, but there are more being added all of the time.”

“There’s Dragon Island, and Amazon Island,” Daffodil said.

“The isle of the pretty maids.” Zinnia posed in mid-air and the others razzed her.

“There’s an island for the centaurs and fauns, one for the Were people, and even an island just for horses, though the dragons visit there once in a while to keep the population down,” Hyacinth said.

“And there’s a gypsy island, though it isn’t tied down,” Holly said.

“All the islands move once in a while,” Mistletoe said. “You can never be completely certain which one is on the horizon.”

“But the gypsy island moves all the time,” Holly said.

“Like that?” Beth pointed out to sea. But no, she thought that looked like three islands moving along and kind of bobbing and weaving through the water. All the fairies looked, and all screamed at once.

“Sea Monster!” They hid in the folds of Beth’s clothes, except Holly who rushed to hide in Beth’s hair. Beth laughed.

“Now I really don’t think that monster can reach all of the way up here. Besides, it does look to be moving away from us.”

Daffodil spoke first. “I knew that.” She said, but the others laughed at her because, to be sure, she had not thought of that.

By then the game of swirlies was forgotten, and Holly started pulling again. “Come-ony.”

The next cloud up looked covered with a field of beautiful pink colored puffs, like cotton puffs died a soft shade of sunset. It looked to Beth that the girls were picking and eating the pink fluff, like cotton candy, or little pink strawberries. Zinnia came up.

“Try one,” she encouraged. Beth first looked at the fairy closely, but then opened her mouth and closed her eyes. Zinnia threw the biggest one she could find into Beth’s mouth. It did, indeed, taste a little like a strawberry, but sweeter and without the grit or seedy skin. She marveled at the flavor when she heard the word of protest.

“Hey! No stealing the puffberries. We worked hard to grow them, isn’t that right Fluffy?”

“Right you are, Flitter.” Beth heard the female voice, but she could not see who was speaking. “Hard work it is, too, so no pinching them.”

All the fairies, except Mistletoe, darted behind Beth’s back and looked like children with their hands caught in the cookie jar.

“Flitter! There’s a ground clunker up here!” The female voice sounded astonished.

“So there is, Fluffy. A clunker for sure.” Flitter responded, and Beth finally recognized the speakers. They looked like little clouds, except with animated arms, legs, and shaking heads which stuck up slightly from the rest of their cloud-like bodies. They had cute little faces too, and Beth had to try hard to hold on to a serious expression.

“We are very sorry,” Beth said. “I did not know these were yours. I apologize.”

“Well, they’re not ours, exactly,” Fluffy said.

“Not exactly.”

“But, Hey! How did you get up here?”

“Yea, how?”

“Kairos’ daughter,” Mistletoe said, as if that explained everything. Beth saw the male remove a hat which she had not even realized he was wearing.

“Oh, well, that differentiates things,” Flitter said.

“All differentiated.” Fluffy agreed as she gave a little curtsey. They were agreeable creatures, to be sure, and the fairies came out slowly from behind Beth’s back.

“Can you show us the way to the castle?” Mistletoe asked to change the subject.

“Why sure,” Fluffy said. “Just one trail up. Can’t miss it.”

“Sticks up right there.” Flitter pointed at a misty shape through the cloud. “Run right into it.”

“Plenty of puffberries there,” Fluffy added.

“Puffberries every night,” Flitter said, plainly.

“Thank you kindly,” Mistletoe said for all as the girls that already dashed ahead.

“Thank you.” Beth echoed Mistletoe while the sprites bowed and went back to their puffberry field. Mistletoe started out and Beth followed right along; but her mind felt perplexed as every encounter seemed to raise new questions. The cloud or air sprites raised a whole host of thoughts. “So how can there be a real castle in the sky?” she asked out loud. She thought of a cloud castle like she might have seen from the ground. “If it was a real castle, wouldn’t it fall through the clouds and go crashing down to the earth?”

Mistletoe shook her head as she screwed up her beautiful face. This was clearly something she never considered before.

“All connected,” Zinnia said. “The castle here and the castle on the ground are all connected.” That did not really explain much.

“You have a room here, and down below. Same room,” Hyacinth said.

“I do?” Beth felt surprised to hear she had her own room in the castle, though not surprised if her father was indeed this Kairos they talked about.

“All goes together.” Daffodil tried to explain better. Beth wondered if it would be too unsteady to make her home in the clouds.

“But not connected at the same time,” Mistletoe added in a serious tone. “Junior’s castle in the sky is also an island in the chain of islands. When you stay here, you will find it a castle on an island surrounded by sea.”

Beth looked around and saw the blue sky around the clouds, but it did not seem like water in the least.

“Hard to explain.” Holly tried very hard to be serious, like her sister, but she was not entirely successful. “Everything here folds and curves in new and crazy ways, and it is not like back on Earth.” Holly stopped and touched her head like she might be getting a little fairy headache.

“You just got to be here,” Mistletoe said. She flitted over to hug her sister which brought back a smile. “You get used to it.”

One more cloud up and they rejoined Mrs. Aster. She hovered to wait for them and concentrate on something in the distance. “I don’t like the look of the sky,” Mrs. Aster said as they started moving again. The sun was out where they were, and the clouds looked soft and white, so the others did not know what she was talking about.

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MONDAY

Beth runs into trouble but find the castle in the clouds. David finds the castle under the sea but getting in proves difficult. Until Next Time, Happy Reading

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