The Book Of Letters

Initially, I thought she wanted to deliver a letter. I walked up to her, bent my knees to look at her in the eyes, though she leaned her head away and looked down, and asked her. "Can I help you?"

The girl didn"t reply. She was shaking nervously as she held the letter tightly. I wasn"t sure what to do, since I rarely interact with children. Fortunately, Postmaster came out of the office and greeted her. "Good morning, Evangeline. I heard that your school is doing something this weekend."

She walked towards Postmaster and handed the letter. Postmaster opened the letter and read the contents. Then he looked at me with a big smile on his face. "It looks like today you"ll be delivering with Evangeline, Kurai. You"ll be showing her the basic things of being a Special Task Postman."

He explained about the special scheme thing, and I was sort of reluctant to have her with me. Not because I disliked her or anything, but the fact that being with a Special Task Postman is really dangerous. Postmaster rea.s.sured me that everything would turn out alright as long as I keep being cautious. After we properly introduced ourselves, Benjamin came out from the mailroom bringing a cape that had matching designs and colour with my uniform and also a parcel wrapped in red paper.

"Here is a uniform for her," said Benjamin, giving it to me rather than Evangeline. He disliked children so much he wouldn"t look at them when they are close to him. He was lucky enough that all of the children were busy with their dream jobs that none of them came to the post office for the usual "Help-Your-Postman" Day.

"What"s with the parcel?" I asked.

"Litmus ordered something from Cactus City again," he replied and returned to the mailroom. After Evangeline put on her cape and put the parcel into her satchel, I took my broomstick and shook the canister outside the office to get running, and Evangeline hadn"t stepped out of the office yet. She stared at me as she peeked from the side of the door.

"Come here Evangeline," I called her. "We got work to do."

One step out of the door and somebody yelled. "Hey mister! Be careful with her!"

From a distance I saw a boy about the same age as Evangeline standing next to a policeman. He yelled again. "That girl is a walking disaster!"

The policeman pinched the boy"s cheek and warned him not to say bad things about someone. I looked at Evangeline again and she hid back into the office. I sighed and approached her.

"It"s going to be alright, Evangeline. Just trust me," I said as I took her hand. She slowly stepped out of the office and towards the floating broomstick. I lifted her so she could sit on it and we went off at a low speed. She remained silent throughout the journey so I started the conversation by telling her my name and asked her why she wanted to become a Special Task Postman.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, she finally spoke. "B-because they"re brave."

I tightened my lips together and slowly nodded my head. I wouldn"t agree with her 100% because I had experienced a lot of things with my girlfriend, Aoko. I was being a coward every time we had to do our deliveries. "What makes you think of that we"re brave?"

"Because I"m not," she replied. I was surprised by her reply. I wanted to ask her again but we had already reached our destination. Litmus was standing outside with Boron on his shoulders. He equipped himself with objects made out of iron on his belt.

"Good morning, Kurai!" he greeted. He turned his eyes to Evangeline and greeted her as well. Evangeline hid behind me again.

"So what is in the parcel?" I asked as I gave to him.

"Recently I went out to the back of my house, wandered around and I found a rusty gate," he told us. "When I went through, for a while I saw something fluttering and sparkling at the corner of my eye. I know it has to be a fairy!"

I choked my laugh. "Seriously? Fairies? Aren"t you too old to be finding fairies?"

Litmus turned red with embarra.s.sment. "Shut it! I bought this book to study them! And seeing this red wrapper, this means that fairies do exist!"

Fairies are one of the most popular magical creatures, and one of the most difficult to capture. There are also statements about fairies hating to be known and willing to destroy any related evidence, hence the reason why the parcel was wrapped in red; fairies disliked the colour red, and why Litmus was equipped with iron; to repel them.

"You do know fairies are most commonly found at the outskirts of Clover City, where they have an entire forest reserve for them," I said, pointing to the book that he ordered. "Also if you show off those iron objects, they"ll never get near to you."

He removed his belt and kept an iron bar in his pocket. He skimmed through his new book and closed it again. "You two should join my backyard expedition, and I"ll prove the existence of fairies."

At first I didn"t want to, but I was quite worried that if he found one, he could be in grave danger. Meeting magical creatures without knowing them beforehand shouldn"t be taken lightly. I agreed to join him, and brought Evangeline along as well.

"Do you do this every day?" she asked in a very soft voice.

"It"s not one of Special Task Postman"s job, but I like to help a friend," I replied.

"I forgot to ask your name," said Litmus, bending his knees as he spoke to her. Evangeline shyly replied and I told him about her personality. Litmus asked whether she was a spellcaster or not and she nodded, which made Litmus happy that he met another spellcaster. He marched forward and called us out to follow him. Evangeline and I looked at each other and shrugged. Both of us began to follow his ecstatic march as he sang out a nursery rhyme "Walking into the Forest". I"ve never heard it before but it seemed that Evangeline hummed along with him.

We reached to the rusty gate and it creaked as Litmus pushed it. He then closed it again as we continued walking through. The forest was nothing like an ordinary forest; the greenery was strangely vivid, the sound of nature was absent except crunching gravel, rustling gra.s.s and breaking twigs were present. The place was simply beautiful, calm and yet the sense of preparing for danger arise from within me. Certainly, there was something off with this place. Even Litmus had his hand inside the pocket where he kept his iron bar.

I turned around. I was sure that we haven"t walked from the gate for that long, but the gate seemed to have vanished. "How long have we been walking?"

"Three minutes I think," Litmus replied. "Why?"

I pointed at the rows of trees behind us, and he just shrugged and looked confused. Then his eyes opened wide, skimmed through the book again and showed an ill.u.s.tration of a glowing humanoid creature that seemed to be wearing a poufy dress out of dandelions.

"There is a type of fairy called Wisps," said Litmus. "They create illusions to make it look like we"re lost."

"So how do we get back on track?" I asked him.

Litmus shrugged his shoulders again. "Maybe we can dispel the magic. What rhymes with dispel?"

"Spell?" even I shrugged my shoulders. Then the little girl behind me spoke.

"W-what about "fell"?"

"Let"s see," Litmus cleared his throat. "Upon us this evil trickery fell, with my magic it shall dispel!"

The scenery around us changed and we could see the gate again. However, it retained the same vividness and aura. We continued on walking deeper, and Litmus didn"t hear the strange buzzing sound throughout the journey. Evangeline noticed it too, and tugged my blazer to tell me.

"I think I heard voices saying "you failed, Wisp"," she told me. I was surprised that she managed to hear voices from that annoying buzz.

"What else can you hear?" I asked her. She closed her eyes as she put her hands behind her ears and listened. She repeated an inaudible conversation;

「These humans have magic. We must be careful.」

「That man is holding all of our secrets! We must destroy it and trap these humans in our realm.」

「But how?」

「Let the pixies do the job.」

The buzzing became even louder and Evangeline covered her ears, telling us that they were laughing. Ahead of us, there was a swarm of creatures flying towards us. I shielded Evangeline from it. Litmus pulled out the iron bar from his pocket but something hit him on the face, knocking the iron bar and the book to the ground. Boron leapt from Litmus" shoulders and tried to grab one of the creatures. There were too many of them that he couldn"t see what he was grabbing. However, he saw an animal taking the book with its mouth and ran away. Boron chased it and Litmus ran as well.

"Apartellere!" Evangeline yelled, raising her wand above her head. Light shot out from the tip and I could hear screeching sound as those creatures hid in the gra.s.s and bushes. I raised my head to look at her, but she turned her eyes away from me.

"Thanks, Evangeline," I patted her on the shoulder and stood up. "We lost Litmus and Boron, and I have no idea where to find him."

Evangeline picked up the iron bar Litmus dropped. "I could use his fingerprints for a Finding Spell."

Who would have known that I started depending on a child to navigate through the forest full of fairies? I was happy to see her starting to talk more. Using her wand, Evangeline managed to get Litmus" fingerprints and casted the Finding Spell. The tip of her wand glowed turquoise and pulled her to her left. We began to go along the pull.

"I was wondering about earlier, Evangeline," I said. "Why did that boy call you a "walking disaster"?"

Evangeline didn"t turn around. She kept herself silent for few seconds before she answered. "I"m no good when it comes to standing in front of a crowd. I dislike making eye contacts as well. It makes me nervous and unable to speak clearly. Every time we have to do a spell presentation, my magic backfires."

"Do you have any friends at school?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No one wants to go near me when I tried."

"But you managed to use magic in front of me," I said. "You didn"t even mess up the spell at all."

"Th-that"s because Litmus is gone and I have to figure out how to save us," she muttered.

"Still, you didn"t fumble your words. You have potential, Evangeline. You"re not a walking disaster, you"re amazing."

Evangeline stopped, turned around to look at me. Through her round spectacles, her eyes gleamed with tears. "You really think so?"

"I know so."

Evangeline wiped her eyes with her sleeve and sniffled as she adjusted her gla.s.ses. She puffed her chest. "Let"s get going!"

The forest became thicker and thicker as we continued to go in, but I had a feeling it was another Wisp trick. Evangeline"s wand pulled her through the illusion of trees, and into a small field of gra.s.s surrounded by tall trees. In the middle, Litmus and Boron lied unconsciously, holding the red book in his hands. I rushed to wake him up, but suddenly standing between us was a woman with leaf green skin and freckles, long voluminous black hair and black glittering eyes. She donned a flower crown and a flowy dress decorated with gloxinias. She had shimmering iridescent wings as well.

I covered Evangeline from her. "We just want our friend back."

"I, the Fairy Queen, will not allow," she spoke. "You humans entered the forest to learn our secrets. None of you will exit from our sanctuary."

"Well, actually we"re here to find out whether you guys exist or not, which you kind of prove it," I said.

"Silence!" she demanded. "You will never leave this forest!"

I could feel Evangeline shivering in fear behind me. I had to come up with something. I never read books about fairies before, and if I had no other choice, I might resort to use my dark magic again.

"It"s okay, Evangeline," I calmed her down. "We"ll get out of here soon."

"Who are you talking to?" the Fairy Queen questioned. She flew to my side and I turned to hide Evangeline from her. She managed to saw a glimpse of Evangeline and her expression turned from serious to surprise. "Is that a child?"

Evangeline peeked from my back. The Fairy Queen squealed as if Evangeline was a celebrity. She squatted so she could be on the same eye level as Evangeline. Evangeline was too stunned to react when the Fairy Queen spoke to her.

"My, what an adorable human child," said the Fairy Queen. "Children are more honest than adults. They are the only mankind we can trust. So what brings you here today?"

"L-like Kurai said, we want to know if you exist or not," Evangeline replied.

"Well, here I am," said the Fairy Queen, standing up to twirl her dress. "Do you like bluebell tea and honey cakes? Why not stay for a while?"

Evangeline looked at me, expecting me to give her the permission. I nodded my head so the Fairy Queen wouldn"t get mad at me. The Fairy Queen took her to a table made of a large tree stump and gigantic mushrooms as their seats. Smaller fairies brought in the tea tray and cakes to the table. The other fairies played woodland music from the tree branches and I simply sat next to Litmus, putting his book inside my satchel.

"It"s been a long time since I last seen human child," said the Fairy Queen. "How do you like your honey cakes?"

The little girl took a bite of the hexagon-shaped cakes, and nodded her head. The Fairy Queen smiled and began to ask questions about Evangeline, to which Evangeline tried her best to reply. Gradually, I began to notice to see Evangeline losing her awkwardness, and talked to the queen more casually.

"How evil!" the Fairy Queen exclaimed when Evangeline talked about being bullied. "Do they not see who you truly are?"

"But the reason is partially my fault," said Evangeline. "I"m not confident in talking in front of the crowd."

"What are you saying?" the Fairy Queen stood up and raised her hands. "Do you not see a hundred of fairies listening to our conversation? They listened to your voice so earnestly, and yet you do not realize that they"ve been watching you since you came in. You don"t need to impress others but yourself."

Evangeline looked around her. She saw fairies sitting on the branches, looking at her. She took off her round gla.s.ses and wiped her tears. She wasn"t crying because she was nervous to be stared upon, but she was happy. The Fairy Queen put her arms around Evangeline to comfort her.

As it was getting late, the Fairy Queen saw us by the rusty gate. Litmus piggybacked on me and Evangeline held Boron in her arms. We thanked her for letting us go.

"I only want Evangeline to prove herself once more in front of humans," said the Fairy Queen to me. "So I want you to keep an eye on her, and watch her grow. Till then, we"ll be waiting for her return."

"Is it alright if I bring Mister Kurai again?" Evangeline asked. "My parents would want adults to look after me if I enter the forest again."

The Fairy Queen looked at me again and nodded reluctantly. "However, promise me that you and that man to not say a word about this place in front of other humans."

I could tell she still distrusted me. We waved her goodbye and went out of the forest. I put Litmus back inside his cottage with Boron and wrote a letter about everything. Then I brought Evangeline back to the post office where her parents were waiting with Postmaster. They were happy to see her alright and thanked me for taking a good care of her. I watched her walking away with her parents, but she turned around, inhaled deeply and shouted for the first time.

"Thank you for everything, Kurai!"

I was in awe. The people on the streets were looking at her as well. I breathed in and shouted back. "You"re welcome! See you again soon!"

❤︎

「You should have seen how big her smile was. I felt really proud. After all, everything was her effort; all I did was giving her a word of encouragement.

Technically, I didn"t say a word about the Fairy Queen. I just wrote down what happened. I know, I know, but the thing is, I could sense a fairy presence in the room right now, probably waiting for me to say the word "fairy". After writing this, I am now sure that they can"t read as well, or I got away by technicality.

Anyway, Litmus came down to visit me and demanded answers. Of course I had to speak to him privately, and luckily Benjamin and Piper were having "dinner conversations" again.

Hopefully you have a wonderful time there.

Love,

Kurai」