I didn’t mean to make a portal. Especially not to a world where fairies were real. I’m a Lunari… for celestial’s sake. Everything we do is methodical. We don’t make mistakes, and we sure as heck don’t waste time with mischief or mishap. Until today, there was no doubt in my mind that science was fact, and all magic was nothing short of a childhood myth. That was the Lunari way.
It was the night before our birthdays. Seven of us. I wanted to make a spectacular treat. What will they think if I make something boring, again? Last year, Sue Bree made Softstar Soufflé and then bragged for twelve months straight. As she should have. Now, it was my turn to make a much better kitchen treasure. Tonight, lab coat Luna comes out of her shell.
Alone in my lab, midnight approached. The moonlight illuminated my one-room cavern through the opening above. I had every crystal in the kingdom organized by name. Every shelf was taken. Dragon scale fluorescent flasks sitting next to boiling test tubes. Pendulums swung from above the pyruvate scales. Nitril gloves and safety glasses for handling explosive materials when the cauldron radiated bright red. I had it all. Everything except friends who loved my peculiar food.
My friends would tease that I should wear my white coat and experiment with confection. Two lunar ladles of Nari-Beast Milk into the black pot. A single molt-shave of hide from the Starfawn’s rare shedding. Finally, a dash of essence from an electric eel that feeds on bioluminescent isopods. Totally safe. Probably.
Twenty-four ingredients mixed with precision, forming goop that smelled as sweet as a dream soaked in silver.
Timer: 33 minutes.
Snow Skin Mooncake, I called it. Gabby will love that name! Right as the clock dinged, a frantic knock lit up my door.
“Hey, girl, let us in!”
Mooncake in hand, it was time for a feast. The countdown to tomorrow had finally begun.
Before we could bite, the room turned so bright. A flash. Some sparkle. Lattice bells chimed to the rhythm of spirals that crystallized before our very eyes. The room shook. Flasks shattered. The fire went out.
“Hands off those cakes!” said a strange, winged creature rushing through the whirlwind of radiant mist. Sparks flew from their sticks, zapping my mooncakes to crumbs. “Your kind was banished three millennia ago.”
The warm shimmer from the portal made my mooncake dust glow. “Impossible,” I said at a whisper as I held myself back from attacking these wicked intruders. “These ingredients don’t glow.”
“Grab the fragments, and let’s hurry and go,” said the impatient fairy. “She goes back whether she remembers or not.”
“Those are my mooncakes!” I said just short of a shout. “You owe me two weeks’ worth of gold.”
“We’ll do no such thing,” said the smallest fairy who could barely fly straight.
“You ruined our night and made an incredible mess in my perfect lab.”
“Sweet Luna… you can thank your forefathers for this mess in your world,” said the stern fairy. “Your magic concoction was never meant for mortals without wings.”
“That’s a myth, and magic isn’t real. I was only baking cakes!”
“Luna, your kind was banned from mixing magic. After the incident on your home world, your kind was exiled to the dark side of our fourth moon. Today is the day, your kind can atone. You will come back whether you want to or not.”
I licked melted mooncake from my shivering thumb. One last defiance against these dirty feathered freaks who think magic is real. “This is absurd. I’m not going anywhere. If you want me or my mooncakes, you’ll have to come take it.”
But the sweet air hummed alive and aware, as if it held a secret I’d rather not know. A warm glow spread through my chest. The room buzzed and started to spin. My feet left the ground. Waves of emerald light lifted me toward the warm, misty swirls.
“Let me go!” I said as my nails pierced my palms.
My skin flickered bright amber. Then my back sprouted wings. They had red stains and mud dripping from the stringy, burnt feathers.
“Curse the stars!” said the wise fairy. “It’s too early. She hasn’t atoned. She’s become like one of us, again.”
The portal closed.
I was on the other side, surrounded by fairies standing around an open flame in the deep ground. All eyes were on me as they chanted strange songs. Someone pushed me. I fell into the bottomless pit. My wings opened all on their own. I flapped with all the strength I could muster. Their laughter echoed as I fell… and fell… and fell…