Greetings Followers!
I will be offering 90% off the Annual price the coming weekend, Friday-Sunday. This will allow you to support the newsletter for $5 for 12 months!!
Anyone who join over the weekend will be sent an exclusive short story as a thank you, called: Secrets, Riddles, and Fairy Wine at the Moonlight Market.
This story will be sent out to subscribers only on Monday, May 6th, 2024 at 9am PST. This has not been previously published, and you can read a short preview below.
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Preview of Secrets, Riddles, and Fairy Wine at the Moonlight Market
As a child, I always wondered about the land beyond the mists and the faerie folk that lived there. For my birthday last year, my aunt gave me a bundle of papers containing stories and records from people who attended the Moonlight Market & Faire. I learned that the fae folk came to revel together with mortal people to trade goods once a generation at this event. I obsessed over these papers and recently discovered that this upcoming spring the market and faire would be held near a town to the north of our manor, called Bramblewood.
According to the records, the market could only be visited during the full moon nights of May, but the faire would be open from dusk until dawn a week before and after the nights of the market. A custom I had learned about in the letters, was that attendees should wear a mask to hide their face and use a secret name. Legend told us that if a creature from TirNaNoc ever learned your true name and where you lived they could play pranks and trick you into terrible bargains. It was the stuff of nightmares for many mortals.
So I had prepared, I had clothes to wear that could travel easily. I had the coin to pay for the trip and to stay at the inn. For the next three days, I would be called: Shade of Winter’s Lament. Also, I had my trusty dog to protect me. Dandelion, he would be my guardian: Sir Grimsby. I would tell everyone that he was a noble and fierce warrior who had been cursed to look like a hound. However, he was sworn to protect me, and if I should be in any harm, he would transform into a strong warrior to protect me.
It was wonderful. Every time I told the story to Dandelion he would bark in agreement.
Dandelion was simply the best, he had been my constant companion for years, always ensuring was protected when I went to the village square for market day. He was large enough to keep people from getting too close, but small enough that he could curl up beside me on the bed and keep me warm at night. His long, curly hair was silky and comforting. I could get lost in the woods whenever I needed to be away from people, but I could still find my way home with Dandelion as my guide.
I truly don’t think most adults believed in the carnival or faeries. But Aunt Elowen was different. She had a twinkle in her eyes that made you wonder if she was part pixie herself, and she laughed like no one I had ever met. Thankfully I was old enough now that Uncle Braden would not fuss about me going away to see friends, and I do not think he suspected that the ‘fair folk’ existed at all.
My Aunt knew all the stories about brownies and dryads, satyrs, and even unicorns! She loved to dream about the special wine from a land shrouded in mists and made by magical people. We had discussed many theories about what the wine tasted like and what it was made from them we had books in the manor’s library. I had a strange suspicion that she knew far more about the Fairy Wine than she would admit.
Finding the wine was high on the list of things to do at the market.
Buy Fairy Wine, and drink it!