Page 1 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
1
‘Congratulations! It’ll be the very first Ever After Street wedding!’ I clap enthusiastically along with the rest of the shopkeepers after our co-workers, and friends, Sadie and Witt have announced their engagement.
There’s something wonderful about a wedding announcement, but when you’re the last one of your friends to still be happily single, there’s something awful too – the impending insistence that you cannot attend a wedding alone and must imminently find a ‘plus one’, usually followed by the kind offer to find one for you if you need any help, and the sudden insight that someone’s half-brother’s cousin’s neighbour’s friend works with someone who’d beperfectfor you.
‘The wedding will be on New Year’s Eve at the castle. You’re all invited, and we won’t take no for an answer, of course!’ Sadie says. ‘And don’t forget, plus ones are mandatory! No one can enjoy a wedding alone! Love is supposed to be shared!’
Ah, there it is. The unavoidable assertion that if you haven’t found ‘the one’ yet, you’re somehow lacking something, rather than just having standards and not wanting to settle for someone who doesn’t set your world alight and make you feel like Disney princesses do when they meet their princes.
We’re at what was supposed to be a meeting for the shopkeepers on Ever After Street, but Sadie, who makes beautiful dresses at The Cinderella Shop, and Witt, who owns the castle that looks out over the street from the hills behind, have surprised us all by announcing their engagement and upcoming wedding, and I’m as pleased for them as everyone else, because they’re the happiest couple and the most perfect match, but weddings have a way of reminding you thatyouhaven’t found your perfect match yet and everyone who’s happily coupled up feels sorry for you, especially for a wedding on New Year’s Eve when you’re staring down the barrel of another year of singledom, and the only thing you’re likely to kiss at midnight is a tub of leftover Christmas chocolates.
‘Don’t you just love a wedding?’ My best friend Mickey, who runs The Mermaid’s Treasure Trove curiosity shop, drops her arm around my shoulders. ‘And what a perfect excuse to get back into dating!’
‘I don’t want to get back into dating. The right man will fall into my life when he’s supposed to, and if he doesn’t then I’m happier being single than I would be in a relationship that isn’t the right fit.’
Even Mickey, my eternal plus one and partner in all things single, met a handsome history teacher over the summer and is now happily coupled up. All my fellow shopkeepers are, actually. Over the years, they’ve all met their perfect someone, and I’m still alone, working in the museum on the hill that overlooks the street, surrounded by artefacts that have stepped right out of a fairytale, and daydreaming of brave princes and handsome strangers, enchanted forests and hidden beasts, and trying to cling onto my conviction that true love’s kiss is out there for everyone, and I’ll find my own version of it someday.
Even if that day is unlikely to be before Sadie and Witt’s wedding in three months’ time.
‘Ren knows a couple of single teachers…’ Mickey sounds like she’s been planning this conversation for a while, but to me, her partner’s teenage daughter is looking like my best bet for a plus one, or maybe I could bribe one of my sisters into coming with me…
‘And no, you can’t take Ava.’ My best friend can clearly read my mind. ‘And you do know a plus one only counts if they’renotrelated to you,’ she adds before I can mention my cunning plan of roping a sister in.
‘My Prince Eric statue! I could drag that along, put a nice jacket and scarf on it and no one would know the difference. It would still be a more talkative date than some of the men I met from those dating apps you set me up on!’
And the less said about those, the better. I’d say I kissed a lot of frogs, but most of those frogs only wantedonething, so it never got as far as kissing, and no actual frog has ever been repulsive enough to deserve the comparison.
Everyone says goodbye and Mickey and I start walking away, but I was wrong to assume I could sneak off that easily.
‘Lissa! About my son I mentioned…’ Mrs Coombe, who runs the winterwear shop on Christmas Ever After, rushes after us. This is far from the first time she’s mentioned her son who’s moved back home after working abroad and would, apparently, be my ideal man.
Before I have a chance to respond, Imogen from Sleeping Beauty’s Once Upon A Dream marches over. ‘No, Mrs Coombe, we discussed this. My neighbour’s lad is free this weekend, would you like…?’ She turns to me hopefully.
‘…people to stop discussing my love life behind my back?’ I finish the question for her. ‘Yes, I’d love that, thank you.’
‘Nope, Ren’s art teacher friend has got first dibs,’ Mickey interrupts, shutting them both down.
I know she’s only trying to save me, but I have as much intention of meeting Ren’s art teacher friend as I do of meeting any other potential matches my co-workers can summon out of thin air. It makes me feel like Princess Jasmine when she declares that she isn’t a prize to be fought over, and the only thing I’ve ever wanted to share with Princess Jasmine is her perfect hair. Although a prince riding a magical flying carpet wouldn’t go amiss either, if only to appease my well-meaning friends.
‘Really?’ I turn to Mickey as the other two slink away with suitably guilty looks.
‘I was trying to help! You don’t want to be set up with Imogen’s random neighbour or Mrs Coombe’s son any more than you want to meet Ren’s colleague, but you’re going to need a plus one before the end of the year.’
‘That’s plenty of time. And if I don’t find anyone, what are Sadie and Witt going to do? Bar the doors and lock me outside? It’s not like it’s actually enforceable. You were all single once. Just because you’re rolling in loved-up happiness now, you must still have vague memories of how hard it is to meet someone who’s not married, otherwise taken, an axe murderer, or a misogynistic twit.’
We make our way towards our respective businesses, and I wave to her as we reach the fork in the wishbone shape of Ever After Street and she splits off towards her curiosity shop, and I continue towards my museum of fairytale artefacts.
Ever After Street is the best place in the world to work. A cobblestone road full of quaint little shops that are all themed around fairytales, right in the heart of the Wye Valley, at the foot of a real-life fairytale castle in the hills beyond the street. There’s a forest, and a river flowing past, and Colours of the Wind museum is on a small hill, overlooking a grassy picnic area which is home to a carousel, craft areas for children, crammed flowerbeds, and plenty of space for families to enjoy the outdoor air and general magical feeling that pervades our quirky little street.
I look up at the grey-brick building as I climb the higgledy-piggledy set of stone steps towards it. The building looks like a large, welcoming house that’s been built in three distinct sections. There’s green ivy covering one third of the building, but no matter how much I try to encourage it, it never wants to spread to the other sections.
Colours of the Wind has become like a living, breathing thing over the years. Sometimes I feel like the artefacts could talk if they wanted to…
I stop in my tracks. There’s a man on my roof.
When I suggested a man might fall into my life, I didnotmean it literally. ‘What are you doing? Get down from there right now!’
The man is wearing a yellow workman’s jacket and a hard hat and taking photos. He doesn’t even look up at my bellow, but I realise the museum door is open.
