-- This story is written for Amber, my daughter. I am going to do up a few illustrations for it, print it, bind it, and give it to her for Christmas. *smile* I've been wanting to give her a story for a long time but never managed to both come up with a story idea I liked AND actually finish the story. I'll be asking a couple people to proofread it for me but if anyone who reads it has any suggestions, criticisms, or comments feel free to email me. My gmail account is girl.with.ink and I check it a lot more often than I check diaryland notes. *sheepish* Anyway, on with the story!

All fairies have something to take care of, and nearly everything has a fairy to take care of it.

Some are flower fairies, one for each garden in all the world. Some of the flower fairies, the ones who are not old enough to guard a garden, tend to the flowers growing in the middle of the woods, or on top of tall mountains, or coming up through cracks in the sidewalk.

Some fairies are water fairies, making sure each brook and stream and river flows correctly and tending to every lake and pond. There are no ocean fairies, of course; oceans are too big and fairies are too small, so oceans have mermaids to take care of them.

Some fairies are animal fairies, watching after baby animals and helping lost ones find their way back to their family.

There are sock fairies, who steal socks from one person's laundry and sneak them into someone else's, tooth fairies, who will trade a shiny coin for a tooth left under your pillow, butterfly fairies, whose job it is to knock on caterpillar cocoons and wake them up once they have become butterflies, and leaf fairies, who scamper around in autumn pulling each leaf off the branch when it's time for it to fall.

In fact, there are so many kinds of fairy that it's a wonder most people don't believe in them. The Fairy Queen is very clever though, and she has told all her fairies to do their best to stay hidden and secret, because magic (particularly fairy magic) works best when it's not being stared at.

It is the task of every fairy to do their job without ever being seen if they can avoid it. Some jobs, though... some jobs require the fairy to actually come close to humans, such as collecting teeth, or painting freckles.

Almost no one now knows that freckles are painted by a fairy, because freckle paint is almost invisible when it is first painted on. Only when the sun hits it the next day does it darken into perfect freckle color, so people assume that it is the sun causing the freckles.

However, a very long time ago people ~did~ know that freckles were painted on, and freckle paint was not yet invisible. This is the story of how and why invisible freckle paint was invented:

Once upon a time there was a clever little fairy named Amber. She was curious as well as clever, constantly getting into trouble and back out again. She had brown hair that shone like copper in the sunshine and she always wore purple.

Some days she wore a shiny purple sash around her waist, some days she wore a pretty necklace made of all sorts of purple beads, some days she wore a pair of bright purple leather boots, some days she wore a sparkling tiara full of beautiful purple amethysts and diamonds...

...and on very special days she wore a lovely purple dress that was made from rose petals, sewn with spiderweb silk, dyed with berry juice, and decorated with little flecks of gold gathered from deep underground.

Amber was a freckle fairy. It was her job to fly around with a little paint can made from a hollowed-out pearl and a little paintbrush made from mouse whiskers and a tiny twig. She would sneak into a bedroom where a girl or boy who was to have freckles was sleeping and tiptoe onto the bed, ever so carefully pulling back the covers.

Next she would dip her paintbrush into her paint can, wrinkle her little nose while she concentrated, and paint one freckle at a time on the sleeping child. Finally, she will kiss each freckle, because a fairy kiss will make sure the freckle paint can't be washed off.

One particularly special day Amber was wearing quite a lot of purple in honor of the Fairy Queen's birthday. She had her favorite purple dress on, tied with her purple sash. She had her purple boots on her feet, her purple necklace around her neck, and her purple tiara in her hair.

It was late in the morning and she had been painting freckles all night. This was the last child she needed to paint today. Once she finished, she could fly back to fairyland just in time for the Queen's birthday party. Amber was very excited and had been painting as fast as her little arms could move, trying to finish quickly.

Speed is not always a good thing; Amber was painting so fast that she couldn't look anywhere but where she was painting, and she accidentally tripped over her paint can. Freckle paint spilled everywhere, all over the boy in the bed, all over his blankets, all over the floor, there was even some on his teddy bear.

Amber jumped up, snatching her paintbrush and empty paint can as she flew toward the window where she had entered through a tiny crack in one windowpane. Just before she reached it the little boy woke up and saw her!

Fairies are very embarrassed when they are seen, as their Queen has ordered them never to be caught and being seen can often lead to being caught. Blushing and frightened, Amber flew home quickly and hid under her bed all day. Only when the sun had set did she poke her head out from under the bed, and it was not until midnight when she finally scooted out completely, stood up, brushed herself off, and went to refill her paint can.

She had only finished half of the freckles on the boy the night before, and she hadn't sealed any of them with fairy kisses, which meant that she would have to start over from the beginning tonight. Hoping he was sound asleep, Amber squeezed in through the crack in the window and flew over to perch on the little table beside the boy's bed.

Both his eyes were closed, and he was breathing slowly. Amber hissed softly at him; when that got no response she tapped her brush against the side of her little paintcan a few times. Still the boy was motionless, only the soft sound of his breath clear in the room when the echo from her paintcan had faded.

Believing she was safe, Amber hopped down from the bedside table onto the layers of blankets hiding most of the boy from view. A few careful steps brought her to the pillow, from which most of the paint seemed to have been cleaned. Only a few tiny splashes were visible... and, horror of horrors, one perfect imprint of a bare fairy foot! Certain that she would be scolded by the Queen if this were ever noticed by humans, Amber dug around in her pockets until she found a tiny piece of sharp-edged stone that she used as a knife. She set down her paintcan and paintbrush on the mattress, then climbed up the pillow to where the incriminating footprint lay. It took several minutes before she could cut it out of the pillowcloth, as her stone knife was very small and the fabric was made up of ever so many threads.

Finally the offending footprint was removed and stuffed into one of her pockets. She was certain the humans would blame the tiny hole on moths, and was quite confident that she had no more need to worry. Humming quietly to herself she slid back down off the pillow, gathered up her painting supplies, and turned around to take a quick look at the boy...

...only to be met by two bright blue eyes staring straight at her!

This was terrible, this was awful, this was horrible and all sorts of bad! Amber knew she should run, but she was so scared that her little knees were knocking together under her rosepetal dress and her hands were trembling like tree limbs in the wind and her feet simply would not take so much as a step forward or back. She simply stood there, staring at the boy who was staring right back at her.

"You ARE real!" he finally whispered, his startled expression turning to a relieved grin. "They wouldn't believe me when I said I didn't spill paint and when I said you did it they sent me to bed without any supper. But you're real, I wasn't making anything up, and now I can prove it!" With that, one of his hands which had been hidden beneath the blankets swooped out holding a butterfly net.

Swoosh!
Thud!
Splash!

Down came the net around Amber, down fell her brand new paintcan, and now there was freckle paint all over the pillow, all over the mattress, and all over Amber. She took one look at herself and sat down rather abruptly, landing in a puddle of paint and looking very bedraggled. She tried to push some of her paint-soaked hair out of her face but that only made things worse. Finally she gave up, crossed her tiny arms, and started to cry.

"Oh, please don't cry," whispered the boy, embarassed and somewhat ashamed, "Don't cry, I didn't mean to upset you, miss fairy, honest! Please, what can I do to make it better?"

Amber managed to slow down to just a sniffle as she looked for a clean spot on her dress, but when she realized the entire beautiful purple gown was covered with freckle-colored blotches and that there wasn't a large enough dry patch anywhere she burst into tears all over again. Her tiny voice was even closer to a squeak now and although she tried to answer, her tears kept somehow getting in the way, making her stutter.

"I... my d-dress, my b-b-beautiful dress... it's ru-ruined, a-a-and I can't even wipe my n-n-nose! And I c-can't go home now, the f-f-fairy Queen will be s-so angry with me for being s-s-seen..." she trailed off into a fresh round of sobbing and tears, utterly miserable.

The boy took a tissue out of the box beside his bed and lifted up the butterfly net carefully, starting to hand the tissue to her before realizing that it was big enough to be a blanket. He tore off one small corner of it and handed that to her instead, still speaking quietly. "I really am sorry, miss fairy. Here, use this... um... and I think I could wash your dress, if you would like."

Amber did her best to wipe the freckle paint off of her face and to dry her eyes, then blew her nose with a tiny little honk. She held out her hand for more tissue and the boy promptly tore off another piece, and another, and another. Only when she felt somewhat presentable (even if her favorite dress was still covered in paint and her hair was still sticking up like a sea urchin's quills) did she manage to speak again.

"I would like it if you could w-wash my dress, but I don't have a-a-anything else to wear. All my other dresses are back h-home... and I c-can't go back home all covered in paint, if the Queen found out I was s-s-seen, I'd be banished for sure! Oh, I don't know WHAT to do," and indeed she seemed about to burst into tears again with frustration.

"I think I have an idea, miss fairy-"

"Amber. My name's Amber, n-not miss fairy."

"Amber, then, and my name is Richard. I think I have an idea, Amber," continued Richard. "I think I know how to get you AND your dress clean. Wait here, please," and with that he hopped out of bed and crept over to the door, opening it quietly and peeking outside before sneaking out into the hallway and out of sight. Amber listened hard, but all she could make out was a bit of rustling, a tiny clink and a tiny clank, the splash and gurgle of water being poured very quietly, and then silence until the boy appeared in the doorway again. He was holding a cookie sheet with several things on top of it, all of which had a couple of old washcloths and a hand towel draped over it, hiding the objects from view.

"This should be everything, I think... oh, soap!" The cookie sheet was set on the little bedside table and he scampered off again, returning in a moment with a small chunk of purple lavender-scented soap and first shutting, then locking the bedroom door. "There," he said as he began arranging things on the table, "now no one will come in and surprise us."

Amber watched with fascination as the towel and washcloths were folded and set to one side, revealing the contents of the cookie sheet. There was a teapot full of water hot enough to be steaming, a measuring cup full of cold water, a beautiful teacup and saucer painted with purple flowers, a shallow bowl with a few flakes of something white in it, a tiny scrap of sponge clearly cut off of a normal-sized bath sponge, and a bit of tinfoil crumpled into the shape of a cone. Richard set the chunk of purple soap and the bit of sponge down on the saucer, poured hot water in the bowl, and mixed hot and cold water in the teacup until it was lovely and warm, just the right temperature for bathwater.

Amber clapped her hands with approval and tugged off the paintsoaked dress, careful to leave on her underthings, as she was a very well-brought-up fairy. Grinning, she handed the dress to Richard and hopped quickly into the teacup, splashing happily.

"This is the prettiest bathtub I've ever had, Richard! Even the Queen doesn't have a bathtub this nice, hers just has roses all over it."

The boy grinned back, already soaking the dress in the hot water, the flakes of laundry soap foaming up nicely. Amber picked up the sponge and soap and the two of them got to work, scrubbing and washing until every bit of freckle paint was in the water, rather than on clothing or skin. Finally it was clear that both fairy and dress were quite clean and, somewhat reluctantly, Amber climbed out of her makeshift tub and wrapped herself up in one of the washcloths to dry off. Richard used the second washcloth to partially dry the dress, then draped it over the tinfoil cone so that it would air-dry and keep its shape.

"I didn't know boys knew how to do laundry," Amber said, quite impressed. "Boy fairies don't, they're always so messy. All they ever want to do is play tricks, like stealing socks, or filling the cans of freckle paint with mud."

"I don't really know how to do laundry," Richard confessed somewhat sheepishly, "I just know how to clean stains out of shirts - and apparently dresses. I had to learn, I'm going to be a great inventor when I grow up but so far all I've invented are new ways to stain my clothing. My mother said that if she had to clean one more stain out of my good shirts that she'd take away all my test tubes and notes. It's frustrating sometimes; I thought I was inventing a new kind of hairspray a while ago but it didn't work right at all. It sprayed on clear... but the moment I went out in the sun it turned my hair all red and brown, and it took four washings to get the color out of my shirt. I couldn't get it out of my hair at all, I just had to let it grow out and then cut that bit off."

Amber started to giggle... then stopped, jumping about excitedly, too pleased with the idea she'd just had to be able to hold still.

"Richard, do you still have some of that hairspray? Or can you make more?"

He nodded, puzzled. "I've got some left and I could make more easily, I've got the recipe written down. Why?"

"It's perfect!" Amber squeaked, "Absolutely perfect! If we used THAT as freckle paint, no one would catch us, and then the Queen wouldn't be nearly as grumpy. Ever since someone started collecting fairies in a book she's been horribly upset. But your paint would be wonderful! We could put it on at night, but the freckles would appear in the day, no one would ever even suspect fairies were involved. Oh, please say I can take the recipe, please?"

Somewhat dazed, Richard nodded, as it is very hard to say 'no' to a very tiny fairy who is bouncing all over your bed. "Sure, it's not doing me any good... but I don't quite understand the bit about freckles."

Laughing, Amber half-whispered, half-giggled, "What, you didn't even know what kind of a fairy I was? I'm a FRECKLE fairy, of course! Whenever the Queen gets word of an especially interesting child, one who is likely to be a friend to us fairies, maybe write stories about us or paint pictures of us, or even just someone who'll do a fairy in need a favor, we get sent out. We paint freckles on you so that any fairy who sees you will recognize you as friendly and safe... oops!" Both tiny hands covered her mouth and her eyes widened.

"Oops? Why oops?" asked Richard, looking a bit worried.

"I'm not supposed to ever tell, it's a secret - err, it's a secret as to what the freckles mean, anyway. Lots of people know that fairies are somehow involved, they just don't know why. If they figured it out, they'd start painting freckles on each other just to fool us!"

Richard nodded, seeming suitably impressed, and spoke in a very quiet whisper, "I promise never to tell anyone, not one word will leave my lips!" He looked so serious that Amber couldn't keep from grinning.

"I trust you, Richard... I was painting freckles on you, remember? You wouldn't do anything to harm us. Now, since I've already told you too much, is there anything else you would like to know?"

Richard, being a very curious boy, asked all sorts of questions and his eyes got wider and wider with each answer. It wasn't until they noticed the morning sun peeping up over the horizon that Richard managed to stop asking questions long enough to make a plan for the next night. Just before his mother came in to wake him up, Amber flew back out the window. She left behind a tiny bag full of sleeping dust which she had gotten from the sandman in trade for a pair of shoes specially made by cobbler elves that made their wearer's footsteps as quiet as kittens' paws.

The next night, when Richard's parents were sound asleep (with the help of the sleeping dust) and the moon was bright and full, Amber appeared again in his bedroom, this time as an escort. Richard gathered up the bottle holding the remains of his experiment and a copy of the formula which he had thoughtfully written on a piece of sturdy paper, then rubbed wax over the paper to waterproof it, just in case it rained.

Together they snuck out of the house, following a path into the nearby woods that Richard would have sworn hadn't been there yesterday. As they went, more fairies appeared, seeming to pop out of nowhere, all of them following Richard who was following Amber who was leading...

...to a clearing deep in the heart of the forest where soft grasses covered the ground, toadstools and moss-covered rocks provided seating around the edge of the clearing, a spring of sweet water bubbled up in a small pool on one side of the clearing... and on the other side sat a throne made of willow branches, bitch twigs, carved bits of oak and polished chunks of marble. Young ivy was twined over and through the throne, and a flourishing fern provided a footstool.

Seated on the throne was a beautiful woman who Richard instantly guessed must be the fairy Queen. She seemed to glow from within, her pale skin gleaming in the moonlight. She was draped in fine silks, soft velvet, and petals from exotic flowers Richard had never seen; a flock of fireflies danced an endless circle around her head, the only crown special enough to suit her, and more fireflies sparkled in the air near her, simply happy to be near her.

Richard continued to follow Amber all the way up to the throne, where he dropped to one knee, as he remembered seeing people kneeling to kings and queens in movies. Apparently it was appropriate here too; the Queen smiled down at him and gestured for him to rise. When he was standing in front of her she spoke, her voice seeming to echo off the tall trees and to somehow bubble up from the spring.

"Welcome, Richard. Amber has told Us of your marvelous invention, and that you have been kind and polite to her. We would be forever grateful if you will share the formula for this new freckle paint."

"Of course, your Majesty," replied Richard, lost in the radience of her gaze, "Anything I have to offer is yours."

"That is far too generous an offer," the Queen chuckled, "as We wish only the formula... and your silence. Humankind must not know that we fairies exist; the few who do know and who speak of it must be seen as dreamers, their stories of us only fantasy. If you would like, We can erase your memory of this meeting completely enough that you will think it nothing but a half-forgotten dream. That is the easiest way, perhaps.

"If, however, you do not want to lose this memory, particularly if you would like to visit us or talk with Amber again, you will have to be sworn to silence with an oath so binding that if ever you try to break it, you will become mute, unable to speak at all." The Queen paused, watching Richard closely as she (and all the other fairies present) waited for his decision.

Richard thought and thought, sitting cross-legged on the soft grass now, chin on his hands, forehead wrinkled in concentration. Amber, whose patience was as short as her cute little nose, started pacing while waiting for him to speak. Finally he lifted his head and smiled at Amber, giving her a wink before rising and turning his attention back to the Queen.

"Your Majesty, I couldn't bear never to see Amber again, or to think that meeting you was just a dream. I swear on everything I care about, on the sun and the moon and every star in the sky, on my own name and my own blood, I will never tell a soul about you." His voice was solemn, truth and determination clear in every word, and when he was done every fairy in the clearing applauded, even the Queen.

That seemed to be the signal for festivities to start; more fireflies streamed in from all directions, lighting up the clearing as if it was day, pixies rode in on beetle mounts, sprites flew in carrying musical instruments bigger than the sprites themselves, dryads and fauns scampered out of the forest bearing trays of fruit, bowls of berries, pitchers of sweet berry wine and barrels of fizzy apple cider. A pooka rode up carrying blankets and tablecloths, and more fairies followed, helping to set everything up.

Fairies love to celebrate, and will take nearly any excuse; since this was for not just one good reason but several, the party became so large it filled the clearing and spread out into the forest! There were games, and fairy cake, and dancing both on the ground and in the air. Even the birds and beasts came out of the shadows to join in. Richard ate and drank with them, and the Queen gave him a special reward: he was shrunk to the same size as Amber so they could dance together, ride the fireflies, play games with the other fairies, and enjoy all of the good food and delicious drink while only needing tiny bites and sips.

Finally the celebration drew to a close. Dawn was approaching; already the sky was light, the stars fading out. Tired but incredibly happy, Richard and Amber both flew back to Richard's house on a huge moth. Once they landed and were safely inside, Richard tapped his nose three times, turned around in a circle three times, and whispered a secret word the Queen had told him. With a whoosh of air, he was suddenly returned to his normal size.

He managed half a smile before tumbling into bed, looking drowsily at Amber. "I'll see you... *yawn* ...tomorrow night, Amber."

Amber nodded. "I still need to finish painting on your freckles anyway, but after that..." she trailed off into a yawn of her own and left it at that, flittering off to find her own bed, already looking forward to what adventures might find the two of them tomorrow. --