Cocot was still mentally shaking herself, wondering if she was actually awake when something in the room coughed politely.

Sitting sat straight up in alarm, she saw a seven-inch tall, white-bearded fairy sitting on her bed frame.

"Would it be possible to get some coffee this morning?" the fairy man asked, sounding oddly out of sorts. "Or maybe some water in a cup my size?"

"Hello?" she asked, voice raspy with sleep. "What, ah, what are you?" There wasn't much light in the chalet; a soft glow coming from the window by the table.

"What sort of question is that? What do I look like? I'm a hand fairy," he huffed. "Now about that coffee....?"

Cocot stared at the hand fairy for a moment, unable to decide if this was real or still a dream. It felt real, but couldn't be. This was a problem to solve, a puzzle. So she studied the hand fairy as a puzzle to put together from the scattered, individual pieces that made him.

First she noticed his balding head with fuzzy white hair forming a cotton halo on the back half, his craggy face and big, watery eyes that were narrowed in a deep squint, his eyebrows (that were beyond bushy) shooting out in every direction, his bulbous nose and finally his ears that swept up and outwards in an alarming manner.

From his head, her eyes moved to his clothes as bright and colorful as the flowers she had picked, which were loose and layered like a traveling gypsy, except that instead of a canvas bag on his back, he flaunted a huge set of gossamer wings that reminded Cocot of an intricate spider web laced with dew drops and sparkling in the morning sun. The fairy's shoes were dark green with a long point that curled up in a lollipop spiral over the toes.

She couldn't quite get all the pieces of the puzzle to mesh in a logical way. She was missing something.

It was the shoes that finally convinced her that she was indeed speaking with an actual fairy; for no creature who wore such ridiculous shoes and had such an ill disposition would have come from her imagination.

She clapped her hands in excitement. A real live fairy had come to visit.

"So?" he asked her, reminding her of the boy from the farm. He was definitely cranky, she decided, and this in spite of his shoes.

"So...what?" she asked, not remembering what he wanting.

"So do you have coffee?"

"Oh! Of course, do you want some coffee?"

"Why would I ask you if you had coffee, if I didn't want coffee?" he said, sighing with frustration.

"I'm not sure if I have any coffee." She jumped from the bed to start checking in the cupboard. Her first fairy visitor and she couldn't offer him anything nice.

He snorted. Or laughed through his nose. "Everyone has coffee."

"There might be some coffee grains left over from before Jean-Baptist died. Let me look."

"Please do," the fairy replied. After a moment of watching her digging through the cupboard, he asked, "When did Jean-Baptist die?"

"At least fifteen years ago, I suppose," she said. "I'll be fourteen soon and he died several years before Mother found me."

He stamped a green shod foot on the footboard, making his wings shake. "Why would I want fifteen year old coffee? It must have molded away by now!"

"So, you don't want any coffee?" she asked, heart sinking.

"I'll take some water."

"In a thimble?"

His eyebrows jumped in surprise. "A thimble? Did you just ask me if I wanted my water in a thimble?"

"Yes, I did. I don't have any glasses small enough, or a doll's tea set...." She said, thinking of the miniature set of porcelain tea cups, painted in gold, pale blue and powder pink flowers she had seen in a shop's window the last time she had gone to the market. She didn't have any dolls either, so the tea set was a moot point.

"No, I don't doubt that," said the fairy, anger and crankiness fading from his voice and body like air from a ball. "No one has anything my size anymore. I could accept water in a thimble from a girl as generous as yourself."

When he said the word 'generous' an old memory surfaced in Cocot's mind. Her mother had explained how fairies should be treated if Cocot ever happened to meet one, but in a rhyme that she couldn't remember.

Such a trickster as he—

The fairy lifted into the air to hover at her shoulder, impatient.

"I won't be a minute," she said.

She took her mother's sewing box from the great armoire and pulled out the miniature drawer that held the bright silver thimble. Then she dipped the thimble in her water pitcher, pumped the evening before, taking care to only scoop up a couple of drops.

He took it from her with both hands and lifted it like the men in town lifted tankards of ale, even smacking his lips when he finished drinking. Unnoticed by the fairy, a large drop of water had formed on the outside of the thimble, and fell with a splat right onto one of his shoes. He squinted first at his wet shoe and then at Cocot, who had to smother a laugh.

"Well, I suppose it's the thought that counts," he said.

She nodded, wondering if perhaps she was wrong in believing he was real—a creature this silly could not exist and could not be standing on the foot of her bed staring at her with baleful, dark eyes and mad because his curly-q shoe was wet. She hoped he was real. She hoped with all her heart.

"Very nice chalet you have here," he said. He flitted to the window sill, taking in the dark, one-room interior of Cocot's living area, which was filled ceiling high with cupboards and shelves, one wall that was covered by the armoire, as well as her bed, table and Sarina that took up most of the floor space.

"Thank you," she said for lack of anything better to say.

"You are on your own?"

"Yes. My mother died a couple of months ago."

"I know how that feels. My own parents who were my only family died years ago, and all the other hand fairies moved on long ago, to the New World mostly. They're all gone but for me and maybe a few other loners unless they've died, too. One of these days, perhaps I'll decide to move, but I can't quite make up my mind about where to go."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," she said, nodding.

"Gets pretty lonely, you know, being the only one of my kind that I've seen for at least thirty years. But I imagine a young girl like you doesn't know what loneliness is, you must have parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and a dozen friends living in the next village. That's how things go, wouldn't you say?"

"But...you just asked if I was on my own and I told you my mother was dead," she said. The sympathy that had sparked to life in her heart for him when he spoke of his own loneliness was flickering. He might be lonely, but he certainly wasn't listening to her.

"Which is quite awful, my condolences by the way, but surely you have aunts and uncles and hordes of cousins running around, paying visits, dropping by, baking pies for you," he insisted.

"No. I don't. My mother was not from here, and Jean-Baptist her husband, he, I mean his family, they have never had much to do with my mother and it was before I came....I don't even know them," she explained, face hot with embarrassment.

"But your friends! A lovely, young girl like yourself must have a dozen or more!"

"Is there anything else I can get you, little fairy?" she asked, desperate to change the subject .

He chuckled and repeated 'little fairy' several times. Wiping a tear from one eye, he leaned closer to her and whispered, "I could tell you a secret, if you want."

A secret? What kind of secret? And what did he mean with all his questions, wondering about her family, if she had friends or if anyone was dropping by with baked pies?

With a blur of fluttering wings, the fairy flew from the window sill to hover right in front of her face. "Isn't that what best friends do? Tell each other secrets?"

Friends? Her heart soared at the word. Having a best friend was something Cocot had dedicated hours and hours of thought to, and although she had never imagined it would be a seven-inch tall, old man fairy with a receding hair line and nosy questions, she wasn't picky.

"You would like to be best friends?" she asked. "Doesn't that take time?"

"True, true. You are right. I haven't had a friend in so long, I am getting ahead of myself. I could tell you a secret, though, if you want. And if you have any secrets you want to tell me, I am all ears." He wiggled his pointy ears as he said the last part.

"No, I don't...have any secrets." She had many of her mother's secrets, and the one secret that was hers, she couldn't tell him.

I need to sleep a while. I'll explain when I wake.  Her mother's voice echoed.

"This is the main room?" the fairy asked, flying to the table.

"Yes."

"There is another room, though, attached to the side. Is there a door, or a, ah! Here we are!" In the dim light, the fairy finally noticed the door to Jean-Baptist's workroom and he bobbed over to inspect the carvings on it. "Care to give me the tour?"

"No, I'm sorry. This door is bolted shut and I don't have the key. I can go through the outside entrance, but there's Jean-Baptist. His memories are still in there, you see," she said in rush. It was the first time she had talked about Jean-Baptist with someone besides her mother and she felt foolish for being frightened of whispers and shadows of the past, but not foolish enough to take the fairy on a tour of the place.

"He was a fairy or a human, this Jean-Baptist?" the fairy asked. He did not seem to think it was strange that memories were haunting the locked room.

"Human, of course. He was a man. My mother and he were married over fifty years."

"But your mother was a fairy."

"My mother was no such thing! She was tall and didn't have any wings."

"Then she was a great fairy from under the hills," he said. He flitted back to the window sill and looked outside through the shutters as though he were expecting company to arrive. "They are tall as humans."

"She was as tall as a human because she was one. Her ears were quite round and we would walk to the market together and not creep about under any hills."

"I see. Well, not much more to look at in here, is there?" He sat on the sill, letting his legs dangle and patting the top of the silver thimble. "Do you have any more water?"

"Of course," she said. She tipped the pitcher over with one hand and water poured into the thimble, sloshing over the sides and soaking the fairy's pants. He cried out in surprise. At the same moment, she saw a black spider crawling towards him and she cried out. Grabbing her straw fly-swatter, she brought it down with a sharp thwack right next to him. He popped into the air, huffing and wheezing with fear and confusion.

"Sorry! There was a spider! Nasty black spiders. It just seemed so big next to you," said Cocot.

"I suppose I should be on my way." He was flitting nervously back and forth and she hung the swatter on the wall to reassure him.

"You can stay as long as you like..."

"No, no. I have to be going now."

"Well, it was very nice meeting you, Monsieur..."

"Yes, ah, yes," the fairy said, trying to find a dry spot on the sill to land on.

""Monsieur..." she repeated, coaxing his name from him. Her mother had been a stickler for names, and after leaving the farm without the boy's name, she had learned her lesson.

"Yes, yes. It was very nice meeting you, too."

"But what is your name?"

"You want to know my name?" he asked.

"If you don't mind. I'm just trying to be polite," explained Cocot.

"Yes, my name is...please call me Soufflé," he said with a mid-air bow and a great fluttering of wings.

"Monsieur Soufflé," she said. "Pleased to meet you. I am—"

"Coquelicot," he whispered at the same time as she finished her sentence.

"—Cocot."

"The red field flower. I can see the resemblance in your eyes," he said.

"How do you—"

"A pleasure to meet you. I am staying nearby and now that we are neighbors, I'm sure I'll be dropping by again soon, soon."

"Of course. I'll bake a pie," she said.

"Pie...yes. Au revoir!" he called and zipped out through the window, that as Cocot noticed for the first time, was cracked open a sliver.

*** So Cocot finally has a friend! Or does she? Thank you for reading! ***