The Pink Moon's Secret

Bam! Luella slams her cafeteria tray down on the table with an angry look on her face. She slumps in her chair and looks at me. “You will not believe this! Jayden said the super pink moon is lame.” To be fair, Jayden is a nine-year-old boy whose only concern is expanding his house on Minecraft but I keep my mouth shut and let Luella vent about her brother. 

“And when I tried explaining why it’s happening to the little twerp, he just rolled his eyes! This is important stuff, Harlow. I mean the moon is going the closest it can to Earth in its elliptical orbit. You can’t tell me that’s not interesting.” Luella is a bit of an astronomy freak but I let it slide because a) she’s my best friend and b) it is kind of cool. We had been looking forward to tonight for months ever since we found out. Today, on April 26th, the full moon would coincide approximately with the moon's perigee and look pink. 

“No, you’re totally right. Jayden’s just a little too immature for this. Anyway, can you still come over to my house tonight?” Hopefully, her mom hadn’t changed her mind after last month's fiasco. “Yeah don’t worry about it. It took a lot of convincing but she agreed.” Oh, thank gosh. The thing is, last time Luella was supposed to come over to my house, we and our friend Kayla had actually gone to see a band play. Luella’s mom is strict and was less than impressed when she found out. Granted it wasn’t anything big like a concert. It was a band rehearsal with boys from the eighth grade in their lead singer, Alex’s garage. We were desperate to go together. Who wouldn’t? Alex is the cutest guy in the eighth grade and he invited us, lowly seventh graders, to check them out! It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity none of us could pass up. 

“Hey, do you know where Kayla is?” She’s supposed to come over to my house today too and usually sits with us during lunch. Luella quickly finishes chewing a bite of her turkey sandwich and says, “Haven’t you heard the news? All the girls are talking about it.” Slowly I shake my head and she says, “She’s sitting with Shawn today. Word is he’s going to ask her out on a date.” “Really? That’s great!” Kayla’s had a crush on him ever since she saw him at Alex’s garage. All it took was Shawn playing a simple beat on the drums before she started to swoon.

The bell rings signaling lunch is over leaving me to the terror of what is called history class. My teacher Mr.Goodwin is a nightmare when it comes to note-taking. He talks way too fast and I’m a slow writer. Luckily Luella is much more adept at note-taking than I and she lets me borrow hers. The class flies by followed by chemistry and soon school’s out. I walk over to my locker to find Kayla and Luella waiting for me. “Guess what Harlow? Shawn’s taking me to the movies tonight!” Turns out Luella was right. “That’s awesome.” 

“Look, I need your guys' help to figure out what I’m wearing. It’s quite literally a fashion emergency.” Luella frowns though as if in realization. “Wait, the movie date is today? Aren’t you coming over to Harlow’s house though? We’re going to skywatch for the pink moon.” 

Kayla looks guilty as she says, “I can’t come over. I’m sorry but I can’t cancel on Shawn. You understand, right?” 

Usually, I try to be more understanding but we’ve all been excited for months about this. At least Luella and I were. “No, I don’t understand Kayla. You can’t cancel on him but you can cancel on your best friends?” 

Luella nods in agreement but Kayla just looks mad and says, “If you guys were my best friends, you would be happy for me.” She then stalks away leaving Luella and me shocked. “She can’t be serious,” Luella mutters.

I try not to focus on the latest drama when Luella comes over to my house a couple of hours later. We start by watching a documentary about NASA’s Voyager mission called The Farthest. When it’s done we head over to my deck and set up the new telescope I received for my birthday. My Grandma Bethany had heard how excited we were for this and got it for me so we could have a better view. We probably should have put it together before the movie but it’s fine. It can’t be that hard.

It turns out I was very wrong. “This is taking forever,'' Luella complains.'' I sigh and say, “I know.” Eventually, we put it together after my older sister Rosalind helped us out. We could see the moon rise as we worked on putting it together but now it's at its peak. It looks positively radiant. I give Luella the honor of looking through the telescope first but when she does she freezes. “What in the world,” She whispers. Confused, I take a look through the telescope and see what Luella saw; it's unlike anything I’ve ever encountered. A small person is in the center of the moon. No, not a person…a fairy. There’s a little fairy with brown skin and dark hair waving at us. 

I lean away from the telescope and tentatively wave back. Luella stares at me surprised. “You can see her too?” I nod and she says, “At least I’m not going delusional.” As soon as the words leave her mouth, sparkles of magenta dust appear. The fairy from the moon is here! “Don’t be afraid,” she murmurs, and with one wave of a silver wand, I’m no longer on the deck in my house in Massachusetts, United States but in a different world. “Where are we…” Luella says dazedly in wonder. I spin around studying my surroundings. The floor is made of hard smooth rock and there are dozens of houses spread out illuminated with constellations. Bewitched by this new world I barely hear, “Welcome to Cressville.”

The fairy whose name I come to learn is Zia tells us how Cressville is a small village in the vast fairy world. There are different villages and cities in the three entities defined by where they are resigned of the following: land, sea, and sky. So Cressville is but a speck on the whole fairy realm. Its fairies are in charge of maintaining the crescent part of the moon cycle. 

The reason we saw Zia was because of the raffle. All citizens fifteen and above of the Sky realm are required to participate in a raffle where their names are put in. If their names are picked they are to wait for their turn to go in the middle of the moon. It’s a great honor to be chosen to have the potential of showing a human the fairy's existence. It’s only meant to be done on rare days such as these and no one fairy is allowed to go more than annually. 

There is a catch though to which humans can know of the fairy's existence. Zia says, “ In the sky realm, only those who seek and recognize the beauty of the moon with pure intentions may know its secret. If those informed try to inform others of their gift, they will forget they were given such knowledge and may no longer visit.” 

Only those pure of intentions may see a fairy in front of the moon. There’s a spell cast by the elder fairies that makes it so. Once a fairy in the sky is alerted that someone has noticed them by an enchantment, they are meant to introduce the onlookers to the fairy world. It’s a way of integrating relations between both species. 

Luella and I promise not to tell anyone and are unbelievably excited for more visits to the fairy realm. They have to be monitored by Zia, but that isn't a problem. I have a feeling we’re all going to become great friends. As Zia brings us back to my house in good ole Massachusetts with another poof of magenta dust, all I can think is I wish Kayla could be a part of this.