Pixie Dust Pick Me Up

Dr T. bustled around the small room, making sure that every detail was in the right place. It was the first group she had ever put together, and she was very excited. She knew it would be a lot of hard work, but she hoped that it would help some of her hardest cases.
She had just finished rearranging the coffee tray on the table for about the fiftieth time when Brie walked in, holding a Stardusts coffee cup. The little blonde had her short hair up in a messy bun and her green eyes were sparkling. She fairly glowed with caffeine, (the pink behind her freckles suggested high energy levels) and bounced onto an antique armchair. Dr. T. winced inwardly, hoping the chair could hold up under such enthusiasm.
“Good morning Brie.” Dr. T. couldn’t help smiling at her upbeat patient.
“Every morning is a good morning if it starts with a Stardusts frappacino,” She took a long slurp from her straw. “Mmm, mocha.”
The door opened and Bella stepped in a little hesitantly. The wide eyed brunette greeted Dr. T., glanced around, and took a seat next to Brie, who introduced herself. Good thought the doctor as she watched Brie. She’s becoming better with strangers. It must be her job at the diner. She turned her attention back to Bella. “No Ash today?”
Bella shook her head, and reached for the coffee pot. “No, we decided it would be better to join different groups, less awkward. I would rather not learn personal things from him in a group of people. It will be hard enough for him without me breathing over his shoulder.”
“Wise decision, my dear. Have you two set a date yet?”
“July the twentieth. We want our roses to be in bloom.”
The door opened and a whole group of people trooped in. Dr. T’s attention was again diverted. Brie turned to Bella and began a running commentary on those entering.
“See the girl standing by the door there? Definitely a Sleeping Beauty.”
“How can you tell?”
Brie leaned over to whisper conspiratorially. “See how she’s pulling out her palm pilot, and she’s dressed in all the latest fashions? That’s what gives it away. She’s trying too hard to be modern.”
Bella threw her a questioning glance. “Maybe she’s just a computer engineer and likes ultra modern clothes.”
“Bet you a Stardusts coffee she’s a Sleeping Beauty.” Brie took a long slurp to emphasize the point.
“You already have a Stardusts coffee.”
“So?”
Bella tried to keep from laughing. “You’re on.” She ducked her head and tucked a strand of wayward hair back behind her widow’s peak.
A tall blonde with short hair and cornflower blue eyes walked in and sat on Bella’s other side. Brie blushed to her ears and grew very quiet and indrawn. Bella looked at the other woman again, wondering at her new friend’s sudden silence. The blue-eyed woman was wearing a soft pink tee-shirt and faded blue jeans. She looked like a soccer mom, nothing to be afraid of. She considered asking Brie about it, and decided not to, she didn’t know the girl very well.
Just then Dr. T. closed the door. “It looks as if everyone is here, so we can get started.” She pulled up a chair and sat down, her frizzy red hair combining with the light from a window behind her creating a halo around her head. “Why don’t we start by going around the circle, giving our names and a brief description of our fairytale?” She looked expectantly at the man next to her.



He started a bit, obviously uncomfortable with starting this shin-dig off. He shifted in his chair, cleared his throat and began. “Uh. . . My name is Prince Rufus and uh. . . I’m a failed quester.” he glanced at Dr. T.
“Would you care to expand on that a little, Rufus?”
“Sure . . . Uh . . . Well you know how it goes . . . I’ve got two brothers, and I’m the youngest. We were trained since we were really young to be questers, and it was just a matter of which damsel in distress came to us first. I guess I always hoped for a sleeping beauty. I like old fashioned girls, see. I studied harder on how to pass thorn bushes than mysterious old women who ask for bread.
“Right, so things were going well, and we heard of this girl who has been trapped in a glass house by her wizard father over the border in Rocherland. So my elder brother goes, but fails, as we expected. So my other brother gets ready to go. But the day before he leaves, he catches the flu. But we can’t just let that poor girl wait, right? So I go, figuring since I was the youngest . . . Well you know. But I had forgotten that bit about the old woman, I mean I offered to share my bread with her, but I forgot that I’m supposed to give her everything. So she sends me home, because I’m not generous enough of spirit or something.
“So I come home, my brother rides out and a week later comes home with the girl. I mean, it’s supposed to be the youngest who gets the girl isn’t it? And the logical side of me knows that it’s not my fault, that apparently it’s just the order you go in that matters and that my parents don’t mind, really, but the illogical side thinks that they see me as a failure. I should have studied harder or remembered better or something.”
He cleared his throat again. “Uh. . . Your turn.” He spoke to the ultra modern woman sitting next to him. She had been gazing at Rufus admiringly throughout his speech.


Now she straightened in her chair, smoothed her skirt, and began. “My name is Victoria T. Rose, but you can call me Vicky. I’m a sleeping beauty.”
Brie nudged Bella with her elbow. “Ha! What did I tell you? Yummy Stardusts for me!” She whispered gleefully.
Bella shushed her with a grin and resumed listening. “As you can imagine, I was brought up well, but I always wanted to try sliding down our banister. It was the forbidden fruit, you see, my parents always forbade me to slide down the stair rail, but they never told me why. That’s the problem with families, no communication, if they had just told me . . .
“So on my sixteenth birthday, my parents left for a short outing to buy my birthday presents. I was left home alone, alone with that beautiful, long, banister. It was a spiral staircase, going from the tallest tower to the ground floor, so I figured, just this once, I’ll give it a try.” Vicky flipped her red hair, and her violet eyes shone. Her expression was as dramatic as her clothing was modern. “The ride was unbelievable, it was a dream, gliding down the seemingly endless staircase-” her voice caught. “Then, near the end of the ride, I felt a sharp pain in my rear. I never had a splinter before, but I suppose this was an exceptionally large one. I almost fell off the end of the banister, and managed to stagger to my room, where I fell into a deep sleep.
The next thing I knew I was being sexually assaulted by a stranger. I kicked him off me, and screamed for help. The rest of the castle woke quickly and sprang to my aid. They tossed the man in the cells and for all I know, he’s still there.” She shuddered at the memory. “Apparently it’s all a matter of timing and the first vagrant who passes by one hundred years later is allowed to pass the thorn bushes. He came in to steal things, they found his pockets full of our treasures, but he evidently had a taste for necrophilia as well. Luckily they got him before- well before-” She shuddered again. “It was a near miss.”
Vicky’s voice shook. She shivered uncontrollable and it took several minutes for Dr. T to calm her down. Everyone looked on in concern, uncertain what to do. It was rather awkward. Prince Rufus sat with his features suffused with rage at the crimes done to his neighbor.
Brie tapped Bella’s shoulder, feeling guilty about making a bet of this poor woman’s tale. “Maybe we ought to invite her for coffee?”
Bella nodded, wondering, what am I doing here? My problems aren’t nearly as bad as this poor woman’s.
Giving Vicky’s shoulder a final pat, Dr. T. resumed her seat. “Brie, would you share your story with us?”


“Uh, sure.” Brie looked at Dr. T. for reassurance. “Um . . . My name is Umbrielle, but I like Brie better. I uh, grew up in Rocherland. I think I might have um, known that girl you were talking about, we were friends for a while before her father shut her in that glass house. I think I saw you at the engagement party and-”
“Brie, let’s talk about you.” Dr. T. interrupted.
Brie’s face shone crimson beneath her freckles. “Right, sorry, I was rambling.” her voice had gotten very soft. “I’m no good at public speaking.”
“You’re doing fine Brie; just speak a bit louder and remember; there is no need to apologize.”
“Uh, right.” Bella noticed that her friend had gotten redder, if that was possible. “Um. . . My mother died when I was four, and when I was seven, my dad got remarried to his second wife, Zeldra.” Remarried to his second wife, that was redundantly redundant. Brie sank lower in her chair, putting herself down. “Uh, she had two daughters and a son. Roger and Roslyn were-are- twins and Serena is the eldest. Roslyn and Serena are like their mum, very pretty, slim girls. Tall girls.” Brie, herself, was short, tiny in a pixie-like way, but she had always admired her step-sister’s height.
“I guess Zeldra felt threatened by me, I don’t know how, but she was, I mean how could someone feel threatened by a seven year old girl? So she made me into their personal lackey, running out to do this, that, or the other thing, doing things no servant would do. It’s not like I got paid either, because I was family. They kept me up half the night sometimes, but Roslyn did get sick an awful lot-”
“Brie,” Dr. T. warned, “You’re justifying their actions.”
“Um,” the blonde beside Bella spoke up, unsure if she was allowed to speak out of turn. “Could you stop interrupting, please?” she asked Dr. T. “It’s hard enough for her to tell already.”
“Yes,” Bella agreed, trying to save her new friend’s pride. “Besides, it’s very interesting, and I’d like to hear the rest.”
Heartened by this, Brie sat up a little straighter and continued her story. “Right, and you can’t really blame Da for their actions either, I mean, I love the man, but he is an awful big pushover. Zeldra and her daughters used to tease me, calling me Umbrella; they thought my name was hilarious. The only one who was nice to me was Roger, he tried to be protective, in his own big brother way. If I got into trouble for being late or something, he’d tell them I’d been delayed on an errand he’d sent me on or something.
When Da died, things just got- well a lot worse. Zeldra used me as her scapegoat, if anything went wrong in the house it was my fault. She’d call me all sorts of nasty names, and I know that I should have had more faith in myself or something, but you get called stupid enough times, you start to believe it.” She spoke matter-of-factly. “It gets to the point where your head knows that Zeldra’s just trying to hurt you, and that you are quite intelligent, but your heart feels differently, and it’s your heart that you listen to. I believed what she said, still believe it sometimes, so ingrained it is within me. I got used to it. So used to it, in fact, that when Zeldra began to hit me, it didn’t come as a surprise, and more often than not, I felt I had deserved it.” Brie was quiet for a moment; she appeared to be inspecting her fingernails. “It didn’t take long for Roger to discover the bruises, and boy did he raise holy hell with his mother when he found out. After that, she never touched me again, at least not when he was around.
“About that time I started dating Nathan. He worked in the stable yard at the manor, a horse leech. He made me feel smart, he spoke to me as if I were intelligent, and taught me things like how to care for the horses. I’d go to him, or to Roger when I needed a friend, and Nathan eventually became much more than that.” She smiled and held up her left hand so others could admire the ring she wore. It wasn’t new, or expensive, but they could see the value Brie placed upon it.
“So when I turned nineteen, there was this big fancy ball up at the palace.” She went on, lowering her hand. “So of course Zeldra and her daughters got ready to go. I wanted to go too, I wanted to see the inside of this palace, because I was curious, but I knew- I mean I thought- that I was too ugly to show my face. So I helped Serena and Roslyn get ready. They left with Zeldra, and Roger stayed back, he said he was going to pick up his date and arrive later.
“As soon as they were gone, Roger turned to me and told me to wash up. He wasn’t really going to pick up a date; he had planned this all for me! I guess it was his way of trying to right all the wrongs he let his mother and sisters do to me. I hesitated though; I didn’t want to show my face at this thing, Zeldra was sure to recognize me! But Roger said I didn’t have to, it was a masque.
“So I scrubbed up, washed my hair, and put on a dress Roger had magically procured for me. It really was beautiful; I plan to get married in it.
“So we get there, and I dance with Roger a couple times before the Prince, Sam, invites me to dance with him. I was so afraid he’d see me blushing, but then I remembered the mask. He couldn’t see!
“It’s so freeing to wear a mask, you know. No one knows who you are, so you can do anything you want. I had fun, danced the night away, and I was rather witty, if I do say so myself.” Brie’s eyes had taken on a dreamy cast, remembering her one night away from being put down. She grinned, suddenly. “He really liked me, you know, he asked me to stay with him, several times, but I was already in love with Nathan, so I refused.
“Then he asked for something to remember me by. I didn’t have anything with me that wasn’t on loan, so that presented a problem. I mean, I really liked Sammy, as a friend, you know. So I ducked into the powder room for a minute and when I came out I handed him-” here her grin turned absolutely wicked. “My bra.”
The albino girl snorted and Brie laughed. She was becoming very comfortable in her storytelling role. “Well, I didn’t have anything else to give him, nothing else was really mine! But when I gave it to him he was so shocked. And I actually told him to loosen up! Me! Tell Prince Samuel of Rocherland to loosen up! That’s a story I’ll be telling my grandchildren, when they’re old enough to hear it, of course.
“So of course he wants to know who I am, wants me to take off my mask, but that would ruin it, see, that would ruin it all. Before it got to the point where he demanded it, I left. I went home, changed, and told Nate the whole story. Course, he was a bit jealous at the bra bit, but hey, he found the rest of it funny.
“Little did I know that Sam hates mysteries, and that Roger was playing matchmaker. I didn’t tell Roger about Nate,” she explained, “cause of how overprotective he gets. So Roger tips Sam off to where I live, and Sam shows up the next day with my bra and his sister Rachel, who’s about my age.
“Anyway you know the story. Roslyn and Serena try it on, and well, they aren’t as well endowed as I am in that department,” more chuckles, “so they stuffed it. Luckily, Sam’s sister Rachel is there, and she pokes him in the ribs. ‘She’s stuffing.’ ‘How can you tell?’ he asks, then adds, ‘never mind, I don’t really want to know.’ Then Roger grabs my arm and hauls me forward from where I’d been enjoying a good laugh with Nate. So of course the bra fits, and Sam asks to marry me. I don’t think he really wanted to, but at this point it was procedure. So I explained the situation to him and asked can we just be friends. He says yes, he’d like that, and admits to me in private that he’s not exactly the marrying kind. Then in a gesture of friendship, he gives Nate and me enough money to buy our own apartment, and has his palace guards set us up in the fairytale protection program. My step-family, with the exception of Roger, are watched carefully to make sure they aren’t planning revenge. Sam still writes and is planning on coming to my wedding in the spring.” Her grin turned wicked. “I think he’s more interested in seeing Roger again though. Those two hit it off very well.” She sighed and sat back. “Your turn, Bella,”


Bella sighed inwardly and turned to face the room. “My story is the pretty traditional Beauty and the Beast. I grew up- all over, really. My dad is a traveling salesman, and boy did we ever travel. I don’t think that I ever spent more than a few months at a time in one school district. So my sisters and I clung to each other. They always adjusted well, but change has never agreed with me. I feel as though I have spent my whole childhood trying to catch up, so to speak.
“I didn’t have many friends, either; I learned quickly that it would only hurt more when I left. So I took up writing. I’d write stories about kids that I’d like to become friends with. My Yellow Rose stories have since been published-”
“Those are my daughter’s favorites!” exclaimed the woman on her right. “You’re Bella Loiselle?”
“Yes.” Bella smiled. “I’d be happy to meet these daughters of yours.”
“I wish you could.” She looked sad, then remembered herself. “I’m sorry, I interrupted, again. Please continue.”
Bella nodded, smiling still, she was always happy to hear that children loved her books. Maybe they would reach someone who was as lonely as she had been. She certainly hoped that they already had. “Right, well, I guess I wrote them because I wished that I had a friend like Yellow Rose. So one day my dad came to my sisters and me and told us that his ship had truly come in and asked us what we would like as a gift.
“I remember exchanging a look with my sisters. We all knew that Dad was probably in for another disappointment. So we asked for small things. Harriet, my elder sister, asked for a new backpack for school, and Sarah asked for pencils and drawing paper. I thought of Yellow Rose, and my stories, and all the gardens that I never got to plant, so I asked Dad to give me a small, potted, yellow rose, that I could take with me wherever we moved.
“So Dad left, and returned a week later with a backpack, pencils, drawing paper, a potted yellow rose, and a strange story.
“Apparently, he bought the rose from a man with the form of a beast. The beast told him that he was really an editor and a tutor, but no one wanted a beast for either of those occupations, so he sold roses, because gardening was his hobby. My father told him about my stories, and offered to send me for tutelage. The beast was pleased with this idea, and hoped that I would agree.
“I was so excited! A chance to have a real editor look at my stories, a chance to learn what I so desperately wanted to learn, how to improve my writing, and most of all, a chance to stay in one place for more than a month or two at a time. The fact that he was a beast never came into it.”
Bella grinned at her audience. “I moved in, and then followed the best time of my life. I adored my teacher, and he taught me so many things. I spent two years working with him, and eventually that adoration turned to love. After lessons, we’d work in the garden together. He loved roses too, yellow roses are our favorites; they’re so friendly.
“In time, my Yellow Rose series was published, and its popularity brought recognition to Beast. When he had become successful again, he asked me to marry him. I didn’t have to think about it, I said yes. That evening, we planted my potted rose bush in his garden.
“But no sooner had the roots been covered with dirt than he changed. It was like watching a snake shed its skin. All of beast’s shaggy fur came off, revealing a tall handsome, stranger. He even had a different name. I felt so- betrayed, almost. I mean, I know he couldn’t help it, but things had changed on me again. Not his spirit, nothing that mattered had changed, I know, but I’ve never adjusted well, and I have to constantly remind myself of what he looks like, sounds like, even his name. ‘Ash’ isn’t that hard to remember, is it? But I’ve been calling him Beast for the last two years. I feel as though I’m going to wed a man that I can’t even recognize on the street.”
Bella shook her head despairingly, and looked to her neighbor, the blonde soccer mom.


The woman closed her eyes. “I’m a Rapunzel.” she whispered. Then, louder, “I’m a bloody Rapunzel.” her eyes snapped open. “My birth mother had a choice between me and her next high, and she choose the high.” Her voice held much bitterness. “My name is Marijuana, but I go by Mari. My birth parents were potheads, and one night, after getting high, they decided to sneak into their neighbor’s garden where they’d been growing their patch in the back, hidden behind the shed. The witch who lived there, Elena, had noticed it, and told them she wouldn’t betray them to the knights if they gave her their unborn child: me.
“Elena, the woman who adopted me, loved me very much. But she was mentally ill, and when I turned thirteen, and men started to look at me, she got scared. I guess she had a bad experience with a man at a young age, and she was trying to protect me. She locked me up in a tower with no doors and windows all around the top. She used her magic to make my hair grow, and used it as her ladder.
“But is got so damn lonely up there. So lonely. Then one day, Prince Aaron came by, he heard me singing. I was practicing my scales, on the guitar and voice, nothing else to do up there except try to hone my skills. So we talked for a while, Aaron and I. He started coming almost every evening, and I’d serenade him from my tower. But I had heard my mother’s stories, and it took months for me to trust him enough to let him up.
“When I did-” She laughed, a bit hysterically. “Well things picked up quite a bit then, didn’t they? Until my mother paid a surprise visit, that is. She popped in as we were making-out, she must have thought he was attacking me or something-”
She’s justifying, Dr. T. thought, but she didn’t dare interrupt. Mari was usually a very reserved girl, and right now she was letting out a lot of anger, anger that had been pent up for some time. The doctor was very surprised and happy to see this.
“And BAM! She pushes him out the window. He landed on some thorn bushes, and they gouged out his eyes. I started screaming at Mom, it was our first real fight, and she ended up kicking me out. Poof! Suddenly I was on the ground outside. I ran to my prince, held him in my arms and cried teardrops right into his eyes. He regained his sight, though now he has to wear glasses, and we ran off and eloped. A year later, I gave birth to twin girls, more perfect babies than you could ever imagine.” Mari let out a forlorn sigh. “My little baby girls,” She shifted and looked each person in the room in the eye. “I still love my mother you know. She did what she thought was best for me, and she tried to patch things up, later. But Aaron doesn’t understand that. I don’t really blame him, I don’t understand it either, but I asked him if she could meet the girls, and he freaked out. He said that he wasn’t going to expose his daughters to a psychopath. He took them and left me. He told me I could see the girls when I got help; but since when is loving someone a problem?”
The room was silent. Brie could see Aaron’s point. The woman’s mother was crazy; she’d practically killed Aaron and left Mari to fend for herself. Not to mention that she could be charged with abuse and neglect of her own daughter, whether she was mentally ill or not.


Finally, the last girl in the circle cleared her throat. She was an albino, white skin, white hair, she looked as pale as death, and her eyes were pink. “I’m Bianca, and I’m a Snow White.” She knew the others were staring and gave a grim little smile. “I know, let’s get the Snow White/Albino joke out of the way. White as snow, red as blood right?” she asked, indicating her pale skin and pink eyes. “So maybe my eyes aren’t exactly red, but you get the point, don’t you?
“What happened to the ‘black as ebony’ part?” Brie muttered to Bella, but the brunette ignored her, concentrating instead on Bianca.
“My mother died when I was young, my dad remarried. My step-mom never really liked me; she thought I was butt-ugly. But she was obsessed with having fair skin, and hated the fact that she was jealous of mine, even though I was the ugliest creature she’d ever seen. I mean, can you imagine being jealous of someone you thought was ugly? There were also political reasons for disliking me, because of me; her children wouldn’t inherit the manor. So she hired an assassin to off me. Luckily, I got wind of this and left, hoping that she’d just forget about me once I was gone. Besides, with looks like mine, who wants to be a member of the nobility? All those well dressed people, staring, and then pretending not to stare, which is worse. At least be honest about your curiosity.
“So I head off through the woods, and I come across this shack with seven little people in it.”
“Don’t you mean dwarves?” asked Prince Rufus.
“No, I believe ‘little people’ is more P.C.” Brie told him.
Bianca looked at them with raised eyebrows. “Ri-ght.” she said slowly. “So anyway, I offer to be their maid in return for shelter, but they really couldn’t afford it, the land lord is pretty harsh, I mean, seven people living in one small shack? The rent was horrendous. So I told them I’d pay my share, and they welcomed me gladly.
“Course, in order to pay the rent, I had to set up my own little circus freak tent, you know. I charged a buck to see The White Horror from Grey Lake. It was pretty successful, you know what they say, there’s a sucker born every minute.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for my step-mom to hear of this, and decide I was doing it to spite her. So she sends her assassin to put peanut powder in my water bottle. I’m very allergic to peanuts, so one gulp sent me straight into a coma.
“Well my roomies came back and found me; they thought I was dead or something. Meanwhile, the landlord had upped the rent, so even seven little people working in the mines could not afford to pay it. Miner wages are pretty low, you know. At that point they needed my income. So they stuck me in a glass show-case and started charging two bucks to see me. Sure it sounds horrible, but you can’t really blame them, they were stuck between a rock and a hard place and they chose survival. If I had really been dead, I could think of no better use for my body, mining wages are terribly low, so any way I could help out, you know?” Brie, Bella, Rufus and Mari worked hard to keep from retching. Two dollars to see a dead body? Ugh! Vicky looked horror-struck.
“So a few days later this guy comes by. He’s so creepily fascinated he wants to buy me, and my roomies say yes, because they aren’t sure how long I’ll last without stinking up the place. So this guy, Sir Volden, (very gothic) brings me home and adds me to his freakish collection. While he went out, his mother comes in to clean his room, and props a mirror up in front of me while she vacuumed under it. When she came back, she noticed a mist on the mirror, and saw that I was still breathing. She called a doctor, and in the long and short of it, I was revived. Meanwhile, Volden comes home, and becomes very obsessive. He keeps calling me his wife, I mean, I don’t know what he did while I was out, but I know you have to be conscious for a wedding to mean anything. I don’t know, he asked me out, and I felt like I’d be a rude guest to say no, but he really creeped me out. Like I said, obsessive, he had to know where I was all the time, and then he started to threaten me, so I left. I came home to my roomies, who were happy to see me alive, and ecstatic that I could still help with the rent. Volden kept stalking me though, coming to the circus freak tent and harassing me, so I got a restraining order for him and one for my step-mom while I was at it. I just hate feeling like I have to keep hiding from them, and like the only acceptable way of showing myself is as The White Horror from Grey Lake.”
Bianca sat back, and everyone sat there, absorbing the other’s stories. Finally, Dr. T. spoke. “Well that was a very informing session. The green-clad woman stood. For next time, I want everyone to think of some goals you’d like to reach through this group. Next week we will discuss our weakest points, and brain-storm ways to improve them.
The timer buzzed, and they all stood to go. “So,” Brie turned to Bella. “Coffee?”
Bella laughed at the girl‘s changing moods. “Sure.”