"I'll let you have any moment you need." He kisses my lips and gently brushes his fingers against my cheek. "But you're right. We do need to go. Let’s get to the market. But let me lead this time." He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me in the opposite direction.
It only takes a few moments before we find our way there. The booths are still lined up, and everyone is manning their tables. There seem to be a few customers scattered around the area. Some look like us, and others, not so much. There is one person close to us, and he is thick and dark green and resembles an ogre. A few tables down, there is a woman with long white-blonde hair, who’s tall and willowy. Her height makes her stand out, but what makes me notice is her pointy ears.
I turn into Charlie and murmur, "Is that a Fae?" The elders told us that they were extinct, yet here is another one standing before me.
"It sure looks like it." He wraps his arm around me tighter and bites his bottom lip. "I wonder how much they taught us is wrong."
We walk over to the section where the Fae is standing. She flips her hair over her shoulder and looks at the merchant. "Can I take my usual, please?"
"Of course. I have it right here." The merchant reaches under the table and pulls out a big vial of water. "That will be one thousand."
The Fae pulls out some strange looking bills that are colorful and appear to be made of wood. "Here you go." She grabs the vial and walks off back toward the pier.
The merchant pulls out a leather bag and sticks the money inside it. She glances up to find us standing there. "Oh, are you the ones staying with Ria?"
Charlie glances at me from the corner of his eye and shakes his head ever so slightly. "We are and just got here today. We had to get out and visit all the sites."
That's one way of putting it. The market is buzzing even in the booths that don’t have any customers. There's this positive energy in the air, and it's nice. "I wasn't feeling well earlier, so I wanted to come back here and check out the market."
"Oh, I think we all knew that." She laughs out loud and reaches out to touch my arm. "We sure hope you're feeling better."
I'm sure they do. If they have any sense of self-preservation that is. "I'm feeling much better, thanks." I glance around her table and notice she has bottles lined up everywhere. "What are all of these for?"
"These, my dear, are spells to help the world survive desperate measures." She glances down at her table and smiles.
"What does that even mean?" Charlie's forehead is creased and the corners of his eyes wrinkled.
"I'm assuming that's how the Fae survived." This is the only thing that makes sense, and what does that mean for all of the other worlds we were taught about?
"She's exactly right." The merchant picks up a small bottle and holds it out to us. "This is water spelled to help one form survive. Have you ever wondered why there are times when some crops are bountiful while other farms struggle? This is the reason why."
That's interesting. But that's how they can look like this. Their city seems well-off, and they aren't in need of anything
"As fun as this conversation is, I'd like to know if there's somewhere nice Chris and I could spend some time together here." Charlie winks at me and rubs his fingers along my back.
"I know just the place. If you go back the way you came in and continue past Ria's, you'll come to the end of the island, and there is a boat ride that's available. It's small, and only the two of you would be on it, and it takes you on a tour of the most beautiful places here."
If it's anything like we came in from, it's not that beautiful—water farm after water farm.
"That sounds exactly like what we need." He glances at the table one last time and looks at me. "Are you ready to go? I think a boat is calling our name."
I want to argue with him, but what if I don't have a lot of time left. It might be the last opportunity I have to spend time with Charlie. "Sure, let's do this. It sounds like fun." And worst case, we’ll get a better sense of this world.
The lady beams and rearranges the bottles of water on her table. "You got yourself a good man there. Go spend some time with him."
Charlie and I leave the buzzing market behind and retrace our steps past Ria's.
It's not long before we come to the end of the walkway. It opens up into a wide beach. The water is similar to what I had seen back on earth when I pictured the artifact. It's a deep emerald, and the waves are crashing against the land.
"Wow, this is gorgeous." Charlie takes me forward. "Let's take off our shoes and walk on the sand."
It would be nice to just put my feet in the ocean even if it's just for a moment. I remove my socks and shoes and then dig my feet into the sand. However, it’s not grainy. What looks like white sand is actually soft and cushiony. "This is amazing."
He joins me, and as soon as his feet hit the sand, he takes in a deep breath. "I don't know what this stuff is, but I wish the sand on earth felt like this."
"Yeah, that would be really nice. It's almost as if were walking on clouds." I
