The Little Fairy
Chapter 10

"Did you want to try out powers when we got home?" Sarah kept her eyes on the road ahead, not wanting to meet my eyes.

"No, I just want to do some work around the farm." The landscape started to become more familiar around us.

"We can still try some while you work."

"I'd rather not have to redo my work if something went wrong." Sarah turned onto the gravel driveway leading to the farm.

She nodded, wringing her hands on the steering wheel."If that's what you want." The truck came to a screeching halt. "I'll go start on lunch." She hopped out of the truck and slammed the door angrily, not once turning back to look at me.

I gingerly made my way out of the truck and sulked over to the barn where the cows were waiting to be milked. I could hear the faint sound of Don's radio playing the local country music station from the back of the barn.

Luckily for him, he only provided food to the locals so he didn't need an excess of cattle or space for farming. "Hey, Kreya. You guys are back early. Everything okay?" He wiped his hands on a rag that he had slung over his shoulder.

"Yeah, just not a whole lot I wanted to look at, it was super overwhelming." I grabbed a couple of buckets and sat under Gertrude, grabbing the iodine cleaner to clean her teats before I started.

"You know you didn't have to work today, right?" He peeked under the heifer's stomach to look me in the eyes.

"Yeah, I know. I feel like if I didn't, the day would have been wasted." I started pulling, warm milk pouring from the cow.

"Okay..." He trailed, getting back up and patting Gertrude on the back. "If you need anything, just let me know." he turned and headed back to his office in the barn.

I tried to meditate and clear my mind as I focused on the small ping every time the milk hit the side of the pail. It worked for about 20 minutes until I heard the hay shuffle behind me. I froze. Maybe if I stayed still the intruder wouldn't notice me.

"Kreya." Sarah's melodic voice entered my ears, sending shivers through my body.

"Yes, Sarah?" I stood up and stretched out my back, not realizing how much it had hurt until now. I grabbed the pails and started to carry them to the machine where the milk would be pasteurized and bottled.

"Can you please tell me why you're upset with me?" She laid her hand on my shoulder, sizzles coursing through my body at the touch.

"Because you lied to me. You pretended that you actually believed me about that stupid leaf." I noticed she still wore it above her ear.

"But you told me this was..." She paused, sliding the leaf from her ear. "Is it not?" Her eyes searched mine, sliding her hand down my arm.

"No, Sarah!" I yanked her hand off of me. "It's not. It's a fucking leaf that you told me to tell you was an accessory and are still putting up the charade that you actually believe that it is!"

She looked puzzled, remembering her eyes trailing the ground to replace the conversation we had in the mall. "I remember telling you to convince me, but you honestly sounded extremely persuasive." Her eyes finally met mine again, tears starting to form in the corners.

I felt my anger subside and softened my shoulders, taking the leaf from her fingers and placing it back above her ear. "I'm sorry. I thought you were just trying to trick me."

"I would never do that!" Her eyes lit up after a second.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I think I know what power you have." She seemed giddy and led us out of the building.

"What are you going on about?" I dragged my feet as she pulled me out toward the house.

"You can manipulate the truth!" She said a little too enthusiastically.

"I wouldn't say I manipulated you," I said, offended. I dug my heels into the dirt, stopping us in our tracks.

"Influence, whatever you want to call it. But you were able to make me genuinely think that what I have is an accessory. What if you can do that with an entire crowd of people?" She huffed as we stopped.

"Why would I manipulate people into believing me? I want them to genuinely care about the earth." I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Because people aren't just going to belive you. Unfortunately humans are stupid and stubborn."

I refused to look in her eyes and grazed past her shoulder, heading into the house for lunch. Don was just finishing setting the table when we walked in.

"Were you able to load the milk into the machine or do I still need to do that?" He took his place at the table and started to dig into his food.

"Yeah, sorry I can't reach it." I blushed and slid into my seat next to him.

"Hey dad, I was thinking of inviting Axel back, I was hoping we could sit down and have a conversation with him." Sarah piped in, giving me a sly smile and a wink.

What exactly is she thinking? "Why would you want to do that?" I commented.

"See if we can convince him to see that you're not trying to mooch off of daddy here." She smiled sweetly, but I knew what she was trying to do.

"Can I have a word with you please?" I didn't wait for her to respond and grabbed her wrist and dragged her away from the table and up to her room.

I closed the door behind us and spun around quickly to address her. "I'm not going to use your brother as a test subject to see if this is what my power really is."

"Do you have a better idea? We need to have a guinea pig in this and he's the perfect one." She plopped herself onto her bed, looking as smug as ever.

"I know you don't mind manipulating your own brother, but I'm not going to partake. I want to do this the right way." I turned and started to open the door.

"Good luck on your mission, then. You're not going to get through to the entire world with just your good looks." She slid past me and back down the stairs to joining Don and Coon at the table.