Page 65 of Must Love Lavender and Little Lies
Portia inclined her head to me.
“But how did you get a lock of Granik’s hair?”
“For that task, we had a bookish dragon on loan from the library.”
I giggled. “Stevenson?”
Portia nodded.
Stevenson was the most notorious bookwyrm in Moonshine Hollow. When he was not tending to books or looking for the next snack, he was known for his prankster ways.
“I will have to thank him.”
“We’ve promised him grognuts at the reception,” Portia replied.
I giggled.
“And, not to alarm you, but it occurred to me that you might not know about the orcish tradition of seven drinks,” Portia added.
“Seven drinks?”
Portia nodded, then continued. “It’s a bit like a loving cup that elves use in their weddings, but instead of a simple sip, there are seven drinks. Before you can be pronounced man and wife, you must make seven proclamations, and with each one, take a drink.”
“She should be okay for seven sips,” Emmalyn said. “I mean, Juniper is a teetotaler, but?—”
“It’s orcish bogshine.”
The room erupted in a chorus of “ohhs.”
I cringed. Orcish bogshine was a heavy-alcohol drink that orcs often drank as a rite of passage when they came of age. Bogshine not only made one extraordinarily drunk, but one was often said to speak in tongues. Orcish shamans often interpreted these ramblings to predict the future of the one imbibing. That was fine for orcs, but not humans.
“Small sips,” Emmalyn told me. “Very, very small.”
“And more bread,” Rosalyn added, setting a basket in front of me. “A lot more.”
After breakfast, complete with so much bread that I hoped Zelda’s dress still fit, I made my final preparations.
Zelda slipped the dress over my head, the satiny fabric slipping down my body and falling into place with ease. The gown had been masterfully crafted. When I caught my reflection in the mirror, it took my breath away.
“Oh, Juniper,” Portia whispered. “You look like a poem.”
The others chimed in then with their compliments, but I heard them just out of range. I stared at myself in the mirror. I was a bride. I was getting married. The gown with the beautiful lace and beadwork, the flower designs, and the pale lavender color was perfection. The morning light shimmering through the window made the beads and crystals woven onto the gown shine. Even the small flowers looked like they were kissed with morning dew.
“I have a few tricks up my sleeve with this one,” Zelda told me. “But those will wait until later.”
“Tricks?” I asked.
“The nice kind,” Zarina assured me. “She saves the bad kind for my sisters and me.”
“Thank you, Zelda,” I told her, setting my hand on her arm. “It’s so beautiful.”
“And now for the rest,” Rosalyn said, a brush in hand. “Ready for pixie magic?”
I nodded.
The others began primping my hair and arguing over my makeup. Portia poured herself another cup of tea, settled into the corner chair, and pulled her book from her pocket once more. She raised and lowered her eyebrows at me in jest, then turned to her book.
“Come on, Pip,” Emmalyn told my mossy boy. “We need to get you fancied up too,” she said then led my dog from the room.
