"A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, a purer sapphire melts into the sea."

-Alfred Tennyson

All too soon, I had to get ready for work. Still irritated at the stubbornness of that man, I speedily put on my face. My hand moved in angry strokes while applying my makeup. The harder I tried to calm down, the angrier I got. The nerve of some people. Like I needed his chump change.

I don't quite know what made me so irrationally angry at the tip he gave me. Just yesterday, I was over-pouring his drink to get tipped. Was that only yesterday?

Maybe my anger stemmed from the fact that he had invaded my personal space or made fun of my kitty cat pajamas. Maybe my mom's prodding had gotten to me. Most certainly, his arrogance got under my skin. His attitude reminded me of the frat boys back at school who bragged about their inheritance and had irkful conversations comparing their trust funds.

If I were a cartoon, a lightbulb would have appeared over my head in that moment. My smile got Grinch-like as I formulated a plan. On the way out of the house, I scooped up my bag and pat my cat on the head, "He thinks he's so smart. We'll show him." She meowed curiously at me.

Right after that, I drove off with a smug satisfaction, determined to tell him to shove it. When I got to the bar, I opened my glovebox and pulled out an envelope, stuck the bill inside, and licked the flap to seal it shut.

My feet touched the ground, which was a short distance from the now open driver's side of my stationwagon. I opened the door to the bar, suddenly in a cheery mood. On the whiteboard behind the bar, I wrote in big letters, 'Raffle Tonight. Cash Prize For Winner.' That'll teach him to try to buy me.

Of course, I could have used the money to annoy everyone with my jukebox selections. Instead, I decided to take what the rich gave me and give to the poor alcoholic bastards that flocked to this watering hole. Whoever won would probably just use it to buy everyone a round but at least it'd make everyone's night.

"Just who's funding this raffle?" Grandfield stepped out of his office and eyed me with distrust. His ball cap hid his balding head. A faded Camel shirt gripped his midsection tightly. His belly hung unflatteringly over dark blue jeans.

I smirked, throwing my hand on my hip. "It appears we have a new patron with a loose coin purse."

"Ah, just how did you persuade him to part with his money?" He brought a frown to my face; I didn't much appreciate the implications in his tone.

"Nothing. He was all too happy to throw his money away. It's pocket change to him." I shrugged, playing it off like this had been my plan from the very beginning.

A plot formed in the boss's eyes, "Well, stay chummy with him so we can reap the benefits." Um, no thanks.

My eyes rolled. "I don't even have to try. He thinks he can buy me or something."

"Well, have your fun but don't let him buy you out of working for me! Who else is going to clean up this mess?" He huffed and puffed back to his office. Fine by me.

Absently, I wiped down the tables with a wet rag. Not long after I sunk into the menial chore, my vision was overcome by the enchanting world of faeries.

The tousled tendrils of her hair were absent of pigment, her eyes a stony grey. The sun beat down from above and a soft breeze reached out to touch my cheek. Here in this land, the air was thicker and warmer than it was yesterday.

She was still here, in the meadow, where she often came during my visits. Her hands glowed blue, stretched out above her. An aura exuded from all around her; it extended out to cover her garden, forming a field of protective energy. She mended the damaged plants with her magic, reversing all signs of destruction from the storm.

She turned around to inspect some plants in the direction I was hiding amongst the trees so I crouched low to remain undetected. I got a better look at her teal, long-sleeved A-line dress, that which the bottom half was comprised of puffy layers of tulle. If your eyes made their way down her long, pale legs, they'd reach the red ballet slippers laced halfway up her calves.

Once done with her spell, the color coiled back into her hair, her eyes darkened, and her tattoos faded away. The luminous energy coming from her hands dissipated and she looked like her normal self once more. She bent down and picked up a single dead flower, then retreated to the forest, a yard away from where I was obscured from view behind the foliage. Once she was far enough away, I trailed her through the trees, up the hill.

She climbed up a tree into a treehouse shaped like a globe. Mismatched stained-glass windows offset regular glass pane windows of all different shapes and sizes and colors. Sun catchers hung in front of the windows. My breath quickened in exertion, as I climbed up a nearby tree to get a better look.

Inside her little home, I could spot a few houseplants—among them an ivy, a fern, and some delicate orchids. There were also plants I did not recognize among them. There were vines trailing along the layered wood siding. Colorful satchels hung from branches surrounding the treehouse. There were runes carved into the tree, covering it completely.

From the nearby tree, I witnessed her tying a string around the dead flower and hanging it in front of one of her many windows. A few minutes later, she climbed down from the tree and retreated to the forest. Once she was out of sight, I came down from my hideout.

Curiosity got the better of me. My fingers gripped the rope ladder as I ascended up to her home. Upon, entering her domain, I was in awe. All around me was a vast collection of baubles and whatzamajigs filling the space of the dome. The light cast upon the room from the many-colored windows was as pretty as a picture.

Surprisingly, the wooden floor that my feet stepped on was flat. The spherical home was divided horizontally in half. The rope ladder had led me to the top story. There was a space in the floor that I discovered after further investigation led to a cozy area with a cot and lots of comfy pillows and quilts piled up on it. I closed the hatch leading to the bedroom since I doubted I'd find anything useful down there.

On the main floor, there were all sorts of pretty rocks, a giant shell from a beach, glass vials filled with various colors of liquids, many houseplants, and a rack of dresses. Woven rugs littered the floor. There was a tiny wood stove with a tea kettle on one of the two burners. Kitchen utensils and dried herbs hung from above it. The stove vent led outside through the roof, on the side of the house facing away from the tree.

There was a little table by the stove. On top of it were two fancy linen placemats, each set with a plate, bowl, silverware and a porcelain tea cup. In the center of the table, there was a strawberry plant and a pot of succulents.

Light shone in from the western windows to illuminate a desk. Atop it sat a large, feathered quill and bottles of ink, next to tons of parchment. I approached the desk and opened a roll of paper but could not read the words written on it, though the characters of the foreign language seemed familiar.

Some unknown force compelled me to open a drawer of the desk. What was inside startled me. I picked up the trinket and held it up to the light. The dainty chain showcased a spectacular sapphire that shone in the multicolored rays filtering in from outside. This was the amulet from my daydream yesterday! I slipped it around my neck and closed my eyes.

Upon opening them, I was back in the mundane world. Grandfield waved his hand in front of my face. "Helllloooo. You've been wiping down the same table for ten minutes. You have a customer. Get to work!"

I blinked rapidly then headed towards the bar in a daze. My favorite regular sat at one of the bar stools. "Sorry, Eva." I made her a screwdriver tout de suite.

"What did you see?" she asked nonchalantly. Her eyes betrayed her disinterested tone; she peered at me eagerly through her cat eye glasses. Her short, mousy brown hair laid in disarray.

"Huh?" She placed me in the same level of crazy as her now? Ha! My overactive imagination was in no way similar to the voices in her head.

A niggling fear inside made me doubt myself, so I mentally punched that feeling in the face.

Her features drew into a puzzled expression. "You look like you saw a ghost."

Well, she wasn't that far off. I tried to shrug off her inquiry, "I was just lost in thought." She pursed thin lips stained cherry red.

I reached across my chest, where the amulet had been moments before, only it wasn't there. Without it, I suddenly felt empty.

Eva pulled a cleaning cloth from the breast pocket of her burnt umber cardigan. She had on a modest, mustard yellow, button-down dress on underneath. She removed her glasses to wipe away the smudges. I'd never before noticed the gorgeous green shade of her eyes behind the glare of her glasses. She replaced the cloth and put her glasses back on.

When she did that, sparkly gemstones on a simple chain worn on her wrist caught my eye. In the center of the bracelet was a butterfly with golden wings. She caught me staring at it and laughed lightly. "Butterflies," she mused. "Butterflies and their web of lies." Her eyes gave that telltale sign of a crazy-spell coming on.

Nevertheless, I humored her even though, honestly, I was not much in the mood for it. "Web of lies? Wouldn't that be spiders, not butterflies?"

She shook her head, determined that she had a golden nugget of wisdom buried somewhere in this convoluted train of thought. "At least you know that spiders are tricky. A spider's nature isn't hidden. You see a spider and you quake in fear as you swat at it with a shoe. You put its life to an end because it is a creepy crawly and you know it could bite you so you kill it before it can. Even if it is not venomous, the threat of the spider sends terror to your heart."

She took a large gulp of her vodka and OJ before going on with this rant. "Ah, but butterflies! No one thinks twice about a majestic butterfly. A person is in awe when a butterfly lands on them. There beauty is renowned! But it is the butterfly that you have to watch out for. No, not the butterfly...but the butterfly that is not a butterfly at all! Butterflies and their lies." At this point, she started to sound like a madwoman so I refilled her glass and let her carry on with her delusions.

The bell chimed and customers trickled in a few at a time. I served them their drinks in a daze. The raffle held less amusement for me after that vision. I wanted to be back there more than ever.

Full of hope, I closed my eyes… only to reopen them to the dark, smoky Cornhusk Cavern. Great. "I'll be right back." I picked up two empty buckets, one in each hand, and carried them past the swinging door to the ice machine. I used a big metal scooper to dump ice into each bucket, my movements a little more forceful and frantic than necessary.

In an attempt to calm my nerves, I blew out a huge breathe and focused on the weight of the buckets as I carried them back to the drink cooler. I topped off the big metal standby cooler with ice and restocked the beers, choosing the beer brands by the regulars that were there so I didn't have to go digging for their favorite beverage.

My new neighbor startled me by suddenly approaching my bar. His words clued me in a bit too abruptly as to his presence. "So, what is this about a raffle?" I nearly jumped out of my skin, which in turn caused my cheeks to blaze scarlet. I was so out of it.

He was standing there, gesturing to the board, and looking a bit too amused for my liking. I took a brief pause to mentally smooth down my ruffled feathers, so that I could smugly reply, "Thanks for your generous contribution, sir."

To my surprise, he just played along. "How do I enter?" He was dressed more casually today in a white tee, cuffed blue jeans, shiny black dress shoes with long red dress socks, and a bomber jacket—a look straight out of the 50s.

"You need to buy two drink chips to enter." Was I a good salesperson or what?

He pulled his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans and handed me fifty dollars. "I'll take ten of those drink chips, please." I eyed him suspiciously but said nothing. The register dinged when I opened it to put his money inside. I returned with his change and five custom poker chips, black and gold with an ear of corn displayed in the center of them. I know, corny. Almost as corny as that joke.

I ripped five tickets off of the wheel laying on the bar counter in front of him. "Write your name on the back of those to enter." I handed him a pen and the tickets. He scribbled on the back of the tickets then dropped them through the aperture on top of the makeshift ticket box I had reached out towards him.

While I was getting his change, he removed his jacket and now his arm was exposed so that a sick tat was visible. On the back of his forearm, the hilt of a sword extended from his elbow. There was a cornflower blue strip of fabric banded around the grip. Above the blade, in place of the cross-guard, an image of the eye of Horus was featured, its iris colored green. The line under his eye came down to mark the blade and the tip of the sword reached down to his wrist. "Whoa, sweet tattoo."

"Thank you, toots." His stupid blue eyes twinkled.

"Don't call me that," I scolded. On the bright side, the boss would be in a good mood tonight, I thought. What with all the money he'd be making.

The foolish man across the bar from me simpered. "Now we wait?"

"Now we wait." He held out one of the liquor chips. The beer chips, on the other hand, were black and silver.

I took the chip from his extended hand. "Same as last time?" He nodded. I brought his drink to him promptly. "Here you go, neighbor." My customer service tone was at half-power today.

His amusement siphoned off as he really took me in. "Are you okay?" he inquired in a hushed tone. "You seem off."

I am not quite sure what possessed me to share my thoughts with this frustrating man but I did. Perhaps Eva would have been a better person with whom to discuss this particular topic. Since she was currently zoned out and talking to herself in a seat a little ways down the bar, I settled for him. I took in a breath before spilling the beans, glossing over certain details of course. "Yeah, so I had a...dream. A very realistic dream that shook me." His eyes showed interest and didn't seem to mock me so I felt safe to continue. "I found a...necklace with a large sapphire dangling from its chain."

For some reason or another, he took a little too much interest in this simple sentence. "I see. Where was this necklace?"

After a little hesitation, I decided to go on. "Well, in my dream, I was in a treehouse in the woods where a faerie lived, by a meadow with a little stream and black saddle mushrooms." I cleared my throat when I realized I had begun to overemphasize the flora. "Anyway, I opened a desk drawer and it was tucked away in there. It made me feel...oh, I don't know." I didn't want to share too much. After all, I've never told anyone about my faerie. Plus, I sounded like a moron.

He ignored the last part and instead asked, "What did the faerie look like?"

It made me a little nervous sharing the description of my faerie. I wrung the rag that I used to wipe tables down back and forth in my hands as I described her. "She has wild black hair and pale skin. Her eyes are dark brown and shaped like almonds. She has gossamer wings." I smiled a little to myself as I shared my favorite detail, "She wears a necklace of dandelions."

His bar stool screeched across the floor as he hurriedly got up. He grabbed his jacket, slammed a twenty down, and abandoned his drink.

"Where are you going all of a sudden?" My tone was incredulous.

"Let me know how the raffle turns out!" He practically ran out the door. I scoffed and decided to add the twenty to the raffle winnings. I placed it underneath the sealed envelope, which I had placed by the register. Men.

"Hey, barkeep! Another drink over here!" Ralph's toupée danced when he got worked up. He sounded angry so I hopped to it to bring him another beer before we had a wardrobe malfunction on our hands.

The night dragged on and eventually I felt as though I had sold enough drinks so I clanked a fork against a glass speech-style and announced that it was time to draw the winner. "Who wants the honors of pulling out the winning ticket?"

I moved out of Grandfield's way as he stepped forward and removed the lid from my ticket box. A smile spread across his big ugly face. "I see you sold lots of drinks tonight, Ames." That was the closest he'd ever given me to a compliment. I imagined him as Mr. Krabs with dollar signs in his eye balls, pulling the money out of the cash register and sniffing the sweet smell of profit.

He closed his eyes and mixed up the tickets with a beefy, pink hand as all the spectators held on to the edge of the bar probably all praying internally for the cash prize. Except for Eva, who seemed to be carrying on a conversation with her screwdriver.

He picked out one lucky ticket and read the name aloud.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." I murmured, horrified.

Ralph slammed down his beer angrily. "Fuck this!" He left the bar in a huff.

The boss patted me on the back a little too forcefully. "Congratulations, Ms. Ames. Don't spend it all in one place!" As if there were places in town to spend it.

"But I didn't even enter..." I trailed off. Then, it hit me. "Him!" I exclaimed in anger. He didn't write his name down on his five tickets. He wrote mine!

After awkwardly trying to recover from my little outburst, I spent the rest of my shift fuming as I completed my closing duties. I bought myself a whole bottle of whiskey before locking up. Sure, it was more expensive than just going to a liquor store...except there was no liquor store in town. So, I headed home with my spoils and the remainder of my riches and, after dinner with mom, drank myself into a dreamless sleep. I didn't even think to kick my jeans off and soon passed out on the bed fully clothed on top of the covers.

At some point in the middle of the night, I was woken by a flash of light and a figure looming over my bed. I jolted out of bed to pursue the dark figure running out of my room. "Get back here!" I flipped on my light switch but—"What the..."

No one was there. I scratched my head, confused. I must have drank more than I thought. My head was pounding. I decided to turn on my lamp for light because I was freaked out, so I turned on my heel to my nightstand. I tripped and pricked my finger on something. Ouch.

I grumpily got up, agitated by the pain, and flipped on the lamp.

No way. There, on my nightstand, was...the amulet. The amulet with the big freaking sapphire and the dainty white gold chain. The amulet that I had seen twice now in my daydreams. This was not possible!

Sleepily, I rubbed my eyes, expecting it to disappear like the figure had a moment before. But it was still there. It shocked me when I touched it. It was tangible.

My jaw dropped to the floor. I shoved it in the drawer of my nightstand and crawled back under my covers, hoping it would dematerialize by morning. Sleep did not come easy since I spent the next long moments resisting the urge to touch that drawer again but eventually I succumbed once again to slumber, thanks to my dear friend alcohol.

The amulet was suspended in midair. In this moment, it seemed to be an entity with its own will. I stood there with my mouth hanging open in awe at the sight of it. Then, it took off, soaring through the air. I picked up the pace to keep up with it, breaking into a sprint as it flew across a meadow covered with tall grass, black-eyed Susans, butterfly weed, and many other plant species. There was an abundance of gorgeous wildflowers here but what caught my eye was the dew distilled on emerald green carnations, which sparkled like jewels by the light of the rising sun as mist blanketing the meadow dissipated.

In the middle of the field of flowers was a plain, pale blue door with a brass doorknob. It was the door to my room. I turned the knob and pulled the door open to discover that through the door was darkness. I gulped, afraid to walk through. Despite my fears, I followed the amulet through the door.

As I set foot on the other side, my bare feet touched warm sand. I raised up my arm to shelter my eyes from the sun. The bright light on this side of the door was shocking. The amulet continued on towards the waves that kissed the shore. I followed, eyes adjusting to my new surroundings.

With each step I took, the sun sunk a little further down in the sky. By the time I reached the shoreline, it was setting. My toe touched the cold water and a pier materialized before me. I climbed the few steps onto the pier and followed the amulet down the wooden planks. The sky continued its time-lapse as I ventured to the end of the pier. The necklace hovered above the water; the moon was now at its apex in the sky.

The sapphire melted into the sea. I fell on my hands and knees and peered into the reflection on the water. I did not see myself staring back at me but instead the faerie with the pale skin and the pitch hair.

I reached out a little too far and fell into the water. Fish swam around me while my body sank down deeper and deeper until I reached a swirling portal and then I fell through that as well. I expected to keep falling but instead emerged from a mirror in a dark room.

In the middle of the room was a cozy cot, piled with pillows and quilts. Underneath the covers was a figure sleeping soundly, softly snoring. Above the bed were several painted portraits of the resident of this treehouse, each of her embracing a different woman. None of the women looked alike but, from what I could tell, they were all beautiful. I squinted, then crept quietly towards her to get a better look.

Every single portrait had one detail in common. The women next to her were all wearing the amulet.

I gasped in surprise at this. I looked down at the faerie. Her long black hair fell messily around her face. She looked so peaceful. Then, my eyes met hers and I jolted awake.