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The Fairy Festival of East Prawle was a huge deal.

Not just for the kids – both local and holidaying – who got treats and games for the full day, but also for the grown-ups who could enjoy the fancy dress party on the same night.

The pub had a huge gig space out the back, a converted hay barn with a good sound system and a permanently sticky floor, perfect for a boozy rave.

Temperance had fallen into a slight rut of going as a crystal-ball-reading kind of fairground witch the last few years, all layered skirts and a belt with shiny little medallions, silk scarfs tied in her hair.

It was easy to throw on, but Temperance also got a perverse thrill from hiding in plain sight amongst all her friends and neighbours.

Plus, it was great for business at Try Again.

Stevie had sold a particularly gorgeous seventies tan suede jacket with fringing down the arms that one lucky teen planned to wear as a Space Cowboy.

Temperance’s homemade fairy wings (made from old tights and wire coat-hangers) had been snapped up by a gang of Scottish blokes who argued over who got to be the green fairy .

The till was full, the ‘Closed’ sign had been flipped around and now Temperance, Stevie and Susie were enjoying a few beers and a well-earned wind-down on the shop floor.

Susie nipped into the back and returned with their last four beers and a dusty bottle of Malibu. ‘It’s not exactly top drawer stuff but after a busy day we deserve something with some backbone, so this will have to do.’

Stevie twisted open the bottle and took a sniff. ‘That stuff smells like . . . lip gloss?’

‘Mmmm delicious, boozy lip gloss!’ Susie laughed.

Temperance cracked opened a can. ‘Malibu makes people do stupid things. I’ll stick to beer while it’s going. Did I see you get the lime green fairy’s Snapchat, Suse?’

‘Wasn’t it Magenta I was talking to? Ah well, we’ll sort it all out on the dance floor tomorrow.’ She raised one eyebrow. ‘Where you will be dominating in the sexy little costume we’re going to find you . . .’

‘Magical,’ Stevie said, and the sisters’ heads whipped round to her on the same beat. ‘Or mythical, right?’

‘Um, yes. Right,’ Susie went on. ‘A mythical creature, but hot. Easy.’

‘And I’m guessing just throwing on a pointy hat wouldn’t cut it, right?’

‘Uh, no,’ Temperance laughed nervously.

‘Not to nerd out in my first week with you guys, but I actually did an entire paper on pointy hats in my history of fashion class. The whole ‘witch’ ensemble: black clothes, warty nose, ugly shoes. When you look at it through a feminist lens, it’s really telling about how that image was used make women fear being perceived as ugly or cruel or powerful, how that would lead to societal rejection.

Be pretty and sweet or it’s into the ducking pond with you! ’

Susie shivered.

‘OK. I have taken this to a weird place. Sorry.’ Stevie’s eyes flicked between the Molland sisters anxiously and she tried to rally.

‘Maybe I should just pay for my outfit before I’m fired.

’ She dug into the very far corner of a full-length rack at the back of the shop, and pulled out a hot pink lame catsuit.

‘Sorry that I hid it, but I knew it MUST BE MINE.’ She belted her last words out like a pantomime villain.

‘Frederica!’ Temperance breathed, the beers loosening up her inner monologue.

‘Huh?’ Stevie held the stretchy metallic number to herself. ‘Whoever Frederica is, I’ll fight her for it.’

Temperance shook her head. ‘No, that’s Frederica. Sometimes we get a piece in that’s so special that we have to give it a name. Especially when Frederica came with memories of falling in love with a backing dancer in the eighties.’

Stevie squinted. Suddenly her eyes seemed to sober up ahead of the rest of her. ‘How do you know so much about it?’

Temperance’s hands stilled on the glass counter. Susie paused, her beer an inch from her lips.

‘The thing . . . the thing is . . .’ Temperance cursed her own brain for floating about stupidly in so much alcohol.

‘The previous owner told us herself. Didn’t she, Temps? She was an oversharer , if you remember?’

‘Oh yes. Yes, that’s it. And of course you should have it! Employee discount included. You and Frederica will be very happy together.’ Temperance let go of a deep breath.

Stevie’s eyes flicked back and forth between the sisters before she shook her head and smiled once again.

‘Thanks! I was going to spray paint an ice cream cone for my head, pop on some ears and go as a Uni-kitty. Frederica, it’s nice to meet you.

’ Stevie shook one of the empty sleeves.

‘Let’s get you stashed away out the back, my pretty. ’ She bounced into the office.

‘You’re not off the hook,’ Susie sing-songed after the beer sloshed down her throat.

‘You need a jaws-on-the-floor look. A look to start the love affair of the century, as that’s what you always say you’re after.

Maybe a stranger walks through the door, your eyes will meet across the crowded dance floor and your bodies will talk the language of lurve.

’ She shimmied her shoulders and rolled her hips.

‘Or I get all dressed up, cram my vital organs into some Spanx, and spend the night being breathed on by all the usual suspects.’

‘I promise you, there are some really nice guys camping here at the minute. You could like them if you gave them a chance .’ Susie looked down her nose at Temperance and straight into her soul. The way only a sister could.

‘But what about the next day? All our neighbours seeing me . . . like that. I care about what they think, even if you don’t.’

‘I care. But I just don’t think it’s the worst thing in the world for them to know I have a heartbeat. And genitals.’

‘Sarah!’ Stevie screamed from the other side of the wall.

‘No: Susie, but close.’

Stevie’s faced popped around the doorframe, her cheeks flamingo pink. ‘I’ve found Sarah!’ With an almighty rustle, she held the wedding dress up to her chin. The wedding dress that had the sisters seeing deep purpley-blue blasts of all-consuming love.

‘Why on Earth is that a Sarah?’

‘Sarahhhhhhh,’ Stevie put on a gravelly monster voice.

‘ Sarahhhhh!’ Her eyebrows shot to her hairline and she waddled towards them with the dress pressed to her front, about as easy to shift as a dead body in a carpet.

‘ Labyrinth . The movie?! David Bowie. Awakening pre-teen sexual desires everywhere?! And the big hairy monster dude that’s really sweet?

Sarahhhhh . Come on, you gotta see it!’ She thrust the layers of crunchy silk forwards.

‘Oh!’ Susie fumbled for her phone. ‘I do see it! The dreamy ballroom bit, in the bubble, and suddenly she’s waltzing about in this big, massive .

. . this !’ Susie puffed up one of the layers of skirts.

Luckily, Stevie didn’t pick up on the fact that she swooned for about thirty seconds before recovering and starting to type on her phone.

‘See?’ She held up the results to Temperance, showing countless stills of Jennifer Connelly in the classic movie.

‘If I scrunch up my eyes, I kind of . . . get the gist.’

Susie grinned. ‘It just needs some fake pearls swagged along just so. Tease up the hair. And I think it would fit her perfectly.’

‘Wait – fit who?!’ Temperance blinked.

‘Stevie, would you grab my sewing kit, please, doll?’

Stevie gave a salute and disappeared again, leaving the dress half-standing on its own on the polished wood floor.

‘I can’t wear that,’ Temperance whispered. ‘I’ll be high as a kite the whole time!’

‘Oh how awful,’ Susie deadpanned, ‘you’ll be full of pure love at a party.’ Her lips pursed. ‘Besides, have a little fairy fest mead beforehand and you’re good – you know alcohol dulls our magic. Yet another reason to get into the party spirit and let go for once.’

Temp’s eyes flicked down to her sister’s phone screen. ‘You think I could pull it off?’

Susie grabbed her by the shoulder. ‘You would be the ultimate fairy princess bewitched by the Goblin King. The only way if it could be more perfect if is an actual Goblin King in tight jodhpurs rocked up after you, but one thing at a time, hey.’

Temperance snorted through her nose. ‘That would be on brand for me and my sucky dating life. I’ll finally find The One and he’ll turn out to be a dodgy underworld despot. Who snatches random babies and randomly bursts into song.’

Susie lowered one eyebrow. ‘But Bowie – you would, right?’

‘Oh every day I would.’

When Stevie and Susie finished glue-gunning on a ton of extra lace, pearl trimming and looping floaty pastel scarves through Temperance’s hair, Stevie dotted some glitter on her cheekbones for the final touch.

By now, Temperance had finished her beers and begrudgingly moved onto the Malibu, swigging it while she played mannequin. The hug of true love sneaking past her alcohol-numbed power had given her a goofy kind of daze, enjoying the moment too much to think about the consequences.

Susie looked at her watch. ‘Shit. It’s almost tomorrow!’

‘Midnight! The witching hour!’ Stevie cackled drunkenly.

‘You’re going to think I’m nuts, but where I’m from – Massachusetts – we are kind of witch-obsessed.

I must have seen The Craft more times than is healthy.

That’s why I think I keep trying to work them into my history studies.

’Temperance flopped down onto the changing room stool, the magical energy of the dress rushing to her head and making her feel briefly dizzy.

She pressed her hand to the silk bodice tightly, as if she could push the little roses and lace trims into her own being and carry them with her forever.