Love & Serenity

Chapter 28

The fall festival was approaching fast and the residents of Burlington were anxiously waiting for the three-day festival to begin. The town was decorated with banners and fall festival decorations they'd used in their previous fall festivals and new ones. Pumpkins were placed in front of stores and on sidewalks along with seasonal flowers. The colour of the leaves on the trees and the smell of the autumn air mixed with the pumpkin put everyone in a more cheerful fall mood than their usual mood.

Lillian and Jax worked closely for the next couple of days leading up to the festival. Lillian was still waiting on Deidre to get back to her even though she had said she would the day after Lillian had mentioned it to her.

Lillian had prayed that Deidre would get back to her with good news and she believed that she would receive the good news but she was still waiting on Deidre for the final confirmation before she shared the news with others. No one had approached her about it or asked if they should have a backup just in case she wasn't able to come through, no one. That made her feel like she was trusted by the community. There was a moment of doubt only because she was scared that she won't be able to come through and end up breaking their trust but she trusted her God to come through for her.

"Is it weird that no one is worried that I won't be able to get the artist here?" Lillian asked Jax as they worked with the arrangement of the booths.

"No." Jax said, "They just trust you."

"That's what scares me." Lillian muttered.

"Hey," Jax straightened and turned to her, "No pressure. It's alright if it doesn't happen."

"But I told them I'd take care of it."

"And they know how next to impossible it is to get an artist to play here last minute."

Lillian nodded.

By God, it'll work out.
Lillian prayed in her heart.

The fall festival week was finally here and Burlington had guests who were staying over till the end of the three-day-long fest and lots of visitors from neighbouring towns.

The residents of Burlington had their own businesses to run as well as sections of the fest they had to oversee like the booths and contests which most of them were in charge of. Mindy and Hank stayed back at Mindy's as they were having a lot of customers, while Lillian attended to Mindy's booth with items from Mindy's as well as her signature blueberry muffins which were running out faster than she could have said muffin.

Davis had set up a section for adopting rescues which a lot of people and neighbouring towns had wanted to be a part of. Emily was in charge of the festival Queen and Princess contest. There were a lot of booths run by residents including Mrs Barry's Lemonade booth and other contests like pumpkin carving and sack race.

Everyone was assigned to a post and for Lillian, it was fun having to just be there and get a front-row experience of the whole thing. She was in the centre of it all and it was incredible.

"Enjoy the festival," Lillian said as she handed a bag of muffins to another visitor.

"Thank you." The visitor said with a smile and walked to the next booth that was filled with antiques.

Just then, Lillian's phone rang and she shot up in anticipation when she saw the caller's ID, she quickly answered the call.

"Well...?"

"I'm sorry, I wasn't able to convince him," Deidre said and Lillian's heart sunk. "I sent him the flier you mailed me and he said his family was important and he didn't want to miss spending time with them the only chance he got."