Kisses

Simmer down, Shmoopsters—we're talking about platonic kisses here, not the lovey-dovey kind. What do kisses have to do with magical creatures? A bunch if you're specifically talking about fairies, apparently.

We first see kissy behavior when Kendra's fairy army rushes in to do battle with Muriel's imps and other monsters. What happens is pretty trippy:

Many of the fairies cast their weapons aside and soared straight at the imps, catching them in vicious embraces and kissing them on the mouth. In radiant bursts of sparks, every imp that was kissed transformed into a human-sized fairy! (18.61)

Whoa—that's something, right? It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase the power of love—or more like the power of a kiss, as the case may be. The fairies definitely don't seem to be approaching the imps with love what with their "vicious" embraces and all.

Our next example of kisses-as-transformative comes when the fairy Seth transforms into an imp gets turned back into a fairy. She sees Seth, who's become a grotesquely old man while captured, and decides to take pity on him:

She leaned forward and kissed Seth on the forehead. His wrinkles smoothed and his hair filled in until he promptly looked like himself again. (18.79)

This is probably the only time in the history of the world that an eleven-year-old boy hasn't complained about being kissed because ew girls—but it's also probably safe to say that most eleven-year-old boys would do whatever necessary to not look like old men.

Finally, when all the demon-binding is complete, the human-sized fairies kiss Kendra to revert themselves back to fairy-size:

As each kiss was bestowed, the fairy reverted to her former size amid dazzling sparks and darted away. (18.116)

So there is something truly magical about kisses, something that enacts a transformation—and when it comes to kissing Kendra in order to revert back to their usual selves, the steady stream of kisses transforms Kendra for good. Check it out:

The rapid succession of kisses brought overpowering sensations. Again Kendra smelled the earthy aromas of the Fairy Queen—rich soil and young blossoms. She tasted honey and fruit and berries, all sweet beyond comparison. She heard the music of rainfall, the cry of the wind, and the roar of the sea. She felt as if the warmth of the sun were embracing her, flowing through her. (18.116)

Here we see there's something truly magical about fairy kisses, something connected to nature—and Kendra is connecting to all of this too. We're not sure exactly what's going on here, but Kendra becomes attuned to the magic around her in a way that no other human is afterward—she no longer needs to drink the milk to see the creatures—so kisses definitely stand apart as something special. And by receiving so many, Kendra emerges as pretty special too.