by Liz Kessler
But Annie was shaking her head. “No, you didn’t, Martin. You spared her nothing! You stunted her. How many times has she cried since you made the dream catcher?”
He looked at Robyn. She’d stopped pacing. She was standing in a corner of the room. “I haven’t cried once since then,” she said mechanically.
“You see?” Annie said. “You think that means she’s happy? You’re a fool, Martin! The tears are there. They’re inside her. If they never come out, she will never be able to leave them behind. What you did was far more dangerous than allowing her to have the nightmares she was due to have.”
Of course! The nightmares! The last piece of the jigsaw fell into place. “I had them!” I said. “I had the nightmares!”
All three of them looked at me, each face a picture of confusion.
“On my first night, I tried to open the window,” I said. “It was jammed. Because you’d sealed it so tight! I got it open in the end, but a piece of glass splintered off. It cut into something, and I brought it in.”
“The dream catcher,” Mr. Fairweather said.
“The glass had pierced it! Robyn’s dreams must have leaked out through the rip! The ones you sent her a year ago.” I turned to Robyn. “That’s why I recognized your mom. That’s why I woke up each morning feeling that my heart was broken,” I said. “I had your dreams!”
“The dreams my dad tried to stop me from having,” Robyn said.
Her dad went over to Robyn’s side. “Because I love you so much,” he said. Putting a protective arm around his daughter, he turned to Annie. “After everything my wife did for you, this is how you show your gratitude.”
Annie’s voice was steel. “Martin, there’s more than one way to show gratitude,” she said. Looking at Robyn, she said more softly, “Robyn, my dear, you will come to realize that in time, I promise you.”
The three of them were locked in some kind of battle — but I had other things on my mind, and I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Let her go,” I said to Mr. Fairweather. “Let Daisy go.”
He met my eyes. “It’s nearly a year,” he said. “I know what happens with anniversaries. The dreams are coming back. I’ve seen it. I’ve had them, too. Not as bad as last year, not yet. But they’re coming. I can tell.”
Mr. Fairweather stared vacantly ahead of him. “I hadn’t thought of the anniversary when we moved. I thought the worst was over and you wouldn’t get any more of those dreams. If I’d thought ahead, I’d have brought it with us. These last few nights when you started having bad dreams again, I began to wonder whether I could make a new one.”
His eyes shone with an intense glare, his voice passionate. I hadn’t seen him look this alive before. “And then what happens?” he asked. “The dream catcher comes back to me! Not only that, but with a butterfly alongside it to mend the rip and make it work again.” He grabbed Robyn’s hands. “It was fate, Robyn. Why else did I happen to be outside the shop just as she was there? I was meant to get the dream catcher back.”
I tried to swallow — but my throat was so tight, it felt as if I had a boulder inside it. “She’s my friend,” I said limply. “You can’t do it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, hanging his head. “I know it’s wrong. I know it is. I’ve always known it was wrong — I’m not an ogre, you know. Despite what you might think. It was all I could think of — the only way I could help my daughter.”
“Martin, you’re not helping her!” Annie snapped. “You’re holding her back, don’t you see? She has to go through it. It’s like — it’s like —” She looked wildly around the room, as though searching for something to make her point.
Her gaze reached the window, and she looked out. “That’s it,” she said. “It’s like — if there’s a river ahead of you, you can’t get to the other side by pretending it’s not there. You have to cross it. It’s the only way! The only way out of this is to go through it — for both of you. You have to let Robyn have her dreams!”
“And you have to give me Daisy back,” I added, the desperation hurting so much it was as if my insides were drying out and beginning to crack. “Please!” I held out my hand. “Please,” I said again.
Robyn softly touched her dad’s arm. “I understand why you did it,” she said. “And in a way, I think it was sweet of you. But Dad, what about the butterflies?”
“The fairies,” I corrected her.
“You’ve hurt them, Dad,” she said. “Daisy’s in a jar now. Dad, you have to let her go. It’s not fair.”
“But I have to fix the dream catcher — and I have a butterfly right here in the house! Just one wing would do it! I can’t bear to let you have those dreams again. How could that be any more fair?” he cried.
“Annie’s right, Dad. I have to go through it. We both do. And we’ve always got each other there to help.”
Mr. Fairweather turned to face the window. Looking out at the night sky, he finally mumbled in a quiet, choked voice, “The closet.”
Before he could say anything else, I’d flung the closet door open and started rifling through the clothes inside. Nothing. There was nothing there.
“Where? Where is it?” I screamed, panic setting my throat on fire. He didn’t reply. “Help me,” I said, pulling at coats and suits, hurling shoes out of my way.
A moment later, Robyn was beside me. “Philippa,” she said, pulling a blanket off a box. I stared at the box for a split second, then grabbed it and pulled its lid off.
There it was — the jar.
Inside, Daisy lay motionless. Even after I’d taken the lid off, she didn’t move. “It’s too late!” I cried, collapsing on to the floor and shouting at Mr. Fairweather. “She’s dead! You’ve killed her!”
Annie rushed over to my side. “Let me see.” She held the jar on its side, gently tipping Daisy into her palm. “Come on, little one,” she said softly. “You need to wake up now.”
“Please, Daisy,” I said, sobbing, “you can’t die!”
“She’s not dead,” Annie said. “Look at her wings.”
I looked at Daisy’s limp, motionless wings. “What about them?” I asked. “They don’t exactly look full of life.”
“When a fairy dies, the wings lose all their color. Then they shrivel and start to turn to dust. Look: Daisy’s still have their color. She’s just stunned and tired. I’m going to take her back with me to rest. I’ve got the best resources.” She turned to leave.
“Will you let us know what happens?” Robyn asked.
“She’ll be fine, honestly. Why don’t you girls both come over tomorrow?” She looked at Mr. Fairweather. “If that’s OK with your father,” she added.
He sat at his desk, shoulders hunched over. He didn’t reply.
I stared at Daisy, lifeless and still in Annie’s palm. “Please make her better,” I said, my voice choked and raw.
Annie smiled. “I’ll do my very, very best.”
And with that she left, and all we could do was stand in the darkness and wait.
I was up and dressed before it was even light. What time could I go to see Daisy? All I could think about was seeing her, and all I could do was pray she’d be all right.
I crept into Mom and Dad’s room and knelt beside the bed on Mom’s side. I knew she’d be slightly more likely to wake up.
“Mom,” I whispered loudly.
She grunted and twitched.
“I’m going out to see Robyn,” I said. Mom turned away from me. I stood up and leaned across her. “Is that OK?”
“Mmm,” she said.
I decided to take that as a yes. Closing their door softly behind me, I ran downstairs, stopping only to leave them a note on the kitchen table. Something told me Mom wouldn’t remember having a conversation with me. Then I ran around to the bookshop.
Robyn was looking out the window when I got there. She came straight out. I was relieved at that. I didn’t want to face her dad this morning — or ever again, if I had the choice.
“Come on,” she said, and we set off for the forest.
We walked most of the way there in silence — but it was one of the silences that felt OK. One where we were each wrapped up in our own thoughts, but where it was nice to have someone else nearby, thinking her own private thoughts at the same time.
The forest seemed quiet as we made our way to Annie’s house — as though it were lost in its own thoughts, too. When we got there, Robyn led the way up the path. And it was strange, but the path didn’t look scary today. I could still see the spiders’ webs lining the way up to her door, but the sunlight was glinting on them, lighting up tiny droplets of dew, and there was nothing to be scared of.
As I looked at them, I could see how carefully they were woven around the cocoons and chrysalides. Maybe spiderwebs had something to do with dream making. Perhaps that was where dreams were stored before they were delivered. Whatever they were, I couldn’t help marveling at the intricate, delicate structures — tiny miracles of construction. It was like Robyn had said: they were part of nature, and all of it was beautiful. I guess it just depended on how you looked at things.
Annie opened the door. “Come on in,” she said. “She’s just woken up.”
She led us through the room that I’d already seen in my dream. But then she opened another door into a small bedroom, and I forgot about the room, the dream — everything else.
“Daisy!” I said, rushing over to perch on the edge of the bed. She looked even paler than usual, but she managed to smile.
“You came to see me!” she said happily.
“Of course I came to see you! Where else would I want to be on the second to last day of my vacation?”
“Some vacation, huh?” she said with a grimace as she tried to sit up.
“Now, now,” Annie said, coming in behind me. “Today is pure rest. No sitting, standing, or flying allowed, right?”
Daisy nodded, and Annie went back out again, shutting the door behind her.
“Anyway, this trip worked out just fine for me,” I said. “I got to see you again! And I made a new friend at the same time.” I looked across at Robyn, and she shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe Philippa at first,” she said. “I thought she was making fun of me.”
“Philippa wouldn’t do that,” Daisy said. There was a slight sharpness to her voice. What was it? Protectiveness? Jealousy?
“No, I know that now. She’s a good friend.” Then she added, “You’re lucky to have each other.”
“We’ve all got each other now, haven’t we?” I said, nudging Daisy.
She shrugged. “I guess so,” she said reluctantly.
“I’m just really glad that Robyn has met you for real,” I went on. “So she can see for herself how amazing you are, and what a great friend you are, and how special it is that you’re a real, live fairy, and how she doesn’t need to doubt her belief in fairies anymore!”
Daisy looked at me for a moment. Then she said, “Mm, well, I guess I am pretty special, when you put it like that.”
“Exactly!” I said with a laugh. She tried to punch my arm but missed and started laughing, too. Robyn joined in as well, and soon we were all laughing together. It didn’t matter if we didn’t know what we were laughing at. It was the “together” bit that was important.
Without us saying anything, it was as though the ice had broken. Robyn sat down on the other side of the bed, and before long the three of us were swapping stories and secrets without taking a breath or caring about anything else. We talked about Daisy’s assignments at Triple D, about all the other butterflies she’d met, about what I’d been up to since we’d last seen one another, about Robyn’s mom and all the times that magical things had happened over the years without her realizing.
“It’s funny — there were so many of them,” she said. “At the time, there was always an explanation. Mom or Dad made sure of it. But now that I know the truth, it all fits together, and I can’t believe I didn’t know it all along!”
“There’s so much I still don’t understand,” I said as Annie came back in.
“Like what?” she asked, sitting down in the rocking chair in the corner of the room.
“Like how you make dreams, for a start! And have those spiderwebs got something to do with it?”
Annie smiled. “I’m afraid that’s not something I can share with you,” she said. “All I can say is this: Nothing is wasted. Not a sight or a sound or an emotion or a thought. Somewhere along the way, every little thing can be transformed into a dream, with the know-how, the apparatus, and a dash of fairy-godmother magic!”
“Wow,” I said, staring at her.
Annie laughed. “Anything else?”
“Yes, actually.” There was one last thing that still troubled me.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“How much did you have to do with the mission?” I asked.
Annie paused for what felt like ages. “I knew about you coming here,” she said eventually.
“You knew? You knew that Daisy came to our house?”
Annie nodded. “She was sent as part of a mission that I’m involved with.”
“But why did you want me to come here?” I asked.
Annie looked at me, then at Robyn. “You had to meet Robyn,” she said. “She needed someone like you.”
“Someone like me? What do you mean?”
Annie smiled. “I can’t tell you more.”
“So you arranged it all?”
Annie shook her head. “No, I was only a small part of it. I helped. I did everything I could to bring you together.”
“You got us to come to the shop, didn’t you? The leaflets — they were specially for us?” Then I remembered something else. “That day at your shop, you phoned Robyn. That was so we’d meet?”
Annie nodded.
“But why?”
“I really can’t tell you more. The assignment isn’t yet over. You’ll find out soon.” Annie glanced at Robyn, then looked away again.
Daisy struggled to hitch herself up a tiny bit in her bed. “But if you were involved, how come you didn’t know about the dream catcher?” she asked.
“Once the dreams have gone from me, I have no way of tracing them. That’s how it is. That’s simply how it works. I can’t hold on to dreams. There’s only one way you can do that — and that’s the way your father found.”
“With a butterfly’s wing,” Robyn said.
Annie nodded. “I always suspected something had happened, but I couldn’t prove it. It was only after Philippa brought the dream catcher into her room and you visited her there that it came back onto ATC’s radar.”
“So my breaking the rules was a good thing?” Daisy said.
Annie laughed. “As is often the way,” she said. Then she stood up. “Come on, now,” she said. “Enough. You two should leave. Daisy will be getting tired.”
Robyn and I groaned in unison. “We only just got here!” I said.
“It’s been well over two hours! Your parents will be wondering what’s happened to you!”
“Can we come back later?” I asked.
“Tomorrow,” Annie said. “Listen carefully. Meet me at the oak tree at noon. I’ll come with Daisy, OK?”
“OK,” I said. I leaned over to hug Daisy. Robyn shuffled forward, and they gave each other an awkward hug, too. “See you tomorrow,” I said.
“The oak tree,” Annie repeated. “Noon. Don’t be late,” she added. “There’s one last thing we have to do before this assignment is over.”
“This is it, then.”
“This is it. We did it.”
“Hold on. Let’s not count our bubbles before they’ve burst.”
“Near enough. One more day.”
“The most important day.”
“Absolutely.”
“The day it’s all been leading up to.”
“True. It could still go wrong.”
“You have tonight’s delivery for the
girl?”
“Ready and waiting to be collected.”
“And there’s nothing to stop it from getting there?”
“We’ve laid on a dragonfly team for protection.”
“Good. Then everything’s set. Let’s all get some sleep. We’ve got a very important assignment waiting for us tomorrow.”
Robyn pulled her coat closer around her as she kicked through the leaves. “I dreamt about my mom last night,” she said as we walked.
“Really? A bad dream or a good one?”
Robyn stopped walking. “It was horrible. All I wanted was to reach her. I could see her, but she was on the other side of a wall. It was so high, and I couldn’t get over it. She kept telling me not to try, that I should stay where I was, but I wanted to get to her. I was desperate.”
As she spoke, a tear slipped out of her eye. “Philippa, it was awful,” she said, wiping the tear from her cheek.
We walked on. As we walked, an occasional plop of rain began to drop around us.
“When I woke up, I thought I would break,” Robyn went on. “Physically, actually, break,” she said. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”
By now, tears were falling freely down her face. She ignored them and kept on walking. The rain was falling harder, too. I wrapped my coat more tightly around me, wishing I’d thought to bring an umbrella or a hat. It had been sunny when we got up this morning.
We turned onto a new path — and there it was, ahead of us: the oak tree. Its branches dead and spindly, empty of leaves, it still stood proud and defiant, taking its place in the forest like all the other trees.
“Philippa, I don’t know if I can do it,” Robyn said. She held on to my arm.
“Come on, I’ll be with you, and Annie,” I said. And Daisy, I added to myself. I still wasn’t sure about Robyn and Daisy. They’d gotten along OK yesterday, but I knew there was still some suspicion and jealousy between them.
We walked slowly toward the tree. They weren’t there yet. Robyn slumped onto the ground beside the tree, on wet twigs and muddy leaves. I sat down and joined her.
She pulled up her knees and hugged them. “I just miss her so much!” she said. “I can’t —” The rest of her sentence caught and broke as she dropped her head onto her arms and wept openly. “I can’t bear it!” she cried. “I can’t bear it!”
