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Table of Contents
All About Fairies
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Myka Finds Her Way Chapter 1
A Masterpiece for Bess
Tink, North of Never Land
Silvermist and the Ladybug Curse
IF YOU HEAD toward the second star on your right and fly straight on till morning, you’ll come to Never Land, a magical island where mermaids play and children never grow up.
When you arrive, you might hear something like the tinkling of little bells. Follow that sound and you’ll find Pixie Hollow, the secret heart of Never Land.
A great old maple tree grows in Pixie Hollow, and in it live hundreds of fairies and sparrow men. Some of them can do water magic, others can fly like the wind, and still others can speak to animals. You see, Pixie Hollow is the Never fairies’ kingdom, and each fairy who lives there has a special, extraordinary talent.
Not far from the Home Tree, nestled in the branches of a hawthorn, is Mother Dove, the most magical creature of all. She sits on her egg, watching over the fairies, who in turn watch over her. For as long as Mother Dove’s egg stays well and whole, no one in Never Land will ever grow old.
Once, Mother Dove’s egg was broken. But we are not telling the story of the egg here. Now it is time for Queen Clarion’s tale….
“LOOK OUT, PRILLA! Wheeeee!” Fira, a light-talent fairy, called. She whizzed past Prilla and accidentally clipped her wing. It sent Prilla into a spin. Prilla cartwheeled through the air and laughed with joy.
It was a sunny, windy day in Pixie Hollow. Unruly breezes had started up that morning, eager to tease and play. “I’m having a hard time steering in this wind!” Fira cried as a gust blew her away. “So I’m not even trying anymore.”
Prilla righted herself by catching a branch. She looked up. The weather-talent fairies flew their weather kites high overhead. The kites were made of leaves woven together and covered with a thick layer of mica paint. The mica made the huge leaf kites look like glittering diamonds in the sky. Prilla loved watching them climb and dive.
Every once in a while, one of the kites escaped and careened through the sky. It darted, dashed, and swooped before finally coming to rest, caught in the branches of a tree. Other wayward kites flew up, up, and away—never to be seen again.
Prilla struggled to fly against the wind. She flapped her wings as hard as she could. But the bouncy gusts seemed to lift her up, push her back, and thrust her forward, all at the same time.
Prilla decided to stop trying. It was wearing her out. Why not just let the breeze take her for a ride, as it had with Fira? Prilla put one hand on top of her acorn hat to keep it from blowing off, and opened her wings. She coasted along a few feet above the ground.
“Coming through!” she heard a sparrow man say as he tumbled past her—backward. The wind had captured him like a kite.
The breeze changed direction and created a little funnel. Prilla and the sparrow man blew around each other in a circle. The sparrow man grinned.
“I’m trying to get to the fairy-dust mill,” he said. “But I’m not having much luck. It’s too hard to fly today. I think I’ll walk instead.”
Usually, fairies didn’t walk if they could fly. But there were lots of fairies on the ground today.
The sparrow man folded his wings behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. He slid gracefully to the ground, then hiked off.
“Good luck!” Prilla cried after him.
Prilla turned a few backward somersaults above the ground. The added boost from the wind sent her spinning again.
She caught a branch and brought herself to a stop. Maybe I could ride the breezes on my stomach, she thought. She turned over and discovered that she could. She bounced through the air with her chin resting on her folded arms.
Prilla watched the ground below with interest. She saw three baking-talent fairies hurrying toward the Home Tree kitchen to start the pastries for afternoon tea. She also saw Bess, an art-talent fairy. Bess was struggling to carry a large painting toward her studio. The painting acted like a sail in the breeze. Bess went flying off in the opposite direction, giggling.
Then Prilla saw Queen Clarion walking briskly toward Lily’s garden. Prilla loved watching Queen Clarion. She was so beautiful and graceful—and just a bit mysterious.
What is it like to be a queen? Prilla wondered. Is it hard or easy? What does the queen think about as she goes around on her daily business?
As Prilla watched, Queen Clarion paused outside the low fence that circled Lily’s garden. The queen looked left and right. She glanced back over her shoulder. Then, as quick as lightning, Queen Clarion reached over the fence and snapped something from a bush. She thrust the object into her pocket. Lowering her head against the breeze, she walked away.
Prilla looked for the queen’s attendants. The queen never went anywhere without at least two. Today, though, Queen Clarion seemed to be alone.
Maybe her attendants stayed indoors because of the wind, Prilla thought.
Prilla decided that she would ask the queen if she wanted company. She blushed happily at the idea of walking side by side with Queen Clarion. What an honor that would be!
But just as Prilla was about to land, a shadow crossed the ground in front of her. She looked up and her eyes widened. A huge bird was soaring across the sky. It was unlike any bird Prilla had ever seen. The bird was as colorful as a parrot, but it was much longer. Its wingspan was as wide as an eagle’s.
The bird traveled so fast that it left a multicolored streak in the sky behind it. Prilla felt a shiver of fear. A bird so big and fast could be dangerous to fairies. She would have to warn the queen.
But when she looked back, Queen Clarion was gone.
PRILLA LOOKED IN every direction. She scanned the ground and the air. Queen Clarion was nowhere to be seen.
How could Queen Clarion have disappeared so fast? Prilla wondered. But before she could think another thing about it, a breeze at her back turned her over and over like a bottle in the surf.
She tumbled through the air toward the kite-flying field. There, weather-talent fairies struggled with the weather kites.
Some of the kites were taller than five fairies and wider than six sparrow men. It took whole teams of fairies to control them. To Prilla, it looked like hard work, but the weather fairies enjoyed it.
Prilla folded her wings behind her, crossed her arms over her chest, and slid to the ground beside a row of fairies wrestling with a kite. She landed behind the last sparrow man. They needed help. She grabbed the rope with both hands and felt the fierce pull of the kite.
“Have you seen Queen Clarion?” Prilla shouted to the sparrow man. Her voice could barely be heard over the whipping, snapping, and rushing sound of the kites.
The sparrow man shook his head. “Not today,” he shouted back. “We’ve had our hands too full to notice anything or anybody.” He smiled. “Wonderful, isn’t it? This is the windiest day we’ve had in years. It’s a da
y for the record books.”
At the far end of the field, a group of weather fairies charted the direction and speed of the winds. They made careful notes in their leaf-page notebooks.
The sparrow man continued, “Down here, the breeze blows in all directions. It creates crosswinds and drafts.” He jutted his chin upward, drawing Prilla’s attention to a high-flying kite straining against its line. “But when you get higher up you can see the wind is blowing south. That’s unusual for this time of year.”
They heard a loud whoop followed by laughter. On the other side of the field, one of the kites went barreling across the sky with three fairies hanging on to its tail.
It looked like wonderful fun to Prilla. Everybody else seemed to think so, too. Fairies came running from all directions to line up for a ride on a kite tail.
Prilla longed to ride a kite tail, too. But she was too curious about the queen to stick around. So she wished the weather-talent fairies luck, let go of the line, and allowed the breeze to tumble her along.
Within moments, she found herself at the Home Tree. Prilla looked down and saw that she was right over Queen Clarion’s apartments. Maybe the wind had blown the queen back to the Home Tree, too!
Inside the queen’s chambers, Prilla found Queen Clarion’s attendants. Cinda and Rhia were tying dust covers across chairs. Lisel and Grace struggled to close the curtains. The curtains snapped loudly in the wind. “Is the queen here?” Prilla shouted.
At last, Lisel pulled the curtains shut. “Are you here for an appointment?” she asked, while Grace wrestled with the ties. Without waiting for an answer, Lisel hurried to a large book on the desk. “I can’t imagine where the queen is,” she muttered. “She missed two appointments this morning. She must have forgotten.”
Grace finished tying the curtains and turned to Prilla. “Sometimes we get so busy keeping track of the queen’s schedule,” she said with a laugh, “we forget to keep track of the queen!”
Should I tell Lisel and Grace that I saw the queen by Lily’s garden? Prilla wondered. Then she remembered the way Queen Clarion had glanced over her shoulder. Maybe she didn’t want to be kept track of, Prilla thought. Was it possible that the queen was off on some secret business that she didn’t want her attendants to know about?
“That’s okay,” Prilla said quickly. “I didn’t really have an appointment. I just…umm…thought I’d stop by. It’s not important.”
Prilla hurried away before anyone could ask her more questions. Whatever the queen was doing, she would surely be back in time for tea.
But at teatime, Queen Clarion was still nowhere to be seen. The tearoom was full of chattering fairies enjoying orange-peel cookies and lots of other goodies. Prilla felt too uneasy to enjoy anything.
She sipped her tea. But her throat was so tight it was hard to make the tea go down. A queen shouldn’t go around alone, Prilla thought. Anything could happen. She could be attacked by a hawk or a pirate or a wasp. Or…or she could even die of disbelief.
When a child anywhere in the world stopped believing in fairies, a fairy faded away. Disbelief was the worst thing that could happen to a fairy. But Prilla could save a fairy from disbelief. It was her special talent. In the blink of an eye, Prilla would travel to the mainland and ask children to clap to show that they believed. If enough children clapped, they could save a fairy’s life.
Prilla’s breath caught in her chest. Was it possible that the queen needed saving?
Stop being silly, Prilla told herself. Queen Clarion was very sensible. She took an interest in every part of fairy life. She had probably gone to check on the dairy-mouse barn or the fairy-dust mill. Flying against the wind, she could easily fall behind schedule.
Still, Prilla couldn’t help worrying. The sooner she found Queen Clarion, the sooner she could relax.
Prilla pushed what was left of her orange-peel cookie away. She would go to the dairy-mouse barn and the fairy-dust mill herself. She would keep looking all over Pixie Hollow until she found the queen.
When Prilla got to the mill, she found that the dust-talent fairies weren’t as happy about the visiting breezes as the rest of Pixie Hollow. Tarps woven out of leaves and pounded bark covered every bin and barrel of fairy dust.
The mill was a flurry of activity. The dust-talent fairies would get one batch of fairy dust covered with a tarp. Then the breeze would come along and whiffle it. Clouds of fairy dust flew everywhere.
Terence, a fairy-dust-talent sparrow man, hurried from bin to barrel. Prilla hated to bother him, but she tugged on the sleeve of his tunic anyway.
“Terence, have you seen Queen Clarion?” she asked.
Terence used a rock to hold a tarp down on top of a barrel. “No,” he said. “At least, I don’t think I have. I’ve been so busy with the mill that I don’t know who I have seen. Or who I haven’t.”
A gust of wind blew a barrel of dust over. The entire group of dust-talent fairies hurried to set it upright. They were determined to keep the dust from blowing away. Terence turned and went back to his work.
Prilla left the fairy-dust mill and hiked to the crown-repair workshop, the kitchen, and even Tinker Bell’s pots-and-pans-repair workshop. But everyone was busy, and no one had seen the queen.
Prilla sighed heavily. She spread her wings and let the breeze carry her along backward in the direction of the dairy-mouse barn.
She had almost reached it when, suddenly, she bumped into something in midair.
And the something went, “Oomph!”
PRILLA TURNED HER head and saw that the “something” was Lily, who was a garden-talent fairy.
Lily giggled. “Oops! I was surfing the breeze and wasn’t paying a bit of attention.”
The two fairies dropped to the ground to get out of the wind. Lily glanced at Prilla’s worried face. “What’s the matter, Prilla? Did I hurt you?”
Prilla shook her head. “No. I’m not hurt,” she said.
“Is something wrong?” Lily asked.
Prilla pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to start a panic, but she needed to talk to someone. “Well, I can’t find the queen anywhere!”
Lily smiled. “Queens don’t just disappear,” she said. “I’ll help you find her. Where was the last place you saw her?”
“Your garden,” Prilla answered.
“My garden!” Lily echoed. “The queen was in my garden?” She sounded pleased and concerned at the same time. “I hope it was tidy. Come on, Prilla. Let’s go see.”
At the garden, Lily let out a sigh of relief. “Everything looks nice. I’m glad the wind didn’t blow over any of my flowers. Wait!” Lily said suddenly. “Look over there. What is that?”
Prilla’s eyes followed the direction of Lily’s pointing finger. She gasped. A scrap of pink lace fluttered from a thorny rosebush.
They hurried to the rosebush. Prilla pulled the lace off the thorn. It looked like a piece of the queen’s dress!
She turned to show it to Lily, but Lily was staring at a pink rose. She drew in her breath. “Oh, no!” Lily whispered. “I can’t believe it.”
“What? What happened?” Prilla asked.
“This is a Fairy Pink rosebush,” Lily explained. “It’s the only one in Pixie Hollow. One Fairy Pink rose grows each year. In the middle of the rose is a heart seed. The rose bloomed this morning. But look! The heart seed is gone!”
“What is a heart seed?” Prilla asked.
“It’s the sweetest and most delicious tidbit in all of Never Land,” answered Lily.
“I saw the queen pluck something earlier,” Prilla said. “Maybe it was the heart seed.”
“That’s impossible,” Lily protested. “That seed is for Mother Dove. Queen Clarion would never take it. I always give it to Mother Dove myself. I was going to do it this afternoon.”
“Maybe Queen Clarion took it to Mother Dove,” Prilla suggested. “Come on! Let’s go see Beck. She’ll know if the queen is visiting Mother Dove.”
Mother Dove’
s nest sat in the hawthorn tree near the fairy circle. Beck, the animal-talent fairy who took care of Mother Dove, was usually nearby.
The hawthorn tree wasn’t far from Lily’s garden. But the gusts and breezes made the short trip seem to take forever. The wind picked the fairies up, then put them down. It pushed them sideways, then blew them back to where they had started.
When they finally got to the hawthorn tree, they found Beck curled up on the ground between its roots. A tiny bird sat happily in her lap. Lily asked her if Queen Clarion was visiting Mother Dove.
Beck sent the bird on its way. “No. Queen Clarion isn’t here,” she told Lily. “She hasn’t been here all day.”
“Are you sure?” Lily asked.
“I’m sure,” said Beck.
Prilla let out a little squeak of confusion. Lily pressed her hands against her face.
“What’s wrong?” Beck asked.
Prilla described what she had seen that morning. Lily told her about the missing heart seed.
“What could it all mean?” Prilla asked.
“I think it means there’s a mystery. And we need to find Queen Clarion to solve it,” said Beck. “The last place you saw her was outside Lily’s garden. So that’s where we’ll begin.”
Beck started off—on foot—toward Lily’s garden. Prilla and Lily followed.
After a short while, Lily said, “You know, I love to fly more than anything in the world. But it’s nice to walk every now and then. I notice things I would never see otherwise.”
“Like what?” Prilla asked. They were getting close to the garden now.
Lily pointed. “Like these footprints. You can barely see them, but they’re there. Whoever made them was very light. Too light to flatten the blades of grass, but heavy enough to bend them.”
Prilla got excited. “Do you think they’re the queen’s footprints?” she asked.
Lily bent down to examine the ground. “There’s no way to be sure. But they go right up to the fence of my garden. Then they go this way. And then…” Lily straightened up and met Prilla’s gaze.
Disney Fairies: Queen Clarion's Secret Page 1
