by Lari Don
There was a wooden table under the picture frame, piled with laminated cards describing the legends of the Fairy Flag in English, French, German and Japanese. Helen put the cards on the floor and scrambled onto the table. It wobbled, but didn’t break. She reached as high as she could to lift the flag from the pair of hooks holding it to the wall.
She turned round, with the awkward sharp-cornered frame in her arms. It was surprisingly heavy. She couldn’t jump down holding it and she couldn’t drop it to the floor. She glanced at her companions. Sylvie’s paws couldn’t grasp the frame and Lavender was too small even to get her hands round it.
Yann peered in and saw Helen teetering on the table. He tried to reach in to help, but he couldn’t get his torso under the upper half of the window. Before he could smash the panes of glass blocking his way, Sylvie growled at him. Then she pulled cushions off the pink chairs and dragged them in her jaws to the floor below the table.
Helen smiled her thanks to the wolf, dropped the heavy frame onto the soft cushions, then jumped down.
“Should we take it out of the frame?” she asked Sylvie and Lavender.
“Hurry up,” called Yann from the window. Helen heard more groans and creaks from outside the room.
But she didn’t rush. She examined the flag. “It might fall apart if we take it out, but this frame is going to be hard to carry on Sapphire’s back.”
She turned the frame over. Now she could see why it was so heavy: metal wire was stretched in a lattice over the back of it.
“We can’t give the flag to the Faery Queen with iron all over it and we can’t get both Lee and this frame on Sapphire’s back. We have to take the flag out. Sylvie, can you hunt for a box or a bag we can carry the flag in?”
Helen opened her first aid kit, found the strongest scalpel, then sliced through the edges of the wire, pulling her hand away as the wires pinged back like sharp elastic bands.
Then she slit through the brown card backing where it met the wooden frame. She turned the whole thing over and started to take it apart layer by layer. The rectangular frame. The huge sheet of glass. Suddenly, there was the Fairy Flag, exposed to the air for the first time in years.
Sylvie trotted back with a small beaded box.
“Perfect. Thanks.” Helen replaced the scalpel carefully and slung the rucksack on her back again.
There was another creak, from the narrow door that might lead to the kitchen.
Sylvie growled.
“It’s just the sound effects, don’t worry.” Helen put her hand on the cobweb softness of the flag, wondering whether to fold it or roll it.
Lavender was standing at the very edge of the fabric, peering down at the tiny red darns.
There was another creak.
Sylvie howled.
Helen heard the squeak of doors opening and the thump of feet on floorboards.
But this time, the squeak and the thump weren’t sound effects for tourists.
This time, the two narrow doors in the corners of the drawing room swung open and a horde of stocky figures ran in. On hairy feet. Wielding long sharp metal weapons.
Chapter 12
The hairy creatures rushed towards Helen, Sylvie and Lavender, waving their weapons, muttering under their breath.
Sylvie leapt forward to stand between Helen and the creatures. Growling, baring her teeth, snapping at anything that came close.
Helen yanked the flag out of the frame. Lavender fell over as the fabric was pulled from under her feet. Helen crumpled the flag into the box, slammed the beaded lid shut and stood up.
There were dozens of hairy figures, held at armslength by Sylvie’s fast moving jaws.
What were they?
They were shaped like small people, clothed in nothing but shaggy brown or grey hair. They had fearsome faces: wide mouths, squinting eyes, huge noses. In their broad hairy hands they clutched ladles, sieves, feather dusters, fish slices, rakes, dish-brushes …
In answer to Sylvie’s eerie howls and the dungeon groans, they were barely raising their voices. “Put the flag back. Tidy it up. Put it back.”
Helen said firmly, “No, we’re taking the flag to its true owners, the faeries.”
Yann yelled through the window, “Don’t argue, just get out.”
So Helen grabbed Lavender off the frame, sat the fairy on her shoulder and took a step towards the window.
As soon as she moved, the hairy horde broke.
They burst past Sylvie, muttering ever louder, “Put the flag back.”
Sylvie pounced, knocking a few to the ground, but the rest ran to get between Helen and the window. They didn’t attack. They just stood there. Waving their utensils, muttering, “Put the flag back.”
“And the cushions,” muttered one little figure with long blond hair all over its body. “Tidy the cushions too.”
Yann’s hooves hit the window with a massive crash, scattering wood, glass and dull iron nails all over the rug and the hairy creatures. Some muttered complaints, most brushed the glass off their hair and one, with a dustpan and brush, started to sweep up.
Yann ordered, “Push through them. They aren’t violent. Just get past them, before someone hears this noise.”
“What are they?” shouted Helen over the crescendo of muttering, growls and groans.
“They’re brownies,” said Lavender, “and they can be violent, Yann, if pushed hard enough. You know they don’t like breakages and mess.”
Helen raised the box above her head, higher than the short brownies could reach, and moved towards the mass of hair and noses in her way. She pushed a mop and a garden hose aside.
“Don’t provoke them,” Lavender advised from Helen’s shoulder. “Don’t make any more mess. Perhaps we should offer to tidy up …?”
Helen was nearly at the window. Yann was reaching in for her. She could hear Sylvie panting behind her.
Then a dark hairy hand reached out and plucked Lavender from Helen’s left shoulder. Another hairy hand grabbed her right sleeve, trying to drag down her arm … and the box.
“Put the flag back,” muttered the brownie holding Lavender.
Helen reached out and grabbed hold of the fairy’s arm. “Give her back!”
Lavender was squealing as the hairy fingers squeezed her feathery wing.
The dark brownie muttered, “Put the flag back and you get the fairy back. All neat and tidy.”
Helen couldn’t bring her other arm down to prise Lavender free. Yann was trying to get his front legs over the windowsill.
Helen yelled, “Yann! Take the box, then I can get Lavender back.”
She tried to stretch her arm, to give the box to Yann.
Then Sylvie bit the brownie holding Lavender and he jerked. At the same moment, the small blond brownie leapt off a newly built tower of cushions and grabbed the box from Helen. She jerked too. There was a pop and a scream. Lavender fell through the air, as both Helen and the dark brownie let go in shock. Sylvie picked the purple fairy up in her jaws and the blond brownie scrambled off with the box.
Sylvie bounded out of the window carrying Lavender’s air-ripping screams with her. Yann leant forward, grabbed Helen and dragged her over the window sill.
Helen whirled round and looked into the pink room. The blond brownie was laying the flag back in the frame, smoothing it flat. Several other brownies were putting the cushions on the chairs, patting them into shape. The one with the feather duster was dusting the table, removing Helen’s footprints.
“I can still get it!” She struggled to climb back in as Yann held her by the shoulders. “What will they do to me, tickle me with feathers? Scrub me with a toilet brush?”
“They’ve ripped Lavender apart,” bellowed Yann. “Forget the flag. Your friend needs you.”
Then Helen heard another sound over the fairy’s screams and the brownies’ muttering of “Tidy it up. Put it back. What a mess.”
She heard a police siren.
So she scrambled onto Yann’s back a
nd clung on as he leapt down to the gun-court. Lee leapt down beside them, his red cloak billowing out like wings.
The noise of the police siren was drowned out by Lavender’s screams as they flew north.
“What’s wrong?” Helen found herself yelling at the distraught fairy. “What’s wrong with you?”
Lavender couldn’t answer. She just screamed so piercingly, loudly and constantly that Helen could hardly think.
Lee was muttering instructions to Sapphire. Past the screams, Helen had been dimly aware of the faery giving directions to Yann, left behind below the castle, as they took off over the sea.
Now they were flying over tiny dark islands, dotted with the fat wet forms of seals. Suddenly they landed on a glowing white beach.
“Coral beach,” Lee said briskly. “Will reflect light. Help you heal her. Easy for Yann to find in the dark.” He took a deep breath. “Now please make her stop!”
“But I don’t know what’s wrong! How can I fix her when I don’t know what’s wrong?”
Sylvie growled. Lee said, “Animals can’t tell you what’s wrong, but you and your mother fix them. We know you can do it.”
So Helen put her fleece on the rough white sand. Sapphire kindled a fiery light in her throat, while Helen laid the fairy gently on the fleece. On her back. Lavender shrieked even louder. Helen turned her onto her front. The screams lessened slightly.
She looked closely at the fairy’s back.
No blood.
No shards of glass sticking out of her tiny body.
What was wrong?
“Lee, do you have any healing magic, or any way of calming her down?”
Lee, with his hands over his ears, shook his head. Sylvie was whining, her ears flat to her skull, sliding on her belly further from the piercing squeals.
Helen looked again. Lavender’s wings didn’t look right. They emerged from her back at slightly different angles.
Oh no.
She remembered the moment she and the brownie had both jerked, playing a brief tug of war with the fairy. She had been holding Lavender’s arm; the dark brownie had been holding her wing. They had jerked in different directions.
Oh no.
Lavender’s wing was dislocated.
But which wing?
The right and the left wings were lying at different angles, but which was the correct angle and which was the wrong angle?
Helen closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly what had happened. Lavender had been facing forward. Helen had held her right arm, the brownie had held her left wing.
So the left wing was the one at the wrong angle. It had been wrenched out of its socket. To heal her friend and to stop this awful keening noise, Helen had to fit the left wing back in.
How did her mother do this? On an operating table, not a beach. With anaesthetic.
Helen had seen her repair a dislocation on an Alsatian. The dog had been unconscious while her mother manipulated the joint. Helen had held up an x-ray of the injured joint and a diagram of a healthy dog’s anatomy. Her mother had kept comparing the two, like doing a jigsaw puzzle while looking at the lid of the box.
Helen felt the fairy’s shoulders and the tops of her wings with gentle fingers. She doubted a diagram of fairy anatomy existed anywhere. Where did Lavender’s wings connect? Did she have four shoulders? How could Helen put this puzzle back together when she didn’t know what the right answer looked like?
She looked up at her companions. All trying hard to stay and support her, but all clearly feeling ill listening to the shrill cries. Even Sapphire’s flames were a vomity yellow colour. However, not one of them looked like an expert on fairy anatomy.
What about anaesthetic? Perhaps if the fairy’s pain eased, she would stop screaming and Helen could think more clearly.
She found the box of painkiller in the rucksack. She’d used it before, but never on someone as small as Lavender. She studied the recommended doses for different animals, then looked at the size of the needle.
There was no amount of this drug that she could safely administer to a flower fairy. Even a drop might be enough to kill a being as light as Lavender, and sticking her with the needle would be like stabbing her with a sword.
Helen put her head in her hands and groaned.
There was a crunching noise on the coral sand, as Yann slid to a stop behind Sapphire.
“The police have lit the castle up like a bonfire,” he gasped. “I hope they’re arresting all those blasted brownies!” Then he frowned. “Lavender? Are you alright?” He glared at Helen. “Why haven’t you healed her yet?”
“I can’t! Her wing is dislocated and I don’t know how to put it back! If I put it back without anaesthetic, it’ll be excruciating. Anyway, I don’t know where it needs to go; if I make a mistake, I could cripple her forever!”
“You’re our healer. You have to help her!”
“I can’t! I don’t know what a fairy wing joint is meant to feel like! Do you have a plastic fairy skeleton in your pouch, Yann? A fairy anatomical diagram? I can’t work blind. I just can’t risk it!”
Sylvie growled. Yann said, “Sylvie knows where there is a perfect wing joint you can examine. If you have that, can you heal her?”
“I can try,” mumbled Helen.
“Then feel the other wing!” shouted Yann. “The other wing is fine!”
Helen groaned again. Why hadn’t she thought of that? The screams were pounding her brain into pigswill.
Inspired by Sylvie’s idea, she had one of her own. The anaesthetic injection was too dangerous, but she took out the anaesthetic cream she had found when treating Sylvie’s arm. It was impossible to use too much of this: the dose was limited by the skin area it could touch.
It wouldn’t stop the pain completely, but it might dull it enough to stop Lavender screaming any louder.
She pulled Lavender’s dress off her shoulders, ripping it slightly. Then she put a tiny drop of cream on her own left pinky, as she didn’t want to numb the fingers she needed to force the wing back in, and rubbed a small amount of cream round the joint.
Lavender shrieked even more. Helen sighed. She would have to ignore her friend’s screams and pain. She was going to make them worse, before she made them better.
She looked up at her audience. “This will hurt her and she will scream louder. But if I don’t do it, she’ll be screaming all night and may never fly again. Mind you, if I get it wrong, she may never fly again anyway…” Her voice trailed away, eaten by the screams.
“Sorry, Lavender,” she apologised in advance. Then she tuned out the screams and listened to her fingertips.
She ran her fingers along the perfect right wing. The lilac feathers overlapped along the light wing bones: short feathers near the body, longer feathers at the end. The wing was attached to the fairy’s body on what seemed to be a second set of shoulder blades, between the spine and the arm joints at the shoulder.
Helen moved the right wing gently. It rotated almost 360 degrees, nearly a full circle, which was why Lavender could fly as fancily as a dragonfly. It slotted into her body just a finger width from the top of her spine. Helen could feel the muscles in the wing push back at her as she moved it, strong and springy.
Then Helen touched the left wing. Lavender made a noise like a loudspeaker with feedback.
The left wing hung limp. When Helen moved it, it shuddered and grated. It looked longer than the right wing, as if the end of the joint was outside the body, not inside.
Helen pulled the wing straight, ignoring Lavender’s ever louder screams, barely hearing Sylvie’s threatening growls and Yann’s cries of “What are you doing to her? Stop! Stop!”
She held the limp wing steady, scraping the end across the tiny inner shoulder blade, prodding and searching for the socket of the joint. If she went the wrong way she would rip all the tendons, maybe even rip the wing off; but she was trying to make it look symmetrical with the other wing, so she hoped she was forcing the bone the correct way.<
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Scrape. Just a little further. Scrape. Where was it? Scrape. It must be here!
There was a soggy lurch as the wing found a hole … and a click as it slid in.
Lavender screamed even louder and then fell suddenly, appallingly, silent.
Yann screamed now too. A deeper, terrifying yell. “Have you killed her? Human child? Have you killed my friend?”
“No.” Helen’s fingers were shaking as she tidied the neck of Lavender’s ripped dress. “She’s fainted. I think I got it back in.” She peered down. “It looks right. At least she’s stopped screaming!”
“Give her to me!” demanded Yann. “I want to hear her breathe!”
Helen stood up and handed the limp fairy to Yann. He cradled her in his hands.
“I felt her shiver. She is still alive!”
He looked at Helen. “Sorry. I thought you’d killed her. That was a very brave thing to do, to try something you had never done before, with all that noise and with us watching. You are a true healer. Not just a healer’s child.”
“Let’s see if she can fly when she wakes up,” Helen said quietly.
“I’ll hear that scream in my dreams,” moaned Lee, wobbling his forefingers in his ears. “Well done for quietening her.”
Then he took his fingers out of his ears and smiled his glorious smile. “And well done for getting the flag.”
There was silence. Total silence, now there was no screaming.
“You did get the flag? Those soft hairy housework faeries didn’t scare you into giving it to them?”
Helen hung her head. “I couldn’t keep hold of it. They put it back.” She looked up at his disappointed face. “I’m sorry, Lee. I didn’t get your flag.”
Lee looked away. “Don’t apologise to me. But you’d better start thinking of an apology for the Queen. Healer you may be, but perhaps you’re not a true questing heroine after all.”
“Don’t blame Helen,” snapped Yann. “She would have gone back for it, but I didn’t let her. I wanted her to heal Lavender and I heard the human police coming. So I wouldn’t let her be a heroine. Not this time.”
Helen took Lavender from Yann’s gentle hands and used a very narrow bandage to secure the fairy’s wing. She carefully folded the wing into its resting position, then moved the fairy’s arm up and out of the way, so she could wind a figure of eight bandage round the wing, then round the torso. The bandage would hold the folded wing to the fairy’s ribcage and stop it slipping out of the socket, or jerking around painfully. Not that Lavender would notice; she was still completely unconscious.
