by Beth Bracken
“So you dove down into Black Lake,” she says to me. “Why aren’t your clothes wet?”
I look down at myself. “I had a towel,” I say.
The queen laughs. “A towel. You thought to bring a towel.”
I shake my head.
But Kheelan speaks. “She didn’t bring it,” he says. “It was given to her.”
The queen opens her mouth, but before she can speak, the door to the throne room is thrown open.
A guard leads Lucy inside.
Lucy
“Lucy!” Soli screams. Though we’re both in chains, we run to each other and try to hug. I’m so happy to see her. I’m so grateful that she found me.
But now I’m afraid. If I am the willow queen’s daughter, like Caro thinks I am, what happens next? Do I have to stay here? Will she treat me better once she discovers who I am?
The story makes sense.
I was given to my mother for safekeeping. That explains why I’ve always felt like my mother didn’t truly love me. That she cared more about Soli.
But I can’t keep thinking about it. Soli is crying into my hair. “I’m here,” I whisper. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here.”
Hands rip us apart. “Now give me the crown,” Queen Calandra—my mother?—says, towering above us.
Soli glances at Kheelan. Then she takes my hand. “No,” she says. “It belongs to me.”
And she reaches into her backpack, pulls out a crown, and places it on her head.
Soli
At first, the queen looks shocked.
Then she laughs.
“You’ll need more than just that dirty old crown,” she says. “It’s worthless on its own, daughter.”
Daughter.
Lucy gasps. “Of course,” she whispers. “Of course.”
“Of course what?” I ask.
She laughs lightly. “Of course it isn’t me,” she says. “Never mind. I thought—never mind.”
“Did you know?” I ask. “About me?”
Lucy shakes her head.
“The crown!” the queen roars.
“Stop yelling,” Kheelan says.
A guard shoves him backward.
“Give it to me now,” the queen says now, her voice quiet, cold. “There’s no point in you having it. It’s worthless. It’s junk. It’s only worth something to me. Sentimental value.”
“I don’t believe her,” Lucy whispers.
Neither do I.
I take off the crown, turn it around in my hands. Now I can look at it in the light for the first time.
On one side, there’s a small hole.
As if something was there and then broken from it in a perfect circle.
The size of the pendant Andria gave me.
Then I know what to do.
Lucy
Soli reaches into her shirt and pulls out my mother’s necklace.
She rips the chain from her throat, breaking it. Then she places the pendant into a hole on the side of the crown.
She places the crown on top of her own head. Wings bud from her back. Our chains melt.
Kheelan laughs. “Now you’re you,” he says. “Welcome home.”
A guard whispers, “Princess.”
Soli
I look my mother in the eye, but she can’t meet my gaze.
The guards kneel. Kheelan kneels.
“Who are you?” I ask.
Calandra looks down.
“I’m the queen,” she says, but now her voice is the one that shakes.
“Remove the glamour,” Kheelan whispers. “Just wish it away.”
“Don’t,” Calandra says. She’s begging. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I wish to remove the glamour on this woman,” I say.
Her wings fall away.
The queen moans.
She’s just a normal woman now, getting old, all alone.
Then I look at Lucy and say, “I wish to send my friend—”
“No!” Lucy yells.
“You have to go home, Lucy,” I say. “Your mom is so worried.”
“What about you?” Lucy asks. “What will you do?”
I look around.
The castle is crumbling.
The people who live here are afraid.
The queen—my mother—is crying.
The guards are waiting.
And Kheelan still kneels before me.
He stands and takes my hand. “There’s work to be done here,” he says.
I know he’s right.
The Dark Crown is heavy on my head.
The wings are light on my back.
“I have to stay,” I tell Lucy.
“Then I will stay too,” says Lucy. “I’ll help you.” Tears fall from her eyes.
“We should ask your mom,” I say, like I’ve said a million times before—about dinners, playtimes, movies, sleepovers.
I picture telling Andria—what?
That I’m a faerie princess?
That I need Lucy to help me save my kingdom?
Will she believe me?
What do I do next?
Lucy takes my hand.
“We’ll ask my mom,” she says. “And then I’ll help you.”
We have always been together, Lucy and I.
She was the brave one.
I was the fearful one.
Not anymore.
Together, we step back through the willow queen’s gate.
“Wishes come true, not free.”
— Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods
Discover
Turn the page for Chapter 1 of the next book in the Faerieground cycle—coming soon!
Soli
I can’t stop thinking about my other mother.
My real mother, my mom, the one who adopted me. I don’t know the whole story, of course.There’s so much left to learn.
How did Andria explain me to her?
How did she convince her?
How much does she know?
Does she love me?
She must love me.
She and my father both must love me.
Did they know I would leave them one day?
Do they know who I am, who I would become?
Kheelan, who knows these woods so well, is leading Lucy and me to the clearing where the big willow tree stands in the middle of the forest.
The door.
The path home.
The way I came in, the way I’ll return.
My wings, once light, are heavy on my back.
We are quiet. I can hear the creek nearby, and I know that in the woods, Calandra’s armies follow us.
Every few steps, a twig snaps, a leaf rustles.
Kheelan shoots me a glance, and I nod.
Yes, I heard it. He nods back. We both heard the noise, and we both know what it means.
I’m surprised, but not surprised. He and I can talk without saying a word.
We are in real danger, I understand. We aren’t being pursued; we’re being tracked. And when Lucy and I leave, Kheelan will still be here, and he’ll still be in danger.
They are angry. Whoever Calandra’s people are, they’re angry.
I stripped the queen—my real mother—of her powers.
Of course her armies are angry. I should have known they would be.
There is a battle ahead of us, I know that now.
But before the battle can begin, I have things to do at home.
So we trudge on, slowly, softly through the woods.
Suddenly I notice that Kheelan is holding my hand.
Above us, a crow cries.
Lucy
Her wings! I can’t stop staring at them.
As Soli and Khe
elan lead me through the woods, I think about what I’ve learned in the last few hours.
Soli is a princess. Her mother is a human woman who was a cruel tyrant in the faerie kingdom. We’re going home to tell my mother that I need to return to the faerieground and fight. We’re going home to tell Soli’s parents what we know.
Soli is a princess, a faerie princess.
Also, she’s totally holding hands with Kheelan.
When we get to the big old tree in the middle of the woods, we stop. Soli shifts her body, stretching her arms. Her wings shimmer in the light streaming through the trees.
She smiles when she sees me looking at them. “I’m never going to get used to these,” she says.
“Me either,” I say, and just like that I can stop worrying about things changing: we are just Soli and Lucy again, best friends.
Kheelan pushes leaves away from the tree’s roots. “Do you know what to do?” he asks.
I’m used to being the leader, the one in charge, the one with the plan, so I say, “No.”
But he’s not looking at me. Of course he isn’t. He’s looking at Soli.
Soli takes off her crown and hands it to Kheelan. She closes her eyes for a moment, and her wings disappear: not gone, I know, but hidden.
I look at the crown. “Could I—could I hold it?” I ask. “
Kheelan passes it to me. It’s still warm from resting on Soli’s head.
It doesn’t look like much, this crown. Almost like a bundle of twigs. It’s very old, and somehow feels brittle and strong at the same time. I think about the fact that it sat on Calandra’s head for so long, and that makes me shiver.
Kheelan clears his throat, and I look up. “Sorry,” I mutter, and hand the crown back to him.
“That’s okay,” Soli says. “But we do have to go now.”
It’s so strange, I think, how quickly my friend has become brave.
“It must be strange,” Kheelan says, looking at me. For a second I think he’s read my mind. Then he says, “To discover that your friend is a princess, and has been all along, without you knowing it.”
Soli frowns. “I’m the same,” she says. “And since Lucy is more like my sister, it’s almost as if we’re both princesses.”
I laugh, but it feels flat and false.
“I didn’t mean—” Kheelan begins, but I stop him.
“I know,” I say. “And yes. It is strange.”
“I have the feeling it isn’t the last strange thing you’ll see here,” he tells me.
“But first, back home,” Soli says.
She steps forward and kneels down. She puts a palm on a root and turns to look up at Kheelan. They stretch their hands to touch.
“I’ll be back soon,” she says.
“I know,” he says. “Be safe, but hurry. There’s so much to do, and so much still to explain. Come back as soon as you can.”
“I will,” she says, and then takes my hand, and then we are gone.
Beth & Kay
Kay Fraser and Beth Bracken are a designer-editor team in Minnesota.
Kay is from Buenos Aires. She left home at eighteen and moved to North Dakota—basically the exact opposite of Argentina. These days, she designs books, writes, makes tea for her husband, and drives her daughters to their dance lessons.
Beth lives in a light-filled house with her husband and their son, Sam. She spends her time editing books, reading, daydreaming, and rearranging her furniture.
Kay and Beth both love dark chocolate, Buffy, and tea.
Odessa
Odessa Sawyer is an illustrator from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She works mainly in digital mixed media, utilizing digital painting, photography, and traditional pen and ink.
Odessa’s work has graced the book covers of many top publishing houses, and she has also done work for various film and television projects, posters, and album covers.
Highly influenced by fantasy, fairy tales, fashion, and classic horror, Odessa’s work celebrates a whimsical, dreamy, and vibrant quality.
FAERIEGROUND IS PUBLISHED BY CAPSTONE YOUNG READERS
A CAPSTONE IMPRINT
1710 ROE CREST DRIVE
NORTH MANKATO, MINNESOTA 56003
WWW.CAPSTONEYOUNGREADERS.COM
COPYRIGHT © 2013 BY CAPSTONE YOUNG READERS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED IN WHOLE OR IN PART, OR STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING, OR OTHERWISE, WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE ON THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS WEBSITE.
ISBN: 978-1-62370-003-4 (HARDCOVER)
ISBN: 978-1-62370-041-6 (EBOOK)
SUMMARY: SOLI AND LUCY ARE BEST FRIENDS-UNTIL, ON FAERIEGROUND, SOLI WISHES LUCY AWAY.
THIS BOOK IS ALSO AVAILABLE AS FOUR LIBRARY-BOUND EDITIONS:
A WISH IN THE WOODS 978-1-4342-3303-5
THE SHADOWS 978-1-4342-3306-6
BLOODFATE 978-1-4342-3305-9
THE WILLOW QUEEN'S GATE 978-1-4342-3304-2
BOOK DESIGN BY K. FRASER
ALL PHOTOS © SHUTTERSTOCK WITH THESE EXCEPTIONS:
AUTHOR PORTRAIT © K FRASER
ILLUSTRATOR PORTRAIT © ODESSA SAWYER
