by Jan Bozarth
How did the mist people get around? They didn’t have roads, and I hadn’t seen anything that looked like cars or carts. Did they make themselves thin and fly like Moa had described? What if there was no wind?
I turned to ask Moa, but he was too far away to hear me. He was staring straight ahead.
I followed his gaze and gasped. The elegant, icicle-like spires atop the castle glistened in the light of the rising sun. Like the town around it, the castle was a huge conglomeration of rock-foam walls, bubbles, sculpted towers, and balconies. See-through tubes connected the towers and reached the gleaming white ground of the central courtyard.
A stream of fluid sped through one of the higher tubes, like a canister in a vacuum tube at the bank. Was that how mist people traveled from one building to another? Moa had told me he missed being able to stream through tubes.
My surveillance ended abruptly when the birds swooped down into the shadows so we wouldn’t be seen by curious castle eyes. Flying low over a moat filled with steam, the birds circled to the rear of the castle and ducked behind a line of cauliflower trees.
“Get ready to land!” Sunset shouted.
I watched the ground and started running before my feet touched down. I stumbled but stayed upright. Moa rolled neatly and jumped to his feet. I quickly stepped out of my harness, rolled it up, and stuffed it into my pack. Then I untangled Moa’s carry ropes and put that string away, too. I might need it again.
Most of the flock immediately took off for the safety of the wilds, but Sunset lingered to thank me again. “All the birds in Aventurine will know of your great deed and sing songs in your name, Trinity.” He touched my face with his feathered wing. “Farewell, friend.”
I wiped away a tear as the red and black bird flew away.
“Why are you leaking?” Moa asked with concern.
“It’s not a problem, Moa,” I said. “Humans leak a little when we’re sad and sometimes when we’re happy, too.”
“Oh.” Moa didn’t look convinced. “When old mist people start to leak, they drip, drip, drip until they’re all gone.”
I hadn’t given any thought to the life cycle of cloud people or if they died of old age, but it brought a vital question to mind. “How are you born?”
“When two people want a child, they go to a special pool of life,” Moa explained. “If all conditions are right, a third little mist person is created by the pool.”
“Oh.” I checked my compass, hoping Moa didn’t ask about my life cycle. I did not want to explain!
The baby’s light was much brighter and blinking much faster. We were almost on top of the location. “Is there a pool near here?”
“Yes, the Morning Dew collection pool,” Moa said, pointing. The direction matched the location of the baby’s light on my compass.
“That’s where the baby will be born,” I said as I started walking. “Let’s go.”
We ran across a narrow strip of cleared land and took cover in a maze of foam-rock formations and spongy pink bushes with silver-blue blossoms. Moa led the way through the labyrinth, moving quickly but staying low so we wouldn’t be seen. He stopped suddenly, at the exact moment I heard excited voices nearby.
I checked to make sure we were downwind, remembering that Moa said cloud people were sensitive to smells, and then carefully parted the branches of a bush to peek out and got my first glimpse of cloud people the king hadn’t changed. Ten or twelve were gathered around a crystal pool. They seemed to be guarding it.
They were human in form with two legs, two arms, a torso, and one head. And like humans and fairies, no two mist people were identical. Among the group, some were tall and spindly and some were short and round with several variations in between. They seemed to prefer apple, pear, and orange torso shapes, but they could change their looks at will.
As I watched, one person’s foamy white hair zipped back into his or her head like a kid slurping in spaghetti. The white hair was replaced with a lavender cap that matched a lavender vest and trousers. Some carried four-foot poles that might have been weapons or measures of an individual’s status. The only physical features they had in common were large round eyes like pools of black ink and mouths that looked like the suckers on squid tentacles. As Moa made a point of telling me earlier, mist people did not have noses and couldn’t smell.
But they could talk, and I heard every word.
“The sun has risen,” a slim person said. The voice was melodious and sounded female. She was wearing a flowing red robe. “Are we sure this mystical child will be born here today, Voog?”
“Yes, yes!” a very thin mist man said in a quavering voice. With sunken eyes and two black patches on his arms, I assumed Voog was old and leaking.
The man in lavender glared at the old man. “Omens can be wrong.”
“Not today,” the old man said. Voog must have been some kind of prophet or a seer.
“Old scholars can be wrong, too!” a chubby man scoffed.
“Not today!” Voog snapped, and smacked the end of his pole on the ground. Blue lightning shot out of the other end.
It’s a weapon! I wasn’t sure what an electrical charge would do to a mist person, but I knew it would hurt Moa and me.
“I hope Voog is right!” A younger man stepped forward. “The child isn’t ours, but it belongs to someone.”
“The fairies wouldn’t dare,” the woman in red said.
“More likely it’s from one of the solid clans on the tree,” the young man surmised. “Perhaps it will give them an excuse to invade.”
“Anything found in the queen’s garden belongs to her and the king,” Voog said. “They might keep it, or they might ask a ransom.”
“What would he want?” Swirling lines appeared in the lavender man’s face, as though he was puzzled.
“I’d ask for the tree.” The young man’s mouth puckered, like a smile. “Then no outsiders could ever come to the Cantigo Uplands again.”
“If the child lives.” The old man’s words rendered everyone silent.
What does he mean? I thought back over everything Queen Patchouli had said about the birth.
“She must be held by a fairy-godmother-in-training in order to materialize—”
“Anyone who is not truly of mist cannot survive long here,” the old man said.
I was so intent on the conversation I didn’t hear Moa crawl over to me.
“What’s going on?” he whispered.
“They know a baby is about to be born,” I said, “but they don’t know who or what she is.”
“That’s good,” the bird said.
“Yes, but that’s not all.” I looked him in the eye, my expression grave and troubled. “Since she’s not of the mist, the baby will die if I don’t hold her.”
Moa looked stricken. “But they’ll catch you!”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but I have to show myself to save the new fairy queen.”
“But they might kill you before you hold her,” Moa said. “Then you’ll both be dead.”
He was right, but I stood firm. It was a matter of honor and duty. My mother and grandmother would not have sacrificed a baby to save themselves.
And I would not betray Queen Patchouli’s trust.
“The water is churning,” the red lady whispered.
Voog nodded. “Then it won’t be long now.”
I put my arms around Moa’s neck and hugged him. I hadn’t wanted him on my journey, but he had proven himself to be invaluable. And more than that, he was a true friend.
The big bird rested his beak on my shoulder. “They’ll insult me, but they won’t hurt me. I could shield you.”
“No.” I stepped back and smiled. “As soon as the baby is solid, I’ll get her away somehow. You have to hide and stay free in case I need help.”
“I won’t let you down,” Moa said.
“I know.” With nothing more to say, I walked to an opening in the shrubs to wait. The cloud people were as anxious and curious about the immin
ent birth as I was.
“How long will its liquid cohesion last after we take it out of the pool?” the young cloud man asked.
“A few minutes,” Voog said, “perhaps a little longer. It doesn’t matter. According to the omens, we don’t have the one thing it needs to survive.”
I perked up. Did the old man know that a fairy-godmother-in-training was the one thing? If so, my chances of staying alive had just improved a lot. But since King Shyne wanted the baby to trade or ransom, escaping with the new fairy queen would be more difficult.
“I brought a burial bowl just in case.” The lavender man held up a crystal container.
“The king can’t trade a bowl of water for anything valuable,” the chubby man complained.
“It’s forming!” the red woman announced.
The old man slid into the water, and the other cloud people closed in around the crystal pool. With their backs turned and their attention on the baby, they didn’t notice me walk out of the maze. I paused a few feet back.
I had a clear view of Voog. His upper body slowly sank. The motion was so fluid I assumed he flattened his legs like the spoonga had flattened to catch the sled. A moment later, Voog returned to his original height holding a wet lump of mist baby.
I almost gasped. She looked like a potato with stumps where her head, arms, and legs should be.
“It looks normal,” the woman in red said.
“Perfect for now,” Voog agreed as he came out of the pool.
“Oh, good!” I spoke aloud, and clamped my hand to my mouth as all heads turned to look.
Three of the mist men raised their lightning poles and started toward me.
“No!” Voog shouted.
The guards stopped moving, but they did not lower their weapons or take their black eyes off me.
“Who are you?” the red woman asked.
“Trinity Jones of the Ananya Lineage,” I said.
“A fairy-godmother-in-training?” Voog asked.
The others exchanged horrified glances.
“Fairies are not welcome in the Cantigo Uplands,” the cranky chubby guy said. “This intrusion will cost you your life.”
“If you kill me, it will cost that baby’s life.” My voice was steady but my knees were shaking. “I have to hold her.”
“How do you know it’s a girl?” Voog held my gaze with a challenging stare.
I did not want to give away the child’s identity or destiny. I bluffed. “So the omens say, do they not?”
“So they do.” The old man’s black eyes softened when he looked down at the newborn mist.
Voog’s concern for an infant intruder’s welfare was a surprise. Something had caused the baby to arrive among the hostile cloud people rather than among a doting fairy clan. Was the location connected to the big change Queen Patchouli expected? Was the new queen, a fairy born of mist, the catalyst that would help fairies and cloud people become friends?
Voog held out the baby. “Come and take her. She’s beginning to seep.”
The others objected but did not try to stop me when I stepped forward. Voog pressed the slippery little mist into my arms. I held my breath, afraid that the new Queen of Aventurine would dribble to death through my trembling hands. But when the translucent bundle of water began to change, my panic became awed wonder.
The stumps expanded into plump baby arms and legs with tiny fingers and toes. Two ears, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth blossomed on her heart-shaped face. It took less than a minute for the soggy lump to become a baby fairy. With a mop of black curls and a pair of dainty blue wings, she was the most precious thing I had ever seen.
And when she opened her big blue eyes, I was the first thing she saw. She wiggled and yawned and then scrunched up her beautiful face and started to cry.
“Is it dying?” the young mist man asked.
“She’s just cold.” I pulled the silky bark sling-sled out of my pack, wrapped it around the baby, and then held her close. “It’s all right, baby,” I cooed.
She stopped crying and snuggled against me. I wished I could call her by name, but she wouldn’t have one until we got back to the Willowood for her naming ceremony.
The cloud people had other plans.
I was so enchanted by the darling little fairy that I wasn’t prepared when the mist guards surrounded me. They aimed their lightning poles, and I had no doubt they would strike if provoked. When Voog took the baby back, I didn’t resist. I couldn’t risk having a stray electrical discharge hit her.
“Where are you taking her?” I asked as the old man and his entourage walked away.
“To the king!” the lavender man shouted.
I looked toward the maze and caught a glimpse of Moa peeking out of the bushes. I kept my eye on the bird and yelled, hoping he’d get the message. “I’m going with the baby!”
Moa poked his head out and nodded.
When the guards prodded me with their poles, I moved. The baby had been changed into a fairy, but she still needed to be rescued. I had to stay close, which meant I had to jog to keep up. Mist people moved very fast and seemed to float across the ground. I just couldn’t tell how.
The Trinity-needs-to-know compulsion kicked in. “Can I see the bottom of your feet?” I asked a guard.
“No,” he said. “Keep moving.”
Another guard, worried that something was wrong, looked at the underside of his large, flattened foot. Hundreds of cilia wiggled on the bottom. When all the wormlike legs moved at once, it must create a gliding effect.
The procession took the long way around the maze, but I caught flashes of Moa as he followed. When we reached an open strip of land, the bird hung back so he wouldn’t be seen.
After crossing the line of cauliflower trees, the mist people turned onto a wide foam-paved path that circled the castle. A variety of pastel-colored ferns, flowers, and shrubs grew in gardens along the way, and the mist people picked leaves as they passed. They removed the liquid with their puckered mouths and then dropped the dry remains. The path absorbed the dead leaves.
The grounds had been deserted when the birds flew me over the castle at dawn. Now there were several people out for a morning stroll. They all shrank back when I walked by, as though a solid person would contaminate them. Being shunned hurt, but I ignored them and watched a group of mist kids in an open field. They were playing a game that reminded me of slinky leapfrog. They transformed into streams of water and arced over each other, twisting and turning and going higher and higher until one stream bounced off another and lost.
I added another bit of information to my Cloud People Fact File: Whatever held mist people together prevented them from mixing.
When we turned onto the path leading up to the castle, everyone fell into single file behind Voog. Since we had flown in from the other side, this was my first glimpse of the huge, half-arc bridge that spanned the steaming moat. The bridge incline started well away from the banks of the waterway and curved high overhead to connect with the castle wall.
I suddenly realized why the bridge was so high and the path around the castle was so far away. The mist people wanted to keep a safe margin between them and the moat. Boiling water would scald me, but I bet it would really hurt, maybe even instantly kill, cloud people.
“Why doesn’t the hot water melt the moat walls?” I asked, letting curiosity override caution.
This time the guard answered. “The moat is made of rocks brought from the outsider lands below a very long time ago.”
“What keeps the water hot?” I asked.
“Dragon lilies,” the guard said. “They multiply, grow, and decompose so fast they give off a tremendous amount of heat.”
“They only grow naturally in one valley in the far reaches of Aventurine,” another guard added.
The guards tensed when I moved closer to the bridge wall for a closer look. Looking down through the rising steam, I could just make out the red leaves that shot to the surface of the boiling water and then suddenly
shriveled and died. Despite my prisoner status, I was amazed and impressed.
Like rulers everywhere, the king and queen of the Cantigo Uplands needed protection and security. In a world of water-based beings, the burning dragon lily technology was totally effective.
The bridge ended at a tall, narrow opening in the outside wall. Mist people compressed slightly to walk through the entrance. It was barely wide enough for me, so I turned sideways to fit. In contrast, the interior of the castle was immense, and I immediately went into gawk mode again.
Small clouds floated around a huge central courtyard under a crystalline dome. Some of the clouds drifted. Others seemed to be powered by something. I couldn’t quite figure out what. They acted like chariots, carrying riders to and fro. One swooped down closer, and I saw that bubble creatures were acting like horses, pulling the small clouds around. Other mist people glided along walkways, rode lifts up and down, or became streams of water that traveled through the elaborate system of tubes. The air was filled with perfumes. Lucky for me, since that would make it harder for them to detect me if I needed to sneak around later.
Most of the mist people dressed in pastels, and the rainbow hues were also reflected in crystal basins and sculptures. I wanted to ask if the lady wearing red was an exception to the pastel rule. Did bright colors represent higher status, or did they reveal the people who weren’t concerned with fitting in?
The question dropped to the bottom of my priority list when the guards steered me into an alcove. Voog continued on with the baby. I had to convince him to keep me close.
“You don’t know what to feed her!” I shouted. I didn’t know what baby fairies ate, either, but I had a better idea than people who sucked juice out of plants.
“Quiet!” a guard ordered.
I shut up and watched Voog take the baby into another alcove with the red lady and the young man.
I staggered as the floor began to move down. The elevator was wide open on the front, but I was too busy watching Voog’s lift descend to be frightened when we picked up speed. I lost sight of the old man and the baby when they got off on the ground floor and entered a large oval doorway.
