“And ugly outfits!” added the smallest, Thistlewit.
Her eyes worried, Hermia turned to Lysander as the pixies flew away.
“There may still be time.” Lysander answered her unspoken question. “If we can just reason with them…”
“Yes,” Hermia agreed hurriedly. “We need to get to the border.” She held the sleeping infant closer to her as they flew down to the lush area directly underneath the Rowan Tree. Searching the mossy inlet, they started calling their friends’ names:
“Adella? Finch? Sweetpea?”
“Robin!” Hermia cried as she saw the small, sprightly faerie buzzing toward them. Robin had been a family friend for ages. With a childlike spirit, he was always good at telling silly jokes or coming up with games, a much-needed ray of brightness and positivity during the dark times that too often plagued the Moors. That night his elf-like features formed a grave expression. It was the most serious they had ever seen him.
“There you three are! We’ve been looking everywhere for you, we have,” he announced when he reached them. “The burrow over yonder is acting as a safe haven for those not fighting. Come on, this way, if you please.” He started to fly in the direction from which he’d come.
“No.” Hermia stopped him. “Please, we want Maleficent to go with you to the safe haven, but we will not.”
“We’re heading to the front lines,” Lysander explained.
Robin looked at them for a moment. Then he nodded. He knew about their longstanding efforts to initiate peace—and how much it would mean to them to stop the fighting for good. Arguing with them would only waste time.
“All right, then,” he replied. “But follow me to the burrow on your way there. Don’t think I could hold her meself.”
The faeries flew single file, silent amid the loud disorder around them. Only when Maleficent was kissed by her parents, gently placed inside the cozy burrow, and surrounded by a mélange of colorful creatures cooing over her did any of them speak.
“Thank you,” Lysander said to Robin meaningfully. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
Then he and Hermia swiftly took off into the black night once more, heading toward the loud noises and flashing lights at the border, until they looked like small ravens soaring in the sky.
As soon as they were out of sight, Robin turned to look at the resting baby, her lips slightly parted, her stomach moving with sleepy waves of breath. She did not know her parents had just flown off into danger so that the Moors could thrive once more.
“Keep sleeping, love,” he whispered to her. “We’ll look after you.”
AS DID MOST NIGHTS FILLED WITH UNWANTED EXCITEMENT, THE EVENING DRAGGED ON SLOWLY. The faeries in the burrow didn’t think they would be able to sleep through the terrifying sounds. Nor did they think the sun would ever rise again to create another morning. But sleep the faeries did, and up the sun rose, marking the start of a new dawn…and a new age. The sun brought with it a chorus of singing birds and a flurry of activity throughout the Moors.
“It’s over!” shouted a hedgehog faerie nearby.
“It’s over!” echoed a few dew faeries flying overhead.
Robin awoke with a start. He furtively looked around. He was alone in the dark burrow. If it had been any other day, he would have laughed merrily, thinking he’d been roped into a game of hide-and-go-seek. Instead, he panicked.
“Maleficent! Pompous possums, where could she have…where could they have…Maleficent!” he squeaked as he raced out of the burrow.
“It’s all right.” It was a voice as bright as tinkling bells, his friend Sweetpea’s voice.
Robin turned to his right and saw baby Maleficent lying in a large nest next to a shallow stream. Four energetic water faeries, Crisith, Lockstone, Walla, and Pipsy, were cleaning her soft black hair, dropping small amounts of the clear sparkling water over her head. Maleficent shifted in the nest, reaching toward them, while Sweetpea and Finch decorated the nest with leaves and flowers.
“They have been spreading the news all morning,” Sweetpea announced. “The battle is over. The Moors are safe once more.”
“We want to get Maleficent ready to see Hermia and Lysander when they get back. I’m sure they’ll be here any moment,” Finch added, hovering back to observe their masterpiece. He then made his way back to adjust a leaf that was out of place.
Robin broke into a smile and then erupted into laughter. “Whooping wallerbogs! They did it!” He buzzed over to Maleficent and tickled her cheeks. She giggled and clapped her hands in delight.
A few hours later, after the fruit faerie Adella had fed Maleficent some berries and Robin had played a few dozen rounds of peekaboo with her, Maleficent started to cry quietly. Robin didn’t know if she was in tune with their shared feelings of uneasiness, or if she intuitively knew something was wrong. But his suspicions were confirmed when he saw a giant sentry slowly headed their way.
The towering wooden creatures hardly ever came to that part of the Moors. They were far more comfortable in the marsh and took their duties as guards of the border seriously. Only something truly important would have brought him there, particularly after a battle. As the sentry ambled on, his large footsteps echoing and his grand shadow sweeping past, many other creatures and Fair Folk came out of the surrounding area to gather together.
“What brings you here, Birchalin?” asked Robin when he approached the group. “When can we expect Lysander and Hermia?”
The sentry sighed, shifting his weight from root to root. “I’m afraid I come bearing bad news. I wanted to be the one to deliver it, but now it is so hard to say.”
Some of the faeries flew up to his height and gathered round the wooden creature to hear him. They were at once anxious to listen and afraid of what he might say.
“I thought we won the battle,” Finch offered.
“We did keep our home safe from the humans once more, for the time being,” Birchalin began softly. “But I’m afraid our victory came at a price. Lysander and Hermia were killed last night.”
A chorus of gasps shuddered through the crowd, and Maleficent started to wail louder in her nest on the ground. The other Fair Folk looked at her, a wave of shock and sorrow for the infant faerie passing through them all.
Robin was the one to move first. Slowly, but with purpose, he flew down to Maleficent’s side, touching her shoulder with a small hand. One by one, others followed suit, Sweetpea and Finch at her feet, the water faeries by her head, wallerbogs rising out of their lake to sit by her side.
Then they lifted her into the air, flying through the forest with Birchalin and other creatures following, creating a somber procession. Finally, they reached their destination, the place to which they had all known they were going without having to say it aloud. The Rowan Tree. Gently, they lowered Maleficent against the magnificent stump, beams of sunlight peeking through the leaves, creating a halo around her head. As she settled into the tree, she stopped crying.
The other Fair Folk stood and flew around her, forming a protective circle. Robin was the first to speak, repeating the words he’d spoken only hours earlier.
“We’ll look after you.”
As the years passed, Maleficent grew to be a striking, happy faerie child. The Fair Folk raised her together, taking care of her, teaching her all of their skills, their languages, their work, until it was apparent she no longer needed looking after. She was a quick learner and proved to be lively and independent at a very young age. Soon the other Fair Folk became her dearest companions and friends instead of her caretakers, and she made sure to visit them all throughout the day. Her favorite visits were the ones during which the others would tell her about her parents.
“Oh, you have your mother’s wings,” Sweetpea would say during a morning flight. Maleficent flew haphazardly next to her, unable to control her large, ungainly wings just yet. But he
aring that her oversized ebony wings were similar to her mother’s made Maleficent blush proudly.
“Your dad had those same glittering eyes,” Finch would remark as they walked through the forest. She looked at herself in the gleaming pond, paying closer attention to her bright eyes.
Maleficent most enjoyed spending time with her best friend, Robin. Sometimes they’d play made-up games, trying to get each other to guess what animals they were pretending to be, or rewarding whomever made the strangest-looking face that day. Often he’d teach her how to play funny little tricks on the nearby faeries. Their shoulders would shake with laughter when they saw the bewilderment on the stone faerie’s face after they moved her recently arranged rocks right next to her. Or when the pixies bickered with one another, not knowing that Robin and Maleficent were the ones who had eaten their berries.
Other times, they would sit lazily in the Rowan Tree. He had known her parents the best and told her stories about them all the time. Sometimes they were silly, sometimes they were sweet, but they always made her smile.
“And then I popped up from under the bog, scaring the living fireflies out of Lysander, I did.” Robin guffawed, thinking of the memory, and Maleficent joined in.
“Oh, Robin, you devil! When he was trying so hard to impress my mother,” she said, giggling.
“He still impressed her, even after jumping ten feet high like a scared ninny.”
After their laughter subsided, Maleficent broached the subject that Robin so carefully avoided.
“Robin…have you ever seen a human close-up?”
He frowned. “No, lass, I have not. Nor would I want to. They’re nothing but trouble, humans.”
Maleficent sat up, talking more animatedly now. “But you said my parents believed there were good ones out there. That we could have a good relationship with them someday.”
“I did,” Robin agreed. “But you know what that belief cost them.” He spoke gently but firmly. It was sometimes hard to remember how young, how innocent Maleficent still was. “They try to steal our treasures, pillage our land. They even carry weapons made out of iron, they do, the stuff that burns our kind.”
“But, Robin, humans are a part of nature, too,” she continued. She’d clearly been thinking quite a bit about this. “I know there are horrendous ones. Monsters. But there are mean faeries and animals out there, too, just like there are plenty of nice ones. The humans cannot be all bad.”
Robin sat quietly. He could not give her the answer she wanted. After that dreadful night years earlier, he despised all humans for what they’d taken away. “No, my love,” he said, patting her arm. “They are.” He flew away from the Rowan Tree, unable to continue their conversation.
Maleficent sighed, resting her back against the trunk of the tree once more. Maybe Robin didn’t believe it, but she did. And she knew her parents would be proud of her for doing so.
TWO YEARS HAD PASSED, YET THE ROWAN TREE REMAINED MOSTLY THE SAME, ITS TWISTED TRUNK ONLY SLIGHTLY DARKER WITH AGE AND ITS BRANCHES ONLY A LITTLE MORE BOWED. While the tree had not changed much, its inhabitant had.
Unfolding her wings, Maleficent lifted herself up and out of the Rowan Tree. As her wings carried her higher into the sky, she soared on the wind, dipping and spinning with ease over the Moors. Gone were the awkward days when she had no control. Now Maleficent and her wings were one. Climbing higher and higher into the sky, she burst through the clouds and then hung suspended in the air. A look of pure joy washed over her face as she delighted in the moment. Then, with a laugh, she swooped back down.
She flew along a rushing river, the water burbling happily over boulders of various sizes. As she saw the rocks, a glimmer came into Maleficent’s eyes and she began to gesture with her hands. Below, the boulders began to move and shift according to Maleficent’s magical direction. When she was done, she paused to look over her handiwork—a beautiful waterfall.
That task complete, she continued along, greeting the river rock creatures as she passed them. “Morning!”
She flew over the wallerbogs, who were jovially throwing mud at one another. As soon as they noticed her, one of them wound up, ready to include Maleficent in their game.
“No, no, don’t do it!” Maleficent warned. “Don’t you—”
The wallerbog threw the mud, missing Maleficent and hitting a hedgehog faerie instead.
“Ha! You missed me!” Maleficent laughed, waving good-bye and flying through the forest above a few skating water fairies.
“Lovely work, girls,” she called. She looked behind her to see some pesky dew faeries following her. “Hey! Find your own gusts of wind!”
Suddenly, Maleficent noticed Knotgrass, Flittle, and Thistlewit waving at her from a rock. The three pixies could be rather vain and flighty, but they’d never looked so agitated.
“What’s all the fuss?” she asked, landing in front of them.
Knotgrass started speaking rapidly. “Maleficent, did you hear? The border guards have—”
“Why do you get to tell her?” Flittle interrupted her. “I want to tell her!”
“I want to!” Thistlewit echoed.
Maleficent shifted, growing weary of their tiresome ways. “Tell me what?”
“Maleficent, the border guards…” Flittle started.
“The border guards have found a human thief at the pool of jewels!” Thistlewit burst out. “Sorry,” she said to the other pixies.
Maleficent’s eyes grew wide and she took off into the air, hundreds of thoughts reeling in her head. A human. Here in the Moors. Of course, Robin would never approve of her going to meet it. But now was her chance to see what a human was like. Maleficent’s curiosity was piqued.
Maleficent landed on a rock in front of the great waterfall. The two guarding sentries stood in the water, gesturing toward a part of the brush. Seeing Maleficent, Balthazar called out to her in his native woodish tongue.
“I’m not afraid,” Maleficent told him. “Besides, I’ve never seen a human up close.” She peered through the brush and made out the figure of a boy about her age.
“What did he take from the pool?” she asked.
Balthazar screeched, answering her.
A stone. She sighed. “Come out!” she said to the brush.
“No!” came a defiant voice from behind it. “They mean to kill me. And besides, they’re hideous to look at.”
Balthazar screeched once more, this time quite offended.
“That’s extremely rude!” Maleficent chided. To Balthazar she said, “Don’t listen to him. You’re classically handsome.” She turned once more to the brush, her patience wearing thin. “It’s not right to steal but we don’t kill people for it. Come out. Come out this instant!”
A slight boy dressed in meager clothes emerged. His eyes widened at the sight of Maleficent.
“You’re her,” he said.
Maleficent looked him up and down. He was about her height, which seemed small for a human. “Are you fully grown?”
“No.”
Maleficent turned to Balthazar. “I believe he’s just a boy.”
“And you’re just a girl,” the boy said. “I think.”
Maleficent narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”
“I’m called Stefan. Who are you?”
“I’m Maleficent.” She paused and then asked the question she really wanted to ask. “Do you intend us harm?”
Stefan blinked at her, clearly surprised. “What? No.”
“Then I’ll guide you out of the Moors.”
Balthazar screeched once more.
“Yes, right,” she answered. She looked at Stefan. “You have to give it back.”
“Give what back?” Stefan asked.
Maleficent shared a look with the sentries and sighed. Holding out her hand, she stared at Stefan, who groaned, knowing he’d
been beat. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a beautiful stone, and tossed it to her. Maleficent caught it smoothly, and gently tossed it into the glittering water. Then she gestured for Stefan to follow her. She felt bad for the human. Since he didn’t have wings, they’d have to go on foot.
“If I knew you would throw it away, I would have kept it,” Stefan whined.
“I didn’t throw it away. I delivered it home. As I’m going to do for you.”
They walked in silence for a while, Maleficent guiding Stefan through the forest and into a clearing. In the distance, past acres of fields, stood the castle. Maleficent stared at it, wondering what would be so appealing about closing oneself off from the outside with such high walls.
Noticing Maleficent’s gaze, Stefan said, “Someday I’ll live there. In the castle.”
Maleficent was not impressed. “Where do you live now?”
“In a barn,” Stefan replied.
Now this was something Maleficent wanted to hear more about. “A barn? So your parents are farmers, then?”
“My parents are dead.”
Maleficent looked at Stefan sharply. Maybe they had more in common than she’d thought. “Mine too,” she said softly.
“How did they die, plague?” Stefan asked.
“They were killed by humans. In the last war.” She gestured toward the forest. “Now all the family I have is in there.”
Stefan frowned. “That’s sad.”
“No it’s not,” Maleficent responded defensively. “They’re all I need.”
“We’ll see each other again,” Stefan said suddenly.
Maleficent sighed, knowing how much Robin and the other Fair Folk distrusted humans. “You really shouldn’t come back here, you know. It’s not safe.”
“Would that not be up to me?” Stefan asked, stepping toward her.
“It would,” she replied.
“And if I made that choice, if I came back…would you be here?” He was only a few inches away from her now.
Maleficent suddenly felt awkward and nervous. “Perhaps.”
Maleficent Page 2
