Fairies and the Quest for Never Land

by Gail Carson Levine

  I’m so hungry, you see.

  Sweet young tiffens for dinner,

  Happy birthday to me.”

  Tammo said, “As he was breaking free, he said he wanted to crisp fairies most of all.”

  Gwendolyn gripped her branch to keep from falling.

  F I F T E E N

  GWENDOLYN looked up fearfully, half expecting to see a dragon shape growing in the western sky.

  “We want to stop him,” Arli said.

  Gwendolyn saw Tammo notice her, stare, then turn away. Mother Dove cooed. “Arli and Tammo, hurry home. Your part will be to tell your parents. Tiffens must prepare. Kyto will be weak at first, but not for long.”

  Tammo started to leave, but Arli stood his ground. “Tiffens don’t do anything except debate. Not Tammo and me. Most tiffens.”

  “Then be safe with them while they debate,” Mother Dove said, “and try to persuade them to get ready.”

  The tiffens left, Arli walking backwards as if he were thinking of more arguments.

  “Er,” Gwendolyn began, hoping Mother Dove was still speaking to her, “are you going to ask Peter to help?”

  At Peter, Tink moved closer to Terence.

  Gwendolyn wasn’t sure if Peter would be a reliable ally. When he was winning a fight, he sometimes switched sides to keep the battle going. Still, he was bigger than fairies, and he fought pirates.

  “No,” Mother Dove said. “Peter will kill Kyto or get himself killed. I don’t want either of them to die.”

  “But Kyto is evil,” Prilla said.

  Queen Ree answered. “He’s part of the island.”

  “Gwen-n-n-dol-l-l-yn-n-n,” Mother Dove cooed, “fly home.”

  “You said I might help!” Or harm.

  “Your mother and your grandmother expect you back safely.”

  Gwendolyn shook her head so vigorously that her hair whipped around her face. “If they were here, Mother and Grandma would stay. Wendy, John, and Michael would have stayed. I’m staying.”

  Mother Dove raised and lowered her wings in defeat. “When fairies meet Kyto, do what Ree or Tink tells you.”

  “I will,” Gwendolyn said solemnly. “I promise.”

  Queen Ree said, “No questions, and you’ll have to be quick.”

  “Yes, Queen Ree.”

  Prilla asked, “Can we give Kyto more items to put in his hoard, so he won’t hurt Never Land?”

  Terence explained for Gwendolyn. “Kyto’s hoard means the world to him. Tink and Prilla and Vidia gave him things for it once before.”

  Tink said, “But now he can take whatever he wants.”

  Mother Dove stood up in her nest and flapped her wings, which frightened Gwendolyn as much as anything else. Didn’t Mother Dove always remain on her egg?

  Beck hovered in front of Mother Dove’s face. “Maybe I could—”

  “No, Beck.” Mother Dove settled back down. “A dragon isn’t an ordinary animal. If you entered his mind, he might swallow you from the inside.”

  Gwendolyn imagined Kyto’s mind as flaming pointy teeth.

  “What if he had other things to think about when Beck went in?” Queen Ree asked. “What if he were distracted?”

  Mother Dove cocked her head. “Maybe. Beck, fetch Rani.”

  Beck started for the Home Tree.

  “Wait!”

  She flew back.

  “I want Vidia too.”

  “Vidia?” Beck said, sounding shocked.

  “Vidia.”

  Beck headed off again.

  “Bring Moth too,” Mother Dove called, “and a few scouts.”

  Beck caught a swell of air and hung.

  “Tell everyone to come.”

  Gwendolyn imagined Beck delivering the news. Fairies in their workshops would look up as they listened, their projects forgotten. Sewing talents would accidentally cut cloth instead of thread. Carpenter talents would hammer their thumbs. Fear would spread from Beck to other animal talents to the creatures of Never Land.

  Fear everywhere, fanning out like dragon fire.

  S I X T E E N

  “COULD CLAPPING help?” Prilla asked, then went blank again, so Gwendolyn knew she was blinking. “Mother Dove…” Her voice faltered. “We’ll be no more trouble to Kyto than a mosquito to a Clumsy.”

  What had Prilla seen to say that? To diminish her own fear, Gwendolyn said, “A mosquito can drive me crazy.”

  Apparently cheered up, Prilla did a handstand on the nest. “We’ll drive him crazy.”

  Fairies began arriving, landing on Mother Dove’s hawthorn or in the fairy circle. Vidia perched three branches above Gwendolyn in the hemlock.

  Rani flew in on the back of another dove. She patted the bird’s head and jumped onto the branch with Terence and Tink. “Fly with you, Brother Dove.”

  Brother Dove flew down to the clearing.

  “Mother Dove, why did you send for us?” Dulcie asked. “Beck wouldn’t say a word.”

  “Kyto has gotten free.”

  Gwendolyn thought the sun had gone behind a cloud, but it was really fairy glow dying out for a moment.

  Mother Dove added, “Captivity weakened him, but he’ll regain his strength quickly.”

  Rani wept into a leafkerchief. The rest of the water talents cried too. There were no other tears. Fairies were brave.

  Queen Ree straightened her tiara. Terence’s hand hung an eighth of an inch from Tink’s shoulder. The hand didn’t pat her, but it didn’t move away either.

  Mother Dove said, “Tink will design a new cage, and all the pots-and-pans talents will build it.”

  Tink’s glow flared. Then her wings drooped. “We may not have enough metal.”

  Mother Dove cooed, which Gwendolyn was sure meant, You will think of something. “As soon as he gets used to flying again, Kyto will come to Fairy Haven. We must stop him before then. The cage must be taken to him.”

  Prilla did a split in the air. “It will be a new quest. The quest to cage Kyto.”

  “Rani,” Mother Dove said, “find a way to douse Kyto’s—”

  “—flame.” Rani nodded. “What way?”

  Mother Dove cooed again. “The other talents will plan how to distract Kyto while Tink cages him.”

  “Are we all going?” Terence asked.

  Gwendolyn wanted to go, although her stomach seemed to drop when she pictured Kyto.

  “I’ll decide who goes,” Queen Ree said.

  Mother Dove said, “Those who remain will build up our final defenses.”

  Gwendolyn hated the sound of final.

  “Vid-d-d-dia…” Mother Dove cooed.

  Vidia flew up to Mother Dove’s nest. “You want my speed, don’t you, darling?”

  “Go to Kyto, Vid-d-d-dia. See how weak he is. See if he’s flying. Come straight back and tell me.”

  Vidia took off, but before she rose above the hawthorn, Mother Dove cooed, “Vid-d-d-dia…”

  Vidia zipped back. “Yes, darling?”

  “Vid-d-d-dia…No matter what you do, I love you.”

  “Yes, love.” In a wink she was a dot over the fairy circle, then nothing.

  Fairies gathered in groups by talent. Rani called Prilla to plan with the water talents. No one asked for Gwendolyn, who felt left out, although she thought the clusters of glow beautiful.

  “Mother Dove,” she said, “how could Kyto hurt fairies?” She couldn’t bring herself to say kill. “Doesn’t he love pretty things? Doesn’t he collect them in his hoard?”

  Mother Dove just cooed.

  “Can I do anything to prepare?”

  “Tell me if you see Kyto again in your visions. And you especially need to beware now.”

  Gwendolyn nodded, but she doubted herself. Bewareness had failed her twice.

  Talent by talent, the fairies left the fairy circle and the hawthorn. Brother Dove carried Rani.

  Gwendolyn’s fairy dust had run out, so she walked. Lonesome me, she thought, fearsome dragon. She sat on a fallen log and stared dow
n at her lap. There was no hurry. No one would care when she showed up at the Home Tree. If only she were part of Mother Dove’s plan and had preparations to make, too.

  Fairy glow near the ground caught her eye. Fairies were herding caterpillars. She supposed this was normal until she saw that the caterpillars were being driven out of Fairy Haven. The herding talents were making sure that caterpillars would survive even if Fairy Haven was destroyed. But what would they do without their fairies?

  She brushed away a tear and stood. Maybe someone at the Home Tree had something for her to do. If not, she’d prune the rosebushes, weed around the columbines, sweep the courtyard—so everything would be perfect when Kyto came.

  Beware! She mustn’t even think that.

  When she reached Havendish Stream, Prilla and Rani were sitting on the bank, dangling their legs in the water. Brother Dove pecked the ground nearby. Prilla smiled up at Gwendolyn.

  “Can I sit with you?”

  Prilla nodded.

  “You’ve been crying!” Rani held up a leafkerchief, big enough for a single tear.

  “I’m okay now.” Gwendolyn wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She shrugged off her backpack, removed her socks and sneakers, and sat, extending her legs into the water. Her toes popped up halfway across.

  Prilla said, “Rani is trying to figure out how to douse Kyto’s flame no matter where he—”

  “—is. We have to get water to him, but there are no rivers near his cave. And he could be anywhere by now anyway.”

  They looked hopefully at Gwendolyn.

  Fire trucks would be useful, but fairies didn’t have them. “What about a hose that you could take with you to Kyto?”

  “What’s a hose?” Prilla asked.

  “A long, rubbery straw.”

  “Straw?” Rani blew her nose. “As in hay?”

  “A hose is long and hollow.”

  “We don’t have any,” Prilla said.

  “Rani-bat says…” Rani’s voice lost its expression and turned mechanical. “‘Pardon me, esteemed fairy, but you can’t bring water to a dragon.’” Rani’s voice became itself again. “Sometimes I wish…” She shrugged.

  Was Rani-bat another fairy, Rani’s twin with a strange vocabulary? “Er…” Gwendolyn said, hoping Rani wouldn’t mind the question, “who is Rani-bat?”

  Prilla said, “Rani has a little bat who lives in—”

  “—my head. She’s very polite.” Rani’s glow turned pink. “She tells me to say things.”

  Now Gwendolyn understood why Rani had said pardon me and esteemed. But she didn’t understand anything else. A real bat? How had it gotten in there? She felt it would be rude to ask, since Rani hadn’t explained. Instead, she said, “Could you force water up from under—”

  “—ground? We can if there’s water a few inches down, but not more. Rani-bat says I should find a cave to hide in and never come out.”

  Gwendolyn didn’t like Rani-bat.

  Prilla patted Rani’s back.

  Rani shook her head, scattering tears. “If only we could sweat and weep enough to put out his flame.”

  If only I could, Gwendolyn thought. Her sweat and teardrops were bigger.

  Prilla jumped up. “Rani, you’re thinking like a—”

  “—bat.” Rani nodded. “I am.” She cupped her hand in the stream and lifted it out.

  The water stayed in Rani’s hand, quivering like gelatin. Gwendolyn stared, then dipped her own hand in and took it out. The water ran through her fingers.

  “Think like a fairy,” Rani said. “Think like a fairy.”

  The water in Rani’s hand separated into beads so tiny Gwendolyn could barely see them. “Oooh!”

  Rani smiled. “Gwendolyn’s never seen me use my talent.” The beads rolled around her palm without merging. She moved her hand in a circle and the beads arranged themselves in a circle on her palm.

  “Oh, Rani!” Gwendolyn cried.

  The circle closed in, then widened. In. Out. The beads formed a five-pointed star. Rani bounced the star up and down, and it never broke apart.

  Prilla was bouncing too, on the bank.

  “I’ve got it! I know what we can do. Watch.” Rani made a fist, opened it, and the water became a single drop again. She tossed the drop into the air.

  Midair, it turned into a water bird! Gwendolyn fumbled in the backpack for her binoculars, but before she could bring them to her eyes, the water bird rose through the leaves above her head.

  “We can fly the water to Kyto, bird by bird.”

  Gwendolyn peered through the binoculars, watching the leaves. The bird reappeared, spiraling down. It was a minuscule, see-through hawk, a hawk in every detail: hooked beak, talons, wide wings.

  It made a water landing, and merged into the Havendish.

  Prilla turned a cartwheel.

  “Rani-bat says it’s the ideal solution. I have to tell everyone.”

  Gwendolyn understood Rani meant the other water talents. She watched Rani fly away on Brother Dove. After doing a handstand on Gwendolyn’s shoulder, Prilla flew off too. Gwendolyn followed on foot. In a million years she wouldn’t have thought of water birds. Maybe fairy ingenuity and fairy artistry could overcome a dragon.

  Maybe.

  S E V E N T E E N

  THE MILL was on the way back to the Home Tree.

  Gwendolyn heard voices coming from inside. “I’ve used up my dust,” she announced to the air.

  Terence flew out. “We’re packing enough dust to last for days when we go to Kyto.” He poured a daily allotment on her.

  The usual tingle thrummed with fright. “Days fighting Kyto?”

  “Best to be prepared.” He smiled his lopsided smile. “Too much beats none at all.”

  A dust-talent proverb, Gwendolyn thought. “Can I watch the packing?”

  He nodded, so she knelt and put her eye to a window. In the mill, fairy dust flowed from a chute at the bottom of each pumpkin canister into canvas sacks held by waiting dust talents. Not a speck of dust escaped.

  Terence stood next to her ear. “If Ree picks Tink to go to Kyto, I’m going too, whether I’m supposed to or not.”

  “If she stays, you stay?”

  “No. Not if Ree wants me.”

  Gwendolyn raised herself into a crouch. “Are you scared?”

  “Yes, I am.” He twisted the empty dust sack in his hands. “But it doesn’t matter if he crisps some of us as long as we cage him.”

  It did matter! It mattered if he crisped a single fairy!

  From the direction of the Home Tree an uproar erupted, sounding like musicians torturing their instruments and singers ruining their voices.

  “What’s that?” Gwendolyn shouted.

  Terence shook his head. “Dunno.” He went back into the mill.

  “Fly with you!” Gwendolyn yelled, putting her hands over her ears.

  In the dairy mice’s far pasture an orchestra was going full blast, playing yawk yeeech gugrug dzzoing kriyiyike while other fairies screeched yerk eyetch eee zjjang blayayabe. The orchestra conductor waved her arms wildly.

  Could this be true music, Gwendolyn wondered, and the mainland version just noise?

  She landed near the strings and tried to appreciate. After two or three minutes, the conductor lowered her arms. The pandemonium died down. Near Gwendolyn’s right sneaker toe, a violinist rosined her bow.

  Gwendolyn knelt. “Practicing for a performance?”

  The violinist answered with a you-are-a-crazy-Clumsy look.

  “No?” Gwendolyn said, blushing.

  “We’re practicing to make so much noise Kyto can’t think.”

  Their racket might drive him to a quieter island, Gwendolyn thought. She left the musicians and continued on to the Home Tree.

  Although it was mid-afternoon, breakfast was waiting for her in the courtyard. The food must have been sitting for hours, but the biscuits had stayed warm and the butter cold. The eggs were still runny, the way she liked them. How had
the cooking talents known? She giggled. She must look like a runny-yolks kind of Clumsy.

  In the distance the musicians and singers started up again. As she bit into the last toast triangle, two fairies lugged bedsprings through the Home Tree door and left them by the rose bush.

  The two were followed by a fairy with her arms full of silver and gold picture frames. She dropped them on top of the bedsprings.

  Everything is metal, Gwendolyn thought. It’s all for Tink’s new cage.

  She smelled cooking, with spicy and sweet scents jumbled together.

  More fairies carried metal furnishings out. Others brought tools from the barn. A mound grew of fairy-sized rakes, hoes, pails, shovels. Three fairies hauled sacks out of the Home Tree and emptied them on the mound. Eensy glinting sprinkles splashed out, too small for Clumsy eyesight, so Gwendolyn used her binoculars.

  The sprinkles were safety pins, straight pins, needles, snaps, and hooks and eyes.

  Queen Ree and Rani staggered out of the Home Tree with a bedframe. Queen Ree struggled to carry a lamp as well.

  Gwendolyn crouched by them. “Can I help?”

  They dropped the bedframe and stood back.

  Gwendolyn picked it up. It weighed about as much as her binoculars. Queen Ree pointed up at the top of the mound.

  Gwendolyn put the bedframe there. “They’re for the cage, right?”

  “Tink says it’s not going to be a cage.” Queen Ree set the lamp down. “Because he already escaped from a cage.”

  “Then what will it—”

  “—be?” Rani dabbed her eyes. “She hasn’t told anyone.”

  Queen Ree said, “The cooking talents and the baking talents are making whatever they can before they give up their pots—”

  “—and pans. Everything will taste salty.”

  “Why?” Gwendolyn asked.

  Rani blew her nose.

  Oh. Tears were salty. Without cookware, baking talents and cooking talents couldn’t practice their talents. Pots-and-pans talents couldn’t either. A Never fairy deprived of her talent would hardly feel like herself.

  Queen Ree touched the lamp at her side. “The decor talents were going to put this in a shoe talent’s room today.”

  The lamp pole rested on four booted iron feet.