“He’s talking,” a scout whispered.
To Vidia, of course.
“Can you hear any words?” Queen Ree asked.
“‘Clover and’ something ‘roasted rabbit’ something ‘own recipe.’ Oh! Vidia just said, ‘You’re my clever cooking’ something ‘darling.’”
Gwendolyn’s stomach turned over. Roasted rabbit, roasted fairy. How could Vidia stay with him?
The scout’s glow turned pale green. “Now I just hear chewing.”
Queen Ree whispered, “Everyone, dim your glows.”
Scouts scattered to give the order. The fairies dimmed their glows as much as they could. The light talents glowed no brighter than the Kyto Keeper.
Queen Ree whispered, “We’ll land here.”
The balloon carriers descended. Rani waved urgently from the Kyto Keeper basket. Gwendolyn saw and told Queen Ree.
“Don’t land!” Rani shook her head, shedding tears. “We have to be near water.”
Queen Ree had the quest head north, away from Kyto.
The stars hadn’t risen, and the sky was almost black. Gwendolyn flew on her side to see behind her. Don’t look our way, Kyto, she prayed. Don’t hear us and don’t smell us, not yet.
T W E N T Y - F O U R
RANI YELLED, “Wa—” and whispered “—ter.”
The questers landed on the south shore of a river that was narrower than the wough but wide enough. Its current ran strong—it was uneasy, too. Rani splashed in while the other water talents waded up to their waists, their wings raised high. The fairies dipped their hands in and out and flicked their fingers. Each scoop of water became a water bird, darting and swooping above the river.
The musicians unloaded their instruments. Gwendolyn lifted the dragon suit out of its balloon carrier. Just as she finished spreading the suit on the grass, Queen Ree summoned everyone to the Kyto Keeper balloon carrier.
“Soon we will meet Kyto,” she whispered. “Our goal is to divert his attention from the Kyto Keeper, which is more important than any one of us.”
Fairies nodded. Gwendolyn shook her head. Saving even a single fairy life seemed more important than strategy.
As stars brightened the sky, dairy talents filed into the dragon suit. The cloth poked up here and there as they took their places. If the suit caught fire, they wouldn’t be able to get out.
Are their wings feeling weak? Gwendolyn wondered. Are their hands icy? Are they wishing they hadn’t volunteered?
The last dairy talent trooped in. A sewing talent stitched the opening closed. A scout squeezed into the slit at each of the dragon suit’s eyes. The one at the right eye whispered, “Expand.”
The suit swelled as the dairies pushed outward. The body rose on its legs, almost toppled, then straightened. Clinging to the snout were the light talents, who would be the flame, and the acting talents, who would be the voice. Fast fliers thrust their arms through straps on the underside of the wings.
Gwendolyn wondered if they wished for Vidia, the fastest of all.
The light talents raised and lowered their glows, unevenly, the way a fire burns. If they could only look hot, Gwendolyn thought. But they weren’t fire talents. As far as she knew, there were no fire talents.
She went to Ree, who was with the right-eye scout. “There’s no sizzle sound to the fire.”
Queen Ree issued a command. A castanet player and a singer perched on the snout. The musician clicked the castanets and the singer hissed, between them imitating the snap and crackle of a real fire.
Flying backwards for a complete view, Gwendolyn saw that the suit, which was as big as an elephant, sagged.
Led by Terence, the fairy-dust talents scattered dust over the baggy suit. As the dust landed, the suit firmed. The light talents’ glows heated up. Gwendolyn gasped, half afraid of being burned by this false, but oh-so-real, fire-belching dragon.
The suit rose, as smoothly as a real dragon. The dairy talents tucked in the legs neatly. As the suit started south, toward Kyto, its flame went out. A real dragon wouldn’t flame without a reason.
Half the water talents, including Rani, herded water birds through the air. The rest remained at the river to create new birds and send them after the others.
Tink, Terence, and Prilla pulled the balloon carrier that held Rani and the Kyto Keeper. Gwendolyn started out with them, then flew away when a water bird hit her face and turned back into a drop of water.
The dragon suit’s wing strokes created a back wind that slowed Gwendolyn and the other questers. The suit began to outstrip its followers.
Queen Ree shouted, “Wait!” She dropped her shield in the fairy-dust carrier basket so she could fly faster.
Other fairies shouted too, and Gwendolyn added her voice to the clamor, not caring if Kyto heard. If they weren’t nearby when the suit met him, there would be no Kyto Keeper to capture him.
“Wait, suit, wait! Way-ay-ayt, soo-oo-oot!” Gwendolyn bellowed.
But the suit didn’t hear. The wind must have been in the fast fliers’ ears. Gwendolyn’s wrists and ankles ached from pumping. Close by, fairies gasped for breath.
“Look!” a scout yelled.
Gwendolyn saw nothing except the dragon suit pulling away. Then, in the distance, a blot appeared against the starry sky. The blot grew and took shape. Huge wings. Long tail. Flat head. Smoke wreathing the snout.
Gwendolyn’s heart clenched in fear.
The suit was close to Kyto now, but at least half a mile from the rest of the quest. The suit descended and landed amidst a field scattered with boulders. Kyto landed, too.
Did a tiny glow of light land with him? Was Vidia there?
The questers put every ounce of strength into their flying.
“Listen in!” Queen Ree panted to a scout, who already had a hand cupped around his ear.
“The suit is giving its greetings. Kyto is giving his greetings. He is asking how big the suit’s hoard is and where it is.”
Keep talking, suit and Kyto, Gwendolyn thought. Here we come! Nearly there!
“The suit is saying its home is across the sea and its hoard…” The scout trailed off as Kyto advanced on the suit, which flamed. Ignoring the light talents, he reached out a claw and jabbed the suit’s belly.
The suit’s skin took a moment to spring back.
Grinning, Kyto backed away and blew a ball of flame at the suit, which caught fire.
T W E N T Y - F I V E
A HUGE WIND whipped Gwendolyn around and blew her sideways. The dark earth rolled by beneath her. She screamed until her breath was gone. When the wind slammed her down, the ground was as soft as cookie dough. Clanks and rumbles rose from below. Boulders popped up and bounced.
Flailing his wings, failing to control his flight, his flame sputtering and snapping, Kyto swept by, going east. For an instant Gwendolyn felt his heat.
The earth tossed her into the air again. She was pulled, pushed, churned, spun by warring winds. Fairies and water birds eddied around her.
The fairies were laughing!
The dragon suit billowed and flapped in the midst of them, still burning. But the water birds, despite Rani’s fear, were able to douse the fire.
Gradually the gale diminished to a breeze. The earth became solid again. Gwendolyn and the fairies, miraculously together, drifted to the ground. They were still on the plains. Boulders jutted here and there.
Gwendolyn sprawled on her back near a small tree with black bark. She groaned and sat up, brushing dirt and leaves from her face and school uniform. Above her, fairies still tumbled down, then righted themselves, and landed with grace and in Queen Ree’s case, dignity.
The dragon suit, limp now, fell across two boulders. Its head, shoulders, and back were scorched. Gwendolyn could barely look at it, but she couldn’t look away either. Were the dairy talents still inside, dead?
A leg jerked.
A sewing talent cut open a seam, and the dairy talents flitted out, uncrisped, even unsinged. They’d bunc
hed together below the flames.
Gwendolyn’s happiness lifted her back into the air, grinning down at the crowd of unharmed fairies below. Whatever had just happened, she thought, whatever had caused it—thanks! Thanks!
Three fairies tugged the food balloon carrier down close to a pile of white rocks. The other carriers made bumpy landings nearby. Queen Ree lifted her shield out of the dust carrier.
Gwendolyn flew to Prilla, who was loop-the-looping above the dragon suit. “Was that an earthquake?”
“No. Never Land stretched us away from Kyto. The island saved us.” Prilla laughed. “Usually it doesn’t stretch so fast.”
The power of Never Land! Gwendolyn thought.
Queen Ree flew to a light talent who had perched in the tree. Gwendolyn followed.
“Was Vidia with Kyto?” Queen Ree asked.
Fairies hung in the air to hear the answer. Gwendolyn held her breath.
“She was there, above his head. When he flamed, she flew away.”
“She didn’t help him?” Queen Ree said.
The light talent answered, “No. She didn’t.”
Silence lingered a moment, then laughter and chatter resumed.
She didn’t stop him! Gwendolyn thought indignantly.
Tink asked Gwendolyn and Terence to help land the Kyto Keeper carrier. When it was down, Rani climbed out.
“Is Kyto gone for good?” Gwendolyn asked as she weighted the carrier basket with stones.
Tink tugged her bangs. “He’ll be back.”
The stars dimmed and the sun rose on Gwendolyn’s eighth day.
Queen Ree decided the questers should remain where they were. “We’ll let Kyto come to us. He’ll look now. He must be very angry.”
She flew above everyone and called down, “These are our boundaries.” She flew to the tree. “This tree.” She flew on. “This rock pile. This petrified log.”
They formed a triangle, each marker roughly a city block apart, a large area for fairies, not so big for a dragon.
Rani guided the water birds to earth, where they dissolved, making mud. with a gathering gesture, she drew the mud together into a fairy-sized pond, a puddle to Gwendolyn. Water birds dived down in a narrow waterfall, sent by the water talents who’d stayed behind at the river.
Rani laughed. “We’ll drown him.”
Drown one of his claws, Gwendolyn thought, not joining in the laughter.
Dulcie and Marla distributed food. Gwendolyn bit into another raisin-nut roll, which still tasted fresh.
Tink flew to her. “I have to find the right boulder. Come.”
Terence came too, of course. Tink flew from boulder to boulder until she arrived at a squarish one near the pile of white rocks. She flew around it, then walked around it. She felt it here and sniffed it there. “Do you like dragons or not like them?”
Terence lighted atop the boulder. He told Gwendolyn, “She’s speaking to the metal in the rock.”
“Will you help Kyto or fairies?” Tink leaned her ear against it to listen.
The boulder stood almost as tall as Gwendolyn. She was certain she couldn’t lift it, unless… “Terence, would I be stronger if I ate fairy dust?”
He laughed so hard he cried.
Gwendolyn smiled uncomfortably.
When Terence caught his breath he said, “No.” He giggled. “Every fairy-dust talent tries it sometime or other.” Another explosion of mirth. “It tickles on your insides! For days!”
“I see.” Gwendolyn touched the boulder, which felt cold and unfriendly. If it could talk, it would probably tell her how puny she was.
“It won’t help Kyto,” Tink announced. “It may help us.”
“How deep into the ground does the boulder go?” Gwendolyn asked.
“Two inches,” Tink said promptly.
Only two inches. Not bad, Gwendolyn thought, and if it hates dragons, maybe it will lift itself. Or maybe Never Land would heave it up. Gwendolyn crouched and felt around the base, searching for spots for her hands when the time came. A gopher hole curved under the rock. She eased her hand in and hoped not to be bitten.
“Don’t prod me, love.”
“What?” Gwendolyn jerked her hand out.
A fairy’s head and shoulders emerged from the opening. The fairy flew out, stretched, and yawned. “Dear hearts, what are you doing here?”
Vidia!
T W E N T Y - S I X
MOTHER DOVE had said to be nice to Vidia. Gwendolyn was too angry to say anything nice, so she forced a smile. Beware, she thought, and kept smiling.
Terence nodded at Vidia.
Tink, whose idea of nice was different from anyone else’s, said, “Go away.”
“Fly with you too, darling.”
Queen Ree landed at Vidia’s side. “Fly with you.”
“Where’s Kyto, Ree, dear?”
“Gone,” Tink said.
“Sweets, is he coming back?”
Terence said, “We think so.”
“I need everyone’s help.” Queen Ree adjusted her tiara. “Yours too, Vidia.”
“No. Not mine, dear hearts. I don’t want any part of it.” She streaked away.
Vidia is frightened, Gwendolyn thought.
Queen Ree called, “We miss you, Vidia.”
“Too nice,” Terence muttered.
Divided loyalty.…Nothing divided by nothing. Vidia was worthless.
“This is the boulder,” Tink told Queen Ree.
Gwendolyn flew the Kyto Keeper from its balloon-carrier basket. She hovered, holding it. “If I put it down, it will get dirty.”
The dairy talents spread the dragon suit across the boulder, and Gwendolyn set the Keeper on top, in the middle of the cloth that hadn’t burned. The sewing talents cut away the blackened sections.
Queen Ree had everyone else move nearby so they’d be ready when Kyto returned.
But the water-bird puddle was far away, by the tree.
Rani cried, “Water talents, go!”
The other water talents spaced themselves evenly around the puddle. They squatted and lifted it, exactly the way Clumsies might lift a picnic blanket. The puddle sagged, but no water spilled.
Gwendolyn wished she could photograph it. Instead, she memorized the jiggle of the surface water, the droop at the bottom, and the surprised frog hopping in the puddle’s shadow.
The water talents put the puddle down a few yards from the boulder. Rani waved in newly arriving water birds. More dived in every moment.
Queen Ree ordered the fairy-dust balloon carrier to be tethered to the petrified log, as far as possible from the Kyto Keeper. “We don’t want Kyto near our fairy dust. Park all the carriers there, so they don’t catch fire.”
Or are less likely to catch fire, Gwendolyn thought. For who knew what Kyto’s tactics would be?
The sewing talents took out their scissors and snipped the grass down to the ground to keep any fire from spreading. Other fairies pulled grass by hand.
Gwendolyn pulled out fistfuls. A sewing talent grinned up at her.
When the grass was cleared, Queen Ree declared a rest. “We’ll need our strength soon enough.” She stretched out on the dragon suit, placing her shield so it shaded her head.
A scout lay on either side of her. Tink settled next to the Keeper collar, with her polishing cloth for a pillow. Terence sat back against the collar, his lap an inch from Tink’s head. Below, Beck curled around an anthill.
Gwendolyn flew to where the grass began again and lay down. She missed her bower. The sky seemed too bright for sleep, but she closed her eyes and thought about the power of Never Land—to glide across the ocean, to stretch or shrink, to let a girl see and hear fairies forever or deprive her forever.
She felt in her skirt pocket to see if the kiss felt warm. It did, but there was no vision, only the sound of crackling. Wherever he was, Kyto was flaming.
Kyto, use up your flame, she thought as she slipped into nightmares of fires and boiling prairie rivers.
<
br /> Dulcie woke her by putting a raisin-nut roll into her open hand. The sun was high in the sky. The puddle had grown into a Clumsy-sized pond.
Tink was twisting the Kyto Keeper chain’s big screw into the side of the boulder below the dragon suit. The screw wound in as easily as if the boulder were butter. The metal in the rock, Gwendolyn thought, loves the metal screw.
There. Tink finished. The boulder choice was permanent.
Please, Gwendolyn thought, let Kyto land close enough that I don’t have to lift it.
Around her, several fairies still slept. Beck snored into her anthill. Tink returned to polishing the chain.
Terence flew over the Kyto Keeper, then landed by Tink. He coughed in an embarrassed way. “Erm…Tink, do you want Kyto to see the Keeper?”
Head down, still polishing, Tink said, “I have to—” She looked up. “He mustn’t see it!”
Tink and Terence coiled the Keeper chain and the collar atop the boulder. Gwendolyn draped the suit over it, leaving a corner of boulder showing. The art talent Bess improved on her draping, so the suit seemed to have been dropped carelessly on an ordinary boulder.
Beck jumped up from the anthill. “Something is wrong.” Her voice rose. “Nooo!”
A scout yelled, “Kyto!”
Gwendolyn’s knees went weak.
Beck whispered, “He has Mother Dove.”
T W E N T Y - S E V E N
QUEEN REE flew to Beck. “Has he hurt Mother Dove?”
Beck just rocked.
“Has he hurt her?” Queen Ree shook Beck’s shoulder so hard her own tiara fell off. “Is she still on the egg?”
A scout shouted, “He has the nest and Mother Dove!”
As delicately as she could, Gwendolyn put Queen Ree’s tiara back on.
Except for Tink, who air-paced above the boulder, her hand on her dagger, and Beck, who was still rocking, everyone else hung still and drooped, even Queen Ree.
Gwendolyn thought there might be reason for hope. “How do we know he has her? She’s the wisest creature. He’s carrying her, but she might really have him.”
Fairies and the Quest for Never Land Page 9
