Vidia wriggled and kicked in Gwendolyn’s right hand. With her left, Gwendolyn pressed Vidia’s wings together and reminded herself that wings didn’t feel pain. She landed a dragon length from the Kyto Keeper boulder and yelled, “Kyto! I have Vidia!”
His head swung around. “Is that the human child? Has she returned?”
The smoke must have been hard for him to see through, too.
“Yes. I have Vidia.”
Vidia squeaked, “Ouch! Ouch, darling. She’s hurting me!”
Gwendolyn knew she wasn’t. Vidia was pretending—helping!
Kyto landed close to the Kyto Keeper, with his back to it, his furious face turned toward Gwendolyn.
Tink, I need you, Gwendolyn thought. Don’t let me have killed you. She shouted, “I’ll squeeze Vidia to death unless you stop roasting fairies.”
Behind him, the dragon suit slid away to reveal the Kyto Keeper.
Kyto held out a claw for Vidia. “I won’t hurt another fairy.”
The collar rose a few inches. The three collar screws rose too.
“I don’t believe you!” Gwendolyn yelled.
“Love, she’s got my wings!”
Thank you, Vidia!
Kyto’s eyes darkened from orange to purple.
The collar and chain inched through the air above his tail.
“Prove you’ll stop crisping fairies!” Gwendolyn had no idea how he could prove it.
“I swear I’ll stop.” Flames licked his lips.
The collar opened wide at its hinge.
“Prove it!” Hic!
“Ouch! Sweet, hurry!”
He blew smoke at Gwendolyn’s feet. Oh! So hot! Ouch! Oh! But she couldn’t fly away or he’d come after her and leave the Kyto Keeper behind.
The collar was above his back, heading for his neck.
“I won’t let her go until you prove it!” Gwendolyn cried.
Sss! A tongue of flame licked Gwendolyn’s skirt. He was going to kill them both! Looking down, terrified, not thinking, she loosened her hold on Vidia—
—who didn’t fly away, didn’t budge. “The Clumsy is crushing me!”
Gwendolyn’s hem sizzled. She held Vidia tight again and leaned sideways, trying to keep the skirt from touching her legs. “Prove it!”
The collar was almost at his neck. Her hem erupted into flame. “Only a moment more,” she whispered to Vidia.
The collar closed around his neck. The screws were going in.
“Only a moment more,” she repeated. Then she would let go and roll on the ground and put herself out. “Only a moment more.”
He blew a fireball at her.
The water birds doused most of it, and the rest blew past her head, but her skirt was blazing. Still gripping Vidia, she rolled on the ground.
Had they closed the collar?
She rolled and rolled.
Was Never Land safe?
The pain!
A bird’s wings beat at her skirt.
Her mind flickered and went out.
T H I R T Y
GWENDOLYN woke to aching and smarting thighs. She opened her eyes, which crossed instantly. Two Tinks were perched on her nose, both dimpling.
But I can’t see fairies, she thought, ignoring her pain. Could it be? Tink? In plain view, visible again?
She closed her eyes, then popped them open. The double Tink was still there. “I’m dreaming.” Even so, and despite her legs, she smiled her wide first-fairy-sighting smile.
Tink flew away, shouting, “Gwendolyn’s awake!”
I heard that! Gwendolyn thought. She raised her head.
Before she could view her surroundings, a different fairy—not Tink—pushed her forehead back down. Another fairy leaned on her chin. A third whispered in her ear. “Rest. Sleep.”
Her head settled onto something soft. She closed her eyes, but sleep was impossible. Fairies audible and visible again. Tink again. Terence, Queen Ree, Prilla, Rani, Dulcie, all of them—if they were all alive.
Kyto!
She jumped up, although her head swam and her legs hurt worse than before. She swayed, then found her balance.
There Kyto was, asleep, chained to the boulder with the Kyto Keeper collar around his neck. Vidia perched on his shoulder.
Nursing talents circled Gwendolyn and insisted she sit. When she was seated, they lifted her skirt up to her thighs, which shone as red as an apple.
“Your old skirt burned,” a fairy said, spreading salve, quarter inch by quarter inch. The dabs of salve soothed the pain down to a dull ache.
The new skirt was covered with dragon scales. Gwendolyn touched a scale, which felt bumpy with paint. Nursing talents drew the dragon-suit skirt back down. Naturally it fit perfectly. Sewing talents, of course.
Gwendolyn was nested in the rest of the dragon suit, in the cloth that hadn’t been needed for her skirt. Her backpack, with Tink’s dagger’s hole neatly darned, lay at the edge of the suit.
Tink returned with Queen Ree, Terence, and Prilla. They were alive!
“Tink?” Gwendolyn said. “Did I hurt you?”
She tugged her bangs. “No.”
But Terence sounded reproachful. “You knocked the wind out of her.”
“I’d fly backwards if I could.”
“Never mind,” Tink said, scowling at Terence.
“Your tiara, Queen Ree?” Gwendolyn said. “He still has it?”
“And your gift. I’d fly backwards if I could.” Her glow reddened. Queen Ree rarely apologized.
“It’s all right, but your tiara is more—”
“He can keep it. A souvenir of being captured by fairies.”
“And a Clumsy,” Tink said, smiling again.
Gwendolyn blushed. “The last thing I remember is catching fire. What happened next?”
Prilla said, “Kyto was so angry at you and so worried about Vidia that he didn’t feel the collar until the screws were in.”
Queen Ree laughed. “You found the perfect method of distracting him!”
Prilla added, “Then we all got out of the way of his flame.”
“How did I get out of the way?”
“You rolled,” Terence said.
“Wings flapped on me.”
A crowd gathered. Rani, dripping wet, walked toward Gwendolyn. The water-bird puddle had swollen into a pond again.
“Were there really wings?” Gwendolyn asked. “Did the golden hawk come—”
“—back? No.” Rani’s voice became reverent and teary. “Mother Dove left the nest to put out your fire.”
“She did? For me?” Mother Dove never left the nest. Gwendolyn rose onto her knees to look for her. “Is the egg all right?”
“She left it for only a minute,” Queen Ree said.
Tink added, “The air was so hot, the egg was safe.”
“Lie down,” a nursing talent said.
Ah, Gwendolyn thought. There was the nest, still near the musical instruments, and there was Mother Dove, serene again. Beck was with her, feeding her something.
“Beck’s alive!”
“Lie down,” the nursing talent repeated more forcefully.
Gwendolyn settled herself on the dragon suit. She still had a dozen questions, especially the one she was afraid to ask, so she asked a different one instead. “When did I let go of Vidia?”
Laughing, Prilla did a handstand on Gwendolyn’s chest. “You didn’t. She squirmed free.”
Gwendolyn leaned up on one elbow. “Did I hurt—”
“—her? She didn’t say.”
“Erm…” Queen Ree cleared her throat. “Did Vidia really help you?”
Gwendolyn nodded. “Otherwise I would have failed. I let go of her by accident, but she stayed. Even though I wasn’t hurting her, she said I was.”
“The fast fliers are not disgraced.” Queen Ree reached up for the missing tiara. “She saved us, but she’s with him now.”
Vidia was complicated, two fairies in one, a loyal traitor.
Gw
endolyn’s eyes closed. She mumbled, “What about…”
As she faded she heard a nursing talent say, “She’s still weak, but she’s out of danger.”
What danger? She was asleep before she could ask.
When Gwendolyn woke up again, her legs no longer hurt.
Prilla and Rani were dozing on her blouse. Taking care not to wake them, she felt around until she found the pocket in her new skirt. No kiss.
T H I R T Y - O N E
THE SILVER around the kiss must have melted, and the acorn button had probably burnt up. It was a terrible loss, history destroyed. Mother and Grandma would take it hard. Gwendolyn wondered how her neck would get used to being permanently without the chain.
And the visions were gone too. Oh, how she’d miss her glimpses of Never Land! There would be no news unless Peter remembered to come.
But she’d have memories and her imagination. It would be easy now to picture the Home Tree and invent new adventures.
Prilla poked Rani’s shoulder. “Gwendolyn’s eyes are open.”
Rani walked from Gwendolyn’s blouse to her skirt. Gwendolyn sat up.
Kyto stood by the boulder, awake too and holding the Kyto Keeper chain up to his face. Gwendolyn wondered if he was admiring himself or trying to snap a link.
Vidia fluttered around his head. Tink stood on the ground on the other side of the boulder, out of the way of his flame, stroking the rock and talking. Terence hovered nearby, closer than Tink usually allowed him.
“Is Terence helping Tink?” Gwendolyn asked.
Prilla did a somersault on Gwendolyn’s skirt. “I doubt it. She admitted she missed him when she was in your backpack.”
Good for Terence at last, Gwendolyn thought. “I see fewer fairies than when I woke up before.” Nervously, she bunched a handful of skirt in her hands. “Did anything—”
“—happen?” Rani shook her head. “Nothing bad. Queen Ree picked fairies to get Kyto’s hoard.”
“How will…” Gwendolyn stopped herself. She’d been about to ask how they would carry everything. Never underestimate a fairy. They would do it.
What will be in the hoard? she wondered. Gold? Silver? Jewels?
“Are you…” She stopped again, before asking if they were going to form the metal things in his hoard into new pots and pans and bedsprings and shovels and everything else. “You’re going to give him his whole hoard, aren’t you?”
“It’s his,” Rani said, as if there weren’t any other considerations.
Kyto has improved his situation, Gwendolyn thought. He was a captive again but no longer cooped up in a cave. His hoard was being delivered to him, and—knowing fairies—everything in it would be cleaned and repaired, if repairs were needed, and cunningly arranged for his pleasure. So, he had more space. He would have his treasures. And he had a friend—Vidia.
It didn’t seem fair.
Yet…It might not be fair that she, Gwendolyn, could see and hear fairies again after kidnapping six of them. Maybe neither was fair but both were kind.
She gathered her courage for the question she dreaded. “How…” She swallowed. “How…” Say it! “How many fairies—”
“—died?” Rani mopped her tears with a leafkerchief. “Seven.” She sobbed.
Seven! Gwendolyn’s eyes filled. “The flutist. Who else?”
Prilla wiped her eyes on the hem of Gwendolyn’s skirt. “Faye and Carlotta…They were scouts.”
Gwendolyn hiccupped, tears streaming.
Rani choked out, “The sparrow man Quince and Lilla…”
Prilla hiccupped too and said, “Grenni and Yvet, fast fliers. Twelve more were injured, but—”
“—they’re fine now.”
Gwendolyn put her head in her hands. Seven talent members, seven personalities, seven irreplaceable fairies. Their rooms in the Home Tree would be empty. Fairy Haven would be poorer without them.
Gradually her hiccups died down, but she and the two fairies continued crying. Finally Prilla and Gwendolyn dried their eyes. Rani went on weeping.
“I thought he was going to kill everyone. I thought…” Gwendolyn hiccupped again. “…there would be no more fairies except Vidia. After I left…” She took a deep breath. “What kept him from crisping all of you?”
“The water birds.” Rani laughed in the middle of her tears. “He hated them.”
Prilla laughed too. “He yelled at them and called them ‘water—’”
“‘—vultures.’” Rani’s tears seemed half happy now. “‘Fake fliers,’ ‘fire killers.’”
Prilla turned a cartwheel. “We got better at dodging his flame, too.”
Strengths Kyto couldn’t guess at.
I didn’t have to guess, Gwendolyn thought ruefully. I’d been told. I’d seen what fairies could do with the dragon suit and Tink’s Kyto Keeper, but I didn’t believe.
Believing would have been part of being beware. She’d failed until the very end, and even then bewareness hadn’t helped. Working out puzzles had helped—her real talent.
Prilla added, laughing, “And the musicians and singers made so much noise they threw his aim off.”
Gwendolyn nodded. Of course they would. She asked the other question that had been itching at her. “How long has it been since I grabbed Vidia?”
Prilla said, “Four—”
“—days until you woke up the first time. Five days now.”
Five! Gwendolyn gulped. So this was the morning of her last day on Never Land.
Dulcie flew to her with a nut-and-raisin roll, which had finally gone stale.
“Delicious.”
“That’s what everyone says, but I know better. Since when are fairies polite?”
“I’m not a fairy.”
“Same difference,” Dulcie said.
Same difference between her and a fairy? “Really?” Gwendolyn jumped up and turned a somersault worthy of Prilla. “Same difference!”
Prilla laughed. “A fairy-snatching-talent Clumsy.”
Gwendolyn blushed. That wasn’t a good talent.
“No,” Rani said. “A dragon-scaring-talent Clumsy.”
Gwendolyn liked that one much better.
Tink must have finished her chat with the boulder, because she and Terence flew over. When they drew close, she saw they were carrying a lump of blackened metal between them. Instantly she knew what it was—her kiss.
“I’d fly backwards if I could,” Tink said as she and Terence placed it in Gwendolyn’s hand.
“It isn’t your fault.” The lump felt cold and used up.
Terence landed on the ground by Gwendolyn’s left sneaker. Tink perched on her shoulder.
“I can shape the silver the way it used to be and polish it, but the acorn button”—Tink shrugged apologetically—“is a cinder.”
Gwendolyn held out the kiss remains. “Make a stew pot.”
Terence flew up to help hold it.
Tink smiled. “It wants to be a cake pan and a cookie sheet and a muffin tin.”
“Fine.”
“Can I have them?” Dulcie asked.
“Can she?” Tink said.
Gwendolyn nodded. Then, wanting to change the subject, she asked, “Why is Kyto inspecting the chain?”
Terence grinned. “He’s admiring his reflection.”
Tink said, “He keeps twisting the chain to see himself at a different angle. I heard him say…” She laughed. “‘My snout is not too short.’”
“He’ll never get free.” Terence looked proudly at Tink, whose glow blushed. “Tink says the iron in the boulder is growing into the iron in the earth.”
The quest had succeeded. The island had been rescued. Gwendolyn said, “I have to leave today.”
Prilla said, “You should stay. I wish you would.”
Oh, those words! Gwendolyn wished she could stay—and be at home with Mother and Father and Grandma. She wished she could zip back and forth, like Prilla. She burst out, “Prilla? will you blink over for a visit sometimes?�
�
Prilla tweaked her ear. “Yes! Often. But I can never stay long.”
Gwendolyn nodded. Even short visits would be wonderful.
Tink tugged her bangs and, wonder of wonders, a tear slid down her nose. Terence wiped his eyes. Rani’s leafkerchief was soaked.
Gwendolyn didn’t want to leave on sadness. She breathed deeply and waited until the urge to cry faded.
Of course she had to say good-bye to Queen Ree and Beck and especially Mother Dove. She shouldered her backpack, which felt oddly heavy, and flew to the nest. Every single fairy came too, even Vidia.
Gwendolyn crouched. “Mother Dove…”
Queen Ree sniffled.
“Mother Dove…I tried to learn to beware, but I didn’t.” She shrugged, recognizing the truth. “I don’t think I can. I’m a clumsy Clumsy, a jump-in-with-both-feet Clumsy.”
“Gwen-n-n-dol-l-l-yn-n-n, we’re lucky you didn’t leave when I told you to.”
“Thank—Er. Thank you.” Gwendolyn would miss Mother Dove’s coos and her wisdom almost as much as she’d miss fairies. “Thank you for helping to put out my fire.”
Mother Dove cooed.
“Mother Dove…” Gwendolyn placed a hand on the ground for balance. “Do you think…will I go on seeing fairies when I grow up? When Prilla blinks over, will I always be able to see and hear her?”
“Gwen-n-n-dol-l-l-yn-n-n, perhaps. Never Land will decide. I can’t tell it what to do.”
Gwendolyn nodded and stood up. A minute or two passed. No one seemed to want to say the final Fly with you.
“Darling, this is tiresome.” Vidia soared back to Kyto.
“Sweet,” she called, “can I ride on your breath?” She hovered in front of his snout.
He looked up from the Kyto Keeper chain. “Yes, quicksilver.” He blew a stream of smoke.
Vidia sailed past everyone, screaming her delight.
“Open your backpack,” Dulcie said.
Gwendolyn pulled it off. It was full of stale raisin-nut rolls.
“You’ll need to eat on your way home.”
“Thank—” Gwendolyn nodded. “It was kind of you.”
“Eat one when you get hungry. Or sleepy. It will help you stay awake.”
She would save one and have a remembrance until it crumbled. A roll baked by Dulcie would likely have long staying-together power.
Fairies and the Quest for Never Land Page 11
