Birdie's Book (13 page)

The wind blew, but the air was clear. The sky was an electric blue, with puffy white clouds here and there. I was in the middle of a flock of redbirds the size of crows, with long feathered tails and crests on their heads. And I was flying! I flapped my arms like wings and went faster through the air. It was like swimming in the air. It made sense that in a dreamland like Aventurine the flying was like dream flying!

I looked around for Kerka. She was gliding amidst the birds, arms outstretched, surveying the ground below.

“Kerka!” I called.

She looked over at me and grinned. “I told you it would be fun!” she called. She turned her body so that she swooped over to me.

We flew together for a while, both of us checking
out our new flying powers, our red feathers held tightly in our hands. Below us, the green hills became bigger mountains, with the turquoise river still running through them. The river crashed down in a series of magnificent waterfalls that sent spray almost all the way up to where we rode the Redbird Wind.

After the waterfalls, I zipped ahead of Kerka and the birds, right into the cool, damp center of a cloud. I could hear the birds following me, and I could see the flash of their red wings out of the corner of my eye. We burst out of the cloud back into brightness, the sun high above us.

I shot a glance behind me to see Kerka in the middle of the birds, grinning madly at me. She gave me a thumbs-up. Then I slowed down and let her catch up with me.

I was feeling deliriously happy until I spotted a patch of dark clouds far in the distance. With the sight of that cloud, it all came back to me. All I was going to have to do. All that rested on my shoulders. Below the dark clouds, the ground was shadowed in darkness. I knew I was looking at Dora's ink stain, spreading into sky, soil, tree limbs, and roots.

I turned to Kerka. “The Shadow Tree is there somewhere,” I said.

“We can do it, Birdie,” Kerka said, but even she
sounded a little nervous.

The dark realm came into focus as we flew on. The birds flew slower as we got closer. Below us, the mountains flattened into rocky fields and the river shrank into a stream. Then the stream shrank into a creek, the creek into a trickle, until there was nothing but rocks and weeds and dead plants. We flew slowly below the dark clouds into the cold shadow below.

I was about to ask Kerka when she thought we should land, but suddenly the redbird flock dissolved into a chaotic scramble as each bird flew in a different direction to escape the storm clouds. One of them knocked into Kerka, who struggled to stay level. I saw her redbird feather drift down just as Kerka began to fall.

I dove after her, my arms by my sides to pick up speed. When I caught up to Kerka, I wrapped my arms around her (which was hard, with the pack on her back). Instantly we both stopped falling, but with such a jerk that I nearly let go again.

“Thanks!” Kerka shouted, her voice sounding funny.

“No problem!” I said. Kerka's Kalis stick was in my face. “I can't see. It feels like we're still falling!”

“We are!” said Kerka. “Maybe if I hold the feather, too, we can share it?”

“Okay!” I answered. “Can you see it?”

“Yup!” she said. “Got it! Try letting go now.”

Slowly I let go with my hand that wasn't holding the feather. Kerka didn't fall, but we were much lower than before. The wind had died, so only the magic was holding us up.

“Spread your arms,” I suggested. “It should break our fall!”

For the last twenty feet or so to the ground, we spread our arms wide. My cloak caught the last of the Redbird Wind. Slowly, slowly, we spun, twirling like a giant moose wing.

Then we landed
not
so gracefully—
bam!—
right on our behinds (even Kerka).

“Whew!” I exclaimed. “That started out fun, but I'm glad it's over.”

Kerka laughed and jumped to her feet. As usual, she looked around as if she were the guide. Now she nodded approvingly in each direction. “Looks safe enough to me,” she announced. “Let's go, Birdie.” And off she went, without looking back.

It didn't feel safe to
me
. I didn't even want to breathe in because the smell was like something old that needed a serious bath. There was a feeling of unsettling stillness, like dead air, and it seemed to seep into my skin, making my insides itchy. All around
were rocks and dust and dead and dying plants. It made my heart hurt.

“The living dead,” I murmured. Then I had an idea. I bent down and whispered,
“Ave, amici.”

The plants were still and silent.

I tried again, but I could tell there wasn't a chance. Any dreamland magic was gone from them, as was their life.

I sighed and stood up; the itchy-aching feeling grew worse. In the distance, the black clouds were occasionally lit by sharp jabs of lightning. Rumbles of thunder followed, and the ground shook even where we were. Kerka was already walking toward the jungle, into that dark rumbling, her clothes grayed by the dust and dirt.

“Kerka!” I called.

But she didn't turn around, and all of a sudden
she
was making me itchy and unsettled, too. She was leaving me behind as if this were her quest, not mine! I sighed. What had happened to my resolve? It was as if the moment I'd landed, every feeling I had was bad.

“Wait up!” I hollered to Kerka; I could barely see her now. I felt myself growing furious. She was showing off, thinking that she was stronger and more determined than I was!

“Wait, Kerka!” I yelled. I started running, until I finally caught up with her and was slightly out of breath. “Why didn't you stop?” I asked.

Kerka didn't answer, just kept marching. Why was she being a jerk, not paying any attention to me?

“What's the matter with you?” I asked irritably.

“We must prepare for action,” she said, her eyes focused straight ahead, her back stiff as my calla lily mother's.

“It's awful here,” I said. “Can't you feel it? There's nothing growing at all. Nothing!” Kerka was silent. “It's worse than the Concrete City,” I went on. “And my butt still hurts from that landing.”

Kerka stopped short, and without even turning around, she said fiercely, “Will you stop
whining
, Birdie!”

“I am
not
whining!” I said. “This is the ugliest place I've ever seen in my life. I don't know what I'm doing here. We're supposed to be in a dream, not a nightmare!”
There
, I thought.
That should shut her up
.

Kerka turned back, her blue eyes looking calmly and directly into my green ones. “You are Birdie Cramer Bright, future fairy godmother. You are the last hope of the Arbor Lineage. You have a mission. You need to fulfill it.”

I turned away, seething. If she thought she was helping, she wasn't. How dared she tell me who I was? She'd known me for … what? A day? Two at the most?

“You want to go running back to the fairies? You want to go back to your perfect Califa? Nothing's stopping you,” she said, her tone cold as ice. “You have free will. You can quit anytime you want. Just wake yourself up and go back to your sad real life.”

“Well, maybe I
will
quit!” I spit. “Maybe I'm just too sensitive to my environment to put up with this … this … graveyard! And you!”

“Fine,” Kerka shot back. “That lets me off the hook.”

“Maybe
you
shouldn't have come along,” I muttered. I stomped my foot, and dust flew.

“Maybe you're right!” snarled Kerka. “And maybe you should grow up!”

I was battling with myself about just how offended I should feel when I saw that Kerka's eyes were filled with angry tears. When she saw me notice them, she lowered her head and dashed them away with her hand.

Seeing Kerka like that helped me let go of my
own anger. As it drained away, I couldn't imagine where it had all come from. “Sorry for being a jerk,” I said quietly.

“I'm sorry, too,” she said. “I'm sorry I didn't answer when you called. I was just nervous and needed to keep moving.”

“I don't know what came over me, either,” I said. “And I guess I
am
used to complaining. It was good for you to stop me. I clearly need you on this adventure.”

“You weren't that bad,” Kerka said. “It obviously really upsets you when there's nothing growing around you. And that makes sense with your family.”

“Friends?” I asked, putting my hand out and smiling.

We shook.

“Do we need some food?” she asked.

“That's a great idea,” I said. “And it'll remind us of the fairies.”

Kerka put her Kalis stick on the rocky ground. Then she shook her backpack off her shoulders and pulled out the box lunch the fairies had packed. The box was painted with lilacs that had silver and gold leaves. It made me calm and happy. We sat in our beautiful fairy clothes on the dusty trail, unwrapping delicacies.

There were cucumber toast-point sandwiches, rosemary biscuits, and rose-cut radishes. There were grapes and herbed cheeses. There were gooseberry nectar and spiced mango chutney for dipping. For dessert, the fairies had packed lemon zest tarts. It was the best picnic I'd ever had, in the worst surroundings.

“I know we have to go to the jungle to get to the Shadow Tree, but do you think there's a better way?” asked Kerka, licking the last of the lemon tart from her fingertips.

“The map!” I said as I popped the last rose-cut radish into my mouth.

Kerka got out Zally's map and threw the fairy wrappings into her pack. I reached over to help unroll the map on the rocky ground. The map went through its ritual of showing us Zally (she waved at us this time, which was heartening) then it filled itself
in. Zally is like a
Dodecatheon
, the shooting-star flower.

“It looks like Mo's garden! But I wonder where we are on the map,” I said, remembering that we were drawn in last time. Maybe Zally couldn't do that here in the shadows.

I could make out the maze with the tree in the middle, then the path to the waterfall past the valley, all surrounded by a jungly mass, which, thankfully, didn't look like it was that big. It made sense that in this world the Shadow Tree would have started in a garden like Mo's. Maybe Mo even created or tended it before the Singing Stone was broken!

Just then, a shower of red sparks silently emerged.

Kerka and I drew back, waiting to see what happened. Then words—or letters—formed:

Kerka and I exchanged a puzzled look.

“Is it a foreign language?” I asked.

“No idea,” said Kerka. “It looks like it might be written upside down or backward.” She bent over to try to read it upside down.

We stared hard at the letters, trying to make sense of them. As we did, I started to get that unsettling irritated feeling again. I could tell that something mean was going to come out of my mouth any second, and I couldn't stop it.

“
You're
the one who brought the map,” I told Kerka. “Why can't you read it?”

She looked shocked at my outburst (and no wonder—I'm embarrassed just thinking about it!).

“Well, I sure don't know what this stupid map is
saying,” I continued. “You're supposed to be helping
me
, not the other way around!”

Kerka turned cold and silent.

Now
everything
about her bothered me. Her seriousness was boring. Her strength was hard and unfeeling. I looked back down at the map letters, and now they moved around, as if we were upsetting them.

“Go wet your pants?” I said through my irritation.

“Maybe it's jumbled?” Kerka suggested, gritting her teeth.

“GO WEST!” I yelled then. “The message says GO WEST PATH, AH HA!” I was proud of myself.