Birdie's Book (7 page)

“So how can I help you?” Kerka asked me.

“I … well.” I glanced around at the shimmering maiden tails and the rushing waterfall, the blue sky and swaying evergreens. Everything looked so peaceful, it was hard to imagine that I was here on some quest and might need help. “I don't really know,” I said. “Do you?”

Kerka leaned her chin on her orange stick, stumped. “My mother told my sisters and me a little about Aventurine, but this is my first time here,” she said. “My mother is dead now.”

“Oh, I'm really sorry,” I said, a little startled at the blunt way she said it.

But that clearly wasn't her point, because she continued immediately. “A few nights ago, I fell asleep with my Kalis stick under my pillow,” she said, patting the orange stick. “I came here—to Aventurine, but somewhere different in Aventurine. A voice told me that I had to keep sleeping with my Kalis stick under my pillow, and that I would come here again to help a girl named Birdie heal a stone.”

“Yes!” I said in surprise. I pulled the stone from my pocket. “I'm Birdie and this is the Singing Stone!
But it's broken, missing a half. Do you know what I should do?”

Kerka shook her head. “No, but the voice said that I had to help you, so can you tell me a little more about the Singing Stone?”

I sat down at the edge of the pond. Kerka sat beside me. “Well, on the Singing Stone is a picture of a maze with a tree.” I held up the half and showed Kerka the picture. She nodded and I went on. “And my granny Mo's garden also has a maze with an incredibly huge tree. Mo calls it the Glimmer Tree. There's a big soft spot on the Glimmer Tree—part of the trunk is rotting and it's getting worse. And then there's my family tree with two names crossed off. Mo said something about fixing the Singing Stone, finding the other half.” I remembered one more thing: “And the fairies left a book for me!”

“Then my guess is that the fairies know what you need to do,” said Kerka. She stood and started pacing. “My mother told us that Aventurine is filled with fairies, so we just have to go find some!”

The river maidens started splashing a lot, so Kerka and I looked over at them. They were leaping in and out of the water like dolphins, hair flying and all five tails shimmering.

“Okay,” I said. “So
how
do we find the fairies?”

“I don't know everything,” said Kerka quietly. She suddenly brightened and held up a finger. “The voice said something about looking in my backpack when I met you.” (
How could she have forgotten that?
, I wondered, but decided that I really didn't know her well enough to ask her.)

Kerka set her backpack on the ground and rummaged through it. Eventually she pulled out a large rolled-up piece of paper, tied with a red string. She untied the string and then unrolled the paper.

We knelt and spread it out on the ground, each holding an edge as we examined the paper. The paper itself was parchmenty, that kind of yellowed color that old paper gets. On it was a colored-pencil drawing of a girl sitting at a table. The girl was about the same age as Kerka and me, with dark golden skin and curly black hair. It appeared that she was looking at a map. No, she was
making
the map!

“How's that supposed to help?” said Kerka.

The maidens hummed a little tune. We looked over at them again. They were slumped on the pool's edge, their heads cupped in their hands in what looked like disappointment.

Just as I was about to say something, the drawing faded.

“What do we do now?” I wondered, trying not to be too discouraged.

“Wait, look,” Kerka said. And we watched as another drawing slowly surfaced, just as if it were coming up from a pool of brown water.

The words “Zally's Map” began to appear, letter by letter, across the top of the paper. I shook my head. This magic stuff was mind-boggling!

“Do you think that girl was Zally?” I asked.

“Maybe,” said Kerka. “Probably. But more importantly, this is definitely a map, and maps are always helpful.” She leaned in closer, then pulled back quickly as a silent shower of red-gold sparks suddenly flew from the center of the map.

“Yikes!” yelled Kerka as I jumped back, too.

The sparks gathered together over the map and formed words:

As soon as we had read it, the spark words disbanded and fell back into the map as silently as they had come. Kerka and I carefully leaned back in to look at the map. It was clearer now.

“Look!” Kerka pointed out a tiny drawing of three river maidens in a pool beside the waterfall. “That's where we are now.”

Silent sparks flew up from the map once more, and we leapt backward again. This time the sparks were different hues of pink. Instead of making words, they gathered over the map to form a magnificent pink flower, almost as clear as a photograph.

“It's an Agminium,” I told Kerka. “It's an extinct species that lived in Califa … uh … California a thousand years ago.”

The pink sparks exploded over the map like a small silent firework and disappeared.

Kerka frowned. “Very nice and pretty, but what does it mean? How will it get us to the fairies?”

Suddenly I was aware of a lot of splashing. The three maidens were clearly still trying to get our attention. They kept diving underwater, and each time they surfaced, all three had changed the colors of their hair (again!). I waved my hand at them, and they gathered at the edge of the pool.

“They're trying to tell us they know something,”
I said to Kerka as I walked over to the river maidens.

Kerka had her nose back in the map. “It looks like we have to swim down into the pond and through a river tunnel to get to that pink flower,” she said. “That must be what the map meant by making the flower like that.”

By now, the river maidens were reaching for my hands. They wanted me to jump in the water with them! I held back and looked questioningly at Kerka. “What do you think?” I asked.

Kerka shrugged and came over to the water holding the map. Then she bent to show it to the river maidens, pointing to an image of the Agminium flower that had just appeared on the map. The maidens nodded, shaking the shells on their crowns.

“Shall we follow them?” asked Kerka.

“What about those stories of river maidens who coax children into the water and then drown them?” I reminded her.

Kerka grinned sheepishly. “Just Finnish legends meant to scare little kids and keep them out of the water. Sorry,” she said.

“That's okay,” I said. “I kinda wondered about that.” I laughed, watching as Kerka rolled up the map, tied it, and stowed it back in her pack. I was beginning to like her for real.

I went to roll up my jeans to prepare to lower myself gently into the pond, but before I could do it, the three maidens reached out and touched my arms. Suddenly I found myself in the water. I kicked out, expecting to feel my boots heavy on my feet. Instead, I moved easily.

I looked down to find that my clothes had turned into something like a bright green wet suit (although it was a material I'd never seen before), complete with flippers. “Come on, Kerka!” I called, splashing. “The water's great! It's warm and kind of bubbly! And your clothes will change into a wet suit!”

“I can't,” Kerka replied. She was standing on the edge of the bank now, wiping her hands on her jeans and biting her lip.

I swam up to the bank. “What do you mean?” Was she deserting me? Already?

“I can't swim,” she said. She looked miserable.

“I'm sure you can learn,” I said. “You wouldn't be here to help me if you couldn't come with me! Just put your toes in to start! Come on! I want to see what your clothes will turn into!”

Kerka just shook her head.

The maidens and I splashed around, showing her how safe the water was. I pulled myself out of the water to talk to Kerka. I was wearing my T-shirt and
jeans again, dry as a bone, as I came out of the water. To experiment, I lowered back into the water. Instantly I was all slick green wet suit and flippers. I got out again—jeans and T-shirt! Cool!

Kerka hadn't even noticed my transformation. Instead, she was pacing back and forth at the edge of the pond, having a conversation with herself. “I can handle a Kalis stick. I can play soccer. I can sail. I can skate. I'm just afraid to go underwater. But there is
no reason
to be afraid.”

I went up to her and touched her arm. She looked at me with a frustrated expression.

“It's okay. I'll help you,” I said, remembering how Dad was when he took me to swim classes back home in Califa. “We'll just take this slowly, and I'll be with you.”

Kerka nodded and lifted her chin. She strode back to the edge of the water. “I can do this!” she announced. But then she stood there, continuing her argument with herself. “I can't. Yes, I can! I can't. But I will do this, I will!”

I waited, giving her a little time to gather her courage—before I would push her in myself. I knew she'd be okay with the river maidens. Getting in was the scariest part. Once that was done, Kerka would be fine!

Then, without warning, the maidens reached up and touched Kerka's arms. Just like me, she fell instantly into the pond. But unlike me, she thrashed around (in a shimmering amethyst wet suit). She disappeared beneath the surface, then her head came up again.

“Birdie!” she yelped before her head went back under.

I jumped in and started swimming toward her. Why weren't the maidens helping her? Where were they?

Then I saw them under the water with Kerka. They were pulling her down!

Kerka popped up one last time, arms thrashing, her eyes huge and panicky. Then she went under, and I couldn't see her or the river maidens anywhere, only ripples on the surface of the water where Kerka had been.

“Kerka!” I screamed as I swam to the spot where she had disappeared.

I dove beneath the water, opening my eyes to look for Kerka. What were the maidens trying to do? Drown her? Maybe that old Finnish legend was actually true!

The water was a misty green, and where the land was, it looked like a wall of rock that went down
farther than I could see. I could just make out Kerka struggling with the river maidens a ways below me. I swam down, the suit and fins making me as fast as a seal. Before I reached Kerka, though, my lungs started burning. I turned, ready to rise to the surface for another breath when something grabbed my ankles!

I looked down. It was one of the river maidens. She smiled at me and nodded. I shook my head frantically, trying to get away. The river maiden looked frustrated. Then she let go of one of my ankles, touched her nose, and made a sound almost like breathing. I was so surprised that I didn't try to get away again; instead, I just said “What?” The word came out almost clearly, with just a hint of a gurgle.

As soon as I said that one word, I was breathing. I laughed, and drew in a great big breath. I could breathe underwater, just like a fish! I was a fish girl—and a shiny green one, at that. I would have tumbled around like an otter to celebrate, but I had a friend to save.

“I'm here, Kerka!” I shouted, trying to get my
bearings again. My voice traveled loudly through the water.

The river maiden pointed down. Below us, I could see the two maidens surrounding a limp Kerka. I swam down as fast as I could. Kerka's eyes were open and bulging. She had stopped struggling to save energy, and now she was just holding her breath.

“You can breathe!” I said. “All you have to do is breathe, just like on land, Kerka!”

Kerka looked stubborn, even as she was about to pass out. But she couldn't very well argue with me, as I was breathing and talking underwater myself. She closed her eyes and took in a big gulp of water. She opened her eyes, and bubbles came from her mouth as she exhaled. Then a smile spread across her face. “I
can
breathe!” Kerka said. “And talk!”

“Cool, huh?” I said, bubbling back. “The river maidens only pulled you under to make you breathe so you'd feel okay with swimming underwater.”

The river maidens giggled happily. Kerka giggled, too, and started floating around like a sleek amethyst angel. “If only I'd known,” she said, “I wouldn't have struggled. In fact, I would have jumped in ages ago!”

“Well,” I said, “communication doesn't seem to
be the river maidens' best skill. They did what they could.”

The river maidens gurgled their approval as they watched Kerka start swimming as if she were born to it.

Just then, two weird things happened. First, I heard a tiny voice say,
“Fortis!”
(
Fortis
is Latin for “Bravo! Nice job!”) I circled around to see where the voice had come from. The voice called again. I swam toward the rock wall, and it came into focus through the misty water. A large red flower was sprouting from a crevice, waving its head back and forth in the mild current. I had never seen or read about that kind of flower before. But we were in a magical dream world, so likely it was some sort of magic flower, maybe even a talking one.