The Night Fairy (6 page)

H
is name was Peregrine, which means “traveler.” Flory told him her name meant “flower,” and all at once they were friends.

They passed the rest of the night together, guarding the hummingbird. Together they freed the bird from the spider’s silk. Flory used the flat edge of her dagger to drag the cords off the feathers, and Peregrine used the thumbnails on the edges of his wings. When the threads clung together, Peregrine bit through them with his sharp teeth.

“After we finish taking off the web, I could take you for a ride,” Peregrine hinted, but Flory refused.

“I have to keep watch over the hummingbird,” she explained. “I promised.” She hadn’t really promised, but she felt as if she had. Peregrine looked so crestfallen that she added quickly, “But I’d like to go tomorrow night.”

“I could take you back home,” Peregrine said. “We could go north, where the woods are, and find other night fairies.”

Flory’s eyes lit up. She had almost forgotten what it was like to live among other fairies. Then she thought of her little cedar house, and the hummingbird’s eggs hatching and Skuggle.

“I’d like to go back sometime,” she told Peregrine. “But I don’t think that’s my home anymore. I think my home is here.” And because the bat, with his huge leathery ears, was a good listener, she told him all about becoming a day fairy and the home she had made for herself.

“Do you think you’ll go on being a day fairy?”

Flory shook her head. “No. But I won’t live only at night, either. I like night best, but daytime is good, too. I like the way the flowers look when they’re awake. I like the colors and the birds. . . . Not all the birds are safe, but I like to watch them.” She lowered her voice. “And I like Skuggle. He’s a squirrel, but I like him anyway.”

She looked at Peregrine to see if he was surprised, but his beady black eyes were shut and he was yawning. The sky was turning gray. It was time for him to go back to his hollow in the oak tree.

“Perry,” she said softly. “Wake up. It’s time to roost.”

The bat gave himself a little shake. “I’m sorry. I must have dozed off.”

“It’s time for you to go home,” Flory said firmly. “It’s nearly dawn. Aren’t you sleepy?”

Peregrine yawned again. “Not that sleepy,” he said bravely.

“Yes, you are,” Flory told him. “You’re a
bat.
So go home. I’ll stay with the hummingbird. It won’t be long before she wakes up — and I’m not frightened. Now that I’m not afraid of you, I’m not afraid of anything.” She put out her hand and gave him a little shove. “Go on.”

Peregrine flapped his wings and swerved toward the sky. Flory watched him disappear into the oak leaves.

The grass was wet with dew. In a little while, the sun would rise. Flory’s eyelids felt crusty, and she rubbed her eyes with her fists. When she caught herself nodding, she got to her feet and circled the hummingbird, her hand on the hilt of her dagger.

The hummingbird stirred. The branches were rustling now, and the birds were beginning their early-morning chorus. From time to time, the hummingbird shifted. She was coming out of her torpor.

Flory went to the bird’s head so that they could see eye to eye. “Hummingbird, I’m here,” she crooned. “Are you awake yet? I put a spell on your eggs. They’re still warm — I’m almost sure of it. ”

As if in answer, the hummingbird rose into the air. She flew straight to the water tube without looking back. Flory watched as she drank. “Birds,” she said bitterly. She thought of all she had done for the hummingbird’s sake, and she wanted to shout over the unfairness of it all.

But she was too weary to shout, and she had a long walk ahead of her. She trudged back toward the cherry tree, head drooping. Then she heard the whirr of wings.

The hummingbird perched on a clover stalk in front of her. “Come!” said the bird.

“Come where?” asked Flory.

“To the nest,” answered the hummingbird, as if Flory had asked a stupid question. She flicked her wings impatiently. “Hurry up and climb on my back. I want to see my little ones.”

“But you said —”

“I said I wouldn’t be your slave and carry you wherever you wanted,” the hummingbird answered sharply. “This is different. Come along — you’ve earned it. Climb on my back.”

Flory didn’t need to be asked again. She shoved her dagger in her sash and scrambled up the shining feathers. The hummingbird was surprisingly slippery. Flory folded her legs tightly around the bird’s neck. She wished there were something to hold on to.

The green grass fell away. At close range, the whirr of the wings was like the racket of a waterfall. The flight was glorious but nerve-wracking; the bird dodged and veered so sharply that Flory shrieked. But Flory liked it. She had no doubt about that.

All too soon they reached the nest. “What’s this?” asked the hummingbird. Her beak bobbed down and pinched Flory’s quilt.

“It’s mine —” Flory began. “I thought it would keep — Oh!”

Under the quilt were two tiny birds. They had shiny black skin and no feathers; they were wrinkled and skinny, and their tiny beaks were like needles. They were very ugly. Flory loved them at first sight.

The hummingbird plunged her beak into one open mouth. Her stomach jerked in and out as she forced the sugar water she had drunk into the baby bird. Then she turned to the second nestling and fed him. Flory sat on the edge of the nest and watched. She felt a little shy.

“They’re —” She stopped. No one could call the baby hummingbirds beautiful. “I like them,” she said.

“Of course you like them,” the hummingbird said smugly. “They’re the most beautiful children you ever saw.”

Flory put her hand to her mouth to hide a smile. She was just in time to cover a yawn.

“I suppose you’re sleepy,” the hummingbird said. “You’re a night fairy, after all. I’m going out for more sugar water. Do you want another ride?”

“Yes,” Flory said happily. She thought about her little house and the heavenly softness of her hammock. “Please take me home.”

Her home was tidy and peaceful. Flory crawled through the door hole and stumbled over to the hammock. It had been a long day and a long night. She was covered with scratches, and her poppy-red dress was shredded so that she would never be able to mend it. All the same, she was very happy. She felt that she had never been so happy in her life.

She tore off her dress and climbed into the hammock. Tonight, Peregrine would come and carry her away. She wondered what his flight would be like. She looked forward to finding out. Bats fly high; she would swoop over the garden, close to the moon and the stars. . . . Her eyes closed. She was falling sweetly into sleep.

There was a scratching sound outside the door. Flory ignored it. But the noise grew louder, and at last she was forced to open her eyes. The light from the doorway was almost blotted out by two twitching paws.

“You promised me cherries,” said Skuggle.

Laura Amy Schlitz
is the author of the 2008 Newbery Medal–winning book,
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village,
illustrated by Robert Byrd. In addition to that much-honored and highly praised collection, her credits include
A Drowned Maiden’s Hair: A Melodrama,
the recipient of the inaugural Cybils Award for a middle-grade novel, as well as many other honors and accolades. Those two titles and her biography,
The Hero Schliemann: The Dreamer Who Dug for Troy,
illustrated by Robert Byrd, were all Junior Library Guild Selections. Laura Amy Schlitz’s retelling of a Grimm fairy tale,
The Bearskinner,
illustrated by Max Grafe, was named an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book and a
Horn Book
Fanfare selection.

Making a journey into the world of fairy in order to write about the night fairy, Flory, came naturally to Laura Amy Schlitz. “As a child,” she explains, “I adored fairies and fairy tales.” She was also motivated by the girls who came into the library where she works, seeking books about fairies. “They adore the prettiness of fairies, the miniature-ness,” she says, “but they are also nature lovers and lovers of adventure. They are in fact quite interesting little girls — the future wild women of America. I couldn’t help thinking that these little girls who love fairies deserve something lively.”

Laura Amy Schlitz has spent most of her life working as a librarian and a professional storyteller. She has also written plays for young people that have been performed in professional theaters all over the country. She lives in Baltimore, where she is currently lower-school librarian at the Park School.

Angela Barrett
studied at the Royal College of Art in England with Quentin Blake and is one of Britain’s most highly acclaimed illustrators. She has won the Smarties Book Prize and the W. H. Smith Illustration Award for her work and has illustrated more than twenty-four books for children, including many classic tales and fairy tales, biographies, story collections, and picture books. Among her many titles are
Beauty and the Beast,
retold by Max Eilenberg;
The Emperor’s New Clothes,
retold by Naomi Lewis;
Through the Tempests Dark and Wild: A Story of Mary Shelley, Creator of Frankenstein
by Sharon Darrow;
Rocking Horse Land and Other Tales of Dolls and Toys,
compiled by Naomi Lewis; and
Joan of Arc
and
Anne Frank,
both by Josephine Poole.

“When I was young,” she recounts, “creating miniature worlds was a favorite thought before going to sleep. If Flory had had a less exciting life, I would have enjoyed drawing a very detailed domestic interior for her. But she is a creature of simple needs, and after providing herself with a bed, clothes, and storage under difficult circumstances, she gets on with her mission outdoors. She is brave and resourceful — a perfect heroine.”

Angela Barrett lives in London, where she illustrates full-time.