Wishes and Wings (9 page)

A
lida decided to go all the way to the girl's farm first. It was the farthest from the meadow. She would start there and work her way back toward home.

When she landed in the field, she raised her hands and began weaving her fingers.

“YOU! Stop that!”

The shout made Alida whirl around in time to see dark shapes rushing toward her.

She opened her wings to fly.

She was in the air, rising, when a strong hand grabbed her ankle. An instant later she was on the ground.

Alida struggled, but it was no use.

The people had a rope. Two women held her still while a man tied one end of it around her stomach.

It was too tight.

When the humans all stepped back, Alida saw three grown men holding on to the other end of the rope.

There were lanterns bobbing in the dark, coming closer.

“Don't touch her, her skin will burn you like fire!” someone yelled.

“That isn't true,” Alida whispered, and managed to stand up. She was shaking.

The men holding the rope braced themselves, as though she were a wild horse that might drag them if she tried to escape.

“It
was
faeries,” a woman was shouting. “You called my daughter a liar, but she was right!”

Alida tried not to cry. The girl must have awakened and watched her.

“I didn't steal anything,” Alida shouted around
the lump of fear in her throat. “I just moved half of everything. It's down by the fence.”

“Don't lie!” a woman yelled. “There's nothing but dirt down there.”

“It's invisible,” Alida told her. “To hide it from the guards. I can show you.”

She raised her hands again, but a tall woman grabbed her wrists. “No tricks, you little thief.”

Alida struggled, scared. “Just let me—”

“I've heard all the old stories,” a man yelled. “No faerie ever did anything like that. She's lying!”

“Don't hurt her!”

The shout was clear and loud and close. Gavin was shoving his way through the crowd. Alida watched him, wiping the tears off her cheeks.

“Please let her explain, Mr. Dawer,” Gavin said. “She's my friend.”

There was a moment of complete silence, and Alida could see how shocked they all were at what Gavin had said.

Mr. Dawer was shaking his head. “She says the stolen food is still here, that she made it
invisible
. It would take a five-year-old to believe that. She's lying.”

“No, sir,” Gavin said. “She isn't. Bring the lanterns up here. Let her show you.”

People grumbled and laughed, but the woman let go of Alida's hands, and five or six people with lanterns walked closer.

“Make me disappear,” Gavin whispered. Alida wove the magic with trembling fingers and whispered his name—and he was gone.

“You can't see me,” Gavin said. “Can you?”

Alida gave the humans time to gasp and glance at one another, then she made Gavin visible again. Before anyone realized she was still working magic, she made the farmer's harvest visible too—even though no one could see it in the dawn-dusk.

She pointed. “Everything is down in that corner of the field. You'll be able to see it now.”

Mr. Dawer was pale faced, still staring at Gavin, but he nodded. “I'll go look,” he said. “Sam? Bring your lantern.”

The two men walked fast.

Alida held her breath and felt the rope tighten.

“It's all here,” Mr. Dawer shouted up the hill. “Stacked neater than usual.”

Everyone was staring at Alida. “I'm sorry,” she told them. “I should have explained to someone, but I was afraid to.”

“Let her go,” Mr. Dawer said as he walked back into the lantern light.

“She might just fly off,” one of the men holding the rope said.

Gavin stepped forward. “No she won't.” He untied the rope and took Alida's hand.

People followed them from that farm to the next, and on from there. As the word spread through the town, the crowd got bigger. Over and over Alida wove her fingers in the air and whispered the words.

And every time, the farmers and their families thanked her before she left. Some of them had tears in their eyes.

“How did you know?” she whispered to Gavin as they walked.

“I heard the shouting and thought someone was hurt, so I ran to help … and saw you.” He squeezed Alida's hand. “You are the bravest person I have ever known.”

She shook her head, but she smiled.

When they got to the next-to-last farm, the sun was rising. People stared at Alida as the light got brighter.

Then, once she had made the last of the invisible crops visible again, the people who had followed her the whole way thanked her and started home.

When Gavin was the only one left, Alida smiled at him. “Maybe now we can visit each other more.”

He hugged her. “I hope so. Do you want me to walk back with you, or …”

She shook her head. “I need to hurry. My parents will be worried.”

Gavin nodded, kissed her forehead, then followed the others. Alida watched him walk away, then spread her wings and flew home.

When she landed in the meadow, all the faeries surrounded her, asking where she had been. Before she could answer, her mother arrived, guiding her toward their nest-tree, shooing everyone else back to work.

Once they were alone, Alida described everything. “So everyone in Ash Grove knows we are here,” she finished, and let out a long breath. “I'm so sorry. I thought they would figure it out slowly, and have time to get used to the idea.”

“You've proved to them that we can be very good neighbors,” her mother said. “I think we should celebrate.”

“They were so angry at first,” Alida said.

Her mother nodded. “They were scared. Lord
Dunraven was taking a bigger share, then they discovered a faerie they thought was stealing even more … of course they were suspicious. And we have one more reason to be grateful to Gavin.” She smiled. “Sleep while the rest of us cook. You can tell us the whole story at the feast this evening.”

Alida climbed the tree and snuggled into her nest.

She closed her eyes, listening to the faeries arguing as her mother explained what had happened. When they stopped arguing and began to discuss who would make the berry soup and who would set up the feast tables, she drifted off to sleep.

When Alida's mother woke her, the sun was setting and the sweet scent of faerie food was in the air. “Come down when you're ready,” she said, draping a pink, ruffled dress and a warm washcloth over the edge of the nest.

Alida cleaned up, slid into the dress, and tied the sash beneath her wings.

Then she hesitated.

If she climbed down through the branches and twigs, the dress would be ruined.

She jumped up and perched on the rim of the nest, intending to call to her mother to ask if she could fly down, just this once.

What she saw made her catch her breath.

Below her was a wide circle of dressed-up faeries, all hovering in midair.

Everyone
was flying.

And when they saw her, they cheered.

“Just for tonight,” her mother called out. “To celebrate your courage and our hope that the people of Ash Grove will be our neighbors again!”

Alida smiled.

She spread her wings and leapt into the air.

S
ummer was gone.

Nights were getting chilly.

One morning Alida could see her breath as she sat up in the nest she shared with her sister. Terra was already awake.

Alida stretched and tucked her wings under her shawl.

Then she followed Terra downward through the branches of the massive old oak tree. The edges of the leaves were turning brown.

The sun was barely up, but the meadow was already full of faeries.

No one was flying. They were all walking,
their wings hidden beneath cloaks and capes and shawls.

Every day Alida's mother made sure there were faeries perched high in the trees, watching the forest and listening for the sound of hoofbeats. No one knew when Lord Dunraven's guards might come looking for them again.

Near the middle of the meadow, Alida waved at her sister and Terra waved back.

Then they both hurried to begin their work. Today Alida would help weave sturdy floor mats from river grass.

There was a lot to do before winter closed in. The day before, she had helped her aunt Lily sort through all their blankets. Some had been torn on the journey home. Aunt Lily had taught her a simple mending magic. It had been hard at first, but Alida had practiced it until she could help repair the old blankets.

They would need many new blankets and
warmer clothes before winter came. The weavers were doing everything they could to get their looms up and working.

Most of the faeries were headed toward a wide, tangled circle of berry bushes and sapling trees. Any human coming into the meadow would think the bushes were part of the forest. That was exactly what the faeries wanted them to think.

But they weren't.

Alida had searched for seedlings in the woods and replanted them here, in huge, crooked circles.

A slender mulberry tree Alida had carried home was twice as tall already. The young blackberries, blueberries, wild pear trees, and woods' roses had all grown incredibly fast too.

Alida's mother said there was a thousand years worth of magic in the soil. Her sister Lily said it was even older than that.

Whatever it was, the uneven circle of trees and bushes was tall enough to hide the weavers'
and cheese makers' houses the faeries had built—and their storage sheds.

They had planted a second circle of jumbled trees and bushes at the other end of the meadow. That one hid a pasture for their cows and goats.

Alida looked at the faeries around her. Almost no one was talking. No one was smiling or singing.

The faerie flutes and harps were packed away. No one dared to play music in the evenings now.

Everyone was worried. They were always ready to run. Everyone knew exactly what to do.

If Lord Dunraven's guards came, the faeries would race to the tall oak tree on the edge of the clearing. They would stand close together so Alida's mother could use her new magic to make them invisible.

It had worked twice.

Both times, when the guards couldn't see anyone, they had left.

Alida sighed. Her mother had taught her the
magic too, just in case. Every night before she went to sleep she recited the odd, ancient words. She practiced gathering her own magic and reciting the names of all the faeries, too.

Alida knew the guards would probably come again, sooner or later.

And when they did, it would be her fault. She was the one who had helped the humans. She was the one they had seen.

Walking to the creek to gather a stack of tall, strong grass, Alida made herself stop worrying long enough to concentrate on the new magic she was experimenting with. It wasn't big magic.

It was small magic—the safest kind.

First she used the usual cutting magic her father had taught her and watched a wide swath of the tough, wiry grass fall neatly on the ground.

Then she tried to mend it.

About half of the grass jerked upright and
balanced on its stems, but then it fell over again.

She tried a second time, then a third.

The fourth time, some of the grass repaired itself, the stems as strong as if she had never cut them at all. Alida smiled, gathered up the rest, and went back to the clearing.

All morning she helped two of her sister's friends and a few elder faeries weave mats for the floor of the weavers' house.

As usual, most of the elders acted like she wasn't there.

Kary and Cinder were nice, but Alida could tell they were a little uneasy around her too.

Everyone was.

Alida didn't blame them. It wasn't just because the villagers had seen her and knew the faeries had come home. She was
different
. She had grown up by herself, locked in a castle tower. Her best friend was a human boy and she missed him every day. That was very hard for the other faeries to understand.