by Lari Don
Helen was shouting and stabbing at the bird with her scalpel when Sapphire roared. Helen guessed it was a warning or an instruction, and flung herself down on the ground, hands over her head. She felt a whoosh of hot air, and the gull screamed. There was the smell of barbecue, then silence.
Helen sat up, said, “Thank you,” to Sapphire, and started calmly cutting through the net again. She didn’t look round to see what had happened to the gull.
It took just a moment to free Catesby and then she tried to cut the confusion of plastic woven round the dragon. She was careful not to slash through the beaded necklace the dragon still wore on her front leg. Helen managed to cut the net away from Sapphire’s head and legs, and free her wings, but the knots of trailing plastic round her spikes would just have to wait.
When she had let everyone go, Helen looked up to see if Lavender had escaped the gang of seagulls. The squawking and yelling had moved away from the circle and was now over the nearest loch. Helen could see the occasional glow of light from Lavender’s wand. She picked up the first aid kit, ran past the lower stones, slid through the ditch and flung herself over the fence, heading for the water. Sapphire and Catesby had taken to the air, Sapphire to drive off the rest of the seagulls from the circle with her huge leathery wings and brief jets of flame, Catesby to join Rona in trying to rescue Lavender.
But as Helen rushed across the road, she heard a small scream, a chorus of triumphant squawks and then a tiny splash.
She reached the water’s edge just as Sapphire landed beside her. There was no sign of Rona or the fairy. Catesby, chattering his beak in agitation, was clearly telling the dragon what had happened, but Helen had no idea what he was saying. Sapphire took off again to scatter the swarm of seagulls over the loch, and in the light from her fire, Helen saw a round shiny head break through the loch’s surface a couple of hundred yards from the shore. Was it a seal? Could it be Rona? Then she saw a long pale arm rise out of the water too, and a voice called faintly, “I’ve got her.”
Helen was relieved that Rona was still a girl. Perhaps she could explain what was going on. The selkie was swimming quickly and smoothly, but with one hand always clear of the water.
“I’ve got her,” she repeated as she neared the shore, “but she isn’t breathing. I think she’s drowned. I think she’s dead.”
Chapter 10
Rona held the motionless fairy close to her chest as she emerged from the loch.
“Give her to me, now!” demanded Helen. She took the sodden handful of fairy from Rona, then realized she could hardly see her. Lavender was the one who had lit all their adventures so far. Helen turned to Sapphire as she landed on the shore and asked, “Can you give me some light without burning me?”
Sapphire opened her mouth wide and produced a pale yellow glow from deep in her throat.
Helen examined Lavender. Her dress was dark with water and her hair was stuck to her head. Her face was white and her eyes were closed. She was freezing cold, and totally limp. Helen didn’t think there was a spark of life in the fairy, until she saw that her right hand was still gripping her wand.
Helen pushed the rucksack at Rona. “Open it and find some dry bandages.”
Helen knelt on the ground, using Sapphire’s body to shelter her from the wind. Then she used one precious breath to blow her own hair off her sweaty forehead, and used the next one to blow, ever so softly, into Lavender’s mouth and nose. Putting her lips in a tiny pout over the fairy’s face, she blew in a gentle rhythm. After five breaths, she stopped and pressed a fingertip five times to the fairy’s chest to try to start her heart. Then she breathed into her again.
Rona held out a ripped square of bandage. Helen wrapped the fairy in the fabric and rubbed her gently to warm her up. Then she continued breathing and pressing, pressing and breathing.
Rona was weeping behind her, but Helen had to concentrate on counting, and breathing and pressing. She could cry later if she had to.
Suddenly, as Helen was pressing her chest for the third cycle, Lavender coughed. Helen tipped her hand to hold the fairy upright and gave her face a wipe with the bandage.
Lavender coughed again, and opened her eyes. She tried to speak, but instead she spat water onto Helen’s sleeve.
“Ooops, sorry,” she croaked.
Helen couldn’t speak to say it was alright. She was just amazed that this drowned little fairy was alive in her hands and being so polite.
Rona whispered over her shoulder, “You brought her back to life. You can do healing magic of your own.”
Then Catesby squawked. Rona nodded, “Catesby says that those scavenging outlaws were trying to trap us in the stone circle for someone, and that we had better get out of here before that someone arrives.”
Helen swaddled the damp fairy in a dry bandage and held her carefully in her hands as she clambered back on Sapphire.
“We will fly to a safe distance and work out what to do next,” said Rona as Sapphire took off from the loch shore.
Helen looked down as Sapphire gained height over the circle. She couldn’t see anything but blackness in the middle, though the moonlight showed some of the tall grey stones now streaked with scorch marks.
As they flew over the smaller loch, the wind died down for a moment and they heard a deep, resonating roar of anger from the stone circle behind them. Helen shivered and so did the fairy cupped in her hands.
Sapphire’s wings beat even faster, heading straight for a dip in the hills of a large island to the south, taking them out of sight and hearing of whoever was in the circle. Once they were through the valley, they landed on a long curved beach covered with huge rounded rocks. The cliffs and hills surrounding the bay sheltered them from the driving wind.
Rona looked round. “I’ve seen this beach from the sea. It’s Rackwick Bay on Hoy. We should be safe here.”
So while Helen, Rona, and Catesby each perched on a massive pebble, and Sapphire balanced her weight over three, Lavender told her story from the safety of Helen’s arms. The fairy’s voice grew stronger as she warmed up and dried out.
“I found that pile of stones in the centre of the circle and thought it might mark the clue, so I tried to crawl into it in case the riddle was inside, but it wasn’t. Then I tried to dig under it in case the riddle was buried, but it wasn’t. And then I thought maybe the cairn was the clue, so I tried to memorize how the stones were placed so we could read them later. I was concentrating so hard that when something dived at me and picked me up in its claws I forgot myself completely and screamed. I’m so sorry. I lured you all into a trap, away from the standing stones so they could drop the net on us.”
Rona shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault. Thanks to Sapphire melting the net and Helen cutting it, we got out of the trap. But we nearly lost you, Lavender, and we didn’t get the Book or the clue. Perhaps the Master already has it.”
“He can’t have, or else why would he be trying to catch us. If he had the Book, he wouldn’t be bothering with us.” Lavender coughed.
Rona said firmly, “This has gone far enough. I know I said we would get the Book by force or cunning or sacrifice, but I didn’t realize what that meant. You nearly died, Lavender. We have to tell our parents. We have to let them use their magic and skills and knowledge to find the Book. We just can’t do it ourselves.”
Catesby squawked but Rona didn’t bother to translate for Helen, she just snapped back, “Well, Yann isn’t here, and Yann didn’t hold Lavender’s lifeless body in his hands.”
“But I am still alive,” Lavender pointed out. “As long as we have Helen, we have survived everything the Master has thrown at us. I think we should keep trying.”
“So far the Master has merely thrown weasels, rocks and seagulls at us, but we’ve been damaged every time. I think he can get nastier if he has to, and I’m not sure that Helen’s green bag holds much more magic. Anyway we can’t keep trying, because we have nothing to go on. The Book is either in the Master’s hands, or it has
fled and we have no clue to tell us where it has gone. We must go home now and confess what we have done.”
Helen thought Rona might be right, that telling their parents might be the best plan, but she couldn’t keep her triumph to herself any longer.
“Actually, we do have something to go on. I think I might have found the clue.”
They all turned to look at her, four very different heads, but all with gleaming eyes and slightly open mouths.
“I didn’t get to the centre of the circle as fast as the rest of you when Lavender screamed because I tripped over something, at the base of the third stone. Here it is.”
She pulled the object from her pocket. It felt smooth and almost warm. She brushed the dry earth from one end.
“It’s driftwood.”
It was light, as driftwood always is, like the sea had washed all the substance out of the wood and left nothing but the shape. It was pale and clean on one side, but when Helen turned it over, she saw tiny marks burnt dark into the wood on the other side.
“I think this is the clue.”
They all crowded onto Helen’s rock and peered at the tiny words, Lavender’s flickering light balls jostling for space between their heads. Helen read slowly:
Here there is great change and fear:
Writhing snake to bar of hot iron,
Slippery newt to growling bear.
If you can hold strong and fast,
You will hold me in your hands at last.
Rona repeated it in a sing song voice.
Helen said, “Bits of that sound familiar. Like it’s from a song I once heard, or a story my Gran used to tell me.”
“We’re all too tired to think about it just now.” Rona yawned. “We can show it to Yann when we get back to Clovenshaws.”
“To Yann?” said Lavender archly. “Not to your mummy and daddy?”
“No. Helen has given us one last chance. If we can work this out and get the Book tomorrow, without putting ourselves at risk again, then perhaps we can avoid letting them know how stupid we have been.”
Sapphire grunted, and Catesby nodded in agreement.
Rona turned to Helen, “They’re going to watch for the Master’s creatures leaving Orkney. We don’t want to leave at the same time and meet over the Pentland Firth.”
The two winged friends took off and headed into the darkness, leaving Rona, Helen and Lavender on the rocky beach. Rona hugged her knees up to her chest, and then winced.
Helen asked, “Is your arm sore?”
Rona stretched her arm out to Helen, and Lavender handed Helen her wand. “Keep using the light if you like, I’m going to have a lie down,” and the fairy curled up in the top of the rucksack.
Helen looked at Rona’s arm. There was a big red weal, about the size of a two-pound coin, on her wrist, and a few smaller ones towards her elbow. But there was no sign of molten plastic sticking to the skin.
“Swimming in the loch must have cleaned your arm. It looks fine but I can put a dressing on if you like.”
“No thanks. Not yet. I think I might go for a swim. I’m feeling a bit shaky and I really want to be myself for a while. You don’t mind if I leave you with Lavender, do you?”
“No, of course not,” said Helen.
Rona leapt from stone to stone down to the waves and was hardly visible by the time she reached the sea, but Helen thought she saw the small grey figure pull on a hooded cloak, then shimmer, shrink and slide into the sea and out of sight.
Helen sat quietly on the beach. She didn’t look at her watch, there was no point. It was late, and she would be in trouble when she got home, but there was nothing she could do about it, so she just sat and thought about bears, snakes, newts and bars of iron, and listened to the gentle noise of the waves.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a song, sung without words, with only two or three high sounds, and a strange deep crackling undertone. Helen was sure the simple melody was telling a story; a story of happiness and sadness, questions and surprises, which repeated again and again with no true ending.
The waves, which struck each part of the curved shore at a slightly different time, played a constant soft scraping percussion. The song was coming from the sea, from a rock out by the cliffs to Helen’s left. The wind seized the occasional note before it reached her, but she found herself filling in the gaps in her head.
Once she’d heard the melody, she found herself transcribing it in her head for the fiddle. I could play that, she thought, but it would need a proper ending. Then the singing stopped, and only the waves kept playing.
Rona appeared wet and smiling beside Helen five minutes later.
“Was that you singing?” Helen asked.
“Yes. I needed to sing out my feelings about tonight. Lavender’s my closest friend and I thought I had brought her here to die. I can’t cope without singing and I sing better as a seal. Did you like it?”
“I loved it,” Helen grinned. “I’d like to play it but we’d need to write an ending.” She looked at Rona.
Rona smiled. “We won’t have an ending to our quest song, my human friend, until we have the Book back.”
Helen hummed the bars she had imagined for the violin and Rona sang a few other phrases, and soon they had begun to turn a simple melody into a complex harmony. Then all at once Sapphire and Catesby were back, urging the others to leave.
So Helen put the sleeping fairy inside her torn fleece and climbed onto the dragon behind Rona, trying not to touch the very wet sealskin on her back. Just before Sapphire took off, she asked Rona, “Why didn’t you become a seal to rescue Lavender from the loch?”
She just caught Rona’s answer before the rushing wind deafened her. “I needed a hand to hold her in; as a seal I can only use my teeth …”
They flew into the night, into the wind, over the sea, back to the place where it all began.
Chapter 11
Helen had found the flight up to Orkney exhilarating but the flight back was exhausting and cold, and she was relieved when Sapphire’s wing-beats slowed and the dragon floated to the ground.
They landed just beside the wood where they had left Yann. Helen jumped down and watched the others go into the dark trees, where no moonlight reached.
She lifted Lavender gently out of her fleece, partly to see how she was, and partly to persuade her to make a bit of fairy light, to lift the spooky blackness.
Lavender sneezed and smiled at Helen. “Hello!”
“How do you feel?” Helen asked.
“Fine. Fabulous. A bit damp. This dress is ruined. Oh well. I have plenty of others at home. All … guess what? … purple!”
“Don’t you like purple?”
“I hate it! Purple dresses, purple slippers, purple ribbons, purple buttons. We all get given flower names, but some fairies get called Tulip or Rose and can wear any colour at all. But I’m Lavender, so I can only wear purple. My mum is a Bluebell and moans about hating blue, so you’d think she’d have given me a name with more colour variety! But no! She chose Lavender and I’m stuck with purple! It’s just not done to go against your name. It’s unlucky. And luck is very important to fairies.
“You were my luck tonight though. You saved my life. I will repay you somehow.”
Lavender’s little balls of light danced round them as they walked into the wood, to join the others under a tall birch tree. Yann was letting Catesby pick small twigs from his hair, while Rona used a handful of dried leaves to wipe white sweat stains from his flank.
“No,” he was answering, “I had a really boring night. I just had to gallop to get here to meet you. That’s all.” He grinned. “So tell me about your adventures.”
Rona threw the leaves down and told the tale of the night. Helen listened, slightly embarrassed, as Rona described how the healer’s child had saved Lavender’s life with magic breath and then pulled the clue from her pocket.
Rona ended her story. “Then we heard the Master bellow as we flew away. He was angry to los
e us, but will be even angrier when he fails to find the clue.”
Yann walked on soft hooves up to Helen and Lavender. First he held his hand out to Lavender, and she hopped nimbly from Helen to Yann.
“How are you, my smallest fabled friend?”
“I am stiff, and my dress and hair are a mess, but I breathe and I fly.” She did a quick somersault on his hand. “I will weave magic for my friends again, because the healer’s child saved me.”
“How did you save her, healer’s child?” Yann turned to Helen. “Is it true you have magic too? Why did you not tell us?”
“It wasn’t magic, Yann, I just pressed her chest to restart her heart and blew into her mouth to fill her lungs.”
“You did not have time to get that from a book.”
“No. My Mum insisted we took a course together on first aid for babies when my wee sister Nicola was born, and I practised artificial resuscitation on a doll. The doll was a bit bigger than Lavender but the principle was the same.”
“So you have learnt some healing from your elders after all.”
Helen shrugged. “I suppose I have. Mum would be delighted if I could ever tell her. But in fact, she’s just going to be massively annoyed when I get home so late. What time is it?”
“It is long past the mid point of night. But it is winter and there are still many hours before dawn. So we have time to puzzle out the next clue.”
Helen knew she would be in serious trouble at home for staying out so late, but perhaps a few more minutes wouldn’t make the consequences any worse. So she sat on a mossy branch, brought the driftwood from her pocket, and handed it to Yann. Yann read, in his clear hard voice:
“Here there is great change and fear:
Writhing snake to bar of hot iron,
Slippery newt to growling bear.
If you can hold strong and fast,
You will hold me in your hands at last.