“Oh…well, alright.”
They stood looking at one another for a long moment before Donella held up a folded, sealed parchment.
“I came to ask if you could deliver this to your father. It’s somewhat urgent. I wrote it before coming and completely forgot to give it to him.”
Nikki looked less than thrilled, but she nodded and took the letter. “I’ll see you tonight,” she said to Katy.
Katy nodded and waved as her friend took off.
“Katy,” Donella said once Nikki was gone, “would you mind waiting a few moments for your flying lessons to resume? I need to find Jagan.”
“Of course.” Katy pointed back up the path. “He was up there talking a few minutes ago.”
Donella smiled. “Thank you.” And to Katy’s great relief, she didn’t even ask how flying lessons were coming. Maybe Katy could enjoy a few moments to herself. Such moments had been few and far between in the last six days. But no sooner had Donella taken off to find Jagan than a hand clamped itself over her mouth and an arm wrapped itself around her waist.
“If you're loyal to the chancel, then by all means scream,” a rough voice said in her ear.
Katy stiffened. She had never been so close to Liam before, nor had she wanted to be. And what in the isles was he talking about? “And if I’m undecided?” It seemed the safest thing to say while she was in his grasp, her words muffled by his hand.
“Keep quiet and hang on.” And with that, he launched them into the sky.
18
He Will Hate You
Katy nearly shrieked as the world shrank below. She might be a fairy, but that made the trip into the sky no less frightening. She clung to the older fairy’s arms as he skimmed Summer’s treetops, praying that she wouldn't die. Katy wasn't sure what she had expected of flying, but this death-defying stunt wasn't it.
She had long imagined what it might be like to watch the world from above. Blue shimmering lakes in Summer, pink orchards in Spring with the deep brown of earth beneath them finally free of snow. As he zoomed along at an unthinkable pace, however, the world was blurred at best. Finally, he brought them to rest to a ledge beside a waterfall that poured into a river. They were closer to the center of the isle than the camp. Or at least, she guessed so.
She was so dizzy by the time he set her on her feet again that she nearly stumbled over the ledge and into the water. Just before she tipped over the edge, however, Liam grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her behind the waterfall. Mist made the air heavy, and Katy could tell she would be soaked by the time they got out. He set her against the back wall of the shallow cavern with a huff.
“What was that for?” She had to yell above the roar of the waterfall.
Liam peeked peered out around the edge of waterfall then hurried back to her as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’m trying to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”
Katy blinked the water out of her eyes. “What?”
“If you marry that prince…” His shoulder-length hair sent beads of water down his robe, and his beard dripped as well. “You’re going to live to see the day that he hates you because you cannot give him what he wants!” He paused. “And you will hate him too.”
Katy tried to swallow the lump that had grown in her throat. Anger surged from her heart down her arms and into her hands, but she clenched her fists to hold it at bay. “You may hate humans, but I—”
“It’s not about hate or love or any other useless emotion.” He loomed over Katy, his eyes burning into hers. He bent until their faces were inches apart. “It’s about the fact that you cannot be happy with him. Not when you realize he will never be able to give you what you truly desire.”
Katy stared at him. “Whatever it is you’re talking about, would you please just say it?”
Liam took a step closer but glanced over his shoulder as though someone else might be there. But, as far as Katy could tell, they were alone. “Just trust me.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Katy wrapped her arms around herself as she began to shiver from more than just the wet cold.
He gave her a dark look. “I just wish I would have listened when someone else had told me the same thing.” And with that, he raised his wings. “Let’s go.”
“Wait!” Katy cried, running up behind him. “What are you doing?”
His eyes narrowed. “I thought you wanted to learn to fly. Now come.”
Katy followed him hesitantly to the edge of the rock ledge that jutted out over the water. They were at least ten stories high, possibly more.
“You don’t wait for your wings to catch the wind,” he called out over the roar of the water. “You must create your own.”
“How?” Katy’s response was barely audible as she stared down at the distant river below.
“Your wings do not simply move up and down like a bird’s.” He grabbed one of her wings, and to her surprise, he began to move it in all different directions. “Our wings most resemble a butterfly's,” he said, “but they have the range of a dragonfly. There. Feel that?”
Katy shivered as a cool breeze moved near and began to swirl around them.
“This breeze will last for another half minute or so.”
“How do you know?”
“If you’re careful, you can catch it with your wings. You won’t even need the breeze eventually. But for now, just ride the breeze as you would an ocean wave.”
“I hate the ocean! What are you doing?” Katy shrieked as he tried to shove her toward the edge.
“I’m teaching you to fly.”
“Up here?”
“Where better? Now hold your hands out.” When she obeyed, he yanked her forward and let go.
Katy screamed as she plummeted. How far down was the river? Would she be dashed to pieces on rocks? Or would she hit the water so hard it would kill her? Katy had once thrown herself into a creek, belly first, as a child, and the pain had been seared in her memory ever since. She couldn’t imagine what this would feel like when she finally did hit the bottom.
“Atharo!” she shrieked. Words beyond that, however, failed her as she continued to fall. For no matter how hard she told her wings to beat, they refused. Liam might as well have tied a ball and chain around her ankle and pushed her off the side of a ship. She tried desperately to move her wings, to catch the breeze he’d spoken about. But nothing worked. She simply continued to fall.
19
Fly
The pain of impact with the river was nothing like what she had anticipated. It was far worse. The way her head slammed into the water felt like the time she’d been thrown from her horse. Her bones felt as though someone had tossed them all around her body, bruising and misplacing them in the process, and her skin burned so badly she thought she might never feel anything ever again.
Again and again, she tried to find the surface. But she was unable to tell which direction was up and which was down. She thrashed around in the water, her lungs growing tight as she failed to come up for air. As black spots began to appear in her vision, Katy’s thoughts jumbled together, the significant with the foolish.
They would never kneel at the tree.
She should have let Peter see her new fairy clothes.
Peter would probably start a war if she didn’t come back.
She would forever be known as the fairy that couldn’t fly.
But just as she was about to lose consciousness, the water began to thrash back and forth, and after letting loose a few large waves, it dumped her on the bank of the river. She gasped for breath as her vision began to return. As soon as she could see straight, Katy flipped over and looked around. The banks she lay on was muddy and surrounded by thick, dark green foliage. The woods were so dense it was nearly impossible to see the sky, and the entire little base of the waterfall and all the land surrounding it lay in the shadows of the thick woods.
“Liam?” she rasped, her voice still raw from having sucked in too much water. “Jagan? Nikki?”
But there was no sign of Liam or any of her friends. Not even one of the curious fairies who often followed close by to watch her.
When she caught up to Liam, he would have more than just the Higher Chancel to watch out for.
You need to breathe! The voice was a whisper, barely audible over the breeze.
Katy jerked her head to the left, toward the voice. But there was no one there. “What?” she croaked.
Breathe! the voice called softly to her again. A woman’s voice. When you fly, you need to breathe.
Only then did Katy realize she had been holding her breath. Well, now and when she tried to fly. “How?” she called back, pushing herself unsteadily to her knees and then her feet. “Who are you?”
Try again. And this time, keep breathing after you’ve jumped.
“But I fall,” Katy called back, walking slowly in the direction she thought the voice was coming from. “I always fall.” There was still no sign of a person to go with the voice, and it never seemed closer. It simply stayed where she could just barely hear it enough to make out its words.
The voice chuckled softly. Just try. If you breathe, your wings will know what to do.
“Who are you?” she called again.
A friend.
“But how do I know I can trust you?”
The voice laughed, a tinkling sound. Do you have any choice? As though Katy’s question were an amusing one.
Well, if Katy were honest, no. She didn’t have a choice. She was lost and stuck, and the only one who knew where she was a bitter middle-aged fairy who struggled with anger and, from what she could smell, too much drink.
Katy stopped walking and surveyed the terrain around her. Up ahead, was a pile of rocks that jutted out over the river. If she tried from there and fell again, it wouldn’t hurt so much. Of course, she thought as she walked, she wasn’t sure how much credibility she should give a bodiless voice that spoke through the trees. But with Liam nowhere in sight, she certainly wasn't making it back to the camp anytime soon. She might as well try. Before she had gone very far, however, the voice stopped her.
Go back up to the ledge, it said.
“The one I fell off of?” She pointed to the ledge where she’d been standing with Liam.
Just trust me, Katy.
Katy didn’t want to trust anything or anyone else, particularly something that knew her name. But before she could think about it too much, Katy found herself climbing back up to the familiar lookout. It took much longer than she had hoped, so by the time she arrived, she was exhausted.
“Promise I won’t fall?” she whispered into the wind.
Just remember to breathe. In a response, the breeze grew so sharp so fast that she nearly toppled off the ledge. Once she was steady again, she closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep, deep breath. She could do this on her own. She had to.
Katy jumped.
Breathe! the voice cried.
As though she’d been caught midair by invisible arms, her wings opened and her fall came to a halt.
Again! the voice commanded.
Katy still couldn’t see the source of the voice, but at the moment, she didn’t care. All that mattered was not dying. So she took a second breath. And a third. And as she continued to breathe, she realized her wings were not only opening and closing, but they were moving with the wind as well. She wasn’t even having to think about how she was flying. As long as she breathed and kept her shoulders relaxed, her wings continued to move on their own, reacting to the air around them.
She opened her eyes to find herself hovering above the river. At first, she was terrified. But the longer she hovered, the more Katy took stock of herself and realized quite quickly that she had been built to do more. She could fly.
Somewhat hesitantly, Katy did her best to turn. For a second, she forgot to breathe and dunked her legs in the river up to her knees. But once she got her legs out of the water, she maneuvered her way over to the riverbank once again, then plopped herself down on the ground, panting more from the anxiety than exhaustion.
She could fly. This was good. Or at least, it should have been. But in the short time she'd managed to stay out of the water, Katy had already felt the pull of the earth and the force it was exerting to draw her back down into the water. Her wings might push her up, but with each movement, she could still feel that the earth wanted her down.
Katy groaned. All that work and she didn't even like flying.
Well, whether she liked it or not, she needed to get back to the camp. Or…perhaps she could go back to the palace. There had to be a way to find Peter before anyone discovered where she was. She just wanted to show him. Then she would head right back to camp. After all, she could fly now.
Katy climbed behind the waterfall one more time. The voice didn’t speak to her again as she stepped off the ledge. But this time, she didn’t need it. Though she enjoyed the feeling of leaving solid ground behind no more than she had the first time, she remembered to breathe, and with each flap of her wings, she had to focus just a little less than the one before. She refused to look down as she pushed herself high enough to see her surroundings.
Smoke rose up from a break in the trees at what looked to be ten or so miles to her east, most likely where the fairies were camped in the middle of Summer. To her right, in the glow of the afternoon sun, Katy could see the glint of what she guessed to be the palace on the coast of Summer. With a deep breath, Katy began to make her way toward that glint.
Unfortunately, Katy began to tire much faster than she had expected. And the nearest clearing she could find was the place where all four seasons met in the middle of the isle. Near the Tree of Diadems. So with a prayer that she would last long enough to reach it, Katy’s flight dipped lower and lower. And yet, just as her strength was beginning to give out, she finally made her way through the dead canopy of branches and landed beside the tree.
***
The cavern the dead branches created was gray and ghostly. The air wasn’t cold, but Katy shivered as she made her way down to the tree. She was rather sure she wasn’t supposed to touch the dais, let alone the tree, but no one was here. Surely Atharo wouldn’t mind her curiosity. She wasn’t going to hurt anything.
Just as Peter had said, two crowns stuck out of the side of the tree, half of each embedded in the trunk. The larger of the two crowns, obviously the king’s crown, was ornate and decorated with red, yellow, green, blue, and white jewels, each color the exact shade of one of the crests worn by the rhins. The smaller of the crowns, however, was smaller and yet far more elegant. Thread-like ribbons of gold and silver danced in and out and around one another, and each strand was studded with jewels the size of peas, dozens of them, the same colors as those in the king’s crown.
Curious, Katy reached out to touch the crowns. Her fingers slid down the metal, which, despite being exposed to the elements, remained as clean and polished as they would have in a crown on the monarch’s head. When her hands reached the actual tree, however, she froze.
Though the tree bark looked like any other, she felt the slightest change when she touched it, almost as if the tree were covered in the thinnest layer of glass. She stepped back and looked up at the tree once more. Besides being the biggest tree she had ever seen…and dead…it looked completely average. She walked around the trunk slowly, dragging her hand along its surface as she went. By the time she’d gone all the way around, Katy was convinced that the entire tree had been encased in some sort of magic. For though the invisible magic shell was brittle, it was strong enough to make her fingers tingle.
Then it hit her.
Donella had spoken of needing the tree to flower. In fact, it was her favorite topic of discussion. What if the tree couldn’t flower because whatever magic lay over it was preventing the flowers from growing? And no one had been able to break the encasement because…
“Because they need autumn,” Katy whispered.
Suddenly driven by a nearly maddening curiosity, Katy plac
ed her right hand flat against the tree and pressed against it. As she pushed her magic into the outer shell, she realized quickly that whoever had laid the magic there had made it much stronger than she’d originally thought. Still, Katy continued to try. She wasn’t sure exactly what drove her on, but she felt herself beginning to enjoy herself immensely as she stretched her power. The harder she tried, the more excited she grew. Despite the fact that she was beginning to tremble with the effort, a thrill ran down her spine.
“Katy! We’ve been so worried!”
In her surprise, Katy forgot to regulate the flow of her magic, and like a hand going through glass, she felt a hole break through the magic shell beneath her fingers as she turned to find Jagan.
She stood there, frozen, torn between trying to pretend everything was alright and the knowledge that she had just broken the Tree that was supposed to keep the isles alive.
Thankfully, he seemed too relieved to notice. “Wait here,” he called as he flew up and disappeared through the branches. “I’ve found her,” he called. “You can go back to camp.”
While he was gone, Katy searched desperately for any visible sign of her accident, the whole time wanting to kick herself for being so stupid. Now, thanks to her ridiculous curiosity, she might have just doomed the isles.
Jagan reappeared and descended. “How did you end up here? Did you get lost?” Then he looked around. “Wait. I thought you were with Liam. I tried to follow as soon as I saw…” He sighed. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
Katy shrugged, moving casually to stand in front of the tree. “He told me how to fly, pushed me over a waterfall, and left.”
“He did what?” Jagan’s eyes looked like they might pop. Then he shook his head and rubbed his face. “I told Donella not to use him,” he muttered to himself. “Well,” he sighed, looking at her once again. “I’m assuming you’re alright?”
The Autumn Fairy of Ages Page 17