A Sliver of Stardust

by Marissa Burt

  “But my particular research interest,” Cole was saying, “is in sleep disorders and the psychology of dreams.” His thick-rimmed glasses made his eyebrows look extra sharp as they furrowed down disapprovingly. “Boggen was a Weather Changer and a Dreamer, you know. The two often go hand in hand. Wren, how have you been sleeping lately?”

  “Fine,” she lied. One part of her brain was screaming at her to tell the truth. This was proof that the dreams meant something, and Cole could probably tell her exactly what. But the other part instinctively knew that would be dangerous. Here she was, already suspect as the first Weather Changer. There was no way she was going to tell Cole, with his frowning eyebrows and incriminating gaze, that she, coincidentally, was also a Dreamer who couldn’t control her dreams.

  “Elsa keeps us so busy, you know?” Wren babbled. “I’m exhausted at night and conk out right away. Never slept so well as I do here.” But the claim sounded false even to Wren’s own ears. Every night was the same. Repeats of the dreams she’d had before, or something very like them. Colorless scenes where strange things happened.

  “Fiddler Elsa, you mean” was all Cole said in reply, his frown making two deep lines between his eyes. “Have you wandered anywhere in the Crooked House you shouldn’t?”

  “No,” Wren said, wondering if he thought apprentices were stupid.

  He folded his hands and leaned in toward her. “Have you touched any magical object you don’t know the purpose of?”

  “No.” Seriously? Did he actually think Wren would own up to it if she had? “No, sir.” The creases between his eyes deepened. “I mean, Fiddler. No, Fiddler,” she added belatedly.

  “What about Fiddler labs? Have you gone into any of them?”

  Wren folded her hands to match his. So apparently he did think apprentices were stupid if he thought she would give a different answer to the same question thinly disguised. She ignored his frown. “I already told you,” Wren said evenly. “I only go where I’m told and do what I’m told.”

  “And your dreams.” Cole shifted topics without warning. “Fiddler Liza reports you’ve had some odd moments, when you seem to be somewhere else. Could you explain?”

  “I—uh—” Wren hunted for words. Liza had told Cole about their lessons? That was unexpected. “It’s Simon, you see,” Wren said, thinking fast. “I’ve always been smarter than him, but here”—what had started out as a stalling tactic was becoming genuine—“here, he’s better with the stardust. And sometimes having lessons with him and Jack is”—her voice dropped—“really hard.”

  Cole sat back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, a look of disappointment in his eyes. “I don’t want to hear about your petty rivalries, Apprentice.” His voice was hard. “Don’t waste my time.”

  Wren drew herself up. Waste his time? He was the one interrogating her! “I’m sorry I can’t be more help, Fiddler Cole,” she said in her most grown-up voice. “But I really should get back to my rounds. Fiddler Elsa”—she made sure to enunciate Fiddler—“will be upset if I’m not back soon.” She glanced around the lab, feeling a fleeting sadness that she couldn’t learn more of what was going on here, but even that wasn’t worth the risk of extending her time under Cole’s hawkish gaze. “Thank you for letting me see your laboratory.”

  Cole eyed her over steepled fingers. “Very well,” he said. “If you think of anything else, you know where to find me.”

  FIFTEEN

  One misty moisty morning,

  When cloudy was the weather,

  I chanced to meet an old man,

  Clothed all in leather.

  Wren thought about what Cole had told her in the days that followed. She listened carefully in her apprentice lessons for any mention of dreams. She reimagined her past ones and hunted for connections between them. She scoured the library for books that had anything to do with sleep but came up with very little. Either Cole himself had taken them all for research purposes or no one else in the Crooked House cared very much about dreams. Wherever she went, she avoided the main passageways and the piercing gazes of Fiddlers who tracked her movements. She wagered that they, too, thought she was Boggen’s ally. Between the suspicious looks of full Fiddlers and the whispered conversations among the apprentices that suddenly dried up when Wren approached, the only times she felt free of the looming thought that she might be somehow connected with Boggen was during her lessons.

  It had taken her a lot of practice to get the stardust to come together at all, but now she could gather a pale clump of light to make the starlamp. The more she discovered about its uses, the more she realized how much she had to learn, and that made her want to be the best apprentice in the history of apprentices. But there was one apprentice lesson that she could do without: flying.

  It hadn’t been a fluke, that day at Pippen Hill when her falcon had abandoned her. If daily flying practice had taught her anything, it was that her falcon definitely hated her. It had arrived at the Crooked House shortly after they did, but not because it wanted to see Wren. Most of the time it wouldn’t even come out of the massive thornbush it liked to roost in. Occasionally, it swooped over to Baxter’s or Liza’s gauntleted arm, but if Wren called it—or she even came near—the flying lesson would be over for the day, because the falcon would fly off and return at its whim.

  Today, it was crouched on the farthest possible branch of the thornbush. Wren could see its beady eyes staring at her through the tangle of leaves, and every so often the bird gave out a horrible screech, as if to warn Wren that she had come close enough.

  “Perhaps you should leave it for now,” Liza said, and Wren could tell that she didn’t mean it as a suggestion. “Come over here with the others while I teach you this rhyme, and then you can coax your falcon out.”

  Wren tossed the handful of dried crickets she’d been using to tempt her falcon onto the ground. “Stupid bird,” she muttered, picking her way through the outer branches of the thornbush.

  “Let’s practice returning your falcon to its ordinary size,” Liza was saying to Jack and Simon. “It’s quite simple, really, almost the reverse of the first rhyme.” Her fingers moved fast, cutting the infinity symbol in the opposite direction that they used to make the bird grow. “Take care to perform this exactly,” she said from the middle of the cloud of stardust. “Else the results might be unpredictable.” Her voice carried on the air, the pulsing swirl of the stardust matched by the rhythm of the rhyme.

  Away, birds, away!

  Take a little and leave a little,

  And do not come again;

  For if you do, I will shoot you through,

  And there will be an end of you.

  As Liza said the word little, her falcon shrank, diminishing in size until it was small enough to fly back up to the leather perch on her shoulder.

  “Intriguing,” Simon said, moving close to study the bird’s tail feathers. The falcon barely twitched at his approach. Wren sighed. As surely as Wren’s falcon hated her, Simon’s falcon loved him. In fact, all the falcons loved Simon.

  “When you’re done flying,” Liza continued, “you’ll need to make sure your falcon has enough to eat. As birds of prey, they hunt on their own, of course, but we also feed them regularly. Now that you are accustomed to life at the Crooked House, you will take on the additional responsibility of daily meals for your bird.” She led them over to the falcon mews.

  “What do you think?” Jack whispered. “Has Baxter whipped up some gourmet cricket treats for the falcons? Or mouse fondue?”

  Wren gave him a weak laugh. Jack didn’t have Simon’s magical touch with all of the falcons, but he had at least developed the promised Fiddler-falcon relationship with his own bird. Most days, Jack’s falcon perched on his shoulder at all times, even while going about his apprentice duties in the Crooked House. Wren kept a wary eye on it now as she followed him around the outbuilding to where Liza introduced them to the ancient-looking Fiddler who manned the falcon mews.

  “This
is where the mice are kept,” he said in a reedy voice. He went on to tell them about the feeding schedule, showing them where to draw water, when the sun came out from behind a cloud, blindingly bright in the sky. Sudden pain shot through Wren’s forehead. She rubbed her temples, but the throbbing intensified.

  Everything had stopped around her, as though the entire world had been frozen. She couldn’t hear the man’s steady stream of instruction. Couldn’t hear the screeches of the falcons. Couldn’t hear Simon’s or Jack’s friendly voices. Down a rise, near the edge of the woods, was a huge tree, its metal branches stretched like black gashes across the sky. The tree loomed large, as though it was growing, too.

  From the wood’s edge, a dark shape shuffled into sight, a man bent down by age, leaning on a cane. He made his way to the foot of the tree, hunched over, as if under a great weight, and sat on the roots. It was then that he saw Wren.

  “Dreamer!” he said, confirming Wren’s suspicions that she was back in the dream world. His voice sounded stronger than he looked. “You there. Weather Changer!”

  Wren’s body went ice cold at his voice. He was the same one who had called her the day she met the shepherdess. How did he know she was a Weather Changer? Wren turned to run, but her legs were stuck fast.

  “I see you,” the old man said. “I see everything.” A spot on the back of Wren’s neck flared hot at his words. She tried to turn her head, but she couldn’t. She tried to speak, but her voice wouldn’t work. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “You are mine now, Weather Changer,” the man said. “You belong to me and will do as I say.”

  He raised his hand and made a mark in the air, and Wren felt it cut into the burning spot on her neck. What had she done last time to break the spell that held her fast in the dream? Somehow she had shifted things and escaped his clutches. She tried to re-create the sensation, focusing her mental energy on leaving the tree behind. She closed her eyes. Please let it all disappear. The air around her seemed to shift, as though she were riding an elevator. An image flashed behind her closed eyelids. The bent old man was not sitting under a tree. In fact, he was not bent at all. He was standing tall and strong in front of a bay window made of black-and-white glass.

  “Stop that,” the man’s voice echoed in her head, and Wren could hear his surprise and displeasure. “Stop changing the dream.” Wren opened her eyes, but the man had disappeared. She was standing there, arms reaching out toward nothing but an empty field.

  “Wren?” Liza said, her hand cool on Wren’s shoulder. Wren turned to look at her, and the blinding headache was gone, the colors of the world back to normal. Wren glanced back to where the man had been, but he was gone. The black-and-white-checked window was gone. The tree was gone. She could speak again, but she found she had nothing to say.

  “Wren, are you all right?” Liza’s words jolted her back into reality.

  “Yeah. I’m okay. Too much sun, maybe.” Her heart was pounding loud with panic. The waking dream had come again. Wren couldn’t figure out what triggered it. It was as sporadic as the weather-changing, but this time she had somehow traveled within the dream and surprised the tall man. He seemed to be the same person as the evil bent man, but who was he? And what did he want with Wren? As if in response, the back of her neck flared with heat. She placed a tentative hand up to the spot, but her fingers only met smooth skin. Whatever he had done had been done only in the dream world.

  The Fiddler in charge of the falcon mews was still prattling on about how to properly feed and water their birds, so Wren couldn’t have been dreaming that long. She ignored Simon’s questioning look. Jack’s head was cocked, and he was studying her thoughtfully.

  The Fiddler finished his lecture with a grave warning not to try and feed any other Fiddler’s bird, and Liza took over from there. “Wren, are you ready to try to make your falcon grow? She’s returned.”

  So her falcon was a female. Wren nodded enthusiastically, even though a knot of fear tensed in her chest. Female or male, she didn’t want to be stuck with the bird. Just like she didn’t want to be stuck with the dreams. She couldn’t escape either. And the dream-man, what had he meant by You are mine? She followed Liza over to the corner of the mews, where her wretched bird was perched on a knobby ledge, clawed feet gripped around the peeling wood.

  Wren was some twenty feet away at least, but the animal responded. The twitching tail feathers. Shifting feet. A warning screech.

  “That’s right,” Liza was saying. “Nice and slow. Very gently. Control your response.” Liza’s voice was low and steady. “Even breathing, Wren. Remember to breathe.”

  Wren tiptoed forward, hand stretched out. She practiced the breathing like Liza had taught her. Four counts in through her nose. Seven counts out through her mouth. It didn’t do any good. Even though it was cool outside, beads of sweat popped up on her brow. From somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled. Wren inched closer. A single twig snapped under one ill-placed foot. She froze, but the bird didn’t fly away. Ever so carefully, Wren reached into the pouch that hung at her neck and pinched some stardust. Once it flared into light, she began to play it. Planting her back foot firm, she positioned the other perpendicularly, using one hand to cut the infinity symbol through the dust, moving faster to keep the motes dancing, matching the rhythm of her fast-beating heart.

  Her falcon kept time with a minuscule shifting of its head to follow her hands. She said the words:

  See, see! What shall I see!

  My bird grown tall as it should be.

  That was when the bird was supposed to come down and start growing. Wren chanted louder. Her falcon angled its claws farther up on the branch, as if it was preparing to jump down.

  Wren chanted even louder. She was doing it! The falcon had never let her get this far in the rhyme. Her heart sped up. She was finally going to successfully make her bird grow. And then it was over. Her falcon was not getting down. Instead, it was swiveling around, oh so carefully, so that it was facing the other direction, the crimson of its tail feathers pointed toward Wren. And then it pooped. It pooped right there, and a trickle of bird dropping splattered down to the ground in front of Wren.

  All Wren’s thoughts of flying snuffed out in one breath, and the stardust fell limp to the ground. Wren’s face grew hot with either rage or embarrassment, she couldn’t tell. It was deathly silent behind her. Which was probably good. One single snort or choked-back giggle or witty comment from Jack, and Wren would be done. The falcon screamed a final curse at her and took to the air, leaving nothing but the breeze of its flapping wings in its wake.

  “Nice try, Wren.” Simon’s words stung, even though she could tell he meant to be encouraging. She had been trying. And failing. Hot tears burned the back of her eyes, but she willed them away. What is wrong with me? It wasn’t like she’d never made mistakes before. But levelheaded Wren just picked herself up and tried again. That Wren’s feathers never got ruffled. But that Wren was the old Wren, the one she seemed to have left back at home.

  She stared up at the sky as though she could still see the falcon, but it had long since become a tiny speck.

  “Give it time.” Liza came up next to her as a light rain began to fall. The leaves on the nearby trees rustled gently with the weight of the drops.

  Give it time? Liza was saying something comforting now, something about how it might take many years to perfect using the stardust. Wren looked over at Simon, whose falcon stood saddled and ready to fly. Simon hadn’t needed any extra time. Simon was doing just fine.

  Wren didn’t like how ugly her jealousy felt, but she couldn’t push it away. The wind picked up, sending a frigid gust through the falcon mews. Liza wrapped her cloak about her shoulders, leaning close to laugh at something Jack was saying as he pulled himself up onto his falcon.

  Wren’s heart pumped hot with envy, her blood pressure rising with frustration. How come she couldn’t get her bird to listen? What was she doing wrong? She looked up in the sky,
hoping to catch a glimpse of the errant falcon. Perhaps if it came back, she could try again. Instead, she saw dark cloud cover appear almost out of nowhere and unleash a torrent of rain.

  “Wren,” Liza cautioned. “You can control this.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?” Wren’s voice sounded plaintive to her own ears. She couldn’t control anything. Not her emotions. Not her falcon. Not even her dreams. “I never pretended to be some stardust genius,” she burst out. “Being smart in some things doesn’t mean I can do everything right.” She scrubbed her fists across her eyes to wipe away the angry tears. She felt silly for crying. This isn’t like you, Wren, she told herself. Pull it together. She breathed in from her stomach, but her throat was tight, and she couldn’t get to the full four counts. The tears came faster.

  A boom of thunder seemed to underscore her mood. Raindrops fell on her bare head, setting off a pounding headache, as if to underscore how weak she was: She wasn’t only powerless to fly on her falcon, she was powerless in the face of whatever her dreams meant and whatever truth was hiding there about her being connected to Boggen. Scenes from her dreams flashed through her mind. The black-and-white window and the old man under the tree. The sheep tails and the bright-red blood. Faster and faster. The rowboat and the song of the wings. Her thoughts spiraled until she felt like she might explode if she didn’t scream or kick something or run.

  Wren sprinted toward the forest, relishing the feel of the hard drops of rain awakening her senses. Lightning flashed on the horizon, followed by a crash of thunder. She ran faster. The wild weather mirrored exactly how she felt. Wren didn’t go beyond the tree line, but she raced along the forest’s edge, running through the swirling storm until a stitch of pain sliced into her side and her lungs burned from the effort. She stopped then, letting the now-soft raindrops cool her face.

  The next moment, Wren heard footfalls and whirled around to see Simon loping across the spongy turf toward her. He moved easily, looking like a natural runner even with his apprentice cloak streaming about his wool vest and trousers.