“Hope’s a good thing!” Marla returned.
Staring ahead, Mom and I stood at the open gate, the fresh tire tracks in the snow pointing the way.
“He must have gone back to Hazel’s old place,” Mom said with a worried expression.
I just kept my mouth shut and started walking.
Under our boots, the snow crunched with that squeaky, cold sound that only snow makes. The field was quilted in a layer of white, and the Doug firs stood like flocked Christmas trees, majestic and soaring.
I noticed Mom’s pink cheeks and glassy eyes, and her lips moving in pretend conversation. Perhaps plotting out what she would say to my dad. Smirking, I wondered how I would explain what had happened here. Um, fairies fixed your house, Mr. Meeker. Yeah, right.
Mom’s private dialogue ceased when we reached the yellow house, as fresh and startling now as a sunflower in the snow.
“I can imagine Hazel peeking out the screen door and calling me to come eat my lunch,” she said, full of emotion.
The tire tracks ended where the black truck was parked under the rebuilt carport. From there came a steady line of footprints crossing the yard to the porch, where a plain wreath had been hung and a doormat spelled out welcome, friends.
Inside the house glowed a warm, yellow light, a happy contrast to the cold, white surroundings. With the bright-eyed windows and smoke curling from the chimney, the house looked like a child’s drawing of home.
“It’s weird how good this place looks,” Mom observed. “It never looked this good, even when Hazel was alive—and I don’t remember those shutters,” she mumbled, her lips scrunched in puzzlement. “Vin went all out.” Her words trickled away, and she seemed unable to move forward, so I reached out and took her hand, and we stepped up on the porch.
Mom rapped on the door and then just stared straight ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the balloon and jay-ship approaching from the north woods. The bird was refreshed with a coat of new paint, and apparently Grampy had finished his carving because the silhouette revealed a sharp beak and crest. I hoped the Nutfolk didn’t intend to start chucking acorns again, because those heavy suckers could do some damage!
Just as before, the knock on the door triggered a clatter of a dog’s nails on wood, and after a noisy round of barking and shushing, Vincent Meeker opened the door wide.
CHAPTER 36
Shiny and Happy
“COME IN, COME in!”
Wildly happy and awkward at the same time, he ushered us into the hall. His cheeks were blushing scarlet, and his teeth seemed very white against the color. Startled again by the familiarity of his features, I felt as if I were looking at the boy version of me.
He’d trimmed his hair and shaved his scraggly beard, revealing the lines and scars of harder times. Still, his was a pleasing face with depth and character, ready to smile, able to cry.
While Eddie sniffed and wagged and slobbered, we stood uneasily in the front hall, until Mr. Meeker said haltingly, “I must admit I’m a little confused.”
“About what?” Mom asked.
“This house seems to have gone on without me,” he replied helplessly.
“Vin, are you . . . okay?” Mom started to look disappointed.
Racing to say something plausible that might explain the crazy situation, I blustered, “He’s fine! It’s just . . . he’s surprised because the estate has been fixing the house.”
With a grateful glance my way, he said, “That’s right, the estate!”
“I don’t understand,” Mom interjected.
By the look on his face, he didn’t understand either, only he didn’t want to admit it and sound like an idiot. Instead, he fell back on, “Let’s sit in the parlor and talk.”
The subdued light of the kerosene and the tint from the fire in the woodstove gave the room a copper glow. With the painted tan walls, gleaming wood floor, and the new rock hearth, everything seemed clean and rich.
In observance of the holiday, evergreen garlands topped all the windows, giving the space a piney fragrance. In one corner, a little Christmas tree sprouted from a rustic log. Its decor of red berries and ropes of pale moss looked suspiciously Nutfolk in style, but what was really distracting was the golden acorn that hovered in midair over the top of the small tree.
I checked the eyes of my mom and Mr. Meeker. They weren’t seeing the acorn, but the sight of the floating ornament left me rattled. Fidgeting, I continued to stand while Mom went and sat on the sofa.
“I understand you’ve been working on your art,” Mom began. She seemed composed, but I knew better by the way she was strangling her gloves.
“Business is good,” he returned, his neck and ears flushing hot pink.
Oh, this was painful. They seemed to be horribly uncomfortable, but at the same time all shiny and happy. In fact, I would have sworn that their happiness shimmered around them, but it was only a trick of light from the setting sun.
Outside the window, the stupid jay-ship arrived with Grampy and Whistle on board. They were waving and pointing at the floating acorn, which still hovered several inches above the Christmas tree. What the heck did they want me to do?
CHAPTER 37
Honorable
MY EYES PRACTICALLY crossed, I was so distracted by sensory overload: the floating acorn, Grampy and Whistle waving from the jay-ship, my dad’s ears red enough to melt . . .
“Excuse me!” I blurted. “I think I’ll just step outside for a minute.”
On the porch, it was soothing and cold. Taking a deep breath, I exhaled and hissed, “What are you guys doing?”
“Come to collect our gold!” Grampy barked, surprised as always by how dense we humans could be. “Got it waiting above that gee-gawed tree so’s we could find it.”
“Coincidence, eh?” Whistle added. “I mean, that we chose your poppy on the day of the funeral.”
“Chose him for what?” I tried to keep my voice down.
“Our good deed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We dropped one acorn to mark your gramby’s passing,” he said slowly, as if I were simpleminded. “And we planted another one as our good deed.”
“But where did you plant it?”
“In your poppy’s coat pocket.”
“Did he know?”
“Course not!”
“Does the acorn have some kind of power?”
“It’s a lump of gold,” Whistle drawled. “How could it have any power?”
Recalling the day he tapped Lupine and Frederick on their ankles for a clearer view, I realized that Whistle Bright was the one with all the power.
“Then why’d you plant it?” I asked, utterly frustrated.
“Tradition!” Whistle replied, impatient with explanations that were so elementary and obvious, to Nutfolk anyway.
“The deed isn’t to give a gift of gold.” Whistle laughed. “’Twas the flash of insight your poppy gained. Clarity, to make good choices.”
The boy vanished but soon returned with the heavy acorn, which tilted the jay-ship when it was loaded. Whistle and Grampy began drifting north, their sights set for Nutfolk Wood.
Following them across the yard to the carport, I called out, “Whistle, wait!” with my arm outstretched.
He and the acorn surged onto my palm as my hair rose and crackled with the static.
“I’m right here,” he said evenly.
Tingling with the charge of the senzall so close, I whispered, “Was Wintertell a dream or was it real?”
His green eyes locked into mine. “It was almost real.”
Determined, I tried to clarify the thing that bothered me most: that kiss. “What about when you toasted me? And the other thing? What was that all about?”
With a decidedly wicked smile, he said, “That was my dream.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.” Grinning, he began to disappear with the noisy fee
dback that accompanied a hectic surge. Through the static he added, “The acorn is yours for now. Zelly, the Nutfolk thank you, and so do I.”
With a final, squeaky buzz, he was gone, leaving me holding the acorn.
I squeezed my fingers around the gold, my hand still tingling from the senzall. And that’s when I saw it. Beneath the trinket in the middle of my palm was the telltale mark: For aid and protection of the folk and their property. Just like my mother, I was an Honorable, and I had the acorn tattoo to prove it.
CONCLUSION
I’m Good
AS I WATCHED the balloon disappear into the woods, I noticed it was snowing again. In the blue twilight, the falling snow gave the yard, the field, and the woods beyond an isolated, muffled feel, as hushed and breathless as when a good song ends.
I slipped back into the hall and quietly shut the door behind me, pausing to listen to the adults for just a moment. Softly, earnestly, my dad was saying, “I couldn’t call until I proved it to myself.”
“I thought the worst,” she said.
“For a while it was bad,” he admitted. “For a while I was . . . Wil, I’m glad you made me leave—for your sake as well as for hers. You always were a very wise girl.”
“Vin, what now?” she asked, as I had.
He was quiet for a bit and sounded timid when he finally answered. “I have a new studio. Maybe you would like to come for dinner sometime.”
Mom’s tone was doubtful. “Where is this new studio?” she asked.
“Right here—this house.”
“You bought this house?”
“Yeah, I did.”
Peeking around the corner, I saw that Mr. Meeker was smiling sheepishly at Mom, while her expression was one of amazement. He was still sitting on the chair by the window, she on the opposite couch, but they were leaning in toward each other, as if the space between them was magnetic. They both turned when I entered, and in unison said, “Zelly, are you okay?”
Stepping into the golden parlor, I glanced out the window, where the snow was falling harder. But inside this rebuilt house, it was warm, with a fire in the stove and that sparkle in my parents’ eyes. Their attention was all mine now, and their smiles included me in the cozy picture.
“I’m good,” I answered, and I meant it.
Maybe Whistle gave me some insight that day, or perhaps it was my own intuition, but a little voice in my head told me that Mom would not take me from Plunkit. Not now. There was too much to hope for here.
When I see that girl, she looks like sunrise and springtime. And she feels like goodness and fun. Shiny as a mood catcher, she seems hardly human in her glow . . . that girl called Zelly, just like a fairy.
—R. Whistle Bright
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © Kristy Lindgren/Eucalyptus Photography 2009
BARB BENTLER ULLMAN is the author of the highly praised THE FAIRIES OF NUTFOLK WOOD. She lives with her family—husband Jim, two daughters, and a vicious kitty named Apricot—in a house that her husband built in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. “My daughter Sara once came up with the idea for an American woodland fairy. She was glue-gunning acorns together and calling them ‘nut babies.’ They resided in pretty places in our woods, living quiet, natural lives. One thing led to another.” You can visit her online at barb.bentler.us.
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BOOKS BY BARB BENTLER ULLMAN
The Fairies of Nutfolk Wood
CREDITS
Cover art © 2010 by Mélanie Delon
Cover design by Amy Ryan
COPYRIGHT
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.
WHISTLE BRIGHT MAGIC: A NUTFOLK TALE. Copyright © 2010 by Barb Bentler Ullman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ullman, Barb Bentler.
Whistle Bright magic : a Nutfolk tale / Barb Bentler Ullman. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: The fairies of Nutfolk Wood.
Summary: After her beloved grandmother dies, Zelly and her mother move to tiny Plunkit, where Zelly searches for her estranged father and helps save the Nutfolks’ home from being destroyed by developers.
ISBN 978-0-06-188286-9
EPub Edition September 2013 ISBN 9780061992094
[1. Fairies—Fiction. 2. Single-parent families—Fiction. 3. Fathers—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.u335Wh 2010
2009014552
[Fic]—dc22
CIP
AC
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10 11 12 13 14 LP/RRDB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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