by Ektaa Bali
Vidya turned her green eyes upward in surprise, and when she saw who it was, a bright smile spread across her face. Her pink and gold wings fluttered with excitement.
“Father!” she whispered, reaching to hug him.
“Hello, my love,” said the King as he put his arms around her.
“I’m glad you’re back!”
The Eucalyptus leaves sticking out from the front pocket of his jacket tickled her cheek, and she sneezed. She released him quickly as he patted her on the back. Vidya looked from her father’s eucalyptus branch to the pink rose sticking out of her mother’s pocket and back to her own empty hands. She sighed and clenched her fists. Fae children were supposed to discover their guardian plant by their seventh birthday, but here she was at ten and still no plant had spoken to her in the way a guardian plant should. Her teachers had shown her hundreds of plants, but she felt nothing. There wasn’t anything she could do except to wait and hope, and that worried her greatly.
A rolling movement from the large pocket at the front of her dress distracted her. She grinned and patted the pocket as a tiny claw reached up and out, gripping the edge of the fabric, quickly followed by a tiny, round, furry face.
“Good morning, Pancake,” she whispered, reaching into the pocket and pulling the small, furry, round creature out. Pancake was a Quokka, a rare creature found only on a small island off Australia’s western coast. The Fae had saved him from criminals a few months ago. They had been smuggling rare creatures when her father caught them and rescued him. When Vidya had first seen him, he had been hiding at the bottom of his cage, trying hard not to be seen, flattening himself right at the bottom, just like a pancake. And so that had become his name. They had been fast friends ever since, so much so that as well as the long slits in her dress that all Fae had to let their wings out, Vidya had made the palace seamstress sew large pockets on all her dresses so that Pancake had a space to feel safe. When he wasn’t in her pocket, Pancake travelled around on Vidya’s shoulder, gripping onto her ear for support. That’s where he went now, climbing up onto her left shoulder and holding on tight, peering around at everyone with his little black eyes. Everyone loved Pancake with his little round ears, belly, and long tail, and most people kept a berry or two in their pockets just for him.
A whisper to her left caught her attention. Vidya looked around in the dim blue light and saw the confused face of little Daisy, her cousin. She caught the younger girl’s eye, and Daisy grimaced sleepily back, pulling at the sparkling net that kept her purple curls off her face. Her wings twitched tiredly.
“Vidya,” Daisy whispered, coming to stand next to her. “Can you remind me why we’re standing here at the crack of dawn? Mother told me to shush.”
Vidya smiled and bent a little to whisper into the little girl’s ear, one hand on Pancake’s round tummy, making sure he didn’t fall off. The quokka leaned in to kiss Daisy on the cheek, making her giggle.
“Every year, the Fae gather on the first dawn of spring. We bring our guardian plants with us because when the sun rises above the forest, it’s a magical dawn. Our guardian plants will light up and show us the power of nature. The power that’s in all of us. The plants will give us food, and we’ll go and eat in a grand feast. It’s so exciting, you’ll see!”
Daisy’s green eyes grew wide with excitement. “There’ll be a feast afterward?”
Vidya covered her mouth to smother a laugh. “Just you wait, Daisy, wait till you see the way the sun lights up the trees and the plants. It’s so beautiful, it’s like it fills the plants with all this power. And when the plants dance, we’ll dance too.”
* * *
The deep blue sky lightened with an orange glow, and the Fae playing the flutes and drums sped up the rhythm of their song. Adult Fae tucked the branches and cuttings of their guardian plants into pockets, and holding hands with one another, began a slow circular dance around the lawn. Gentle nudges pushed the children into the middle of the group, and Vidya tugged Daisy’s hand into her own. Taking the hand of another Fae child with her other hand, the children began their own dance within the circle of adults, and soon, as the orange glow of dawn became brighter, they danced to the beat of the music in a magnificent whirl of colour.
The sun peeked over the treetops, and Vidya turned to grin at Daisy. She couldn’t wait for her baby cousin to see how wonderful the dawn show was. Fae magic was so powerful, and it was beautiful when it was at its best, right at the start of spring. Her heart beat so fast with excitement in that moment, she didn’t even care that she didn’t have a guardian plant of her own, the way the plants would light up with magic would make up for it today.
The golden light of the sun spilled over the trees and onto the palace behind them, and the musicians played faster still, and the dancing Fae twirled and spun, laughing and grinning now. Here it came, their smiles said, the magic of spring!
As Vidya twirled to the music, Pancake holding onto her ear for dear life, she searched the crowd for her parents. Her mother was patting baby Mahiya to the beat at the edge of the group, smiling at the rest of them dancing. But Vidya caught sight of her father’s expression, and she missed her step, tripping a little. She quickly recovered and turned to look at him again. His face was serious, his mouth sat in a straight grim line, his powerful arms crossed firmly across his chest. Why did he look so worried? But his eyes were fixed on the crowd, as if they were searching for something. Waiting for something.
Vidya focused back on the dance, watching as the morning arrived and the sun’s light shone upon them all, revealing the true colours of the hair and wings of the dancing Fae. She waited excitedly, heart thumping as the sun lit up the flowers, branches, and leaves of the plants of the Fae, and she held her own breath, waiting to exclaim and show Daisy the marvel of the show. Daisy looked around excitedly, cheeks flushed pink from dancing. But as the sun rose higher, they watched… but nothing happened.
Vidya looked into the faces of the adults dancing around them. They were looking at each other in confusion, looking up at the sun and back down at their guardian plants with furrowed brows.
They danced for a minute longer before the music slowed down and the Fae slowed their steps, perplexed expressions on the previously excited faces.
“Did it happen?” asked Daisy, frowning, coming to a stop. “Was that it? Did I miss it?”
Vidya shook her head as the Fae adults moved from foot to foot and began speaking in low voices. Pancake’s little head whipped around, trying to see everything at once.
“What’s happening?” she heard someone behind her say.
“Why didn’t the plants light up like they normally do?” said another.
“Did we get the day wrong?” a child squeaked.
Daisy tugged at the green sleeve of Vidya’s dress. “Vidya, what happened? I don’t get it.”
But just as Vidya opened her mouth to tell her she had no clue, vivid blue wings fluttered next to her ear, and she almost groaned. She knew who it was before she turned.
Standing there with wide eyes were her annoying triplet cousins. At the same age at her, Lobey, Luna, and Toad were identical triplets with straight electric blue hair and wings. Those weren’t their proper names, of course, but it was what Vidya had been calling them for years.
“What’s happening?” asked Linaria, known as Toad because her guardian plant was the Toadflax plant.
Lunaria, or Luna, rubbed her arms anxiously. “That wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?”
“Of course not,” said Lobelia, or Lobey, crossly, a deep frown on her face. “As heir to the throne, Vidya knows that this is not a good sign.”
Vidya tried very hard not to roll her eyes at Lobey, the eldest triplet and forever her rival. The only thing that made them even was that Lobey didn’t know her guardian plant either.
“Why isn’t it a good sign?” piped Daisy, purple wings twitching anxiously.
Lobey gave her a superior look and looked down her nose at Daisy. �
�Because, cousin, the spring light shows the power of Fae magic in all its glory. The fact that the magic didn’t happen is very, very bad.”
The five cousins exchanged a look of worry as the whispering around them grew.
“I’m going to speak to my parents,” said Vidya, pushing past Toad to get to the edge of the group.
But as she got to the edge of the garden, she found both her parents stepping onto the wooden dais they used to stand upon to give speeches.
Her father raised his hands, and everyone shushed. A hundred pairs of green eyes turned to watch the King and Queen. The Queen gently patted baby Mahiya and beckoned Vidya to come and stand next to them. Vidya padded forward and stood next to her mother on the dais. Wings twitched in uncertainty all around her as she stared into the worried faces of the Fae.
“Something is happening,” boomed King Farrion in a loud, serious voice. As Vidya looked at his even face, she noticed no surprise, only determination.
He knew, Vidya realised. He’s not surprised at all—he knew this was going to happen. What did the Old Ones tell him?
“The Fae magic has… changed somehow,” he continued. “There is nothing to be alarmed about at this stage. The Queen and I will call a council to figure out our next steps.”
The surrounding Fae exchanged looks of fear. Wings twitched and brows furrowed.
“Everyone needs to go about their day as normal,” the Queen said in a calm voice that carried across the lawn. “We will let you know when things become clear to us. We are sure it will all be sorted out quickly.”
The Fae magic has changed. Fae were whispering to each other. What did that mean? Lobey had said that it had ‘failed’. Was that really what had happened? Nothing like this had ever happened before in the history of the Fae, as Vidya knew it from what her teachers had told her. Fae magic was as sure as nature itself. But there was one big problem Vidya could see as she looked back up to the stern face of her father. The Fae were made of Fae magic. If it was failing. What on earth did that mean for them?
2
Trouble Comes in Threes
All things are One. The Fae are one with the soil, the plants, the trees. The Fae are one with the animals. To be Fae means to look into the eyes of another and know they are one part of the same whole.
—The Book of the Fae, Queen Mab the First, 3333 B.C.
* * *
There was no breakfast feast that year for the Eastern Bushland Fae. Instead, everyone shuffled off back to an ordinary day’s work, shrugging at each other. ‘Don’t panic,’ the King had said, and so, the Fae, being trusting people with good faith in a King who had never failed to protect them and a Queen who ran the city wisely, went about their day as normal, the worry cast back to the furthest corners of their minds.
But Princess Vidya was thinking.
The children were rounded up and taken to their classes, which for the ten-year-olds meant gathering in the palace library with Master Sunny, a yellow-haired Fae so elderly that his wings were almost completely see-through. Vidya had never seen him fly, and so she wasn’t even sure his wings could work at all. The Fae were nothing if not polite people, and it was considered bad manners to flap your wings around if you could walk instead, but in ‘flying areas’ such as out in the city, everyone chose to fly.
Princess Vidya, Pancake, the blue triplets, and ten other Fae children the same age sat at rectangular wooden tables in front of a blackboard, upon which Master Sunny was drawing a detailed diagram of a small goblin sized man in red and white chalk. They had tried to get him to talk about what had happened that morning, but the old teacher shrugged and directed them back to the King’s words to ‘not worry’. So, they continued in their classes on the creatures of the Fae forest.
“Yara-ma-yha-who are dangerous creatures on their own,” he said in his ancient, dry voice. “What makes them even more fearsome is that they always work in a tribe.”
Pancake was on his belly on the table Vidya sat at, a pen and paper in front of him, copying the picture of the creature in slow, careful strokes. Vidya had to admit that he was getting quite good at drawing. She squinted at the diagram of the small red goblin on the blackboard. His head was bigger than his body, and on his hands and feet, Master Sunny had drawn small round circles.
“Excuse me, Master Sunny,” Vidya called. “What are those on his hands?”
A little way down the table, she heard Lobey made a rude snorting noise. Vidya ignored her as Master Sunny turned, stroking his long, faded, yellow beard.
“Ah,” he said. “Those are the most concerning things of all.” He lifted his own hands, wiggling his fingers. “Yarama have suckers on their hands and feet. They use these for several things. Climbing trees, and—” he lowered his voice as if revealing a great secret, and the class leaned in to hear, “—they use them to take your nose right off.”
The class exclaimed loudly, Pancake made a retching noise.
“Didn’t you already know that?” sneered Lobey to the others. “Aunty Sandy had her nose stolen last year.”
“Ah, yes,” wheezed Master Sunny. “If I remember correctly, the Duchess luckily had her nose put right back in place by the King the next day.”
He pointed a stern finger at them. “Stories like these warn us of the perils of the Fae forest. It is with good reason Fae are not allowed beyond the boundary set by Queen Mab the second thousands of years ago.”
“But how did Uncle Farrion get her nose back?” asked Luna, anxiously pulling on a blue lock of hair.
“King Farrion,” Lobey corrected as Luna rolled her eyes.
“Well,” said Master Sunny, “being the ruler of the Fae comes with many perks. The ruling King or Queen can talk to all plants. Not just their guardian plant. Secondly, upon their coronation, they can create a new plant all together, thus the creation of the Book Tree, the Messenger Tree, and many of the Portal Trees. But the most important thing of all is that all creatures of the Fae forest are bound by the King’s Law. And that means, in the Safe Zone, there is a truce, and no creature may harm a Fae in that part of the forest. That is the rule created by the old Fae. It has never been broken.”
* * *
A yell sounded from outside the library, followed by several loud shouting voices. Toad twitched violently, and Vidya and Lobey jumped out of their seats, Pancake leapt from the table into Vidya’s arms, burying his nose in the crook of her elbow.
“Remain where you are!” roared Master Sunny, rushing toward the library entrance. The stern look he gave them made Vidya and Lobey freeze on the spot. “I will see what it is.”
Vidya stepped from foot to foot, her magenta wings dancing, itching to follow. But Master Sunny had taught her since she was a baby, and she knew he was almost always right. She patted Pancake reassuringly and exchanged a worried glance with Lobey, Toad, and Luna. Vidya strained her ears to listen to what was going on outside. The library was right next to the main entrance to the palace, so whatever was happening there had probably come from outside. There were a few loud voices talking at once, but not loud enough to make out the words. She heard Master Sunny’s deep commanding voice and the other voices went quiet. There were shuffling sounds. It was all too much for Vidya. She needed to know what was happening.
“I’m not waiting,” muttered Vidya, pushing her chair aside. “I’m going to see what it is.”
Vidya, cradling the still trembling Pancake, strode across the library toward the large double entrance doors, but just as she put her hand on the handle to open it, the door swung open, and Master Sunny, pale faced with his yellow hair askew, rushed through. Pancake jumped in her arms, and Master Sunny frowned deeply upon seeing them standing there.
“I believe I told you to remain where you were, Princess,” he said disapprovingly.
“What happened?” Vidya asked, nervously.
Master Sunny quickly closed the door behind him, making sure that Vidya couldn’t see anything in the entrance hall. “It remains to be seen,” he
said in a dark voice.
Vidya made a face. That was not an answer at all, but Master Sunny was striding quickly back toward the class, and Vidya had no choice but to follow him.
“What’s going on?” Lobey asked in a voice that was even more rude than usual. Vidya returned to her seat, pulling Pancake into her lap.
The old Master came to stand in front of the class, a look of deep thought on his face. For a long moment, he didn’t answer, and the students held their breaths.
“Nothing is certain at the moment,” he finally said, his voice tight. “But I’m sure it will reveal itself with time.”
“What does that mean?” sneered Lobey, unimpressed. “It sounded like someone was hurt or something bad—”
Master Sunny held up his hand and gave Lobey a stern look. She felt silent immediately but had to chew on her own lip to control herself.
“The Fae are resilient people, Lobey, remember that. When winter comes, we weather the storms and wait until spring comes again. Why is that? What makes the Fae brave?”
It was Willow, a navy haired, quiet boy whose guardian plant was the Bilberry and was the strongest aim with a bow Vidya had ever seen, who answered in a soft voice that was barely heard. “Because we know that spring will always come.”
Master Sunny stared at navy haired boy for a moment and then nodded slowly. “That’s right, Willow. Like the passing of the seasons, the good always follows the bad.”
Vidya turned to see Lobey giving Master Sunny an unimpressed look, her face screwed up in annoyance.
That’s two strange things that’s happened today, Vidya thought. What are the adults trying to hide from us?
Vidya and Pancake watched Master Sunny carefully. His eyes were fixed upon the blackboard, but Vidya had the feeling he wasn’t looking at his diagram on there at all. He looked as if he were seeing something very far away. He mouthed something to himself and fingered the edge of his long black robe. Then he shook his head once, scratched his ear, and nodded. Vidya had seen that look on adults’ faces before. It was the face of an adult trying to decide if they should reveal something important.