by Lena Coakley
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LCCN 2017023678
ISBN 978-1-4197-2869-3
eISBN 978-1-68335-246-4
Text copyright © 2018 Lena Coakley
Illustrations copyright © 2018 Jaime Zollars
Book design by Alyssa Nassner
Published in 2018 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
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For Jasmine
1
There is someone in the forest.
Knock.
Knock. Knock.
It isn’t the sound of one branch hitting another in the wind. It isn’t the sound of a tree-pecker. It is the sound of someone who doesn’t belong.
I climb higher in the old oak until I can see over the tops of the trees. I look in one direction all the way to Grandfather Mountain. I look in the other direction all the way to the village where the peoples live. Nothing seems wrong. Below me, the green forest sways in the wind. The crooked road winds through it like a scar.
I scan the road, up and down. I hate the idea of a people on it, but that is allowed as long as they keep moving. No. There is no one.
Knock.
Knock. Knock.
There! Over by the abandoned cottage. I see him! A little people the size of an ant. He’s not on the road where he is allowed. He is in the forest.
There is a people in our forest.
I don’t take the road. That’s for them, and besides, my way is faster. I run along the deer path, leaping barefoot over roots and rocks. The screaming-blues dive at me, protecting their nest, but I am past their tree in a moment.
I stop short, almost falling. A spider-web stretches across the path, sparkling with dew. I go around, careful not to break the spider’s pretty work, and I start to run again.
When I get near the cottage, I slow down. The knocking has stopped. I don’t see anyone, but I know he’s there. I can smell him, or at least I think I can. Like all peoples, he smells like soap and taking baths and eating with a fork. Horrible.
The door is wide open, and an old white cow stands in the garden patch, chewing weeds.
In front of the cottage is the kind of tree whose leaves look shivery when the wind blows. It is called a shivery tree. I climb it and hide in the branches. Even with my bent arm, no one in the forest climbs as well as I do.
A people comes out. A man-people. He is tallish and oldish and baldish.
I see that he has some big nails in one hand and a hammer in the other. I shrink back, afraid. A nail would burn me. Anything made of iron would burn me.
The man-people climbs a ladder and bangs the nails into the roof: knock, knock, knock. He’s fixing the house. He thinks he can live here. In our forest.
“Badness!” I cry. “This forest belongs to the fairies. You cannot stay.”
The man-people is so surprised he nearly falls off the ladder.
“Who’s there?” he says, scanning the trees. “Let me see you.”
I laugh my wickedest laugh. “You don’t want that. A people like you would scream and run away if you saw my face, and your hair would turn white as bone forever, for I am Wicked Nix, the foulest of the fairies.”
“Oh,” he says.
“Leave at once!”
“But . . .” The man-people climbs down the ladder and squints up into the shivery tree. “But it’s my home, you know.”
This makes me angry. I make my voice low, like the growl of a bear. “I warn you. If you don’t leave, I will put a curse upon your garden so that nothing grows but thorns. I will put a spell upon your hearth so that your fire always smokes. I will turn your well water into skunk spit and . . . and frog pee. I will give your cow wings, and she will fly to the moon!”
I can see he is afraid now. I am sure he is about to beg my fairy pardon. I am sure he is about to leave and never come back. I am very surprised when he says:
“Do your worst, Wicked Nix, foulest of the fairies! This cottage is mine, and I will never leave!”
2
I spend the night throwing rocks and sticks and pinecones at the man-people’s roof, but he just stays inside.
The truth is, I don’t know how to put a curse on his garden so that nothing grows but thorns. I don’t know how to put a spell on his hearth or his well water. And I certainly don’t know how to give a cow wings.
Why did the Good Queen have to leave and put me in charge of the forest? I wonder. So many of her other fairies have more magic than me.
I go back to my nest in the old oak tree, feeling grouchy as a badger. Usually my nest is very comfortable—it’s made from blankets and ropes and other things I took from the village when no one was looking—but today I toss and turn in my hammock among the branches.
When I finally fall asleep, I dream of the Summer Country. That’s where all the fairies are now—all the fairies but me. Time passes slow and sweet as honey there, and no one is ever cold or hungry. In my dream, I can see the Summer Country just ahead. All my fairy friends are waving at me—Fleet and Flit and Wing and Dart. I run and run, but I can’t seem to get there.
The sun is high when I wake up. I have slept the morning away. Above me, in the pattern of green leaves, there is a face. It shifts and swishes in the breeze.
“Oh, Mr. Green,” I say. “I’m in trouble.”
I don’t know who Mr. Green is, exactly, but whenever I need him, he is there—sometimes in the ripples on the river, sometimes in the sunlight on the forest floor. He gives me good advice.
“What is it?” His voice is whispery, like leaves rustling.
“My stomach. It feels like the time I ate rocks.”
“Hmm. Hungry then.”
“No!”
I sit up. Now I see Mr. Green’s face in the wrinkly bark of my oak tree. His eyes are knots, and his nose is a little branch.
“It’s that man-people! He’s in the abandoned cottage where he’s not allowed. What if the Good Queen of the Fairies comes back and finds him living here?”
“Peoples live in cottages. It’s what they do.”
“That’s no help. How can I get rid of him?”
“Hmmm. Let me think. Let me think.”
I try to be patient, but Mr. Green thinks for a long time. A fuzzy caterpillar inches along one of the ropes of my nest. I pick it up carefully and put it on a leaf, which it starts to chew. My stomach gives a gigantic rumble.
“I knew it,” says Mr. Green. “Breakfast is what you need. Breakfast solves most of your problems, Nix.”
“A fairy only needs an acorn for breakfast.” My stomach rumbles again. “Or maybe two.”
I stand up on a branch, holding the trunk of the old oak tree, and look down over the forest. I see no sign of the people, but I know he’s there.
“Please help me,” I say. “How can I make him leave when I have no magic?”
Now Mr. Green’s face is huge. His
eyebrows are shaggy pine trees. His smile is the curve of the river, far away, but I still hear his voice at my ear.
“Village,” he says. “Food and drink.”
“A fairy only needs a dewdrop to drink,” I say, “and a flower petal for a cup.”
“A dewdrop,” he says, chuckling. “A flower.”
The whole forest shakes, and suddenly I am inside Mr. Green’s laughter. It sounds like branches creaking.
“Fine!” I shout. “Don’t help. I’ll do it myself.”
I do not take Mr. Green’s advice and go to the village. Instead, I go to the cottage again.
A fairy doesn’t need magic to make mischief, I tell myself. I will steal things. I will break things. I will cause ruin and disaster! And if none of that works, I will show that man-people my foul face, and he will run away in terror.
The cottage has changed since yesterday. The vines that covered it have all been pulled away. Foxes and squirrels and other forest animals are carved around the door.
Who used to live here? I wonder. Who made this pretty place? Surely not the horrible man-people with the nails.
The garden patch is a square of dirt now, ready for planting. All the weeds are piled high by the side of the cottage. I remember what I told him: I will curse your garden so that nothing grows but thorns. That man-people will not see one green shoot in this new garden, I promise myself.
I want to get closer to see what else he’s done, but just as I am about to take a step, I see it: a line of salt! Someone has made a big, white circle all around the cottage, the garden, and the little barn. This is powerful magic, meant to keep a fairy out. If I set one foot over that line, I will shrivel like a garden slug, down and down, until I am only the size of a bug.
I run back behind the shivery tree, my heart bumping in my chest.
Oh, I think. That man-people. He is rotten. He is mean. But he knows things about fairies.
My stomach rumbles and groans. I remember Mr. Green’s advice.
Of course! He didn’t want me to go to the village just for breakfast. He must want me to talk to Rose the Wise. She’ll know what to do about my people problem.
“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place, Mr. Green?” I say.
3
I take the deer path to the forest’s edge, where the village begins. The peoples here are afraid of fairies, as they should be. They know that if we are angry, we will make their chickens lay black eggs or their cows give sour milk, and so they leave gifts to make us happy.
On a big stone in someone’s yard I see a lump of something tied in a handkerchief. Quick as an owl, I swoop in and take it away, back to the woods. It’s a piece of cheese. I gobble half of it and save the rest for later.
At the back of another house is an old well where someone has left a bowl of milk. There are some flies in it, but I don’t mind a few flies.
I go from house to house finding my gifts.
The peoples have pleased me today. I’m glad I do not have to punish them. The truth is, it’s hard to convince a chicken to lay black eggs—and most of the time when I tell a cow to give sour milk, she just stares at me as if she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
I go to the littlest house with the prettiest garden, where I usually find the best gift of all. Today I find someone about to eat it.
Rose the Wise is a little girl-people, but not an ordinary little girl-people. She has many strange and amazing powers.
I spy on her as she sits at a tree-stump table at the end of her garden. Her hair is tied with ribbons into two fuzzy puffs. She is singing a song to herself. On the stump is a white plate with a lovely piece of honeycomb on it.
“Oh, Nix. Oh, Nix. Can I have some of that honeycomb?” she sings. “Yes, you may. Yes, you may.”
I have noticed that Rose often sings songs or talks to me, even when she doesn’t know I’m there. Or perhaps she always knows I’m there. Rose is a mysterious people, so it’s hard to say.
She picks up my honeycomb and nibbles the edge. “Now can I have some more, more, more?” she sings.
“No, you may not. No, you may not,” I sing as I jump out from behind a tree.
She laughs and laughs. This is how I know that in spite of being a people, Rose has powerful magic. Anyone else would scream and run away if they saw my face, and their hair would turn white as bone forever, for I am Wicked Nix, the foulest of the fairies.
Rose gets up and dances around and around in circles on the grass. “Nix is here. Nix is here.”
I am in a hurry to get back to the abandoned cottage, but I know that there is no rushing Rose when she is dancing around. I quickly eat the honeycomb.
Finally, she plops down heavily at our tree-stump table. Her face turns sad. “Poor arm,” she says, pointing. Rose has a tender heart and says this every time I come.
I lick my sticky fingers. “The queen will fix it. When she comes back.”
Last year, when I was left behind by the other fairies, I didn’t know how to live in the forest. At first I slept on the ground, but it got colder and colder. The wolves came down from Grandfather Mountain, sniffing for food. One morning I woke up and a wolf was sniffing me. He went away, but I knew that the next day or the day after that, he would be hungry enough to try and eat me.
It was Mr. Green who told me to make a nest in the trees using blankets and laundry ropes from the village, but it takes practice to sleep in a nest. I fell out and my arm got bent, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.
“Let’s have some tea,” I say.
One of Rose’s strange and amazing powers is that she can conjure invisible tea out of thin air.
“Hold out your cup,” she says.
I hold out my hand, watching Rose. She doesn’t make any magical sign. She doesn’t even say any magic words. She just takes hold of an invisible teapot and pours the invisible tea into the invisible cup that has appeared in my hand.
I get shivers up and down my arms, feeling her great power all around me.
“What kind is it?” I whisper.
“It’s berries tea,” she says. “Here is the sugar.”
She puts down the invisible teapot and spoons the invisible sugar into my cup.
I cannot feel the cup, but I know it’s there. Carefully, I blow on the tea.
“Is it blackberries?”
“Blackberries and redberries and all the berries,” she says.
I take a sip. Invisible tea is hard to taste. You have to concentrate.
“Delicious,” I say.
Rose smiles. She is as beautiful as the Good Queen herself when she smiles—and thinking of the Good Queen makes me remember why I’m here.
“Rose, I have a problem. There is a people in the forest.”
Her eyes widen. She sets down her invisible teacup. Rose knows the rules—and she understands when something is serious. “On the road?”
I shake my head slowly. “No. He is not on the road.”
She puts her hand over her mouth. “Oh dear, oh dear. What will you do?”
My stomach feels tight all of a sudden. “I don’t know.”
I look around the garden. When the flowers are at their prettiest, that’s when the Good Queen comes back—and Rose’s garden is so very pretty. The twinkly stars are all in bloom, with rows of purple puff-puffs behind them. Bees buzz around the butter yellows. It must be very close to Midsummer’s Eve, the night when the fairies come to the forest to dance. What if the man-people hasn’t left by then? Will the queen be angry? Will she let me come home?
“Can you help me, Rose?” I ask.
She thinks for a moment. “Fairies play tricks—so you must play a trick on that man. A very tricky trick.”
“I wish I could, but he has put a ring of salt around his cottage! If I go near, I will shrivel like a garden slug, down and down, until I am the size of a bug.”
“Oh, Nix! Oh, Nix!” Rose sings at me. She gets up and twirls around.
I can’t complain. She’s been
sitting a long time for her.
“You must sing this magic song,” she sings. “Ha-ha, ma-ta, fa-fa-la. Then you will not get small.”
“Ha-ha, ma-fa, fa-la-la?”
Rose stops her dancing. “Nooo,” she says. “Don’t sing that. That will make you shrivel, down and down, until you disappear.”
“Oh.”
She twirls again. “Ha-ha, ma-ta, fa-fa-la.”
“Ha-ha, ma-ta, fa-fa-la,” I say.
“Now dance with me!”
I get up and dance with Rose, around and around, repeating the magic words again and again until I know them by heart.
4
Rose the wise says that I must play a trick on the horrible man-people. A tricky trick. Ideas wriggle in my mind. That man-people thinks he is safe behind his ring of salt, but I know better.
I wait until it’s dark and the moon rises. Then I set out. I bring a basket that a villager gave me as a gift—or maybe he just left it in his yard. It’s not stealing if you’re a fairy.
The air is warm, and the nighty-night bugs are very loud. I go through the fairy meadow. It is bright with moonlight and stars. A breeze rustles the grass, and I see Mr. Green’s face.
“Soon, soon, soon,” he whispers. I smile and wave as I go by.
Soon they will come—that’s what he means. Soon fairy feet will trample this grass with their dancing. The meadow is waiting for them, just as I am, waiting for Midsummer’s Eve.
I climb a small hill in the middle of the meadow. This is where my fairy friends disappeared a year ago. One moment the hill was covered with tents and torches and laughter. All the fairies were dancing—some with antlers on their heads or animal faces, some with wings like moths or dragonflies. I was dancing, too. In the center was the Good Queen in her cloak of midnight.
The next thing I knew, everyone was gone.
I have danced in the fairy meadow on Midsummer’s Eve many times, and afterward I always went back with the others to the Summer Country, where time passes slow and sweet as honey and everything is like a dream. I never thought about how I got there. I never asked.