by Lena Coakley
I stop, but not because he told me to. “That’s strange,” I say. I lift my nose to the air. All around me the fairies are still singing.
“What is it?” Jonathan asks, panting.
“Do you smell something?”
Jonathan sniffs, too. “Is it . . . skunk spit and frog pee?”
“Stinkflowers!” I say. “We’re not near the meadow. We’re near the pond. This is the wrong way!”
The fairy music fades to nothing, and the forest is quiet again.
“They’re tricking us,” says Jonathan. “The way they tricked William and Hagar.”
“But that’s not fair. They’re treating us like peoples!”
“Nix,” Jonathan says. “We are peoples.”
I hear a laugh just off in the trees. Then another.
“I know that’s you, Wing!” I call.
The laughing grows louder.
“Watch out, watch out!” the fairy voices say. “The wolves are coming.”
Wolves. That can’t be right. They’re far away on Grandfather Mountain. Then I hear it. A low growl.
There is a rustling in the trees, and a wolf bursts out, his teeth very white.
“Run!” Jonathan says.
We run. Branches whip my legs. Dark has come on quickly, and I can’t see very well. Behind us the wolf is snarling. He must be very hungry.
“This way!” I shout.
We splash through the cold river. When we are across, I turn to look at the wolf on the other side.
“Hooooooooowl!” he says.
All around him, other wolves answer. “Hooooowl! Hooooowl!”
Now there are three wolves, and together they dive into the river after us.
“Come on!” Jonathan says, taking my hand.
We clamber up the slippery riverbank and keep running through the trees. There is no path, only forest. I trip on a tree root and fall flat. I can’t get up. I can’t run anymore. I’m too tired. Three pairs of yellow eyes race toward us in the dark.
“Keep going!” I yell to Jonathan.
But he throws his body on top of me, just as the wolves leap.
15
The wolves disappear as if they are made of mist.
“Another trick,” Jonathan says.
“Why did you do that?” I snap, getting up. “Why didn’t you run away when I said?”
“Because you are my family.”
I stare at Jonathan in the dim light. “No. Fairies are my family.” I hear a giggle from the trees and turn around. “Fleet! Why are you being so cruel?”
“We can’t help it,” says a voice.
“The queen says you cannot come to the meadow,” says another.
“And so we must play tricks.”
“But why doesn’t she want to see me?” I ask, my voice small. The fairies don’t answer. “Hello? Are you still there?”
All I hear is the hoot of owls and the chirp-chirp of nighty-night bugs. I look around, trying to figure out where we are.
“I think we’re lost,” Jonathan says.
“No. We’re near the bramble patch where I found the thorny sticks to put in your garden—but that’s even farther away from the meadow than we were before.” I sit down on a log. “Those fairies will never let us get there.”
My eyes go watery, and a big sigh comes out. Jonathan sits down next to me. He reaches over to take my hand, but I snatch it away.
“You never wanted me to find the meadow! You want me to be a people—but I’m not a people! And I’m not your brother!”
“What I want,” he says, “is for you to be happy.”
Somehow, his being nice makes me feel even worse. “I’ll never be happy now.”
He puts his hand over mine, and this time I let him. Even though I am wet and cold and miserable, I’m glad I’m not alone.
“I know!” I say. “Mr. Green can help.” I should have thought of him before. I jump off the log. “Mr. Green! Mr. Green!”
“Who are you calling, Nicolas?”
“Mr. Green, of course. He always comes when I need him.”
“Who?”
How could somebody live in the forest and not know Mr. Green? I wonder.
“He’s the face you see in tree bark, sometimes, and the voice you hear in the leaves. You must have met him! He gives good advice.”
I call and call, but Mr. Green doesn’t come, even though I look for his face in all the dark branches and on all the moonlit tree trunks. I wonder where he could be.
“Do you think maybe Mr. Green was in your imagination?” Jonathan asks. He sees I don’t understand. “That’s when something’s not real.”
“Like a walrus?”
“No. It’s when you see and talk to things that aren’t there.”
“Mr. Green is there.”
“Sometimes when your imagination is very good, it’s hard to tell. Maybe you have been very lonely and made up Mr. Green in your head to keep you company.”
This is a terrible thought. “Why are you taking everything away from me?” I shout. “My star. Mr. Green. My friends. Being a fairy. I hate having a little brother!”
My angry words are like magic. They wake a memory. I have said that before.
No one was paying attention to me. The baby was sick. The baby, the baby, the baby. I left the house when no one was looking, and there they were. Fairies. There were fairies in the forest, their eyes like blue sparks.
“I hate having a little brother,” I told them.
“No little brothers where we live,” a fairy said.
“Come with us,” said another. It was Flit. I remember now. I’d never seen anyone with green skin before, and she let me touch her soft wings.
I followed them. They lured me to the meadow, just as they are keeping me away tonight. I don’t think I really believed it before. I’m a people. I was stolen.
“Nix,” Jonathan says. “You said that Mr. Green comes when you need him. Maybe he hasn’t come because you don’t need him now. Maybe he knows we can get to the meadow ourselves.”
“But how?” I say. “If we get close, Fleet and Flit and the others will stop us with their tricks.”
“We are tricky, too,” Jonathan tells me. “And nobody knows the forest as well as you do, not even the fairies. I have an idea.”
I cannot see. I cannot hear.
I am wearing a blindfold made from the torn bottom of Jonathan’s shirt. My ears are stuffed with ripped-up leaves.
Jonathan is behind me, a hand on my shoulder. He is wearing a blindfold, too, and his ears are also stuffed with leaves.
I walk slowly, one step in front of the other. From the smell, I know we are going past the thorny bushes with the red don’t-eat-me berries. We duck under the low branch. Step over the hollow log.
I pat Jonathan’s hand, hoping he is not afraid. He has good ideas, for a people.
The fairies are probably all around us, singing their songs, trying to make me see beautiful things to lure me off the path or terrible things to scare me. I wonder if Mr. Green is all around me, too, whispering kind words, or if he is only my imagination.
We are on the deer path now. It goes up and down, but I know every bump and dip. When we pass the place where the green moss grows, I feel my feet sink into the pillowy earth. When we go by the thin-white-lady trees, I hold out my hand and let my fingertips brush their papery bark.
It takes a long time, but I am patient. We cross the river again. We go along the windy path. Finally, I feel the forest open up. I smell the bonfires. I see the light of the moon through my blindfold. We’re at the fairy meadow.
Jonathan and I unstuff our ears and uncover our eyes. Jonathan gasps.
The fairies are here, but they are not singing. They are not dancing.
The fairies are all staring at us.
“Don’t be afraid,” Jonathan whispers, putting his hand in mine.
“I’m not,” I say, squeezing it tight.
Some of the fairies are very beautiful, with long shiny hair an
d wings like a butterfly’s or a bird’s. Some are scary, with animal faces or clawed bat’s wings or pointy antlers on their heads. Most are people-size, but a few are tiny and flit around like bumble-bugs, and some at the back are tall as small trees, very thin and pale and greenish.
I swallow and start toward the hill at the center of the meadow. The crowd parts as we go by. The fairies are all whispering softly to one another, all but the pale and greenish ones, who have no mouths. These only follow Jonathan and me with wide eyes.
The Good Queen stands at the top of the hill in her cloak of midnight, looking down at us. Her hair is white as snow, but her face is young and beautiful. She holds out her arms.
“Darling Nix,” she says. “Welcome home.”
The sound of her voice is like music. My whole body wants to run toward her. “Is it true?” I ask. “Did you steal me?”
She smiles and shrugs. “You were such a sweet and funny little thing. I told Fleet and Flit that I wanted you, and they got you for me.”
“He had a family!” Jonathan shouts.
Around us, fairies grumble and rumble. They don’t like to hear someone shouting at their queen.
“All this time I was a people,” I say. “Just an ordinary boy.”
She shakes her head. “A special boy. A patient boy who waited all through the winter for Midsummer’s Eve to come again. You must love me very much.”
“Oh, I do.”
She puts her hand to her heart. “And I love you, Nix.”
I want to believe her more than anything, but a question jumps into my mouth. “Then why did you leave me last Midsummer’s Eve? Why was I alone in the forest for a whole year?”
The Good Queen’s eyes go to her feet. All around her, the fairies sigh. Her face is even more beautiful when it is sad.
“That was all a mistake. I thought you had run away. I was so unhappy.”
Around her, fairies nod and repeat her words. “Unhappy. So unhappy.”
“You shouldn’t believe her, Nix,” Jonathan says. “Why did she try to keep us away from the meadow just now?”
“Yes,” I say. “Why did you try to keep us away from the meadow?”
“Oh,” says the queen. “Well. The truth is, I was so unhappy that you were gone—”
“So unhappy,” repeat the fairies.
“—that I decided to steal another little people to replace you. Don’t be jealous, Nix.”
The queen pulls back one side of her dark cloak and steps away. There, sitting on the grass, is Rose the Wise.
16
“Rose,” I say. “Why aren’t you wearing your daisy chain?”
Rose doesn’t answer. She only sits quietly in the grass, smiling.
“It wasn’t easy to get her to take it off,” the Good Queen says. “But when Flit told her she could come and live with us, she finally did.”
It’s my fault. I told Rose all about the Summer Country and how wonderful it is. I made her want to come.
“You’ll get tired of her,” I say. “The way you got tired of the singer with the fiery red hair.” The way you got tired of me.
The queen looks lovingly down at Rose. “Surely not.”
Maybe Rose would be happy in the Summer Country, I think. She’d laugh and dance and play tricks. She’d have fairies for friends. The Good Queen would pull down stars from the sky just for her.
But then, it wasn’t the Good Queen who gave me my star, was it? It was Hagar. My mother.
Rose has a mother, too—a mother who makes bread and puts Rose’s hair in bows and makes her sit still for a nice dinner. Rose has a mother who loves her.
“I think,” I say, “that Rose should go back home.”
There is a rustle of surprise through the fairy crowd.
The queen raises an eyebrow as if I’ve said something funny, but her voice is icy cold when she speaks: “I take what I want.”
I step forward. Jonathan is still holding my hand and comes with me, though I think I feel him shaking with fear. Or maybe that’s me.
“No,” I say. “Rose has a family.”
The queen seems to grow taller. For a moment, I think she will do something terrible—call down a bolt of lightning from the sky—but then she smiles.
“I will make you a bargain,” she says. “I will allow you to take Rose home. But in return, you must never tell anyone else how you managed to see through our fairy tricks—and you must promise never to come to the meadow again on Midsummer’s Eve.”
I’m about to answer, but she raises her hand.
“However, if you choose, you may come with Rose and me to the Summer Country. You will be one of the fairies again, and all will be forgiven.”
My heart leaps like a deer. Everything could be like it was. I wouldn’t be cold. I wouldn’t be hungry. Time would be slow and sweet as honey again, and everything would be like a dream. Jonathan squeezes my hand tight, but he doesn’t tell me what to do.
“No,” I say. “Rose is special. Rose needs . . . something better.”
Jonathan whispers: “And so do you.”
“I agree to your bargain,” I say. “I won’t tell how I saw through your tricks, and I won’t come to the meadow on Midsummer’s Eve—not ever.”
The queen’s face is hard as stone, but she gestures to the little girl on the ground. “Take her, then. I always keep my word. Take her and go.”
“Come with us, Rose,” I say, holding out my hand.
From somewhere in the crowd of fairies, I think I hear a laugh.
Rose has been quiet all this time. Very quiet. In fact, I have never seen her sit still for so long.
With a cry, I remember Jonathan’s story about the doll that fooled William and Hagar.
“That’s not the real Rose,” I say. “That’s a fake made of twigs and mud and magic!”
From out behind the queen’s black cloak comes a little girl who dances in circles on the grass.
“Ha-ha-ha! Fa-li-la!” she sings. “I told you Nix is clever. He saw through your tricky trick!”
“That’s the real Rose,” I say.
The false Rose tips over, its eyes open and staring.
“Impossible!” The queen cries. She points a long finger at me. “You are a mere people, and yet you know all my secrets. I cannot allow it.”
“Run, Nix!” Jonathan cries.
But suddenly there are fairies all around us, threatening with horns and antlers and pointy teeth. We cannot get away.
The queen raises her arms, and dark clouds rush to the sky above her, blotting out the moon. I know that she is going to call down the lightning.
“We made a bargain!” I shout. “You said you always keep your word!”
Thunder cracks.
“I won! I got to the meadow. I saw through all your tricks!”
Jonathan throws himself between the queen and me.
“Stop doing that!” I say to him. “I’m the older brother!” But it’s nice to have someone to hide behind, even though I know it won’t do any good.
The queen looks huge now, and lightning sparks around her fingertips. The skies flash. I squeeze my eyes tight shut.
“Enough!” cries a voice, a low, deep voice that seems to shake the ground.
I open my eyes.
All is quiet.
From out of the forest comes a gigantic person who seems to be made of trees. His arms are great branches. His legs are enormous roots. His face is a pattern of swirling leaves.
Mr. Green, the fairies whisper to one another. Mr. Green is here.
The tall, pale fairies with no mouths all bow low to the ground before him.
“It’s Mr. Green!” I say. Jonathan’s eyes are wide. “I must have a very good imagination.”
“I may have been wrong about that,” my brother says.
“The boy is right, fairy queen,” Mr. Green says. “You made a bargain. Do you mean to break it?”
The queen looks smaller. The clouds above her rush away as quickly as they
came, and the moon is bright again.
“I . . .” she begins. “But . . .” She stamps her foot. “Why would you side with one of them?”
Mr. Green makes a grumbly sound: Mmmmmm.
He comes to the middle of the meadow, his root-legs trailing dirt behind him. When he stops and raises his arms, it is as if we are all suddenly in the forest. I look up and up. I can see the moon through the leaves of his face.
“I am the forest,” Mr. Green says to the Good Queen. “And Nicolas is forest born. I protect everything under my branches—the grass and the grouse, the ferns and the fireflies, the bats and the bears.” I hear wood creaking and groaning as he bends down to look into the queen’s face. “Nicolas is one of my dear little weeds. You would do well to remember that, oh queen who only visits me once a year.”
“Yes, Mr. Green,” the queen says meekly.
Mr. Green straightens up, and I hear groaning and creaking again. “Now,” he says to Jonathan and me. “If I remember the ways of peoples, Rose should be in bed by now. Please take her home.”
17
I am tired. So tired. I fall asleep in the garden when Jonathan is talking to Rose’s mother. I fall asleep again on my feet while walking back to the oak tree. When I wake up, I am not in my nest. I am in a little bed.
I’m sure I have been in this bed before, but it was bigger then. I remember the carved flowers on it, pretty as Rose’s garden. I remember its softness underneath me. I remember this feeling of being warm and safe.
The room is yellow in the candlelight. Jonathan is at the table carving something out of wood.
“In the morning, I will go back to my nest,” I tell him.
Jonathan stops. “All right.”
He sounds a little sad. I wonder if he is lonely.
“But I could come back sometimes.”
Jonathan picks up his work again. “I’d like that.” There are wood curls on the floor, and he nudges them into a pile with his foot. “I could teach you how to carve.”
I yawn, pulling the bed covers around me. I could teach Jonathan where the best berries are. And how to catch a snake. And all the names of things. Without an older brother, there are probably a lot of things he doesn’t know.