by E. J. Clarke
Rowan gripped her mother’s hand as they followed.
Down a tunnel, they emerged into a small but cozy cave with a crystal-clear pool. A lily pad floated in the center of the water, serving as a dinner table, full of glistening salads of watercress, steaming bowls of samphire, and acorn cups of dandelion-flower marmalade. Rowan’s stomach rumbled at the sight of it, and she realized just how hungry she was. Web-footed river fairy waiters ushered the friends to sit on little stalagmite stools just under the surface of the water.
“You want us to sit . . . in the water?” said Olor.
“Yes! Make yourself at home!” said Jack.
“I’ve never been in a home like this before,” whispered Aiken.
Rowan could have been sitting in a bucket of ice and not cared at all. She sat by her mother, and squeezed her hand tightly.
“Welcome to you all,” said Jack, standing and raising a goblet of nectar. “Not since your mother fell into this world, and into my life, have I been so happy.”
Rowan’s mother smiled awkwardly.
“It’s like having a queen by my side, and now a princess too,” he continued, gazing at Rowan. She shifted in her seat.
“Finally,” he said. “My very own family!” There wasn’t anything in Jack’s speech about helping them get home. Her mother clasped Rowan’s hand. A team of fairy waiters brought a huge roasted piece of meat on a giant spit to the table.
“Leg of frog!” cried Aiken. Olor was looking back at Rowan to see if she was okay. But Rowan wasn’t sure herself.
• • •
Rowan sat on a bed of downy feathers in a beautiful nightgown of woven flax. Aiken and Olor had gone to sleep with Harold for the night.
Rowan’s mother combed the girl’s hair with a brush made from a tiny fir cone. Her locks were all tangled from the epic journey they had been on, and the brush caught in them, making Rowan wince.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Rowan,” said her mother.
“It’s okay, Mom. It’s a bit of a mess.”
“No, I didn’t mean to hurt you by leaving. One minute I was there, sitting under our tree, and the next . . . I was here.”
“It’s okay. The GodMother told me. You had to escape, and then you were trapped.”
Her mother smiled a sad smile.
“But now we can unlock the Heart of Oak together and go home,” Rowan said, turning the pendants over in her hands.
“Rowan,” she began nervously. “It’s so good to see my necklace again. It was the only thing I had in this world that we shared in some way, and it hurt so much when Vulpes took it away. But I have to tell you, it’s just a . . . trinket. I bought this and your acorn from an antiques stall on the Portobello Road. I don’t think either of them is special, other than what they mean to us.”
Rowan’s happiness leaked away as the words tumbled out of her. “But, but, Aiken said, the GodMother said, Vulpes said. The Heart of Oak. You unlock it and you go home. Don’t you believe it’s true?”
“Rowan, there’s not been a minute in the past seven years when I haven’t thought about going home. Thought about every possible thing I could do. Anything, even just to let you know that I was still alive. And I hadn’t forgotten you. But I never found a way.” She lifted her oak pendant from Rowan’s palm. “Once I thought this might be the Heart of Oak. But it’s just a beautiful piece of wood. I’m sorry, Rowan. I wish that weren’t true.”
Rowan hugged her mother, breathed her in. Then she heard her mom’s voice whisper urgently into her ear.
“Because we have to find a way for you to get home. It’s not safe for you here, little one. I can’t get back, but you have to. I couldn’t bear for you . . . not to be free.
Rowan pulled away.
“What do you mean, Mom? We’re going to find a way together. I know it. We can be human again. Be a family again.”
“You don’t understand. I’m not just trapped by Vulpes, but by Jack, too.”
“But he’s guarding you, isn’t he? Protecting you from Vulpes?”
“It began that way, yes. But he’s lonely, Rowan. He doesn’t want me to leave, and now that he’s met you . . .” Her mom’s hands twisted in her lap. “He’ll want to keep you, too. You heard him—his family. That’s how he sees us. But we can’t let it happen. You have to go!”
“And leave you here as his prisoner? What about me? And Willow? And Dad?”
“Those things don’t matter to him, Rowan. They’re a world away from Jack. A different life.”
“But don’t they matter to you?” The words burst out of Rowan before she could stop them.
Her mom’s voice broke. “Yes, yes, they do.”
She gently pressed Rowan back into the bed and tucked a blanket over her body. Rowan was so tired, she couldn’t resist. She closed her eyes as her mom pressed a kiss against her forehead.
“We’ll talk more tomorrow, I promise. You must rest. Good night, my love.”
Rowan hadn’t been called ‘my love’ for seven years. She drifted to sleep in the warm feathers, hoping against hope that what her mother had said about returning home wasn’t true.
• • •
A distant moaning sound woke Rowan. Her mother was asleep in a chair. The noise was coming from down the hall. Rowan gently kissed her mother, crept out of the bedroom, and tiptoed toward the sound. She passed Olor, tucked up neatly in a bed of moss, with Aiken spread-eagled near her feet, snoring gently. And then at the end of the hallway, she found Harold. He was having a nightmare. She kneeled beside him and placed a hand softly on his brow. He really didn’t look well. His feathers had lost their shine, and his chest was heaving up and down far too quickly. He seemed to relax at her touch, and slowly opened his eyes. They widened at the sight of her brushed hair and nightgown.
“Oh my. I never knew you were a girl fairy.”
“I can leave you outside for the foxes, you know.”
Harold smiled, before raising himself painfully to his feet. He cocked his head to one side.
“You showed your mother? The Heart of Oak?”
Rowan nodded.
“And?”
“She doesn’t think it’s real.”
“But it must be. Is she sure?”
Rowan shrugged.
Harold looked disappointed for Rowan, but then seemed to rally. “But you’ve found her again, Rowan. That’s what’s important, isn’t it?”
“No. Yes. Maybe. Why does it all feel so terrible, Harold? What good does it do for us to be trapped here, waiting for Vulpes to destroy everything?”
“It’s not happened yet. . . .”
“Matter of time, though, isn’t it, Harold? ‘It is what it is,’ right?”
“It’s up to you to change it.”
“How is that going to happen, Harold?” She held up the pendant. “If this really is just a lump of wood?”
“Because, well, you’re a very special fairy too.”
“Everyone keeps saying that, but all these powers don’t seem to be helping me with anything that . . . you know . . . anything that really matters. I can’t even control them. They just, well, happen to me.”
“It wasn’t the powers I was talking about. Even if you didn’t have those gifts, you would still be special.”
“That’s very sweet, Harold,” she began, “but once you get past these new tricks I can do, I don’t think anything has changed.”
“Oh, is that so?” Harold wasn’t going to let that pass. “It took more than a trick to recognize the GodMother. It wasn’t your powers that gave you the determination to protect your friends. And yes, maybe the turning-into-a-fish thing helped you find your mom at last, but it was your courage that enabled you to face your fear of the water.”
Rowan felt her cheeks flush red, but deep down she knew that he was right.
“Back in the Park of St. James, while you were asleep,” said Harold, “the GodMother told me she believed I could help you, even though I wasn’t sure. But you’re the
one who’s helped me see that things can change. You’re the one who’s shown me that sometimes, well . . . it isn’t what it is. Nothing’s impossible. Heart of Oak or no Heart of Oak.”
Rowan couldn’t help but smile. Quickly she kissed Harold on his feathery cheek. She snuggled in next to him under his wing, lay back, and began to drift off to sleep.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.”
• • •
Rowan’s mother woke to see that her daughter was no longer in her bed. She padded down the corridor, checking in all of the smaller caves, until she found Rowan asleep next to Harold.
Smiling, she leaned down to lift her daughter’s hair gently out of her face, but pulled up short when she saw Rowan’s wings turning white and feathered, appearing and disappearing. Rowan’s whole body was alive with change. One second her legs were scaled like a fish tail, the next rough like silver birch. Her arms were feathered, then furred. Horns seemed to sprout from her head and then dissolve as quickly as they’d appeared.
Rowan’s mother sat beside her and put her hand to her daughter’s forehead. Rowan was hot to the touch. She stroked Rowan gently until the transformations began to slow down and then stopped altogether. Then she climbed to her feet and went to walk away down the corridor, a mixture of pride and fear etched across her face.
* Chapter Fourteen *
ROWAN TAKES FLIGHT
Rowan sneezed herself awake. Harold’s feathers were tickling her nose. But before she had a chance to push them away and go back to sleep, Aiken and Olor appeared beside her.
“Get up, get up!”
“What do you mean?”
Harold stirred.
“It’s the foxes,” Olor said. “They’ve found a way in.”
The friends rushed out of the room to find the palace in commotion. Jack was running back and forth, shouting at the River Fairies to go one way, before yelling at them again to go back the other. Rowan’s mother raced over to meet Rowan and her friends.
“Follow me. Now!”
She led the friends up through the palace. River Fairies splashed around them, grabbing anything that could be used as a weapon to defend themselves.
“We’ll only be able to hold him off for a short while,” she said.
“What are we doing?” asked Rowan.
“My love,” said her mother. “We have to get you out.”
Rowan started to panic.
“No, I’m not going on my own. I’ve decided. If you can’t leave, I’m going to stay here with you. We have to protect you from Vulpes.”
“No, Rowan. We have to protect you from Vulpes.”
“What do you mean? He only wants me so that he can get to you, and if he’s inside the palace, I don’t matter to him anymore, surely?”
“He is looking for the most powerful fairy in the Realms, Rowan. I don’t think he realizes how much my powers have faded.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve lost the power to transform, Rowan. The most powerful fairy in the Realms now is you.”
Rowan felt her stomach drop inside her. “But that can’t be?”
She turned to look at Harold, Aiken, and Olor, but they just nodded.
“Then I’ll stay and fight him with you.”
“It’s not that simple, Rowan. Now that Vulpes has found his way into the palace, there is no place left to hide. Even if we beat him here, he will only come after you. Again and again. His anger is too strong, his foxes are too powerful—he will never rest until he finds you. You need to go, for your sake and for ours. He will destroy everything and everyone that stands in his way.”
“But I’ve only just found you again! How am I supposed to leave you now?”
“Because I need to know that you’re safe, and that you’re free. And so that you can take my love to your dad and your sister, and tell them that I never forgot about them. Never stopped loving you all.”
“How is she going to succeed where you and Vulpes both failed?” asked Olor.
Rowan’s mother took off her wooden oak tree necklace and placed it gently around her daughter’s neck. Then she took Rowan’s acorn and slotted it perfectly into the center.
“There was a hole in the heart of my necklace,” Rowan’s mother began, “but not anymore. Because of you, Rowan. You have it within you to do great things.”
A shout came up from deep in the palace. It was Jack yelling for them to come back.
“Quickly now,” said Rowan’s mother. “Before Jack leads them straight to us.”
• • •
The friends climbed higher through cascading staircases of water, before finally emerging into another great space. This time, however, a small circle of sky could be seen high above them. The biggest waterfall yet poured in through it and crashed past them to a large pool far below.
Beside the water beneath them, a great battle raged. Jack was swinging his trident around his head to fend off a mass of foxes. River Fairies hurled rocks at the beasts and their riders, but from the cries of desperation it was clear that the fairies weren’t going to be able to hold back the attackers for much longer.
“Up here is the only other way in or out of the palace.” Rowan’s mother pointed toward the hole in the cave roof. “As a fairy, the waterfall would blast you back down as soon as you got anywhere near it.” She paused. “But as a bird? You could make it through. I arrived here as a swan. Perhaps that is the way you can leave.” Her eyes glinted as she looked at Rowan.
“And what happens if I make it out?” Rowan asked.
Her mother gripped her shoulders, so tight that it hurt. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I hope you’ll have the power to transform back into a human again. No fairy has ever managed that before. But I believe in you, Rowan. I believe you can be the first.”
Rowan caught Harold, Aiken, and Olor all looking at one another. Her mother took hold of Rowan’s hand.
“Do I have to fly all the way from here?” asked Rowan.
“There are stairs cut into the rock that will take us most of the way up,” said her mother. “From there it’s up to you.”
Rowan’s head spun. She felt like someone was wrenching her insides out, but there was no time to think. The noises of the battle were getting closer. She took a deep breath and turned to Harold, Aiken, and Olor. “I’ll come back. Somehow. I promise.”
They all rushed forward and hugged her.
“Good luck, Oakwing,” said Olor.
“Don’t get eaten out there,” added Aiken.
“Thank you,” said Rowan. “For what you’ve all done.”
Harold stepped forward. “No. Thank you, Rowan Oakwing.”
Rowan felt a warmth inside that chased her fear away.
“What will you all do?” she asked, fearing for her friends’ safety.
Aiken plucked an extra long stick from his belt. “We’ve got some unfinished business with those foxes.”
She smiled and gave one last look to her friends. Then she turned and followed her mother toward the stairs.
They climbed the slippery rocks spiraling around the walls, finally reaching a stone platform high above the cavern floor. It wasn’t far to the opening above from here, but it was an awfully long way down. The roar of the water pounding through the gaping mouth of the cave made it hard to think, let alone hear each other. This could be the last time that Rowan saw her mother again. The thought pricked her with the same pain that had hurt her for seven years.
“Mom,” she shouted.
“You must hurry!”
“Mom, there’s something I have to ask you. Before I go.”
Her mother bent down to hear her over the sound of the rushing water. Rowan struggled to get the words out. It was the hardest thing for her to ask.
“They told me that the only way you can fall into this world—become a fairy—is if you think that no one cares about you.”
Her mother stiffened.
“But I cared about you. So did Dad, and W
illow. Didn’t you know that?”
Her mother took a deep breath. “I was hurting, Rowan. I can’t explain it. I never stopped loving you, your dad, or your sister. I just stopped loving . . . myself.”
Rowan felt a sick feeling inside. “Was it because of me, Mom? Was it something I did?”
Rowan’s mother pulled her daughter into a hug so tight, Rowan thought she might never let go.
“Never, my love. Never. Ever.”
Rowan suddenly felt lighter than she’d felt in seven years. She buried her face in her mother’s robe, breathing her in one last time.
“I’m so proud of you,” she heard her mother say.
The foxes were howling beneath them. Rowan wrenched herself away. She peered down to the cavern below. Vulpes wasn’t there yet, but he would surely arrive any second. Harold, Aiken, Olor, and the River Fairies were bravely doing battle with the foxes and their fairy riders to stop them from getting to the foot of the staircase. Harold pecked them on the head while Aiken expertly swung his stick to fend off the orange beasts. No closing his eyes and hoping for the best anymore. Rowan smiled proudly.
“You have to go now, Rowan. Go to Dad and Willow. Carry my love to them.”
“No,” said a voice. It was Jack, emerging out of a darkness to hover by the rocky platform. “She’s family. She belongs with us now.”
Rowan’s mother stepped protectively in front of her.
“It’s too soon, Jack,” she said hastily. “She’s not in control of her powers yet. I daren’t think what Vulpes would do to her if she stayed.”
“Rowan, you don’t want to leave us now, do you?” said Jack. “You’d like to stay with your mother, wouldn’t you? Your mother is very happy here. And you could be too.”
Jack held out his hand to Rowan’s mother. Her mother nervously took his hand in return.
“We know you’re strong enough to stop Vulpes,” said Jack. “You’re the most powerful fairy anyone has ever seen!”
“I’ve transformed into a few . . . animals . . . but I don’t think that’s going to be enough to . . .”
Jack started to laugh, crouching down to get on Rowan’s level.
“That’s only the beginning! A fairy with the gift of transformation such as yours? You could control nature herself.”