Page 5

O ne week and counting had passed since Cedar had been kidnapped. The trolls had a head start, but Elowen knew their destination now, and nothing could stop her.

Well, she knew the general direction they were headed, and she had promised Father and Alder not to leave until the following morning. She paced in her room, listening to the vehement scritching of Alder’s charcoal stick on the table downstairs. Father had retired to his own room to while away the time in his own way.

Father had tried to persuade her to take the horse, but after once again enduring the creature’s clomping gait to Greggin’s farm and back, she had adamantly declined. She’d had Cora’s seventeen-year-old niece, who was engaged to be married in less than two years, perched behind her on the return trip, which had furthered her resolve to have nothing more to do with the animal.

The girl slept soundly in Elowen’s bed, having promised earnestly to do her best. Her eagerness to help somewhat assuaged Elowen’s guilt at leaving, but it also reminded her of Cedar. Elowen should have let him climb the ladder that day. If only she’d trusted him, he would have been safe in the tree, and she would have been the one carted off by trolls.

She would dare any troll to try carting her off in her current mood.

Suddenly, she couldn’t wait one minute longer. Clutching her pack, she tiptoed out of the room and down to the kitchen.

“Knew you wouldn’t be able to wait until morning.” Father greeted her with a small grin over the rim of his mug. When had he gone downstairs?

Alder smacked his charcoal stick onto the table, his drawing scowling back at him. He ran his sleeve back and forth across the face of the troll that had replaced the unicorn, smearing it into a whirlwind of bushy eyebrows and cracked teeth. “I’ve never even seen a troll.”

“Looks about right,” Elowen said.

Father hadn’t taken his eyes off her since she’d entered the room. “I guess we should be glad you didn’t run off without a word.”

“I would never—”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Alder said, and this time there was bitterness in his voice. “But if you did, neither of us are in any shape to stop you, are we?”

Father stood and helped her adjust the straps of the pack basket on her shoulders. “Looks like more rain on the way.”

She nodded.

He tied the waterproof cloak around her neck and twitched the folds to cover the pack, fussing with the hem. “You’re more suited to this than either of us, my little elm. Come home safe.”

She nodded again, not trusting herself with words. Father kissed her forehead and took his mug with him upstairs. No goodbyes, as she’d expected. This would only be a temporary parting.

“I’ll send that dragon after you if he shows up,” Alder said, but he didn’t sound hopeful.

Elowen doubted Ash would be able to find her in the woods, not after the two of them had failed to spot a couple of hulking trolls. Still, she couldn’t quell the small surge of hope in her chest at the thought of seeing him again.

“You have a plan, right?” Alder asked.

“Plan? Who needs a plan?” She understood the guilt that came with being left behind, but she wouldn’t let Alder wallow in it while she was still around. She grabbed the gnarled branch that doubled as a walking stick from behind the door. “I’ll head north through the woods and cross into Northling that way. It’s quicker than going upriver and through the town.”

“That’s not a plan, Elle.”

“Someone in Northling will know something about the trolls’ hideout. Lair. Village?” What had Alder called it yesterday? “Clan? Whatever. I’ve got the golden coin. Trolls love gold. One scrawny farm boy can’t be worth more than that to them.”

Alder looked doubtful.

“I’ll find him, and I’ll bring him home safely.” She congratulated herself on the confidence in her voice.

“Don’t ... don’t break anything,” he whispered.

She kissed his forehead. “Tell that to the unicorns if their son shows up again.”

He pressed something that smelled like breakfast into her hand and then pretended to ignore her as she strode out the door. How much time and tea would it take before they saw each other again?

Elowen nibbled on the ham and egg wrapped in flatbread, turning her back to the trees and fields of home. She bypassed the cherry orchard, pushing aside memories of Cedar’s content face as he bit into a fresh, hot tart, juice dribbling down his hand. Every dripping tree branch and root, every misty thicket and hollow of their land held similar precious moments. She waded through them all until she reached the deep woods, where new memories waited.

If only she had someone to share them with.

Dawn broke softly while she trudged underneath the trees, grey-green light dripping through the leaves along with the rain Father had promised. She pulled up the hood of the cloak, wondering what adventure had brought such an unusual item into Greggin’s possession. Was it a fairy gift? An heirloom, perhaps? She would remember to ask Cora for the story when she returned with Cedar. No doubt she would have her own share of stories to tell.

Elowen tried to pace herself, but her eagerness set her feet in a quick march through the ferny undergrowth. The woods surrounding their farm had always been easily accessible, which perhaps explained why Ash found them irresistible hunting grounds for his mushroom hobby. She’d never bothered to notice how many different types grew among the damp shadows, but she tried to catalog them in her mind as she walked. Mother had taught her how to recognize a handful of edible ones, and a few to avoid at all costs, but there were far more that were unrecognizable. Maybe Ash could tell her about them someday.

She was doing it again, imagining Ash returning and somehow becoming part of her life. Was there some magic about flying with a dragon that made a person reliant on them? She’d never given dragons a second thought until she’d met Ash. Was he thinking about her, wherever he was?

She slipped on a patch of wet grass and the walking stick cracked apart. It hadn’t been much use, anyway, but Elowen suspected she might be looking for a replacement the farther north she traveled. The rain picked up after lunch, and the wind found its way through the canopy, but she refused to stop and find shelter, not when Cedar could be trudging through the same or worse. She kept her head down, hood pulled low against the storm, and picked her way north. Even if she veered off slightly in one direction or another, she would make it to Northling eventually.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and still Elowen took step after step. Even when the trees clacked and groaned in the wind and broken branches fell in her path, she walked on. The few clearings she passed had become as dim as the woods, and she rushed through them to escape the deluge and take shelter again among the trees. As the thunder grew closer, she heard the sound of troll feet stomping through the woods, but she knew it was only her imagination. Even so, she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder every so often. The trolls had kidnapped Cedar on just such a stormy day.

Only when the lightning began did she finally seek shelter.

She found a fir tree with thick, low branches and crawled underneath onto a bed of damp needles. The cloak proved to be an adequate tent of sorts, cramped but warm and dry. She crouched, grumpy and out of sorts. It wasn’t the rain she minded, but the loss of time. Lightning flashed, and rivulets rushed by like tiny rivers carrying leaves and debris. If she were a pixie or a fairy, she could make a bark boat and keep traveling, although she didn’t imagine such tiny creatures would welcome the fat raindrops falling on their heads. Thoughts of drifting lazily in a boat lulled her to sleep.

Elowen woke to darkness and rain and a gnawing in her belly. At least the wind had eased. She dug in her pack for food and ate a handful of nuts and dates. She would set out at first light, no matter what. No more waiting when she was still less than a day’s walk from home.

The next day brought more rain but less wind. She banged her toes repeatedly on fallen branches and detoured around an uprooted tree that a troll would have been able to climb over. She had long since passed into unknown territory, despite the familiarity of the dripping plants and soggy birds peeking from their nests. Ceaselessly, she watched the ground for sudden pitfalls, Alder’s warning not to break anything still fresh in her memory. She walked the entire day, stopping when she could no longer see her feet in front of her, and rested again under a fir tree, satisfied that she’d made good time and trying not to grumble about wet boots and smokey firewood that refused to light.

It was no wonder Alder had chosen to take a river route and travel into town—and good thing, too, as that was where he’d found information about the trolls. Poor Cedar had no choice. He would tolerate the rain and mud about as well as she did, but how was he holding up among the trolls? Were they feeding him properly? Did he know his family was searching for him?

Mid-morning the next day, shadows flew by overhead, blocking out the misty sunlight for a fleeting moment. Dragons, and more than one of them. She didn’t bother trying to get their attention. Ash would be traveling alone, or ... well, at least in the company of a king’s soldier. If he came at all.

Around noon, Elowen found a trail winding northward and stepped onto it gratefully. She removed her boots and socks, tied the laces together, and slung them over her shoulder to hopefully dry before she needed them again. Her feet shushed and crunched over mud and moss and leaf debris. Animals scurried around here and there: a rabbit, several lizards, and even a deer. Pixie glitter twinkled on scattered boulders without the rain to wash it away, and she welcomed the familiar sight. Although she had never seen a pixie up close, there had always been some around the farm, their multi-colored glitter turning the mundane magical.

Not long after removing her boots, Elowen heard mumbling from somewhere along the path up ahead. The forest was hardly quiet, with its dripping and chirping and rustling, but the trees were close and the canopy thick, and the small voice seemed to hang in the air like fog. She stopped to listen, wondering who her unseen companion could be.

A disgruntled female voice spoke as if talking to herself. “... meant to be walking in the mud, I wouldn’t have wings, would I? My poor wings.”

Wings? Was it a pixie, then? Elowen tiptoed closer so as not to startle her.

“Blasted lightning. Ha!” A bitter laugh. “Blasted, all right. Blasted me right out of the air. Ugh! Stupid caterpillar, get out of my way!”

Elowen sneaked around a curve in the trail and tucked herself behind a tree. She peeked out and saw ... a pixie? Walking on the ground ... with no cloud of pixie dust behind her.

She inhaled sharply. It was a fairy.

The tiny creature picked her way along the ground, one wing hanging limply at her back while the other fluttered in sync with her mood. Why hadn’t she healed herself and flown off?

Before she could consider the wisdom of getting involved with a fairy, Elowen stepped forward and asked, “May I be of any help?”

The fairy spun around, her once gauzy grey skirts flapping around her legs like a handkerchief dropped in a pig pen. Her good wing rose as if she would take to the air, but she remained motionless, a look of deep suspicion on her face. “I suppose you’ll expect a wish in exchange.”

So, it was a fairy. Without the glitter, it could be difficult to tell pixies and fairies apart, or so she’d heard. Fairy wishes could be dangerous, though. They could also be quite useful, like the waterproof cloak Elowen wore.

“I’m only offering to help a fellow traveler.”

“Hmph.” The fairy twisted her black hair in her hands as if wringing out water.

“I’m not sure how far you’re going,” Elowen said, crouching so the fairy wouldn’t have to crane her neck so much, “but my shoulder is dry if you’d like to rest for a while.”

The fairy looked her over carefully, and Elowen couldn’t help feeling like a horse at auction whose merits were being weighed.

The caterpillar had caught up to them, and the fairy grimaced and stepped over it. “I suppose I’ll take you up on your offer, then.”

It would be rude to pick up a fairy, although she was hardly bigger than some of the lizards scurrying on the trees, so Elowen cupped both hands and held them low to the ground. The fairy stepped onto one palm and sat cross-legged while Elowen lifted her to her shoulder. Once there, the fairy settled with her legs dangling, barely heavier than a blue jay.

“Do put up your hood, won’t you? Since I’m riding in style, I might as well be sheltered from those blasted dripping trees.”

Elowen obeyed, tucking her hair behind her ear so it wouldn’t slap the fairy in the face and then flicking the hood over her head.

“Now then, tell me your story.”

“My ... my story?”

“Why a lone farm girl is traveling in the woods on her way to nowhere, from what I can tell. Do start at the beginning, if you please, and don’t leave out a single detail.”

Nowhere? “If I’m on my way to nowhere, I guess we’re going the same direction.”

“You’re a spicy one, aren’t you?” The fairy sounded amused rather than irritated. She said nothing further, obviously waiting for Elowen to begin.

So she did. She began with the thunderstorm and the trolls and the kidnapping. She mentioned Ash and his journey to the king’s city, Alder’s injury, and her own so far fruitless trek through storms and woods.

“This coin you’re hoping to use for ransom, where did you get it?” the fairy asked.

Elowen backtracked and explained about the unicorns.

The fairy snorted. “As if a gold coin will mend a fence.”

“They meant well, I’m sure,” Elowen said, putting a hand protectively over the coin tied around her waist. “Fences can be mended without gold, but ... but I can’t get my brother back without it.”

“Can’t you?” the fairy said. She fell silent again.

How long would the fairy travel with her? She was no burden, but Elowen didn’t know how to make small talk with such a creature. Would she expect to be fed? What did fairies eat?

Several hours later, the fairy peeked out from beneath the hood to watch the dragons pass overhead again in the direction from which they’d come. She stared after them even after they were long gone.

“It was the lightning that got me,” the fairy said after another hour or so. “No fairy is quite so fast as lightning.”

Startled by the break in the silence, Elowen blurted, “Why haven’t you healed yourself?”

The fairy chuckled. “Regretting your offer of help now?”

“Of course not!” Elowen stopped short. She sat on a log, weariness settling over her. Keeping her questions to herself had been almost as tiring as chatting nonstop would have been.

“I have the power, of course,” the fairy said. She slid down Elowen’s arm and walked around on the log, stretching her limbs. “But we fairies can’t go around healing ourselves whenever we want. Imagine how many stupid risks we ... some of us ... would take.”

Elowen slid the hood from her head and shook out her hair, relishing the cool breeze on her neck. “I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t expect a human to understand.”

Fair enough. There were no doubt many human things that fairies didn’t understand. “Still,” she mumbled, thinking of Alder and his injured leg, “I wish you could heal your wing.”

“I beg your pardon?” The fairy stopped in the middle of braiding her hair and dropped the loose ends.

Had she said something wrong again? Elowen thought over her last words, and then her eyes widened. She’d made a wish. The fairy wasn’t obligated to grant it, especially if she had already granted her three yearly wishes. But she’d wished for the fairy to heal her own wing. What happened when you wished for something impossible?

The fairy was staring at her with an expression Elowen couldn’t name.

“I’m sorry. You ... don’t have the power to do that, do you?”

“I just finished telling you I’m not allowed to do that, you silly child, but I most certainly have the power. Just watch me!”

Elowen couldn’t watch anything, because the fairy and everything around her disappeared in a flash of white light. When her eyes readjusted to the filtered sunlight of the woods, the fairy fluttered in front of her nose, both wings perfectly intact.

Up close, face to face, the fairy appeared soft and vulnerable for a moment. She would leave now, and Elowen would continue alone on her way to nowhere.

“Make another wish,” the fairy ordered, all softness melting away.

“What?”

“Make it quick before I change my mind. I’ve lost enough time already.”

This fairy was offering her another wish? A real wish just for her? Elowen’s mind raced through all the possibilities of what she could wish for, but there was only one thing she wanted at the moment. “I wish for my brother Cedar to return home safely.”

The fairy sighed as she floated down to the log. “Wish for something else.” She tiptoed back and forth on the bark. “Limits, you know.”

Limits. Elowen chewed a fingernail. What other limits did fairies have? Perhaps, since the fairy had healed herself, Elowen could make a similar wish. “I wish for my brother Alder’s leg to be healed.” Father sorely needed his help with the farm.

The fairy looked thoughtful. She paced long enough to finish the braid in her hair. “I could do that ... but it’s not what you need to get your other brother home.”

Not what she needed? How could the fairy know what she needed?

“Wish for something else.”

What else could she wish for besides ... help? “I wish for the king’s soldier to arrive quickly to help me.”

The fairy closed her eyes as if listening to something. When she opened them a moment later, she shook her head and said, “There’s no soldier coming.”

Well, there went that hope. No soldier meant no Ash. She truly would be on her own.

“Wish for something—”

“I don’t know what to wish for!” Elowen twisted her hands in her lap, a frustrated tear falling from her eye, and whispered, “I wish for whatever you think will get my brother back home safely.”

“You ... what?”

She wiped away the tear. “Whatever you think is best.”

“Silly child. You would trust a fairy with such a thing?”

Elowen shrugged. She couldn’t take back the wish now even if she wanted to.

The fairy dusted dried mud off her skirts, smiling and speaking to herself. “Well, now, that’s quite the compliment, I must say. What shall we do? What shall we do?”

Elowen wondered the same thing. What had she done?

“These things can be fearsome tricky.” The fairy muttered softly, looking this way and that as if she could see through the trees. Finally, she jumped elegantly into the air and hovered once more in front of Elowen’s nose. “Listen closely, child.”

Elowen blinked, her muscles tensed.

“ A gift by day / A friend by night. / When joy holds sway / will all be right.”

A poem? The fairy was giving her a poem?

“You will find your gift over the next hill where a pond has overflowed its banks. Walk north until you cross into Northling. Ignore the towns and go straight to Tressl, the king’s city. You must be at the blacksmith’s at noon the day after tomorrow.”

A gift, a pond, Northling, the blacksmith.

“Repeat what I’ve told you, silly girl. If you can’t remember this much, I’ve wasted my time.”

Grateful but confused, Elowen repeated everything, thankful she didn’t have to write it down, too.

“Use it well. This gift won’t last forever.”

Elowen would never argue with a fairy after receiving a gift, but she hoped to at least get more of an explanation. The fairy, however, must have been satisfied with the transaction. She zoomed off into the trees without a backward glance, and Elowen couldn’t imagine how lightning could be any faster.

Alone once again, she trudged along the trail, repeating the fairy’s rhyme out loud and looking for a pond. She stopped at several large mud puddles, wondering if they might pass as a pond to such a small creature, but she saw nothing that could be described as a gift. After at least fifteen minutes, she saw water glinting through the trees ahead and to the right. She rushed forward, half hoping to see Cedar safe and well and waiting for her, despite what the fairy had said. Or perhaps she would find a pair of seven-league boots to make her journey quicker or a magic sword to defeat the trolls.

“Ouch!” She stubbed her bare toe against a root and slowed down. She’d better stop daydreaming and pay attention to her surroundings or she might miss something.

She took a deep breath and inched forward, looking around carefully. There was definitely a pond up ahead, brown and murky after all the rain, but glinting in the late sunlight nonetheless. Something else glinted, too. It moved in the weeds near the bank of the pond ... and it glittered with a sheen as golden as the coin at her waist.