Birdie's Book (6 page)

I sighed. Now that I'd be living through northeast winters, I figured I'd have to
learn how to walk on snow and ice. I loved being outdoors, and I wasn't exactly planning to spend November through March inside our city apartment.

“Boulder number one,” I said out loud, staring at my first challenge. I placed one foot on the rock, and it immediately slid off like butter on a hot bun. Standing back on both feet, I considered another method. I decided the best way was to carefully wedge my boots into the crevices between the boulders and avoid the flat icy surfaces. I stuck my left foot between two boulders. Once it felt solid, I leaned against the rock, lifted my right foot to another crevice, and wedged it in hard. I lifted my left foot to a higher spot. Nice! It was working. I was moving up. I realized I'd started whistling a little tune. Wedge, lift, and move up. Wedge, lift …

I scaled the rocks, one careful foothold at a time, using my hands for stability. Every once in a while, the fingers of my gloves stuck in the sun-glazed ice, and I breathed on them to melt them free. I caught my boot in a tight crevice once or twice and twisted my
foot, but nothing too terrible. I was feeling like an adventurer. As I got closer, I realized why there was no splashing sound from the waterfall: It was frozen solid. Ice hung like great long fangs.

I kept climbing until I came to a hollowed rock alcove, right at the base of the falls. To my surprise, two flat boulders there had been fashioned into a stone seat, backrest and all. I sat down, tuckered out and actually sweaty from the climb. Since I'd never touched a frozen waterfall, I took off my gloves, reached up, and ran my hands along the toothy icicles, as slippery-smooth as glass.

If it weren't for the evergreens, my view from there would have been awesome: the whole expanse of Mo's garden. But I was satisfied with the spot I'd discovered: secret bench, snowy trees, and frozen waterfall.

I reached inside the pocket of Mo's coat and pulled out the envelope from
The Book of Dreams
. I waited a moment, holding my breath. Finally I opened it and delicately unfolded the fragile page inside. It was a drawing of a tree with names on its branches: a family tree. Under the tree were the words
The Arbor Lineage
.

My eyes shot directly to my own name: Birdie Cramer Bright. How did
my
name get on this old
family tree? Or was this drawing some kind of fairy magic that would lead me to … I wished I knew more!

On one branch I found Dora, my great-great-grandmother born in 1916. Jean Cramer was next, but her name was stricken through in red ink. She must have been Mo's mother, and I remember hearing that she died when Mo was very young. More names followed, all with birth years beside them. There was Maureen, who was Granny Mo, of course, b. 1939. Emma P. Cramer was listed next. My breath caught in my throat when I saw that my mother's name had been crossed out, just like Jean's, but in silvery pencil. What did that mean?

I folded the paper back into the envelope and tucked it safely in my coat pocket. Then I closed my eyes. Leaning back on the stone seat, I put my hands in my pockets. My left hand grasped the broken Singing Stone.

The stone's rhythm and tune rose and vibrated into my heart.

I opened my eyes as a wild wind swept away the clouds and the sun-filled sky turned bright, bright blue. Suddenly the snow on the evergreens and the ice on the boulders began to melt so fast that water trickled beneath my feet and down toward the trees below. I sank back onto the stone bench in surprise. A light breeze grazed my face and hair and hands, carrying not even a hint of a chill.

It was as if spring was spontaneously shooting into fast-forward all around me. The frozen willows and maples below began to explode with buds, which sprang into fresh leaves, which were electric green. Trees and bushes burst into life so fast, I could hear them growing, inch by inch.

Tiny flowers sprouted up between the cracks in the boulders, and the sweet smell of roses and lilies of
the valley wafted through the air. Life gushed and leapt all around me. The Singing Stone's tune was in the wind, the trees, the flowers, and the water rushing behind me.

Water was rushing behind me?
I spun around on the rock seat, which was still there, thankfully, solid underneath me. The waterfall had melted and was cascading in sheets of turquoise water down from the rocky hill.

In between, birds warbled, bees and dragonflies buzzed. Then I heard a splash. It was different from the crashing of the waterfall, a
plop
, as if a fish had jumped nearby. Next I heard a giggle, then a mournful noise like bells and whale calls mixed into one sound.

I followed the sound. Just around a tumble of red rocks was a blue pool with layered falls, each dropping gracefully into sunlit rippling waves. Beneath the waves were long, flowing wisps of red, violet, and green. I thought the wisps were algae until the colorful strands came out of the water, and I saw that it was the hair of three beautiful women. Well, they weren't exactly women, since instead of legs they had tails that shimmered in the sunlight. They gazed at me, and I gasped with wonder—mermaids!

Each wore crowns of flowers, gems, and shells
in her hair, and their skin ranged from pale white to riverbank brown. The brownest swam closer to the shore. Her purple hair was as long as her body.

I shook my head, trying to wake up. My eyes must have looked like a little kid's eyes on Christmas morning, full of awe and amazement. I
had
to be dreaming, even though it was beyond me how I could have fallen asleep in the cold. Yet I knew for sure I was dreaming when I saw I was no longer bundled up in my scarf and Mo's coat. I was wearing the same jeans, but I had on my favorite soft T-shirt. I would have frozen to death in Mo's winter garden in that outfit!

The woman—or rather, the mermaid—nearest to me blinked her chocolate brown eyes. They changed to violet, matching her mass of hair. She held out her hand, as if I was supposed to touch it or kiss it. I reached out to shake hands. Her skin was cool and wet. When I touched her, I was amazed to watch her hair lighten to glowing green. She let out a kind of watery sigh, then spoke in some trilling, musical language.

I
wanted
to understand her. It sounded like she was saying something important. It was as if I'd stepped into a fairy-tale book with beautiful watercolor illustrations, and I desperately wanted to be a part of it.

“Excuse me?” I said. “I don't understand.” I was hoping that since I was dreaming, the words would come out in her trilling music, but they were in English, in my own voice.

The other two mermaids swam closer. One had waist-length red hair, green eyes, and skin the color of moonlight. She had a three-part tail that must have made her a fast swimmer. The other had full lips and aquamarine eyes framed with lashes that quivered with sparkling drops of water like diamonds. The violet mermaid batted her eyes several times at me, giggling all the while, and then fanned out her hair in a wide arc in the water, turning it a bright tangerine color. It appeared to be a gesture of welcome.

“Where I come from we have legends about them,” came a voice from behind me.

I spun around but saw no one.

The voice spoke again: “They coax children to ride on their backs and then they dive down deep and drown them.” It was a girl's strong voice.

I took a few steps toward the red rocks and looked around the flowering plants. There was a girl a little taller than me, practicing a dance of some kind with a foot-long orange-colored stick. She stared into my eyes as she waved and whooshed the stick through the air, making it whistle like a swift wind.

I instantly thought:
Leontopodium alpinum
, a lion's foot, or edelweiss, which is a white flower that grows through the snow, high on mountains like the Alps—beautiful and as strong as steel.

The girl was wearing jeans and a loose T-shirt. Her blond hair was braided and coiled around her head. She stopped swinging the stick and strode toward me. Then she smiled and put out her hand. “Hello, I'm Kerka,” she announced with a smile that made me like her.

I shook her hand. She had a firm grip! “I'm Birdie,” I said.

“I think I am here to help you in Aventurine,” she said.

“What? Where?” I asked.

“Here. Where you are right now. Aventurine.”

Suddenly it clicked. Aventurine was the name on Mo's violin, the place where Dora found the acorn that became the Singing Stone. The Singing Stone! I dug into my pocket and was relieved to feel the half-stone. Then I felt around in all my pockets for the envelope, but it was gone.

“I'm in … we're in … a dream, right?” I asked. “Or a dream world.”

“A land for only the strongest dreamers,” said Kerka. “Dreamers with destinies.”

I turned to look at the mermaids, who were as dreamy as it gets. “Do you know what they were saying?” I asked Kerka.

“No. They don't speak Fairen—the fairy language—as you and I do in Aventurine. My mother told me that even the fairies have to study the language of the river maidens to learn it. That's what they're called, you know, not mermaids. Mermaids only live in salt water, and river maidens live in, well,
rivers
,” she explained, digging the tip of her dancing stick into the mossy ground at her feet.

“Ah, river maidens,” I repeated, thinking that at least the magic dreaming took care of the language barrier that might be between Kerka and me in the real world.

“And don't let them hear you call them mermaids,” she whispered to me. “They'll be terribly insulted. At least that's what my mother said.”

I nodded. “And I don't suppose we should be insulting magical creatures,” I said. “Even in a dream.”

“You got that right,” said Kerka. Her eyes were as blue as the sky. She put her hand on the side of her mouth and whispered to me, “They're rather vain, in case you didn't notice.”

I'd noticed. Now the three river maidens were
preening and gazing at their reflections in the water. They all talked, as if sharing private jokes.