Wishes (10 page)

“Huh?”

Remember the name.

I looked in Dingo’s soft doggy eyes. “Er, okay,” I said uncertainly.

“What’s that?” Mr. Haversall asked in a loud voice, cupping his hand to his ear.

“Nothing,” I said.

I swear, Dingo’s eyes blinked once, slowly, as if he were saying,
Good girl.
Then he lifted his leg on a tree trunk and went on his way. Mr. Haversall tipped his hat to us again and followed him.

13.

Artie led me to a bank of caves cut into a hillside near where I’d found the fairy treasure.

“The Fairy Queen lives in a cave?” I asked as we walked toward them.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Artie said.

Some of the entrances were small, no more than crawl spaces obscured by rocks and tall grass. Others were as tall as men. “She knows we’re coming,” Artie said, putting a hand on my arm.

“Okay.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to ask her to take my wishes away,” I said. “And to release you from any power she has over you.”

“And what if she doesn’t do what we want her to?” she asked.

I thought about it for a moment. “Well, I don’t mean any disrespect, but I’m not going to live out my life as a fairy,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”

I looked at the cave entrance before me. It was the biggest of the lot, wide and vaulted like the ceiling of a cathedral. I didn’t know if that was a natural phenomenon or an optical illusion, but I could tell from a hundred subtle things—a weird, moving coolness in the air, a slight shift of light—that we were about to enter a place of powerful magic.

“Still with me?” I asked.

Artie nodded. “I guess.”

“Let’s go.”

As soon as I spoke those words, a thousand bats flew out of the cave toward us. There were so many of them that they obliterated my whole field of vision. I ducked, covering my head and closing my eyes as their leather wings flapped around my face.

Artie screamed.

“Take it easy,” I said. “Bats aren’t my favorite pets, either, but we can handle them.”

“Maybe
you
can handle them,” she corrected.

“You can too,” I said. “Better than me. Artie, you’re a shape shifter. Turn into a mouse or something. Bats won’t bother you if you’re low to the ground.”

She didn’t shift, but that didn’t matter because by that time, the bats had all flown away. “I told you, I can’t do magic anymore,” she said. “The queen took it from me.”

“So take it back. Now’s your chance.”

“That’s not so easy.”

I held her hands and faced her. “You’re wrong. Magic
is
easy. It’s believing you have the power to
make
magic that’s hard.”

“Whatever,” she said. Then she saw my face, and I think she realized that this was no time to cop an attitude. “Okay, I’ll try,” she said.

We walked farther into the cave. Artie pointed to a stream of water that was pooling around our feet. “I think she sent this,” she said.

“This?” It was hardly more than a trickle. “Are you serious? Why—”

Just then the walls caved in and ice-cold water poured in on us from all sides.

I flailed in panic. I can’t swim. The last time I was in a boat, it sank and I nearly drowned. “Artie!” I shouted, spewing water.

“I think this is a glamour,” she said.

“A . . .” I wiped my wet hair out of my eyes. “A glamour?” I looked around. The cave walls were intact. My feet were dry. Even my hair, which had been soaking wet a second before, was dry. “That flood . . . It wasn’t real?”

She shook her head. “The last time I came here, she sent snakes and fire.”

“Ouch,” I said.

“The queen doesn’t play fair.”

Understatement of the year. “Well, that’s something we know about her, at least,” I said, trying to patch up my shaky confidence.

A curtain of what looked like stars appeared before us. I put my hand out and felt something like dry rain sprinkle over it. “Seems okay,” I said.

“It is. Just part of the magic here.” Artie pushed me aside and went through first. “If I remember, it’s just a kind of doorway. But better be safe. Wait a few minutes and see if I turn into a troll.” On the other side, she patted herself down. “Am I all right?”

“Well, you’re not a troll,” I said.

“Then I guess you’ll be fine.” She reached her hand through the stardust to pull me through.

“Thanks,” I said. I smiled at her, but the smile froze on my face as I noticed that Artie seemed to wink in and out of my sight as if a strobe light were focused on her.

“Are you trying to disappear?” I asked.

“What? No. Why are you staring at me?”

“Because you’re . . .” Then I saw my own arm flashing with light.

“That’s—” she began. Then her voice quieted into silence.

I had to shield my eyes from the light. “What’s happening to us?”

She flickered in a rush of light and shadow. In another instant, she was gone.

“Artie!” I rasped. “Come back!” Then I moaned as I watched my own arm disappear, and everything around me fade to black.

It was as if I’d been asleep and woke up to find myself in dazzling sunlight. Although I hadn’t moved at all from the damp gray cave, I was now in a completely different place, a vast room with golden walls and opulent furnishings, bathed in light from what might have been a hundred candlelit chandeliers. A whole different plane of existence.

“It’s like the Meadow,” I said.

“No,” Artie corrected. “It’s like hell.”

Nothing moved. Guards dressed in full armor stood still as statues, their faces covered by steel visors. On their shoulders rested long double-headed axes, each in exactly the same position, like exhibits in a museum. On one end of the room was a raised platform. A dais, I thought, or a stage, constructed of intricately arranged lengths of wood.

“Where is she?” I whispered. “The queen.”

“Shh. She’s looking us over. Deciding how to kill us.”

“Now, now,” chided a disembodied voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Let’s not be cynical, Artemesia.”

With that, an almost overpowering fragrance of lilies filled the room, and the area on top of the platform glowed with an unearthly light so bright that it hurt my eyes to look at it.

“Don’t be scared,” Artie said. “She’s just making an entrance.”

Finally, after my eyes stopped watering, I could make out a shimmering figure of gold and white in the middle of the fading light, as if it were taking the room’s brilliance within itself. Then in another moment she was standing before us, breathtakingly beautiful.

Her piercing blue eyes danced with amusement. Her lips curved into the most innocent of smiles. Beneath a diamond tiara, her hair hung down to her waist in golden waves. The hem of her gown covered nearly three feet around her in every direction. In her hand was a crystal wand.

“This is exactly how you looked on Snyder Avenue,” I said, astonished. “When you were showing me what you thought I wanted a fairy to look like.”

“Yeah. I told you, I’ve only got one trick. I can still shape-shift, as long as I turn into
her
.”

“But why would you want to be anyone
else
, dear?” the queen asked, her eyes twinkling.

I pushed Artie aside and walked forward. “I’m Katy Ainsworth, and I want you to take back the treasure I got when I found the fancy box in the woods.”

The queen’s mouth formed a lovely
O
. “You do not wish to have all you desire?”

“Not the way it works, no.”

She smiled indulgently. “But ‘the way it works,’ as you say, is the way fortune always works. Love always begets unhappiness sooner or later. Fame brings false, self-seeking friends. Gifts to others usually result in guilt or ingratitude. At least you didn’t wish for money. That would have brought with it all the baggage of your other wishes, plus more.”

“I think I know that now,” I said humbly. “At least I know that I already have everything I really need.”

“That’s splendid, dear,” the queen said. “Unfortunately, it’s too late for you. Darling, I’m afraid your life as a human being is over.”

“What? As a hu—my
life
?”

“Told you,” Artie muttered.

“Gone like the puff of a dandelion,” the queen trilled dramatically. “Isn’t that right, Artemesia?”

Artie hung her head.

I poked her. “Don’t believe her,” I urged. I threw out five fingers and the wand popped out of the queen’s hand and onto the floor. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guards swing their axes down in unison and take a step forward. “Shift, Arty!” I whispered as I reached for the wand. “We can fight her now! Shift!”

“What? I told you, I can’t do that anymore!”

“But you can turn into
her
,” I rasped frantically. “That means you can turn into anything!”

“No, she can’t,” the queen said, snatching her wand just as my fingers had almost reached it. She made a show of dusting it off. “But I can.” With a minute movement of the wand, she sent a river of light pouring over Artie, dazzling my eyes. When the light subsided, she looked just like the queen.

“You see?” Artie said. “I’m no one. I can’t even look like me.”

“Yes, you can!” I snapped. “
Believe,
Artie. Not in her. In you. That’s all it takes. Now shift back to who you were.”

“But—”

“Just believe you can do it.”

Artie looked as if she were on the verge of tears. “What makes you think that’s even possible?” she shouted.

“Because that’s how magic works. First you have to believe! Then anything is possible.”

“Not for her,” the queen said. The guards took another step forward.
Thud.
“She’s weak.” She batted her eyelashes. “Aren’t you, Artemesia dear?”

“Axes,” I said, and all the guards’ axes, twenty or more, followed the line of my thoughts toward the queen, whose smile faded when the blades threatened to cut off her head.

They stopped just short of her neck, then flipped around and came flying at Artie and me at supersonic speed.

I knocked Artie to the floor, and the axes whooshed over our bodies and struck the far wall. “I said
shift
,” I muttered, staring at her with my meanest witch eyes.

She balled her hands into fists and closed her eyes. “And I said I can’t!”

Thud.

“Yes, you
can
! You just—”

“Don’t kill my friend,” Artie said, standing up abruptly. “Let her go. She can live with her wishes. And I’ll never disobey you again, I swear.”

“No!” I whispered. “That’s not . . .” But it was no use.

The queen only narrowed her eyes.

“Please, Majesty,” Artie said. “You don’t need another fairy.”

“Perhaps I will, dear. To replace
you
.”

Thud.
The guards marched another step closer.

The queen put a finger to her cheek, as if she were pretending to think. “But you may be right. Perhaps I won’t need either of you. But I may need more furniture.”

She stepped aside, and I saw that the platform she was standing on was made up not of wood, as I’d thought, but
bones
. Thousand of human skeletons had been disassembled and turned into building materials. Now that I knew what I was seeing, I noticed skulls among the bones, the heads of those who’d come before me into the Fairy Queen’s presence.

I felt sick. “Is that all we mean to you? Bones?”

Thud.

“Of course not, dear. You can offer me much more.”

“She means your magic,” Artie said. “She’s going to take it, like she took mine. Like she always does. I thought you might be strong enough to withstand her, but . . .”

The queen laughed. “They all believe that,” she said. “At first.”

“I thought I’d . . . that maybe I’d be able to stand up to her too . . .”

“You can,” I said, taking Artie’s hand. “You can take back your power—”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t you see? She
meant
for you to come here. You people think you’re looking for a fairy, but really, she’s looking for you.”

“And I’ve you to thank, Artemesia, for leading her here.”

“I came here because I wanted to,” I said. “And no one’s taking anything from me.” I turned to face Artie. “Or from you, either.”

She looked up at me under brows furrowed with fear and shame. “Do you really think so?” she whispered.

“I know, Artie.”

“That’s all very brave, girls,” the queen said impatiently. “Brave and stupid.” She loosed a fireball aimed directly at Artie.

“Do it!” I yelled, trying to tackle her out of harm’s way, but at the last instant before the fireball hit her, Artie changed into a mouse and scurried away.

“How did you do that?”
the queen screamed.

Proudly I watched the little mouse run toward the entrance and disappear into it.
Good for you,
I thought.

“It’s a trick!”

I laughed. “A pretty good one,” I said.

“You—”

I interrupted her. “For three hundred years you made her believe she was powerless, but she wasn’t,” I said. “None of us ever really are.” I pointed to the row of guards in metal armor walking inexorably toward me. “Look at you, you overgrown tin cans.” My voice was heavy with disgust. “You’re free too. You just can’t make yourselves believe it.”