Wishes and Wings (7 page)

For a moment the men just sat in silence. Then the second man shifted in his saddle. “How many times have you done this inspection, sir?” he whispered.

The first man glanced at him. “Once a year for
twenty-three years,” he answered, almost too quietly for Alida to hear.

“Did you ever find anything?” the second man asked him. “Are the old stories true?”

The officer shrugged. And then he howled like a wolf. It was a high-pitched, jolting noise that startled the faeries into a terrified huddle.

Both horses reared. The guards reined them in tight circles to keep them from bolting. And then there was sudden silence.

The faeries trembled and held hands, but no one flew and no one made a sound.

“Are you … are you all right, sir?” the second man asked, his voice unsteady.

“Shhhh!” the officer hissed.

There was a long silence. Then he spoke. “The bedtime story in my family says faeries fly if they're startled and you can hear their wings. I didn't hear anything. Did you?”

“No, sir,” the second man said.

“Then, they aren't here.”

The second man laughed uneasily. “But the orders were to ride into every corner of the meadow once the sun was up. Then to search the—”

“I know,” the officer cut him off. “I did all that at first. Now I don't. It's easier my way and just as accurate. If there ever were faeries here, they are gone for good.” He yawned. “The yearly inspection is complete.” He reined his horse around and rode back into the woods. The second man followed him, laughing quietly.

Alida held very still. She could feel Terra trembling beside her.

All the faeries were still as stone, listening to the clopping hoofbeats fade.

When the forest was silent again, the faeries glanced at one another, their faces full of hope.

If the guards wouldn't be back until next summer, they would be able to think and plan. They would have time to figure things out.

8

A
s the day warmed up, the faeries ate their breakfast of flowers.

Almost everyone was happy and relieved. Aunt Lily and William thought it might have been a trick.

No one else did.

“We can stand watch for a while,” Alida's mother said, “just to be safe.”

Everyone agreed to that, and she asked two boys to find a place in the trees where they could see without being seen.

Then the faeries began to discuss what to do next.

They needed sheds and fences, but it seemed
dangerous to build anything the guards would notice next year.

Alida's mother looked at her.

“I thought of something,” Alida said quietly. She was nervous; everyone was watching her.

But her idea really was simple and it was easy to explain. And the instant she finished, a new discussion began.

The faeries had many opinions about what to plant and how to plant it. Alida's mother finally interrupted.

“We all agree on this much,” she said. “We'll make two big, natural-looking circles. Once the bushes are tall enough to hide them, we will build a fence inside one and our storage sheds in the other.”

“And a root cellar,” William said.

Everyone nodded.

“The biggest circle should be on that side of the meadow,” Aldous's father said. He pointed.

William shook his head. “No, that will cut us
off from the creek. We'll have to walk around it ten times a day.”

By the next morning the faeries had everything decided and they were ready to work.

Tools were a problem.

They didn't have shovels, and they couldn't buy or borrow from their human neighbors anymore.

The strongest men ended up with the hardest chore. They used stout, sharpened sticks to loosen the dirt, and small, basic magic to lift it out of the planting holes.

Alida's mother gave all of the girls cloth sacks and told them to find baby berry bushes in the woods.

“Be careful,” she reminded them. “Make sure no one sees you.”

Alida showed Cinder and Terra and everyone else how to tie their shawls to hide their wings.

Then they all set off in different directions.

Alida's bag was almost full when she found a seedling mulberry tree. She used her stick to loosen the soft soil. But the roots went much deeper than berry roots.

The sun was getting hot overhead. Alida turned in a circle. No one was near. She took off her shawl and draped it over a tree branch.

She dug deeper and deeper, using lifting magic to free the roots from the loose soil as she worked.

She was almost finished when she heard a sound.

She knelt and peeked through the trees.

All too close there was a human girl sitting in the grass, her back to Alida. She was making small, sad sounds, and Alida saw her shoulders shaking.

The girl was crying.

Alida sank to the ground, wriggling closer to the berry bushes, wishing she could help and knowing she didn't dare.

Then she remembered her shawl.

Without thinking, Alida whispered the words she had practiced, her fingers moving. But instead of saying names at the end, she breathed, “
Me and my shawl!
”

She peeked again.

Her hands and her shawl had the strange, dimmed, silvery shine the magic always caused—so it had worked. She was invisible.

When the girl finally stopped crying and left, walking slowly, Alida stood up.

She said the two words that ended the magic and tied the shawl over her wings.

She carried the berry bushes and the mulberry seedling home and smiled when Aldous got excited over the little tree.

But she didn't tell anyone what she had done.

She was embarrassed.

If she had been more careful, she would never have had to use the new magic.

With everyone working hard, by midmorning the next day the huge, crooked circles were planted.

The faeries had included five kinds of berries, all mixed together. Nothing was sown in a neat line.
All the plants looked as though wind and birds had scattered the seeds.

The day after that the faeries added lilacs, wild pears, briar roses, and a few gooseberries.

Late the next afternoon Gavin came to visit.

Everyone was so glad to see him.

Alida knew something was wrong.

“I am bringing you bad news,” he said, “and I can't stay more than the time it takes to tell you. My grandmother made me promise.”

He looked at Alida over the heads of all the others, then went on.

“There were guards in Ash Grove today,” he said. “They came to tell us Lord Dunraven will claim half the farmers' crops this year. Not a third, as usual.
Half
. The big wagons will come on the first full moon of harvest. My grandmother and Ruth Oakes are afraid the poorest families will starve.”

The faeries started to talk, and Gavin paused until everyone was quiet. “It took me a day and a half to
get here, walking fast,” he said. “But people will be gathering berries and hunting deer to feed their families. They could easily come this far. Ruth said to tell you to please be very careful and stay hidden.”

There was a stunned silence as Gavin hugged Alida, then left, keeping his word to his grandmother. Alida ran after him with a ball of cheese, a cloth sack of berries, and a cup of water. He drank the water and handed her the cup back. Then he thanked her and hugged her hard, and went on. She watched him go, hoping he would be safe.

As Alida walked back into the meadow, the faeries were still talking. As she sat on the ground next to her sister, Terra leaned close. “I remember Ruth a little,” she said. “Does she still live in that house out on the edge of Ash Grove?”

Alida nodded.

Terra smiled. “She must be quite old by now.”

Alida nodded again. “But she's still strong.”

“Taking more food means Dunraven is hiring more guards,” William said loudly. “He has to feed them.”

It made sense.

Alida felt her stomach tighten and looked at her mother. There was worry in her eyes.

9

E
veryone wanted to help the farmers in Ash Grove.

No one could figure out how to do it. “In the old days we could have offered them some of the cheese we brought with us and a part of whatever we can make as the year goes on,” Alida's father said.

“We can't give them anything,” one of William's sons said. “Someone will wonder where it came from and someone else will whisper and …”

“We could give the food to Ruth Oakes,” Terra said. “And she could—”

“No,” Alida interrupted quietly. “We can't put her in danger.”

Terra sighed and nodded.

The faeries began to argue.

Alida noticed that many of the ones who usually listened were speaking out.

Everyone was angry.

Would the guards come to Ash Grove more often? If they did, becoming good neighbors with the people of Ash Grove would be almost impossible.

Alida kept thinking about the girl in the woods.

Had she been sent out to pick berries?

Was she from a poor farm family? Maybe she had been crying because she was scared about her family starving.