I shook my head. “We arrived only minutes before you found me.”
“Then I’d better warn you. She’s been getting hard of hearing lately, which makes her a bit grumpy.”
Oh dear, I thought. Dyspepsia was almost always in a bad mood.
The first thing I saw when we stepped outside was Eadric carrying as many pastries as he could hold in two hands. When he saw me, he started walking in my direction. “Here, take the one on top,” he said, holding up his hand. “They’re really good! I’ve already eaten a dozen.”
“He must have gotten those from Dyspepsia,” Oculura said. “Maybe I won’t have enough.”
I took one and bit into it. The pastry went poof in my mouth and was gone, leaving behind a sweet and delicious aftertaste.
“They taste wonderful, but there’s not a lot of substance,” said Eadric. “I could eat these things all day and never feel full!”
“There’s Dyspepsia!” cried Oculura. “I need to ask her how many times she’s emptied the tray. I think I’ll have to whip up another batch.”
Eadric turned to me, a frown creasing his brow. “Are they running low?”
“Hello, Dyspepsia,” I said as Oculura’s sister approached. Dyspepsia’s expression was always sour. She looked even more unhappy now, and grunted when I spoke.
“Why is everyone muttering?” she asked. “I see your lips moving, but I can barely hear you. Speak up!”
“It’s not them!” Oculura shouted. “It’s your ears. They aren’t working like they used to! You should get new ones. I know! We’ll start an ear collection for you—like I have my eye collection. Then you’d be able to hear all sorts of things!”
“I like that idea!” Dyspepsia replied. “What kind should I try first?”
The two witches had been shouting, so anyone at that end of the garden could hear their entire conversation. When Dyspepsia started to look around, half the fairies clapped their hands over their ears and hurried to the back garden.
“I guess Chervil is going to start his speech soon,” shouted Dyspepsia. “Everyone is headed that way.”
“Then we should go there, too!” Oculura shouted back at her.
Word must have spread about Dyspepsia’s proposed collection, because more fairies covered their ears as she passed by. When we reached the back garden, we found it crowded with fairies big and small. I spotted Sumac, Maple, and Aspen with a group of other fairies who cared for trees. Maple waved when she saw me and looked as if she was going to come over until a rustle in the audience made everyone turn toward the podium set up next to a stone sundial.
Fairies stepped aside as a tall, thin fairy wearing a tunic made of slender leaves strode toward the podium. He had a pointy nose and sparse green hair, but the most distinctive things about him were the slugs following him across the garden. Some were ordinary garden slugs, others were much bigger. A few were almost the size of small dogs. When he reached the podium, the fairy turned to face his audience. He smiled and opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly glanced down and started to shake his leg.
Three slugs were trying to climb him. “Get off me!” he told them. “I can’t play with you now. Can’t you see that I’m busy?”
The slugs slid off, but the moment Chervil stood still again, they climbed back up. The fairy sighed and started to pace back and forth, leaving the slugs behind. Turning to the audience, he began his speech even while he walked. “Most of you know me, but for the few who don’t, my name is Chervil and I’m hoping to become your next ruler. I know some of you have heard my opponents speak and … Ah, hello, Sumac. Hi, Poppy. I wasn’t expecting to see you here today.”
Sumac and Poppy smiled and waved to him, then turned to wave to the other fairies in the audience. When a ripple of applause spread through the fairies, Chervil scowled and cleared his throat. “Anyway, as I was saying, I’m afraid that I don’t agree with either of my opponents. I think they both have bad ideas that would not work, no matter what they say. I propose that instead of antagonizing humans by banning them from the enchanted forest, or coddling them by using our gifts to do their work for them, we should remove ourselves from human affairs altogether. It is time we mind our own business and let humans mind theirs! Humans are violent and deceitful. They are going to bring themselves down! If we ally ourselves with them, we’ll be brought down, too!”
“He’s right!” shouted a fairy.
“Forget the humans!” cried another.
“Humans are always making stupid mistakes,” Chervil continued. “I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression ‘It’s only human.’ Everyone knows how foolish they can be. Well, I say we should let them make their mistakes!”
“What do you propose we do?” called Sumac.
“Cut off all ties with humans. Take our business elsewhere. Ignore them when they come to us for help. If you need help, ask a brother or sister fairy.”
“But a lot of our friends are humans!” Poppy shouted.
“Then make new friends!” Chervil shouted back. “If you have so many human friends, tell me this: Why have you turned your back on your fellow fairies?”
“I haven’t!” Poppy replied, looking indignant. “I just—”
“What do we do when they come to cut down our trees?” shouted Sumac. “Are you saying we should let them?”
“Of course not!” replied Chervil. “We have others who can protect the forests. Let the ogres and trolls handle the humans. Support the Vili instead of scolding the poor women for protecting the forest animals by hunting down the hunters. The forest can take care of itself, if we only let it!”
“Are you saying we should let the trolls and ogres go wherever they want in the forest?” someone called out.
“I’m only saying that—” Chervil began.
I was horrified. From what Oculura had said about Chervil, I thought he would have been friendlier to humans.
“Queen Willow would never have agreed with this!” shouted a fairy with a puff of white hair. “She kept the trolls and ogres under control and never let them rampage through the forest.”
“She was the wisest fairy ever!” yelled Maple. “None of the stuff that’s been going on would have happened if she was around. Maybe we don’t need a new ruler! We should wait and see if she comes back.”
“Everyone knows that Queen Willow has been gone so long that she must have faded away!” cried Chervil. “She isn’t coming back and she never designated anyone to carry on after her. Queen Willow’s days are over, and it’s time for change. We need a new ruler who can make wise decisions and lead us in the right direction.”
“And you think you’re that person?” called a fairy with a deeper voice.
“I most certainly do!” Chervil shouted.
“No, I am!” called out Sumac.
“No, it’s me!” cried Poppy.
“How would you rule without a powerful magic wand like Queen Willow’s? Do any of you have a wand like that?” called the fairy with the deep voice.
All three candidates shook their heads. “She took her wand with her,” replied Sumac. “It’s lost forever and there aren’t any more like it around.”
“Then what makes you think that you can rule?” the same fairy asked.
“Because somebody has to, and we have as much right as anyone!” shouted Chervil. The other two candidates nodded.
“And none of you are any good!” called someone from the other side of the garden. With that, the fairies began to leave.
Adara nudged me with her elbow. “That last fairy was right. I wouldn’t pick any of them. You’re the Green Witch. Can’t you help them figure out what to do?”
“I would if I could,” I told her, “but I don’t know what they should do, either.”
Nine
When only a dozen or so fairies were left, the three candidates met by the podium. “You have a lot of nerve calling our ideas bad,” Sumac told Chervil. “If anyone’s ideas are bad, it’s yours! You’d take us back to the
dark ages, when trolls and ogres terrorized everyone in the enchanted forest! You talk like they’re our friends, but they never were and they never will be!”
“They’re better than humans, not including witches, of course,” Chervil said, glancing at Oculura.
“Would anyone like more pastries?” the witch asked, offering the platter.
Everyone who hadn’t left had gathered around the fairy candidates to listen to their conversation. Most of the audience were frowning, as if they didn’t like what they’d heard.
“If you think that trolls and ogres are better than humans, you have a very short memory!” Maple cried. “We’ve never had to go to war with humans, but our history is full of clashes with ogres and trolls. Queen Willow was the one who saved us from them, and now you want to undo everything she did!”
Dyspepsia sidled up to Aspen. “Has anyone ever told you that you have very nice ears?”
Aspen glanced at her and backed away.
“What would you have us do—coddle humans like Poppy wants us to?” Chervil shouted at Maple.
“At least humans don’t torment us or toss us in their stew pots for flavoring!” said Poppy.
Chervil snorted. “Those are just stories made up to keep fairy children from straying!”
“That’s not true!” shouted Poppy. “My grandfather ‘strayed’ into an ogre stew pot when I was only a few decades old. My grandmother has never smiled since and still hates ogres more than anything.”
“You made that up!” Chervil declared.
“Are you calling my grandmother and me liars? Just because it didn’t happen to anyone in your family doesn’t make it untrue! You … you … rodent dropping!” shouted Poppy.
“If I’m a rodent dropping, you’re snake spit!” Chervil declared, giving her a shove.
“Keep your filthy hands off my friend, you slug lover!” Sumac cried. Taking two steps forward, she punched Chervil so hard, he almost fell down.
“Stop it!” I yelled at them. “This isn’t the way to solve disagreements.”
“I didn’t know that fairies acted like little children,” Adara said, smirking.
I had to jump back as fairy magic shot past me. Suddenly the air was filled with sparkling lights as fairies shot magic from their wands and threw it with their fingers. It looked as if even some of the audience had joined in. Glowing balls of light cut through the air, hitting flowers, the cottage, and the podium, exploding in bright puffs of fairy dust.
Everyone ducked and wove, trying to avoid the magic. When I looked around, the flowers that had been dusted with magic had grown long fingers on the tips of their leaves and were poking and pinching one another. The cottage chimney had turned into a long nose and was exhaling smoke. I gasped when I saw that the podium had grown four rabbit’s legs and was hopping straight for me. It was time to stop this before someone got hurt.
“That’s enough!” I shouted as I stepped out of the podium’s way. Unfortunately, everyone was either so busy throwing magic or trying to avoid it that no one seemed to hear me. I nodded and started some magic of my own.
Fairies who don’t listen
Will not hear my voice.
Make my next words so loud
They won’t have a choice.
Facing the three arguing fairies, I shouted, “STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!” The words boomed so loudly that leaves shivered all the way into the forest. There was no way anyone could have missed it.
The fairies stopped what they were doing, looking stunned. Oculura stared at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish’s.
“Wow!” Dyspepsia said, twiddling her fingers in her ears. “That was loud! I guess my hearing isn’t as bad as I thought. Forget the ear collection. I’m going inside to have a nice cup of tea and some of those pastries!”
“No more fighting!” I said, my voice normal again. “Is everyone all right?”
I looked around, but no one appeared to be hurt. The magic didn’t even seem to have changed anyone. I was relieved, because witches’ magic isn’t nearly as strong as fairies’, so I couldn’t have undone their mischief. It would have been up to them to change their victims back. From the scowls on their faces, I didn’t think they’d want to.
“I’m leaving!” Chervil declared. “There’s no point in arguing with idiots!” A moment later, he was tiny and darting off into the forest.
“I was still talking to him!” Poppy declared. She was tiny and had flown off before I could blink.
“Wait for me!” cried Sumac, taking off after them. Maple and Aspen left moments later.
“Would you look at that!” wailed Oculura. “That stupid podium is crushing my flowers!”
The podium was still hopping around the garden, leaving a path of squashed flowers behind it. Oculura pointed a finger at it, but all her spell did was cover the podium with blue feathers.
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” I told her. “Fairy magic has its own rules.”
“I know,” she said, “but I thought it was worth a try. I’ll just have to get those fairies back here to undo the damage they’ve done! I wish I knew which one was responsible. I do know one thing, though. This is the last time I’ll ever let a politician hold an event at my house! Pardon me, Emma. It was nice seeing you again!”
Oculura darted into the cottage. When she came out, she was carrying a battered old broom. Shaking her head at the sight of the hopping podium, she jumped on the broom and flew off into the forest.
“Maybe we should stay and clean up,” I said to Eadric.
“I need to go,” said one of the remaining fairies, and four more left as well.
“We could help out,” Eadric said, surveying the damage. “Although Adara won’t like it. That’s funny. I don’t see her anywhere.”
“I didn’t see her leave,” I said as I looked around. “Adara! Are you there?”
“Maybe she went inside,” said Eadric.
“I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t think that—Ow! Something bit my ankle!”
I looked down. A small brown mouse was gazing up at me.
“Adara, is that you?” I asked when it waved its paw.
I bent down to pick up the mouse. She started talking as soon as I held her in my hand. “It’s about time you noticed me! I’ve been calling out to you for ages! One of those dumb fairies hit me with a spell! I was sure someone was going to step on me before you noticed that I was there! Turn me back! I don’t want to be a mouse.”
I forced myself not to smile. After all her plotting and scheming, Adara deserved to be turned into a mouse. And watching her try to take my beloved from me left me unable to scrounge up even an ounce of sympathy for the girl.
“I wish I could,” I told her. “But it isn’t up to me. A witch can’t undo fairy magic. I’m not sure what to do. There’s no telling which fairy cast the spell that did this. I’d have to hunt down all the fairies who were here, and even then the one who did it might not change you back.”
“You shouldn’t have come with us,” Eadric said to her.
The little mouse’s nose began to quiver and she burst into tears. I almost felt sorry for her.
There were only three fairies left in the garden. The one wearing a spiky purple hat and a tunic made of pointy leaves was taller than the other two. I noticed that they seemed to defer to him and watched as he walked up to me.
When he spoke, I realized that he was the fairy with the deep voice who had questioned Chervil. “Pardon me,” he said. “I just want to apologize for the way my friends acted. Fairies don’t usually behave like that, and I’m sorry they did it in front of an esteemed person like the Green Witch.”
“You know who I am?” I asked.
“We all know who you are,” he said with a smile. “My name is Nightshade, and these are my friends Oleander and Persimmon.”
The two fairies smiled at me. The shorter one waved while the taller one said, “Hello!”
“My friends and I feel that the candid
ates behaved shamefully,” Nightshade continued. “None of them deserve to be ruler.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree with you,” I told him. “Fairies deserve someone wiser. It’s too bad Willow is gone. She was the queen you needed.”
“I think the other fairies were wrong about Queen Willow,” said Nightshade. “I think she might still be alive. It’s true that she’s been gone for quite some time, but that doesn’t mean she’s faded away. It’s possible that we could find her and bring her back.”
“You really think so?” I asked him. “That would solve everything!”
“It would indeed,” said Nightshade. “I was planning to go look for her myself. We’d be honored if you’d accompany us.”
“I’d love to, although I have to do something about our friend here,” I said, showing him Adara the mouse, cupped in my hands. “It seems that some of that errant magic changed her.”
“Then you really should help us find the queen,” said Nightshade. “She’s the strongest fairy in all of fairy history. Her magic can override every other fairy’s. If anyone can change your friend back, it’s Queen Willow.”
“Then I guess we’ll be going with you,” I replied. “Do you have any idea where we should start?”
“Her home would be as good a place as any,” said Nightshade.
“Then that’s where we’ll go first,” I said, and turned to Eadric. “Are you all right with this?”
“If you’re going, I’m going,” he said.
“We’ll follow you on my magic carpet,” I told Nightshade. “The sooner we find Queen Willow, the better.”
Ten
Although I was sure I’d visited every part of the enchanted forest, I was surprised when Nightshade led us to a place I’d never seen before. After passing through an unfamiliar grove of alder trees, we came upon a beautiful, secluded lake. Trees surrounded three sides of the lake, while a wildflower-filled meadow nestled against the other side. The only tree standing on that part of the shore was an ancient willow growing at the water’s edge. Its heavy arching branches swept the ground and reached down to caress the water of the lake itself.