“Oh, yes, she is everything they say,” Annie said, not sure how she felt about his reaction. It helped that he was so willing to go with her, but he didn’t have to seem so eager to give her up for someone else, even if it was what she wanted. “There’s no need to rush. Tomorrow morning will be soon enough.”
“Marvelous!” said the prince. “At last I will meet my bride-to-be. There is one thing, though. If I don’t get to marry Gwendolyn, can I still marry you?”
Annie looked incredulous. Maybe Andreas wasn’t quite as great as she’d thought he was. “I don’t think it would work that way,” she said, shaking her head. When she got married, she wanted it to be to someone who considered her his first and only choice, not his consolation prize.
“Too bad,” Andreas said, bending over to kiss her hand. “I really like you, Annie.”
“What a numbskull,” Liam said in her ear as Andreas returned to the Great Hall. “The most beautiful princess in all the kingdoms! She’s nothing compared to you. The idiot doesn’t have a clue as to what he just gave up.”
“You’re not saying that just to make me feel better, are you?” Annie asked.
“Me? Never!” Liam replied.
Annie looked into his eyes and was happy to see that he looked genuinely taken aback. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said, surprised by just how much better she felt.
CHAPTER 10
ALTHOUGH BOTH ANNIE AND LIAM were ready to leave early the next morning, they had to wait for Prince Andreas, who was still sleeping. Annie wanted to go wake him, but when she asked Lady Hillary for the location of his room, the lady-in-waiting looked shocked and told her that it wasn’t proper. Not knowing who else to ask, Annie waited until Andreas finally sent for her, saying that he was ready to go and that he was providing horses for Annie and her guard. The horses did help Annie’s bad mood, but shortly after they crossed over the boundary between Corealis and Treecrest, Andreas insisted that they stop to eat at a village inn they were passing.
“We only just started our journey!” said Annie. “We’ve been on the road for less than an hour!”
“We wanted an early start, so I didn’t eat before we left,” said the prince as he swung his leg over his horse’s back and dismounted.
“That was an early start?” Annie said as Andreas disappeared into the inn.
Liam shrugged. “You were the one who wanted him to come along.”
“Yes,” said Annie, “but I didn’t expect him to be so slow. Let’s hope he isn’t too hungry and we can get back on the road soon.”
When they stepped through the door, they found Andreas seated at a table already eating a slab of roast beef and a hearty chunk of bread. “Have a seat,” he said, waving his hand at the bench across from him. “You too,” he told Liam. “I don’t stand on ceremony when I’m traveling.”
Liam looked annoyed when he sat down, but Annie was worried. She’d been thinking about the curse again, and she still didn’t know what the hundred years part really meant. Did Gwennie have to sleep for one hundred years, at which time a prince would automatically come to find her, or could the prince come early, as Annie was trying to arrange, and still be able to wake her? Annie was doing her best by encouraging the princes to come, but what if that wasn’t enough? What if Gwennie had to sleep the hundred years, too?
Annie was sipping a mug of lukewarm cider when a farmer came stomping into the inn, shedding clumps of dried mud from his boots. He took a seat a few tables from Annie and her companions, and scowled when the innkeeper’s wife approached him.
“So, Dobs, have you gotten any more flowers?” she asked with a broad grin.
“No, I haven’t!” said the farmer. “But if it ever happens again, I’m going to sell that danged beast! It’d be a shame, too. She’s my best milker.”
The innkeeper’s wife laughed. “Maybe I’d buy her. My daughters and I like the flowers.” She nodded toward a beautiful bouquet of tulips, daffodils, and irises filling a big copper kettle on a table in the center of the room.
After taking his order, the woman stopped by Annie’s table to ask if they wanted anything else. “What was that all about?” asked Liam, gesturing toward the farmer.
“Farmer Dobs there had a cow get loose last week. He looked for her all over, but he couldn’t find her and no one’d seen old Daisy. The very next day he heard a knock on his door and what did he see when he opened it? There was Daisy decked in flowers from head to tail. The fairy Sweetness N Light had led her there all the way from her garden using a daisy chain. Well, Dobs here had so many flowers that he didn’t know what to do with them all, so he gave them to the ladies in the village. The ones he gave me are still blooming just as fresh as if they’d been picked yesterday.”
“What else was I to do with them?” grumbled the old farmer. “My wife died two years ago and I don’t have any use for flowers.”
As the innkeeper’s wife teased Dobs, Annie leaned over to Liam and said, “Did you hear that? The fairy Sweetness N Light has her garden near here. She’s the one who changed the nasty fairy’s spell. I have to go talk to her if I can and ask about the curse.”
“What about him?” Liam said, glancing at Andreas.
Annie sighed. Andreas had finished one plate of food and started on another. It didn’t look as if he was going to finish eating anytime soon. “Would you mind going on without us?” she asked the prince. “There’s a fairy I need to see. This shouldn’t take long and we can meet you at my parents’ castle.”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Andreas around a mouthful of food. “I’ll finish here in a few minutes and head out. I should reach the castle in a day or so.”
“At the rate he’s going,” Liam muttered, “we could look for that fairy for days and still catch up with Andreas before he gets anywhere.”
As they left they asked the innkeeper’s wife if she knew where Sweetness N Light lived. “Everyone knows that,” she said. Wiping her hands on her apron, she walked to the side of the street and pointed toward the forest. “Follow the road till it curves. You’ll see a path there, leading to the trees. The Garden of Happiness is only a few miles into the woods. You can’t miss it if you stay on the path. The fairies keep it nice, although hardly anyone uses it.”
“I’ve never visited a fairy before,” Annie said as she and Liam set off. “My parents wouldn’t invite any to the castle after what happened to Gwennie, and they wouldn’t let me go anywhere to see them.”
“Most people don’t want to have anything to do with fairies,” said Liam. “They’re very unpredictable. Even the good fairies can be more than a little crazy.” He pointed at a swath of flowers planted beside the road. “That must be the path. I see what that woman meant about it being hard to miss.”
Flowers grew in wild profusion on both sides of the path. Annie saw everything from tiny alyssum to sunflowers as tall as a man. At first the horses were more interested in nibbling the flowers than in walking down the path, but with a little encouragement they made their way into the cool shade of the forest.
Annie noticed that the sun-loving flowers gave way to the kind that thrived in the shade, but there were just as many blossoms as before. She was admiring the variety when she heard the sound of water overlaid with the whisper of magic. Glancing past the flowers on one side of the path, she saw a brook gurgling over brightly colored stones. Annie wasn’t expecting the brook to speak to her.
“Where are you going?” it said in a sweetly musical voice. “Are you going to see the fairies? They’ll be so happy if you are! Do you know them? I know them really well and I can tell you all about them. There’s Sweetness N Light, of course. She’s so nice. You’ll have to watch out for her though, because she … Oh, look—a leaf! That tickles! The sunlight is so warm where the branches let it through. Isn’t it a beautiful day? I do love the color of the sky, don’t you? Want to hear a joke? How do you know the river is tired? Because he stays in his bed! Ooh! Look at that pretty pebble!”
/> “You were telling us about the fairies,” Annie prompted.
“Was I?” said the brook. “What about them?”
“You said that we’d have to watch out for Sweetness N Light because...”
“Because what? Do you know something I don’t? Tell me! I love gossip. I hear it from the fairies all the time. They like to twiddle their toes in my water and talk about all sorts of things. Would you like to twiddle your toes in my water, too?”
“No thanks,” said Annie. “We don’t have time for twiddling.”
“Don’t encourage that stupid brook,” Liam said under his breath, “or it will never stop talking. I can’t stomach babbling brooks.”
“It might be able to tell us something if it knows the fairies so well,” Annie whispered back. “Tell me about Sweetness N Light,” she said to the brook.
“She has pretty fingers. Oh, and she likes to sing. Do you like to sing? I do!”
Liam groaned when the brook began to sing a song about pebbles. The brook was repeating it for the third time when they stepped into a big clearing. “Here we are!” the brook exclaimed.
“Finally!” said Liam.
“Would you look at that!” said Annie. She hadn’t really known what to expect, but she never would have imagined anything like this. The trees of the forest had given way to a field that covered at least twenty acres. The entire garden was filled with a warm, rosy light that softened harsh edges and made everything look prettier than normal. Although the road ended at the entrance to the garden, the babbling brook continued on, meandering here and there past poppies and pansies, larkspurs and lilies. Every flower that Annie had ever seen or heard of grew in Sweetness N Light’s garden, as well as many the princess had never known existed. The scent of so many flowers would have been delightful if it hadn’t been a little overwhelming and made her head ache.
“I’ve never seen so many fairies in one place,” Liam murmured.
Though they didn’t see any human-sized fairies, there were flower fairies everywhere, flitting from blossom to blossom, dancing in the shade of hollyhocks, and holding hands while they skipped across the moss that grew at the edge of the brook. Many of them were laughing, but it was the singing that Annie noticed first. Their voices were so clear, true, and sweet that it sounded as if the flowers themselves had burst into song. A perky melody played continuously in the background, evidence of all the magic that was present.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Liam said. “This place is too cute for me. No wonder hardly anyone ever comes here. Let’s leave as soon as we can.”
“How do we find Sweetness N Light?” asked Annie. “Can big fairies turn into little ones like these? My parents always talked about her as if she were our size.”
“She probably was a full-sized fairy. The more powerful fairies can be small or big, but I think most of the flower fairies are always tiny.”
“Sweetness N Light’s sitting by my sparkling pool!” said the babbling brook. “Follow me and I’ll show you the way.”
“This had better not take long,” grumbled Liam.
Dismounting from their horses, they tied them to a tree at the edge of the garden and started on foot. With so many flowers covering the ground, it wasn’t easy for Annie and Liam to find places to put their feet, so they ended up walking single-file along the narrow strip of moss that bordered the brook. They hadn’t gone far when a group of flower fairies dressed in petal skirts and flower-bud hats gathered in front of them so they couldn’t go any farther.
“Welcome to the Garden of Happiness!” they sang in a chorus.
“Come in and make yourselves comfortable,” called one.
“Would you like something to eat?” cried another.
“Or drink?”
“Would you like to sit down?”
“Play a game?”
“Let’s play a game,” said Liam. “Hide-and-seek. You hide and we’ll find you.”
The fairies quivered with excitement. One dressed all in pink jumped up and down, shouting, “A game! We love games!”
“We’re really good at hiding,” said a fairy in a blue-bell cap.
“Uh, Liam,” Annie began. “We really don’t have time for—”
“I’ll count to ten and you go hide,” Liam told the fairies.
The fairies scattered as Liam counted. “… nine, ten. Come on,” he said when he’d finished. “That should keep them busy for a while.”
“That wasn’t very nice,” Annie whispered as they hurried along the bank.
“We’re not here to be nice. I want to find that fairy and get out. I feel like I’m in one of those tales nursemaids tell to small children. I always hated stories like that.”
After rounding a little knoll covered with nodding daisies, the brook ran downhill to a tiny waterfall that sounded like lilting laughter as the water cascaded into a small pond speckled with yellow water lilies. A fairy as tall as Annie sat at the edge of the pond holding a struggling badger in the shallow water while she scrubbed it with rose-scented soap. The fairy had hair the color of peach blossoms piled on top of her head in a pretty tumble of curls. When she glanced up, dimples flashed in her round, pink cheeks, and her robin’s egg blue eyes crinkled at the corners.
“There you are,” she said in a voice as sweet as honey when she saw Annie and Liam. “The brook told me that you were coming to see me. Welcome to my garden! Hold still, you dear creature,” she told the badger. “After this you’ll feel fresh and clean!”
Noticing how miserable the badger looked, Annie said, “Why are you washing it? Did it have a run-in with a skunk or something?”
“No, I just saw him in the forest and knew he needed it. I’m going to brush their teeth next,” Sweetness N Light said, pointing at some frightened mice cowering in a cage made of dandelion stems.
“How... sweet,” said Liam, although Annie could tell from his expression that he was thinking something else entirely.
“Yes, isn’t it?” the fairy said, smiling up at them. “I do so love to help others. It makes me happy when others are happy. Please sit down and make yourselves comfortable.” They sat on the mossy bank. “Good. Now tell me, what can I do to make you happy?”
“Actually,” said Annie. “I want to ask you about something you’ve done already. I’m Princess Annabelle. You helped my sister, Gwendolyn, once. It was at her christening, about sixteen years ago,” she added as the fairy continued to give her a blank look.
“I’m sorry,” said the fairy. “I go to so many christenings...”
“It was here in Treecrest. The royal family—”
“Ouch!” said the fairy, jerking her finger back from the badger. “You bit me! None of the creatures I help ever bite me.”
The badger had begun to growl deep in its throat. When Annie scooted away from it, she noticed that the mice were gnawing through the dandelion cage. The background melody of the magic was slightly out of tune.
“That weird light is fading,” Liam whispered into her ear. “I think you’re having an effect on her. You’d better hurry.”
“You were there when the fairy Voracia cast a spell on my sister because she hadn’t been invited to the christening,” Annie told the fairy.
“Your sister wasn’t invited to her own christening? How odd. Stop trying to bite me, you scamp!” she told the badger. The animal snarled and lunged for the fairy’s hand; Sweetness N Light let go and sat back while it ran off. “If that’s the way you’re going to be, you can stay stinky!” she shouted after the badger, her voice no longer sweet.
“It was Voracia who hadn’t been invited,” said Annie. “She cast a spell to make my sister die if she pricked her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel before she turned sixteen. Your gift changed the spell so that she would sleep instead of dying.”
The fairy blew at a lock of hair that had come loose from the tumble of curls on top of her head and was hanging in front of her face. “I remember now,” she said. “She was sup
posed to sleep for a hundred years and wake when her true love kissed her.”
“That’s right!” Annie said, relieved that the fairy remembered. “She touched a spindle and fell asleep along with everyone else in the castle. I’m trying to help her so they’ll all wake up. I’ve already found some princes to kiss her, but I need to know about the hundred years part.”
“I don’t understand,” said the fairy. “If everyone fell asleep, how come you’re here? Shouldn’t you be asleep, too? Oh, I get it. You weren’t home when it happened. Then how did you find out?”
“I was home, but it didn’t affect me,” said Annie. “Another fairy cast a spell on me when I was a baby. Magic can’t touch me and—”
Sweetness N Light drew back, a horrified look on her face. “You’re that girl I’ve heard about! I didn’t make the connection. No wonder that badger … And look at my flowers! My morning glories are closing! Oh my! The mice are gone! And it took me so long to round them up. This is terrible! You have to leave right now.”
“We’ll leave as soon as you answer her questions,” said Liam.
“Then hurry!” said the fairy as the last of the rosy hue disappeared from the meadow, leaving it looking quite ordinary.
“Does my sister have to wait a hundred years before she can wake up? If there’s something I can do to wake my entire family, I’ll do it. Just tell me what it is.”
The fairy’s flower petal skirt had dried out. When she plucked at one of the petals, it crumbled at her touch. “Only Voracia can end that part of the curse. My spell was tied to hers, you see. The exchange had to be of equal value—a hundred years and a true love’s kiss instead of dying. If I recall correctly, the true love has to be a prince, too. Even so, unless the prince really is her true love, his kiss won’t be worth a rat goblin’s promise and she’ll sleep forever. As to the hundred years... Voracia would have to waive that part for it to end early.”
“Where can I find Voracia?” asked Annie over the sound of the waterfall. Instead of lilting laughter, it now sounded like rude catcalls and was already getting on her nerves.