MIRA MORGANSTEIN: QUEEN OF THE NEARLY DEAD FAE: EPISODE TWO, PART 2
Faerie! At Last!
Mira lay on the mound of leaves, aching, winded, jubilant.
She was in Faerie!
And she’d done it on her own—well, with some help from Changeling. The grownups and Auntie Bluebonnet’s friends, could go on talking about her for as long as they liked. In the meantime, she was here. Ready to go out and do. Excitement fizzed through her like a can of soda on the verge of exploding—tingling up through her head and down to her fingers and her toes.
A giggle bubbled in her belly and burst out of her mouth. Once the first laugh came out, she found she didn’t want to stop. Triumph was a heady thing.
“Are you all right?” Changeling asked from where he lay sprawled out on the ground beside her. The sun was still high enough in the sky that he was nearly as thin as the width of her palm. It felt odd being attached to something once more, like an itch that was small enough to be absent-minded about or the dull ache of a muscle that hasn’t quite been pulled. Faerie could take a person a dozen different ways, and he didn’t want to lose Mira to madness quite yet.
“All right?” Mira laughed. She stretched out her arms to embrace all of Faerie before she rolled over onto her stomach to face Changeling. “I’m better than all right. Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to come here? How long I believed that Faerie was nothing more than pretend?”
And how long my mother allowed me to believe the lie?
That thought arrowed through her happiness, little more than a tiny dart whose tip had been carefully dipped in poison. Not the poison that kills on contact, but the slow kind that eats a person from the inside out. The poison settled in, quietly invading a corner of her heart.
How could her mother have let her believe Faerie was nothing more than a pretty story with no more substance than a daydream? How could she have watched Mira long for something she had no hope of reaching because she didn’t believe it was real?
“Are you hurt?” Changeling asked as she stood and brushed stray leaves from her clothing. He folded his arms, agitated.
“No,” Mira lied. And yet, at the very same time, she was telling the truth. Her body was fine, it was her heart that was silently breaking. She didn’t suppose there was much Changeling could do about that. Pasting on a smile that didn’t quite settle comfortably against her lips, Mira looked around again. “Where are we?”
“The Autumnal Wood,” Changeling said. The two holes in his shadowy face that passed for eyes narrowed as he studied her. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
“Positive,” Mira said. “What exactly is the Autumnal Wood?”
Changeling gestured, and Mira had to suppress a shudder. It was strange to see her shadow moving independently of herself when she was so used to having a well-behaved shadow that had always acted exactly as it should.
Especially when her new shadow—Changeling—was only attached to her feet.
“It’s exactly what you see here, only sort of sideways.”
Mira raised a brow. His answer was nothing less than she’d expected, but confusing just the same.
“Sorry,” Changeling said, sheepish. “I meant for the door to open somewhere else, but the Realm has a mind—and a heart—of its own. Whatever its reasons, this is where we’re meant to start.”
Some of the earlier poison drained away as Mira considered this. Of course she couldn’t expect Faerie to act like the real world. If it did, it wouldn’t be Faerie.
And what better way to explore the place of her dreams than to get lost in it?
“Well, I think it’s perfect,” she said.
And it was.
Here in the Autumnal Wood, the trees weren’t snobbish about who they grew next to. Oaks stood alongside Birches and Hawthorns and Ash. Maples quietly mingled with Dogwoods and Cedars while Poplar and Gum gossiped with Cherry.
The only thing that seemed to be a requirement was that all the trees had to throw out their summery green foliage so they could blaze together in a glory of color. Scarlets and crimsons blushed brightly against goldenrods and lemony yellows, and vermillion burned merrily amongst them all.
The ground was littered with leaves that had gone brittle and wanted to rest in the cool shade the forest provided. The fallen leaves shushed quietly with their movements, the bones of the leaves showing through their color as delicate lace.
A smell like cinnamon and woodsmoke and bright orange pumpkins permeated the air, mixing with the earthier scents of leaf mould and acorns that were all half tucked into the soil against the approaching winter.
This was a place that was both restful and defiant, quiet but alive, and Mira felt it take root into the very depths of her heart.
“I’m glad you like it,” Changeling said, “but we ought to get walking if we want to find a place to rest for the night.”
Mira just grinned. Her adventure was getting better and better. How many times had she daydreamed of exploring an enchanted forest such as this and camping in a hollow tree when it got too dark to see.
As she stepped forward, a path appeared beneath her foot, looking for all the world as though it had been there all along. The leaves shifted slightly, like ladies pulling their skirts away, so the dun-colored path could wend its way unimpeded.
Mira nearly stumbled in her surprise, but Changeling nodded his approval. “The Realm recognizes you. It doesn’t welcome everyone with a path.”
Still a little flustered, and more than a little shy, Mira nodded. “Thank you,” she said, hoping Faerie would hear and understand.
She put her other foot squarely on the path, and a shimmery sort of glimmer wavered through the air that made everything smelled crisper and had an undercurrent of something she hadn’t noticed before. Something that felt like cranberries and silvery mist, and unaccountably, like clean linen.
Changeling walked beside her, his head bowed as though he was in deep contemplation.
“Is all of Faerie this beautiful?” she asked, needing to fill the tiny gap in between them with conversation.
Changeling shrugged his shadowy shoulders. “This is as much all of the Realm and none of it at all. It hasn’t ever really made a difference to me, but beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder here. Not everything that is beautiful is harmless, though.”
“Hmmm.”
“There are always rules, no matter where you are,” Changeling tried again. “The Realm respects those who are strong enough, wise enough to see, but respect isn’t necessarily the same thing as depriving a wearig of its meal just because it happened to decide you are tasty enough.”
“That makes sense. There’s always rules in the tales. Don’t eat or drink or give your name away. Don’t put on just any old shoe you happen upon, and always be helpful.” The weight of her thinking crinkled her brow. “But none of them said anything about seeing. Not that it matters, I suppose. I’m not blind.”
“Good rules all, but it’s not that simple.” Changeling scrunched his mouth together and kicked at a lone acorn resting on the path. The golden brown nut sailed over the path in a smooth arch, bouncing against the ground a few times as though skipping across water.
Mira watched it go, absentmindedly at first, as she tried to bring all the Faerie rules she could remember to the forefront of her mind. Gradually, she became aware of birdsong and the quiet snufflings of the animals hidden by the trees and sun-dappled bushes.
As her consciousness drew her back to herself, she also detected something else humming through the air. Something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It wasn’t that she felt danger, per se, only that heavy feeling of watchful eyes centered on the back of her head.
She glanced through the corners of her eyes, but found no sign of what was giving her a sense of unease. If anything, the watchful feeling deepened, as though whatever was watching her knew she knew it was looking.
Casually, so as not to frighten Changeling, she brushed her hair off her shoulder and tucked it behind her ear. She darted a glance behind them, but saw nothing out of place.
“Are there—are there any other people here?” she asked, wincing at the high note of fear trembling through her voice.
Changeling nodded. “Our Realm is packed with people. That’s why we have to slip sideways through the gates sometimes and end up in your world. It can get awfully noisy at times.”
Mira nodded, straining her ears to hear even the softest footfall of someone who might be following them. She tugged the straps of her backpack tighter, readying herself to break into a run at a moment’s notice. She was so busy scanning the area as surreptitiously as possible that she forgot to look after her feet.
Pain blossomed in her toe as she kicked—then tripped over—a stone that seemed to glare mutinously at her from where it sat half buried in the path.
Mira threw out her hands to catch herself, and the forest obliged by sending a friendly wind through who swept a pile of leaves directly into her path, so that when she landed, it was in a poof of autumn.
“Are you all right?” Changleling asked, kneeling beside her. “The grimstones are feuding with Faerie again, apparently. Usually they leave people alone. Go on. Leave us to our business.” He made shooing motions at the stone that deepened its glare before burrowing down into the earth and disappearing from view.
“Argh,” Mira gurgled, her eyes nearly the size of the moon.
Changeling cocked his head to the side, confused. “What?”
“Urgh,” Mira tried again. The fall must have rattled her brain far more than she’d realized, for sitting calmly an inch from her nose was a little green man the size of a blade of grass. He had summer darkened grass for hair and the more yellowy color of the unripened vines of spring for a beard. His vest was made of tree bark, while his trousers looked to be some sort of organic weave Mira had never seen before. His feet were bare.
Once he saw he had her attention, he said something that sounded like a cross between the growl of a bear and the pleasant chitterings of the squirrels. His bright green eyes shone against the pallor of his face as he folded his arms, waiting for an answer.
“What? Oh.” Changeling grinned with relief. “That’s just a Leshy. Don’t worry, he’s as likely to hurt you as he is to eat you.”
For some reason, this failed to reassure Mira in the slightest. Shakily, she pushed herself up and brushed stray leaves from her hair. She rubbed at her cheek, smearing a bit of dirt across it. “What is it saying?”
The Leshy stood, growing a little taller than he ought to have been. He spoke again, slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. But no matter how hard she focused, Mira couldn’t make anything out of what sounded like a bunch of forest creatures holding court together.
“What do they—what do Leshies do?” Mira asked. There was something about the intensity of his stare that unnerved her. Something that told her that for all his polite smiles and seeming patience, his message was not only important, but urgent.
“They are one of the guardians of the forest,” Changeling said, his voice faraway as he glanced around. “It’s unusual for them to show themselves to anything that doesn’t have feathers or fur. And even more rare for them to speak.”
“Can you translate?” Mira asked. She got to her feet, though it seemed rude, somehow, to tower over the little green man. The forest had gone completely silent, and she could almost feel her fears stalking her just beyond her line of sight.
He shook his head and shrugged. “I’m not part animal. Sorry.”
Undeterred, the Leshy chattered something else, gesturing with a long pale arm to the path behind them. Mira and Changeling both turned to look, but saw nothing save the trees glorying in their splendor while a soft autumn mist crept in along their roots. A cool breeze wafted through, stirring her hair and brushing past her with the smallest bite of winter.
“I’m sorry,” Mira said, forcing herself to breathe slower in an attempt to quiet her suddenly racing heart. “I can’t understand you.” Then, thinking back on all the stories she’d read, “Do you need my help?”
The Leshy sighed and shook his grassy head. He gave her a sad look before throwing back his head and setting loose a howl that would have made any wolf proud.
The sound was ice to her blood, and the autumnish fires of the forest no longer looked quite as friendly. Instead, patches of shadow crept out from the leaves and down from the branches, huddling closer to the path while the cheerful reds and golds and oranges went dim and muted.
“Mira,” Changeling said, reaching for her hand, his eyes on the Leshy.
The Leshy shook his head and howled again. This time, distant howls answered him and a shaggy gray wolf trotted over to the path. It nodded at the pair before catching the Leshy gently by the arm and flinging him onto its back. Without further fanfare, the wolf sprang away from the path.
The little green man called something out to them before they vanished into the mist.
“Uh, Changeling,” Mira said, taking a step back. “Maybe we ought to go home now. Somehow I don’t think—“
She was cut off as a growing darkness sped toward them, and Changeling shoved her forward.
“Run, he cried, tightening his grip of her hand and pulling her along behind him.
Missive to Hati
My dearest son,
I have urgent news to tell you. Queen Ravenna has intimated that a great trouble has come into the land, and that we must stop it at all costs if we wish to keep both our fates and our honor.
The trouble comes in the form of a little girl, but do not be deceived by her sweet innocence. As you well know, it isn’t how something looks, it’s how sharp and numerous both its teeth and hunger are.
You will find this girl wandering the Realm. I have sent out a potent spell of creeping mist. Follow it and you will find her. You will know her by her shadow—for the shadow she has bound to herself belongs neither to herself, nor wholly to the Realm.
It is an abomination.
If we are to have any chance of succeeding, you must tear apart the binding and rend the shadow from her control. She should be easy to capture after that. One favor though, the queen begs that you do not harm the girl. She has a powerful magic she wishes to use in service to our family.
Go now, and be victorious.
May the moon be sweet and plump tonight,
Mother
The Call of the Wearigs
“I thought you said Leshies were safe,” Mira huffed as they ran along. They kept to the path, but the trees of the forest seemed to have turned against them. The trees reached for them with long, twiggy fingers or hung their branches low over the path so they had to continually duck and dodge if they wanted to avoid being brained or plucked up like a helpless bug.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Changeling said, only slightly out of breath. “Nothing in this Realm is ever completely safe, no matter how harmless it may appear. But it isn’t the Leshy we have to fear.”
“What are we running from then?” Mira cried, fear jangling through her heart and burning into her legs and lungs.
Changeling just shook his head, tightened his grip, and pushed them both to run faster.
Struggling both to keep going and to breathe, but too afraid to stop doing either one, Mira risked a glance back over her shoulder.
The forest was no longer a riot of color, nor even a muted version of itself. A hollow moon shone from above, stingy with its light and grim with foreboding. The darkness that had spread like the shadow of a storm was close enough that she could just make out its features by what little light that spilled out from the moon’s fingers.
The darkness was more of a cape of sorts, billowing out and around as though caught in a strong gale, though even the winds had deserted the wood. It took Mira a moment to make any sense out of the shapes swirling behind her, but then the sky grudgingly let through a little more light, and the darkness looked at her.
It had a pale moon face with dark holes for eyes and a slash of shadow for a mouth. Whatever foul air swam through its cloak, also lifted it up so it floated nearly at tree level. Terror pumped through Mira’s heart and spread like freezing lightning through her veins. Faerie wasn’t supposed to be home to nightmares!
Before she could sputter through her fear or her indignation, a chorus of howls chased through the air, and ruby flecks began to appear—first on either side of the nightmare’s cloak, and then they surged around and forward.
“Wh—what—“
“Wearigs,” Changeling muttered, tugging her along. They were moving so fast now that the trees and the landscape all blurred into a dreary smear of lines. Then, before she could waste any more of her precious breath, “I’ll explain later. For now, just believe me—you don’t want them to catch us.”
By now, Mira was turning from girl to white hot pain. Everything hurt. Her feet. Her legs. Her lungs. Her chest. Tears leaked out of her eyes from the exertion as dark spots shadowed by brighter splotches danced across her vision. Words were beyond her now, so she jerked her head in a sharp nod. It wasn’t much of a leap to know the wearigs meant them harm. Pressing her lips together over the loud complaints of her body, Mira forced herself to run faster still, even if it meant pushing her body to bleed into the wind.
Behind them, a few of the wearigs—great shaggy gray wolves with crimson eyes and foam flecking their muzzles—broke away from the pack, stretching impossibly long as they worked to close the distance between themselves and their prey.
As if sensing the danger, Changeling glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened before they flattened into two grim lines of determination.
“I know a way,” he whispered. “But you must trust me.”
Mira just did all she could to match her pace with his. She could almost see the wind—
Changeling pivoted in his next step, wrenching Mira’s shoulder with the unexpected movement. Before she could do more than register the pain, he pivoted again.
And then once more.
In the space between the rapid fire of her heartbeats, the Autumnal Wood disappeared, save for a sliver of it that cracked through the ground and sky like a splinter. The hollow of the tree that offered its shelter closed about them protectively.
Changeling stepped closer to her with a finger to his lips. “Quiet as you can.”
Mira jerked a nod, but couldn’t gentle the furious bellows her lungs had become, no matter how hard she tried. But she could hear the dreadful howls of the wearigs even over the sounds of her breathing.
A moment later, the first of the charcoal beasts swished past their hiding place, their pelts snarled and rough, grunting and panting with mouths full of sharp silver teeth snapping open in anticipation of their meal.
The terror of them pressed against Mira, freezing her in place so she could not have cried out even if she’d wanted to. Changeling took her by the arms and eased her away from the crack. He pulled her down into a half crouch, and though he was nothing more than shadow, became a sturdy third wall for Mira to lean against.
The wearigs howled their fury at the moon, sounding far off enough to be more of a bad dream than a clear and present danger. Just as Mira allowed her shoulders to sag with relief, a bristly sort of snorting noise sounded just outside their tree.
She gave Changeling a panicked look, but he only shook his head, his finger pressed to his lips once more.
Mira nodded, her head floating somewhere above her as she tried to make herself as small as possible. If the wearigs found them—well, nothing else would matter if they were discovered.
The lone wearig was soon joined by another, then another, until all three were sniffing excitedly and pawing at the sliver of a crack in the tree’s trunk.
His eyes on the crack, Changeling didn’t say anything. He just squeezed her hand.
In that single, unnecessary movement, Mira knew.
She was never going to be a faerie queen. Never going to fully nick her knack.
And if her heart hadn’t already shattered from terror and fear, it would have broken all over again. For, even with doom snuffling at the door, something of this place called to her as earth never had.
She had found another piece of home, only to lose it now. But she had found it, and she would cling to that knowledge even as the wearigs grabbed hold of the sides of the crack with their mighty jaws and began tearing—first bark, then wood—away from the tree.
Changeling pulled her as far away from the crack as possible, but the underside of the tree was firm and hard and pressed into their backs, refusing to let them melt into the wood.
“Little girl,” a wearig so big, only his head fit through the widened opening of the tree, “let me see your shadow. If it is a true shadow, you have nothing to fear. If not, well, my mother sends her regards.”
“Moon-Eater,” Changeling gasped, fading a bit, but not enough to make any difference.
Moon-Eater’s eyes gleamed red and he laughed. “I see my reputation precedes me, and my question has been answered most satisfactorily. Best say your quick goodbyes.”
He jerked his head back out of the opening, widening it even more. Then he called out to the contingent of wearigs who sat waiting just beyond the tree. “We have our orders.”
“I’m sorry, Mira,” Changeling said, turning to her, though he would not meet her eyes. “So sorry.”
Before she could make sense of everything, the wearigs descending upon the tree and proceeded to tear it apart one mouthful at a time.
A Gnome in a Pinch
The time gnome grumbled in his sleep, tossing and turning against the high-pitched howling disturbing his dreams.
Inside, he raged and fumed. He ought to have known better than to drink spiced nectar of dubious origins.
But no matter how loudly he shouted at himself to wake up, his outside self continued to snore through what could be the beginning of the ruin of them all.
Still, the queen wouldn’t have stationed him at the last outpost if a little thing like enchanted nectar could stop him.
And for the first time in his very long—or very short, depending upon which way you were looking—life, he was grateful that somnambulism ran in his family on his mother’s side.
The gnome seated himself within his mind and shoved aside the impatience jiggering through his hands and feet aside. There would be plenty of time to deal with that and the culprit later on. For now, he closed his eyes.
Slowed his breathing.
Then, like a puppet master slipping through the strings, he urged his leaden arms up. It would have been more appropriate if he could move himself to his work station, but time was short, so tradition would have to wait just like everything else in this infernal mess.
Slowly . . .
Slowly . . .
His arms moved. He seized upon the movement, and one of his hands twitched.
Then the other.
Biting on the tip of his tongue, he twitched his hands together and tore a delicate hole through time.
Sweat trickled down his brow, but he ignored it as he concentrated on the two strands he was looking for. Then gently, ever so gently, he moved his hands so they caught hold of two threads—one that glowed bright purple, while the other was a sullen gray.
Bracing himself, he tugged on them, grinning with triumph when a wisp and a rock giant tumbled through the hole and onto his floor.
Before either had a chance to figure out what had just happened, he was already twitching another hole and feeding their threads through.
They blinked out of the outpost, the wisp wearing an expression of firm indignance and the giant still working out the puzzle on his broad, craggy face.
Satisfied, the gnome dropped his arms and opened his eyes. He had done all he could at the moment, and would just have to hope it was enough.
He glared at the two tiny holes gaping through time and added them to the list of things that needed fixing once the enchantment wore off.
Still, he looked around his mind and yawned. He hadn’t had a vacation in more than a millennia. For now, time would go on turning and the realms would go on spinning.
As for him, well, he was overdue a well-deserved nap.
So it was that he didn’t see the bright blue butterfly flutter out of one hole and into the other.
Flight into Faerie
Mira screamed as the lead wearig shot forward, snapping his jaws in her face. His breath was the ice of the dead, and it burned against her cheeks.
“Don’t worry,” he sneered. “There’s worse yet in store for you. The Queen of All That is to Be would like an audience.”
Before Mira could do more than wince away, the howls outside turned to yelps of surprise, then pain as something large and heavy dropped onto the ground hard enough to shake the very roots of the tree.
The wearig half-turned, pricking up his ears.
A heartbeat later he was torn away from Mira, snarling at frothing at the mouth.
A bright dot of purple sailed through the opening. “Hurry, you two. Through here.” She waved a tiny wand at the back of the tree that promptly dissolved into an escape route.
“Are the godmothers with you?” Changeling asked as he helped Mira to her feet.
Bauble made a face and stuck out her tongue. “What do you think? Now hurry. Broam can’t fight off Hati’s entire contingent forever.”
“Why did you call him Moon-Eater?” Mira asked Changeling. Something just beneath the fear was tickling at her senses. Something that wasn’t quite right.
Bauble jangled impatiently at them, bobbing a sharp zigzag.
“I’ll explain later,” Changeling said. He pushed her ahead of himself this time. “Once we’re safe.”
Bauble zigged another zag before she soared off into the night in a thin streak of violet.
Mira, heavy from exhaustion, stumbled after her with Changeling close behind. He reached out and steadied her every so often when she was about to lose her footing, and he pushed her forward when she wavered instead of taking the next step.
For a long while that stretched into everything and always, Bauble and Changeling played at pulling and pushing with Mira caught in the center. Twigs snapped and leaves rustled as they fought their way through the woods.
The trees, for their part, had gone back to a watchful silence, neither hindering nor prospering their way.
Every so often, a high-pitched howl cut through the sky. The first or second howl still had a chilling effect on Mira’s blood, but as time wore on and it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other, the calls of the wearigs became little more than a distant whine that had nothing to do with her.
Eventually, they heaved themselves out of the woods and into a meadow of sorts. The grass was thick and long and had a bluish cast from the moonlight. Wild flowers grew in an enthusiastic profusion, and the air was heavy and coated with their scent.
“This is just to mask our smell,” Changeling said as he prodded Mira to keep moving through the sea of grass. “We’re nearly there. You can do it.”
“I take it shadows don’t get winded or tired,” Mira puffed, too tired to feel resentment. What she wanted was to fall to the ground and never have to move again, but she would be willing to settle for holding still long enough to catch her breath. Its passing had burned a trail through her throat and into her chest.
“Just a little farther,” Changeling said.
Bauble zoomed back over to them. “Less talking. More moving.” Then she zipped ahead, leading the way once more.
With iron-laced resignation, Mira followed after her.
The incline began so gradually that she didn’t notice they were running uphill until the top of the hill itself came into view.
Changeling took her hand. “We just have to reach the top.”
“Then what?” Mira gasped. “Teleportation?”
“You’ll have to see,” Changeling said, hiding a grin.
It was only then that Mira noticed the sky was lightening. It was still somewhat dark, but gray was fraying in along the edges of the sky and bleeding upward rapidly.
“Promise?” Mira asked when it seemed impossible to coax her body any farther—wearigs notwithstanding.
Changeling nodded and grinned. “Race you to the top?”
“You can’t—“ Mira started, but snapped her mouth shut when Changeling ran on ahead of her, the binding linking their feet together stretching long and thin.
He laughed at the stupefied expression on her face, glad to see the lines of strain and fear melting away into something softer. She would need her courage in the future, and it wouldn’t do for her to break now. Not when they were still so close to the beginning.
Then she, too, was laughing and running up the rest of the way to the top of the hill. They both reached the top at the same moment the sun crested the horizon and turned the sky apricot and magenta.
At that moment, all the pent up fear frizzled into lightness and laughter. They’d made it. She and Changeling were still in one piece. The wearigs hadn’t caught them. Another day was dawning pure and bright.
And they were in Faerie.
“Well,” Mira said when the weight of her exhaustion began to assert itself a little more forcefully as it began turning her limbs to lead. “We’re here.”
Changeling’s grin wavered just a little. Then he looked at the wisp. “You’re going to have to do it.”
Bauble zigged impatiently before gusting a sigh that was three sizes too big. “Fine.”
She sang out a phrase in a language that was both completely foreign and yet unbearably familiar to Mira. Words she had never heard spoken, yet they had been whispering themselves to her along the fringes for as long as she could remember.
Then they were falling through a door that hadn’t been there before, and had swung open on its hinges. They had the misfortune of standing on top of it while it did so.
A shrill cry that was one part surprise and three parts glee bubbled out of Mira’s throat, easing her frayed nerves nearly back to normal.
Changeling fell with her, but he looked almost bored, as though he’d done this very thing a hundred times before.
They landed in a pile of leaves and cobwebs and white goose feathers that cushioned their landing well enough that Mira considered asking if they could fall through to the center of the hill again.
“I’m going to see to Broam,” Bauble called over her shoulder as she zoomed down a dimly lit corridor. “We’ll find you later.”
Mira laughed as she stood, trying it on for size and deciding she liked the sound of her laughter in Faerie. It was freer than it had been before, with a faintly wild edge to it that was all at once mysterious and a trifle more grownup.
“I wonder if my mom ever came here,” she said as she plucked leaves and feathers from her hair.
Changeling, however, had gone flat and silent. He slid himself back under her feet and tried to lay as still as possible while doing his best to exude a feeling of proper shadowliness.
“Where are we anyway?” Mira asked, looking around. The walls were made of earth, and here and there roots and rocks peeped through the dirt. The area was large and round and led off into the corridor Bauble had disappeared down.
Someone cleared their throat, which made Mira’s heart leap into hers. She relaxed, though, when she caught sight of the large eyes and ears and the cherry red trousers.
“You are in the Mound,” Bodkins said, eyeing her severely. “We weren’t expecting you for a fortnight yet.”
Mira opened her mouth to explain, but the look he gave her withered the words on her tongue.
“I am well aware of the shenanigans the two of you have been up to.” Here he paused long enough to give Changeling a concentrated dose of his disapproval. Mira would have felt sorry for him if she hadn’t felt so relieved that she didn’t have to bear the brunt of his reproof all on her own. “So I’ll save you the trouble of trying to come up with plausible explanations you’d never be able to speak aloud. The queen will see you later on. For now, I’ll take you to your rooms where you can freshen up.”
Bodkins wrinkled his nose at them, and Mira wondered if he disapproved of sweat and leaf mould in general, or if some lingering scent of the wearigs had followed them into the Mound.
Then the cost of all the running and fearing she’d done over the night caught up with her, and nothing else mattered because the world and everything in it seemed to have gone all strange and distant.
Mira half tumbled to the ground as her knees gave out, and Bodkins and Changeling both tried to catch her. Fortunately, the pile of leaves and feathers were still there, and went about their business of catching falling persons unhindered by the Bodkins or the boy-shaped shadow as they floundered about frantically.
As sleep stole over her like a large down comforter, Mira smiled. She had made it to Faerie, had her first adventure, and was well on her way to nicking her knack and becoming a faerie queen in her own right.
The wish on her lips fluttered away in a soft sigh as sleep closed in completely and smothered her with dreams.
And, for now, that was enough.
Journey into Faerie, Entry One
Dear Diary of Faerie,
Bodkins has told us we are to meet the Queen of the Folk shortly, and to hurry up and make ourselves presentable.
I don’t have time right now to write down everything that happened, so I’ll catch up later on that.
For now, suffice it to say, I am in Faerie! In the Mound! About to meet the queen who rules over all the people in the Realm!
This has all been impossible from the beginning, but here I am.
Bodkins is clearing his throat furiously at my door. For being one of the Folk, he isn’t very subtle.
Before I go, I want to write something down so I never forget or doubt it again.
I am Mira Morganstein. I am eleven years old.
And I am to be the next Queen of the Nearly Dead Fae.
It is my right. My knack. My quest.
And I am glad for it—even if things get scary or hard.
Until later,
Mira
The End . . . For Now . . .
Copyright © 2014 by Danyelle Leafty. All rights reserved.
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