23

In the Haven, when a fairy’s body fails her or becomes too broken for even the gifted Menders to fix, her spirit takes to the sky, where it is sponged up by the clouds and mixed with rain that falls back to the earth, feeding the plants that would someday produce fairies of their own.

The Menders call it recycling.

Which sounds a lot better than dying.

Ophelia wasn’t dead, though she felt like she was. Or felt like she should be. Everything hurt. It hurt to move, to breathe, to blink. It hurt even to think about how much it hurt to do these things.

The truck hadn’t slowed, though Ophelia had reflexively tried to bolt out of the way when she finally looked behind her, so rather than becoming a permanent hood ornament she glanced off its edge, catching most of the blow on her left side. The impact sent her soaring, landing amid a pile of trash bags that had been set along the curb.

It was a softer landing than the street, at least, and the black plastic that billowed up around her helped hide her from the outside world. She blinked (hurt) and wiggled her fingers and toes (hurt even more) and turned her head, a chorus of bells ringing inside. For a moment Ophelia forgot where she was—everything around her seemed so alien and unfamiliar—and then like a wind gust (or a big truck) it struck her.

The wish. She’d lost it. The man in the white car had taken it and now he—it—was gone. Ophelia closed her eyes again and listened, reaching out for Kasarah’s voice. She could still catch the faint whisper of it—like a tuft of cottonwood floating in the breeze.

I wish.

She had to go after it while she could still track it. Ophelia gritted her teeth, took a deep breath.

Get up.

She tried, but a lightning bolt struck her from behind, a searing pain that blasted her between the shoulders and followed a course clear down her left arm. Ophelia chanced a look behind her and choked down a startled cry.

Her left wing was broken. Part of it was crushed and crumpled, a long tear working its way halfway down from the tip, looking like cracked glass. She tensed, bracing herself, and tried to give it a flutter, just one beat, but the pain immediately caused her to swallow another scream. Ophelia looked up at the clouds, tears in her eyes. You can’t chase down a car if you can’t fly. And you can’t fly with only one good wing.

“Look, I think that bird’s been hurt.”

Ophelia glanced up to see a little girl tugging on her mother’s sleeve. Pigtails with yellow ribbons. Big, bright eyes. The girl from the restaurant, her brother shuffling several paces behind, watching his own feet.

“Hey, Ma, do you see it? I think its wing must be broke.”

The mother stopped and looked, her forehead furrowing, mouth set in a pout. Then she and Anna started to walk toward the pile of trash. Figures. Now a human was going to try to be helpful.

Ophelia had to move.

Her wing felt like it was being ripped off as she forced herself up, scrambling to find purchase in the slick, lumpy surface of the trash bags, somehow rolling over and down one side, planting her feet back on pavement. With solid ground beneath her she stumbled away from the girl and her mother, toward the deserted alleyway in front of her. No doubt she looked like a wounded bird hobbling along.

“Poor thing,” she heard Anna say. Ophelia looked behind to see the girl’s mother pulling her away.

That’s right. Move along. Nothing to see here but a crippled fairy completely tanking her very first mission.

Ophelia dragged herself behind a cardboard box big enough to be her bedroom and collapsed, careful not to move her broken wing too much. She didn’t cry out. She refused. Fairies were unnaturally strong for their size, but that didn’t mean they all handled injury the same. Rebecca, for one, was a wuss—complaining every time she got a splinter. Even Charlie couldn’t handle much in the way of physical discomfort, and he squirmed at the sight of blood. But Ophelia could take it. She had a high tolerance for pain.

Failure? That was a different story.

There was no way around it anymore. In her current state, knowing the coin was getting farther from her, knowing she couldn’t fly, there was nothing else she could do but call for backup. After all, the wish was what was important. Keep the magic flowing, maintain the system. At that moment, Ophelia couldn’t care less about Kasarah’s brand-new purple bike; but a promise was a promise. And if that meant Ophelia would have to choke down her pride and press the stupid button and call for help, then that’s just what she would do. She’d press the fiddlesticking but—

Ophelia froze, hand on her satchel, staring at the empty pocket where the baby acorn used to be; her only direct contact with the Haven.

Gone.

It must have been knocked free when Ophelia got hit. She stood up slowly and retraced her steps, hobbling to the alley’s entrance, scanning the sidewalk around the mound of trash bags and the street beyond. A discarded paper cup bounced and rolled as cars shot by. Loose gravel was kicked up under tires. But no sign of a green acorn with a button on top. Not that she could see.

Great. Just terrific.

Just absolutely gobsmacking, nutcracking, hornswoggling, peach-pie perfect.

Ophelia felt herself boiling, her anger frothing from deep inside, clawing its way up. She couldn’t help it. It was too much to stomach. The airplane. The geese. The old man. The lady with the broom. The guy with the newspaper. The stupid truck. The broken wing. And now this?

“GYAH!” she screamed, stomping with one foot, ignoring the pain that shot up her leg. “Fornswaggled, filthridden, barkaddled, hurlygurts!”

She turned and started kicking the brick wall of the building beside her, despite the renewed burning it triggered in her back. She was too mad to care. Every curse she’d ever heard sprang from her lips in a volley of spit and fury.

“Flabforkin’, fartfiddled, toejammed, spitwashed, lumpsucking, bonyheaded buttfish!”

She turned and found an empty soda can and kicked it over, then proceeded to jump up and down on top of it, crushing it flat beneath her feet, hoping to smash it to oblivion.

“If this isn’t the biggest, boot-up-the-back-end piece of fist-sucking, pig-nosed, turkey-flapped, snotwad, vomit-crusted, wart-eating, mother-punching, kitten-kicking pile of rotten, wrinkled monkey dung in the whole wide WORLD! Now DIE . . . YOU . . . STUPID . . . CAN!”

She gave it one last teeth-gritting stomp. Then she stopped and looked down at the tin pancake underfoot, realizing, only now, what kind of spectacle she’d probably made.

She looked out into the street to see if anybody had heard or seen her, but no one stopped to watch the angry bird chirping violently and mashing a soda can. She was alone. Completely alone.

Exhausted and broken, Ophelia Fidgets stood in the middle of the alleyway and cried.