ELEVEN

PRILLA THREW herself on the bed, sobbing. She felt sure there would be no place for her at the celebration. The only one who wanted her was Mother Dove, who was probably busy celebrating and getting ready to molt. Prilla cried so hard she didn’t notice the Home Tree swaying in the wind again.

She wept until she fell asleep.

But not simply asleep.

She was perched atop the head of a Clumsy girl who was following a path through a forest. A light glinted ahead. Soon they reached a farmhouse. The farmhouse door opened, and three cornstalks hopped out.

Prilla didn’t find out what happened next because—

She was falling out of a skyscraper with a different Clumsy girl. The ground was coming close when Prilla shook some fairy dust on the girl. They both began to fly.

She was in a rainstorm with half a dozen green-skinned Clumsy children who were jumping like frogs from one puddle to another.

She was passing from one Clumsy child’s dream to another. The scenes changed more and more quickly. A platter of meatballs, each with an eyeball peering out. A whale with elephant tusks, a Clumsy baby with a curly red beard, a mountain, a castle, a sea of silver spoons.

At the fairy circle, the celebration was getting under way. Night had fallen. Lanterns were flaring and guttering in the rising wind, but fairy glow made everything festive.

The cooking talents were still unpacking, but the serving-talent fairies were already passing around barley crackers topped with mouse Brie. The servers had to back into the wind to protect their offerings.

Bess, the renowned painter, had brought her new portrait of Mother Dove, which was to be unveiled later on. Terence and the other dust fairies were weighing down their Molt sacks with stones to keep them from blowing away. The light-talent fairies were preparing for their show, which was always the first event, even before Queen Ree’s speech.

Vidia was lurking in the upper branches of the hawthorn. She’d been banned from the celebration, but she intended to fly in the fast-flier race anyway. No one would be able to stop her once the race began.

She’d brought along a few grains of dust from the feathers she’d plucked, fresh dust, as she called it. When she’d done the plucking, Vidia hadn’t enjoyed hurting Mother Dove. She’d cringed every time Mother Dove had groaned. But she’d persuaded herself that Mother Dove was exaggerating the pain. Since each plucking lasted only a second, Vidia had decided it couldn’t be so terrible.

And now, the fresh dust would guarantee her victory in the race.

Beck tied a ribbon around Mother Dove’s neck. “How is your tingle?”

“Coming along.” The pre-Molt tingle would gain strength during the night, until the celebration would fade and there would be only tingle. Then feathers would begin to drop off. The tingle would stop, and there would be blessed peace.

“Can I do anything?” Beck always asked, although she knew there was nothing to do.

“No, thank you. Where do you think Prilla is?” It would be a shame if the child missed her first celebration.

Beck didn’t know, and Moth, the most talented of the light talents, came over to say they were ready to begin.

Everyone settled on branches or on the ground around Mother Dove’s nest. They lowered their glows.

Moth positioned herself a foot from Mother Dove’s head. The other light fairies took their places closer to Mother Dove, surrounding her. They brightened their glows, brighter, brighter, as bright as they could make them.

It was Moth’s turn.

She squinted and clenched her teeth. She made the glows around Mother Dove’s tail flare even brighter, ten times brighter, twenty times brighter.

The watching fairies sighed. Ah.

Moth moved the extra brightness from Mother Dove’s tail to Mother Dove’s head, and then onto her wings, her belly, and back to her tail. It was hard to keep up the extra brilliance, hard to move it. But Moth squeezed herself tight and made her mind into a needle-sharp point of power.

She nodded, and the light fairies jumped up and down in place, varying the height of their jumps. Mother Dove seemed to be aflame. The wind added to the realism, blowing the fire this way and that.

The flame symbolized Mother Dove’s origin as a magic bird.

She’d begun as an ordinary dove back when Never Land was an ordinary island. Then the volcano on Torth Mountain had erupted.

Grasslands burned. Forests burned. Animals died.

And Never Land woke up.

The dove’s tree was the last to catch fire. Never Land noticed the tree and the dove, and decided that the dove could help the island.

The bird burned along with her tree. She burned, but she wasn’t hurt. Her feathers weren’t even singed.

She was changed, nonetheless. She became Mother Dove, and gained wisdom she’d had no inkling of before. A day later she laid her egg. A week later she molted, and the next day the fairies came, flying in short hops and glowing no brighter than a stone in sunlight.

Mother Dove loved them straight off, and she told them how to use the Molt. That had been the beginning, too many years ago to count.

Moth relaxed. The light fairies stopped jumping and lowered their glow. Fairies crowded around, congratulating them.

Mother Dove saw Tink and cooed to her. The coo was carried away by the wind, but Tink noticed Mother Dove’s eye on her and came over.

When Tink said she didn’t know where Prilla was, Mother Dove asked her to look for the child. “And if she isn’t here, try the Home Tree. I’d hate for her to miss everything.”

Tink was furious. Prilla could be anywhere, and Tink wanted to monitor how the repaired ladle was performing. She pushed through the revelers, wondering how she’d gotten saddled with Prilla.

The next event was Queen Ree’s speech. Mother Dove sat up her tallest, and Ree perched on her head, just as she always did.

“Fairies,” she began, shouting over the wind. “Sparrow men!”

“Louder!” several fairies yelled.

“Fairies, sparrow men, it has been…” She hesitated. She wanted to say, as usual, that it had been a spectacular year. But it hadn’t been. Too many fairies had died of disbelief. “It has been a good year.”

“Louder!”

A raindrop fell on Ree’s head, pushing her tiara down on her forehead and soaking her hair. A drop fell into Tink’s ladle and sloshed purple punch on a fairy’s chartreuse sleeve. Seven raindrops landed on Rani, drenching her completely. She laughed, loving it.

Thunder rumbled.

Everyone heard it. Rani stopped laughing. Mother Dove’s pre-Molt tingle faded away.

There hadn’t been a thunderstorm since before Mother Dove laid her egg.

There had never been a hurricane.