FOURTEEN

AFTER SHATTERING the egg, the storm weakened. The rain diminished. The wind slackened. The sky brightened toward dawn.

Tink woke up. She was facedown on a broken porcelain plate, and it was a wonder she had no cuts. Her head throbbed. She put her hand to her forehead and felt a bump the size of a peppercorn. She probed it and bit her lip to keep from crying out. What happened? she thought.

She sat up. Her memory came back. She jumped up, and fell over, her head spinning. She had to find Mother Dove. Tink stood up more carefully and began to walk, scanning the sky for hawks. She was out of fairy dust, so she couldn’t really fly. But she fluttered her wings, flew short hops, and ran in between.

She hurried through a field of flattened bamboo littered with branches, rocks, and the pirate ship’s mast. She passed a bewildered squirrel and a lark with bloody tail feathers. She called out to the lark that she’d try to find an animal-talent fairy.

Everywhere fairies were putting themselves and one another to rights. Queen Ree managed to push the shoe out of the tree hole she was stuck in. A scout heard Rani’s cries and freed her from the branch. The baby moles’ mother returned to her burrow, and Beck was able to leave. Terence finally let go of the root. He was covered in mud, but he was alive.

The first to find Mother Dove was Prilla. Halfway to the fairy circle, Prilla had fallen into Havendish Stream. She’d have drowned if the current hadn’t been so strong. It had carried her to the beach, where she’d climbed up onto a sand dune. When the sky had lightened, she’d seen Mother Dove.

She rushed across the sand. Mother Dove’s wings rested at odd angles, and her feathers were caked with sand. But Prilla thought her eyes were the worst, sunken and defeated.

Mother Dove cooed, “Prilla…”

Prilla was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Mother Dove’s voice was almost too soft to hear. “Prilla…I thought you might come.”

“Oh, Mother Dove... Oh...”

Perhaps it was Prilla’s youth, or perhaps it was Prilla’s shoulders, which refused to slump even while she wept—but Mother Dove began to believe that something might yet be done for her poor egg. And if her egg were whole again and she were reunited with it, she thought she might be healed as well.

She delved into her store of wisdom and island lore. She concluded that there really was a chance.

Since the egg had begun by fire and had been undone by fire, it might be restored by fire. But the fire would have to be very hot—an inferno. Where would such a fire be found? Torth Mountain hadn’t erupted in centuries.

There was the dragon Kyto.

But why would he help?

Mother Dove’s chest heaved. “Find Queen Ree and Beck and bring them to me.”

Prilla nodded and ran, speeding herself up by quick bursts of flight. Mother Dove closed her eyes and thought.

Prilla was halfway to Fairy Haven when she met Beck, limping toward the beach. Prilla pointed the way to Mother Dove and ran on.

She found Ree with Tink, who was holding a chunk of ice to her forehead. The queen’s tiara had been blown off, but Prilla knew her by her erect posture, the set of her head, and her penetrating gaze.

She and Tink were perched on a branch above the ruined egg. The blackened shell had broken into three pieces. Cradled in the largest piece was a thimbleful of ashes, the remains of the egg.

“Mother Dove wouldn’t have left her egg,” Tink said.

Ree nodded. “The scouts are searching. But...”

The two of them imagined all the disasters that could have overcome Mother Dove.

Prilla started climbing the hawthorn.

“Even if Mother Dove’s all right now,” Tink said, “she won’t be when she sees the egg.”

Prilla reached them. She curtsied to Ree—although Never fairies never curtsied—and told them about Mother Dove.

The three of them hurried to the beach, where Beck was weeping and stroking Mother Dove’s wing feathers. Ree wept, too, and even Tink broke down.

Prilla, who had cried herself out, hoped she had a talent for helping after a hurricane.

Ree said, “Are you in pain?”

Mother Dove whispered, “Not much.”

But Beck knew that Mother Dove’s pain was terrible.

“There will be no Molt,” Mother Dove whispered. “I’m too weak.”

Ree’s mind reeled. No Molt! No Molt meant no fairy dust—no magic, no safety from hawks, no safety at all.

Mother Dove said, “I might get well if the egg…” Her voice wavered. “… were restored and it was with me again.”

But it’s cracked and burned, Prilla thought.

Tink thought, I’ve fixed pots almost as bad as the egg.

“How?” Beck asked.

“It will be difficult.” Mother Dove explained, using as few words as possible.

When Mother Dove was finished, Ree told Beck and Prilla and Tink to send all the fairies to her, here on the beach.

Mother Dove whispered, “Don’t go, Tink. I want you to stay with me. Ree, I’m sure there are other injured animals besides me. Have Beck help some of them.”

Beck staggered back.

“Beck...” Mother Dove cooed a long string of coos.

Beck felt Mother Dove’s love, but she didn’t understand why Mother Dove didn’t want her.

“We’re too weepy, Beck,” Mother Dove said. “Both of us. We’ll make each other sadder and sadder.” She knew Beck’s heart would break if she stayed.

Beck nodded. But she still wished she could stay.

Tink pulled her bangs. She had no idea how to care for Mother Dove. “I’ll do my best.”

Beck and Prilla left the beach to round up the other fairies.

While they were busy, the sky cleared, and the sun rose. The pirate ship sailed back into Pirate Cove. The beached mermaid made her slow way back to the sea.

The animals and Clumsies of the island began to feel the loss of the egg. A Never bear, who’d slept through the storm, woke to find his left knee feeling stiff. Captain Hook looked in his mirror to shave and found a gray hair among his black locks.

Peter Pan woke up in a meadow where the storm had dropped him. He was horrified to see a baby tooth on the grass next to his head. It was his first tooth to fall out, and it hadn’t even been loose yesterday.

The fairies were slow to assemble since they couldn’t fly. Some were bandaged, some were limping. A sparrow man had been blinded. Two fairies were missing. One had been blown out to sea, and one had died of disbelief during the night.

Terence stood at the edge of the crowd of fairies. He was still muddy. Even his teeth were brownish when he showed them in a big smile. Although he felt sad about Mother Dove, he couldn’t help showing his relief that Tink was safe.

She didn’t see the smile.

Ree began her speech with the news that Mother Dove was too injured to molt. “But all may be well if her egg is restored and brought to her. I will send a fairy on a quest to restore the egg and bring it here.”

Prilla imagined being selected and turning out to have an egg-saving talent.

Ree went on. “The fairy will take much of the remaining fairy dust. I’ll keep only enough for our scouts.”

Everyone but the scouts grumbled.

Ree held up her hand. “Even so, we have only a few days’ supply left.”

Each fairy imagined life without flying or magic. Would they still be fairies or just a kind of pale glowworm?