NINE

OUTSIDE, PRILLA found dozens of fairies, standing on branches or hovering, waiting for her. Word had traveled that the new fairy didn’t know what her talent was. Someone called out, “Do you think you’d like shearing caterpillars?” Someone else said, “Isn’t it fun to dry toadstools?”

Prilla recognized Terence, the dust fairy, near the front of the crowd, and she thought another fairy looked familiar, too, maybe from the tearoom or the kitchen.

A fairy cried, “Don’t you love washing wings?” And another, “How about weaving grass?”

They all began shouting at once.

“Sorting sand?”

“Cricket whistling?”

“Grading tree bark?”

Prilla flattened herself against Tink’s door, frightened.

Then she was in a Clumsy supermarket, wedged in with a bunch of broccoli, a rubber band tight around her waist. A Clumsy boy bounded toward her.

The boy called over his shoulder, “Mom, can we get broccoli?”

The woman hurried over. “Broccoli? Absolutely!” She reached for the bunch next to Prilla.

“No, I want that bunch.”

Laughing, Prilla said, “Don’t cook me!”

A fairy jostled her. Prilla flinched.

“Me first!” someone called out.

“No, me!”

“Stop pushing!” Terence said, his voice deep and resonant. “We’re frightening her.” He smiled at Prilla, the same winsome smile that Tink had failed to see. “I’m Terence.…”

A voice in the crowd rang out, “Why should you go first?”

Prilla thought, Terence glitters.

“Because,” Terence said, “if Prilla’s a dust fairy, she has to get ready for the Molt.”

That convinced them. The Molt was urgent.

Terence did glitter. It was the fairy dust that clung to his oak-leaf frock coat and caught his glow light.

“Prilla, would you like to visit the mill and see if you’re a dust fairy?”

Prilla nodded, although she thought it was probably too much to hope for.

They flew off. Terence shouted over the wind, “Did Tinker Bell mention me to you?”

“No,” Prilla shouted back.

“Oh. I see.”

Prilla heard the disappointment in his voice. He likes Tink! she thought. She shouted, “Tink didn’t mention anyone.”

“Ah.”

They flew on without any more conversation. Prilla wondered what dust fairies did. If they only poured a cup of dust over everybody every day, she could do that. She wouldn’t mind waking up early.

Terence began to descend. Soon they landed on the bank of Havendish Stream.

“The mill is around the next bend,” Terence said. “But first…do you know what dust does?”

Prilla had known as soon as she became a fairy. “Dust helps us fly. Without dust, we can fly a foot or so; but with it, we can fly any distance. Dust makes everything go. It powers the mill. It goes in the balloons for the balloon carriers. We can barely glow without it.” She smiled, feeling like a star pupil.

“Do you know where dust comes from?”

Prilla thought a moment. “From Mother Dove! After she molts we grind up her feathers. Dust is ground feathers.” Oh, Prilla thought, understanding. “That’s why we’re celebrating tonight. Mother Dove is about to molt. She molts every year, right?”

“Right. What do we do?”

“We?”

“Dust fairies.”

Prilla’s glow flared. Was Terence suggesting she might be one of them? One of we. “They—we—give out dust to every fairy every day.”

“What else?”

She thought hard, anxious to hold on to the we. “Um, we set aside a portion for Peter Pan and the lost boys.” There was probably more to it. “Um, we collect the feathers after the Molt and grind them.” Prilla pictured Mother Dove. “We sort the feathers into wings, back, neck, belly. Do we grind them in the mill in certain proportions?”

Terence nodded, beginning to feel hope. “What else?”

Prilla was thinking like mad. “We make sure nothing blows away, not the smallest grain. We make sure the dust doesn’t get wet. We store the dust in...in something big.” Prilla’s wings drooped. “I don’t know what we store it in.”

But Terence was smiling. “Very good.” He thought she’d done well, better than a new fairy in another talent would have. “We store it in dried-pumpkin canisters. Come, I’ll take you to the mill.” He started flying.

Prilla did a handstand and sprang into the air after him.

But he came down again. “Watch out for Vidia,” he said.

She landed next to him. “Vidia?”

“Vidia! You met her outside the Home Tree when you arrived. She calls everyone darling and sweetheart.”

Prilla nodded, remembering. “She sneered at Tink. Why do we watch out for her?”

“She’s stolen dust more than once. She hurt Mother Dove, too.” Terence didn’t like speaking ill of anyone, but in Vidia’s case, he had a responsibility. “Vidia plucked living feathers from Mother Dove, and plucking hurts.”

“Why did she do that?” Prilla asked, shocked.

“To fly faster. Feathers that are fresh, that don’t come from the Molt, are supposed to make you fly faster. Vidia’s talent is fast flying, you know.”

Prilla resolved that she’d never hurt anyone for the sake of her talent—if she turned out to have a talent.

Terence added, “She got ten feathers before a scout caught her. Queen Ree has banned her from Mother Dove’s presence.” He flapped his wings, glad to be done with the subject of Vidia. “Ready for the mill?”

Prilla followed him into the air, but he came down again, and so did she.

“I have a saucepan,” he said. “I could dent it and bring it to Tink to fix. Do you think ... ” He trailed off.

“Don’t just dent it,” Prilla said. “Squash it or put a hole in it. The worse it is, the better she’ll like it.”

“Ah,” Terence said. “I’ll take your advice.” He jumped into the air, and this time he kept going.

The mill, which was built of peach pits and mortar, spanned Havendish Stream. As he unlatched the big double doors, Terence said, “If you’re one of us, you’ll be spending a lot of your time here.”

The wind pushed the doors open.

He added, “The tree-pickers use the mill, too. But not today, because of the celebration.”

The mill was empty and quiet. Daylight streamed in through the small windows just below the roof. Prilla saw the mill works—the grindstones, the wheel, the hopper—and across from them a dozen pumpkin canisters.

She wasn’t feeling the joy other fairies felt from their talents, but she thought that might be because she hadn’t yet done anything with dust. She pointed at the grindstones. “You could squash your saucepan in there.”

“In there?” Terence was horrified. “Where Mother Dove’s feathers go?”

She’d said something wrong again. “I was just joking.”

“Oh.” Terence didn’t think a saucepan in the mill was funny. He perched on the top of an open pumpkin canister. “Look, Prilla. This is all the dust we have left.” He flew into the canister.

Prilla followed. The dust was only three inches deep. It sparkled faintly.

“It looks so…so…so…” She sneezed. And sneezed five more rapid-fire sneezes.

Luckily, she was too high up to blow any dust away, but still Terence frowned.

She knew why he was frowning. You couldn’t be a dust-talent fairy if three inches of dust made you sneeze.