TWENTY-TWO

SINCE SHE’D told Mother Dove about Peter, Tink had felt different. Her limbs were looser. Her chest was more open. Her mind was extraordinarily sharp. She even managed to think of more Peter stories, funny ones that lightened the look in Mother Dove’s eyes, if just for a moment.

But as night fell, Mother Dove seemed to stop listening. Her head tilted oddly, and when she fell asleep, her breathing was more labored than it had been the night before. Each exhale rattled, and her whole frame trembled. Tink listened and feared that each breath would be the last.

Only two days earlier, the hawk would have heard the fairies before they came close. But now he heard nothing.

They advanced slowly, eighteen brave inches forward, twelve frightened inches back. Finally, they were within a yard of him. He didn’t move.

“He doesn’t look golden,” Prilla whispered. He looked brown.

“It would be idiotic to be eaten by the wrong hawk, darlings.”

The hawk ruffled his feathers, showing glints of gold.

“Rani, sweetheart, who will pluck—”

“—him?” Rani knew she couldn’t pluck a live bird, even for a good reason. Vidia, with her plucking experience, was the logical choice. But Rani didn’t want to send her into danger alone.

Rani drew Tink’s dagger. “Vidia, you’ll pluck the feather. I’ll fly to his stomach. If he tries to attack, I’ll stab him. Prilla, you’ll hover around his head. Pull down his eyelids or something, but stay away from his beak.”

How will I do that? Prilla wondered. But she didn’t complain. Maybe, she thought, my talent is for avoiding beaks. She took her place, her wings fluttering double-time with fear.

Rani positioned herself at the hawk’s stomach. Vidia touched a wing feather. The hawk didn’t feel Vidia, but he felt a bit of warmth at his belly and saw a blur of light near his face.

Vidia pulled. The hawk’s head jerked up. Someone was trying to kill him! He had one defense left, a single magic power. He shared his pain.

A bolt of pain surged up Vidia’s arms. She hung on even though the pain mounted. The feather wouldn’t come out. She gritted her teeth and tugged harder. It began to give. She yanked with all her strength.

Remember the worst pain you’ve ever felt. Close your eyes and think of it. Perhaps Vidia’s and the hawk’s pain was less than yours. Perhaps more. But it was the worst either of them had ever felt.

They screamed so piercingly that a star flickered.

Then the pain receded, and Vidia had the feather. The fairies flew away as fast as they could.

Prilla called back, “Thank you, Mr. Golden Hawk!”

He didn’t hear. He swayed on his stone, dizzy from the plucking.

Vidia soon outpaced the others.

She could have acknowledged then and there how much plucking hurt. She could have admitted she’d been cruel to pluck Mother Dove. She could have recognized that pain is pain, whether it’s pain to others or pain to oneself. She could have sworn not to inflict pain on purpose ever again.

But instead, she convinced herself that the hawk was the one who’d been cruel. She decided he’d made the pain worse than it really was.

It was almost dawn when the questers arrived at the fairy circle.

Vidia laid the feather on the ground and stepped away from it. She wondered if it could make fairy dust, extra-fast fairy dust.

Rani and Prilla came to look. The topside of the feather was brown, but the underside was gold. Prilla touched it. It felt metallic and cold.

Prilla deposited the feather next to the egg and the cigar holder. The three fairies curled up in the shed, where no hawks would come.

Prilla thought, We succeeded twice. Maybe we can save Mother Dove.

Before she fell asleep, she tried once more to transport herself to the mainland. She closed her eyes and pictured herself in the tunnel again. She pictured the mainland at the far end. She flew along, imagining a Clumsy girl in a bed, hugging a stuffed walrus.

She landed on a real girl’s pillow.

This girl was hugging a stuffed pelican. She opened her eyes and said, “Do you know how much thirty-five times nine-point-four is?”

Prilla shook her head, wishing she were a mathematics-talent fairy. Even on the mainland, she was disappointing.