Ursula Vernon Read online

  Danny stormed into the clearing, not caring who saw him, planning to march up to the fairy king and demand his mom back right this minute.

  He got about three steps out from under the trees, and an enormous watch-boar, which had been lying in the grass, rose up, grunting.

  It was big. Really big. It looked about the size of a rhinoceros, and it had enormous tusks as long as Danny’s arm.

  “Danny!” Wendell, to his credit, ran toward the boar, although everything above his feet was trying to run away from it. “Danny, be careful! That thing is the size of a truck!”

  “Pigs are really quite intelligent creatures,” Christiana remarked to no one in particular. “Although manners aren’t among their features . . .”

  The boar let out a low warning squeal and stamped a hoof.

  Danny drew in a breath to breathe fire. If it was really that intelligent, it had better not get between him and his mom.

  “Tiddlywinks?” called a voice across the clearing. “Tiddly, what have you got?”

  The boar dropped its head and pawed at the ground. Danny paused. It was one thing to breathe fire on a monster standing in your way—it was quite another to breathe fire on something named Tiddlywinks.

  One of the butterfly-winged lizards flounced up and surveyed the scene. “Oh, toadstools,” it said, annoyed. “Mortals in the Great Glade.”

  “You’ve got my mom!” said Danny. “And I want her back!”

  The lizard waved a hand. “I’m sure you have all kinds of demands. Mortals always do.” It turned back to the giant boar.

  Danny and Wendell waited. Christiana held out as long as she could, and then muttered, “Something, something . . . err . . . twitterpated.”

  “Fairy Valerian!” called a deep voice. “Are there intruders in the Great Glade?”

  “Mortals, Your Highness!” said Fairy Valerian. It gave Tiddlywinks a last kiss on the snout and turned back to Danny and his friends. “You’d better go and see the king so that he can turn you into crawling worms and get it over with.”

  “I don’t want to be a crawling worm . . .” said Wendell plaintively.

  “Yes, well, you should have thought of that before you danced in the fairy ring or entered the ancient mound or walked widdershins around the standing stones or however you creatures keep sneaking in here,” said Valerian. “Go on, shoo!”

  Danny and his friends approached the pavilion under the oak tree. Danny’s tail lashed and his claws dug into the grass. Wendell was trying to hide behind his book of fairy tales. Christiana strolled along, watching the denizens of the glade with interest.

  The fairy king was twice Danny’s height. He had a shock of white mane around his face, and two long antennae rising from his eyebrows. His wings were dusty black, like the moths that flew around the porch light at night.

  “What brings three mortals into my kingdom without my leave?” he growled, looming over Danny.

  “You’ve stolen my mom!” cried Danny.

  “It’s possible,” the king admitted. “I steal a lot of people.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s her in the cage, right there!” Danny pointed.

  At the sound of his voice, Danny’s mom looked up. She grabbed the bars.

  “Oh, her,” said the fairy king. “Yes. She uprooted part of a fairy ring. I haven’t decided her punishment yet. I’m rather leaning toward entreement. She would make quite a fine birch tree, don’t you think?”

  “You’re not turning anybody into a tree!” Danny had no real idea how he was going to stop the king—was it hard to turn people into trees? Did it take a while? Did the spell stop if you got kicked in the shins by a dragon?—but before he could find out, Wendell grabbed his shoulder.

  He hauled Danny to one side. “You’re doing this wrong!” he whispered. “The king likes flattery, remember? And we’re supposed to trade him the spoons!”

  Danny tried to get his temper under control. Wendell was right. If the fox was to be believed, the fairy king was powerful enough to turn them all into trees, or worms, or anything else he wanted. “Right,” muttered the dragon. “Right. Okay. Yes. Flattery.”

  He took a few deep breaths and tried to squish the fire farther down in his chest. Behind him, he could hear Christiana say, “Marvelous oak tree you’ve got here, but I don’t recognize the species, I fear . . .”

  “Fairy oak,” the king said. “They don’t grow in your world. The acorns have to be buried by magic squirrels . . .”

  His mom sounded frantic. “Danny, don’t trust him! He’s not—”

  “Danny, is it?” The fairy king waved a hand. Danny’s mother’s voice cut off abruptly. Her mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. When she realized she’d been muted, she grabbed the bars and shook furiously, but the wooden cage didn’t budge an inch.

  Danny turned back to Wendell and said, “I can’t do this. I want to turn him into a giant s’more.”

  Wendell tore at his crest scales. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Just . . . just follow my lead.”

  Despite his rage, Danny was impressed. The iguana was always better at talking to teachers than he was, but Wendell was really laying it on thick. He hadn’t known his friend had it in him.

  “We have come across the breadth of your vast and marvelous kingdom to offer you a tribute, and to request a small boon in return, Your Highness.”

  “I like tributes,” said the king. “Good tributes, anyway. But generally I like . . . oh, the firstborn sons of princes and footstools carved from the hooves of unicorns and so forth. What can you possibly offer me, lizard-child?”

  Christiana stepped forward, opened her backpack, and pulled out a spoon.

  “Ooooooooh. . . .” went the collective fairies.

  The crested lizard displayed it to the crowd in the best game-show fashion.

  “Aaaaahhhhh. . . .” said the crowd.

  “For one so great, so magnificent, so . . . err . . . cool . . . as Your Highness,” Wendell panted, starting to exhaust his store of flattery, “we have only the finest spoons of our world, suitable for, um, any occasion . . .”

  The king leaned forward, fascinated.

  Wendell licked his lips nervously. How much could you say about spoons? “The shiniest metal! The finest cutlery in the drawer! They’re, um . . . the spooniest?”

  “Surely, for such an awesome spoon Your Highness could grant us a little boon?” Christiana put in.

  The fairy king stroked his chin, eyes riveted on the spoon. “What boon would that be?”

  “Give us my mom back!” Danny shouted.

  Wendell elbowed him. The fairy king’s eyes narrowed. “Is the angry little dragon still here? I don’t know . . . I was rather enjoying the prospect of turning her into a tree . . .”

  Danny had no idea what he’d do if the king actually did turn her into a tree. Take her home and plant her in a nice pot in the backyard? Keep her watered with coffee? This was going to be hard to explain to his dad.

  “Perhaps not for a single spoon, Your Highness,” said Wendell smoothly, “but what about for this?” He reached into the backpack and came up with a fistful of silverware.

  The assembled fairies rioted.

  The king’s eyes went wide, and he took a step forward. “All of those? For one mortal woman?”

  “Do we have a deal, Your Highness?” asked Wendell.

  It occurred to Danny where he’d heard that tone before. Wendell was ruthless at Monopoly. You generally heard that tone right before you discovered that you’d just handed over Broadway in exchange for Baltic and a couple of twenties.

  “Give them to me,” hissed the king, sounding not unlike the Cat Sidhe. He took another step forward and loomed over Wendell.

  Wende
ll gulped. Danny jumped forward.

  “Not until you promise!” the young dragon said. “Promise you’ll let her go, and . . .” He turned to look at Wendell.

  “Um,” said Wendell.

  “Where’s the paper? Don’t be a tapir!” hissed Christiana.

  The iguana fished the sheet of paper out, looking sick to his stomach. “Uh-oh.”

  “What? What?” Danny leaned in. “Oh no!”

  The paper was smeared with brown goop. Some of the words were still visible, but some had vanished, and others were blurred beyond recognition.

  “Is that pudding?”

  “It must have gotten on there when we were dealing with the Cat Sidhe,” said Wendell wretchedly.

  Danny took a deep breath. The king was tapping his foot impatiently.

  “We’ll give you the spoons,” said Danny, facing the fairy king, “all that we’ve got. And in return, you have to give my mother back, and swear by oak and ash and—um—” What was the third one?

  “Rowan,” put in Wendell.

  “Right, that you won’t turn her into a tree or try to stop us or do anything bad to us,” said Danny.

  “At all,” Wendell added.

  Danny wasn’t sure that would be enough. He couldn’t help but think that his great-grandfather’s note had been a lot longer. “And, um . . . no funny business. And . . . err . . . no siccing giant birds on us. Or pigs. Or you’ll get grounded!”

  “Can you really ground the fairy king? That’d be . . . quite a thing . . .”

  The king smoothed down his wings and said, “Agreed.”

  Christiana dumped out the spoons.

  The king snapped his fingers. The cage opened, and Danny’s mother rushed out.

  “She’s still mute!” said Danny, rounding on the king.

  “You didn’t ask about that,” said the king, waving a spoon in his direction.

  “We just gave you all those spoons!”

  The fairy king grinned like a shark. “But what have you done for me lately, dragon-child Danny?”

  Danny was ready to start burning fairy oaks down, but his mom grabbed his shoulder and tugged. When he turned to her, she jerked her head toward the woods and gave him a meaningful look.

  “She’s right. We should go,” said Wendell. “Now, before he figures out something to do to us!”

  They turned to run back to the path . . . and stopped.

  A dozen identical paths led from the glade into the forest. Danny was sure they hadn’t been there before.

  Behind them, the fairy king started to laugh.

  “That’s not fair!” Danny said.

  “I’m not stopping you,” said the king. “Go on. I wouldn’t dream of stopping you.” He examined his reflection in a spoon.

  “Pick one,” Wendell said desperately. “We have to hurry. I’m sure he’s going to find a way to do something nasty.”

  Danny looked wildly between the paths. Where had they come in? There had to be a marker—something—

  His eye fell on Tiddlywinks the boar.

  “There!” said Danny, pointing. “That one! Come on!”

  Kids and grown-up ran. The king made an annoyed sound behind them.

  There was a roar of assent from his subjects. The king clapped his hands, and the sound seemed to roll through the trees, growing longer and louder and deeper, until Danny realized that it was thunder.

  It occurred to Danny that when Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath had said fairies were mean little cusses, he had, if anything, been understating the case.

  Thunder growled again. Rain began to slash at the leaves around them. The bright sky turned pewter gray.

  “I don’t like that guy,” said Christiana, pounding down the path beside Wendell. “I think I’d like to see him fry.”

  Mrs. Dragonbreath, who generally believed in love and tolerance to one’s fellow beings, gave Christiana an emphatic nod. She touched her throat and scowled.

  “Is the muting stopping your breathing fire too?” asked Wendell, panting as he ran.

  Mrs. Dragonbreath nodded.

  Danny said a bad word under his breath. His mother tried to give him a stern look, then grinned ruefully and nodded.

  They were skidding and slipping through the tree roots when suddenly the leaves started falling around them. At first Danny thought the rain was knocking them down, and then he realized that they were turning red and gold and brown, a whole autumn raining down in minutes.

  “Seasons!” cried the voice of the fairy king in the distance. “I am tired of summer! Let us have fall and harvest and frost on the moon!”

  The leaves did not so much fall as collapse. Wendell let out a squawk as a maple dropped its entire load directly on his head.

  Danny wasn’t laughing. The leaf-fall had hidden more than Wendell.

  “Where’s the path?” asked Christiana. “We need to find—oh bother. Bath! Math! I can’t find the path!”

  “It’s got to be here somewhere,” said Danny.

  It probably was there somewhere, but the sudden fall of leaves had covered white stones, white bark, and any other markers. They stood ankle deep in wet leaves, surrounded by bare trees, with the path completely hidden.

  “We have to keep going,” said Danny finally.

  “But we’ll leave the path!” said Wendell.

  “It doesn’t matter. If we stay here, it’ll rain acid or bees or something and he’ll claim it has nothing to do with us.”

  Danny’s mom reached out and squeezed his hand. He looked up at her, wishing she could tell him what to do next, but she couldn’t say anything, and even if she could, Danny doubted she knew any more about fairies than he did.

  He took a step forward, and then another one. His mother wouldn’t let go of his hand. When he looked back, she had taken Wendell’s hand, and Wendell was grabbing hold of Christiana.

  “Right,” said Wendell nervously, putting his book of fairy tales back in his pack. “We should all hold hands. If we get off the path and get separated,

  I don’t know how we’ll find each other.” “Okay.” Danny took a deep breath and plunged forward through the tree trunks. “Here goes nothin’ . . .”

  They’d made barely ten yards through the trees when Danny knew they were in trouble.

  First there was a bird. It looked like a crow. It landed on a branch above them and croaked “Danny! Danny!” in a thick, raspy voice.

  Figures staggered out of the woods, moving with jerky, shuddering steps. When they got a little closer, Danny realized that they were little more than sticks lashed together. They didn’t have heads or hands or anything, just twigs animated by some malign magic.

  The twig-creatures moved toward them, waving their arms. Wendell let out a yelp.

  “Your name! Your great-grandfather said not to tell them our names, but he knows you’re Danny—”

  “Danny,” agreed the crow.

  “—and now the twig things are after you!”

  Wooden claws closed on Danny’s shoulder. Another one grabbed at his mother.

  Despite their dire situation, Danny grinned.

  Finally.

  The fire that had been burning and roiling under his breastbone all day finally had someplace to go.

  He spun on the twig-creature clutching at him and breathed fire.

  It was a great flame. It was golden yellow and hardly any smoke came out of his nose. Even his dad would have been impressed.

  The dry wood went up beautifully. The twig-creature dropped him and staggered back, flailing.

  There were two twig-monsters trying to drag his mother into the woods. A touch of fire made
them drop her immediately and run. Christiana succeeded in hauling Wendell free of the final twig-creature, and Danny sent it running.

  The crow, seeing Danny turn in its direction, took off with a squawk.

  “That’s right!” yelled Danny after them, flaming wildly.

  Wendell rolled his eyes. “Great. First you have to learn to breathe fire reliably, and then you have to learn to stop breathing it before you hurt yourself.”

  “If you’re quite done burning Faerie down around our ears,” said a familiar voice, “p’raps I might be of some assistance?”

  They turned.

  It took a moment for Danny to make out the speaker. Russet fur blended with russet leaves and made him briefly invisible. Then he grinned, showing white teeth, and Danny saw him.

  “Come on,” said the fox. “I can get you home, but you’ll have to hurry.”

  “Can you take us back to the path?” asked Wendell hopefully.

  “The path is lost,” said the fox. “You left it some way back, and once you leave it, finding it again is much harder. I can take you to the mushroom ring.”

  “That’s how my mom got here,” said Danny, nodding to his mother.

  “Your servant, madam,” said the fox, stretching his forelegs out in a bow. Mrs. Dragonbreath nodded politely.

  “Can you fix her voice?” asked Danny.

  They joined hands again, and followed the fox.Their journey to the mushroom ring was a blur for Danny. The fox set a bruising pace and it was all the dragon could do to keep up with him. Leaves slipped and slid underfoot. Rain came down again, in a furious torrent, and then stopped. Mist rose from the ground, so that Danny could barely see the white tail-tip in front of him. There was even a brief flurry of snow.