Flitting from flower to flower were flying things. Bigger than any bugs she’d seen, and more colorful; blues and purples, pinks and greens, tipped in gold and silver like the jewelry in the store window downtown.
“Hold out your hand,” Dick said quietly. He dropped his clutch on her and showed her how to offer her palm.
A flock of the flying jewels separated from the flowers and circled them. Dusty thought she heard them singing.
She smiled in delight, and hummed back at them.
As if a mist blew away from her eyes, she saw that the flying bugs looked like tiny people with wings. They had pointed ears and slightly slanted eyes like Tinker Bell, and they wore flower petals and cobwebs instead of clothes, but their skin and hair were colored to match their clothes. And their wings! Oh, those pretty wings looked like the jeweler had carved leaves out of precious gems and set them in the sun to catch the light and wink it back at her.
She gasped in wonder, spinning on her toes, like a proper ballerina, so that she could see them all at once.
“Dusty, meet the Pixies,” Dick said with pride. “Pixies, meet my baby sister Dusty.”
A purple Pixie separated from the flock and settled on Dusty’s outstretched palm. She cocked her head and looked first from Dusty to Dick and back again. Her song,
Dusty was so caught up in the happy expression in those eyes, she barely noticed that her green wings were jagged and prickly like a thistle. Then she realized the Pixie’s wild mane of purple curls that stood out from her head like a small pom pom resembled a flower.
“I bet your name is Thistle,” Dusty said. Her esses whistled because she forgot that one of her front teeth had fallen out and she didn’t push the sound around the gap like Mom insisted she do.
“You guessed right!” Thistle clapped her hands and hopped up and down, her wings angled so she didn’t catch the air and lift too far away. “I’m Thistle Down. So, what’s your real name?”
“Desdemona Carrick,” Dusty said on a frown. She hated the name Mom insisted belonged to her and only her.
“You don’t like the name any better than Dick likes to be called Benedict,” Thistle giggled. “Don’t blame you. Dusty suits you. Dusty you are.” A bright cloud of sparkling dust dropped over Dusty.
She felt lighter, bigger, important.
Something big crashed through the underbrush across the pond. Dusty jumped back, but she didn’t close her hand into a fist. She had to let Thistle fly to safety on her own.
Dick laughed long and loud as Chase Norton, his best friend, stomped on ferns and kicked aside blackberry vines. Chase wasn’t quite as tall as Dick-he was four months younger after all and wouldn’t turn eleven until March, where Dick’s birthday was in November-but he was broader all over and had thick blond hair that always flopped into his greenish-brown eyes-lighter and prettier than the pond water.
“I can’t believe you still believe in Pixies,” Chase snorted. “I thought you’d outgrown that, Dick.”
Dick shrugged. “Had to show my sister The Ten Acre Wood. She’s five now.”
“He doesn’t want to believe in Pixies anymore,” Thistle whispered in an aside to Dusty. “Adults are like that, expect for a special few. He can still see me and hear me, he just won’t admit it.” She rolled her beautiful purple eyes, but they sparkled with mischief at the same time.
Chase humphed something rude as he clomped around the edge of the pond to join them.
Dusty wanted to clamp her hands over her ears to shut out Chase’s language. But Thistle still stood on her palm, hands on hips, a scowl on her lovely face. Dusty didn’t dare move, or she might frighten her new friend away.
“We’re special friends now, Dusty. I won’t desert you just because Mr. Muscles doesn’t believe anymore,” Thistle said proudly.
“Special friend?” Dick asked. He looked like he might cry.
That scared Dusty more than the noise Chase made tromping through the woods.
“Does that mean you and I can’t be friends anymore, Thistle?”
“You don’t need her as a friend. You got me.” Chase pounded his chest importantly. “We’re guys now, going into fifth grade. We don’t need no girls hanging around.”
That was scary, too. Just since Dick was almost eleven now, did that mean he didn’t need Dusty, his sister, anymore? Would he still help her with her arithmetic and reading? Show her baby birds in their nest hidden under the eaves of the garage, or point out what was a weed, and what was one of Mom’s favorite plants? Or hold her hand during a rare thunderstorm to keep her from being too scared?
“Dick,” Thistle said gently. “Dick, as long as there is trust and love, friendship knows no boundaries. I can be your friend, and Dusty’s friend. You can be my friend and Chase’s. Though I don’t know why you’d want such a logical and clumsy oak as a friend.” Quick as a blink, she flew over to Chase and kicked his bangs down to flop into his eyes and returned to Dusty’s hand, almost before any of them realized what she’d done.
Dusty giggled.
“I am not clumsy!” Chase proclaimed, brushing his hair back again. “And the word is oaf, not oak.”
Thistle and Dusty giggled.
“You guys go on and play pirates. I’m going to dance with my new friend,” Dusty said and waved her brother and Chase off, deeper into the woods.
The huge old oak continued to frown. But Dusty didn’t notice.
One
A LONG JOLT OF PAIN arced from Thistle’s pert little backside to her shoulders, then up into her neck and over the top of her skull into her eyes.
Cool water splashed around her. A heavy dose of chlorine burned her eyes. But the water cooled the itching flush on her skin.
“What the f…!” She tried to open her eyes. It hurt too much to move her neck. Sun dazzle through her closed eyelids intensified the daggers lancing into her mind.
Where had she landed?
Oh, yeah. That was Alder getting even.
Except Pixies weren’t supposed to play tricks on other Pixies. That’s what humans were for.
Shivers racked her entire body. Wet. She was wet, wet, wet. Cold and wet weather sent Pixies into hibernation. She needed to find a warm spot to dry her wings. Then she’d fly back to Alder and give him taste of his own warped sense of justice.
She shivered in the unnatural weather. Wasn’t this August?
Without thinking, she started her wings fluttering. All the extra moisture and the chills racking her body would slow her lift. Pixies weren’t meant to sit for long on hard stone with their legs splayed in front of them.
Everything hurt.
She’d really let Alder have it.
Nothing happened. Water lapped her waist and continued to pour down over her head. Her legs remained stretched straight. Smoothly curved stone cradled her bottom while jagged and warped rock pressed into her back. A huge itch clawed her entire spine from butt to neck.
Unique and lovely green wings in the shape of double thistle leaves failed to flutter through the air.
What had happened to her wings? Gone!
Her eyes flew open. The remnants of sparkling Pixie dust settled in the pool of water around her legs, taunting reminders that Alder was king of her tribe and more powerful than any three Pixies combined. The old Faery in the oak had given him that power just before he left for… wherever old Faeries went when they no longer wished to live
