Birdie's Book - Andrea Burden [43]
Kerka held her hand out, and I hauled her up. We were both soaking wet but relatively clean, and only a little worse for wear. Kerka picked up her Kalis stick and put it in her backpack, which was still on her back.
I hit my forehead with the palm of my hand. “Oh geez,” I said. “How do we get home? Do we have to go back the same way?”
And then I heard bells ringing, and the rain stopped. I heard the sound of wings and looked up, thinking the crow might be back. Instead, I saw fairies, lots of them, Queen Patchouli in the lead. They were flying down to us, their gossamer wings glimmering. Queen Patchouli stepped lightly onto the ground. Her wings folded and she hugged us both for a long, long time.
Then Queen P. shook the bells on her wrist, and my suitcase appeared right in front of us. With a snap and a clatter, it unclasped and flew open. A smile spread over my face. I couldn’t hold it back, even though it showed my full set of braces, which I was sure were glowing in the sunlight. I didn’t care.
This time the suitcase didn’t turn into a wardrobe. It simply stayed what it was, and Patchouli reached inside and pulled out a small envelope. She handed the envelope to me as the rest of the fairies danced around us.
I opened the envelope and took out a small piece of paper that was pressed with flowers. I unfolded the paper. “To Birdie,” I read aloud. “We thank you for healing the Arbor Lineage, for retrieving the Singing Stone, our talisman, and for restoring harmony to the green worlds.”
“Our talisman?” I asked. I folded the letter, and it turned into a daisy in my hand.
“Exactly,” Patchouli answered. “This message is not from the fairies. It is from the women in your family, for they are your fairy godmothers in the real world, there to help you learn and grow. There to watch over you and keep you as safe as they can.”
“Thank you,” I whispered to the daisy.
Queen P. then turned to Kerka. “The next time you visit Aventurine, it will be for your own quest, your own discovery,” she said. “Though I trust that you have learned things with Birdie.”
“I have,” said Kerka. She looked over at me. “And I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she added. “Not one minute of it!”
“Not even the arguing?” I teased.
“Well … actually … let’s not go there, okay?” she said, chuckling.
“It is time for you to return home now,” said Queen Patchouli.
“Okay,” I said, “but can I just have a moment with Kerka before we go?”
The queen nodded and stepped away, joining the other fairies as they danced around the newly blossoming garden.
“So, we both have fairy godmothers,” I said to Kerka.
“And are going to be fairy godmothers ourselves one day,” said Kerka. “At least, we will if we can survive all the fairy tests.”
“Yes. It’s like being in a funny kind of school, isn’t it?” I said.
“It is,” Kerka said. “A school for fairy godmothers.”
“A fairy godmother academy,” I said. “Complete with fairy uniforms, which aren’t like uniforms at all, of course!”
“I love it! The Fairy Godmother Academy!” said Kerka. “Birdie, do you think we can meet up here again?”
“I don’t know!” I said. “But I promise to try!”
We suddenly heard the tinkling of bells all around us. Flower petals drifted in the air like snow, and …
… suddenly I was shaking, my jaw frozen shut, my whole body trembling with cold. My eyes shot open. I was sitting on Mo’s stone seat, my gloves beside me. My feet were frozen to the ground, so I must have been there for quite a while. An hour? Five hours? I had no idea. Had I fallen asleep?
I freed my frozen feet, jumped up, and looked around. The waterfall bared its frozen fangs, and the evergreens were frosted white. The sky was gray. It looked like a nice New Year’s Eve snow was on the way.
I shivered. My braces were positively freezing. I clenched my hands in the cold and remembered everything as my right fist closed on the Singing Stone. I opened my hand and looked at it.
It was the whole stone, healed, with every tiny etched detail in place—every branch of the tree and the walled