PHI'S POV
I hated doing housework. I was only weaving spider webs because my grandmother had insisted on it. To my utter horror, it was raining outside so I was confined to our nest.
I sighed as I pulled on the beater of my weaving machine working on the same white and airy tunics, the same linens I weaved everyday. Boring. I peered again outside through the entrance to our nest, glimpsing dark sky. Can't this horrible rain stop already?
I mean, really, a bird fairy forbidden to leave a dirty old alley? Such misery! Of course, my grandmother didn't understand. She had already seen the world, so what did she care if she stayed indoors?
I glanced over at Grandmother, whose once-magnificent wings were now a tired gray color, the once thick black hair on her head now peppered with white strands. Tiny wrinkles traversed the corners of her eyes. The rest of her face nevertheless retained her youthful beauty. Full lips, a perfectly petite nose, porcelain skin. Everybody said I looked like her, or like her daughter, my deceased mother; we had the same almond-shaped eyes, a vestige of a faraway land I never saw. I wore my long, dark hair swept into a loose bun, as was customary in the alley â all fairies wore their hair up or in braids. My tiny, upturned nose also matched my Grandmother's, and I took great pride in my still-luxurious feathers. My wingspan was the same length as that of my mother's, which had, according to lore, been tremendous.
As I stared down the alley, I spotted Aras running towards the Tisannieres' nest. Oh, dear, what's happened?
"Something is wrong," I said to my grandmother.
I threw my work aside and walked the few steps that separated me from the nest's entrance, dodging the heavy weaver on the way. I poked my head out, suddenly not minding the rain.
Was it an accident? Was Halia all right?
Some of the fairies had hurt themselves recently, especially when the dwarfs were teaching them sword fighting. Had Halia been injured?
"Sit down, Phi," my grandmother said with a small frown. "You are not finished with your work."
"Something is wrong," I said. "Aras just ran to fetch the Tisannieres fairies." I glanced one last time at the unfinished pile of webs.
Grandmother shook her head but her eyes showed she had given up convincing me to stay. I gave her an apologetic smile.
"I'm going to find Halia," I said.
I arched wings high above my head and flew through the cold rain, the deluge weighing down my feathers. I didn't care. I had to see Halia.
*
A short flight took me to Halia's home. My eyes slowly grew accustomed to the darkness. The nest she shared with her godmother was almost identical to the other fairies' nestsâwith a shoe sole as a bed, a thimble, and their water and food stash. Compared to mine, however, it seemed spacious. Grandmother had managed to cramp our nest with weaving machines, leaving no room to move about, a trying situation for a bird fairy.
I finally distinguished the shape of my friend lying in her bed. She wasn't moving and her lovely eyes were closed.
"Halia?" I whispered as I sat down beside her. "Halia? Can you hear me?"
She did not react. Her lips were blue, yet her body was covered in sweat.
Oh, no. I leaned closer. "Halia?"
A group of creatures entered the nest behind me. Their distorted shadows reflected on the back wall. Aras had come back with the green fairies and a will-o'-the-wisp. The latter's flaming body illuminated the room.
The Tisannieres were triplet sisters with thick, jet-black manes and eyes like shining pebbles. Their tunicsâmade by Grandmother and me, of courseâhad agreenish hue, stained that color from the plants that hung off their belts. Their heavy clothing couldn't hide their lithe bodies, however.
I sighed. The "green" fairies, as we fairies called them, had arrived. All will be well now. The Tisannieres knew the many beneficial properties of plants and herbs. They also knew how to perform incantations.
"Stay there, will you?" a Tisannieres told the will-o'-the-wisp. "I'll examine her."
I rose from the shoe sole and took a few steps back to stay out of their way. The will-o'-the wisp, whom we affectionately called Will, positioned himself at the designated place and stood as still as fire could be. Not surprising since he was just that: a flame.
Aras nodded to me, too preoccupied to smile or greet me properly.
"By the Mother!" said the examining green fairy. "She has a fever!"
"You must be mistaken, my dear," replied one of her identical sisters. "Fairies cannot be sick. You know that."
The first Tisanniere signaled them and they soon lined up to test Halia's forehead.
"Impossible," they said, staring at each other.
"Have you no idea of what caused this?" asked Aras after a long silence.
They shook their heads. What is happening?
"We will consult with the other Elders," said a Tisanniere. "Maybe someone has heard of this."
"Yes . . . yes . . . do that," agreed the Tisanniere who had first examined Halia. "I will stay here and watch over her."
I sat back on the shoe sole by Halia. Her eyes were glassy. She stared at the departing fairies' shadows on the wall as they left. Her breath became shorter, faster, as if she was afraid of them. I held her hand to calm her down.
Aras removed the bread crumbs from the silver thimble by the bed and sat. She too saw Halia's breathing was becoming more labored.
"We have to do something!" Aras urged.
"I'll make tea," the Tisanniere said. "For her fever."
"Tea?" Aras and I asked.
Fairies are heavy tea drinkers, especially of the herbal kind. But we never use it to cure anything.
"Humans use tea for medicinal purposes," the Tisanniere explained. "If she has a human condition, it only makes sense to use their medicine."
She then put a pot on Will's head, drew some herbs from her belt, and boiled them in water she gathered from a nutshell that sat in the corner of the roomâthe nest's water stash.
Will admired himself in a fragment of broken mirror on the wall next to him, as if he was trying on the world's most fashionable hat. If the atmosphere were lighter, I would have burst out in laughter. I bit my lip.
"A cold press," Aras mumbled. "Humans use cold presses to help bring fever down."
Before anyone could say anything, she tore a piece of her tunic, dipped it in the nutshell, and squeezed the excess liquid out. She then signaled for me to step aside and gently tapped the wet cloth on Halia's forehead.
I noticed the way Aras looked at her niece and felt a twinge of jealousy. Halia, like me, had lost her mother. But Aras, the child fairy, had every quality a mother should have. No one could doubt that when seeing her stroke Halia's messy hair. Aras loved Halia like Halia's own mother would.
My grandmother loved me, as I loved her, I knew that. But it was differentâsomething was missing, a truth, perhaps, untold. I was always the reflection of my mother, whom I never knew.
*
The nest had a heavy atmosphere. No one spoke or made a sound, apart from Will's crackling flames and the sound of the boiling tea on his head. That's when more fairies and other creatures, entered the nest, interrupting the long silence.
The Tisannieres had told the other Elders about Halia's condition. This seemed to inspire residents of our alley to contemplate the community's newest attraction: the ill-fated fairy. I felt protective and moved even closer to Halia. She opened her eyes and turned her head toward the entrance, where the other creatures stood. It appeared that the cold press did her some good after all.
"Something is going to change," she whispered.
"What is she saying?" Aras asked.
"Change is coming our way," Halia said in a stronger voice.
She shook her head and tried to sit up, but only managed to contort herself.
"She's delusional," Flora, a flower fairy, said.
Hey, nowâ
Halia locked eyes with me and I saw the urgency in them. She was begging me to do something.
"She's not delusional!" I said. "She's trying to warn us about something."
I was wasting my breath. I was a Last-born. The youngest fairies there were. Nobody took my words seriously. Even Aras was too busy asking the visitors their thoughts on the matter to pay any attention to me. They all shrugged and left the room, letting other dwarfs and goblins enter in their places.
By the Mother, they needed to listen! I thought of the king. He hadn't come to visit yet. I wondered if he was even aware of Halia's condition.
"I will get the king," I told Aras and made my way out of the nest. "He needs to know about this."
*
My wings beat the air as I flew up to the king's nest, the highest in the alley's wall. The rain had finally stopped, and from afar, I could see the king watching the sunset. The sun was disappearing behind the town's daub and brick houses, leaving the sky golden and red.
I entered in his field of view and saw his eyes narrow, his lips stiffen. He then turned around and stepped in the darkness of the room, where I could no longer see him. What was that all about? The king had always been nice to me, although I could not explain why.
Once I set foot on the edge of the hole, the opening to the royal nest, I tucked in my wings and walked into his dwelling. It was the first time I had entered the king's nest. I was surprised it didn't look more distinguished. There was no luxury. There were only two things that set the nest apart from that of the other fairies. One was a small chandelier made of twigs and branches, hanging poorly from the ceiling. The second was the large collection of grimoires, books of spells, stacked on shelves carved out in the walls.
A table stood at the center of the room. The Queen of Complaints sat there, sipping a glass of rainwater, and transcribing the contents of fragile pages in what looked like an old journal. She was wearing her signature extraordinary white collar, an embroidered neckline so extravagant it stood higher than her hair, which had been piled high into complex, crisscrossed braids. Delicate curls were motionless on her forehead. She was beautiful but had pasty white skin, white eyebrows, and long, bony fingers.
My eyes darted at the shadow of the king sitting in the darkest corner of the nest.
"Please," I said to him, short of breath.
"What is it, my child?" asked the Queen of Complaints.
I turned to her.
"It's Halia. She's sick," I replied.
I didn't want to have to explain the story all over again. We were losing time.
"Sick?" repeated the Queen of Complaints, frowning. "But fairies cannot be sick, my child." She rose from her chair and walked up to me. "Why do you think your friend is sick?"
"She is sick," I insisted. "One of the Tisannieres is working on bringing her fever down. She is barely conscious but keeps saying that something is coming our way, that something is going to change."
"She is delusional," muttered the queen.
I forced down a growl. Fools. I had expected more of the royals. They were as bad as the others. My eyes flooded with tears.
King Siegfried stepped out of the shadow and gazed at me intently.
"No," he said. His brows drew together. "She is not delusional. Her condition is the sign of... an unmanifested gift of sight."
Was he referring to Halia's powers?
"Yet this is not something I have foreseen," the queen replied.
Not surprising. Everybody knew, however, although they never said it to her face, that premonition was by far one of the queen's worst talents. She often failed to see anything until it was too late.
"She was supposed to have come of age a long time ago," he said, ignoring her remark. "The Mother never meant for the Last-borns to stay children for so long. That's what is making her sick." He turned to me and put an empathetic hand on my shoulder. "Your friend will be fine," he said. "We will do a moon ritual tonight to concentrate our energy on her, to cure herâ"
"If we are doing a ritual," the queen said, "we must use some of the lunar energy to provoke a vision of the future too."
The queen still didn't seem to believe Halia, but I didn't care. As long as Siegfried believed me, believed Halia.
The king smiled and planted his soft gray eyes on mine. "Don't worry, child. Go back to your grandmother. I will take care of everything."
I smiled. Of course he would. He was the king, and I really wanted to believe he could fix it all.