Wing Haven

That bug could drain half my blood in a blink. The thought made Almond shudder. She eyed the mosquito’s winding sucker as it circled over a spot of marsh and bit back a scream. If it doesn’t kill me, it would give me swamp sickness, for sure, she thought.

Ducking behind a crimson toadstool, she settled among the mushroom’s white spots so that her gossamer shift camouflaged her. Trying to make herself smaller, she pulled her long, slender limbs against her body, but pressed too close, squishing her sling of fruit. A cloudberry quivering with juice spurted into her face. Blinded by the juice, she swiped at her golden eyes and floated out of the toadstool’s shadow, not realizing she was exposed. For a moment, both Almond and the mosquito froze in the air.

She held her breath, gaze locked on the giant vampire bug. It drifted in her direction. Almond backed against the toadstool and the ruptured berry slipped from her sling. She watched in horror as it tumbled to the ground and winced when its thin juice splattered across a clump of clover. Almond’s heart thudded in her throat. The mosquito didn’t move.

Careful not to draw attention to herself, she shifted her gaze to check if the beast detected the sugary elixir spilled across the clover. It floated in the breeze, drawing closer, then wheeled around and zipped into the wet dawn. Almond squinted after it. Was it really gone? Once she was sure, she sagged against the toadstool. One little mistake around here, and I’m just another notch on the Tree of Sorrow, she thought. She bent her head to acknowledge the dead fairies tallied in the tree’s hard bark. Almond flitted between the holly leaves, their sharp points scratching against her periwinkle arms, leaving sapphire trails. Morning dew slimed her wings and made them heavy. The sling of berries across her shoulders didn’t help. Flexing her wings, she angled her body toward the Fairy Nook, but the delicate appendages strained to keep her in the air.

She hated foraging duty. The forest at night was always cold, the darkness full of terrifying monsters like raccoons and owls.

All around her, tree trunks soared from the loamy forest floor. They towered skyward—higher than fairy wings could go—before crashing together at the last moment into a photoprotective canopy. Despite offering cover, the trunks marked canyons of dangerous open forest. After several seasons of foraging duty, Almond held deep convictions about which trees were and weren’t fairy-friendly. She knew that the bark of the redwoods was scored with crevices—natural hiding places for a fairy being stalked by a spotted cat. Try to blend in amongst fig leaves, however, and risk a full-body rash from the milky sap. She shuddered and rubbed her upper arms, remembering the burning sensation.

For obvious reasons, she steered clear of monkey-no-climb trees. If the jagged thorns marching up the tree trunk didn’t pierce a wing, their bizarre exploding seedpods could pulverize a fairy. They were without question the most murderous trees in Rosepurse Wood.

Almond landed just over the jutting oak root that hemmed in the Fairy Nook and padded toward the hawthorn nicknamed the Teacup Tree. In its hollow sat a chipped, china teacup that some weary human placed there long ago. Her gaze swept the great furrows of ancient tree bark that soared to the leaves covering the sky. They formed walls around the Nook on three sides, while Rosepurse Stream tinkled and splashed over smooth stones, protecting the fourth. On the other side of the hawthorn, the wizened oak leaned its thick hide, forming a defensive wall. The carcasses of old pinecones stood like haunted sentinels in the early morning mist, making Almond jumpy.

Together, they created a natural fortress that had kept the Nook hidden for millennia. There were five adult humans in the world who could still see fairies, and none of them lived near Rosepurse Wood. Most children had the ability, but it had been five hundred and eighty-eight moons since the last one had ventured deep enough into the forest to stumble upon the Nook.

Other fairies returning from foraging duty peppered the ground surrounding the tree. Almond was on the cloudberry squad this moon—a mostly futile assignment so early in the season. Others gathered raw pollen and honey, sunflower seeds, blueberries, sweet peas, mock strawberries, and cowslip bells brimming with fresh dew water.

Lacy ferns sprang like ruffled collars from the bases of the tree trunks and hung overhead. Almond stepped into their deep corridors of shadow. A line of fairies carrying slings of seeds marched past her toward the hawthorn. Several of them looked at her askance as she plucked a pair of lady slipper blossoms and slid them over her feet. Go ahead and get your feet muddy, she thought as she slogged past them in her slippers.

Readjusting her sling, she merged into the crowds of exhausted fairies flowing toward the Teacup Tree to deposit their haul from the night forage. She glanced at the two cloudberries she carried—half the minimum that she was required to contribute to the Nook. It wasn’t her fault that a mosquito almost quenched its thirst with her blood. She scowled as a ray of sunlight touched her face. They’re lucky to get two berries after what I’ve been through, she thought, emerging into the heart of the Fairy Nook.

The old hawthorn stood low in the middle, casting its shadow and keeping the soil damp. Its twisted branches were bare from the white blossoms with their sprays of claret stamen that now littered the ground. Bright baby leaves sprouted in their place.

As she edged nearer, Almond stepped around the petals that curled brown at the edges from rot. Watching the other fairies stomp squarely into the decay, her stomach turned as the brown flecks splashed against their ankles.

The Nook teemed with fairies floating through the mist—returning from night duty or waking for the day shift; showering in the fallen stone waterfall; collecting rations in the new dining hall fashioned of pebbles; stringing fresh forget-me-not blossoms across the Nook’s tiny plazas to form sky-blue streamers. Still, with all its busyness, loneliness managed to drape itself across Almond’s life like a dead leaf. She was isolated in her revulsion at anything slimy, muddy, sticky—anything to do with the forest. Loving the forest was part of being a fairy. So, what kind of fairy was she?

She dumped her meager offering into the teacup and blew out a sigh, relieved that her night foraging duty was completed for a moon. Rolling her shoulders, she geared up for the short flight home to her length of ivy. She’d have the morning to sleep before her next day shift.

“Let me go!”

The voice sounded familiar. Noting the panicked tone, Almond paused in the air and scanned the clearing for its source. In the shade of a broken twig, one of the young Fairy King’s guards held someone by his wings. A chill rolled up Almond’s spine as she recognized the detained fairy—it was Sage Thornsmith, one of her squadmates from cloudberry duty. She had just seen him at the bend where Rosepurse Stream curved deeper into the forest. They had discussed venturing across the stream to check for honeysuckle blossoms but decided that it was too early in the season to take such a big risk.

“The queen says you didn’t bring back enough cloudberries,” said the guard. He struggled to keep a grip on Sage, whose biceps bulged as he wrenched at the guard’s arm. With a scowl and a firmer grip, the guard pushed Sage forward, hissing, “Off to the pebble pit with you!”

The pebble pit? thought Almond. Why would Sage be sent to the gash in the ground full of pea pebbles that ran along Rosepurse Stream? Freezing groundwater filled the spaces between the pebbles and rose nearly to its brim. Many fairies had lost all feeling in their fingers while pulling the pebbles out for royal building projects. Only fairies who offended the royal legacy ended up on that duty.

Almond’s lavender curls tightened at the base of her neck as her heart rate accelerated. Sage was a hard worker—much more so than she was, she admitted to herself with an inner eye roll. Why was he being detained? Watching the burly fairy struggle with the guard, she pulled her wings flush across her back, aphidbumps erupting across her arms. Sage, likely as exhausted from foraging as she was, sagged in the guard’s grip when his feet lost purchase in the damp clover. She hugged herself as the guard hauled him into the gloom by his wings.

I can’t stand by and watch this, she thought. Aiming her head, she zoomed after them. “Wait, please!”

The guard’s fairy sight glowed red in the dawnlight. “This doesn’t concern you, Almond Nettlesworth,” he growled. He grunted as he wrestled Sage—still struggling—into a headlock.

“Let him go,” Almond cried, hovering just out of reach. “I was on the same foraging squad and can vouch for him. The season is too early for cloudberries. We gathered all we could.”

Sage nodded, despite the guard’s forearm across his neck. “Listen to her, please!”

“Not according to the queen,” said the guard. “The squad failed to perform their duty and there are consequences.”

Almond blinked. We don’t have a queen yet. Do we? As far as she knew, King Cornsilk had yet to choose a mate. She wished he would hurry in making his selection. Ever since he replaced his father as the Fairy King, the Nook had been a beehive droning with speculation and gossip.

“I was the one who lost part of the haul,” she said to the guard. “There was a mosquito…” She twisted her hands together as she watched him force Sage to his knees.

Gripping his prisoner by the elbows behind his back, the guard yanked Sage to his feet, turning his back on Almond. “Like I said, this doesn’t concern you.”

She landed, helpless, as her squadmate lost whatever small amount of freedom he’d had. Bitterness spread in her mouth, and she spit out the thin strip of bark that she had stuffed inside her cheek without thinking—masticating like an egg-bearing fairy building her nest. Still gagging, she ran a hand down her face, ignoring the oily sensation in the pit of her stomach after the encounter with the guard.

Vibrating her wings, she rose from the ground as thick mist made the tiny glen cozy and spooky at the same time. Glimpses of other fairies starting their day peeked through the fog—a confusing contrast to what she’d just witnessed.

Why didn’t the guard take me, too? she thought.

Even though she hated night foraging, Almond was usually happiest—if you could call it that—at this time of the morning. The crisp air invigorated her, and the dawn that trickled through the treetops was a velvety robe that she slipped on to hide in the shadows. This was the time when she could watch her community without fear of being noticed.

Because scrutiny in the Nook meant one of three things: you were being evaluated for joining—being forced to nest with a mate, which Almond intended to avoid—you were in big trouble with the royal legacy, or you were about to get extra work. She considered herself to be a clever fairy, and clever fairies kept their heads down in the Nook.

The mist dissolved into droplets of dew, slicking the leaves and rocks. Almond wrinkled her nose. The spell of daybreak was broken, and she was back in the ‘puddle,’ as she secretly thought of the Nook. It was full of mud and slime—her two least favorite things—with steps of rotten mushrooms clotting the tree trunks. Earthworms occasionally reared their harmless but disgusting heads out of the soil to her dismay. Still, she lingered.

In the heart of the Nook, toadstools lined pathways that led to various plazas. Each plaza catered to fairies in different phases of life. All of Almond’s old school friends were in the nesting plaza now, bark chewing and sitting on eggs. She shuddered at the thought of such tedium. Fairy School was its own plaza, where young fairies were sent to live and learn about their place in the Nook.

Almond hadn’t graduated from the fledgling plaza—mostly consisting of a sturdy vine of ivy whose curves and sheets of leaves served as barracks for the newly adult fairies who were assigned the most dangerous duties. She had hoped when she moved to the ivy after school that it would be one giant celebration, but the wingbreaking work that they performed left them exhausted and listless. Almond’s friends had moved to the nesting plaza at the first opportunity. But as much as Almond hated living in the ivy, she couldn’t stomach the thought of joining. She’d rather be alone with her thoughts, free to imagine an ordered forest and a Nook free of grime.

Her wingtips vibrated, alerting her to a nuisance. She closed her eyes and cracked her neck. Without looking around, she asked: “Why are you awake this early, Pepper?”

“Two berries? That’s seriously all you got?” asked her younger sister from behind her.

Almond didn’t need to look over her shoulder—Pepper’s drawling voice betrayed her perpetual sneer. Tall and lean, Almond towered over Pepper, but her petite sister’s ferocious personality made her seem as overwhelming as a screaming cicada swarm.

“I wanted to see for myself if the rumors are true,” said Pepper, closing the gap between them. She swept her silky cerulean hair back and locked gazes with her older sister.

“Rumors?” Almond tensed. She had been ready to curl into her nest, but thoughts of rest scattered with the morning mist. Facing Pepper, she plastered on a smile. “Tell me all about it over here, out of the way.” She wrapped her fingers around Pepper’s lime green wrist and float-walked to a massive, deserted pinecone.

“Everyone’s talking about how you haven’t been gathering as many berries as the other squads,” said Pepper. “And it looks like they’re right.” She cut her eyes at the teacup in the tree holding her sister’s two berries. “I’m tired of hearing everyone’s complaints about how you think you’re too good for the Nook.”

“Everyone?” Almond’s brow drew down in a vee, a dry cough escaping before her throat constricted. “Other fairies are gossiping about me? Why?” She leaned back on her shoulder but bounced away when a cold patch of mildew smeared down her arm from a jutting pinecone scale. “Ugh! I hate how dirty everything always is.” She swiped at her grimy arm and scowled at the ground, embarrassed.

Pepper shook her head as if Almond had laid an egg during the Resting Moon. “It’s not dirty. The forest is a place of coexisting. It’s an enchanted sway of the wing.”

Almond gaped at her and then turned away. “I’m going to my nest.” She dragged her wings through the air and bumbled away from her sister. Pepper seems way too into Nook life as she enters her pixie moon, she thought.

“If you think the Nook is so dirty, why don’t you find somewhere else to live?” Pepper’s sharp words carried over the remaining ground fog and rang in her ears.

Almond squeezed her fists and clamped her lips together, but her retort burst undaunted into the morning, startling other fairies returning with full slings of acorn caps for the teacup. She rounded on her sister. “Maybe I will! Maybe I’ll go someplace clean and tidy, where I can have my own things the way I like them, and I won’t have to get chased by squirrels on a nocturnal suicide mission to gather cloudberries once a moon! Maybe…” Almond paused and looked Pepper up and down in an unspoken insult. “I’ll go someplace where I don’t have to listen to entitled nits like you!”

Pepper narrowed her gaze, unflinching. “Then go. You’re embarrassing.” The words dripped from her everlasting pout.

Almond took a breath to fling more careless barbs at Pepper but stopped at the disapproving stares of fairies who had paused to watch the argument. Two pips looked away from her, uneasy, as they fluttered wildly to haul half a walnut shell full of honey toward the Teacup Tree. A fairy matron swept the ground around the hawthorn with a stout dandelion, her lips pursed and wings rigid with reproach.

A fairy around Almond’s age picked apart thin strips of bark as she sat cross-legged on a daisy’s yellow pouf of florets. She cut her eyes at Almond while stuffing the bark strips into her cheek. Brown saliva dripped from the corner of her mouth as she softened them with her sharp teeth, preparing to build a nest for her imminent egg. Almond looked away, the recent memory of her own bark chewing souring her stomach.

“Well?” asked Pepper.

Almond clenched her jaw to keep silent as she examined her little sister, this time with interest. Pepper was no longer the pip Almond pictured in her mind’s eye. This was not the little gnat who used to follow her around Fairy School, trying to join her group of friends despite how they treated her. Before her stood a poised fairy, self- possessed and full of conviction. Her lime skin glistened, mature and ripe, and shiny tresses cascaded down her erect posture.

When did she become stunning? Almond wondered.

A ray of light filtered through the overhead ferns and glinted on something iridescent at Pepper’s throat. Almond stiffened. It can’t be, she thought. Understanding broke through her cluttered mind. She pointed to the tiny emerald and cobalt featherlettes wrapped around Pepper’s neck. “Is that from a peacock feather?”