The Night Fairy Read online

  “How stupid you are!” Flory said. She didn’t know how rude she was; she had never been taught manners. “I’ve stung you twice already, and I’ll sting you every time you try to pounce on me. You can’t eat me! I’ll hurt you if you try.”

  The squirrel sat back on his haunches. “I’m not stupid,” he said in a muffled voice. “I’m hungry.”

  “You can be both,” Flory pointed out.

  The squirrel thought about this. He shook his head. “I can never think on an empty stomach,” he said, “and my stomach is always empty.”

  Flory thought of pointing out that this meant he was always stupid, but she didn’t. Looking closely, she could see he was rather a young squirrel. His grizzled coat hung slack, and his tail was skimpy.

  “You could still get the seeds from the seed tube,” Flory said, “only you’re going about it the wrong way. It’s a new seed tube. Didn’t you notice?”

  The squirrel nodded. “The giantess keeps putting up new tubes,” he complained, “and each one is harder to get into. I don’t under-

  stand it. She must want me to eat the seeds, or she wouldn’t hang the tube in the tree.”

  “She’s a giantess,” Flory said. “You can’t expect her to have any sense.”

  The squirrel cocked his head as if he had just had a new idea. “You’re a night fairy,” he said. “I can tell from your shadow. Why are you awake in the middle of the day?”

  “I’m a day fairy now,” Flory said.

  “You’re supposed to be a night fairy,” said the squirrel, “and your wings are all broken off.”

  Flory frowned. She didn’t like to talk about her wings. “What’s your name, squirrel?” she asked haughtily.

  The squirrel scratched. “I’m hungry,” he repeated.

  “I’m not going to call you that,” Flory said. “I think I’ll call you Skuggle. Skug is another word for squirrel, you know.”

  “Skuggle,” echoed the squirrel. He tried it out. “Hungry Skuggle.”

  “Listen to me,” Flory said briskly. “I can help you get the seeds from the new tube, but I want some seeds for myself.” A brilliant idea came into her mind. “And I want to ride on your back.”

  Skuggle stood with his paws at his sides and stretched his neck upward. It was something he did when he was trying to think. “No. I want to eat all the seeds. You can’t have any.”

  “Greedy,” Flory jeered. “You can’t have them all. But if you do what I tell you, you’ll get some. That’s better than none.”

  Skuggle’s paws twitched. He had very dainty little paws. They looked like tiny gray gloves. “I want the seeds.”

  “Then you have to let me ride on your back.”

  Skuggle shifted his weight from side to side. “You won’t weigh much,” he said, thinking the matter over, “and I’ll get the seeds. It’s good.”

  Flory took a step toward him. He was so big that looking up at him made her neck ache. “You’re very wide.”

  “If you take hold of the end of my tail, I can flick you onto my back,” said Skuggle. “Only you have to tell me about the seeds, you know.”

  “I will,” said Flory. “Let me up.”

  She caught hold of the edge of the squirrel’s tail and wrapped her arms and legs around it. The tail lashed forward. In another moment, Flory crawled up the squirrel’s neck and settled down beside his right ear.

  “Now, listen,” she said into the squirrel’s ear. “You can’t get the seeds from the top. The dome is in the way. And you can’t get in from the bottom, either. You won’t fit.”

  “What can I do?” asked Skuggle. He sounded as if he might start to cry.

  “You can knock the seeds out of the tube,” Flory said. “Go up the oak tree and grab hold of the hook — the hook, you hear — because you can hold on to that. Swing back and forth as hard as you can. The seeds will fall out of the tube, and you can eat them off the ground.”

  Skuggle’s eyes glistened with greed and hope. “I love you,” he said happily.

  Flory was no longer alone. She felt that she had made a friend, though she wasn’t quite sure what friendship was. Skuggle was not the best of friends, because he would have eaten her if he could; also, he never talked about anything but food. Flory wasn’t the best of friends, either. She knew that if she had been able to fly, she wouldn’t have bothered with Skuggle. She was using him. All the same, after she struck her bargain with Skuggle, she was less lonely.

  She had not known she was lonely before. If she hadn’t lost her wings, she would have lived with other fairies. They would have played and danced together, swapping riddles and songs and spells. Other fairies might have taught Flory manners, because fairies simply do not put up with rudeness from their friends. But Skuggle had no manners to teach Flory, and when she was rude to him, he just scratched himself. That was all right with Flory. She enjoyed bickering with him. It was more interesting than talking to herself.

  She sometimes wondered how she had managed before she met Skuggle. Perched behind his ear, she explored every inch of the garden. Skuggle took her to the thorn apple tree and gnawed off a long thorn that made her an excellent dagger. In return, Flory helped the squirrel get suet from a little box with a cage around it. The cage had such tiny holes that Skuggle couldn’t get his paws inside. Flory reached through the bars with her dagger and scraped off gobs of suet for the hungry squirrel. She soon learned that Skuggle would do anything for suet or seeds.

  Skuggle was not easy to ride. He was much too big for Flory, and his stride was so rough that she clung to his ear for dear life. Riding him was like riding a roller coaster: now fast, now slow. Flory never knew when he would tear straight up a tree trunk or leap to another tree. He often forgot where she wanted to go and bounded off after something to eat. Still, it was a great thing to be able to move about quickly. It made Flory realize how much she missed her wings.

  She began to study the other creatures of the garden, wondering if any of them might be coaxed into carrying her through the air. The butterflies were tempting, but butterflies are absentminded; when Flory tried to talk to them, they flounced their painted wings and drifted off. The dragonflies were almost as beautiful as the butterflies, and Flory thought they looked clever. But dragonflies are moody and, like bats, fond of eating moths. Flory didn’t think she could trust them.

  There remained the birds. By now, Flory knew the birds of the garden very well. She liked the chickadees and the titmice but avoided the meat eaters: the blue jays, the grackles, and the crows. She admired the scarlet crest of the cardinal and the yellow feathers of the goldfinch. Watching the birds fly brought a lump into Flory’s throat. She missed flying dreadfully.

  Flory saw her perfect mount one morning in June. She heard a whirring noise and saw a shimmer in the air — a dark patch only a little larger than a bee. Then the creature caught the light. He was a hummingbird. His feathers were emerald green and glittered like mica. His throat was reddish purple, fiery hot one second, cool violet the next. He hovered beside an orange lily. His wings whirred so fast that Flory couldn’t see them.

  “Oh,” whispered Flory. She was filled with such wonder that she could not speak. Her skin was prickly with gooseflesh. It wasn’t until he darted away that she remembered to breathe. Then she leaped to her feet and raced to the very tip of the cherry branch. Oh, he was gone! But he would come back, and when he did, she would talk to him. She would tell him how much she wanted him — needed him. He was the most beautiful, most magical creature she had ever seen. And he was just the right size for her: large enough to carry her easily, but small enough so that she could wrap her legs around his neck.

  She was sure she could tame him. The thought made her want to leap in the air and shout with joy. She would tame him and make him her own. Someday — Flory was sure of it — she would straddle his ruby-red throat and soar above the flowers. He would be hers, her very own, and he would take her wherever she liked.

  Three days after Flory saw t
he hummingbird, the giantess hung another tube from the oak tree.

  Flory squinted. It was almost sunset and she was looking west, but she could see that the new tube was filled with liquid, not seeds. The bottom of the tube had red metal daisies on it. Flory thought this queer: daisies are white, not red, and no flower is made of metal. She cupped her hands around her mouth.

  “Skug! Skug! Skuggle!”

  The boughs of the thorn apple trembled. Down the tree came Skuggle, lashing his tail with excitement. He spurted over the grass, surged up the cherry tree, and arrived at Flory’s side in a rush that made her feather tip shake.

  “Is there something to eat?”

  Flory pointed to the tube. “I don’t know. The giantess put that out, but I don’t know what’s in it.”

  Skuggle scratched behind his ear. “Oh, that. She put that out last year. It’s mostly water.” He looked down at his claw, saw that there was a flea clinging to the tip, and poked the flea into his mouth. “I got on it last year. It’s a little slippery, but I can catch hold. The only thing is, it’s not worth the trouble. It’s just water and some sweet.”

  “I can’t think why she puts out those things.”

  “That’s easy.” Skuggle scratched his other ear. “She wants to eat us. She puts food out so we’ll come for it. Then she can kill us.”

  “Yes, but she never does kill us.”

  Skuggle bobbed his head, agreeing. “That’s because we’re too quick for her. But if we didn’t run away, she would eat us.”

  “She must be a great fool.”

  “Oh, yes,” agreed Skuggle. “Only Chickadee says —” He snatched a ripe cherry off the tree and crammed it into his mouth.

  “What does the chickadee say?” asked Flory. She had noticed that the chickadee was one of the boldest birds in the yard. He sometimes ate from the seed tube when the giantess was sitting on the patio.

  “Chickadee says she doesn’t hate us. Chickadee says the giantess puts out seed because she likes us. But Chickadee is wrong, because the giantess eats birds. Big birds. I’ve seen the bones in the garbage.”

  Flory wrinkled her nose. Before she had lived near giants, she hadn’t known about garbage. The giantess kept a big green can of it in the yard. Raccoons sometimes broke in at night and strewed the garbage over the lawn. Skuggle knew better than to fight the raccoons for something to eat — they were much bigger and stronger than he was — but he feasted on garbage the following mornings, when the raccoons slept. He always smelled awful after eating garbage. Flory tried to shame him by pinching her nostrils shut and looking prim, but Skuggle didn’t care. It was almost impossible to make Skuggle feel bad when his stomach was full.

  “You should keep away from that garbage,” Flory warned him. “Last time you ate yourself sick.”

  “Oh, dear, yes,” sighed Skuggle, “how good that was!” He glanced back at the water tube. “Why do you want to know about that tube? That’s not for us. It’s for hummingbirds. They like to suck on the fake flowers.”

  “Do they?” asked Flory. “In that case, I want to go there — to the oak tree.”

  “I thought you didn’t like that tree late in the day. There’s bats in that tree,” Skuggle reminded her. “You’re frightened of bats.”

  Flory knew it. A colony of bats nestled in the hollow at the top of the tree. Often she heard them squeaking in the garden after dark. She stuffed her ears with cobwebs in order to block out the sound, but she had bad dreams all the same. “The bats won’t be out till dusk,” she said. “Anyway, I’m not frightened of them. I just happen to hate them. It’s not the same thing.”

  Skuggle looked sly. “You hate them because you’re afraid of them,” he said. He lowered his voice and sang a little song. “Fraidy-cat,” he sang softly. “Fraidy-cat! Flory-dory fraidy-cat!”

  “If you don’t stop that, I’ll sting you,” Flory said coldly.

  Skuggle shut his mouth and looked meek.

  “Turn around so I can climb on your tail. I want to go to the oak tree.”

  “Why?” demanded Skuggle.

  “So that I can talk to the hummingbirds. Take me there now, and I’ll spear some suet for you later.”

  “Why don’t you give it to me now?”

  “Because I won’t. I’ll feed you later, but not now.”

  Skuggle turned his tail in her direction. “I don’t see what you want with hummingbirds. They’re nasty birds,” he warned her. “I went to rob a nest once, and the mother nearly pecked my eye out. And the eggs were tiny,” he added petulantly. “Not much bigger than peas. Hardly worth eating.”

  Flory paid no attention. She climbed onto the squirrel’s tail and waited for him to flick her onto his ear. In another moment, Skuggle leaped from the cherry tree to the oak tree. He stopped by the tube with the metal flowers. Flory slid off. “You can go now,” she said, and Skuggle dashed off again.

  Flory waited for a long time. As she waited, she imagined the hummingbird again: the magic of his feathers in the light, the rapid double circles he made with his wings. She tried to imagine what it must be like to fly with wings like that. She lifted her arms, muscles tight, and fluttered the edges of her fingers. She imagined wings quivering, drumming on the air.

  All at once the drumming sound was real. The hummingbird hovered beside the water tube. He was so close that Flory could feel the wind of his flight. His feathers rippled like green water; his wings were shadow and speed. “Hummingbird!” cried Flory. “I want you!”

  The hummingbird dug his beak into the metal flower. After sucking at the water tube, he darted backward and rose straight into the air. He did not pay one bit of attention to Flory.

  “Hummingbird, come back!” shouted Flory.

  But he did not come back until he was thirsty again. Flory began to visit the feeder every day, waiting for him to appear. She soon found out that there were four hummingbirds that used the feeder: three males and a female. They drank the sugar water fiercely, as if they had a raging thirst. They were fierce, too, in the way they fought over the feeder, stabbing with their sharp beaks like swordsmen. Flory liked their fierceness. She would not have liked them half as much if they had been tame. She liked the males best, because of the ruby-colored patch on their throats, but she would have happily taken a female bird for her mount. Male or female, the hummingbirds had one thing in common: they ignored Flory as if she were invisible. Again and again she called out to them. Not one of them bothered to look her way.

  “Nasty things,” Flory said, echoing Skuggle. But she didn’t mean it. She still wanted a hummingbird of her own — wanted one dreadfully — and when she dreamed at night, it was of sitting astride that jewel-green back, floating over a wilderness of flowers.

  Midsummer came, a season of blinding-hot days and evening thunderstorms. Flory disliked the heat of the sun, but she enjoyed the storms, especially when they came at night. She liked to think of the bats getting wet.

  Flory was growing up. She was as tall as two acorns now, and her curls brushed her shoulders. She could climb as nimbly as an insect, and leap from twig to twig as recklessly as Skuggle himself. Her little house was full of things she had made: a lily-leaf hammock, a quilt of woven grass, and a score of airy gowns crafted from poppies and rose petals. She had food saved for the winter: a mound of sunflower seeds and three snapdragon flowers stuffed with pollen.

  She spent a week harvesting cherries, hacking them apart with her dagger, cutting out the pits, and drying them with a magic spell. Every day she learned new spells. They came into her head like songs.

  She was half-asleep beside the hummingbird feeder one afternoon when she heard a blue jay squawking. At first she ignored him, because she knew how much blue jays enjoy making noise. They like to take a scrap of song or a piece of news and repeat it over and over, just for the thrill of screaming. But though they shriek for the fun of it, they often tell the truth about what is going on. And this blue jay was shrieking “hummingbird” and “spiderweb” a
nd “trapped!”

  Flory sat bolt upright. She peered around the garden without seeing either the hummingbird or the spiderweb. She opened her mouth to shout for Skuggle, and then shut it. Skuggle had been known to eat baby birds. If the hummingbird was caught in a spiderweb, Skuggle might eat him.

  An idea took shape in her mind. She shut her eyes and pressed the palms of her hands against her eyelids. She half hissed, half prayed, “Let me see the hummingbird!”

  It was a new magic, one she had never tried. At first she saw only the reddish glow of her inner eyelids. Then she saw the spiderweb. It belonged to the black-and-yellow spider that patrolled the juniper bush by the side gate. The sticky threads had snared the hummingbird’s wings. The more the bird struggled, the more it was held fast.

  “I’ll come,” Flory said breathlessly. “Don’t be afraid, hummingbird! I’ll save you!”

  She looked down, saw a twig below her, and leaped for it. Once she caught hold, she looked below for another. It was a haphazard, dangerous way to get to the ground, but she had no time to waste. She flung herself from twig to twig until she reached the bottom branch. Then she shinnied down the trunk.

  Blades of grass rustled like cornstalks over her head. Flory wished she had thought to bring her dagger so that she could cut her way through the tangles. The idea crossed her mind that she had no idea how she was going to save the bird. Still, she had her magic, and her mind was made up. It would have to be enough.

  She thrashed through the grass, breaking into a run when she came to the open space of the patio. By the time she reached the side gate, she was out of breath. She saw the spiderweb above her — a great silver network covering most of the juniper bush. The trapped bird was less than a foot from the ground.

  “I’m coming!” shouted Flory. “Don’t be frightened! I’m coming to save you, hummingbird!”

  Once the words were out, she clapped her hand over her mouth. Web-building spiders do not stray far from their webs: the spider must be close at hand. But by a stroke of good luck, the spider was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was busy with other prey. All the same, she might return at any moment.