Oakwing Page 3

  Rowan was getting quite upset now.

  “He wouldn’t do that to me.”

  “No?” said Harold. “Half an hour ago you thought nobody loved you, and now you think he’ll welcome you back with open arms like nothing’s changed?”

  Rowan’s lip began to tremble.

  “That’s a bit rough on her, old beak face,” said Aiken. “Just ’cause she doesn’t want to stay doesn’t mean—”

  “Then I’ll have to get back to being me first,” Rowan interrupted.

  “Number three,” said Harold. “Becoming a fairy is a one-way ticket.”

  Rowan summoned up a little more courage.

  “Then I’ll have to be the first one to get a return.”

  “That way only ends in disappointment,” replied Harold, hopping off ahead.

  Aiken shouted after him, “What about the Heart of Oak?”

  Harold’s shoulders slumped. “Much better just to get used to things as they are. Save yourself a lot of heartache,” he said without looking round.

  “Hang on,” said Rowan. “What’s the Heart of Oak?”

  Aiken took a deep breath, clearly glad to finally be of some use. “It is said that ‘When the fairy of most power unlocks the Heart of Oak, they shall become human again.’ ”

  “But why didn’t you tell me that before?” asked Rowan, instantly encouraged. “Where is it and how do we unlock it?”

  “Ah,” said Aiken. “That’s sort of the tricky part. No one actually knows what the Heart of Oak is. Much less how to use it.”

  “It’s just a silly saying,” added Harold, turning to Aiken. “And you’d do well not to get her hopes up.”

  “But what if it were true? What if it exists?” said Rowan.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” muttered Harold.

  “Is there anyone who could help us find it?” asked Rowan.

  “Us?” said Harold.

  “Okay, me. Is there anyone who could help me find it?”

  “The GodMother!” blurted out Aiken.

  “The GodMother has no more idea what the Heart of Oak is than you do,” said Harold.

  “Please, Harold,” begged Rowan. “I know you think this is all a huge waste of your time, and I’m sorry I’m not happier about being a fairy. But if there was even the faintest chance I could get back home, I would take it.”

  Harold looked long and hard at Rowan. Then his gaze softened. Something had clearly shifted in him.

  “The GodMother has always cared for the restless souls of the Realms,” he said. “Maybe she can help talk some sense into you. . . .”

  “Yes!” shouted Aiken. Rowan allowed herself her first smile in a while.

  • • •

  “Can you fly?” asked Harold. “We wouldn’t last five minutes trying to get to the GodMother on foot. But in the sky we’d have a chance.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Rowan that these wings sprouting from her back might actually work.

  “Like this!” shouted Aiken as he spiraled and spun above them, showing off.

  Harold shot Aiken a stern look, and the boy fairy went off to sulk on a branch. Rowan glanced over her shoulder at the wings behind her, unsure what she was supposed to do to make them work. She shifted her shoulder blades back and sort of rolled them around, and began to feel the muscles that moved the wings. All of a sudden something seemed to click into gear, and her wings buzzed, making the same awful sound that her mother’s violin had made when she’d tried to play it that morning. Aiken and Harold winced.

  “Sorry,” said Rowan, though she wasn’t quite sure why she was apologizing.

  She tried again. Although the wings still made a horrible grating sound, she began to lift slowly into the air. A smile spread across her face, but then all of a sudden she jerked sideways and slammed into the ground.

  Harold hopped over to see if she was all right. “Wings can be pretty tricky to control when they’re new.” Rowan picked herself up gingerly. “Maybe we should leave that for another day. You can ride on my back until you get used to them.” Harold leaned over and stretched out a wing for Rowan to climb up.

  Rowan couldn’t quite believe what she was doing—she’d never even sat on a bike before, never mind a bird in the park—but she put one foot on Harold’s wing and swung the other over his body. He was downy soft to sit on, but still very delicate-feeling and a bit twitchy. She could feel his heart beating beneath her.

  “So,” said Rowan, “how do we get to this GodMother person?”

  “She lives with the Fairies of the Birds in the Park of St. James,” said Harold. “But she’s not a person. In fact, I don’t know what she’ll be.”

  “That’s super-helpful,” said Aiken.

  “That’s as much as I can tell you for now. Climb on,” replied Harold.

  “Hang on,” said Aiken. “You want me to come too?”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Rowan.

  “I’ve never been outside of Hyde Park before,” Aiken said quietly.

  “We’ll need all the help we can get, given how incredibly dangerous this is going to be,” said Harold. He seemed to enjoy making Aiken feel uncomfortable. “Maybe you’d prefer to stay here? Do a few loop-the-loops? Sharpen a few twigs?” He pointed a wing tip at the array of sharp twigs tucked into the belt around Aiken’s waist.

  Aiken stuck out his chest. Rowan sensed that he didn’t want to look bad in front of her.

  “No, no. I’ve more than enough twigs to last me awhile. I’d be very happy to. You know. Come with you.”

  “And I can’t promise you’d ever come back.”

  Aiken looked even less sure. “Of course. Goes with the territory.”

  Aiken climbed on behind Rowan and she gave him a little kiss on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Aiken’s rusty-colored cheeks went a slightly redder shade of brown.

  “So, what should I hold on toooooo . . . !” she shouted as Harold sprang off. Rowan flung her arms around his neck to stop herself from falling off. Before she knew it, the three of them were arcing up in the air.

  They whisked through the trees of the park, and Rowan looked around in wonder. This wasn’t like being in a plane. This was a different kind of flying altogether—darting from bush to bush, over branches and under leaves. It was more like one of the rides at the fun fair that whirl round really fast and go up and down. Those rides made her feel a bit sick when she went on them, but there was something about being on Harold’s back, her body pressed against the warmth of his feathers, that made her feel much calmer.

  “Why don’t you know what the GodMother will be, Harold?” Rowan shouted into his ear.

  “Maybe it’s time I told you a bit more about the Fairy Realms,” replied Harold over his shoulder.

  “I get the feeling there’s a history lesson coming,” groaned Aiken.

  They sped through the darkness and lifted up over the street lit illumination of Park Lane, the traffic noise fading beneath them. As they flew, Harold began his story.

  “Long ago,” he said, “before cities, and cars, and electric lights, fairies were everywhere. They lived happily in trees and hedgerows, by rivers and streams, alongside animals and even a few people. However, just over two hundred years ago, life began to get very difficult for them.”

  Harold banked right round a lamppost. Rowan gripped on tighter, straining to hear above the wind.

  “People started building smoke-spewing factories that choked fairy lungs, and constructed cities that destroyed many of the places where they lived. And in the cities lived cats and foxes that would prowl the streets and hunt down any fairies they could find. The fairies that were left in London sought refuge in the only green spaces that remained, but the danger was never far away. Mind your heads, please.”

  “What? Whoa!” Rowan and Aiken ducked as they flew beneath a huge stone archway that stood on a giant traffic island in the middle of the road.

  Rowan turned and saw Aiken look
ing nervous. His eyes widened as they reflected the bright headlights of the cars that sped beneath them. Harold continued, unruffled.

  “That is, until one great fairy saved them all from certain destruction. She was the fairy we now call the GodMother. And not only was she a fairy, but she had the rare power of transformation. At that time she had taken the form of a green parrot belonging to the Duchess of Kent.”

  “She what?” said Rowan.

  “You mustn’t keep interrupting. There’s a lot to explain, and not a great deal of time to do it in,” replied Harold. Aiken tapped Rowan on the shoulder and rolled his eyes, and Rowan had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing.

  “As I was saying. She became very friendly with the lonely young daughter of the duchess, who lived in Kensington Palace and whose name was . . . Princess Alexandrina Victoria.”

  “Who?”

  “What do they teach you at your school? Princess Alexandrina Victoria—who grew up to be Queen Victoria.”

  Rowan still felt none the wiser. “We’ve only got as far as the Egyptians.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Harold. “What’s important is, the princess and the parrot became so friendly that the GodMother revealed her true identity to Victoria. Not only that, but she explained the fairies’ terrible plight. So when Victoria became queen, she swore to protect all fairies in London by fencing off great swathes of land from the dangers of the city. She created her Royal Parks around the gateways that bring fairies into our world.”

  “What gateways?” asked Rowan.

  “The ancient weeping beeches,” replied Harold. “The clue’s in the name. Those who feel unloved when they weep beneath a beech at the magic hour wake up as a fairy. I thought we’d covered that?”

  “You should really pay more attention,” said Aiken with a wink.

  “Sorry,” said Rowan. “It’s quite hard to take it all in. Please do carry on.”

  “Over time fairy tribes formed around the flora and fauna that lived and grew in the parks. The Fairies of the Beast in Regent’s Park, the Tree Fairies in Hyde Park, the Fairies of the Deer in Richmond Park, the Fairies of the River in Bushy Park, and so on. By day, beautiful spaces for her people, but closed to the public at dusk so the fairies could come out in peace at night. Humans call them the Royal Parks. We call them the Fairie Realms.”

  “What happened to the GodMother?”

  “When Victoria moved house from Kensington Palace to Buckingham Palace, she created a special sanctuary for the GodMother and all the Fairies of the Birds in St. James’s Park, right outside her front door. Which is where the GodMother lives to this day.”

  “You’ve left out a rather important set of fairies,” said Aiken.

  “I don’t think we need to go into that now,” said Harold.

  “The ones he doesn’t want to tell you about,” said Aiken, leaning forward to whisper loudly into Rowan’s ear, “are the ones that nearly ate you. The Fairies of the Fox in Greenwich Park.”

  Harold cut him off. “Not now, Aiken.”

  Rowan felt like she was in the world’s most intense history lesson. “So, Harold, what about you? Are you a fairy, or a bird, or a fairy that looks like a bird? I might be getting a little lost.”

  “I’m just a bird, Rowan. Blessed with the power of speech by the GodMother when I was but a chick.”

  “Right,” said Rowan. “This place just gets stranger.”

  “Oh, that’s the best thing about it,” said Aiken. Though, as she turned to look at him, she saw the smile fall from his face. She glanced over to where he was looking. A dark shape loomed out of the darkness. It was a flock of large crows swooping toward them.

  “Er, friends of yours, Harold?” she asked.

  The robin glanced back over his wing. “Not friends of anyone, I’m afraid. Hang on!”

  He banked sharply left and then right between the trees lining the road, but the crows were not going to be put off that easily. Rowan gripped on to Harold’s neck to stop herself being swung off. Harold was flying as fast as he could, but the crows were gaining on them. The great black birds made rasping, cawing sounds as they swooped in from either side. Rowan saw the glint of a crow’s eye as the bird snapped its beak just centimeters from Aiken’s back. He quickly shuffled up as close as he could get to Rowan and held on tight.

  “Do something, Harold!” Aiken shouted.

  A car was racing down the road toward them. Harold dived straight at it.

  “Not that!” Aiken yelled even more loudly.

  At the last moment Harold pulled out of the dive and swooped across the roof of the car, but the larger crows were chasing too fast to react—their bodies smashed into the windshield, and they spun, dazed, to the roadside.

  Rowan gave Harold a reassuring pat on the neck as they glided past Buckingham Palace, over a red-jacketed Queen’s Guard standing watch, and banked right into St. James’s Park.

  “Didn’t doubt you for a second, old friend—” Aiken was saying, when out of nowhere something crashed into them with such force that it threw Rowan and Aiken from Harold’s back and sent them sprawling to the ground. Their wings caught on branches as they plummeted through a tree, spinning them into somersaults before they hit the ground with two thuds. Dazed, Rowan lifted her head to see Harold slam into the trunk of a tree before rolling to the ground in a whirl of feathers. They all slowly came to and looked around to see what had hit them. An enormous coal-black head swung out of the darkness, snapping and hissing on the end of a huge snakelike neck that weaved left and right. Rowan and Aiken scrambled for cover behind a sapling.

  “Dragon!” shouted Aiken, cowering behind Rowan.

  Rowan peeked out around the trunk. She saw black feathers and the arc of huge, graceful wings.

  “It’s just a swan, Aiken,” said Rowan, breathing hard. “A black swan.”

  “Oh, that’s fine, then,” Aiken hissed back. “Just a giant, angry, bad-tempered swan. It’ll be no trouble at all.”

  The swan had turned its attention to Harold and was closing in fast. The robin tried to move, but his wing was jutting out at a strange angle, and he was flapping helplessly on the ground. The swan lowered its head to strike.

  “Aiken, do something!” shouted Rowan.

  “Me do something?” said Aiken. “What kind of something?”

  “Your sticks!”

  Aiken pulled the sticks out of his belt and hurled them toward the swan. They bounced harmlessly off its feathers, but the swan clearly didn’t like things being thrown at it. It raised itself up to its full height and flapped its wings, swinging its head toward Aiken with a malevolent squawk. “No. Sticks. Left,” hissed Aiken, pulling up a leaf to shield himself.

  Rowan let out a frustrated cry. It was up to her, then. She tried not to think about how scared she was and clawed up two handfuls of broken leaves and dirt. She threw them into the air to distract their attacker, running toward the swan and screaming as loudly as she could.

  The swan looked puzzled at this tiny girl fairy thing jumping up and down in front of it. Then it rushed at her, hissing, about to strike, when . . . “Stand down, Cygnus,” came a voice from somewhere.

  The swan stopped dead in its tracks, twisting its long neck to look behind it. Out of the shadows came a fairy. This one was slender, graceful, and wearing a fitted robe of tiny pure-white feathers that made her look like a miniature white version of the bird that had attacked them. She didn’t seem too impressed by the dirty girl fairy covered in bits of leaf. She looked Rowan up and down as if she were ever so slightly disgusted by her.

  “What are you doing crashing into my swan, Oakwings?” the fairy asked as she stroked the swan to calm it down.

  The silence stretched between them, until Harold climbed stiffly to his feet. “Good to see you again, Olor.”

  * Chapter Five *

  THE REALM OF THE FAIRIES OF THE BIRDS

  Aiken threw his protective leaf to the ground. “We have come,” he proclaime
d grandly, “to see the GodMother.”

  Olor ignored him. She turned to Harold instead. “How do you know my name, robin?”

  “You’re too young to remember. Please take us to the GodMother. We need to speak with her urgently.”

  Olor narrowed her eyes, and Cygnus the swan loomed behind her.

  “How do I know you’re not Vulpes in disguise?”

  “Who’s Vulpes?” asked Rowan.

  “Nice try,” replied Olor. “But that’s exactly what Vulpes would say.”

  “Let us take the test,” said Harold.

  “The test?” asked Rowan and Aiken in unison.

  Olor stared at Harold. He didn’t blink.

  “Follow me, then, Oakwings.” She whirled around and strode back into the gloom, with Cygnus loping behind. She didn’t wait to see if they were following. Aiken chased after her.

  “Why does she keep calling us that?” said Rowan, her gaze following Olor and Aiken into the darkness.

  “The different fairy tribes all have nicknames for one another.”

  “Is that why Aiken calls you ‘beak face’?”

  “No, that’s more because he’s rude.”

  “Oh,” said Rowan. “Can you walk with that damaged wing?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  Eventually they caught up with Olor. She led them to a large lake in the middle of the park, teeming with waterfowl.

  “Tell me which bird is the GodMother, and you can speak with her,” proclaimed Olor. “You have one guess. If you fail, Cygnus will . . . take care of you.”

  The swan hissed with menace. Harold stepped forward.

  “Not you, robin.” Olor pushed him back. “She chooses.”

  “I really don’t think I can,” replied Rowan nervously.

  Aiken pushed forward and spoke to Olor in a loud whisper. “Listen, the girl here hasn’t got the first clue. She’s literally only been a fairy for about five minutes. We’re just trying to do a good deed here, get the girl where she wants to be, and then we can all go home. So let me pick out your GodMother, and we can have a quick chat and wrap this thing up.”