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VIOLET WINGS by Victoria Hanley
August 2009. Printed with permission of the publisher: EGMONT, USA.
No trees grow upon the world of Tirfeyne. There are many tall bushes, and a great variety of flowers, most of which can also be found on Earth. Homes are built of stone and metal, not wood. Paper comes from the pounded stems of reeds—unless, of course, it is smuggled here from Earth.
Our world is exceedingly rich in minerals and gemstones, our mines deep and plentiful. Fairies, genies, and leprechauns dwell upon Tirfeyne. So do pixies, trolls, and gremlins—but they do not live in Feyland, for they have their own countries.
--Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
***
Back when I was nine, my parents went missing.
At first it was easy to believe that each new day would bring them back. After all, they had only gone in search of my older brother, Jett. This was hardly unusual. Jett couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble, though I was never certain exactly what sort of trouble he kept getting into. And of course, he never told me where he went, or why.
It wasn’t the first time that my teacher, Beryl Danburite, had looked after me. My parents always called on her when they were going to be gone for more than a few hours. I didn’t enjoy having my teacher take care of me at home, but no one asked my opinion. Once, she had stayed a week.
This time, she never left.
The day I learned that my parents would not return, I was sitting on a corner perch, studying the one book from Earth that my family owned. It was about trees. I liked to look at the glossy illustrations and memorize the shapes of the leaves.
Miss Danburite didn’t approve. Whenever she saw me reading it, she would say that Earth was a dangerous place and humans were baffling creatures. But she never actually ordered me to close the book.
I was looking at a picture of a blue spruce when I heard a loud knock on our door. I put the book aside and flew to answer the knock, my wings trembling.
A stranger stood on the threshold, a wiry genie with eyes like garnet beads looking out over a bulbous nose. His skin was orange with gold blotches, his hair the color of tarnished brass. On his wrist he wore a large ruby.
“Good evening,” he said in a raspy voice. “I am Councilor Wolframite. Are you Zaria Tourmaline?”
I nodded.
“May I come in?”
I thought for a moment of slamming the door. Maybe if I didn’t let him in, the news he carried couldn’t come in, either. I feared that only dire news would bring a councilor to our home.
“Zaria?” Miss Danburite called. “Who is there?”
I couldn’t make myself speak his name, though I remembered it quite clearly.
A moment later, Miss Danburite hurried in. When she saw him, her orange wings shivered like those of a frightened child. I had never seen her lose control of her wings.
“Good evening,” he said again.
“Good evening, Councilor.”
“I am here to speak with you about Zaria.” He looked down at me once, but after that he looked only at Miss Danburite. “I am sorry,” he said, “but her parents have been declared indeterminum detu.”
Young as I was, I knew the meaning of that phrase from the ancient language. Gone, never to return. A window of night seemed to open in my heart. Dark, without stars, and filled with cold.
“We believe they were caught by humans,” Councilor Wolframite continued. “The last anyone saw of them, they were taking a portal to Earth.”
“But they—” she said.
“They have been gone a month. And we must make a decision about their daughter.” He touched the ruby on his wrist. I noticed that the figure of a crown had been carved into it . “I must ask you, Miss Danburite. Are you willing to be her guardian?”
“I do not understand,” she answered.
“Zaria’s parents named you her guardian if they should die,” he said.
I looked up at Miss Danburite, and waited for her to say that there had been a mistake, that my parents were delayed, not dead. When she didn’t speak, the window in my heart opened wider and let in more of the night.
The councilor frowned. “Miss Danburite?”
“Has she no relatives?” she asked.
“Zaria has no close kin,” Councilor Wolframite answered. “Her family has been extraordinarily unlucky.”
Miss Danburite’s faded yellow eyes blazed up once and then watered over. For several moments she stood silent, her mouth twisting.
“Her parents named you,” he said. “Perhaps because you have no children?”
She raised her voice a little, the way she did sometimes in the classroom. “I am two hundred eighteen years old,” she said. “You expect me to move to Galena and raise an orphaned fairy?”
Orphaned fairy. Could that be me?
“She has no one else.”
Miss Danburite swallowed and blinked, and brought her wings under control. “Very well,” she said.
“Thank you.” Councilor Wolframite bowed to her. “I will come back tomorrow to ratify you as Zaria’s guardian.”
She didn’t bow. She didn’t tell him good-bye, and I didn’t, either.
After he left, she looked at me. “Do you understand, Zaria? I will stay here with you until you are grown.”
I wanted to speak, but I felt too cold.
“I am sorry,” she said. “Your father and mother will not be coming back. Your brother is gone, too.”
When she said those words, a wonderful thing happened. I felt as if a curtain appeared in my heart, a curtain woven out of something so heavy and strong, it could cover the window to the night.
She sighed. “I will try to be a good guardian to you. Try not to be a nuisance to me.”
The curtain thickened. The tighter it closed, the less I had to think about my lost family. And I could look at Beryl Danburite and feel almost nothing at all.
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