by Jess Howe

Created on: March 05, 2009

We always said she was an unusual one, but the memory issues were the end of the leaf. How do you contradict the Fairy Queen when she insists that she got the bowl of the Great Dragon Jehoseph just yesterday? None of us could, and so the Little People had to curse her, we just had to.

Her Majesty isn't fit for the throne anyway, and she never was. She was born in the edge of the White Sea, for one thing, and everyone knows people from there are insane. It's all of those white chalky cliffs, that hang over the edge of the white beaches that are of powder from the chalk when it erodes plus some sand and dirt - they sparkle in the sunlight, and you're very much blinded if you go there, let alone just live in that region. And there are the sea horses that steal maidens every year! We all said she was batty when she decided to rise up and take over the throne with that spell that turned everyone into mermaids for a bit and would keep them that way if they didn't do her will and let her have the kingdom.

"Our Globe-land needs not have such a person ruling!" the head Advisor muttered to me in one of our castle's small,dark hallways one day. Her Majesty had been queen for ten weeks yet, and I'd had headache after headache, with more and more fairies applying for transfer spells out past the glass barrier that protected us. Most didn't care where they went, they just wanted to get anywhere but here. "She must be stopped! My stomach cannot handle much more oyster stews, nor can the seaside continue to produce the creatures at such a rate."

I sighed mightily, scratching my wing-nubs. I'd shed for wintertime and wouldn't grow new wings till midsummer when the biggest festival of the Little People happened, but the darn things were already starting to grow in. "You're the third person come to me of rank about this," I told him. "I even had a few commoners suggest she be given to the Monster in Room-land to crush in his stupidity." (He'd do it too, I knew; the children of Big People were notoriously stupid in their curiosity, and didn't know how to hold a thing they were inspecting, with care). "But I'm not sure what to do."

"As head spell-soother of the kingdom, it's your job." I knew he was right; I was working on the problem. But what he said next floored me: "Why not get one of the knights to kill a dragon? We could make something out of its scales, and trick the queen somehow. That's what my wife suggested last night." It wasn't a bad idea, actually.

"I'll think on it,"

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>