Wishes and Wings by Kathleen Duey Read Free Book Online Page A

them all, but some died.”
    Alida stared at her. “Because there wasn’t enough magic there?”
    â€œYes. I think being away from home weakened us,” her mother said. “I haven’t said it because I can’t be sure. But when William and Lily talk like that …” She shook her head and looked up at the sky, then back at Alida. “It doesn’t help. And I need everyone to help.”
    â€œDid old Lord Dunraven know about the magic in the ground and the water?” Alida asked.
    Her mother shrugged. “If he did, he didn’t care.”
    Alida remembered how desperate Gavin had been when he thought his grandmother might not get well without magic.
    â€œWhen we lived here, did we help humans get well?” she asked her mother.
    â€œYes,” her mother said. “But faeries also stole from humans sometimes. And no matter what Lily says, we didn’t always leave a trade gift. Sometimeswe played tricks on people and sometimes they stole from us. But mostly we were good neighbors, until Dunraven’s law made us afraid of each other.”
    Alida’s mother stopped talking, and the silence of the deep woods settled around them. They sat close together and looked at the stars before they went to bed.
    Alida made two decisions before she went to sleep.
    She was going to do something—and she was going to keep it a secret.
    Part of her reason for not telling anyone was that she wasn’t sure she
could
do it. But even after she was almost certain she would be able to, she didn’t talk about it. She was afraid her mother would think it was too dangerous.
    And maybe it was.
    But she wasn’t like anyone else in her family.
    She hadn’t grown up among faeries.
    She had spent so many years by herself in Lord Dunraven’s tower.
    None of the faeries had helped her. Not even her own family.
    They’d had very good reasons for it, she knew, and they were sorry. But that didn’t change the deep-rooted and thorn-sharp loneliness she had lived with for so long.
    And it was Gavin who had saved her from it.
    His love for his grandmother had made him brave enough to try to get faerie help.
    No matter what the law said.
    No matter how dangerous it was for him to try to free her.
    Gavin was like an older brother to her.
    Ruth and Molly had risked breaking Lord Dunraven’s law for her too.
    They would be doing everything they could to help the people of Ash Grove, she was sure. And so would she.
    Alida did her work every day, but she practiced the new magic every chance she got.
    She began flying over the village of Ash Grove while everyone was asleep. She memorized where the farms were, where the roads started and ended. Flying was much faster than walking. She could get home before sunrise if she hurried.
    Her wings got stronger and stronger.
    She flew higher and higher, too.
    She found wind currents that pushed her faster than she had ever gone before.
    Twice she circled above Ruth Oakes’s house, thinking about landing lightly, figuring out which window was Gavin’s, and waking him up to ask for advice.
    But she didn’t want him to help, just in case things went wrong.

Chapter
10
    S ummer was coming to an end.
    The barley was turning from green to the color of good butter.
    Farmers and their families were tying the ripe stalks into big bundles and stacking them high.
    They piled the hay grass and began to cut the squash and pumpkins from their vines.
    The winnowed wheat and millet were heaped up in mounds as big as the houses.
    Twice Alida hid in trees in the daytime, watching, remembering what Gavin had said about harvesttime.
    No one was singing this year.
    No one looked happy.
    The humans looked like the faeries did—scared, worried, and angry.
    One evening Terra pulled Alida aside after a wonderful dinner of lilies, raspberries, and the most tender wood’s roses she had ever tasted.
    â€œI just wanted to tell you that I am