Faerie Wings III: The Nightmare of Dreamland: Part Seven

      Sirena gasped dramatically. “It’s you: you’re the freaky faerie that attacked us earlier!”

      “What are you doing here?” Illere demanded.

      The faerie growled and backed away from the unconscious Air faerie, who was still lying on the floor. “Why don’t you three pesky girls leave me alone!” the cloaked faerie commanded as she summoned two large-sized orbs in her hands. Without warning, she threw the dark blue orbs towards Brillare, who had poofed up a sun shaped shield as soon as the orbs were first formed.

      Brillare watched as the orbs bounced off of her shield and evaporate into two twin streams of steam. “Now would you please tell us why you’ve attacked a second innocent faerie today?”

      Illere had run over to the victim to see if she had any injuries. “She seems to be okay,” she reported to Brillare. “Just like Melina, she seems to only be sleeping.”

      “Another sleeping faerie?” asked Sirena, who had poofed up a bubble shaped shield. “What’s up with that?”

      Before Illere could respond, she noticed a pendant hanging out of the mysterious faerie’s cloak pocket. The pendant was diamond shaped and a darker shade of purple than the owner’s cloak. What a strange pendant, thought Illere. I wonder if she uses that to create those eerie orbs she uses to put faeries to sleep.

      The cloaked faerie continued to hurl orbs at Brillare and Sirena until she grew tired and stopped, resting her arms and shoulders. She glowered at her targets and snarled “You three will surely get what you deserve the next time we meet!” before she poofed herself away from the scene of the attack.

      “What a weirdo,” muttered Sirena as she lowered her shield.

      Brillare poofed her shield away and walked over to the unconscious Air faerie, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the faerie hadn’t been injured during the quick attack. “Thank goodness she’s alright. I was afraid she would have sustained a few injuries if we weren’t able to protect her in time.”

      “But isn’t this a bit strange?” asked Illere. “Not only is she the second faerie to be attacked; the only thing that cloaked faerie used was the same sleeping spell from before!”

      “So what you’re saying is this faerie’s intention wasn’t to hurt these faeries?” asked Brillare. “She was simply putting them to sleep with her orbs?”

      Illere nodded. “I believe so.”

      “Wait, I’m confused,” Sirena confessed. “Why exactly is this creep going around and putting random faeries to sleep?”

      “I don’t know that, either,” Illere replied. “Perhaps there may be a clue in that pendant I saw hanging out of her cloak.”

      “A pendant?” asked Brillare. “What did it look like?”

      “It was purple and diamond shaped,” Illere remarked.

      “Did you see what she was doing with the pendant?” Brillare pressed.

      “No, I wasn’t able to,” Illere responded. “I only saw it dangling out of her cloak pocket. I don’t even think she used it at all.”

      Before Brillare could reply to Illere’s statement, a light purple scroll suddenly poofed itself into her hands. She watched as it unrolled to reveal a message written in light violet ink. Brillare quickly read over the message and then reported to her friends, “It’s a letter from Fyora! She wishes to see us tomorrow morning in her office, and offers her condolences for not being able to move up the meeting to today.”

      “Finally, a wish has been granted!” Sirena exclaimed with relief. “Now we can bail on Fyora for making us wait even longer to speak with her.”

      “We can’t bail on Fyora! The whole point was to find a way to speak with her directly, as soon as possible!” Illere insisted. “Yes, Fyora has been really busy lately for reasons we are unaware of, but we can’t miss this opportunity to speak with Her Majesty for any reason whatsoever.”

      Sirena waved a hand at her. “Okay, you win. We’ll go see Fyora tomorrow, and then can we get ice cream?”

      “In the meantime,” Brillare commanded, “let’s go to the Faerie Bookshop and see if we can find any copies of that book Ms. Delona told us about.”

      “Good idea,” said Illere.

      “So we won’t be getting ice cream tomorrow?” Sirena whined as she followed her friends down the hallway.

      “Welcome, faeries!” Leah said cheerfully as Brillare, Illere and Sirena entered the Faerie Bookshop. “How may I help you three today?”

      “We’re actually searching for a specific book that’s supposed to be somewhere in this shop,” Brillare explained. “Do you think you can help us out?”

      “Of course,” said Leah, stepping out from behind the front counter. She led the faeries toward the back of the shop and directed them to a bookshelf stuffed with a variety of different spell books.

      “You sure it’s somewhere…in there?” asked Illere, pointing to the shelf.

      Leah nodded. “It should be. I don’t remember ever coming across any super important spell books in there, though I do tend to forget some very important things at critical times!”

      Illere stepped forward towards the shelf, and was just an arm’s reach away from the books until she accidentally tripped over her long green dress and toppled forwards, her right arm knocking over a metal rack of magazines. “I’m so, so sorry!” Illere cried as she struggled to stand up.

      A nearby voice sneered, “Walk, much?”

      “Again, I’m so sorry!” Illere insisted, turning to face the faerie she feared had become upset. She was immediately surprised when she recognized who had just spoken to her. “Ardore, what are you doing here?” Illere demanded.

      “I’m flipping through fashion magazines,” said Ardore. “Well I was going to until you stupidly tripped over your own hideous dress.” She picked up a magazine odd the floor. “So, are you still trying to help ‘Sleeping what’s-her-face’?”

      “You mean Kira?” asked Illere. “And yes, she is still unconscious. Thank you for your concern, Ardore.”

      “Wait, Kira’s unconscious?” gasped Leah.

      “It’s not here,” Brillare confirmed to Illere, turning away from the bookshelf and hanging her head. “Not even my book-finding spell could locate it. Now where are we supposed to find the book Ms. Delona told us about earlier?”

      Leah stomped her foot impatiently. “Could somebody please tell me exactly what’s going on with Kira? Why is she unconscious?”

      “We don’t know, exactly,” Illere explained, “but sometime after our visit here yesterday, Kira fell into a deep sleep that was supposedly caused by a spell called Dreamland. Brillare, Sirena and I have been trying to find books that talk about Dreamland, and yet we haven’t been successful at all!”

      “And now it seems as if we may never find the right book after all,” sulked Brillare. “We don’t know what more we can do.”

      Ardore, who showed no remorse for what had happened to Kira, flipped through her magazine. “Go to Fyora and wail all your issues to her,” she suggested flatly.

      “She’s way too busy to have any visitors today,” remarked Illere. “We will be seeing her tomorrow if you wish to come, though.”

      “Nah,” said Ardore, flipping another page.

      Leah turned to the two crestfallen faeries and asked, “Do either of you remember what the book’s title is?”

      “It’s called The Forbidden Spells of Faerieland,” said Brillare.

      “I see,” said Leah. “The name sounds familiar.” After a moment of thinking, she raised her eyebrows in alarm. “This morning, I tried to help another faerie find the exact same book! When we couldn’t find it here, I suggest to her that she go visit the library at the Faeriewood Academy.”

      Brillare’s eyes widened. “So this means…” her voice trailed off, and her face began to pale slightly.

      “Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Illere asked Leah. “It could have been really helpful!”

      “I said I have problems remembering things at critical times,” Leah reminded her. "Besides, neither you nor your friends told me what your book was called!"

      “And yet this faerie, whoever she may be, could have been the one that attacked us at Faeriewood!” Illere exclaimed.

      “There was an attack at Faeriewood?” asked Leah.

      “Yes, it happened in the library,” Brillare piped up. “She first attacked a Light faerie and then poofed herself away. Then she attacked an Air faerie in a hallway before poofing away again.”

      After she had calmed down a bit, Illere asked, “Do you remember what the faerie you helped earlier looked like?”

      “Well, I remember she was wearing a cloak,” Leah remarked, “and she was wearing a hood that covered her face and head. The cloak and hood were a shade of purple that was really dark, I believe, and there was this black heart shaped clasp on her neck. Her eyes were a deep shade of red and her lips were the same color.”

      “Do you remember her name?” pressed Brillare.

      Leah shook her head. “She never said her name. All she wanted was the same book you and your friends are looking for, never once muttering her name.”

      “Was her hood and cloak pretty?” Sirena wondered.

      Leah shrugged her shoulders. “It was alright.”

      “Is there anything else you remember?” Illere asked hopefully.

      “There was one extra thing,” said Leah, sounding as if she was struggling to remember. “Oh yes, now I remember: Yesterday, before you guys came over with Kira, the cloaked faerie with the red eyes came over and purchased a book about…was it Light faeries? Oh who cares! All I know is that I saw this faerie write her name on this rental slip I handed her because she, for some reason, wished to borrow it before she purchased it. After I lent her the book, I swamped myself with unpacking boxes of novels shipped from Brightvale, so I don’t remember when she left.”

      “That’s it?” asked Brillare.

      Leah placed a finger to her chin. “No, there’s also this one teensy detail I remember: Before I went back to the storage room, I saw the cloaked faerie give her Light faerie book to Kira, and she accepted it. By the time I returned to the front counter, however, that cloaked faerie was no where in sight.”

      To be continued…