Reverie
Periwinkle’s heart raced. And it wasn’t just her heart; it was the rest of her, too.
She, Gliss, and Spike raced through the Winter Woods, just like they had all through the autumn months. Except—this wasn’t just like before, she realized. Because Periwinkle wasn’t herself.
She was Selene. Broad, muscular, strong, dark hair choppy against her cheeks.
The fastest thing in the Winter Woods, with ice and fire in her heart.
Whether she’d been born a fairy or a mermaid or a human or a lost boy, Selene would still have been who she was, moving through the world just that much more quickly than everyone else around her.
Just then, Periwinkle was faster than a snowflake carried on a blizzard.
She was the north wind itself as she rushed through forked tree branches, through holly hedges, over white-capped peaks and glaciers.
Gliss and Spike were just out of sight, their joyful cries cutting through the sharp winter air.
She didn’t think she was hurrying for any reason; it was just wonderful to go fast. The wind was so clear, and so cold, and she felt alive.
But as quick as she was, something was keeping up with her. Periwinkle glanced over to look at it.
A streak of glittering magic zipped alongside her, needle-sharp, sparkling gold.
When she looked over her shoulder, she saw its trail running behind her alongside the trace of her glow, like it had come with her.
Like it had been with her all along, though she wasn’t sure where she was going or where she’d been.
But as that thought occurred to her, Periwinkle abruptly realized where her flight path would take her.
She also realized she was keeping a secret from her friends.
She was heading to the Pixie Dust Root. But she couldn’t remember what she was keeping back from Gliss and Spike, whose voices she could hear even then. Fear and guilt struck her without any warning, clinging to her, dragging at her wings like a weight.
Unbidden, she started to slow. All around her, the world gradually shifted toward a hazy shade of violet. But there was nothing gradual about the way Snow Globe Mountain appeared right in her path, surrounded by storm clouds, ready to shatter her.
Periwinkle tried to stop. But the downdraft hit her quicker than she could act. It buffeted her, tossed her upward, batted her down, so strong she could hardly control her wings.
But she couldn’t let the mountain take her; there was something she had to do. There was a secret she was hiding from her friends—from everyone.
With a wrench, Periwinkle forced her way out of the range of the mountain winds and kept flying. Past the Frost Forest. Past her own home.
The closer she drew to the Pixie Dust Root, the closer she got to the source of the secret she carried. A horrible creaking sound split the air.
Though she wanted to hide, the needle whistled alongside her.
A frozen pond, and an expanse of snow, and there were the root and the Pixie Dust Well.
She knew this place. She knew the Pixie Dust Tree should not be so close to it, but there it was, rocking violently in the wind, looking too withered and brittle to survive.
And Periwinkle’s friends were clinging to its branches.
“Gliss!” she shouted. “Spike! Sled!”
But her friends couldn’t hear her over the storm.
As she watched, Sled reached to comfort a snowy owl, but his wings struggled to raise him to meet it; Gliss’s wings strained upward just as uselessly.
Spike clung to a leaf, but her hands kept slipping across its surface as the tree pitched in the wind.
A moment later, a huge limb tore free from the trunk. One, and then another, and then another, all from nearly the same point on the tree. Splinters flew as a crumbling black hole appeared where the branches had ripped away, and a loud crack split the low roar of the storm.
Periwinkle’s gut free-fell as she watched the Pixie Dust Tree list to one side, roots tearing free from the dirt. Spike and Gliss barreled toward the ground, arms windmilling. Sled gave a soundless shout.
The tree crashed into the well below, scattering pixie dust like ashes on the wind. Periwinkle gave a sob and wrapped her arms around her middle, like she thought she might splinter apart, too. But as her friends fell, fell, fell, something past the tree caught her eye.
Far in the distance, something shone through the storm, brighter than the second star.
When a sparkling golden web appeared, Periwinkle knew she’d seen it before.
She blinked and it darted closer, shooting through the air like a comet. And as her friends plummeted toward the earth, the web searched them out one by one, stretching to catch each of them before they hit the ground.
What was it? Where had it come from? Had her friends been rescued, or trapped?
Periwinkle didn’t know. But the needle flying beside her never changed course. So she didn’t, either.
Periwinkle surged ahead.