For Ella and Dominique

    It had been several months since their adventure in the Kingdom of Fairy. Ella lay on her bed, arms linked behind her head, looking out of her window at the tree swaying in the breeze. Her mind went back to the day when she and Dominique had left the Kingdom of Fairy with their friends. They had all been assembled in the great hall of the Castle of Feathers and as they held hands in a circle, their wings had faded away.

‘Your wings will be restored to you each time you return to the Kingdom of Fairy,’ Mab explained. ‘Just as well!’ said Ella. ‘How would we have explained them back home?’

‘Keep your feathers safe,’ Mab instructed them. ‘Whenever you want to return to us, you must simply concentrate and blow on them.’

‘What about Dominique?’

‘She only has to hold your hand while you do it!’

Dominique suddenly came into Ella’s room disturbing her daydream, and flopped down on the end of her bed. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

Ella nodded. ‘Yes, I was wondering how everyone is in the Kingdom of Fairy.’

The children had spent some weeks in the Kingdom of Fairy after the destruction of the fortress at Gloomia. They had stayed to help the mortal children adjust to their new lives. They had listened in awe as the fairy children told them about the land they had been born in. However, as Georgina commented, ‘we have such a beautiful home here with people we already love, why would we want to return to the Land of Mortals?’ They were in no hurry to meet their true parents yet.

 ‘I don’t think I would like school,’ Tristlin remarked.

Ella agreed with him. ‘Yes – it can be a bit boring. You can learn much more here!’

‘It would only confuse everyone if we go back,’ Zariana said.

‘Yes – too messy!’ agreed Georgina. Always the practical one, Georgina adored Georgia’s mother Esmeralda, now her stepmother.

‘Besides,’ Drew commented. ‘They would never believe us anyway!’

‘Perhaps that will change in the future,’ smiled Mab.

Lying on her bed on this particular day, Ella was trying not to think too much about the Kingdom of Fairy. ‘I just don’t feel like doing my homework!’

‘Me neither!’ said Dominique. Suddenly to her surprise, Ella started to shimmer and slowly disappear in front of her.

‘You’re morphing – you’re morphing!’

‘Next minute, Ella completely disappeared and a little sparrow hopped impatiently on the window-sill. Dominique jumped off her bed.

‘OK. OK.’ She opened the window and watched enviously as her sister, who was now a little sparrow, flew to the top of the tree. Although the children had lost their wings in the Land of Mortals, they had not lost their special gifts.

‘I wish I could fly!’ Dominique sighed enviously.

‘Have you two finished your homework?’ their mother called from the living room.

‘Almost!’ Dominique answered her. ‘Ella, come down! Mum’s on the warpath!’

Ella had just morphed back into her own shape as her mother entered the bedroom. It was good to see the twins being such good friends these days. A few months ago, they would not have been doing their homework together. Olivia had no way of knowing how close she had come to losing Dominique in the River of Forgetfulness. However, it had made a profound change in Ella’s attitude. Seeing her sister as a little flower on the banks of the river had made her realize how much she really cared for her. The event had drawn the girls very close together.

‘Almost finished?’ their mother asked.

‘Almost!’

Ella and Dominique gave each other a guilty look, but their mother didn’t notice. They quickly began to finish their homework, eager to be free. Tonight was Midsummer’s Eve. Their fairy mothers would be contacting them. When the twins announced that they were tired and wanted an early night, their parents eyed them in surprise. Their girls were changing so much. Olivia looked in on them at about ten o’clock and both of them were fast asleep. In fact, they slept through until next morning when the sun began to shine through their bedroom window and wake them. ‘What happened? What did Mab say?’ Dominique was eager to know. Ella opened her eyes quickly, trying to remember.

‘I …I don’t know. Nothing!’ she said in disappointment. ‘Nothing?’

‘No. Quick let’s get dressed.’

They had arranged to meet their friends straight after breakfast. Quickly, they grabbed a piece of toast before rushing out the door, calling, ‘back soon, Mum – have to meet the others!’

At their usual meeting place, the children assembled in the now empty paddock where their friend Elvis, the horse used to live.

‘Don’t know what happened to the horse,’ Mr. Fredrickson scratched his head. ‘He must have wandered off somewhere!’

‘You don’t say,’ Tristan said. The children tried to keep a straight face.

‘If we hear anything, we’ll let you know!’ Zara said cheekily.

Mr. Fredrickson didn’t mind the children using his paddock for their meetings. It was nice and cool under the trees and no one ever disturbed them. Today Tristan had everyone in fits of laughter as he relayed his adventures at school using his gift of invisibility.

‘I just kept hiding the homework sheets and our class ended up with no homework this weekend!’ he grinned.

‘Did you know that Georgina and Tristlin have become really good horsemen in the Kingdom of Fairy?’ Andrew told them. ‘My fairy mother told me all about it.’

‘Yes, my fairy mother told me that Lorelei and Drew are learning to cook,’ Laura said.

‘What about you Ella? Have you heard from Mab?’ Zara asked. Ella shook her head. ‘No. I don’t know why, but I feel that something is wrong. It’s not like her to break a promise.’

‘You know, come to think of it,’ began Georgia. ‘I had the feeling that my mother was covering something up. She was so busy telling me about the mortal children that she didn’t really say anything about the Kingdom of Fairy. My gut feeling is never wrong!’

Then everyone began to talk and say the same thing. Their fairy mothers had been very intent about telling them about the mortal children but somehow fobbed off questions about the Kingdom of Fairy.

‘What do you think we should do?’ asked Tristan.

‘I think we should go to the Kingdom of Fairy,’ Ella said.

‘What now?’ asked Dominique.

‘Yes! Why not?’

Suddenly everyone was excited.

‘It’s not as if we will be away for a long time!’

‘The feathers, we need the feathers!’

The children dug deep into their pockets and produced their own colored feather.

‘Quickly - into a circle. Come on Dominique, hold my hand!’ Ella directed.

One by one, the children blew on their feather and one by one they disappeared. When Mr. Fredrickson came out a little while later, he scratched his head again in bewilderment.

‘I’m sure those children were here a few minutes ago!’

    For weeks Drabon and Putrida sat and cursed Mab following the destruction of the fortress of Gloomia and most of the army of Whorls. For weeks they plotted and planned their revenge. The caves at Gloomia where they had fled were now filled with an increasing number of Whorls. Drabon and Putrida had established a nursery of Hatchlings with the intent of building another army of Whorls to replace the ones that had been destroyed. When the wings of the Hatchlings grew large enough to be able to fly, they were straight away inducted into Drabon’s new army.

The ever faithful goblins, Losing-it and Lost-it were in charge of making sure the Hatchlings were fed. Very few of the A to Z goblins had survived the raid and most of the very evil ones had perished. Those that had survived were used as slaves and in their spare time, guarded the gold.

Drabon never gave Ratbonia a thought, but more than once regretted the loss of Scowla. She would have been a lot quicker to formulate a plan of revenge than Putrida. However, Putrida had eventually come up with a truly ingenious plan. He still had Scowla’s old crystal ball, which helped them keep up to date with the happenings in the Kingdom of Fairy. He noticed in anger how his Changelings had reverted to their mortal bodies and now had no recollection of their time in Gloomia.

‘They had so much potential!’ he wailed to Putrida.

‘Forget them! Who cares?’ she replied crossly.

Putrida wasn’t as clever as Scowla, but she wasn’t stupid like Ratbonia had been. You couldn’t put anything over Putrida. She was so delightfully evil! It had been Drabon’s idea to create Hatchlings in order to rebuild the army of Whorls. But it had been Putrida’s idea to capture Mab and Oberon. Night after night she had gazed into the crystal ball, observing Mab and Oberon’s movements.

‘It’s almost Midsummer’s Eve,’ she announced. ‘Mab and Oberon are on their way to the forest. They plan to contact their child in the Land of Mortals. We must leave for the Kingdom of Fairy and capture them!’

‘Capture them? Just like that?’ Drabon blinked at her in astonishment.

‘Of course. We must capture them when they are in a trance state. They will be very vulnerable and won’t even know what is happening!’

‘Of course!’ Drabon clapped his claws in excitement. It had also been Putrida’s idea to create hoods to place over the heads of the unsuspecting Mab and Oberon.

‘You have to cover their eyes,’ she explained. ‘Fairy eyes are very powerful!’

On Midsummer’s Eve as Mab and Oberon sat under the trees in an entranced state, preparing to contact their child in the Land of Mortals, they were taken completely unawares. Drabon and Putrida silently descended and placed black hoods over their heads then put a holding spell on them. Quickly they lifted their captives into the dark sky and headed for the caves of Gloomia where Mab and Oberon were placed on the great stone slabs especially prepared for them. Then Drabon worked his spells. The hood was removed from Oberon’s head and Drabon directed his chants towards his blank staring eyes. In a matter of minutes, Oberon’s body turned to black obsidian stone. Shaking in excitement, Drabon turned his attention to Mab. Quickly, he sent out the same spell towards her.

‘Look! What’s gone wrong?’ Putrida cried to Drabon in surprise.

Instead of Mab turning to black Obsidian stone, her body was turning into white crystal.

‘She’s supposed to turn into black Obsidian. What went wrong?’ asked Putrida.

‘Who cares?’ Drabon replied in annoyance. ‘Crystal – Obsidian – who cares?’ Then he instructed the goblins to guard the statues with their lives.

‘Yes, yes and there will be more gold!’ he promised them, seeing their greedy looks. It was so easy to do a gold creating spell.

In the Castle of Feathers in the Kingdom of Fairy, the search continued for Mab and Oberon. Deep down everybody suspected that the Gloomians were probably at the bottom of all this, but they still continued their search day and night.