The Night of Wings is an upcoming novel for children by Debra L Scott. A portion of it was originally published as a short story “The Fairy Dance” in the journal Widdershins in Seattle, Washington. Before that I used the title “A Fairy Tale for Initiation Day”
(excerpt from Chapter 3)
Crocusbubble skipped along beside the stream that whispered its secrets to the pebbles singing softly below the sparkling ripples. . She picked up a perfectly round, white stone, examined it carefully, then tossed it in the air to the time of the assigned riddle homework. “One and Two… make Seven and Three… until the Fourth Light touches the sea. Five and Nine… and Eight by Six… will spin a cockleshell full of tricks!” On the last word of the riddle she tossed the stone high in the air and spun around to catch it again. But the stone didn’t come back down. “Elderberry, Quit that!”
Elderberry’s voice came from the other side of the stream. “What? I didn’t do anything!”
She looked around for her stone, then looked up into the tree. A crow was perched there with her little white stone in his beak and his head cocked to look down at her. “Lookinggg fur thish?” the Crow said without dropping the stone.
“Popcorn, Give it back!”
“I don’ know why I shouldth, liddew faiwry girlsh donn asksh nishely, an donn desherve pretdy shtonesh.”
Crocus rolled her eyes. “Fine. Pleeeeease give me back my stone?”
“There are lotsh of shtonesh unner your feetd. Why d’you wan’ thish one?”
“Because Baby Stream gave it to me and it’s for my homework. It’s the perfect one.”
“Oh awrighd.” Popcorn said and dropped the stone. “Hard to talk that way anyway. Do you understand the riddle?”
“No, and neither do you I bet!”
“You would be surprised what I know.” said Popcorn while he twisted his head around to preen under his wing. “Ow.” as he pulled out a bent feather.
“Oh really? Then what does it mean, Smarty Crow?” said Elderberry, jumping over the stream to join them.
“I was going to tell you, but now I think I will just watch you fumble around with it on your own.” At that Popcorn flew up to a higher branch and pretended to not be concerned any longer with the two fey children looking up at him.
Crocusbubble punched her cousin in the arm. “Now look what you’ve done!”
“That old crow doesn’t know fairy magic, Crocus. He was just pulling your leg”
“Maybe yes, Maybe no. In any case, we won’t find out now, will we?” Crocusbubble kicked a twig into the stream in frustration, then turned back along the path.
Word Seeds 