Addy Tinklebottom's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Addy Tinklebottom hovered above the moss bridge at dawn, her dried leaf wings ticking like paper in the wind, and admitted to no one that she had spent three days looking for a place to save and had not found it. Her periwinkle buns were coming loose. Her pockets were full of pixie dust she could not spend. She had told the Wylds she would restore a withered corner of them, and the Wylds, in return, had shown her nothing but healthy green. The truth she kept swallowing was simpler and worse. Her heart pulled toward the meadow beyond the far ridge, where she used to visit before duty rooted her here. She knew the pull. She overrode it. Roots first. Always roots first. The bridge guardian, Thornwick Rootshield, watched her circle. Blue moss crusted his shoulders. His hammer's head rested in the dirt. He did not speak for a long while. "The river shows its wound only to those who stop looking upstream," he said at last. "That's not an answer," Addy said. "No." A cackle broke from the reeds. Terry the Terror Bird stepped out, wizard hat crooked, beak clacking. He tapped a claw against the bridge stone. "Little pixie," he said. "Lost, are we. I ate a pixie once. Didn't. But I could have." He tilted his head. "There's a dead patch past the ribbon pole. Saw it yesterday. Or last century. Time's slippery when you're mostly legs." Addy did not trust him. She flew that way anyway. The ribbon pole stood in a clearing, its colors limp in the still air. Beyond it, the ground changed. Grass gave out. Bark peeled from a small tree in gray strips. Its branches, once pink and heart-shaped, hung colorless and brittle. A stone statue leaned nearby — a giant with his hand out to a small dragon, both weathered pale. The bond in the stone looked like it had gone cold with the ground. Addy landed. She pressed her palm to the dead earth. It was cold in the wrong way, not winter-cold but absence-cold. Then a voice behind her, sweet as spoiled fruit. "Oh, darling. You found my favorite little grave." Addy turned. Rhommie Gigglebottom perched on the statue's outstretched hand, white hair catching light, brown leaf wings folded neat. Addy's stomach dropped. She knew this pixie. Everyone knew this pixie, and what she did with what she learned. "You're not helping me," Addy said. "I'm watching, sweetness." Rhommie's smile widened. "I do so love watching a girl work with her hands full of somewhere else." Addy's jaw tightened. But she had her target. The withered corner was under her palm. She poured a thread of dust into the ground. A single pink bud pushed up between her fingers, small and stubborn. It was enough to prove the magic would land. It was also enough for Rhommie to have seen exactly where Addy's heart pulled when the magic left her hand.