Fern Capella's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Fern Capella crouched in the flattened ruin of her mushroom patch and counted the broken caps. Nineteen. The boot print in the moss was longer than her whole arm. She knew whose boot. The fae prince had ridden through at dawn with his hunting party, and she had watched from behind a fern frond, too shy to call out, too small to be seen even if she had. She pressed her palm to the crushed soil and pushed a little magic down. A green shoot uncurled between her fingers. Her ribs ached at once. She pulled the magic back. The forest still needed her whole strength. The poisoned soil at the eastern edge was pulling color out of the trees, and she did not yet know why. She could not spend herself on mushrooms. But she could not stop thinking about him either. He had laughed as he rode. A bright, careless laugh. She wanted him to laugh like that near her on purpose. The prince held court at the lavender stone castle every seventh day. Petitioners lined the rose gates from dawn. Fern had gone once. She had stood at knee height in a crowd of tall folk and watched him pass three paces away without turning his head. Her wings were transparent. Her voice did not carry. She was the size of a child's doll and quieter. Today was the seventh day again. She was folding her satchel when a shadow fell over the patch. A mushroom cap wider than her shoulders. Under it, a boy her own height, green-eyed, barefoot in leaf-scraps. Spore Willowveil. He lived where the ground told him to live. Sometimes that was near her clearing. She had shared soup with him twice. He looked at the boot print. Then at her face. "You're going back," he said. "He didn't see me." "Nobody sees anybody in a crowd." Spore tilted his head. His wing-caps shifted on their own. "There's a playset behind the castle. Painted wood. Deer and foxes carved on it. Children climb it during court day. The slides are taller than the gate guards." Fern stared at him. "You want me to stand on a slide." "I want you higher than everyone's heads. That's all." He paused. "I don't usually tell people what I notice. I'm telling you." She thought about the crowd. The forest of knees. The prince's laugh going past her again. "Show me," she said. They went through the trees together. The lavender castle rose above the rose hedges, turrets pale against the sky. Behind it, tucked in a meadow, stood the painted playset: pastel slides, a swing shaped like a fox, mushroom stools around the base. Court-day children already swarmed it. Fern climbed. Her wings caught nothing; she used her hands. At the top of the tallest slide, she stood level with the castle's second-floor windows. She could see the whole courtyard. She could see the prince. This time, when he rode out, he would ride under her.