Lily Brightbloom's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

The sparrow in Lily Brightbloom's cupped hands was still breathing, but the fox that had bitten it was still somewhere in the ferns. Lily flew low through Pinehollow, one wing brushing bark, the sparrow's blood warm against her palms. She needed a place to hide it. She had no place. She had never had a place. She was a palm-tall fairy with moth-pale wings, and for three seasons she had been trying to build a grove where hurt creatures could mend. Every nest she chose failed her. A hawk found the last one. A stoat found the one before. She kept starting over with smaller and smaller patients, and losing them anyway. The sparrow's chest fluttered and stopped fluttering so evenly. Lily set down on a stump and pressed her ear to its feathers. Still alive. Barely. She could hear the fox now, working through the bracken behind her. "You're bleeding on my path," a voice said. Lily spun. An old woman stood between two birches, no taller than a child, her eyes milk-white and fixed on nothing. Twigs clung to her hood. A small gray cat pressed against her ankle. Lily knew her by rumor only — the blind witch the village children were told to avoid. Morna Rootwhisper. People said she talked to trees. People said the trees answered. "I have a sparrow," Lily said. "A fox is coming." Morna tilted her head, listening past Lily to the bracken. "Yes. Follow." She walked without hesitating, one hand out, fingertips grazing trunks she could not see. Lily flew close to her shoulder. The cat led. They went deeper than Lily had ever gone, past a stream she didn't know, until the trees closed overhead and the light turned green. Morna stopped at a huge oak. Its trunk was split by a hollow the size of a doorway, ringed with moss and smaller knot-holes above. Roots humped the ground like sleeping animals. The fox-sounds were gone. Even the wind was gone. "Outsiders walk past this tree," Morna said. "They don't see it. I don't know why. I stopped asking." Lily slipped inside the hollow. It was dry. It smelled of old honey. There were ledges in the wood, natural shelves, enough for a dozen wounded things. She laid the sparrow on moss and pressed her thumb to the bite until the bleeding slowed. When she came back out, Morna was already turning away. "It's yours to keep or lose," the witch said. "The tree hides you from eyes. It won't hide you from teeth." A branch cracked, far off but not far enough. Lily looked toward the sound. Something silver moved between the trunks — low, long, watching her. A wolf. It did not come closer. It did not leave. It sat down at the edge of the clearing and put its ears forward, as if waiting to be told what she wanted.