Marina Waverly's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Marina Waverly had kissed a human, and she could not stop thinking about him. She had seen him once, through the thin place where the Glen touched the human world. He stood by a stone well, tall and laughing, and he dropped a coin and made a wish. She wanted to be his wish. She wanted to bring him home to the Glen and live beside him forever. But Marina had never once left the Glen. She did not know the way out, and no fairy had told her. She found Lysander Windwhisper at the edge of the mushroom ring, mending a boot with thread. He was the exiled scout, the only fairy in the Glen who had crossed into the human world. His left wing hung bent and useless at his back. The elders had grounded him for it. No one else would even speak his name. "You went there," Marina said. "The human world. You know the path." Lysander did not look up. "I know the path. It cost me a wing." He pulled the thread tight. "The elders say the Glen is closed. They mean it." "I have to reach him," Marina said. "There's a man. By a well." Now he looked up. His blue eyes went soft, then worried. "You'd throw yourself over the edge for a human you've seen once?" "Yes," she said. He sighed. He knew that kind of want. She saw it on his face. A small voice cut between them. "You can't go." Marina turned. Her little sister Sophie stood in the grass, pink dress, rose crown crooked, pink teddy bear hugged to her chest. Her purple eyes were wet. "The elders said the humans hurt Lysander," Sophie said. "They'll hurt you too. Please stay." Marina knelt. "I'll come back. I promise." "You always say promises and then you climb things," Sophie whispered. But she stepped aside. Lysander stood and brushed off his knees. "There's a crack in the old willow, past the water. The roots grow down into their world. It's narrow. It's steep. You climb down in the dark." He pointed between two leaning trees. "The elders bricked the other ways. They forgot that one. I didn't." Marina ran to the willow. The crack was there, black and cold, breathing air that smelled nothing like the Glen. She pressed her hand to the bark. "Marina," Lysander called. "Once you go down, the roots close behind you. You can't come back up the same way. I never could." She stopped. Behind her, Sophie began to cry. Ahead, the well, the man, the wish. Marina stepped into the crack. The roots swallowed her whole. Then, above, she heard a soft wooden groan as the way sealed shut. She was in the human world now. She had no path home. And she did not even know the name of the man she had crossed worlds to find.