Page 13 of Wings of Reverie

“I’ll help you,” she said. “I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way to stay. And then—we’ll find the tools you talked about, and find a way to stop the nightmares.”

“Good,” Weaver said, heaving out a breath. “Good. We’ll save the tree, and everything will be the way it should be.” He studied the rot on the wall one last time, brushing a little snow over it to cover it up. “I’ll find you tomorrow.”

“How?” Periwinkle asked. “When? My house is just above the Frost Forest, but—”

“Don’t worry, Sparkles. You’re easy to find.” Weaver laughed dryly. “It’s everything else in the Winter Woods that’s a mystery.”

She gave an irritated huff at this. But Weaver was already gone.

It was just the moon, and Periwinkle, and the Pixie Dust Well.

Found in the Hall of Winter:

The Legend of the Pixie Dust Tree and the Dream-Thread

Feat. notes from the Keeper. Extensively chewed by bookworms during a rotation in the warm seasons. Read by Weaver.

Long ago, when the Pixie Dust Tree was still but a sapling, children’s dreams—both good and bad—traveled over Pixie Hollow.[1]

Each night, as they crossed the skies above the Never Sea, those dreams knotted together and lit up the night like an aurora borealis. In those times, there were dream-talent fairies who gathered up the dreams like shorn fleece and brought them back to their homes.[2] All through the night, they spun dreams into thread on their spinning wheels. Come morning, they gathered up their thread and wove it through the branches of the young Pixie Dust Tree so that the children’s hopes and wishes protected and nourished the tree as it grew.

Spinning dream-thread was long, arduous work; nightmares had to be separated out in the process, for they contained a sinister power. They lay on the workroom floor like scraps of black fabric. [First few words illegible] one night, a tenacious few escaped [rest of paragraph illegible].

[Beginning of illegible paragraph] more terrible still was their magic. [First few words illegible] fell into [llegible phrase] slumber, tormented by their worst fears. [Beginning of Illegible sentence] biding their time [illegible end of sentence].

The Queen of Pixie Hollow was consumed with worry for her subjects—and for the fragile Pixie Dust Tree, only just a sapling still putting out its first leaves. [Illegible paragraph.]

One night, the dream-talents set a trap for the loose Nightmares, ensnaring them [illegible text]. Nightmares’ terrible power, the slumbering fairies awoke.[3] [Illegible sentence.]

[Illegible beginning of sentence] squabbled among one another [illegible text] feeding on all that trapped bitterness and despair, [illegible text] what they had allowed to fester.

When the Pixie Dust Tree grew to its full size, dreams no longer lit the skies. Over time, fewer and fewer dream-talents arrived in Pixie Hollow—until there was one, then none at all.[4]

Skip Notes

1 What a terrible shame that children have bad dreams. But I suppose that’s the way of it.

2 Yumpin’ Yetis! How many dream-talents existed at said time? Need to investigate further.

3 Will discuss lingering side effects with Lord Milori.

4 Ah, me. What a loss.

5

The First Day of Winter on the Mainland

Dawn was pink over the river when Periwinkle reached the bridge connecting Winter and Spring. It was the closest she’d ever been to the warm seasons—closer, even, than she’d been when she first found the dream.

Standing at the border, facing Spring, Periwinkle could hear birds singing. Their cornflower-blue and sunshine-yellow feathers looked soft against the fluffy pink blossoms on the trees and the fresh green of the grass. The far half of the river was melted ice, flowing freely beneath the bridge.

Periwinkle’s half of the river, the Winter half, was frozen and still. And behind her, beyond the cedar woods at her back, Periwinkle’s friends would be gathering soon in Snowlight Square to leave for the Mainland.

Periwinkle knew she had to make it impossible for her to go with them.

She’d woken that morning clinging to a threadbare hope that she’d somehow dreamed everything that had happened the night before. But when she’d gone to the Pixie Dust Well that morning for her daily supply of pixie dust, Periwinkle could still see clearly where the nightmare rot had been the night before, despite the snow Weaver had brushed over it before they’d left.

It hadn’t been a dream. The Pixie Dust Root really was in danger. And she’d known what she had to do.