Kerka's Book (20 page)

I closed my eyes and pictured the places I had already seen in Aventurine. Then, dipping the peacock-feather quill back into the silvery ink, I drew a map of the meadow and the willow trees and the babbling stream and the forest and the fairy glade at the bottom of the page. The ink dried instantly, and I was pleased with my work. A moment later, I shook my head in amazement as ornaments surfaced in the margins, coloring in my little map until it looked like a page in one of those illuminated books from the Middle Ages that were painted by hand.

A breeze blew in and ruffled the pages of the book again. It opened to a dream written in Abuelita's handwriting. The magic of
The Book of Dreams
made the words easy for me to read. Abuelita's entry was about wanting to help people, especially innocents, by giving them food and care, and sharing with them the magic of the cacao. I wondered what she meant by
that. At the very bottom of the page she had written a recipe. Before I could read it, the wind blew the pages again. There was my mother's handwriting—something about giving children the chance to go to school, and making sure that people had pets to show them love. The pages fluttered, and
The Book of Dreams
closed with a solid thump.

But the little I had been able to see had taught me more than ever how important dreams are.

My desire to map Aventurine was now permanently entered into
The Book of Dreams
. It was there for fairies, and fairy-godmothers-in-training, to read for hundreds or thousands of years to come—almost like being a published author! I was still in a bit of a daze thinking about it, when a new question occurred to me.

“You said that I'm of the Inocentes Lineage of fairy godmothers—women who help innocents. That's not what I wrote about in
The Book of Dreams
, though. What does making maps have to do with helping innocents?” I asked.

Queen Patchouli led me out of the glade and down a path that looked like it was made of crystal shards, though they felt soft against my bare feet.

The fairy queen seemed to consider my question seriously before answering. “Well, you will be
helping fairy-godmothers-in-training who come after you to find their way when they go on their quests. It is a special gift that you have. No one has mapped Aventurine before. But mapping is certainly not the only ability you will develop on your quest. Simply by going, you will learn many skills you need for helping innocents.”

“Maybe I should know this already, but what exactly
is
an innocent? How can I tell if someone is innocent? Does it have anything to do with doing good things and bad things? Is there some sort of test for who is innocent and who's not?”

Queen Patchouli tilted her head thoughtfully. The tiny bells on her earrings tinkled. “The fairy godmothers of the Inocentes Lineage are not asked to judge who is good and who is evil, so much as they are expected to help those who are in need—especially those who are not capable of helping themselves. Most often, innocents are young children or animals, but some innocents may be old—those who have lost their memories, for example. In your travels you will learn to recognize innocents, and you will be drawn to those who most need your help.”

¡Ay, mira!
That seemed like a lot to expect of me. I mean, I was just barely thirteen, and I thought working in our bakery was too much responsibility
sometimes. Would I have to become some sort of super Girl Scout or a saint—Mother Teresa, maybe? I couldn't possibly help everyone I met who needed help; I'd never be able to sleep or eat or go to school. Then my mind went to something else the fairy queen had said:
In your travels
.

This couldn't be true. I had always wanted to travel, and now I was going to do it in Aventurine? I pinched myself. It felt real enough to hurt. This was going to be so cool! I felt my worries lessen as my excitement grew.

“We're here. You'd better get ready for your quest now,” the fairy queen said, glancing down at my bare feet. She made a swirling motion with one hand, and in front of me a circle of bright green grass sprang up from the ground, like water spraying from a fountain. But instead of falling back down as water would, the ring of grass—almost ten feet high—stayed in place, swaying gently in the faint breeze. From the edge of the grass circle all the way to my feet, a pathway of springy soft moss, dotted with white flowers, grew in just a few seconds.

“Be sure to take that with you,” Queen Patchouli said, waving her hand gracefully at my woven Guatemalan bag, which was on the ground beside me. “Everything you need will be in there.”

Picking up my bag, I felt for the cacao pod inside. It was still there. Then I walked down the path and used both hands to separate the stalks of grass at the edge of the circle so I could look inside. The circle was hollow. It formed a tiny roofless room, like a changing room in a store—only alive. I stepped in, admiring the pink, yellow, and lavender wildflowers that carpeted the ground. I saw nothing else in the room. That was strange. Was I supposed to know how this magic worked?

I slipped the woven bag off my shoulder and had reached in to pull out the cacao pod, when something brown and hard sprang out of the opening, startling me. I dropped the bag and backed away. The hard brown thing seemed to be a piece of wood, like a branch or a tree trunk with no leaves, and it shot straight up to the sky and stopped at exactly the same height as the grass of the circle. Then it started to thicken, and it elongated in several directions. Little flaps of wood began unfolding, clattering as they moved. It happened so fast, I can hardly describe it now, but within a minute a huge wooden wardrobe stood before me.

Yes, I said
wardrobe
. The dark wood at the base was carved with figures of lambs and kittens, dogs and squirrels, birds and rabbits. At the top of the wardrobe,
the carved face of a child smiled down at me. I was still a bit spooked by my woven bag's jack-in-the-box imitation, so I was very careful when I stepped toward it. Who knew? A whole department store might pop out! Then again, the wardrobe might be filled with fur coats and mothballs, and the back might lead to a mystical land where it was always winter….

As it turned out, neither thing happened. I looked around on the ground for my bag, hoping my family talisman hadn't been squashed by the wardrobe. I didn't see the bag, so I stood to one side and gingerly pulled open one of the wardrobe doors, which had a mirror attached to the inside. Relaxing a bit, I opened the second door. Another mirror. In the wardrobe was a long rod with clothes of every kind and color hanging on it. Below that, there were drawers filled with gloves, belts, hats, and dozens of other accessories. A shelf on top of the drawers displayed all sorts of shoes, boots, sandals, and slippers. And
everything
seemed to be my size!

From outside, the fairy queen said, “Take what you need from the wardrobe now. This will be your only chance to prepare for your journey.”

How was I supposed to know what I needed? I looked through the clothes, pulling out different items and holding them up to look at myself in the
mirrors. I tried on a pink-and-gold silk sari, a German dirndl in green and red with a white blouse, a Plains Indian dress made of fringed buckskin, a jumpsuit of some smooth silvery material that looked like it should be worn by an astronaut, a crinoline petticoat, a beautiful blue kimono with silver-and-orange embroidered goldfish and a lavender obi, a khaki bush-exploration outfit complete with pith helmet, a deep purple cheongsam dress, and more. I found scarves and belts that jingled with little coins, long feather boas, lace mantillas, and peasant blouses.

I finally decided that I should be practical. I chose a pair of brown leggings, a light-as-air pink cotton shirt that had billowy sleeves, and a cropped brown vest that reminded me of Guatemala, with flowers embroidered all over it. Then I pulled on a pair of purple boots that went up to my knees. They were made out of a material I'd never felt before—something between silk and leather.

When I was satisfied with my outfit, I started to tidy up. I picked up an armful of the items I had tried on, but before I could put them back, I heard a whooshing sound. Then a force like the wind yanked the clothes right out of my hands, except for one long silky scarf that seemed to wrap itself around one of my wrists. Moments later, all of the clothing—except for
what I was wearing and the scarf—was back in its correct place. Even faster than the wardrobe had assembled itself, it shrank back into my bag and disappeared, like smoke being sucked into a vacuum cleaner.

I lifted my bag, half expecting it to weigh a ton from the wardrobe I had seen go into it, but it felt completely normal. I looked inside. To my relief, the cacao pod was intact. I tucked the scarf, which was the light purple of an early dawn, into the bag and slung it over my shoulder.

Instantly, the circle of grass around me shrank away. In a few seconds the grass was the same height as all the other grass in the area. I could see Queen Patchouli waiting for me.

“What do you think?” I asked, spinning so she could see my outfit.

“I think that you are ready for—”

Just then, a horse and rider galloped up the crushed-crystal path and came to a stop right in front of us in a spray of sparkling gravel. The horse, its coat dark with sweat, was a big golden palomino with four tall white stockings and a flaxen mane and tail. But something caught my eye when the horse shook its neck—the mane was shot through with strands of real gold, which created a metallic sheen that caught the light. The horse wasn't wearing a saddle or a bridle.

Astride the bareback horse was a girl with wild coral-colored hair who looked as though she had been riding for a long time. There were smudges of dirt on her face, and perspiration glistened on her forehead. Miniature shells dangled from her earlobes and hung from a chain around her neck. She looked about my age and height. The girl slumped over the horse's neck and held on, gasping for breath. Then I noticed that on her back was a pair of peach-tinted wings, shimmery and sheer like the wings of the other fairies, except for one thing—one of her wings was broken.

Turning her head toward us, the fairy girl said, “Queen, I come on an urgent errand from Kib Valley. We need your help.”

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