The next morning Vidia awoke to a loud banging on the door of her plum tree. Her mind was foggy. Was that Fawn standing there next to her, smiling?

"I can't hear you, Fawn," Vidia whispered, struggling to open her eyes to make out the orange shape.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," Fawn giggled. Her voice sounded far away, and it echoed through Vidia's mind as if it were coming from deep inside a dark chasm.

"Fawn…" Vidia's voice trailed off and the orange glowing figure faded.

Knock, knock, knock! The banging on the door finally jolted Vidia out of her bleary state. Her eyes snapped open and scanned the room for the orange figure. Only her empty room met her eyes. She noticed the faint orange glow of the sun streaming through the window onto the floor. She rubbed her eyes in frustration.

"Vidia!" a familiar voice called. "C'mon, I know you're in there. Open the door!"

Vidia growled under her breath and flitted to the door. She jerked the door open, blinking angrily into the bright morning light. "Tinker Bell! You can't just go banging on people's doors first thing in the morning! Some people need sleep."

"Good morning to you, too, Vidia," Tinker Bell said cheerfully, letting herself in. Vidia groaned, slumped down into one of her chairs, and laid her head down on the table. Tinker Bell meandered over to the kitchen area and put on a kettle of ginseng tea. "Now, I'm not a tea-making talent, but I have been told I make a mean kettle."

"What are you doing here?" Vidia whined, her voice muffled as her face pressed into the table.

Tinker Bell's face turned somber. "I wanted to come by and apologize about last night. We didn't mean to upset you. We wanted to answer your question, but we've never seen you upset like that before. I mean, you're the most confident of us all." Tinker Bell walked over and put a hand on Vidia's shoulder. "You caught us off guard. That's all."

"Great. The one time you guys will ever be speechless…" Vidia murmured.

Tinker Bell rolled her eyes and glided back to the now whistling tea kettle. She poured two cups, bringing one over to Vidia.

"Now, drink," Tinker Bell ordered. "The girls insisted I be the one to wake you up but they'll be here right about…"

"Hey, Vidia. Hey, Tink!" Fawn hollered as she swung the front door open. Silvermist, Iridessa, and Rosetta followed closely behind her, offering their greetings.

"...Now," Tinker Bell smiled into her cup.

Vidia put her hands over her face and sighed heavily. She slid her hands down her cheeks and then dropped them to reveal a plastered on smile that would put the Cheshire Cat to shame. "Good morning, dears," Vidia said through clenched teeth. "If you'll excuse me, apparently, I need to get dressed." She straightened the straps on her pajamas. Vidia floated away to a back room, closing the door behind her.

"How's she doing?" Iridessa asked, her words laced with distress.

"Well, I explained to her what happened," Tinker Bell said, pointing the girls to the pot of freshly brewed ginseng tea. "But, she's not really a morning person."

"I can hear you!" Vidia's voice barely carried through the door.

"Oh, sugar plum," Rosetta hollered. "We were all tired and tipsy! You could have asked us our own names, and we wouldn't have known the answer!"

"Yeah, I'm not even sure I heard the conversation," Silvermist said softly, sipping tea as if in pain. "If Iridessa hadn't drug me along behind her during the bee incident, I would have still been asleep on the table." Silvermist groaned. "I think I'm swearing off apple ale forever."

"Until the next party," Vidia pushed the door to the back room open and emerged. She was now dressed in her regular purple leggings and vest. She glanced at the girls as she picked up her cup of tea. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Fawn, who was sitting on a window sill, smiling gently at her. She looked at the animal fairy, raising her eyebrow in question, and Fawn quickly snapped her eyes away, back to the group.

"Did y'all notice how weird Buck was acting last night?" Fawn asked, dropping off the window sill, trying to deflect Vidia's attention.

"Weird, how?" Tinker Bell leaned against the the counter.

"When the bees attacked, I noticed him in a corner, laughing," Fawn's concern was obvious.

"He was laughing?" Rosetta was primly sipping her tea. "Vidia, where in the world are your saucers? What kind of tea service is this?"

"If you wanted to have a tea party, maybe you should have gone to your house, instead of invading mine at the break of dawn!" Vidia snapped.

"Well, I'll be..." Rosetta gasped and pressed her palm to her chest. Then she huffed, "You don't have to be rude!"

"She's even crankier than normal this morning," Silvermist whispered to Iridessa, who nodded in return.

"So, anyway, Fawn," Tinker Bell tried to get back to the more important conversation. "He was laughing...at what?"

"I'm not sure, but he looked...off," Fawn furrowed her brow and put her hand to her chin.

"Maybe he was cringing, not laughing," Iridessa offered.

"No, he was definitely laughing, kind of an evil laugh, too," Fawn replied.

"That does sound bizarre," Rosetta said.

"Maybe he was… I don't know... amused," Vidia swirled the tea in her cup around.

"As an animal fairy, he not only knew the danger we were in, but he also knew the distress the bees were in," Fawn's eyes were solemn. "Nothing about that situation should have been amusing."

"We should go talk to him," Tinker Bell suggested.

"Yeah, we could just ask him what was going on," Iridessa agreed.

They all got on board with that suggestion and even managed to talk Vidia into going.

The girls rushed behind Fawn to Buck's house.

"Wow, you led us straight here," Rosetta said softly as they stood outside Buck's door. It was a small brown door nestled beneath a grove of holly. "Do you come here often, tiger lily?" Rosetta waggled her eyebrows at Fawn.

It took Fawn a moment to realize what Rosetta was implying. "Ew, no, Ro," Fawn stuck her tongue out and faked gagging. "Me and Buck...never gonna happen."

"What's never going to happen with Buck?" Silvermist asked, cluelessly.

"Beetle-Buggle," Vidia suggested to Silvermist. "Buck cheats."

Silvermist put her hands over her mouth shocked. "He seemed like such a good person."

The rest rolled their eyes. "Bless her heart," Rosetta sighed.

"He may not be home, the lights are off," Tinker Bell realized.

"We should knock, just in case, though," Iridessa pointed out.

Fawn nodded and rapped quickly on Buck's door.

"Buck?" she called after a minute of knocking with no answer. "Are you in here?"

"Sure, Fawn," came a soft response. "I'm here."

They tossed confused looks at each other and then slowly entered the darkened house. Buck was slumped in a chair staring listlessly into a corner. His clothes were crumpled and dirty.

"Hi, Buck," Fawn said cheerfully, though she knew something was off. "Where have you been? Wrestling a gopher? You know he always wins."

"You're always so funny," Buck smiled, sadly. "I wish I could be as funny as you. I wish I could be like you period." Buck's face was tear-stained.

"Buck," Fawn was shocked. She'd never seen this cheerful fairy so upset. "What happened to you?"

The group of friends gathered around the rocking chair that Buck was slumped down in. Fawn placed a supportive hand on his arm.

"I don't know," Buck whispered. His voice caught in his throat and he attempted to clear it. "I-I don't remember."

"Do you remember the festival last night?" Iridessa gently prodded.

"Y-yeah, kinda. I remember eating some pie. I remember wanting to ask Faw-..I-I mean Fiera to dance," Buck stuttered out, blushing bright red. "But I lost my nerve and went outside for a breath of fresh air." The girls could see in his eyes that he was racking his brain, willing his memory to come back. His eyes glazed over and took on a faraway look as he continued. "It was warm. The moon was so bright that almost all of Pixie Hollow was lit up. I remember thinking how well you could see everything. It was almost like daytime. Then, there was...something...movement in the grasses. I remember feeling this great sense of dread come over me. I approached it slowly and saw something...or someone...a dark figure, squatting low in the grass. Then...then…" Buck sighed and his eyes came back to present. "I don't remember anything after that."

"Do you remember the bee incident?" Tinker Bell voiced the question they were all wondering.

"The what incident?" Buck was genuinely confused.

"The bees...they pushed their way into the hall and started swarming around everyone," Fawn spoke. She was trying to remain calm, but a weird, uneasy feeling was crawling into her chest, like cold, clammy fingers. "I saw you sitting in a corner, laughing as you watched. You don't remember that?"

Buck's face was pale, "No...w-was anyone hurt?"

"Thanks to Vidia, no," Rosetta said, eyeing her friend. A flicker of a smile flitted across Vidia's face before she went back to her usual caustic pout.

"I was laughing, you say?" Buck asked Fawn.

"Yeah...practically cackling," Fawn looked disappointedly at him. She wasn't sure she believed his loss of memory.

"Why would I find that funny?" Buck asked sincerely. "People could have been hurt! And the bees! They must have been highly upset to swarm into the hall like that! Oh, why can't I remember?" The group was silent for a moment. "Oh my god, what if I had something to do with it?" Buck asked in a panic.

"Well, the cackling was suspicious," Vidia said, offhandedly. Tinker Bell shoved an elbow in her side. "Ow!" Vidia retorted with a dark scowl.

"I did have my worries, Buck," Fawn admitted. "When I saw you laughing, my first thought was that maybe you were playing some kind of sick prank."

"I swear I don't remember doing it," Buck wailed. "Fawn, you have to believe me! You know I wouldn't do a thing like that! Last thing I knew, I wasn't even in the hall!"

"Ok, ok, Buck," Fawn reassured her jittery friend. "We believe you."

"Now, Buck," Rosetta grabbed one of his hands. "I think you need to take a nice bath and go relax in a hammock or something. You do not need to be workin' today. Whatever happened to you last night, it took a lot out of you."

Buck agreed and the friends left the sad fairy to rest. They each in turn voiced their concern over the things that Buck had said.

"Do you think he's telling the truth, Fawn?" Iridessa worried as they flitted through the trees.

"He's always been a nice guy," Fawn shrugged. "I don't know why he would lie."

"Y'all saw how upset he was," Rosetta reminded them. "He obviously didn't release the bees."

"Uh-guys…" Iridessa began.

"Unless all that whining was remorse," Vidia accused. She'd never liked that orange-haired animal fairy.

"G-guys," Iridessa struggled to speak.

"But don't you think he would have admitted the truth if he was that remorseful?" Tinker Bell argued with Vidia.

"Guys!" Iridessa shouted. They all snapped their eyes at the light-talent. "Where is Sil?"

They all halted in mid-air and looked around. Silvermist was not among them.

"She was being so quiet because of her hangover, I didn't notice that she'd stopped talking," Iridessa was beginning to panic.

"I'm sure she just went to the healing talents to get some herbs for her head," Rosetta suggested casually. The others agreed.

"Why wouldn't she have told us she was leaving, though?" Iridessa continued to worry.

"Dess, stop worrying," Fawn put a hand on the other's dark-skinned shoulder. "We'll just go find her."

"O-Ok," Iridessa swallowed hard. "That would make me feel much better. Buck's story gave me the heebie-jeebies."

"What? You think the silent, grass-creeper is going to get Silvermist, too?" Vidia said with a mocking, frightening tone one might use while telling a ghost story.

"Cut it out, Vidia," Tinker Bell snapped. "Of course, we'll go look for her. C'mon."

She led the search for Silvermist, going first to the healing talents. They looked around the fairy hospital, located in Elderberry Bracken. The spacey water fairy was nowhere to be found. So, Tinker Bell led them to Silvermist's house. It sat behind a small, clear pond with a minnow swimming in it. The bright blue door with a shell for a handle was opened slightly.

"Silvermist?" Iridessa hurried inside. She and Silvermist had been friends long enough to not care about etiquette.

"Silvermist, are you here?" Tinker Bell called. All of the sudden, the blue fairy appeared before them. The air cooled noticeable when she approached. Her hair was covering her face and her dark eyes were distant. Her dress was amiss and her body drooped.

"Lord have mercy," Rosetta whispered. "What in the blue blazes is wrong with her?"

"She's giving me the willies," Fawn whispered back

"Sil?" Iridessa moved forward cautiously. "What's wrong, Sil?"

"She looks like she caught whatever Buck had," Vidia said casually, but Silvermist's appearance genuinely disturbed her.

"I'm fine, guys," Silvermist's voice was stiff. "I just want to be alone right now." She stared in their direction, but her eyes seemed to be gazing through them.

"What happened, Sil?" Iridessa pushed.

"I said I'm fine!" Silvermist snapped at them with an icy voice they had never heard her use before.

"Gee, has she been taking lessons from me?" Vidia asked.

"Silvermist, lilypad," Rosetta spoke gently. "We're just concerned about you. We didn't know where you'd gone, and now you're acting peculiar."

"Just leave us alone!" the voice that came from her mouth echoed with a deep undertone that was foreign to Silvermist's feminine voice.

"Us?" Tinker Bell asked, her eyes growing wide with fear.

"T-there's no one else here with you, Sil," Iridessa looked around, questioning her own statement, as bewilderment crept in on her.

"I said," Silvermist's face darkened and her lips turned down into a vicious scowl, "Leave...us...alone." With that, the kettle on the stove spat out it's boiling contents, and Silvermist flung it at her friends. Steaming water rained down over them, and they screamed, darting out of the house and slamming the door behind them.

(Author's Note: Sorry for another long chapter. I'm so excited that you've read this far! I'm having so much fun with this story. And it's about to get real intense, real fast! Hang on and enjoy the ride! Any feedback you'd like to offer is welcome.)