After three months of living with the kingfishers, Bright Shimmer could now tell them apart and knew all their quirks. She knew that Saturday was always happy and found the bright side in everyone and that Monday was most often asleep. The kingfishers always left the house at seven thirty A.M. on the dot and came straggling back around eight o'clock P.M. with bags full of worms and beetles. It then became Bright Shimmer's job to take these to the nearby market the next day. When she finished that she tidied up the burrow and did other nestkeeping tasks.
One day she was reinforcing the mud tunnel with bark and thinking how silly it was to have a mud nest in the ground instead of a respectable one of twigs in the trees, when suddenly she heard an old woman's voice calling from the door. She set her stack of bark down and made her way to the door. When she got there, she saw a quail who was so old that her crest was drooping.
"Hello." Said the quail in a cracking voice, "I've heard talk in the village that the kingfishers who live here have a lovely young bird staying with them, and I was wondering if she would be interested in some lovely vines to brighten up the house?" she held up a basket full to the brim with high-quality house making vines.
"Oh!" Bright Shimmer exclaimed, "Why, I was just now thinking that this place needed a touchup. I would just love a bunch of vines to brighten it up. What would you like in return?"
"Oh, you needn't give me anything." The elderly quail assured her, "I take joy in the fact that my gift was so happily accepted."
So Bright Shimmer accepted the gift and the quail went on her way satisfied that her enchanted vines were adequately planted. When the evil queen reached the village, for it was she in disguise, she took another potion that would disintegrate her quail guise and returned to the castle.
Bright Shimmer, meanwhile, had decided to set the vines aside until she was done cleaning, but she just couldn't keep her eyes off the small bundle of plants.
Eventually, the temptation got to strong and Bright Shimmer went and picked up the bundle. Almost immediately the vines started moving on their own and attacked her! She screeched for help but there was no one nearby to help her, and soon the vines overwhelmed her and wrapped her up like a spider web.
When the kingfishers came home they found her lying on the ground covered in vines. They almost didn't know it was her inside the cocoon. They immediately started unwrapping her, but before they could remove a single vine the vines all reanimated and attacked them. There were so many of them, however, that the bundle of vines didn't have a chance and they soon fought it off and burned all the attack vines. When they finally finished that, Bright Shimmer was waking up from her struggle with the vines, and all the kingfishers crowded around her to see how she was. She recovered quickly and they went about their daily chores as normal.