A breeze whipped by Prilla's ears, and a fairy flew up next to Prilla. She was Vidia, the fastest of the fast-flying fairies. She landed before Prilla and smiled. Prilla didn't like that sugary smile.
Tink said, "Go away, Vidia."
Vidia said to Prilla, "Fly with you, dear child."
"P-Pleased to meet you," Prilla said uncertainly.
"Hmm, incomplete, are we?" She leaned in close. "Dear child, if fast-flying is your talent, I have something – "
"Vidia!" said Tink. She'd have to tell the queen about this. "You'd better – "
"Tink, darling, you have no idea!" Vidia said.
Prilla thought the "darling" sounded like a sneer.
A sparrowman shot straight up into the air and called, "Hawk! Hawk from the west!"
Tink pushed Prilla down to the ground and shoved Prilla through the knothole door of the Home Tree. The other fairies flew into the lower branches. Prilla and Tink watched the shadow of a bird cross through the courtyard.
"That was a hawk?" Prilla said.
Tink nodded.
"Would it have eaten us?"
"If it was hungry," Tink said. "Hawks kill several fairies every year."
Tink had had some close calls with them. She told Prilla, "Always keep a sharp eye out for hawks."
Prilla shuddered. "But it's safe. I'd like to thank that sparrowman. He saved us all!"
Tink tugged her bangs, irritated. Something was wrong with Prilla, and when something was wrong, Tink wanted to fix it. That's why she loved repairing pots and pans. But she didn't know how to fix Prilla. It was like having an itch you couldn't reach.
"Don't thank him. He's a scout!"
Prilla looked blank.
Tink thought, I'm going to pull every hair out of my head!
"Scouting is his talent! Saving us was his joy!"
"I see," said Prilla. She wished she had a talent. She hoped Tink was right, and the mushrooms were broken, that she wasn't what was broken.
Tink believed Prilla really had a talent, but she thought the mushrooms must be broken, and so Prilla didn't know what her talent was. She looked down at Prilla's hands. They were on the large side, but not too large. The child could be a tinker fairy, the strangest one ever.
Prilla was on the mainland again. She was on a breakfast table, next to a carton of milk, eye level with the words "Fiber, 0 grams". A man stood at the stove pouring coffee. A boy was eating a muffin. Prilla flew in front of the boy's face, fascinated by his chewing.
"Look!" Crumbs and saliva shot out of his mouth. He lunged at Prilla. She retreated. He knocked over the milk. She winked at him and was gone.
Laughing, she told Tink, "I just saw a Clumsy spit out half a muffin!"
Tink pulled her bangs and said in an irritated voice, "What Clumsy?"
"The, ah," Prilla realized she'd said something wrong again. Didn't Tink blink over to the mainland sometimes?
Of course, Tink didn't. Most fairies have no contact with human children, other than the Lost Boys, unless a fellow fairy was dying of disbelief.
Prilla changed the subject. "Are we inside the Home Tree?"
"This is the lobby," Tink said, glad to talk about something reasonable. The walls were golden brown, so highly buffed you could almost see your reflection. Tink added proudly, "The walls are polished every week, and it takes two dozen helping-talent fairies to do it."
Prilla wondered if helping might be her talent.
Next to the knothole door, there was a brass directory that listed each fairy, along with his or her talent, his or her room, and his or her workshop, if he or she had a workshop.
"Your name will be up there too," Tink said, "in an hour or so, when the art fairies are done with your room."
Prilla nodded. She'd be the only one without a talent next to her name.
The lobby floor was tiled in pearly mica. The spiral staircase rose to the second story, although the fairies only used it when their wings were wet, and they couldn't fly.
Four oval windows faced the courtyard.
"The window panes are reground pirate glass," Tink said. She thought longingly of her leaky ladle.
A clatter, and a bang, and raised voices came from the corridor beyond the lobby. Prilla turned to Tink for an explanation.
Tink's heart raced. Something might have broken that she could fix!
"Would you like to see the kitchen?"
"Can I?" Maybe she would have a talent for something there.
Tink had the same thought. Maybe she could leave Prilla in the kitchen and get back to her workshop. Or, if a pot really had broken, Tink could find out right there if she had a talent for fixing it.
"Come," Tink said.
Prilla followed her into the corridor, which was lined with the symbols and names for each talent: An egg for the animal talent, a hammer for the tinker talent, the sun for the light talent. Prilla read each talent name to herself. "Dust-keeper talent, animal talent, art talent, garden talent, healing talent… I wonder if I could be one of those talents." She sighed, wondering if she even had a talent at all.
Tink patted the gilded frame of the hammer painting as she flew by. Then she turned into the first door that they came to. Prilla followed, and smelled nutmeg. Her stomach rumbled. It had never done that before. She wondered what it meant.
"This is the tea room," Tink said. "It's Queen Ree's favorite room."
Ree was the fairies' nickname for Queen Clarion. "You met Ree when you were born," Tink said.
Prilla studied the tea room, looking for clues to Queen Ree in her favorite room. After all, she had only met the queen once. The mood was serene, the colors muted. The narrow windows stretched from a few inches above the floor or carpet to the lofty ceiling, fifteen inches away. The daylight filtered through the maple leaves outside, and the Queen Anne's lace curtains inside was the same green as the Never Pale Grass wallpaper.
Tink added, "It's nice, but I like a little bit more metal in a room."
Most everyone took their tea later in the day. Now, only a few fairies sipped from the periwinkle blue teacups, or ate the crust-less sandwiches on cockleshell plates. They watched Prilla with interest.
Prilla thought, I could take the crusts off the sandwich bread. You wouldn't need much talent to have a talent for that.
Tink led her past a serving table holding a platter of star shaped butter cookies, each one perfect, and not a single one broken. Prilla would have liked to stop for a cookie, but Tink was hurrying ahead, so she decided she'd better not.
Tink pointed to an empty table under a silver chandelier. "I sit there with the rest of my talent. The talents sit together." Tink nodded.
"So, who…" Prilla trailed off. She'd been about to ask, "Who sat with you when you didn't have a talent." But she knew the answer: Nobody. You sat alone.