Lily in Full Bloom (5 page)

K
NOCK, KNOCK
.

Inside her garden shed, Lily jumped at the noise. She sat in the center of a circle of gray flowers. She’d been studying them for hours, but she still had no idea what was wrong with them.

The knock came again. Lily opened the door and poked her head out.

Standing there were Scarlett and Azure, two art-talent fairies.

“We know you’re hard at work,” said Azure. “Rosetta told me you’re figuring out what’s wrong with the flowers.”

Lily guessed that word had spread. It had been two days since she’d first seen the fading leaves on the other plants.

Scarlett cleared her throat. “It’s just that…well, we’re all out of orange paint,” she said. “We were wondering if you had any orange flowers.”

“So we could make more paint,” Azure added.

Lily stepped out of the shed. She looked around her garden and winced. It already seemed much worse than when she had left it just a few hours before.

Most of Lily’s garden looked like a black-and-white copy of itself. In a few places, there were hints of pale green, washed-out pink, and light lavender. But there was no sign of orange.

Lily shrugged at the art-talent fairies. “All I have is what you see,” she said. “Are you sure you’re completely out?”

Azure nodded. “We haven’t gotten any new flowers for days,” she said.

Lily sighed. Without the colorful flowers from Pixie Hollow’s gardens, the art talents couldn’t make their paint.

“Have you tried the other garden fairies?” Lily asked hopefully.

“Yes, but their gardens all look pretty much like yours,” Scarlett said.

Lily’s wings drooped. Was it her fault? That was all she could think about since Rosetta had noticed the faded leaves on her snapdragon. Before she’d invented the panglories, all the other plants had been healthy. The panglories had been the first plants to lose their color. And now, days later, the rest of the garden had faded, too. There had to be a connection.

And it wasn’t just the garden fairies’ problem anymore. Scarlett and Azure’s visit proved that. The color loss was also hurting the other talents.

Suddenly, Lily lost her temper. Her glow flashed bright orange and she stomped her foot. “I wish I’d never made those seeds!” she cried.

Scarlett and Azure looked surprised.

They had never seen Lily so upset before. Normally, she was one of the calmest fairies in Pixie Hollow.

“Don’t worry, Lily,” Scarlett said. “It will be okay.”

Just as quickly as it had flared up, Lily’s temper died down. Another thought replaced it. This one sent a cold trickle of dread through her wings. She hadn’t known about the art talents running out of paint. Could other talents be having trouble, too?

There was only one way to find out. She hated to leave her sick flowers for even a second, but she needed to take a quick tour around Pixie Hollow.

“I’ll get you some orange flowers as soon as I figure out what happened,” Lily said to Scarlett and Azure. Then she flew off to see what other problems the panglories might have caused.

Lily began outside the Home Tree. She peeked through the kitchen window. The baking fairies were busy making cupcakes.

“What?” Dulcie was saying. “We’re out of colored icing? We can’t just make white cupcakes with plain white icing! That’s not very pretty!”

Oh, no!
Lily pulled away from the window. Of course the baking talents would be out of dyes, too. The sick feeling of dread had moved to her stomach. She steeled herself to go on.

Lily flew around the Home Tree to a tearoom window. She watched the decorating fairies set up for that evening’s dinner. They looked unhappy as they put white and gray flowers into vases.

“It’s not very colorful,” one of them said. “But it’ll have to do. These are the brightest blooms Rosetta had.”

Two floors up, things weren’t any better in the sewing room. Through the window, Lily saw a couple of fairies piecing together a flower-petal dress.

“I guess the fashionable color this season will be gray,” Tack said.

Taylor laughed. “It’s not like we have any other choice!”

With a choked sob, Lily turned away. Everyone was making the best of it. No one was blaming her. But what was Pixie Hollow without bright flowers? No pretty dresses. No colorful tarts and cakes. No beautifully painted pictures or pottery.

Lily made herself fly on. She had to see how bad it really was with the art talents. At their sunny studio, the art fairies were trying hard to get by. Using dried flowers, they had made more paint.

But Bess, for one, wasn’t pleased with it. “Dried flowers just aren’t as good as fresh ones,” she said. She stepped back from her easel. “These colors are washed out.”

Lily’s heart felt heavy. She found a quiet spot on a top branch of the Home Tree. She sat down there, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

She could see most of Pixie Hollow from here. Her eyes were drawn to the pockets of gray below. She knew they were the garden fairies’ nearly colorless gardens.

“How did this happen?” Lily asked herself. “I was trying to make Pixie Hollow more beautiful, not less!” So many fairies were worse off because of her mistake. But she didn’t know how to fix the problem.

Something fluttered in the breeze close by and caught Lily’s eye. She turned to it—and froze. It couldn’t possibly be what she thought it was.

Lily flew out to the end of the branch. She hovered over the leaves that had gotten her attention. Then she flew a little bit higher to get a better view. She tried telling herself they looked yellow or brown—anything but gray. But the closer she looked, the clearer it became.

Not the Home Tree! Not the most important plant in all of Pixie Hollow. But there was no way to deny it.

The Home Tree was losing its color.

L
ILY ROCKETED AWAY
from the top branch of the graying Home Tree. It was time to ask for help—before
all
of Pixie Hollow turned gray! She knew the first fairy she needed to go to.

She flew past the courtyard and through the hallways of the Home Tree, until she came to a door.

She knocked and the door opened.

“I need to see the queen,” Lily said breathlessly.

Rhia, the queen’s helper, let Lily in. Within moments Lily was sitting by the queen’s side, pouring her heart out. Queen Clarion and Lily talked for more than hour. No one ever knew what they had discussed, but that evening, just after dinner, Queen Clarion asked all the fairies to gather in the courtyard.

Everyone filed outside, mumbling. Lily felt many eyes upon her. Her glow turned pink with embarrassment under their stares. But nothing could make her feel any worse than she already did.

When all the fairies were outside, the queen called for quiet.

“I’m sure many of you are aware of what’s been happening,” Queen Clarion began. “The flowers have been losing their color. No one knows why.”

The queen turned to Lily, who was standing at her side. “Lily wants to talk to all of you about this problem. Maybe together we can figure out what’s gone wrong.”

Queen Clarion gave Lily a quick, encouraging nod.

Lily took a deep breath. A knot tightened in her stomach. All the fairies and sparrow men were staring at her.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think about how she had let everyone down. When she opened them again, she told everyone about the panglories as quickly as she could. She started with her original idea for the seeds and explained everything that had happened, including how the other plants had faded as well.

Then it was time for the really hard part. Lily looked up at the sky. She couldn’t meet anyone’s stare.

“B-b-b-but I’ve got even more bad news,” she went on. She almost choked on the words.

She took another deep breath. She could feel tears filling the corners of her eyes. “Now it looks like the Home Tree is fading, too,” she said.

Cries of alarm rippled through the crowd. Lily’s head sank low.

The Home Tree wasn’t just the fairies’ home. It was the center of their world. It was the heart and soul of Pixie Hollow.

Lily just had to add one more thing. “I’ve been working to figure out what’s going on,” she called over the murmurs of worry and confusion. “I wish I could say that I know what the problem is. But I don’t. If any of you have any ideas…” She trailed off.

The crowd fell silent.

Lily flew quickly to a pebble and sat down. She wished someone would say something—
anything
. She’d rather hear what the other fairies were thinking, even if it wasn’t good.

Suddenly, a loud
clatter, clatter, clank!
broke the silence.

All eyes turned toward the noise. Fairies on one side of the courtyard looked behind them and moved aside to make room for Lympia and Breeze, another laundry-talent fairy. They were carrying a big metal washtub between them.

They landed awkwardly in the center of the courtyard and dropped the washtub with another clank. Both fairies were out of breath.

“Queen Clarion,” panted Lympia, “we didn’t mean to be late.”

“That’s all right, Lympia,” Queen Clarion said. “It looks as though something slowed you down.”

“What?” said Lympia. Then she realized the queen meant the washtub. “Oh, yes, there’s that,” she said. “But also, we were in the laundry room. And we…we have something to show everyone.” Lympia seemed excited. Breeze, too, was having trouble hovering in just one spot.

The two fairies bent over the washtub. “We were washing this blanket,” said Lympia. “All we used was water and some of my new laundry cleaner. And an amazing thing happened.”

Lympia and Breeze straightened up. They opened a dripping-wet blanket. Lympia held one corner and Breeze another.

A few gasps were heard throughout the crowd as all the fairies stared at the blanket.

There was something on the blanket. It looked like…like half the blanket was covered in little pansies!