Iris

4

It had been just over a year since Queen Alisterra closed the portals.

I had completely mastered all of the elements by now and graduated from the Fairy Academy. Graduation was one of the hardest days of my life. Everyone was moving out to the village with the rest of the fully grown fairies. They would go out to tend to the magical world where aid was required: keeping the wind at bay, caring for the land and waters. Catalina would be working in an armory. She could engrave the tiniest details with her fire.

Traveling fairies remained at the castle. We were secluded from the rest of the world.

“What are we supposed to do?” Sofie wondered aloud. We had often discussed our official duties to distract ourselves from boredom.

Diana, Evie, and Anabella had all gone to the village for the week to see their families. Sofie’s only family was at the castle. I hadn’t heard from my father since I started school. I imagined he was off on some grand adventure.

“You’re father was a messenger, wasn’t he?” Sofie asked, catching me off guard.

“Yeah, I think so,” I said, “But he didn’t like to talk about it much. He always told me it was boring.”

“Boring? Traveling between worlds?” Sofie looked baffled.

“Well, I was ten the last time I asked,” I explained, “He probably didn’t think I wanted to hear about work, you know?”

Sofie looked down at her bare feet, crossing and uncrossing her ankles. “I’m sorry,” she said finally.

“About what?” I peered through my bangs, not wanting her to see my watery eyes.

“Your dad. It must be hard not knowing where he is.”

“He always wanted to be doing something. When I left for school, he must have gone crazy not having anyone to talk to.”

Sofie nodded, as if she already knew my dad didn’t have any friends. We lived on the outskirts of the village, in the middle of the forest. He said people didn’t like his opinions, so he learned to stay away from them. As a kid I just accepted it, but I think he must have done something crazy to turn away the entire village.

I was about to ask Sofie if she knew what kind of trouble he’d gotten into when her grandmother was queen, when there was a knock at the door.

Sofie leaped off of her chair to answer it, probably hoping we had an assignment. I doubted it.

“Sofie? I need you and Iris to come with me.” It was the queen. Maybe there was an assignment after all.

“I really wish the other girls were here as well, but I’m going to need you girls to go alone,” Queen Alisterra said worriedly, “I need one of you to go to the Mortal world and the other to go to the Otherworld.”

As we reached the queen’s study chambers, Sofie looked back at me, eyes wide. Sofie had never traveled before, I remembered. I mimicked deep breathing to tell her to calm down.

“Iris, you’ve traveled to the mortal world before, so…” she gestured to the bright blue curtain. She turned to her daughter and showed her the black curtain.

“Iris, I only need you to collect Arlene’s status report for the mortal world. Then return as quickly as possible.” She removed the curtain, and I turned to Sofie, “Good luck!” Then I stepped through the portal.

The grass was wet when I landed in the park across from the orphanage. Brushing my jeans off, I noticed it was also covered in frost. It was still summertime in the Magical world. Could it be winter for the mortals? I was thankful I’d kept my sleeves long.