by Joanne Hall

“Yes, and I want them both at once. You can do that, can’t you?”

“I -- I think so.” Lettanie sniffed one final time, and tried to brace herself. “Go on, then.”

A self-satisfied grin crossed the boy’s face. “Okay, then. I wish for it to be my birthday every day, and --” he paused dramatically, then, all in a rush, “I-wish-for-a-million-more-wishes!”

Lettanie gasped. “You can’t do that!”

He pouted. “You said I could wish for anything I wanted.”

“But --”

He pressed his face close to the cage. From here, he was hideous. Lettanie could see every pore of his skin, every bead of sweat. His breath hit her like a sour wave, and she gagged and turned her face away. “You said,” he insisted. “You can’t go back on it. I’m going to keep you here until my million wishes are done. And if you decide not to grant any of them --” he made a threatening gesture with the toothpick.

“But you can’t!” Lettanie protested helplessly, knowing that he could.

“Course I can.” His laugh was cruel. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, fairy girl, so you’ll just have to get used to it, won’t you? Now, for my next wish . . . . ”

* * *

Zinnia squirmed under the narrow gap provided by the barely-open window and hesitated on the sill, scanning the room, breathing in the scent of old socks and something musty and unidentifiable. She had watched the boy and his parents go out, after what seemed an age of waiting, but she didn’t know how long she had until they returned, and she knew she couldn’t help her friend if she ended up suffering the same fate.

The mouse cage stood on the shelf above the bed, and as she fluttered over to it she could hear Lettanie crying, soft and hopeless. Her friend was huddled in the corner, head resting on one knee. Her other leg, grotesquely twisted, sprawled out in front of her.

“Lettanie! Lettanie, are you all right?”

The imprisoned fairy raised her head at the call, and Zinnia could not suppress a gasp. Lettanie’s face was haggard, lined like an old woman’s. Her once-blonde hair had faded to a dull grey, and hung limp over her pointed ears; her eyes were sunken and dimmed. She stared at Zinnia without apparent comprehension.

“By the King’s beard, Lettanie, what did he do to you?”

“He wished.” She tried to rise, but her leg wouldn’t support her. “He kept wishing and wishing, he wouldn’t stop, Zinnia! I begged him to let me rest, but he wouldn’t!” She dragged herself with her one good arm across the shiny red floor. “I’m glad you’re all right; I was worried. How did you get away?”

“I hid behind the curtain.” Zinnia reached down and took her hand through the bars. “I saw him hit you with the book. I wish I could have stopped him.”

“A book? Is that what it was?” Lettanie sighed. “I didn’t know what happened. But you,” she squeezed Zinnia’s hand with sudden urgency, “you need to go, before he comes back and catches you.”

Zinnia frowned. “I’m not leaving without you.”

You have to. I don’t think I can fly any more.” Before Zinnia could dispute this, Lettanie unfurled her wings. Across each one was a line of perfectly circular punched holes.

Zinnia turned her face away, trying not to be sick. It was several seconds before she could bring herself to reply.

He did that to you? Why?”

Lettanie made a noncommittal gesture. “For fun, I suppose,” she said dully, folding her abused wings and resting her head against the bars of the cage.

I’m going to get you out,” Zinnia promised. “There has to be some kind of door or entrance or something.”

"Up there.” Lettanie flickered her eyes upward. “You’ll never shift it. He caught me trying. That’s when he --” the expressive rustle of her wings said what her voice refused to acknowledge.

Zinnia was determined to do something, anything, to help her friend; she had to try. But after Zinnia fluttered up to the top of the cagem she could see what Lettanie meant. There was a little hatch up there, but it was weighed down with an immensely heavy book, as thick as she was tall, and however much she strained against it she couldn’t shift it.

She had just decided to go and fetch help from the village when she heard the sound she had been listening for, and dreading, ever since she had returned for her friend. The slam of the front door.

“I’ll come back!” Zinnia called to Lettanie as she leapt from the roof of the cage and swooped up towards the window. “I promise!”

But Lettanie, either asleep or unconscious, made no reply.

* * *

The moon was high and fat, like a plate of the finest porcelain. Where its beams touched the ground they turned the night to silver, catching and highlighting the flicker of pale wings against the dull brick of the house.

Zinnia froze as the moonbeam played over her like a searchlight, then relaxed as she realised it was only the moon and not the boy come hunting with a torch. She resumed her flight to the upper floor window, wondering what she was going to tell Lettanie.

The meeting of the Elders had gone badly. She had been subject to a scathing reprimand for going into the boy’s bedroom in the first place, and Lettanie’s foolishness in granting the child a million wishes had condemned her in her absence. Her mistake may have put them all in danger, they had said. Let her suffer the consequences.

So Zinnia was alone, without even an idea of what she would do when she got to the bedroom, but knowing that she had to at least try to do something to save her friend. The Elders may have given up, but she wouldn't.

Lettanie was lying on the floor of the cage, as if a great hand had crushed her and then discarded her broken body. Even before Zinnia could see her in the dim light, she could hear her ragged breathing. She pressed her hands to her eyes, willing herself to see the room as bright and clear as if it was day, and when she took them away she could see at once that Lettanie was far closer to death than she had been that afternoon. Her pale flesh hung from a face that was closer in appearance to a skull than any living thing, and when she opened her eyes, dimly sensing her friend’s presence, they were as black as two holes in space. Barely a flicker of life glimmered there.

“Lettanie? Can you hear me?” The wounded fairy moved her head a fraction, but lifting it from the floor seemed like too much effort for her. “I brought you some food, I thought it might help . . . here.” Zinnia pushed the bread through the bars of the cage, and Lettanie groped towards it. The healing powers of fairy food were renowned, and as she chewed, a hint of colour came back into her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Is that better?” In reaching for the bread Lettanie’s thin shift had ridden up, revealing the bruise. Blue-black and swollen, it started on her chest and spread down and outwards until it disappeared below the top of her breeches. Something inside Lettanie was bleeding badly, and Zinnia didn’t know how to make it stop.