ONCE upon a time a wicked Earth Fairy went forth to see what mischief she could do. She flitted on and on until she came to a House Door. She had come to one of the homes where the good and useful House Fairies dwell. The Door was open, and she crept up to it slyly, and peered in. There she saw a great room, in perfect order, for the House Fairies had put everything to rights before they went away to their tasks upstairs. The floor was swept, the pictures hung trim and straight upon the walls, the chairs were dusted and set about invitingly,[6] and on the Hearth the Fire burned warm and clear.
“Hhm!” muttered the Earth Fairy. “Here is the very chance I’ve been looking for!”
She slipped inside the Door and set to work at once. She sprinkled ashes on the clean-swept floor, and set the chairs askew. She pulled the pictures crooked, and turned their faces to the wall. Into every corner of the room she went, making mischief, and leaving disorder behind her. No one came to interrupt her, so that she kept on and on with her malicious task until the room was in complete confusion. Wearied with the mischief she had done, she paused and looked about her for a place to rest. On the Hearth lay a great bank of warm ashes, soft as a feather-bed. She went to it at once, and threw[7] herself down upon it, thinking to rest only a moment before she journeyed on. Now this was a very dangerous thing for an Earth Fairy to do, because none but Fire Fairies can safely rest so close to Fire and Flame. But this the Earth Fairy did not know, so she sank down, meaning to rest but for a short time, but she was so weary that before she knew it she had fallen off into a deep sleep, and while she slept the Fire stole from her all her Earth magic, and her Earth powers.
Since the Fire was burning, that Door to the Fire Country was of course wide open, so that King Red Flame riding out that morning on his flame-colored horse caught a glimpse of the Earth Fairy’s yellow hair as she lay in the ashes. He drew near to see who was slumbering there. At the first[8] glance he knew that she was not a Fire Fairy. It was plain, too, that she was not a House Fairy. Whoever she was, he knew that she was in great danger, and that she must be rescued at once.
He called to her, but she neither answered nor stirred. He alighted from his horse, and bending over her shook her gently, but she gave no sign of life. He shook her more roughly, and called louder, but quite in vain.
“I shall have to take her to the palace,” murmured King Red Flame to himself. “Here I can do nothing. Queen Glow and I must consult together over the matter.”
He lifted the Earth Fairy in his arms, and laid her across his horse. Then mounting again, he rode away with her in the direction of the Palace of Burning Coals, satisfied that there, in counsel[9] with his queen, he could bring succor to the stranger in her great need.
Queen Glow was a very beautiful fairy, and as wise and good as she was beautiful. Always her thought was how she could help and comfort those who were in trouble or distress. As soon as King Red Flame arrived at the palace, Queen Glow had the insensible Earth Fairy carried to her own room, and laid upon her royal bed. Here she bent over her, chafing her hands, and trying in every way to revive her.
There was deep silence in the room, except for the suppressed whispering of a little group of Fire Fairies gathered about the door. One by one other fairies that belonged to the palace came to join them, and among the rest came Grey Smoke, old and wise, she who had nursed Queen Glow as a child.
[10]As soon as Grey Smoke saw the Earth Fairy, she said, “She has rested too long on the Hearth. She has rested too long in the heat. Never again can she return to her own life. There is only one thing left for us to do. We must change her into a Fire Fairy. In this way only can she again be wakened into life. Then she can live happily among us, and fill her uses in the Fire Kingdom.”
“How is so great a change as that to be wrought?” asked King Red Flame. “Have you knowledge of such a spell as will accomplish this?”
Dame Grey Smoke shook her head. “No, Your Majesty, not I,” she said. “But there is in the palace, greater knowledge than I possess. It was written long ago in the Book of Spells, that lies locked away in your treasury.”
“True,” cried the King. “Why had[11] I not thought of that? Let the book be brought!”
The King and Queen waited in silence while a trusted messenger was dispatched to fetch it from the treasure chamber where it lay. When it was brought the King drew from his bosom a tiny key, which hung about his neck from a golden thread. As the King unlocked the book, a thin mist of magic floated out from its pages, and circled about his head for a moment before it disappeared. A thrill of awe passed through the watching fairies.
Slowly the King turned page after page, until at last he paused. “It is here,” said he. He and the Queen stooped above the book, reading the strange and crabbed letters written so many ages ago by the masters of fairy magic. When they had read the charm[12] through to the end, the King lifted his head: “None but those who work this charm may see it wrought,” commanded he. Then one by one the fairies passed from the royal bedchamber, leaving the King and Queen alone.
All was silent in the room. The charm had been spoken—the spell had been wrought. The King and Queen stood watching the still motionless form of the Earth Fairy.
At last through her passed a thrill of wakening life. She turned upon her side. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened wide, and her eyes rested in bewilderment upon the two bending over her. From them her eyes wandered to the room about her. She raised herself upon her elbow. “Where am I?” she demanded in a trembling voice.
“You are in the Kingdom of the Fire[13] Fairies,” answered Queen Glow gently. “But do not be afraid. You are safe here, for we have changed you into a Fire Fairy, and there is now no more danger for you here from heat or flame than there is for our own royal selves.”
The Earth Fairy’s face grew black with anger. “A Fire Fairy!” she cried. “I, a Fire Fairy! That must never be. I am of the Earth. How dared you meddle with an Earth Fairy? Let me go instantly. I am going back to my own country—to my own kind.”
“That cannot be,” answered the King. “There is no spell to transform you to what you were, and it was only by changing you into a Fire Fairy that we were able to awaken you from sleep. If we had not done this, you would have slept and slept yourself away into a film of ashes.”
[14]Carefully then he explained to her where he had found her, and how every means had been tried to rouse her, but in vain, and only by the power of the Book of Spells had it been possible to save her. But nothing that the King or Queen could say—no words, however kind or wise, made the slightest difference to the Earth Fairy. She sprang from the bed, and stamped her foot. She wept, she stormed.
By and by, however, she became sulky, and sank into silence, and would not even answer what the King and Queen said to her. They were obliged to leave her alone, and though she ate the food that was presently sent to her, she would neither speak, nor look at the attendants who brought it.
But as time passed the Earth Fairy grew less sullen, and even seemed to be[15] in some measure content with her new home, and her life in the palace, but Queen Glow felt sorry for her, and kept her near as her own personal attendant. If any difference was made by the Queen between her and the Fire Fairies, it was that she treated her with especial kindness and affection. But the new lady in waiting never forgot her old life, and although she was now a Fire Fairy, she always insisted upon being called Earth Fairy, and that was the name by which everyone knew her.
At last there came a time when she really seemed to respond to kindness, and to feel a certain love for the Queen. She sought to please her, and was always cheerful and complacent, and on their part the King and Queen trusted her more and more. There was nothing in the palace that they would not[16] have given her, nor anything that they would not have granted to her, if she had asked; that is, nothing that was at all possible.
But as a matter of fact, all this affection and pleasantness was only seeming. The Earth Fairy hated both the King and Queen, and longed to be revenged upon them for the change they had wrought in her, even though it had been done to save her. Constantly her anger burned against them, and she only awaited a chance to wreak vengeance upon them. The Earth Fairy was crafty, and had the patience of craft. She was willing to wait and watch a long while if necessary, if only her chance would come in the end.
While waiting she watched and listened, learning such spells as she[17] could from the fairies around her, and practicing them in secret. There was not a book of magic in the Palace of Burning Coals that she did not seek out and pore over; not a wand that she did not try. Only the King’s own Book of Spells was locked away from her, and one precious wand that had belonged to the mother of King Red Flame, and had been left by her in charge of the Fairy Grey Smoke, oldest and wisest of any save one in the Kingdom of the Fire Fairies. No one else, not even the King himself knew of this wand, for his mother had made Grey Smoke promise that she would never tell him of it, nor bring it from its secret hiding-place until some great need arose that called for a spell that nothing could possibly break.
If the Earth Fairy had known of this[18] wand she would have spared no pains to get hold of it; but Grey Smoke was wise and faithful, and kept the trust that the King’s mother had reposed in her.