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Updated: June 21, 2025
There Ivra pulled back for a minute, and the Wind Creatures slowed down. Eric knew why Ivra was afraid of the town. She had told him all about it while they played in the wood. Helma, her mother, was a human, but she hated the town and loved the fairies and their ways. That was why she had run away to live by herself in the wood. But Ivra was neither fairy nor human; she was both.
Even the Tree Man and his daughter who stood in the tree top waving good-by spoke no words, only nodded and waved. The last Bird Fairy fluttered noiselessly in. Eric lay back under the warm blanket, snuggled against Ivra. A Bird Fairy nestled into the palm of each of his hands. All was still and warm. The air-boat slipped away high and higher over the tree-tops and on and on.
The young girl had been clear like the day, and without smiling her face had been brimmed with happiness. But now he felt Ivra trembling. She whispered again, "You know, Eric, it is wonderful for us to see them like this. Some day, mother says, we may get to be like them!" "And speak without words?" Eric asked wondering. "Yes, and more than that. We may be as alive as they.
They dared not sit up for fear of being swept overboard. They could see nothing but the sky from where they lay, but they loved the speed, and clapped their hands, and Ivra cried, "Faster, faster!" The Tree Mother laughed. "These are brave children," she thought. "Shut your eyes then," she said, "and don't try too hard to breathe."
There can't be another mother across the sea for me. And if there were I wouldn't want her, not after Helma! No, Helma is my only mother, and Ivra is my comrade. And still I want to leave them, and go on and away over there. It is very funny." "No," said Wild Star. "It isn't funny. You are a growing Earth Child, not a fairy. It is your own kind calling you. It is the music of your human life."
"Of course, if you tell her she won't let you come. But if you came without telling, how could she mind?" "That sounds true, but someway it can't be," said Ivra. And that seemed to end it. But after a little the Beautiful Wicked Witch began another story. This one was about a frock she had made, a wonderful thing all of cobwebs and violet petals, with tiniest rosebuds around the neck.
But just before going to sleep Ivra roused herself to say, "Let's promise each other we won't go to the Beautiful Wicked Witch's fir until mother comes home, and we can tell her how jolly the Witch is, and what good stories she told us." "I don't want to go anyway," answered Eric, "unless I can free the bird." But you see, he had not promised.
She answered them by making things that Ivra could see with her own eyes, by drawing pictures on the ground or in the ashes, building with earth or snow, playing with wind and water, and in a hundred other ways. Sometimes the answer to a question would take up the playtime of a whole day. But now Eric was to hear his first story, World Story or any other kind.
Eric's fingers were awkward with knots, and besides, now, they were numb with the cold. But Ivra had everything right in a minute. She crossed the strings over his instep and tied them snugly above his ankle almost before he could think. Then they ran on. In starlit spaces Eric caught glimpses of hurrying figures, so swift and light he could not tell whether they walked or flew.
And Tree Mother's hair was whiter and more feathery than either. Her eyes were dark like the Tree Man's, only keener and softer, both. And in spite of her being a grandmother her face was brown and golden like a young out-of-door girl's, and she was slim and quick and more than beautiful. Eric stood beside Ivra, his face lifted up to the Tree Mother's, aglow and quivering.
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