Free The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks Page A

had pinned them to the wall behind them. Everything—the grass, the trees, the rosebushes—seemed to rush away from Jan into a dark mist. There was a deadly, deadly silence in the garden.
    Jan was all alone, gripping the holly prickles. She slowly let them go. The bush didn’t spring back—itdidn’t move. Nothing moved. There wasn’t a sound, until a high, thin, thrilling voice close to Jan suddenly said:
    “Are you speaking to me?”
    Jan turned to look.
    And there she was. Jan knew at once that this was the Queen.
    She was sitting level with Jan’s face on a strange brown throne. It took Jan a second to realize it was made entirely of wasps, piled on top of one another, and that it stood on a tall wasp tower.
    The Queen was bigger than Tiki. She was about the size of Jan’s middle finger. She wore a long dress the colors of oil when it’s floating on water—every color there is—glinting and gleaming and ever changing. She wore a glistening crown of wasps’ stings.
    But it was her wings that fascinated Jan. They were enormous for her size, as dark and gleaming as polished metal, with shaped edges and long sharp points. They moved slowly, like a butterfly’s wings when it’s resting. Sometimes they were behind her, but sometimes they opened out on each side of her. When they did that, Jan could see a pattern on them, like two big, cold eyes. It was these eyes Jan looked at, not the Queen’s real, tiny eyes. When those false eyes were on her, Jan felt frozen. She couldn’t speak or move.
    “Well?” said the Queen.
    Jan tried to speak. She tried to think. Slowly the dark wings folded back. The big eyes weren’t looking at her anymore. Jan looked at the Queen’s face. She seemed to be smiling coldly.

    “Why are you doing all this?” Jan whispered.
    “Get down on your knees when you speak to me,” hissed the figure on the wasp throne.
    Jan tried not to obey, but she couldn’t resist. She sank onto her knees. Now the Queen was much higher than her head.
    “Look up,” she ordered.
    Jan looked up. The wings opened, tilted. The eyes pinned her.
    “Why am I doing all this?” asked the Queen. “I will tell you why. Eight and three-quarter years ago, a wretched little fairy dared to disobey my commands. She interfered where she had no right to interfere.
She gave life
. Only the Queen may give life. Or take it.”
    “You haven’t killed Tiki!”
    The Queen smiled again.
    “I do not kill,” she said. “It would not be fitting for the Queen to kill.”
    But she stroked the arms of her throne as she spoke. They moved under her hands. Each arm was a wasp’s back. It was as if she stroked pet tigers that would do whatever she ordered.
    “Your wasps kill for you,” said Jan. “What’s the difference?”
    The Queen’s wings snapped open, the false eyes stared. Jan felt her heart grow cold, her tongue freeze in her mouth. The Queen was not smiling now.
    “You have seen a little of my power,” she said. “Just a little. What you do not know is that I have turned your dear, good little child—your fairy child, as you dare to call her—into a lazy liar and a greedy thief. What is happening to her up there”—the Queenwaved one hand toward the top of the house—“is only the result of theft and of greed. For humans, nothing is ever enough; they are never satisfied. That is why fairies are forbidden to make magic for them or give them gifts. They always want more—more—more!”
    “Not Bindi!” cried Jan. “She’s not greedy—and she’s not a liar—and she’s not a thief! Never! I know her, I’ll never believe she would do anything really bad!”
    “She will do whatever I wish her to do,” said the Queen.
    “The way you made me kneel to you,” whispered Jan.
    “What do you mean?” snapped the Queen.
    “You forced me to do it. You made it happen.
We
have no magic power. If you used magic to make Bindi do bad things, that’s not her fault; it was nothing to do with her! You can’t