Free Wolf Notes and Other Musical Mishaps by Lari Don

weight of the rucksack on her back and remembered why she was here. She stopped humming and licked a bit of jam off her thumb.
    She heard Lavender say, “Watch out for her glamour! It’s in her voice, as well as her face!”
    Helen thought about wrinkles. Wrinkles and spots. Then she answered the Queen. “I can’t offer to bring all the summer school students.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I’m the youngest student there. Professor Greenhill is in charge. She decides where we play and what we play.”
    The Queen smiled sympathetically. “You could tell them a child’s freedom depends on doing what you say.”
    “Do you want everyone to know that you have taken a boy? People would cut down these forests to find a missing child. They might not get himback, but they would ruin your revels and your hunting ground.”
    The Queen frowned and, for just a moment, Helen saw tiny wrinkles on her forehead.
    “So ask me for something I can bring you,” suggested Helen, “and give me the boy in return, then no one else will know you’re here.”
    “I want you to play for me.”
    Lavender cried, “No!” She was almost spinning on Helen’s shoulder, her tiny stilettos digging into Helen’s collar bone.
    Helen shook her head. “I can’t promise that.”
    “I don’t want anything else. I only want music. Music and dancing are the most valuable currency in our world.”
    “There must be something else you want.”
    The Queen considered for a moment. “There is one object I desire. If you can bring it to me tomorrow night, I will give you the boy. If you cannot bring it to me, you must promise to play at my midsummer revels.”
    “Tell me what the object is.”
    “No. You must promise first to give me music if you fail, before I tell you what precious object I will accept instead.
    “If you do not promise me now, you will never see the boy again. I will make him jam sandwiches with my own fair hands, so if his family ever see him again he will be a boy-shaped pile of dust.”
    She smiled again, but her face didn’t glow, it glittered like ice; she laughed again, but her laughter didn’t tinkle, it cracked and boomed.
    Lavender bounced beside Helen’s ear. “Don’t promise her anything!”
    Helen couldn’t see what else she could do, so she considered her words very carefully. “I promise I will provide music for your midsummer revels, if I can’t bring the object you want in return for the boy. I promise.”
    She had just made a bargain with the Faery Queen. Lavender gasped. The Queen laughed.
    Helen sighed. “What do you want?”
    The Queen told her.

Chapter 8
    “The Fairy Flag?” Helen said in surprise.
    The Queen nodded. “The Fairy Flag, which one of my sisters gave away to a MacLeod clan chief when she fell in love with him.” Helen and the Queen both gave identical snorts. “The Fairy Flag, which the MacLeods have hidden in Dunvegan Castle ever since, though they have no right to it, nor any knowledge of its real power. It’s hidden from the faeries who made it, who are its true owners; it’s hidden behind cut stones and filthy iron.
    “Faeries can’t get past iron as it weakens our magic and saps our strength, but a human girl could get past their barriers and rescue the flag. Then my people would return to this forest to touch the flag, to feel its power, to congratulate me for recapturing it.” She stroked her smooth golden hair. “Yes. A powerful treasure regained is almost as good as a dance.”
    “What power does it have?” asked Helen.
    “There is more power in one thread of that ancient banner than in all ten of your fiddling fingers , human child, and that’s all you need to know. Go to Skye, bring it back for me and you will get the boy. Fail … and you will give me music instead.”
    Helen thought for a moment, but she couldn’t see an alternative, so she nodded. “I’ll bring you your flag if you’ll give me James back, healthy, happy and not about to crumble to