Swift by R. J. Anderson Page A

hillside one step at a time.

    Some time later Ivy sat cross-legged in the shade of a holly bush, gazing into the sky. Her head throbbed, and sweat trickled down her spine. But her eyes had adjusted to the sunlight now, so she no longer feared that anyone would sneak up on her unnoticed. And she’d already spotted several kinds of birds.
    Some had been solitary, winging past with smooth, masterful strokes; others had arrived in clusters, dipping and soaring in patterns intricate as any six-hand reel. She’d seen birds as big as Mica and birds smaller than Flint’s fiddle, birds with long beaks and stubby ones, birds pale as the spriggan’s hair and others dark as her own. But though she’d listened intently to their chirps and cries, none had stirred any answering call in her heart.
    Maybe she was just too distracted to concentrate. A few minutes ago a horse and rider had come plunging out of the wood – both of them tiny with distance, but still the sight sent a stab of envy into Ivy’s heart. Even though she’d only seen them in pictures, the love of horses was in her piskey blood, and she longed to leap to her feet and run after it.
    But a horse couldn’t take her to Truro and back again before anyone knew she was missing – not like her own wings could. And that was why Ivy had to stay focused until she found the right bird, and learned how to take its shape. So that even if the spriggan turned out to be lying, at least she’d have gained something from meeting him.
    Time passed, and more birds with it. But still none of them seemed right to Ivy. She told herself to stop being fussy and choose the next bird that came along, but the moment she saw it – a ragged black creature with a scrap of carrion in its beak – her soul rebelled. No matter how badly she wanted to see her mother, she couldn’t shape a bird like that.
    The shadows were growing longer now, the sun slipping towards the horizon. If Ivy didn’t get home soon, Cicely would wonder where she’d gone. Disappointed, she got to her feet and began climbing back up the hill. But at least now she knew she could visit the upper world without getting caught by spriggans or blundering into some unforeseen disaster, so perhaps tomorrow…
    Something dark flashed across her vision, and instinctively she whirled to follow it. A little bird with wings like a bent bow, body tampering smoothly to a two-pronged fork of a tail. It swooped over the valley, moving so fast that Ivy’s eyes barely had time to focus before it was out of sight.
    Swee-ree, swee-ree, swee-ree , came its song from the distance, a piercing call that plucked at Ivy’s heart. ‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘Come back!’
    And to her amazement, it did. Rounding the treetops, it soared towards her and flew a circle above her head, bright eyes watching her all the while. She’d heard that piskeys had a special rapport with animals, but she’d thought that was something only hunters did. She’d never guessed that she could do it, too.
    ‘What are you?’ she asked, her voice soft with wonder. The bird didn’t answer, of course, but it dipped a little lower. And then a second bird of the same kind came flashing across the hillside to join it, and the two of them chased each other in dizzying spirals across the sky.
    It was like magic, and music, and dancing, all at once. And as Ivy’s heart soared with them she knew, as surely as she knew her own name, that this was the bird she wanted to be.

    ‘Are you sure?’ asked the faery that night, tearing a piece off the loaf Ivy had brought him. ‘Small, forked tail, dark all over? And it stayed aloft the whole time, without coming to land?’
    Ivy nodded. She’d stayed as long as she dared studying the little birds, so late that she’d nearly bumped into Mica and Mattock coming back from their trip to Redruth. A quick invisibility spell had protected her, but she still felt sick every time she thought about how close she’d come to being