Seven Wild Sisters by Charles de Lint & Charles Vess

Author:Charles de Lint & Charles Vess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic, Juvenile Fiction / Fairy Tales & Folklore - General, Juvenile Fiction / Legends, Myths, Fables - General, Juvenile Fiction / Family - Siblings
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2014-02-04T05:00:00+00:00

Ruth pressed her cheek against Grace’s, trying hard not to cry because Grace was doing enough for the both of them. She held Grace close, trying to breathe slowly like Mama said they should do when they felt upset. “People forget to breathe,” she’d say, “and then they can’t think straight anymore. They get mad when they should be patient. Or do something stupid when they could have been smart.”

“Breathe, breathe,” she said to Grace.

Slowly she could feel the panic ebb a little. She sat back and held Grace at arm’s length to see that her sister was getting a hold of herself as well.

“That… that was real… wasn’t it?” Grace finally said.

Ruth had to swallow before she replied. “Looks like.”

“It’s my fault. They could’ve played rings around that little man.”

“You didn’t know.”

“It’s still my fault.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Ruth said. “All that matters now is that we figure out a way to get them back.”

Grace nodded. “I wish Janey was here.”

“Me, too.”

Janey wasn’t the oldest, but she knew all the stories. She got them from Aunt Lillian and was happy to pass them along to anyone who wanted to listen, which, in the Dillard family, pretty much only meant their older sister Elsie, who liked them, and Mama, who always seemed to have the time to listen to anything any one of them had to say.

Ruth stood up. “Come on,” she said. “We can at least look for clues.”

“Clues? Suddenly we’re detectives?”

“You know what I mean.”

She walked into the meadow with Grace trailing after her. They touched the instrument cases with the toes of their shoes and walked all around the spot where the little man and their sisters had disappeared, but there was nothing to see.

“I guess we have to go home and get Mama to help,” Ruth said.

Grace gave a glum nod.

They turned to the instrument cases, meaning to close them up and bring them along, when they realized that they were no longer alone.

Right where the deer trail came out of the woods stood another little man. But where the one who had kidnapped their sisters looked like a piece of a tree that decided to go for a walk, this one seemed more human. If you discounted his size. And the fact that he had virtually no neck. His round ball of a head seemed to sit directly on the round ball of his body. And then there were the wings—almost as big as him, fluttering rapidly at his back.

He looked, Ruth decided, a lot like a bee, what with the shape of his body and the wings and the fact that his shirt and trousers were all yellow and black stripes. She remembered all the bees they’d noticed on the way to this place. Were they all some kind of weird were-bees? She gave the meadow a quick study, but other than the fact that there seemed to be more bees than usual, the little man appeared to be on his own.

“Well, now,” the little man said.

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