Chapter 1
I was twelve the first time the book spoke to me. I was too young to know what I know now – about the secrets of Feyland, about its beauty and its power. I had not yet learned about the Twin Suns that dazzled the sky with their brightness, nor about the gleaming orange-blossoms that perfumed the gardens of the Summer Palace, nor about the wolf-blue eyes of an arctic Prince whose heart was as warm as his lips were cold. But somehow, even then, I could feel Feyland in my bones. I could sense it in my blood. I didn’t belong in Gregory, Oregon. I didn’t belong in a world of shopping centers and giggling high school girls, of grey skies and the unremitting dullness of small-town life. I had always felt like an alien among my own people – the girls at school, the well-intentioned shopkeepers always asking me why I didn’t smile more. I had always felt as if I were destined for something more, something different. Something not of this world.
I had only two respites in those days. The first was to walk with my best friend Logan through the back woods near our houses, feeling the crisp pine needles crunch beneath our heels. There was something about those woods that felt different – almost magical – as if the reality that we shared in those idyllic afternoons was somehow stronger, truer than the life we spent in Gregory. The second respite – and often the more easily accessible one, given Gregory’s notorious weather – was books.
My mother worked for a children’s publishing house, designing cover illustrations for fairy tales. As a child, I could think of no more glorious occupation. I would bury myself for hours in her gorgeous, brilliant designs – closing my eyes and pretending that I was the beautiful fairy princess on the cover of The Swan Princess , or that I was the noble knight my mother had depicted as saving Rapunzel from her wicked tower. The images I saw in my mother’s books sparked my fancy and haunted my dreams; night after night I dreamed of a beautiful country, of a far-off land, where all the kindling of my imagination gave rise to a burning fire of passion and adventure. All throughout my childhood, I looked forward to bedtime – I never resented it or protested the way other children did – for I knew that my dream-life was more thrilling, more filled with spectacle and excitement, than my waking one. Dreams were where I could be most myself. Where I could be a fairy princess, after all.
I dreamed of a library in a great palace – a library that contained more books of fairy tales than I could read even in a thousand lifetimes. I dreamed of a grand ballroom where I could dance the fairy waltz with a handsome prince. I dreamed of towers higher than skyscrapers and horses with enormous wings. I dreamed of magic.
Sometimes I dreamed of my father. I didn’t know who he was, of course – my mother and I had always been a solitary pair, even if she hadn’t quite gotten around to explaining the concept of “one night stands” to my twelve year old self – but I liked to imagine that he was a fairy king, like the fairy kings in my stories. I liked to imagine that he was watching over me from some distance and mysterious place – his gaze powerful but kind.
I liked to dream of him.
I didn’t know then, of course, that my dreams were inspired by far more than my mother’s stories – or that even my mother’s drawings were inspired by a real place, a place of such great majesty that no mere concoction of pen and paper could even begin to capture its fantastic power. But I knew that there was something special about my mother’s books. I hungered for each new instalment as it came out – often sneaking into my mother’s room to take a look at the galley copies she was sent, pre-empting her.
But on that cold October
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