Dragonfly Maid

But who were they? I didn’t voice the question. I lost my nerve and stuffed it back into the pit of my stomach. I took the robe.
She grabbed another and slid it around herself, lifted the hood over her head, and tied the laces at the collar.
I followed her example, shrugging the soft linen over my shoulders and lifting the hood over my head.
She nodded her approval. “Are you ready?”
“How would I know?”
She chuckled as though I were joking. I wanted to tell her my reservations were real, but she was already striding down the aisle that divided the ring of bookshelves.
I swallowed hard and fell in step behind her.
Within the ring were four sturdy tables. The two to my left were bare, but one on the right was piled with books. One massive tome lay open, as if someone had just stepped away from it. It looked remarkably like the one I’d seen in the vision I’d pulled from Mrs. Crossey’s memories. I moved closer to try to make out the brown-ink scrawl, but I couldn’t decipher a word.
“You’re familiar with ancient Gaelic, then?” Marlie asked.
I stiffened, chastened that I’d been caught snooping. “Not really. Is that what this is?”
She nodded. “Just some old recipes.”
“What sort of recipes?”
“I was looking for something medicinal for the Queen,” she added. “For her stomach.”
It was no secret that since Her Majesty had returned from Balmoral Castle, she had eaten little more than a smidgen of semolina pudding and tidbits of bread. Such a development ordinarily sent Chef into fits, but even he knew that when the Queen passed on her usual feasts, she was likely suffering. Perhaps from a toothache or a digestive complaint, though she never complained outright.
But what aid could Marlie find in such an old book? “Did you find anything?”
“Thankfully, I did. The Council cleared our shelves of the oldest volumes a few years ago to be stored at Balmoral, but I hid this one among the assignment records because it’s one of my favorites. There’s a recipe for every ailment you can imagine. That one there is a delightfully spiced carrot soup with the soothing qualities of chamomile. I was thinking one could easily add a touch of white willow bark to relieve aches and pains as well.”
Tonight my roommate was full of surprises. “I didn’t realize you knew so much about cooking.”
“Not so much about cooking, but plants and herbs? Those I know a bit about. That’s where I can do a bit of good.”
Her pride was evident, and I wanted to know more. “Chef sets the menus. Doesn’t he decide what Her Majesty eats?”
She giggled. “He thinks he does. That’s all that matters.”
The twinkle in her eye didn’t betray her secret, but it told me enough.
When we emerged from the ring of towers, I saw the Library—grand as it was—was still just an anteroom to an even more remarkable space. A temple of sorts, but where an altar might be, there stood a fountain formed of white, nearly translucent stone.
Beside it stood a lone figure in a robe, which wasn’t indigo like Marlie’s and mine, but a rich and vibrant purple. The hood was up, obscuring the face, but I knew those thick wrists reaching out from the ends of the bell sleeves and the reddened fingers that gripped the fountain’s edge.
It was Mrs. Crossey.
As we neared, she raised her hands from the fountain and lifted her hood to reveal a long and loose shroud of silvery hair I had only seen in wisps that sometimes escaped the muslin cap she usually wore. She held out her arms, lowered her chin, and said, “Welcome, Jane. Welcome to our sanctuary.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
At the sight of Mrs. Crossey behind the fountain, my courage faltered.
“Come, child.” She motioned to me. “Come closer. Don’t be afraid.”
But I was afraid. I had no idea where I was or what I was doing here.
Marlie nudged my elbow, urging me onward.
Hesitantly, I followed her along the path of black and white stones laid into a braid along the polished floor until we reached the fountain’s pedestal base.
“What is this place?” I whispered when we reached Mrs. Crossey.
“It’s many things,” she replied, amusement teasing her lips. “Tonight, however, it’s where we’ll see what’s what.”
I nodded as though that made sense, but it made nothing of the sort. Instead, I searched for answers along the gently curved walls, taking in all the long and narrow tapestries. There were a dozen or so weavings, some depicting people in indigo robes engaged in household tasks and others portraying more pastoral scenes.
The grand weaving behind the fountain, however, stood taller and wider than the others, and in the foreground, a woman in a purple tunic with her auburn hair pulled back behind her shoulders had lowered herself on bended knee beneath the glowing touch of a pale woman as tall as the oaks and as slender as a reed whose white hair flowed to her waist over a diaphanous gown that seemed to shimmer even as I stared at it. It was her ears, however, that drew my attention. They were too large for human ears, protruding as they did through her cascading hair, and their tops were not round, but pointed sharply toward the sky.
“Who is that?” My voice was hardly more than a breath.
Mrs. Crossey’s lips spread into an affable smile. “Legend has many names for her, but to us, she is the Lady of the Fayte. In this moment, she is creating the first Fayte Guardian, bestowing her gifts on the Warrior Queen herself.”
I had never heard of the Lady of the Fayte, but I knew about the Warrior Queen. Queen Boudica of the Iceni tribe had been a frequent topic in Chadwick Hollow’s history lessons. That Queen’s rebellion against the Roman invaders failed in the end and the woman lost her life, but her fierce loyalty to our homeland inspired an enduring pride in the hearts of Britons—especially Headmistress Trindle.
I pointed to two