Chapter One Granny's Problem
"The fairy-apple trees," murmured Jessie's grandmother. The charm bracelet on her wrist jingled softly as she lifted her hand to touch the painting on the wall in front of her.
She glanced at Jessie's curious face and smiled, her green eyes twinkling as they always did when she spoke about magic things.
"I haven't told you about that part of the Realm, have I, Jessie?" she said. "About Hidden Valley, and the gnomes, and the fairy-apple trees?"
Jessie stood in the pool of morning sunlight that streamed through the window of the spare bedroom at Blue Moon and watched her grandmother's slim fingers trace the outlines of the trees in the painting.
"Fairy-apple trees!" she exclaimed. "Are they where fairy-apple jelly comes from?"
Her mouth watered as she thought about fairy-apple jelly. It was one of her favorite things in all the world: a clear, sweet, golden pink jelly you spread on fresh bread.
Granny had made fairy-apple jelly for as long as Jessie could remember. She made it from fruit she gathered from a neighbor's tree. And in winter, small, glistening jars of it were always lined up on a shelf in the Blue Moon pantry.
Jessie's mother, Rosemary, always said that "fairy-apple" was just Granny's name for ordinary apple jelly. But Jessie could see that the apples on the trees in the painting weren't ordinary. They were very small and round, and a beautiful gold-red color.
"I didn't know fairy-apples grew in the Realm too," she said.
Granny smiled dreamily. "Oh, that's where all the fairy-apple trees grow," she said. "All but one."
Jessie leaned closer to her so that she wouldn't miss a single word. She knew howlucky she was. No one else on earth had a grandmother like hers.
Most days, life at Blue Moon was peaceful and ordinary. Jessie went to school, her mother went to work at the hospital, Granny cooked, gardened and shopped. Things were so peaceful and ordinary, in fact, that sometimes Jessie almost forgot that Blue Moon was a special place, and that Granny wasn't at all what she seemed.
She was a fairly unusual sort of grandmother, anyway. She laughed a bit more than most. She sang strange-sounding songs. She liked to walk in the rain. She talked to birds and flowers, and to her big ginger cat, Flynn.
She was so unusual that some people, like their next-door neighbors, the Bins family, thought she was crazy!
Granny wasn't crazy, of course. But she was different from other people. And only Jessie knew just how different.
For only Jessie knew that Granny wasn't from the mortal world at all. When Granny's eyes held that special spark of light and she talked, like this, of magic things, Jessie remembered her secret. Once, long ago, her grandmother had been a fairy princess. She had left her own world, the fairy world of the Realm, to marry the artist Robert Belairs, the human man she loved.
Jessie herself had had some amazing adventures in the Realm since she and Rosemary had first come to live with Granny at Blue Moon. The charms of Jessie's own bracelet were proof of that. Each one had been given to her by the Folk of the Realm, to remind her of her visits.
She knew a lot about the Realm by now. But she had never heard of the gnomes of Hidden Valley, or their fairy-apple trees.
Jessie looked at the painting Granny was touching. Jessie's grandfather, RobertBelairs, had painted it. Robert was dead now, but his paintings still glowed on the walls of Blue Moon. This one was especially beautiful. It showed a misty valley where dozens of little gnomes swarmed among trees loaded with golden red fairy-apples. Baskets already piled high with the fruit stood on the green grass, ready to be taken away.
A beautiful woman with a gold band around her head and long hair the same golden red color as the fruit sat on the grass beneath one of the trees. She held a fairy-apple in her hand, and her lap was filled to overflowing.
"Is that you, Granny?" asked Jessie.
Granny nodded. "Long ago," she said. "I loved Hidden Valley as much as Robert did. When the fairy-apple trees bloom, there's no lovelier place in all the Realm. Not many Folk go there. Not many even know the way. But we did."
She sighed and looked at the painting again. Her hand dropped to her side.
"What's the matter?" Jessie asked. "Don't you feel well?"
"Oh -- no . . . I'm fine." Granny glanced at her quickly and hesitated. Then she smiled. "You always know how I'm feeling, don't you, Jessie?" she said. "I can't hide anything from you. We're too alike."
Twining around her ankles, Flynn the cat purred. Granny bent to stroke his head. "It's like this," she said thoughtfully, frowning. "Lately, for some reason, I keep thinking about Hidden Valley. I keep getting pictures of the place in my mind. The gnomes' village. The fairy-apple trees. I keep wanting to come and look at this painting." She sighed. "I keep feeling that something's wrong."
"What could be wrong?" asked Jessie.
Granny frowned again. "That's the point," she said. "What could be wrong? The HiddenValley gnomes are happy, hard-working people. A bit too fond of gold, maybe . . ."
She thought about that for a moment. "The Folk and the fairies laugh at them sometimes. They say the gnomes will do anything for money," she said. "But the gnomes work hard all year in the mountain gold mines, except at fruit-picking time. You can understand how they've come to love gold so much."
She began to pace restlessly around the room, her eyes always straying back to the painting on the wall.
"I don't see how liking money too much could bring them trouble," said Jessie.
Granny shrugged. "I don't either, really," she said. "It might bring unhappiness to some. But trouble? No."
She clasped her hands. "Still, it's all I can think of, Jessie. The ogres and others who might want to harm the gnomes, or steal from them, can't get into the Realm."
"The hedge keeps them out." Jessie nodded. She knew all about the enchanted hedge that protected the Realm and its creatures.
"Yes," said Granny. "The hedge is as strong and healthy as it's ever been. And the Realm magic is powerful enough to keep it that way."
"So the trouble at Hidden Valley, if there is trouble, must be coming from inside the Realm itself," Jessie said. "How strange."
They stood in silence, while the sunlight in the spare room grew brighter on the painting of the gnomes and the fairy-apple trees. Then Granny spoke.
"I could be imagining things, Jessie," she said. "But I don't think so. I live away from the Realm now, but I'm still its true Queen. I trust my feelings about it. And the more I think about it, the more I'm sure that there's trouble in Hidden Valley. I must find out what it is."