Kerka's Book by Jan Bozarth

began to sweat under my heavy coat and quickly discovered the heat source in the wall behind me: orange fungus that looked like the tops of pumpkins without stems. Every few seconds, the orange segments burst open and blew out heated air. A quick scan confirmed that thousands of the furnace plants—or maybe they were furnace animals—lived in the rocky walls.
    The cavern was as bright and as warm as a summer day. Dropping my coat, I scurried toward the next boulder with my Kalis stick in hand. The astonishing beauty of the underground wonderland didn’t make an impact until I completely cleared the corridor. Awestruck, I stopped to gawk.
    Light from many species of luminescent creatures reflected off a network of crystal stalactites and stalagmites. The cavern walls were honeycombedwith alcoves, all of them alight in brilliant colors. Fairies dressed in earth tones and watery hues danced Kalis on one side, their sticks every shade of the rainbow. Ordinary flowering plants, vines, and grasses grew everywhere: on the ground, between the rocks, and around crystal structures. A gentle stream of water flowed off a high ledge into a pool. Roly-poly animals covered in artichoke-like scales bounced on a bed of silver leaves.
    I remembered Queen Patchouli’s second piece of advice: Look for the Kalistonia Fairies. Maybe my goal was closer than I realized. At the very least, the Kalistonia Fairies were a marker on the path to find Biba’s voice. I looked more closely at the fairies in the cavern.
    Fairy ages are impossible to pinpoint, but most of the girls looked like teenagers. They all had simple swirling designs on their foreheads and arms. I couldn’t tell if they were painted on or marks they were born with. Some of the fairies’ clothes sparkled with mica or gemstones. Instead of the long, flowing dresses of the Willowood Fairies, these fairies wore clothes that were easy to perform the Kalis moves in. They all wore their hair in braids, either hanging down or pinned up, some in intricate patterns.
    Their Kalis sticks were different lengths andcolors, and the sticks made different sounds as they whistled through the air. The cathedral cavern reverberated with whirs, whistles, and chimes. The longest sticks made a sound like tumbling crystal beads.
    Although the fairies were moving with flawless grace and fluidity, jumping higher and spinning faster than I’d seen before, I recognized several of the movements. They were variations of the basic Kalis steps my mother had taught me. A fairy dressed in deep brown stood on the tip of a stalagmite. Balanced on one foot, she bent her knee and sprang straight up. Reaching for the high ceiling with her Kalis stick, she brought her legs together and twisted like a corkscrew as she settled to the ground.
    A younger fairy stood among toadstools, practicing the movement my mother called Stroking the Water Horse’s Mane. The dancer in smoky gray held her left arm out to the side. Holding her lavender Kalis stick in her right hand, she swept her right arm down to the left over the imaginary crest of a horse’s neck and then looped it up and back. Repeating the movement over and over again, she practiced to achieve perfection and only stopped once. She stared at her short Kalis stick a moment and then resumed the same routine.
    Other fairies danced in pairs, leaping in unison or mirroring each other’s moves. Despite the distance from my spying spot, I could see the nuance in each movement. Mesmerized, I watched a girl who rounded herself into a ball. She held the position for three heartbeats and then sprang from the floor, throwing her arms and legs out like an unfolding flower. I felt the snap and collapse of her slim body as she performed the X Sweep. On the sixth unfolding, she launched herself into the air and drifted upward like a dandelion seed carried on the breeze.
    A series of sharp, staccato whacks followed by a
thwang
rose above the sounds