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At the beginning, Cobweb, who had once been a bottom of the garden fairy, and now must be considered a bottom of the tower fairy, was away a good deal. The events at the Forty-Flight Tower had garnered quite a bit of interest in the fairy world, and a number of invitations had been forthcoming.
“Oh, Cobweb dear, must you go?” Floralinda said plaintively when Cobweb announced her intention of rekindling her career. “I shall be lost without you. What if a prince shows up? Or one of the creatures from the other floors escapes? Besides, I don’t think we should be apart, now that we lo—”
“Yes, yes,” Cobweb interrupted, “that’s enough of that. I don’t expect you to understand, since you are shockingly ignorant of the scientific world, but it is crucial to my reputation to present my findings in person, and exchange ideas with other leading figures in the field.”
Floralinda pouted, one of the few princess behaviors she still clung to, but Cobweb held firm, and eventually Floralinda flung herself down upon the divan and sighed dramatically. Happily, a key element of Cobweb’s negotiations with the witch had been a thorough re-do and upgrade of the first floor of the tower, including the removal of any trace of the sort of décor favored by diamond-toothed dragons. The divan, therefore, was clean and comfortable and tastefully upholstered in a muted chintz.
“I shall pine,” Floralinda threatened, helping herself to one of the everlasting supply of bonbons that had been another hard-fought victory of the negotiations. But although she looked very fetching indeed with her mouth smudged with chocolate, Cobweb did not allow herself to be swayed.
Unfortunately, Cobweb’s speaking engagements did not live up to her expectations. Her fellow fairies did not want to hear about the unexpected potency of orange peel, or see her astonishingly precise charts demonstrating the decline in spider venom toxicity over time. All anybody was interested in was her involvement in the shocking events at the Forty-Flight Tower. How does a princess become a monster, they would ask, which would make Cobweb’s wings quiver with annoyance. Worse, they would sometimes ask, in hushed and prurient tones, what it felt like to be a girl;. This, Cobweb resented: she didn’t exactly know how she felt about it herself, and she wasn’t at all sure it was permanent. Moreover, it was a private matter between her and Floralinda, and none of their business. In short, the fairy world was much as it had always been, dominated by gossip and caprice, and entirely uninterested in scientific advancement. She remembered why she had fallen out with them in the first place, and decided to go back to the tower. This decision was based entirely on scholarly integrity, and had nothing to do with slight nausea she was experiencing.
It was high summer verging into autumn when Cobweb flew back to the tower. The meadow surrounding it had become a velvety green sward, unmarked by the mayhem of the previous winter, aside from a whitening bone here and there. Bees buzzed among the flowers and the air held the humid touch of a thunderstorm on the way. Near the tower’s entrance there was a white form on a black square of what might have been rat hide. The form was not moving.
Cobweb went stock still in mid-air, her wings beating frantically. Then she dove, straight as a hawk, to where Floralinda lay, her tiny heart beating as if it meant to escape her tiny chest.
Floralinda was sprawled out on her malodorous cloak (no amount of cleaning had ever been able to remove the scent of rat, and indeed Floralinda now seemed to find the smell comforting); she had stripped down to her underthings, presumably due to the heat, and the areas of her skin that still retained a princess-like delicacy were already beginning to pinken in the sun. She was fast asleep, chest rising and falling regularly, her mouth slightly open.
Cobweb was furious. She grabbed hold of one of Floralinda’s earlobes and yanked as hard as she could.
“Ow!” said Floralinda, coming awake instantly, as befitted the guardian of a Forty-Flight Tower. She swatted hard at her ear before realizing what was happening. “Oh Cobweb darling!,” she exclaimed, in quite a different voice. “You’ve come back.” She held out her hand, as if inviting Cobweb to alight upon it.
Cobweb did, but she was not mollified. “And not an instant too soon,” she said. “You remain both silly and stupid. Cover yourself up. Have you never heard of sun damage? From princess to crone in less than twelve months. Not to mention the health risks. Whatever were you thinking?”
Floralinda smiled at her foolishly, but she did start pulling on her clothes with her free hand.
“And what if a prince were to find you like that, all unprotected?” Cobweb scolded.
“Oh, princes!” said Floralinda, with an un-princess-like snort.
“Haven't they been coming around?”
“Some,” said Floralinda diffidently. “But most of them—well, I’m afraid to say that when most of them see me, they—well, they turn around and run away. It’s quite amusing, actually.” She did not sound amused.
Cobweb pursed her lips. She felt an uncharacteristic hesitancy about telling Floralinda the term the fairy world was now using for her, though she suspected Floralinda already knew. “And the others?” she asked instead.
Floralinda bent over her cupped hands, in which Cobweb had now perched, and whispered conspiratorially. “The others, well, they’re quite the opposite, really. They’ve made me offers that I don’t like to repeat. One even wanted to marry me.”
This was unexpected. Above them, the sky darkened and thunder rumbled. Cobweb felt some of her fear returning. “And what did you say to that?”
“No, of course.” Floralinda placed Cobweb carefully down on the cloak, lay back down herself, turning so that Cobweb had a perfect view of her sapphire blue eyes. “Princes. They’re so big. And loud. They know nothing about chemistry. And none of them can fly or even have wings.”
Cobweb couldn’t help but preen her own lovely gossamer wings at that.
Floralinda lowered her voice even farther. “Cobweb dear, I’m beginning to think that I don’t like the idea of boys at all, if princes are the best examples of them. Or perhaps it’s humans in general I don’t like the idea of. I can’t be sure.”
“Well,” said Cobweb, as the thunderstorm broke upon them. “I expect we’ll have a long time to figure it out. And luckily for you, my experimental rigor is second to none.”