Fletcher caught up with her and Claudia when they got off the bus after school. “I talked to my dad last night and I found out loads,” he began.
“Flapping ears at six o’clock,” said Claudia.
“Huh?” Fletcher looked confused. “Flapping what?”
Claudia sighed. “Jessie’s right behind us, trying to listen to our conversation.”
With a stony face, Jessie pushed past them and went into the hairdresser’s where her mum worked.
“So … what did you find out?” Laney asked Fletcher.
Fletcher checked that no one else was near them. “Stingwood’s told all the Thorns that he’s setting up something in Hobbin Forest called the Avalon project. He wants to create a place that no human will be able to reach because of the enchantments surrounding it, something that will be a haven for Thorn faeries. Trouble is, no one can get in while he’s setting it up, not even other faeries, which is why it’s making everyone suspicious. I’m not really supposed to tell you all this – it’s a Thorn secret!”
Claudia rolled her eyes. “Do the Thorns really think we’ll want to join their little secret project?”
They stopped talking abruptly. The Lionhart pet shop door opened and Mrs Mottle trundled out with her dog and a bagful of doggie treats. She stared at them distrustfully before walking on and the gigantic cat’s eyes on the pet shop wall swivelled in her direction as she crossed the street.
Fletcher kept his voice low. “It’s all Stingwood’s idea and he’s channelling as much power as he can into it. My dad refused to join in. He reckons Stingwood’s trying to go back to the old days before faeries and humans lived together, and he says it’ll never work and Stingwood needs to face reality.” He paused and then added, “So whatever Stingwood’s doing to make this Avalon place must be affecting the rest of the forest and making the trees act strange.”
“But he could still be the Shadow,” Claudia muttered. “The whole project thing could just be a cover.”
“He’s definitely horrible enough to be the Shadow,” said Laney. “And I still want to see what he’s up to.”
“Laney, don’t go spying on him. It’s too risky.” Fletcher gave her a serious look. “Where shall we meet tonight? We’d better keep out of the forest but—”
Laney cut him off. “I’ve got training. So I can’t come.”
Fletcher pulled his bag over his shoulder. “Tomorrow then. Where shall we—”
“I can’t meet then either.” Laney’s hands grew hot and the sore patch on her middle finger throbbed. “Like I said last night, if you don’t trust my magic I’m going to search by myself.” She walked off, leaving Fletcher and Claudia staring after her.
A few minutes later she wished she hadn’t said it but she was too proud to go back and find her friends again. It was obvious that Fletcher thought her powers were a problem. She was used to Jessie thinking she was rubbish but knowing that Fletcher thought so too really hurt. And the worst thing was he was right.
Joe Fenworth didn’t come to the Mist training session that evening, so Laney didn’t have a chance to ask him about her powers. Standing on the shore of Faymere Lake with the other Mist kids, she just hoped she could get through the session without doing anything strange. She raised a water drop from the surface of the lake and let it fall again, breathing out in relief. Some of the Sevensies looked over and giggled, but she didn’t care.
Frogley called them closer after releasing enough blue vapour to form a barrier around the lake. He folded his angular arms and his eyes swept over them, resting on Laney for a second. “Today we’ll change to faerie form and use our water wings,” he began.
“Yes!” The whole group grinned at each other.
Frogley droned on for a while about the skill of using water wings and how to perform various manoeuvres in the water, from back glides to plummets. Then he went on for a while about achieving “maximum efficiency” by adjusting your wings to be water-dynamic. Finally he organised everyone into small groups, each headed by one of the older kids.
Laney waited impatiently for her group’s turn. Her hands felt hot but she took a deep breath and told herself to calm down. Everyone was in faerie form now and the air buzzed with the sound of beating wings.
“Next group,” said Frogley.
Laney followed her group to the diving-off point.
“Wait!” Frogley ordered. He was looking at Laney over his half-moon spectacles and her heart sank. Surely he wouldn’t stop her from going? He muttered a few words to their group leader, a tall boy with dark-green wings, and then waved them on.
The group leader gave them the signal to go and Laney launched into a curving dive, tucked her wings in tight and slid smoothly into the water. She’d flown in the river before, but the lake was murkier and it took a moment to get used to seeing through the water. Their group leader beckoned them on. Laney gazed around as she flew, amazed at the number of fish among the waving plant fronds.
They dived deeper and the group leader took out an orb to help light the way. The younger kids darted around, chasing and tagging each other. Laney caught sight of something below, half hidden by clouds of silt. A tall stone structure rose straight up from the bottom of the lake. If she hadn’t been underwater she would have gasped but none of the rest of the group seemed surprised.
Laney flew down to get a better look and circled the crumbling stones. This was obviously a wall but who would have built a wall down here? She saw another pile of stones and glided towards it. Diving through a hole, she found herself enclosed by stone walls on all sides. This had to be some sort of house and the hole she’d come through had to be the door. A stone roof cut out the light from above. It was quite a small and simple building.
She blinked. Standing here and looking up at the roof was oddly familiar. The pattern of the rectangular stones overhead jogged something in her mind. She had a sudden feeling that she’d been here before. It wasn’t a memory exactly, but a feeling of recognition.
Realising she could lose track of her group; Laney turned back to the doorway and found three figures blocking it. Jessie hovered there with Cathy and Leah right behind her. Jessie rubbed her fingers together and they turned blue with frost. Cathy and Leah copied her. Then raising their hands, the three girls blasted jets of frost at the doorway, turning the hole to a solid block of ice.
It was done in seconds and Laney was alone.
Panicking, she flew at the doorway and bashed the ice with her fists. It didn’t move. Beyond the thick, frozen wall she could see shadows moving. No doubt Jessie and her mates were having a good laugh before they flew away.
She stepped back and tried to breathe slowly. She’d melted the frost around Fletcher that time so maybe she could melt this too. She placed her palms on the ice and closed her eyes. Warm up … melt… she told it. She felt the ice soften but when she opened her eyes again she’d only made a small hollow in the thick surface.
She’d been angry that time when Fletcher was frozen and that had made her hands grow hotter, she was sure of it. So maybe if she could make herself feel that way again…
Picturing Jessie’s sneering face as she’d frozen the doorway, Laney put her hands on the ice again. She felt her fingers glow with heat and in a few minutes a hole had melted in the frozen wall. As soon as it was big enough she climbed through, spread her water wings and zoomed upwards. Her group was nowhere to be seen so she broke through the lake surface and circled round to get her bearings before making her way back to the shore.
A large group was gathered at the water’s edge.
“You! It had to be you.” Frogley’s bony jaw was tight with fury. “You abandoned your group leader and you were seen damaging the ancient Mist dwellings on the lake bottom.”
“No, I didn’t…” Laney’s head whirled as she thought of the underwater houses being lived in by ancient Mist faeries. “I mean, I went to look at the buildings but I didn’t damage them.” She caught sight of Jessie hanging back behind
Frogley, looking smug.
“This is intolerable!” Frogley puffed out his scrawny chest. “In fact, as Mist Elder I’ve decided that I can no longer have you at training. You are a menace to our tribe. How can the Thorns and the Greytails respect us, if we train someone like you?”
“I didn’t do anything, honestly,” said Laney. “I went into one of the underwater houses and some people blocked the doorway, so I broke out again – that’s all. I just want to learn and improve my skills.”
“You will never be taught all our skills and you will never become a full member of our tribe.” Mr Frogley raised his voice, letting the words roll off his tongue. He pointed one skinny arm at the path that led away from the lake. “Go and do not return. Tomorrow I shall inform your father of my decision.”
Laney’s face burned. She closed her eyes, changed back to human form and made her way through the crowd of Mist kids. Jessie’s face was now blank and her arms were folded. Cathy looked shocked and Leah had turned away.
Laney walked on, unblinking, until she’d gone round a corner out of sight of the lake. Then she sat down on a tree stump and put her chin in her hands. It was over. Her plan to become good at Mist spells had lasted for two whole training sessions. Why had she told Fletcher that she’d search for the Myricals alone? All those weeks of searching together – it had seemed like such a chore but without it there was a great big hole.
A light drizzle began to fall, adding beads of water to her hair. She looked up hopefully, but the rain was falling widely – on to the path, the grass and on to Hobbin Forest just a few strides away – so she couldn’t possibly have made it happen. She gazed at the edge of the wood, wondering if she should just go home. There were three trees grouped together straight in front of her. The middle one was smaller than the others and in the fading light it looked like the shape of a man – a tree-man. She stared idly at it, picking out its features. The top branches looked like arms and there was a knobbly bulge for its head. The leaves gave the tree-man a sort of coat down to its trunk-like legs.
A meow came from behind her and she jumped up. “Dizzy! Don’t creep up on me like that!”
The little black cat paced up and down, uttering a string of meows.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.” Laney leaned over to pet her, but Dizzy bared her teeth and darted back into the bushes. “Suit yourself then. I was only going to stroke you.” She was talking to cats now, like Claudia.
She glanced back at the trees again. But this time something was missing – as if someone had reached down with a giant hand and plucked an object out of the scene. Her mind spun. What was it – what had changed? Then she realised the tree that looked like a man had gone and now there was a gap where it had been.
For a few seconds, she couldn’t pull her eyes away. Then she ran.
When Laney got home she decided to tell her dad that she’d been expelled from training. Then he wouldn’t be shocked when Frogley spoke to him the next day.
“Well, you know I was never that keen on the idea anyway,” he said. “Being a close member of a tribe does funny things to people. They forget who they really are – where the tribe ends and they begin. Who was it that got you into trouble?”
“Jessie Weir,” said Laney.
“Oh yes, I know her mum. She’s had a hard time since her husband went. Aren’t you about the same age as Jessie?”
Laney didn’t want to talk about Jessie. “Yeah, about the same. Dad, did you know there are some ruined buildings at the bottom of Faymere Lake?”
Mr Rivers blinked. “Yes, I knew. Did you go down there?” His voice sounded odd.
“We all did. We were practising underwater flying. I never realised the lake was so deep.” Footsteps came down the stairs and Kim walked in before she could ask any more.
“Laney, you need to get to bed. It’s school tomorrow,” said Kim. “Here, I’ve filled in the form about your geography field trip.”
“Thanks.” Laney took the form.
“Where are you going on this field trip?” said her dad, slipping back into his normal tone.
“To the river – we’re collecting soil samples and stuff,” said Laney. “Last year they got people to go into the water but this year we can’t because of the flood. They think it might be too deep.”
“Perhaps your teacher can figure out why it suddenly flooded here when there’s never been a problem before,” said Kim. “The council doesn’t seem to have a clue. I feel sorry for Simon living down on Silverbrook Close. If the river bursts its banks again he’ll be one of the first to be flooded.”
Laney decided to leave them to their conversation and started to go up the stairs. As she reached the top, she heard her dad say in a low voice, “That’s another good reason to think about moving away from Skellmore. We don’t want to be caught out by a flood like that again.”
Laney heard Kim sigh, and then came the rustle of her dad’s newspaper, as if that meant an end to the discussion. She shut her bedroom door behind her, glad to get away from all the secrets floating round the downstairs room.
The end of September slipped closer, but the sun stayed bright and the leaves on the trees grew as thick and green as they did in mid-summer. Laney wondered if she should go and talk to Gwen about the moving tree roots in Hobbin Forest and her suspicions about Stingwood. It had been nearly a month since her accident with the Spirit Smoke – surely Gwen would have forgiven her by now.
But when at last she went over to Gnarlwood Lane, she found Stingwood striding up Gwen’s front path. He went into the house and came out an hour later, pausing to look around and scowling as if he suspected that someone was spying on him. Laney stayed hidden behind the hedge and was too nervous to knock on the door even after he’d gone. Every time she passed Gwen’s house after that there was strange-coloured smoke wafting from the trumpet-shaped flowers on the roof. Laney felt like the smoke was a Do Not Disturb sign.
She spent most afternoons Myrical hunting after school or trying to follow Stingwood. She watched him at his house in Gillforth and tracked him to the edge of Hobbin Forest, but once he entered the wood she could never find him. She looked out for the withered plants and brown leaves that signalled the presence of the Shadow but found nothing. Once, from the corner of her eye, she saw a huge black shape skimming over the treetops, but when she turned it was gone.
The day of the geography field trip was warm and bright. Kids piled on to the coaches at Pennington School, and Laney and Steph found a seat together. The year above was also on the trip and Laney spotted Fletcher sitting at the back with his friends.
“Now, listen up!” Their geography teacher, Mrs Martin, stood at the front of the coach. “There’s been a change of plan. There’s rain forecast for later and we need to be careful about the river just in case it floods like it did in the summer. So we’re going to the woods instead. We can still take soil samples and do measurements. I’ll give you your worksheets once we get there.”
There was a series of groans and cheers, and the coaches set off. Feeling thirsty, Laney pulled out her water bottle. A few bubbles rolled up to the surface as she tipped it up. She drank some and pulled a face. She’d heated the water again. She had to stop doing that – it made it taste horrible. Putting the bottle away quickly, she turned to chat to Steph. When she looked out of the window half an hour later she realised with a jolt that when Mrs Martin had said the woods, she’d actually meant Hobbin Forest.
The coaches parked up in a lay-by opposite Skellmore Farm and they made their way along the footpath that led to the forest, stopping just before the trees.
“Shouldn’t we try another wood, Miss?” said Fletcher. “This one’s really easy to get lost in.”
“You’ll be fine, Fletcher. I’m giving you all a map,” said Mrs Martin.
Fletcher tried again. “But, Miss—”
“Right, everyone! Gather round!” bellowed Mrs Martin, and she started giving instructions and handing out shee
ts and clipboards.
Laney saw Fletcher’s worried face. She was still annoyed with him, but she understood what he was trying to do. Hobbin Forest was not a good place for a bunch of school kids right now. The mass of dark trees stretched in front of them, waiting.
“Now, I’ll put you into pairs and you can work together, share the map and bring back one set of soil samples and measurements.” Mrs Martin began calling out names. “Steph Mackall and Craig Mottle.” Steph pulled an agonised face. “Laney Rivers and Fletcher Thornbeam.” Laney sighed. She might have known she’d be paired up with Fletcher. She went to collect their map and clipboard, nearly tripping over Jessie, who was doing the same.
“Watch it!” Jessie snatched the nearest clipboard and went back to Cathy and Leah. Laney raised her eyebrows, wondering how Jessie had managed to end up in a group with her friends.
“Spread out and find different places to take measurements but be back here by three o’clock,” Mrs Martin called. “The coach won’t wait.”
“Here you are.” Laney handed the map to Fletcher and picked up the soil sample bags and the clipboard. Then they walked into the wood in silence.
“Are you still annoyed with me?” said Fletcher at last. “I can’t even remember what I said that upset you.”
Laney stuck her hands in her pockets. “You were freaked out that I got those roots off Craig when you couldn’t do it.”
“It was kind of strange. Maybe Mist power is stronger than I thought.”
“You don’t think I’m out of control then?”
Fletcher pulled a face. “I’m sorry I said that. Look – you’ve only just started your Mist training. You’ve got years to practise and learn how to handle your powers. Let’s just forget it and get this worksheet done.”
Laney hesitated. “Actually, I won’t be having any more Mist training. Frogley told me not to come back any more. It wasn’t my fault,” she added quickly. “Jessie set me up. I guess she can be happy now that she’s the only proper Mist kid in Skellmore again.”
Dark Tree Shining Page 8
