Emily Feather and the Starlit Staircase

by Holly Webb

“So pretty. . .” Emily murmured, leaning towards the glittering water.

  “Even prettier close up,” Anstis whispered back, stretching out her hand again. “Take my hand. I can show you so many beautiful things, Emily. You have no idea. You can be a part of it all with me. You will belong.” And just for a second, her whisper sharpened, and she almost hissed, “You’ll belong, the way you never can at home. Come with me. Just step out.”

  “But I can’t.” Emily frowned. She had caught a touch of anger, and bitterness, behind the sweet words. “I’m not supposed to go. It’s not safe.”

  Anstis showed her teeth as her sweet smile widened to a grimace. But then she recovered herself and laughed, like a gentle peal of little bells. “Who told you that, Emily? Your . . . family? But they would say that, wouldn’t they?”

  Emily shook her head. That glimpse of long white teeth had bothered her, and there were strange blank patches in her head, as if someone had been messing around inside. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “They’re trying to keep you away, sweetheart. They want you safe and sound on their side of the doors, where they can keep you under control.”

  “Under control?” Emily faltered.

  “So they can use your power for themselves.”

  Emily laughed. She had seen Lark and Lory and Robin do magic, and even they were hundreds of times more powerful than she was – and that was nothing to what her parents could do. “They don’t need me!” she said, shaking her head, and then her voice wobbled and her eyes filled with tears.

  “So why do you stay?” Anstis purred. “Come with me and you can have a real home. We’ll look after you so well, Emily. We will love you.”

  “They do love me. . .” Emily tried to say, but it was so hard to fight against the choking sweetness of the fairy’s voice.

  “Poor dear thing.” Anstis reached out her hand again. “They’ve lied to you so often, haven’t they?”

  Emily blinked at her, and then her eyes slid down to the reaching hand, the skin pale, the fingers so eager and clawlike. “It wasn’t a lie,” she said, more strongly this time. The blurry feeling in her head was lifting a little, as if someone was tearing away a veil of dust and cobwebs. She could see Lory sitting next to her at the kitchen table and rolling her hazel eyes at Emily’s awful spelling. She could taste the sweetness of that biscuit, and feel the intricate icing melting on her tongue – and she sniggered, suddenly realizing that it had been a spell to help her spell.

  “What is it?” Lady Anstis demanded sharply. “Why are you laughing?” Her teeth were showing again, and Emily’s eyes widened. Why had she believed her? She knew that Anstis was cruel and deceitful and desperate to steal a human child, so that she and her gang of fairy nobles could feed off the life and energy a human would bring them. A human child brought up in a fairy house was like pink iced doughnuts to Anstis.

  But she was so clever. She knew all the little ways in. All the tricks. She had sensed Emily’s misery, and worked on it so carefully.

  “You knew,” she said, looking clear-eyed at the fairy at last. “You waited until I was upset, and then you sneaked in.” Emily ground her teeth. “Well, I was stupid enough to let you, I suppose. But you’re wrong, and I know you’re wrong. They do love me!”

  Lady Anstis stared down at her – she seemed taller now, and thinner. She had shrunk herself down before, so as to look more gentle, Emily decided.

  “How could they?” she asked contemptuously. “You’re a human.”

  She didn’t need to say, You’re nothing, but Emily knew that was what she meant. Her certainty rolled over Emily in a cold wave – that she was nothing, that she was unimportant, that she would never belong.

  But then a tiny creature with dusty cocoa-coloured fur scurried along the window sill inside her head. Emily heard Robin calling crossly, Come back! Brownie, where are you? You stupid mouse, that white monster of a cat’ll have you for breakfast if you’re not careful.

  Emily had made Brownie. She had made him, and Robin loved him. He loved her too, even if he hadn’t thought she could do proper magic. She’d shown him, and he’d been pleased for her! And he’d come to find her after the argument with Eva, to see if she needed him.

  Anstis was wrong.

  “And even if you were right, and they don’t love me, I’d still never go with you,” Emily snarled angrily.

  Lady Anstis swirled her star-white skirts around her, and the door in the air shut with a snap.

  Emily woke up.

  It was just getting light, and she was on the window sill, and the window was wide open – too open. She was dangerously close to falling out. “I thought that most of me was still in bed,” Emily muttered, glancing back towards the sleeping bag and wondering if this was just another complicated layer of dream.

  “You were, until she showed you the fountain. When you almost took her hand. Then she nearly had all of you.”

  Emily grabbed at the curtains, panicked and breathing fast. Then she peered round sideways and saw that Robin was sitting on the metal fire escape just outside the window.

  “What are you doing here?” Emily muttered.

  “I followed you when you didn’t come back. Mum said you were having a sleepover, but. . .” He trailed off. “I was worried about you,” he added, very quietly.

  “Do I have a scent, then?” Emily asked. “You tracked me?”

  “Yeah. And I knew where you were going, that helped,” Robin admitted. “Um, are you coming home?” He looked at her sideways, and Emily’s heart jumped. He was worried! He was frightened that she’d run away from home! He didn’t want her to go!

  “Because I’m really hungry,” Robin added hopefully.

  “I don’t think this is a very good idea.” Sasha was sitting hunched up on a mossy rock by the edge of her pond. It was definitely getting bigger, Emily decided. It hadn’t had rocks all round it like that before. Emily scowled. She was furious with herself, for giving in to Anstis’s magic so easily. How could she have forgotten Sasha, the water sprite that she knew best?

  Sasha shook her head doubtfully, peering at Robin and Emily with pale green eyes. “It’s dangerous.”

  “What is?” Emily demanded. “Robin, aren’t you supposed to be nice to me right now? Tell me what’s going on!”

  But Robin didn’t seem to be listening. He shrugged at Sasha. “We have to. She’ll never settle otherwise, will she?”

  “Don’t call me ‘she’!” Emily said crossly.

  Sasha stretched out one foot and dabbled her toes in the water, as though it helped her think. “All right,” she said at last. “I’ll watch for you, then. I’ll try and call you back, if anything goes wrong.”

  “What?” Emily squeaked. “Where are we going? What’s happening?”

  Robin stood up and grabbed her hand, hauling her after him. “We’re going to see what might have been,” he told her. “So you can know.” He dashed into the house with Emily stumbling behind and panting out questions.

  “What might have been? I don’t understand! And why are we going upstairs?”

  “Because you keep opening doors on the stairs!” Robin told her swinging her round the corner of the landing and on to the rickety old staircase that led to Emily’s attic room. “This is one of the easiest places to get through now, apart from Dad’s proper entrances. Um. . .” He frowned, trying to think how to explain. “It’s like there’s a wall between here and the fairy world, and you’ve weakened it. And even though the fairy world’s not where we’re going, it’s still easier to go to other places from this weak spot than anywhere else. So shut up and keep still, I have to think.”

  Emily opened her mouth to argue, but Robin had his eyes closed, and his face was empty. She wasn’t sure he would even hear her any more. And then the dusty steps shimmered and shifted, and there was a dry scent of earth and a col
d wind spilling around them. A crack of light shone through from somewhere else as the painted wall of the stairway tore and flapped open like the thick canvas of a tent. Emily swallowed and gripped Robin’s hand tighter – and then he pulled, whisking her through the narrow gap in the wall. She glanced back, frightened, and reached for the familiar stairs again, but the dim staircase had gone. They fell tumbling over and over, on to something soft and rustling.

  Leaves, Emily realized a moment later, when she dared to open her eyes. Dry, fallen leaves. They were in a wood. But not the fairy forest she had visited before, which had been lush and green and lovely. Here it seemed to be autumn, maybe winter. The trees were dropping their leaves, the branches almost bare. They made a dark net across the clear hard blue of the sky.

  “Where are we?” Emily whispered. She didn’t want to talk out loud, not here. There was something about the quiet lines of black trees that scared her.

  “Nowhere. This is in the middle of lots of places.” Robin got up slowly, staring around. “Um. Like a station platform? It’s somewhere to go to the other places from.”

  Emily stared at him. “You mean there are doors to other places in the house too? Not just doors to your fairy world?”

  “Not other places,” Robin repeated patiently. “Here. Here’s where you can get to the other places from.”

  “Where are we going?” Emily whispered, so quietly that Robin had to lean towards her to hear. “You said we were going to see what might have been. I don’t understand.”

  Robin sighed. “Ever since you found out you had another family, you’ve been thinking about them, haven’t you? You want to know what it would have been like if your real parents had kept you.”

  “Yes,” Emily admitted, kicking at the dry leaves with the toe of her plimsoll. She felt ashamed, after the way her adopted family had been so kind to her. She was so lucky! Why couldn’t she just accept things as they were? But even though she loved them all, so much, she still wanted to know about her real parents. She was sure that meeting them, even just seeing them, would tell her something about herself.

  “So that’s what we’re going to find out. You’ve got to know. Come on.” He grabbed at her and started to lead her through the dark trees.

  “But we can’t! It never happened, so how can we go there? I don’t understand! Stop pulling me!”

  “Fine,” Robin snapped. And he let go of her.

  Emily was about to complain that he’d hurt her wrist, although he hadn’t really, when her grumpy voice seemed to catch in her throat. All she said was, “Oh. . .” in a sort of muffled squeak.

  The strange wood wasn’t there any more. Robin had pulled her out of it, as easily as he had dragged her in. And then he’d let her go. Not caring if it made her look silly, Emily reached back and caught his hand again, in her own cold one. Somehow, they were indoors again – but not in their own sweet-smelling, dusty old house. Robin had taken her somewhere different. Somewhere she had never been.

  “Where is this?” she whispered. “What have you done?”

  Robin sighed and rolled his eyes, but even he looked rather nervous. “We’re here,” he murmured. “Look. You have to go through that door. I’ll wait for you.”

  Emily gulped, but the place didn’t look frightening. It was just a house, as far as she could tell. A landing with a slightly faded carpet and a basket of folded washing. She did as she was told, slipping around the door of a small room – not all that different from her own bedroom at home. But pinker. As though it had been decorated for a little girl and left the same, even though the girl had grown up.

  A teenage girl was sitting on the bed in the corner of the room, leaning back against the wall and staring down at a flimsy piece of paper in her hands. Her hair had fallen forward over her face, so it was hard to see what she looked like, but Emily was almost sure that the girl was her mother.

  Forgetting to worry about how she’d managed to get there, or whether it was safe, or if anyone could see her, Emily ghosted over towards the bed and sat down next to the girl. She looked older than Lark and Lory, Emily thought, but not that much older. Sixteen? Seventeen? The girl was crying, Emily realized now that she was closer. She was staring down at the piece of paper and silently crying, tears just running down the sides of her nose without stopping, more and more of them.

  Emily peered at the piece of paper, trying to work out what it was. The paper was scruffy and smudged, but then the girl ran her hand over it to smooth it out, stroking her fingers over it so gently. And Emily saw that it was a face. A baby’s face, tiny and perfect. It was a drawing of Emily, from before she was born. Her mother’s idea of what she might look like.

  All at once, Emily was sure. This wasn’t what might have been – this was real. This had actually happened. This was her mother, young and frightened, in her little-girly pink bedroom.

  Emily edged closer to her mother. She wanted the girl to see her this time. If she saw Emily, then perhaps they could talk to each other. Her mother would be able to explain. . .

  Although, actually, just being there in that pretty pink room explained quite a lot. Seeing the girl’s face streaked with tears, seeing her so scared. She wasn’t ready to be a mother.

  Emily leaned herself cautiously against the girl’s shoulder, wondering if she would be able to feel that Emily was there. Hoping that somehow she would know.

  The girl lifted her head a little and rubbed at her shoulder. Emily guessed that maybe she thought a fly or something had landed there. The girl’s fingers tickled Emily a little as they swept over her face, and she could obviously feel Emily too. She sprang sideways with a sharp cry, pressing herself into the corner of the wall.

  “What is it? Who’s there?” she whispered, holding out her hand and sweeping it in front of her to see if she could feel anything.

  Emily pressed her own fingers against the older girl’s. Her mother’s hand was almost the same size as her own.

  Emily couldn’t help thinking of Eva and how different she was to her real mother. Her pregnancy was making her more beautiful than ever – her red hair was thicker and longer and shinier than it had ever been, and her skin looked golden. But then, Eva was a fairy, and she had Ash to look after her. And a house, and a family of other children – even if they weren’t being very nice to her at the moment. Eva had so much family around her, but it seemed that this girl was all alone, in her little pink room, with no one to talk to.

  Gently, she pressed her fingers against her mother’s again, hoping that she would push back, like a message.

  “Who are you?” the girl whispered again, but she didn’t take her hand away.

  Emily gulped. “Emily. . .” she whispered back. Her voice came out strange, like an echo, and she wasn’t sure if her mother would hear her. But the girl blinked, looking around in bewilderment.

  “What’s your name?” Emily asked suddenly. She hadn’t realized until now that she had no idea what her mother’s name was.

  The girl swallowed and closed her eyes, as if to make herself feel braver. “Izzy. . .” she murmured. “Are you a ghost?”

  Emily laughed, and she felt the laugh tremble through her fingertips and reach out to Izzy. Her mother.

  The older girl’s cheeks grew pinker, as though some of Emily’s strength had gone into her with that little laugh. She stopped crying, and wrapped her cold fingers around Emily’s own. “Maybe you’re not a ghost – I can almost feel that you’re really there. Almost.” She squeezed Emily’s hand tighter, and with her other hand she reached up, as if she wanted to stroke Emily’s hair. “There’s something so familiar about you.” Then she gave a little gasp. “You’re the baby, aren’t you?” Izzy whispered, drawing her hand away and wrapping her arms over her stomach.

  “I think so. . .”

  Izzy looked up, and her eyes were shiny and wet with tears again. “I suppose you’re j
ust my imagination,” she muttered. “Because I’m not sleeping much. But it doesn’t feel like I’ve made you up. I didn’t know this is what you’d look like.”

  “It’s funny, I’m not sure if I’m making you up either,” Emily told her, and Izzy’s mouth twisted just a little, into an almost-smile. She moved her hand again, reaching out for Emily’s, and Emily took it gratefully. Izzy shivered as she felt Emily’s fingers touch hers. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t have a baby. I want to. But I can’t. I just can’t. . .”

  Emily swallowed. “It’s all right,” she managed to say, her voice croaky and strangled suddenly. And it was.

  She’d never thought it could be, but it was. Izzy was terrified. She was too young. She was sure she couldn’t look after a baby Emily.

  “You could look after me,” Emily told her shakily. “You could try. Some people do, even when they’re as young as you, and they’re good at it. Really good. But it’s all right. That’s what I came to say, I think. I’ll be all right. Probably better, if you let me go.”

  It was true, and somehow it helped to say it.

  “I hope you’ll be all right too. . .” Emily whispered, gently taking her hand out of her mother’s. She was going – she could feel it, the pull of home. Her real home. It was stronger than Izzy’s frightened, shiny eyes, and the pink bedroom. Emily was going back home. It was her true home, just as she’d angrily told Lady Anstis. Now she was sure.

  The trees of the between-place blurred past her, and Emily smiled, reaching out towards home, and her brother and sisters, her father and mother. Especially Eva. Seeing Izzy had made her feel desperately sorry for her real mother, but it had also made Emily realize how much she loved Eva, and how much Eva loved her, and always had. Emily wanted to get home, and tell her that she knew now. She needed her.

  And then someone lifted her up and hugged her, just like she always used to when Emily fell.

  “Mum! How did you get here?” Emily muttered into Eva’s shoulder. “I was with Robin. I think. . . And then. . .” She looked up, blinking anxiously. “He’s still there! Mum, I left him behind!”