Emily Feather and the Enchanted Door

by Holly Webb

  She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the school gate, hurrying him down the road, far enough in front of the other parents and children to talk without being heard.

  “Robin, what happened at lunchtime?” Emily asked urgently.

  “What?” Robin frowned, gazing back at her indignantly. He looked so surprised that Emily believed him for a second. Only a second, though.

  “Don’t pretend!” she begged. “I thought it was a dream, but you were there, weren’t you? I can tell! You do know what I’m talking about!” There were a few people up the other end of the road, and she pushed Robin into the edge of someone’s garden path, hidden by bushes, and shook him by the arm. “Please, Robin, I want to know! Stop pretending! You made me move out of the library, and you almost made me forget I was even there…” Her voice trailed away. It sounded so stupid. So unlikely. Robin was her little brother. He was only eight. But she hadn’t imagined it; she couldn’t have dreamed up anything that weird.

  Robin wriggled out of her grip and stood on the pavement glaring at her, red patches showing on his pale cheeks for once. “I’m telling Mum you did that! You’re not allowed to grab me. Lark! Emily’s being mean!”

  Her sisters must have walked very fast from their school, Emily thought, looking round at them in surprise. Perhaps they’d got out early. All three of them were staring at her now.

  “What did you do to him?” Lory sighed. “Can’t you two just leave each other alone for once?”

  “But I’m not being mean…” Emily frowned. She was sure something had happened at lunchtime, but it was so hard to remember when they were all staring at her. “There was a book, and a little girl. Robin was there, I know he was… I can’t think… I have to go home.” Emily took off down the road, knowing that they were all staring after her, and not caring.

  Emily could hear her mum and Lark and Lory at the bottom of the stairs, talking about her. She couldn’t hear what they were actually saying, just buzzing voices, and her own name here and there. They were probably telling her mum there was something wrong with her. Her head ached, and her eyes were sticky and sore from crying.

  Emily rolled over, trying to find a cool place on her pillow. What was wrong with her? She almost hoped she was ill. It would explain the strange dreams, and the faces in mirrors. Maybe the book was just a book and she had flu, and she’d just imagined the pictures moving.

  She wasn’t quite sure that flu explained what Robin had done, though… But people did black out sometimes when they were ill? Maybe that was what she’d done? Emily blinked up at the ceiling. Perhaps she was really ill? Life-threateningly ill?

  “Mum…” she called anxiously, and there was a listening sort of silence from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Are you OK, Emily?” her mum called, very quietly.

  “No…”

  Her mum hurried up the stairs and crouched down by the side of Emily’s bed. “Lark and Lory said you were upset, but they thought you wanted to get over it on your own. What’s happened, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t know…” Emily’s voice shook. “I keep having really strange dreams. I was in the library at school, or I thought I was. There was this book – and then Robin made me move. I was in the library and then all of a sudden I was outside. Or I think I was. But that isn’t possible. I think I’ve got flu and it’s making me see things.” She looked hopefully at her mum. She wanted to be offered herbal tea, and hot water bottles, and duvets on the sofa. And most of all, to be told that it was all OK.

  “You’re getting to that age,” her mum said, very quietly.

  “What age?” Emily stared at her. What was so special about being ten?

  Unless it was to do with that growing up talk that all the Year Five girls had been shepherded off to the library for at the beginning of the year. About your body changing. But no one had mentioned anything about dreams. Or mirrors suddenly having people in the back of them. Emily had gone straight home and asked Lark and Lory what it was all about. She felt sorry for people who didn’t have older sisters to ask.

  “Do you mean hormones?” she asked Mum, feeling quite pleased with herself for remembering what they were called.

  But her mother stared at her blankly. “No … oh, well, that isn’t what I meant. But that’s probably it.” She smiled, but only her mouth moved. Her eyes still looked worried. And almost sad, Emily thought, feeling more mixed up than ever.

  “What did you mean, then? Is there something wrong with me?” she asked shakily.

  “No! No, of course there isn’t.” Her mum hugged her fiercely, pulling Emily into her arms and squeezing her so tight she could hardly breathe. “You’re feeling weird because you’ve got a bug, I should think. You’re perfect. And I love you.”

  Emily hugged her back. She was fairly sure her mum was telling her the truth. But there was still something strange going on. Mum hadn’t answered her question either.

  But Emily didn’t want to ask it again. She wanted to be fussed over, and told that everything was all right. If she saw something in the mirror, or the pictures on the stairs spoke to her, or people stared at her out of books, she wasn’t going to look. If she didn’t look, she couldn’t see. And right now, that was the way she wanted it.

  Emily stayed away from the library at school, and she refused to look at the mirror on the landing. It was hard not to think about all the odd stuff that had been happening, but she could just about manage it. Robin was her annoying little brother, that was all. She’d had a bug. Gruff stayed sleeping on Emily’s bed at night, and Emily hardly dreamed at all.

  It was tempting, though. She longed to go and look at the book again. What if someone else borrowed it? What if it got lost? It had a scary fascination, like that strange picture book about goblins that she’d loved when she was little. She could only look at it in the cupboard under the stairs, which was small and dark and smelled musty, but it was safe. It was probably still there, stuffed behind Lark’s old roller skates, Emily thought as she wandered down the stairs on Saturday morning, with Gruff thudding from step to step behind her.

  She came into the kitchen yawning, and stopped, realizing that her mother and father had gone silent when they saw her.

  “What?” Emily pulled her hoodie top tighter round her shoulders, wrapping it round her like a comfort blanket.

  Her mother blinked, and smiled. “Don’t look so suspicious, Ems. I was just saying it would be nice to have a family dinner tonight. All of us together. It seems ages since we managed to get us all in one place.”

  “Oh…” Emily nodded. She looked hopefully at her mother. “Can I make some of the food? Can I make pudding? Please, Mum?” Emily couldn’t imagine anything nicer than spending the day pottering about the kitchen, leafing through recipe books and mixing up delicious stuff. After all the oddness of this week, it would feel like being normal again.

  Her mother smiled at her and gently pushed a pile of recipe books across the table. The kitchen table was huge, and as everyone had been rushing in and out all week, no one had needed to clear it properly so they could all sit down. Emily slid into a chair and started to leaf through the book on the top – full of beautiful photos of cakes. She did cook savoury things sometimes – she was good at pasta – but cakes were her favourite thing to cook. There was something magical about the way the ingredients went together and looked like a weird sort of gloop, but then the heat of the oven turned them into something new and different.

  Magical – Emily shivered, and scowled at the chocolate brownie recipe she was reading. It wasn’t magic. It was just cooking. Maybe a bit of science. Chemical reactions and that sort of thing. Everything worked the way it was supposed to; it was just a matter of following the recipe.

  But recipes didn’t work for some people. Mum’s cakes never rose properly, and she loved to tell the story about Lark begging for shop cake when she and Lory were
little, because Mummy’s biscuits were horrible. When they’d had a cake sale at school and Emily had made chocolate raspberry brownies, Mrs Daunt had told her she had a magic touch.

  Emily slammed the book shut, her breathing fast and panicky. She would not think about it!

  “What did that recipe ever do to you?” her dad asked mildly, peering at her over a sheaf of papers. “Are you busy, Emily? Will you read this for me?” Then he shook his head. “Actually, no. You don’t need to. It’s terrible. If your mother comes back, tell her I’m working, all right?” He gathered up the papers and hurried out of the room, muttering irritably to himself.

  Emily nodded, glad that he’d been distracted. She opened up a different recipe book, determined not to think about magic at all.

  Soon she was too busy to think about anything but her plan – a new recipe that she’d come up with for a sort of lemon caramel cake, with crystallized rose petals decorating the top. It borrowed bits of about five different recipes, and it was very complicated. So complicated that she hadn’t been able to worry about the last week while she was making it, she realized as she carefully scattered the flower petals on the top of her finished creation. It was nearly time for everyone to have dinner. She sighed, feeling as though she could breathe properly for the first time in days – there wasn’t a hard little knot in her throat any more, blocking the air. She felt full of sugar dust instead, and her hair smelled of caramel.

  “Emily, it’s so pretty.” Lory touched a rose petal with one delicate finger. “It’s OK! I’m not eating it! Just looking!”

  Emily smiled at her. “It is pretty, isn’t it? Almost too nice to eat, but I really want to know what it tastes like. And I’m starving.”

  “Yes, well, you would be!” her mum pointed out. “When I asked you if you wanted lunch you told me you couldn’t possibly stop because you were in the middle of the tricky bit with your caramel, and after that I didn’t dare interrupt.”

  Emily leaned against her for a second, sliding her arm round her mum’s waist. “Sorry. I forgot about lunch. I did eat a few rose petals, but that explains why I feel totally empty.”

  “Well, I just about managed to fit the roast chicken in round your cake. It should all be done, I think.”

  “My favourite.” Emily sighed happily. Her mum might be useless at cakes, but her roast potatoes were legendary. Emily gave the scattering of petals on top of her cake a last dusting of icing sugar and grabbed a handful of cutlery to set the table. Her dad was fussing around finding matches to light candles, and Lark and Lory had picked flowers and twined ivy up the middle of the table. It felt like a really important occasion.

  But as everyone sat down in the glimmering candlelight, Emily felt strangely shy. It was as though the beautiful table and the special food made it hard to talk. There were odd silences, broken only by admiring comments on how good the food was. Emily’s mum kept saying how nice it was to sit down as a family, and how special it felt. But the more she said it, the more forced it sounded.

  Even though roast chicken was her absolute favourite meal, Emily didn’t feel hungry. She nibbled a roast potato and sneaked a few bits of chicken down to Gruff, who was leaning lovingly against her ankles. Chicken was Gruff’s favourite too. Emily was pretty sure that Lark and Lory were feeding him on the other side of the table as well. He was big enough to beg from both sides at once.

  Eventually, Robin laid down his fork with a sharp ring of metal on china, and glared at Eva and Ash.

  “Can we just tell her, please?”

  “Robin!” Lory hissed.

  “It’s stupid. We’re going to tell her anyway; why do we have to do all this polite talking about nothing? Nobody’s saying anything important. You and Lark were talking about your favourite colour for flowers! And no one’s eating any dinner.”

  “There’s a time for these things,” Ash murmured. “We were waiting…”

  “Well, I’m bored waiting.”

  Emily sat staring at them all, her eyes flicking back and forth between Robin, who was sitting next to her, and the others. “What were you going to tell me?” she asked huskily. Her voice didn’t seem to be working properly. Apart from Robin, who was sticking his bottom lip out in a sulk, everyone looked so serious. Something was wrong, Emily was sure. Maybe her mum and dad were splitting up? But why would they tell everyone else and not her? Why have a meal that was meant to be all about family and then break it up? It couldn’t be that.

  “What is it?” she asked again.

  Lark, who was sitting next to her, leaned over and put an arm round Emily’s shoulder, pressing her cool cheek against Emily’s for a second. Then she stood up, and across the table Lory stood as well.

  Emily stared at her sisters, her heart thudding. The strangeness in the room seemed to shiver on her skin – everyone was tense and keyed up, waiting for something.

  Lark smiled at her, and then she twisted her shoulders in some strange way, and feathers poured out of her back, soft grey-brown feathers, with darker stripes and mottles. Wings. Lark looked like an angel, Emily thought, gazing at her.

  Or a fairy. Her sister’s skin was shining, with the same strange glimmer as that girl by the river. She had been a fairy. Of course she had. Emily should never have doubted it.

  Emily’s fingers twitched, longing to stroke the soft feathers. She thought they were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Usually brown was a boring sort of colour, but Lark’s feathers glowed in the candlelight. They seemed to be dusted with a shimmering layer of magic, swirling into ever-changing patterns like oil on water. They were so hypnotic, Emily almost forgot to breathe.

  “You can touch them,” Lark told her, smiling, and Emily nodded. But she didn’t touch. She didn’t dare.

  Lark stretched her wings out a little further, fluttering them from her shoulders and smiling at Emily. The way she smiled was as if she was teasing Emily with a bit of her chocolate. “Go on. You know you want to.”

  Emily sighed, a tiny breath out, and lifted her hand. It was trembling, and she could only bring herself to stroke one finger down Lark’s wing.

  The magic buzzed inside her as she touched the feathers. The whole earth was suddenly swinging sickeningly around her, even though she was standing still. It was like a rollercoaster ride. She’d always loved scary rides. It was blissful.

  “Emily, look at me…” a sweet voice purred, and Emily dragged herself away from the feathers and turned to stare at Lory. Then she watched the weird transformation all over again. Lory closed her eyes and shivered her shoulders, and the feathers rushed out in a fall of orange and crimson and gold. The wings stretched out like Lark’s, shimmering in the candlelight. The same but different – scarlet feathers that clashed with Lory’s golden-yellow hair but still looked beautiful. The same way Lory could put on an old skirt and a top that clashed and look amazing. Emily had always said enviously to herself that it was like magic. Now she gave a squeaky little gulp of laughter. She’d never thought it really was.

  “Now look at me,” Robin demanded, reaching out a hand across the table – a hand with impossibly long fingers. Why hadn’t Emily ever realized that before? Robin twisted his fingers, pulling her eyes up to his face, making her stare. He had wings too, she could see them behind his back, but it was his pointed ears that he wanted her to see, and the strange angle of his silvery eyes.

  “Emily…” Her mother was kneeling next to her chair, and Emily gasped as she turned to look into her face. It was still her mother – Emily recognized her – but she was so different. Her hair was even fierier than it had been before, and it crackled out around her face like a halo, glittering with power and magic. Her silver-grey eyes filled half her face now, and they seemed to swirl like great pools of water. Emily gazed at her, entranced, swaying a little as she was wrapped in her mother’s charming spell.

  A cool hand stroked her cheek, and Emily t
urned, blinking, and looked into her father’s eyes. She recognized them, even though they were darker, blacker, than they’d ever seemed to be before.

  Ash… Emily could see why that was his name. His skin was grey and soft, with just the faintest hint of feathering that traced across his cheeks and into his white and silver hair. He was the strangest of all of them – the least human.

  For it was obvious now. They weren’t human. None of her family were.

  “Are you – are you fairies?” Emily whispered.

  Robin rolled his eyes. He still seemed very much her little brother, even though he had soft brown wings sprouting from his shoulders.

  “Well, what do you think, Emily? What else would we be?”

  Emily suddenly forgot to be entranced by his shining eyes and the glow of magic all around him. He’d been using his magic, messing around and translocating her to places. He’d been lying to her. He might be some sort of fairy, but he was still himself. And still annoying. “I don’t know,” she said, smirking a little. “You could be a gnome. They’re the little ones, aren’t they? Shorty.”

  “I’m not!” Robin yelled, and the faint glitter of magic coming off his skin got brighter, as though he was about to explode. Their dad put a warning hand on his shoulder.

  Emily folded her arms and sniggered. She couldn’t resist teasing him just a bit more. “Maybe a pixie?” Then she shook her head. “Sorry… I suppose all those things are real too. There really are pixies. And, um, sprites, and elves…” She looked at her mum, the long red hair rippling down her back like flames. She could see every strand of it, all glittering, and it moved. Eva looked like an elf – like Emily imagined an elf would look from the stories she’d read, anyway. Tall, and grand, and as if she’d be scary if she wasn’t actually Emily’s mum as well.