by Holly Webb
There was an outbreak of whispering at that, as the fairies followed the tracks of her tears with their fingertips, and one daring girl with brown hair all wound up with twigs touched a tear, and winced, and then licked her finger, laughing.
Did human tears burn? Emily wondered. Ash had flinched at the touch of them as well. At least, she thought he had. Her memories were fading and blurring as the fairies whispered in her ears and stroked her hair so gently. She began to feel herself swaying, and now her thoughts were only of how beautiful they were, their large eyes gleaming as they stared down at her.
“Ssshhh, ssshhh,” they whispered, as she sank back into their arms, and they carried her off, singing.
Emily blinked, and groaned a little. Her head was aching. And Mum must have found a new fabric conditioner, because her bed smelled really weird, too sweet and flowery. Someone was sitting on the bed with her – Emily guessed it was Gruff, and reached out a hand to stroke him sleepily.
The someone laughed, and Emily jumped up, jolted awake in a second. In that moment between sleeping and waking, she had forgotten what had happened, what she knew now.
Was she dreaming, maybe? For one last hopeful instant she wondered if it had all been a dream – that when she was properly awake, she’d be able to go into her parents’ room, and tell them she’d dreamed they were all fairies, and she was adopted. Perhaps her dad would laugh at her, and say it was a sign, and it must mean she ought to make him some fairy cakes; they were his favourite.
But she was properly awake already. She knew she was. She pinched the back of her hand just in case, and then sucked at it, because it hurt.
The fairy sitting on the side of the huge bed tutted anxiously at her, and took Emily’s hand in both of hers, shaking her head and murmuring at Emily soothingly. “Don’t do that, silly child.”
Emily frowned, puzzled. “Have I met you before? I feel like I have, but I can’t have done…”
The girl smiled at her. She was much grander-looking than the greenish people Emily had met on the riverbank. Emily guessed that perhaps they were tree spirits, given their leafy, bark-skinned look. This girl looked more like Eva, or maybe Lory, with a mass of golden-bright hair, intricately wreathed and plaited around her head. Jewelled wires were woven in and out of the coils, so that the whole of her hair resembled some amazing, delicate crown. She had wings like Lark and Lory too, but hers were more like a butterfly’s, a soft, dusty, pale green scattered with black spots and frills all round the edges. Her dress was a stronger green than her wings, and it was embroidered all over in golden thread, scattered here and there with jewelled flowers.
Emily swallowed sadly. It looked very like something her mother would have made. But of course it did. This was where all Eva’s wild, beautiful designs had come from. And probably Ash’s eerie novels too, Emily thought. She shivered. She hoped that not all the strange monsters he’d come up with were real.
Emily lifted her eyes from the fairy’s dress to her face, carefully, trying hard not to look her in the eyes. She wasn’t quite sure why – it just seemed to be a good idea.
“I’m not meant to be here,” Emily said awkwardly, looking at the girl’s pointed ears, her jewelled hair, anywhere but her dark, sparkling eyes. “It was an accident.”
“Oh, I’m sure you should be here,” the fairy disagreed. “Nothing ever really happens by accident, does it?” She ran delicate, soft fingers down the side of Emily’s cheek. “So pretty. So alive! It only amazes me, Emily, that you haven’t found your way here before.”
There was a chorus of pretty, jingling laughter at this, and Emily realized that she and the fairy weren’t alone in the room. Somehow she hadn’t been able to see past her until now. But it was as if the laughter broke a spell, and Emily could see that there was a cluster of other beautiful girls around the bed, their hair woven into different elaborate styles, and their dresses just as fine.
Two more of them, one in a rose pink dress, the other wearing a dark crimson-red that picked up the purplish lights in her black hair, came to sit on the bed next to Emily.
“We’ve been longing to meet you,” the dark-haired girl whispered. “We’ve seen glimpses of you, through the doors. We’ve wanted to meet you properly for so long…”
Emily blinked at her. “I don’t understand…” she murmured. “Which doors? I don’t know you, I’m sure I don’t. How do you know my name?”
“Ohhh, she looks exhausted, poor little thing,” the girl in pink murmured, her gauzy dragonfly wings shimmering excitedly. “We should be more hospitable, don’t you think?”
“Of course, how rude we are…” The fairy girl in green laughed again. “You must be hungry, Emily.” She waved a hand, a sharp commanding movement that didn’t seem to sit well with her graceful air.
Emily swallowed, her eyes widening. It was as if the fairy’s gesture suddenly made the rest of the room appear. Until then, Emily had only seen the bed she was lying on, and the fairies gathered close to it. The bed was strange enough, a careless bundle of grand fabrics and coverlets slung over a gilded frame. The bedposts were clearly metal, but so delicately twisted into the shapes of flowers and birds and tiny mice that they could have been alive. Perhaps they had been, once. That little golden frog’s look of wide-eyed surprise could well be real.
But now Emily gazed out across the room, as a tiny creature wrapped in brown approached her with a plate. It was the largest bedroom she’d ever been in, even bigger than Rachel’s gorgeous room. It looked like a room in the castle they’d been to last year on their school trip, with a polished stone floor and bright tapestries hanging on the walls.
Waiting by the door of the room was a little cluster of smaller creatures, like the one who was holding out the plate to her now. Servants, Emily thought, from their clothes and their bowed heads. She looked curiously at the fairy offering her the food, wondering if they were all children, or if they were just some smaller sort of fairy. Gnomes, maybe, she wondered, remembering what she’d said to Robin. Or perhaps brownies. Brownies made her smile, and think of Rachel again – Rach had been a Brownie, and she’d loved it. Emily had never gone, mostly because Lark and Lory hadn’t, and when she’d been smaller, she’d wanted to be just like them.
That was never going to happen now, Emily thought, blinded by sudden tears again as she remembered. She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them tight.
The brownie, or whatever it was, stared up at her in horror, as though it thought it might be blamed for her unhappiness. It was a girl, Emily decided. Something about the wide, golden-brown face made her sure, though it was hard to tell. The snub nose and dark, dark eyes could be either a boy’s or a girl’s, and so could the tousled hair. She wore a plain brown tunic, with a twist of ivy wrapped around the waist for a belt. Her hands were shaking, Emily suddenly realized, feeling sorry for her. Perhaps she really was going to get into trouble. The little creature lifted up the plate to her again, staring at her hopefully, and Emily caught the smell of the fruit that was spilling over the sides.
For a moment she forgot how frightened she was, and how angry with her family. She’d never smelled anything so good – except, perhaps, a long time ago, at home. Something a little like it once, when she’d been playing with Lark and Lory in the garden. She couldn’t remember quite where.
The pieces of fruit seemed to glow against the silver plate, as though they were lit from inside: a cluster of emerald-green berries, and something that looked like an orange, except it was split open down one side, spilling out scarlet seeds, dripping with juice. And apples, golden and fawn and green, glossy leaves still attached, as though they’d been picked only moments before.
Emily stretched out her hand to take something without even meaning to, and the brownie let out a sigh, as though she hadn’t dared to breathe before, and smiled at her, nodding eagerly. She balanced the plate in one hand, and with the othe
r, she held out a fine cloth napkin to Emily, as though she had on one of those beautiful jewelled dresses that might be ruined by a smear of juice, and not just her denim shorts and a hoodie.
“Do eat, Emily,” the dark-haired fairy murmured eagerly, her eyes sparkling. She reached out to the plate and took an apple while the brownie watched her nervously. Her small, pointed teeth bit into it deeply, and she sighed. “So good. You should try.” The juice was running down her chin a little, and she licked it away. Then she closed her eyes, and her wings quivered in delight. The peacock eyes in the corners shimmered, the colours pulsing, so that Emily could only stare at them, and be filled with hunger for the sweet fruit.
Which to choose? Emily took the napkin with a murmured, “Thank you,” and reached out, stroking the sun-warmed fruit. She had just picked up a strand of garnet-red berries when there was a sudden commotion at the door. The other brownies were shrieking in alarm, and the brownie girl holding out the plate to her turned round, shrinking back against the bed anxiously.
“Emily, no!”
Lark and Lory were racing towards her, weirdly out of place in their jeans and vest tops, their feathered wings spilling out behind them as they ran.
The dark-haired fairy with the peacock butterfly wings gasped angrily. She dropped the apple, standing up hurriedly in a rustle of stiff silk skirts as though she meant to stop Lark and Lory coming anywhere near. But the other two fairies caught her hands, whispering to her, and she sat down, watching with a strange sort of smile.
Emily’s first reaction was to leap off the bed and hug her sisters – she was so glad to see someone she knew in this strange, terrifying, beautiful place. She reached out to Lark, smiling in relief. Then she remembered.
Lark and Lory belonged here, just as much as the fairy girls in their finery. Emily didn’t. She stared at them doubtfully.
“Don’t eat anything!” Lory snapped, reaching out a hand for the berries, and Lark snatched the plate from the frightened brownie and flung it on to the ground. The servant girl let out a little wail of horror, and the other fairies whispered angrily to each other.
“Why not?” Emily pulled away, feeling suddenly cross, and clutched the handful of berries against her top. Lark and Lory always ordered her about – and they weren’t even her sisters. “What did you do that for? She was only being nice!”
Lark sighed, and reached out to put an arm round her, but Emily pulled away, scrambling up the bed with the berries still in her hand. She could feel the other fairies watching eagerly, and the one with the peacock wings was leaning over to her now, holding out her own hands and smiling, as though she wanted to wrap Emily in her arms and comfort her.
“Nice!” Lory laughed in disgust. “Emily, don’t be stupid! If you eat, you’ll have to stay here! You can’t eat fairy fruit and go back to your own world; you’ll never want to eat real food again. It’ll taste like ashes, and you’ll starve, pining for just one more taste of those berries.”
Lark nodded, her eyes bluer than ever, glittering with worried tears.
“Don’t listen to them, Emily,” the fairy in the green dress said sweetly. “Why would you want to go back, anyway? Stay here with us. We won’t lie to you.”
Emily hesitated, looking back and forth between the fairy girls and Lark and Lory. Her sisters looked even more fairy-like here, their wings and hair sparkling with a furious light.
“Emily,” Lark tried again, her voice gentle but shakily anxious. “Emily, you don’t understand. They want to steal you. They won’t let you go home.”
Emily swallowed, trying to make the ache in her chest go away. “It isn’t really my home,” she told Lark miserably. “Is it? And I’ve already been stolen…” With a weary sort of stubbornness, she pulled a berry off the little cluster in her hand and reached up to put it in her mouth.
There was an excited hiss of indrawn breath from the fairy girls around her, and Lark screamed, “Emily, look!”
Jolted out of her anger by the pure fear in Lark’s eyes, Emily looked where she was pointing. At the fruit that Lark had thrown across the floor. It was scattered over the polished stone, brown and wizened-looking, the scarlet seeds of that strange fruit all over the floor now, smearing the stone with a blackish, treacly juice.
Emily glanced down at the berries in her hand and flung them away in horror. They’d shrivelled to an ugly mess, seeping and covered in a grey-blue mould. She had been about to eat that…
“Emily, come on, please. We have to go. Just trust us, please.” Lory was holding out her hand. She had glittery nail polish on, and it was flaking a bit. Real nail varnish, the one that Emily had borrowed off her a week or so before, without asking. The glitter was made of little plasticky flecks, not some lying, beautiful magic.
Slowly, Emily reached out, and put her hand in her sister’s.
Someone screamed in fury, and Emily looked back at the fairy girls gathered around the bed. Their faces had changed – they were still beautiful, but now they looked paler and older, and almost cruel, their features sharp with rage.
“Don’t let her go!” the dark-haired fairy cried, and the little brownie servant caught at Emily’s sleeve.
“You’re not having her,” Lory snapped, yanking Emily away, so that the brownie fell back against the bed. She pulled Emily behind her, putting herself between Emily and the fairy girls. They were calling for the servants to fetch help, and the dark-haired fairy was stepping delicately after them, still smiling, and beckoning to Emily.
“Emily, I know you think we lied, but we never wanted to hurt you.” Lory stared at Emily for a second, and then ducked her eyes. “I don’t want to charm you. I need you to come with us because you want to.”
“That’s why neither of us are looking at you,” Lory added, catching Emily’s other hand. “Will you come with us?”
Emily nodded. The dark-haired fairy had sharp pointed nails like beetle claws, and her feet were the wrong shape in her embroidered slippers. Now that Emily could see her without all the charms, she walked as though her legs were bent the other way. And she was getting closer.
Lark and Lory might not really be her sisters, but they weren’t scary.
“Yes. I’ll come,” she gasped, tightening her hands around theirs.
Lark and Lory flung one arm each around her waist, and all at once their wings shot out with a sharp sound like flapping sails. They beat them frantically back and forth, and Emily squeaked as she realized what was about to happen, and closed her eyes, holding on as tightly as she could.
Flying didn’t feel like she’d thought it would. It was bumpy, and noisy, and not at all graceful. But that was mostly because Lark and Lory were trying to do it together. The sound of them squabbling was so reassuring that Emily opened her eyes, discovered she was somewhere up near the ceiling, and shut them again.
“Window!” Lory snarled.
“We won’t get out of it,” Lark yelled back. “Too small!”
“We can squash – didn’t you hear them calling? They’ve sent for huntsmen to chase us, Lory; we can’t go back the way we came.”
“Why don’t they just chase us themselves?” Emily asked shakily. She had her eyes open now; she was just trying not to look down. “What are they hunting for? I don’t understand!”
“They’re hunting you! And this lot can’t chase us. Too old, too grand, and too lazy,” Lark said grimly. “Come on.”
“When we get back, Emily, you have to stop making cakes. We’re all too fat for that window,” Lory muttered as they swooped sickeningly towards it.
“We’re never going to fit through that!” Emily wailed, looking at the tiny leaded window, opening on to a tangle of honeysuckle and jasmine.
“Just close your eyes and wish, Emily! We’re fairies, remember!” Lark giggled, and Lory hissed crossly.
“So . . . it doesn’t help if I wish, then?
” Emily asked, just in case, watching Lark squish her wings smaller and wriggle frantically out of the window.
“No,” Lory snapped. “And we can’t use our magic here; it won’t work. This is the fairy court, and it’s guarded. Lark, hurry! They’re coming!”
Lory shoved Emily towards the window frame, and she gulped, putting her knee up on the edge. It was all right. Lark was there to catch her. But it was all very well for Lark – she had wings, even though one of them was looking a bit battered by the squeeze out of the window. She was fluttering outside, beckoning anxiously to Emily. She wasn’t going to fall.
“Ow!” Emily yelped, as Lory pushed her harder. “I’m going!”
“Hold on to the flowers!” Lark screamed, as Emily half fell out of the window on top of her and they jolted downwards, pulling long trails of sweet-smelling flowers off the wall.
“Come on!” Lory shot past them and grabbed Emily’s arm, yanking her up into the air so that she was dangling between her sisters. “We need to make for the river now, before those idiots work out where we’re going and send someone to head us off.”
Emily glanced back at the window, still surprised that they’d ever got out of it, and wondering if Lark and Lory had managed to use a spell after all.
Someone was leaning out of it now, staring after them. A young man with a bow in his hand and a sharp eager face. He was fitting an arrow to the string already, and Emily yelped.
“They wouldn’t shoot us, would they?” Lory gasped. “They can’t!”
“Fly faster,” Emily gasped. “Faster, Lory. Stop talking.”
“I’m – doing – my – best!” Lory panted, as they swooped and fluttered over ornamental gardens that reminded Emily of that castle again, and then over a ditch and into woodland, jinking through enormous, ancient trees.
“We’re nearly at the river,” Lark gasped, and they began to lose height, the frantic beating of Lark and Lory’s wings slowing to a weary thud back and forth.
