by Holly Webb
“Come on!”
Emily blinked wearily as the girl seemed to step out of the shadows, her silvery dress suddenly shining in the greenish forest light. She was waving them on eagerly, and as they landed she caught Emily and reached out her arm to Lark, who was staggering, her wings drooping with weariness. “Run! I saw them. I was watching in the water, in the shining water.”
“She can see things far away,” Lory muttered to Emily, who was looking up and down the river anxiously. “She sees them in the water, sometimes.”
“There’s no time to tell her now!” The girl shook Lory’s shoulder. “The Ladies’ huntsmen are coming after you! Come on!”
Emily looked helplessly at Lark and Lory. It was the girl she’d met in her dream. The girl she’d seen in the mirror. Did they trust her? Was she a friend?
Lory nodded at the girl speechlessly. She was too out of breath to talk, Emily realized. Emily let the greenish girl haul her onwards, and together they staggered towards the river. She could see it glinting through the trees ahead.
“Where are we going? I’m not the best swimmer… Do we have to swim away from them?” she asked, staring worriedly at the fast-flowing water.
The water fairy shook her head, and her weed-like hair slapped against her shoulders. “It’s a gate, Emily, a door. It’ll take you home. Go on! Now!” She pulled Emily and Lark after her into the deepest part of the river. Emily whimpered at the cold bite of the water, and the awful feeling of the weeds sucking at her feet – pulling her down.
“Don’t fight!” Lory gasped at her. “It’s all right. Let go…”
And together they vanished under the water, streams of bubbles rising around them and hundreds of tiny startled faces peering at them through the weeds. Until they were standing on the wooden floorboards, on the landing, in Emily’s house. And not even dripping.
“Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow…” Lory sank down on to the floor, gently opening and closing her aching wings.
Emily huddled next to her, leaning against her shoulder and breathing in the warmth of Lory’s feathers. She shook her head exhaustedly. “Where was that?” she muttered. “What happened? Who were those – the Ladies, she called them? And the huntsmen?”
There was a screech from downstairs, and then footsteps thundered out of the kitchen.
“Mum knows we’re back.” Lark flinched.
“They’re going to kill us,” Lory sighed, although she didn’t sound all that worried.
Emily lifted her head up and looked at Lory. “Why?” Then her face crumpled. “Didn’t they want me back?”
“Oh, Emily, shut up!” Lory poked her in the side. “Mum and Dad were terrified they’d lost you! They were trying to get you back quietly. Talking to the people who matter, on the other side. Getting the Ladies to give you back, but without causing a big fuss…”
“But it was taking too long, we thought. Lory and me decided we’d get you ourselves,” Lark said. She wrinkled her nose. “We were going to be quiet as well, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Emily snorted with laughter. “No.” She was silent for a moment, letting Lark stroke her hair. “If you hadn’t come and got me when you did, I’d probably have eaten the fruit.”
“Mmm.” Lark sighed.
“So . . . thanks. Even if you are the world’s unsubtlest rescue party.”
Eva flung herself up the last turn of the stairs and grabbed Emily, huddling over her and crying. It was strangely comforting, being wept over. No one could possibly think that Eva didn’t want her. She was crying so much she could hardly speak.
Ash made up for that. He’d started shouting somewhere at the bottom of the stairs, and Lark and Lory were eyeing him warily as he stamped up and down the landing, turning back to yell how stupid they’d been, how dangerous it was, how they should have waited.
“You could have got Emily killed!” he thundered.
Lory sat up, hunching her wings high above her shoulders, like an angry hawk. “She was about to eat something! You were taking too long. We got her back, didn’t we?”
Eva nodded, and swallowed, and managed to speak. “But it could have gone so much worse. We could have lost all of you.”
“The Ladies wouldn’t have hurt us,” Lark said, although she didn’t sound very sure. After all, that huntsman had been notching an arrow. “They might have got away with it, if it was only Emily. But they couldn’t say they didn’t know who we were.”
Emily reached up and caught her father’s hand as he paced furiously past. “Who’s they? Who are these ladies? Where did I go?” She looked around at them, watching her in the shadows of the landing. They glowed, she noticed wearily. All five of them, just a little. “How did they know Lark and Lory? Please will someone just tell me … I don’t know. Everything, I suppose.”
“Everything!” Ash sat down next to her and sighed. “There’s a lot to tell, Emily.”
“You have to tell me something!” Emily said impatiently. “You can’t just stop at, ‘Oh, Emily, we’re all fairies and you’re not, OK?’”
“You ran off and got yourself caught by a load of mad, ancient fairies before we could tell you anything!” Robin snapped. He was still looking furious with Lark and Lory, far more than their parents were.
But Emily was pretty sure he wasn’t angry that they’d gone – he minded that they hadn’t taken him too.
Eva loosened her arms from Emily a little, so that she could look into her face. “You went through one of the doors into our land, Emily. This house is full of doors to different places. But mostly it’s a place where people travel between this world and ours.”
Emily nodded slowly. “OK. And why are you here, instead of there?”
“Someone has to watch the doors,” Ash explained. “Of course people do come through, sometimes. There’s always a bit of coming and going. But we stop the people who shouldn’t pass – from either side.” Then he grimaced. “Except we weren’t watching as well as we should have been. It was stupid of us… You’ve grown up in this house, Emily. You’ve been here ten years. Even though you’re not a fairy, you’ve absorbed some of the magic that seeps out of the doors. And the doors know you by now.”
“Those fairies – they said they’d seen me,” Emily told him in a gulp. “They said they’d been hoping I’d come.”
He nodded grimly. “Fairies like humans, Ems. There’s a sort of energy about you. You’re so alive. You make us feel more alive too. Those were Ladies of the fairy court. Very, very old. Very powerful.”
“Hungry,” Eva added quietly.
Ash shivered. “And they know Lark and Lory because we’re probably related to most of them. There aren’t many of us left, Emily. Fairy children are hardly ever born now. And some of those older fairies would stop at nothing to be a little stronger. Stealing a human child and keeping her as a pet wouldn’t worry them at all. You’ve been so close to them, all this time. Like a rare flower, just out of reach.” He sighed. “Of course the doors are easier for you to go through than they would be for any other mortal. We just didn’t think. And then tonight, we were all so upset. You were angry. Magic was spitting out all over the place – the door opened without us realizing.”
“I’m still angry,” Emily said, her voice small. But she wasn’t. Not in the same way, not since Lark and Lory had flown her across a fairy land, with hunters chasing after them.
“We didn’t want to make you feel as though you were different from Lark and Lory and Robin,” Eva said, so quietly that Emily had to lean closer to her to hear. So close that it seemed natural to rest her cheek on her mother’s shoulder. She felt Eva shiver as she touched her, a grateful sort of shudder. Eva’s arms tightened round her again.
“I know,” Emily murmured back.
“But you are, and we couldn’t hide it any longer. We should have found a better way to tell you, but there isn’
t a good way. That meal – your beautiful cake. We wanted it to be special, somehow…”
“You were so tiny,” Ash muttered. “This tiny, delicate little thing. I thought it was just an old blanket, you know? But then I heard you laughing.”
“Laughing?” Emily stared at him in surprise.
“I know. You were chuckling away to yourself. You were watching the leaves, I think. It was windy, and you were under a willow tree; the branches were moving. And then when I came closer you smiled at me, and you held out your arms, as though you wanted me to pick you up.” He was silent for a moment. “So I did.”
“There really wasn’t anyone else there?” Emily asked quietly. “No one watching?”
Ash shook his head. “No, Emily. I’m sorry.”
“Did you make up my birthday?” Emily said, her voice very small. Somehow it seemed important.
“It’s the day I found you. We knew it couldn’t be your real birthday – we found a nurse to look at you, and she said you were about three months old, at least. But it was the day we wanted to remember.” He looked at her worriedly. “Was that wrong?”
“No… It would be worse if it was just a day you picked out of nowhere. I think.”
“Even though you’re upset with us now, I’m still glad I took you,” Ash told her fiercely. He was back in his everyday form now, but his eyes sparked and glittered as he stared at her, sharp lights burning deep in the blackness, in a way that definitely wasn’t human. “I could feel it as I picked you up, how loving you were, how much you needed someone to love you. And we do, Emily. However different we all are.”
“I know you do.” Emily swallowed. “Do I have to leave?”
“What?” Eva pulled Emily up to face her. “What do you mean?”
“Now that I know what you are. Does it mean I can’t stay here any more?”
“No! No, of course not. We just have to be more careful, that’s all. We have to make sure you don’t slip through again.” She ran her hand lovingly through Emily’s black curls. “We should have explained the doors to you years ago, but the time just went past so quickly.”
Emily frowned to herself. There was a lot more she wanted to ask, but she was so tired her bones ached. And hungry. Starving, actually. “We never ate the cake,” she murmured.
“I did eat a bit of it,” Robin admitted. He went red as everyone stared at him. “Only a little bit! When you were taking so long to find out where Emily had gone. It was just sitting there.” He glared at them. “Don’t look at me like that! I was worried, and it made me feel better. It’s a really good cake, Ems. Yum.”
Emily stood up and hauled her mother up after her. “I bet he had about half of it,” she said, almost shyly. “But wouldn’t you like some?” She hesitated. “You can really eat it, can’t you? You aren’t just pretending?”
“I can eat it, and I would love some,” Eva sighed. “I promise we’ll explain everything, Emily. Some things might be hard, but we’ll try. But I’m not moving until you understand the most important thing.” She threaded her fingers into Emily’s hair, around her face. “You belong here. With us. And I promise that you always will.”
Emily nodded, trying not to sniff. She knew it was true. Maybe it was a spell, making her so sure, but she didn’t care. “Will I ever go back?” she asked, laying one hand over her mother’s and glancing hopefully at her father, and Lark and Lory.
Eva looked at Ash, and shrugged, a helpless little twitch of her graceful shoulders. “Ems, I want to say no. I know how dangerous it can be for humans, even though it’s also a wonderful place. I want to wrap you in a blanket and tie you to the sofa so you can’t go anywhere near any of the doors…”
“But you’ve got a horrible feeling that it won’t work.” Ash folded his arms. “Never, ever on your own. You have to promise us that, Emily.”
“Oh, I do.” Emily nodded eagerly. “I’ll wait…” She turned back, running her fingers gently down Lark and Lory’s wings, and shivering delightedly as the warm magic poured through her. She could see it shimmering in the air, like dust motes in sunlight. It tasted sweet – like her own sort of magic.
Emily smiled at her sisters, and then at Robin and Ash and Eva, as she headed for the stairs. “I absolutely need that cake now.”
HOLLY has always loved animals. As a child, she had two dogs, a cat, and at one point, nine gerbils (an accident). Holly’s other love is books. Holly now lives in Reading with her husband, three sons and a very spoilt cat.
Scholastic Children’s Books
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First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2013
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2014
Text copyright © Holly Webb, 2013
The right of Holly Webb to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her.
Cover illustration © Rosie Wheeldon, 2013
eISBN 978 1407 14663 8
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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