Willow Moss and the Forgotten Tale

by Dominique Valente

  Willow shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But how is he a danger, out here away from everyone?’

  They shrugged. It didn’t make sense – Sometimes was more of a danger around others, blurting out their memories and secrets. There was more reason to leave him miles away from people than to capture him …

  Then Willow smacked her forehead. In the excitement of Feathering’s arrival, she’d almost forgotten. ‘Hang on, there’s something else. I found it before you came,’ she said, then raced back inside the stilt house to fetch the plant that had been addressed to her. She skipped back again over the suspended rocks and showed them the strange iris in the jam jar.

  ‘MP?’ asked Essential, her eyes scanning the label. ‘What does that mean?’

  Willow shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Most of the plants inside have labels saying what they are, except for a few, so it looks like maybe he hadn’t got round to filling them all out. Do you think it means something?’

  ‘It might just have been something he cultivated for you, something that reminded him of you,’ said Feathering. ‘He planted the pepper tree on the mountain for me because he knew I liked the tea.’

  Willow’s heart sank at the dragon’s words.

  Sprig ran a hand through his dark hair. He looked thin and solemn next to the dragon, who still clearly didn’t trust him. ‘I think it’s a clue,’ he said to their surprise. ‘He is smart, from all you’ve said. Also, I agree it’s unlikely to have been the Brothers.’

  Willow frowned, then looked back at the jam jar in the palm of her hand. The plant seemed to flicker in the light for a moment. ‘Maybe Sprig is right. Like you said, Feathering, not much grows on the Cloud Mountains, and Sometimes knew that if he planted that tree he could use it to try and get in touch with you. So maybe it was a bit of both – something you liked, but also something he could use to contact you if needed …’

  ‘That’s true,’ the dragon acknowledged. ‘It did bring me here.’

  Essential peered at the note from Sometimes that was still in her hands, then frowned. Her fingers touched the little splodge at the end that looked like a plant doodle. ‘It’s an iris!’ she breathed. Then she showed it to Willow and the others. ‘He wanted you to find this, look!’

  They stared at the note in Essential’s hands. ‘You’re right!’ cried Willow.

  ‘Maybe he couldn’t tell you what he’d left for you in case whoever had taken him saw it – but he knows that you understand his connection with plants. Maybe he trusted that you’d work out what this means?’ suggested Essential.

  Feathering nodded. ‘I think so too.’

  ‘But how will we find out what it is?’ asked Sprig. ‘Is there another forgotten teller we can ask?

  ‘No, they’re really rare,’ sighed Essential.

  Willow nodded. ‘And extremely hard to find.’

  She pulled out the StoryPass. The needle went from ‘There be Dragons’ to ‘One Might Have Suspected as Such’. She tested its heavy brass weight in her palm, then she frowned as she considered the compass-like device. It hadn’t given her an answer, but it did give her an idea of where they might look for one.

  ‘We might not be able to track down any other forgotten tellers,’ she said, ‘but I think I know another way we can find out what this plant is … My friend Holloway said that there’s a place you could go to if you needed to learn something – where all the magical secrets of Starfell are kept. Library. I think

  that’s where

  we have

  to go.

  14

  Capture

  ‘It’s worth trying,’ said Sprig. ‘If anyone would know, I think it would be the people of Library.’

  The dragon stared at him. ‘I will take Willow and Essential. You may follow behind us, raven.’

  ‘Feathering!’ Willow exclaimed, surprised. She had never known him to be rude.

  Sprig shook his head. ‘It’s fine, Willow. I’m happy to follow.’

  Willow nodded. ‘Well, I’ll just go and fetch my broom then.’ She grinned. ‘And Oswin. I think he’ll be happy to see you both.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Essential, who was rather fond of Oswin.

  There was a tinkly peal of laughter, like wind chimes. ‘I doubt that he feels that way about me,’ said Feathering, ‘but I shall be glad to see the kobold in any case.’

  ‘Oh noooooo, not that great blooming feathered beast again! Wot yew go and signs us ups for this time?’ moaned Oswin as Willow helped him back into the green hairy bag, where she had also put the leaf-scroll and the jam jar plant. Oswin, it had to be said, didn’t much like to come out in daylight, and had risked staying indoors with Harold again rather than venturing out into the wind.

  ‘Shh,’ she said. ‘We’re off to Library.’ And she filled him in on what had happened.

  Oswin groaned. ‘Oh no, anywhere but there!’

  ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘Jes yew waits. It’s ’orrible. Dusty. Books everywheres. I got lost there once … worst thing ever.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’ wanna talk about it,’ he said, then zipped himself into the bag. ‘Lets me know when we is leaving that infermerol place.’

  ‘All right,’ said Willow, her lips twitching.

  Harold had gone back to sleep. She felt bad leaving him behind all by himself – they hadn’t been here for that long. But at least they’d checked up on him as Sometimes had asked. She turned to leave, picking up the bag and collecting Whisper on the way out, and made her way to Feathering, Essential and Sprig, who had already transformed into a raven.

  She climbed on to the dragon, and Essential got on behind her. Willow felt her stomach plummet to the ground as Feathering leapt off the tree and launched himself up high into the clouds.

  They flew over the Great Wisperia Tree, where she could see Sometimes’s moon garden, and down below, in the canopy of strange-coloured trees, birds of all shapes, sizes and colours went past. They made Sprig’s stark black feathers stand out as he kept pace with Feathering.

  The dragon shot the raven a dark look that Willow couldn’t help noticing.

  ‘Why don’t you like Sprig? I don’t get it,’ she asked, leaning close to his ear.

  ‘Wells, since yew asks finally … not like yew gave me much choice on ’is company or not … but ’e’s weird … Somefink about ’im, I dunno, jes gave me the creeps. Also ’e changes into a huntings bird which tries ter go after fluffy-looking prey like me,’ huffed Oswin from the carpetbag.

  Willow looked at the bag and hid a snort. ‘Thank you, Oswin. I didn’t know that. I doubt, though, that Sprig will eat you. And I was asking Feathering actually.’

  The dragon seemed to laugh in his wind-chime way, and then he paused and sighed. ‘It’s not a question of “like”, Willow. The kobold is right – the boy is strange. I’m just advising caution.’

  Willow frowned. Strange. That wasn’t a good enough reason as far as she was concerned. It felt wrong to mistrust someone just because they were a little different. Wasn’t that exactly how non-magical people treated magic folk?

  Most people thought of Willow as odd, but it didn’t give them the right to treat her differently. Sprig might be unusual, but he was trying to help. Look at how he’d saved her from the Brothers of Wol. She frowned. They would see that he meant well.

  Essential squeezed her shoulder. ‘I thought he seemed nice.’

  Willow turned to her and smiled.

  There was a snort from the bag about ‘hags not ’aving much sense when it comes to boys.’

  The sound of birdsong interrupted Willow’s thoughts, and she recalled the forest-touched children from the treetop community who had followed them the day before. But when Oswin’s panicked wailings of ‘Oh NO, oh, me greedy aunt Osbertrude!’ reached a deafening crescendo, she twisted round to look and her eyes widened in shock.

  These were not children. Before she could blink, they were surrounded by two dozen flying creatu
res of all shapes and sizes. There were the people with flames for hair, and others with leaves for fingers. There were blue elves and green sprites and wind monkeys, and others that were stranger still, almost as big as the dragon, with horns coming out of their heads, hooves for feet and huge wings. They were all advancing on them fast, with fierce, menacing eyes, some with nostrils flared and others with bows and arrows at the ready.

  Willow swallowed. ‘Oh no’ indeed.

  15

  Forest-touched

  Before Willow could gather enough air in her lungs to scream, several of the creatures flew at Feathering.

  Willow’s heart started to beat rapidly, and the next thing she knew she was being snatched away by what looked like a woman who was part elk – with large, twisted, dark blue horns on her head and hooves for feet – and part something else entirely, as she had giant blue-green wings.

  Willow screamed as she thrashed against the strong horned woman’s grip. ‘LET ME GO!’

  She watched in horror as Essential and Sprig found themselves in similar dire straits, Essential dragged off in a net of leaves by one of the leaf-people, and Sprig whisked away by an elf with fierce yellow eyes and a powerful-looking bow.

  Feathering roared his fury. ‘What is the meaning of this? Who DARES to attack a dragon?’ His wind-chime voice had turned to the angry howl of a storm, loud and fearsome above the forest. Birds flew in all directions at the noise.

  Still the creatures wrestled him from the sky. Willow noticed that one of them, a towering man with midnight skin and green flames for hair, seemed to be flying without the need for wings, powered somehow by air. Together with several wind monkeys and leaf-haired people, they threw what looked like a net made of purple branches over Feathering and dragged him towards the canopy below.

  Willow felt her panic begin to mount as the horned woman followed after them. ‘Where are you taking us? Stop it! Leave us alone!’

  She could hear Oswin’s similar wailings from the hairy green bag as he was carried away by a small wind monkey with white fur and transparent wings. ‘Oh no! Get off me, yer hairy carbuncle!’

  They were carried to a treetop village where those strange, tear-shaped houses hung like odd birdcages, as jewel-bright as the forest itself. Willow and her friends were taken past these homes towards the very top of one of the trees, to a large, open, wooden structure shaped like a star. It looked a bit like a stage or a platform.

  To Willow’s relief, the horned woman with the large sea-green wings finally set her down, and she was joined shortly by Sprig and Essential, who were dropped with a thud in the centre of the platform.

  Sprig flapped his wings in agitation. Essential’s glasses were hanging off her nose. ‘WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?’ she demanded angrily, sitting up and throwing out a hand to freeze one of the wind monkeys who was trying to snatch her glasses. The freeze only lasted for a second, as Essential’s ability wasn’t very powerful, but she managed to keep her glasses nonetheless.

  ‘Yes, tell us why you’ve taken us!’ cried Willow.

  The horned woman regarded them with piercing yellow eyes. ‘Sekac moon?’ she said.

  Willow was distracted, though, by another wind monkey, who had set Oswin down and was trying to pat the kobold through the bag. This wasn’t going down very well. The monkey made a sound that sounded alarmingly like, ‘Fat kitty …’

  ‘Oi, stop that! I is a fearsome monster – ’onestly, peoples jes ’ave no respect for kobolds these days. I is NOT a pet!’

  Meanwhile, Feathering was fighting against the net they had thrown over him. The dragon vowed to eat them all, cloud dragon or no.

  The man with midnight skin and flaming hair glared at him. ‘Sekac,’ he said, like the horned woman.

  It was a language Willow had never heard before, and she stared. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  The horned woman took a step forward, and Willow saw that her legs were bowed like a goat’s, strong and covered in thick blue-green hair. Her eyes blazed. ‘It is we who will ask questions first. You. What are you doing in the forest? What did you want from the tree?’

  It sounded like she was not used to speaking their language.

  ‘The tree?’ asked Essential, freezing the same wind monkey who’d tried to take her glasses and was now trying to touch her long, curly hair.

  At Essential’s question, several of the forest creatures started speaking rapidly in birdsong that trilled loudly in their ears.

  ‘The Great Tree,’ said the horned woman. ‘We know you were there. Don’t lie to us, child.’

  Willow paled. ‘My friend lives there – at the top. He sent me a letter, asking for my help.’ As Willow reached into her dress pocket, there was more angry birdsong. Willow wondered what that other language was that they spoke – was it part of the bird-like one, or was it something else?

  ‘You will not use your magic on us!’ said an older man with leaves for hair. ‘It is forbidden in the starjna!’

  Willow swallowed. She didn’t know what he meant by starjna, but she held up her hands in a gesture of peace. ‘I-I’m not using magic, I promise. It’s just a leaf-scroll – it was from my friend.’ Then she took the scroll from her pocket and showed it to them. ‘See?’

  The horned woman frowned, then stepped forward to take the letter from Willow. Her vast wings settled round her body like jewelled robes, winking in the morning light. They looked like stained-glass windows. A strange look came over her face as she touched the leaf-scroll, and the fire in her yellow eyes seemed to momentarily calm. She trilled something softly in the bird language and there was an answering hoot from one of the wind monkeys.

  ‘My friend was captured,’ Willow explained.

  ‘Yes, we—’ The horned woman broke off suddenly.

  There were more angry warbles, and the man with the green flames for hair shot the horned woman a warning look as they seemed to discuss something in their strange bird language.

  Sprig cocked his head to the side, almost as if he were trying to listen, but when Willow looked at him he lifted his blue-black wing as if to say he didn’t understand.

  Willow stared at the horned woman. ‘Did you take him?’

  Hope that he was near, and fear that he was in grave danger from these fierce creatures, filled her heart. Perhaps they didn’t want him here in Wisperia. Maybe they thought of him as an outsider, not one of them – someone who was using the forest with his strange botany experiments … Perhaps he’d seen some of their secrets, and they didn’t want a witness to them. Would they keep Willow and her friends here too? All of this and more raced through her whirling mind.

  The horned woman shook her head. ‘It was not us who took him. It was the—’

  Suddenly there was an ear-splitting chorus of birdsong. The flame-haired man’s voice was loudest, and he turned to glare at the horned woman. ‘Know your place. Remember what you risk,’ he said in Shel – the common language of Starfell. Then he hissed something that sounded almost like ‘merali’.

  The horned woman stepped back, dipping her head towards him, almost like a bow, then said nothing.

  Willow stared, not understanding. What was that about? ‘Do you know who took him? Did you see?’

  The horned woman shook her head. ‘We cannot say. It is not our way, I’m sorry.’

  Willow stood up abruptly. They knew who had taken Nolin Sometimes, but wouldn’t tell them? Anger and frustration bubbled up inside her. ‘Why? Please, he needs us! If you know anything, you have to tell us. We’re so worried about him – anything you know could help us find him. Please – he’s our friend.’

  The horned woman shook her head. ‘This we cannot do. Beroc was right to remind me. It is helia – risking the lives of others, especially ones who are so young, is forbidden—’

  ‘Pardon me, but I’d hazard that I am older than all of you combined!’ huffed Feathering.

  The horned woman gave him a rare smile and said, ‘That would be the worst sort of helia
– to risk a rare creature such as yourself. You cannot ask it of us.’ Her eyes grew guarded again as she stepped back and repeated, ‘Please do not ask me more of this. We will remember him, your friend. He was … strange, but one of us in many ways. We shall remember him when we say the blessings at the purple moon.’

  Willow felt anger flush her face. They were speaking of him as if it were already too late! As if he were dead. As if they had given up all hope.

  ‘B-but he’s still alive – I’m sure of it! He doesn’t need a – a – blessing! He needs our help! And you could give it, if he’s your friend as you say! You don’t have to risk anything, surely, in just telling us who took him?’

  ‘No, that would be the worst thing we could do,’ refused the horned woman. ‘We are not afraid of the risk to us, but to you. We say this as a caution, not to be unkind: it is best if you leave it now.’

  Willow frowned. She didn’t understand these fierce magical people at all. They knew who’d taken Sometimes, but wouldn’t give them any clues to find him, even though they claimed he was their friend and that they didn’t want to be unkind!

  Essential snorted. She seemed just as exasperated as Willow. ‘Why did you take us then? What do you want from us?’

  The horned woman looked sad. ‘After the breach, we had to be sure of who entered our lands. We will protect the forest and fight intruders if we need to – but we won’t start a war for a quarrel that isn’t ours.’

  Feathering looked confused. ‘What breach? What quarrel?’

  ‘I will say no more. However …’ The horned woman turned and there was the sound of birdsong. One of the wind monkeys looked cross and made an odd piping sound, but the rest of them nodded.

  The flame-haired man looked at Willow and said, ‘You have a courageous heart. It will lead you to foolishness – this we can see. While we cannot encourage you to continue, we know you are unlikely to heed our advice, so we will give you something that might help.’