Fletcher flew down next to her. Laney noticed that he had an old leather pouch slung over one shoulder with a bundle of thin branches sticking out of the top. “What are you doing here anyway?”
He pointed at some trees at the bottom of the hill. “Cutting birch stems over there near the Mencladden Stone.” He stopped, as if the rest was a secret.
Laney folded her arms. Why did he have to act so mysterious? Well, she wasn’t going to ask what the birch stems were for. He needn’t think she was interested.
“Hasn’t your dad told you about the rings?” Fletcher added, frowning. “He could have at least warned you about them, even if he doesn’t want to join his tribe.”
“Of course he told me!” Laney bristled. “Why do you care what my dad does?”
“I don’t. You just don’t know much yet, that’s all. You’ve only been Awake a few days. Are you sure you’ll be all right getting back to Skellmore? You won’t get lost or anything?”
To her annoyance she realised her wings had vanished and she was in jeans and a T-shirt again. She flushed. “I don’t need any help, so stop bugging me!” She ran off along the riverbank.
It took her nearly two hours to walk the distance that had taken only a few minutes to fly. By the time she reached Skellmore she was hot and tired. The sun was high and the pavements were baking in the summer heat. As she made her way up Oldwing Rise to her house, a knot of worry grew in her stomach. She glanced over the churchyard wall at the broken fence by the pond. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the dark figure in her dream was still lurking somewhere.
“Laney!” Claudia hissed at her from behind a tree.
“Why are you hiding?” Laney glanced round. If anyone living on Oldwing Rise looked out of their upstairs windows they’d wonder what was going on.
“Don’t go back home yet,” said Claudia. “Some of the faerie Elders are in your house. They waited till your stepmum went out with your little brother and your dad came back from work, and then they went to talk to him.”
“How do you know?” said Laney.
“They wanted my mum to go with them because she’s the Greytail Elder, but she wouldn’t. They’re going on and on about the prophecy and she thinks it’s all rubbish. She says they’ve gone to check your date of birth to see if you were born on the night of a red moon.”
“Oh. I did tell them when I was born already. Who’s in there?”
“Stingwood and Gwen, and that new Mist woman. And some more Elders have come over from Rannerton and Pyton.”
Just then the front door burst open and Mr Rivers appeared, red-faced. “And let that be an end to the questions!” he snapped. “The fifteenth of July.” He shook the piece of paper in his hand.
A stream of faerie Elders, strangely ordinarylooking in their human clothes, came down the front path. Laney sank back out of view. She thought after she’d been tested that the Elders were going to leave her alone.
Mr Stingwood raised his dark-mahogany walking stick. “You’d be wise not to take that tone—”
Mr Rivers interrupted him by slamming the door shut.
“That’s told them,” said Claudia, and she stared at Laney for a moment. “They must be pretty freaked out to come here in daylight. We never usually get together in the village in case people notice.”
Laney glanced over at the broken fence in the churchyard again. She had to get a grip. It had just been a dream. She’d had nightmares before.
“What is it?” said Claudia, following her gaze.
“Nothing really.”
A little dog came running down the churchyard path followed by a breathless Mrs Mottle, who stopped to watch the trail of people walking away down Oldwing Rise.
“She’s one of the reasons we don’t get together in daylight,” said Claudia darkly. “She spots everything.”
Mr Rivers was quiet when Laney got home. His bad mood simmered on for the rest of the day and Laney went to her room straight after tea to avoid it.
She slept badly that night. She dreamed that she was sitting up in bed and looking through the window that she’d left open to keep the room cool. Something was moving. A black shape slid along Oldwing Rise, keeping close to the ground. It paused next to each tree, bush and fence, as if it was searching for something. It passed the house three doors down and Laney was afraid that if it came any closer it would look up at her window and see her…
But the black shape carried on to the end of the lane, and in her dream Laney climbed out of the window and flew after it. It slowed down when it came to the narrow stream outside the village and began to slide along the bank. It was bent right over, almost as if it was sniffing the water. A long dark hood hung down over what Laney knew must be its head.
A creeping coldness spread slowly through her. She shuddered. This icy numbness – she’d felt it before. It was as if her whole body was freezing from the inside.
The dark figure stopped moving along the stream. It stretched out an arm and plunged it into the water. At once, inky-black stains swirled outwards as the water was poisoned by its touch. Laney held back a gasp, sickened by the damage being done to the stream. The black figure pulled an object out of the water and straightened up to its full height. The thing it held was round, about the size of a dinner plate, and it shone in the moonlight.
Holding it high, the dark figure laughed.
Laney woke with a start and sat up in bed. She still felt icy cold. The dream had been so real that for a moment she wasn’t sure whether she was asleep or awake.
Moonlight glinted on her open window. Slowly, she peered out at the road. It was completely empty. She shivered. This nightmare wasn’t exactly the same as the one before, but it was the same dark figure and this time he had found what he was searching for. All her instincts told her that was a really bad thing.
She closed the window and sat back in bed, hugging her knees. She needed to talk to someone about this. But who? She couldn’t tell Kim, because Kim knew nothing about the faerie world. She certainly couldn’t tell her dad – he was cross enough already. Claudia might listen, but then again she might treat the whole thing like a joke.
She could ask Gwen. Surely Gwen would know what to do. She checked her clock, which said nearly half past ten. Maybe Gwen would still be awake. She swung herself out of bed, closed her eyes and concentrated on changing into faerie form. She managed it almost straight away this time. Maybe the practice earlier had helped.
Folding her wings into her back, she climbed on to the windowsill and looked over the empty road. The breeze lifted her hair and her heart beat a little faster. Almost as though they had a will of their own, her wings spread out and she let go of the ledge, swooping over the front path.
She flew over the lane and had nearly reached the corner when she heard a snuffling noise. She stopped short and hid in the lower branches of a horse chestnut tree. A fox looked up at her then carried on running, nose to the ground.
Laney breathed out slowly. Daring herself not to be frightened, she flew over the hedge into the churchyard and landed on the gravel path that circled the church. It seemed safer here, away from the houses with all their dark windows where anyone might be watching. She couldn’t bring herself to fly above the gravestones though; that was too creepy. She would just walk across to the gate on the other side.
The church soared above her, its spire pointing at the full moon and its pale stones bleached by the moonlight. After the churchyard she would cut across Beacon Way and then over to Gwen’s house in Gnarlwood Lane. She would be there in a couple of minutes.
She ran her hand along the church wall and her wings sagged. The night air felt heavy. Putting one hand on the wall to steady herself, she peered round the corner of the church building.
She thought the churchyard was empty until she caught sight of the dark shape hunched over the pond. For a second she wondered if she was still inside her nightmare, but the pitted stone beneath her fingers felt rough and real. As she watched,
the dark shape flitted and then crawled, like a giant fly. A bunch of flowers lying on a nearby grave wilted and crumpled as it passed.
Laney’s breath stuck in her throat. Coldness crept through her just as it had in her dream. An icy feeling seeped into her chest. She backed away, trembling. Her foot crunched on the gravel path and the noise seemed deafening. She had to get out of here before the coldness took over and she lost the power to move.
Panicking, she flew straight up the side of the church building and over the crest of the roof next to the spire. She landed on the rooftop and folded in her wings. She lay there, with the hard roof tiles digging into her skin and her heart thumping.
Very slowly, she made herself look back down at the graveyard. The dark shape was still there. It stopped for a moment and twisted its long hood. Maybe now it was searching for her.
She had to get off this roof and find Gwen.
The black shape flitted on until it reached the gravel path. Trying not to lose her grip on the roof tiles, Laney sat up and went to unfurl her wings. But they’d gone. Her whole faerie form had gone and she was sitting on the sloping church roof in her pyjamas. It was a long way down with no wings.
She screwed her eyes shut, begging over and over for her faerie form to reappear. At the third attempt, she tried to imagine the river and remember the flow of water against her wings. She felt the change happen, but she still felt weak. Hopefully she would have enough strength to get away.
She slid gingerly down to the edge of the roof, spread out her wings and swooped away over the churchyard. She flew on, hoping the thing didn’t come back round the corner, but not daring to look behind.
She reached Gnarlwood Lane without really knowing how she’d got there. A small figure, edged with sparkle, swooped over the other end of the road. A front door opened.
“Sara Thornbeam! Get back in here. It’s way past your bedtime.”
The sparkling figure flew down and disappeared inside.
The Thornbeam house had an almost bushy appearance. Long branches covered in tiny leaves and dotted with red and white berries stuck out in all directions. Laney turned aside and flew over the gigantic trumpet-like flowers that made up Gwen’s roof, but this time there was no coloured smoke wafting from the petals. Trying to calm herself down, she landed in the front garden and knocked softly on the door.
She was scared for a moment that Gwen would be asleep and might not answer. But then the door opened and Gwen surveyed her. She was wearing a straw hat with a ribbon and had a pale-green shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Laney thought she looked as if she was going on a picnic.
“You’re shaking, Laney,” she said. “What’s happened?” She led Laney inside.
Moonlight poured through the glass roof of the plant house, making it as bright as daytime. Gwen sat down and listened intently to Laney’s description of the dark shape. Then she shook her head. “I can hardly believe that such a thing was roaming Skellmore. Did you say the flowers withered as it passed? They weren’t faded and dry already?”
“They looked fine at first and then they turned completely brown in a few seconds,” said Laney.
Gwen’s mouth tightened and the lines on her face deepened. “And you say you’ve dreamed about this thing before, ever since you Awakened?”
“Yes. I thought it was just a nightmare until the churchyard fence got broken in exactly the same place as it did in my dream.” Laney pulled at her pyjama sleeves. Talking about the dark shape had brought back the terror and made her faerie form vanish again.
“A dream,” Gwen muttered. “I wonder…” Drawing her shawl tighter, she got up from the bench and went over to the corner where plant containers were stacked next to the whitewashed wall. She rinsed the dust from a large bowl and then filled it with water before returning to Laney.
“Take this, my dear.” She gave Laney the bowl. “Now, touch the water very lightly with your fingertip. As you’re from the Mist tribe, you may be able to cast what you’ve seen on to the surface of the water.”
Laney rested the bowl on her knees and touched the water with one finger. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Just stay very still for a moment.”
Laney froze with her finger on the water. She dreaded seeing the dark shape in the reflection. But nothing happened.
Gwen sighed. “Never mind, my dear. I’ve only seen it done successfully once. Seeing the image would have helped me to be completely certain about what you saw. But you are very new. It was too much to expect really.”
Laney put the bowl down. “Do you know what it was?”
“I believe it was a Shadow faerie.” Gwen spoke slowly, as if it was hard to let the words go. “The flowers you saw withering are the strongest clue. Only a Shadow can destroy living things that fast.”
Laney swallowed. A Shadow faerie.
“If you’ve been dreaming about it,” Gwen continued, “then something has connected you to the Shadow.”
Laney shivered. “I don’t know why.”
Gwen poured the bowl of water on to some marigolds, who bowed their thanks. “What about this thing you think it’s searching for? Do you know what it could be?”
“Not really, just that it was looking by the pond.”
Gwen searched her face for a moment before getting up. “I must speak to the other Elders about what you’ve told me.” With a gentle wave of her hand and a flare of light she changed into faerie form and hovered in the air. Laney gazed up at her, unused to Gwen being taller than her.
“I’ll escort you back home,” said Gwen. “Then you must stay inside till tomorrow morning. I’m sure this thing won’t dare roam around Skellmore in daylight. Come now, I will give you something to help you feel better before you go.”
She flew to the kitchen and poured Laney a glass of something minty green and sparkling from the fridge. “It’s Thorn elixir. Try it.”
Laney sipped it and it tasted like sweet summer berries mixed with the shimmer of faerie magic. Her heartbeat started to calm down for the first time since she’d left the churchyard.
“Gwen?” she said. “What is a Shadow faerie?”
Gwen flew down and landed. Her eyes clouded over, as if she was picturing something from a very long time ago. “Shadow faeries are outlawed because they’re not part of the normal faerie tribes. No faerie Awakens as a Shadow; they choose to become one and they do it because they desire more magic. That makes them immensely powerful.”
Laney drank some more elixir. “What do they do to get more magic?”
Gwen hesitated. “When a faerie dies all that’s left behind is dust, faerie dust. That’s what we all become in the end.”
Laney nodded.
“Some faeries are so desperate for power that they’ll use that dust to make their own magic. It’s a very strong spell and it fills them with power. That’s when they become a Shadow faerie.”
“They’ll actually take someone who’s died and use them…” Laney tailed off, sickened.
“Yes, and that makes them very dangerous, which is why you should keep as far away from them as possible,” said Gwen. “It’s a long, long time since we’ve had a Shadow in Skellmore. I saw one once, but that would have been before you were born.” Her tone changed. “Now, let’s get you home. Looking at those dark circles under your eyes, I think you ought to get some sleep.”
It took Laney a few minutes to change into faerie form. She yawned, struggling to focus. Then they left Gnarlwood Lane and flew across the park together and up Oldwing Rise. Laney gazed all around her, but Skellmore slept peacefully under the full moon. There was no sign of the dark, hooded figure.
“I have something for you.” Gwen opened her palm and a bunch of white flowers sprouted in her hand. They had a sweet scent. “Lay these lilies on your bedside table and they’ll help you sleep. Don’t forget to close the window after I’m gone.”
“Thank you!” Laney watched her go, then flew inside and shut the window.
Wan
ting to keep the lilies alive, she used a glass of water as a vase and stood the flowers in it. Then she lay down in bed and closed her eyes. As she fell asleep she thought she heard the lilies whispering to each other in the dark.
The dark shape leaned right over her, its long hood hiding its face. It reached out a gloved hand…
“Laney, wake up!”
Laney yelled and scrambled into the corner of the bed to get away from that hand, that hood, that burning hate…
“Calm down, it’s only daylight!” joked Kim, pulling back the curtains. “I know it’s the summer holidays but I don’t want you lying in bed all day. It’s ten o’clock already.”
Laney stared round. There was no black shape. It had just been Kim. She must have been dreaming about that thing again – the thing Gwen had told her was a Shadow faerie.
“Are you all right?” Kim came over and sat down on the bed next to her.
Laney forced her face into a smile. “I’m fine. You just made me jump. I must have been dreaming.”
Kim laughed. “I thought maybe you were. You were muttering on about your shadow and how you had to find something. It must have been an exciting dream.” She leaned forwards suddenly. “Are you feeling OK? Your eyes are – they look a little red.”
“Too much sleep, maybe.” Laney blinked and looked away. Kim shouldn’t be able to see any change in her eyes, and they were golden, not red.
Kim got up. “I’m taking Toby into town. He needs some new shoes. Your dad and Simon have gone out. Tea’s at seven o’clock. Don’t miss it.”
“I won’t.”
Laney got dressed and decided to go to The Cattery, where Claudia lived. She wanted to tell her about last night. Maybe Claudia would know a bit more about Shadow faeries – Gwen hadn’t really gone into a lot of detail.
Gusts of wind beat against her as she turned the corner into Beacon Way. She glanced over at the church. Today its walls were as dark and grey as the clouds overhead. Last night she’d been up on the roof, hiding from that horrible dark figure.
The Crystal Mirror Page 8
