Starfell: Willow Moss & the Lost Day

by Dominique Valente

  Dedication

  For Catherine who loved it first, to Helen for

  helping to make a dream come true, and to Rui for always

  believing that it would

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. The Girl Who Found Lost Things

  2. A Question of Time

  3. The Monster from under the Bed

  4. The Portal Pantry

  5. The Broom Makers

  6. The (Newly) Forbidden City of Beady Hill

  7. Amora Spell

  8. The Sometimes House

  9. The Dragon’s Tale

  10. The Forgotten Teller

  11. The Lost Spells of Starfell

  12. The Moon Garden

  13. The Midnight Market

  14. The Hag Stone

  15. Wait and Forget

  16. Calamity Troll

  17. The Troll Army

  18. The Witch’s House

  19. Magic in Wolkana

  20. Enough to Make a Kobold Explode

  21. Yesterday Again

  About the Author

  Books by Dominique Valente

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  The Girl Who Found Lost Things

  MOST PEOPLE THINK being born with a magical power would be a bit of a dream come true. But that’s only because they assume that they’d get exciting powers, like the ability to fly, become invisible, or turn an annoying relative into a pig. They think magic is a big feast, where everything is laid out, ripe for the picking.

  However, in the world of Starfell, not everyone who is lucky enough to have a bit of magic up their sleeve these days gets the really good bits—like, say, the triple-chocolate fudge cake. Some just get those wilted carrot sticks that no one really wanted to eat anyway. This seemed to be the unfortunate case for Willow Moss, the youngest and, alas, least powerful member of the Moss family.

  Willow had received an ability that was, in most people’s opinions, a little more magical scrapyard than magical feast. Useful, but not in a snap, fizzle, and bang sort of way. Not even a little snap, or a low sort of bang, though there was almost a fizzle, when you squinted.

  Willow’s power was in finding lost things.

  Like keys. Or socks. Or, recently, old Jeremiah Crotchet’s wooden teeth.

  That hadn’t been fun; the teeth had landed in Willow’s outstretched palm covered in gooey saliva from the mouth of Geezer, the Crotchets’ ancient bullmastiff.

  After the Crotchets paid Willow a spurgle—her standard rate since the age of six—Willow decided that an increase was long overdue. She also made a vow from then on to keep a fishing net with her at all times to catch the more unsavory items she was likely to find.

  So, while it wasn’t exactly a profitable talent, it did put food on the table—usually a half loaf of bread most days. Which was something, at least. Unless you compared it to her middle sister Camille’s talent. Camille had recently lifted a plow, donkey still attached, off Garron Jensen, with her mind.

  Yup . . . Camille’s powers were a bit flashier.

  It was when she was six, and when her power had finally surfaced, that Willow’s father had explained to her that the world was made of different types of people. The mark of magic had been on her since birth, but just what kind of magic she’d have, they hadn’t known. Until now. “People are all necessary, all important. It’s just that some attract a bit more attention than others. There are people like your mother, who commands respect the second she walks into a room. (The fact that she hears dead people speak helps with that a bit too.) Same with your sisters. And then there are people like me and you.”

  Which hurt. Just a little.

  Willow, despite her name, was short with long stick-straight brown hair and brown eyes to match. She looked a lot like her father, while her sisters had inherited her mother’s striking looks: tall, with flowing black hair and green eyes that were described as “emerald hued.” Although Willow was pretty certain no one in the Moss family had ever seen an emerald close up.

  When Willow complained to Granny Flossy that she didn’t look like her striking mother and sisters, Granny had harrumphed. She didn’t have patience for vanity. She couldn’t afford to with green hair. Granny Flossy had once been one of the best potion makers in all of Starfell but was now called “Batty Granny” by most people due to a potion explosion in the mountains of Nach, which had caused some rather interesting effects, one of which was the color of her hair.

  “Tsk, child. Your eyes may not be ‘emerald’ like the others’, but they’re as good as, ’specially when it comes to spotting things that others don’ seem to see,” she said with a sly grin, before she stashed a few of her dodgier potions beneath a loose floorboard in the attic that only Willow seemed to know about.

  Granny Flossy was right about Willow spotting things other people seemed to miss. It had become a talent over the years. Like today, while she stood in the cottage garden in her usual position, looking at the small line of people that snaked around the low stone wall, all seeking Willow’s help to find their misplaced possessions.

  “I just can’t seem to find them. I’ve looked everywhere . . . ,” said Prudence Foghorn from behind the open gate.

  “Did you try on top of your head?” asked Willow.

  “Oh my!” said Prudence, feeling the top of her head, only to discover her missing rhinestone spectacles. “Silly me,” she said with an embarrassed giggle before turning away.

  “That’ll be one spurgle,” said Juniper, Willow’s oldest sister, coming out of the cottage and witnessing the exchange.

  “But she didn’t do any magic,” complained Prudence, eyes popping in surprise.

  “She still found your glasses, didn’t she? You got the same result that you came here for, didn’t you? It’s not her fault you’re too blind to look in a mirror.” Juniper was relentless, and under her glare Prudence conceded and handed over the spurgle.

  “I heard witches weren’t supposed to ask for money in the first place,” whined skinny Ethel Mustard from near the back of the queue. “They’re not supposed to profit from their gifts,” she said rather piously, piercing eyes shining.

  Ethel Mustard, it has to be said, was the sort of person who secretly wished that their village, Grinfog, had been granted Forbidden status by the king. This would ensure that people like Willow and her family—magical people, really—would have to go and live Somewhere Else.

  “Who told you that?” said Juniper, rounding on Ethel, who appeared to shrink under Juniper’s dark frown. “When a carpenter makes you something, you pay him, don’t you? My sister supplies you a service, so why would it be any different with her?”

  “Well, because she’s not like everyone else,” whispered Ethel, two high spots of color appearing on her cheeks.

  Juniper’s eyebrows lowered. “Well,” she drawled, “perhaps then you should pay her more?”

  There was collective grumbling from all around.

  Juniper’s power—besides getting money out of people—was in blowing things up. So no one grumbled too loudly. No one wanted to anger someone who could blow them up.

  Willow sighed. She was planning on raising her price to a flerkin and a Leighton apple, but she wasn’t convinced that using her scary sister to bully it out of people was the best way to go about it. It wasn’t that she was overly fond of Leighton apples, but Wheezy, the Jensens’ retired show horse, was. Willow passed the old horse every Thursday when she went to the market. The children from the village had labeled him Wheezy because every time he came trotting to the pasture his che
st made asthmatic wheezes. Considering that he went to the trouble to come greet her, Willow liked to have his favorite treat.

  “The trouble with you, Willow,” said Juniper, who Willow couldn’t help noticing had failed to hand over the spurgle, “is that you don’t place enough value on your skills—such as they are.”

  “Skills! What skills?” came Camille’s mocking tones as she emerged from the cottage, dressed head to foot in a long black robe made of rich shimmery material. “Oh, you mean as a magical bloodhound?” She smirked. Ignoring Willow’s protests, she turned to Juniper and said, “Ready?” The two were heading off to join their mother for the Traveling Fortune Fair.

  Willow closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing deeply. When she opened them, she saw that her sisters had sped off down the lane, their black hair and cloaks flowing in their wakes.

  Resignedly she turned back to her queue of customers and jumped.

  The queue had vanished, and in its place stood a lone woman. She was tall and reed thin, with black hair framing a pale, slender face marked by high arching eyebrows. She wore a long dusky gown with purple pointed boots, and an expression that made Willow’s spine straighten before her brain could muster an objection.

  The woman raised a brow and said, “Good morning?”

  “G-good morning . . . ?” managed Willow in response, wondering who the woman was.

  There was a small part of Willow’s mind that held its breath. It was the part that seemed to be listening to her knees, which had begun to shake, as if they knew a secret her head did not.

  “Moreg Vaine,” said the woman with casual nonchalance, as if declaring yourself the most feared witch in all of Starfell was an everyday occurrence. Which, to be fair, for Moreg Vaine, it probably was.

  “Oh dear,” said Willow, whose wobbling knees had proved correct.

  Moreg Vaine’s mouth curled up.

  In years to come Willow would still wonder how it was possible that she had managed to keep her feet on the ground when a whisper would surely have knocked her over.

  Yet never in Willow’s wildest fantasies of meeting the infamous witch Moreg Vaine could she ever have imagined for a moment what happened next.

  “Cup of tea?” suggested Moreg.

  2

  A Question of Time

  WILLOW FOLLOWED MOREG Vaine into the cottage, staring in bafflement as the witch went about lighting the coal in the blackened stone fireplace and filling the old dented teakettle with water. Moreg patted down her robe, withdrew a package, and nodded to herself as she poured something into the pot.

  “Hethal should do nicely,” she said, drumming a finger against her chin. Seeming to remember herself, she said, “Take a seat,” offering Willow a chair at Willow’s own kitchen table.

  Willow sat down slowly. Somewhere deep inside she clung to the faint hope that this was all just a dream, or perhaps the witch had come to the wrong house by mistake? Even so, her manners soon caught up with her and she mumbled, “Er, Miss Vaine . . . I—I can do that if you’d like . . . ?”

  Moreg waved her hand dismissively. “No matter—I remember where everything is.”

  Willow’s mouth popped open in surprise. “You do?”

  Taking down two cups from the old wooden cupboard, Moreg shrugged. “Oh yes. It’s been a long time, of course, but Raine and I go back many years.”

  “You know my mother?”

  Moreg placed a chipped blue mug decorated with small white flowers before Willow and sat down opposite with a dainty teacup for herself.

  “Since we were young girls. Did she never mention it?”

  Willow shook her head a bit too vigorously.

  Willow knew, logically, that her mother—and, she supposed, Moreg Vaine—had once been a young girl, but it was a concept her brain couldn’t fully grasp. Like trying to understand why anyone would willingly choose to spend their time collecting postage stamps. All she could manage was a polite, puzzled frown.

  Moreg said offhandedly, “It was a long time ago, I suppose, long before you were born. Like many of our people—magical people, that is—my family lived in the city of Beady Hill, in the Ditchwater district. Your mother’s family lived there too. She was great friends with my sister, Molsa, you see. As children they did everything together, setting bear traps to catch the local hermit, holding tea parties with the dead, dancing naked in the moonlight . . . but things changed—they always do, and many of us have moved on. . . . It’s safer that way, and Molsa is gone now.” Moreg cleared her throat. “Never mind that, though. Drink your tea.”

  “Um” was all Willow managed in response, trying really hard NOT to picture her mother dancing naked in the moonlight.

  Willow looked at the witch, then away again fast. Moreg’s eyes were like razors. Willow’s throat turned dry as she remembered one of the scarier rumors about the witch. And they were all rather scary, to be sure. It was said that Moreg Vaine could turn someone to stone just by looking at them. . . . Willow glanced at her mug and wondered, Why IS she here? Making me tea? She took a sip. It was good too. Strong and sweet, the way she liked it. And the cup was hers—one of the few items in the cottage that were. It stood alone among the haphazard collection of cups and saucers that bowed the Mosses’ kitchen cupboard.

  She supposed that senior witches made it their business to know which mug was yours. At some point I’m going to have to actually ask her why she is here, Willow thought with dread. She took another sip of tea to stretch that moment out just a little longer.

  Maybe, Willow thought, Moreg is here to visit Mum? That seemed the most likely explanation.

  Willow hadn’t taken more than two sips before Moreg dashed her hopeful musings. She looked at Willow with her eyes like deepest, blackest ink and said rather worryingly, “I need your help.”

  Willow blinked. “M-my help?”

  Moreg nodded. “It’s this Tuesday, you see. I can’t quite put my finger on why or how . . . but I’m fairly certain that it’s gone.”

  “G-gone?”

  Moreg glared. “Yes.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  Willow stared at Moreg.

  The witch stared back.

  There seemed to be no other explanation. The witch must have gone mad. Granny Flossy said it happened to the best of them sometimes. She’d know, of course, having gone mad herself.

  Some said Moreg Vaine lived alone in the Mists of Mitlaire, the entrance to the realm of the undead. Willow supposed that would be enough to drive anyone to madness. Mad and powerful seemed a rather dangerous combination, so she gave the witch a slightly nervous smile, hoping that she’d just misunderstood. “Gone? The d-day?”

  Moreg nodded, then got up and took the Mosses’ Grinfog calendar from its peg behind the cottage door and handed it to Willow.

  Willow looked.

  She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be looking at; she was half expecting to see that the week just skipped from Monday straight to Wednesday. She was mildly disappointed to find that it had not. Last Tuesday was still there. Along with the Leightons’ advertisement for apple cider to cure all ailments.

  “But it’s still . . . ?”

  Moreg nodded impatiently. “It’s there—yes—but look closely.”

  Willow looked. Printed on each day of the calendar were fairs, village meetings, harvest schedules, phases of the moon, and other events. Each day had at least one item—except Tuesday.

  She frowned. “But that could mean any—”

  “—thing. Yes. I thought that too. But still, I can’t shake this feeling that it means something. Something bad.” Moreg paused before explaining. “Do you remember what you did on Tuesday?”

  Willow frowned. She closed her eyes and for just a second a big moth-eaten purple hat with a long green feather sticking up jauntily to the side swam before her eyes, with Granny Flossy’s face turning away from her, and for a moment she felt her stomach clench with fear. But then just as fast as the image had appeared
, it was gone, taking the momentary feeling of disquiet along with it.

  She thought hard, the way you think about a dream that feels so real when you just wake up but is gone within seconds and is almost impossible to recall. On Monday she helped Farmer Lonnis find his lease. Without it he would have lost his rights to grow oranges, but luckily Willow had been dispatched, and all was well with Lonnis Farms now—she’d gotten a whole bag of oranges for that. Then she’d come home and helped Granny Flossy to repot the grumbling Gertrudes. The sweet purple fruits were used for masking some of the nastier flavors from her potions (it didn’t really work, just like most of Granny’s potions didn’t really work since her accident). On Wednesday she’d gone to the market—helping the housewives of Herm find their misplaced household goods. Thursday her mother left for the fair, and then it was today. . . .

  “Not really—I can’t seem to remember what I did that day.”

  Moreg nodded, then sighed. “I was hoping it might be different, but it’s the same with everyone I’ve spoken to—they seem to recall most of what they did this week, but Tuesday is a real blank.”

  Willow bit her lip, hesitating. “But isn’t that . . . ?”

  “Normal?” supplied Moreg, waving her hand dismissively. “Yes, of course. Most people struggle to remember what they had for dinner the night before. But usually, if they put their minds to it, something will come up. But the thing is, when it comes to Tuesday, not a single person I have questioned can remember what happened. Not even me.”

  Willow frowned; she had to admit that it was strange. “How many people have you asked?”

  Moreg gave her an appraising look. “All of Hoyp.”

  Willow’s eyebrows shot up. That was surprising: an entire village. Okay, a small village that was really more like one long road, but still, that was around fifteen families at least.

  Another thought occurred to her. She hesitated, but asked anyway. “Why did you say even me?”

  A ghost of a smile crossed Moreg’s face. “You’re sharp—that’s good. I meant only that it was strange, as it has never happened to me before.”