Starfell: Willow Moss & the Lost Day

by Dominique Valente

  He blinked a few times. Then his eyes went hazy and he sank into a faint.

  She sighed, took a sip of tea, and shrugged at Feathering.

  “Bonkers,” said Oswin, who’d opened the bag and was leaning against the dragon egg, his legs crossed.

  Sometimes sat bolt upright. “YOU ALMOST ENDED THE WORLD?”

  He was obviously recalling the moment when she tried to summon the day and Moreg Vaine started to panic.

  Outside Feathering boomed, “WHAT?” in shock. “You almost ended the world?”

  Willow shrugged. “Only almost.”

  She explained that if she’d brought the day into the current reality, it might have split apart the fabric of time. “See, that’s why I can’t try to find it just yet—we need to know who took it and why first. So—can you tell us who took last Tuesday?” she asked Nolin Sometimes.

  He rubbed his head and sighed deeply. He took a sip of his cold tea, then said, “It’s just not clear, and what I’m getting, well, it doesn’t make any sense!”

  “Oh?” asked Willow.

  Feathering looked just as surprised. “What are you getting?” he asked.

  “Something impossible—I mean, they said they were all destroyed; no one has been able to find one to even try, but . . .”

  “What?”

  He stood up and started pacing the floor. As he spoke he spilled tea from his cup, which trailed along with his steps. “Well, I just keep seeing the oddest thing whenever I try to look at last Tuesday specifically. I see one thing, and I keep seeing it.” He gesticulated with his hands, making more tea jump wildly out of his cup. “Which is strange because usually there’s so much—too much, really—to see. But it’s like this great big emptiness, and then beyond all of that, it’s white, and in the distance there’s something handwritten and very old hidden in a small gilt box inside a guarded fortress.”

  “Like a letter?” asked Willow.

  Sometimes looked at her. “No—like a spell. A Lost Spell.”

  11

  The Lost Spells of Starfell

  WILLOW GAPED AT Sometimes. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. It was myth. Legend.

  “But the Lost Spells were destroyed during the war a thousand years ago!” she exclaimed.

  Sometimes shook his head. “Not all of them, apparently.”

  Willow’s mind filled with wonder. Growing up, she’d heard the stories about the old magicians of Starfell, and the legends about the Lost Spells. Who hadn’t? The first time she was told about what happened to the old magicians was not long after she’d discovered her own magical ability—and was a bit upset about it.

  “Stop your crying, child. Don’t you know how lucky you are?” scoffed Granny Flossy, putting down her glass of sherry and managing to look serious despite her lime-green hair.

  Six-year-old Willow sniffed. “Lucky?” she said, looking at her in disbelief. Her almond eyes filled with tears again. “They call me Fetch—even Mum! By my age Camille could move the whole kitchen with her mind—and what can I do? Find socks?” she wailed.

  “It’s hardly just socks. You found my toothbrush last week,” Granny Flossy pointed out.

  Willow didn’t think that was any better. She sniffed, then looked down at the floor. “It’s not really special. . . .”

  “So what? It’s still magic—it’s still a gift. Not everyone can do what you can.”

  Willow scoffed. “It’s not like Juniper’s magic or Camille’s.”

  Granny Flossy looked at her hard, then shook her head, seeming disappointed. “I thought you were more sensible, child. Don’t you realize that you are one of the lucky ones? I mean, the very fact that you’ve even got magic at all is incredible. After the battles we fought? The war we almost lost? How many people died, how long it took for magic to reenter Starfell—and yet you scoff at what you have?”

  Willow’s mouth fell open in surprise. “People died?”

  “Yes, hundreds—thousands even. It was a different world. Back then magic ran freely throughout Starfell, and those who used it were great wizards and witches called magicians, who could do incredibly powerful things. Some of them had several magical gifts at once.”

  Willow blinked. “Really?”

  Granny Flossy nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “The Brothers of Wol were scared of those old magicians—the ones who could do anything with magic, anything they wanted—and that was the problem, you see.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They were afraid. I think most people felt fear—even today people are always a bit scared of what they can’t understand. Things that are different. But it wasn’t until the Brothers of Wol started telling people that magic was unnatural, that it wasn’t a gift from the god of light, Wol, but from the dark god, Mal, that fear really started to spread in people’s hearts.

  “Soon enough, the Brothers told the people that they needed to rid Starfell of this evil. At this time Starfell was united under one ruler, a king, and he became convinced that he must act. All magic was forbidden, especially the writing down of spells, as he and the Brothers of Wol feared that these spells could destroy them all. But, in a last attempt to preserve thousands of years of magic, the magicians gathered the best of their spells and hid them in the hope they would never be lost.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No. The Brothers of Wol found out and it led to war. They believed that those with magic had gathered these spells together in order to attack those without, and they persuaded the king to strike first. Thousands died as a result, and the spells were said to have been destroyed during the battle.”

  “But couldn’t the old magicians just fight back—use the magic that people were so afraid of?”

  “Some did, yes, but fear is a powerful force. The Brothers of Wol captured their families and threatened to kill them if they fought back. Many of the people they captured weren’t magical. As you know, not everyone in a family is born with magic, so they couldn’t fight back even if they tried.”

  Willow thought of her father and nodded. She thought of what she’d do if someone captured him and threatened to hurt him—probably anything they asked her to, she realized.

  “Then there were those with magic who betrayed their own kind—that was the worst part,” sighed Granny Flossy, taking a sip of her sherry and staring off into the distance. “You see, some of them started to believe that what the Brothers said was true—that it was an evil gift. They were told that Wol would take away their sins if they worked to rid the world of this evil, so they helped the Brothers to destroy their own kind.”

  Willow was horrified. “But why would they believe that?”

  Granny Flossy grabbed Willow’s face, looked deep into her eyes, and said, “Fear, my girl. It’s more powerful than any magic in this world. It’s what’s holding you back right now—the fear that you won’t be as powerful as your sisters, the fear that your gift isn’t special. But it is. You think your powers aren’t exciting? Well, I think that you’re wrong. Magic is like life—it’s what you do with it that counts. The Brothers of Wol tried everything to rid Starfell of magic, but they couldn’t do it. It still came back to our world, slowly but surely, after all those centuries. And now, years later, a small piece of it found you. It singled you out and made you special. Never forget that, my girl—the fact that you have a magical ability at all is proof of how lucky you really are.”

  Willow looked at Nolin Sometimes now, her eyes wide. She’d half convinced herself that the Lost Spells were nothing more than legend—just a story about the old magicians of Starfell.

  “You really think someone has found one of them?”

  “Yes—and if there’s one, there might be others.”

  “That jes’ can’t be good,” said Oswin.

  Feathering’s golden eyes had widened. “I can’t help but agree. . . .”

  Nolin Sometimes nodded.

  Willow blinked. “But even if one of those old, po
werful spells had survived, surely it wouldn’t work? I mean, there are no magicians left, right? Could a witch or wizard use one of those old spells now?”

  Sometimes frowned. “Maybe . . . the magic was here before. You can’t erase it, and long ago our ancestors could use the spells, so perhaps we could too. I’m not sure. But I think that there might be at least one who can, someone who found a way to get some of the old powers back. . . .”

  Willow’s eyes bulged. “You mean to find the missing Tuesday we’re going to have to fight someone who has managed to tap into the old powers? Someone as powerful as one of the old magicians of Starfell?”

  Sometimes looked a little green himself. “I’m afraid so.”

  12

  The Moon Garden

  “BUT WHO? WHO is this magician? Can you see him?” asked Willow.

  Nolin Sometimes ran a hand through his wild white hair and shook his head. “No, but I think I know a way that we can find out.”

  Willow looked from Feathering, perched outside the window, his large golden eyes blinking rapidly at the news, to Oswin, and asked, “Really? How?”

  Nolin Sometimes grinned. “As you may know, I am also a botanist.”

  “Um?” said Willow.

  Oswin blinked. “I tol’ yew he’s off his rocker,” he said.

  Nolin Sometimes’s passion for botany explained the strange plants dotted around the stilt house and how they’d come to find him in the magical forest of Wisperia, but not, Willow couldn’t help thinking, how it might help them understand who had taken the missing Tuesday.

  Sometimes sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “The study of botany, along with the art of forgotten telling, have long been entwined. The early oubliers were able to grow certain plants that helped them in telling larger portions of the past. The roots of these plants connect beneath the ground, creating a large network of memory, and if we can access the right ones, we can find out what really happened. Do you understand?” he said rather excitedly.

  Willow, Oswin, and Feathering all shook their heads.

  Sometimes sighed again. “Plants are not just pretty things that grow waiting for our fingers to pluck at them, you know? They are smarter than we realize, and many are able to warn each other in times of danger. Some are always listening to what we have to say, and if you get the right one, you can find out anything you wish to know.”

  Willow’s mouth plopped open in shock. “Really?”

  Nolin Sometimes nodded.

  Willow would never think of plants the same way again.

  “Can all forgotten tellers find out the secrets of plants?” she asked.

  Sometimes’s face drooped, and he took a sip of his now stone-cold tea, his blue eyes sad. “Not anymore. It’s a bit hard to keep up with gardening while you’re running for your life,” he said with a rueful grin. “Only a few of us have got the old skills. I’m one of the lucky ones; my grandfather taught me all he knew. And on his deathbed he gave me a small box that contained the seeds of one of the most special plants ever grown—the memory flower. This flower will reveal one secret under the light of the moon before it dies.”

  Willow and Feathering quickly looked up at the darkening sky, where they could see a crescent moon peeking out through the clouds.

  “That’s right,” continued Sometimes. “It will bloom soon.”

  At nightfall, using a set of stairs along the side of the swaying stilt house, Willow followed Sometimes. She had left Oswin behind in the house with Harold, much to the kobold’s annoyance. “I can’t carry you to the roof,” she’d said to his orange back. “You know you could just walk with us?” she’d added. But there had been a disgruntled sniff and he’d shot her a look of disbelief over his shoulder, then gone back to sulking, paws crossed over his chest. Clearly staying inside, even if it was with a dog, was preferable to having to go outside or leave the comfort of the hairy carpetbag.

  Up and up they continued to climb, toward the roof of the house.

  “Don’t worry, she’s as sturdy as a rock,” said Sometimes as the house gave a rather terrifying jolt to the side and then righted itself.

  Willow’s hands shook, but she managed somehow to get to the top, where she found herself in a very unusual garden. Perched among the clouds, it was laid out in various patterns of concentric circles. Eagerly Willow darted forward to have a look at the sorts of plants that would go into a moon garden. Rather disappointingly, though, they were all the same rather dull brown shade, with leaves that drooped onto the ground. They looked pretty dead, really.

  “It’s interesting,” she managed as a response to Sometimes’s rather expectant look.

  Sometimes laughed. “It doesn’t look like much now—but just wait. Unlike normal daytime plants, these ones only show their glory during the light of the moon,” he explained.

  “It’s hard to imagine these having any glory,” said Feathering, joining them, his massive feathered bulk swaying in the clouds.

  Sometimes shook his head, a smile playing about his lips. “You’ll see.”

  It didn’t take long. As the moonlight stretched across the garden, the plants began to transform. They grew larger, their leaves changing shape—some with vivid stripes and others with splotches of paint-like drips on their leaves—and magnificent flowers in shades of super-bright white, sunshine, topaz and electric pinks, and blues and purples sprouted in the glowing moonlight.

  “They’re amazing!” Willow said as she reached out to touch the soft, furry petals of one at her feet. She gasped when the plant reached out to touch her back.

  “The scent,” said Feathering, closing his large golden eyes in apparent bliss. “Like a fresh, juicy deer on a clear mountain path after the storm.”

  Willow closed her eyes and breathed in. “I smell hot chocolate with cinnamon and marshmallows!”

  Sometimes grinned. “That’s a bliss flower; it produces the scent of what you most enjoy!”

  Feathering hovered above the clouds, his powerful wings beating the air, making Willow’s hair blow back. “So one of these will tell us who took the missing Tuesday?” he asked.

  “Yes. This one,” he said, coming to a stop in the center of the garden, where a tall pale green plant surrounded by a circle of white pebbles was slowly beginning to transform.

  It was bigger than the others, but less colorful. While they watched, the green leaves began to open very slowly, and a tall, thin stem appeared. Translucent like glass, the stem unfurled and a large, pure-white flower emerged, its tiny fronds covered in what looked like gold dust. Its petals opened and it shifted ever so slightly toward Nolin Sometimes and bowed its petal head.

  An expectant hush descended. Sometimes touched it, then asked, “Tell us, Memory Flower, who took last Tuesday?”

  Willow held her breath.

  The flower began to shift, its petals unfurling outward, twisting and growing, and changing before their eyes into the shape of a young man. His form was made of airy, lacelike petals. There were holes where his eyes should have been, and his hair was made of the same golden thread that had covered the fronds of the memory flower. He was wearing a long robe with what looked like golden arrows in the center.

  The plant boy looked at them with eyes that weren’t there and said in a voice like wind rattling a doorframe, “The boy named Silas cast the spell hidden within a fortress.”

  “A fortress?” cried Willow. “Which fortress? Which spell? How can we get it back?”

  The plant boy shook his head, and before their eyes he began to disappear, turning back into a flower once more. Then each of the flower’s petals scattered to the wind.

  Sometimes sighed. “Like I said, you only get the one question.” He turned to look at Willow. “At least we know who to look for now.”

  Willow nodded. Someone named Silas. “And that it was a spell.”

  “Which means that you won’t be able to summon the lost day,” said Sometimes.

  “Why not?” asked Willow.

&
nbsp; “The magic of the spell might react to your own when you summon it; it could do what Moreg feared and split apart the universe,” explained Sometimes.

  Willow blinked, put aside the part of her mind that was panicking in Oswin’s voice and going “Oh noooo,” and thought hard. “What if I tried to summon the spell?”

  Sometimes contemplated the idea. “Hmm, yes, perhaps there is a counterspell on the scroll. If it worked for whoever used it to take away the day, perhaps it could work for one of us too. Like I said, the old magic was here before, so if we found some of it, it’s possible we could still use it. I’m not sure, though.”

  Willow had to at least try. It was worth trying to summon the spell scroll, in any case. She closed her eyes and raised her hand to the sky. All she had to do was try to find it. It was a lost spell, after all. She concentrated hard. But it would not come. It was as if somehow, something was blocking her from getting it.

  “It’s no good—I feel it, but it won’t come.”

  Sometimes gasped, perhaps as if he too realized something at the same time she did.

  She opened her eyes and whispered, “Practical makes perfect.”

  Had it been Moreg’s plan all along?

  “Pardon?” asked Feathering.

  Sometimes’s eyes went blank and he keeled over.

  Willow explained. “I think I know which fortress the memory flower was referring to. I tried to summon the spell, but I couldn’t. It was like something was blocking me, and I think I know why. It’s because the spell is in the one place in all of Starfell that can’t be penetrated with magic: Wolkana. The monastery of the Brothers of Wol. It’s a fortress. And the only way a witch can get inside is—”

  “If she gets captured,” said Sometimes, sitting up. His eyes were going blue once more, and he sounded awed. “Moreg meant for it to happen! It was part of her plan!”

  “Practical makes perfect,” repeated Willow. “It makes sense—she wanted them to take her so she could get inside!”