Emily Feather and the Chest of Charms (6 page)

“No…” she sobbed. “It's mine. I loved it… Please let me keep it. It's only little!”

But the tiny spot inside her heart didn't grow cold as she had thought it would. It stayed warm and flickering, like a candle flame. Emily could feel it burn up more strongly as her mother's magic joined with it, glowing inside her. Emily blinked away her tears and looked at her mother, surprised.

Eva was smiling at her. Her eyes were open now, but she was crying too, fat tears spilling over on to her cheeks.

“How did you do it?” she murmured, letting go of one of Emily's hands and reaching up to stroke her face. “Your own magic – completely different to anything the others have. Small, yes, but real. And sweet, Emily! So sweet and strong…”

“I thought you were going to take it away!” Emily threw her arms around her mother's shoulders, hugging her gratefully.

“How could I?” Eva sounded almost cross. “It was a gift, Emily. From the house you've grown up in. It isn't for us to tear it out of you.”

“But you must be careful how you use it,” Ash added, leaning close to them. “Your mother's tested the magic and found it's true – there's nothing dangerous inside you. But that doesn't make it safe. Any magic can be dangerous if used the wrong way.”

Emily nodded, and glanced over her mother's shoulder at Robin and Sasha. Was this the time to tell her parents about Lory and Dan and their terrible plan? But what if telling the secret brought all the dreadful force of Lory's spell down on Lark?

Robin's face scrunched up worriedly, so that for a second he looked like a rabbit. Sasha seemed thinner and more insubstantial than ever, as though the thought of telling frightened her.

Then Robin shook his head reluctantly. It wasn't safe. They would have to stop Lory some other way. On their own.

“She's been ages,” Lark muttered, glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall.

“What time did she go out?” Emily asked, jabbing uncertainly at the top of her toffee-sponge cake. It wasn't done. She put it back in the oven and came to sit down with Lark and Robin. Even cooking, which always cheered her up, wasn't working today.

Sasha, who had been standing by the sink and letting water drip over her hands, pulled out a chair opposite Emily. Their parents hadn't actually said she was allowed to stay – but it was as if they were pretending not to see her.

“I don't know when Lory went!” Lark wailed. “I didn't see, and it's not as if she told me she was going, is it? I haven't spoken to her since yesterday. I've hardly even seen her.”

After the fight, Lory had stayed in her room all evening. She'd told their mum she wasn't feeling well, that she had a headache and she just wanted to be left alone. Then sometime that morning she'd disappeared out again.

“After what Lory did to you yesterday, I don't know why you're worrying about her.” Robin shrugged.

“It wasn't Lory.” Emily flicked through her recipe book, so as not to look at Robin and Lark. She had a feeling they were going to laugh at her. But she was sure now. As if saying it out loud had made her certain. It wasn't Lory who Lark had fought. Lory would never bind her sister in a spell like that. Emily nodded to herself. She couldn't bring herself to believe that the real Lory would do such a thing.

“Looked like Lory to me!” Robin snorted.

“I know. But she's being made to do all this stuff. I'll bet you anything. Chocolate brownies every day for life.”

Robin looked up at her sharply and Brownie's small, whiskery face appeared over the edge of the table, staring eagerly at Emily.

“You think Dan put a spell on Lory, then?” Lark asked curiously. There was a hopeful tone in her voice too, as though she wanted to believe it. She and Lory had always been so close. Emily couldn't imagine how it must feel to have her twin suddenly turn on her like this.

“Mm-hm. Think about it,” Emily said. “She complained about him like anything, didn't she? Said he was a real pain, and she hated the way he kept turning up everywhere.” Emily frowned. “And then he wrote that song…”

Emily's eyes widened. How many times had she heard it faintly floating out from Lory's room? How many times had Lory listened to it? He must have charmed her with the song! Lory was bound under a spell – a slow, gentle, but clever and awfully strong spell that had started a long time ago, when Dan Hargreaves first tried to charm the pretty Feather sisters.

“It was the song! It's a spell!” she gasped.

Lark stared at Emily, her eyes so dark with surprise they looked almost black, and then slowly, she began to smile, a huge grin of relief. “You're right! She listened to it loads. I kept hearing her playing it on her laptop – even though she said it was terrible. It drove me mad. She kept putting it on, as if she didn't even notice she was doing it. That's when I started leaving her on her own in her room.”

“Exactly.” Emily nodded.

“The song was a spell?” Sasha asked.

“I think so. Specially designed to trap Lory.”

Robin scowled at her. “That's so stupid it's almost definitely right, and now we won't get the chocolate brownies.” Brownie stared up at Emily, his fat moustache of white whiskers drooping sadly.

“If we can get rid of Dan, I promise I'll make brownies once a week,” Emily told him. She reached out a finger and dipped it in the spilled sugar on the table, holding it out for the tiny mouse to nibble. “I don't mind. I like making them.” She drew a pattern in the sugar, which made Brownie glare at her disapprovingly. “If we don't stop Lory and Dan, everything could change! Dad could get in real trouble, couldn't he?”

Lory nodded. “If he didn't do his duty properly, he could be called back. Someone else would be guardian instead. Dad could be put in prison, even.”

“Yes… And then you'd all have to go home,” Emily murmured, still playing with the sugar. “I don't know if you'd even be allowed to take me.”

“Of course we'd take you!” Robin gasped.

“Would you? If Dad's already in disgrace? He and Mum won't exactly be in a good place for asking favours, will they? I've already got Lark and Lory into trouble. Lady Anstis is really powerful at court, isn't she? What if she tells the king not to let them bring me?” Emily shrugged. “I mean, that's not the only reason – I don't want Dan to hurt Lory, or use her to do something awful. But I can't help thinking about all this other stuff as well.” She tried to smile at Robin. “Total chocolate brownie shortage then. I bet they don't know how to make them in your world.”

“I don't only love you because you make cake, you know!” Robin said crossly.

“Mm-hm, she makes really good biscuits as well.” Lark put her arm round Emily's shoulders. “Stop playing with the sugar and look at us, stupid.”

Reluctantly, Emily glanced up to find her brother and sister gazing down at her. They were half in their fairy form, their faces and their huge eyes glowing.

“How long have you known her?” Robin demanded, nodding at Sasha, who made a face back at him.

“Um, well… Not long, really. A couple of weeks?”

“Exactly. And you didn't leave her on the other side, in danger, did you? I know you're a lot nicer than I am, Emily, but I'm not totally heartless.”

“And Mum and Dad aren't either,” Lark added. “No one is leaving you behind. Anyway,” she sighed. “I don't know what I'd do if I had to choose. I can't imagine living over there. But to stay here – I mean, in this world, but not in this house – without any magic at all, that would be too hard. We might all have to go rogue, somehow. Mum and Dad have been here so long I don't think they're true fairies any more. Not in the way they think, anyway.”

“So stop panicking about being left behind and go back to being the genius who spotted Dan's plot,” Robin ordered. “Why didn't we see what that song was?”

“I was too busy stuffing my hair in my ears,” Lark muttered. “What are we going to do? She really has been gone hours now. At least three hours, I think.”

Robin suddenly jumped up. “Did she definitely leave the house?”

“I told you, I don't know…” Lark began angrily. “Oh! The attic!” She flung herself away from the table so fast her chair tipped over, and leaped into the air, her wings exploding from her shoulders in a fountain of soft grey-brown feathers. She beat them furiously, swirling in the air, so that Emily's curls lifted in the wind. Then she shot out of the kitchen, spiralling up the stairs like some huge trapped bird.

“Go on!” Emily sighed. “You can fly, I don't mind. We'll see you up there.”

Robin shrugged, tucking Brownie into the zip pocket of his camo shorts. “We're already at least three hours behind Lory. Lark's just being dramatic. I'll walk. Stupid flying indoors anyway – I always hit things.”

Emily, Robin and Sasha hurried up the stairs, finding the small dark door to the attic swinging open. The shadowy steps made Emily's heart beat a little faster – she still loved the thought of a treasure trove full of magical secrets.

“Hmm. Where'd Lark go?” Robin asked, standing at the top of the attic stairs and looking around.

Emily and Sasha peered over his shoulder. It was late afternoon and thick, honeyed sunlight was pouring through the small windows, leaving golden pools on the dusty floor. The attic seemed to run all along the top of the house, Emily realized, just under the roof, so the ceilings were slanted and low. It was just as she had imagined – piled to the rafters with strange old stuff. At first look, it was like any other family's junk room – bags full of outgrown clothes, wooden boxes packed with unwanted books, an old bird cage, a little row of tiny shoes. But when Emily crouched down to inspect a pile of books, she saw that the one on the top had a green leather cover stamped with gold letters. She couldn't read the title – the letters wouldn't stand still long enough. It was as though Emily had to open the book to make it decide what it was going to be. She wasn't quite brave enough.

“Where's Lark gone?” she asked, reluctantly turning away from the pile. “Through another door?”

“I don't know,” Robin murmured back. “And I'm sure Lory's been here too, not long ago. I can feel her. I thought she and Dan would be up here looking for that secret door and Lark would be having a go at them. I was all set to be breaking up another fight. Where are they all?”

“I don't know…” Emily replied unhappily. A cloud must have passed across the sun – the golden light had darkened now, and the attic had turned shadowy and dim. Suddenly, she had the strongest sense that something was wrong. “I don't like it,” she added, swallowing. It felt like there was a solid lump of fright stuck in her throat.

“Me neither,” Robin stepped back closer to her. “Emily, I think we have to go and tell Mum and Dad what's going on.”

“But the spell!” Emily shuddered. Watching Lark twisting in pain from the burning spell had been so awful. She wasn't sure she could bear to make something like that happen again.

“I know…” Robin shook his head worriedly. “I don't want to hurt Lark, but everything up here feels dark and horrible. You can feel it too, can't you?”

Sasha nodded. “Yes. I can feel it too. Some sort of treacherous spell, cruel, and dark.”

“Treachery?” Emily gasped. “Does that mean Lory's done something else awful to Lark? Where are they?”

Here…

It was the faintest whisper, so faint that they felt it rather than heard it, from over in the far corner of the room.

Lark was lying behind a cluster of battered chairs, her fingers reaching towards an old wooden chest. Her wings were torn and battered, like a sea bird caught in a storm. The beautiful soft brown glow of them was gone, leaving the feathers grey and dusty.

“What happened?” Emily cried, crouching down beside her.

“I tried to follow them. He found the door. Look.” She stretched her fingers out another painful fraction and tried to point. “The chest. Dan left a spell to stop us. He must have known we'd try to follow them.”

“Are you all right?” Emily asked, hesitantly stroking Lark's dusty feathers and wishing she knew a healing magic.

“I will be. I just can't move. It's a binding spell fixed to the door … to cripple whoever tries to follow after them. He must have thought we'd be together, but I got all of it.”

“Can't we undo it?” Robin asked, brushing his fingers over the dusty boards around her, trying to find the limits of the spell.

Lark wriggled helplessly and sighed. “I don't think so. It's strong. Like … like I'm set in stone, or something.”

“I don't think it'll come undone until they come back through the door,” Sasha whispered apologetically, dropping one sparkling water droplet from her finger into the corner of Lark's mouth.

Emily watched her sister's cheeks flush a little pinker and her eyes grow brighter from Sasha's magic, and frowned. “We'd better go and get them back, then.”

Emily crept a little closer, looking sideways at the chest. It seemed slippery and dangerous, as if she would fall right through the magical doorway if she dared to look at it straight on.

The chest was made of a dark wood, bound with heavy iron bands – as though the contents had to be sealed tightly inside. The lid was thrown back against the hinges, and squinting sideways into the open chest, Emily could see the world beyond – great masses of trees, and the river flowing along between them, glimmering. “It leads into the forest again,” she said. The doors she had opened before had been the same, opening on to dark pathways between the trees.

“All the doors do,” Robin murmured, leaning cautiously over to look. “The forest is the heart of our world. All the strength and life comes from the trees and the river. Dan will still be in among the trees somewhere, I bet. He'll need to gather his magic before he attacks the king.”

Emily swallowed fearfully. “Do you think we might be able to stop him, then? I mean, I was just hoping we could get Lory away from him, but do you think we could stop the plot as well?”

Robin looked at her and shrugged helplessly. “What, you and me?”

Emily sighed. “I suppose not.”

“Me too,” Sasha whispered faintly.

“You can't!” Emily reminded her, shaking her head. “The hunt, remember? If they catch your scent, they'll go back to chasing you again. It isn't safe for you to go through.”

“And it's safe for you?” Sasha hissed crossly. “If you go, I go, Emily! You don't know the forest and I do! I've rescued you once, and you've rescued me. We're evens. I'm not going to let you get snapped up by some nasty little wisp who wants that scrap of magic inside you for her own!”