Emily Feather and the Enchanted Door (7 page)

“Nice!” Lory laughed in disgust. “Emily, don't be stupid! If you eat, you'll have to stay here! You can't eat fairy fruit and go back to your own world; you'll never want to eat real food again. It'll taste like ashes, and you'll starve, pining for just one more taste of those berries.”

Lark nodded, her eyes bluer than ever, glittering with worried tears.

“Don't listen to them, Emily,” the fairy in the green dress said sweetly. “Why would you want to go back, anyway? Stay here with us. We won't lie to you.”

Emily hesitated, looking back and forth between the fairy girls and Lark and Lory. Her sisters looked even more fairy-like here, their wings and hair sparkling with a furious light.

“Emily,” Lark tried again, her voice gentle but shakily anxious. “Emily, you don't understand. They want to steal you. They won't let you go home.”

Emily swallowed, trying to make the ache in her chest go away. “It isn't really my home,” she told Lark miserably. “Is it? And I've already been stolen…” With a weary sort of stubbornness, she pulled a berry off the little cluster in her hand and reached up to put it in her mouth.

There was an excited hiss of indrawn breath from the fairy girls around her, and Lark screamed, “Emily, look!”

Jolted out of her anger by the pure fear in Lark's eyes, Emily looked where she was pointing. At the fruit that Lark had thrown across the floor. It was scattered over the polished stone, brown and wizened-looking, the scarlet seeds of that strange fruit all over the floor now, smearing the stone with a blackish, treacly juice.

Emily glanced down at the berries in her hand and flung them away in horror. They'd shrivelled to an ugly mess, seeping and covered in a grey-blue mould. She had been about to eat that…

“Emily, come on, please. We have to go. Just trust us, please.” Lory was holding out her hand. She had glittery nail polish on, and it was flaking a bit. Real nail varnish, the one that Emily had borrowed off her a week or so before, without asking. The glitter was made of little plasticky flecks, not some lying, beautiful magic.

Slowly, Emily reached out, and put her hand in her sister's.

Someone screamed in fury, and Emily looked back at the fairy girls gathered around the bed. Their faces had changed – they were still beautiful, but now they looked paler and older, and almost cruel, their features sharp with rage.

“Don't let her go!” the dark-haired fairy cried, and the little brownie servant caught at Emily's sleeve.

“You're not having her,” Lory snapped, yanking Emily away, so that the brownie fell back against the bed. She pulled Emily behind her, putting herself between Emily and the fairy girls. They were calling for the servants to fetch help, and the dark-haired fairy was stepping delicately after them, still smiling, and beckoning to Emily.

“Emily, I know you think we lied, but we never wanted to hurt you.” Lory stared at Emily for a second, and then ducked her eyes. “I don't want to charm you. I need you to come with us because you want to.”

“That's why neither of us are looking at you,” Lory added, catching Emily's other hand. “Will you come with us?”

Emily nodded. The dark-haired fairy had sharp pointed nails like beetle claws, and her feet were the wrong shape in her embroidered slippers. Now that Emily could see her without all the charms, she walked as though her legs were bent the other way. And she was getting closer.

Lark and Lory might not really be her sisters, but they weren't scary.

“Yes. I'll come,” she gasped, tightening her hands around theirs.

Lark and Lory flung one arm each around her waist, and all at once their wings shot out with a sharp sound like flapping sails. They beat them frantically back and forth, and Emily squeaked as she realized what was about to happen, and closed her eyes, holding on as tightly as she could.

Flying didn't feel like she'd thought it would. It was bumpy, and noisy, and not at all graceful. But that was mostly because Lark and Lory were trying to do it together. The sound of them squabbling was so reassuring that Emily opened her eyes, discovered she was somewhere up near the ceiling, and shut them again.

“Window!” Lory snarled.

“We won't get out of it,” Lark yelled back. “Too small!”

“We can squash – didn't you hear them calling? They've sent for huntsmen to chase us, Lory; we can't go back the way we came.”

“Why don't they just chase us themselves?” Emily asked shakily. She had her eyes open now; she was just trying not to look down. “What are they hunting for? I don't understand!”

“They're hunting you! And this lot can't chase us. Too old, too grand, and too lazy,” Lark said grimly. “Come on.”

“When we get back, Emily, you have to stop making cakes. We're all too fat for that window,” Lory muttered as they swooped sickeningly towards it.

“We're never going to fit through that!” Emily wailed, looking at the tiny leaded window, opening on to a tangle of honeysuckle and jasmine.

“Just close your eyes and wish, Emily! We're fairies, remember!” Lark giggled, and Lory hissed crossly.

“So . . . it doesn't help if I wish, then?” Emily asked, just in case, watching Lark squish her wings smaller and wriggle frantically out of the window.

“No,” Lory snapped. “And we can't use our magic here; it won't work. This is the fairy court, and it's guarded. Lark, hurry! They're coming!”

Lory shoved Emily towards the window frame, and she gulped, putting her knee up on the edge. It was all right. Lark was there to catch her. But it was all very well for Lark – she had wings, even though one of them was looking a bit battered by the squeeze out of the window. She was fluttering outside, beckoning anxiously to Emily.
She
wasn't going to fall.

“Ow!” Emily yelped, as Lory pushed her harder. “I'm going!”

“Hold on to the flowers!” Lark screamed, as Emily half fell out of the window on top of her and they jolted downwards, pulling long trails of sweet-smelling flowers off the wall.

“Come on!” Lory shot past them and grabbed Emily's arm, yanking her up into the air so that she was dangling between her sisters. “We need to make for the river now, before those idiots work out where we're going and send someone to head us off.”

Emily glanced back at the window, still surprised that they'd ever got out of it, and wondering if Lark and Lory had managed to use a spell after all.

Someone was leaning out of it now, staring after them. A young man with a bow in his hand and a sharp eager face. He was fitting an arrow to the string already, and Emily yelped.

“They wouldn't shoot us, would they?” Lory gasped. “They can't!”

“Fly faster,” Emily gasped. “
Faster
, Lory. Stop talking.”

“I'm – doing – my – best!” Lory panted, as they swooped and fluttered over ornamental gardens that reminded Emily of that castle again, and then over a ditch and into woodland, jinking through enormous, ancient trees.

“We're nearly at the river,” Lark gasped, and they began to lose height, the frantic beating of Lark and Lory's wings slowing to a weary thud back and forth.

“Come on!”

Emily blinked wearily as the girl seemed to step out of the shadows, her silvery dress suddenly shining in the greenish forest light. She was waving them on eagerly, and as they landed she caught Emily and reached out her arm to Lark, who was staggering, her wings drooping with weariness. “Run! I saw them. I was watching in the water, in the shining water.”

“She can see things far away,” Lory muttered to Emily, who was looking up and down the river anxiously. “She sees them in the water, sometimes.”

“There's no time to tell her now!” The girl shook Lory's shoulder. “The Ladies' huntsmen are coming after you! Come on!”

Emily looked helplessly at Lark and Lory. It was the girl she'd met in her dream. The girl she'd seen in the mirror. Did they trust her? Was she a friend?

Lory nodded at the girl speechlessly. She was too out of breath to talk, Emily realized. Emily let the greenish girl haul her onwards, and together they staggered towards the river. She could see it glinting through the trees ahead.

“Where are we going? I'm not the best swimmer… Do we have to swim away from them?” she asked, staring worriedly at the fast-flowing water.

The water fairy shook her head, and her weed-like hair slapped against her shoulders. “It's a gate, Emily, a door. It'll take you home. Go on! Now!” She pulled Emily and Lark after her into the deepest part of the river. Emily whimpered at the cold bite of the water, and the awful feeling of the weeds sucking at her feet – pulling her down.

“Don't fight!” Lory gasped at her. “It's all right. Let go…”

And together they vanished under the water, streams of bubbles rising around them and hundreds of tiny startled faces peering at them through the weeds. Until they were standing on the wooden floorboards, on the landing, in Emily's house. And not even dripping.

“Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow…” Lory sank down on to the floor, gently opening and closing her aching wings.

Emily huddled next to her, leaning against her shoulder and breathing in the warmth of Lory's feathers. She shook her head exhaustedly. “Where was that?” she muttered. “What happened? Who were those – the Ladies, she called them? And the huntsmen?”

There was a screech from downstairs, and then footsteps thundered out of the kitchen.

“Mum knows we're back.” Lark flinched.

“They're going to kill us,” Lory sighed, although she didn't sound all that worried.

Emily lifted her head up and looked at Lory. “Why?” Then her face crumpled. “Didn't they want me back?”

“Oh, Emily, shut up!” Lory poked her in the side. “Mum and Dad were terrified they'd lost you! They were trying to get you back quietly. Talking to the people who matter, on the other side. Getting the Ladies to give you back, but without causing a big fuss…”

“But it was taking too long, we thought. Lory and me decided we'd get you ourselves,” Lark said. She wrinkled her nose. “We were going to be quiet as well, but it didn't work out that way.”

Emily snorted with laughter. “No.” She was silent for a moment, letting Lark stroke her hair. “If you hadn't come and got me when you did, I'd probably have eaten the fruit.”

“Mmm.” Lark sighed.

“So . . . thanks. Even if you are the world's unsubtlest rescue party.”

Eva flung herself up the last turn of the stairs and grabbed Emily, huddling over her and crying. It was strangely comforting, being wept over. No one could possibly think that Eva didn't want her. She was crying so much she could hardly speak.

Ash made up for that. He'd started shouting somewhere at the bottom of the stairs, and Lark and Lory were eyeing him warily as he stamped up and down the landing, turning back to yell how stupid they'd been, how dangerous it was, how they should have waited.

“You could have got Emily killed!” he thundered.

Lory sat up, hunching her wings high above her shoulders, like an angry hawk. “She was about to eat something! You were taking too long. We got her back, didn't we?”

Eva nodded, and swallowed, and managed to speak. “But it could have gone so much worse. We could have lost all of you.”

“The Ladies wouldn't have hurt us,” Lark said, although she didn't sound very sure. After all, that huntsman had been notching an arrow. “They might have got away with it, if it was only Emily. But they couldn't say they didn't know who we were.”

Emily reached up and caught her father's hand as he paced furiously past. “Who's
they
? Who are these ladies? Where did I go?” She looked around at them, watching her in the shadows of the landing. They glowed, she noticed wearily. All five of them, just a little. “How did they know Lark and Lory? Please will someone just tell me … I don't know. Everything, I suppose.”

“Everything!” Ash sat down next to her and sighed. “There's a lot to tell, Emily.”

“You have to tell me something!” Emily said impatiently. “You can't just stop at, ‘Oh, Emily, we're all fairies and you're not, OK?'”

“You ran off and got yourself caught by a load of mad, ancient fairies before we could tell you anything!” Robin snapped. He was still looking furious with Lark and Lory, far more than their parents were.

But Emily was pretty sure he wasn't angry that they'd gone – he minded that they hadn't taken him too.

Eva loosened her arms from Emily a little, so that she could look into her face. “You went through one of the doors into our land, Emily. This house is full of doors to different places. But mostly it's a place where people travel between this world and ours.”

Emily nodded slowly. “OK. And why are you here, instead of there?”

“Someone has to watch the doors,” Ash explained. “Of course people do come through, sometimes. There's always a bit of coming and going. But we stop the people who shouldn't pass – from either side.” Then he grimaced. “Except we weren't watching as well as we should have been. It was stupid of us… You've grown up in this house, Emily. You've been here ten years. Even though you're not a fairy, you've absorbed some of the magic that seeps out of the doors. And the doors know you by now.”

“Those fairies – they said they'd seen me,” Emily told him in a gulp. “They said they'd been hoping I'd come.”

He nodded grimly. “Fairies like humans, Ems. There's a sort of energy about you. You're so alive. You make us feel more alive too. Those were Ladies of the fairy court. Very, very old. Very powerful.”

“Hungry,” Eva added quietly.

Ash shivered. “And they know Lark and Lory because we're probably related to most of them. There aren't many of us left, Emily. Fairy children are hardly ever born now. And some of those older fairies would stop at nothing to be a little stronger. Stealing a human child and keeping her as a pet wouldn't worry them at all. You've been so close to them, all this time. Like a rare flower, just out of reach.” He sighed. “Of course the doors are easier for you to go through than they would be for any other mortal. We just didn't think. And then tonight, we were all so upset. You were angry. Magic was spitting out all over the place – the door opened without us realizing.”

“I'm still angry,” Emily said, her voice small. But she wasn't. Not in the same way, not since Lark and Lory had flown her across a fairy land, with hunters chasing after them.

“We didn't want to make you feel as though you were different from Lark and Lory and Robin,” Eva said, so quietly that Emily had to lean closer to her to hear. So close that it seemed natural to rest her cheek on her mother's shoulder. She felt Eva shiver as she touched her, a grateful sort of shudder. Eva's arms tightened round her again.

“I know,” Emily murmured back.

“But you are, and we couldn't hide it any longer. We should have found a better way to tell you, but there isn't a good way. That meal – your beautiful cake. We wanted it to be special, somehow…”