Magic at Midnight

by Lindsey Kelk

  ‘Says who?’ Brian replied. ‘It’s a perfectly good name. Why on earth would you stop half the people on the planet using it?’

  ‘Beats me,’ Cinders said. ‘That’s just how it is.’

  Brian shook her head in disagreement. ‘You make no sense, you people. Doesn’t really matter, does it? I do love the way it rolls off the tongue.’

  To be fair, Cinders couldn’t really argue with her.

  ‘Anyway, I’m not sure you’d be able to pronounce my real name,’ Brian went on. ‘So let’s stick with Brian for now. I’m guessing you’ve got some questions.’

  ‘One or two.’ Cinders nodded. ‘Mostly about the whole magic thing. And the godmother thing. And the talking dog. And the wings.’

  ‘The last one is easy. I need the wings to fly,’ Brian replied, speaking very clearly, as if Cinders might not understand. ‘And I’m your godmother because your mother chose me to be your godmother. That’s usually how that works. As for the magic, I don’t know why it’s decided to show itself today, but, if you want to tell me what you’ve been up to, that might give me a clue.’

  ‘You knew my mother!’ Cinders’s eyes opened wide. ‘Oh my goodness, please can you tell me about her?’ Whenever she asked her father about her mother, he went all quiet and got a faraway look in his eyes.

  ‘I can.’ Brian nodded. ‘But shouldn’t we get your dog back on the ground first?’

  ‘I suppose we should,’ Cinders agreed. ‘I don’t know what happened. One minute he was just an ordinary dog and the next he started talking. Then I wished things would stop for a moment and everything froze.’

  ‘Ah, there you have it,’ Brian said with a wise smile. ‘You made a wish. Wishes are very powerful, you know.’

  ‘I wished for the sausages as well,’ Cinders said slowly. ‘And I wished that the dishes would do themselves. Are you telling me I can grant my own wishes?’

  ‘Who else do you expect to grant them?’ Brian asked. ‘I might be a fairy, but I’ve got far better things to do with my day than produce a plate of sausages out of thin air every time someone clicks their fingers. Although, that said, these are very tasty sausages.’

  ‘You’re a fairy?’ Cinders asked, saucer-eyed.

  Brian fluttered her wings. ‘These things didn’t give it away? You know, your mum was a lot cleverer than you.’

  ‘And you really knew my mother?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Brian replied, turning a somersault in mid-air. ‘You look a lot like her, you know.’

  Other than her father, Cinders had never, ever met anyone who had known her mother, and every time she asked her father to tell her a story about their life together he looked so sad she couldn’t stand it. Brian was the first person she’d ever met who had so much as heard of her mother, and she was real-life, flying fairy.

  Cinders really needed a little sit-down.

  ‘I’ve never met a fairy before,’ she said slowly. ‘I didn’t think they were real. I mean, I know there are elves and I met an exceptionally disagreeable troll who lives under the bridge once upon a time, but I thought fairies were … well. From fairy tales.’

  Brian looked slightly concerned. ‘I think I’m real,’ she replied. ‘At least I’d better be. I’ve left the oven on at home and there’ll be hell to pay if I accidentally burn the house down.’

  Brian, Cinders decided, was definitely real.

  ‘Any more questions?’ her fairy godmother asked. ‘I haven’t got all day, you know.’

  ‘How do we get him back on the ground?’ Cinders asked, turning her attention to Sparks. Her stepmother had been furious when she shrank her favourite jumper in the wash, and she would not be happy if Cinders left the dog hanging around in mid-air.

  ‘Wishes are tricky things,’ Brian said. ‘Sometimes they stick; sometimes they don’t. Depends how much you mean it when you make the wish. Your magic definitely isn’t all there yet, so, if you can wait until midnight, the spell should undo itself. Magic always runs out at midnight.’

  ‘I think we should try to get him down before then,’ Cinders said, patting his big red head. ‘This is literally the worst day for him to start talking. I’m never going to hear the end of it.’

  ‘As your magic grows, you’ll have more control over it,’ Brian promised, helping herself to more sausages. ‘But while you’re learning you’ll have to speak your wishes out loud. And they must be very, very specific wishes, otherwise, well, I don’t need to tell you what could happen.’ Brian waved her hand at the frozen bluebirds and the flying dog.

  ‘All I have to do is make a wish?’ Cinders asked.

  Brian the fairy gave a nod.

  ‘I wish things would go back to normal,’ Cinders said.

  Her fingertips started to sparkle then glow and, in the blink of an eye, the birds began singing, the butterflies flapped away into the sky and Sparks dived face first into the now-empty plate of sausages.

  ‘All right, someone’s got some explaining to do,’ he grunted, rubbing his snout with a paw. ‘Who is this? What’s going on?’

  ‘I think the first thing you need to do is have a chat with those two,’ Brian said, pointing across the clearing to where Aggy and Elly were staring, slack-jawed, at Cinders, Sparks and her fairy godmother.

  ‘Oh, good grief.’ Cinders clapped a hand across her forehead as Elly grabbed her sister’s hand and legged it back through the forest. ‘I’d better try to explain before they tell my stepmother what they saw. Will you wait here, um, Brian?’

  ‘No,’ said Brian with a big, cheery smile. ‘But I will see you later. Now get back home before the messenger leaves.’

  With that, she vanished.

  ‘Messenger?’ Cinders said to Sparks. ‘What is she talking about?’

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ Sparks replied, ‘but can you please explain one thing?’

  ‘I can try.’ Cinders sighed. ‘It’s all a bit complicated, isn’t it? What with the magic, the fairy godmother and you talking all of a sudden.’

  ‘Who cares about any of that?’ Sparks gestured at the empty plate. ‘What on earth happened to all my sausages?’

  At the exact same time as Cinders and Sparks arrived back at the cottage, a short man on a tall horse galloped away, tooting on a horn as he went.

  ‘That must be the messenger Brian was talking about,’ said Sparks. ‘Did you see the royal crest on his cloak?’

  ‘That’s the least of my problems,’ Cinders replied. ‘What do you think Elly and Aggy saw in the forest?’

  As it turned out, Elly and Aggy had seen everything.

  ‘And there was a lady with red hair and she had wings!’ Aggy wailed as Cinders walked into the cottage with Sparks close behind. ‘And Sparks was floating!’

  Closing her eyes and crossing her fingers, Cinders prepared herself for the worst. But Margery didn’t say a thing. When Cinders opened her eyes, she saw that her stepmother was far too busy reading a golden scroll to listen to her daughters.

  ‘And then the lady with the wings disappeared!’ Aggy squealed. ‘Poof – just like that!’

  ‘Agnes, I do not have time to listen to your nonsense,’ Margery announced. ‘And I’ve told you before, I won’t have you telling lies.’

  ‘But it’s not a lie,’ Aggy said sulkily. ‘There was a lady with wings and Sparks was flying and—’

  ‘Enough!’ snapped her mother, waving the scroll in the air. ‘Can any of you guess what this scroll says?’

  Aggy and Elly shook their heads.

  ‘Obviously not,’ Cinders replied, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘Who sends scrolls any more? Why wouldn’t they send you a DM like normal people?’

  ‘Because it isn’t from normal people,’ Margery replied. ‘This is from the palace. It’s an invitation to the king’s ball, the most fabulous party the palace has ever thrown.’

  Elly and Aggy forgot all about Brian as soon as they heard the word ‘ball’.

  ‘Will we have new dresses, Mother?’ as
ked Elly.

  Margery nodded.

  ‘And new shoes?’ asked Aggy.

  Margery nodded.

  ‘Can I go too?’ asked Cinders.

  ‘Certainly not,’ replied Margery. ‘Your name isn’t on the invitation, so you’re not invited. And I don’t want to hear another word on the matter. Now haven’t you got chores to do?’

  Of course the answer was yes. Cinders always had chores to do.

  A whole week went by and Cinders hadn’t been able to make a single wish come true.

  Every morning, she woke up and did all her jobs: she washed the dishes, fed the animals and polished her stepsisters’ shoes until she could see her own sad face reflected in the super-shiny leather. She hadn’t teased Elly or Aggy, she hadn’t talked back to her stepmother and she hadn’t eaten a single cake all week long. Once the whole cottage was spick and span, Cinders snuck out of the house and into the forest with Sparks at her side where they spent each and every day wishing and wishing and wishing for Brian to come back and tell Cinders more about her mother.

  But nothing happened.

  ‘Maybe you’re not magic after all,’ Sparks suggested, merrily chewing on a saveloy he had yoinked from the kitchen. ‘Maybe it was all a dream.’

  ‘Says Sparks the Talking Dog,’ Cinders replied. She lay down on the grass and stared up at the cloudless sky. ‘I don’t understand why none of my wishes are coming true any more. My fairy godmother hasn’t been back, and I don’t even get to go to the ball tonight. Everything’s just so rubbish.’

  ‘Sounds grand to me,’ Sparks said. ‘Nice empty house, no one yapping on while I’m trying to have a nap.’

  ‘Weren’t you the one who woke everyone up this morning?’ Cinders asked with a stern look. ‘Barking at a squirrel?’

  ‘That squirrel was quite clearly trying to break into the house and steal all the biscuits,’ he replied, his fluffy red fur standing on end. ‘I was merely protecting the family.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Cinders sighed. ‘I just really, really, really want to see the palace. You know that’s where my mum and dad met?’

  Sparks sat up straight. ‘Then go,’ he said. ‘What’s stopping you?’

  Cinders shook her head at her silly friend. He might be able to talk, but he was no genius.

  ‘I haven’t got a dress,’ she explained with her eyes closed. ‘Or a carriage. Or a horse to pull the carriage. Or a footman to take care of the horses I haven’t got to pull my non-existent carriage.’

  Cinders stretched out in the grass and imagined how beautiful the palace must look. Even though she’d never seen it, she dreamed about it all the time and her father often sat with her in her room, telling her tales of the white marble staircase and tall white towers with turrets that stretched up high into the sky. Tonight it would be at its most fabulous, all lit up with candles, music playing, people dancing and, in the middle of it all, her father, proudly showing off the new ballroom he had built for this very occasion.

  ‘Perhaps your wishes haven’t been working because you weren’t wishing for things you really, really wanted,’ Sparks suggested after a quiet moment. ‘When do your stepsisters leave for the palace?’

  ‘Margery said the carriage was leaving after lunch.’ Cinders opened one eye. The sun was high in the sky and her tummy was rumbling. Lunchtime must have been hours ago. ‘Why?’

  ‘Let’s go home,’ he suggested,

  ‘and see

  what we

  can see.’

  The little pink cottage was as quiet as a mouse when they returned. Actually, it was as quiet as the two white mice Cinders and Sparks saw running to hide behind the sofa when they opened the door.

  ‘Right, we need a dress, a carriage and two horses,’ Sparks said, kicking the door closed with his back legs while Cinders grabbed half a leftover doughnut from the kitchen worktop and gobbled it up in two big bites. ‘There’s no fairy godmother here to conjure those up, so what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ve waited my whole life to go to the palace and today’s the day. If no one’s going to help me, I’ll just have to help myself,’ Cinders said, determined. She squeezed her hands into tight little fists, scrunched up her face and concentrated as hard as she possibly could. ‘I wish I had a ballgown of my very own.’

  At first the fizzing feeling was very faint. Just a tiny tickling in the tippity-tips of her fingers.

  Then it began to grow. Her whole hand started to glimmer and gleam and suddenly Cinders’s entire body was covered in gold sparkles.

  ‘Ooh, steady on,’ Sparks said, backing away and hiding under the settee.

  ‘I think it’s working!’ Cinders shouted, spinning round and round and round.

  ‘That or you’re about to turn into a human firework display,’ Sparks called back. ‘Which would really be very inconvenient.’

  Slowly, the spinning stopped and the sparkles faded away.

  ‘Did it work?’ Cinders asked.

  ‘I think it did,’ Sparks replied, his tongue hanging out of a big doggy smile.

  ‘Good golly gosh,’ Cinders whispered as she turned to look in the mirror. ‘It most certainly did.’

  Instead of her usual rags, Cinders saw something altogether different. Gone was the messy girl with blueberry stains on her skirt and her wild hair. Instead she was staring at a fine young lady wearing a glorious gown. At first it looked as though it had been spun from silver silk, but, every time she moved, the fabric shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow. Her hair was soft and curly and, for the first time in what felt like her entire life, she was spotlessly clean. Cinders had never seen herself look that way before. If she didn’t know who she was, she wouldn’t have even recognised herself.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked Sparks, still stunned.

  ‘I think you need to put something on your feet,’ he said, disappearing into the cupboard, his tail wagging behind him. ‘Let’s see if these fit.’

  Sparks dropped a pair of beautiful shoes in front of his best friend. They looked as though they were made of glass and, just like the dress, they sparkled in the light, shining with more colours than Cinders could name. She slipped them on and gasped with delight. A perfect fit!

  ‘Wherever did these come from?’ she asked, tapping and turning in her new shoes. It felt as though they’d been made just for her.

  ‘They were your mother’s,’ Sparks replied, still smiling. ‘I’d have given them to you before, but glass slippers don’t really go with rags.’

  She couldn’t be sure, but Cinders was fairly certain she could feel the same magical tingle in her toes as soon as she slipped on the shoes.

  ‘Come on then,’ Sparks said. ‘We’re not done yet. We still need a carriage, horses and a footman, and we haven’t got all day.’

  ‘Hmm …’ Cinders took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She really, really, really wanted to go to the ball. ‘I wish I had a carriage and a horse and a footman.’

  ‘Two horses!’ Sparks corrected. ‘Or you’ll be riding round in circles.’

  ‘Two horses!’ Cinders agreed as the tingling began again. ‘Ooh, here we go!’

  As the sparkles began to surround her, she felt herself spinning round and round and round again.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Sparks yelped. ‘Cinders, make it stop!’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she shouted. She couldn’t see a thing.

  ‘I should say not,’ Sparks replied as the spinning and sparkles subsided.

  Once she had steadied herself, Cinders opened her eyes and gasped. A short, stout, red-headed man with big brown eyes stood in the centre of the room, dressed in a red satin suit, wearing a very familiar leather collar.

  ‘Sparks?’ Cinders asked.

  ‘The utter indignity,’ he muttered, brushing off his spotless sleeves. ‘However am I supposed to stay up on my hind legs all night long? And would you look at those poor mice?’

  Cinders turned to see two tall speckled horses standing in the mi
ddle of the kitchen.

  ‘They’ve still got their whiskers,’ she said, grabbing two sugar lumps from the tea tray and offering them to her new four-legged friends. They both shook their heads, whinnying in disgust. Thinking fast, Cinders grabbed a big block of cheese from the cupboard, chopped it half and held out her hands. The horse-mice gobbled it up in two seconds flat.

  ‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘I suppose I am still learning.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sparks agreed as he pushed past her to open the door. ‘I suppose you are. And don’t forget we have to be back before midnight – Brian said magic usually runs out at midnight.’ He began leading the way to the carriage.

  As he went, Cinders noticed a bright red bushy tail poking out from the back of his trousers.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, pushing her horse-mice through the kitchen door and out towards the huge crystal carriage waiting for them in the yard. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.’

  ‘Too late to change your mind now,’ Sparks replied, wagging his tail.

  ‘Wow,’ Cinders gasped when they pulled up in front of the palace. ‘It’s flipping enormous.’

  ‘It’s a palace,’ Sparks replied. ‘They tend to be rather on the large side. Hmm now, can you smell that? I bet the sausages here are out of this world.’

  Cinders climbed down from her crystal carriage as gracefully as possible (which wasn’t very graceful at all) and gasped. The palace really was a sight to see. She thought it might be bigger than her entire village, and the six shining white turrets stretched all the way up into the sky. Music poured out of every window and Cinders found herself swaying back and forth as her two horse-mice squeaked along in time to the tune.

  ‘Excuse me, milady.’

  She looked up to see a tall guard, wearing an incredibly elaborate hat, staring down at her.

  ‘Me?’ Cinders asked. For a moment, she had completely forgotten what she was wearing and why she was there. She loved music so much and never heard it at home. Anything even approaching a tune gave her stepmother a headache.