Mup saw something in the children relax, a certain hard wariness left their faces. One of them took Crow’s hand.
“I don’t want any messing,” growled Crow.
“No messing, Mr Crow.”
“And you’d best help Mup’s dad with his apple trees.”
“Oh, yes, Mr Crow!”
They strolled out into the sunshine. Mup saw the flutter of shadows as they took to the air, heading up to Crow’s camp and the ever-expanding garden he had there.
She turned back to the classroom. The shy children were mostly dispersed by now. She watched the remaining ones take their goodbyes until only one was left. Grislet bashfully reached up and pushed some small thing to the middle of Doctor Emberly’s desk.
The doctor stooped over it, his eyes wide. “Is this for me?” he whispered.
Grislet nodded.
Doctor Emberly held the object up to the light. It was an ordinary pebble, brown and dull, and rounded from years at the bottom of a river. “Why, it’s the most pleasing pebble I’ve ever seen. So smooth and cool. Thank you.”
Grislet, utterly delighted, watched Doctor Emberly carefully place the small round object in among the twigs and feathers and leaves which the other pupils had presented him. His fingers lingered on the shelf. “I shall cherish these for ever,” he whispered.
Mup crouched by Grislet’s side. “Are you ready to go?”
Grislet nodded and took Mup’s hand. Doctor Emberly accompanied them.
“Do you suppose Marty might join us next year?” asked Mup as they mounted the steps to the guardroom. “It seems such a waste for him to wait for you every day and never come in and learn.”
“He does learn,” said Grislet, skipping absentmindedly along at her side. “He hides on the windowsill and practises in the garden when none of you are looking.”
Mup met Emberly’s startled gaze. They immediately looked away from each other, afraid that if they acknowledged what the little girl had told them, she might realize that she’d betrayed her brother’s secret.
“Ah, well,” said Emberly. “I’m sure your dear brother will join us in his own time.” He and Mup risked a fleeting grin, and said no more, but Mup’s heart swelled in secret happiness. During the school year, witnessing Marty’s gruff kindness and devotion to his sister, Mup had grown very fond of him. He deserves to learn, she thought.
They stepped out into evening sunshine and the sound of Dad’s happy laughter. He and Fírinne were lowering the apple trees into their new homes. Over the past month, they’d removed numerous cobbles, making a series of large square flowerbeds all around the courtyard.
Fírinne slapped dirt from her hands, sighing, “I can’t believe you’re making a farmer of me.”
Dad crouched in the dappled shade at the base of the new tree, and pressed good, rich earth against its roots. “Don’t you think the place is better this way?” he asked.
Fírinne’s face grew grave for a moment. She looked around the courtyard. Already the featureless walls were softened by the scent and shiver of blossoms, the buzzing of bees gentled the air. At the back of the yard, the names of the dead scrolled up and up. Fírinne regarded them through the hazy gold of evening.
Dad glanced up at her. “Are you all right?”
Fírinne smiled. “Better than I ever dreamed possible, Daniel.”
Dad grinned, and held out his hand for the next sapling.
“Grislet! Grislet! Come here and help me dig another tree hole!” Tipper bounded over, his face and his paws all covered in dirt. Grislet ran to him, giggling. She offered her hand, and without hesitation, Tipper transformed into his little-boy form. The sunshine had baked him caramel-brown, and polished his golden curls as bright as his grin. “I bringed shovels,” he said. “Because I knows you can’t dig as good as me when I is a dog.”
All business, the two friends set off together.
“Marty!” bellowed Grislet. “We need to stay because I have to dig a hole!”
Marty rose to his boy form near where Tipper had been “working”. Mup smiled at the sight of him. He was always doing that – rising up from somewhere unobtrusive where he had been in his lizard form, watching over Grislet or, nowadays, Tipper. It wasn’t a sly thing. More a shyness, Mup thought, a kind of uncertainty about himself. Mup made a game of trying to know where he’d be sometimes, but pathfinder or not, she could never tell where Marty might show up. She liked that.
Marty lifted his hand to her. She waved back.
Emberly began strolling towards the river. Mup followed.
“I do hope young Marty will come to school next year.”
“He will.”
The ghost quirked an elegant eyebrow. “You are a very persuasive young lady, my dear. I don’t think your friends quite realize that about you.”
Mup just grinned. They descended the boat steps.
At the river step, Mup crouched and let the water ripple, cool and sparkling, against her hand.
“What are you going to do now that school is over, dear?”
“I’m going to have fun, Doctor Emberly! Tipper and Dad and I are going camping with Crow. I’m going to teach Marty how to fly. Marsinda is going to teach me how to speak newt!”
“Delightful.” The doctor was only half-listening. His attention was fixed on the giant willow tree which spread its graceful branches across the water on the far bank. It was so beautiful, the sun shimmering on its bright green leaves, the breeze whispering to the birds and small animals that nestled in the safety of its arms.
“Do you think it’s really Naomi, Doctor Emberly?”
“Yes,” he admitted gravely. “Yes, I do.”
The tree had sprung up overnight, a week after the ash storm. Mup was quite certain that it had grown on the exact spot where Naomi had sacrificed herself. “I think it’s her too,” she whispered. “I think she let herself come back as something good and clean and beautiful. She gave everything she had and … and she felt like she’d earned a second chance.”
“Perhaps,” sighed Emberly. “I can’t say for sure, because she never talks to me.” He began to walk down the steps, slowly descending into the water.
“Doctor Emberly,” said Mup.
He paused, waist-deep, and turned back to her.
“When Mam finishes her talks with the Northlanders, she and I are going to learn how to become fish.”
“Oh, my dear!” said Emberly. “How touching! No one ever seems to want to be a fish.”
“I don’t like to think of you being lonely, Doctor Emberly. You spend so much time in the river.”
The ghost gripped Mup’s hand, and squeezed very gently. “I’m not at all lonely, my dear. I promise you. Even though Naomi doesn’t talk to me. It’s very lovely just to be near to her. Seeing the sun sparkle through the shelter of her branches, drifting in the cool water at her roots, one feels terribly peaceful. In any case, I’ll be back in the autumn for the new students.”
“Still … can we visit?”
“My lovely girl, my dear, dear princess, I would like that very much.”
Doctor Emberly bowed his most ornate bow, kissed Mup’s hand, and slipped backwards into the river. She saw him transform into a beautiful, luminous fish. She followed his progress under the water for a while, like a star weaving gracefully through the cool green, until he entered the shade of the willow tree. Then he seemed to dive deeper and was gone.
Mup took off her shoes and put her feet in the river and lay back on the warm stones. She could hear Tipper and Grislet in the courtyard, laughing. Dad and Fírinne’s voices came and went as they moved about. Overhead, a shadow launched itself into the clear blue and Mup smiled as a familiar shape spiralled downwards. Crow’s kids must have gone home.
Her friend swooped low, his wings skimming his own reflection, before fluttering up to land on the steps above her head. He chattered his beak. “Emberly’s gone for the summer, then?”
Mup smiled and nodded, and closed her eyes aga
inst the sun.
Crow slipped down beside her and put his feet in the water. He leaned back on his elbows.
They lay there, side by side, for the rest of the evening, two friends at the beginning of a long hot summer, chatting and paddling their feet, waiting for Mam to come home.
Celine Kiernan is the critically acclaimed and multi-award-winning author of eight novels for young people. Her ghost story, Into the Grey, was the first book to receive both the CBI Book of the Year Award and the CBI Children’s Choice Award. She is best known for The Moorehawke Trilogy, which has won multiple awards. It has been translated into nine languages. The Wild Magic Trilogy is Celine’s first series for middle-grade readers. She lives in Ireland. You can find her online at celinekiernan.wordpress.com.
Jessica Courtney-Tickle is an illustrator and story-maker based in Cambridgeshire, UK. She graduated from Kingston University in July 2014, where she studied illustration and animation and found a specialism in children’s books. Jessica loves working with colour, texture and lots and lots of characters. If she could choose anything at all to draw, it would be from nature or the theatre – or maybe both together! You can find Jessica online at jessicatickle.co.uk.
Praise for The Wild Magic Trilogy:
“Full of enchantment, adventure, humour, friendship, and bravery. It celebrates difference and originality, and is populated with brilliantly unique and vivid characters.”
Parent Talk
“A cracking adventure story.”
Children’s Books Ireland
“Filled to the brim with drama and danger. It is true and magical … so very magical. Just read it.”
Fallen Star Stories
“Expect rhyming crows, talking cats and outlawed magic in Kiernan’s first middle-grade fantasy adventure.”
The Bookseller
“Gorgeously magical, beautifully written and unique, with deep, resonant questions about power and family and responsibility.”
Stephanie Burgis, author of The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart
Also by Celine Kiernan
The Wild Magic Trilogy
Begone the Raggedy Witches
The Little Grey Girl
For older readers
Into the Grey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.
First published 2020 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Text © 2020 Celine Kiernan
Cover art and interior illustrations © 2019, 2020 Jessica Courtney-Tickle
The right of Celine Kiernan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-9658-4 (ePub)
www.walker.co.uk
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